CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The Love Story Embedded in This Story; or,
“I Told You So, Part II”
(that’s for My Future Husband, Epifanio Dang)
“I don’t have those kinds of feelings for you,” My Future Husband (aka, MFH, Epifanio Dang) tells me this in 2000, the first time I ask him directly whether he feels about me the way I do about him. We are in our early forties and this is almost our third decade of knowing each other. And, he reminds me of his "other kind of love" for me any time the topic arises, thereafter, to be sure I cannot claim he misleads me.
He also says, “That’s not our karma in this life.” That seems to be the trump card for his claims that my timults of our future intimacy and marriage don't count.
He often launches into his understanding about how most people “go through this,” meaning, have a “crush on” or believe we are “in love with” someone in authority or someone we admire. He is certain that these infatuations are a stage in a relationship and not "real love." It’s all a metaphor, he explains, for becoming one with oneness.
“Some people,” he tells me, “have dreams about taking baths with, or dressing, the leader, the talented or admired one, the one in authority. Some have dreams about working in business together or having a child, and then think they’re supposed to do that. You’re not supposed to act on these feelings. They will pass.” He seems so sure.
I sigh.
Hearing that from him and variations on that rejection over the next several years should be enough to cause me to give up, right? But, my situation is very different from those he references.
I am not just having a crush; I know him since before he becomes a leader and I don’t have this “problem” when I begin being his friend, not at all. But, the first time I see him, although I never tell him or anyone this until decades later, the first thought that comes to my mind is "That is my husband." I understand this revelation as rooted in other lifetime connections I'm recognizing, nothing to discuss or act on in 1985.
In 1999, when I first start “seeing” (later knowing I'm timulting) the pictures, like soundless videos in a slow motion three-count that end as snapshots, of our being lovers, making love, living together, I am shocked and unhappy to see these naked, sexual scenes. I am not having sexual relationships with men between 1991 and 2003; I believe in 1999 that I do not intend to be with men as lovers ever again. These "visions" I'm having, of Fanio's and my being lovers and married for decades in the future, are completely unexpected and unwelcome; they freak me out a lot. I do not want to be seeing him naked or with me that way. Not at all.
I certainly am not looking for a male lover, or any lover; I am in a committed relationship with a woman I am with for many years. I do not accept my apparent future feelings for him.
I also don't choose to marry anyone, not even Zephyr’s father, due to marriage inequality and the gender disparities in marriage BPC. All these "domestic bliss" scenes, 30 or 40 years of them, with someone I am only friends with, are beyond bizarre.
I am not inviting or attached to or happy about any of this. But, apparently, my opposition does not matter. I continue to accidentally timult many things, including our life together: I see appearances and additions to my increasing library of future “snapshots” that I call “previews” whenever I meditate and swim, am half asleep or have a high fever.
Through 2004, I keep getting pictures of our life together: scenes, short movies, snapshots, and other pieces of our seeming future over that thirty or forty years. I am guessing at the timing of when we are together in this kind of relationship, gauging from how we look in the earliest and latest scenes. I see us in a variety of contexts: living together, starting our relationship in what appears to be our late fifties or early sixties (we are about the same age), living together at some ages during which we have gray stripes in our hair; working on various projects; cooking; making love; sleeping; having visits from our grandchildren at various ages and each of our sons and their spouses; hanging out with friends and sangha members (we are in the same larger Buddhist community because we have the same teacher).
I timult every part of our house, the views from most windows, the house’s property, the driveway/road across the larger property to our house. I see our betrothal, our wedding, the reception. I see us aging and then his dying in our bed, with me by his side, at what seems to be in our late nineties. The scenes come to me out of order and randomly, unbidden.
Our life together in these scenes is so realistic, with such a lot of detail, that I not only “see,” but also I feel, smell, hear and taste all of it. Sometimes, I am simultaneously "in" each scene and watching, from about three feet away and slightly above the "action."
I learn things about Epifanio from these mental experiences that I couldn’t know unless we are lovers, do live together, are knowing each other intimately and over many years’ time. I know what side of the bed we each sleep on (I’m on the right), how he likes to stand in the shower (kind of like a large water bird, tilting his head and putting his back into a reverse curve, letting the water run down his head and back), what he likes and dislikes for food (hates asparagus; loves brown pears, not green; loves wizened, grayish, oily olives; allergic to thyme; limits garlic and onions).
I even see things that occur in his past, some from his late adolescence (sailing in a small sailboat, alone, on Long Island Sound, possibly not his, though), some from years I am not with him often. In one, he is helping build a road, sitting alone in a road-moving tractor-type vehicle. He's feeling overwhelmed and exhausted. Fanio succumbs briefly to despair and tears, then seems to be uplifted by his spiritual practice, a felt presence of enlightened wisdom in the form of one of the Buddhist deities, Tara. He gets a second wind physically as well as emotionally and continues the roadwork. I seem to be watching this from about two feet above his right shoulder.
I know things about myself, also, from seeing and “being in” some of the future scenes. I see how I look, what I am doing, how my spiritual practice infuses my self and life. I see my son, Zephyr, his partner/wife, their two children (a girl, then a boy about 3 - 4 years later).
Sometimes, between 2000 and 2004, I get together with and ask Epifanio specific questions, sneaking in my little checks, on seemingly innocuous “facts.” Each time I do this (“Do you like any particular kinds of pears?”), I make sure he has no idea why I am asking. And, each time I ask about something specific, I find out, amazingly, that the facts check.
In 2011, I visit him in early spring and bring him starter plants from my local farmers' market so he can start or add to an herb garden. I include two different types of thyme, only to find out if his allergy to it is real. As soon as I set the box in front of him, he looks over the dozen pots and immediately points to the two that contain thyme. He won't even touch them. He asks me to take them back with me because he's "severely allergic."
I want to give him a written quiz, but I refrain. Informal results:
♥ He does have access to a small sailboat that he sails by himself in Long Island Sound in and after high school.
♥ He does act and sing in musicals in high school.
♥ He likes brown pears more than green.
♥ He dislikes asparagus.
♥ He does have a kind of emotional overwhelm/ meltdown one day while driving the road-making tractor-thing (I don't know the name of it), in about 1989.
♥ He would like to add a greenhouse to his house, some day, and meditate in it.
♥ He likes a certain kind of Scotch, but does not drink much.
♥ Even though he usually wears his hair long, he never buys his own hair care products; he uses whatever his current lover does.
♥ He prefers bar or liquid castile soap.
♥ Veggies in the bottom left, fruits in the bottom right drawers in the 'fridge. On and on. My timult score? 92%.
During the first three years I am having these pictures, I reluctantly (feet drag
ging and protesting, inwardly) realize that I am in love with him. I tell almost no one, not about my feelings and certainly not about their cause. Eventually, I do tell one or two people. Their reactions are so negative that I never tell anyone else.
One yells at me. Yes, she yells. She says if I continue to focus on these "ordinary siddhis," I'll be reborn in the formless realms. She insists I disavow their credibility and stop thinking about them. Thanks. That helps me a lot.
The other is more sarcastic and patronizing than angry, but also, not helpful. She says things like: "Do you really think that a man who is our age but is dating people half his age would even give you a glance? You are not his type. No one his age is his type. It won't matter if you lose all that weight you've gained, or meditate more, or anything. You're too old. Men like him never date women their own age. Forget about it." Since she's a lot prettier than I am, I do take her comments more to heart than I perhaps ought to, given that she's pissed off at men at that point in her life.
I must be stubborn, crazy, foolish. But, like the song says, I "don't stop believin'."
Having these visions about my possible future changes me in ways I don't plan or want. They change my heart, my perspective, my plans, my hobbies.
In 2001, after about two years of these “previews,” and for other, more pertinent reasons, I end my ten-year relationship with my female partner. This is a good decision, but not one I make for all the right reasons. I'm both proud and ashamed of that.
By the time The Band comes, in late 2012, I am finished with five short-term relationships, with one woman and four men, three of which I have “previews” about in 2001. In 2012, I am single.
Why no other long-term partnerships? Mostly because I have no room for anyone else in a serious way, since my heart is filled more and more with Epifanio regardless of how our bodies live in this timeline.
Observing me go through these brief relationships and knowing my secret story, the pretty, sarcastic friend tells me: "Clara-bell, you are absolutely going to have to stop this RIGHT NOW and get a REAL relationship. Fanio DOES NOT LOVE YOU that way. He really does not. He never will. GET OVER IT." She likes to exclaim a lot to make her points.
One year later, to placate her and stem the tide of unwelcome advice, I tell her I am "over Fanio" and "moving on." I lied. Got her to shut up about it, though.
From 2002 – 2007, I practice and learn to read, write, and understand some of a new language, believing it will become useful to me, to help Fanio with some projects, some day. I learn the ropes to become a low-level leader in our community, knowing it may be required of me to take this role, to help him. I learn more about grants, writing, nonprofit administration, all because I believe….You get the picture.
Emotionally and especially due to frequent, intense accidental timulting, I begin to feel married to Epifanio already, as if we have several decades together in an intimate and happy relationship. I know this isn’t true, isn’t our shared reality (yet); I’m not psychotic. I’m living in two (or more) timelines simultaneously. Timulting unintentionally, almost daily.
Sometimes, I wonder if the Epifanio I already know is not even the same person I have these visions about. I’m not so good at the visual pieces I get using psi and I’m terrible with faces. Really. Maybe he/we diverge a lot earlier and this timeline does not converge with the one(s) in which we are happily married? Is there some other partner for me?
What about Fanio? He has several other partners during these years. I am not upset about the women he is living with or seeing. I think I am not jealous because it isn’t “our time,” yet. I tell myself, on some lonely days, maybe this Fanio is not the one I share my life with in those years. Until it is “our time,” I am not concerned about who else he is with, or for how long, or how he currently feels about me. I often ask and he voluntarily tells me about his current or past relationships. I feel interested and supportive. I’m happiest when he’s happy.
I also am not perturbed that he says, repeatedly, that he does not share my feelings or want what I want. We aren’t looking old enough, yet, even in the middle of 2011 when many of our peers look a lot older than we do. I think along these lines: when the time comes for the phase of our relationship as lovers to begin, either we do begin it or the time passes as it already is. Maybe there really is someone else for me. Or, I remain single. I see that possibility, often.
I can’t know with any degree of certainty what occurs until we arrive there, According to Linear Time, so I can’t give up. I certainly do not give up merely because Fanio says he does not see any of these “previews," can't timult.
Epifanio may not feel that kind of love for me yet, but what about when it’s our time? How can he know now what he feels then?
Every moment, every experience, changes us. Then, there are the numerous Re-sets and what they do to us. Too many variables even for The Band to predict what our relationship is.
Epifanio lives in the present. I live in the future and the present, it seems. Not common, but not impossible. I research this and I’m not the only one who has “bleed-through.” I don’t know how others cope, but I think I’m doing all right.
In 2003, I ask him: “Would you be able to ignore them or give up on what they portend, if you keep having visionary experiences while awake, while meditating, in dreams and at random other times that show pieces of the same future, repeatedly, to you? Remember, I “see” pieces of my future and others' lives years ago which
already happen by now. Mostly, my “previews” are correct."
Fanio does not answer me, directly. He often does not answer directly. But, he doesn’t say he would be able to let it all go, either.
Instead of answering my questions, he often launches into another set of recommendations for me: I need to loosen attachments, I should not be fixated (a common problem for humans), I ought to let go of desires. He provides many other ideas to improve my practice and state of mind. All good advice, which I try diligently to follow. He is a much stronger and more experienced meditator than I am and I respect his opinions and experience enormously. Fine, to a point. Helpful, even.
But, the “previews” do not cease. I get timultaneous adjustments, updates and revisions because things change as time passes, so the futures are also altering. Still, the basics stay the same. Love. Sex. Marriage. Happiness. House. Activities. Family. Friends. All there, frequently appearing at a theater in my mind.
Or, I'm single. And, in some of those in which we are not together, Fanio dies way too soon. I have to do whatever I can to avoid that timeline's occurrences. If I could know what they all are, I would.
In the summer of 2007, during a brief period in which Epifanio is single when I am also single, we meet privately.
I tell him: “I decided last year to transfer my entire set of feelings and desires onto another man in my life, to get them off you. Soon, I will move them off him so they’ll be on no one. What do you think about that technique?”
"I'm interested in that. Describe this man: how do you know him, how often do you see him? Would this result in a relationship?" Fanio asks.
"He is someone else in authority. I met him late in 2005 and I see him many times per week. I wish for but doubt highly that this will result in an intimate relationship. I know he has feelings for me, but I don't think his are going anywhere toward action."
Fanio encourages me: “That might work.”
It does not. I become fixated on both of them, for a while, then lose my attachment to this substitute and am left with my feelings for Fanio. Again.
See? I can lose attachments. Just not this one.
In the fall of 2011, after quantum physicist and mathematician, Brian Greene’s, newest book, The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos, has been out for almost a year, I buy it and read most of it. (Aw, c’mon; who reads ALL of a book like that?) I become excited as I realize these concepts could be helpful to my “cause ” (getting
Fanio to be more open to being with me). I decide to give this book to him.
The main reason I want to give this book to him is to open the door to future conversations about the multiverse. I want to be able to ask Fanio whether he is able to “tune in” to any other versions of reality besides this one, whether he believes I am tuning in. Does he think that multiverse divergences could explain why I keep “seeing” our 30+ years together as spouses while he doesn’t believe we’re heading into an intimate relationship of any kind? I already have one preview of a great conversation we have about this, so I'm eager to see if that one happens in this timeline.
Before I can go forward with this plan (give book, have conversation), unexpectedly, we experience a kind of “bump” in our friendship road.
I hear about a project he is starting and the next time I see Fanio, I offer to help. I feel excited, warm, interested. I say: "I'd like to use my skills to help you know if the property you're considering is the right piece. I could try intentional previewing or I could use my psychometric abilities if I get to be there in person. I will be able to tell whether or not I'll be there a lot."
"What makes you think I need your help? Do you think I can't do this on my own?" Fanio sounds unusually tense, almost angry.
I am taken aback.
He looks at me strangely, moves away and says, abruptly and somewhat dismissively: “I don’t need or want your help. Do you think I need you or anyone to show me what land to buy?" He goes on, hurting me deeply: “What makes you think you’ll be involved? I’m not sure you’ll be there at all.”
Not be there? Not be in his life at all? He wants me to be "somewhere else," not near him?
I feel as if he has punched me in the chest and ripped out my heart. I am not exaggerating. The pain is intense. I'm finding it hard to breathe. My vision is tunneling. I start to tremble a little.
But, I manage to keep my outer facade intact. I just nod and back away and leave him standing there. I think I mumble something like, "Okay," before I leave.
I am shaking all over, in a kind of shock. I wander around, looking for somewhere to be alone. I go outside and I sit there, far enough away that no one can see or hear me; I am sobbing.
This feels so horrible, so final: Is it really all over? Is he that angry with me? Why? What caused him to react to me that way? How long doe he feel like that?
Is he repulsed by me?
Does he really not believe, wherever he goes, I will be there some time, at least?
I did not say I love him or want to marry him. I merely offered to help with a project. Completely innocent.
What is the big deal?
I’m crying, sobbing, heaving. I usually cry, briefly, or just tear up and it’s over. This is not even ebbing.
Although this decision feels monumental since it’s completely out of character for me not to finish an activity or workshop day, I get in my car and leave, even though the day's activities are only half over. I feel as I drive away that I am leaving him forever.
When I get home, after an hour’s drive, mostly crying, a steely resolve begins to arise. Fine. If we’re not going to be together, even as friends, why am I even here? I should move. I don’t have a job, anyway, and I’m not in any other significant relationship. What am I doing in California? Why should I stay? Screw him. Screw my “previews”. I'm leaving.
My family is scattered around the country and each of them has asked me to move closer. I begin to do a job search in each of the cities where they live, focusing most on where my mom and Zephyr live.
Why not? I can move. What is keeping me here, now? My heart aches, but there is also a hollow feeling. "Hope is a thing with feathers" and mine is flying away.
I try to imagine my life without Fanio in it. I just come up with blank, white space. I have to fill that space, I think.
I keep looking for more jobs, outside of California. I apply for several. I don’t cry, anymore, but I’m numb. In shock. This continues for that day and into the next. I talk to no one.
On that second day, to my absolute surprise, Epifanio calls me. In all the years we’ve known each other, he has initiated communication only a few times; mostly, he responds to me rather than initiate contact.
"Are you all right? Did you leave because you were sick? Or, did you leave because of what I said?"
"I wasn’t sick." My answer trails off. I don't know how much I want to share at this point.
"I'm sorry, Clara. I didn't mean to hurt you. But, I felt invaded. Like, you were crowding me. I felt that you were telling me I'm not capable of doing this on my own, that you know more or that I need you to help me. I don't need help, I didn't ask for help. I need you to back off. You get so intense."
"Oh." I don't know what else to say. Invaded? When did the power balance shift enough for me to have the ability to cause these feelings in him? How could he feel threatened by me? I love him.
The efforts he's making feel good to me, even though I don't like or believe the messages. I begin to feel those feathers returning, a glimmer of hope, again.
In this call and another one two days later and when I see him again in two months, we make some repairs in our relationship. I doubt if the rifts seem as large to him as they do to me, so I am glad that he genuinely intends to stay connected.
I am as surprised by his seeming commitment almost as much as I am surprised that he may not want to keep connected. I feel I have lost the thread of who he is or who we are.
I tell him at each contact that I don’t understand what is going on for him.
Each time, Epifanio apologizes, explains, offers many remedies. I cry and ask questions but don’t get all the answers I want.
Through these conversations and some meetings in person over the next several months, it seems that we get to a better place, but I am still bruised, mistrustful, wary.
He is somewhat distant, touchy, and unpredictable, qualities and feelings he has not previously shown.
Among other complaints, he mentions that he has been feeling “uncomfortable” when I “give him stuff.”
Over the years, I sometimes give him gifts, usually for his birthday. Lots of people give him gifts, especially for his birthday. I know this because I hear about it.
Why does my gift-giving bother him? Does all gift-giving bother him? I do not ask him this. I do not want to know the answer he would give me.
However, after hearing his complaint, I delay giving Epifanio the multiverse book. Now, another kind of waiting.
A couple of months later, not on his birthday, we plan to meet.
I bring the book in case I decide to offer it to him.
After we talk for a while and he seems to be in a good mood, I pull the book out and tell him about it.
Then, I say: “This is just something I read that I think you may be interested in reading. You don’t have to take it. Or, you can take it and return it to me when you’re finished with it. Or, you can keep it. It’s up to you. I just don’t want you to feel ‘uncomfortable’ about receiving this from me. I want you to have it because I think you’ll like reading it.”
I hear myself, trying to be so careful. You’re a dope, Clara! Why is everything such a big deal? You need to calm down.
I wished I could achieve more detachment. I don’t know how to be more detached, on purpose. I need to meditate more.
I say, again, belaboring the point, I'm sure: “It’s all right if you don’t want to take the book.”
He responds, looking perplexed, “I have no problem receiving gifts from you. Thanks!” Fanio happily takes the book.
What happened to his discomfort with receiving things from me? Maybe he is now convinced that this book is not a gift, so it's okay?
Or, is this a different version of Fanio? New timeline? Who knows?
I am surprised and confused but I don’t comment.
I decide to wait a few months.
Some time after that, I plan to ask h
im if he’s read it and if he’ll talk about it with me.
When I do, Epifanio seems happy to tell me: "I passed the book on. I read the parts you suggested."
He does not seem interested in talking about it, so I drop it. Very anti-climactic.
I feel so frustrated. Does not match my “preview.”
In my timult of our discussion of the book, we get into a lot of excited talk about the multiverse, alternate timelines, superstring theory. Neither of us is a physicist, but Brian's book is so clear we can talk easily about the concepts.
Different timeline.
From this, I realize something significant: although I “see” pictures of some futures, when I add them all up, they are but a tiny fraction of what turns out to occur in this future. I don’t see most of it. No one could. Plus, some of what I see happens elsewhen.
What are glaringly absent, prior to February, 2012, are any “previews” of the visits from the MWC, with or without Epifanio, or any other significant partner for me in the picture.
BPC, I have no hint or “previews” of any of the Chief Communicator work I am doing, how Earth changes, nothing. Hmmm.
As I explain earlier, what I “see” has varying degrees of correctness. When the time arrives which has previously only appeared as a “preview,” I find out that I may get the setting right, but not the circumstances, or vice-versa. A few details may be right, but nothing else. I see things about myself with other people, or just them, or just me, and later, as these events occur, some or all of the people are not the ones I “see” in my “previews.” Some of the details or snapshots seem more right than others. Even BPC, I learn which ones those are.
But, things can still change: infinite numbers of diverging paths from each moment in time, remember? And, as I understand it all even more thoroughly APC and after ESP training, so much of what happens is left out of my accidental timults completely. When I learn to timult intentionally, I recognize what I lack in skills that makes my unintentional timulting so unreliable.
For one thing, prior to my ESP training, when I see “previews,” there is rarely a calendar, clock or anything visible that could tell me exactly when a scene is occurring. I have to estimate the timing of that event's occurrence based on who is there, how we all look in the scene and how we look now,.
Guessing the “when,” even to get a range of years, is the most inexact part of all of my estimates, especially when it comes to my own future, because my hair is not going gray very fast while many others (including my siblings) are graying rather quickly.
Luckily (for the MWC?), none of the job-hunting I do for out-of-state jobs I apply for when I am in a fit of "get me out of here" after Epifanio's negative blast at me results in anything, not even an emailed response. No interviews, no offers.
So, I stay in Kirov. I guess writing this book, these Volumes, is my job, for now.
I constantly wish I know more about the vagaries of karma: how little we know about how it plays out and why. With all of my clairvoyance’s inexactness and the problems with what a tiny portion of the future I timult, I can only describe bits of various versions of what happens with MFH. Perhaps the “F” could stand for something besides “Future”: “Fictional,” “Fated,” “Fascinating,” "Fake," "Frustrating" and “Forever” come to mind.
The next time I see Epifanio, after my giving him Brian Greene’s book as a not-gift, we get together at his house. After he gets his salad and brings me some water, we sit facing each other outside on a gorgeous spring day.
“She wants to have children,” Fanio says, mournfully. He's talking about his live-in lover of about two years. “She wants to go back to school, so I thought that would be it. But, she also wants a baby, soon. Not to wait a lot longer, she said. She thinks having a baby goes well with being in school.”
I am silent, waiting for him to go on. She is in her mid-thirties. I already “see” that this is probably going to be what they split up over; a lot of people with no psychic ability whatsoever could predict this possibility, just based on their twenty-year age difference. His son is about her age. Creeps me out, but he seems fine with it.
My “previews” show that this children issue arises around this time for them. He does not know I timult a lot of this part. I do not tell him, now.
He looks at me.
I nod, indicating I'm listening, urging him to continue.
“I’m not having any more children, and she knows that,” he explains. “But, we’re so good together. What do people do?” He seems genuinely perplexed.
I am not around him much when he is having these kinds of experiences in the last twelve years or so. My heart goes out to him. I nod, again, to show I'm still listening.
“She says things to me like: ‘I want to be a mother. You’ve been a father, already, but I haven’t been a mother.’" He sounds despondent. "I can’t argue with that. She’s right. How can I ask her to give that up? She shouldn’t. She won’t. I can’t let her.” He seems to be on the verge of tears.
I lean forward and touch his hand.
He takes it to hold mine.
I ask, “What kind of timetable does she seem to have?”
He shrugs and releases my hand, using both of his to gesture a kind of helpless surrender.
“How do you feel about having more children?” I ask him, already knowing the answer but sensing his need to talk more.
He says: “Not what I want. I love my son and my grandkids, but no more for me.”
I ask, “So, what did you tell her?”
“She knows,” he says, softly. “We have to end. But, neither of us really wants to. It’s so sad.”
He looks up at me, staring into my eyes. Something he sees there makes him tense. “Did you know about this?” he demands.
I am startled, caught in his stare. I sit very still, heart starting to pound. He must mean, did I timult this. I am getting hot and my shoulders feel like rocks. What does he want me to say?
Why is he angry? Even if I admit I have “previews” of this, it’s not as if I cause any of it or have any power. I can’t affect their choices, change her mind, change their ages or desires. He must know that. He can't blame me, can he?
I ask, cautiously, “What do you mean?” trying to buy some time and hoping he’ll calm down.
“Did you know, in advance, the way you do, about our breaking up?” He gestures, sharply, to their house, behind him.
Fanio doesn’t believe in the validity of my “previews.” Why does he sound as if he does, now?
I then make a decision, based on this: I have never lied to him and I won’t start today. Maybe I can get away with not saying much?
I nod. I stall. I don’t take my eyes off his.
He is impatiently waiting for my response.
“I have ‘seen’ some of this," I admit. "But, it’s not an exact thing, you know. I don’t know the timing of most of my scenes or if what I see is accurate.”
He is still looking intensely at me but seemingly less angry.
There’s something else in his energy, now. Curiosity?
He asks: “What, precisely, did you ‘see’?”
I sense derisive quotation marks around “see.”
Starting to feel defensive, then a bit pissed off, I make myself take deep breaths. Meditate better, slow down. I take my time to gather my thoughts and decide what to say. “Does it really matter what I may have ‘seen,’?” I ask, imitating his tone. “These are your lives, your decisions,” I remind him, more gently, opening my hands.
Abruptly, he stands up and starts pacing around the patio as he talks.
I’ve never seen him so agitated. It’s scarscinating. [Zef creates that word for "scary" plus "fascinating."]
“I can tell we have to break up. It’s obvious. I’m coming to terms with that.” He pauses, then keeps pacing. He stops and stares at me again, somewhat hostilely. “But, does that mean I have to be with you? That can’t be righ
t. How can that be true?”
He turns away from me. “I don’t love you that way. I do love you, but not that way.”
He seems to be pleading with me, but for what? Permission? Absolution? Guidance? I feel lost. I have no idea what to say. When in doubt, be quiet. I wait.
He goes on, since I don’t say anything. “Will I grow to love you, to want you? Is that how this works?” He is talking more slowly, but pacing again, glancing at me as he turns at each loop.
When he gets back to where I am sitting, he stands over me, looking at me intently. “It’s kind of like an arranged marriage, isn’t it?”
I still do not answer. I'm witnessing his inner process and don't dare interfere.
He moves away to the center of the patio, raises his hands to the sky. "What kind of plan is this?" he shouts upward. He laughs, looks toward me again, and starts singing, in a goofy, deeper-than-usual voice. “’Do you love me?’”
I laugh as I recognize it: it’s a line from a song in the musical, Fiddler on the Roof. [Copyright 1964. Book by Joseph Stein. Based on the stories of Sholom Aleichem. Music by Jerry Bock. Lyrics by Sheldon Harnick.] The middle-aged husband and wife had been “matched” into an arranged marriage when they were quite young. In this scene, they now have five daughters, three of whom are old enough to fall in love and get married, themselves. However, their elder daughters have been rejecting the matchmaker’s recommendations, holding out to marry for love. So, the parents are questioning each other and themselves, singing, “Do you love me? Do I love you?”
As Fanio sings more of the song to me, I watch him. His face is smoothing out, his energy is calmer.
He sings quite well. He knows most of the words. I'm enjoying this part.
For the first time since this conversation begins, I start to relax. Deep inside, I feel a growing certainty: We’re going to be okay. He may be able to be open to this, to me, to us. Or, not, but, whatever happens, he won’t be angry with me about it any longer.
He stops singing and stands there, gazing down at me somewhat fondly.
I feel his internal movement toward me, toward us. Just a little, but it’s a gigantic transformation. So subtle, almost invisible, but huge. It’s another “This Changes Everything” moment. I breathe it in, watching him. Loving him. Wishing.
Not yet and not easily, but soon, and eventually, maybe as I timult: eventually, quite happily, he could love me, and we could be together.
I realize for the first time that he also now feels that we are possible. He is standing more loosely, more open.
Slightly grinning and humming that song to himself, he gathers up our dishes and indicates the house. "Let's go in. It's getting cold."
I follow him inside. I settle on the couch as he puts our dishes by the sink.
This is a long time, in our relationship, for me to be silent. I can feel that we both notice this but neither of us says anything about it.
He walks back toward me and looks at me for a while.
I meet his gaze. What are you thinking? I wish I could read minds….But, even if I could, I wouldn't. That would be invasive!
I smile, tentatively, feeling a bit uncomfortable under his silent scrutiny.
He sits down in the chair across from me, still looking at me.
I keep breathing, meeting his eyes.
He pulls the chair closer to the couch so that his knees are touching mine.
Abruptly, Fanio slaps his hands on his knees and leads forward, gazing into my eyes with eagerness and curiosity. “Okay, then, When?” he asks.
I could pretend not to know what he's asking or stay silent, but I answer him simply: “Whenever you’re ready.” Smiling encouragingly at him, I add: “It’s up to you.”
He doesn’t return my smile, but his eyes are clear. I see affection, familiarity. He tilts his head, looking up to his right. Considering, "seeing" in his own way.
I wait.
He looks at me, again, directly and intensely. After a while, he says, softly, unexpectedly, “I’m sorry.” He opens his hands on his knees, offering his apology physically.
Why does he seem embarrassed? “For what?” I ask.
“For being less than open with you all these years,” he says. He sits back, knowing he has just admitted something unanticipated and enormous.
I am stunned. But, deeply, not completely surprised. His knowing, while not telling me about knowing, about our future together is one of the scenarios I frequently wrestle with for all these years. I can easily imagine reasons he would choose to withhold, wait, not want to discuss with me openly the way our relationship might change.
His unexpected admission and apology make it easier for me to forgive his lying to me, his putting me off, but.... I feel a mix of anger, interest, sadness, excitement. I want to know more but I don't want to interrupt his flow, his new-found willingness to share his truth with me. I wait, again, not responding except to meet his gaze.
He sighs. “I couldn’t tell you I knew. It would have been bad for you, for me, for so much. I wasn’t supposed to let you know, yet. That much I did know. This all had to play out further. And, you, I, we needed to be more, well, prepared.” He looks chagrined. “I’m still not ready, really. I thought there would be more time.”
He is confessing, talking faster, more earnestly, now: “I knew around the same time you did. I don’t have your abilities,” he goes on, “but I can tell when someone is saying something true. I am intuitive, you know?”
I nod.
“So, after you told me about your first ‘snapshots,’ with us as lovers, living together, all that, I looked into it, our relationship. I could feel it, like you said, kind of like a tractor beam, pulling us in. I could tell that your pictures were probably accurate. But, as you know, my feelings weren’t, aren’t, like yours.”
I nod, again. I am speechless, mesmerized by this outpouring.
“So, as you suggested, I checked out our astrology charts, I threw the I Ching. consulted the Runes, meditated. I did what you asked.”
He is referring to THE letter, the one I sent to him in 2005, right after his long-term partner of seven years left him, just as I timult she does. I send him my “reveal” letter, right after I heard that she had actually left.
I write to him for the first time with a list of almost everything. I briefly describe all that I “see,” almost every snapshot and scene. The letter runs to about five typed pages. I tell him how seeing all this has changed me. I explain that I love him because of my experiences with him. I take the chance of letting him know that I want to ask him to marry me, but not to be with me, yet.
I beg him not to answer me too quickly. Also, even though it isn’t yet our time, I beg him not to enter into another relationship right away.
I strongly request: please, look into our karma more completely? I suggest several methods for divination and inquiry and send him my astrology chart. He's big on astrological compatibility.
All I receive in response at that time is a brief answer, another, “No.” I think, though, even in its terseness, that it is final. I finally reveal it all at a rare time that he is single and available, but he rejects me. It feels more absolute, this time.
I try to believe him. I really do. For many years, I try.
Now, over five years later, I understand. He did not mean “No, I don’t love you,” or, “No, it’s impossible,” exactly. He meant, "No, not now."
That was then; what about today?
“I tried to believe you, then, and I tried to move on,” I remind him, again, now.
He answers, “Well, I couldn’t tell you that I believed you. I also wasn’t convinced, that we could, that we would, that I would….” His voice trails off and he looks away from me. “I’m still not. Completely convinced. Completely, well, there.”
After a long pause, he looks at me, again, and continues. “Over the years, I kept returning to look into this possibility of us, hoping it would chang
e. No offense,” he adds, quickly, not wanting me to be hurt, “but things could change. And, it wasn’t what I wanted, you know?”
“Yeah. It wasn’t what I wanted, either, at first,” I remind him, letting him off the hook.
He smiles at that.
“I thought, with her,” he gestures to their bedroom, “I had someone I could stay with. Maybe things for you and me had changed, would change."
He stops, looks around, at their house, then back at me, earnestly explaining: "But, as soon as she started talking to me about wanting children, I knew…. I had hoped it would be different, but…” he trails off while pointing back to their bedroom, then drops his arm and sighs.
“Hope is inescapable, I think,” I agree. “I never stopped hoping, either, but I kept hoping for this.” I gesture to him and then myself. I laugh, quietly, at the opposing vectors of our hopes.
He nods. He just looks at me. Unreadable.
I watch. I wait. I hardly breathe. It's NOW or not at all.
He stands up, decisively.
Expectantly, I look up at him.
He pushes back his chair and steps over to the couch to sit next to me. He has not joined me on his couch before. He's right next to me; we're touching.
Maybe I should move away from him? What does this mean? How is this all right?
Then, I laugh at myself and let myself fall back, right next to him. How could I feel the way I do about MFH and not be able to sit next to him on a couch?
He threads his arm behind and around me and I settle into it.
We both lean back, quiet.
I feel everything changing inside, between and around us. I can see the prana sparkling like dust motes in the sun all around us.
We breathe together, slipping easily into formal meditation. The tension recedes. I feel myself and, then, him, get lighter and happier by the moment.
I review: We meet almost thirty years ago and are friends for most of that time. I love him and believe him to be destined to be my husband for almost half that time, with no support, no encouragement; actually, active discouragement. But, my love and conviction are unwavering.
And, now? Yes, now.
Sighing, happily, I begin to settle in to this improved version of our reality. “Finally. A timeline I can like,” I whisper.
He squeezes my shoulder and laughs a little.
After a while, he asks, “Are we really going to do this?”
I don’t respond right away. Then, I sit up, facing him, looking into his eyes.
He is looking back at me, steadily.
“If you want to, I’m in,” I say, quietly. We hold each other’s glance for a moment. We seem to come to agreement.
I smile.
He smiles, too. “We’ll see.”
I sit back and lean my head on his shoulder. I inhale his scent, smiling at its familiarity and comforting essence. He tugs me closer into a friendly hug. We sit together for a while.
I always hate stories that stop here. “They lived happily ever after” comes about one minute after their first declaration of love, or first kiss, or their wedding, but we never get to see how it all works out. I’m not going to leave you all hanging like that.
Our relationship takes a long time (by my reckoning) coming to fruition and is often very complicated. We have a lot to work out and it’s by no means certain to go in this direction.
I am writing this on June 12, 2012: the MWC hasn’t even contacted me, yet; they come in December. I promise more pieces of our story, several versions, in this and future Volumes.
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