Lovely friends and readers. Thank you SO much for your loyalty and supportive comments. I have been writing the Well Met blog for one year now and loving every minute of it, but presently need to turn the bulk of my attentions to creating classes and teaching. 

The posts from Well Met are being compiled and put into a book called….drum roll here…. Well Met, a collection of raw, funny and loving reflections on life. The book will be released after I win the lottery, or maybe a little sooner. I’ve left about 50 pieces in place for readers who are visiting the site for the first time. 

I always welcome your comments, so please leave them. Your thoughts add sunshine to my day and we all know Oregonians need lots of that. If you want your words to remain private, just let me know. I will honor that request.

I will post something here from time to time, but must now close the door to regular tending. Thanks so much for reading. I’m better for having spent time together and hope you are too.

Endings

It’s hard to stay behind in a house where love has gone sour. There are so many memories. A new place is a clean canvas but an old place is a constant reminder of the past and all that was.

I’m sitting outside on the deck my husband built, looking at the angel sculpture he gave me three years ago on Valentine’s Day. Beyond are the raised beds of my garden which we fashioned our first summer, and farther still the well-crafted picnic table he built from discarded lumber. When I look at the hammock, I think of us in it. The tennis balls he gave the dog still hide in tall grass along the driveway, while the forest swing he climbed so high to rope waits down the hill.

Each sight is full of remembered stories, laughter and times of budding promise. I successfully maneuver around these emotional landmines by focusing on other things, but have no defense against the yellow plum tree. That one is unavoidable and goes straight to the heart. It’s a scraggly little thing that sits along the drive. I pass it when I walk up the hill. Most days I stroll past with only a gentle tug near my heart but not today.

Today it stopped me in my tracks, because it’s just now ripening and beginning to display its sun born fruit in radiant shades of delicious. Those plums defined his appetite and the hunger we had for one another. He could not walk past them without plucking great handfuls of over-ripe fruit. His was a balancing act as he made his way to the house loaded with a computer bag, files and tennis gear, topped with as many plums as he could manage - juice already dripping from the corner of his mouth. The plums seemed to define our sensuality and the ripe fullness of that first year when we found such comfort and solace in the body and spirit of one another.

My heart aches at his absence, as I sit trying not to think of him, trying not to dream about him each time I let go of the day and journey into night.

I saw him a few weeks ago and he looked great, much happier and more himself than ever before. Damn! Shouldn’t he be suffering just a little?

In the end incompatibility is no ones fault. It is just there, huge and sad, a reminder that life does not stop giving us endings.

Blind Date

Thirty-seven years ago I bottomed out in my life, and decided to end it. I was living in Ohio, my children were in Philadelphia, and my friend, Joy, whom I lived with, was out for the evening. At that time, I believed that any prescription drug taken in large quantities could kill you, so I went to Joy’s medicine cabinet, swallowed several large vials of pills and lay on my bed, prepared to die.

I had barely closed my eyes when the doorbell rang, persistent and unpleasant. Oh, all right. I’m coming. I’m coming.

I swung the door open to find a dark-haired man in his early 20’s holding a bouquet of flowers.

Hi, I’m Dave, your blind date. Did you forget?

He wore navy pants, a pin-striped shirt and good intentions.

No, Dave, I lied. I didn’t forget. Just give me a minute. He sat in the living room while I changed my clothes. If I’m going to die, I thought, I might as well be having a good time while it’s happening.

I smiled at the bizarre situation unfolding as we drove through the country. Dave lit a joint and passed it in my direction. The humor wore off as I held it to my lips and inhaled. My reality began to shift as it absorbed in my system. Dave had been talking for sometime, but I hadn’t been listening. Suddenly I felt I owed him an explanation.

Dave, there is something I think you should know. I looked in his direction, smiling a thin smile. Just before you came I decided to kill myself and took a whole bunch of pills, so…. ah… actually, I could die any time.

This is a joke, right?

Nope, not a joke, I’m telling the truth.

There was a moment of introspection as he assessed the situation and let the news sink in. The next time he glanced in my direction his face had changed, I could tell he believed me.

Holy Shit! He reached over and positioned the side window so the cold night air flooded my face. Gravel flew and tires squealed as he made a u-turn, going faster than I had ever driven.

What are you trying to do, kill me before the pills kick in?

He didn’t answer; humor was drained from his expression. I’m taking you to the hospital.

No, you’re not.  I’ve spent most of my life in hospitals and I don’t intend to die in one.

You’re not going to die. You’re going to get your stomach pumped.

Dave, I don’t do hospitals, understand?

Twenty minutes later the car shrieked to a halt in front of the ambulance entrance at Columbus General Hospital. He ran around the car and yanked my door open.

I’m not going in there, I insisted. I told you that.

Yes, you are. I’m not going to have a dead girl on my hands. He dragged me from the car, past wheelchairs and magazine racks to the front desk. This woman has to have her stomach pumped, he told the nurse, she’s taken pills. He had a strong grip on my arm, but I pulled away and ran toward the door.

We can’t admit anyone who doesn’t want to be admitted, the nurse told him, sorry. A hot-tempered conversation ensued.

I’d made my way to the sheltering branches of a giant oak and settled in the grass. When Dave emerged, he walked slowly, defeated and tired. He lowered himself on the ground next to me.

Nobody seems to care what happens to people around here, so there’s nothing I can do.

I took his arm to comfort him. That’s okay; it’s not a big deal.

Oh, a human life is not a big deal to you?

My life isn’t. I’ve hated being alive as long as I can remember.

We lay back on the well-manicured lawn and looked at the sky through twilight branches.

Dave, doesn’t it seem that I’m taking a really long time to die? If I think back to the time I took the pills, and all the things we’ve done between now and then, it just seems like I should be dead already. I don’t get it. I don’t even feel sick, maybe something’s gone wrong.

I don’t get it either, he said, but Denny’s restaurant is over there, let’s go get some coffee.

A waitress came over. How you guys doin’ tonight? She was dressed in an orange and white uniform with food stains on her apron. She shifted her weight from one foot to another, as she waited for our order.

I’m fine, Dave answered, but my friend here could die any time, she’s taken a bunch of pills and the hospital won’t admit her.

The waitress chewed on the end of her pencil and looked blankly out the window. Do you know what you want to eat?

What exactly did you take? he asked, as the waitress disengaged and walked through swinging kitchen doors.

I thought back to the empty plastic cylinders but remembered nothing.

I don’t know. I was just sad and went into my room mate’s medicine cabinet and swallowed everything she had. They were all prescription.  He asked for Joy’s phone number and got up to call. When he returned he said, those pills won’t hurt you, there was nothing lethal there.

Stunned and embarrassed, I peered across the table. Then all this was for nothing, right?

He drained the last drops from his cup, and pushed back his chair. It’s beginning to look that way. Come on, I’ll take you home.

Well, look at the bright side, I told him. You’ll probably never have another date like this one.

Lilies

I was standing in my father’s kitchen near the stove. He sat at the table, whiskey clinking ice against clear glass. Playing cards laid out on the surface, waiting for us to engage in the only way we’d found to relate. He was in a good mood, with no memory of wreaking havoc the night before.

It was one of those transcendent moments when life stood still, and I looked down at myself from the ceiling. A shaft of light ran through me from the crown of my head to the arch in my feet. I realized in that moment, that if I were not related, that I would have nothing to do with my father – ever. I saw no commonality or mutual respect, just a faltering sense of reaching out through decades of broken days and barbed wire.

In that waking up moment, I knew that I could never return. If I cared for my well-being at all, I needed to grieve and walk away.

His partner, Sarah, spoke of spring and planting, not a garden, they were too old to maintain a garden, but flowers, something to admire through the window, something to provide beauty and the promise of spring.

I’ll do it, I offered. Let me make a plot near the birdfeeders, so you can watch the robins visit and the flowers bloom at the same time. I went to the store and bought packets of lilies in various shades of splendor. I dug in soil too early to plant, adding fertilizer and good wishes as I placed each bulb in the cold April earth.

Without fully realizing it, I’d planted the flower of death and resurrection. I never intended to go back and didn’t. I placed no flowers on his grave, but left a living monument that day to the last gesture my love could afford.

For Dicksie

The child is gone

Bonds broken

The fabric weak from too much mending

is asked to rend once more

 

The earthly witness records the trauma

Interrupted….lost….alone

while heaven sends its angels

to take its traveler home

 

With useless shell discarded

No need to struggle more

It’s just the pain of parting

that stands constant by the door

 

So in the evening shadows

when grief hides just below

listen for his whisper

and in your heart you’ll know

 

That though we walk with feet

cemented in this place

his heart is now expansive

his soul is filled with grace.

Clayton

My son left today and I am not going to cry.

I am not going to envision the kind of connection we could have if he lived in Portland and not in Los Angeles.

I’m not going to replay all the ways I failed him as a child.

I am not going to dwell on the hurt I know he carries deep in the fabric of his childhood heart.

I am not going to miss his smile for days after he has gone.

I am not going to wish I saw him once a week instead of once a year.

I am not going to wish I could do his childhood over so I could be a better, normal, stable, not so weird mom.

I am not going to take it personally when he’d rather fill his visit here with friends and sports than hang out with his white haired mother.

I’m not going to think about how much I love him as I wash each dish in the sink.

I’m not going to dwell on what a strong man he turned out to be, what a fine husband and father.

I’m not going to yearn for the blonde curly haired toddler I cuddled and played with for so many years, the one who got older and went to live with his dad because I was melting down.

I’m not going to think about how open and loving he is with each child he meets.

I’m not going to think about how much his humor delights me, and how I could not imagine a more perfect son.

I’m not going to miss him with every cell in my mama body.

Well, maybe I will, maybe a little.

Creativity

Many people envision their ideal writing room as the retreat house I live in.  It is removed from the distractions of the city, looks into a forest of trees through a wall of windows, and is so still I can match the beat of my heart with the ticking clock. There is an abundance of light to balance winter’s grey and every piece of furniture pleases and comforts me. This has been my nest for four years now, a space that healed me when I fragmented. I saw too many clients in the city and had no resting place. I was the surgeon of the heart who dug deep into hemorrhaging spirits and torn dreams. I removed abscesses and lanced tumors. The colors of my days were drop-dead blood-tired red. The flood of clients that moved through my office door has been reduced to a select few who come by word of mouth and are willing to travel to the country.

 It was a day in March, two years ago, when I pulled a chair to the edge of the bed, propped up my feet and talked with my husband about imagining a different future. Maybe a film, I said. Perhaps I can share my work that way. I called friends who are filmmakers and had long discussions. In the end, we decided against film because there would be too many people involved and too much money out.  We found audio accessable, affordable and easy. And so we began in a friend’s sound studio, which sits at the top of 300 acres of pristine land on Ross Mountain. My conversation with Dennis, the owner was endearing. Yes, Karen, come! Ross mountain will give you its magic and you will leave yours in return, a perfect trade. 

We birthed three hours of material from months of editing and discovery. We’d found a new direction, and it grew. We hired website ladies who gave us the idea of a blog, making podcasts and breathing life into an old manuscript which was gathering dust in the closet.

This space has housed that kind of birthing, as well as the stagnant times when I question my life and abilities, cry at my altar and wish to be released from something that restricts my heart, something long lasting that defines my existence, but can not be named. 

My work here is almost over. I feel a stirring to move on – a hunger to rejoin humanity. The gypsy in me is packing her bags. Next I want to write in a house with other people where we can visit, lunch and inspire one another to be more. I am ready to reach again into theater and community.

Soon, this space will hold my leaving and a greater leaving still. The where of that destination I don’t yet know, but I imagine a villa, bicycles and the Mediterranean sea. I will spend half my time in Portland and half my time in sun. I envision a warm place where I can put pen to paper and hear my written voice.

Long day at work

Vendors were handing fresh strawberries to pedestrians on street corners to celebrate the first day of spring, as I wove through busy intersections on my way to work. Ocean air was tangibly fresh and salty, and drew my eyes to the harbor. The pacific skyline was filled with giant orange cranes hoisting containers on and off railroad cars, as tug boats with blue roofs, white framed windows and bright yellow hulls pulled barges in and out of dock. Waterfowl played above the cool waters that lapped against the shore, incoming fog shrouded a distant beach.

I took a short cut through serpentine streets, as they descended through well groomed neighborhoods, past banked rhododendron hedges and white azaleas. Mt Rainier filled the horizon, as I eased into downtown traffic and finally to a parking place.

I was doing readings in a restaurant during happy hour to make extra cash. The uncluttered white walls and subtle curves of the restaurants’ interior had a calming effect. It was unpretentious and relaxed. I made my way to the long bar in the lounge and settled in under sepia toned lights. Happy hour had begun. Cozy wooden tables were already filled with conversation, cocktails and the energy of letting down after a busy day.

I moved to the coat rack and hung up my purple jacket. I wore purple high heeled shoes with a matching skirt, and a green silk blouse. I was in my purple phase. My hair was gathered and twisted away from my face with a decorative hair stick, emerald-like gems cascaded from each ear. I slipped a fake wedding ring on my hand to avoid propositions, and looked around the room to see how many numbers had been placed on tables. I was happy to see I had very few.

My first customer defined the word gentleman. He had white hair, wore a three piece suit, lavender shirt and soft yellow tie. A bright red handkerchief sprang from his left breast pocket. His face was narrow and intelligent, his eyes deep brown. He flashed a smile that was both tender and curious as I walked to his table. Extending my hand, he shifted a glass of white wine between long artistic fingers, until his right hand became free to meet my own. I pulled out a chair and sat across from him.

So, you’re the card reader, he said, My friends have given me amusing reports of your talents. I thought I would see for myself.

Amusing? I questioned.

You seem to have a skill that is insightful and yet based on chance. I understand your readings are accurate. I find that curious, amusing and improbable.

I liked him immediately, and decided to begin reading. You’re a man who has become successful by using your wits, I told him, but I see decisions being made just as often from your heart, a desire to be fair in all things and most importantly, an active intuition. What I do, is not so different from what you do. You define your abilities as hunches or gut feelings, but it is the same wisdom. You are better than most at knowing who to trust, and what deal to back away from. That is not logic, but the feeling that informs wisdom. We operate in the same way, so you must be amusing as well.

Fair enough, he said. Can I buy you a drink?

Music played in the background as the bartender scurried from one customer to the next. I was grateful for the quiet volume of the music, because Saturday night’s bartender preferred a louder variety of popular music and cranked up the sound. On those nights I went home with a headache after screaming my readings above lyrics about a Pink Cadillac.

I don’t drink, I told him. Odd isn’t it? A card reader who works in a bar and doesn’t drink. Thanks anyway.

Are you morally opposed to alcohol?

Not at all. My body just won’t accept it. It makes me feel ill. It’s the same with coffee. I might as well drop acid as drink a cup of coffee.

He smiled, but I could tell that my last remark made him uncomfortable. I was immediately sorry I’d said it. I didn’t want to give him the idea I was a drug head. He was already taking a risk. He looked at me with penetrating deep brown eyes that held such intensity, that I began to wonder who was reading whom.

You are a curiosity to me, he said kindly.

That makes two of us, I replied. I am a curiosity to myself. If you figure me out, let me know. I’d appreciate it.

He laughed and our connection deepened. The waiter came over to see if he wanted more wine, but was waved away.

Alright, he said. Let’s see what information you glean from those astounding cards of yours. He shuffled the deck like a man used to playing poker, then handed them back. I began placing them on the table when he covered my hand to stop me.

You don’t need these cards, do you? he smiled. Can you read for me without them?

Of course, I said, I already have. The cards just make it quick and easy. I like to use them because they give my customers visual images to go away with, which most people remember longer than words. I can do it with or without the cards, I  repeated, which do you prefer?

All right, he said, turn them over. We had entered a contest driven by his curiosity. I turned over The Emperor, the Five of Pentacles and Ten of Pentacles. The symbols on the cards have a way of lighting up for me, so I can understand which aspects of the card holds the most importance. The face of the Emperor filled with light, the cane pictured in the five and the coins of the ten. I began to read:

I see another white haired man in the card of the Emperor, a close friend, someone with fullness of face and a more casual approach to both attire and his work life than you have. You share conservative views and a long history.

My eyes caught the figure of a man, leaning on a crutch in the five of pentacles. He is pictured outside on the street, as if kept away from the good things he desires.

I’m thinking your friend is in poor health right now, and that you are concerned for him. There is respect in the friendship that has been built on years of trust. He is going through a difficult time and you want to help.

My eyes moved to the ten of pentacles, a card filled with money and images of family.

He’s been a friend for so long, you are almost like brothers. I’m thinking that you share a business life, and that you are very affected by his suffering. The cards show recovery and a return to prosperity, so I wouldn’t worry.

He confirmed my reading and sat in silence. I had a sense that he lived alone, while his friend enjoyed both wife and family.

Has your wife died? I asked. He nodded and I felt an accepted loneliness he no longer questioned.  I envisioned him raising from his bed in a well-ordered house, and going into a drawing room, where he sat by the window enjoying strong morning coffee and the New York Times. The table’s companion chair remained empty, as a reminder of his wife’s absence. In the evening I saw him going to a dimly lit study and settling into a leather armchair with a half finished book. The patterns and traces of his life invisibly defined and seized him in a way that had become unnoticed.

We talked casually for a few moments before I excused myself.

I’m sorry for your loss, I said, referring to his wife. He smiled in return, Thank you. I appreicate the information about my friend. I returned his smile knowing that it had not been the information about his friend that had brought comfort, but a sense of being truly seen, heard and understood without judgment. It’s not perdictions we crave, but soul recognition. I collected my fee and moved to the next table.

 I glanced over at the next numbered table and saw a balding man with glasses in a brown cotton shirt, sitting next to a much younger woman. They were draining the last drops of Belgium ale as they pushed back their chairs to leave.

Sorry, they said, as I approached. We’re running late and have decided to move on.

I was glad for the break and headed toward the salad bar to fortify myself for the evening ahead. I was sprinkling blue cheese and olive oil on a plate of greens when Julia walked in.

Oh good, she said, You’re back. I want a reading as soon as you’re done eating. It’s very important.

Julia was a tall thin attorney whose wallet overflowed with hundred dollar bills. She slipped off her white business jacket and settled in a corner table with her friend, Jan. Julia liked white, the way I liked purple. She looked chic and Barbie doll like in linen. Silver bracelets rattled on her right arm, and black and white sling back heels graced her feet. Her best friend, Jan, was her opposite. Jan was tough, liked wearing heavy boots and jeans, chain smoked and rarely smiled. The waiter delivered the usual salt-rimmed margarita to Julia, and a gin and tonic ’straight up’ to Jan.

Here we go again, I thought, cornering stray pieces of arugula with my fork and hurrying the last traces of salad into my mouth. The bartender inspected a glass in the overhead light, frowned at specks of dust, and polished it clean with a bar towel. He nodded his head in Julia’s direction to indicate that she was my next client, then smiled, knowing how frustrated I felt after reading for her. We shared a moment of silent understanding, before I took my dishes to the clearing cart and went to the table.

Jan never stayed for Julia’s readings, That woman freaks me out!  True to form, she excused herself as I approached, pulled up a nearby stool and settled into more comfortable conversation with the bartender about politics and economics.

She wanted no part of Julia’s “woo- woo – personal growth experience,” and had no idea how someone with a rational mind could believe such non-sense, let alone pay to hear it. The bright flame of her match was replaced by the glow of Jan’s next cigarette, as blue smoke drifted into the air and encircled her head.

            Oh, Karen, Julia said, with positive excitement. I want to read about Karl. I’ve just met him and we have a date this Friday. She held up a picture torn from a magazine of a stocky Lebanese man with olive skin and spiked dark hair. He’s a chef, she continued, a famous chef.

I mentally fortified myself as I sat under the  glow of the wall light and examined her photo. Let’s not read about this guy tonight, I suggested. How is your work going?

She gave me a puzzled look and began fidgeting impatiently with her napkin. I have a big case pending, which you know, and have to travel again next week for another deposition. Work is fine. I want to talk about Karl, she repeated, moving into her forceful attorney mode.

Julia always wanted to talk about the next man, but I could no longer indulge her. She was radiant in her excitement, but my obvious reluctance stopped her in mid-speech.

I can’t do this anymore, I confessed, because the men are not the issue. They’re a diversion. For me to continue reading about each new man is a disservice to both of us. I think you know that.

A look of cold despair crossed her face, an unsettling sense of delusion. She began to lobby me once more. Julia did not allow herself to think of her past, although it festered in the depth of her soul. She wanted to focus on external relationships and staying in control, the very qualities that made her a excellent attorney.

This man is different, she continued. I’m sure he’s the right one.

I was unyielding, knowing from experience that she would become rapidly suspicious, jealous and finally cold toward him in a few short weeks.

When Julia came for her first reading a year ago, I was surprised by her past. She was a frightened child whose mother valued material things and worked excessively to acquire them. Her father had abandoned the family at an early age. In their absence, Julia looked to her uncle to provide the love and connection she needed. When she was in elementary school her uncle disappeared, and she was the one to find his body. He had killed himself a week earliest in a small trailer and the body had decomposed in summer heat. In a moment of unguarded vulnerability, she described the overwhelming smell that came from the trailer, and the sound of buzzing flies that blanketed the screen door.

Julia could not allow love in her life, as much as she craved it, because she believed it would end in abandonment. She knew she could not stand a repeat performance of loss, so she abandoned the men in her life first, before they could abandon her. Her friend, Jan was a reflection of the tough person she wanted to be, but could not achieve.

Julia gave me a ‘what am I paying you for,’ look and continued. Please, just put the cards out. I need to know.

I put the cards away and restated my message, It’s time to address this issue at its core, I said gently. You need a good therapist. You have post traumatic stress, and no man is going to fix that.

But, she continued, if I can’t talk to my psychic about these things, who can I talk to?

A therapist or a shaman, I repeated. This is not for your psychic, Julia. See someone else.  She pushed her chair from the table, paid her tab and went away.  I had no doubt she’d come back another day with the same questions about another man. 

That evening, I did readings about impending legal battles, custody cases, internal political disputes and for a secretary who believed she was being stalked. I even read for a woman persistent enough to have tracked me from the television station to the restaurant.  Her face was especially sad. She wore loose knit clothes over a large framed body and had deep lines in her face that showed years of stress and toil.

As she and I sat together, it became clear that she was looking for future predictions of the National Inquirer type. She’d come for a reading because she wanted her future told, without taking responsibility for anything it might hold. When I repeatedly brought her back to a path of action and accountability, she recoiled. In the end, she threw down her money and left saying, You’re nothing like you were on television!

I smiled to myself as I packed up my things.  I guess that was my worst fear, to have someone tell me I’m horrible at what I do, but because of the painful place that birthed her comment, I didn’t take it in. To be read for, a person needs to be open to being seen, and to the possibility of new thought, which requires the courage to change.

I was relieved to finish work when I packed up my things and headed for the door. My thoughts were racing from the people I had seen and the energies taken in.

The lights of Seattle shown on downtown office buildings, as I pushed open the door and stepped outside.  The night air teemed with the wet, green smells of marine life, as I stopped to breath the cool night air, trying to be more present, trying to release the visions and stories I had so intimately held. The bobbing procession of tug boats and fishing fleets were at rest under evening shades of purple and pink, as I cut through alleys that led out of downtown and back up the hill to Mt Baker. I was grateful for my car, but missed visiting the salmonberry, quince and little violets I once walked past on my way to the bus. The lights of downtown faded with each mile I traveled, and the maple lined boulevards skirting Lake Washington rose in the headlights. My little Datsun wound around residential streets until it came to rest in front of my storefront perched at the crest of the hill.

 I held the energies of my clients too strongly to go to sleep, so I went to Rip’s market to pick up the evening paper. Rip and I were visiting about our work days, when a man from the neighborhood burst through the door, pulled a gun from the folds of his jacket and handed it to Rip.  Here, take this, he said. I just shot my wife. Better call the police. 

 Seattle was a city of extremes and it was taking a toll. Some mornings I would stand in a welfare line to receive free rice and cheese, and the same evening dine on pheasant in the wealthy homes of grateful clients on ‘millionaire hill.’ I felt myself being ripped apart by the intensity of Seattle’s urban environment, and decided it was time to move back to Portland.

Employment

I once had a job working for an employment agency. I was young and desperate. My boss was a sleazy guy who liked young girls. He’d call us into his office one at a time to inquire about our love lives. Think of me as your father, he’d say, as he probed for details with a sick curiosity that would make the National Inquirer proud.

Every day I rose from my bed, put on a dress and rode the bus downtown. I pushed against a revolving golden door, walked through a lobby, got in an elevator and pressed the button for the fifth floor. We all stood together in long awkward moments of silence and waiting. When the elevator door opened, I got out, walked to my little cubicle, hung up my coat, and began my day making cold calls. It was my job to find new businesses to hire our applicants. 

When lunch came, I got up, put on my coat, stepped into the elevator, pushed the button for the first floor, waited again, and got out. I walked through the lobby to the golden revolving door, then stepped outside into measured minutes of freedom. I took a deep breath of fresh air and felt sunlight on my face, like a prisoner doing time in the yard. I ate a thirty minute lunch, left a tip on the counter and headed outside. After lunch, you guessed it.  I pushed against the golden revolving door, walked through the lobby, got into the elevator, pressed the button for the fifth floor, waited, got out of the elevator, walked to my cubicle, took off my coat, picked up the phone and made phone calls.

 Sometimes this routine was broken by an orange light flashing on my phone. That meant the manager had dreamed up some excuse to call me into his office, so he could slime me with questions about my non-existent love life. His cubicle was set higher than ours, in case we missed the fact that he was God. He made afternoon rounds of all the young women he’d placed in his barnyard cubicles, strutting through the aisles, like a rooster surveying hens.

Sometimes an actual human being came in to fill out an application, which was a delightful distraction, but short lived.

At five o’clock, I rose from my desk, grabbed my coat and stepped into the elevator. I pressed the button for the first floor, and listened to the elevator squeak and groan as it carried us slowly down. The heavy silver doors opened. I’d walk across the lobby, out the golden revolving door and into the street.

This went on for three entire months, until one day something inside me broke. I picked up the phone to call employers, but had nothing to say. The elevator door was all I could think of. It was large, coffin like, silver and waiting. I saw my whole life being played out like a rat in a maze and wanted to vomit. I knew in that moment that I could never go up and down in that box again. After the rooster-warden made his rounds, I decided to make some very different kind of phone calls. I took out the yellow card files that held the jobs and the white files that held the names of each applicant, and called them one at time. I have the perfect job for you, but don’t tell them the agency sent you, or you’ll be charged a fee. Just go over and introduce yourself and tell them what you’re good at. Oh, and whatever you do, no matter how desperate you are, don’t ever ever come to this agency to find work. You will not be happy with the result.

It was Friday. I collected my paycheck, told the manager I was leaving to start a brothel and walked out the door. I walked straight ahead to the elevator, then made a sharp right turn and took the stairs.

Never too late

I met my husband, Gib, at my granddaughter’s lemonade stand. He was whizzing by on his bike, did a U turn, took off his helmet and said, I read somewhere that you should never pass a lemonade stand.

Isabella poured him a tall glass of refreshment while I sat on the front steps of the house, soaking sun into my face, and wondering who this tall man with the quick smile and grey hair might be.

At 60, I had resolved to live alone. Relationships had not been kind. Besides, it’s difficult to think about dating when you’re a grandmother. The dating pool looks a little too much like the near-death club.

The next time I saw him was at our moving sale. I’d been living on the corner of 31^st and Taylor in SE and was ready for a change, so I’d answered an ad to be a caretaker on a country estate. The hours were nothing, the land was perfect, and the situation gave me lots of time to replenish and write. I knew I was headed in a new direction, but had no idea the extent of it. Gib walked into the sale eager to visit. Even bought a white elephant chest of drawers my mother had given me. I discovered he lived only two houses away.

 People who live in SE Portland are country people who settled in town. There are chicken coops tucked in side yards, plenty of rabbits, cats and dogs, and even a pot bellied pig. Southeast people wear big flannel shirts to keep warm, boots good for hiking, and drive old pick-up trucks for hauling what we can’t carry on bikes.  We put the things we no longer want on street corners for others to take without cost, and have been lovingly referred to in the press as, “The People’s Republic of Portland.”  So, you can imagine how strange it was to look out my window at 5.30 one morning, and see a gentleman standing under the street light in a three piece suit, polished black shoes, and white cuffed shirt. I threw a shawl over my nightdress and went to investigate. Turns out he was a visiting surgeon who had purchased the house across the street for his son. He was a man of routine, got up and did what he always did, but had no work to go to. He stood alone, like a dream image under the streetlight, waiting for his son to wake up. We were deep in conversation when Gib rounded the corner on his bike. He stopped, wanting to know where the handles were for the chest I’d sold him. I found them garish and tossed them out, I said.

You threw the handles to the chest away? Why would you do that?

They weren’t visually pleasing. Replace them with something better or use a screwdriver.

I thought you’d be moved by now.

Nope, my movers keep calling to back out.

I’ll do it, he said. I’ll help you. And he did. He showed up, hauled, stacked and dripped July sweat like the rest of us. He refused pay so I offered to fix dinner.

The first night was a bust. Gib is a retired engineer and can be too much in his head. We’ve managed to spend an entire evening together without a thing in common, I said. He smiled and left, forgetting his computer. When he came back the following day to retrieve it, we went deeper. Turns out we shared the same birthday, we had daughters who lived near-by, while our sons both lived in Los Angeles. And there was more; I’d lived for years three houses away from his childhood home, we’d both owned the same British car as teenagers, we’d both had the same mismatched marriage partners and resulting heartaches, we were both still young in spirit and athletic in body. But most of all, we were both still hoping to find the happiness we lost in our early years.

I was embarrassed to be getting married at 60, but my friends encouraged me. No, they said. It’s inspiring. It shows that love can happen for anyone at any age.