Spring Anniversary Moon
Not as much snow as we’d hoped, but enough to drive away the red flag warnings for a while. More coming, hopefully we’ll have a wetter April, a setup for a less dangerous summer. This was the wet, heavy sort of snow, lots of moisture so the inches may not have been there but the water content was. That’s what we needed.
The rising sun is just now illuminating the peak of Black Mountain, a beautiful sight, one I get to see often.
The divorce and its aftermath, I’ve not written a lot about it recently. Things have settled into something of a routine. The kids come up here for the weekend 3 times a month. Jon commutes into Aurora to Montview Elementary where he works and gets home later in the evening. He sees Ruth and Gabe on Wednesday evenings for a meal, has classes on Thursday night, mandated by his dv conviction. What this means from his perspective is that he spends a lot of time on the road, works 5 days a week, then has intense parenting 3 consecutive weeks out of 4. That’s a lot.
With the sale of the house and the distribution of funds from the sale Jon will reapply for a mortgage. He had a guaranteed mortgage until he had to start paying lawyers. The proceeds from the sale have brought solvency, so he can apply again soon. He wants to find a new home in Aurora, somewhere within biking distance of Montview. Once he has a house and gets his stuff out of storage and out of our garage his life will become calmer. The custody settlement becomes 50/50 then. A more normal rhythm will ensue.
Unfortunately the Aurora school district has experienced declining enrollment and anticipates a fall-off in property tax revenue. The school district last month decided on a reduction in the number of teachers overall. Jon’s been with them for 17 years which helps though seniority does not assure him of his job. He also learned recently that they will cut specials, that is folks who teach art, music, physical education, too. To confound the matter Jen works for the same school district. If either one of them lose their jobs, the financial structure of the divorce will careen into a wall. Hopefully clarity about this will come soon.
Meanwhile we do what we can, try to sort out our medical issues and attend Beth Evergreen. It’s a full life and that’s good at 70.
There are shifts and changes going on, movement in my soul. When we moved here, I left behind relationships precious beyond words. Not entirely, no. I’ve stayed in contact through facebook, e-mails, occasional visits, especially from the Woollies, but the day-to-day, go to lunch chances for nourishing those relationships has disappeared. I was lonely here atop Shadow Mountain.
But it was real and significant. It manifested as a sense of yearning, a desire for companionship like what I’ve had with the Woollies and the docent corps at the MIA. I think, had it continued, that it would have become corrosive, perhaps even damaging to those core aspects of my life that remained solid.
People out here call it Colorado weather. I call it mountain weather. The shifts are often extreme, from snow and ice to balmy, springlike. But today. Well, today will be a transition like none I’ve seen since I got here. We have a red flag warning in effect from noon today until 6 pm. That means low humidity, high winds, warm temps and plenty of dried out fuel. At 6 pm though we switch to a winter storm watch. The prediction is for up to a foot of snow tomorrow, more over the next week. If we can avoid fire through this afternoon, we should be fine for a while.
No certainty yet on Kate’s malaise though the likelihood of something terminal has receded. Dr. Gidday is good at reassurance, no false cheer, just a reasoned confidence. I remember in the midst of my prostate cancer workup she looked at me and said, “We’re going to get you through this.” I believed her. She’s moving methodically through the possibilities for Kate’s shortness of breath and her fatigue, ruling out the most pernicious first. We’ll know more over the next month or so. I’m relieved right now and want to stay that way.
“You know, if we weren’t in our 70s, I’d say this move to Colorado was jinxed. But when you take 70 year old+ bodies and move them somewhere else. Well. Wherever you go, there you are.” Kate nodded. We’re in that time when the body comments on its journey in unpleasant ways. The way things are.
The third phase, that phase after the career and nuclear family focused portion of our life has come to an end or is winding down, has its own delights and horrors. Auto-didacts, those with pleasurable, but challenging hobbies, those with adequate funds, those with a close network of friends and family have a good chance of enjoying the third phase more than any other part of their life. It’s a time when the pressures of achievement and child-rearing recede. They may not disappear, but their initially critical significance shifts to the margins.
With prostate cancer two years ago and a total knee replacement last year my body has given notice that its sell-by date is approaching. Yes, both of those have resolved well, at least so far, but they are concrete proof that I will not live forever. Something, sometime. Now it seems to be Kate’s turn to face her mortality. She has a cluster of medical issues that are challenging, making her low energy and too thin.
The horrors are the loss of the one you love, the person whose life has become so entwined with your own, not enmeshed, I don’t mean here a situation where life going on without the other is inconceivable, but the loss of a person whose life has been a comfortable and comforting fit with your own, a bond of mutual affection. Imagining life without Kate leaves me with a hollow feeling.
Yet it is not a true analog. Mother earth only seems to defy winter and the fallow time. It is not, in fact, death and resurrection, but a continuum of growth, slowed in the cold, yes, but not stopped forever, then magically restarted. Corms, bulbs, tubers and rhizomes all store energy from the previous growing season and wait only for the right temperature changes to release it. Seeds sown by wind and animal, by human hand are not dead either. They only await water and the right amount of light to send out roots and stalks.
I prefer the actual analog in which human and other animals’ bodies, plant parts and the detritus of other kingdoms, all life, return their borrowed materials to the inanimate cache, allowing them to be reincarnated in plant and animal alike, ad infinitum. Does this deny some metaphysical change, some butterfly-like imaginal cell possibility for the human soul? No. It claims what can be claimed, while reserving judgment on those things that cannot.
It is spring, I think, that gives us this hope, no matter how faint, that death might be only a phase change, a transition from this way of becoming to another. It’s possible.
The last and most memorable moment of the trip came after I decided to drive around in cajun country and find an authentic cajun restaurant. I found one in a small town somewhere not too far from the bayou. I went in, it was in the middle of the afternoon, and I was the only diner in the place. A waitress came over and I told her I wanted to try some authentic cajun food. What would she recommend?
