Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Sea Change
Time has wrought it's wear on me and I have changed.
Like most people, Steven thinks the phrase, "Sea Change" refers to a dramatic change.
It doesn't.
The phrase is drawn from a poem by Shakespeare, written as a song for Ariel in the Tempest, the relevant stanza goes like this:
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Ding-dong.
Hark! now I hear them—Ding-dong, bell.
See? He has not changed and yet he has. Where he was flesh and blood and bone, he is now made of treasures of the sea, coral, pearls - nothing faded, he is recognizable but he is now made of different stuff, valuable stuff, stuff wrought not by the man himself but by the sea. His body has become something different altogether and his soul? Who knows where that is, it is not the point.
We look at others from the outside in. We see the value in them as people or we don't see. The thing is, nothing from the outside in, can be lost, only altered in perception or value or substance even - changed but not changed.
Sometimes I feel as though I am living in a kind of afterlife. Stephanie-then resembles Stephanie-now. Lord knows she's built on the same scaffolding, the same foundation but she is not as she was. I am something new. I am something new that would be strange to those who knew me before. I look like a model of myself with silver hair instead of brown. I lapse into the same faults and foibles often enough but I am altered. Stephanie-then has been eaten away by a soft yet persistent tide and in her place is Stephanie-now. Made of the stuff of this place, no longer from the places that came before.
I loved before, as I could love. My capacity for it was different than it is now. I wanted escape, wanted some ease and some beauty to take in and indulge myself with its wonders. Now, I want something else - connection, endurance, belonging. I want to know a person and a place completely. And I want to live in the midst of it, even when I find it ugly, alien or cold.
I want to be clear, transparent, I want to be known and seen - no longer only an observer. And I am married. My husband's life is my own. He is, whether he likes it or not, the center of my world and I know he will remain in that place for the rest of my life.
I have changed. Changed from angry, solitary, defensive and impulsive to a reflective, responsive, if strong willed, wife. I am Steven's wife. And I feel as though it is what I always yearned to be. (even when I didn't know he was there.)
I have undergone a sea change. Single woman, daughter, maiden, friend and sometime lover to Wife. Anyone who has been there understands exactly what I mean.
Meaning has come into my life and now, I am made of different stuff, pearls and coral, honey and amber, perfume and detergent - I am no longer only Stephanie, I am Steven's wife.
Reposted from just after my husband's first visit. (When we were first courting.)
It's late or it's early, take your pick.
The neighbor decided to have a 4 am heart to heart on her balcony and woke me up. She's gone to sleep now and I'm still awake. So my thoughts turn to all the unresolved aspects of life on the table in front of me right now.
Basically all of it.
Work has been busy and people have been slow to pay, it makes my life hard. I've been thinking about conventional jobs more and more lately but maybe more to the point, thinking about how it would be nice to have all the pieces in the same place for a change.
My personal life and my work life is now almost all in the same time zone, having it within daily commuting distance would be a significant improvement. It hasn't been that way for the last four years.
I guess I'm living an increasingly typical conundrum. You meet someone online and things develop. I suppose it would be nice if you could contain that to one place, nice if you can keep the job in the same place as the beloved but life goes where it will and in my experience, since 1995 anyway, it has seldom settled that easily.
So this year, fresh on the heels of having my heart broken, I decided to take charge of that issue for myself and to at least make it clear that if I were open to starting something with a new man in my life he would have to be living in one of two places before he so much as talked to me. Those places were, Austin or Ottawa - that's it, that's all. No more stretching myself into another time zone for another job or another person, enough is enough. If you don't live where I live or at the very least, I decided, in the city I love enough to make an effort to get to for at least four months a year, don't talk to me. Just don't. And while I'm on the subject, no motorcycles and no smokers.
I should have been warned by the first two guys who contacted me, a guy with a motorcycle and one who was quitting smoking. Anyway - I didn't notice a trend and for whatever reason, it didn't work.
By the way, I did not willingly stop caring about the original Texan, in fact part of this was to force myself to stop thinking about him. He committed to another woman and cheated with a third, there was no way I could stay. He made it impossible to be with him but I thought I still loved him so I also made it clear that whatever might happen, would happen very slowly, it would not be likely to be a passionate union but rather the companionable type of affair two people have when they are dealing with life, have had their great big love and now just want to be sane and sensible, have a pleasant companion and keep everything in proportion.
A moderate, quiet, friendly dating relationship was what I was after. Seemed reasonable at the time. All of this is possible because, if you are feeling blue and think dating might be an answer, you can go to a site like OK Cupid and set up a profile that is absolutely specific in your needs, wants and expectations, right down to the most minute detail, including neighborhood, favorite color, and specific sexual tastes, if you're so inclined. My friends have done it, I decided to give it a try. Thought it might cheer me up. What they don't tell you is that if you are curious about the random matches their program throws your way and you open up the profile attached to them, it is possible for the person whose profile you peruse, just out of curiosity, to see that you looked at it and then look at yours in return. I was unaware of this aspect of the site and amused myself with looking at every really good match they threw my way regardless of location.
There are a lot of interesting people out there and looking is fun. Anyway, that turned out to be either a really good idea or a really bad one depending on your perspective.
One of my random matches, one I thought was interesting, one whose profile I had explored and then left without saying a word to him? Well, he saw me and he talked to me and everything changed from there. I dismissed him as soon as I realized he was from the states and not from Austin. Granted, he's within a day's drive, much closer to me than the Austin man ever was but not in my preferred environment, not in either one of them. But he was smart, funny, charming and really beguiling, there's no other word for it and whenever I spoke with him, I felt much better about everything in life afterwards, consistently better - happy even.
So here I am. It's 5:30 in the morning and I am lying awake when I really need to be asleep, thinking about whether or not I can apply for the perfect job in a a place I never even considered as an option because there is a perfect job for me there that just happened to open up last week and there is this man and in case you haven't already guessed it, my heart's center of gravity that way has quite unexpectedly shifted from Austin to the Berkshires.
I suppose this proves that anything is possible. And yes, he's been to visit me here, the chemistry is real and intense, more intense in person than remotely. I'm planning to visit him there and it's fair to say, if we haven't already fallen in love, we are well on our way.
How did it happen? I was careful, I thought I covered all possibilities, I thought my case was air tight and my intentions firm but life slips in. It doesn't matter how much you try to seal up all the cracks and openings, life gets through anyhow and as cliched as it is to say this, people are unique. I'm in Ottawa and still love Texas very much but two things matter more than Texas, meaningful work (which can be done anywhere, I'm learning that) and the right person with whom to share a life, they can only be found wherever they are.
Maybe that right person isn't where I expected to find them but it does feel to me, a little more each day that he is exactly who I always wanted him to be. He found me, he followed his feelings and he listened to me, to who I am not to an image of something he was trying to make up - I guess that makes more of a difference than I thought. And he didn't change himself to suit me, his experience, his beliefs, he knew they matched mine before he ever said a word. (I was pretty explicit and not surprisingly, exhaustive in the details of what I felt I needed in a relationship, what was important to me and furthermore, when there was any doubt, he asked.) I sleep better when he's around So it turns out my right person might have been someone I never expected living somewhere somewhere completely unknown, unexplored, unsuspected, I guess it's lucky for me he had his priorities straight even if mine were still a little jumbled. I'm happier when he's around. Now I just need to learn to go with the flow. More yoga please. 4/17/11
Added January 6, 2012:
I went to visit him on May 13, 2011 - never left.
We married on September 21, 2011.
Every day since has been happier than any day before.
This is how real love finds you, effortlessly, when you're not expecting it and so powerfully, you don't need to pull toward it. It pulls you.
Basically all of it.
Work has been busy and people have been slow to pay, it makes my life hard. I've been thinking about conventional jobs more and more lately but maybe more to the point, thinking about how it would be nice to have all the pieces in the same place for a change.
My personal life and my work life is now almost all in the same time zone, having it within daily commuting distance would be a significant improvement. It hasn't been that way for the last four years.
I guess I'm living an increasingly typical conundrum. You meet someone online and things develop. I suppose it would be nice if you could contain that to one place, nice if you can keep the job in the same place as the beloved but life goes where it will and in my experience, since 1995 anyway, it has seldom settled that easily.
So this year, fresh on the heels of having my heart broken, I decided to take charge of that issue for myself and to at least make it clear that if I were open to starting something with a new man in my life he would have to be living in one of two places before he so much as talked to me. Those places were, Austin or Ottawa - that's it, that's all. No more stretching myself into another time zone for another job or another person, enough is enough. If you don't live where I live or at the very least, I decided, in the city I love enough to make an effort to get to for at least four months a year, don't talk to me. Just don't. And while I'm on the subject, no motorcycles and no smokers.
I should have been warned by the first two guys who contacted me, a guy with a motorcycle and one who was quitting smoking. Anyway - I didn't notice a trend and for whatever reason, it didn't work.
By the way, I did not willingly stop caring about the original Texan, in fact part of this was to force myself to stop thinking about him. He committed to another woman and cheated with a third, there was no way I could stay. He made it impossible to be with him but I thought I still loved him so I also made it clear that whatever might happen, would happen very slowly, it would not be likely to be a passionate union but rather the companionable type of affair two people have when they are dealing with life, have had their great big love and now just want to be sane and sensible, have a pleasant companion and keep everything in proportion.
A moderate, quiet, friendly dating relationship was what I was after. Seemed reasonable at the time. All of this is possible because, if you are feeling blue and think dating might be an answer, you can go to a site like OK Cupid and set up a profile that is absolutely specific in your needs, wants and expectations, right down to the most minute detail, including neighborhood, favorite color, and specific sexual tastes, if you're so inclined. My friends have done it, I decided to give it a try. Thought it might cheer me up. What they don't tell you is that if you are curious about the random matches their program throws your way and you open up the profile attached to them, it is possible for the person whose profile you peruse, just out of curiosity, to see that you looked at it and then look at yours in return. I was unaware of this aspect of the site and amused myself with looking at every really good match they threw my way regardless of location.
There are a lot of interesting people out there and looking is fun. Anyway, that turned out to be either a really good idea or a really bad one depending on your perspective.
One of my random matches, one I thought was interesting, one whose profile I had explored and then left without saying a word to him? Well, he saw me and he talked to me and everything changed from there. I dismissed him as soon as I realized he was from the states and not from Austin. Granted, he's within a day's drive, much closer to me than the Austin man ever was but not in my preferred environment, not in either one of them. But he was smart, funny, charming and really beguiling, there's no other word for it and whenever I spoke with him, I felt much better about everything in life afterwards, consistently better - happy even.
So here I am. It's 5:30 in the morning and I am lying awake when I really need to be asleep, thinking about whether or not I can apply for the perfect job in a a place I never even considered as an option because there is a perfect job for me there that just happened to open up last week and there is this man and in case you haven't already guessed it, my heart's center of gravity that way has quite unexpectedly shifted from Austin to the Berkshires.
I suppose this proves that anything is possible. And yes, he's been to visit me here, the chemistry is real and intense, more intense in person than remotely. I'm planning to visit him there and it's fair to say, if we haven't already fallen in love, we are well on our way.
How did it happen? I was careful, I thought I covered all possibilities, I thought my case was air tight and my intentions firm but life slips in. It doesn't matter how much you try to seal up all the cracks and openings, life gets through anyhow and as cliched as it is to say this, people are unique. I'm in Ottawa and still love Texas very much but two things matter more than Texas, meaningful work (which can be done anywhere, I'm learning that) and the right person with whom to share a life, they can only be found wherever they are.
Maybe that right person isn't where I expected to find them but it does feel to me, a little more each day that he is exactly who I always wanted him to be. He found me, he followed his feelings and he listened to me, to who I am not to an image of something he was trying to make up - I guess that makes more of a difference than I thought. And he didn't change himself to suit me, his experience, his beliefs, he knew they matched mine before he ever said a word. (I was pretty explicit and not surprisingly, exhaustive in the details of what I felt I needed in a relationship, what was important to me and furthermore, when there was any doubt, he asked.) I sleep better when he's around So it turns out my right person might have been someone I never expected living somewhere somewhere completely unknown, unexplored, unsuspected, I guess it's lucky for me he had his priorities straight even if mine were still a little jumbled. I'm happier when he's around. Now I just need to learn to go with the flow. More yoga please. 4/17/11
Added January 6, 2012:
I went to visit him on May 13, 2011 - never left.
We married on September 21, 2011.
Every day since has been happier than any day before.
This is how real love finds you, effortlessly, when you're not expecting it and so powerfully, you don't need to pull toward it. It pulls you.
moving day.
In the time between now and when I began this blog so much has changed, if I read it in a novel, I'm not sure I'd have believed it.
Just goes to show you, anything can happen.
I live in Massachusetts with my husband now. He's not the same man I thought I loved at this time last year. He's a better man in every way that counts. He tells me the truth and seems to be interested in understanding and supporting me more than using me for fun. There's no point going on and on about it, I've posted about him before and was busted for it by his sister and a former girlfriend.
But I like to be candid here and since I've shut this blog up tight (you have to have asked me to read it if you're seeing this) I can repost the original post about him.
I wrote the next post when I knew we were falling in love. Now that we're married, I no longer have to be ashamed for being presumptuous.
I knew from very early on that Steven was "The One." I had hoped others were but where there was hope in the past, this was inevitable. It felt as though it had a life of its own. I am only a part of this love, a part of this marriage. I am not constructing it as I go, I'm not in control and finally, I've discovered, that is the difference between real love and plain old desire.
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