Unpack Your Heart

Ah, the human heart. I taught a yoga class about this incredible vessel yesterday, which seems a bit funny, since I can't even begin to understand it.

I've been listening lately to the CDs that my first love has made me over the years, and I realized something: the only song that he ever repeated from one disc to the next (decades passed between some of them) was the song Hurt.

Sometimes it just feels like there's so much hurt in this life. It's everywhere you look. And even the most magical feelings of love often get replaced by hurt. I say often because I know, not from my own life, but from the examples of others, that it is possible to love someone as much as I let myself love the New Englander and have it turn it very differently than that relationship turned out.

I was talking today to a bodyworker who advised me that now probably isn't the time to date, but when people start asking, to just stay really hypervigilant that I don't once again take elements of a person and a relationship and create a projection -- even if it's a really fucking beautiful projection -- of the partner and the love I am seeking. Because ultimately, that's what I did with the New Englander, because originally, that's what I did with my father.

Tricky business, this heart stuff. Luckily, like all hard things about being human, the difficulty and complexity of our hearts can be mitigated with poetry and music.

I'm going to start with the poetry. This poem is called Heart. It is from an episode of the New Yorker this summer, and it was written by Sue Song. I first read it when I was out in Portland in August, and it has come to symbolize for me the universality of the difficulty that two human beings so often have with loving one another:

When removed, I know
you will be more mahogany
than vermillion. The mass
of you less than one pound—
fisted fibre of muscle, language
of tremor under the breastbone
quieted.
Sorry for blaming you.
Too many nights I felt you
transform to the heaviest alloy
and demand to be carried,
rite of my fidelity to you.
Then, on whim, you’d dissolve
quick as mercury,
rise to cast my throat,
cause an allergy of tears.
I hated your cadence, betraying
me. Contraction and beat,
stenograph of your honesty
when my lips were complicit.
I understand you are sensitive.
Forgive those years I left you
pounding your Morse of grief, alone—
knocking against my sternum,
wondering if I was even there.

Wow.

And finally, from the speakers in the locker room this morning came this song -- a new one to me -- and it seemed hopeful:

Meet me where the sunlight ends
Meet me where the truth never bends
Bring all that you're scared to defend

And lay it down when you walk through my door
Throw all of it out on the floor
Your sorrow, your beauty, your war
I want it all, I want it all

Bring your secrets, bring your scars
Bring your glory, all you are
Bring your daylight, bring your dark
Share your silence
And unpack your heart

Show me something the rest never see
Give me all that you hope to receive
Your deepest regret dies with me

The days when you stumble and fall
The days when you grind to a crawl
The treasure that hides behind your walls
I want it all, yeah I want it all

Bring your secrets, bring your scars
Bring your glory, all you are
Bring your daylight, bring your dark
Share your silence
And unpack your heart
Unpack your heart

Oh, I'm on your side
So shed your shadow
And watch it rise

Oh, I'm on your side
So shed your shadow
And watch it rise
Into your darkness
I'll shine a light

Bring your secrets, bring your scars
Bring your glory, all you are
Bring your daylight, bring your dark
Share your silence

Bring your honor, bring your shame
All your madness, I will tame
Won't you lay down, down your guard
Share your silence
And unpack your heart

Lovely.

Now here this, Universe: the next time I unpack my heart, it'll be with someone capable of making space for me, unpacking his heart, and leaving it unpacked, even when it gets scary and hard...

Gone, Gone, Gone

Three years ago today, I went to a wedding. I went with an open mind and an open heart, but also having made a list. On the list, I'd carefully defined what was important to me in my next man. I had the sense that it would be better if I didn't choose the guy myself, but I wanted the Universe to have some data about the man it was to provide.

I asked the groom for a nominee (the Universe needs helpers after all), and he pointed to the man with whom I've since spent the better part of these last three years.

The night we met, he wasn't a happy guy. He was recently divorced, and having been there myself, I did my best to talk him through all the tough emotions that go with the D-word:

When life leaves you high and dry
I'll be at your door tonight
If you need help, if you need help.
I'll shut down the city lights,
I'll lie, cheat, I'll beg and bribe
To make you well, to make you well.

When enemies are at your door
I'll carry you away from war
If you need help, if you need help.
Your hope dangling by a string
I'll share in your suffering
To make you well, to make you well.

I wanted to help make him well, as the song selected to mark this day goes, and soon, over email and then phone calls, he would:

Give me reasons to believe
That you (he) would do the same for me.

Though we were crazy about each other even before the first weekend we spent together, when I flew out to New England, it seemed even crazier to think that maybe it would work out between us, so we tried to break up.

It didn't take:

And I would do it for you, for you.
Baby, I'm not moving on
I love you long after you're gone.
For you, for you.
You would never sleep alone.
I love you long after you're gone
And long after you're gone, gone, gone.

So we dated long distance for about a year, and then, having recently finished a career-changing degree, he embarked on a cross-country move to be by my side:

When you fall like a statue
I'm gon' be there to catch you
Put you on your feet, you on your feet.
And if your well is empty
Not a thing will prevent me.
Tell me what you need, what do you need?

A big, bold move for sure. And though it was hard, at times, for both of us to stay open in the face of challenges, much of which included demons from both of our life histories, my love for him always brought me back to this point:

I surrender honestly.
You've always done the same for me.

Yep. He always did, until one day, he didn't. He started talking about moving back East. I tried to convince him that wasn't really what he wanted or needed, and then surrendered to it, at first believing that I could stay with him even if he felt he needed to leave:

So I would do it for you, for you.
Baby, I'm not moving on,
I love you long after you're gone.
For you, for you.
You would never sleep alone.
I love you long after you're gone
And long after you're gone, gone, gone.

But then he went on a trip out there this Spring, and I realized that although I would most definitely love him long after he'd gone, I needed my person to be physically present. And I began to let myself wonder if maybe, against my heart's protests, my person would end up being someone else:

You're my back bone.
You're my cornerstone.
You're my crutch when my legs stop moving.
You're my head start.
You're my rugged heart.
You're the pulse that I've always needed.
Like a drum, baby, don't stop beating.
Like a drum, baby, don't stop beating.
Like a drum, baby, don't stop beating.
Like a drum my heart never stops beating...

And then he really did leave (my heart and our mutual friend had to see it to believe it):

And long after you're gone, gone, gone.
I love you long after you're gone, gone, gone.

That I do, and I always will. But I don't want to sleep alone for too long, so I'm gonna have to deviate a little from the Phillip Phillips lyrics and end my version of the song like this:

Baby I'm gonna have to move on

Not too long after you're gone, gone, gone.

Oh, and Universe? About my list. I don't think there's much that I would change about the list from the last time we gave this a whirl. What I think needs to change, whether it is my last lover coming back or someone new, is me making sure that all those that are vital to my health and well-being are met before I close the deal.

It's going to be interesting to see if my heart is willing to play along with that strategy. It won't be easy for it, that's for sure, when you consider that it closed the deal with the last guy (and in many ways I'd say the only guy it ever truly closed the deal with) before I could say: "But wait he just got divorced and we live in two regions of the country and he wants to be near the mountains and I want to be with my kids and I can't move away from Madison because of my custody agreement so how's that going to work?"

Yeah. Hmmmm. Maybe it isn't.

This whole experience has just really left me feeling like I have a lot left to learn. And I think I'm ok with that. Learning is good. Learning = growth, and growth makes me a better mother, a better human being, a better yoga teacher, a better friend, a better writer, a better sister, a better daughter, and maybe, just maybe, a better lover...

Home

The concept of home has been a recurring theme lately, in more ways than one. I've been contemplating whether to remodel my house or move, because this house just isn't quite enough space for four of us, and it doesn't feel like the right space for me anymore, anyway.

I looked into a basement remodel, but in the last few days I've been leaning toward moving, and today I found what I hope will be our next home. It's absolutely perfect, and I'm going to put in an offer on it tomorrow. My realtor doesn't think my bid will be competitive because it'll be contingent on the sale of my current house, but it sure feels right so I'm going to put it out there and see what happens.

Home is also one of the themes in the book I'm currently reading aloud to my daughter, Homecoming. The last section we read included a scene where one of the characters reads a tombstone that says something basically equating death with coming home. The character didn't appreciate that definition of home, and it didn't work for my daughter and I either.

For me, home is a feeling: a feeling I rarely had in my childhood home; had more of sense of it but still fleetingly in my marital home; a feeling I am lucky enough to have now every time I curl up with one of my three loved ones in my current home.

And finally, my boyfriend was talking last week about being homesick. I totally get it. He misses the mountains, he misses his friends, he misses his favorite breakfast burrito. I try to be as understanding as I can, but I can't help but hoping rather desperately that he decides that his home is with me, and as long as the kids are little, that's likely to be in the Midwest. After that, I'm game to move to a place that feels more like home to him.

The other day when he was really wrestling with these feelings, we heard this song on the radio, and found that it fits the situation almost perfectly:

Hold on, to me as we go
As we roll down this unfamiliar road
And although this wave is stringing us along
Just know you're not alone
Cause I'm going to make this place your home

Settle down, it'll all be clear
Don't pay no mind to the demons
They fill you with fear
The trouble it might drag you down
If you get lost, you can always be found

Just know you're not alone
Cause I'm going to make this place your home

Settle down, it'll all be clear
Don't pay no mind to the demons
They fill you with fear
The trouble it might drag you down
If you get lost, you can always be found

Just know you're not alone
Cause I'm going to make this place your home

I did say almost perfectly, didn't I? Because although he knows he's not alone here, I can offer, but I can't make this place his home. If that's going to happen, he has to choose to do that himself.