Close What No Longer Opens.

My grandparents had a solid birch front door, four feet wide.  Heavy and dense.  I had to push it open with both outstretched hands, even as an adult.  Once open, black walnuts, well cooked bacon, butter, always butter and the faint hint of citrus from the small orange tree my grandmother nursed all winter long filled you. And as for my grandparents,  they weren't the type to be waiting at the door.  I wouldn't ever call either of them comforting, but their house was comfortable.  Very comfortable.  Yule logs lit all day long on Christmas, greyed winter light felt warm from the wall of windows in the Great Room and the grandfather clock my grandmother's parents brought from Amsterdam shook the entire house with each changing hour.  But that door, the front door stands sunwhite in memory as where all their world began.  And where the outside stayed.

A front door is essential.  Fundamental.  Grounding.  And obviously, an opening.  But that birch door doesn't rest heavy as a memory as much as an established belief in how doors should be, a statement that influences how you enter into the next space.  From an architectural perspective, it's a first impression you keep coming back to day after day.  Perhaps it's not surprising that my home's front door (photo above) caught my eye as a smaller version of my grandparent's, solid and substantial.  One I knew I wanted to enter, everyday.

While  I was married, our house had (and I think still has) a fantastic front door.  It seems only fitting that my grandfather, who once owned a lumber company and my once husband, a logger, would have very solid wood doors.  No peek holes or windows, just a wall of wood. I remember the first time I entered my to-be husband's home and the door felt familiar, trust worthy.  Some women look and see how men treat their mothers.  Me, I'm an architect's daughter.  I check a man's front door.

I've learned to check more than a door when trying to read a man, but let's just say a man's house says a lot about what a man doesn't say.  So does how they talk about their jobs.  Late one night, I asked Greg, my husband, about logging, not so much why he did it but what he discovered over the years of working in the woods.  What surprised him were the scents of wood.  How as soon as you would saw through the middle of a tree amazing odors would bloom--citrus, toffee and even bubble gum.  The heart of each tree has a unique smell he'd say. Each holds its own unique scent.  I believe him.

During September of 2008, after being married for just four months, I started getting up with Greg and having coffee with him before he went off to work.  It was usually around five.  I would sit on the couch while Greg went in and out that front door loading up his truck.  The scent of saw dust would fill the air.  Greg would load his bags with water bottles taped with duct tape, worn leather boots, a granola bar, a sandwich, maybe, but always a thermos of hot coffee and last to be passed through was the chainsaw, freshly sharpened from the night before.

But on a specific day, September 18 at five in the morning, I sat on the couch and talked about painting the living room, how I was going to bake a quiche and cut up chunks of butter.  That fall, Greg had his dream job.  And I had mine.   I was a wife, adjuncting at the U and working at a cooking school.  He was only a short drive away which is unheard of in logger lingo from our house and was working really long hours and sweating out weight in the heat.  We kissed good bye.  The door closed.  I turned to get another cup of coffee.  And the door opened and Greg peered in and said, I love you Emily, smiling. And closed the door again.

What shut that day was more than just a door behind a man on his way to work.   That day in the hot afternoon sun, Greg would cut a tree that would barber chair, a tree that is rotten inside and kicks back, falls directly on the faller.  Another synonym for barber chair is a widow maker.  And in one swoop, C6 and C7 broke in Greg's neck, but what stayed were the millimeters, sheer threads in his body held strong between the difference in Greg being able to walk and even months later ski.  The neurosurgeon told me, "it was just millimeters Emily, just tiny strands of a difference between losing his life or worse, living an unlife of being bound to a unworkable body."  He was lucky.  We were lucky.  Or so we thought.

So much more than just Greg's neck broke that day.  And so much opened.  What opened for me was carrying the weight of that tree, the immeasurable weight of fear.  I let it consume me and then it crushed me.  And not as fast as that tree fell, but more like a slow steady fall, it split us.  Sure, it's easy to blame an accident on destroying a marriage, but it's not the accident as much as what you carry from being a witness, a participate in trying to make sense of it.  Thinking you can, make sense of it.
And this really is the terrible beauty in losing what you most wanted, you break into tiny pieces, dust really.  And in the dust of your own self, you have to sweep up the parts you know you have to let go of.  The parts you know that participated in destruction.  And find the others pieces to keep growing.

It's taken me years to admit this. I had it easy, I could blame something else other than some of the parts of my own self.  You won't find a lot about this in the late night web searches on dot.coms for surviving the metallic loneliness of divorce aka, dealing with you own weaknesses.  Believe me, I've read them all.  Sure, you can find how to deal with shame, guilt and anger, but how to deal with the weight of your own fear is different.  You think if you shut it up that it might lighten.  It just sits there until it resurfaces and then you face it head on.

And usually you face it, when you least expect it.

This past May, I had the fortunate opportunity to travel to Portugal with a very good friend, Jaime, who was also turning 40.  We are born just four days apart and we wanted to ring in our birthday together.  I wrote about it here http://emsmiddlewest.blogspot.com/2014/06/seeing-near-far.html in greater detail, but what I didn't write about then, was what I had to face.

On the eve of my birthday, Jaime and I were in Lagos and had found a fun bar to toast in 40th birthday eve and given that we wanted to spend the day clear eyed, we went to bed just past midnight.  We went to sleep and I passed out easily and Jaime, who wears an eye mask and ear plugs ( Yes, I snore at times, poor Jaime) went to sleep consciously.

I awoke around five and heard voices, muffled really and couldn't make out either the words, the language, but heard sounds coming from what I thought was the roof, where we had a patio attached to our room.  I peered over to see Jaime, who in her own single bed was fast asleep.  I waited.  I heard ruffled footsteps above. I waited some more.  I couldn't seem to make out where or what was going on, but all I knew was my heart, raced. I was awake.

I heard a body slamming against the door and in an instant I grabbed Jaime's hand, which had been outstretched from the side of her bed and I said the two words, I don't ever like to admit or say, to anyone,

I'm scared.

Jaime woke and squeezed my hand back.
I leaned towards her and said, "Jaime, I think someone's trying to break into our room," I waited to see if she was fully awake.  She squeezed my hand again.

We heard the sounds above, the rumblings, the heavy footsteps.

Jaime said, "Emily, that's not someone coming in, that's someone trying to close a door."

And it went silent.  Jaime kept holding my hand.

We stayed in that moment and then there was the same sound again, but I heard the door, differently.
Jaime was right, the door was being shut, tight.

We let go of our hands and talked for a bit, laughed for a moment and like some old pattern I have held onto, I immediately felt awkward, embarrassed.  But then something shifted, in that moment, I felt something in me leave.  I hadn't thought that the sounds could be the sound of a door closing, the sound of leaving.  In that dark of morning, I realized I had been afraid to let go of my fear.  Keeping my fear, let me keep something of what I had felt was lost.  If I let it go, if I really let go of my fear, what would open?

And what's opening is me.  Sure, I'd love to tell you I have moved away from fear, but quite the contrary.  I'm accepting that it will be there.  Even across the Atlantic on a tiny spit of land, in a room of tile and white, you can find what you think you've hidden.  It might even just wake you up.  And trust me, you will open it, if you dare, and what will bloom might be as unique as the scent of a tree and as familiar as your grandparent's own home.  You will know it in your body that you have to let go of what no longer is open, to you.  You will feel fear, but know it is not all of you.  And in this knowing you will find that you are responsible for what you fear.  And it's your responsibility to those you love, those you keep near, to know when to let go, and close what no longer keeps you whole.


Red Buffalo in your Bedroom

The tartan print shirt in wool, unfolded

but fallen on your bedroom floor 

in October, is full of pine smoke 

and sweat, a scent you can name 

through a locked door.  You outline

the perfect arch of jaw in sleep,

hold the weight of hand folded 

into hand, your own five leaves left 

which is the going rate for loss.  

The price to hold a season 

long past bloom, the shade 

of years rooted in red and black.

Alone, your own eyelashes move 

over pillow, a prairie drifted by snow.

Each lash lifts the fall of a tree

in a wood abandoned and left 

for grass, wind and absence. 

You return to the the print of the shirt 

a still life of man in winter.  When men 

cut trees and returned home

full as wet wool, kept a fire lit.

And your bed, once an island 

of two, forests a new green 

you keep, open.

Mind the Gap.

As a child, I viewed the enjoyment of a summer by how many days straight I'd wear my bathing suit.  It was easy. I lived right on Lake Michigan, the shore was a short walk down a hill, through a cherry orchard next to a wooded walk of cedars and birch to a sandy path that led to a crumbled concrete dock.  I would walk there everyday. I don't recall needing anything besides my one piece striped suit, an ill-fitting snorkel and mask, a right handed garden glove and a mesh bag once for onions repurposed for collecting crawfish.  I had a system, a plan for my summer days.

I wasn't a fair weathered swimmer, I'd swim regardless of the wind or cold.  But I preferred calm days to collect crawfish. I liked to use my brother's windsurfing board to swim out to weed bedded rocks and dive deep with my garden gloved hand and unearth the blued crustaceans, hiding in the cold darkness.  Diving, unearthing and collecting.  And when I was finished, I would put the crawfish in a coffee can with cold water, a few holes in the side, a dash of Old Bay seasoning and steam the tiny lobsters until they turned bright pink over a fire on the beach.  I only remember one crawfish whose claws were big enough to crack open and eat.  Mostly, I just ate the tails.

Because of how I spent my summers, I didn't need camp.  Summer camp was home.  Every June through August without ever getting in a car, I explored my world, mostly underwater, with great curiosity.  When I did finally go to camp, I didn't like the obligated games, whistles to bark you out of the water and nights spent under the anxiety of wonderment if the kid who stared at you during vespers might sit next to you while you ate a burnt hotdog.  I preferred the hours alone along the shores entertaining myself without the need of a watch or even another person.  To have the quiet of that lake all on my own and the sun was enough.  More than enough.

But what drew me to the water wasn't the crawfish or even the adventure of collecting them, but the suspension of the water, the gap between the surface and the sand, the ability to feel wholly placed, but completely free.  Experimenting with holding my breath and seeing how long I could keep my body at rest, made me feel alive, calm and my mind still.  Completely still.  It wasn't a draw to risk or scare myself to ride some edge in order to lose my ability to breath as much as it was knowing I could keep my body alive and my mind calm.

I've tried to seek this suspension, this calm in other activities in my life.  I can sense this skiing when I think about the mass of frozen water under me and staying just on top of the surface.  Pushing a body out of its head is to feel as much animal as human and the ability to do so is to love the gap between.  No better sense of this was this summer at 3:30 in the morning up Grand Targhee with nothing but shooting stars, wind, my head lamp and the outline of mountains as I ran into the night. It felt like I was running deeper into some belly of water in that dark hour.  Again, not driven by fear or risk but the absence of both, just lightness in being able to move my body and keep my mind still.

Over the past three years of my life, I have struggled with finding any remote sense of feeling placed or calm.  My mind has been manic.  And the gap between my body and mind has felt vast and at times unnavigable.  The stress of divorce and the days of loneliness which taste metallic in the cold of morning have felt like being marooned to some island I didn't know existed, and certainly had no interest in even visiting.  I laugh only to myself that I live on Defoe Street named after Daniel Defoe as if I am lost like Robinson Crusoe on the Island of Despair.  Odysseus himself was marooned for five years before he set sail.  Needless to say, I know how to sail, but I am no epic hero and it's hard to find a boat to set free upon and to leave Missoula.  Yet.

But what has been even odder is that stress surfaces in the oddest of places.  Sure, we often think stress is something we feel emotionally or mentally, but when it starts to surface physically do you take notice.  The usual wrinkles, grey hair and dark circles are some of the hallmark traits of dis-ease, but strangely enough for me was the fact that my teeth started to move.  Yup, my teeth.  No it wasn't from grinding in the night, but rather the stress of holding my jaw in a way that my front teeth started to separate from each other.  As if some dental plate tectonics began and my teeth set sail.

At first, I thought the gap made me look French.  I thought I should accept it.  I had gone to my dentist and asked about the noticeable space and he didn't think anything of it, said, "that's really odd." I went for a second opinion.  My new dentist within minutes of our first visit asked if I had been under a lot of stress in the past year, "I'd say…a bit", in trying to not seem histrionic.  And so I began exploring the idea of filing in the gap.

And this summer, we began the process.  I was nervous about the idea of doing something out of vanity.  Isn't going through grief learning how to accept what you cannot change?  Why go through the expense and deny myself a trip home to the lake to feel weightless and free in order to have aligned teeth?  Was I just turning into one of those typical 40 something women who start fighting age and disappointment? Despite these questions, I went for it. I decided to fill in the gap.

The process isn't simple and even includes the fact that your original teeth are ground down and appear as something you'd only see in a horror movie.  At one point in this said process, I had to go to the bathroom. As I slowly took off the paper bib, the dental hygienist said, "Please DO NOT look at yourself in the mirror." Which as you might suspect is more of a dare than a request.

And I did.  How could I not.  As I fumbled with my numb face, I leaned into the bathroom that smelled of aloe and disinfectant to see myself as if I was cast in a horror film, tiny shards of teeth and me attempting to smile.  More pike than person, I pulled back.  But I'd like to think that reflection of my heckled self is part of this process.   Parts of yourself as ugly are just as much part of yourself as polished.

Thankfully, the process was successful and I dare say I smile with great ease these days.  Even confidence.  Which is not something I have felt in a really long time.  But it's surfacing, slowly.  When I think back to my early summers in Michigan, I think of swimming and then I think of confidence in knowing what I wanted to do, everyday and just doing it.  Sure, I was a child, but what I am reminded of is that I didn't ever think it was odd to collect crawfish nor did I even doubt my desire to seek that edge between the cold of the bottom or the surfaced sun.  I just practiced.  Everyday.  I just practiced the suspension between.  And it's what I am trying to apply today as I navigate this space of self, what I thought I would be doing and what I actually am.  Sure, it might seem like a surfaced fix to begin with my smile, but it's a start.  And I'd even like to say it's a beginning to an end.  And isn't that worth smiling about?

Here's a poem honoring summer and bridging the gap of the past to honest present.

Oprah Cannot Teach You

to numb your tongue on pink wine

and never tells you about lying

to your body or how to forget

about the man still in love

with someone’s mother.  No article

on how to stand and brush dyed hair

after leaving a party, lying again

about a stomach ache so you can go

home alone to stop talking. 

Oprah can list books

to read, change your life in 20

minutes, which is another word

for lunch break, adult time out.

You know the gold in your hair

you hold onto is summer, youth

as ten speed sexy, boys in jean shorts pedaling

without a watch in the dark

to your parents.  Walking home then

you hid the scent of whiskey

on your naked skin.

Oprah doesn’t interview

the women you’ve become.  The closet

of time clock cardigans, one more bride’s maid dress

to sell on eBay   This coming holiday,

you’ll make the reservation for a table of seven.

And give a toast that everyone says they’ll remember.