FOR Z, WITH LOVE
We’ve been back in Tuscany for 2 weeks and 2 days now; a sort of twilight zone during which we have tried to surrender to the exhaustion of those 6 weeks in New York. And almost every day I’ve thought about writing, each time deciding not to bother; that I had nothing of worth to say. Yet during the last few days I’ve had the nagging realization that I’ve been waiting to be my old self before putting pen to paper; the self with positive energy; the self with creative energy; the self who can be wise and funny and generous. In other words, the self who would be acceptable and loveable because I had something of worth to offer.
So, here’s the truth. For 6 weeks I was in a state of red alert, attuned to Z’s illness. As is often the case with crisis, those weeks had a clarity to them, i.e., this is what’s happening and this is what you have to do about it. The requirements, while the details might change, were the same every day; to be of service to another human being in their time if dire need; to put aside my worry, fear, anxiety and do the next right thing. And so, together, Z and I journeyed through her twilight zone and I will say that we were both heroic. At times stripped into silent nakedness, we felt the profound connection that each of us had longed for, for 4 decades. Add to that the fact that we each nearly died in our early 40’s. Add to this, that each of us now knew that the scintillating terror of a near death experience is both humbling and deeply spiritual.
But I’m not in my early 40’s any more. 70 is fast approaching and my own illness last year, while well on the mend, had not completely refilled my tank. I knew I was headed for collapse, yet while leaving Z was as wrenching as losing custody of my daughter when she was 4, the difference now was that I knew Z would be all right and that shame was no longer part of the picture.
So, surprise, surprise, to come home and find that shame still reserves a seat in the ongoing drama of my life. When I was 10, I was quite ill toward the end of the school year, flu, probably. Whatever it was I could barely crawl out of bed. But for the last 5 days of that semester my mother dragged me to school because she needed me to be one of the 3 students in the whole city who would receive a diploma for 3 consecutive years of perfect school attendance and behavior.I remember on one of those mornings, collapsing on the sidewalk and sitting on the curb, my mother standing over me, demanding that I get up and get going. I got the diploma, presented at the Town Hall at the beginning of the next school year. I also got the message, courtesy of my poor mother, that when I feel ill or tired I cannot rest. If I rest, I will not get that diploma which says I am a good girl.
How do we wash these misconception away? How do we re-wire our cellular memories? By being open to giving and receiving love, I believe. The absence of love that the little girl on the curb most needed is still needed today. It is my Joel, these last 2 weeks, who each time he sees me struggling to get up off the curb, carries me home. It’s beginning to work. Recovery from some wounds takes longer than one might wish.
And it is Z, today, via Skype, whose love urges me to be kind to myself. I like to think that perhaps the greatest service I gave to Z during those weeks, greater than all the schlepping to and from Brooklyn and doctors’ appointments, was validating her need to sit on the curb and honoring her ability to listen to what her body needed at any given moment. The other gift Z gave me today, was encouraging me to be aware of the seduction of sadness. I’d say she hit the nail right on its rusty head. There is much to feel sad about during the course of life, and certainly one shouldn’t mask it, but neither should one wear sadness too long lest it become its own mask.
So here’s really why I haven’t written: I’ve been feeling sad. Sad about leaving Z, sad about Joel having sciatica, sad that I have no energy, sad that I lost an implant, sad that I don’t speak Italian fluently, sad that I had to cancel 3 book events, sad that one of the olive trees is dying, sad, sad, sad. Seduced by sadness rather than feeling the joy of a home to collapse in; joy of reading by the fire, joy of spring in Tuscany, the joy of the ginestra (broom) bursting like yellow popcorn, it’s fragrance soon to follow; the joy of Silvia bringing us fresh eggs; the joy of kneeling in the wet clover pulling weeds from the rockery, the wildness of the garden that now is a part of the larger landscape; the sudden flap of wings as 2 doves leave the oak tree; the joy of Z’s continuing recovery and the joy that I’ve lived another day beside my Joel.
I had thought feeling sad was an improvement over feeling shame…that’s seduction all right. The only righteous sadness here is for my mother whose need for a perfect daughter robbed her of having a daughter at all.
