Fall Forward/Skinned Knees

Thursday, at the office hoping to get a lot done today. There's a lot to get moved out of here - moving date is shaping up to be 6/14. Yesterday, I DID take that walk but sans Joey because Elizabeth fetched him early. And it was hard to be too sad or hard on myself when the day was so beautiful. The lake sparkled, the new crop of babies were on display, the smell of wild roses everywhere I went. And as I entered Northwestern property, there was an unusual sentinel who accosted me when I dared to meet his eye. He was a formidable black male, dressed all in black with red sleeves, flashy red sleeves. I think he was protecting something I wasn't supposed to go near or even express any curiosity about. Everyone else seemed to get it and they walked by him, head down, ignoring him, rushing past, averting the danger he promised if they breached the invisible boundary. And maybe because I was so raw and walked slowly, taking everything in, trying to make sense of everything, looking for stuff to care about, that I hit his radar as being a person of interest, a potential threat. Not sure, I certainly did nothing aggressive, nothing that warranted the attack. When he dove at me, shrieking, flapping his red sleeves, I put my hands over my face for protection. Good that I was wearing a straw hat or he might have drilled my head with his sharp beak.  Guessing there was mama close by.

Last night, the writing group. I wrote badly. Everyone else wrote great. Happens sometimes. And you'd think I'd have written well given that I led the prompts, had crafted ideas earlier in the day. I tend to hate my own prompts. Below is what I created from a "first line" prompt. The first line given was, "The young man who came to see me a few months ago didn't knock but stood at the doorway to my office."  It's an actual first line from an article in the NYT, called First Love, Once Removed.

The young man who came to see me a few months ago didn't knock but stood at the doorway to my office.  He glared at me.  His name was Bill and when I say he came to see me, perhaps I should be more explcit, an explanation may be in order.  I didn't mean any harm.  It was a whim when I decided the best way to get over John was taking three lovers. 

"Why three?" John had asked when I explained, over dinner, my plan for getting over him. He had long ago gotten over me even though he couldn't quite let go. 

"I'm a numbers person - you know that," I reminded him. "Every day I walk 10,000 steps, eat 31 Weight Watcher points. I even count the days since we broke up - 343 by the way," I said challenging him to remember all my quirks. It bothered me that his memory of the minutiae of our time together was fading. 

"Do you have these lovers picked out?" he asked curiously as he devoured the Chilean sea bass before him. 

"No, I just decided yesterday - thinking I'll make it an age thing - someone my own age, someone your age, and maybe one of those horny 20 year olds who keep hitting me up on OK Cupid." 

That's how it started - a silly ill-conceived idea - a bravado way to show I could snap my fingers and prospective lovers would line up, eager to be considered. A prudent person would have left it at that but I've never been accused of being prudent. Next morning found me announcing my intentions to the world at large. "Mary Rose has decided to take three lovers and is accepting applications." I was having fun, being silly of course, only kidding around - or was I? 

That night, Bill - jazz club - a genius boy, virtuoso bass player, unwitting candidate. I came. I saw. I conquered him. It was easy. I was beautiful and smart and he a duckling - a 21 year old duckling. Not ugly per se, but formative, easy to overlook. 

"He's fallen in love with me," I told John over dinner again. We still hadn't figured out how to say good-bye. "He came to my office today - upset everyone." 

"You deserve whatever you get," John said, his mouth full of grouper. The man loved his fish! 

"I know. It was a really bad idea, the whole three lovers thing," I mumbled, picking at my own dinner, having lost my appetite. "I didn't mean to hurt anyone." 

"It's you, I worry about," he said tenderly.  

And that's that for today. If I have any thoughts worth sharing they're probably not worth much, but here goes. Struggling to be brave, stay in the game of life, not take cheap shortcuts, not shortchange myself even though I'm absolutely terrified. When I said I wasn't brave enough to love again I cut myself short shrift. I AM brave enough and strong enough to be hurt again. It's just that.....would you choose it for yourself? But what is the alternative? Nick says this is an important choice - that I risk becoming a rhinoceros with thick skin if I flee from love. Feeling like that point in childbirth where you want to turn back, demand that it all stop "I don't want to have this baby after all...I changed my mind." Your husband and the doctors try not to laugh as you lay there spread eagle ready to split open and spit out a slimy carbon copy of yourself. They know there's no turning back. The journey must be taken.

And if there is a universal truth here that you can latch onto, maybe it's that you have to go THROUGH it, not over or around or under whatever obstacle you face.  Mario, my young tenant, told me, "If you're going to fall, fall forward." Wasn't sure what that meant - thought about it a lot yesterday as I sat on the painted rocks on the Northwestern campus, looking out to Lake Michigan. I decided it meant life is a continuous series of falls and flops, stumbles and crash landings. It's a weird way to get from point A to Z, lurching, falling, skinned knees, but if we keep getting up each time and find ourselves even one step closer to our heart's desires -  that is falling forward.

Peace,
Sarah