Family outing and a date

Eve and JK and Tim came to visit. It was the first time I've been with my alternate family in more than a year. My tiny rooms were crowded with people and luggage and there was hardly a place to sleep. But it was so nice to have them around. I made them eggs and coffee and fruit in the morning for breakfast. Eve and I tried to work during the day. We went to dinner and a movie last night. Tim picked up the bill (for which I was grateful. I have no income). This morning, JK made me coffee, and Tim toasted and buttered a bagel for me. There is a familiar, filial sense in this. It hooked into the part of me that was comforted by them when I was dark. I am filled with gratitude that they were there when I was in the bottom of the pit.

I awakened early this morning and spent time answering John's e-mail. He'd sent me a long missive about the recent mission he'd planned and supported.

Today, I went on a date. It wasn't anything special, but I didn't expect it to be. This is living. This is what people do. And then I go to a café and try to put together a proposal. Try to figure out how to make things work better - how to help my African friends. I read the after-action report from the Dutch mission and see all the same pitfalls we always stumbled into. Is there a way to avoid them?

Rewriting

My sister keeps telling me to write everything down. Not the constant record-keeping and note-taking I do anyway. But to use my copious notes to write a book. To publish. To expose everyone. To recount every awful thing that happened and to make sure the world knows what you've done.

I can't say I haven't thought a lot about it. Especially these days, when all I seem to have is time. I work and I write papers for scholarly publication and I try to get contracts and I try to keep my programs alive and I try to protect my intellectual property and I burn through my savings.

There is a particular appeal in punishing those who were responsible by exposing them and making MIVD look like incompetent idiots: so obvious that an analyst with a laptop and a brain could see them.

But the truth is: there is part of me that has been writing a book all along: an alternate narrative where nobody interfered in my relationship with Sjors; where we were able to make our own choices and learn each other and live without fear, and live in love; where he was able to heal from the emotional wounds he suffered in battle. Where he wasn't forced into an impossible decision and where he didn't betray me. I sometimes feel that story when I dream. When I lie in bed alone at night. There was a story where I didn't become what I am now: intellect and grief.

I used all of my powers of analysis and imagination to save him from the hell he hated. And he returned to it anyway. Was there something else I could have done besides love him?

If I write down what you did - the terrible truth of what has happened, then that reality is the one that wins. There is no ending where I can be with him. There is no dénouement that lets me hold him one last time. The awful reality, the worst case scenario, is where I find myself now.

Emily reminds me, "It will all be alright in the end. If it's not alright its not the end".

I had lunch today with the friend who regretted his decision not to be with the woman he loved. I told him I was doing online dating and it baffled him. He immediately started naming people he knew he could arrange for me to meet.

"I'm not looking for a mate," I told him. "I don't need anyone to take care of me and I'm not interested in company for the sake of not being alone."
"I'm also not looking for love. I had that. The real thing. And I don't think you get that kind of love twice in a lifetime."
"But I could use someone who makes me laugh. And someone who knows how to make love to me. Someone who doesn't expect that I can give him my heart."

I can't fucking fake it. The truth is: I loved Sjors more than my own soul. Every day that I am without him causes me so much pain. I can't write that story. That is a sad story.

You put him where he is now. So you take care of him. If he is miserable, then give him lots of interesting tasks to keep him occupied. Don't let him get hurt. Don't shut him down any more than he already is. Use him on missions that change the world. He traded me for whatever picture you painted - so follow through on your promise.  You took him, so make it count, you fuckers.

The sum of days

More time has passed since we parted than the total time I knew you.
I tell myself that this should count more than you did.
But it is a lie.
The number does not seem to matter.

So many days that I have been without you.
And so many more to come.
They line up like good little soldiers as far as I can see.
And this empty, aching spot in the center of me.

"As tho to breathe were life"

I miss you.

From Ulysses

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink

Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd

Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those

That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when

Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades

Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;

For always roaming with a hungry heart

Much have I seen and known; cities of men

And manners, climates, councils, governments,

Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;

And drunk delight of battle with my peers,

Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.

I am a part of all that I have met;

Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'

Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades

For ever and forever when I move.

How dull it is to pause, to make an end,

To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!

As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life

Were all too little, and of one to me

Little remains: but every hour is saved

From that eternal silence, something more,

A bringer of new things; and vile it were

For some three suns to store and hoard myself,

And this gray spirit yearning in desire

To follow knowledge like a sinking star,

Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

…

Death closes all: but something ere the end,

Some work of noble note, may yet be done,

Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:

The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep

Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,

'T is not too late to seek a newer world.

Push off, and sitting well in order smite

The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths

Of all the western stars, until I die.

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:

It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,

And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. It little profits that an idle king,

By this still hearth, among these barren crags,

Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole

Unequal laws unto a savage race,

That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink

Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd

Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those

That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when

Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades

Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;

For always roaming with a hungry heart

Much have I seen and known; cities of men

And manners, climates, councils, governments,

Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;

And drunk delight of battle with my peers,

Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.

I am a part of all that I have met;

Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'

Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades

For ever and forever when I move.

How dull it is to pause, to make an end,

To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!

As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life

Were all too little, and of one to me

Little remains: but every hour is saved

From that eternal silence, something more,

A bringer of new things; and vile it were

For some three suns to store and hoard myself,

And this gray spirit yearning in desire

To follow knowledge like a sinking star,

Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

         This is my son, mine own Telemachus,

To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,—

Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil

This labour, by slow prudence to make mild

A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees

Subdue them to the useful and the good.

Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere

Of common duties, decent not to fail

In offices of tenderness, and pay

Meet adoration to my household gods,

When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

         There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:

There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,

Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me—

That ever with a frolic welcome took

The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed

Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;

Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;

Death closes all: but something ere the end,

Some work of noble note, may yet be done,

Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:

The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep

Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,

'T is not too late to seek a newer world.

Push off, and sitting well in order smite

The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths

Of all the western stars, until I die.

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:

It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,

And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

The sun

 

It's been a strange couple of days. The sun was out yesterday on the first day of the year and I felt hopeful - and a sense of enthusiastic curiosity I haven't felt in a long time. I walked outside, into Old Town, and bought kale and spinach and fruit - and made a swiggy. I met Shelly for lunch and conversation. And then took the train to Sarah's house for dinner where I had great company and conversation for hours. This morning, I awakened to a phone call from one of my friends in the Cameroon Special Forces. He wished me a happy new year and wanted to hear my sleepy voice. What a great guy. Somehow, the grinning fool managed to get inside my heart and I really love hearing from him. He is one of the reasons I do what I do...why I MUST do what I do. I have to work. I have to publish. I have to change the way capacity building is conducted. I have to help him save his country.

 

In the past week, I finally claimed the friendships I have in the Dutch Navy and Marine Corps on linkedIn. For so long, I was afraid I was contaminated. I didn't want to taint them with whatever stink MIVD had tried to wipe on me. But enough time had passed and I thought, "what the hell? They can always say no". But every single one of them accepted my contact within hours of the invitation. God, that felt good. It felt like I was taking something back that had been stolen. And then my frogman responded to my text and gave me his kisses on Christmas. There are so many beautiful things in the world and I can feel them. For all the hell I've been mired in, I've been luckier than most in the friends I've made and the caring that people have given me.

 

In the last week, I've written one new scholarly paper to submit and amended a second for resubmission. I wrapped this second one up tonight and fixed the references.

 

I spent time with my sister and parents and my niece. There are beautiful people in the world.

 

There was a meeting at my lawyer's office this afternoon. I walked and took a taxi - and then returned home on the bus via Shirlington where I stopped for a salad and more writing on the papers. I had approached the meeting with such dread. I hate everything that the company has tried to do to me. Everything they've tried to take.

 

Perhaps a part of me felt that there could have been a different path - some option behind door #3 that could have spared me this. I've often wondered if there was some incantation I could have said to change the state of affairs as they are now. But you can't change someone's mind when they're set on it. You cannot force someone else to make a good or reasonable decision. And the company didn't make a reasoned decision based on the facts. They wanted to punish me. They wanted to put me into a box that they could understand. But I crossed the Rubicon a long time ago - if I wasn't going to get in the box when Sjors wanted me to, why the fuck would I do it for them?  

 

Today they were on the phone, misrepresenting the truth to a third party and I thought, "Aha. Even they don't feel that their actions have been defensible. You don't misrepresent the series of events if you feel that you are in the right." And then my baby-faced lawyer calmly pulled the thread on their words and their malice was uncomfortably exposed - like wearing a pair of saggy grey granny panties under a pair of tailored white Prada shorts.

 

 I may not have much. I don't have a salary. I'm whittling away my savings in huge chunks. But I have my ideas. And I have my integrity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the rain

I went for a walk in the jungle with my sister, brother-in-law, and the doodle-bug, a 10-month-old girl with white-blonde hair and startling problem-solving-skills.
It started to rain. We continued walking, until the rain turned into a deluge, and we sheltered beneath the trees. It reminded me of Limbe on Palm Sunday all those years ago: little girls in their pink frilly frocks running through puddles and carrying palm fronds as umbrellas.
I didn't mind the rain too much. But I was worried about the doodle-bug. The water was so heavy and insistent, I wondered how she was taking it. After 25 minutes of constant downpour, I was wet and uncomfortable. The stroller was filled with water. The doodle-bug had to be uncomfortable.
The stockings on doodle's little feet dripped and drizzled water. Water streamed down her cheeks and slicked her hair down. And this beautiful kid's face was wreathed in smiles. She clucked and cooed and giggled and splashed her hands in the water.
It amazes me how ready she is to smile. The way she sees the world: as something which she expects will make her happy. Even the rain delights her. I want to be like that.

So many awful things have happened. I've lost so much. For so long, this was what I saw: a count of the accumulating losses. Even now, I don't dare look behind me because the carnage is still too close, and the darkness can overwhelm. Sometimes, it takes the breath out of me. I don't want the darkness to define me this year.

I want to be in the middle of a thunderstorm and laugh because of the sheer joy of it.

Another premature ending

I heard from "M" today.
She told me that she miscarried.
I don't believe her for a second.
This is so sad.