Saturday, February 19, 2011

Reinvention @ 53?

People say that a part of you dies with a loved one's death. I've been wondering which part or parts of me have vanished along with Heather. Is my insouciant attitude toward the future a casualty? Has my willingness to throw myself with abandon into love fallen by the wayside? Has my ability to laugh at anything/everything been hindered? Has my confidence in successfully helping people in crisis been shattered? The answers are: a little, no, not really, and shaken but not shattered. But are these the right questions?


At a Mark Johnson concert in New Jersey, August 1, 2009
In the months prior to Heather's entering the hospital last March, I had been trying to change my voice. More accurately, I was attempting to change it back to what it once was. Somewhere in my twenties my voice actually got artificially higher, and I have a couple of theories as to why this happened. First, there was the influence of hanging about in gay male circles where people flung campy expressions at about an octave higher than your average Joe. Apes will do what apes do, and I'm no different. But I think that the more important piece was that by raising the pitch of my voice I was intending to sound less threatening--easier than actually being less threatening, which I was working on simultaneously. It was only a couple of years ago that I realized that the voice I spoke in was not natural, that I constantly tightened my throat to produce a higher pitch, and it took a while to attempt to do something about it. I was able to intermittently change my tone, but it was pretty difficult to master. I got good feedback from Heather, who liked my natural voice better.


Then, not too long ago, I was sitting across the table in a restaurant with a woman I was hoping to date [yes, I am dating now--perhaps the subject of another post--perhaps not!--and no, she didn't want to date me] when I realized that without even trying I was speaking with my natural voice. And I continued to do so for our entire dinner. How could this be? I think that it was hard to accomplish this transformation with Heather because with her I was trying to exude benevolence, which I believed was of great importance given that she was a survivor of an abusive relationship.


Why then did my voice transformation not happen with my other friends either? This, I think, has to do with habit and expectation. I, of course, having the habit and they the expectation. We are constructed, at least in part, by others’ presumptions and suppositions about who we are and how we are expected to behave. We employ such social calculation in order to preserve the solidity of relationships, that we might know what to anticipate at any given moment. What others believe we are influences who we are--or at least how we present ourselves to be. My voice then was an emblem of all the things I was "expected" to be, by Heather and my friends.


Celebrate Brooklyn, "Purple Rain" sing-along, August 6, 2009
When I first met Heather I was constantly chewing the inside of my cheeks--like a cow chewing its cud, I would work away at this throughout my day. It was an outgrowth of stress I felt, much of this coming from the relationship I was in at the time. A week or so after Heather and I began seeing each other I noticed that I had smooth inner cheeks--I'd simply stopped a years-long habit by acquiring a relationship that wasn't anxiety-provoking.  In the days after Heather's death I noticed that the inside of my cheeks were cut up again, as I had returned to my nervous chewing. Through mindfulness and addressing the things which cause me tension, I have reduced the amount of time I chew at myself, but it is amazing how it was Heather's mere presence that held this piece (peace?) for me for thirteen years.

The artificial voice and the absent cheek-chewing are two things that have "died" of their own volition--one I would characterize as positive change and the other negative--but what else about myself might change as a result of Heather's passing? Specifically, what might I wish to change? Transitions in life often afford the opportunity to reinvent one's self. Part of me is no longer necessarily attached to the things I was when sharing my life with Heather. Not that I regret them or felt constrained by them, but now, in my new circumstance, I feel it's time to re-examine and perhaps recalibrate some of the whats of who I am.

Interestingly, one of the first things I thought about changing was my name. I have other names by which people know me--for instance, there are folks in Radical Faerie circles who only know me by JoyBoy. But I am toying now for the first time with actually changing the name I already have. Upon brief reflection I decided to keep my first name but contemplated what a good last name would be. What jumped out at me was the funny way that my ex mother-out-law Gladys would refer to me as Vinny Colossus. After thinking about it a while I thought I'd rather not have that as my legal name, but perhaps would use it as a pen name. I'm taking feedback on this. What do you think? Too pretentious? Too similar to my current name to represent much change? Too silly? Post a comment below if you have an opinion.

Another thing I am taking a second look at is my having been in relationships for almost thirty consecutive years, except for a four month break between Lover #1 and Lover #2. After this there was a Lover #2a and Heather was #3. I'm using the crass number system to indicate that my relationships have been long-lasting, as well as to protect identities. I've never really dated, but have quickly jumped into commitment--sort of the anti-stereotype of the man who has to be dragged to the altar, pushed into settling down. As I enter the world of dating I think that maybe I don't want to repeat this pattern...perhaps I'd like to see a number of people for short periods of time, maybe without the notion of coupling for life or even for very long. Maybe I don't have to be the guy in the monogamous relationship either--perhaps I'd like more freedom to do as I wish sexually, either without pairing or from within the context of being partnered. Certainly I know many people who live this way. Yet faced with the actuality of meeting and considering people to date, I find myself wanting to couple and get carried away with traditional romantic love. There's nothing I've experienced in my life that's better, and I just might not be cut out for the life of a libertine. But the call to transform is strong too.

I experienced a similar desire to reinvent myself at the tail end of the relationship I was in prior to Heather. I wanted to be a more open person in general, as I'd felt myself closing off with Lover #2, and the morning of the day I met Heather I meditated upon being open to new things. So when I met Heather I was essentially not the same person as the one who was with Lover #2 the night before. In the ensuing days, through spending time with Heather "on the run," I changed my ideas about, and practice of, punctuality. What I lost was the uncanny ability to always know what time it was within two or three minutes without using a watch. What I gained was a measure of flexibility in not judging friends who were late and allowing myself to occasionally be tardy as well. These changes and others in the adaptability/looseness vein, it turns out, didn't wholly last--although my keen perception of chronological time was forever gone. Because my receptiveness to the new and different and my easy-going "nature" diminished over time, Heather would later say she felt misled--that the guy she first met had changed. That I had changed back toward who I was before, she felt was evidence of deception. For my part, I did not intend to dissemble, but rather altered my behavior based on a new situation and the influence of a new person, namely Heather.

Heather knew something about this process of changing according to one's environment of friends and lovers. She used to say at the beginning of our relationship, "You don't love me--you love the person [my Ex] made me into." By this she meant that her "sweetness" and pliability were vestiges of her response to the abuse of her ex-husband, and that, in her opinion, I wouldn't be in love with "the real her," should that ever emerge.  Over time, it did, and while I was sometimes taken aback I was never turned off to her, and was glad that she got to be more authentically herself, even when it meant that I was being given "a hard time." What was really happening was that I was being dealt with honestly, which was my preference.

Is it possible that my wanting to metamorphose is merely an attempt to escape the pain of being myself--a grieving widower, alone? Yes, of course that may be a part or even all of it. I remember telling my friend Liz in the first weeks following Heather's death that "I wish that I would go completely insane and just hallucinate that I'm with Heather--because I'd get to talk to her and be with her all the time." Liz was wise enough to point out that while insanity might at first blush seem alluring, psychotics are not usually in the habit of having exclusively pleasant visions. There is nothing wrong with wanting to avoid pain, as long as one deals with the pain's cause in a sensible fashion.

The human psyche is at least as intricate as the complexities of life, and well capable of bifurcating emotional responses. Thus, overwhelmed by the loss of Heather I frantically call her sister Lizzy, who speaks to me for two hours--that night I go to a party and have a really good time. I get the feeling that there are some people in the room who think I'm having too good a time--that it's unseemly to laugh so much so soon after being widowed. They weren't present during my earlier panic, but I'm not inclined to explain myself to them. Besides, I could be imagining their judgment. Another day I wake up crying, thinking about my beautiful departed beloved, and soon after phone a woman for a date. Both the tears and the call seeking companionship are valid ways of dealing with my pain. Is it too soon to be dating? There are, of course, no rules in this matter, and while there are those who will apply their standards to others' behaviors, I view dating as the far end of the spectrum of Re-engaging With Life. For me, asking the question "Is it too soon to have dinner with friends?" makes as much sense.

Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, September 26, 2009
How much of who we are is dependent upon who we are with? As I begin to answer this question for myself I don't wish to flinch from any difficult truths, and any and every aspect of what I imagine to be my personality is up for review. My relationship with Heather is now frozen in time--the beginning, middle and end all clearly delineated--yet her words, thoughts and life continue to impact me in profound and multiple ways. I don't know if Heather would approve of the manner in which I go about my days and nights, but her example was one of motion, of always moving on to the next thing once the last thing was done, and I am guided by this, as well as my own instincts and intuitions for achieving happiness. [click on photo captions for related links]

Friday, February 4, 2011

Since You Left Me--A Griever's Blog

Heather at Aviator Rink, Spring 2009
Somewhere in the first year or two of our relationship I created, through spontaneous repetition, the tradition of writing a poem or song for Heather on four occasions each year: Valentine's Day, our anniversary (which coincided with the Summer Solstice), Heather's birthday (July 10), and Winter Solstice/Christmas. I'd usually write these in the very early morning before she'd awake, and after breakfast leave it on the bed for her to find, whereupon she'd usually request that I read it to her. Each time she discovered the poem or song she'd express some amount of genuine surprise, as if I might forget or just not have one for her. "I guess when you don't write one I'll know the romance is over," she said a few years back. 

When I woke up early this past Christmas, my first without Heather, I knew that I must continue the tradition. The poems I've written for Heather are qualitatively different from my others--I do not always understand them, and can return to them as freshly as a new reader. Though I write and publish poetry, I don't consider myself a Poet--that title is a bit loftier than my efforts reach, in my estimation. Here's my 2010 Christmas poem for Heather, which I fear has too much about me and not enough of her.
 
Since You Left Me

the gaping hole
in my existence
can’t be filled
nor will my quaking, aching heart
be stilled
by daft-idyllic memories
midst haunted, frightened trees

and yet, my love
since you left me with
shards of your shattered wisdom
cutting at my innards
ought I not
be taking stock
of what your loss
amounts to?

there are living things
worse than death
though I never would’ve guessed it
Praise and Thanks and
Thanks and Praise
must wait till manifested

since you left me the usual cornucopia
of emotions
(and what is God
but a secondhand devotion
to our mutual-born utopia?)
I’ll parse and vet
till I’m fingerless
and not expect
an answer

good you, poor me
bereaved ain’t bereft
since you left me
with a mystery
I’ll possess
for eternity


for my sweet Heather, Christmas 2010
The romance will never be over.