Framework for Pinion 80-82

“The happiness of the bee and the dolphin is to exist. For man, it is to know that and to wonder at it.” – Jacques-Yves CousteauE]

17 January 1949 born in Lewiston, ME

22 May 2018 Ronald R Ouellette died peacefully in his sleep (heart trouble at altitude) in CO

I learned of his death 31 May 2018 on Facebook from a post by Marlene Sassamen

http://obituaries.pressherald.com/obituaries/mainetoday-pressherald/obituary.aspx?n=ronald-robert-ouellette&pid=189180000

Prologue: Marlene's FB post @ WTF https://sasseasails.com/2018/05/31/wtf/

I felt the whole world tilt as to be off-kitler forever.
Ron has been my touchstone for nearly 40 yrs. (from the age of 17 until almost 56).
Classroom lights brighter, school yard dogwood flower's eyes staring at me, particles of dust in the air making me feel connected to everything and nothing. Wanting to go to the sea, but knowing he's gone, from the mountains into an energy source beyond our ability to see.

I called Marlene. She had just finished his obituary and pushed send when I rang. She said the last sentence was the hardest to write because it made it real and final. I told her I was still in shock, as I'd only just learned (an hour earlier, but wanted to wait until a reasonable hour Mt Time, even though I knew she was an early bird). We both cried. Then we remembered him and compared notes and filled in a few holes.

What surprised me, and didn't, was her use of the word "suicide." When I asked if he had a heart condition and she immediately said yes, I felt that it was the altitude that killed him. It isn't kind to older sea-level souls. It had nearly killed my stepmother three times forcing her to leave New Mexico and return to Maine. Ironically, Ron's last career as an ICU Cardiac Care Nurse, did not mean that he followed the healthy heart protocol, according to Marlene. Which lead us to the discussion of suicide. She said, and I agree, that there are different ways to commit suicide. Most people think of the violent successes or the repeated cries for help. But there are also those who willfully do it over a great period of time and on their own terms. That is the kind Ron did.  Being a Cardiac Care Nurse he knew the required surgical procedure would be, the risks, the rehab and the limited reward.

I don't know how long he had the heart condition or how serious it was or how it was/wasn't being treated. I do know that he used to swim, bike, run and hike. That they had hiked together a great deal over the last 5 years in various national parks. It was the joy of those hikes and trips that lead them to the Rockies and away from the Gulf of Mexico.

Yet I did notice, that since landing in CO, Marlene mostly posted pix of solo hikes or hikes with new girlfriends. Ron wasn't hiking or skiing with her. That was the first tell. He loved to be outdoors and active. However the last picture she sent to me of him, was of him staining clapboards for a newly built shed ~ perhaps that is where he was putting his energies. One last creation.That is what he thrived on: creating and building.

Now I have to create and build this book to honor him, share with my children & students, and make sense of how much of him still lives through me now.

"Changes is Lattitude, Changes in Attitude" should not apply to Altitude. 

Does Jimmy Buffet write mountain songs? 

Pinion from 1980-1982

'79-80 New Years Eve on Dingley Island: Meet Ron w/Chuck & Jennie at their house. All walked down the road to the NYE party at Mom's house. Circulated with all the folks 10-25yrs older than J&I. Came away with a huge crush on Ron; his talk of building the cement boat by day and working at BIW by night. How he was going to launch her and then sail her down to the Virgin Islands where he had friends and work waiting for him. All so romantic and ideal. Especially to a girl who was deciding she wanted to build things with her hands and take physical adventures not go to college. School of Life vs Life of the Mind.

Spring 80: Traveled to the South w/Nancy. Get into Eisenhower ( absorbed in RIT) and decide to defer and move in with C,J,T after graduation.

June: I graduate and move to Maine three days later, so quickly that I was at Jennie's Graduation later that month. Drove home, high, with Tony and Chuck down the island road with no lights on, but a very full moon. (6/28/80 Saturday fullmoon?). Going through Yellow Pages for all cabinetmakers within a 25 mile radius (pre-Google). The person who answered the phone (pre-answer machines) and was interested in meeting me for an interview for a possible apprenticeship was Bruce Marcus (a former NY bookstore owner and now hand-tools only woodworking shop owner). We used to make fun of Thomas Moser for not allowing his woodworkers to work on the floor. 1854 Alna Road, Alna, ME 30 miles drive 4-seasons.

July 4th: Go up to Cooks Corner to dance at the Holiday Inn.  Zee, Maggie, Jennie, Chuck, Ron and I are there. Ron and I drives me home to the island. In 11 days, I turn 18 and we start going back to his boat.We sail on the weekends all summer. Hit a rock and pull out at Sebasco Estates.

Fall: we spend time on boat and barter a big wheel (from a tug?) from Bud Darling in the harbor.
Fall scenes of boats slowing leaving the moorings, birds and leaves changing and finally pulling up our mooring and moving over to a dock tied up to land. Driving up to Alna, the change of light, viewing the various tides in the marshes, rivers and coves. First snow fall and dodging lumber trucks in my tiny '78 Honda Civic Hatchback. My father bought it for me my Senior year and said I could have it painted any color I wanted. I chose drum set blue; middle range deep blue with metallic flecks in it.  He also installed a Bluapunkt radio cassette player in the glove box. It felt very swank!

Winter: move over to Oakhurst Is. I visit so often, Jennie jokes that I live there.
Jennie /Texas? Was that 81?  Coming home to Northern Lights and soapstones.
Frostfishing with Jennie and Mark. Skating on the pond. Swimming at the Bath YMCA
Movies at the Tontine Mall: Manhattan (not realizing the irony).

Spring:

When did we bring all of Beth and Kim's house supplies out to long Island and have the clambake in the hood of a car after we lugged it across and up? Think it was spring and took a full day from shore to shore.

Summer:

Decide to not go to college, but rather sail away with Ron into the Sunset. Ron attaches an Antique  Bureau to the bulkhead opposite the bathtub for me and my one duffle bag full of clothes when I move in. Dinner at the Baker's Table with Dad about this decision. "Rather be successful with my failures than  to regret no having attempted them".

Can't remember when the haulout at Robinhood was. It must have been late spring 81, because I remember fiddlehead ferns for dinner and swimming in the quarry down the road. Also lots of boats were still in the yard and not in the harbor.

Friendship haul out? Sebasco Estates haul out?
Hit rock in the center of Casco Bay and what was the other debacle? Was it the engine in Friendship?

Fall 81:

Harpswell, ME,  Gloucester, MA Montauk, NY,  New Haven, CT,  Oyster Bay, NY,  Sandy Hook Bay, NJ,  Willoughby Bay, VA Intracoastal Waterway, Beaufort NC, Buck Island, Christiansted Harbor, St. Croix USVI

Only other time we ran aground was in the Intracoastal Waterway, hit a sand bar where the channel shifted and had to hauls ourselves off with the main halyard and a the row boat?

I shot Ron's father's pilot's pistol there. I believe I did, as Ron wanted me to know how to fire it.

wCelestial navigation, sextant, with South Africans in the upstairs of a waterfront Bar in Beaufort, NC.

Didn't want to stay for Halloween Party. Left to make our Easting for the USVI and ran into these.

Category 1 hurricane (SSHWS)
Duration	November 3 – November 8
Peak intensity	85 mph (140 km/h) (1-min)  980 mbar (hPa)

Main article: Hurricane Katrina (1981)

A tropical depression formed on November 3 in the western Caribbean Sea about 150 miles (240 km) south of the Cayman Islands. The depression moved north, reaching tropical storm strength as it moved through the Caymans. Katrina continued to strengthen, reaching hurricane strength half a day before landfall in Cuba. A weakening Katrina moved across eastern Cuba on November 6. After emerging over water, the storm accelerated northeast through the Bahamas. Katrina's circulation fell apart, and the storm merged with a front on November 8.

Hurricane Katrina is reported to have killed two and caused widespread flood damage in Cuba's Camagüey province.^[1]

Subtropical Storm Three[edit]

Subtropical storm (SSHWS)
Duration	November 12 – November 17
Peak intensity	70 mph (110 km/h) (1-min)  978 mbar (hPa)

A frontal low over the warm waters of the Gulf Stream organized into a subtropical storm on November 12 while 400 miles (640 km) east of Jacksonville, Florida. After moving northeastward, it turned to the northwest, threatening the northeastern United States as an intensifying subtropical storm that was gradually developing tropical characteristics. A high-pressure system turned it to the northeast, and after peaking at 70 mph (110 km/h) it became extratropical near Nova Scotia on November 17. The storm produced significant beach erosion and coastal flooding.^[22]

I fell in love with the people and environment of Beaufort, NC. Everything was set up for sailors. An old truck that folks could borrow to drive to the Piggly Wiggly. Spanish Moss, tidal rivers, low french style houses, friendly folks, the South Africans on their homemade steel boat, who later taught us all who didn't have Lorans how to use a sextant and navigate by the stars in a upstairs dining room in a waterfront restaurant. We had homework and times where we had to do sightings and such.

Mad Hatter was a bar roughly a block away from the waterfront. Once they had an all you can shuck, you can eat oyster night which was wildly popular. The interior of the bar had the traditional sailor fair of dark boards, beer soaked floorboards, a U-shaped bar up against a wall, from behind which the bartender would change hats and accents every so half hour or so (just to keep the international sailing crowd engaged and buying drinks.

The oysters were fresh and delicious. I remember being there late with the South Africans and sitting on 10 gallon buckets in the patio/alley out back and shucking, eating and talking for hours one night. The SA men were tanned, with crisp smiled lines, Afrikaner accents and clothes that seemed worldly to a teenage girl from New England. They wore tailored cotton, in various earth tones and slicked back their hair. No preppy Izod or LL Bean or thrift shop fashions for them.

They knocked on our hull (the international live-aboard greeting) the first night we were in Beaufort. We, Ron and I, as Earl and Jake were ashore with the dingy (giving us some "alone" time) came up the companionway to greet them.



http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x50hlf0 The Greatest American Hero in St. Croix

Work out of Christiansted: 

Lisa's Sandal Shop/

Aubrey's Woodworking Shop/

Bret Gilliam Salvage Diving/

Booze Cruises

Summer 1982:

Return to Maine ~ turn 20 ~ enroll in Pre-Nursing Program

Summers with Ron visiting in Maine:

1985-2017

Spring with Ron visiting in New York:

1988


July 2012: My 50th birthday - Ron rode his bike from Chiquita to Chucks and then came in a car to Dingley. Need to find out where Chiquita was anchored. Near Peter LeBourdais?

Seething into surrender. Awakening in water.

In November it will be 5 years since I've written anything, let alone posted anything, on my blog.

It seems when Ron died and I broke up with Dan, I felt done. Done with trying to understand my past and trying to make a workable present. Done. And I was angry. Angry that I was divorced, but still living in the same house I bought with my ex. Angry that I was raising two children, basically alone, and hadn't signed up for that. Angry that my time was spent working long hours, helping my parents become dependent and my children independent. I didn't want to write about anger. Just like I didn't want to sell fear as a literary agent. So I stopped writing.

Three years ago, I sold the house we had together and bought a bungalow of my own. I started to feel some joy creep in and some anger leak out. My children helped me with the move, and when we found items that my ex had left behind, seven years earlier, it triggered old resentments. How does a person leave all his books, a closet full of clothes, his first ex-wife's jewelry-making materials, and decades of journalism papers, magazines, books, and disks (yes, disks) behind? I tried to be civil, but when one spends the better part of a day cleaning out an attic alcove full of stuff that doesn't belong to you, it's hard. The kids saw the stuff, knew I was putting it aside for the father to collect, and my sighs and silence spoke volumes. It probably appeared odd to them, too. Seeing all that he had left being displayed in full view for the first time, it was a reminder that he'd left us and most of his stuff, and it didn't seem to matter one iota. We were as disposable and replaceable as a button-down shirt. He always had secrets, didn't trust others, and kept different parts of himself hidden or stored away as a result. His choices mirrored his beliefs. He operates out of fear and insecurity, and that has hurt everyone who cared for him. Just last month he and his third wife moved to Vancouver. I'm not sure I'll ever see him again, unless one of the kids has some right of passage while we're both still alive and we both attend it. 

My mother was a "secret writer." That's what we (collectively) wrote in her obituary this spring. She was shy and operated with an odd combination of joy and fear; both childlike yet sage. My brother writes songs that are sung around the world. They are infectious and joyful melodies with often dark lyrics. I've helped other people, from teenagers to adults, write and refine their writing for nearly four decades. However, my last byline was in a travel magazine in the mid-90s, when my agency took off.

Being alone so much during Covid and not dating, also made writing hard. You'd think with more time alone it'd be easier, but not so. When I'm alone, I mostly need to be recharging my batteries or restoring my spirit. Writing used to help me think more clearly and process my problems. But I found it didn't keep me company the way it used to do when I was young. Again, anger and sadness (two sides of the same coin) were the topics I most often worked through in my writing as a young adult. By my mid-50s, I found I was practicing more gratitude and joy in my journal jottings or on Facebook posts.  

It has been an entirely new landscape and one in which I'm not well versed. How to write about my open-water swimming community and how much joy and pleasure I've received from them? They are all accomplished swimmers and professionals who are incredibly generous with their time, attention, and expertise. None of them are conceited nor competitive, which is impressive as many are record holders, triple crown earners, and ice mile finishers. Every attempt to capture their friendship and the comradery of the group has felt like a cheesier version of a Kripalu lecture or an "intentional living" article in a Yoga magazine. Also, Open Water and Cold Water Swimming have become mainstream during the pandemic, although most folks do not follow Wim Hof's methods nor join in our weekly year-round swims. Nature was discovered as a savior during covid. These swimmers had already been immersed in the beauty and sacredness of all bodies of water, and it was something profound we shared instantly. It's a kinship that straddles ages, classes, genders, races, and skills. One that is essential to all of us and has been, for most, since our youth. Unlike most of the other swimmers, I wasn't schooled in a pool. I learned how to swim in a pond and the sea.

My dog, Triton, a tripawd rescue, has also been a great source of comfort and companionship for the last three years. How do I write about him absorbing my grief, warming my cynical thoughts, and forcing me out the door on days I just wanted to stay in. 

GrubStreet #4

Letters to those who helped define me.

To Ron:

            I remember exactly how the light reflected off the harbor surface as I rowed out to our boat. The light was brilliant, dazzling turquoise with frothing diamonds left in my wake. You were up, on the deck, and took the line without a word. Once I came aboard, and the kitten came out of her doghouse to greet me, we sat on the deckhouse. Reflexively you drew your lower lip in under your upper teeth. This was your “brace face”. Your hazel eyes were sad, but your bleached beard glistened in the tropical sun that was high above us that weekday morning. I should have been at work, building cabinets for the new hospital in Sunny Isle, a neighborhood smack in the middle of St. Croix. You should be leaving for work soon as a maintenance man at a local motel, one of your many cobbled together jobs.

            My fever kept me from going to work that morning. I’d spent the weekend talking my friend into leaving her Swiss boyfriend on the Chinese Junk, which he won in a poker game, and returning to D.C. where she had family and job prospects. Somehow over the course of convincing her to leave, my spirit moved onto a new path for itself.

            You had built most of the 48’ ferro-cement sailboat before I met you three years, on New Year’s Eve ‘79-80. We finished it together in a small cove in Harpswell, Maine. You worked at Bath Iron Works, fitting pipes on Navy Frigates. I worked for a hand-tools only cabinetmaker up river from Wiscasset. We’d sailed off into the sunset with two crewmembers, with the ambitions of circumnavigating the world in our boat, take pointers from the master sailors whose books we read on those long winter nights below deck with the wood stove going full tilt.

            We had sailed down the entire Eastern Seaboard; through the Cape Cod Canal, down Long Island Sound (and timing Hell’s Gate perfectly), off the Jersey Shore, into the mouth of the Chesapeake at Norfolk and finally down the Intracoastal Waterway, to avoid Hatteras and it’s deadly shoals, to Beaufort, North Carolina. There we learned celestial navigation from two South Africans, who were living aboard their homemade steel sailboat.

            When the wind was perfect for making our Easting, a term nautical meaning sailing straight East for a long spell to counter the prevailing winds and current before turning south to the Virgin Isles, we left with at least 10 other boats using the same strategy. By the next dawn, all were out of sight and by the end of the next day a slow building and long lasting hurricane was upon us. What should have been a 5-7 day trip, turned into just under two weeks in “blue water”, meaning out of sight of land.

            The hurricane and how it bonded us, is a story in itself to be told another time, but suffice it to say we entrusted each other with our lives and found each other sound and true. With waves 120’ tall and winds above 80 mph for 5 days in a row, and one of the two crew members out of service due to paralyzing fear (a DA from the Bronx who could handle brain-splattered walls but not Mother Nature on a tear), you learn your true nature and that of those on board.

            Arriving in St. Croix waterlogged and worn out, I blossomed in our new home base. We set a mooring in Christiansted Harbor and reunited with your high school friend who was now a successful dive and yacht operator. You taught me to dive, and his girlfriend gave me a job making sandals for tourists and local school kids. We started salvage diving due to our proximity to the barrier reef, our willingness to barter, and our skills in diving. You had been a professional underwater rigger in the Gulf of Mexico before returning home to Maine after Vietnam.

            Soon I started working in a woodshop in Gallows Bay, loved being able to row to work each day and swim off the boat each night to clear the sawdust out of my system. I read every book in the harbor and earned respect from my much older male workers.

            Living  in that harbor and on the I learned that the guy at the bar dressed like a Millionaire was most likely a con man and the guy dressed like a bum was probably the richest among us. My daily shopping at the open-air market, where all the women were Cruzan (native islanders, mostly of African and Arawak descent) was filled with a huge learning curve. When we first arrived I was charge tourist price. After I started working at the sandal shop, I started to be charged local non-native price. Finally, working at the woodshop with their brothers, fathers, uncles , and husbands was I charge native price. These women also taught me how to cook and clean all the fruits, vegetables, and shellfish.

You taught me how to clean and cook a conch. Not the pressure cooker, rubbery way of most non-natives, but the clean and succulent way. Take a welding hammer; count three rings down from the point and strike hard and straight. The conch will slide out whole and tender, making it sautéed with garlic, rice and hot peppers a meal fit for kings. Another invaluable lesson was how to catch a spiny lobster with a guitar string. You christened me “Madam Baazinski Tunafish”  (my family nickname being Baa) for my prowess free diving with a spear gun to 80 feet.

You struggled with work, being 13yrs older than me, and with more technical skills, and it should have been easier. I now realize, the goal of arriving here had been your dream for so many years, that the reality might not have met the fantasy.

            Unconsciously, I must have known this. For when I told you I was flying home and going to go to apply to college in Maine, you weren’t surprised. 

            “Baa, I always knew you would leave, I just didn’t know when,” were your exact words. They’d replay in my ears for the next thirty years.

We spent the next few days telling all our friends, my employer and family. We sailed out to Buck Island, a conservation island with an underwater marine park and short sail from the harbor with our friends. You gave me a gold cutter necklace, rigged like our sailboat Pinion, when I left in April. I turned 20 in July.

 I didn’t know I was leaving you and our relationship, when I left. I naively thought we could stand the test of distance, as we’d survived the test of a hurricane. I was wrong. I received a Dear Jane letter two months later and it emphasized that you hoped I would keep my loving and curious nature. You would come to me several times in Maine and New York over the next decade and ask me to sail away with you. But you never left St. Croix, until your dear mother developed cancer in Florida.  Having chosen college, too, being a nurse, you went to her aid.

We remained in touch over time, you met my husband and kids in Maine, I met your ex-wife in Tortola, and you came to celebrate my 50^th Birthday weeks after I asked for a divorce from my husband, again in Maine. I wanted you to know this simple truth: You are my touchstone, the one who has known me from my seed stage. I’d learned to follow my gut again, like I did when I first met you and knew I’d regret it if I didn’t sail off into the sunset with you instead of going to college at age of 17.

Last fall you moved from Florida with Marlene, your partner of several years with whom I’m a friend on Facebook, to the mountains of Colorado. I know if I called you and simply said, “Come”, you would with Marlene’s blessing. I would do so in kind. That is our lasting treasure.

                                                *          *          *

To Markos:

            The night we met in Specs’ Twelve Adler Museum Cafe on William Saroyan Place in North Beach at a Media Alliance (MA) party, I knew you were trouble. You were tall, dark and handsome with stories from around the world. I was hooked. Then you added that you were a Berkeley and Columbia J school grad who had recently returned from a stint with Newsweek opening up their Eastern European offices and I was a goner. It was the spring of 1991 and I’d been living in California for six months. You were that rarest of breeds: a SF native. You were born to Greek refugees, raised in the Mission, attended the Orthodox Church and Lowell high school (the premiere public school). Everywhere you went, you knew someone.

            Then we met at the MA party. I was considering starting my own literary agency, having been told by all the agents in SF, that I knew as much as they did and should start my own. I was working three jobs; night manager of a bed & breakfast in Half Moon Bay, sales clerk in the largest new and used bookstore in the city - Green Apple Books, and as a model for Roman Talent Agency (another long story- basically a picture of me taken by a well-known NYC photographer ended up being used in a national ad campaign in major magazines). I was in the mix to be the person to launch Levi’s Women’s Jeans campaign. But I wanted to work in publishing.

            “So are you a writer,” you asked with a huge Cheshire grin.

            “No, I’m an agent,” came out of my mouth, as I decided in that nanosecond it was true.

            “Perfect, I’m working on a book about terrorism in America with a public radio reporter. William Casey, the former Director of the CIA, has agreed to do the Foreword,” you said in a single breath.

            “Well we could set up a meeting later this week,” I suggested as I madly tried to figure out which days I’d be in the city and not be working two of my three jobs.

            “Peter (the radio journalist) and I will be working at Earwax (a sound production and recording studio) all week, pick a day to come by and we’ll interview you,” he suggested with a slight arch of his eyes and a slow smile, which I later would learn was a “closer” move of his.

            I picked a day and we agreed to meet then. So over the next 48 hours I had to establish a business. I made cards, changed the language of the Curtis Brown Ltd author/agent agreement in my possession, and rented a mailbox with a San Francisco address. I was still living in a house built as a speakeasy in Moss Beach, a surfer town half an hour south of the city. I would move to a studio in the city a few months later.

            The meeting went very well and lasted over an hour. Peter was still on the fence because he thought they might do better with an agent in NY, but you convinced him to go with me.

            Walking me to my car you asked, “Would you like to meet again.”

            I stopped half way across the street for split second, as I my heart and head collided with his words.

            “To discuss business?” I asked.

            “No to discuss anything else,” and those brown eyes made my core jolt awake.

            “Yes, I guess.”

            “How about we go for a hike in Muir Woods, since you’re new here. Come by my house on Saturday, in Sausalito and I’ll drive from there.”

            “Sounds good,” I said as you closed my car door and I put the key in the ignition.

            Somehow I’d just started a business, signed my first clients, and been asked on a date all in the course of an hour.

            That was how we were together: smooth operators in public while being totally connected with our minds and bodies in private. When we arrived at the same party separately, I’d feel you enter it before I saw you. When we were apart, I had detailed dreams of what you were doing, which later you would confirm with surprise. The surprise lessened as the frequency increased. It didn’t matter if you were in Pacific Heights or Moscow, my mind's eye found you in my dreams.

You told your friends I was prescient, and I think that they believed that to be a good trait in an agent. As to them, that’s all I ever was to you. Girlfriend was not a term you assigned to me, or I learned later, anyone. You weren’t monogamous, either. I don’t think it was the ballerina from NYC, but rather the interpreter from the UN, whose lighter I found in the cushions of the Sausalito house that you couldn’t omit from narrative of her visit. From there my heart began to break each time I saw you.

We succeeded with our professional relationship. I sold your book. Not the terrorism book (although had it sold, 9/11 may have been thwarted), but rather the book, Defying Gravity, about the making of the Newton PDA for Apple.  Jobs gave us full access, Doug shot (in)famous photos, and your journalist style sang. The Apple product, like the book on Terrorism, was ahead of its time and failed to reach a mass audience. The book, thank god, sold well.

The last book I sold for you ended our professional and private relationship for a while. You didn’t deliver the book that the Publisher in New York contracted you to write. When you delivered the manuscript to me, I thought it was a gag. It was supposed to be about the weird and wacky places that people go to on road trips around America. You with your outsider/insider duality were the perfect author. Instead you used the money to do you own personal road trip that barely passed the borders of California.

“I can’t send this book to NY,” I seethed into the phone.

“Why not? It’s narrative describing weird and unusual roadside attractions along icon American byways!”

“It doesn’t cover the entire country or meet the word count and it’s late!”

“Well send it to them anyway, I’m sure they’ll love it.”

“No they won’t. They’ll ask for their money back. Frankly, I won’t blame them.”

“So we’ll have to pay them back the advance?”

“No, you’ll have to pay them back to full advance, including my commission. I did my job. You didn’t.”

A very, very, very long silence.

“What do you mean, I have to pay back your commission?”

“I did my job. You didn’t. I earned my commission in selling your book and negotiating the contract. You’re in breach of contract for not writing the book as it was defined in the contract. I did my job. You didn’t.”

Again, a very long silence.

“Well I guess I’ll have to terminate our contract, over stylistic differences.”

Now it was my turn to pause. Stylistic differences, really? Our professional relationship had last 4 years and our private affair for one year, and this was how things were going to end?

“Alright, if you want to terminate me, I’ll have to inform the publisher and they will be contacting your directly. But I’d advise against that, as we both know intellectual property and media lawyers are expensive. We also know, I could resolve this with a few phone calls and emails. Assuming your agree to return the full advance.”

Here is where you paused for so long I began to wonder if you’d hung up and I’d missed it. My mind raced back to the dinner at your parent’s house in Woodside. The only night you invited me to a family dinner there with my mother, who was visiting from back east. Your father gave us a tour of the modest, yet productive, yard with every square inch of it planted with a four-season rotation of fruits and vegetables. Your mother made amazing Cretan pastries. It was that night that your father, who had been a truck driver and highway paver, gave me a “necking nob” so I could drive my car one-handed, since I’d broken my elbow (thus the reason for my mother’s visit). I now wish I’d taken it out of the car when I sold it a year later. It was that night your mother and I were in the kitchen alone.

 At one point she looked at me and said, “He loves you as much as he can love anyone.”

It took me off guard, as you are nothing, if not private. I sometimes thought it had to do with your journalism years in flak jackets on the frontlines and the code you adopted for protecting your sources. Now I think it may have more to do with being the oldest son and golden child in your family, and not wanting to defend that in anyway.

“Okay. I’ll pay back the full advance if it comes to that. But either way, our working relationship is over,” you said in a resigned yet defiant tone.

“Fine. I’ll contact New York and get back to you,” I said perceiving a white-hot metal spike going through my gut. I knew that you’d recede from my social Rolodex for a while. You were nothing if not a political animal. You could be as present or absent as terms required.

After it was known in the city that I was dating and engaged to the HardWired’s publisher, he began to show up at publishing parties and other mutually overlapping events. After I was married and had my first child I kept having a dream about you. You were sitting in your house in Cow Hollow, on giant, ornate throw pillows on the floor. There were Turkish lanterns hanging from above and your were making love to a woman I’d never met. It was your living room, but not the way I’d ever seen it. You were calling her name and I knew you were going to ask her to marry you. I woke up with a start and scribbled the name in my journal. Elena, Ellani, Illeni? My snapping on the light woke my husband and I told him the dream.

“Are you going to tell him?” he asked.

“I don’t think it’s happened yet,” I replied.

            A week later I received your mass email titled: A Surprise. I was the only one who guessed. We met at the Uta Lemper concert at Symphony Hall a few weeks later for a double date. As I approached you with her, I was startled by the striking resemblance to the woman in my dream. Three of us knew each other already so you made the introductions.

            “Karen, Peter, I’d like to you to meet Eleni,” and I left my body for a second.

            “Nice to meet you both,” she said extending her hand and looking at me, “I’ve heard so much about you.”

            I kept staring at her for a moment too long.

            “What is it?” you asked knowing of my dream.

            I looked to you to see if it was okay to mention it and you nodded.

            “Eleni, I had a dream about you, only your hair was to here,” I said putting my pointer finger to my shoulders.

            She looked startled, turned to you, and then to me replied, “I had it cut yesterday.”

            The two of you invited us to your five-day wedding in Istanbul. I still regret I couldn’t attend. Later you both invited us and we attended your 60’s themed Baby Shower in SoMa loft. You attended our Bon Voyage party when we sold our house in the Inner Sunset to move back east. 

            You’ve since lived in Hungary with Eleni as the US Ambassador, while you earned you PhD. I earned a MAT in Education. Back in San Francisco you’re working at the Hoover Institute while Eleni runs for Lt. Governor. We will remain political allies, and professional helpmates. I want to thank you for believing in me, so I could quit working those three jobs, seven days a week, after three years and just run my business.

5 dates in 7 years

February

February Reflections

Nearly 7 years of being single and 5 dates to show for it.

Dates, yes I've had a few, since my marriage ended in July 2012 and divorce was finalized a year later.

Three happened during the year and a half I was on Match.com. All "one and dones".

Then I dated the fourth Match man for 27 months (Oct. 2015- Jan. 2018)
The first year was a middle-aged honeymoon: sailing, cooking, live music, dog walks and watching movies.
The second year was a Greek tragedy: broken bodies and psyches with no return to order.
The last few months were tough on me emotionally, as I felt like I was alone, again, in a relationship.
So I ended it.

That was January 2018. That same month, I started to write a memoir about my time living on a boat between High School and College.

At the end of May, the man I'd loved for 49 years died in his sleep. The man around whom  I'd been writing the memoir of our time together on the cement sailboat. I experienced a concentrated and sharp vertigo upon learning of his death. He had been a touchstone my whole life. His widow and I spent a day together in June, as she was also working on a memoir, we had discussed helping each other and she'd invited me to a surprise 70th birthday (in Colorado) for the man. One which he'd never reach and we'd never celebrate together.

The beginning of July, just when I was embarking on what was supposed to be a week-long writing workshop for my memoir (which I'd been work shopping at  Grubstreet in Boston and with Robert McKee in New York), my dog -- my one constant companion since my divorce, died from renal failure due to Lyme disease. I spent the week working at the workshop, but my writing spirit had fled.

My final date,  was a "date", with an old friend from High School, in July. We'd remained close over time and hadn't seen each other in a few years. At dinner, I felt him to be both fragile and still in love with a mutual friend. We had a nice evening and I let him know that was as far as it was going to go.
We remained close. Then, per my premonition, he died a month ago.

My mantra after this last year became, "Family, Fitness and Fuck Everything Else." My daughter being in college, my son a Senior in High School, my parents aging and myself getting a house ready to sell, while working full-time doesn't leave much time to date.  No time or energy for finding, let alone going on one.

Howlin' Wolff's Twisting & Turning

                                       Howlin’ Wolff’s Twisting & Turning

1987

Summer: Attended Radcliffe Publishing Course, a job fair at The New Yorker, where Graydon Carter  (who coined “short fingered vulgarian”) & Kurt Anderson offered me a job at SPY (not having a Lampooner’s bank account, I declined). Turned 25.

Fall-Winter: SPORT paid a living wage (deplored the instant shallow expert nature of magazines), jumped to Raines & Raines Agency, and found my home at Curtis Brown Ltd., world’s oldest and largest literary agency.

1989

Peter Rutten helped create Electric Word in Amsterdam with Louis Rossetto & Jane Metcalfe.

1990

August: Michael Wolff imported Peter from Holland to NYC. My mentor, Peter Ginsberg, President of Curtis Brown Ltd, signed them a month after I moved to SF. They wrote Where We Stand. I started my agency and became agentnazor on AOL & the Well. Turned 28.

1991

My fledgling company sold Rough Magic by Lowell Cohn for a six-figure sum.

1992

I met WiReD founder’s Louis & Jane, signed the Digerati before it was a word. Turned 30.

1993

 WiReD debuted. No NYC editor had email. Michael signed with Wylie, “the Jackal”.

 1994

 “Net, you cannot own the word NET!” I screamed at my screen. That was how Michael entered my headspace. I’d sent Net Chick to Michael & Peter’s NetGuide packaging company for Carla Sinclair of bOING bOING. Michael sent a cease and desist email. I told Carla to ignore it. Peter Ginsberg represented their contract with Random House. Michael couldn’t incite fear in this apprentice. Net Chick sold to Henry Holt.

1995

Louis and Jane hired Peter to start the book division for WiReD: Hardwired. 

July: I met Peter for lunch to discuss Salon columnist Andrew Leonard’s book, BOTS, which Hardwired bought. Peter & I began to date.

September: Peter confessed; A) He wrote the c&d letters, impersonating Michael, to my agency, B) He was married and divorcing.

1996

September: Google launched.

October: Michael & wife Allison Anthoine, Carla & husband Mark Frauendfelder, and 121 others came to our wedding in Maine. Louis & Jane sent their regrets. WiReD attempted going public.

1997

Peter and I appeared as characters in Carla’s novel Signal to Noise (which I'd sold to HarperCollins).

1998

April: Michael came to Noe Valley, met our infant daughter.

Wolff’s Burn Rate earned snarky reviews. I taught at writer’s conferences from Maui to Miami.

 August: WiReD sold to Si Newhouse for $90 million dollars. Hardwired expired. Michael became a columnist for New York with a six-figure salary and offered Peter a 1/3 to edit it.

November: We signed a purchase and sale for a house in Newton, MA.

December: In the Netherlands for Christmas, Michael emailed Peter. The editing gig ended. “Poof” went the Newton house. Michael became Mr. Burning Bridges in my book.

2000

We had a son. Peter scorched through several startups.

2002

Michael won awards at New York. We moved to the Burbs of Boston. Louis & Jane invested in chocolate, the futurists Gold. Shrank my client list. Began to teach English. Turned 40.

2004

Michael tried to buy New York from PRIMEDIA and failed.

2005

Sold the last book I adored: Elephant’s Secret Sense by Caitlin O’Connell (which I sold to Free Press). Graydon hired Michael as the first Media Columnist for Vanity Fair.

2008

Michael became columnist at The Industry Standard. His muckraking biography of Rupert Murdoch secured his seat as a go-to TV-interviewee. Louis and Jane opened a chocolate factory: TCHO.

2009

Allison learned that Michael had filed for divorce on Page Six of the New York Post and summarily evicted him from their Upper Eastside condo. Peter spent less time at home.

2010

Michael became the Editor at Adweek. Allison refused to grant him a divorce. We’re in Holland for the last time as a family.

2011

Adweek fired Michael. Peter skipped family events. My sister died.

2012

Winking at Lonesome George, I achieved a girlhood goal. He died two months later. So did my marriage. Turned 50.

2013

Our divorce finalized. Peter bought a condo with his girlfriend.

2015

Michael’s Television is the New Television was transparently self-serving and slammed.

I singlehandedly took 13 students to Australia/New Zealand/Hawaii.  Wooed by a software writer.

2016

Peter married for the 3^rd time. Louis Kickstarts a book.

I spent two weeks sailing with my boyfriend (one kid free).

2017

Jane founds Neo.Life: “Neobiological Revolution.”

2018

Michael’s Fire and Fury: dedicated to his girlfriend and their child. Allison residuum wife. Considering relinquishing software-sailor. Louis' memoir, Change is Good arrived in my mailbox inscribed: To Karen ~ who was there at the beginning. Turned writer.

My Dream Date

My Dream Date                                                                      16 January 2018

The sun was shining brightly through the skylights in the sun room off the kitchen. One stream blazed down upon the New York Times my Dutch husband sat reading. I briefly considered sitting beside him, but I’d had another dream and abandoned the notion. Cicadas filled the air with their mournful alarm.

As I continued to stand, my dog began circling, hoping this would result in a walk in the woods. It was Sunday morning after all, our standing hiking day. She looked at my feet, saw no Keens or Chacos, and decided to settle on to the couch, beneath a wall of windows, until that condition was remedied.

For six months I'd been trying to have a date with my husband.  Our fourteen year old daughter even offered to babysit her 11 year old brother for a "date night.” But no date was made. It was June 2012. He was acting as a dutiful husband, but not an engaged friend or stimulated lover. The post-menopausal lubrication device, I'd been prescribed the previous summer, had never been test-driven.

So here I stood, another Sunday morning, after a sexless Saturday night. I asked the same question of him that I'd been asking every month since my sister died in October.

"Are we ever going to be intimate again?" came out of my mouth as a sigh. 

He usually would answer, "Of course", or "Sure", or a slow and patient, "Yessss." 

But this time he answered distractedly as he folded the Sunday Times into his lap and exhaled, "I don't know."

"Finally, you're being honest," and I added, "I want a divorce."

He didn't miss a beat, although I swear the cicadas ceased for a second when he asked, "Can't we have an open marriage?"

The facial composure he usually lost when he was emotional, turning it into a rubbery mask, only relaxed at his mouth. His gray eyes drooped downward. It dawned on me that he'd already been living that reality for some time.

When my mind processed all that had just been uttered, I said as quietly and as steadily as possible, "If you can even ask me that question, then you don't know me at all." 

Being intimate to me was a package deal: sex, emotion, spirit, a shared history, humor and love. To him it meant sex and secrets. I'd suspected for years that he'd been having an affair.

In February while in Florida with the kids, and having left my dog at the farm, it was reported that my husband hadn't come home for many nights in a row. My friends wanted to hire a private eye.

For over a year, I'd had a recurring dream in which my husband approached a bar where I was waiting to be served. He saddled in beside me, without acknowledging me. Looking towards the direction he came, I'd see a woman with short fine dark hair and a pretty moon face. We'd lived together for eight years in San Francisco, and the Boston burbs for ten; he often protested, unsolicited, his distaste for Asian beauty.

Blindly, I put on my Chacos, which started the dog woofing and spinning towards the back door. By this point my husband was still sitting, but his dull expression had shifted to alarm, as he awoke to the idea that I wasn't acting angry or pleading, but rather remained composed and self-assured.

“I'm taking the dog for a short walk. After breakfast we can hike around Great Hill and discuss how to proceed, out of earshot of the kids.”

As I walked up the well-worn path and into the Arboretum, a thought repeated, when do you know your marriage is over?

What my soul had known for years, my brain no longer denied. As my dog and I rounded the half way mark on the trail, I felt a calm and girlish confidence that had been missing since my sister’s death. 

Deep in my bones I'd answered her last question to me, "When are you going to do something about Peter?" 

I remember exactly how the mottled light filtered onto the forest floor.  How the summer grass was overtaking the winter's compost. An answer kept echoing through the trees and above the reedy buzzing of the birds and bugs. The reply to my departed sister's question and my own were answered simultaneously: "Now." 

Mid-June 2013 the divorce was final and Peter would announce that he was buying a condo with the Hong Kong woman of my dreams.