I've Been Everywhere, Man

 Entry 1     7:30 a.m.

 

I start work this morning. I look forward to trying to return to the rhythm of work and life. I am sure I am not well equipped to handle this, given it has only been two weeks, but I feel the need to do this, as best I can. 

We used to be so in love:

The summer of 1999 was one of the high points in our marriage. Just married over a year, we packed up the small Toyota pickup truck with all the things we would need in a family dorm, along with all our camping gear, and spent 30 days driving across the country. The truck had no air conditioning, so we would frequently use 2/60 air conditioning when it got too hot. We would roll down the two windows and drive 60 miles an hour. We saw the deepest cavern in America in Montana, cowboys and buffalo in South Dakota as we drove along BIA dirt roads. Skinheads and Lincoln's home and law offices in Springfield. People so poor on the reservation that it beggars my words to describe the living conditions on the Lakota reservations, where we saw dogs that were so skinny they looked blue. We stood in the room in which Ronald Reagan was born, in a dead town in Illinois, if memory serves. We went to Little Big Horn. We visited Lincoln's grave, the homestead of the Ingalls family in DeSmet, saw the Shakers property in New Hampshire,visited Gettysburg, Christmas, Indiana (where we went to the theme park and rode the roller coaster 20x with no line and the temperature a solid million degrees), the Crayola Crayon factory (a facade, the company had relocated to China), Rock Creek, MT (where they hold an annual "Testy Festy" measuring bulls' balls and where the bathrooms were labeled steers and cows), went to Hershey 6 Flags and did a million other things, just the two of us, not a care in the world. Perhaps the funniest thing that took place besides the awful Wall Drug, the Flintstones themed camping ground we stayed at in I think Spearfish, SD, or accidentally driving through Sturgis during the rally, was stopping at Mt. Rushmore. We knew it was free admission. It was hard to find cash machines for some reason, so we hadn't any cash.  We rolled up to visit, and found out it cost 13 dollars to park, although the exhibit was free. I had a sock full of change that had, we found out, exactly 13 dollars in it in pennies. We probably stayed five minutes after we went in, it was a huge disappointment, incredibly underwhelming. Knowing that the creator, John Borglum, was a fascist sympathizer didn't increase my dislike for it. The love for the romanticization of the past by the hard right is part of what gave rise to the Third Reich, but I digress. 

We rode along, wind in our hair, admiring the scenery, feeling the wind blow in our hair, and listening to the stereo, and often singing along. Prior to the trip I taped dozens of CDs from the King County Library. A large shoe-box at on the floor of the passenger side overflowed.  We listened to Ray Charles, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Mary Lou Lord, Bruce Springsteen, Boricua sounds, Monster In A Box, poetry from the Nuyorican, the Indigo Girls, Seven Year Bitch, Alan Ginsberg, Bob Wills, Lucinda Williams, Chrissie Hynde, Liz Phair, among others. We were seeing a what is a romanticized version of America (what else are the tourist traps we stopped at?) as we listened to distinctly American music and poetry. 

It was bliss.

 We were rhyming stanzas, Jenny and I,  not identical, but still very much in sync, very much a product of America, and very much in love.

Entry 2    5:04 p.m.

This afternoon, grief engulfed me. It was a rogue wave, knocking me down--me with my back to the shore--then fighting to escape the undertow. I wasn't expecting this today. I wasn't prepared for it, didn't know how hard it could hit. I cried, and couldn't stop for what seemed forever. It felt inescapable, this feeling.  I now know what it feels lie to be "drowning in my own tears." With each breath, it felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. like I had belly-flopped, like I had lost my partner of 31 years. I was aching, hurting, sad beyond words, out of reach for consolation and wishing she were back.

I hate eternity, hate death, hate loss, hate how broken we were, hate that she said she didn't love me anymore. that she was using me. Can the pain be any more cutting? Is this only a taste of what is to come, a squall before the inevitable storm? The pain of all this loss, this betrayal, this lie of a marriage has gutted me like a tuna on a cannery conveyor belt. The grief is almost too much to bear.

I can't know much of anything.  .  . about .  .  . anything. I do know that I cried like I cried today when my mom died, albeit less intense.But when it came, I could not control it or contain the pain. I know it was months before I found firm footing again.

I cried so long today Leiney heard it and came downstairs to comfort me, worried I wouldn't surface.