Obviously, the Universe has an urgent message to deliver through my purse.
I have a Zone - a special break in the 4th dimension, a wormhole trailing a half step behind me - that nabs my things. Dangling purse strings, loose ATM cards, notebooks, wallets, mail, cheek books, phone numbers, hair brushes, one of every pair of earrings, money. Anything not bolted down. The Zone is undiscriminating, though it's partial to cash. The last few months, oh does it have a thing for my purse.
It's August. Thursday, August 2. One day after I look from the therapist, to my husband, to the sketch of two faces that must have been drawn by one of her kids, and tell him that I want to separate. Two days before I'm to stand before his family and marry his baby brother and fiancée in a ceremony they want me to write. *
The list is groceries and haircuts and cleaning before the in-laws arrive tomorrow, before work this afternoon. Then it grows by one, pick up a shoulder x-ray for the husband in Clackamas before noon, please, for his doctor appointment. All day, wherever I am, I am somewhere else. I am on the phone in the basement numb, sobbing, while the girls watch Clifford upstairs. "I told him. I said it exactly how I practiced with it you before the session: 'neither of us is getting what we need in this relationship, neither of is happy and we haven't been for a long time. I need to try something different. I want to separate.'" I am on the phone in the kitchen rehashing while I scramble the eggs and my girls watch Arthur. I am on the phone in the car driving, speaking in code, while my girls have free range with the bagels and cream cheese in their car seats. This is where I am when the cars stops outside Kuts 4 Kids.
I am on Hawthorne, on the phone, late for the appointment, outside of Kuts, and my purse is not. Cut the engine; turn the key, reach to the passenger seat for my bag. No bag. No bag, no X-ray, only an empty seat sticking its tongue out at me and the snapshot vision of the envelope and purse on the driver's side roof. Me getting the girls settled in with their bagels, buckling in and pulling out onto Sunnyside Road, then immediately onto 205. It's a small purse, not much inside. There’s wad of old receipts, travel toothpaste, work ID, wallet, checkbook, passport for ID because the driver’s license left weeks ago.
All of it off the roof and into The Zone.
The thing about The Zone is this: The Zone taketh, and The Zone usually giveth back. I circle 205 from Sunnyside to Johnson Creek four times, go back to the urgent care center for another copy of the film, pull into hotel next door overlooking the onramp. This day started hours ago and we have spent most of it in the car, on the same stretch of 205. The girls sleep and wake in the back. Amelia reaches over, takes Josie's small hand in hers, and bites. Screams. Heat. Ninety? Ninety-five? Hot. Just plain fucking hot.
The envelope is lying in a crosswalk, crises-crossed in tire tracks. The small purse, a flat rectangle of soft stripes, is gone. Then it is not. A woman calls me at the paper.
"I saw it there by the freeway entrance and it's just such a pretty little bag that I knew it must be really special to someone so I drove down to Johnson Creek circled back around to Sunnyside and got it. I just kept hoping, putting it out there, the whole time, that no one would take it. I can just tell how loved it is. It was run over a few times and the toothpaste got squished, so I took everything out and cleaned it. And, I washed the purse for you."
It's two weeks later. Mid-August. We leave the therapist’s office agreeing to continue our separation conversation over sushi. He leaves on the bike. I sit on the gnarled roots of a giant Oak, back against the trunk, smoking an American Spirit beside the car. I am not a smoker. Not a consistent smoker anyway. I'm not a consistent anything, but when it comes to smoking just add stress. Cigarettes, weight and Neil Young, the trifecta, my emitional health barrometer. I'm smoking a pack every few days and I'm two-sizes smaller than I started the summer, but I've replaced "Helpless" with "Never Too Late" and Michael Franti tells me in a continuos loop: "Don't fear the water, you can swim inside you with in your skin ... Don't fear the long road, on the long road you've got a long time to simple song ... Don't fear your teachers, if you listen you can hear your music in the school bell..."
Just keep moving.
When I get to the sushi train the purse is strapped across my chest: passport, checkbook, old receipts, work ID, Adderall. No wallet. It's not in the therapist’s office, not by the big Oak, not in the street. The Zone taketh.
A woman calls me at the paper. Her son saw my wallet lying on the curb at the corner of SW 11th and Morrison downtown, and grabbed it because he's always losing things and wants to make sure I get this back. There's no ID in the wallet so she uses an appointment card to track my work number and calls me there. And, The Zone giveth back.
I call it The Zone,you call it ADHD. I'm okay with labels. Semantics. They help reveal my brain to me and give me context for why I need the same lessons repeatedly screamed into my ears before I'm willing to hear. They help me understand me, have compassion for me, have compassion for others who's wires don't all connect - everyone. Celebrate the weirdness of being. On a good day, anyway.
It's November. Thursday, November 2. The heat is gone. The sun is gone. The therapist is gone. The house is gone. The rain is singing to me. The list is birthday present at Ross and get Amelia from school and hand the parenting baton over to their dad during a Birthday Party in Burger King play land. Josie refuses to take off her slippers - three days of Cookie. I'm raw and impatient, flustered as I double-check the kids have everything they need for the next four sleeps. This is where I am when the car stops outside of Burger King.
I am on Southwest Barbur, late for the party, outside of Burger King and my purse is not. Cut the engine; turn the key, reach to the passenger seat for my bag. No bag. Empty seat sticking its tongue out at me and the snapshot vision of the purse in the bottom of a blue shopping kart. It's a small purse, not much inside. There’s wad of old receipts, travel toothpaste, work ID, wallet, checkbook, passport for ID because the drivers license still has not been replaced.
Call Ross from the paper. A woman answers the phone. "Is there anything in it you can identify?"
"Yes. My work ID is clipped to the inside. It has my picture on it."
"And your passport?"
"Yes. My passport is in there, too."
"You shouldn't carry your passport. You could lose it." Pause. "You can get the purse at customer service." And, The Zone giveth again.
Three times in three moths. If The Zone takes this purse once more, I will never see it again. Never.
What's the lesson? Mindfulness? Replace license and stash passport? Whatever it is, it should be obvious now, this urgent message the Universe is sending via my purse.
Once. Just this once, can I PLEASE have the Cliff Notes?
Two hours and nine minutes into Tuesday.
****
*The wedding (the lament)
X and O,
I am honored to be an instrument in helping you voice your love and commitment to each other as friends and partners and voyagers in this epic life before you.
Marriage is so many things that slowly reveal themselves both subtly and starkly along the way. Above all, it is a love that I hope allows you to be for each other always with joy, peace and kindness. That pushes you to grow, to challenge yourselves and each other to become more together than you could have become alone. That lends you the courage to communicate openly, honestly, fiercely. To laugh and cry together without restraint so you may hold each other through your triumphs and your nightmares both, in a way that tightens your embrace on every step of this journey. So you may rest in the love that supports you. This love, the boat on which you will ride the ebb and flow of your lives together.
"The soul knows for sure only that it is hungry."
Maybe its true. If so, life is for sure only a journey to find things that nourish our quirky souls. In this quest to discover little things, evolving and elusive and happening all around, you have found each other to feed your phenomenal selves with one another.
Continue to find that richness as you do in green spaces where life is insatiable, unstoppable, and also where it sprouts from impossible circumstances, like trees punching through the rocks and crags. Wrap it tight around your entangled souls, a flowered vine that binds you.
These are the things I believe you HAVE found, that you know X and O, because here you are in this place surrounded by your families' love.
These are the things your two souls can express to each other in words that are yours alone.
May you find the joy and comfort in each other always that you speak today....
Vows ...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bride's mom later in the afternoon: "I didn't realize you wrote that. That was just beautiful. You have such insight into marriage. How long have you been married?"
Me, twisting the ring, smiling weakly: "Ten years, next month."
Bride's mom: "Sigh. You must have an amazing marriage because that was just beautiful."
Me, three steps back: "Thanks. Um, would you excuse me for a moment please. I need to check on my kids."
