The daughter I never had lives in Eugene; she’s part of my “Oregon family.” I’ve known this young woman since she was a rebellious adolescent, though, in the present day, she’s an incredibly mature and talented, 27-year-old married college graduate who has two delightful kids herself (one of them little Gracie).
The absolute, without-a-doubt, best part of my existence the past two Christmas seasons has been the opportunity I’ve had to support and encourage “B’s” interest in photography. Last year, it took the form of proposing the idea to her (real) parents that we split the cost of purchasing a digital SLR camera for her holiday gift. The proposal was enthusiastically accepted and, incredibly, I was the one lucky enough to accompany her to the store when we picked up the camera. As we exited the store, she was smiling hugely while she gushed, “this is the best Christmas ever!”
She’s now had a full year with that particular piece of equipment, and has reportedly loved every minute of it. Late this year she purchased another lens for her system, indicating that she was ready, perhaps, to move up a notch in the technology hierarchy. So, this holiday season, as we talked about her wants and needs via email, I offered to sell her, at a hugely discounted price, my current digital SLR. It’s a camera body that’s still being manufactured, only nine months old, under warranty, and little-used by me this year due to a scarcity of personal time (what with all the changes I’ve made in my life recently). This year’s proposal also became a reality and she’s had the camera a little over a week now…luckily I was able to get it packed up and shipped out in time for Christmas. She’s currently busily, and happily, snapping away with this more ambitious piece of equipment.
I’ve teased her about her newly-acquired “addiction” and advised her of the dangers of said Nikon Acquisition Syndrome (NAS)…though I suspect she has not, yet, caught on to the full implications of my warnings. Still, I’ve told her, regarding NAS: there are many more dangerous and terrible maladies in this lifetime.
For me, I hope to get “out there” this year and produce many more photographs than I have in the last few months. That is, perhaps, my number-one ambition. (Thank goodness: it appears that I’ll not be engaged in a job search during 2008!) To support my goal, I’ve taken a couple of photographic steps myself lately. First, I’ve placed an order for the newly-introduced Nikon D300 (see the video below), just out in November to rave reviews, and currently in short supply. (I’ll be getting this camera body when my number comes up in the ordering queue.) Second, I’ve signed up for another full-day session at Nikon School. Hence, on January 27, I’ll be over in Berkeley, sitting a dark room with a few hundred other Nikon nuts, learning more about digital photography. And expecting to be inspired.
If this season is thinking about people you love, and making some plans for the future…well, I guess maybe there’s been a little of the holiday cheer for me this year after all.
Soundtrack Suggestion
Ev’ry time i see your face, It reminds me of the places we used to go. But all i got is a photograph And i realise you’re not coming back anymore.
Dan Burns (played by Steve Carell) writes a daily newspaper advice column entitled “Dan in Real Life.” He’s a widower and the anxious, overprotective father of three daughters. The wisdom about love and life he offers up to his readers apparently comes from a voice within that he is able to transmit but cannot really hear himself. The morning after he and the kids show up at his parents’ (Dianne Wiest and John Mahoney) beach house for a holiday, family-reunion-type weekend, his mother immediately orders him to go out and “buy the papers” — and take some time away from his daughters who are obviously exasperated with their totally-not-so-cool dad.
It’s in a used-book store, where Dan decides to buy the morning newspaper, that he meets Marie (Juliette Binoche). Marie is obviously in the midst of some kind of minor personal crisis and she “needs a book” to get her through. She asks Dan for some help thinking that he’s an employee there. Although amusing and obliging, he eventually gets busted as just another customer. After asking Marie if he can make it up to her, Dan, in the initial stages of infatuation, spends a good portion of the rest of the morning telling her his life story.
It’s only when she eventually gets called away, and he returns back to the beach house, that he learns this “hottie” he’s found is the new girlfriend of his brother Mitch (Dane Cook). And that this weekend is to be her induction into the family.
The rest of the movie, Dan in Real Life, is spent illustrating the myriad awkward (some hilarious, some touching) moments that arise when, in the middle of this intimate family gathering, Dan and Marie work through their mutual-attraction issues.
This is a romantic comedy, of course, so it’s a happy ending. And while the outcome is entirely predictable, I recommend that you, too, see this movie. Treat yourself: escape for awhile and vicariously experience some of those giddy, beginning-of-a-relationship feelings.
So here’s why I mention any of this…
I believe this film reinforces one of life’s basic truisms. Namely: you just never know. For there you are, completely minding your own business and, wham (!), for better or worse, you turn a corner (or enter a bookstore) and your entire life changes. Further, while you can make plans for your time here on earth, the advice remains: expect the unexpected.
“…the only thing you can truly plan on…is to be surprised.”
So: here I am, all moved in and headed in the direction of being “settled.” I’m almost two months into the new job, and I’m generally finding my way around Marin County better and better all the time.
I’ve actually had a little time here and there over these last two weekends to see that leisure time is once again an occasional possibility. I’ve polished off a couple of novels sitting outside in my new lounge chair — so it appears that the stressful overload of moving and totally changing my life is about to be a thing of the past. (That is to say, things will now likely settle into more manageable and normal levels of work and health-related stress.)
However, as the perpetual adrenaline rush associated with these last few months of frenzied activity goes away, I’m recognizing a feeling of being a little on edge. Actually, what I’m experiencing is a renewed sense of emptiness. For here I am, in a new state, in a new town, in a new job: completely alone.
The silence is eerie. The phone keeps not ringing. The space once occupied by best-friend Katrina is presently a void. Her unique ring tone goes unused and unheard. And, the presence of unstructured time allows for old and familiar emotions to creep in. Feelings of loss and sadness are now my constant companions.
Still, the (ten-year-old) question remains: is she gone forever this time?
Well, baby used to stay out all night long She made me cry, she done me wrong She hurt my eyes open, that’s no lie Tables turn and now her turn to cry
Because I used to love her, but it’s all over now Because I used to love her, but it’s all over now
Well, she used to run around with every man in town She spent all my money, playing her high class game She put me out, it was a pity how I cried Tables turn and now her turn to cry
Because I used to love her, but it’s all over now Because I used to love her, but it’s all over now
Well, I used to wake (in) the morning, get my breakfast in bed When I’d gotten worried she’d ease my aching head But now she’s here and there, with every man in town Still trying to take me for that same old clown
It seems I’ve gotten myself into a bit of an emotional predicament again. And even though the situation is entirely of my own making, I’m trying not to be too down on myself. I’m trying to breathe in and out, in and out. I’m seeking to live in the present moment. And to make it through this. One breath at a time.
So, I guess I’m going to tell you this tale (or at least the surface part — the portion I can admit to in public). The deal is: when it comes to the story of my life, I really can’t not write about this. Because as much as the theme of change has dominated my existence recently (what with a new job, living in a new state, and such things as the California driver’s-license test), this latest development overshadows everything else I’ve discussed so far. This is about one more major event in my life, happening synchronously with everything else.
Here goes…
Ten years ago, in the fall of 1997, I met someone. I thought (actually very early on I felt certain) that she was “the one.” It had been about a decade since I’d felt anything quite like this, and, oh was I really feeling excited about life and the prospects to come.
However, C (she is the one who originally dubbed me with the “TechnoMonk” moniker) and I spent a good portion of the next two years in one of the most horrendously-tumultuous relationships imaginable, as her ambivalence about “us” absolutely dominated our couple dynamics. We were together; then we were not. Over and over this happened. Together, separated; together, separated. Ultimately, in the fall of 1999, after too many partings and subsequent reconciliations to count, and as she was in recovery from breast-cancer surgery, we wisely ceased trying to be a couple. It was a relief for me, because the emotional roller-coaster ride that was this relationship had totally drained me. By that point, I was emotionally, physically, and spiritually spent. I was at a true low point in my life.
A lot of people had observed me over this two-year span and knew what a toll it had taken on my psyche. So, one thing I have kept hidden from many is that I have allowed, over the subsequent eight years, this dynamic to continue to play out, although, arguably, with slightly less drama.
For, you see, C and I remained “friends” — which was her idea, her agenda. (Really, I viewed myself totally committed to a “whole” relationship from the start.) This was probably foolishness, but I allowed it to happen. For one thing, I could never, really, imagine my life without her in it. So, I was a participant in (for what was for me) a half-relationship. However, this kind of arrangement was not without its pitfalls, since I was the one (this time) always ambivalent about trying to be “just friends” with a former lover. It had happened only once in my life prior to this, and, as I think most folks will attest, it just doesn’t tend to work out that well.
As it turned out, even as friends, we had our comings and goings. We had some periods when we were in close contact (sometimes daily, primarily by phone and email) and other times when we (mostly I) decided that this “friendship” scenario was just not working.
There were several points during these friendship years when I brought up the topic of getting together again: that I had never given up on that idea, and was waiting for her “to come to her senses.” Typically, it was shortly after I brought this topic up that we took a break from our friendship for weeks or even months. The separations were always painful for me, but because I missed her (and “the kids”), and the pain always seemed to subside, I would ultimately agree to give the friendship thing yet one more try.
Up until last weekend, the friendship had been on (as I calculate and recollect) its longest continuous run…over a year and a half of frequent contact and friendship-kind-of-closeness (although I had lived in Portland, Roseburg and Larkspur and she in Eugene). It was C who called together the family for a farewell dinner for me. It was at C’s house that I spent my last two nights in Oregon. It was C who made me tuna fish sandwiches for my first afternoon of driving to California. It was C who saw me break down into tears as I took leave of the part of the country I had called home for 37 years. It was to C that I made my first phone call after arriving in my new living space here in the Bay Area. And it was C who sent me a gift certificate so that I might furnish the outside patio of my new living quarters with a reclining lounge chair.
Then, out of the blue, an email arrived last weekend that she was going to go camping with her granddaughter, her granddaughter’s friend, and that friend’s Dad.
When I wrote seeking clarification of what that meant, and after waiting three days for a reply, I finally got the word that there was someone else.
Frankly, I was stunned; there had been nothing to prepare me for this. All of a sudden, with absolutely no warning (especially given my final days in Oregon with her, just within the last month), she is moving on.
C: I wish you well and all health and happiness. And a relationship free of ambivalence.
In the meantime, I’m dealing with changing my entire life around — including, now, the added dimension of needing to heal a hole in my heart.
I am needing to find a way, at this point, to fill this very large void in my entire existence. I just lost my best friend. Yet one more time.
Soundtrack Suggestion
I drink good coffee every morning Comes from a place that’s far away And when I’m done I feel like talking Without you here there is less to say I don’t want you thinking I’m unhappy What is closer to the truth That if I lived till I was 102 I just don’t think I’ll ever get over you I’m no longer moved to drink strong whisky ’Cause I shook the hand of time and I knew That if I lived till I could no longer climb my stairs I just don’t think I’ll ever get over you Your face it dances and it haunts me Your laughter’s still ringing in my ears I still find pieces of your presence here Even after all these years But I don’t want you thinking I don’t get asked to dinner ’Cause I’m here to say that I sometimes do Even though I may soon feel the touch of love I just don't think I’ll ever get over you If I lived till I was 102 I just don’t think I’ll ever get over you
