Happily Ever After/Have Gun Will Travel

Wednesday and a lazy start to the day despite the fact that I woke at 5:30 with a growling stomach. I've been goofing off this morning despite a sizable list of things to accomplish, playing some online Scrabble (winning every game because I cheat) and also watched an episode of Once on my IPad (streaming Netflix). It was exactly the wrong thing to do cuz it upheaved me (more later).

Last night, Sarah in her element. Three hours on the phone troubleshooting a T1 cutover that was going south due to a serious mis-design on AT&T's part. Conference call with a dozen sometimes hysterical people on the phone with a dire situation that was melting down. And this wasn't just any T1 circuit - it is used to monitor police and fire alarms, so having it out of commission could have meant a fire or police alarm that went unanswered - someone could have died for lack of response - the circuit services many communities in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. Time was of the essence and there was a point where we had to decide to turn back or forge forward through the thicket of the problems. We forged and several of us kept our cool and forced a solution. I provided the calm leadership necessary to keep our collective eyes on the prize and made executive decisions on behalf of the customer that resulted in a positive outcome. I'm good that way. Calm and effective under pressure - a demeanor that instills confidence and results. That cold-blooded warrior side of me comes in handy when there is a job to be done. Have gun will travel. That's me.

But today found me weeping over that episode of Once I watched. And really it's probably an ill-advised series for me to be watching. The premise is a troubling one - a little town in New Hampshire that is inhabited by people with fuzzy memories. They are all unhappy, lives misfiring, in search of love and meaning. And the reason for the malaise is they are all under a spell. Their true reality is that they were living happily ever after lives in a medieval kingdom with familiar names like Snow White, Prince Charming, Rumpelstiltskin  Grumpy, Pinocchio  Jimminy Cricket, etc. They were living in bliss until the evil witch cursed them and transported them into our 21st century reality, robbed them of everything they hold dear and gave them amnesia. In their present reality the witch is the mayor of the town.

So Sarah, who doesn't always have a firm grip on reality, watches this show and any grounding she may have hard won, vanishes. In the show, Snow White and Prince Charming should be together - they feel the connection although their current lives are encumbered. Nothing will be right until the curse is lifted and they are reunited. Flashbacks to their old life when Prince Charming was betrothed to Kind Midas' daughter - Snow White distraught over the upcoming nuptials - marriage is being forced. She goes to Rumpelstiltskin for help:

"I need a cure for a broken heart. What can I do to get him out of my head?" she asks.
"Ah, love, it is the most painful of afflictions. Love is the most powerful magic, the cure must be extreme," Rumpel responds. Love makes us sick. It fills our hearts with dreams. It destroys our days. Love has killed more than any other disease. The cure to forget is a gift," he says. "Like all disease it can be vanquished but only with a cure or death." With that he gives her a forgetting potion.

Snow White goes to the Prince days before his wedding. She tells him she doesn't love him. The king had threatened Snow White that, if she didn't renounce the prince, he will hire an assassin to kill him. She loves him, of course - doesn't want him dead so she tells him the lie.

"It can't happen. You said I would always be in your heart. That is too cruel a fate. Go live your life. Live it without me, because there is no place for us together. Fill your heart with love for someone else - someone who can love you the way I never have - the way I never will."  She leaves him to think she doesn't love him.

Later with Grumpy, she decides to drink Rumpel's potion. "This will take all of my feelings for him away," she says.

"Don't," says Grumpy. We have all lost today (apparently there were originally eight dwarves - ha! that's the second of the "dw" words! - that day, the king killed one of them escaping the castle).

"I don't want my pain erased, as wretched as it is," says Grumpy. "I need my pain. It makes me who I am - it makes me Grumpy.  Look around, Snow. You're not alone anymore. I promise you that's all the cure you need. If the pain is too much you can always drink the potion. Just not today - put it away."

Later Grumpy comes to her, jubilant, with news the prince has cancelled the wedding and is in search of her, despite the disavowing of her love - he doesn't believe her. Grumpy expects Snow to be overjoyed. Instead, she says, " Prince who?" She drank the potion - succumbed to her despair - could no longer live with the pain of loving him in absentia.

Sarah suffers still. I don't know what to do to get him out of my head. And it doesn't help that, when I went to Boston and spent time with friend Rose in the Widow Warren House on the Cape, we were joined by her friend Billy Ann, a spiritual person who Rose says has an uncanny way of predicting the future. She asked me to talk about my relationship with Patrick - she listened as I told her the story. At the end she said, "You're so silly....you're both so silly. You were meant to be together. You will be together. Just wait and don't give up hope."  So what does a rational person do with that "information"? It defies the reality and the facts - it's been seventeen months since we broke up and he has cut all communication.

Challenge today is tough - I haven't given you much to work with. Maybe it's a stretch but how about this? Think of it.....what if this reality we're in is a curse? What if life wasn't meant to be this hard? What if the veil of confusion could be lifted and we could live with simpler agendas - to love and be loved - that's all? Nothing else mattering. Really nothing. Everything else put in our lives to distract. What IF we weren't obsessed with bodies and accomplishment and loss and honor and striving and hurt feelings and fear? What would that look like?  Happily ever after?

Peace,
Sarah