On Riptides and Turning Sixty-Three

I wake up with a riptide from recent events dragging me out to sea.

I have returned from France, which has jostled my time and ruined my palate. I thought I was there working, but really, I went on a cheese scholarship, getting A’s in all my courses. It was only twelve days, but the blackout curtain truth of hotel life has left me in fresh towel limbo, and when I walk outside the world is not six-stories high (like in Paris), though the palm trees almost are. I stayed long enough to not just imagine a life there, but nearly live one and suddenly, LA strikes me as woefully short on cafes. It wasn't just the food and the faces and the good West African juju, it was the unAmericanness of the place. That’s what made it feel like home.

And returning from the city of light isn't the only thing that’s set me adrift. My relationship has ended with a woman I was with for a while. Someone I shared a lot of good with and of course some bad as well. It's always something when we take the chance to care. To open our hearts, and do the dance, mixing our spit and licking each other's wounds. It's a hell of a thing to try and find your way to something more than you alone. To break bread and share life, and dig deep in each other's dirt; the good stuff. That rich, dark soul soil. We bring so much of who we are to it, even when we try not to (especially then), and it is always stunning when we find out someone has a real use for who we are. There's a lot of hope in it and nothing is as heartbreaking as hope. Even if you're being all mature and tamping down expectations, there's still the ghosts of those first parental bonds, the dream of some grand belonging. The choosing of each other out of all who could be chosen. Declaring! Naming another as “the one,” a true act of madness, especially at 60, when our kite tails are so heavy with the past. So much “This happened and that happened,” and ex-wives and ex-husbands, and of course, the parts of ourselves we’ve divorced and still pay alimony to.

One minute you're ham and egging it together real good, fucking and fooding and every song that comes on the radio swings like mad. Then you get a sideways glance or something you said don't go down smooth and you got problems. The warm tropical breeze of yesterday, now a blasting arctic wind. It’s always risky when two intensity artists collaborate on a project, but oh man, when that jet stream was right, we got to Rio in a hurry.

It’s Sunday morning, which was always a good time for us. The animal truth of our bodies in bed, never disappointing. She’d wake before me and do her soul ablutions, trying to pet her insides until they purred like a cat. I’d lie in bed wondering who I was and how I got here. There’s always some apartness in being together, and as the morning wore on ours would change shapes. By the time we got to the farmer’s market we remembered our roles and were happy to play them. She pulled the wagon and people watched. I went to church, both delivering and receiving my organic sermon. “What shall we eat tonight?” That was always my question. The subtext being, “We are together you and I, and I will feed you delicious and nourishing things.” What else do two people need to know?

Today, I pull my own cart, and notice the difference. I find myself peach indecisive and don’t know which direction to turn. I taste a few plums and they are not as sweet as last week. I am there ten minutes and my wagon is empty, which has to be some kind of record. Then, I see there are cremini mushrooms and stop for some. I sift through them, making sure the underside of the caps are closed, and start to become myself again, bantering with the kid who sells them, noticing his mid-August tangelos, joking that he’ll still be selling citrus during the apocalypse.

I buy peaches, pork, lettuce, strawberries, big bags of beans, more than usual, not less. I buy tomatoes, lots of them. Zucchini, eggplant and five of my favorite onions, even though I have four at home. I grab a sack of full nectarines from Weiser farms and some of their potatoes. My wagon gets heavy, and I wonder if I am grief shopping, but I don’t stop. I buy Wagyu beef tallow flour tortillas and pico de gallo. I go back to the onion folks for one of their Ambrosia melons and then buy different peaches. At the flower stand my bunch keeps gets bigger as if I can abundance myself whole.

I drag my heavy wagon back to the car. I often go to the market alone but this is a different alone. But I did it, and it feels good. I want to snap a picture of my bounty and send it to her. To let her know I’m still doing it. Not as a way to say you’re missing out, but that we are both going to be okay. I’m not a heartless dope, so I don’t, but I feel it. That life goes on. That the most primary partner I will ever have is me, and that this is true for everyone.

I get home with all my bags and the kitchen feels empty. No co-putterer, puttering. No master organizer making order as I get to the busy work of creation. See, I was the flower arranger and she, the food putter awayer. It was a perfect dance. The simple choreography of coupledom. We’d play Lester Young or Louis and Ella and coo about how miraculous the mulberries were or how much the pork reminded her of the farm she grew up on. About how lucky we were to have so much.

I handled it well. Was kind, not cruel in any way. I kept my eyes open and played neither the guilty boy nor the fed-up man who’s reached his limit. I was soft but certain, and we sat in discomfort with dignity. Was it easy? No. The hard and final crash of what won’t be is always loud, even if you’re used to the sound of plates smashing. I don’t really believe in endings, but this was pretty darn close.

I’m going to be sixty-three in a few days. Birthdays are funky. I don’t pay them much mind but they loom and lurk and signify. I’m well over two thirds of the way done with it. This is my life. This. This writing and cooking and caring and doubting and swimming and being satisfied and dissatisfied and doing certain things well and others badly. I am all that has happened and hasn’t, including this recent love with its beauty and difficulty. Between you and me, I don’t know really know what I’m doing. I just know that every time I have opened my heart it has ultimately been to my good, and that I don’t want to live or write with a closed one.