It Can Be Complicated

We went to see It's Complicated last night, muttering beforehand that it would be (sigh) an obvious Hollywood movie, another romantic comedy for old folks. We are movie snobs who prefer Indies and foreign films, but on a drear Sunday night in St. Johnsbury Vermont, after a spate of recent bone numbing temperature plunges had triggered mid-winter blues and strange eating neuroses, it was an alternative to couch sprawling and really bad tv.

The plot, however, is disturbingly familiar: After many years of divorce, and even though one of the couple has since re-married, lechery is sparked and an intense comic affair ensues.

During a trial separation from ex#2, I wondered if I had made a mistake in divorcing #1, the father of my children. I had been so busy hating him - plotting tire-slashing and house demolishing revenge - perhaps, I mused, the flip side of all that murderous passion was love. Within seconds of my having phoned him, we were cavorting on my dining room table. For days fountainous bouquets of flowers fell on my doorstep. We plotted a weekend rendezvous in the Adirondacks with the brilliant idea of carting our then 7 year-old son along.

"You're w-what?" my highschool age daughter Katherine stammered.

"We're seeing each other," I said meekly.

"Oh, boy."

During the drive from southern Vermont to the rustic romantic cabin owned by my uncle in the heart of the North Woods - a place where in years past our family had fed deer by hand, hiked among towering ancient conifers, and fished for trout - our son remained mostly silent. He had been 2 when we divorced and his memories of us together were dim.

"Did I lie on my stomach on the kitchen counter with my face in a tomato once?" he asked finally.

"Yes," we said.

"Did I stomp blueberries into the floor and then sit in them?"

"You did."

"I remember lying on a giant yellow sponge in the bath tub," he added thoughtfully.

"You had chicken pox."

"And taking the hinges off the closet door."

"Yes! Yes!" we chorused.

Grappling on the dining room table or living room rug is one thing, but sharing a room with the ex in front of the family - some of whom, nostalgic for inebriate poker games and vacations to Culebra, wanted us back together - was awkward.

When we took Will for a hike, he stode ahead of us dragging a stick. When we suggested fishing, he put on his own orange life preserver and went solo in a canoe as we trailed behind in a row boat. While we offered paddling direction, he glowered. While we struggled to make sense of us, he caught a shimmering rainbow trout with his cousin. He fed corn to deer as his sisters had, pre-divorce.

I wanted to give him his family, untarnished. I wanted him to know his parents without eye rolling, without hurling, "You know how crazy your mother/father is!" at him, without shouting and slammed doors and tears. I wanted us whole. Intact.

The experiment failed. The we I sought was truly gone, and I went back to my husband. For a little while, anyway.

Last summer, our daughter was married. Following the ceremony, her proud papa and I led the guests down a garden path into the Japanese lantern festooned tent arm in arm. We boogied with the wedding party and he escorted me gracefully back to my seat. We gave toasts. Mine was better. At Christmas time, there was some confusion about trees. I had just taken Buddhist refuge vows, so a Christmas tree felt wrong somehow. When I went into his florist shop looking for poinsettias, he came out from behind the counter with a tiny table top boxwood tree in both hands.

"Will tells me you're not doing a tree this year," he said gruffly.

I didn't tell him I had bought 2 Norfolk Pines.

As I opened my mouth to say thank-you, he interrupted.

"Now you've got one," he said.

Today I asked my 22 year-old son if he remembered the North Woods weekend, so I could steal his emotions for my blog.

"I don't remember feeling anything," he said. "But that rainbow trout stayed in Dad's freezer for 5 years."

The Road to Tassajara Isn't Paved (Part 3)

A smell of straining engine wafted in through the open windows.

Wayne peered at the rpms.

"What gear are you in?"

"Creep," I said.

"I think you'd better put it in a higher gear or we'll overheat."

"But, then I have to ride the brake."

"Just put it in 2nd," he instructed. "I have a feeling the road is going to get better."

"You saw the sign, right? Danger?"

A stream of water ran down the mountain near the sign. Mounds of gravel filled in the washed out areas replacing what had been packed dirt. There was evidence of recent (possibly within minutes) rock slides.

"This reminds me - " I began.

"Of what?"

"Being on a horse whose foot slipped over the edge of the trail 3000 feet above a rocky chasm in Ladakh."

"No scary stories about heights! You know I don't like them. And watch that rock!"

"What if this road just keeps going?" I wailed.

"It has to end somewhere."

"What if it's closed or what if they're just building it now?" I demanded, pointing to a stack of orange and black striped wooden sawhorses heaped around another blind curve.

"Keep your hands on the wheel. Look, we're getting down into forest again. I think that's a good sign."

"Do you?" I said, as we skidded nearly sideways through mud and gravel for several hundred feet.

A bit farther on another sign appeared, one featuring a hiker with a staff and a pack on his back. The number 13 was painted in white on the rock face. The forest thickened. A solitary figure appeared, jogging slowly uphill towards us.

"Oh, look, a person! Now, we can get directions!" I cheered.

"Absolutely. I have no problem at all asking for directions," Wayne said. "None."

I stopped the car and leaned out the window as a tall, slim young man wearing a watch cap and navy blue sweats jogged up.

"Where are we?" I asked.

"I was hoping you could tell me," he smiled.

I gaped. "Is this the road to Tassajara?"

"Yes. It's just down there," he pointed, "About 500 yards."

"Really?" Relief flooded me,warm as maple syrup.

"But, it's closed now."

"Closed?" repeated Wayne.

"Yeah, until April 1st. There was a sign. We're on retreat."

"Closed? But, we're here for meditation instruction," I said. "We drove all this way. We risked our lives."

"You'll have to come back in April," he said.

"What if we don't make it back before dark?" I whined. "What if we're stranded?"

"Oh, you'll make it," he smiled. He inclined his body from the waist and formed his fingers into the anjali mudra.

"Namaste," he said, and jogged off.

"Fucking namaste?" I said to Wayne. "That's it?"

"I think he might have at least offered tea," Wayne commented.

"So, now what?"

"We turn around and go back."

I drove the car to an obvious turn-around where other cars were parked. There was a stone path and a long, low brown building, wrapped in mist. Shadowy figures moved about.

"So much for the monks," I said.

"Yeah, and I'm driving ," Wayne said.

We bounced back up the mountain in silence. Wayne seemed less concerned with his personal safety once he was behind the wheel.

"Watch it!" I growled occasionally. Dusk fell and the sky purpled as we barrelled along, the cavernous ruts easier, somehow, to negotiate. We slid and slipped, but the boulders remained suspended miraculously above us; the road intact.

"You know," I said. "I think we had our Zen experience."

"We're still having it," Wayne said, "Now, shut up, please, I need to concentrate."

"Fine!" I said, "but, I still want that pine cone."

Getting to Know Them...All

I bolted from my first encounter with my friend Wayne's grandchildren. We had only known each other a few months and suddenly there was a confusion of three-year-old twins and a daughter, a son-in-law, and visits from not one but two ex-wives.

"I'm having a problem with woodchucks," ex-wife #1 announced. She had planted herself across from me at the kitchen table and was fixing me with an appraising glare.

"Vermonters?" I stammered, "Or, you know, the animals?"

"Woodchucks in my garden."

"Oh," I said.

"They're eating my plants. One was standing up on his hind legs reaching through the chicken wire to get to my raspberries," she said.

I giggled.

"It's not funny," she said.

Later, we all went to her house for dinner, and I found myself on my hands and knees in her soil, exchanging banter, digging a circular trench in which to plant marigolds, while she reigned above me beneath a floppy straw hat, hoe in hand. I threw small rotten green apples into a plastic bucket with the twins, Maggie and Ollie, while everyone else milled around, knowing each other and sharing years of history.

When ex-wife #2 arrived with her boyfriend the following day, I broke out in a paroxysm of panic. I was new to the all-embracing Buddhist concept of family. I hid in the bedroom.

"Are you ok?" Wayne asked, when he came to find me.

"Sure," I chirped. I was part way into a chartreuse linen dress.

"You look beautiful." he said.

But still. It was a question of place. After bocce on the lawn, endless platters of food, and cocktails (I don't drink) came dinner. Exes 1 & 2 knew where the plates went. They had a system.

"Hi Mollie," I sang to one of the twins the next day.

"It's Maggie," Samantha corrected gently, again.

I fled after pancakes. But, after a few days, and yes, everyone had left by then, I came back. Maybe my perception of family and relationships could stand a tweaking. Just because you're no longer married to someone doesn't mean they turn to smoke. After all, I have a few exes myself. There are one's children to consider and, in my case one's future grandchildren. There are bocce balls to roll on a summer lawn and fireflies to collect and stories to tell and future history - years of it - to share.