I feel as though I’m living in a new universe. My old fishbowl, my former life, is behind me. One year ago, I was hurting beyond description. All my personal demons came out. Some tormented me. Some tormented those who loved me. I knew who they really were, compassionate monsters in disturbing costumes, but I was not allowed to remove their masks. Falling into the vortex of fear and grief was the ride I stood in line for. There was nothing, I realize now, nothing that my friends could have done to make that ride any shorter.
I starting having dreams that I was reincarnating into a new life. I dreamed that I was a fish in a little, cloudy fishbowl, then I came across a photo of a fish leaping from a little bowl into a big one. In other dreams, I went from a curled up fetus straight into the adulthood of a different life someplace else. The transition was pronounced but seamless, and it always began the same way. I suddenly found myself riding a bicycle (or occassionally, a scooter) through the streets of a new town.
That’s how I met Jimmie. I told him I’d forgotten how to ride a bike, but he put me on his sister’s bike, and I took off.
One night not long ago, I dreamed I was a guppy gasping for air in a dirty puddle. Then, I was the wave of an ocean moving swiftly to shore, glowing like a gem, utterly quiet and still inside yet full of power. I rolled towards the beach and looked up, and I saw Jimmie staring back at me, standing knee deep in the water, receiving me into his world with a big smile.
I met him when the month began, the man with the red hibiscus (which he calls the crown jewel of the foliage in his yard). My red hibiscus plant is long dead. The red hibiscus decals on my car have long since faded and peeled off. I still have the red hibiscus license plate frame, and I still have a photo of the red hibiscus painting on my torso and the red hibiscus posters from my first house warming party, but just as that symbol, which appeared when my marriage ended, was fading from my life, he was bringing it into his.
A hibiscus blossom from Jimmie's backyard
“In April the sweet showers fall and pierce the drought of March to the root, and all the veins are bathed in liquor of such power as brings about the engendering of the flower.” I found that quote after he mentioned his love of Canterbury Tales.
“And thus we begin our pilgrimage,” he replied.
I found a kindred spirit in the most unusual package. Tanned by this hotbed of southern fundamentalism, he bears similar markings, but his heart belongs to a different tribe. I’m falling in love with the juxtaposition of disparate stereotypes, giggling when he goes down on me saying, “Just sit taat darlin. I reckon I’ll be down here for a whaal.” And what a wonderful whaal it is. There is magic in an open heart chakra… Hallelujah!
He visits his mother “out on the farm” (I still smile to myself when he says that), yet he reads Dickenson and Dostoevsky and yearns to write a novel. He started one in which a civil engineer saves the day. (He is a civil engineer.) The story begins with a collapsing bridge. A woman with two children loses her husband in the accident, then the engineer enters her life. The truth is indeed stranger.
Being a single mother, I used to worry how romantic partners would respond to my children, but there are all different kinds of men in this world. On Friday, Jimmie invited my two boys and I to his house for dinner and a bonfire. He was giddy with possibilities, pulling out footballs and soccer balls and basketballs and frisbees and board games. We all played outside, then he cooked pizza, fish sticks, and chicken nuggets all on one pan, and when my four year old stole a bite from his plate, I sank into my chair, but he didn’t blink. He gave my son a comical evil eye, channeled Roscoe P. Coltrain, and demanded to know, “Who stole my food?”
He threw my boys into his big wheelbarrow and raced around the yard, careening around trees and bushes until they nearly fell out, and retrieved the wood for the bonfire. Later, when we stood around the fire mesmerized by the pink and silver streams of light and the brightness of the stars, my four year old ran amok, howling and spanking our behinds, and grabbed the handle of the shovel Jimmie was leaning on, pulling and tugging to no avail. Jimmie said, “Now I know what a father lion must feel like… with cubs pulling on his tail… you just gotta be patient I guess.”
We roasted marshmallows, which made us all sticky, then we carried the boys upstairs and watched Wormhole until they fell asleep. We put them in the big bed in one of the guestrooms. It all felt very natural.
Um, this part of the story is censored. I will say, however, that it was the first time a man ever called my feet “rascals.” I love jacuzzis!
In the morning, Jimmie made a big breakfast, played a game of checkers with my older son, tuned my son’s guitar and played beautiful, lyrical songs to which he sang in his gentle, rich southern voice. As we packed up to leave, my sons gave him a big hug. “You’re the best,” said my oldest. Jimmie wrapped his arms around me and said, “I thought that went well.” I never had any fantasies or ideals, but I felt my heart opening wide like the big blossoms outside his window.
We went biking again last week on a beautiful trail through the country. Coasting through peaceful trees under the perfect sky, I rode across bridges that used to hold trains. So much has changed, but it’s all good, and all the love that blossomed before is still there, maybe stronger than before. There is one thing I wish I had done differently.
When you feel your world slipping away, let it. If a tidal wave comes, let it pull you out to sea. Become the sea and feel your way to the shores where love longs to take you.
