So Long, Marianne

During an episode of This is Us tonight, they played this beautiful song and talked about how Leonard Cohen had written it for his ex-girlfriend, with whom he remains friends:

Come over to the window, my little darling,
I'd like to try to read your palm.
I used to think I was some kind of Gypsy boy
before I let you take me home.
Now so long, Marianne, it's time that we began
to laugh and cry and cry and laugh about it all again.

The New Englander and I don't quite laugh and cry about it all again, but we did laugh together again, and show up for what's happening in each other's lives. It's still hard for both of us to understand how we unraveled, and it sounds like this is a bit of a mystery for Leonard and Marianne too:

Well you know that I love to live with you,
but you make me forget so very much.
I forget to pray for the angels
and then the angels forget to pray for us.

Now so long, Marianne, it's time that we began ...

We met when we were almost young
deep in the green lilac park.
You held on to me like I was a crucifix,
as we went kneeling through the dark.

Almost young, I like that phrase - -I'm not sure if the New Englander and I would qualify, at 39 and 44 when we met. I sho can relate to holding on to him like a crucifix, though - there was definitely, I think for both of us, a feeling of being saved by the love we shared.

Oh so long, Marianne, it's time that we began ...

Your letters they all say that you're beside me now.
Then why do I feel alone?
I'm standing on a ledge and your fine spider web
is fastening my ankle to a stone.

It's hard getting on after a breakup, and sometimes it does feel lonely, and as though the hold my former lover has is weighing me down.

Now so long, Marianne, it's time that we began ...

For now I need your hidden love.
I'm cold as a new razor blade.
You left when I told you I was curious,
I never said that I was brave.

I am brave, or I wouldn't have been able to end things in the first place, but sometimes, sometimes I don't feel all that brave. Sometimes I just plain miss him.

Oh so long, Marianne, it's time that we began ...

Oh, you are really such a pretty one.
I see you've gone and changed your name again.
And just when I climbed this whole mountainside,
to wash my eyelids in the rain!

I'm with you there, Leonard, my eyelids get lots of washing, rain and shine!

Oh so long, New Englander, it's time that we began...

Going Home

A sunny December day on La Crosse Lane

On Friday I taught an out-with-the-old, in-with-the-new themed yoga class. In the new year, I won't be teaching on Fridays anymore, just Tuesdays, which will be easier to manage schedule-wise, but I'll miss seeing my yogis twice a week.

We began with letting go of anything that 2016 asked us to let go of, and for me, that included, among other things:

1) The need for any pretense about my relationship with my parents. They refuse to acknowledge what transpired in my childhood, and yet they act as if I should be ok with having a relationship with them where I pretend everything is fine, that they haven't denied this huge aspect of my being. Definitely letting go of my need to go along with that. Unfortunately, it seems to come with a cost -- I have been sick on and off in the month since I dropped this pretense -- and I'm feeling that way again now. Wah.

2) So, so many musical geniuses, including the masterful Canadian poet, Leonard Cohen. I just read an article in the New Yorker about him, which was written before he died. It was beautiful, and it discussed many of his songs, including this one that has particular significance for me as I welcome the new year (which was the second part of the yoga class):

Going home
Without my sorrow
Going home
Sometime tomorrow
Going home
To where it’s better
Than before

Going home
Without my burden
Going home
Behind the curtain
Going home
Without the costume
That I wore

You know the corny old expression: "Home is where the heart is"? Well for me, realizing on this hasn't been as easy as it sounds. (Get comfy, days fans, what follows is rather lengthy, and for many, it's a review, mostly for my own benefit as I close out a big year of my life and welcome an even bigger one.)

You see, I came back into my heart, after fleeing it during the abuse in my childhood, when my son was born. And my heart grew again exponentially when my daughter was born.

But it wasn't until I was able to heal considerably more than I had when I married that I was able to truly fall in love with a man. And, oh, did I ever: With the New Englander. And I dreamt of a home with him. Of a baby. Of a second marriage.

Instead, he moved away, at the end of June, 2013. Because he wasn't ready for any of that. And my heart broke. It straight up broke. It broke along the fault lines that had been created in my childhood. Which meant that the heartbreak I experienced in his absence was SUPER magnified by all that I hadn't yet let myself feel (but needed to feel to become whole) from my childhood. Which meant mostly that I cried. A lot. When I heard songs. When I rode my bike, either bike, that he added (or helped add) to my fleet. When I camped. When I got into bed at night. When I woke up in the morning. When I had an orgasm. When I heard his voice. When I saw his name. Etc. Etc. Etc. My poor kids -- they didn't know what to do with me.

The New Englander wasn't happy without me either, and over the course of the next couple of years, we went back and forth about whether we were going to get back together, did for a while, broke up again, etc.

And then at the beginning of 2016, I started to write a book. Well, another book. I start writing books quite frequently. This one was about the two of us. It reprinted all of the emails we exchanged, and through the process of putting it together, I realized a lot of important things, including:

1) We have an awesome love;

2) I wanted an awesome love in my life again.

So I asked him if we could talk, and then we did. I told him about these realizations. I told him I still loved him. He said that he loved me too, but that he thought you could still love someone and be over them. I cried, sobbed, really, saying: "I am definitely not over you. Are you over me?" And then he admitted he wasn't, that he hadn't met anyone else that did it for him in the same way.

I was relieved to hear that, but there were other things I heard during that phone call that were less promising: He was happy in his little mountain town, disconnected at home from other people; this made him feel safe. Also: He worried that if we got back together, it wouldn't stay good.

And I heard him. I really heard him. And I accepted what he said. If that's what makes him feel safe, I thought, he should stay there. And if he doesn't have faith that we can have a fantastic life together, then maybe we can't.

So, in March of this year, I wrote him a letter, in which I told him that he knows just how truly, madly, deeply I love him, but I want love in my life again. I want the things that we had. That I had a nearly impossible time believing that he wasn't the person that I was going to get to have them with, but it seems maybe he isn't. And I told him not to contact me again, please, unless he could be all in, in a way that he couldn't be before.

Fast forward to November 1: the day he got back in touch. After a few emails, a letter, and several phone conversations and texts in which he expressed, among other things, full faith that we've got 50 years together ahead of us, making life feel like a dream vacation, I'd say we've come full circle.

To a place where when I text him the photo above to show that the sun was shining outside our house, he texts back that it breaks his heart with yearning to see a picture of his home. His home. With me. And my kids. Nothing, but nothing could make me happier: All my loves under one roof. Coming in 2017! Yay!

I was watching an episode of The Crown tonight, and there's a scene where Winston Churchill is admonishing the Duke of Windsor, once King Edward the VIII, that the love he had for his wife had destroyed everything (including forcing him to abdicate the throne).

The Duke answers:

"It is love, Winston, love, the greatest thing on Earth."

Yup. I'll say it is. And that's one of many realizations The New Englander had in 2016. Hip, hip, hooray for that!

In little more than a week, he'll be coming home, if only for a visit this time. And on the eve of this new year, in which I get to be reunited with my love and even have my home become his, I couldn't be more grateful that we're both:

Going home
Without my sorrow
Going home
Sometime tomorrow
Going home
To where it’s better
Than before

Going home
Without my burden
Going home
Behind the curtain
Going home
Without this costume
That I wore

Going home
Without the sorrow
Going home
Sometime tomorrow
Going home
To where it’s better
Than before

Going home
Without the burden
Going home
Behind the curtain
Going home
Without this costume
That I wore

...going home to where the heart is, to where it's been for both of us since about August of 2010, shortly after we met.

...going home without the burdens of our childhood traumas: We've both spent significant time handing those burdens back to from where they came.

...going home without the costumes of protection we both needed before: We're both in a different space to trust our love this time around. We trust ourselves more, making it infinitely easier to trust each other.

Yep, it's gonna be the happiest new year ever for this girl!

Famous Blue Raincoat

Ok, so it's going to take more than one post to sufficiently mark Leonard Cohen's passing.

This, I determined, while listening last night to his greatest hits, one of which was this beauty:

It's four in the morning, the end of December
I'm writing you now just to see if you're better
New York is cold, but I like where I'm living
There's music on Clinton Street all through the evening.
I hear that you're building your little house deep in the desert
You're living for nothing now, I hope you're keeping some kind of record.

Yes, and Jane came by with a lock of your hair
She said that you gave it to her
That night that you planned to go clear
Did you ever go clear?

Ah, the last time we saw you you looked so much older
Your famous blue raincoat was torn at the shoulder
You'd been to the station to meet every train
And you came home without Lili Marlene

And you treated my woman to a flake of your life
And when she came back she was nobody's wife.

Well I see you there with the rose in your teeth
One more thin gypsy thief
Well I see Jane's awake --

She sends her regards.

And what can I tell you my brother, my killer
What can I possibly say?
I guess that I miss you, I guess I forgive you
I'm glad you stood in my way.

If you ever come by here, for Jane or for me
Your enemy is sleeping, and his woman is free.

Yes, and thanks, for the trouble you took from her eyes
I thought it was there for good so I never tried.

And Jane came by with a lock of your hair
She said that you gave it to her
That night that you planned to go clear --

Sincerely, L. Cohen

Wow. Just wow. My favorite of all those incredible lines is:

Yes, and thanks, for the trouble you took from her eyes
I thought it was there for good so I never tried.

I had that experience once, where a man took some of the trouble from my eyes. I wrote about it in this post, which sure feels apropos now that it looks like I might just get to spend a lifetime (at least what's left of it) with the New Englander after all.

I totally get why my friends and likely my therapist will react with concern to me opening myself up for the potential for more pain. I really do. But here's the thing: I love him. He loves me. It would've been great if we could've gotten the job done the first time, both of us ready to enter into a relationship in proportion to what our hearts knew about each other, but that's not the way it went down. It feels like things have really shifted now. I won't know for sure, of course, until we try it again and it sticks this time, or doesn't. Luckily, I trust myself enough to follow the guidance, to read the signs, to stay open and honest with myself about what is happening between us. And that guidance is clear: Here is this man who is crazy about you and who you are crazy about back in your life. Open to it. Choose love. It's so much nicer than the alternative...

Hey That's No Way To Say Goodbye

Yesterday my ex-husband texted me to tell me Leonard Cohen had died, which makes sense since he was the one who introduced me to his music. And I adore a lot of his music, which makes choosing a song to mark his passing more challenging than it would be if he hadn't written so many remarkable songs.

So I started by doing a search of my blog to see which songs I'd written about already, and I was a little disheartened to find not one, not two, but three LC songs used to chronicle the uncertainty and sadness that I was feeling at various points about my relationship with The New Englander:

Closing Time in December of 2012: I'd just closed on the house I've now lived in for four years and thought he'd live in with me, and I was lamenting that I didn't yet know if he would be moving in (he didn't).

Anthem in March of 2014: After learning that he decided it was a mistake to leave Wisconsin, we began making plans for him to return and talked about all we had learned and why it would be different this time around -- that return didn't happen.

If It Be Your Will in January of 2015: I was feeling sad about losing him and hoping that my heart would be stretched by the loss and I'd go on to love again.

And now here I am again, only this time Leonard Cohen is dead, and I'm doing my best to follow my heart, which seems to be saying something like what the poet describes in this song:

I loved you in the morning, our kisses deep and warm,
your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden storm,
yes, many loved before us, I know that we are not new,
in city and in forest they smiled like me and you,
but now it's come to distances and both of us must try,
your eyes are soft with sorrow,
Hey, that's no way to say goodbye.
I'm not looking for another as I wander in my time,
walk me to the corner, our steps will always rhyme
you know my love goes with you as your love stays with me,
it's just the way it changes, like the shoreline and the sea,
but let's not talk of love or chains and things we can't untie,
your eyes are soft with sorrow,
Hey, that's no way to say goodbye.

I loved you in the morning, our kisses deep and warm,
your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden storm,
yes many loved before us, I know that we are not new,
in city and in forest they smiled like me and you,
but let's not talk of love or chains and things we can't untie,
your eyes are soft with sorrow,
Hey, that's no way to say goodbye.

That seems to be our current consensus. That we still love each other. That we're not ready to say goodbye. Revisiting the past, as I did inadvertently while creating this post, there are all sorts of reasons to worry that it won't work. And I'm keeping all of them in my awareness, but I'm not going to let them dictate the present (or the future)...

If It Be Your Will

As I was driving home from my son's indoor soccer game tonight, Judith Orloff was talking (from her book on my CD player) about surrendering to pain and letting the tears come as a release valve. She talked about how much she encourages her patients to cry, how healthy and necessary it is, and what opens the floodgates in her own life when she needs a good cry.

This song from Leonard Cohen was at the top of her list:

If it be your will
That I speak no more
And my voice be still
As it was before
I will speak no more
I shall abide until
I am spoken for
If it be your will
If it be your will
That a voice be true
From this broken hill
I will sing to you
From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing
From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing

If it be your will
If there is a choice
Let the rivers fill
Let the hills rejoice
Let your mercy spill
On all these burning hearts in hell
If it be your will
To make us well

And draw us near
And bind us tight
All your children here
In their rags of light
In our rags of light
All dressed to kill
And end this night
If it be your will

If it be your will.

Like Judith, I'm a huge fan of both tears and the poet Leonard Cohen. I find this song really calming, settling, in a "we're not in charge" kind of way. 

I know that if I were in charge, things would be different than they are right now, but I'm really trying to trust the process and believe that this grief will open the door to something better.

I saw this quote on FB tonight on the same subject:

“When sorrow comes, let us accept it simply, as a part of life. Let the heart be open to pain; let it be stretched by it. All the evidence we have says that this is the better way. An open heart never grows bitter. Or if it does, it cannot remain so. In the desolate hour, there is an outcry; a clenching of the hands upon emptiness; a burning pain of bereavement; a weary ache of loss. But anguish, like ecstasy, is not forever. There comes a gentleness, a returning quietness, a restoring stillness. This, too, is a door to life. Here, also is the deepening of meaning – and it can lead to dedication; a going forward to the triumph of the soul, the conquering of the wilderness. And in the process will come a deepening inward knowledge that in the final reckoning, all is well.”
~A. Powell Davies

I can't say that all is well at the moment, but I guess that just means I haven't gotten to that point yet, because I have no doubt that my heart has been stretched by this loss. And considering how much it has stretched from the love I share with the New Englander, I have to believe that I am going to get to use it to both do good in the world and love and be loved fully...

Anthem

As I contemplate this second go-around with my love from New England, there are still a lot of questions, but there's also a lot that feels settled. We both know now, in a way we didn't before, why our love is working for us in ways that our previous loves didn't. And that's helpful. It's huge, even.

I really enjoyed the Modern Love column this week, which was about embracing love again with the same man too, only in their case, they fell out of love and then back in (in our case, we never fell out). She makes reference in the column to this incredible Leonard Cohen song:

The birds they sang
at the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don't dwell on what
has passed away
or what is yet to be.
Ah the wars they will
be fought again
The holy dove
She will be caught again
bought and sold
and bought again
the dove is never free.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.

We asked for signs
the signs were sent:
the birth betrayed
the marriage spent
Yeah the widowhood
of every government --
signs for all to see.

I can't run no more
with that lawless crowd
while the killers in high places
say their prayers out loud.
But they've summoned, they've summoned up
a thundercloud
and they're going to hear from me.

Ring the bells that still can ring ...

You can add up the parts
but you won't have the sum
You can strike up the march,
there is no drum
Every heart, every heart
to love will come
but like a refugee.

Leonard Cohen is such an incredible songwriter, and this song is such a great example of his lyrical prowess, not to mention really great advice:

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.

It's not about everything being perfect, or everything being just like you planned. It's about embracing the love while we still can -- even with, or maybe especially with, all of its cracks. Because in our case at least, all of those cracks have taught us something, something that allows our love to be more lighted now than it ever was before:

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
That's how the light gets in.
That's how the light gets in.

Closing Time

Ever since I posted the last Closing Time entry, I've been feeling like a bit of a traitor. Because although that was the version in my head that day, there's another song by the same title -- this Leonard Cohen song -- that just plain kicks the ass of Semisonic's:

And I swear it happened just like this
A sigh, a cry, a hungry kiss
The gates of love they budged an inch
I can't say much has happened since
But closing time
I swear it happened just like this
A sigh, a cry, a hungry kiss
The gates of love they budged an inch
I can't say much has happened since
But closing time, closing time

I know I've gone on about what a masterful poet my man Leonard is in previous posts, but dang:

I loved you for your beauty
But that doesn't make a fool of me
You were in it for your beauty too
And I loved you for your body
There's a voice that sounds like god to me
Declaring, declaring, declaring that your body's really you
I loved you when our love was blessed
And I love you now there's nothing left
But sorrow and a sense of overtime

I just love the way this man makes sense of love and loss:

And I miss you since the place got wrecked
And I just don't care what happens next
Looks like freedom but it feels like death
It's something in between, I guess
It's closing time
And I miss you since the place got wrecked
By the winds of change and the weeds of sex
Looks like freedom but it feels like death
It's something in between, I guess
It's closing time

Kinda gives the phrase a whole new meaning, doesn't it? And as I step over the precipice of new home ownership on La Crosse Lane this morning, knowing I am making a great move for myself and my family, but not knowing exactly what my family will look like, I'm grateful I've got Leonard Cohen to help me mark this auspicious day...

I'm Your Man

Leonard Cohen is one of my favorite poets, so when this song came to me the other day while I was thinking about the fact that I'd stopped making reference to "my man" on this blog, I had a feeling the lyrics would be good.

I wasn't disappointed:

If you want a lover
I'll do anything you ask me to
And if you want another kind of love
I'll wear a mask for you
If you want a partner
Take my hand
Or if you want to strike me down in anger
Here I stand
I'm your man

If you want a boxer
I will step into the ring for you
And if you want a doctor
I'll examine every inch of you
If you want a driver
Climb inside
Or if you want to take me for a ride
You know you can
I'm your man

Ah, the moon's too bright
The chain's too tight
The beast won't go to sleep
I've been runnin' through, these promises to you
That I made and I couldn't keep
Ah but a man never got a woman back
Not by beggin' on his knees
Or I'd crawl to you baby
And I'd fall at your feet
And I'd howl at your beauty
Like a dog in heat
And I'd claw at your heart
And I'd tear at your sheet
I'd say please
I'm your man

And if you've got to sleep
A moment on the road
I will steer for you
And if you want to work the street alone
I'll disappear for you
If you want a father for your child
Or only wanna walk with me a while
Across the sand
I'm your man

Thanks, Leonard. That's a pretty damn fine summary of what I'm looking for. I thought I had found him, but now I'm not so sure. So I'm just trying to be with that, and for the time being, continue referring to him as my love, because that much I know is true...

Democracy

Tonight I'm just going to let Leonard Cohen, one of the finest poets of the last century, speak for me.

This video recording of his powerful song begins with Leonard reciting its powerful last verse:

I'm sentimental, if you know what I mean

I love the country but I can't stand the scene.

And I'm neither left or right

I'm just staying home tonight,

getting lost in that hopeless little screen.

But I'm stubborn as those garbage bags

that Time cannot decay,

I'm junk but I'm still holding up

this little wild bouquet:

Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

I sure hope he's right, and I can relate to a lot of that verse, but this one is my favorite:

It's coming to America first,

the cradle of the best and of the worst.

It's here they got the range

and the machinery for change

and it's here they got the spiritual thirst.

It's here the family's broken

and it's here the lonely say

that the heart has got to open

in a fundamental way:

Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

Here's to the heart opening in a fundamental way. If it doesn't, I reckon it's going to break. Then again, in my experience outside the politisphere, sometimes the opening of the heart doesn't come until after it breaks...

Like a Bird on a Wire

This morning I got up to do yoga at a sunrise class on Lake Wingra. When I arrived, it was as if all the waterfowl in Madison decided to come to the same yoga class. It was incredible. The teacher remarked that she'd been teaching there for years and had never seen anything like it. Myself, up at 4am feeling and dealing with the sadness attached to losing Mary last summer (this time last year she had been in the hospital for a day and we were still hopeful), I knew they'd come to help mark her memory. As I set the intention for my practice, to have her strength fill my body (she was the strongest person I know), and watched the birds begin to disperse, I heard this somber tune by Leonard Cohen inside my head. The man's an amazing poet, so some lyrics are in order here:

Like a bird on the wire,
like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free.

Like a worm on a hook,
like a knight from some old fashioned book
I have saved all my ribbons for thee.

If I, if I have been unkind,
I hope that you can just let it go by.
If I, if I have been untrue
I hope you know it was never to you.

When I was up early this morning, I also read an email from my friend whose baby died after only one day -- she was cycling back through the grief -- maybe that' s another reason it was a Leonard Cohen morning:

Like a baby, stillborn,
like a beast with his horn
I have torn everyone who reached out for me.

But I swear by this song
and by all that I have done wrong
I will make it all up to thee...

Alright my little chickadees, time to go live this day!