A random conversation with my insurance saleslady a couple of weeks ago has set off a large thought process in the interim. The subject was relationships, particularly as we are older, and my statement was “I know what I'm missing.” Sometimes these pearls just leap out of our mouths, bits of honesty ripened to fruition and ready to spill out, enlightening us. This was such an occasion. It took my breath away with is revelation and I've been thinking about it ever since.
I do know what I am missing. And I miss it! I miss the comfort level that comes with years of shared living, with all its ups and downs, and the delicious acceptance that comes with that. I miss the dream I've always had of sitting on a cold night, warmed by the coals of shared experience and memory, in quiet companionship. I miss knowing and being known so well that words are unnecessary. I miss the joy in loving another so much that watching him grow old, come into his own, face life's challenges, pursue his interests now that employment is not a mandate, is a deep and fulfilling balm to my soul. I miss loving at that level that celebrates the individual above the relationship and sees the relationship as a means to the end of individuation of a very special order – individuation in tandem, if you please. I miss having someone to get my back, as it were - something I have never experienced, though I have given it often. I miss collaboration of projects, sharing the delights of a day's accomplishments with a significant other, sounding out an idea with one whose opinion I can trust, seeing the world through the eyes of a beloved other. I miss touch, my favorite sense.
So I am wondering if it is possible for two people who have not shared a history to enjoy this level of companionship and compatibility in a new relationship. It's the good stuff to which I have always aspired, in every relationship, even when I was young. This is the something that is beyond sex and procreation – the something that would give new heights and ecstasies to sexual union were it to occur, and with the respect and understanding that a mature relationship would demand, but without the compelling necessity for physical union especially at an age when decline is anticipated. This is essence distilled in the touch of a caress on a face, the exchange of a significant look.
As I was thinking about this one day this week, leaning over to pull weeds in my garden, I imagined that I saw movement on the periphery and looked up quickly, as if in a trance, to see a “figure” walking toward me slowly, in deep contemplation, as if it were the embodiment of the partner I have fantasized forever. How I would welcome sharing my life with another with whom I have such a connection while having such a distance as well. There is a love in my soul that is the best love I've never given that awaits such an occasion. And it is so precious to me, it is a fantasy and belief of such long duration, that I am perfectly comfortable dying without its fulfillment rather than to compromise ever again. If I can imagine it, it can be a reality. All it takes is one other person who shares the dream. Nothing less is possible. There is simply no point in it.
But this begs the question of the ability of two people, with two very different histories over a rather long period of time, to combine those histories in ways that allow a sharing of the coals of memories that can fire the present. I like to think that this suggests an intimacy and sharing that is beyond the usual by quite some degree. And I find that this is what I dream of having in my old age if dreams were to come true: a level of intimacy and sharing that is the self totally stripped to nothing, in total honesty, and shared with another who is equally honest, so that together we celebrate the lives we've lived and honor our tenures on this earth, together we make sense of the lives we've led. An exquisitely beautiful vision, even if I never realize it. I am satisfied to know that I have that love to share and that still passionate desire for same.
A wise man once told me, Everyone needs someone to whom to tell the story of his life. I have pondered this for nearly 40 years. At the end of life, as we review and evaluate the lives we have led, I believe many of us crave this event, if we are honest. For myself I can easily admit that I need to be able to tell and share the life I've lived, and I desire to give to another the affirmation of that level of sharing. My life has counted for something, with all its mistakes and trials. It would be so lovely to have that accepted and affirmed, to share with the best friend I never had. But not without reciprocation, which is to me a rule of relationships. I cannot give or receive without reciprocation. I cherish my dream.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Mother's Day Music
I have five daughters. The first four were fathered by my first husband and I think of them as "the litter." All four were born in just over five years - and it was wonderful! I'm a woman who could have had a very large number of children. I absolutely loved being a mother to young children: the pregnancy, delivery (they were all born at home and I delivered two myself), and nursing, watching them grow, seeing their individual personalities emerge, encouraging their mental development, listening to them at play - you get the drift.
So having them grown and gone far from home is an enormous loss (my fifth daughter came ten years later, so is like an only - and she too lives far from home). We can get together rarely and never have all five been together in one place at one time.
However, this year the oldest four came here for Mother's Day and I have to say that the music of their voices as they interact with one another is the most beautiful sound in the world to this mother. But there's more. I find my eyes just clinging to every detail of their faces, hair, bodies, just as when they were small children. I think mommy love never changes in some ways. And my desire to hold them, sit them on my lap, stroke their skin and all those things that are appropriate when they are small is just as real today as it was then. Maybe mommies always see their children as they were when they were young, I don't know. Not that I don't admire the women they have become. I DO!! It's just something different. Perhaps it's something only a mother could have - those memories of the child to whom she gave birth, whom she suckled, in whom she took such immense pleasure.
I don't know if all people take mental photographs as I do but I certainly love the album I keep in my mind. Just wish I could share it sometimes. I've never been good at taking pictures with a camera and don't have a digital camera, which I would use if I had one but just can't afford one.
I'll savor the mental images and memories of this Mother's Day for a very long time and hope with all my heart it won't be six years (that's the last time we were all together and then for the first time in more than a decade!) before it happens again and that I won't die without having had all five girls together at one time and one place (and not my deathbed, please).
A sidebar to this is my own experience of age. I watch my daughters and see so much of myself at a younger age. I don't have that kind of energy any more even if I do work harder and accomplish more than most people of my age that I know. It's an interesting thing to observe and experience and I find it works best in the context of family and handing off to the next generation. Such a fulfilling experience! I realize in retrospect how different life is for those who live more fully in the bosom of their families on a regular basis. I'm missing quite a lot and I can see how it affects me. Just cause for thought and observation for the introspective one. This is not something you can understand until you get there.
An added feature for me is that I live alone and in complete solitude most days of the year. Very quiet. Nothing but the natural world surrounding me. It is very different to be among so many people, of so many ages, with so much sound. After awhile it is completely exhausting but not in an unpleasant way. Reminds me of the days when I was interfacing with others all the time - a totally different experience. I am grateful to have the quiet time as an older woman because I was always the quiet, reflective, loner sort anyway, although my children were never an intrusion.
Most of all, I am so grateful that I was given this precious experience of being a mother - five times! Absolutely nothing in this life means more to me. Gardening has just been a way to extend the nurturing. I have a full and grateful heart.
So having them grown and gone far from home is an enormous loss (my fifth daughter came ten years later, so is like an only - and she too lives far from home). We can get together rarely and never have all five been together in one place at one time.
However, this year the oldest four came here for Mother's Day and I have to say that the music of their voices as they interact with one another is the most beautiful sound in the world to this mother. But there's more. I find my eyes just clinging to every detail of their faces, hair, bodies, just as when they were small children. I think mommy love never changes in some ways. And my desire to hold them, sit them on my lap, stroke their skin and all those things that are appropriate when they are small is just as real today as it was then. Maybe mommies always see their children as they were when they were young, I don't know. Not that I don't admire the women they have become. I DO!! It's just something different. Perhaps it's something only a mother could have - those memories of the child to whom she gave birth, whom she suckled, in whom she took such immense pleasure.
I don't know if all people take mental photographs as I do but I certainly love the album I keep in my mind. Just wish I could share it sometimes. I've never been good at taking pictures with a camera and don't have a digital camera, which I would use if I had one but just can't afford one.
I'll savor the mental images and memories of this Mother's Day for a very long time and hope with all my heart it won't be six years (that's the last time we were all together and then for the first time in more than a decade!) before it happens again and that I won't die without having had all five girls together at one time and one place (and not my deathbed, please).
A sidebar to this is my own experience of age. I watch my daughters and see so much of myself at a younger age. I don't have that kind of energy any more even if I do work harder and accomplish more than most people of my age that I know. It's an interesting thing to observe and experience and I find it works best in the context of family and handing off to the next generation. Such a fulfilling experience! I realize in retrospect how different life is for those who live more fully in the bosom of their families on a regular basis. I'm missing quite a lot and I can see how it affects me. Just cause for thought and observation for the introspective one. This is not something you can understand until you get there.
An added feature for me is that I live alone and in complete solitude most days of the year. Very quiet. Nothing but the natural world surrounding me. It is very different to be among so many people, of so many ages, with so much sound. After awhile it is completely exhausting but not in an unpleasant way. Reminds me of the days when I was interfacing with others all the time - a totally different experience. I am grateful to have the quiet time as an older woman because I was always the quiet, reflective, loner sort anyway, although my children were never an intrusion.
Most of all, I am so grateful that I was given this precious experience of being a mother - five times! Absolutely nothing in this life means more to me. Gardening has just been a way to extend the nurturing. I have a full and grateful heart.
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