hope – Jaime Alexis Stathis

Nanny Must’ve Sent You From Heaven

Mimi often woke up in the morning disoriented, and began the day asking questions for which neither of us had the right answer. “Where’s Poppy” she’d want to know, and we’d tell her that her husband had died two year prior. “Jesus Christ,” Mimi said, “You’ve gotta be kidding me. Where the hell have I been?”

“Want more coffee, Mimi?” I asked, attempting to keep her in the present.

“How about Alice?” Mimi asked, “Alice hasn’t been around in ages. Is she mad at me?” Every morning while we nibbled on toast and scrambled eggs or Mimi’s favorite—a hard roll from the bagel shop with butter and jelly on both sides—Mimi inquired on the whereabouts of her husband and three sisters, and my mother and I took turns telling her—as if for the first time—that they’d all died.

By the time we reached the end of the line of questions, we’d barely get a breath in edgewise before Mimi started in again at the top. My mother often ran from the room, face in her hands either from laughter or tears, leaving me to break the news, again. Mimi wanted all the details for each person including cause of death, date of death, if Mimi had been notified, and if had there been a proper wake and burial.

“I can’t believe nobody told me,” Mimi pondered with each one, both hurt and pissed, her heart breaking dozens of times every day. In the beginning, my mother and I were patient, and we’d give her the details, but after multiple rounds we lost our stamina for the specifics, and answered Mimi’s questions with one-word answers:

Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead

It was brutal and direct, but we were doing our best. We hated lying to Mimi, but my mother and I later learned that it’s best not to give more information than the dementia patient can process. For example, if they think their sister is alive but they just haven’t seen her lately, it’s best to keep it simple and respond with something neutral like, “Hmmm. You know, I haven’t seen Virginia in a little while either.” The middle stages of memory loss are tricky—Mimi couldn’t put her finger on it, but she had a hunch that she didn’t know. “I’m all mixed up,” she’d say to us, “I don’t know if I’m coming or going.” And then she’d laugh, because laughter was Mimi’s best defense.

Mimi’s three sisters were her best friends and she saw them every day unless someone was traveling. They ate more meals together than they did with their own husbands, and it was as if Mimi could feel it in her body that she hadn’t seen her sisters. Lying to Mimi felt wrong, even if it was best for her, and when my endurance for the dance had worn out, I’d answer her question with another question. “How about lasagna tonight? We’ll make it from scratch, you and me?”

Shortly after I showed up to help take care of Mimi, it became clear to me that her mood was most manageable when we rooted in the present. We went for rides in the car, got manicures, and watched the news, but nothing grounded Mimi more than watching me cook. As the days turned wintery, we went for fewer walks and rides in the car, which meant more time in the house, which could be a danger zone for the three of us. “I can’t stay cooped up like this,” Mimi would say, “I feel like I’m suffocating.”

I came up with the idea to prepare our main meal of the day cooking-show style, which meant I cut and measured everything into little glass bowls before starting the performance. I did this so that the putting together of a meal leaned away from the utilitarian and into the territory of an actual event, though Mimi was the sole attendee to my show. I usually started right after breakfast, afraid that if we missed a beat Mimi might wander into dangerous mental territory, might get upset, might forget that she loved me. Left alone in the sketchy neighborhood that her mind had become, Mimi could get nasty. She’d get up in my face.“Who the hell died and made you boss?” My mother was always afraid Mimi would throw a game-changing punch. “Cover your teeth,” my mother whispered, covering her own mouth with an open palm behind Mimi’s back, as if me losing a tooth to my grandmother’s unlikely punch was our biggest worry.

“You have something to say to me, Maureen, you can say it to my face,” Mimi roared as my mother shrunk into herself even deeper. My mother was afraid of her mother—she was afraid to challenge her, afraid to confront her, afraid to lay down any sort of law. By default, it was up to me.

I tried to stay ahead of Mimi’s temper, like doctors advise staying ahead of the pain after surgery, so as soon as breakfast was over, I’d sit Mimi down at the kitchen table with a cup of tea and a cardigan draped over her shoulders. I peeled carrots, diced onion, and minced garlic. I filled little bowls with ingredients. I braised bones, caramelized vegetables, and reduced stocks into glazes. I deveined and reconstituted. I did not cut any corners. While I worked, Mimi and I chatted. We talked about what I was making, and I told her step-by-step how I was going to do it. I’d tell her about a childhood friend I visited, or a book I was reading, or a movie I’d watched the night before after she’d fallen asleep. As long as Mimi engaged in real-time conversation she stayed safe from the questions she couldn’t remember the answers to. I’d ask if she wanted to help, but she usually didn’t.

“I’m enjoying myself just watching you,” Mimi said, “It’s like being in the kitchen with Nanny, with my mother.” I loved that she loved it, so day after day I hunted down time-consuming recipes from The New York Times, Zuni Café, Marcella Hazan, Julia Child. I felt like a disciple to advanced cooking techniques, and sometimes worked on two or three meals at once, sweating the eggplant for the next day, brining the chicken for the day after that.

The downstairs kitchen, Mimi’s domain, remained like a warzone, but I filled our upstairs kitchen with smells of a home and loaded our plates with colorful, nutritious food. After dinner, my mother did the dishes while I sorted the leftovers, and Mimi stayed at the table. Sometimes, even after hours of being in the kitchen together, Mimi not only forgot that had I spent the afternoon cooking, but also that she’d just eaten a full meal.

“I don’t know what you’re doing babydoll, but if you’re fixing something to eat don’t worry about me. I’m not hungry.” Her words took out my knees. I slumped against the sink. I didn’t want to get mad at Mimi, didn’t want to use a sharp tone. I didn’t want to say, “Of course you’re not hungry! You just ate a roast chicken dinner and still have chocolate frosting on your mouth from the cake I walked twenty blocks to buy!”

My cooking-show pace wasn’t sustainable on a daily basis, and sometimes I was too emotionally drained to even think about cooking, so we’d eat leftovers or get takeout from one of the thirty ethnic restaurants in the neighborhood. There were also days that we had other responsibilities, like getting Mimi to a doctor’s appointment. It wasn’t the physicality of moving Mimi to the appointment—physically she was fit—it was the fact that Mimi had spent her life avoiding doctors at all costs. “You want to have something wrong with you?” She mused, “Go see a doctor! You’ll go in without a worry in the world and come out with ten prescriptions!”

Mimi’s prescriptions included Hershey bars, chocolate milkshakes, and jelly donuts.

One night, after a particularly taxing day of wrangling Mimi to a doctor’s appointment, I offered to help Mimi get ready for bed. She usually wanted to do it by herself, but that night I saw the fatigue creeping up from her ankles. She was too tired to even wash her face, so after peeling Mimi out of her bra and snuggling her into flannel pajamas, I settled her into the broken-down recliner where she slept, the place that had been my grandfather’s until he vacated that throne. I found a clean facecloth and put warm water and a bit of soap on it. I brought the facecloth to the recliner and Mimi tilted her head up, closed her eyes, and let me wash her face.

I looked down at my grandmother’s feet, toes squeezed together tight inside nylon knee-highs. “Want a foot massage?” She smiled. I squeezed my fingers inside the tight band just under her knees and peeled off the stockings. I fetched a basin of warm water and soaked the towel, then washed and dried Mimi’s feet. She was bashful, but didn’t resist. I cuffed her pajama pants as high as they would go, and rubbed lotion up and down her legs.

“Well, shit,” Mimi joked, “I’d have shaved if I’d known this was going to happen!” I reminded her that she only shaved for weddings and funerals, and Mimi’s quick wit was on-point.

“Well I hope you’re not dressing me for my wake! I’m not dead yet! And I know I’m not getting married…Or am I?” Mimi couldn’t remember the basics of life, but she never missed an opportunity to crack a joke.

I creamed Mimi’s feet, and then found a cozy pair of socks that I put on her before tucking the blanket in tight. I stood to leave, but Mimi held out her hands so I washed, dried, and creamed those too.

“Ok,” I said, “You all set?” I should’ve known better, I should’ve known my Mimi.

“Do we have any cookies?” Mimi asked, “And maybe a little glass of milk?” I set a tall stack of Oreos and a short glass of milk on her side table that was cluttered with expired coupons and crystal dishes full of half-disintegrated rubber bands and paper clips distorted beyond utility. I kissed Mimi goodnight, and was walking away when she grabbed my hand.

“Nanny must’ve sent you from heaven to take care of me,” Mimi said, and I choked back tears because I felt it too, knew she was right. The strength I had was coming from somewhere outside me, but there was nowhere else I wanted to be. “I don’t know what I’d do without you,” Mimi said, “Please don’t ever leave me.”

I remember this day. It was a cold, damp day, and Mimi and I went to get manicures because we were at our wit’s end inside the house. We got out, and the mood improved. I remember thinking it was silly when I asked the gal to take a photo of us with our nails drying, but now I’m happy as hell that
I’m not afraid to do the silly thing.

Discovering My Boyfriend Has a Wife

*names have been changed

I’m no stranger to men capable of lying, and have dated the full gamut of emotionally unavailable men who’ve spun everything from half-truths to full-on whoppers. In my quiver of failed relationships are drug addicts, drug dealers, and a Latino, but the one I was blindsided by and wholly duped by was the one I’d promised to avoid at all costs: the married man.

I met Bob online and had no reason to find it suspicious that he was in town on business. The fact that he even had a job was a promising start; so many Missoula men aspire only to make enough money to have a new pair of skis/fly rod/dirt bike and a few extra bucks in their pockets. Bob works for the top medical device company and his work brings him to Missoula weekly, though he lives a few hours away. I now know that might have been one of the few things he told me that was actually true.

Bob promised to make me laugh or at least pick up the dinner tab. I analyzed the two pictures in his online dating profile and couldn’t tell if I thought he was cute or not, but he formed complete sentences and used proper grammar, which gave him a leg up on the majority.

I’ve never been a fan of long-distance relationships—they always seem neither here nor there—but I was up for trying something new, and a boyfriend in town just a few days every week could be exactly what I needed. Given my above-mentioned dating history, I tend to toward emotional unavailability myself. I’m certainly capable of more, but until the lesson is learned it’s easier to stick to what is familiar.

When Bob invited me to dinner I was currently having it, but he was persistent—only in town for the night—and suggested a glass of wine and dessert. Without putting too much thought into it I agreed, but forewarned him I’d be showing up in my dog-walking clothes. I called it my “Missoula casual,” and was proud of my confidence to show up in yoga pants for a first date, but truth was I didn’t feel like putting too much time or effort into someone I hadn’t even met yet. So I showed up for our first date in pants I’d picked up off the floor.

I told Bob I’m incredibly direct, and that if nothing else I’m authentic. I made it clear that I have no intention of pretending to be someone I’m not. I told him I passed that class years ago, then promptly retired. He found me clever. My confidence impressed him.

I wasn’t sure what to think about Bob’s Western getup that included a salad-plate-sized belt buckle and a black Stetson, but we dove into conversation and connected quickly. He’s from Idaho and has a hick accent, but he’s not a redneck, and he complimented me on my ability and willingness to see through his exterior and not judge him. He warned that his personality grows on people like something of a fungus, you just have to give it a chance, some time, and the right environment. I thought he was both witty and sharp, two of the top things I look for in a date.

Bob asked, “I’m not like the guys you usually date, am I?” I thought about the fact that when I told him I like to travel he mentioned he really liked Charleston and Laguna Beach when he went to those places for work, but I didn’t have the heart to tell him that when I said travel that wasn’t even close to what I meant. Instead I said, “Do you mean the Wranglers, the part about you being from Idaho, or the fact that you have a job?” We both laughed—it was all of those things and more—but inside I wondered if it was the Idaho bit that would be the great divider.

Bob told me I’m not like the women he usually dates—he always dates women who also have children—and that it would take some getting used to for him. He also told me he’d never dated a woman on his level, someone who’ll correct his grammar, someone who asks questions and seeks answers. Someone with the gumption to call him out when he’s incorrect. I’m guessing he’d also never dated a woman with a New Yorker subscription, a heavily-stamped passport, or a self-reliance that is both a blessing and a curse.

Although I willingly went out with him, I didn’t buy any stock. I didn’t think I drank his Kool-Aid, but it appears he’d metaphorically roofied me. I was proud of my newly cemented boundaries, boundaries that had previously been only lines in the sand. I didn’t see any patterns repeating and really thought I’d broken the mold on my past behavior with men.

We had a good enough time on our first date that Bob rearranged his schedule and took me out the next night too but this time he told me to pick the place. I chose one of my favorite restaurants and he paid, of course. He even used his corporate AmEx for his dinner, and a personal card for mine. Wow, I thought, what an honest guy.

I’d amped up my program and wore a skirt and boots—which Bob wasn’t shy about admiring—though he complimented me in a respectful way, not an “I-want-to-tear-off-your-clothes” way. He confessed that on our first date he’d been so engrossed listening to my stories that he’d completely forgotten to check out my boobs, and he’s a boob guy. My heart broke open a bit—he was more into my mind than my body—and it only barely occurred to me that he might have been full of shit.
After dinner we went for a drive up past my house toward the wilderness area and I made him promise not to kidnap me. I didn’t feel in danger, but made a joke to play it safe, “I know a lot of people who live up here, so if you’re looking for a place to dispose the body this is not it.” He laughed, told me not to worry. We drove around for over an hour, and as we crept slowly back to town he put his hand on my knee, looked me in the eye and said, “Can you tell I’m not ready to say goodnight just yet?”

I could, and it was sweet; we hadn’t even kissed yet. There was something lovely and old-fashioned about the pace, and because I wasn’t sure if I wanted a boyfriend in town, a long-distance relationship, or a boyfriend at all, I figured it was worth a shot to spend time with a kind man I could have interesting conversation with.

Bob texted me when he got back to his hotel to say he was sorry he’d promised not to kidnap me, and that I smelled fantastic. He sent me a link to a country song about a guy who wishes he hadn’t been too scared to kiss the girl goodnight. He asked, “If I stay tomorrow night will you go out with me again?”

He picked me up for our third date with wine and flowers. Earlier that afternoon he’d asked me my favorite colors, and then wore a shirt that was both blue and red. Bob believes himself clever, and in many ways he’s right. I invited him into my house after dinner, and we talked for hours before finally kissing in front of my bookshelf. With books as our witness I thought it auspicious.

I knew Bob has three kids in Bozeman he’d be spending the weekend with, and that I might not hear from him much. That was fine with me because I had my own plans and was on the verge of suffocation from three dates in a row. Bob texted me all weekend and then called early Monday morning because he had more work in Missoula and hoped I’d see him again. He told me he can usually “take it or leave it” when it comes to dating—his work and kids are the most important—but he felt different this time. He really liked me.

Bob spent three nights at my house that week, and I showed him the location of my hide-a-key. Our budding relationship catapulted to new territory. When we went to the supermarket together he grabbed my ass and kissed me, told me to get used to his public displays. We cooked together and he told me that was something he could definitely get used to. I introduced Bob to French Press coffee, to which he quickly became addicted. I showed him how to make it and helped him shop for his own pot, but he said it wouldn’t be as good without the beautiful view.

He leapt out of bed in the morning to let the dog out and feed him. It crushed my heart seeing them pad down the hall together, Bob calling Lucky “buddy” and then, on the way back to bed, saying “Don’t tell Mommy I gave you a little extra.” He noticed I was running low on dog food, and I told him I’d bought it but left it in the car. He immediately started toward my car and I said, “I can do it myself,” to which he replied, “But you don’t always have to.” Bob hauled in not only the forty-pound bag of dog food, but had tucked my gum, almond butter and garbanzo beans under his chin and armpits. Like it was no big deal.

This was not a casual hookup, not a booty call.

Bob made himself at home very quickly, which I appreciated, though it was slightly unnerving the way he inventoried my cupboards and cabinets, how he knew where to find floss and aspirin. He left an entire suitcase at my house that second week, and when I asked him if he’d miss anything he’d left in there he told me “No, I only miss where I left it.”

It was borderline too much, but it felt too good to deny.

My arrangement with Bob was unlike anything I’d had before, but it seemed to be just what I needed. I tend to be feel suffocated and need more space than most in my togetherness, so the fact that Bob is a traveling salesman and would be in Missoula a couple of nights most weeks seemed great. I’d have time for my friends, for writing, and for myself. I’d retain my personal rhythm and sense of self.

When partnered I tend to lose my grip on my own needs, so the time away provided a natural governor. Bob worried he wasn’t around enough for me, but I told him that my life was complete without him and that I’d long since given up thinking a man could bring me happiness.

He told me I was refreshing. He told me two of the hottest things about me are the fact that I have neither a full-length mirror nor a television. I liked the way he was thinking, and the night he suggested we get in bed at 9:00pm to read I had one of the best sleeps I’d had in years. I thought I’d won the jackpot.

Bob continued to spend several nights at my house every week, often driving several hundred miles out of his way so we could see each other. He told me “You’re not out of my way; you are my way. I’m here because I want to be.” Despite the fact that he told me he loved being “home” with me, he always booked hotel rooms so his boss wouldn’t wonder why his expense reports lacked lodging, and said any night I wanted to we could get a hot tub room and room service though we never did. Another reason he booked rooms was so he could maintain his diamond status with Hilton for free upgrades. His reasoning sounded pragmatic and didn’t raise a red flag for me, at least not overtly.

Despite the fact that Bob and I were playing house, we were still very much getting to know each other and had a lot of questions and background to cover. I was confused because his online dating profile said he was thirty-four and lives in Dillon, Montana, but he was actually thirty-seven and living in Bozeman. It seemed fishy, so I asked. He never missed a beat, and told me that he just hadn’t updated his profile in a while. I took this as a good sign that he’d been divorced and dating for at least three years. This was comforting because I didn’t want to be the first after a fifteen-year relationship, basically his entire adult life.

He also told me that when he took the job in Montana he thought he was going to live in Dillon, because it’s the center of his enormous territory, but his kids’ mom wanted to live in Bozeman. He drives 80,000 miles per year and spends 180 nights in hotels, so he’s rarely home and it didn’t much matter to him as long as the kids were happy and in a place he could easily get to them on weekends.

He told me he rents a room from friends in Dillon (in three months he never went there, and after the first mention it never came up again), and also has a little cabin down the road from his kids and their mom for weekend convenience. He went into details about the cabin (one room, no kitchen) and it’s historical significance in the Gallatin Valley. Because he’s rarely home, or so he told me, he didn’t need much of a place, and gave me details that bolstered his story but were unnecessary.

The parts of his story added up; at the time I had no reason to doubt.

One night Bob was doing paperwork at the desk in my kitchen while I heated up chicken soup I’d made over the weekend. The room was quiet, and felt more calm than eerie. My thoughts drifted, and then without thinking I turned to him, and with my spoon still in the pot, I asked him, “Are you married?”

I think I expected a fight. But instead his face softened, he made eye contact and said, “Yes.” He extended a hand to me, but I’d planted my feet. I returned his gaze but jacked up the level of hardness and intensity until he spoke again. In the weighted moments between words I wondered, depending on his answer, if I had the guts to throw a pot of boiling soup in his face. My pulse closed around my throat.

“I’m separated,” he said, and “have been for five years. We’re still married because it’s the only way for me to have access to my kids whenever I want. If we went to court I’d get Wednesdays and every other weekend. I’m not always around on Wednesdays, and I don’t see them enough as it is.”

“Your dating profile lists you as divorced,” I said, and he told me that it actually said he was separated, but I couldn’t go back and check because he had deactivated it after our third date because he liked me so much he didn’t need to keep looking. I don’t want to say he looked smug, but I’m quite sure now that he did.

I’m fairly certain his profile said divorced; I would never have gotten involved with a separated man. Married men looking for dates are on my permanent blacklist. In my opinion separated people need to wait it out. I’m leery of anyone getting out of a relationship who needs someone else waiting in the wings.

When I was a teenager and young adult my mother had relationships with married men and I saw how sad it made her. I never wanted to be on either end of that grief. I vowed to never engage in a relationship with someone who didn’t or couldn’t make me a priority, someone who still had a pair of boots under someone else’s bed. I promised myself before I even had a driver’s license that I would never get involved with a married man. Never.

Not even if he was no longer in love, not even if he wasn’t happy, not even if he though I’d hung the moon.

The previous year had brought a parade of married men into my life, all of them old friends, and it felt like a test. I was living with my mother, and together we were caring for my grandmother and facing the effects of dementia complicated by hoarding and an unwillingness to let people in her house to do repairs or assist with her care.

I’d been working on it, but had some lingering resentment toward my mother. She and I had both had advanced degrees in loving someone despite not always approving of her actions, and were both well aware that the door swings both ways on that.

I couldn’t help but wonder if the married men were showing up to test me or if they were showing up to offer me a different perspective on my mother. All I know was that they did show up and their agendas ran the gamut. There’s always a silver lining, and the silver lining was that I found myself able to truly forgive my mother.

Some just wanted to tell me of the crushes they had on me since the early 1990s that had remarkably stood the test of time. Some told me how much they admired my independent life out west, and that they were happy to see how well I’d grown up. Some of them wanted to take me out, some wanted to hook up, some just wanted to talk. One even said he’d leave his wife for me despite the fact that we hadn’t seen each other in fifteen years, though I neither asked nor wanted such a thing.

I sometimes engaged in more conversation than I should, out of curiosity more than anything—a curiosity to fathom the mind of a man who strays—but in the end I always told them the same thing: I deserve more than that and you know it.

One guy and I had unfinished business from a relationship in 1992 that almost got a second chance in 2001 when I was getting divorced. He’d asked me to move to his city, but I decided instead to move to Montana and we never spoke again until years later when he requested my friendship on Facebook.

It turned out he was coming to New York on business, so we arranged a lunch. In his blazer pocket he had photos from when we first fell in love and he spread them on the table between us. I asked about his wife and kids. We ate off each other’s plates, and after lunch we navigated lower Manhattan’s slush puddles and finally talked about what had happened between us.

I told him I was sorry; I owed him that as I’d basically disappeared on him without much explanation. I told him I was happy he’d found love, that he had a good life, that he’d gotten more than I could have given him. The conversation was way overdue, and it was an enormous relief to get it off my chest, to provide us both with closure.

He had time before his dinner meeting, so after walking all the way down to Ground Zero and looping back we popped into his hotel for a drink. While we sat there, semi-awkward with the elephant now comfortably bellied up between us, he received a call letting him know that his business partner’s flight had been delayed due to snow. He not only had reservations at one of the city’s best restaurants, but it was a fully comped meal.

“You’d be silly not to join me,” he said and I wasn’t sure, but I called my mother to tell her I wouldn’t be home for dinner. “I had a feeling,” she said, in a tone that sounded neither nice nor approving.

The comped meal included every course the restaurant offered and each one came with wine or cocktails. Although we sat there cozied up for hours in a corner booth, the end felt abrupt, so we walked around the corner to a French place with tin ceilings and a light that sparkled but was muted and understated as if partially eclipsed. I drank far more glasses of rosé than anyone should have in a moment like that.

We talked. Nothing intimate, just talking, and then around midnight we stumbled into a cab to his hotel, a cab that we’d arranged to also take me home to Queens. “I’m not ready to say goodbye,” he said, “I can’t have another goodbye like 1992.”

I was really too drunk to show up at my mother and grandmother’s house, so we went up to his room. We stayed up most of the night talking on top of the covers until we fell asleep in our clothes. We laughed in the morning—there wasn’t much to feel guilty about—and then headed to Grand Central where he’d catch a train to Connecticut for his meetings and I’d go underground to board my subway home.

We had a little time before his train, so we got coffees and a croissant to share. We walked through Grand Central Terminal, one of the most romantic places in the world, and the backdrop of millions of partings.

I walked him all the way to the track. We referred to the “best lunch ever” and laughed. All we’d done was delay the goodbye from the night before, and he said, “I’m still not ready. I can’t handle another goodbye like this.”

“But this is all we have,” I told him, “Another goodbye.”

I gripped my latte and walked away.

After the 7 train crosses inside the East River it goes above ground, and in the unforgiving light of the morning I sobbed behind my glasses. Most New Yorkers don’t notice much of what other subway riders are doing, but I felt exposed. Walking home I ran into my mother on the street and we went into the house where, once safely in the kitchen, I let it rip. I stood there in clothes I’d been wearing for twenty-four hours, and I cried. I showed more vulnerability to my mother than I had in decades.

I rarely admit to regrets—claim to have none and love buckling up for the roller coaster of life—but I revealed to my mother that morning that I might have actually blown it thirteen years earlier.

“Why didn’t you want to be with him after your divorce?” she asked, “Why didn’t you go?”

I didn’t have a great answer, but I wailed, “Because I wanted to move to Missoula.” Some things are better kept from mothers, and I’d never told mine of the disaster that had ensued when I shacked up with my boarding-school boyfriend in Montana. In real life, removed from the emotional turmoil of an extended lunch with a great guy I’d foolishly snuffed, I don’t actually regret moving to Missoula—it’s given me so much—but in that moment I wanted to something foreign to me: I wanted to turn back time.

After Bob fessed to being married I had a lot of questions, so we spent the next three hours sitting at the table while he explained. We had a light dinner and too much wine, but it seemed like he needed liquid courage for this one. I wanted to know how someone has three kids with a woman he’s not in love with, why he’s still not divorced after a five-year separation, I wanted to know if Donna knows he’s dating. He had an answer for everything. He opened up, he was vulnerable, he told me what felt like a complete story. I didn’t dump him and made a concession I wouldn’t normally make. (See above: NEVER.)

Bob told me about his father’s alcoholism and abuse, about his mother taking the kids to Oregon, about his sisters running away, about how every one of his siblings (minus the adopted gay brother) had kids pretty much out of school. He told me that he got involved with Donna when he was young and for all the wrong reasons. Then she got pregnant. They tried to make it work and she got pregnant again. He told me they only got married before their third child was born and only did it for the health insurance and because his family pressured him.

He told me that when he moved to Eugene for college his mother told him that he needed to go to church more so he promptly stopped going. I knew he grew up in uber-religious Southern Idaho, but he’d told me he wasn’t Mormon. I didn’t think to ask what religion he grew up with, and realize now that I probably didn’t ask because I didn’t want to know.

It’s funny how that works.

Bob never mentioned that he ever started going to church again, but only that there had been pressure from his family to marry the mother of his children. He loves the kids but referred to the marriage as his biggest mistake. I offered him a contrasting story—my story—about getting married and divorced young. I told him that when I was married I took my birth control pill at the same time every day because I wasn’t sure and I didn’t want to get myself into a situation where I was stuck. He flinched when I said “stuck” and I felt sort of bad. I told him I had a hard time understanding his story, but know he’d grown up differently than I had and that it’s wrong for me to judge.

In addition to having access to the kids whenever he wants, Bob told me that another reason he’s stayed married to Donna is because his company offers some of the best health insurance, and she not only has some shoulder problems, but also some mental health issues. He knows that keeping his kids’ mother happy is what’s best for his kids.

And now I’m saying: I’ll bet Donna has some mental health issues!

I periodically asked Bob about Donna. I wanted to confirm that she knows he dates, that she wasn’t under the impression that they’re in a committed relationship but just on a break. I wanted to know that she didn’t want him back.

Bob seamlessly assuaged my feelings and alleviated any guilt that he determined was unnecessary for me to feel. He told me their relationship was limited to talks about finances and the children, but one week he told me that over the weekend Donna had made him laugh, which he said was something I wouldn’t hear from him very often. She’d commented that he smelled like sandalwood and asked if he’d been in a “hippie house.”

I didn’t think it was all that funny, especially when he told me he’d told her no. I thought to myself: the Hilton doesn’t smell like sandalwood…I wanted to know why he wasn’t just upfront about the fact that he’s dating me and he said that he encourages Donna to date, but she’s “let herself go” over the years and lacks the confidence. He said that given her low self-esteem he didn’t think it was fair to flaunt his hot Missoula girlfriend.

He was cunning and crafty the way he used flattery to divert the graveness of his indiscretion. I don’t consider myself easily conned, but I fell for it.

Like I said: I’ll bet Donna has some mental health issues.

Despite the fact that we were full-on playing house, I never really considered Bob my boyfriend. I’m not sure why I shied away from that label, but he felt more like someone I was trying on than getting serious about. Deep down I knew he was more of a lesson than a love, though that line is often blurry. Regardless of the kids in Bozeman and the job that took him everywhere, I just wasn’t sure if he and I could have a future together.

I continued to have concerns about the fact that he grew up not only in Idaho, but not even in a town, just at an intersection between two rundown dots on the map, a place riddled with poverty and a deeply-rooted belief that God would save them all. Bob assured me he’d come a long way from there and had worked hard for it. He sent me essays from Elephant Journal and I joked that he must be the only boy from that intersection reading articles like that. He added “For at least two-hundred miles around, more if they never left.”

It put things into a perspective I wasn’t sure I was willing to either grasp or accept, but dating guys from my neck of the woods hadn’t actually worked out for me so I was being open-minded and trying something different.

Bob told me in the beginning that he wanted a relationship with me. He said he was so relieved to have met me, because all of the women he met online seemed to only want sex. He wanted sex too, he said, but he also craved connection, something he never had with Donna. He told me in the very beginning that he’d had a vasectomy, but if I wanted children of my own he certainly didn’t want that to be the deal-breaker. “There are ways around it,” he said.

We never used a condom. Not even once. Compared to my relationships in the past, the intimacy didn’t feel premature—I felt like I knew and trusted him—so I focused on that. I compared the present to the past—dangerous business at best—and drew conclusions with very incomplete information. We’d spent at least twenty hours staring into each other’s eyes and talking before becoming intimate, and even though I knew that pregnancy wasn’t the only concern with unprotected sex I did what so many do: I got caught up in the moment.

The night we went all the way his condoms were in his car. “I bought them right after I met you,” he said, “because I wanted to be prepared.” But then he wasn’t. I had some in my nightstand, but I knew they’d be too big for him and didn’t want that embarrassment for either of us, and, well, I think most of us have been in that situation. It’s not smart, it’s not right, but it just is what often happens when two people who like each other are naked in bed together.

Over the few months we were sleeping together I brought it up a few times—“I can’t believe we’ve never used a condom…”—and I don’t recall him every having anything to say about it.

Bob was attentive; he paid attention. If I told him I had a meeting, he called to check on how it went. If he knew I had a long day and he was getting off work earlier than I was, he’d text me and asked me if I wanted to go out to dinner or stay home, and if I picked home (always his choice) he’d have my favorite food waiting for me. He chose wine similar to what I ordered in restaurants, so I knew he was paying attention. He set the table, he walked the dog, he greeted me at the door with a kiss.

Bob liked coming to my house, and had told me that Donna was a slob. He said that for years he worked 60 hours/week and did all the house cleaning, but he tired of it and stopped. Then he moved out. I always made sure my house was tidy when he arrived even if the visit was unexpected and I’d spend a frenzied hour before work putting clothes in the hamper, doing dishes, wiping all surfaces and vacuuming. I always, always vacuumed, which strikes me as a bit odd, though I’m not really sure why. Bob appreciated it and told me, so I kept doing it.

Bob kept up his end of “house keeping” and he stocked my fridge and freezer. He’d stop at Costco for my favorite oranges, for salmon, for chocolate-covered almonds. He bought bacon and eggs so we could have a good breakfast together, because although we went out for breakfast once he just liked being in the house with me. He bought in bulk.

Bob told me out of the gate that it takes him a long time to introduce women he’s dating to his kids, and I respected that. I get uneasy when someone wants me to meet his kids too soon, or if I feel like he’s prematurely cleaning out half of his closet for me. I wasn’t in a hurry; the pace was fine with me. He was concerned that he thought I “deserved a weekend with him,” and I assured him that his kids are the number one priority and having him a few nights every week was enough. I wasn’t lying.

Regardless of what I said, Bob put in effort to show me that I mattered. He had a business trip to California and booked his ticket to and from Missoula so he could see me on both ends, including one weekend. I was grateful for his effort, and only felt a little bit guilty that he took time from his kids to be with me. Although I said it wasn’t important to me, Bob was adamant that we spend Valentine’s Day together. He stayed four nights with me that week, including Friday—when I roasted a chicken I’d prepped days in advance, just in case—and stayed until noon on Valentine’s Day.

I sent him a text thanking him for his effort and for starting his day with me. He accidently took a screen shot of that text, and when he synced his phone it saved to his photos. Neither of us would know this for another eight weeks, but it’s when Donna confirmed my existence in her husband’s life.

He said I was a friend.

My fondness for Bob waned considerably in March. He came to see me the night before I left to visit my mother in Florida, and he hoped to pick me up from the airport, because we were going to be apart for eleven days. I thought I’d miss him—and at first I did—but had no idea the turn the story was going to take.

Without any possibility of making plans to see each other, his communication was poor. I heard from him, but his messages were short, cryptic, and felt like riddles. I hate riddles. We’d gotten into a habit of sending interesting articles to each other and I sent him one, fairly benign, about parenting. It somehow took us down a rabbit hole of politics, and he became irate.

We noticed on day one that we have a lot of similarities. I told my friends “his brain is like mine,” and that makes me a bit nauseated now, but what I meant was attention to detail, excellent memory, inquisitiveness. Bob and I joked that we needed to have a fight to see how that went, and we’d tried to have some but with no luck—we always wound up agreeing!—though it now seems he was playing a game and agreeing so he could keep seeing with me. But finally, via text and email from across the country, we had our first fight.

One of his emails attacked my “typical liberal rhetoric,” which he’d previously been enamored by, and he used a lot of exclamations and told me to back up my position and “cite examples!!!” Within two minutes I sent him an article from The Atlantic that also cited references from the New York Times and other sources that, while left-leaning, are well-known to be top-quality fact checkers.

Bob didn’t reply for twenty-four hours. When he did he’d changed the subject and simply asked, “How is the beach?” I’d been irritated over his lack of response though it revealed to me how he acts when he’s wrong: he disappears.

I was concerned about Bob being politically or religiously conservative (there’s that Southern Idaho thing again), but he assured me he listens to all sides and considers himself more of an anarchist than anything. By his definition that means people should have absolute freedom to do whatever they want without interference (especially government interference) as long as they’re not bothering anyone else. I now see that Bob’s manifesto and personal definitions of “bothering” and “interfering” were self-serving and limited in point of view; he just wants to do what he wants without consequence.

That was the turning point for me. I couldn’t see him the same way again, and in fighting with him I saw what happens when his feathers are ruffled and it was not attractive.

The Universe stepped in while Bob and I were having our political spat. A guy I’d grown up with appeared in my life and we started writing to each other and talking. Over a few days we were in near-constant communication, and while I told Matt I had a boyfriend, I know that what I was engaging in would be classified as an emotional affair. I’m not so myopic to think that just because Bob was cheating on me (with his wife, if you can wrap your head around that, though it’s quite possibly there were others), that what I was doing wasn’t morally okay in a committed relationship. Though I was, of course, the only one who thought we were in a committed relationship.

Matt is also a writer and traveler, and we had interesting and engaging conversations talking about the interesting parallels our lives have taken since we left our suburban Connecticut hometown. Our commonality and shared history made me realize (again) how important those things are to me, and how it’s not feasible for me to have a relationship with a person like Bob who could even tolerate listening to FOX NEWS unless it was being parodied on Comedy Central. Matt remembered things about childhood—some that I did and some that I didn’t—and I had healing conversations with him I didn’t know I needed.

Bob didn’t pick me up from the airport, and that was fine, but then his work brought him to the other side of his territory, eleven hours away, and it was impossible to see each other. I didn’t care as much as I would have before our political spat, and because I hadn’t built my life around him I was happy to back in Missoula spending time with my friends and with Lucky.

The Universe intervened again, and after a weekend of not hearing from Bob I received a flood of messages from him on a Monday morning. For some reason they hadn’t transmitted through wifi, and arrived all at once when he entered back into cell-phone range. He’d told me that he wanted to come over on Sunday, but because I didn’t received his messages he got no response. Even though my silence was only because I hadn’t received anything to respond to, Bob started to shift. I was fairly sure I’d break up with him the next time I saw him, but when I picked the bones about the argument and his reaction to being wrong he said the magic words: “You’re right.”

We’d made tentative plans to go to Wyoming together at the end of the month because he has customers there and it’s a beautiful place where I also have friends it would’ve been fun to see. Lucky and I could tag along on the work trip and then we’d make a weekend out of it. Bob hadn’t followed up on a plan, and because his communication had been shoddy when I was in Florida—and he’d been working close to the area while I was away—I figured he might have just gone without me.

I’m intuitive, but not actually a mind-reader—which I see worked more in his favor than not—so when Bob told me he was looking forward to our trip I told him that I’d booked appointments for myself and couldn’t go. There was a flicker on his face that looked like rage, but he cleverly disguised it as disappointment. The real truth was that on a deep, cellular level I didn’t feel comfortable getting in a car with him to drive six hours. I have friends down there, but couldn’t shake the image of Lucky and I stranded on the side of a highway. Or worse.

The dynamic had permanently altered. I was booking appointments, making plans with my friends during the week, and setting clear boundaries. The shift in me caused a natural shift in him as well and it started to feel seismic in both strength and depth. I kept thinking I’d break up with Bob, but he kept driving hundreds of miles to see me, and then acted sweet and chivalrous upon arrival.

One afternoon I sat in the pedicure chair reading emails. Bob had surprised me by saying he was coming to town that night, but I’d made plans to have dinner with girlfriends and told him that I couldn’t change it. He was fine and said he’d hang out with Lucky and keep the bed warm. It seemed reasonable, and I was proud of my boundaries. But then I got an email that changed everything.

I saw that Donna, the wife he’s been separated from for five years, had looked at my profile on LinkedIn. No other social media websites let you see who is looking at you, but LinkedIn—because the whole purpose is networking—does. I sent Bob a screenshot with a one-word comment: interesting.

He concurred, said it explained why Donna had been acting “funny” the past few weeks. He said the last time she acted this way she’d hired a lawyer and he had to prepare himself for that. I thought back to their awkward arrangement of staying married for the kids and wondered if Donna doesn’t think it’s as fabulous as he thinks she does.

While I was at dinner with my friends, Bob messaged me that his grandmother was “in a bad way” and he was headed to Idaho to pick up his dad and go see her in the hospital. I didn’t think much of it beyond worrying about his grandma. It takes a real sinister character to lie about a sick grandma, and while I thought Bob might be a secret conservative, I didn’t think he was capable of that low-level lying. I hadn’t yet pegged him as a sociopath.

Bob could have just fessed then, but he didn’t, and he came back one more time to see me, armed with an elaborate story about his grandmother’s condition and how tired he was from spending the night in the hospital with her over the weekend. When he announced he was coming to Missoula that Monday I was honestly surprised, and lacked enthusiasm. He sent a text that said, “salmon for dinner?” but I felt a knot in my gut, not a rise in my heart. I’d grown tired of him thinking he could drop in whenever. There had been another shift.

Bob picked up food for us and we talked a little, but we were both tired and went to bed early. I felt unmoored and emotionally unwound by the fact that Lucky was turning thirteen the next day, and that I’d once again fallen short of the mark in finding a suitable partner for myself so my loyal, loving dog could rest. Bob thought it important to be there with me for Lucky’s birthday morning (he sure had a way of reeling me back in), and said he was looking forward to a lazy morning together.

But I had bad news: I’d booked a morning appointment then a coffee date and walk with friends for Lucky’s birthday. A lazy morning simply wasn’t in the cards. Another shift, another glimmer of rage on Bob’s face.

He tried to get me to cancel, but I was firm. I was seeing a Physical Therapist about issues related to my previously fractured sacrum, and how I could retrain my body out of its old holding patterns. It would take a while for me to see that healing my spine held weight, and was more metaphor than not.When I left that morning I barely hugged or kissed him goodbye. I didn’t do this intentionally; I just did it. He said he might make it back later in the week, but I was flippant. He got the message. I’d detached. The entire week went by and I heard nothing from him. I knew he was taking the kids to Idaho to visit family for their school break, but it was odd. Nothing.

After a full week with no contact I sent a message, then another three. It might have looked a little psycho—after all, I was done, wasn’t I?—but I’m no heartless tinman and I worried. I’d said to him in the beginning of our relationship that it occurred to me that something dire could happen to him—a car accident, a broken leg—and nobody would even know to tell me. All he said was, “Oh how sweet. You care…”

My wheels came off and I reverted back to an old behavior: I snooped. I mean, I didn’t really snoop, but I found his well-concealed Facebook page. He told me he had an inactive account, but I suspected otherwise and finally located him. The challenge was not so much that he has a fairly common name, but that he had himself listed as living in Oregon, a state that according to him he hadn’t lived in in over fifteen years. Tricky. Cagey. Sneaky. I didn’t like the way that felt.

I saw that he’d not only made a post a day earlier, but that he’d tagged Donna in it. I sent him a text about getting “Chummy with Donna again? Does that explain your disappearance?” I also remembered something he’d told me in the beginning that I’d subconsciously filed away for future reference. He’d told me that if he sensed me losing interest or backing away that he’d just disappear. I wrote another message (yes, I’m displaying all my crazy) letting him know that by not responding he was making it clear that he was disappearing. “Message received,” I said.

Bob had tagged two other people in his recent Facebook post, and I clicked on their profiles. I saw that he and Donna had sent a gift to a relative (ironically the same French Press coffee pot I introduced him to) and that he was in a few photos from something called “Memorial.” There were so many things in this situation that are outside the realm of Google, but this one was easy. I quickly learned that Memorial is the Jehovah’s Witnesses version of Easter.

I started researching the Jehovah’s Witnesses and learned that while adultery is frowned upon, if a man repents then the submissive wife is obligated to forgive him. A cornerstone of the JW cult is repenting; if they do then Jehovah forgives. The JW website says, “What a relief it is to know that Jehovah will forgive our sins—even sins as serious as adultery or murder! He will do so if we have a forgiving spirit, if we confess our sins before him, and if we manifest a changed attitude toward our bad actions.”

How convenient! A person just changes his attitude and he’s forgiven.

I became sick to my stomach. I sent Bob a frenzy of messages and he finally replied, to say goodbye, to wish me the best of luck with my writing, and that everything I’d figured out about him was true. At this point I didn’t know that he’d lied about his relationship with Donna, but I’m sure he was just beating me to the punch and apologizing in advance.

The following day was a daze, but after work I went to Donna’s Facebook page and sent her a message letting her know that I was no longer seeing Bob. I told her he’d stopped responding to me, but he’d left some things at my house and I would send them to her if she wanted them. I wondered if she really had hired a lawyer, and if so, Bob’s left-behind items might come in handy. When Bob had fessed about being married (though separated and living apart) I warned him, “Above all else I believe in the sisterhood.” I suppose he thought I was bluffing.

Over the next two hours I found out that they’re not separated and they live together as husband and wife. There’s no cabin down the road. I found out that when I backed out of the Jackson, Wyoming trip he took Donna and the kids. I learned that grandma was never sick.

Donna found out that I wasn’t just a friend and that her husband and I had been having sex. Unprotected, at that. She never got too riled up. She just kept saying he would deny everything.

I offered Donna all the evidence a woman needs to prove her husband was having an affair, but when I asked her point-blank what she was going to do she said, with unnerving ease,“I don’t know.” I couldn’t believe it, and realized that there was only one person in the equation who was really surprised by this information: me.

Bob hadn’t lied to me about his previous dating; the guy is a repeat offender.

Donna said she’d wanted to contact me when she first learned about me, but didn’t want to seem psycho. She seemed glad to have heard from me, to learn the score, though it didn’t seem she was really keeping one. She told me she’d read a lot of my blog and said, “You sound like such a nice person and very down to earth. I’m so sorry this happened to you.” It had happened to her before, so she’s used to it, but she knew I’d been blindsided.

My boyfriend’s wife was sorry this happened to me…

My heart broke for this woman.

Donna had to get the kids to bed and said we could talk more the next day if I wanted to, and it didn’t occur to me until later to wonder what Donna wanted, or if Donna even knew the answer to that. In the morning I worked, and then went to the post office to mail Donna’s adulterous husband’s things to her at work, hoping she’d present them with divorce papers, though in reality she probably slid his clothes back into place in his closet as if nothing had happened.

The next morning I messaged Donna with a direct question, a question whose answer had kept me awake most of the night. I asked her if her husband has or has ever had any STDs and her response was the kind of stuff that is beyond what anyone could make up, but sadly isn’t. (This is why I prefer non-fiction.)

I asked her about STDs in relation to her husband and she sent me an emoji. Very specifically, as you can see, she sent the blue Facebook thumbs up. That is some very sick shit.

Translation: If there is no wind, row.

I really hoped Ashton Kutcher might knock on my door to tell me I was being punked, but no such luck. I asked Donna, “Is that a yes?”

She replied, “Yes.”

Donna told me he has HPV, which despite being incredibly common is also potentially deadly. I hear it can be passed through kissing—not just through oral and genital intercourse—and that because it’s so common and easily transmitted nobody even talks about it or discloses their status. I’ve never tested positive for HPV, but told Donna that because her husband and I had never used condoms I’d keep an eye out for it.

She responded by asking me why I was having unprotected sex, and I felt the sting of the stones she threw at me from her glass house. I stared at the blinking cursor for a while and debated sending an emoji, but finally decided on a numbered list. I said, “1. Because I’m stupid and 2. Because he has a vasectomy.”

Donna’s next response was almost as good as the thumbs up. She said, “He told you he has a vasectomy?” It was the last thing she said to me.

I had to get to an appointment so figured we’d pick this up later, but by the time an hour had passed Donna had blocked me so we could no longer communicate. I had no idea if she’d even tell Bob that she heard from me, or if she’d just be glad—for the moment—to have her husband back to herself.

Having been the victim of untrustworthy behavior doesn’t mean that I can’t or won’t trust again, but I also know that when we’ve been lied to—and when we’ve denied our intuition and not trusted our guts—it is challenging to return to a place of trusting our own judgment again. In general I am an excellent judge of character, but when I’m wrong I’m very, very wrong.

When I lived in Honduras I dated a native who promised me he wasn’t like other Latino men, but it turned out he had girlfriends (he was a lawyer and called them clients) on neighboring islands. I’ve never had island fever or wanted out of a place as badly as I did the day I learned that news, but I survived.

I wasn’t sure I’d survive that one. I had to figure out how to rent my house and how to get Lucky and myself off the island back to the States. I didn’t even know where we’d go or what we’d do when we got back, but we needed to go home. That adventure is another story, but it serves as a useful reminder: I survived. In fact, we all survive. I can now say I’ve survived being on both unfortunate sides of the adultery equation, and I have no doubt I’ll be better for it. I already am.

I’ve survived dating the sweetest drug addict you’d ever want to meet, who repeatedly and habitually lied to me about being high. He didn’t mean it—he was sick—but it carved away at my ability to trust myself, my judgment, my inner knowing. It was torture, though in that equation there was also love. He survived. I survived. We all survive, though the truth is that none of us get out of life alive.

A week after Bob and Donna erased me from their lives, I came home from work to find a Jehovah’s Witness pamphlet stuck inside my door, a pamphlet called “What is the Key to Happy Family Life.”

My heart raced. I opened the door to make sure Lucky hadn’t been messed with, then I ran back out onto the sidewalk to see if any of my other neighbors had a pamphlet. It was garbage day, so I looked to see whose garbage cans were still out: those people weren’t home. I check all the doors on both sides of me, but nobody else had a pamphlet. Of course they didn’t.

A pamphlet is not an apology.

I knew that the JW literature was not for me. It was for him. It was for Donna. It was for his religion that he’s committed to when it’s convenient. I’m sure its placement in my door jamb was simply a piece of the repenting process which was most definitely not about me.

I’ve learned a lot about the JWs. I’ve learned that they believe yoga opens a person to demon attacks. Jehovah’s Witnesses are advised against pursuing a higher education and see it as an improper use of time, but really they don’t want their people to educated themselves into a position of doubting the church. As an interesting side effect, Jehovah’s Witnesses have the lowest average education and income levels of any religion in the United States.

While they are against higher education (they call the educated “wordly”) they are not opposed to domestic violence. Watchtower articles praise women for staying with husbands despite violent abuse, and Witnesses are encouraged to stay with violent husbands except in extreme, life-threatening situations.

I couldn’t be further apart from these people if I tried, thoughgoodness I have tried. But I was duped. Bob outright lied. He lied by omission and he did it meticulously. Months later I still can’t figure out if I’m more disgusted that I had sex with a married man or with a Jehovah’s Witness. It was like the equivalent of doing an emotional speedball (heroin and cocaine mixed together, for those not in the know), when you think you’re simply taking a Tylenol and drinking a strong cup of coffee.

Before posting this, I did something I’d never done before: I sent the essay to my mother. I wasn’t looking for her permission or approval, but I wanted to make sure she was okay with the part that mentions her and told her that although it’s part of my story, I’d remove it if it made her uncomfortable. I also wanted her to have the opportunity to read about my most recent upsets before it went public. I owed her that.

Her initial reaction was that I think twice before “putting it out there,” but after a couple of days she felt differently and understands that as a writer I’m committed to telling my truth so that others may feel more comfortable with theirs regardless of whether they ever speak about it. But really my mother wanted to make sure that I’m okay.

In a lot of ways I’m more okay than I’ve ever been. I feel strong. I feel vibrant and alive. I have a huge smile on my face more often than not. I feel supported by my friends. In an odd way I feel healthier—both physically and emotionally—than I have in a long time. My mother asked me to promise her that I’m taking care of myself, and I did, with full confidence.

“You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?” she asked me and I laughed. “No,” I said, “I wouldn’t. I mean…I would. I would lie to you about my current state to protect you.”

She laughed and I did too, and then I said, “I promise I’m not lying now.”

There is always a silver lining.

Love in the Time of Love

Because reading is at the absolute top of my favorite-things-to-do list, I needed to do some rudimentary math to calculate how many books I needed to bring with me for three months on Ibiza. I use the Kindle app on my iPad—so I knew that I’d have infinite books available for airplanes and indoor/night reading—but I needed to know I’d have enough books for beach reading.

My suitcase has four pockets that seem made for books (or dirty laundry), so that was the number I gave myself to work with. It was hard to pass up some of the unread titles already on my shelf—The House of Sand and Fog, Just Kids, Sister Water—but after an absurd amount of toiling I hammered out my summer reading list.

I started with Beautiful Ruins, a story that takes place over fifty years mainly in Italy and Los Angeles, but—like a sneak-attack preview of my future—an area of Idaho not far from Missoula makes a cameo appearance toward the end. Beautiful Ruins is a clever book. It bridges small village life with big-city dreams, and weaves together stories over entire lifetimes. The common thread is love in various forms: lost, reclaimed, misdirected, selfish, silly, self-defeating, desperate, undeserved, etc.

Thinking of love in it’s various forms made me think of this:

There are so many ways to love.

Beautiful Ruins is poignant but really funny too. I marked many pages with stars, hearts, and underlinings, and in the back made a list of page numbers that include images so good I need to share them withy a friend. I always write my name in my books as well as the place and date when I read it. I can usually look at that and be thrust instantly back to the place I was in (both physically and emotionally) when I first read the book. My markings serve the same purpose, and for Beautiful Ruins it will always take me to the time I lived in a rustic pagoda-style hut tucked into a hill previously burned by fire. It also happened to be the place where my book matched my bedding:

Jess Walter wrote about wishes that get upgraded to prayers, and how “Words and emotions are simple currencies. If we inflate them they lose their value, just like money.” He wrote about how foreigners view Americans, “It had such an open quality, was such a clearly American face…He believed he could spot an American anywhere by that quality—that openness, that stubborn belief in possibility…” I marked that line as interesting though it would be another couple of months before I really understood both the truth and gravity of that statement.

I finished Beautiful Ruins, but wasn’t quite ready to let Jess Walter out of my sight, so I read every word on those pages including an interview with the author in the back where he says,

“The story itself was pretty simple, reflecting a question I had asked myself: what might cause a man to go looking for a woman he hasn’t seen in years? I wonder if the truth we know from physics—that an object has the most stored energy right before it acts (think of a drawn bow)—was true of romance too, if potential wasn’t, in some way, love’s most powerful form.”

Holy Crap. This sentence was how I started my summer, and it became the self-fulfilling, bottomless, occasionally painful thesis for my time spent in Europe.

The next book I dug into was Donna Tartt’s The Secret History. I’m not even into thrillers, but this one is psychological and got me thinking about things I didn’t even know I cared to think about. I even cheated one night and read a few pages in bed. By the time I started it I’d made friends I enjoyed taking to and laughing with, so often toted the book to the beach but never even poised my pen over the open pages.

The Secret History is an upfront book. In the very first paragraph we know someone has died and we even know who, then in the second paragraph we’re told it was a murder yet it takes three hundred pages before the act happens, and then almost that many more pages to flush it all out. I also chose to read this very long book with deliberate slowness—I’d read a chapter and then assimilate the pages with a good, long swim—so I wound up carried The Secret History around in my beach bag for so many weeks that it needed several rounds of surgical taping to make it through.

The end of The Secret History was a pisser because I hated to say goodbye to it (even after 558 pages) and because I wasn’t sure what to read next. One of the books I brought with me is a book I’ve wanted to want to read for over a decade, but although I’ve held the book in my hands like it’s a treasure (and it is) I’ve never been able to sink my heart into it the way I’ve hoped.

I think I can officially say the stars may never align for A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and me, though I’ll never say never. Even though it’s core is autobiographical, it’s not quite rooted in reality enough for me. Without any attachment to the pages, I left it behind knowing that finding it on the yoga retreat’s bookshelves would be total score for someone.

I have a male friend I’ve known for a while now. One summer when I was particularly overwhelmed and self-punishing he’d twist my arm into doing fun stuff I swore I didn’t have time for. Sometimes he’d announce we were going to float the river or go out to dinner and I’d say, “I can’t. I have to get my act together.” He’d sigh, look at me, and say, “No you don’t, Jaime, it’s just an act anyway.” One evening right before I moved away, we lounged on twin couches watching something funny on television, and he turned to me and said, “Isn’t unrequited love the best?”

Both Beautiful Ruins and The Secret History feature unrequited love as a character, and a strong character at that. If my summer thesis was about the potential of love, then my closing statement comes from a book that is the unofficial bible of unrequited love, Love in the Time of Cholera, AKA as the last beach-read that I started (and enjoyed) but didn’t finish. The truth is that I enjoyed the book, but barely got into it, ending at the spot where Fermina’s husband dies and she’s about to give it a go with a man who’s waited fifty years for her. But I got this, and this I needed:

“Think of love as a state of grace; not the means to anything but the alpha and omega, an end in itself.”

Maybe love isn’t about anything beyond the moment we are in it? What if….

There’s no actual cholera in the book that I know of, but it’s a punchy metaphor for lovesickness, which shares a lot of the same symptoms. There’s even an adjective—choleric—that refers to a disposition that’s at its worst is irritable and bad-tempered, but at it’s best is ambitious, passionate, and strong-willed. Choleric people like to get a job done and they like to do it ASAP. They’re good at planning but are also impulsive and restless. The element associated with this element is fire. Folks, I think I might be choleric.

I don’t think I’m choleric ALL of the time, but it’s one of my default settings in love for sure. In my last blog post I wrote about how grateful I was when a man I started seeing at the end of the summer called me out on some bullshit behavior. We’d had our first disagreement and I acted like the word choleric was invented for me. The worst part about it was that I’d let a little thing become a bigger thing, and all day the poor guy tried to help me let it go, but I was having an absurdly hard time doing that.

Anyway.

Finally he called a spade a spade, and made it clear he knew what I was up to: I was behaving badly because I loved him and I wasn’t quite sure what to do about it. I hadn’t felt that way about anyone in a long time, and even as I was falling in love I future-tripped about all of the (quite realistic) roadblocks that stood in between a summer fling (flirty and trendy) and something with staying power (boots for inclement weather).

I left Ibiza for Rome, but I found the middle ground between Forever 21 and L.L. Bean, and arranged to spend ten days with Mario in Barcelona before I returned to New York. I knew there’d be a lot of joy in that time together, but I also knew that it would be emotionally with the reality that we had no idea when we might see each other again. I wasn’t exactly sure how choleric I would be…..

At some point I’d had a delusion of recharging my visa and spending ninety days in the USA before going back to Barcelona to live happily ever after, but a different love-related reality hit me the closer I got to it: there was no way in hell I was going to voluntarily spend any more time without Lucky. The summer had a unique set of family circumstances, but that was over and Lucky and I need to be together. He is hands down the number one person who’s taught me about the kind of love that’s as far from unrequited as it gets—the unconditional kind of love.

Somehow I was able to get my old job back, find friends who’ll take me in, and cobble together a plan for a road trip that involves visiting family and friends en route to Missoula. When I mapped all of my stops together it turns out that the shape of my trip is a slightly crooked smile, turned up and curled a little on the Northwest side. It even kinda sorta looks like a smirk, or the mirror image of a question mark depending on how you see it.

I’m beyond thrilled to be taking my old man on what is bound to be his last major road trip. A cross-country trip is enough for most people, but I’m basically doing everything BUT the part of the drive that’s a direct shot between NYC and Missoula.

Lucky has been traveling with me since day 1, and it’s really no big deal for him. Plus, we thoroughly enjoy each other’s company. But, at 12 ½ , is Lucky too old for a big trip? I suppose that’s possible, but he’s going to have a comfy area in the backseat and plenty of time to do what old dogs do best: sleep. If it doesn’t agree with him I’ll figure something out, take a more direct route, slow the pace, whatever he needs. In the meantime I know a few things to be true.

This is a dog who loves to travel:

When he’s tired he can cozy up:

He can get some space from his mama if he needs it:

He knows that there will always be something that makes it worth the trip:

In some rapid time-elapsed version of my current life I’d have an ending to the story I’m entrenched in. The passage of time would be apparent when the reel zips forward to Mario and I living in a sunbeam-filled cottage on a tree-lined street near a town that’s charming but still has a bit of grit. There will be a garden and one or both of us writing books. Soup simmering, tea brewing, even from a photo you can tell the place smells out of this world.

The aesthetic would be a mix of old and new with beautiful colors and textiles, heavy on the house plants. In the final frame one of us would turn to the camera with the surprise being a baby with the gentle eyes of a Labrador. These images will come as the credits roll, but there will be no more dialogue. Townes Van Zant singing “If I Needed You” will play, and people who cry during romantic comedies will cry.

But the thing is, I’m not one of those people who cries at the end of sappy love stories when everything goes right. I can barely sit through a Rom-Com unless I have the flu or five loads of laundry to fold. I’m just too realistic for those story lines, so when I find myself in a live version of one I hardly trust it and feel miscast in a role not appropriate for my range. But we all know that life’s best adventures begin outside our comfort zones.

As if it wasn’t bad enough leaving, I had one of those hideous, terrible, good-for-nothing departure times so my airport taxi picked me up at 5:00am. When we (still) weren’t sleeping at two in the morning Mario decided to hard boil some eggs for my snack bag that also included two cheese sandwiches, granola bars, breadsticks and a plum. He wrapped most of it in aluminum foil, and I overlooked the environmental impact of this to focus instead on the fact that he wrapped my sustenance in something so resistant to corrosion.

When I arrived home I was pretty battered, but I had more than a few things to look forward to and some surprises too. One of the surprises was a package from a friend I made at surf camp a few years ago. It was great timing, because in addition to being a nice treat, it was also a reminder that with a little effort we can stay in touch with the friends we meet traveling. I knew Tracy was sending me something because she asked for my address, but I wasn’t prepared to be so touched by it.

Tracy had sent me a mint-condition, vintage copy of The Mentor from 1919 that she came across while rummaging around in an antique store in Minnesota. “It made me think of you,” she said, and signed her note, “Blessings.” The Mentor is an obscure, defunct periodical, but an interesting one. Its purpose was to present information in an accessible way so that people might “learn one thing every day,” which is also inscribed on the cover.

The issue that Tracy sent was about fiction writing with a focus on women authors. It profiles a few writers and then gives some great writing advice that’s just as relevant today as it was ninety-five years ago, but the best advice is the very last thing printed on those pages:

Make The Spare Moment Count.

I’m starting to believe it’s the spare moments that matter most, the time that feels half-borrowed, half-stolen, like the cash you find in the pocket of a winter coat. It’s the time that suspends and contracts without warning, time that’s separate from limitations. It’s everything that exists beyond the outer limits of possibility.

In The Middle of The Night

I couldn’t sleep last night, and this could be for any numbers of reasons with the top one being: I have shit to do. It’s important to note that I’m on vacation, but when you’re a writer (or a person cursed with a desire to be always observing, absorbing, interpreting, dissecting) there’s no such thing as being totally “on vacation.”

Trust me: I relax. I meditate, do yoga, run, talk to my dog, read, crack up with friends, etc., and my dial does have a low setting but it never goes entirely off. It hums even at rest. This is irritating at times for me and often for my friends. I pay such close attention that I can be exhausting to be around. That’s a fact, but this blog post isn’t intended to be an exploration of all that’s amok with my internal structure, but rather to talk about what happens in the middle of the night when sleep is not one pillow flip away.

I tried for a while to deep breathe myself to sleep, but this method is only about 30% successful for me. I drank water. I peed. I straightened the covers. Then I turned to the thing we’re definitely not supposed to do and shouldn’t even have on our nightstands: I lit up my iPhone.

This is my typical “I can’t sleep” routine. I play Words With Friends if I have any games stacked up. I check email. And then ultimately I turn to Facebook, the real sleep killer. Last night’s/this morning’s Facebook feed was full of great stuff. First I read a sad National Geographic article about how dark it’s getting in North Korea and why. There was a satellite image to accompany the article and it stunned me wide awake. It wasn’t even a long article, but full of current and historical information that made me realize how goddamn lucky I am. We are, all of us, extraordinarily lucky.

Then I watched a friend’s video of Ethiopian dancing and I thought of that friend who I’ve known for over twenty years now and the good work he’s doing in Africa. I thought about how lucky I am to know so many fine people and how even though I don’t regularly see a fraction of the folks I love, we’re able to stay technologically connected to one another and this is so much better than nothing. We can all knock the crap out of Facebook and Twitter and egregious selfies, but I’ll be honest here: I really like it.

For some reason the Ethiopian dancing made me think of the evolution of dance, and that led to me cracking up alone over Jimmy Fallon and Will Smith’s “The Evolution of Hip Hop” skit from Fallon’s first night hosting The Tonight Show. I did not started thinking about evolution (it was approximately 4:00 am, people), but I did toggle over to YouTube to watch Judson Laipply’s “Evolution of Dance” video and all I could think was: how can I get a date with this guy?

The past month (not even a full thirty consecutive days) have been spring-loaded with boyfriends past. Not the ghosts of them: the real deal. I’ve had conversations, interactions and time-suspended lunches that have stretched my already over-thinking brain and over-feeling heart to mega proportion. It’s been consistently more than I’ve thought I could handle, and then the universe hands me another one, and each feels like a simultaneous punch and kiss.

I went to the gym yesterday at the really nice club here in Florida, and while I worked out on a machine that threatened to launch me like a cat on a treadmill I watched Dr. Wayne Dyer talk about his new book I Can See Clearly Now, and I was (literally) holding on for dear life (nice metaphor) when I heard him say, “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” I guess I’m ready, because ready or not here they are.

Last night I had a unique opportunity to spend an evening with two of my ex-boyfriends at one dinner table. One is from college who, up until last spring, I hadn’t seen in almost twenty years, and the other from the not too distant past. The latter had his wife with him and a couple of their good friends. I think a few years ago (hell, last year) I might’ve felt incredibly anxious about such an interaction. I used to worry far too much what people think of me, and I’m beyond grateful to have shed that unnecessary skin. It was exhausting.

It was fun. We talked, laughed, everyone got along. At the end of the night I exchanged information with people who’d been strangers a few hours earlier. (One of my favorite things ever.) Sure it made me think about where I’ve been and where I’ve been-been, but it didn’t really make me think so much about where I’m going. More than ever, as I cruise the home stretch toward forty: I’m really fucking happy in the moment, this moment, this one second that is all I have to really worry about. Will I take another breath? Yes. Oh good. Proceed as usual. This is a new skin, much softer and less armor-like than the last, and while I’m still adjusting to the fit it isn’t something I’m interested in sending to the Goodwill. Like ever.

But the moments of not sleeping when you desperately want to be are uncomfortable, and so what’s a girl to do but watch Oscar acceptance speeches and weep? Jared? Lupita? OMG. These people give me so much hope. The grace and eloquence with which they spoke last night was enough to get me upright and writing.

Leto said: “You have an opportunity when you stand on this stage. You can make it all about yourself, or you can hold up a mirror and shine a light.” He told a beautiful story about his mother, who he brought as his date, and he didn’t make his speech political so much as he made it global. In addition to a huge heart, he also seems to have an excellent sense of humor, and to say he’s easy on the eyes has to be one of the bigger time understatements ever. (Apparently he’s dating June Squib so I won’t even ask…)

And while I’m on the subject of crushes: Lupita. The second line of Lupita Nyong’o’s acceptance speech drilled me, “It doesn’t escape me for one moment that so much joy in my life is due to so much pain in someone else’s.” Wow. Her authenticity and gratitude are nearly palpable, and the best part: they’re available to every one of us.

Another thing available to all of us even when sleep isn’t: dreaming. Both Jared and Lupita spoke of dreaming, and I love their words:

“When I look down at this golden statue, may it remind me and every child, no matter where you’re from, your dreams are valid.” (Lupita)

“To all the dreamers out there around the world watching this tonight, in places like the Ukraine and Venezuela, I want to say we are here, and as you struggle to make your dreams happen, to live the impossible, we’re thinking of you tonight.” (Jared)

I believe in dreams and also in silver linings. They’re sometimes hidden in the relationship that didn’t work out or the people we don’t talk to but should. They’re even in the fact that I missed a good night’s sleep but was rewarded with watching the sun rise over The Everglades. I took it through a screen, but you get the idea. Good Morning, Friends.

A Year and A Day

I have a love-hate with the iPhoto feature that shows only the photos from the Last 12 Months. Love is scrolling to the top for a visual wake-up call that reminds, “Look. See. You’ve come so far.” Hate is “Hold up, yo. Where’d last year go?”

Up until the turn of the year from oh-thirteen to oh-fourteen I could look at my Last 12 Months and still see my life in Missoula, even if it was just the tail end of a good, long run. Then, in the first few days of January I could no longer see my life in Missoula, but the images of my leaving of Missoula remained.

Friday marked the anniversary of the day I left, and was the last day these pictures were in the Last 12 Months folder.

Now, within a short span of time (short enough to be measured in hours) my life in Missoula has vanished from my iPhoto past year’s record. The oldest photos right now are of me saying goodbye to my friend Sam, in Jackson, and then there are photos from the road, followed by the ones of my car with an elk splattered on the windshield and hood. Some things are better forgotten, except they’re not because then we’d also lose the lessons and what a shame it would be to lose the opportunity to learn.

And so it goes as a year peels away. What’s here today is tomorrow a year and a day away.

January 3rd also marks the anniversary of both a departure and a fresh start for my dear Missoula friend, Mikey Heinbach. As it turns out that was the day after he lost his job and the day he decided to get sober. Not everyone does a bang-up job the first time around, but Mikey’s a real success story. You can read his store HERE, and I’d encourage it if you need a story of faith today or any day.

Beneath Mikey’s you can also see the incredible support and comments from his friends and supporters, many of them in Missoula. And then, if you still don’t know, you can ask me why it was hard to leave a place I love, a place that gives great hugs. Yes, I’m anthropomorphizing, but Missoula really is a city that has human characteristics, its hug giving just one of them.

At times the hug of a close-knit town can feel like a net that says “Don’t worry we’re not going to let you fall. Trust us.” But it can also feel a bit like a noose. It’s a real yin-yang type of place, that Missoula, with a duality that’s deep-rooted.

There’s so much space in Montana, but sometimes it felt, to me, like there wasn’t enough to bounce off of. Living now in The City affords me more to bounce off of than any person could ever need in her entire lifetime, but here something else is lacking. Here you have to stay alert, pay attention. A person can’t just space out and go for a walk, and today I’d give just about any-any-anything to be able to hike up my beloved Waterworks Hill. I look this picture five (gasp!) years ago, on New Year’s Eve 2008. (The reason there’s nobody on the trail is because it was quite a few degrees below zero.)

When I first lived in Missoula there was a billboard-sized peace sign on top of the hill, and because i lived underneath it I used it to navigate my way home.

The thing is: I loved my life in Missoula and the people I met there are hands down the best I’ve met anywhere ever. If I ever live somewhere again and have friends half as good I’ll consider myself blessed. But despite that, when i was there I often wanted to go where nobody knew my name. I craved anonymity in a fierce way. When I left it felt like I was breaking up with the town I loved, not because of lack of love, but because we just weren’t as right for each other as we’d once been.

There were times I thought maybe we just needed to restructure our relationship. Or maybe we needed better boundaries. Or maybe just a little space, because no one person (place) can be everything to another. Then i realized maybe it wasn’t Missoula; maybe it was me. Maybe it was me in Missoula.

We parted on good terms. I changed my driver’s license and plates, but still have a bank account and a storage unit there. It chokes me up in a weird way to think about giving up those things, but that could be because I’m currently in a lengthy limbo, which my friend Emily gently reminds me is not a destination. My Missoula roots are timeless, but like most breakups that don’t end with a circle reconciliation: I’ve (kinda) moved on. I’m not even in a committed relationship with another place, but still: I’ve moved on.

{But what I wouldn’t give to be there for an hour or two on a Sunday morning…..}

I first moved to Missoula as a twenty-six year old divorcée, which was not exactly how I’d pictured it. I was young enough to reclaim my twenties (I couldn’t have picked a better place for that task!), but too young to realize that my favorite parts of my life would be the ones that missed the mark and went off the grid.

I love planning, but as it turns out the best stuff is what happens in between everything you’ve planned, in the accidental gaps where there’s just enough space for a little magic to happen. And where does this magic happen: in the places where we pause and breathe. If anyone—even the world’s best psychic or astrologer—had suggested that I’d be living in NYC (under one roof!) with my mother and grandmother I’d have suggested that person throw in the towel on clairvoyance and sign up for some vocational school classes ASAP. I wouldn’t even have explained it like crazy, I’d just have simply said, “There’s no way that would work.”

Now, the situation here is far from perfect, so far that it’s at the top of the list of most frustrating scenarios I’ve ever been involved with. The end is only occasionally in sight, and it’s a squirrely little thing that moves toward and away as it fancies. Some days are better than others, but the fact that we get along enough that no blood’s been shed is nothing short of a miracle.

I’d have bet good money against us, and I’m 33.333% of us.

I lost my footing on Friday, and not just because of Winter Storm Hercules that dumped a lot of snow on a city that has nowhere to put it. Highways shutdown and airports closed—lives were affected in big ways. Lives were lost. At least sixteen people died as a result of Hercules, including a woman with Alzheimer’s who wandered away from her house. I just kind of lost my mind.

It was 100% unsafe for my grandmother to go out, yet Mimi gets antsy when she’s trapped inside the house so we were stuck with a lose-lose situation. When Mimi’s restless she asks more of the same questions with greater frequency. Her general confusion is heightened and her tears more frequent. Her anxiety skyrockets and you can’t be a part of our household and not be affected.

To have all three of us confined in the house on a snow day under the best of circumstances could be dicey, but a few other issues left me on the brink of implosion so I took one for the team and headed for the streets. Many sections of the sidewalks were unshoveled or only partially cleared because I’m not kidding when I say this city has nowhere to put the snow, and more than a couple inches cripples the place. I think we got around eight.

Despite the single digit temps and frigid wind, I doubled-down on my down, wore a thick hat, two pairs of gloves and a scarf that I wrapped around my face. I figured tears frozen to my face would only complicate my situation. I didn’t think about where I was going, I just went, and this was probably a good thing since I wasn’t exactly in an optimal position for decision-making. Somehow, instead of going to a neighborhood that I like, I went to a place called Jackson Heights.

A few weeks ago I went to Jackson Heights to meet someone who might’ve helped me navigate my healthcare options, but it was a frustrating bust and I hated almost everything about that day including the crux moment when I decided to walk home instead of getting on the subway. In the process of walking home from Jackson Heights I discovered what it felt like to be in a real-life version of Epcot where several ethnicities are represented on every single block. On many of those blocks I didn’t see another white person. I didn’t hear English.

NYC men aren’t known for their restraint, but in Jackson Heights they get right up in your face to call you precioso or caliente. The women are pushy too. One woman touched my eyebrows and attempted to drag me into a hole-in-the-wall salon for what I could only imagine (based on the dragger’s permanently surprised face) would have been a complete violation of my eyebrows. When I dug my heels in and used the sharpness of an affected Spanish accent to make my “No!” sound more serious, she effectively questioned my decision by raising one of her penciled eyebrows at me.

I said “no gracias” to a manicure when another over-coiffed women made it clear without words that I was either blind or stupid not to do something about my naked nubs, and although her price fell with every curt “no,” eventually our eyes locked in a moment of understanding and she let me go. For the rest of the walk home I kept my pace determined and my eyes locked and loaded.

That’s the thing about international travel, or a day in Jackson Heights, or communicating with animals: so much is said through gestures. It’s what’s critically missing in email, texting, and virtual communication, and why we need to take extra care with those modes.

Actions can be louder than words and words can be louder than actions and sometimes we’re wrong. And as much as my mother might disagree, I love to be wrong. I love to have my beliefs flipped inside out. I’m tickled to discover a new way of looking at something.

I’m living in Sunnyside, which this New York magazine article lists as reason #11 to love NYC because it has cuisines from twenty-seven countries and five continents within a seven-block stretch of Queens Boulevard. It’s remarkable. While I may not be living in a bubble over here, Jackson Heights offers a completely elevated level of multicultural. I struggled to get a cup of coffee (despite knowing enough Spanish to do so), and even though I said no to azucar when asked how many I got enough in my cup to make my eyeballs twitch.

After my first trip to Jackson Heights I ~~swore~~ thought I’d never go back. It happened to be a rainy day, and by the time I got home my cotton pants had absorbed water nearly to the knee. They’d grown so heavy that I had to keep one hand on them to keep them from falling right off, so with one hand on my waistband and one on my umbrella I was quite a sight hobbling through Jackson Heights, though nobody noticed. It’s the kind of place where you can sing out loud and half walk-half dance as if you’re a backup dancer or in a Prancersize exercise video and nobody notices. They’re certainly not going to notice if you’re gimping your way down the street.

I wrung my pants out in the bathroom sink when I got home, and the water that filled it was nearly black. NYC’s streets are filthy—this is not a secret—but I think there’s extra soot and grim in Jackson Heights where the trains run overhead on an elevated track that’s open, like a roller coaster, to the ground below. Residue from the trains (including but not limited to steel dust from the tracks and asbestos particles from brake linings) falls to street level where we wear, breath and probably eat it.

So, yes the “real” Epcot even has its version of a monorail except the whole thing is far more exhilarating. At first it’s scary when a train flies by because you can’t hear the voice of a person standing a foot in front of you or the music blasting out of your earbuds. It’s hard not to imagine that at some point the track’s going to fall from the sky, but like all of the sensory onslaughts that NYC offers: you get used to it.

After that day I considered a tongue-in-cheek Facebook post about how anyone craving an international vacation—but lacking time or cash—could just take a trip to Jackson Heights. When ready to repatriate to the United Stated, explorers could travel via Woodside (which was originally an Irish neighborhood, and still resembles Ireland in places) into Sunnyside, which after Queens’ 2-legit-2-quit Epcot, feels like a quaint, serene New England village.

That night, under my covers and hiding from the world, I was positive that I’d never go back. But despite the fact that I’ve done considerable research in this department, I never cease to be amazed by the power of a perspective change, and yesterday that’s exactly what I needed. I needed to step outside my comfort zone in order to step back into myself. I could’ve gone anywhere, but I chose my nemesis.

I could’ve walked in the direction of my yoga studio in Astoria, or to the shops and restaurants in Hunter’s Point, which are right up my alley. I could’ve walked myself right across the 59^th Street Bridge to Manhattan, or down to the East River for a view of Manhattan. (This was taken in September, but the view is good any time of day or night.)

But I wasn’t looking for up my alley, and I wasn’t looking for my comfort zone. I needed an experience that would transport me out of myself for a while, and so I chose the place that almost undid me a couple of weeks earlier. I wanted to see if I might find something different there, which was of course to find something different within. I questioned my questionable judgment, but figured that the worst that could happen was that it was a flop and I’d move on the Plan B, C, D etc.

The first thing that happened—before I was even out of my neighborhood—was that I started to laugh. It’s well founded that moving the body is important for mental health, and something I’ve known about myself since I discovered track in seventh grade. I wrote about it during the dark ages of September 2012 when I ran despite unhealthy air quality in Missoula as a result of forest fires.

As I walked into “Epcot” I turned off my music, and I found that listening to the multitude of languages allowed me a mental vacation. Instead of focusing on my interior dialogue, I heard the unfamiliar words but focused on nothing in particular. I quieted. I found the pause. My laugh turned from a nervous response over entering into the unknown into a genuine chuckle. Just to play it safe, I kept walking.

All in all, I probably walked close to two hundred blocks on Friday, yet I could’ve walked a hundred more. The unfamiliar parts of the world—even the ones that are close by— ignite my curiosity and sense of discovery, and allow me to recharge and restore.

Or maybe it doesn’t so much matter where I walked, what I heard, or what I saw. Maybe I was ripe for a perspective shift, and the physical movement and change of scenery enabled me to tap into what was already inside me.

Just because time is trimming the past off my Last 12 Months photo folder doesn’t mean it’s gone. Not even close. Those pictures are like shadows. They’re there, they just don’t exist without the light.

Here’s a picture of me and Lucky in shadows almost a year ago on a rural road in New Mexico, and then another of us yesterday reflected again the side of a grocery store.

Here are a few more photos of some of the sights of Jackson Heights: 1) An Indian fabric store; location Noted, 2) Kababs and phone cards: one stop shopping, 3) I don’t think so….., 4) Discoteca, 5) Where to buy those white shoes from “Vacation,” 6) The mannequin has dance moves, 7) These kids are ready to party too…, 8) A few “everything stores,” 9) Pink Horse, 10) Hitting Lucid on the way home; lucid is one of my favorite words….What a perfect reintegration station.

SMILE THOUGH YOUR HEART IS BREAKING

Sometimes as I’m walking down the street I’ll catch a scent that reminds me of my grandmother. It’s not the aroma of a flowery perfume or a roast in the oven or the cinnamon sugar of fresh-baked pastries: it’s a sour smell. It’s garbage.

The smells surprise me. They emerge from restaurants’ grease traps, from musty, piss-soaked sections of concrete, from dank subway platforms. The volatile molecules seep out of confined airshafts or from one of New York City’s many manholes that try, but fail, to contain an underbelly overflowing with waste.

My olfactory memory engages where my grandmother’s arrests, her deficit a result of mental health issues that include dementia and OCD, both undiagnosed due to an irrational fear of doctors, both also an expression of her disorders.

The grandmother I know now is not the grandmother I’ve always known. That woman: she’s gone. Throughout my childhood my grandmother taught me many lessons that I took as truth, but only now am I questioning the validity of what she preached and modeled. She told me not to take on anyone’s problems as my own, to let life’s baloney roll off my back and, as one of her favorite songs instructs, to “Smile though your heart is breaking.”

My heart breaks for my grandmother’s lifetime of stifled emotions and for her belief that a smile is a permanent Band-Aid. It’s challenging to keep smiling as I clean up my grandmother’s life’s accumulation, as the stories my family has told disintegrate like the dust that covers her cherished collections.

I am an only child of an only child, which means there are exactly two of us to care for and clean up after my grandmother. My mother and I have spent the past five weeks sorting, donating, and disposing of the results of my grandmother’s hoarding, but walking into her house it’s impossible to tell a single thing has been removed let alone a dumpster’s worth. It looks like the woman who lives there is destitute and without anyone who cares about her, though both couldn’t be further from the truth. There’s a fine line between choice and disease.

A couple decades ago my grandmother tore up the floor in her kitchen and hall exposing several layers of the previous generations’ style choices, leaving behind the heavy ridges of rigor mortis-like glue. In the hall is a tower of tile that’s been waiting to be installed for twenty years, though for my grandmother it’s “never the right time.”

Only one of the tiles has been used though not for its intended purpose; she’s used it to cover a gaping hole in her bathroom window where a pane of glass is missing. I don’t know what happened to the window, but because my grandmother has a temper it’s not out of the question that she put her fist through it. This isn’t something she’d share with us though she’d smile, look us in the eye and deny it. She’ll do anything to preserve her façade.

Her kitchen only has hot water, several light switches are taped over, and most of the house’s wall outlets are inaccessible. Those that can be reached are overloaded with tangles of outdated extension cords that snarl in corners and run like track marks across the parquet floors.

There are two broken televisions, furniture you couldn’t give away, and orphaned lampshades stacked like miniature versions of Pisa. There are enough envelopes, blank greeting cards and paper clips to open a small office supply store. My mother has shredded a dozen thirty-gallon bags worth of bank statements and tax documents from the last century, and we’ve recycled just as many bags of long-expired coupons, cancelled envelopes and discount-store circulars.

As my mother and I remove the garbage—dozens of blown out light bulbs, a plastic whiskey barrel full of mop handles and curtain rods—we reveal additional disasters and it becomes clear: my grandmother’s house is crumbling under the weight of what it’s been carrying. It’s trying to take my grandmother with it.

Until recently you had to shimmy sideways to get from one end of the apartment to the other. Because it’s unsafe, my mother and I have threatened to call the fire department or insurance company and my grandmother responds by slamming a door in my mother’s face or telling me to pack my bags if I’m there to bust her chops. My grandmother’s lost her ability to reason, but one truth is as clear as it ever was: she doesn’t want anyone coming inside her house.

She has enough sets of fine china, sterling silver flatware from Tiffany, and glassware (for everything from apertifs to digestifs) to host dozens of guests, but there’s a catch: she doesn’t entertain. She never has. I can count the number of people she’ll invite into her home on one hand, and it’s been so long since anyone has been allowed inside for so much as a simple repair that what was once a home has deteriorated into a hovel.

My grandmother has resolutely denied anyone the opportunity to clean for her, but with the courage my mother lacks I matched my grandmother’s fierceness and finally said, “I am not going to let you die in that filthy apartment.” It started as a threat, but then there I was in a mask and rubber gloves, stuffing two black contractor bags full of moldy clothes from her bathtub. I worked for four hours in that bathroom, but she didn’t seem to notice or more likely she didn’t want to talk about it.

Last Sunday my mother took my grandmother to visit relatives, and I stayed behind to tackle the bedroom. I started by bagging up and dragging out most of the items belonging to people who no longer have a pulse. It seemed cruel, but we just can’t keep it all. What got us into this mess is not what will get us out. I repeat that like a mantra.

I found hundreds of crumpled and balled up knee-high stockings, dozens of crocheted doilies, and seventeen curtains still tagged and wrapped in plastic. I unearthed enough ace bandages for a professional ball team, at least six sets of slippers, and a mint-condition abdominal exercise machine (my grandmother is almost ninety).

I discovered a box of hundreds of laminated prayer cards for every funeral she’s been to and some that she hasn’t, and just as many keys to long-defunct locks, some of which opened doors that never even belonged to our family. I found stacks of restaurant napkins because how else is she supposed to get the rolls home?

I dug out yellowed newspaper cutouts on depression, anxiety and the danger of emotional attachments to things.

A cedar trunk and several Rubbermaid bins held enough bed linens to outfit several families, and I bagged most of them for Goodwill. My grandmother sleeps in my deceased grandfather’s old, broken down recliner in what should be her dining room, but I kept a few sets of sheets in case she ever changes her mind. Erring toward hope, I decided to freshen up the recently cleared off bed.

I pulled back the musty comforter and sheets, and saw that my grandmother had used a ballpoint pen to draw faces and write words on the fitted sheet. I crawled onto the bed and kneeled over her art for closer inspection. Some of the faces had hair, some sported sideways smiles, and some had a straight line where a mouth would be.

She signed her autograph a few times, and in black Sharpie penned a note to me, “Hi Jaime,” she wrote, “Hope all is well with you, Love ya,” and next to it a simple, “Hi Jaime” in perfect cursive. With an impossible lump in my throat I stripped those sheets off the bed.

I’ve always loved that verb for changing a bed: strip. I exposed it; I made it naked. It felt wrong—stripping my grandmother of her secrets—but someone has to do it and the job’s defaulted to me. The bare mattress was deplorable. Its satin cover has vertical splits, and a ruptured side seam exposed the inner foam and wire. Even without a body sleeping on it the mattress came undone from the weight of what’s been piled on it for years.

I located a mattress cover, a set of soft, clean sheets and a heavy, brocade coverlet that my parents bought on their honeymoon in Greece. I pulled the linens taut, tucked tight hospital corners and jammed clumpy pillows into cases and decorative shams. I made it beautiful. I made that bed as if it matters, as if it might make a difference.

When I finished I stood back, admired my work and burst into tears. When I’m doing this work with my mother I try to keep it together, but alone I let it rip. I sobbed and worried about how much of my grandmother’s turmoil is inside me, and I wondered, as I often do, why we’re so culturally adverse to showing our true feelings. And I don’t mean just my family, though we seem to have a bad case of it.

My cleaning is not going to mend my grandmother’s brain or heart, but yet I continue. I dig through the rubble and scrub surfaces in part because it needs to get done, but also because an organized exterior might calm some of the agitation that percolates inside her. I have faith and hope in that possibility, but I do this work for a different reason: I do it for love.

On some level I’m doing this work more for me than for anything or anyone else. I do it because loving someone when it’s difficult is one of life’s greatest challenges and rewards.

We have a responsibility to care for our young and our old, and often the work is terrible. I have to tell my grandmother, “You wore that yesterday. You can’t wear it today.” I don’t mention the previous days because she can’t remember those. I have to tell her when she wets her pants and needs to change, and then I have to take the soiled garments and bag them because if I don’t she’ll squirrel them away. It’s degrading for her, but I do it with as much compassion and grace as possible and I’m constantly amazed at what we’re capable of when choice is removed from the equation.

I like a plan, but my mother and I were so far out of our depths that drowning pushed in, so I hired two geriatric care consultants to come assess the situation and help us devise a strategy. The five of us sat around my mother’s dining room table—actually, my grandmother stood, too lathered to sit—and we didn’t make much progress because all my grandmother wanted to talk about was how furious she was at me for inviting strangers into our private business. I assured her I did it out of love, and she said, “If this is the way you show love I’d rather you hate me.”

She asked me who died and left me boss, told me I should be ashamed of myself, and ordered me to leave her the hell alone. The emotions passed, and within minutes she’d forgotten her anger and agreed with the consultants who told her how lucky she is to have a granddaughter who cares so much. I told my grandmother I was confused because minutes earlier she’d told me to pack my bags. At the end of my rope I asked, “Which is it?”

“I love you when you’re not giving me a hard time,” she said laughing, and my reply shocked me, “Are you telling me that your love is conditional?” The underlying causes of OCD and compulsive hoarding are immense, but among them are a fear of not being loved and a desire to receive love through control. With the added attraction of dementia, my grandmother’s well-honed defenses are down and her natural inclinations are up. To say the situation is dicey is an understatement.

One of the phrases my grandmother has always used to diffuse a situation is one she still employs regularly, “Everything is under control, baby. Don’t you worry.” For most of my life I’ve believed everything my grandmother’s told me, but those days are over. I’m no longer buying; I just can’t. It’s not helping and it isn’t the path that will guide us out of this mess.

I’ve realized that the more out of control things are the more adamantly she’ll try to convince me that they’re not. The more she smiles in the midst of chaos, the more I prepare for the bottom dropping out. I actually feel encouraged when she cries, because although it’s sad, she’s expressing her emotions without resorting to rage or compulsions. This is good. I think she’s as tired of the worn-out stories and excuses as I am.

Each day new truths manifest from the dregs, and the path is clearing. I see that it’s the truth that will get us out. Well, that and smiling.

I Love

Last Sunday I completed another ten-day Master Cleanse, and let me tell you: It’s not just a physical and cellular detox, it’s a deep emotional cleansing as well. I cried some of the sweetest tears of my life on the last night. Good stuff. I’m working hard on my book—the final push before I leave here—and wasn’t sure I’d write a blog post this week but I couldn’t help myself from writing a list of what I love right now.

I love my Taos writing group at SOMOS, who so graciously accepted me into their group and don’t judge me for just passing through. I love their stories, their writing, their insights; I love their honesty, compassion, and grace.

I love my neighbors. The one who offers me lettuce from the greenhouse, the one who meets me outside when I arrive home because it’s been a week since we’ve seen each other, the ones who have me for dinner, the ones who are never too busy to ask how my book is going, the one who sends Lucky home when he’s running amok.

I love that dog.

I love that although my nerves were ravaged after killing that elk they have righted themselves, and I love that I now see the fifteen-mile drive home from town as a thing of beauty and not a thing to fear.

I love that I got new really bright headlights out of that mess.

I love gratitude.

I love that I’m not nearly as judgmental as I used to be, and I love that means I’m also judging myself less harshly.

I love that the only constant is change.

I love the coyotes that won’t let me go to sleep and the rooster who won’t let me sleep in.

I love that we’re never farther than one sleep from a brand new day.

I love choices, options, and free will.

I love putting one word after another and creating a book that may or may not help others the way I hope it will, but which is helping me just be removing it from my insides. {cleansing.}

I love my friends and family.

I love hanging clothes on a clothesline, clothespins clipped to my hem and stuck in my mouth. I love how a simple action connects me, despite geography, to my grandmothers and their grandmothers. I love drying myself with stiff, line-dried towels and how that feeling takes me back to being a kid at the beach with my Mimi.

I love that the more things change the more they stay the same.

I love what I realized yesterday: That Missoula was a wonderful place for me to “grow up” because you can be whoever you want to be in that lovely valley, and you can grow into the person you’re meant to be. I love that I feel like Taos is the same—anything goes—and that in reality we can be whoever and whatever we want to be wherever we land. I love that geography is not the big limitation, ego is.

I love that I finally discovered a deodorant that smells like coconut.

I love that after years of being mostly on the giving end, I’ve been receiving weekly massages here in Taos and don’t feel that I need to apologize for it. I especially love that last part.

I love possibility.

I love that I’ve gotten to a place in my life where I can look at the people who’ve hurt me with compassion instead of anger, and wish for them health, healing and wellness.

I love floating in oceans and I love doing handstands in swimming pools. I love hot springs. I love water.

I love that I’m looking forward to taking my high-desert parched skin to the Gulf of Mexico for hydration and salt-water therapy.

I love that the next step isn’t as intimidating as it was a month ago.

I love hope.

I love that story I read last night about the doctor who cured criminally insane patients by improving himself. He did this by looking at the patients’ files and repeating, “I love you.” I’m sorry.” It worked.

I love life’s limitless possibilities.

I love the power of words.

I love the power of thoughts.

I love the power of love.

I love you.