We await the storm that may be a hurricane. Somewhere in North Carolina, Isabel is a giant pinwheel churning her way north. Our poor waterlogged trees will have a hard time holding firm.
THE NEXT DAY
The Artiglias’ dead tree fell on my new writer’s cottage. I returned to my house after Hurricane Isabel (I had stayed the night at the Papoulakos’) to find such devastation that I was beyond feeling anything. Two giant trees lay across the yard, with a third having crushed the roof of my brand-new cottage. I was the worst hit of anyone in town. But my mother’s painting on glass survived, my book of Auden poems is dry, and all the furniture—all—is undamaged. Every picture, plant, rug, chair, and pillow was spared. But after seeing how fragile a house is, now that a tree has demolished mine, I cannot look at any house as all that secure.
The town does what it always does in a crisis—pays attention. Offers of help from people I barely knew came in. Justin arrived from New York and has been my strong arm, with a chain saw attached, ever since. All over town, men in pickup trucks with chain saws were driving around, looking happier than I’d seen them in a long time.
How primitive one becomes without electricity. Without hot water, life immediately becomes difficult and dirty. And by seven o’clock in the evening all activity grinds to a halt. Two nights ago, sitting in a dark living room, all that was left to do, had I chosen it, was to play the piano, perhaps compose a new song. People become more precious and essential.
Shortly before Hurricane Isabel struck, I received an e-mail from a Match.com subscriber saying that he had just found me online and that apparently we lived in the same town. He said he found my description “quite interesting” although he had to be honest and tell me he was “a Republican and not an intellectual.”
I wrote him back and thanked him for his interest and honesty but admitted that his views gave me pause. “They may not be red flags,” I said, “but they’re certainly pink. Truthfully, I’m not even a Democrat, but more a Socialist looking for a leader. And I have a very active life of the mind.”
He wrote back and said that maybe we weren’t a good match but he thought I sounded very interesting and how about just having dinner. To which I replied, “Well, I guess that would be okay. The last man I was seriously interested in didn’t even believe in Social Security.”
We made plans to meet that were canceled by the hurricane but a few days later we rescheduled.
Tonight, Ragan Phillips comes for a date. I cannot say I’m feeling wildly attractive. Sixty-four is sixty-four. What one loves is inside.
Ragan Phillips, tall, bubbly, and smart, sixty-seven, from a small town in Kentucky, has come into my life. And he lives in Ashland! He comes with three grandchildren and a chocolate Lab puppy. Last night we had dinner at the Ironhorse, and tonight he will come by before I leave for Italy. I think he would be easy to love. He is “open to the new,” as Mother would say. I am struck by how he resembles J in certain ways. He is confident, manly, and sexy. He is not put off by our political differences, and he is a risk taker, someone who thinks about what could be if only…. This last is not like J, who almost always played it safe.
Yesterday, dear Ragan brought me a guidebook of Tuscany and a bottle of Chanel perfume for my trip. He looks older in the daylight, but so, I’m bound to admit, do I.
IN ITALY
An exuberant e-mail from Ragan. He is still interested and open and full of life. The desire to love someone in an easy, growing way has been awakened. But I don’t want to confuse him with a lovable dog. That being said, I was so cheered to hear from him. It is hard not to hope.
Just now I am sitting in the biblioteca on Via della Sapienza in Siena at a library table with three young students all poring over their books. The quiet is barely broken by the turning of a page or the hum of a distant heater. The walls are lined with ancient hide-covered books behind mesh-covered doors.
I despair of ever really learning Italian. The prepositions get me down, no pun intended. Articles escape me and other languages, learned earlier, bump me off the track. “Your Italian was better when I first knew you,” remarked Jennifer. Quindi, quale, oh my golly! A baby would understand more. If I was here long enough, I would crack the code.
While working on a self-portrait [part of an art class I arranged for the writers at Spannocchia] I was brought to tears by my own face as I stared at it in a mirror. How old I am! It was hard to bear. Jennifer spoke of a similar experience she had when she was part of a class, where she was asked to stand in front of a mirror and look at herself without any clothes on for ten uninterrupted minutes. “I found myself crying, not only because I was no longer young but I could see the hurts and bruises and sorrow—the way I sometimes see them in others—and I was filled with compassion.”
To be able to feel compassion for oneself and not, as I felt, aversion and disgust, is the sign of a humble heart, and Jennifer has one.
One of the young American interns at Spannocchia told me this story.
Originally, her family came from Italy. There were three brothers, whose parents died. The two oldest brothers decide to go to America, and they ask a friend of the family to keep the youngest until they can afford to send for him.
When the two older brothers go down to the emigration office to buy their tickets, they get separated. Both say they want to go to America, but which America, North or South? asks the official. They don’t know the difference. One says “America” again and his passport is stamped NORTH AMERICA. The other says “the same as my brother,” but since the brother can’t be found, the official stamps SOUTH AMERICA on his passport.
The two brothers board separate ships and are lost to each other. Meanwhile, the third brother’s keeper secretly wants him to marry her daughter when he is grown, so she tells him his brothers have abandoned him, and after duly marrying the woman’s daughter and having a family he dies, thinking the story was true.
Sometime later, one of his daughters discovers a box belonging to her grandmother, containing letters from the two older brothers. The descendents of one brother live in Argentina, the other in Boston. The grandson in Italy is a wealthy man, and he flies the impoverished Argentinean relatives to Italy, where they are joined by the other brother’s relatives from Massachusetts. Today the family is together again.
Lost and Found. Every family could tell its own tale.
Home, home, home! The dearness of my house, town, and friends sweeps over me like a familiar language. Since returning I have filled my ears with overdue news from my children and friends. I am grateful for my safe return.
Yesterday’s energy session with Peggy was a complete blessing. I got off the table feeling entirely restored, all the jet lag gone. I felt grounded, vital, back. My fears of losing my mental capacities and my eyesight were lifted. “I’m afraid of losing my marbles,” I confessed. “I put all your marbles back,” she said.
For twenty days I have been without a Chinese journal in which to write. During those “lost days” I was smitten by a man who lives in Ashland. Now, unsmitten, I sit here wondering whether I am past marrying or partnering. He went from being a tall handsome man with a distinctive voice to a huge blow-up plastic figure with a booming voice. I felt as if I had no room to move.
The gulf between us kept widening in my mind until I felt dizzy with the difference. What I’ve discovered is how much space around me I need—to sit, to talk, to think, to be. Ragan, on the other hand, seems to be happier on the move. I have been almost overwhelmed by movement: errands, taking drives to man-made lakes that leave me cold. I was relieved when he announced he was going home last night. “I don’t want to push a good thing,” he said. I thanked him.
I am amazed at how much time I need to collect myself to feel whole. At this point, perhaps always, I would not feel comfortable with a man around all the time.
Twenty-four hours later I have changed my mind again. Ragan’s phone call, after the above had been written, brought the tide back in
. We know each other a little better and have agreed to take our friendship a little slower. “Perhaps an engineer and a philosopher can’t meet but I’m hoping they can,” he said.
Lots of conversations afterward with others—Elizabeth, Pat, Debbie, Sarah. This is where women have such an advantage—this ability to connect with friends. Sarah made me laugh and think. She cautioned against looking at Ragan as a reflection of myself. “Narcissism! Think of him as a pine cone or a glass of Diet Coke, something that has dropped into your lap, or been given to you, but is distinct from you.”
All my wiser friends advise me to take it easy, enjoy him for who he is.
I’m still up in the air about Ragan. He seems awfully large sometimes, and my ability to let him be himself when it doesn’t square with my self-image is marginal. I don’t know if he can be deprogrammed. It would be cruel in a way. Who am I to change someone’s whole life and conditioning? He would have to want it for himself.
Early Saturday morning. I could not sleep. I missed my evening call with Ragan, who finally got through after I’d gone to bed. This morning I thought how similar loving is to building a fire. It goes out if left untended. Reading Robert Ellsberg’s chapter on “Learning to Love,” I thought of how real love opens doors to something larger than oneself.
Ragan continues to unfold like fabric that gets more beautiful with each flip of the bolt. I love the way he alternates so easily between understanding and silliness. I can feel my heart growing daily, which has its uncomfortable aspects, as if it could fall with the weight of love and break.
I leave for California tomorrow. The last hour with Ragan in my living room was a confirmation of his worth. He spoke his mind about his heart and it was then that I wanted to sit at his feet (as in fact I did) and hold his hand in mine.
Here are my deepest thoughts. When the tide of love is in, I swim happily on the surface, free to go in any direction while floating. When the tide is out, I can see what has been hidden by the water, the old boots and cast-off tires the water has obscured.
I am also aware of how important it is to think about one’s life as a story. Introducing a major character at the last minute can either unbalance or reinforce the plot. The idea of a beloved companion to share my life could become a dissonant chord that ruins the symphony. And what about Ragan’s life and story? Would I be what he needs?
Liftoff day for California. Wanting to be there competes with wanting to be here. Who could turn away from a man who puts you on a monthly subscription to Peet’s Coffee, sends his yardman around to clean the gutters, and knows how to talk about real things on the phone? Pat and Debbie already have us married.
En route to California. Below me in the late afternoon sun the land looks like the frozen floor of an ocean, which it probably was. The surface has the pink opalescent shine of an abalone shell. Now the sun has sunk a little. The empty snow-covered ridges that are sweeping ahead into the Rockies always amaze me. Water must have raked over these mountains for thousands of years. Below is a thick blanket of cloud that moves under us in the opposite direction. Now I see what may be part of the Sierra—the buttes are steeper, canyons more pronounced. I imagine whales swimming between the mountains, skimming down the flanks to the bottom. The same snake-shaped river continues to move west. The path of least resistance is beautiful. As the sky is drained of color, the mountains look like giant algae leaves, veined and wrinkled. I cannot see any signs of light or life, other than an occasional straight-line road. So many centuries and immigrations later, we still have not come close to filling this country up.
All day yesterday I blinked away with my eyes, taking “pictures”—the mist over Monterey as I came over the hill from Carmel, my granddaughter Rhys’s smile, her brother Toby’s earnest face with the basketball under his chin, Eliza’s smile, Christian Jr.’s bright blue eyes.
Last night in Jim and Belinda’s house with the blazing fire and lighted Christmas tree, with Francesca Farr and John Hicks, was close to heaven. Here were souls of such quality and shine. I want Ragan to know them. We found ourselves singing or reading favorite hymns, Hymn 289 and another that John read aloud from one of Belinda’s hymnals. Later, at the restaurant, Jim made friends with everyone on either side, confessed that perhaps he wasn’t really a Republican. But what a strong fine mind he has. I don’t really want him to switch parties, or there’d be nothing for me to push up against. John looks more refined, handsomer than ever. That small sad-eyed man with nut-brown skin and little hands is quiet with grief over Priscilla, now over two years gone. But he is content to be so. Belinda’s eighty-four-year-old sister died earlier this month. All this we exchanged over our meal.
Yesterday morning on the Carmel beach with the bright sun and mist, I thanked God for my eyes that I could see the glory of it in every detail. Joy wakes me up at an earlier hour, makes me sleepless and more alive.
A wonderful talk with Ragan. I found myself trying to limit our conversational exposure because I was afraid he would say something that would sow doubt in my heart. His daughter Meg surprised him with a visit from his younger daughter, Kellady, and his dog, Bear, which she had been keeping for him. He had not expected either of them. He misses me. “Last night I reached for you,” he said, and I could tell he was in tears. Part of me was moved; part of me wanted to say, “Get a grip.”
It is early Christmas morning and I have already spoken to Ragan. I love him, but not with the passionate intensity I have loved other men. “This is not my usual story,” I told him.
There is a stage in the formation of a paper-white narcissus when the flower is still encased in the shaft but pressing against it, visible in the skin, waiting to burst into the air. That is how I feel about Ragan. I am still shy, not wanting to be observed by others in this stage.
On my last day in California, Ragan reads me a story over the phone he wrote about a woman who is going to break off a relationship but goes to Italy and decides she loves him after all. At one point, he chokes up. I was so touched by the thought and appalled at the writing that I didn’t know what to say. “It’s really a love letter to you,” he said. My feelings have been painfully full, balancing between wanting to rush forward in a reckless way and worrying that loving someone this much could hurt me terribly if he pulled away.
In the air. Going home. A bright blue sky, favorable tailwinds and a smooth ride. Ragan’s love has been so constant and caring that I am beginning to feel my balance—acquired after years of walking without a partner—deserting me. I am as clear as one can be in this high blaze that committing myself to Ragan is committing myself to him for the rest of my life.
* * *
Rereading Einstein’s Dreams by Alan Lightman reminds me of how we shape our lives like a story, how unconsciously we attract plots, outcomes, and other characters who undermine or complicate our unfolding drama. We supply the meaning—and therein lies the difference between one life and another.
* * *
2004
JANUARY 1
Home again. An ecstatic Ragan at the airport, an ecstatic me. A New Year’s Eve as loving as I had hoped for, and on New Year’s Day we were together. How I feel right now I am not sure. But after forty-eight hours with Ragan telling me in no uncertain terms how much in love with me he is, I begin to feel crowded again, as if I cannot be so far in the lead. In another way, it is Ragan who leads me, willing to let me take my time as my feelings grow. “I’m glad you waited for me to catch up,” I said to him. “You’ll never catch up,” he answered. This is romantic stuff—to have, at the age of sixty-four, a man who is passionate about you.
Not even two days after being together, I am beginning to feel “on overwhelm,” as Mother would say. I feel too full of doubt about my abilities to enjoy him on enough levels to make a go of it. It upsets me to realize how far the pendulum can swing, but I can’t deny that the peace and quiet I feel at this very moment is as delicious as any of the idylls we’ve had in recent days.
Yesterda
y at Peggy’s we talked about men. I told her my journal was ecstatic one day, despairing the next. She said her journals have looked like that for twenty-seven years. She counseled me to be patient, to learn to flow more easily between the physical, emotional, and spiritual aspects of my life. If my mother had been looking for someone to send me, she would have wanted it to be someone like Ragan, with a big heart. “The other things would not have mattered.”
That being said, I don’t think it’s wise to resist my doubts any more than I resist my enthusiasms. Eliza’s remark about Ragan’s place in my life rings true: “You have spent a lot of energy, consciously and unconsciously, making it all right to be alone, and before that you had a traumatic relationship, so it’s not easy to change.” I thought that was brilliant and, coming from one of my own children, touching.
A coat of snow fell on the town last night. I walked around the neighborhood. There is such a charm and familiarity to it, each house holding its souls inside like candles quietly burning.
An old book [The Choice Is Always Ours] just surfaced in an upstairs bookcase, like a bright stone that had sunk into the mud. The editors write of the false gods of success, happiness, peace, and security. The first is obvious. The last three have worked their way into my bones.
Yesterday I felt vaguely disoriented. I wondered if it lay in my concerns about my relationship with Ragan. I want to put a cork in his bottle, keep his feelings more contained so I can handle them better, have room for my own. He is such a good man and I miss him, while worrying that he may not give me enough room to be myself. We are not that different from animals in a zoo. Each needs to have some private territory, enough space to be restored.
Ragan home from a business trip! He mounted the stairs yesterday afternoon and was such balm for my eyes and heart. We stood for at least fifteen minutes with our arms around each other. I wonder about this love I feel. When he gives me stuffed animals from Disney World it makes me feel it’s wrong. But there is something more elemental about him that thrills me. My heart is eased when he is here. His presence in my house comforts me. From one visit to the next his things accumulate: a jacket in the hall closet, shaving gear upstairs, now a Range Rover outside.
The Journal Keeper Page 16