Late Binding

You know, in the cartoons, when Wile E. Coyote is running at full speed and all of a sudden, the cliff edge passes and he’s just floating there, suspended in mid-air? I’m kind of in that place right now. I’ve never been much for taking leaps of faith. I’m pretty rational and have always relied on the terra firma of science and reason. It’s the laws of physics that allow me to sleep at night. Avogadro’s number is my pillow. So jumping off of a cliff, while it may offer a momentary sweet taste of real freedom before you fall, seems to be too salty of a brine in which to marinade once gravity exacts its toll.

I started writing in earnest during the fall of 2006 to give shape to my grief. To mourn publicly. Perhaps more importantly, to have an audience so that I could hold myself accountable for every word choice. So that, by trying to say what I mean, I have to first distill what it is that I mean. I still like that constraint. Now there is more at stake. Another (living) heart to which I have become inextricably bound. And hearts are good for what they do. Beating on, day after day. But they’re made of muscle and they’re only the size of a fist. If only they were pilings of concrete or steel. But then they’d be poorly constructed to push blood through our arteries and veins. If only they were made of the steam coming off a pot of boiling lentils, disinclined to be so fixed in our chests.

I write here now because hearts are only made of muscle.

I also started writing in the fall of 2006 so that my babies might have some sense of who I am beyond cook, chauffeur, rule-maker, laundry-maid, homework-checker, story-reader, tucker-inner, cheek-kisser, soccer-cheerer, and band-aid-fetcher. Frances left more than some, but far less than they’ll want when they get to the point in life where they have to know more. My other blog and this one will give them some sense, perhaps, of some of my other hues once my sun is set.

There are plenty of mornings I still wake up and feel married to Frances. Most mornings. I never left her. She never left me (except, perhaps, in the limited, physical plane). She and I invented normal. Nothing, NOTHING feels normal since she died. Some days are reasonable approximations of normal if I squint hard enough.

So here I am, floating above the canyon floor. If I keep running hard enough, maybe cartoon physics will get me across to the other cliff wall. Some days it feels like I can reach out and graze the far edge with my fingernails. Other days, I can already feel myself plummeting toward the canyon floor.

What I found myself dwelling on today is this question: “What truly binds Robin and I?” Frances and I had our college times together, mutual friends and concerts and studying and history. We had 5 years of relatively low pressure to court, live together, slowly form into complementary shapes. We brought velveteen satchels of dreams to our own private commons and matched them up, walking away with a set that would fuel us far into our shared future. Now our future is our past. Except that some of our matched up dreams included having a family and those matched up dreams manifested themselves in the bodies and spirits of our three babies. And so our dreams live on in them. In that sense, Frances and I are still bound. We’re still married and will always be. When seas got choppy, it was, at the very least, our kids that provided the reason to find a way through. And they always did. And we always did.

So what’s going to bind Robin and I? We don’t have kids together and never will. What’s going to keep me committed when our seas get rough? What’s going to make me turn away when some shiny new person comes along?

What’s going to keep her bound to me in tough times? With no assets and 5 years working just above minimum wage (doing work she enjoyed), there’s a financial imbalance. It would be a dramatic step down in standard of living if she were to leave. That’s an imbalance I wish we didn’t have.

So what’s going to keep us together? I truly love her. She truly loves me. This is undeniable. There’s an inexplicable pull that keeps me oriented toward her. Imago? I’ve only done this once before, under very different circumstances, so I hope love is enough. It’s just so hard sometimes for me to raise my sails sometimes when I feel like I’m still at the helm of another ship, ghost or otherwise.

“Sometimes you just close your eyes and jump
You don’t think too long or maybe you just won’t
Sometimes you follow your heart
You don’t analyze too long
Or maybe it might just be gone”
-Carrie Newcomer, “A Whole Lot of Hope/Another Thunder”