The Dream you gave me

You once did my dishes in the nude. 

I'd made some comment about the unfair gender division of labor in household chores and you made some comment about my inability to keep my house tidy - and then you jumped out of bed and started doing my dishes. 

When I came into the kitchen to keep you company - and to watch my handsome naked houseboy load the dishwasher, you decided to have a battle in "Tweedle-Dee" fashion. You put a bowl on my head and a colander on yours and we each wielded wooden spoons. It was absurd - the both of us naked and fighting with kitchen utensils and I loved it. I thought, "where have you been? I've waited my whole life for you!" God, I squirmed with pleasure thinking about every other fun moment we would be able to create together for the rest of our lives. I kept pinching myself because I couldn't believe that it was possible you even existed. How did I have you here, naked in my kitchen - and, more importantly, how could I keep you there?!

It was during this silly time in my kitchen that you said, "won't it be amazing to have children together? We will have the greatest children" and then you told me that we would have to hire a nanny - and a housekeeper. "Because," you said. "Darling, you're a disaster in housekeeping."

I didn't even have words for this. You talked about our children as though they were an inevitability and, the more you discussed it, I found that I wanted, more than I'd ever wanted anything in my life, to have your children and to raise them with you. Something deeply personal and primal moved in me - something I'd never felt with anyone else. I'd wanted children, of course. But only in some abstract future sense. Hans was planning to move to Italy, and when I looked for houses, I'd tried to find something child-friendly. But with Hans, I was always a bit uncertain and the idea of children had frightened me a little. But with you? God, I wanted your children. It seemed so right. You were the missing part of me. With you, everything that I was, and everything I had done, made sense. What are we on this planet for if not to love someone else so completely? What might it be to have children who came from that love?

You were bursting with possibilities. You were bursting with life. To be around you made me more alive than I'd ever been - more than I've ever been. You made me alive - and wholly myself. I imagined our children: your energy and bright intelligence and my nerdy compulsion for analysis and love for physics. I wanted them to have your eyes. This was such a tender part of me: the part of me that wanted to have your children. I could hardly admit it to myself. I was certainly embarrassed to talk about it.

You got underway in March. At the time, I was in the U.S., talking to the scientists at Big Pharma. I stayed that night at my friend's house. We Skyped before you left. It was a wonderful conversation. You were so encouraged about life. We talked about taking a camping vacation in France when you returned. You wanted to make sure that we had a prenuptial agreement so that I would be able to keep all of the money I made from my chemistry invention. We each undressed on the video and tried to be as close to the other person as we could, with an ocean between us.

There was something I didn't tell you during this conversation: when you deployed, my period was late by 7 days. I knew that we wouldn't have comms for the next two weeks and I didn't want to worry you, so I kept it to myself. I was worried about it. I didn't know what I would do about my job, and I didn't know what you would think. I found out later that I wasn't pregnant, but the thought of having your children took hold in me and I realized (once the panic died away) that it was a happy thought.

By this time, I knew you were married. I knew about your boys: you'd introduced us on Skype. I was worried about them as you navigated your divorce. I didn't want there to be anger and strife around them. And I was nervous about meeting them. I began to feel very concerned about these little people. I tried to listen for clues about how you were with them - and I soon learned that you loved them very much. I learned that you were a dedicated father, and that you felt such a fierce need to protect them. I also found that I felt a fierce need to protect them. I decided that, as much as I wanted to have children with you, I would wait for a couple years after we got married. I didn't want them to feel displaced or not-wanted.

But I couldn't stop my heart from longing. The dream you gave me had its own life.

I was in Mauritius when you arrived in your next port. I was awake and waiting for you when you called at 0140. We talked for nearly an hour. You were standing outside the submarine. Someone yelled at you to move because they were going to vent the intakes and you would have been drenched! You returned to the sub and stood in the topmost section to finish our talk.

What did we talk about? God, it’s difficult to remember. It was an easy, unforced conversation. You told me about the exercises on the sub and I wished I was there with you when you made your calculations and when you shouted, "Dive! Dive! Dive!" Eventually, you pried a secret from me: earlier that day I'd purchased a wool rug with butterflies and flowers. I'd bought it to go in a nursery. You were very quiet for a few seconds and then you said, "good."

It was time to go. I asked you if there was something I could give you to take with you.

"Oh yes," you answered solemnly. "Darling, tell me that I'm right about everything, and that you're wrong!"

I COMPLETELY disagreed with you but I'd promised. It was a lackluster performance but I fulfilled your request.

Then you asked me what you could give me. I said, "give me some piece of the future."

That, more than anything, was what I hungered for. Some reassurance that my future would be linked with yours. That I would be able to make love to you every day, and wake up with you next to me.

You said to me: "We will have to spend some time looking for an apartment. You will have to tell me your requirements. Do you want a big kitchen? A place with a bathtub? It will take us a couple of months to adjust and get settled in, and then I think we will be very happy together. Then, after a couple of years, we will have to find a bigger place, and we will have to use your rug.”

Then I was quiet in my soul.

The man I knew shared his dreams with me. He was open and hopeful about the future and he saw such joy in his life. He saw children with me - not as an obligation or a burden - but children conceived and raised in such love. Your vision for the future was so strong I relied on it and your joy was contagious. What a wonderful dream you had. This was the man I knew.

House in the Woods

I remember waking up in Edwin's house and finding you beside me.

The trip to Senegal had a layover in Brussels - so I terminated my trip there. I took the early-morning train to Amsterdam and you took me to Edward's house in the woods so I would have a friendly place to stay. It was still so difficult for me to come to the Netherlands because it was full of Hans for me. I had only broken up with him two months previously and I missed him terribly - and you were worried about me after my trip to Africa. You wanted to make sure that I had a place to stay and company to keep my mind off my grief, even if you couldn't be the one to do it yourself. I remember feeling so moved by this - that you would go out of your way to be sure that I was okay. I was grateful for the company and the kindness, and Edwin was always so kind to me. I remember the red brick with its tall windows and red and white shutters, and Edwin with his kind eyes and good conversation. He loved you and I loved him for that.

Edwin had Cuban music playing because he fell in love with Cuban music on his trip to Havana with his father. He made me thick Irish stew and we watched the birds in the bird feeder and went for walks and talked about you. I loved it when he talked about you but I always felt guilty because you were the only topic I wanted and this is rude when you are making a new friend. But he told me about what you were like as a boy. He showed me pictures of the winter hike where you found the un-exploded grenade from the war. I was astounded when I saw the photos - you told me that it was SOMEONE ELSE who dug for the grenade in the icy ground, who whacked his pick axe again and again until it struck metal, and who posed with the unexploded ordinance - but it was YOU all along! Of course it was. Who else would be so enthusiastic and just crazy enough to do such a thing?!

I took a nap to recover from the trip. The room was cold and I kept my coat on. When I awoke, you were there, watching me. I reached for you, not believing you were real. You came to me and held me tightly. Then you stretched our body out over mine, covering me head to foot – the comforting gesture you had used on the day you left me in Naples. You kissed me. I devoured your kisses. I touched your face and your hands. You looked at me with such love. You said, "I love you." And you kissed me again.

I remember looking out the window behind you at the bare branches of the trees reaching out against the grey sky. I remember thinking that my heart would burst because I loved you so much. How was it possible to love another person the way I loved you and keep it contained in one body? I wanted nothing more than to have this moment last forever - to have you near to me. Your body on my body. Your love covering me. You gently kissed my neck and my body shuddered with the pleasure of having you so near, pressed into me. I reached between us, unlatched your belt, and slid my fingers inside. You were ready for me.

"I don't have time," you told me. "I have to leave."

"I don't care," I remember saying. And I didn't. "Whatever time you have."

We made love. It was urgent. Every nerve in my body felt your ecstasy and cried out in joy and wanted to give this to you again and again.

Then you left - and I felt that I must have dreamed it.

I walked that evening with Edwin through the winter woods. We talked about the challenges you were facing - at work and at home. We had discussed your marriage previously and I knew how Edward felt about your decision to marry. We talked about your character - how you had some need to carry the burden for everything, and the pains you suffered from your wartime experiences. Edwin said, "You are Sjor's angel. You can help him with the demons he fights, where I cannot. I can support him with his home situation, if he needs my help." I was so grateful to know that Edwin was your friend and that he would support you. But I worried that he thought I was your angel. I felt so helpless to do anything except love you. I had lifetimes of love for you, but I couldn't do anything with it if you wouldn't let me.

Before I left, Edwin said to me, "I see why Sjors fell in love with you. I am jealous, in a way, for how you feel about each other. But it gives me hope, too, to know that such love is possible."

The Sjors I remember gave me his best friend - because he was concerned about the state of my heart and the comfort of my body. It was so difficult for you to juggle so many things - but you wanted to support me - you wanted to be with me, and you gave me the seconds you had to give and all the support you could think of. You gave me everything you could. The man I remember was generous and open.

A memory

Dear Sjors,

On the drive to Stuttgart, you told me a story about how you needed to brief the men on the Submarine as you were preparing to deploy. It was a cold February and men were walking around outside the sub without coats. Also, there were many hazards in the area, and people weren't wearing protective head-gear. Also, there were flammable liquids around so it was very bad for men to smoke on the pier. It was your responsibility as XO to make sure that all the men knew the seriousness of the situation: and you lectured them firmly and urged them to comply. In spite of your stern attitude, the men started to snigger, and laugh. You became upset. Didn't they take you seriously? Didn't they understand how important this was? Gradually, you became aware that the CO had projected a picture on the wall behind you. It was a photo someone had taken of YOU, shivering in the snow next to the Submarine, bare head and in your shirtsleeves, smoking a cigarette.

I laughed so hard when you told me this. Sometimes now I still laugh when I think of this story.

Later, on the drive, you became very angry with me. You had some idea about me: that I had taken many lovers  before you, and you thought I was lying to you when I told you I had not. You insisted that you would forgive me if I told you that the number was 30 or 40. But my count was the same as yours and, as far as I was concerned, you were the only man I would ever share my bed with for the rest of my life. I don't remember why this was such a fight but I think it had something to do with the collision between your vision of me and the reality. It is very easy to have an idea about someone which is untrue. I noticed that this happened frequently: the longer the time we spent apart, the more you forgot who I was - and the more startled you were when you saw me again. I was still the same woman who made you laugh and who was driven by logic and intellectual curiosity. You kept on trying to believe that I was irrational or stupid or driven by the selfish strange need to possess or be financially cared-for. I got the sense that this was the type of woman you were familiar with. But I am a rational soul. I am not stupid or selfish. I try very hard to approach the world with goodness (but not niceness). And I didn't need anyone to take care of me financially. My salary was twice yours (although I never told you this) and I was very employable in any country. As far as I was concerned, I was happy to give Isa every penny I earned for the rest of my life as long as I could spend the rest of my life with you. I would have lived in a box if it meant that I could wake up beside you. I would have very happily been poor if I could enjoy and be with the man I had loved from the first moment I saw him.

We got in a water fight at the hotel. The sink was outside the shower area and you launched an all-out water-war. I am not as committed a person as you so, in spite of the fact that I had the advantage (the shower-heard), you won the battle because you weren't afraid to drench the room in so much icy water, we were practically swimming.

You spent time with my friends. Drove us into the City. We ate the heaviest, nastiest, greasiest German food available and we drank German Beer. Ed tried to wheedle and pry information out of you because that's what he does. Later, we snuck back to the hotel lobby to spend time with Marie. Marie still talks about this meeting because she was so impressed by you: your perception, your clarity of thought, the way that you and I had hearts only for one another. She remembers the advice that you gave her: to go the the man she loved, no matter the cost. She remembers what your face looked like as she described her Submariner friend: you saw yourself in 20 years after a lifetime of compromise and a loveless marriage. In the car on the drive back to our hotel, you raged about Marie: you said she should leave her husband; that her children could not benefit to be in a situation where the parents did not love one another as you loved me.

Strangely, one of my favorite parts of this trip was the visit to the military museum. I'm sorry to say that the primary interest for me in such museums is coldly academic (I enjoy the engineering advances) but I really LOVED this experience because it allowed me to catch this strange glimpse into Sjors that I knew about but which I did not understand the passion of until that moment: your madness for history. I knew about this a bit because I saw the tomes you read. I'd even begun to read some WWII history books (still do, interestingly enough) and you'd given me a copy of "birdsong", a book that creeped me out because of the tunnels and the story of doomed love - maybe I should have taken THAT hint from you! ;)

You told me about the role of artillery in battle and difference between the German Panzers (the word for Armour) and the British Tank (part of a clever mis-direction campaign). You told me about both sets of grandparents who had been active members of the Dutch Resistance during the war. This took the wind out of me and I looked on you with different eyes then. I saw the people you came from: people who fought so hard for what they believed in. I saw you as the natural offspring of such courageous men and women. I felt then the real sense that you would have been part of their gang, as well. I was overwhelmed with love for you.

I wanted to hook into this aspect of you after that. While you were deployed, I read several books on WWII and I researched old magazines and other artifacts of interest. I was so excited when I found the "Newsweek" with the Dutch Submariners on the cover, and an old postcard with the photo of the original Zeeleeuw, and the brass compass from the US infantry. I bid for these things and bought them on e-bay for you.

I was so happy to see you when you returned. You were uncertain of me at first, I think, because you tended to forget the truth about me when you do not see me. But your hands shook when you opened the box with the "Newsweek" Magazine and you saw what was inside. I think you understood that I saw you. That I really understood something about you that was so important to you.

That is what I remember about you. You are a complex man, Sjors. I have always enjoyed your complexity.

Letter to my little sister

Hi Honey, 

I'm writing this message to you because I know that you aren't able to talk right now. You're in your psychiatrist's office.

I'm glad you're seeing your therapist and your psychiatrist. This tells me that you aren't finished fighting. This is really good. The truth is: as much as everyone in your life wants to help you, you are the only one who can find your own path out. This is so frustrating, I know. But the most important thing is to keep fighting the part of you that doesn't believe you can do it.

I really want you to pull your head above water and find something in your life that makes you want to get out of bed every morning and makes you look forward to the future. 

Maybe it's hypocritical of me to demand this of you because I still have that fight with myself every day. Every day is so sad and painful for me. When people tell me that I will fall in love again; have a beautiful future, I can't believe them. I have my work and that keeps me going - so that's something. But it is still so sad for me. I wish that I could have a husband who loves me and whom I love as much as I loved Sjors. I wish I could have two or three kids of my own. I don't think that I will ever have these - and sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the loss of a future which was taken from me, even when I was fighting so hard to keep it.

I think so many things are sad for you, too. You read me out loud the things that haunt you: your disappointment in men. The pain and cruelty you've suffered at their hands. I think that this hangs over you even when you wish you could escape it. If I'm right, it still haunts you even when you're escaping by doing something extreme or taking drugs or drinking heavily.

I think that you're different, though. You're young and so full of potential. You have so much to offer the world. I know you very well. I know the heart of you. I know you don't believe me - but its true. I keep waiting for that day when you look in the mirror and see what I see when I look at you. I see all of the things you have to offer the world: your brilliant mind, your bright spirit, your deep and abiding empathy and compassion.

The longer the time you spend away from this true vision of yourself, the more you believe the lies. This is the nature of lying: at some point, you become what you pretended to be. At some point you will forget where the truth is.

I want you to know that, no matter how much you forget who you are, I will carry the true vision of you with me in my heart. I remember you. I know you.

I know you feel that you don't have any resources right now. But that's only an illusion. Every one of us (myself included) is prohibited from giving you financial help while you are still using drugs. You know why this is: we can't enable your drug-behavior. I personally feel very bad that I paid your $500 court fine only to have you start using drugs again. It isn't the money that I mind: I just hate that I didn't help you by paying it. I think that I hurt you. I also feel sad because your behavior now prohibits me from helping you. I want to help get you on your feet. I would pay any amount of money if it would get you where you needed to be. I would have you living with me in Italy in a heartbeat if you had stayed clean and sober after rehab. I really hate that I can't do that now. I know that M feels the same way about having you in Florida watching Papouli. She would love to have the help. She would love to have you in her life. But you have to stop using.

Get clean. Know that the feelings of despair that you feel - the impulse to end your own life - is a broken part of your brain that needs time and treatment to heal. It's like a broken arm. Thinbking clearly and rationally on a depressed and anxious brain is as difficult as playing baseball with a broken arm. The suicidal thoughts are the symptom of the brain's injury - just as the physical pain is the symptom of the broken arm. So don't believe what your injured brain is telling you. Give it what it needs to heal. 

If you abuse a broken arm, the healing takes a lot longer - or may not occur at all - or may occur wrongly. Sometimes the broken arm must have surgery or pins in it or the doctors have to re-break the injury. These things are true for the brain, too. If you let it heal (don't abuse it with recreational chemicals, give it sleep, give it nutrition, give it exercise, give it beauty, give it conversation and friendships, give it therapy, give it relaxation), the brain will stop sending pain signals. You will stop hurting so badly and you will not feel the impulse to self-terminate.

I really believe that this is how things work. For months and months I had so much pain and the daily, hourly, minute-by-minute plotting for self-termination (my phrase for it). The concept of ending myself (and therefore my pain) seemed to be the only thing that gave me relief. I thought that it would always be there: a dark companion that I fought every second of every day (or sometimes relaxed into). It surprised me that: when the brain chemicals were correct, the impulse left me. It didn't just get a little better: it was gone. I still feel very sad on most days - but I don't have to battle that darkness. This is why I'm convinced that it's a "brain thing" that doesn't have to do with "me". This is why I think it's like a broken arm, rather than a character defect.

Well, I'll stop blathering. I'm standing by to be your sister and your friend. I hope that you will be able to give me good news soon - news about your planning and your hopes and your efforts to get clean and stay that way. I would like to see you able to become M's nanny for the young hound.

I love you. 

Bitterness

I've told myself that bitterness sets in when you think that, somehow, you've been cheated. You think that what you got wasn't your fair share.

But I don't think that life is fair. It just isn't. You get some things. You lose some things. It doesn't all turn out alright in the wash. Sometimes, its just shit. I tell myself that, if I can believe this (REALLY believe it) then I won't become bitter. I don't want to be bitter.

My friends - well meaning friends - tell me that everything is for my good. They tell me that I will find someone else. Be happy. I don't believe them. I won't believe them. If god will somehow give me back some recompense for what I've lost, then this means that I have reason to blame him in the first place. I had reason to expect fair treatment, and he fucked me over. It wasn't fair. It was awful. I lost Hans because I met Sjors and, because I knew Sjors existed, I couldn't be with Hans. If that is god's fault, then I could rage against god. Why show me where my soul was meant to be, prohibit me from being with a man I loved, and then exile me forever from both?

I found the person I am supposed to be with. And he is lost to me. He chose not to be with me. It was too difficult for him. For me? I would have paid any price to be with him. I would have given up my work, my home. I would have given all of my money and time. I would have lived with him in a cardboard box if it meant that I could wake up next to him every day. But he couldn't do it. Maybe he wasn't strong enough. Maybe I wasn't worth it to him. Maybe he was just scared. And when I fought for him, tried to protect him, he joined in the fight against me.

I've tried to understand. But I don't think that there is understanding to be had. Sometimes, life is just shit. It isn't malicious. It isn't god making some targeted and complicated maneuver for our greater good. It's just life being shit.

But I think that I must believe (in the center of me) that life SHOULD be fair. Why else fight the bastards for what they have done and continue to do? Why train for a fight, and yell and kick and taunt, why take every opportunity to get close so that I can find a way to hurt them, if I wasn't trying to balance out my pain by giving it to them?

But there is no balance for this pain. This pain runs so deep and has cut so fiercely it has nearly killed me. On certain nights, I worry that it still might. If I were to build a bonfire to burn the entire fucking institution down, it would not represent even a fraction of this pain.

frozen

It is spring in Naples, at last. It has been cold here. Raining and cold.

Now it is thawing. The sun is out.

The yellow comes out first. Then purple.

In my backyard, there are tulips coming in. Yellow and red striped. I bought them at Schiphol when I left Hans. I thought I could bring the beauty with me and leave the sadness behind. I was wrong. I want to rip them out of the ground. Destroy them with the sharp edge of a shovel. Rip them apart.

If I could do anything to make the pain stop, I would.

If I could freeze again, I would.

But the thaw comes.

My friend Daniel writes to me about his daughter. And his girlfriend who is pregnant again.

I held my tiny niece in my arms. So small. Bathed her body. Rocked her to sleep.

I try to work when the pain is too much. My work colleagues write back. They are busy - spending time with families.

Yes. That is what you do. You spend time with families.

And I will rip the tulips out.