Women on Skopelos

            

 

Here we are on the gorgeous island of Skopelos. Two sisters and two friends finding our own individual path, alone and together. 

Early morning. July 5th.

It is beautiful here on the large terrace, facing the Aegean. To my right, a gentle hill is dotted with white houses, topped with terra cotta. The other women are sleeping. Three of us have suffered from the death of a beloved. K whose son died 6 months ago says that this is a place of healing. 

I am playing music by an English friend, a musician and composer who has created this piece for relaxation. 

There is such peace here and yet, at times, I grow anxious, usually when I think I'm being anti-social or contrary but I'm seeing that most of it is in my own head.

I've just finished a novel called "The Wedding People" that seemed appropriate as I am here for a wedding. The main character is an English Lit professor whose dissertation was on Virginia Woolf. The love of her life leaves her for a younger colleague. Two years later, she decides to kill herself at an expensive resort where unexpectedly and fortunately for her, a wedding is taking place. The inner monologue and outer dialogue is exceptionally good. 

At the end, she comes to the conclusion: "She will have to practice saying her full name - all of them will... becoming who you want to be is just like anything else, it takes practice. It requires the belief that one day, you'll wake up and be a natural at it." I ask myself the question: who do I want to become? Someone who doesn't drift, who makes decisions and follow my passions, to become more alive. This will take practice and I cannot do it alone. I need others.

It's curious being with a group of women. We sit and talk, tell our stories, in a group or in pairs. We go to town and eat. We shop. In the afternoon, we go to the sea and walk in the water. The bottom is rocky and the water cold. I hate it and so decide to become an observer. No one cares. 

July 8th.

I receive a text from Virginie reminding me that this is our writing morning. We promised each other that we would continue our writing practice even when apart. My sister and I have escaped the wedding guests arriving and are relaxing on another nearby island, Alonissos. 

I sit on the small balcony and am swept away again by the sight of the Aegean. I am so fortunate to be here. I have so many lessons to learn, so many judgments to suspend. I am learning to listen harder and be more accepting of others' ways. I don't have to agree. For instance, when I mentioned my cat's name is Fauci. K turned up her nose and said 'not after the doctor' and I said yes. When K opened her mouth to say more (K and H think him evil), I said 'we are not going to discuss this' because I know any amount of discussion will make no difference. When I let go, I am more at peace.

I have had a delicious morning. An omelette in a cafe on the harbour and the discovery of an artsy boutique filled with jewellery and dresses by young Greek designers. I am inspired, also by Helen's son who arrived with his family before Gael and I left. He is the groom, father of two sons and two daughters. His wife is a marvel too. Their happiness fills me. I have another reason to be happy. My eldest son, his beloved Jane, and son Sebastian were just invited to the wedding and are arriving next week! 

This reminds me of Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem "So Much Happiness":

It is difficult to know what to do with so much happiness.

With sadness there is something to rub against,

a wound to tend with lotion and cloth.

When the world falls in around you, you have pieces to pick up,

something to hold in your hands, like ticket stubs or change.

But happiness floats.

It doesn’t need you to hold it down.

It doesn’t need anything.

Happiness lands on the roof of the next house, singing,

and disappears when it wants to.

You are happy either way.

I am a holiday-maker, a British term that I love. It is hot hot hot and I am sun-drenched. Gael and I rented a little car as our inexpensive room is too isolated and getting to a beach is dependent on two unreliable buses. My sister is an expert driver, and we drive along roads that are too narrow and find our way to two beaches. The first has an excellent restaurant, modest with great food and the second is gloriously sandy and the water warm. I swim twice! We pay for the luxury of two lounge chairs with umbrellas. House problems are forgotten. I observe families at play, boats sailing at a distance. I look down at my softening flesh and am learning to accept that the firmness of youth has passed. I remain in a body that can still dance. I want to find the beauty in aging as Anne Truitt did. 

July 10

We have moved on to the island of Skiathos. Last night we dined at a restaurant where we ate years ago with Rob and Larry. Sweet memories.

Today, we are moving slowly. 

Without Rob

On the third anniversary of his death

No music drifts down from the attic. 

No jasmine incense burns. 

No ear to listen to me ramble. 

No driver when I go to town. 

At the end of the day,

No one yells down the stairs 

Dinner is ready. 

I hate how I sometimes, lost in my work,

Begrudgingly came to the table.

Every summer, we’d drive to the jazz festival

And sit at small outdoor cafes.

Order beer or wine and before the waiter

Could bring our drinks a calm musical note arrives.

Every bar, street corner and alleyway had musicians playing.

I swear he loved jazz more than me.

Still, he would choose performers who sang,

Knowing words are my passion. 

He wanted me with him.

He wanted me.  

Now, I choose my own fruits and vegetables.

No mango, pomegranate, black radish or bok choy.

I gave away his exotic spices.  

And season with a pinch of salt and pepper, 

And an overdose of garlic. 

There is no such thing as too much garlic, he’d say.

  

My nights are disturbed. 

I sleep for two hours and wake, 

Perhaps have a cup of camomile tea, light a cigarette,

Lean out the kitchen window, 

Looking over a tangled garden. 

Cry me a river.  

And people don’t often
know what they’re saying in the end….

So I’ll say it now. Here it is.
Don’t pay any attention
if I don’t get it right
when it is for real. Blame that
on terror and pain
or the stuff they’re shooting
into my veins. This is what I wanted to
sign off with. Bend
closer, listen, I love you.

(Last verse is a poem by Alden Nowlan, a Canadian poet born in the Maritimes, like Rob)

 

Woman Without a Country

 

How beautiful it is to get up and go out and do something. We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different.   Kurt Vonnegut in A Man Without a Country

I must make a decision about where to live and die because I am a woman without a country. Where am I most at ease? By myself. I am in a house that I am slowly changing to suit me but as I grow older the worn steps on three flights will become more difficult. Also, I am too far away from family and close friends... I delay these thoughts once again. 

How beautiful it is to get up and go out. (Otherwise, I doodle my mornings away.) How beautiful it is this morning. The sun is shining but not too strongly. I slept a good seven hours because I took a sleeping pill last night - a luxury that I only allow myself when I have something important to do. 

Today, Wednesday, I meet Virginie to write. And here I am, at peace, writing at a quiet table inside the Arcades bistro across from my friend before I return home to attack my French taxes. I would like to change, to become more productive. You are productive, Yvonne. And I am, I am but I bounce from one thing to another. I've written about this before. It's me. Is it so bad? 

I am bad when I have visitors or most visitors. I'm incapable of anything. Do I talk too much? No. I love my house and yet, the sky is blue and the sun is shining and I want to go somewhere beautiful. I would like dreaming time and perhaps I can find it on my terrace if I buy a beautiful umbrella and pour a crisp white wine. Under this thought creeps a reprimand. You didn't take your vitamins this morning, fucking pills. I don't want to need additives. My body has served me well up until now but these days, it's yelling at me to pay attention, supplement my diet. And I do. Most of the time. 

Read, play, play and stop the guilt trips. It is still weird being by myself. Love. Will anyone love me again, want to hold my old body - fiercely - kiss my lips? I have my doubts. Is it that I think I am unloveable? Love after Love, a poem by Derek Walcott leaps into my head:

The time will come

when, with elation...

You will love again the stranger who was your self.

Give wine. Give bread, Give back your heart

to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored

for another, who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf

the photographs, the desperate notes,

peel your own image from the mirror.

Sit. Feast on your life.

Today, a week later, I meet Virginie in Gaillac at the most beautiful patisserie, Pignou. Earlier this morning, I wrote out a quote by Leonard Cohen: "I greet you from the other side of sorrow and despair, with a love so vast and shattered it will reach you everywhere." In a week, it will be three years since Rob died. For the last two nights, he has been in my dreams, laughing at my antics and anger. 

Virginie and I, first discuss our angst. This woman, thirty years younger than me, feels much the same about life as I do. I decide to pick up where I left off last week. Is it that I think that I am unloveable? I am not sure. As I write this my stomach does a somersault. An affirmation? My body is betraying me. Is it betrayal? I smoke. I drink wine. I forget to eat. I am lazy. For the most part, I do not enjoy the company of others. (Virginie feels the same.) Is it because part of me is missing? I never acknowledged the importance of Rob's presence. The comfort. The knowing that if something went wrong, he would be there for me. He took care of things that I didn't want to do...

I am afraid of where I am going with this writing. I remind myself that this writing is for myself, no one else. But I feel a need to tell. Still, these pages can disappear. I would like to amalgamate all my notebooks so I can find past thoughts but how can I do this when the minutes pass and I cannot accomplish what I need to do. How can I change things and find precious time? How can I concentrate? I do not have to run. I can walk or even crawl. "[I] do not have to be good/ [I] do not have to walk on [my] knees/ for a hundred miles through the dessert repenting./ [I] only have to let the soft animal of [my] body/ love what it loves."

Love is what I need - to be touched, not to be afraid. Do not be afraid, little one. As certainly as certainty dims, you are on your way out.  And yet, there is still a bit of time. I think of Langston Hughes lines (I have always loved these lines, they have given me courage on my occasions): 

Hold fast to dreams/ For if dreams die/ Life is a broken-winged bird/ That cannot fly.

 Hold fast to dreams/ For when dreams go/ Life is a barren field/ Frozen with snow.

Poetry. How it hits me, crawls into me, offers me a softness, a way to walk even when I feel my legs ache. 

How do I keep my dignity? By making sure that I always have my own space even when I travel. By sitting on a balcony in Greece and - if I must, smoke but most importantly - write because this is the one place, I find my purpose, my excitement. 

Under these thoughts, slips thoughts of Michael. Can I find the right words to give him strength. Can words change one's life? 

I need an epiphany. I love the feeling when suddenly I am hit in the gut and head with a new idea, a leap, a certainty. Some epiphanies take weight from my body and I feel lighter, happier and sometimes they last. At other times, they fly into the heavens and the lesson has to relearned once more. 

Such is my world, at the moment.  And my original question returns: am I loveable? Yes, but under this affirmative, there is still doubt.

Kind

 'Loneliness is not a longing for company, it is a longing for kind. And kind means people who can see you who you are, and that means they have enough intelligence and sensitivity and patience to do that."                        ~ Marilyn French

What do I mean by "kind"? Someone I can talk to and not feel foolish. Someone who thinks as I do - not judging by looks or wealth. Someone who has the same sense of beauty, who loves art, museums, theatre, parks, water bodies, flowers and birdsong. Someone who laughs and cries, who is open and honest. Someone who takes the time or makes time to be with me. And most important, to my mind, is someone who truly listens. 

Once, years ago, I tried to define "love". I researched, read dozens of books and, in the end, I decided that listening to the other kindly, not mockingly  is love. 

Sometimes I talk and talk and talk and suddenly realize that I have not ask the other how their life is going. This happened the other night with my sister Maggie. She is the sister who all my sisters turn to in crisis. She listens. She takes care of us when we cannot care for ourselves.  I paused my monologue and asked how she is doing. I took care to listen and not let my thoughts roam. Maggie didn't jabber but was casual speaking about matters big and small. I learned more about her day-to-day and health concerns. I felt closer to her.

This reminded me of women in the Wild Women Writing circle. Sometimes one or another pours out her heart when reading her writing and my heart responds. I feel so grateful that she has the courage. This also makes me feel bad because I don't often read. I am afraid of sharing me, afraid of sounding like a broken record.

The other day, an ordinary day, I burst out crying about Rob. I have no idea what prompted it. The grief lingers. I think I have reached a calmer place, a place of acceptance, and then I find myself angry at him for leaving me with all the day-to-day responsibilities and not being around to help me make decisions. He was always more sensible than me, more grounded but he, in turn, turned to me for help - usually when he wanted to have fun, spend a bit of money and needed permission. He told me once that he felt that he wasn't allowed to have fun. He had to be responsible. 

I meander, I pause and have a cigarette, and don't immediately take care of what has to be done. I know. I know. I eventually do. But the workload has doubled since his death and I want things completed lickety-split. But often here, there are issues not within my power to complete immediately. I am trying to learn patience. 

Slow down, you move too fast, you gotta make the moment last. I am writing in the bar with Virginie. There is such comfort here. I relate to her more than anyone in the village. She is still so young, an artist at heart - such a lovely heart. I told her that perhaps she should take a quarter turn (advice from Helen Luke) and view her life from another angle. Perhaps I should too. 

"May I have the courage today/ To live the life that I would love,/ To postpone my dream no longer/ But do at last what I came here for/ And waste my heart on fear no more."  ~ John O'Donohue

Wild and Free

An excerpt from Rapture by Linda Hogan

How worthy the being

in the human body. If,

when you are there, you see women

wading on the water

and clouds in the valley,

the smell of rain,

or a lotus blossom rises out of round green leaves,

remember there is always something

besides our own misery.

I am very good about wallowing in my own misery. I want to be wild and free. 

I want freedom of movement, freedom for my body. I know if I ignore it, it will rebel. It will demand that I not insult its intelligence: "own me, adorn me, celebrate me. Now. While you still are capable of movement. Move to the music that has you stomping your feet, extending your limbs, twisting your torso. Twist and Shout. The Tennessee Waltz. Waltz me to the End of Love."

I think of Rudolf Nureyev and his perfect body, executing amazing leaps and pirouettes - until he couldn't. Towards the end of his life, he performed a young Apollo at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Vancouver. He faltered often, nearly fell. A woman in the seat in front of me, sobbed. He was forcing his audience to confront his mortality. At first, I thought it undignified of him to display himself so. Later, I thought him courageous. 

I hide myself and don't dance because I am embarrassed by my flesh, my less than perfect moves. I am self-consciousness. Who do I think I am? And who cares? 

I remember seeing Clarissa Pinkola Estés speaking in Vancouver. She was adorned in a full skirt, tight belt clinched at the waist, and gypsy blouse. She didn't hide her abundant flesh. Her lips were painted bright red. I could see that she felt good in her flesh. How I wanted to be like her. And I thought of all the women that I assisted in the boutique. It was the larger fleshier women who liked themselves the most. And I liked them too. There is a comfort being with such women who are unashamed, unapologetic about their bodies, women who are wild and free. How delicious and inspiring. 

I want to be that kind of woman. I will never be younger, more beautiful than I am right now. (How difficult this is to write.) I give myself a stern talking to: I think you will be happier, Yvonne, not tearing yourself apart and celebrating your body while you still can. Now dance!

I wrote this during at my last writing circle meeting and I remained silent, unwilling - no unable, to speak. I am too often like this. 

Non, Je ne regrette rien

The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.   

This quote from Mary Oliver pushes me to attempt to write a lyric essay about love. I fear that I am not up to the task, that it is too grand a topic, but I need to give it power and time. In Marlene's last two writing circles, I began. This is an amalgamation of my two writes. I begin, knowing that this may be rearranged, or deleted but I am excited - the ideas are starting to come:

Rob 

In your ratty old dressing gown, you walked into the kitchen and held out your arms. I walked into them. You drew me close and held me tight to your belly. I felt so loved. 

The love I shared with you was not saccharine sweet, not a fairytale romance. 

You died a tragic death. There is a beginning and end to our over-fifty-year love affair. 

This morning I stood looking out the kitchen window, coffee in hand, admiring the wisteria with its violet blossoms. When we were young, still students, we would read Leonard Cohen's poetry and make love. I remember one morning, I was to meet a friend but Leonard had us lusting so,  we couldn't pull apart - even when my friend was hammering at the door and I had to smother my laughter in your chest..  

My lady can sleep Upon a handkerchief Or if it be Fall Upon a fallen leaf.

I smile at this memory and, from somewhere out of the blue, I start humming "Bird on a Wire". 

I saw a beggar leaning on his wooden crutch

He said to me, "You must not ask for so much"

And a pretty woman leaning in her darkened door

She cried to me, "Hey, why not ask for more?"

You are the beggar though you never begged. You had more than you dreamed possible. I was the whore asking for more - not gold or silver. I wanted more dialogue and more intimate moments. And somewhere along the line, I stopped asking for more. Did I stop too soon? 

I learned to live as you lived, doing my own thing. You were so sure of yourself, so self-contained. Your love of music was, to my mind, your true love. (I shall add mention here of his sound work and awards.) Mine was writing. (Anais Nin story?) But I was never as sure of myself as you were. 

My heart breaks as I recall a scene from Charles de Gaulle. We had checked in for a flight to Toronto and you became violently ill. We went to the airport medical centre. You thought that I would leave you there and fly away without you. How could you think this? Did you not know that you were loved?

Okay, I have begun!

Tempus Fuit

There is a kind of sadness that comes from knowing too much, from seeing the world as it truly is. It is the sadness of understanding that life is not a grand adventure, but a series of small, insignificant moments, that love is not a fairy tale, but a fragile, fleeting emotion, that happiness is not a permanent state, but a rare, fleeting glimpse of something we can never hold onto. And in that understanding, there is a profound loneliness, a sense of being cut off from the world, from other people, from oneself.

— Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

I wake this morning pensive. Not an unknown state for me. I have not written here since January and so much has happened as I have travelled thousands of miles. I have spent time with my precious daughter and her family. A hundred glimpses of beauty. I have been to Paris working and have at least gleaned a dozen. I am home dealing with house issues in a language that slows me down and has me crying for help. Happiness descends when I accomplish some mundane task - of course, it is fleeting - but I feel proud of myself. And I continue to write with wild woman who remind me that I love to write and seldom allow myself the time." I need to work on this. 

I do allow myself time to wine and dine and also zoom with friends and family. And I love these times and know that they are important for my well-being. I think of Stella Brown, a fine artist - I pause here to pull "Stravinsky's Lunch" from my bookshelf - and her biographer Drusilla Modjeska writes "If her life teaches us anything, it is that more than one thing matters, and maybe in the end it is the conversations we have - both in love and in art - that will come trailing behind us through those pearly gates." 

I read the quote from Woolf again and wonder if she is right. Is life just "a series of insignificant moments"? Is happiness "a rare, fleeting glimpse of something we can never hold onto"? Do I feel "a profound loneliness"? At times, yes. I pause and think. But no, I do not feel a profound loneliness often. I feel lucky to have what I have. Below, a few glimpses of beauty.