I recently finished reading Wild by Cheryl Strayed.
There were times while reading the book that my heart would swell and tears would trickle down my cheeks.
I responded that way mostly when along Cheryl's journey, a through-hike on the PCT, she met up with fellow backpackers.
I've experienced that immediate connectedness with backpackers along the trail.
It's almost like we are kin, even though we'd never met previously...at least in this life.
I think of the man who gave my son and I his car keys.
He was heading north on the AT and we were heading south toward Damascus, Virginia, where he had left his locked car with containers of fuel inside where temperatures would get hot as the metal enclosure would sit day after day for a week baking in the sun.
The fellow-backpacker-car-owner was concerned the fuel canisters may get too hot and explode or something.
After his group of six and my son and I had spent the night together at a shelter on the AT, he asked Son and I the next morning if we could retrieve the canisters of fuel out of his car when we arrived at Damascus and give them along with his car keys to the outdoor supply store in Damascus. He'd then pick up his keys and the canisters in about a week when he got off the trail. We had just met this man, a lawyer and activist for handicapped kids, 10 to 12 hours earlier and here he was giving us the keys to his car. Kinship.
Cheryl named her backpack "Monster."
At first that is how Monster felt, a giant monster on Cheryl's back, a heavy load.
Monster never became light, but did become lighter as Cherly learned she didn't need as much as she was carrying.
Monster became Cheryl's sole companion on the trail.
Monster and Cheryl were one.
Monster, though heavy, contained all Cheryl physically needed to survive.
Monster became like her friend.
Back in January before I knew anything about Monster or Cheryl's journey, I began calling my business "a monster," and not in a good way. It had become overwhelming. Growth had happened too fast. The folks who worked for me were making life changes that would send them to another state and another city and they'd be unable to work for me. That meant I had to find and hire new people. In January I felt I had become my business; not unusual for any small business owner. But I am not my business. My business is just one aspect of my life.
As I read "Wild" my struggles with business ownership and responsibility kept popping into my mind. I felt more than thought about the parallels between my business and Cheryl's unprepared journey into the "Wild." And she was unprepared, but she made it and learned as she journeyed through.
It was somewhere toward the last half of the book that it dawned on me that her pack Monster and my business, the monster, had been given the same description - "monster." Her Monster had become her friend, a friend she wouldn't carry forever but rather for that part of her journey.
My monster could become my friend too. Even though it feels heavy at times, it helps provide material needs. I've endeavored to make the responsibilities smoother for me. Sometimes I succeed; sometimes I don't. But I still attend to it daily and it attends to me.
My monster will be changing over the next 6 months. It's bittersweet, having to retire my monster as I have known it. Yet, when that part of the journey is done, I'll bid my monster farewell. Until then, I pick up my monster each day knowing we are one.
******
June 22, 2013
June 5, 2013
The Scene Behind the Scene
non-subject: the scene behind the scene
aww ~ 6/05/13
___________
I still love Luke.
There, I said it.
Of course I still love Luke.
Like our babe in my womb that was aborted in 1978, our relationship was aborted a couple years after the babe.
I chose to abort both.
_______
2005.
In October, 2005, I left The Way.
In December, 2005, I joined an anti-Way online forum. I became engrossed in this online life spending hour upon hour reading;
responding;
chatting;
reuniting with people from 20 years previous, most of whom had left The Way a decade or two before I had left.
_______
2006.
On a June day in 2006, I sat at my computer screen once again engrossed.
I had just finished reading a thread entitled "Do you ever think of past loves?"
As I sat pondering what I had just read and embarking upon another thread, a message popped up in a square box in the middle of my monitor:
"Hi Carol,
It's Luke.
I visit here from time to time. I saw a thread where you asked about my whereabouts.
I had to register in order to send you this message.
It'd be great to connect.
God bless,
Luke"
I sat in total momentary shock staring at the box with the message.
My heart skipped a beat, or ten.
Butterflies fluttered all through my tummy.
How could this be?
Hubby and I were barely getting through my online affair that I recently ended.
This couldn't be happening.
But it was.
All my feelings for Nick, with whom I had had the affair, dissipated in an instant.
In that same instant I was thrown back in time with Luke.
And all the pent up suppressed love for Luke that I had buried began to gurgle, like lava at the bottom of a volcano.
Immediately I responded to the box on the screen:
"Hey Luke, are you still there?"
"Yes, I'm still here,"
the box responded back.
Luke and I then "met" in a private chat room and exchanged phone numbers.
I can't recall now if Luke & I spoke on the phone that afternoon or a couple days later; I think it was a couple days later.
I do recall I was nervous.
How would I respond?
What would I share?
How was I going to tell Hubby?
Do I even tell Hubby?
Yes, I had to tell Hubby.
The phone call...
Luke had married; I had known that already. His wife, who was the girlfriend after me, was the reason I didn't pursue Luke again. After all, I wasn't Way Corps anymore when Luke and I split. I had AWOLed; I wasn't worthy of Luke who was Way Corps.
Luke told me that he had gotten to know his wife through her daughter. At the time back in the early 80s when he met them, he had thought that our babe, had I not aborted, would have been about the age of his later-wife-to-be's daughter.
Luke and his wife had married the same year Hubby and I married.
Luke and his wife had chosen to home school their children; Hubby and I had also chosen to home school.
Like myself, Luke's wife had chosen a more natural route to raising their children.
Like myself, Luke's wife had a love for horses.
Luke was the CEO of a successful company; Hubby was a CFO for a successful company.
It was like a parallel reality.
Hubby met Luke via phone.
I think they met on my and Luke's first phone call connection.
After they met, I asked Hubby how he felt.
He responded, "I feel like I've just met my ghost of 25 years."
I too faced ghosts of my own - mainly overwhelming grief that gurgled and then gushed forth.
Grief for the unborn life.
Grief for the decades of suppressed love I held for Luke.
Hubby held me through the grief.
In his own way, Hubby grieved with me.
In July, 2006, Hubby went with me when I chose to acknowledge the life ended in my womb. I buried some tokens for that life, buried them among the feral ponies of Grayson Highlands.
Hubby dug the hole and we buried the box of tokens.
Hubby and I sang "Amazing Grace.
Luke wrote me that day or shortly thereafter and asked how it went...this ceremony I had decided upon.
Luke and I spoke on the phone multiple times those first months.
Within the first few calls, Luke shared his grief.
For years after he was married, he grieved our lost relationship.
He told me how once on an ocean vessel he had thrown a box overboard.
I can't recall now if that box was literal or imaginary; seems it was literal.
But, real or imaginary, in it he had placed that grief.
He had let it go.
In one of our first phone conversations, Luke stated, "You were my promised land and I fucked up. But God has fed me with manna."
I doubt I'll ever forget those words.
My heart plunged at the time; such a mix of feelings.
Regret.
Grief.
Love.
Gratitude.
Bittersweet is an understatement.
I never knew I meant so much to Luke.
And now, in 2006, here we were.
_______
2013.
My initial, overwhelming longing regarding Luke has faded.
Maybe "faded" isn't the right word. Regulated, perhaps?
For me, the longing still arises in waves.
But they are gentle waves.
Waves I can trust.
Waves I can ride instead of overwhelming, tumultuous waves that I have to navigate.
************
aww ~ 6/05/13
___________
I still love Luke.
There, I said it.
Of course I still love Luke.
Like our babe in my womb that was aborted in 1978, our relationship was aborted a couple years after the babe.
I chose to abort both.
_______
2005.
In October, 2005, I left The Way.
In December, 2005, I joined an anti-Way online forum. I became engrossed in this online life spending hour upon hour reading;
responding;
chatting;
reuniting with people from 20 years previous, most of whom had left The Way a decade or two before I had left.
_______
2006.
On a June day in 2006, I sat at my computer screen once again engrossed.
I had just finished reading a thread entitled "Do you ever think of past loves?"
As I sat pondering what I had just read and embarking upon another thread, a message popped up in a square box in the middle of my monitor:
"Hi Carol,
It's Luke.
I visit here from time to time. I saw a thread where you asked about my whereabouts.
I had to register in order to send you this message.
It'd be great to connect.
God bless,
Luke"
I sat in total momentary shock staring at the box with the message.
My heart skipped a beat, or ten.
Butterflies fluttered all through my tummy.
How could this be?
Hubby and I were barely getting through my online affair that I recently ended.
This couldn't be happening.
But it was.
All my feelings for Nick, with whom I had had the affair, dissipated in an instant.
In that same instant I was thrown back in time with Luke.
And all the pent up suppressed love for Luke that I had buried began to gurgle, like lava at the bottom of a volcano.
Immediately I responded to the box on the screen:
"Hey Luke, are you still there?"
"Yes, I'm still here,"
the box responded back.
Luke and I then "met" in a private chat room and exchanged phone numbers.
I can't recall now if Luke & I spoke on the phone that afternoon or a couple days later; I think it was a couple days later.
I do recall I was nervous.
How would I respond?
What would I share?
How was I going to tell Hubby?
Do I even tell Hubby?
Yes, I had to tell Hubby.
The phone call...
Luke had married; I had known that already. His wife, who was the girlfriend after me, was the reason I didn't pursue Luke again. After all, I wasn't Way Corps anymore when Luke and I split. I had AWOLed; I wasn't worthy of Luke who was Way Corps.
Luke told me that he had gotten to know his wife through her daughter. At the time back in the early 80s when he met them, he had thought that our babe, had I not aborted, would have been about the age of his later-wife-to-be's daughter.
Luke and his wife had married the same year Hubby and I married.
Luke and his wife had chosen to home school their children; Hubby and I had also chosen to home school.
Like myself, Luke's wife had chosen a more natural route to raising their children.
Like myself, Luke's wife had a love for horses.
Luke was the CEO of a successful company; Hubby was a CFO for a successful company.
It was like a parallel reality.
Hubby met Luke via phone.
I think they met on my and Luke's first phone call connection.
After they met, I asked Hubby how he felt.
He responded, "I feel like I've just met my ghost of 25 years."
I too faced ghosts of my own - mainly overwhelming grief that gurgled and then gushed forth.
Grief for the unborn life.
Grief for the decades of suppressed love I held for Luke.
Hubby held me through the grief.
In his own way, Hubby grieved with me.
In July, 2006, Hubby went with me when I chose to acknowledge the life ended in my womb. I buried some tokens for that life, buried them among the feral ponies of Grayson Highlands.
Hubby dug the hole and we buried the box of tokens.
Hubby and I sang "Amazing Grace.
Luke wrote me that day or shortly thereafter and asked how it went...this ceremony I had decided upon.
Luke and I spoke on the phone multiple times those first months.
Within the first few calls, Luke shared his grief.
For years after he was married, he grieved our lost relationship.
He told me how once on an ocean vessel he had thrown a box overboard.
I can't recall now if that box was literal or imaginary; seems it was literal.
But, real or imaginary, in it he had placed that grief.
He had let it go.
In one of our first phone conversations, Luke stated, "You were my promised land and I fucked up. But God has fed me with manna."
I doubt I'll ever forget those words.
My heart plunged at the time; such a mix of feelings.
Regret.
Grief.
Love.
Gratitude.
Bittersweet is an understatement.
I never knew I meant so much to Luke.
And now, in 2006, here we were.
_______
2013.
My initial, overwhelming longing regarding Luke has faded.
Maybe "faded" isn't the right word. Regulated, perhaps?
For me, the longing still arises in waves.
But they are gentle waves.
Waves I can trust.
Waves I can ride instead of overwhelming, tumultuous waves that I have to navigate.
************
Waking to Life, PUD
I'm tempted to write, "Another day in my purposeless life."
What is the point of it all; "it" being this continuation of the same cycle.
Eat.
Sleep.
Wake.
Interesting that I list "eat" first on my "what is the point of it all" cycle.
Shouldn't the order be waking, eating, sleeping?
"Waking" as in arising.
But there are other "wakes."
"Wakes" are produced behind a vessel moving through water, little waves undulating up and down.
In the womb I was once an aquatic being.
Suspended within salt water.
Fed by a tube.
Imagine the sounds, muffled tones of indistinguishable voices.
Or maybe I did eventually distinguish the voices.
Mom's voice would have been the most common.
Perhaps my water sac picked up vibrations when Mom would speak or sing or cry or holler.
I would have heard her tones and felt the vibrations.
Perhaps those vibrations produced little wakes within the amniotic fluid.
When I would kick or move my tiny arm to get my tiny thumb to my tiny mouth, more wakes rippled in my tiny self-contained pool. I think I would have liked that sensation.
Eat.
Sleep.
Wake.
"Wakes" are also associated with death, the ceremonies we keep to honor a person's passing from this life.
The times I have considered suicide, water is always involved.
Perhaps this water method is a desire to return again to the womb - protected, muffled, secure.
Or at least the feeling of protection and security.
It seems very little in life is really secure.
Eat.
Sleep.
Wake.
I know my life isn't purposeless.
Yet, there are many days that my life feels purposeless.
After so many highs and lows, level ground can feel that way - purposeless or pointless.
After all level ground is level; it has no points.
P.
U.
D.
PUD is an Appalachian Trail hiker acronym.
Translated it means "pointless up and down."
That's how the trail can feel, day after day.
Pointless.
Up.
Down.
A babe in the womb sucks her thumb at 14 weeks.
At 14 weeks, she finds a purpose - an instinct preparing for survival when she leaves the security of her feeding tube.
Suckling for nourishment.
Suckling for self soothing.
A babe's first priority is to nourish herself.
Perhaps "eat" does come first.
Eat.
Sleep.
Wake.
What is the point of it all; "it" being this continuation of the same cycle.
Eat.
Sleep.
Wake.
Interesting that I list "eat" first on my "what is the point of it all" cycle.
Shouldn't the order be waking, eating, sleeping?
"Waking" as in arising.
But there are other "wakes."
"Wakes" are produced behind a vessel moving through water, little waves undulating up and down.
In the womb I was once an aquatic being.
Suspended within salt water.
Fed by a tube.
Imagine the sounds, muffled tones of indistinguishable voices.
Or maybe I did eventually distinguish the voices.
Mom's voice would have been the most common.
Perhaps my water sac picked up vibrations when Mom would speak or sing or cry or holler.
I would have heard her tones and felt the vibrations.
Perhaps those vibrations produced little wakes within the amniotic fluid.
When I would kick or move my tiny arm to get my tiny thumb to my tiny mouth, more wakes rippled in my tiny self-contained pool. I think I would have liked that sensation.
Eat.
Sleep.
Wake.
"Wakes" are also associated with death, the ceremonies we keep to honor a person's passing from this life.
The times I have considered suicide, water is always involved.
Perhaps this water method is a desire to return again to the womb - protected, muffled, secure.
Or at least the feeling of protection and security.
It seems very little in life is really secure.
Eat.
Sleep.
Wake.
I know my life isn't purposeless.
Yet, there are many days that my life feels purposeless.
After so many highs and lows, level ground can feel that way - purposeless or pointless.
After all level ground is level; it has no points.
P.
U.
D.
PUD is an Appalachian Trail hiker acronym.
Translated it means "pointless up and down."
That's how the trail can feel, day after day.
Pointless.
Up.
Down.
A babe in the womb sucks her thumb at 14 weeks.
At 14 weeks, she finds a purpose - an instinct preparing for survival when she leaves the security of her feeding tube.
Suckling for nourishment.
Suckling for self soothing.
A babe's first priority is to nourish herself.
Perhaps "eat" does come first.
Eat.
Sleep.
Wake.