September 2006

The riot of roses blossoming in my late summer garden are daily seared and crisped by the late August-into-September blast furnace of Ojai heat. Every green leaf is limp by noontime and irrigating is again a daily must. Still the opulence of my overflowing container garden is a feast for my belly as well as my eyes.

On the trails, the pearly everlasting has dried to small straw-like flowers that flavor the air with butterscotch scent. In the early evenings this mingles with the sharp smell of heated sage. When I walk in the dark of late evening, it's the only scent in the air. The heat as usual drives me west to walk along the ocean by day or else to my favorite mountain's edge trail when things cool after dark.

A flock of bushtits came through the meadow last week feeding on the wild thistle. Hordes of sparrow, house finch, mourning dove and black-headed grosbeak forage at my feeders and on the ground beneath. Marauding blue jays, balancing precariously on perches too small for them, toss tons of miscellaneous seed out of the feeders in their quest for the sunflower seeds dispersed in the mix. The mess on the patio is constant. Ms. Pretty, two legged visitors and I are forever tracking seed into the house. Still, it's worth the show.

Watching the ground feeding birds one recent day, I noticed a pair of sparrows doing what appeared to be a ritual dance together. The male would peck a seed for himself. Then, as his female companion-hopping next to him-cocked her head he would pop the next seed right into her wide-open beak. At first, I'd noticed only the beak in beak part of the dance, fascinated by what seemed to be courting behavior. But, as I continued to watch, I saw that he was actually feeding her. I've seen them many days now. Each time, I feel deeply moved by the tenderness of his behavior and the trust of hers-perhaps just my own anthropomorphic read of their ritual. I've yet to ask a birder for a translation of their dance. That the female never seemed to bend down to get her own seed puzzled and perplexed my ferociously independent self even as the sweetness of the being-fed so touched my heart.

My quiet/unplugged week this past month was interrupted by several phone calls: many with my sister who was struggling with seriously challenging and frightening digestive problems, a few with my step-mom or my dad as he had an emergency surgical procedure to replace the totally worn out battery in his pacemaker and a few with two dear clients who were in serious crisis/emergencies. Oddly enough, despite this almost daily and very intense contact in my usually unconnected time, I was still able to have the sense of getting some deep resting.

I was amazed by my emerging capacity-without any resistance about being pulled from my retreat time-to be fully emotionally connected during the calls and then, just as completely, to release the connectedness when I'd hang up the phone. Once each call was over, I'd slip right back into the solitary quiet that the week was to have been about. I came out of the not-quite-retreat-after-all still feeling rested, refreshed and peaceful. It seemed a surprising feat.

Until three days ago and despite all the engagement during my usually unengaged week, this month has been one of continued drifting and resting with no inner or outer trials or challenges or agendas of my own. It's been a between/fallow time with no visible signs of whatever might be germinating or replenishing itself within me. Mostly, I seem to be gathering in lots of equanimity, nourishment and peace. I anticipate needing all this for an upcoming 16-day sojourn with my sister (coming from New York City) in Florida where we'll stand in for our step-mom in providing care for our dad. It will be a first for the three of us: time together without my step-mom around. Though we're not sure it will ultimately happen, at the moment our step-mom is expecting to travel for 13 days with her daughter attending her grandson's destination wedding in a small resort town in Spain.

The prospect of being away from my own life, home, garden, aging kitty, trails and outdoor sleeping arrangements for 16 days feels quite daunting. With my sister (a dear friend, qualified physician assistant and female Seinfeld with exquisite timing all rolled into one) along for the whole time, this visit with my dad feels like it might well be delightful for all of us. On the other hand, for me, being with other people 24/7 for so many days feels like a lot. We'll see. In the meantime I'm doing lots of anticipatory emotional/physical rest and solitude. Or, at least, I was until Saturday afternoon this past weekend when one of my closest friends came by for an early dinner and evening walk.

The women in my very small circle of close friends live deeply and reflectively in their own lives. In each of these rich, open and honest relationships I can count on being fully and lovingly seen, heard and witnessed. In each relationship both of us hold years (from 16 to 35) of each other's layered emotional and personal histories. Yet, with Cynthia there has been-on and off for almost 22 years-all this and also a more complex relationship, one that has been a cauldron of challenge and growth for both of us. From the beginning we were intrigued by each other and, particularly, by the ways we seemed to trigger each other's unfinished emotional material. Though that's been edgy, we've both found it also exciting and fascinating. It and our shared commitment to growing and healing ourselves has-through all the years-offered us endless opportunities to do with each other the kinds of intense emotional work people typically do in relationship with their significant others.

After being quite magically brought into each other's lives, we spent the earliest years of our juicy sharing moving in and out of complicated, often baroque struggles. These mostly revolved either around the very different contexts in which we each held the strong erotic energy we were then exploring together or around the endless clashes between our different ways of seeing/being in the world. We'd argue fiercely, then get fed up with each other and the furious fighting about who was sane and who crazy. We'd take breaks of months or years before returning to the sharing that, despite all the uproar, continued to feel compelling and meaningful-like high play-to both of us. The breaks were how we'd handle the impasses, places that-as we later would recognize-came because we had growing to do that could only be done separately. Each time we broke away we had no clear sense of whether or not we'd actually return to the sharing, yet we always have. And, each time we've returned we've gone deeper and further into healing our capacities to live more fully from our core selves-in our own lives, in our sharing with each other and in our sharing with others in our separate lives.

When we came back to the connecting this last time (nine years ago, after a four year break) we found we were both on new ground. More confirmed and clear about whom we each were, we were available to more open-heartedly embracing our different ways of being in the world and in the sharing. We'd both grown beyond our earlier needs to prove who was right and who was nuts or hopelessly misguided. As we gave up trying to pressure each other into being someone more comfortingly like ourselves, we could see the other in her own terms. Our different styles and ways of coping with challenge became rich opportunities for exploring more deeply instead of opportunities for argument.

We perceive and respond to very similar edges. At these edges, what one of us needs to feel safe is typically almost the exact opposite of what creates safety for the other. As we come to honor and appreciate both our own and each other's ways of caring for ourselves in the edgy places, we learn and grow rather than fight and judge. We've become kinder and gentler with each other, ever more clear about and accepting of who/how the other truly is.

In this latest incarnation of our friendship, we have more care-fully revisited the raw wounds we've both carried from what had become the debacle of the intense erotic journey we shared in our earliest years. Both of us had opened then to each other sensually, sexually and in fantasy play in ways that were well beyond where either of us had ever gone with anyone else. For me safety lay in holding ours as an erotic friendship, a profound connection that included sexuality from time to time while my primary relationship was still and always with myself. Just as I shared with my small circle of close friends the ongoing tales of other parts of my inner and outer travels, so I uninhibitedly shared the stories of this new delightful and exciting part of my journey.

At the time, Cynthia had ended a non-monogamous relationship with her most recent partner. She saw herself as someone who both enjoyed and thrived being in partnered relationship. For her, safety lay in seeing us as a couple in a primary significant other relationship, our shared experiences sacred and private. For Cynthia my “going public” was a devastating violation of the sacredness of our shared experiences. Her way of seeing us felt impossibly suffocating and claustrophobic to me, as if she wanted to own me, to fence me in, to have me now focused on her rather than on the opening in myself. Needless to say, we both drew way back from the erotic field we had been exploring. Each of us felt the other's behavior as abandonment, as behavior meant to instigate a shutting down in the other's availability to the erotic intimacy.

The complicated legacy of that early disaster had woven its way through the many short and longer incarnations of our returns to sharing through the years. We'd re-examine that season time and again, always filled with blame for each other's way of seeing/being around it all. Despite the fact that both of us had been touchy and affectionate people in all our relations, any touch between us became very freighted and, for me, aversive and oppressive. Any inclination or interest in ever again relating erotically with anyone but myself dropped away.

Over those various incarnations of our sharing, Cynthia continued hoping that I'd finally get my “tangled sexuality straightened around” so we could re-incorporate the erotic/passionate component she still wanted to have in her life. She felt certain that it was a thread we could someday pick up again. I continued to encourage her to look elsewhere for that if she really wanted it. I kept asking her to look at why she still was choosing to focus that wanting on me, why she persisted in holding me responsible for her not having what she wanted. Her perplexity was always around the fact that she couldn't imagine finding with anyone else the depth of intimacy that we share in every other way.

Our various cycles of re-connection would founder when, despite her belief that she'd finally let go of wanting a full erotic/couple relationship with me, she'd get caught up in that wanting again. It would drive both of us crazy. She felt I never understood the pain my unavailability (or, as she read it, my withholding) caused her. I felt she never understood the pain caused in me by her wanting from me that which I didn't have to give. During our last four-year break Cynthia explored the possibility of relationship with other people. In one of her explorations, she got to be the one trying to cope with someone wanting more from her than she had to give. For the first time, she understood that there was pain on both sides of that equation. Somehow that was a turning point in her.

When Cynthia initiated this most recent reopening of our sharing, she seemed at last to really be done with wanting from me that which I do not have to give and do not want in my life. This time around as we revisited the painful, complicated ending of that part of our relationship and all the years of struggling with those issues, we've-with great compassion-been able to feel our way into the other's experience. It's been a great relief to both of us to be truly seen in this place. The fighting and arguing has mostly fallen away. When we start to get into any bit of whose-way/version-of-whatever-it-is-is-righter, one or the other of us seems to call us both to a deeper listening, to recognizing that we're in a place that has edges for both of us. We know now to slow down and listen for the shape of the edges themselves. There is where we mine the gold, where we both get to see and know something new. We have more light-hearted fun with our “stuff” these days, more delighted appreciation of the abundant harvest of all the years of work we've done separately and together.

For many of these recent years, we'd frequently spend twelve-hour days together hiking, exploring and deliciously adventuring through lots of emotional and geographic terrain. Yet, in the past two or three years with her busy work and travel schedule and my quiet weeks and Florida trips, we seem to spend only a briefer afternoon and evening together perhaps once every three or four weeks. We also have a longish phone visit about once a week (except when she's traveling, having houseguests or visiting with her family or when I'm in my unplugged week). Because she'd had houseguests and then I'd had my August retreat, we had just one brief phone visit in the three weeks before her Saturday late afternoon arrival in Ojai.

The drive to Ojai is always for Cynthia a time of dropping more deeply inside. When she arrives, there's inevitably a bit of recalibrating we each have to do to meet each other in the shared space that opens. This Saturday, she seemed a little off when she came in. We were trying to sort out where to eat but it was clear something was up in her.

“A hard drive up?” I asked.

“Mmm hmm,” she said, as she, seeming unsettled, drifted out to visit with Ms. Pretty on the patio.

“What do you need?” I asked from my perch on my desk with the book of local restaurant menus in hand.

She came back in, straddled the desk chair facing me and said with a shaky voice and tears in her eyes, “I've gotten involved with someone.”

I was shocked. There'd been no clue that this was coming although she had off-handedly mentioned-in the past month or two-spending time hanging out with an interesting new person her town. Their moving into becoming lovers exploring relationship had all unfolded in the past three weeks during which we'd not been in touch. It was more than surreal for both of us as she told the story of this compellingly passionate, enlivening adventure she'd begun. She was joyful and excited with this newness, this magical and unexpected opening in her life. And, at the same she was feeling devastated at having to tell me about it. She was sobbing and trying to breathe through a terrible pain in her chest as she spoke.

Though stunned, I felt completely thrilled for her. My sweet friend was finally having what she'd wanted for so long and despaired of ever having with me. An enormous burden I hadn't realized was still there lifted from my shoulders. I felt so released: my being who I am no longer stood between her and the passion and relationship for which some parts of her have been yearning. My heart opened wide. I could gently comfort her in her pain. As she wept I could stroke her bowed head with the easy tender and affectionate touch that's been so long unavailable in me for her.

Despite all her past letting go of wanting-it-all with us, we both understood that the heavy grief she was feeling came from a final and more complete letting go of that hope. She had let herself move on beyond the limits of our relationship to miraculously find and expand into a delicious, playful, light-hearted, passionate and romantic intensity that hasn't been a part of her life for over 15 years.

I put together some salad and we sat talking and eating on the patio as her grief calmed. I felt and shared some waves of sadness rising in me about the fact that we would clearly-at least for some indeterminate while-have no time together. I felt some worry that she might get caught up in patronizing me by trying to give me attention when she really wasn't available. I reminded her that I'd surely see through it and absolutely hate her if she did anything that demeaning to either of us. Then, I cried about the end of the community of juicy-women-in-primary-relationship-to-themselves that we had provided for each other. I would be back to holding that place by and for myself. Certainly, I felt capable of that but I was feeling the loss of having a close friend who was making the same choice as I.

We talked about the completely unclassifiable intimacy and love that we've shared for so long, about our trust that it will endure without ongoing care and feeding and about our trust in its separateness from all that this new love is bringing into her life. Cynthia was exhausted from the combination of the intensity she's been living, the sleep from which her excitement has kept her and the strain of anticipating telling me about it all. I needed to go walk in the mountains and not attempt any just regular catching up about my life in the middle of all of her intensity and exhaustion. We put her on the road for home just four hours after she'd arrived with me promising to keep her updated on my reactions as they might emerge.

While I walked, I took all of it into me in a deeper way. The excitement for her joy held. I wondered, though, what impact her unavailability would have on my life. How would I feel without my playmate being accessible? Of course, we hadn't been spending much time together recently and I've lately been feeling more and more reclusive. Maybe it would be for me a season of folding more completely into my hermitage. It was so nice to feel excited for her without any shred of envy or jealousy: I truly have zero interest in having in my life anything like what she now has. I felt curious about where I'd go from here; it all seemed a rather wait and we'll see kind of time.

I slept well and came in from my tent the next morning to start what was to be an unusually full Sunday before a non-work week. I had a couple of scheduled sessions with extra clients that morning and then an old friend was coming for lunch and to share some of his book-in-progress. I set the kettle to boil, curled up on the study floor with Ms. Pretty for our morning kitty-cuddles and promptly fell apart.

Cuddling my fifteen and a half year old kitty, I realized she might die any time-even while I expect to be gone for the upcoming 16 days. I realized that my dad's growing dementia might take him away from me sooner rather than later. And with a very different wallop, I realized the enormity of the loss of access to my already over-busy friend who was now swept away into a full-time love relationship. I sobbed uncontrollably feeling completely bereft. The intensity of my grief surprised and engulfed me. It was so hard to pull myself together to be available for my day. It was comforting to know that I'd have a totally open and unscheduled week ahead: all the room I might need to feel all my feelings as they rose up.

I did my day with only occasional brief moments of having the grief bleed through. I'd talk to my sad, grieving little self and promise her all the time she might need or want by the early evening. She'd quietly curl back up inside me knowing I would keep my promise. When Ron left at six I filled my pockets and fanny pack with tissues and headed for the mountain's edge trail. I cried and cried and cried.

The little parts of me felt bereft, left out, sad and worried. We knew Cynthia had a history of struggling with loving/being close with more than one person at a time. How would that change the shape of our sharing? Would one of us having a significant other mean we would no longer share the kinds of processes we did when we had only each other to share with at that depth? I reminded the little one that even though this was scary to think about, I would always be here with all the me's of me and that I would make it safe and okay for us no matter what changed. That I would hold her and love her while she worried as long as she needed to worry.

The little one felt like those two had become the “grown-ups” and we'd become just the little kid left out and left behind because we couldn't play the grown-up game. I reminded her that we've chosen to be how we are because that feels the safest and the best to us. That though it was hard to not be playing the same game as they (and other people) were, we are absolutely okay and lovable and a valuable being just as we are. I reminded her that she would never be alone because I'd always be here loving and cherishing and valuing her. And, I let her know that I would hold her while she cried as long and as hard as she needed to about feeling left out.

She felt bereft because Cynthia wouldn't have time to go hiking with her on the trails that have become not safe to go on alone. I held her and rocked her inside myself and promised her we'd find other people with whom we could still hike those trails. I promised her that I would always find new ways to help her have what she needs, that her life wouldn't get smaller because Cynthia wasn't available in the old ways.

The littlest parts felt sad and that maybe they weren't okay because their life was about slow and quiet and resting instead of all the exciting, burgeoning, expanding intensity that Cynthia and her lover's lives were about. I held and rocked them inside of me and reminded them that we were doing just exactly what we were supposed to be doing now, that slow and quiet and resting are just as good and wonderful as exciting, burgeoning, expanding and intensity are-even when the world around us doesn't seem to think that this is so.

After a while, we calmed and the sobbing stopped and we enjoyed the beautiful night sky and we saw two resting rattlesnakes right on the trail. We made lots of noise as we walked around them and felt really blessed to be visited by snake medicine, the medicine of shedding skins that are grown too small. It was hard not to be able to call Cynthia and share all this with her. That night she was the only one we wanted to call.

Monday morning brought more intense waves of all the same feelings. The mommy in me continued to repeat all the reassuring words and to hold the scared, sad, feeling bereft little selves. In between waves, we just did all the gentle, sweet ordinary puttering things that make up our quiet life. I found I needed and wanted now to tell some of the other people who love me about how I was doing and what had happened. I called Carol who was traveling in Germany and it was just the right time for her to listen and care and say all the kind right things that let me know she really understood about the grown up part being excited and happy while the little ones were feeling pretty devastated. I called Barbara to tell her I wasn't in any shape to spend part of Labor Day with her. When I cried and told her how I was doing she was soft and tender and loving and she knew exactly how to listen and what to say to let us know she understood all of it. My sister listened and got it all, too. She was dear and gentle and so loving.

I would make a call and cry a lot then go back to being just in the moment of my regular life. When the next wave came, I'd make another call. It was such a good thing to do for myself. So much loving support for the mommying I was doing. Nobody trying to fix it or make it better or tell me how it was all going to be okay. I am so blessed to have such wonderful friends.

Though I was prepared to live in the middle of the grief and tears for as long as they took, I woke up Tuesday feeling washed up on the far side of it all. I wasn't sure that the feeling of being over it all would last but it did. All of me felt in the moment, open and available to whatever the next place might be. That evening I walked to my friend Teri's house to drop something by and to share the story with her. She's always been particularly fascinated by the endlessly transforming dance that Cynthia and I have been doing over all these years. In fact, at our monthly dinner out together the very week that I'd last seen Cynthia before all this happened in Cynthia's life, Teri had asked me how I thought I'd feel if Cynthia ever did meet and get involved romantically with someone. Such a witch, that Teri! What I came to tell her about my feelings in the actual situation pretty closely matched what I'd imagined I'd feel when I answered her over-dinner question. There were some more tears as I talked about the parts that had made me cry on Sunday and Monday, but I really was over the storm, the little ones were calmed and safe and secure.

I know in my bones that feeling our feelings is all we need to do to with them. Still it always amazes me that when I make safe space to feel all my feelings for as long as I need to, they really do pass-often much more quickly than I would have imagined. It seems so very simple (even if it's not easy): Feel the feelings, hold the little parts tenderly and safely and you get through to the other side.

As I sit here finishing the writing of the tale (some more tears as I remember the feelings I went through ten days ago) I've had two Wednesday evening phone visits with Cynthia that were just the same level of sharing as ever. Clearly we continue to process together what we experience with ourselves and in relation to each other. With her significant other, she processes what unfolds between them. No conflict of interest here!

It's still a bit surreal for me (and for her) watching the person who used to be a solo being so completely absorbed in relationship, spending most of her time sailing high on an every-possible-moment-together ride. I'm clearly going to get to know this new and somewhat disconcerting version of my old friend. It's fascinating to watch her receiving and reveling in fresh reflections of herself. I love hearing about how easily she's being able to bring into this new love relationship the whole of the self she's been living into in her own world. We often would speculate about where people might go in a relationship that started with them both having already done a major part of coming home to themselves. Perhaps I'll get to see a sample of that as I witness their unfolding.

A good deal of what she's so delighted with in this new version of her life would either be a bit of an eye-roll or feel more than a bit claustrophobic for me. But I'm committed to hearing and appreciating how it all feels for her without much editorial commentary. I'm thrilled that she's having what she wants and even more thrilled that I'm not the one with whom she's having it.

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