THE LAND OF THE WITCHES

Saturday evening, Michael and I sat by ourselves at a table in the corner of a reception hall and watched as our friends Jenn and Wade made their way through the crowd, thanking people for coming to their wedding. I looked at the people in the crowd and realized that I hardly knew anyone there. There were less than a handful of people that I knew. I did not care about this because I was really only there to celebrate the union of Jenn and Wade. Also, Jenn had asked me to take some pictures of her during a private moment between Jenn and Wade when they would see each other for the first time before the ceremony. So Michael and I sat at our table, filling out the wedding games that had been left on the table and eating charcuterie. I said to Michael “I don’t get it. Why has Jenn latched onto me? Of all the people we’ve met through camp, what is it about me?” Look, I’m not saying that there’s something unlikable about me. It’s just that Jenn is cool, like Pink Lady Rizzo cool and while I’m not as prude as Sandy, I am probably as dorky and unhip as Sandy.

Michael said “Well, look at who Jenn’s just married. Wade is just a really good person and Jenn’s a really good judge of character. She recognizes good people when she sees them.” He’s not wrong about Wade. Wade is the nicest, most generous human. He’s interested in whatever you have to say no matter what you’re talking about. He’s a total nerd like me and he gives excellent hugs. Plus, when he looks at Jenn, his face says it all. She’s his one. Finding the one and having the opportunity to share your life with that person is a very special gift. The next morning, Jenn sent me a text thanking me for being there and taking pictures. I was in the middle of editing those pictures when she texted. I responded to her with a similar question I’d presented to Michael and told her that I was editing those photos for her now.

Honey just you being you. You are a beautiful genuine soul who is always willing to dive deep and talk about REAL shit. Idk. I just love you. You’re stuck with me.

Jenn’s a pretty amazing human to be stuck with, but I am still awed by how it is possible to continue to make these important friend connections as we grow older. Making new adult friends is hard. We are all ruled by ridiculous color coded calendars. Life is busy. I am lucky.

Jenn’s text surprised me, not because of the nice things she said, but by how she sees me as someone who is willing and easily talks about the hard things. It’s one of those comments that made me tilt my head to the side like a curious puppy and ask “is that true?” I think she might be a little right. Like for instance, I write about a lot of difficult things in this space. I pour my heart out here, but there’s some environments where this is not true. I have a grievance that I have been holding onto because I cannot seem to find a way to broach the subject without encountering defensive maneuvering. This is with a person that I have struggled to communicate with for years and a grievance that comes and goes. Recently though, it has become intolerable. I’m noticing that the longer I go without saying anything, the more likely I am to say something mean or snappish. I have done a lot of biting of my own tongue. This person does not create the kind of environment where I feel comfortable with talking about real shit. At least not in the way that Jenn does or some other people in my life.

Tomorrow, I fly to Boston where I will then take a two hour drive by myself down to Woods Hole and the Marine Biology. I will stay in a room by myself. Take meals by myself. There will be a few solo adventures in between doing an inventory of our lab space and closing it down for the winter. I predict there will be hours and hours of nothing but the voices in my own head and that this will be a good opportunity to organize and write down my thoughts. Watching Jenn and Wade make promises to each other, made me think about what I want in my own life. My want is going to require me to create a comfortable environment where I can dive deep into talking about the real shit. This means that I will need to be able to present my grievance in a clear and constructive manner. Basically, I’m going to spend a week not talking while trying to find a way to talk.

I’m going to the land of witches in in hopes of finding my voice and the courage to use it.

THIS AND THAT

Over the weekend, I had a consultation with an artist regarding my next tattoo. It has been scheduled for August and I am very excited to see what he comes up with based off all the stuff we talked about. It will be a camera and it will include Chris’s initials somewhere on the camera. That is all I can tell you. He asked me why I was choosing this particular design and I told him that I have my first photography showing coming up in September, something that every time I think about makes me want to vomit. As an artist who puts his art onto peoples bodies every day, he completely understood the vomit reaction. He’s used to working on a much shorter time frame. So I surprised him with all my planning and pushing the tattoo date to August. I’ve been sitting on this idea for over eight years. Two and half months is nothing.

But, all of this got me thinking about what I need to do to get ready for the show and I started breathing high up in my chest. I told Michael that I am not ready and he said we have time to get you ready. Then I gave him a specific task: find me space to flatten out the prints I ordered so they can be framed. He decided that his work bench in the basement would be a great space for this and immediately got to work cleaning it off. He also told me that giving him this task was very helpful because he cannot read my mind. Also, I never ask help. So he will complete this task and then sit around until I give him the next task. This turned out to be a good communication moment for us, which brings me to my next thing. It is June and since I will be out of town all week, we decided to do thing we do every year in June since we met. Every June, we make a conscious effort to have dinner at Bella Napoli’s, the scene of our first encounter. After work this evening, I will pedal my bike to Bella’s and meet Michael and the Cabbage there for half price pizza.

We are romantics.

Ten years is weird.

I have had two people in as many weeks ask me if Michael and I have gotten married. The answer is no. We have not gotten married and will not be doing so in forceable future. At least not until Michael manages to whittle my ‘hard nos’ down to a ‘fine, whatever’. He’s too busy with his education and school things to do much whittling. We can verbally renew a five year contract, though that may not happen until December. The contract renewal requires a Tiffany’s. Usually, any ole’ Tiffany’s store would do, but I really really want to go to the newly remodeled Tiffany’s in New York. The contract can sit it out in limbo for the next few month. This works very well for us and this relationship, but ten years does feel…strange. Yet, here we are still tolerating each other. Saturday, we took our growing collection of cardboard boxes and opened them up. We laid them out flat in an 18 x 10 rectangle and pinned them to the ground. The idea is that it will kill the grass and make it easier to dig out a spot for us to pour or own concrete pad. Some day we’ll put a shed on that pad. In the meantime, I keep referring to the cardboard space as my patio or (break) dance floor.

While a cardboard patio (of break dancing floor) is temporary, it is the beginning of something more permanent. I think this sums up our relationship nicely.

ONE FOOT IN, ONE FOOT OUT

It was one of those rare Saturday mornings where Michael was up at the same time as me. So I talked him into breakfast at You Say Tomato before heading downtown to the Asian food market. We had not been to You Say Tomato since well before the pandemic. They closed for a while and went to a meal service business model. Now they’re open on Fridays and Saturdays for breakfast and lunch. This place has always been one of my favorites. It was an early find and Chris and I would go there almost every weekend. We fell for the eclectic and cozy feel of the place because it reminded us of Portland. This was one of the ways we justified our move to Kansas City instead of the Pacific North West. We explored the city and hunted up all the little Portland like pockets. There are , surprisingly, quite a few.

Chris and I would be celebrating our twenty fifth wedding anniversary in March. When Randy and Katrina had their twenty fifth, we all went to Vegas and watched as an Elvis impersonator officiated their vow renewal. It was a great trip. I wonder if Chris and I would be doing something like that, though I don’t see us as the vow renewing type. I bet we would trade Vegas for some place like Costa Rica or Paris. Twenty five years…that seems so strange. I think about that while two different members of our framily are currently having their marriages crumble tragically down around them. Is this another thing that would be happening if Chris were still around? Would Chris and I still be the example we were to others back before it all ended? An example I strive for now in my current relationship.

This is a contract renewal year for Michael and I. We will have been together for ten years in June. Early in our relationship, he said something to me about if we lasted as many years as Chris and I did, he might ask me to stop wearing Chris’s wedding ring around my neck. I wonder if he remembers asking me that or my non-committal response to his request. It is very possible that this relationship might last longer than my last one. The effort I make in my desperate attempt at being in this layer of time is visible and puts me in the not quite the ideal category for a partner. That might be the thing that ends us. He might just get tired of settling for what I really am and not what he wishes I was.

One day he’ll get fed up with the number of times I might mention Chris’s name.

On this particular Saturday, Michael and I sat at opposite ends of a table. He gave me space to write in my Fortune Cookie journal while we waited for our food, then moved closer to share the pecan roll I had ordered on impulse. I was two bites into my egg croissant when I realized Fields of Gold was playing in the background. I paused and drifted back. When that song ended, the next in the line up of Ten Summoner’s Tales started playing. The restaurant was playing the album that played on loop in Chris’s dorm room while we were having sex. I know that playlist by heart. When Michael and I were done with breakfast, he asked “You ready to go?” and I replied “Yes. I’d like to leave Chris’s dorm room now.”

And we left.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

“We haven’t had our anniversary dinner at Bella Napoli’s yet. Let’s go this week.” he said. He says this every year in June, the month we met. We are usually off on what the actual day was because we can never really remember. This year we were off by a few weeks. Michael had to look it up. He’s better at keeping track of these things, anniversaries and lengths of time. When he suggests Bella Napoli’s, I always think of the song for the opening credits of Parent Trap (the original one with Hailey Mills).

To set the bait, recreate the date, the first time cupid shot ‘em. - Richard M. Sherman/Robert B. Sherman

I met Michael at the restaurant Tuesday after work. He got there first and I parked my scooter next to his. He walked up as I was taking off my helmet and I immediately apologized for being late. I’d texted him telling him that I was leaving work in five minutes, but five minutes turned into fifteen. He leaned in to kiss me and said that he was worried and was just about to come looking for me. We went inside and were seated at a table with a view of the front door and patio. We ordered a bottle of wine to share and I people watched. This is a neighborhood place. People walk here from home and there is a diverse crowd of elderly couples mixed with young families. Small groups of teenagers sit outside, sharing pizzas.

I watched as the owner greeted familiar faces, asking how a trip was or when the grandkids were visiting. “How long has Bella Napoli’s been here?” I asked as I swirled the wine in my glass. Michael shrugged and answered “Twenty years?” Michael asked our waitress when she came back with our order of steamed mussels, telling her that we had been coming here for about nine years. She confirmed that Bella Napoli’s was a little over twenty years old. Later, when she brought us our check, she said “You guys have been coming here for nine years?” Michael told her that this was were we met on our first date. We watched as our waitress turned to goo and then exclaim “Oh my gosh! This was the place of your first date and you’ve been coming here for nine years?!? That’s so cool.”

It is a bit of a romantic story.

The last three years have not been easy. There have been moments when the words around ending things have rested on the very tip of my tongue. The space between our emotional and intellectual planes has felt too vast. Yet every time those words have rested on my tongue, I have refrained from speaking them out loud. I have paused to remind my self to find empathy and understanding. Next year is a contract renewal year and he has mentioned this a number of times. He ends his sentences with ‘if you want to renew the contract’. It is never if he wants it or if we want it. The renewing of the contract is all on me. My response to this is never with full confidence for a number of reasons. It shouldn’t just be my decision, but I suppose he wouldn’t bring it up if he wasn’t into renewing the contract. Recently, I rediscovered my voice and requested some changes, changes he immediately started working on. Those words no longer rest on the tip of my tongue and I am getting used to the sensation of that lifted weight.

He will jump through hoops to make this relationship work.

He will jump through hoops for me.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Chickens

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Every morning, I walk into the backyard while carrying a cup of coffee and I open the door to the chicken pen. Then, as I turn and start to walk back to the house, all four of the chickens follow me to the center of the yard where they start to peck and scratch. If I sit out there with them for a brief moment, Marguerite will peck her way to me, stand just out of reach and tilt her head at me while murmuring a song. They spend the whole day roaming the back yard or laying in the shade. There is a pile of wood scraps and pallets near the fire pit and sometimes you can look out the kitchen window and see Foghorn standing on top of the pile, surveying the land. There is one particularly good dirt spot in the yard and all four of them will take a turn rolling around in it. At night, just before I head off to bed, I go out to the pen to shut the door. I always take a moment to lift the hatch on the coop and count the number of chickens. One, two, three, four. All four present and accounted for, I close the pen and then put myself to bed.

I knew nothing about raising chickens. I just knew that I wanted some backyard chickens. I had a romantic vision of a backyard farm with chickens roaming free and walking up to me for an occasional cuddle. The reality was a bit different. That was mostly our own fault. The old chicken coop forced us to work harder to care for the chickens; not smarter. The chickens turned out to be ambivalent to our love. There were discussions about what would happen when they all moved on to chicken heaven. The result of that discussion leaned towards not getting more chickens. We did it. We raised some chickens. Now let’s move on to something new. After building the new pen, Michael and I both agree that there will be chickens roaming the backyard for many years. We learned a lot with this first group. The new pen makes chicken care so much easier and the chickens are now living their best chicken lives.

Michael and I met seven years ago in June. After Micheal’s hickup, he threw himself into things (maybe unintentionally) that would make me happy, like buying a scooter. Then he built the chicken coop. He didn’t build it because I had asked him too. He built it because he knew that I wanted chickens. Michael did not know any more than I did about raising chickens, but he dived into learning about chicken husbandry. The chickens are probably more his than mine, though he can never remember their names or who’s who. Our relationship is like the chickens. A lot of times we worked harder for it than smarter. We learned a lot about how to communicate with each other. We had to expand and stretch ourselves to encompass this new relationship. A relationship that is different from previous ones we both had. But I think we have both settled in. I mean, it’s not perfect. There’s no such thing and at times I still find myself working harder, not smarter, but we have found a rhythm. Michael mentioned a few weeks ago that this is the longest relationship he’s ever been in.

So I guess that means we’re doing something right and that we are also living our best chicken lives.

IF WORDS WERE ARROWS

Frosty

3 Likes, 1 Comments - Cindy Maddera (@elephant_soap) on Instagram: "Frosty"

I started it. I pushed and needled. I can never tell if he's just in a mood or he's in a mood because of something I did or said. My tendency to be bluntly honest doesn't work in this relationship and I do a lot of back peddling of "I don't mean to...." and "it wasn't my intention to.." It just means that I don't say a whole lot any more. Better to say nothing at all. As a result annoyances and frustrations go unsaid and they sit and fester. He is the opposite. He says so much that he can't even remember what he's said. He is not careful with his words, at least...not the way I am. Then he said it. "I am never going to make you as happy as Chris made you." He didn't say it in spite or malice. He just told the truth and the truth of those words hit me like a million arrows, piercing every inch of my skin. 

It was like losing Chris all over again and I crumpled. It's not that I had been lying to myself all this time, but... 'never' is such a finite word. I will admit to missing a relationship that I had, wishing at times that this one could be more like that one. I missed the confidence I had in myself. I was more relaxed then, less afraid of stepping on toes. Less worried about keeping Chris entertained, interested, and happy. There was an equality to our support of each other's endeavors. There was an ease to that relationship that I don't think Chris and I truly understood. Other couples would look at us and ask if marriage ever got any easier. Chis and I would look at them like they were crazy. It had never been hard for us. We didn't have to work on our relationship the way other couples tend to. I just expected that was how all relationships were supposed to be and at times I get frustrated and annoyed that I have to work at this one. So yeah, I miss the relationship I had. But that wasn't the worst part about the truth of his statement. The worst was the shame I felt for dragging him into this and how unfair it is for him. Why would he even want to be here if he knows he's never going to make me as happy? What a totally crappy position to be in, knowing that, believing that. I hope it's two sided, that we were both happier with other people and we are now forced to make do. Though, there's something sad about making do with being just happy enough and something selfish about asking for more. 

I remind myself that in the grand scheme of things, this relationship is still new. We're still learning how to navigate. In this case, the path isn't as clear and smooth as normal. There are more rocks, boulders even. We still have the usual growing pains of a new relationship. We are still learning how to share the same space even though we've been working on it for four years. I don't think we're slow learners as much as we are both stubborn and set in a particular way. I've started not trying so hard to make this relationship resemble the one I had. I'm working on being less careful with my words and falling back into my old skin. For someone who doesn't really care what the general public thinks of her, I see the irony in caring too much about what he thinks of me and it's time to put a stop to it. It's time for me to relax into this relationship and stop tiptoeing around. Easier said then done, I know, but just because I miss something I had once doesn't mean I can't be happy in what I have now. 

I've got a list of things forming in my head for the new year. I feel the crunch and rush of the shift from this year to the next more keenly this year then in previous years. Maybe it's because I feel like I haven't been my best self this year, particularly the last few months. If I had to sum up this year in one word that word would be 'struggle'. It's been a struggle for me to look around with a mindful eye, which is something I had always thought just came easily to me. I don't know why this year has been one of such internal fights for me. I would like an extra month between November and December just to get myself organized for the next year. Myself. Not the house or our schedules or the finances. We've actually been working on the finances together once a week, which has made a world of difference. I want that extra month to get ME organized, scrubbing my skin with salt and clearing away the negative goop that has started building up in my joints. 

I want to be more settled and care less in the next year. I want to be selfish and take more rather than just make do. 

THANKFUL FRIDAY

There has been this green bug in the bathroom for a couple of days. It kind of creeps me out because it makes a buzzy noise when it flies and it's kind of fast and random. My way of handling it has been my usual tactic of just pretend it doesn't exist. I did have to discourage it from randomly flying into my face with the hairdryer one mornings. The other night I was brushing my teeth before bed when Michael walked in to tell me something. I mumbled around my toothbrush something about a creepy bug and Michael said he'd noticed it been around for a few days. He then grabbed a tissue and killed the bug while I flinched in the corner. 

Later that evening I noticed some sort of flying insect on the wall in the bedroom while I was removing the decorative pillows for bed (raised by a southern mom). Michael grabbed another tissue, except this one wasn't such an easy kill. It was a mosquito and as Michael moved in, it flew up and around the room. Michael said something about how he'd rather not shut me up inside a room with a mosquito (I have so many mosquito bites right now that if you connected the dots it would probably spell out 'fuck you') and then smashed it on the ceiling, leaving a streaky blood smear. As he was putting me to bed, Michael said "you know I've rescued you twice in less than hour and I get nothing but a nod from you". I replied "it's your job" which he thought was pretty funny. 

Michael and I have had many discussions on my lack of need. He says that I don't need him and that I'd be perfectly fine on my own. He struggles with my independence or is not used to being with someone so headstrong in their independence. It has been an adjustment for him, but it has also been an adjustment for me. I have to be mindful to not necessarily be more needy, but to be more willing to give a little, to say "hey, I need some help". It is true that I do not need Michael and I've told him this, but I appreciate that he makes things in my life easier. I've told him this too. I am grateful that he kills the bugs that make me nervous and that he's tall enough to even reach the ones on the ceiling. I am grateful it's his job to make things in my life easier.

I am thankful for surprise packages containing homemade peach jam with Morse code messages. I am thankful for the daily okra pick. I've pulled one okra almost every day. By now I just about have enough to dump into a pot of black-eyed peas and stewed tomatoes. I am thankful for endless cherry tomatoes because it's one of the three items that I can get the Cabbage to eat these days. I am thankful for hot summer days. The weather we are having now reminds me of Oklahoma summers and frying eggs on sidewalks. And, last but definitely not least, I am thankful for you.

Happy Thankful Friday!