You and No Other

by Jane Weiss

My larger self is compressed into a small corner, unbidden by anyone, and unused. I’m in great pain from the limitations I’ve placed on myself. I feel empty, alone, and unconnected to any higher purpose for my life. God help me change my life and make it worthwhile for myself and for others. Or let me cease to exist.

  From this dark place of surrender, rather than sinking into depression as I had earlier in my married life, this period was an awakening, an epiphany during which I turned to God to redirect my life. Over the next few months, I emerged with a desire to return to school to prepare myself for a career, an occupation that would hopefully create a more visible, respected place for me. And although I didn’t understand this then, I was one of hundreds of women in my era who were bursting out of the self-, church-, and society-confining roles of wife and mother, and desperately seeking how to fit into the world—how to create their place in society. I couldn’t look to my mother, or her generation, for role models to make this an easy transition.

  I recall only three times when Mother ventured out into the world to accomplish something on her own: once to work a year in Burton’s Dress Shop, once to work three years in Whitner’s Department Store personnel office during a period when Dad was laid off, and once to serve a term as PTA president for Pine Forge Consolidated grade school. Most of her days were absorbed with solitary activities such as sewing, reading, and decorating our home. My father took over her mother’s role when he and Mother married, and he was chief cook, bottle washer, and shopper. Mother reveled in this relationship, and often said to me, “I just hope you find and marry someone just like your father to take care of you.”

  Despite this patterning—and maybe in defiance against it—within three years after my “awakening,” I met my goals of completing a degree, finding a job to launch a career, and finding recognition and deep friendships in my workplace. However, I knew that my relationship with my husband had not changed significantly. Charles was still spending most of his evenings and weekends at the club—at least, that’s where he said he was. I was simply diverted from focusing on his absence or depending on him for companionship or help with managing our family.

  Periodically, I was overwhelmed with the responsibilities I carried at home and at work, and wondered how long I could continue to keep up the strenuous sixteen-hours-a-day pace. I was also fearful that one day, Charles would decide he no longer wanted to be married. If I felt increasingly disconnected from him, why wouldn’t he feel the same? How was he meeting his needs?

  As an unexpected gift in the midst of these looming anxieties, I had begun an intense exploration of New Age spirituality. I raised lots of questions about what I needed in order to be less fearful, more self-reliant, and happy; and I struggled with reconciling my childhood faith and New Age teachings, and what I required to feel more complete and whole—a search I had been on my entire life.

  I was raised, as my parents had been, in the Mennonite Brethren in Christ Church, a fundamentalist, God-fearing group of believers. As a child, I was taught and believed that I was bad, sinful from birth, and needed to invite Christ into my heart to save me from going to hell. After I asked Christ in, I needed only to listen and obey His still, small voice to be able to “walk righteously,” be favored by God, and go to heaven. I recall feeling doomed to hell because even though I had invited Christ in, I couldn’t hear His voice. But I didn’t give up trying to hear, despite my mother’s insistence that I was purposefully disobeying. As a teenager, my efforts toward achieving God’s favor were to attend church whenever its doors were open, and to respond to the redemptive, sin-cleansing “altar call” nearly every time it was offered from the pulpit. But because I could not connect to God in the manner my church espoused, I pretended to, which made me feel ashamed, inadequate, and deceitful.

  After high school, my mother and I chose a nursing school affiliated with Evangelist Billy Graham’s citadel Wheaton College, so she could be assured that I would remain under the guiding influence of “Bible-believing” Christians. While there, although I longed for a relationship with God, I lessened my expectations for ever achieving it, and instead tried to comply, as much as humanly (and that was always the problem) possible, with the laundry list of Christ-like conduct and expectations.

  After Charles and I married, we attended church fairly regularly for the first ten years, until he took up golf with evangelistic fervor. Annoyed at him, and not wanting to manage our four young children by myself every Sunday morning, I sporadically took them to church, until a neighborhood Baptist Church initiated Sunday school bus service. I eagerly gave up the responsibility, but dutifully told myself that I would park the children at this church until I could find a new church home, one that met my emerging needs for a less legalistic approach to God.

  Finally, in 1978, I found Burnsville Covenant Church, a social action-minded flock, led by a philosophical humanist who pushed hard against narrow dogma from the pulpit, to my delight. It became our family church. The influence of this pastor—and several professors, during the two years completing my bachelor’s degree at the university—helped to expand my understandings and integrate new beliefs about my own essence, and also about the nature of God. I was beginning to understand that God was within me, rather than an external entity; and that as God was within, I was created in His image, rather than being born sinful. I also learned that I had the capacity to create and, with patience, optimism, and persistence, I could accomplish whatever I needed—in physical form, or mentally.

  Eventually, through a self-study of women’s literature, I discovered the beauty and strength of the feminine spirit, as revealed through writings by Willa Cather and May Sarton. In Virginia Woolf’s Room of One’s Own, I connected with the ancient plight of women to find and make a place for the feminine in society. I questioned why all references to God were male; could God instead be androgynous?

  With still so much sorting to do, I often found great relief in talking and sometimes crying with Bonnie, as she listened with an open, non-judgmental heart. In a book she had given me, called When Lovers Are Friends, I underlined: “Some say loneliness is a condition of the soul, but I think it is a yearning to be understood—and that means when we are bad, as well as when we’re good. We all need friends who are there in our less-than-perfect times, as good friends in our pain and in our joy.”

  There was a sharp contrast between her understanding and championing of me, and Charles’s indifference toward me. Her friendship assuaged my loneliness; her friendship encouraged me to become friends with myself. I had never before trusted anyone more than I came to trust Bonnie.

  Leaving Methodist

  So, given the importance of Bonnie’s and my relationship, I’m not certain why I decided to write a letter of resignation from Methodist, a full three months before my last day and first year anniversary. Did I want to leave while I was at the top of my game? Was I afraid that I would be found out—that I had experienced beginner’s luck, and it would run out? I knew I was tired of the tyranny of weekly copy deadlines. And I was worried about how seventy-seven-year-old Grandma Seltz would manage three teenagers and a ten-year-old by herself another summer. This might be the last summer Michael would want to be part of a family vacation, as next summer he would be preparing for college. Would I regret not having time to make this happen?

  All these factors played into my decision, but the most profound motivation was that, after months of expressing to Bonnie my deepest longings and fears, I had awakened a part of me that had long been asleep. I now desperately needed to stop my frenetic “doing” to quiet my mind long enough to hear my emerging inner voice. Even though I was afraid of what that voice would say, I realized I had to go deeper to listen.

  I had rarely kept a journal prior to leaving Methodist Hospital. The inspiration to reinitiate writing came from a need to keep the momentum of my inner growth moving forward—growth that seemed to have been fostered primarily by Bonnie’s and my workplace friendships.

  On m
y last day and my last hour at the hospital, I climbed the familiar stairs to her office and knocked gently on her door. I wasn’t sure she’d be there, because she had been quite busy all day, staging surprises for me—balloons in my office, signs at my window, a going-away gathering.

  “Come on in.” She swung around in her high-backed leather chair to greet me and smile as I entered.

  “Are you free to talk for a few minutes?”

  “Of course. Have you been enjoying your day?” She burst out laughing. “My staff and I have had a ball!”

  “I feel well loved, and am thoroughly enjoying the send-off. Now, will you promise to write in your journal what we won’t be able to share in a day—the events, questions we want to ask about our spiritual journeys, ideas … ?” My voice trailed off as I saw her starting to tear up. I walked over and hugged her. “Then we’ll just have to set a regular lunch date and share what we’ve written for the week. What say you?”

  We had created this amazing space in our friendship for rich dialogue. It felt like my lifeline—one that I dare not release. The question I couldn’t even form then about why I was leaving was: Could I be afraid of Bonnie, and what she was becoming to me? Even though many at Methodist had become special to me, Bonnie was the one to whom I gave a journal. It was Bonnie’s voice that I wanted and needed to hear.

  Chapter 3 - Who Could Have Known?

  Bonnie

  As Jane was no longer down the hall in my daily work world, and I was feeling the need for more time together than our weekly lunch dates provided, I suggested she consider joining Sweet Adelines, a women’s barbershop chorus. I was already a member of the group, and her joining meant adding Tuesday evening practice to our mutual schedules. Being a lover of music and harmony, Jane readily agreed.

  I began paying special attention to my clothes and hair as I prepared to head to the church on Cedar Avenue where chorus practice was held. It didn’t escape my notice that I hadn’t done that before. Sometimes, we were already on the risers doing vocal warm-ups when Jane burst into the room, fresh from putting dinner on the table, cleaning up the dishes, and getting her kids started on evening studies. Her face flushed, she’d give a shy, apologetic smile to the director before assuming her place on the second riser. I smiled inwardly, knowing that after the pleasure of singing our hearts out for two hours, and later joining favorites from the group at the Five-Eight Club to devour “Juicy Lucy” hamburgers, we’d still make time for ourselves before finally parting.

  After a few weeks of this routine, however, making time for us after practice meant Jane and I sat in one or the other’s parked car and talked into the early morning hours. We were hungry to continue learning about each other in as much detail as possible, and time flew. We were astonished at the similarities in our stories—such as having the same Christmas stockings for our four children—and intrigued by the differences—like Jane’s love of things domestic, and my love of anything to be done outdoors.

  Meanwhile, Jane and I were both friends with Felicia, a work colleague and fellow Adelines member. Felicia had been on a spiritual search most of her adult life, and was the Education Department’s “resident philosopher.” Since she and I read similar types of books that Jane had also begun to enjoy, Felicia suggested the three of us form a spiritual study group and meet weekly on Wednesday evenings to discuss our reading. Brian rarely, if ever, had evening commitments, and he routinely participated fully in the children’s care. So I doubted it would be an issue if I were out another night of the week. In addition to wanting the learning Felicia could provide, this meant yet another weekly night spent with Jane. I was thrilled!

  Not surprisingly, once again after study group, Jane and I made our way to one of our cars, where we sat talking for hours. Sometimes, we arrived home in the early morning hours shortly before our husbands got up to go to work. Brian and I were both very trusting of each other because neither had given the other reason not to be. I don’t remember him asking questions early on when I came tiptoeing into the house after being out all night with Jane. I set the alarm before falling into bed to allow myself two hours of sleep before rushing through morning activities of getting kids off to school and preschool, and myself to the hospital. I was grateful that midweek workdays were usually booked solid with meetings, appointments, and classes to teach. That meant I rarely had time to sit down alone to think, read, or write—none of which I could effectively do in my sleep-deprived state. The evening after one of Jane’s and my all-night trysts, I fell into bed shortly after getting the kids tucked in for the night and was unconscious for the next ten hours. Thank God, Brian woke me if one of them needed me while I was dead to the world.

  Predictably, the patterns Jane and I created with each other and with our families began to cause great angst for both of us. Though repeatedly chagrined that time slipped away so unnoticed while we were together, we made no changes in the following weeks, and suffered repeated episodes of absenteeism and subsequent embarrassment on the home fronts. Both our husbands began grilling us about the time we were spending away from home and with each other. Jane and I each answered truthfully that we were enrapt with “just talking.” How could I answer Brian’s questions any differently? I didn’t get it myself why spending time with Jane was so important to me that I behaved this way. Surely this was just a new thing that wouldn’t continue.

  Self-Questioning

  By midsummer, Jane was on my mind most of the time. If I wasn’t with her, I wanted to be. I thought about her many times each day. When the phone rang, I always hoped to hear her voice on the other end. When we were together, I wanted time to go on forever. I frequently took time off from work to spend a half or full day with her. But trying to sandwich Jane between a full-time job, the demands of four children, and the requirements of homemaking was clearly becoming problematic. That made my preoccupation with her even more unnerving. One evening after the younger kids were asleep and our teenager was studying, Brian and I ventured out for a late-night coffee.

  I felt pressed to confide, “You know, this relationship with Jane just feels so different to me from other friendships I’ve had.”

  “What do you mean? How is it different?”

  “That’s what I’m struggling with. She’s on my mind so much, and I want to spend as much time with her as possible. I just don’t remember that being the case with anyone else. And it feels like something is changing inside me, too. Much of the time, I feel agitated and restless—like … like I should be doing something else, or something more. I don’t understand that, either,” I acknowledged, by then quite tearfully.

  Emotionality—his or anyone else’s—had never been Brian’s strong suit. Maybe seeing my tears, he simply wanted me to stop. Or maybe it was the trust he held in me, or his patience with letting me do my own thing. “You know, Bonnie, this is the first deep friendship you’ve had in two years, since you lost your friendship with Louise. Couldn’t it be you’re afraid that might happen again? Why don’t you just go with the flow and see what happens?”

  Brian’s words were comforting. If I could tell him what this relationship felt like and he didn’t find cause for concern, then it must be okay.

  Nonetheless, my self-questioning continued about why my relationship with Jane felt so intense. I wondered if she was experiencing the same feelings, or if they were mine alone. Why was this so unlike anything I had known? I began going over each relationship that had meaning for me from my earliest recall, searching for some sort of sense-making—trying to ascertain if, in retrospect, I could find anything unusual in them. Even in hindsight, though I had a special love for many individuals, I never experienced with any of them the emotional attachment I felt for Jane. I’d always had boyfriends. I’d never been attracted to a female friend physically, but I fleetingly wondered if that was what was happening now. What was the nature of this intense relationship with Jane? What was its meaning in my life? My feelings for her were so strong; I had no context for the
m. An excerpt from my journal dated July 15, 1981 reads:

  Whatever Jane is to me, she can make a whole day okay just by knowing I’ll see or visit with her sometime at the end of it. What is it that makes her that special—that just the thought of her sends warmness through my being?

  I have never known a love of this nature/depth. How to relate to it? Our society defines two types of relationships—heterosexual and homosexual. But where does a relationship such as this one fall? There is the deep abiding love between us that most people identify with a heterosexual relationship. Yet we’re the same sex, which to some may imply homosexual, but we don’t have a sexual relationship. So how does one describe it?

  Throughout the summer of 1981, Jane and I continued having lunch and spending two evenings together each week. We still found there was so much to share and learn about each other—after all, we’d missed decades of the other’s lives. We remained engrossed as we relayed stories and spent hours talking about our families of origin, our growing up years, friendships, high school and college experiences, sweethearts, high and low points in our lives, and on and on. Never before had I done a life review this extensively with one person. Not only was it fascinating to learn about Jane’s past, it was intriguing to put my own life into perspective. In the telling, I was reminded anew of the powerful expectations that had framed my childhood and everything that followed.

  I was born to Hannah and Ernest Zahn in 1942 in Jacksonville, Illinois, and was the youngest of three daughters—Brenda being three-and-one-half years older than I, and Penny two years older. I was not particularly pleased at age six to find my position as “baby girl” usurped by the birth of my brother Dale. Shortly after the new baby’s arrival, Dad and a partner bought the only upscale retail shoe business in Fort Madison, Iowa, located in the southeastern-most tip of the state—population fifteen thousand. We moved into our newly constructed three-bedroom, one-bathroom rambler, and there we four Zahn children grew up.