I think I’ve discovered through this blog that people will forgive you for being raw and intensely personal, as long as it’s a half-decent read.

I’ve discovered that writing and relationships can be like the water torture: the constant drip drip drip of “what-if” and “could-be” that eases up when you finally realize the legacy of all that pain.

Yesterday’s poem was about a relationship from several years ago, written about a year ago. I stumbled across it and though “Hey – that’s not bad is it?”

I go with my gut a lot. However sometimes (like my last relationship, the wounds from which are still raw) I can talk myself out of going with my gut, hoping the outcome will somehow be different from what I know will happen from past experience.

Never works.

So here, without giving too much away about the other party, are my lessons learned from failed relationships, particularly this latest one:

• Trust your gut.
• He did it to you once, he will do it to you again. Unless there’s a hell of a lot of soul searching going on in the meantime.
• He won’t change. Especially at his age. Love him as is, in this moment, right now, or walk away.
• Love is everything, but it’s not enough. Commitment is something else entirely, and few people are really up for it. When you love someone, you either are willing to make it work or you aren’t. I’ve been married and know all too well how that magic “soul mate” feeling gets lost over the years. That’s where true commitment kicks in.
• Speak your truth. It’s possible to still be in love with someone who is being a jerk to you. It doesn’t mean you have to take it.
• If he uses the term “soul-mate” or “The One” in reference to you (either you are or you aren’t) it’s a sign of spiritual and emotional immaturity. Lasting deep love only very rarely comes effortlessly. Sure, there is chemistry to ignite the spark, but there is no deus ex machina that makes everything happy-ever-after. “Soul-mate” thinking is magical thinking. A healthy relationship means adjustment, compromise, effort, change as well as happiness, great sex, passion, laughter, respect.
• Be willing to change. Notwithstanding the “speak your truth” above – if you recognize your baggage sneaking in on your happiness then by all means use that self-awareness to become a better person.
• See every relationship, romantic or otherwise, as an opportunity to become the person you are meant to be.

“A laundromat? Seriously?” said a friend of mine the other day.

He apologized right away. That is, after I said:

“Are you judging me because I use a laundromat, or because I’m not ashamed of it?”

Here’s the thing: in between success and failure, glamour and an old bathrobe, a laundry room and a laundromat, I like to think there lies in me a hard-working mom with one job, no car, a few too many debts, and a certain graceful resilience.

Here’s my secret: it’s been a relentless struggle to get to the next birthday. I clawed and persevered and got up when I didn’t feel like it and smiled when I was screaming inside until somehow I made it to 45.

It was easy when I was a six-year-old girl skipping down the street in late summer’s first day of school, first day of hope.

It was hard when I was a seven year old running away from the pebble-laced snow-face-washes from the bigger kids at school, finally reaching the safety of the porch to find – wearing my wet pants – a locked door, and after an eternity of knocking, a disapproving (drunk) mom.

It was joyous when I climbed the playground jungle gym with my kids – shouting Marco! Polo! (They taught me that game.)

But for too long it was viscous and slimy, like swimming in jello. It was laying on the sofa, head aching, all of them clamouring for PB&J like little birds with their mouths wide open, incessantly chirping, and I helpless, spent, numb, fighting the darkness with the words of that wise old Scottish lullaby:

“Hee-oh wee-oh what shall I do with you?/Black’s the life that I lead wi’you….”

After a while – too long perhaps – I learned to just sink into it.

Just – let it in.

If I get up and go through the motions every day. If I write it all down. If I allow it to be. If I open wide and swallow that jello. Just gulp it all down. Accept the blackness as an old dear friend.

I found out – the hard way – that giving up the struggle is half the battle.

And, eventually, in between the British Red lipstick and drunken dance floor foolishness; slow-acting SSRIs and escapes to the mountains; headache days in sweatpants and smart skirt suits at the office …

I found out there lies, between the darkness and the light: a poet, a writer, a traveler, a climber, an adventurer, a seductress …

The Mayor of Cook St. Village Laundromat.

You must know this.

It is only when his heart beats softly in my ear.

It is only when the silence can settle in like a warm fog between and around us.

It is only when the street sounds below are a muted colour on the canvas of our being together – in the same room – on the same couch – wrapped in each other’s sweaters – both completely clothed and yet so incredibly open – like those tendrils of incense at your altar – how they unfurled and rose to meet the ceiling the sky – completely dispersed – taking all our tensions with them.

Content.

If there’s anyone else out there who can match that level of comfort my love– (and I don’t mean that word the way it sounds),

he will have known my heart as well as you do.

Only then will I be ready.

Blowing off a rainy hill workout to sit at the laundromat. A group of runners trots past, headlamps bobbing in the winter evening’s darkness.

Laundry Day by Peekature Studios

<<Guilt>>

OK, that passed quickly.

Hey maybe this is a good place to meet single men. Or women. Or not.

Nevermind.

Maybe the resolution last year would have been more successful if it been “Remain celibate and joyfully single” rather than the trap-door-open-for-sex-and-entanglement wording: “Remain joyfully single.”

Reverse-engineering, as far as she can tell, means taking something apart to see how it works rather than building it from scratch.

She’s discovered she reverse-engineers her relationships: she jumps into full-bore couple-hood with no user documentation. She falls in love right away and imagines herself waking up with him every morning. Convinces herself that her life is imperfect without him, impatiently waits for him to Be Exclusive. Stops seeing friends socially, drops any other romantic prospects. Imagines a life of comfortable domestic bliss.

(One of these days she’s going to realize the guys giving their assent to all this are just as unlikely as she is to be candidates for Lasting Happiness.)

Then, one day, sooner rather than later – maybe two months, maybe six months into it, she looks at him with renewed clarity. He’s got his eyes tightly closed the whole time they’re having sex, or he really does look like the cartoon guy from MAD Magazine with a vapid smile and even more vapid personality, or he won’t stop inflecting the end of his sentences up like a teenager when he speaks, or he’s petting her like he pets his dogs, or he tells his jokes too loud in restaurants, or he asks to borrow her car for the umpteenth time, never filling it with gas.

At that point, she’ll look at him with complete transparency, and a switch goes from “On” to “Off,” and just like that —it’s over. Pieces of a hurried relationship all over the floor; she has no clue how to put it back together again.

He usually senses it. The whole facade is deconstructed in a heartbeat. She tries to recapture the magic, tries to remember what she saw in him in the first place – tries to backtrack into the Just Dating stage; realizes she’s already given her heart away and invested her emotional capital in a fantasyland of Couplehood.

He of course is usually completely mystified, left with pieces of his heart and his manhood strewn about in little pieces.

Her phone rings-his name comes up on the screen-she startles; the drone and hum of the laundromat has lulled her to a stupor. She tries to perk up, moves to answer, but her plastic smile doesn’t make it to her eyes and she loses her nerve. Instead, she hits the “ignore” button and folds her towels.

The running group trots past again, going back the other way this time. She lugs her laundry home, pulls out her runners and straps on the headlamp, seeking redemption in the shiny streets.

(Then again, maybe she just hasn’t met the right one yet.)

Whatever mistakes we had to make, hearts we had to break, regrets we had to reconcile have already been folded into this abundant gorgeous life we have before us.

Our past is a seasoning; a series of delicious learnings. Some were bitter pills that have mellowed with the years and have contributed a rich texture of wisdom. Some are a pleasant taste flavouring today’s sweet moments.

So let us bundle up warm on a clear winter night, drive away from the city lights in your blue car, open the moon roof and let the universe unfold.

She always hated being called a cougar – just because she had a couple of younger boyfriends doesn’t meanshe wanted to devour them, and she never, ever went to clubs to find them, take them home and discard them in the middle of the night, or at morning light.

Photo by Guppiecat

Or did she?

With Red it was about the watch.

He was 23. She was 35.

He bought a watch when they had no money and they were living in a basement suite in a mountain town.

He smoked pot almost daily. His hair was long and curly and red. And soft. He was – dare I say it – well endowed and well skilled. They were dynamite in bed. She still thinks of those times. Wistfully. Late at night. When she is alone. Once she thought she saw him on the street in Victoria this summer, soft hair spilling out from under a toque. Slight swagger. Bloodshot eyes.

(Never mind. It wasn’t Red after all.)

Back to the watch. He showed it off proudly when he got home. She was in the bath trying to soak off her work day. She worked 11 hours a day, 4 days a week. The 3 days off each week were nice, but she worked damn hard for them. To blow off steam she would come home at lunch and run the trails. When the snow came she would grab her x-country skis and go up to the groomed trails above town. She was soaking after a nice trail run, or ski, can’t remember which.

She wanted to hike and climb in the mountains. He wanted to ride mountain bike. She hadn’t found climbing partners by the time the snow came and he hadn’t made it out for a ride. He spent some time sitting in his cousins filthy little trailer, trying to convince him not to drink himself to death. But that’s a different story.

I thought we were going to discuss with each other before we spent more than 100 bucks, she said.

His face fell.

It’s my own money not our money, he said.

But you owe money to other people, she said, heart sinking into the bathwater lockstep behind his face. Somewhere she knew she was out of line but couldn’t help herself, she didn’t back down.

The next day he reluctantly took the watch back to the store.

A couple of months later before the kids came to town for a visit she broke up with him. He went to live in a rented house with a bunch of other young people.

He bought a watch.

—

Recently her lover sent a text message, saying he’d like to take her out for lunch but he had to go for a speed workout.

No problem, go run! she replied.

Wow, the last woman I dated insisted I miss some workouts, he said.

I wouldn’t want to be responsible for someone changing who they are, she said. When you date a marathon runner how can you not expect 100-mile weeks, sore quads and early nights?

She didn’t tell him – it’s not that I understand running. It’s because she’s finally beginning to understand all too well the fallen face, the immediate self-recrimination, the inevitable heartbreak of the carnivore.

I think I’m running this marathon for Sarah; Oct 1, 1992 – Oct 5, 1992.

Desolation Sound at dusk, with deep gratitude to BW

Sarah Estelle Jean Klassen Wotherspoon was born 5 weeks early, but she weighed 5 lbs, 10 oz – a healthy weight for a preemie. It was a Thursday. The pediatrician expected a good outcome, despite her difficulties with breathing.

The night before Sarah was born – I was sleepless. I couldn’t get comfortable. That’s not unusual for someone as big as a house and nearly 8 months along. Eventually I woke Blair (my then-husband), and asked him to help me set myself up on the living room couch, more upright, watching movies to distract me. It was Return of the Jedi. He went back to bed, and I noticed contractions, but I also noticed a pain that wasn’t there with my other two pregnancies. However, nothing was really important enough to call the doctor right away, so I thought.

Blair got the kids to school because I was extremely tired, still having contractions and in more pain. When we phoned the doc she said she’d meet us at the hospital. While there, she called in an OB-GYN and they palpitated my belly. I nearly hit the roof in pain, and my blood pressure started plummeting. Suddenly there were a lot of people in the room and Blair’s worried face was in front of mine, fading in and out of focus.

My doc’s face was worried too. “We think you have an abrupted placenta. The placenta that feeds your blood to the baby has partially come away from the uterine wall. You are bleeding internally, and your baby is being deprived of oxygen. You must deliver this baby now. We will try to deliver vaginally, but we are prepping for an emergency C-section and are moving you to an OB-surgery room.”

“Ok.” I said through clenched teeth. “I think I will take painkillers this time. Please.” Meantime they were opening up an IV line and starting me on the drugs to induce labour.

“Of course, we’ll give you a saddle block [where you can't feel anything below the waist] but we need to do bloodwork first. As soon as it comes back we’ll start you on the anaesthetic.” And at this point my memories come alive, as if it happened yesterday.

Drip starts. Contractions grow much stronger. Pain worsens and spikes with each contraction. I felt incredibly lucky to hold onto consciousness, and in retrospect I thank the stars I did not need a blood transfusion. It could have been much, much worse. I could have died.

Each time a nurse, aide, doctor, anyone comes in the room I hiss “Can I please have drugs now?”

“Not yet. Soon. Hold on. Breathe.”

Blair sits with me through the whole thing, holding my hand. I look at his face to try and breathe through the pain. An hour passes. Two. Breathe. Breathe. I am picturing myself running a race – a marathon – visualizing a finish line – I can do this, I can keep breathing evenly until he finish line. I’ve done this before; I’m going to hold on until those damn drugs come.

The nurse comes into the room: “We’ve got your lab results – we can give you the saddle block now.”

Just then another contraction washes over me. “I have to push!” I say, and suddenly the room is a flurry of activity again.

“Don’t push – hold on, don’t push yet – we have to get you to the OR,” and they’re unhooking, rehooking, opening doors, trying not to trip over Blair, wheeling me down the room, sweat beading on my temples, Blair following nearly faint with worry and hunger and thirst because he’s been by my side for hours.

In the delivery room, I’m monitored so closely I feel like the woman in the Monty Python sketch in the Meaning of Life – “and this is the machine that goes ‘PING!” I’m sure I would have laughed at myself had it not been a matter of life or death. There are no painkilling drugs for me at this late stage, only some laughing gas. Someone warns me not to take too much, so I abandon the mask altogether. Damn her, I should have just sucked it down

Then I could push, and then the real pain started. But then, suddenly, there she was, dark hair, scrunched up face, and eventually, a weak cry. No C-section needed. Blair’s expression was rapturous. I was so relieved it was over and she was alive.

They did a quick Apgar assessment [a visual measure of a newborn's health] and it was an 8 or 9 out of 10. They wrapped her in a blanket and put her in my arms. I tried to nurse her right away, but my mother-senses knew something was amiss. Sure enough, her 5-minute Apgar was down to 3 or so. She was having trouble breathing. They took her away and put her in an incubator, and wheeled her off to Neo-natal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) to intubate her.

The pediatrician was optimistic that Thursday afternoon of her birth. Many preemies lack the surfactant that lubricates the sacs that fill our lungs, enabling the transfer of oxygen from the air we breathe to our bloodstreams. There are drugs that hasten production of this surfactant in premature babies. They are quite successful, especially with babies of a healthy birth weight and no other complications, like my Sarah.

On Friday afternoon, he was confident she would be much better over the weekend, and told us we could expect her to be in NICU for four or five weeks until she was well enough to come home. In the meantime, I was encouraged to use an electric breast pump to express the first milk – colostrum – that is incredibly rich in nutrients. Sarah would need it once she started nursing.

Like the milk cows on the neighbour’s farm just outside Waldeck where I grew up, I plugged myself into a milking machine several times a day while I was in the maternity ward. With my other babies I wanted to leave the hospital within hours of giving birth. Now I wanted to stay with Sarah. I was swollen and bloated, and I had a slight fever. So did Sarah. They let me stay.

I hobbled on my elephant ankles back and forth from NICU to my room. One night I thought I dreamed the PA system blaring “Re SPIRE a tory. NICU. Stat. Re SPIRE a tory. NICU. Stat.” Later on that morning I sleepily joined Blair, who had spoken with the nurses already. It was not a dream. Our baby had a respiratory emergency and had to be revived in the middle of the night.

We still pretended everything was all right. I tried not to think of how I would cope with two kids who needed to be fed and entertained and fetched to and from school, and a baby who needed me by her side, and swollen breasts that needed to be milked several times a day and the milk stored for future use, and a baby who may or may not have further health problems.

On Monday, I trudged down to the NICU. “Do you want your baby baptised?” said the staff with strained poker faces. Not for my sake or Blair’s, but I thought of his mother, Sarah’s grandmother, a devout Lutheran. “Yes, I guess Lutheran,” I said. They called in a chaplain and she was baptised. I only learned later how much that relieved my mother in law.

Later that morning, we were sitting in the “milking room” when the pediatrician came in. It was the first time we’d seen him since Friday. His face was ashen. “Um. Uh.” he stammered. “We want to do an echocardiogram. We don’t know why your baby is not doing better.”

“Is she going to be all right?” I asked, truly alarmed at this point.

He couldn’t say anything other than “I don’t know,” and left the room. Puzzled, I cleaned up and took my milk dutifully to the fridge next to NICU. We approached our daughter’s isolette and there was a big machine over it. Everyone’s face was grim. They turned to us, with downcast eyes. A nurse said gently “Would you like to hold your baby now?”

That’s when I knew for sure.

They gave her to me. Blair and I took turns holding her. She died in my arms. I have never experienced that much sorrow. I have never cried so long and so hard. I have never forgotten one moment I spent with my little baby. I cannot explain in words the depth of experience contained in the terms:

Bereft.

Loss.

Grief.

Emptiness.

Have you ever watched nature programs – where the mother gorilla or chimp carries around the dead baby ape for days? I can understand that instinct.

When we buried her On Oct 10, 1992 in the plot next to her grandfather (Blair’s dad) I was panicking. I thought “I can’t leave my baby here! Who’s going to take care of her? I’m her mother – she belongs with me.” I could hardly tear myself away from her gravesite.

I’ve been crying the entire time I’ve been writing this. It’s ok. I cry whenever I tell this story. I try not to do it in pubs or at parties. Real downer.

Soon after she died, I had a dream. I was running through the park, back in shape, feeling good. Suddenly a young woman was running strong beside me. She must have been about 17 or 18 years old. Her presence was comforting. I woke up feeling calm. I told Blair our daughter was OK.

Only recently (while I was on Cortes Island in fact) did I realize I signed up for an October 11 marathon this year. The same month she would have turned 17 years old.