X

"All the art of living lies in a fine line mingling between letting go and holding on."

---Havelock Ellis

I had an unexpected day today...a Snow Day for Coop in NYC...didn't change my early morning wakeup, it simply created a most fluid mellowdy to the day. A quiet hang with Coop in the morning, a wonderful gift, this Saturday (feeling) on Friday...even more so, the surprise gift...and then he went off to sled with friends in Central Park, leaving me alone...so love that time. How important it is, so many of us don't seem to carve out enough of that. Or maybe they don't need it, I have no idea. What do I know, I am the kid who talked to bathroom vanity mirrors for so many years, ouloud. Hey, everyone needs someone to talk to...who better than Geminiacal me (don't answer that)?

I had to go and pick up Coop's snow boots from his Mom...not someone whom I generally love to see, under any circumstances...and, I had zippity (bad) energy on it...just made it happen. It's interesting that I had seen her already two times this week, at Coop's bball games. Tuesday, I came in a bit late, she was sitting with her Dad...I came over at halftime, gave them both warm greetings, I talked to him about what was going on with me creatively...I have to say, during the marriage, he was always way more encouraging to me about pursuing my dream than she was...he could so relate, the fabulous cartoonist who became the biggest exterminator in NY over the years, the big macher in his field during his career...the excellent provider...and, still, I sense, a bit of the "what if-fer", the artist who now makes his creative peace in other outlets...yesterday, when X came to the game after me, she made no effort to even make eye contact with me...didn't matter, the contrast was notable, the social consciousness way different. So today, when I met up with her on the snowy SW corner of Varick/Houston, we walked two blocks together. X had recently not landed a gig creative job at an agency, not sure why...I looked in her eyes, and said, "Sorry about the job. Clearly not meant to be. There must be something better, next, for you." Those words just rolled off my lips. No brain thought. The compassion came out. No anger. No subtext. No hiding out. X is someone I have tried to create some threads with, teeny even, that would be fine...and, it's always one-sided. Just me doing that. Whenever there's a reasonably open or warm opening paragraph from her in an email, all I have to do is scan down to see what she wants or needs. Effective and accurate market research. 100% of the time. So, I never know whether the two sets of rules are a neon lesson for me to keep going, keep showing up as I would, keep opening up. Or, an opportunity to look at one-sidedness, as some other kind of lesson. To play by her rules? Or as a reflection of some part of me. That must be doing that, otherwise I wouldn't attract that behavior. I don't know. Unless I do. It has to start with me. I can't look to anyone else to make that shift. Because whether or not someone even CAN, doesn't matter. You want it, make it happen. So, I (try to) do what I do, to be who I aspire to be. When I am able. I keep seeing this relationship as a lesson of the ultimate power. God knows it's challenged me in more ways than I can imagine. Truly, I have come to realize that if I can stay as open and NONATTACHED as I can be, wherever that is, whatever that means, in that moment, as each one unfolds, I have a shot to keep going further.

So, it was under that spirit today, that quietness inside, that I rondayvood with X. And as we walked those two blocks until she descended the subway stairs, it FELT different. Maybe in a way that it hasn't for 11 or so dynamically challenged and challenging years. I offered to turn her onto another agency I know in her specialty, and I wished her luck, and walked away. With a shake of my head. This time not because it was a physical reflection of the words in my head or those coming out of my mouth. Because it was a surprise. Like the day in general. Snow Day as a healing day? To see and feel OK with the engagement. And instead of being angry about all the bullshit I have felt over time, all the JP-determined unfairnesses and injustices or broken whatevers, none of it mattered. I laughed and shook because the artist I had met twentysomething years ago had indeed turned into the ad agency talent she clearly had the gifts for, yet ran away from. And, that lawyer she had always wanted me to be, had transformed into the life artist that I had buried inside, the person I dreamed of and finally can acknowledge to be the person I always felt I deserved to be...the person, the dreamer, who scared her, who couldn't (as somehow the "lawyer" might) provide the kind of fencing, picket or otherwise, that she seemed to crave. X seemed more content, less angry at the man who had "fucked up her life", settled into her own skin. In a way that I had never experienced. And, I was happy for her. Almost happy as I was for me. To see and celebrate those unexpected gifts of the soul.