Last Christmas was a bad one. The last time Ili and I were together was a year ago last night. We were having dinner with my mother and making Christmas plans. Ili was going to see her family on the coast on Christmas Eve. My mother, who had yet to meet her family, and I would go over Christmas Day.
Then some cosmic malevolent force interfered. We never made that trip. Ili moved her things out while I was gone a few days later. We never saw one another again. It was the end to an almost six year relationship. It was over, just like that.
Nothing has happened since to change things. Time has ceased to exist in any productive way. Nights separated by the year conflate then separate.
Last night, I sent a text to Ili that she will never get. I've not understood the childish logic of blocking me on her phone, but I imagine last night to be the reason why. I had hoped that I would hear from her sometime this year, especially now. But hope differs from belief, and I never have believed I would. That is a strange relationship between belief and hope. Even if you don't believe in divinity, you might still hope for intervention.
I no longer hold out hope, and so now I move on. I feel free now to write about things I've not allowed myself to write this year nor in the years since I met Ili. She was the reason I closed up the studio. She was a governor and then the brake on my creative output. There are things you must not think or do or say in a relationship, or so it seems. You might want to romanticize love, but it is always a compromise in the end. Tell yourself otherwise if you must, then show me how that has worked for you.
But I only speak of the passionate and not the practical variety. Ardor changes love's calculus immeasurably. Whatever might have been practical about our relationship was overwhelmed by fire.
And so. . . here we are on Covid Christmas Eve. Only those who live alone can understand the cruelty of a year's isolation and the undeniable loneliness of the holiday stolen away. I've not had the heart to watch a Christmas movie, no "Bad Santa," no "Elf," and certainly no "Love Actually." Last year, I played a bunch of old holiday shows for Ili on YouTube. We watched crazy things like Judy Garland's 1960s Christmas Special (link). It was a hoot. You might try it tonight if you are bored. Others, too. Anything from the early '60s, those last days of the postwar sensibilities and the nascent days of a new era, that time spanned by "Mad Men," "The Marvelous Mrs. Mazel," and "The Queen's Gambit."
I've decided that tonight, however, I will watch "A Very Murray Christmas" again. That and a glass of whiskey should hit the awful, empty spot.
I searched hard to find the show's emotional climax, but the clip leaves off the important prologue to the song, so I have posted both here for you now.
For those of you who have been coming here for years (since September, 2007) (link) (wow!), you know that I usually post this (link). It is one of my favorites and always makes me, well. . . weep. But this year, I've truly missed hearing this song for some reason (link), and this (link). These were songs that made Ili and I smile and laugh out loud every time we heard them. Every time. I don't think they would this year.
That is my sad confession today, but I will post something more tonight, morbid or cheery, but hopefully less mawkish and mundane.
"My God, man, pull yourself together! It is Christmas Eve! There are things to do and things that must be done. Get up and move!"
Indeed.
It’s a good one. Post. Confession. Etc. I sit and imagine - hope even - she texted something back as lovely as your post.
ReplyDeleteIt’s grieving. No matter what. And that’s a long and elephants do it too. We are not immune from feelings.
No matter how one tries. Let it flow and let it heal.
I shall write later. Of compromise. Of Love. Of the True Spirit if Christmas.
It will annoy you. You will disagree.
May that difference of viewpoints never come between faraway friends- this one - who has joined you in spirit - listening to the Weepies at least a dozen times every Christmas since 2007.
Happy Christmas Eve, Dear One.
ReplyDeleteOooopsers. Long process.
ReplyDeleteAs promised. I return.
There will be no boring you with my Eve. It was.
There is always Joy to be had if you love and care enough for yourself first. It takes practice. The Practice of Self-Care. And then, nourished and fed, you can love others.
“To love without knowing how to love wounds the person we love.” Thich Nhat Hanh
I will use many of his thoughts. They are simple and childlike, even.
I don't know if you read all that I write. I know I drone on.
But I hope you read this one.
Love and Understanding are the same word. <--- The most important concept of this discourse - I believe.
"If you pour a handful of salt into a cup of water, the water becomes undrinkable. But if you pour the salt into a river, people can continue to draw the water to cook, wash, and drink. The river is immense, and it has the capacity to receive, embrace, and transform. When our hearts are small, our understanding and compassion are limited, and we suffer. We can’t accept or tolerate others and their shortcomings, and we demand that they change. But when our hearts expand, these same things don’t make us suffer anymore. We have a lot of understanding and compassion and can embrace others. We accept others as they are, and then they have a chance to transform."
The Master states:
Real, truthful love is rooted in four elements — loving kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity — fostering which lends love “the element of holiness."
Supplementing the four core elements are also the subsidiary elements of trust and respect, the currency of love’s deep mutuality:
"When you love someone, you have to have trust and confidence. Love without trust is not yet love. Of course, first you have to have trust, respect, and confidence in yourself. Trust that you have a good and compassionate nature. You are part of the universe; you are made of stars. When you look at your loved one, you see that he is also made of stars and carries eternity inside. Looking in this way, we naturally feel reverence. True love cannot be without trust and respect for oneself and for the other person."
I had this all written up in a Word doc before reading your evening post btw.
Did I ever tell you T was an absolute mess. He was a mess in many ways.
But he was a fuzzy man made of trembling stunning understanding.
I have always been a person of Love - but he taught me that what the Buddhist says is true - understanding = love.
T was a disaster housekeeper. Our bed was a mess with crumbs and spilled coffee and ashes whenever I arrived. The dishes were never done. Yesterdays everything was left wherever yesterday happened. There was nothing I could do about it.
I loved him and he wasn't going to change. What good did getting angry do? Only make him laugh and write poems about me "dusting the teacups." I couldn't stay angry at him for 5 minutes.
Did I ever tell you that - after his first heart attack he was prescribed all sorts of heart pills. He took them for a week and then the bottles tumbled under the nightstand, the bed. Were stuck in the back of cabinets. When I was cleaning out the place, I found bottle upon bottle of heart medication.
As much as I wanted him to take the pills- could have gotten angry. He did not want to take those pills. It wasn't because he didn't love me or trust me - he just didn't want to take those pills.
"The more you understand, the more you love; the more you love, the more you understand. They are two sides of one reality. The mind of love and the mind of understanding are the same."
ReplyDeleteOh shit. There's more. I want to post this beautiful thing: John Steinbeck's Letter to his son Thom. 1958
New York
November 10, 1958
Dear Thom:
We had your letter this morning. I will answer it from my point of view and of course Elaine will from hers.
First — if you are in love — that’s a good thing — that’s about the best thing that can happen to anyone. Don’t let anyone make it small or light to you.
Second — There are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an outpouring of everything good in you — of kindness and consideration and respect — not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable.
The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn’t know you had.
You say this is not puppy love. If you feel so deeply — of course it isn’t puppy love.
But I don’t think you were asking me what you feel. You know better than anyone. What you wanted me to help you with is what to do about it — and that I can tell you.
Glory in it for one thing and be very glad and grateful for it.
The object of love is the best and most beautiful. Try to live up to it.
If you love someone — there is no possible harm in saying so — only you must remember that some people are very shy and sometimes the saying must take that shyness into consideration.
Girls have a way of knowing or feeling what you feel, but they usually like to hear it also.
It sometimes happens that what you feel is not returned for one reason or another — but that does not make your feeling less valuable and good.
Lastly, I know your feeling because I have it and I’m glad you have it.
We will be glad to meet Susan. She will be very welcome. But Elaine will make all such arrangements because that is her province and she will be very glad to. She knows about love too and maybe she can give you more help than I can.
And don’t worry about losing. If it is right, it happens — The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.
Love,
Fa
ReplyDeleteSome many people have said it so much better than I - though I do think I captured some of what Love is in some of the poems I wrote for T. I hope.
I do love these words tho. Always have since discovering them:
from "The More Loving One" by W.H. Auden
How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.
Okies - Re: The Spirit of Christmas:
The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live.
George Carlin