And daily I send prayers of hope that whispers of chance are truly the voices of angels… Chances

A chance stumbled upon me. Quietly at first, whispering in my ear with words of promise. I brushed it away the first time, maybe even the second, dismissing it as an annoyance, nothing more than a distraction. It came again in the night, in dreams. I listened to it at two a.m. when all the voices in my house were quiet and lost in their own dreams. It told me of the future, showed me glimpses of a life I could have, should have.

The chance took on life; it took my life. The possibility of what could be grew strong within me. It called to me for months, echoing its potential. It gathered in my heart, in my spirit, moving me into the next world. After months of it resounding within me, it took root and grew.

It kept me company while I made my plans. Taking my hand it outlined the future, showed me the path to walk. Nudged me along when I felt uncertainty. Promised me happiness if I followed it.

Is it a trick of fairies to whisper chances to us?  Is it our own spirit leading us to our true life, the one we were sent here to live? I sit alone now in coffee shops by lakes, not by my mountains. I write words of loneliness, of building a new life, while ties still tether me to my old one. I listened to the chance that came to me and gave it life, wings to fly.  Was it foolishness that led me on my road? Or a life that truly could be?

He waits at home in the mountains, quietly, patiently.  Waiting for the day that we will be together again. He has become the guardian of the house, repairing it when necessary, supporting my young-adult children when they need his help, talking to my old cat.  I try not to measure the lost days, the days he and I will never have together.

“Think of what we will have,” he tells me.  “The life we are building, our future together.”

Is that what chances are about? New life?  New direction? But, is there always a price to pay?  The better the chance, the higher the cost?  Like unmapped roads, do they conceal a right way, a wrong one?  How long do you need to stand at the crossroads in stillness, waiting for angels to whisper, showing you the way?

I can feel the life I want, the promise made by chance, the whisper. My days now are spent in creativity, and they are my own. And so very far from the days when corporate ran my life. Still, will it be enough? Will the dream become a life, or is this just illusion?

In the quiet of the morning right before dawn I listen for the whisper, the direction it will take me, take him. I live on faith now. I trust this new road will eventually lead to life with him  before all  is lost.

And daily I send prayers of hope that whispers of chance are truly the voices of angels.

Within them I saw the creator, the man who had given life to this canvas and courage to himself….Ray

“I used to have a job,” he said to me, or maybe to himself. “A really good job, before….” His energy trailed off along with his voice, not wanting to compare what used to be with now. He pushed the button on the arm of the chair that allows him to be mobile, maneuvering around me to the other side. “I worked with Jaclyn Smith and Martha Stewart,” he added, once his finger on the panel of the chair achieves the ideal spot.

I met Ray’s art before I met him. The Scottish woman who guided my sister and I through the hallways of the independent living center many months back made it a point to stop in the art room. An array of hand-painted ceramics, some completed and some needing final touches, sat on one long table, reminding me of a high school art room. Another table contained old Christmas cards, cut and pasted together, giving life to them in a different form. At the drafting table closest to the door, our Scottish tour guide stopped. Standing back, she gave us a moment to discover the oil painting, the cowboy riding full speed, hovering over the neck of a powerful horse, the open golden desert plains in the forefront, silhouetted purple mountains in the back.

“This is wonderful,” my sister told her, moving closer to take a better look. The Scottish lady smiled, stands back in pride, Mission accomplished–the achievement seniors could aspire to while living here.

“Yes, our seniors are amazing,” she sang as she opened the door and motioned us out.

Maybe not all, I thought to myself, but clearly this one was.

After my parents moved in I walked by the art room at various times on my way up to their apartment. The studio remained empty. But the cowboy was clearly progressing, with the addition of new colors, new details that made him more alive than ever. Where was the artist?  What hour, what time, did he come to the studio and work on his creation?  Did he wait until the cowboy instructed him, giving him hints to the right color, the right tone?  In his dreams did he see the large mighty muscles of the horse, allowing him to express the lines, the stress and strain of maintaining such speed?

One afternoon I found him at the drafting table, sitting in his powered chair, paint brush in his left hand. I tilted my head in the entrance. “Great painting,” I told him, thinking I would whiz by and complete my intended mission for my parents.

He slowly looked up at me, reluctant to leave the world of his creation.

“Thank you,” he replied. His eyes had such sadness, a lost sadness in deep dark pools. “I was close to being an artist, almost had my own show in Scottsdale. But that was before…” His voice trailed off, not sure if he should complete his story or let it be.

“Cowboy art in Scottsdale, yes it would go well there,” I said with a smile. “I love that part of Arizona.”

“I don’t like the desert, not at all. But the people who were sponsoring me knew my work would sell there. That was before,” he repeated, “before this chair, before the stroke. You know they thought I would be a vegetable forever when it happened. Thought I would never wake up, lay in the bed for the rest of my days.”

He spoke slowly, softly, with intent in his voice mixed with hints of pride and regret. He had been a stylist who worked with sketches for new clothing lines. Jaclyn Smith and Martha Stewart had been his clients.

“Jaclyn Smith was as nice as she was pretty. Stewart, I won’t say what I thought of her.” He left it at that, and pushing the button on his chair, he repositioned himself in front of the painting.

His head down, he said to me again, “I had such a great job. Why even last year some of the women I worked with arranged for me to go to Paris to see the great art. They made it possible for me to view the Mona Lisa, away from the crowds who daily walked by her. They had roped off an area, and I was allowed to wheel up and spend time with her.  All the people in the museum were trying to see who it was that got such special treatment, sure that it must be someone famous. That’s how much influence these women had to make such a visit possible.”

Pride and appreciation was in his voice as he told me this clip of his life. Silently I thought of the impact Ray must have made on these people who chosen to honor him this way.

“What happened to your art work, the work you were going to sell in Scottsdale?”

“Don’t know.” His head dropped. “Maybe my ex-wife took it, or one or both of my sisters. All my stuff was taken, given away or sold when I had the stroke. I had nothing left. No one believed that I would be conscious, alive.”

When he finally returned to this world Ray’s right hand, his creative hand, was paralyzed, and he was no longer able to paint colors across the canvas. Ray had to re-learn using the only hand now available, his left. It took long, painful hours to teach his brain to allow that which flowed within him to be expressed by the opposite hand.

Ray told me what he used to be; he had a job and worked with important people. He was on the crest of being: being an artist, being nationally recognized for the talent he possessed.

But between his words, behind his grief, I heard the whispers, the sounds of those spirits who told me the story of Ray’s true essence. Once the stroke took away life as he knew it, he had his choice. He didn’t have to pick up the brush in his left hand, forcing the lines and colors to express what was deep within. Like the flower straining for life, for its creation in the cracks of a cement sidewalk, Ray continued to labor on until the gift that flowed within him could be expressed, could be brought into the world again.

As I stood in front of Ray I thought about days when I whined about my life, an ache or two worse than the year before, about possessions lost, sold, or given away in my choice to change my life. I sat at my computer daily with words flowing, letters on the page, created with both my hands. Humility, inspiration, shame, honor, collected within me, around me as I spoke with Ray.

I studied again Ray’s horse and rider galloping full speed across the high plains desert of the Southwest: unafraid, unchallenged, moving head first into the unknown trail. I looked back to Ray, to acknowledge his life, his story. Before my words came, I caught the dark depths of his eyes.  Within them I saw the creator, the man who had given life to this canvas and courage to himself. Freed of all confines, akin with his reckless cowboy, their spirits racing across the open plains, soaring together and melting within the colors he has painted.

copyright, 2013 delarde

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A year ago I had it all by American standards. Two cars, a truck, the house ….and now? Malbec by Sunset

The Argentina ground crunches, making small grinding noises, as I walk along the side of the road. It is fairly desolate now without cars coming and going alongside me. My chances of catching a ride on a Sunday morning are not too high. At least not until the local churches release their parishioners in time for the traditional noon dinner.

If I am lucky a family will come along, kind enough to offer a ride and invite me to share their meal. Once at their home there will be a host of activity, even some special preparations for their new-found guest. Somehow that experience is one of the most humbling for me. I could never imagine my family in the US picking up a strange young man and making such a fuss. But village life in Argentina is much different than home.

If I am particularly fortunate, the family will share my passion for Malbec, the intense red wine produced at the foot of the Andes. A discovery I made months ago when I first flew to Argentina. I have entries in my diary for them all, rating and evaluating the ones I love best. It has become a great quest for me to taste the varieties available, be it from a restaurant in Mendoza or a farm house close to Resistencia. There are days I can almost imagine spending my life in some quiet village – a beautiful woman and endless red wine.

I smile at the thought of that life, sure though the ideal dream would wake to a reality I am not yet ready to live.  Too many roads to travel before I settle on just one.

I discontinue my walk, content to wait along the side of the road until fate gives me a ride. Yeah, fate I think. My life feels like a series of chance meetings – of people or places that come along at just the right moment. True to that thought, a tree with a wide canopy of leaves and branches is in sight, and conveniently a thick layer of grass below calls to me. Walking within the circle of the shade, I drop my backpack to the ground and quickly my body follows, using the backpack as a pillow. It is hard and lumpy against my head, a fact I ignore as I start flipping through my iPod. I am calculating the time difference between California and Argentina. Debating – too late, too early – to Skype friends or family members.

My plans for calling now on hold, I lay back and allow my eyes to follow cloud formations, watching the flow of two large clouds. Coming together and then parting in different forms, different shapes. Their hazy shapes moving quickly, offering only a small distraction. Contemplating cloud forms? I laugh at this thought. A million miles away from where I used to be.

A year ago I had it all by American standards. Two cars, a truck, the house and a job with the city. Complete security by anybody’s standards. My mother, only four miles away, daily searching stores and catalogs for the perfect items to complete my home.

“I can’t wait until you see the gorgeous end table I bought for your house,” her voice announcing new items on my work voice mail. Furniture, kitchen stuff, comforter for the guest room. The list of items she acquired for my home became overbearing. Each started to feel like an anchor. I dragged them throughout my day, making my twenty four years of life feel like eighty.

I shake my head at the thought of all the possessions and security I wrapped around my miserable life. One day I stood in my living room waiting for my mother’s latest purchase to be delivered. The notion overpowered me – what the hell do I need with a $400 end table?  And for that matter, what do I need with any of this? The thought spread like wildfire throughout my house, claiming possession by possession.  Like a madman I ranted at each unnecessary object, blaming them for my unhappiness.  Mentally I began making notes, assigning item after item to the same fate – time for you to go.  Each room I pictured empty, free of the excess controlling my life. And, once done, I collapsed in exhaustion, reality finally reaching me. It wasn’t the things that needed to go, it was me.

The seed of Argentina was within me then, given to me by some long lost magazine article I saw years ago. I never read the story, only looked at the pictures of the people along the beaches, glistening bodies with sunscreen and bits of sand along bare legs. Villages with brightly dressed women dancing during festivals; the crowd happy and laughing in the celebration. The nightlife in Buenos   Aires, with young and old people moving to an imagined Latin beat in a steamy bar. The pictures flooded my mind, opening up new ideas, new possibilities.

“Why not?” I thought, rising from my overstuffed lounge chair.  Standing in my perfect living room, I committed myself to life on the edge, traveling, exploring, throwing out the mundane.  No logic, no emotional pleas would ever be strong enough to stop me.  Deep into that very night, I planned my escape.

Laying now by some Argentina road, without a ride in sight, some, especially my mother, would call my life hell now. “From the frying pan, into the deep of the fire,” would be her expression.  It wasn’t easy telling my mother. The pleas, the anger, all running the full gambit before her resignation came. I smile within knowing that from her resignation will come new plans, new attacks to get me home. She can’t help it, I know she can’t. Casting us to play tug of war with my life, her life. As I lay peacefully in this field, I am sure she is recruiting one of the many relatives in our town to air a story laced with guilt designed to get me back.

What is my life now without my home, without my things?  Well, there is the freedom. I go place to place, travel with people or alone. I realize now how little I need to be happy. Festival to festival I wander, catching the dancing and the drinking. Young people, old people, adopt me in for an hour, a day. And if I am particularly lucky, a lovely young woman with fire in her body will be an intimate companion stretching a pleasurable day to a night of endless love.

Life opens up for me daily. I’m ready for a chance meeting, or the next place to go. When I first flew to Argentina, it was my only goal. Go and see the country. As the months went on, the idea of hitchhiking up through South America to Mexico formed. Who knows, perhaps there is a second or even third dream evolving at this precise moment that will hijack my life into a totally new direction.

The sound of cars now traveling on the narrow highway wakes me from my thoughts of adventure. I gather my things, all of which fit neatly on my back, and move to the main road. I skip a step getting into the rhythm of my hitchhiking, my thumb out signaling my desire to get picked up. A first car passes, then a second. No worries. It is only a matter of time before the right car, the right person or family, will offer a lift to their village. And if I’m particularly lucky, a glass of Malbec will be in my hand before the sun sets.

copyright DElarde 2012

When voices come from God, do they come in whispers… The Journey

I will remember them as the quiet days after it happened. The days when everyone and everything around me moved at a manic speed, in distorted time. In me lived only the quiet. I watched them all – my sons, their wives and my grandchildren- flittering around me, first one then another, sometimes several. My life now at a distance, removed from them, in a new dimension. Grief. Grief had silence me, took away my purpose, my being. Such grief, beyond what I thought possible. They fussed over me, brought me items.  Food, clothes, things I didn’t want, didn’t understand why I needed them, why they insisted.  I longed for sleep, for sleep next to my lost love, my husband, my friend. Longed for sleep, to finally wake next to him, with him. Sleep so this would all be a dream, the most horrible of dreams.

The days didn’t stop. The sun came out, its bright rays in my kitchen windows.  I thought the days should stop. How could they continue to move on? Twenty-four hours, forty-eight hours, a week, a month.  Still I waited for him, for a sign, for a touch.  Waited in my time, my reality.  That which always gave me comfort now felt foreign. I held the Book, our most cherished Book. But the words could not reach me, heal me.  It remained flat, unopened on my lap. What new chapter was I yet to find that would end the awful quiet, bring me peace?

I see the concern in their faces, the faces of my adult fatherless children.  Would they lose their mother too, they question.  Would they see me slip away, into the land of spirit, far from the Earth that holds them? The small ones, the ones with eyes like their grandfather, call me back, remind me I am in the living, I am still here. They climb onto my lap, playing with the buttons on my blouse, connecting themselves, connecting me.

I rock them, or maybe I rock me.  I sit within their comfort, their smells of life, hiding my tears within the strands of their hair.  So little, so wise, knowing what I need, following their angels to provide for me.

I don’t know what day I discovered the scream within. How many days or nights had passed before I heard it? It pounded in my ears. Rebellious. Angry. Defiant.  I couldn’t understand why others didn’t hear it. How they could move around me, collectively talking, laughing and not hear the scream?  It seared my soul, it brought to me more anger than I could carry.  It took my breath away. There were times I prayed  it would take my life. Then I could follow my love to where he was.  But it did not have the power of life, the power of death. It only had my anger. I walked the world through my anger, my scream.  So unfair, not right. Thirty-eight years I had my bliss, my love.  Why not now?  What was the plan I asked my God, what was the plan?

When voices come from God, do they come in whispers?  Do they come quiet, yet powerful in their message and tones?  “This way to life they say”, they lead. “This way back to you, to Him”. 

I don’t know who brought me our wedding picture.  Which small hands passed the picture to me while they all hovered over me.

“Here, this is for you”, I remember the words, not the sayer, not the messenger.  I look into the eyes of the young people in the picture – the bride, the groom, so many years ago. The light in their faces – the mission, the dedication to love, to each other, to the world.  We never faltered from that.  In all the years, our love never faltered

I took the picture that night and held it close, trying to remember how love felt, how it was around me. I carefully set the picture on the dresser, lighting candles around it.  I laid on the bed, our bed, watching the flames dance around the glass, shining light on me, on him.  Each glimmer a hope, a prayer.  Peace came to me in my meditation, in my quiet.  My tired body craved sleep, rest.  I rose and blew out the candles, touching the picture, my love, one more time.  I returned to our bed and drifted far from the world; drifted in time, in space, in memory of all that had been, on wings, on clouds in such peace.  Blessed restful sleep.

In the morning, my eyes and my mind hazy from such a deep sleep, I looked to the picture, the memorial I had built.  Candle light, I saw candle light.  No, I thought, how can it be?  I recalled my goodnights hours ago, my blowing out of the candles and my final touch to the cherished picture frame.  But it was candle light I saw now.  I sat up in my bed, clearing my head, my mind.  Three candles were lit, were bright lights still burning around him, around me.  I sat watching their light, in my quiet, in my wonder.

I don’t know what love looks like when it passes from this earth to spirit.  I certainly don’t know how it feels.  Not yet…my journey of grief is in its infant stage.  But I now believe the light is bright, it is guided.  And it remembered love.

DElarde,copyright2012

And so it was with the garden hose, a life in the past, a life that never will be again…The Garden Hose Made me Cry

And Then the Garden Hose Made Me Cry

I was fine for the walk through the town of Plymouth in the later hours of the afternoon.  Enjoying the window shopping, spotting a sweater perfect for my new slacks, and admiring the new pearl necklace featured at the jewelry store.  Brushing by the artistically laid out shop windows I made a mental note of things to return to look at.   The Brass Bed shop with a bed in the front window so comfortable and lush that surely you would peacefully rest for the remainder of your life here on Earth.  Deep pillows you fall into, taking away all the worries of the world, or maybe just a few negative thoughts.

By my walking standards the day was perfect.  No sweaty Michigan humidity, just lightly blowing wind circulating a cool breeze around my moving body.  My mood upbeat, loving the energy in the town around me.  I returned up Deer Street past some of my favorite houses happy to get back to our flat in the old Victorian house and start dinner with my husband.

And then the garden hose made me cry.

When I got to our house I noticed it had been moved to the opposite side of the house and connected to the faucet.  Through the fall and winter, the entire time after we moved here from Colorado, it had sat curled up next to the few outside items we couldn’t get into the garage.  Not the best choice for it during the long winter months.  Yet neither my husband nor I had moved it.  The plan was to throw it out.  It never should have made the journey across the country with the few items we deemed worthy to save.

Every so often when the snow melted I would think I need to move this.   But I never did, waiting for spring to clear it from our lives.

The minute I saw it curled up nicely on the other side of the house, connected, most likely used by the neighbor we share our duplex with, grief hit me.  It hit hard, overwhelming my emotions. Tears welled up in my eyes, my heart, and by the time I climbed the stairs and entered the living room, they rolled down my checks in long heavy streaks.  My husband greeted me and saw my tear-stained face and between my sobs quickly sat me down.  The words wouldn’t come.  I could not express to him why the tears.  I felt stupid, foolish that such an item would cause such upset.  After all I have put him through with the move back to Michigan to help my family, how do I tell him what made me cry? I stammered a few hesitant words, he caught the word hose, and more crying.  He was more perplexed than concerned, his eyes darting back and forth in an attempt to understand.

Finally the words formed in my mouth.  “The garden hose made me cry,” I sobbed, hands wiping tears away.

He sat back into the couch, evaluating, pondering, waiting for the right words, any words to say to this.

“Sounds like a title for one of your stories,” is what he comes up with. Smiling at me, his arm around my shoulder bringing me closer to him.

“The people downstairs used it for something,” I tell him looking down at my hands in my lap.

“Actually, I used it yesterday to clear the air conditioner” he tells me.  “It was loaded with leaves and debris and I needed the hose to clean it. And what if the neighbor had used it?” he questions.

“It just felt like a loss, something else moving on, another piece of our old life that we had to leave behind, that we should never have left behind. Someone else making use of what we abandoned when we moved away from our old life,” I tell him.

I can’t help but to smile a weak smile, feeling more foolish and childish than ever.  Will the tears never stop?  Will there come a day after all these life changes that only peace and happiness will exist within me?

“It was one more straw, as small as it seems.”

“Just like the wagon,” he reminds me.

“Oh yeah, the wagon” I say quietly, closing my eyes, my mind going back through the years.

The Red Ryder metal wagon that a cousin had given my daughter for her first birthday.  That wagon went everywhere, not just with her, but eventually with my son too.  Many joyful outings with the wagon, it being such an important part of their play.  Moving things through the yard, hauling goodies to the park.  Then for years it sat dormant in the garage.  No longer a part of their lives.  We started to use it to haul out the trash.  Piling items on it and taking them to the curb.  One day the wagon stayed at the curb with the garbage upon it.  I passed it as I drove out of the garage that day, and thought maybe in the future we shouldn’t do this.  But there was no more future for the little red wagon. When I returned home that night, it was gone. Taken by the garbage people, or hopefully some neighborhood child that saw its value.

When I realized it was gone, I cried, long stupid tears.  Tears that I couldn’t even begin to understand.  Tears for what had been, and never will be again.

And so it was with the garden hose, a life in the past, a life that never will be again.

I give my husband a smirky grin, realizing my ties to the past keep me from moving forward.  They keep me in days that were.  I can’t help but miss what was in my life before.  I just haven’t reconciled the losses with what may be gained.  It is more MY life now, than it had been for twenty-some years.  But maybe I really liked the structure of the days before.  The days when my children’s purpose had to be my own. The structure that necessity brought into my life.  A life of “should-do’s” and “had-to’s” and  “must-do’s”.  Where are those days now?    How do I get them back?  Do I even want them back?

I know the answers aren’t coming today.  I know things get better with time, but I still miss the life I left.  It is those old days that hold me and until I make the move here completely – in mind, heart and soul – I’ll be avoiding the hose.

copyrightDElarde2012

It had never been my plan to compete with men; I only wanted a job, a place to work, some fun… But life had its own story for me…

Life’s Story

 “Hmmm, he’s walking this way. Get ready,” I tell myself, perking up my breasts and extending myself so my posture is straight. I slow my pace, swaying my hips just so. He is younger than me, but then most of men I go for are. That doesn’t mean I can’t attract them, because I can. They all love the fun blond and I can still be fun.

“Have a light?” I ask, leaning my breasts toward him the cigarette in my pouty red lips.He doesn’t bother to respond, just pivots around me not even a second look.

“Oh well,” I laugh to myself, “probably next time.” I drop the sway and continue across the Home Depot parking lot, buying a coke from the vendor in front of the store. It was then I saw her sitting at the picnic table right by the entrance. I knew from her face she had seen the encounter, the attempted pick up. I walked over to the table swinging my long legs over the bench. Lighting a cigarette, I took a long drag.

“Nice try,” she says to me with a small laugh, bringing her arms to the table she placed her chin between her interlocking fingers.

“Well you can’t hold it against me,” I tell her.  Not that I care what she thinks. “You’re probably doing the same thing I am, looking for men.”

“Well, I’m married,” she laughed back, taking her left hand away from her face and flashing a ring at me. “I just didn’t feel like walking the aisles of the store with my husband.”

“Ah men, you want them for sex, for love and if you are very lucky you get one for both,” giving her my favorite insight into life.

I had a husband, a good man once,” I continue. “But it didn’t last, mostly because of me. It didn’t matter to me if he came or went. It was the 60’s and it was free love for everyone,” I tell her waving my hands in the air. “That was the time. No fear of pregnancy, no AIDS, just a lot of sex. And I was in the thick of it. Why pass anyone by was my philosophy.”

“I was only 12 in the sixties, a bit young for all of that,” she tells me.  I listen to her voice trying to hear attitude before I talk more. I don’t bother with the uptight people who think they have the right to judge me. But she showed no signs of that so I kept talking

“It took me a while to realize what his leaving cost me. What I lost. I had to go to work, support myself, hard to do without skills and barely making it through high school. A job came up on the line at Motorola so I took it. I put in one screw at a time. Boring, boring work, but I was good at it. Accurate. Fast. Within the year the foreman called me in, told me they were promoting me.”

“Well that must have been good,” she says sitting herself up straight now, hands by her sides.

“You have to understand how it was,” I tell her pointing my cigarette in her directions. “There were women’s jobs, there were men’s. The women’s pay scale was from levels 1 to 7; men’s from 8 to 14. No union, no equal pay for equal work. That’s why when the foreman gave me the promotion to a man’s job I was shocked. He laughed at me when saw the look on my face, he knew the pay I was expecting.

“No,” he said shaking his head making his point clear. “Your pay scale rises from a 3 to a 5, no more. Take it or get your last paycheck from personnel.”

“That wasn’t fair!,” she proclaims, leaning herself closer and waving away my cigarette smoke with her hand.

“Unfair was what I wanted to scream back to him. I’m doing a man’s job.”  I emphasized to her pointing my free hand to my chest. “But I said nothing. It was more money and far less boring work. And with unemployment the only alterative I had to take it to eat. I just never thought of the problems it would cause. It didn’t take long before my promotion was through the ranks, through the factory. The women, even my friends, were the first to stop talking to me. They’d brush right by me in the bathroom and say nothing.  Acted like I wasn’t even there.”

“God, that  must have been hard to take,” she added shaking her head.

“Their anger didn’t match the fury of the men. I had taken a job that belonged to one of them. Because of me a man was out of work. And, of course, they all assumed they knew how I got the job, how many times I had laid on my back to convince the foreman. Even though I minded myself at work, never slept with any of the men, I became an open target. If I had done it for the foreman, they figured I could do for them. Given the chance they’d grab at me. Forcing my hand down on their body, proving to me what they had to offer. Despite my love of sex, there was something so dark, so degrading in their actions I became afraid, fearing not only the men at work, but all men.”

“What did you do?  Couldn’t you have gone to the HR department? Wasn’t that illegal?”  reflecting her ignorance of how it was back then.

The shadow days were flooding back on me as I spoke, but I kept going, kept forcing the words out. “The job, the money, I needed it. I tried to keep on showing up, but drinking took over at night. Mostly alone at my house; I didn’t want to be around men in bars anymore. Increasingly the bottle kept the nervousness away, or at least numbed it for me. Then came the days when I was late for work or didn’t show up at all. Finally, the foreman’s anger.  I was so relieved the day he fired me, but scared too.I stayed in bed for weeks afterwards. If I could of, I never would have left my apartment again. I no had husband, no job, no way to take care of myself and the drink was all I wanted. It took nearly two years for me to pull myself out of the bottle, even more years to get myself together to ever want a man again.”

“Sounds awful” she tell me.

I look at her face fully, her eyes holding more pity than blame. I didn’t tell her how bad it truly got. No use to go there; living it once was enough. She listened more intently than anyone else ever had and I was grateful. It was good to finally let my story out, tell it my way.

I finished, adding, “It had never been my plan to compete with men; I only wanted a job, a place to work, some fun out of it all. But life had its own story for me. And I guess a price it figured I owed.

Life has its own story for you too,” I tell her standing, shaking my cigarette at her. “And if your husband is a good man, go inside the store next time, walk with him. Keep him close.”

She nodded at me, I knew she heard. Standing up I took one more drag, inhaling deeply to get the moment of satisfaction. My story’s done now; my life what it will be. Dropping the cigarette to the ground I grind it out with my toe.

Then I see him, a man leaving the store pushing a cart with men things through the parking lot. I raise my closest shoulder at her. “Maybe,” I say as I hustle myself up. Swaying my hips in rhythm I start the walk towards him.

delarde copyright2012

Sidelines can hold so much more than we understand, a powerful place, a damaging place…..

The Sidelines

 By Diana Elarde

“I don’t understand the interest in this sport,” he said.

I looked up from my book to see an elderly man, probably in his eighties. It was a Saturday morning, a soccer Saturday and like many of the other parents I sat in my folding chair waiting for the game to start. I had never seen this man before and I didn’t know how he was connected or if he belonged with a player. Probably somebody’s grandfather here for a visit was my thought.

He stood to my side talking, his eyes never leaving the field where the boys were warming up. Despite his advance age he still held himself very straight extending his tall frame over me. He reminded me of someone who had done outside labor most of their life.

“We only played football,” he continued. “This is some type of foreign sport, isn’t it?” he asked, but never waited for the answer. “I was the quarterback at my high school. And I was good.  Yup, top in the state. Could have picked the college of my choice.”

He stopped for a moment, still staring at the field, his thoughts a lifetime away. I was there, still sitting beside him, not understanding why I was selected for this story, just knowing I was.

“My dad, he never came,” he started again. “Never watched me play, never saw me win, until my last game. Four years was a long time to wait. Four years of the town bragging about me, slapping me on my back, telling me I was great.”

His head was down now, his shoulders slumped. “My last game, he came. Finally he came. And after, after our win…” He stopped, his lower lip extended, his voice now filled with defiance and hurt. “He asked me what I had been playing on the field, because it looked pretty lousy to him. Nothing like football.”

“That was it!” he raged flinging his arms forward and then wide. He further extended his frame and raising his voice said, “I never played again. Never took the college scholarship. Never!”

He walked away leaving his words and his dark emotions behind. No introduction, no other comments. It was like those words came out after a long lifetime of silences and he no longer wanted ownership of them. Once said, they were given; they were purged, left for me to think about, to deal with and sort through.

Sixty some years is a long time to keep and nurse pain. Despite all the encouragement from coaches, towns people, potential colleges, the only voice this man kept was his father’s.

How can it be one person in our life can have so much power?  Why is it that he chose to dismiss all the good words and absorb the few negative ones?

I looked out to the field where my son’s team is now practicing. I think about how season after season some of his teammates have no parents on the sidelines. No one to hug or encourage them through their wins, mistakes or even the hard losses.

How do you help a child to understand the empty space, the missing parent, has nothing to do with them?  Can this empty space on the sideline become less powerful?

And then there is the issue of the abusive parent along the sidelines. The parent flushed with frustration sending those negative words to their child, the team and even the referees. The words – it’s only a game never rescinding, each move on the field seen through critical eyes.

The game begins and some of the parents and I walk along the sidelines sending words of encouragement. We laugh at some of the plays and cheer when a goal is made.  Encouraging those team members who play with heart all through the game, despite the score.

This Saturday’s game ends in defeat. Heads are bowed, the players return to their families for hugs and encouragements. Today there is an unknown and loud voice, a condemning voice. I turn to see who is talking with such anger and force, hearing the words before I see him.

“What was that you did on the field?” he screamed. “You looked like a bum out there. Is that what you call playing soccer?”

I look at my son’s teammate embarrassed, trying hard to hold back his tears. I place my arm around my son and move him closer to me, trying to shield him from the worded assault. The man, the unknown grandfather, my sideline storyteller, is the source of this barrage.

My face holds an incredulous look as he catches us approaching him. His words stop, frozen in rage he stares at me. I am the one who knows his history, his locked up pain. In his anger, his hand flies up swatting in the air, trying to dismiss me, motioning me to go away. Hard defiance over takes him and looking back at his grandson before he walks away he announces, “I’m not coming to see you anymore. It isn’t worth my time.”

And then the scene melts, people disperse shaking their heads, trying to understand his behavior. I turn and walk with my son in our silence back to our car feeling helpless about the scene just witnessed. Why didn’t the grandfather know the harsh words were wrong? How could he not recognize the pain he caused; pain not just for that moment but for a lifetime?  Were they still, after all this these years, the only words he knew?

Sidelines can hold so much more than we understand. They can be a powerful place to motivate players to a lifetime of successes. They can be so damaging when families rage their own pain at players and referees. Those negative words continuing the pain cycle; so hard to stop, to control, and sometimes, even impossible to recognize. And for others, the sidelines can be an empty space, a silent place without encouragement and support creating a life buried deep inside waiting for the day when someone will listen.

copyright2012,DElarde