In the end....life is a fine balance between too much and too little of anything.....with loneliness or contentment being the total sum result....
As I packed up the truck high with donations from downsizing for the move, Marie, an old friend of my mom's showed in her yellow vintage 1968 custom painted Mustang convertible.
Marie typified superficiality and could be so blunt sometimes, not bad blunt, but exquistly old money blunt - classy and from the finest schools. Sometimes kind, compassionate or impatient, lonely, crazy-speak as she never failed to hit really deep into the heart of the matter in only her "better than thou" presence.. When her words started I found myself focused intently on the viewpoint of this incredible wealthly woman. I am not around the ultra rich often and her isolated view of the world stunned and intrigued me.
Today as she stepped out of her yellow, mellow machine, decked out in the usual designer fashions, she looked completely and utterly...miserable.
As she glanced over the donation items she burst out she eyes widened.... "I have no sense of community anymore. I lost it last night during the rain storm which flooded my basement and I could not get a hold of anyone including a plumber. As I used every towel in a failed attempt to soak up the 2 feet of water standing now in my basement I cried intermediately and was in a complete state of despair. But you won't have to deal with my shallowness and any rain disasters when you move to Arizona because there is hardly any water there!"
"Hmmm, now what brought on this emotional expression and intense pondering Jayne? You know that is not...your...style....and hey jump in truck here and help me drop off this donation at Paws and Claws thiftshop before the RAIN and more RAIN starts in again. You look terrible too. Whatcha do....pull an all nighter at Sax's? or up too the wee hours watching movies on the Lifetime Channel or QVC". I teased as I placed a towel over the truck's seat so as to not get her finewool pants dirty.
Her looking-a-hole-straight-through-you, clearest crystal blue eyes were covered by ultra expensive dark sunglasses that she let slip ever so slightly down her perfect nose. She looked like some Old Hollywood movie star....like a red headed Betty Davis....Darling.....as her manicured fingers wiped the starting of tears. "Are you giving all your possessions away as an act of dedication to this....this "spiritual emergence" thing you are going through on your way to Oz.... I mean Bisbee?" Her response had such a bitter, cold edge and as she continued, despair.
"When you leave I will have even less of a sense of in this non-community, I will have no one. I have lived here in Seattle for 7 years and you are the only person I can call in, that I can count on in a case of an emergency. I put you in my will you know and almost on the mortgage and when I went to the ER for food poisoning you were the one I listed as "next of kin".
"When you leave I will have even less of a sense of in this non-community, I will have no one. I have lived here in Seattle for 7 years and you are the only person I can call in, that I can count on in a case of an emergency. I put you in my will you know and almost on the mortgage and when I went to the ER for food poisoning you were the one I listed as "next of kin".
"Oh really? well what about your husband Jayne? Did he get done with the chemo yet? and what about the twins? And well...welcome to our modern, we're all glued to my cell phone texting and sexting. I bet you did fall asleep a little along some nightmares for company in that slumber? And if I remember correctly your will states I get your 6 vintage China Cups and your collection of all things.....Turkey wishbones from the last 40 years of Thanksgiving dinners at your funeral director great-uncle..... I am to make a wish every holiday in your honor. And I am to facilitate, after your death the safe transportation of your household packed full of antiques to the Daughter of the Revolution Thrift Shop somewhere back East. Yikes you are the real Auntie Mame." I was trying to lighten her mood but it was not working.
"How did you know about the nightmares and stop teasing me, you are mean really, Yes Frank has a clean bill of health now but we don't connect, we have never connected after 35 years of maraiage. My boys are fine, Jake is living in Italy with this 4 kids and my creative genius fine-artist Jason was just awarded all around best actor from the Porn Industry....so yes the family is just fine, fine, fine, fine. Look Lynne I am in a lot of emotional pain here and I feel abandoned and disconnected. I have just one question for you: Do you have a sense of community"
"Yes I do".
"Well then tell me how, why and where and do it now." she demanded in tears.
"The sense of community I have is a feeling of wholeness, connectedness, centeredness and sometimes a deep contentment. It comes from having focus to serve others and a very strong spiritual foundation of integrity based on a number of traditional world religions. And....Why don't you move with us to Arizona?" I stated as quickly as I could.
Jayne took a deep breath of exasperation. "I am as lonely as hell" she said "and I have no idea of what you are talking about. I have never felt those kinds of feelings, I don't know how to feel those feelings. When you leave for Bisbee Bee Land I will feel even less of something I never feel but need to feel more of because I feel dead now. I just get up every day and go to work and not because I have to. I am afraid to retire as there is nothing to retire to. I am so empty"
Jayce had never been so open with me, maybe because she did not have to impress me. My heart went out to her and the profound sense of separation and disconnect she felt. But I knew her focus on the superficial and herself brought her to this point, well at least in part. With our society's over-empahsis on the material and with little instruction on how to develop a solid spiritual foundation it was no wonder Jayne feel so alone. I tried to reassure her as best I could:
"You know we all go through lonely times and it is the rare person who doesn't. It is not only loneilness but anything that makes us feel disconnected: poverty, marriage and health problems, growing older, war, crime, the environment, unemployment". I could see Jayne roll her eyes through her tears so I stopped mentioning all the ills of the world.
Jayne's duspair came to an end finally and her focus turned once again to why I was moving. It made me feel like she had not heard a thing I was saying:
"You are lonely here because you lost your mom recently, then got some weird environmental illness from that hideous self storage job which they fired you from and now out of work for over 2 years, Terry has had a horrible time finding work because of this insane economy and you don't have kids to keep you grounded. So you want to leave and don't your know you take yourself with you? You can't escape into some art colony expecting everything to suddenly be OK. You are living in some romantic fantasy land". Jayne was mad and resentful as hell.
As I unloaded my truck of the donations in silence as I tried to think of some effective short way to respond which would satisfy her need for some enlightenment but sadly I failed as we headed back to the house:
"Jayne you can pretty well make yourself miserable it you want to focusing on what you don't have you know. However I think you are fueled by this acute sense of disconnect from others, yourself and your spirituality you experience daily. Then you project it back on me like it is the frame of reference for my life. It's not because I have learned to take the focus off myself to help another and in this act, on the unseen planes then comes the opportunities one by one for the greater good of all. It has been my experience this brings a tremendous sense of peace
As far as all your assumptions why I am leaving for...Bisbee Bee Land..they are just asumptions.....I have peace about each and don't want to bore youwith the details that you can't relate to.
What I do need to find is my little village where the air is clean so my lungs will heal up. I would be incredibly bored in a typical retirement community and I can't think of anything better then living in an art colony in a little town that is mainly Democratic, has the largest percentage of gay people in Arizona living there, where they are publicly passionate and tolerate about helping each other in this oh so crappy economy and kinda looks like, from what I can tell something out of Europe.
Plus I would like to try Ghost hunting and exploring the mining caves and all the little Boutique shops. I want to know more about the border issues and homelessness there and all the rest. Ya it may get boring but I can read a book and look at the stars and join the community as they look at an old movie together. I hear there are amazing pot-lucks too. I want to slow down so I can figure out the next step and that is OK.
If you want to come with us then do so and maybe just maybe you will find that sense of community instead of the sterile and isolated one you found here".
All Jayne said was "Your new shoes, especially the "I can go in the water, or rock climb, or hike forever, I am older but trying to look cool in hot pink" ones you have on now look ridiculous".
Jayce had never been so open with me, maybe because she did not have to impress me. My heart went out to her and the profound sense of separation and disconnect she felt. But I knew her focus on the superficial and herself brought her to this point, well at least in part. With our society's over-empahsis on the material and with little instruction on how to develop a solid spiritual foundation it was no wonder Jayne feel so alone. I tried to reassure her as best I could:
"You know we all go through lonely times and it is the rare person who doesn't. It is not only loneilness but anything that makes us feel disconnected: poverty, marriage and health problems, growing older, war, crime, the environment, unemployment". I could see Jayne roll her eyes through her tears so I stopped mentioning all the ills of the world.
Jayne's duspair came to an end finally and her focus turned once again to why I was moving. It made me feel like she had not heard a thing I was saying:
"You are lonely here because you lost your mom recently, then got some weird environmental illness from that hideous self storage job which they fired you from and now out of work for over 2 years, Terry has had a horrible time finding work because of this insane economy and you don't have kids to keep you grounded. So you want to leave and don't your know you take yourself with you? You can't escape into some art colony expecting everything to suddenly be OK. You are living in some romantic fantasy land". Jayne was mad and resentful as hell.
As I unloaded my truck of the donations in silence as I tried to think of some effective short way to respond which would satisfy her need for some enlightenment but sadly I failed as we headed back to the house:
"Jayne you can pretty well make yourself miserable it you want to focusing on what you don't have you know. However I think you are fueled by this acute sense of disconnect from others, yourself and your spirituality you experience daily. Then you project it back on me like it is the frame of reference for my life. It's not because I have learned to take the focus off myself to help another and in this act, on the unseen planes then comes the opportunities one by one for the greater good of all. It has been my experience this brings a tremendous sense of peace
As far as all your assumptions why I am leaving for...Bisbee Bee Land..they are just asumptions.....I have peace about each and don't want to bore youwith the details that you can't relate to.
What I do need to find is my little village where the air is clean so my lungs will heal up. I would be incredibly bored in a typical retirement community and I can't think of anything better then living in an art colony in a little town that is mainly Democratic, has the largest percentage of gay people in Arizona living there, where they are publicly passionate and tolerate about helping each other in this oh so crappy economy and kinda looks like, from what I can tell something out of Europe.
Plus I would like to try Ghost hunting and exploring the mining caves and all the little Boutique shops. I want to know more about the border issues and homelessness there and all the rest. Ya it may get boring but I can read a book and look at the stars and join the community as they look at an old movie together. I hear there are amazing pot-lucks too. I want to slow down so I can figure out the next step and that is OK.
If you want to come with us then do so and maybe just maybe you will find that sense of community instead of the sterile and isolated one you found here".
All Jayne said was "Your new shoes, especially the "I can go in the water, or rock climb, or hike forever, I am older but trying to look cool in hot pink" ones you have on now look ridiculous".
Real enjoyed reading about your move to "Bisbee Bee Land". Keep writing, want to know more about these characters.
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