Solitary Dance, Part One

The older I get, and the more people I get to know, the more I see how really no one's life has worked out in the way they had hoped it would. And that how we handle that says a lot about individual character.

One big thing I never thought I would be doing is raising a child on my own. (She really isn't even a child now, but this challenging changeling creature, part young woman, part teen, part child.) The fear of trying to do that, and my own lack of confidence in myself at being able to do that very thing, kept me trapped with the X for many years. I believed that living as his hostage was preferable to raising my daughter alone, not to mention managing to keep a roof over our heads, and all that that entails.

Circumstances finally forced me out of that house. Once I had served him divorce papers, he began to turn his abusive mind and hands away from me and on to her. I tried to get an Order of Protection from Family Court, but had the bad fortune to get a substitute judge on the Friday before Labor Day who implied I was 'trailer trash" (he asked if we lived in a trailer) and told me that since the X had not verbally threatened to kill either one of us, he would not grant me my order. He also very astutely said, "It sounds to me like you are just trying to get this guy out of there."

Oh, if only I were making this all up at an attempt at satire and comedy.

So, I very quickly found us an apartment I could afford, the second floor of an old house that had once been nice but had fallen into a condemnable state. I could hear every move made by the tenants downstairs along with every word spoken. When they fought one night at 2am, I realized their bed was right under mine and so I dragged mine across the room. The furnace belched out black soot onto our walls and smelled bad, and when it was very cold, I would worry the house would burn down while I was at work. The pipes froze and the hot water was not very hot and not very ample. When I gave my daughter a bath, I filled the tub with kettles of water heated on the stove. I gave her the warmest room, a cozy space with carpet on the floor and a south facing window. A room with a good window, unlike most of the rest of the windows that were broken and I had to mend with newspaper and plastic to keep out the cold as best I could.

I moved there with Little Bear, who was still a pup, and our oldest cat, a tortoise shell named the Empress who was not much more than a kitten herself at the time. I did not bring my beloved dog Marley because she was so old then, because I did not think she could make it up the 13 very steep steps to our place. She was also beloved company for the X's dog, Yoko, as they were bonded pals-- Yoko had known Marley since Yoko was a pup. It was not an easy decision, by any means, especially since Marley died a year later partly due to the X's benign neglect. But that is another story.

Little Bear and I would get up very early and walk, out of necessity. The house had virtually no yard. I could not just tie him out. I walked him 5 or 6 times a day between work and meals and sleep. The river was nearby and that was a wonderful place to walk to--he and I enjoyed it very much. When winter came and we were out very early in the deep cold, I got myself a good parka with a hood that I zipped and snapped myself inside of and so felt protected from the world.

The house was on a quiet street in this quiet village and the Catholic Church was just across the way. Its bells rang 18 times every morning at 7. I loved to watch the sun rise through the branches of a large old tree that sheltered many birds and embraced the front of the house. I loved to listen to the sound of the waterfall at the dam just a short walk away. Its sound pervaded the air at all times. I had a kind and friendly neighbor next door who proved to be another angel on my walk of life. Her own son, a baby at the time, has autism and Down's Syndrome. She was yet another example to me of a person who does not have much but will always share what she has with others. Sisters in suffering and heartbreak, we do tend to find one another and support one another. She has a husband too, a hard working, quiet guy who helped me out when I needed tools or a truck.

This was the time when I found our church too. I had the sense that once my daughter was a teen, I would need the support of a community. One night I was doing some meditations involving white light. I had recently come to realize white light is the light of Christ. As I sat there visualizing white light, wrapping it around me, and my daughter, and our home space, that light suddenly took a turn of its own and led my mind up the street to the church on the corner. It was a church that had drawn my attention in the past. I had walked by many times and wondered what the lovely stained glass windows, illustrating scenes with grapes and flowers and books, would look like from the inside. I had seen the pastor standing outside in her white robe, with a rainbow colored stole around her neck. The place seemed filled with light, and the sign out front simply said: "Welcome." During the meditation, the church was revealed to me as the place filled with the light of love that I had sensed it to be. So I decided to check it out as soon as my daughter was away one weekend with the X. I was skeptical then, as I am now, at what people create when they band together in the name of organized religion, and was going to choose carefully. But I had the sense that with the white light as my guide, I was not being steered the wrong way.

Until next time, I remain, your friend, Rozenkraai