Lemons to Melons

Lemons to Melons

Something very beautiful happens to people when their world has fallen apart: a humility, a nobility, a higher intelligence emerges at just the point when our knees hit the floor. Marianne Williamson

I’m just not good at this. It’s nine pm and I’ve spent the evening at home alone. I watched some dumb WW II film on television, ate my popcorn, enjoyed my wine, googled dumb topics (such as: “when does Brie cheese go bad”), and stopped for a minute to say hi to Marty, who came by to collect some tools. Now what do I do? How do I fill my time until bedtime? For the first time in years I’m free. I can do anything I want, whenever I want to do it. Time seems to stretch out to infinity.

The big TV screen looks menacingly at me, all in black. No, not TV, I think. Too noisy. Too intrusive.

I turn on Pandora radio to my favorite station – Leonard Cohen – and pick up a book by my friend Jake Rohr about his years in prison. It’s called A Banquet of Consequences: True Life Adventures of Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll, and the Feds. I’m soon absorbed in his fascinating story. A glass of chardonnay sits on the side table. All is well. I might just get through the evening without going into a panic.

Ping. I look over at my phone and see that I’ve just received a text from Susan. We’ve been living separately for 8 months. She’s in our condo in Kihei; I’m in my home in Haiku.

I look at the text: Am I right? R u coming Fri for lunch? Yes, I text back.

Ping: Need lemons

I type: Will get melons, and press send.

Ping:

I’m laughing so hard! R u drunk? Is that y u wrote melons instead of lemons?

Yes, I text back, having little fun with her. I’m totally smashed.

She replies: Hilarious! LEMONS

Yes

Ping: I get it. MELLENS! Finally

I go back to reading my book. I take a sip of wine. I’ve barely read a paragraph when . . .

Ping!

She’s sent a picture of our dog Kami, an eight-year-old Australian shepherd. The text says: Kami’s smashed too. She adds: He’s exhausted after 3 walks. He’s sleeping now

I respond: But he’s not listening to Leonard Cohen radio like I am. Poor thing

Susan: Ur really blotto. I’m watching a film where the writer guy smokes pot n gets off on porn while his girlfriend makes $ as sexy actress

Peter: I’m smoking pot and watching porn too

Susan: I knew it! I read another page of my book.

Ping: Kami just got up to eat fish n rice. At least he contributes to society. Have fun. Wish I could get drunk too. Luv u lots. Nite

I’m really getting into this. I type back:  I’m crawling around on the floor eating ants. At least Kami gets fed

Susan: Aww. I’ll feed you. Send luv back

I sign off: Luv

Our interchange has left me feeling mellow. I can’t believe we’re getting along so well after those two difficult years. We had met on match.com, fallen in love, and married in 2012, expecting to live happily ever after. A few months later, Susan became sick, placing a huge stress on the relationship. Now we’re living apart. How I need this sweet intimacy that comes from knowing another being so well. I turn off Pandora.

Alone in the silence, all I can hear is the sound of my heart beating. Then the chirping of a gecko in the distance,The sweet fragrance of the night air comes wafting though the open slider. It’s been so hard for me to get used to living alone.

Where did this terror of being alone come from? Memories flood to mind of when I was thirteen. My mother had just died of cancer, and my family had no idea of how to deal with it. My father went out every night and got drunk; my sister, who had just turned 17, was never home. I was left to look after my six-year-old brother. I kept a chart hidden behind my bed telling how many times I masturbated next to how many times my father and sister were out.

I remember how these fears returned with a vengeance when I went to Paris after graduating from college. I lived in a seedy little hotel room, too terrified to go outside and meet anyone. I became suicidal and wrote tear-stained letters home. Over the next three years of living in Europe, I went from severe depression to manic highs. After one bout of depression, when I was living in London, my family arranged for me to see a Freudian therapist on Harley Street. The day after I started therapy was the day I met the person who was to be my wife for 25 years.

And now, fifty years later, after the death of my first wife, the death of my second wife, and my divorce from Susan, I’m facing these same fears once again.

This time I sit with the discomfort. I resist the temptation to call a friend, text Susan back, take the next glass of wine, turn on the TV.

A week ago I saw my two therapists on Maui, David and Tom, who I love dearly. They both co-facilitate the sessions together. They’ve been an anchor for me in a storm-tossed sea. I tell them about how challenging it is for me to be on my own. “We know it’s hard,” Tom says. “It’s a huge adjustment.” “You might want to look at a film Steven Spielberg did in the eighties,” David says. “It’s called Empire of the Sun. Who was the star?” “Christian Bale,” Tom says. “He was only thirteen at the time.”

“Yeah. It takes place in Shanghai in the 1930’s, when the Japanese invade China. He gets separated from his parents and put in a camp.”

I saw the film a few nights ago, and all the trauma of that early time came flooding back. I sat with tears in my eyes as I watched this young boy find his way back to the house he grew up in. The house was in an upper class neighborhood that had been evacuated when the invasion began. The houses had all been looted. Desperately, the boy looks through his home, hoping to find his mother and father. They are gone. He is totally alone. He finds a bicycle and rides it through the big empty rooms of the mansion. The scene strikes a deep chord in me. I feel his shock. I feel his terror.

Perhaps, if I can re-experience these feelings now, and not be afraid of them, I can reassure the thirteen-year-old boy inside me that he’s safe. I let the grief move through me, without resisting it. Eventually the feelings change. They lose their intensity. I become aware of a deeper calmness.

I think of what the teacher Prem Baba said: “There are dark and terrifying places within us that need to be illuminated. In order to shed light on them, we must have the courage to enter these places and open the windows.”

So far, the demons have not returned.

I continue to sit in the awesome silence. Even the fridge has become silent. What a treasure it is to have external silence, so rare in this world. For a moment I imagine being in a place where the inner silence is this vast, this complete. That’s the invitation, I realize. To come back to my “at-oneness.” It’s as close as my own breath.