WHO WAS THE PRESON YOU USED TO BE?
Laughter filled the air. I woke up in the morning with a smile on my face and love filled the air between us. It was mutual.. Dale even wrote (about himself) to one of our old zen teachers “I laugh all the time now.”. We lived with so much shared joy between us. Whatever projects we were working on — shared or individual — there was so much support and encouragement. “Patience. Support. Laughter,” was the food of our life together. I had never had a person who believed in me the way Dale did. And that went both ways. Early on, shortly in the weeks before we began living together, he wrote a card to me “Will you love me? xxxxxx”
AT first neither of us could believe the connection we felt or our good luck at finding each other at this later point in our lives. We were both flying free back in 1998. Unmoored after years of difficult marriages and not a clue as to what might be next. Then we met and all of a sudden things began to become clearer and I think we found an anchor in each other. When you are creative finding a person who truly believes in your ability to create is the most poewerful thing. You feel you have an ally in this process that can be both intimidating and powerful.
Some days Dale was the sun to my moon and other days the roles reversed. There was no thought to it — it just happened naturally. Like 2 pieces in a jigsaw puzzle that fit perfectly.
I had never had that kind of acceptance before and I blossomed with it. Here from a poet I wrote after we met:
blossoming
I realize that I am supposed to be writing about myself — who was the person YOU used to be? — but as our relationship deepened over time many of those barriers between self and other softened and became we.
Even in the depths of relationship challenges — and yes we had them from time to time — our bond was sealed and we understood our amazing luck in finding each other and making a life together that supported the dreams we both had before we ever met. My derams. His dreams. And now our dreams.
at first we marveled as we discovered all the things we shared: our practice our love of books our love of nature particularly the mountains
But Dale was forevere curious about so many things and he opened my eyes to a world I didnt’ really know. Our backgrounds were very different. I’d grown up in New York City without any reliegion because neither of my parents were religious — my mother a lapsed Catholic, my father Jewish but in a cultural way rather than a reliegious way. Dale on the other hand grew up in southern California. His father was a Methodist Minister and his arentas were very active in the church as was the entire family. How we both came to Buddhism and Zen in particular is a story for another time. But it is what brought us together. And was a strong foundation from place from where to begin.
Meeting Dale and moving to California and eventually making a life together as lovers, as partners, both gave me the opportunity to explore so many things that had seemed “just dreams” for years. He never told me what I should do (as both my father and my first husband had) but instead opened the world to me where nothing was forbidden.
And I blossomed. I flourished. I learned to be happy. I learned to find joy in each day (and yes each night). I learned to share my life with another who wanted to share his life with me equally. we were partners in every sense. We both gave each other the space to be as creative and as happy as we couold be. Because when you are creative, and supported in your creative projects, there is a joy that rises inside you that is contagious.
We wrote together and we wrote apart. I was in the studio making books and art. He was in the herbal itchen making potions and lotions and other wonderful elixirs.
Just one small example of what I’m trying to share with you all: for many years the banned alchoholic beverage absinthe had fascinated me. It showed up in my poems. I drank Pernod — a watered down version of the original absinthe. Dale, as ah herbalitst, collected herbs and made his own absintehe followed the original recipe from old herbals. The first night we spent together can you imagine what it was like for me when he offered me a glass of the “vrai absinthe” which I’d dreamed and imagined for much of my adult life?
We gae each other permission.
When that has been denied at best and squalched at least (???) what seems like all your life that is a very powerful thing.
So I went from afunctioning person to an ectastic one. A oife of joy and amaziemtn. No limits to the good result as we say in one of our zen sutras.
May all beings be so lucky. And so blessed.
