Lost and Found

As Wade’s words began to sink in and I tried to process what I was feeling in between the gulps of grief and the reminiscences of our youth, I found myself feeling, then understanding, two different kinds of loss.

Putting myself in Wade’s head, I can imagine having a range of negative feelings, but with his repetition of my word “loyalty,” it seems to me that the predominant feeling must be betrayal, the feeling that Caesar feels, knives in his body as he turns to see his friend Brutus plunging his knife too — and the pain in his voice saying et tu, Brute?, not the pain of the knife inflicting mortal blows, but of the betrayal of a trusted friend, one who, in today’s lingo, was supposed to “have his back.” The loss Wade feels is permanent, painful, and personal, and it topples a fixed and happy memory of our relationship, sitting on his mind like a dark ink stain on the front of his Armani dress shirt. And I can relate to that, and am tempted to feel the same way about Wade’s rejection.

But I am also aware of a second type of loss, not one that falls into a nostalgia of the past, congealed in our minds like the Jello that remains uneaten at a dinner, where things are either quite right or are terribly wrong, but rather one that provides an occasion for possibility and promise, tinged with sadness but also pointing towards an integration of past, present, and future where we are whole and free from pain.

As a vision of this second type of loss began to materialize in my mind in the hours and days after Wade’s email rejection, I became aware of an accompanying soundtrack: the Grateful Dead’s “Cassidy,” in which the singer comes to grips with his friend’s death, recalling various epic deeds, but finally picturing his loss as a flock of birds that all take off simultaneously, each a particle of a larger flock. He ends the song by letting go, letting the spirit of his friend go:

Fare thee well now. Let your life proceed by its own design –
Nothing to tell now. Let the words be yours, I’m done with mine.

The Grateful Dead have lots of songs about letting go — “Bird Song,” “Box of Rain,” “Looks Like Rain,” “Black Peter,” “Brokedown Palace,” “He’s Gone,” and “Cassidy, to name just a few that come to mind. These songs always manage, beat or hippy-style, to spin their losses philosophically, as either the release from pain or the setting free of a spirit. In these songs, loss could be a death (of Cassidy, of Phil Lesh’s father, of an original band member nicknamed Pigpen) or a breakup of a lover, and the sense of both missing someone and of letting them go runs through their lyrics. The singer celebrates the loss even as he cries over the grief — we cannot hold someone against their will, and we cannot hold back their life’s journey to satisfy our sense of possession, grief, or anger. Our memories of the one we’ve lost serve as a meditative starting point, rather than an ending, and these Grateful Dead songs are the beautiful results of losses.

This philosophy feels a bit to me a bit like the end of Kerouac’s On The Road, a story of beat-generation writers and adventurers. And perhaps this is not surprising, for not only was Kerouac’s footloose roadster Dean Moriarty based on Neil Cassady (as Kerouac experienced him and wrote him), but Cassady’s death is also the inspiration for the Grateful Dead’s “Cassidy” song, and the vastness of the imagery is evident in both works.

On the last page of On The Road, the narrator recalls his friend Dean walking away from him, not looking back, and is propelled into a reflection on the vastness of America and its industrial and agricultural and natural wonders, his narrative point of view pulling upwards like a giant aerial camera shot in a movie.

Dean, ragged in a moth-eaten overcoat he brought especially for the freezing temperatures of the east, walked off alone, and the last I saw of him, he rounded the corner of Seventh Avenue, eyes on the street ahead, and bent to it again…. Old Dean’s gone, I thought, and out loud I said, “He’ll be all right.” And off we went to the sad and disinclined concert for which I had no stomach whatever and all the time I was thinking of Dean and how he got back on the train and rode over three thousand miles over that awful land and never knew why he had come anyway, except to see me.

So, in America when the sun goes down and I sit on the old broken-down river pier watching the long, long skies over New Jersey and sense all that raw land that rolls in one unbelievable huge bulge over to the West Coast, all that road going, and all the people dreaming in the immensity of it, and in Iowa I know by now that children must be crying in the land where the let the children cry, and tonight the stars’ll be out, and don’t you know that God is Pooh Bear? The evening star must be drooping and shedding her sparkler dims on the prairie, which is just before the coming of complete night that blesses the earth, darkens all rivers, cups the peaks and folds the final shore in, and nobody, nobody knows what’s going to happen to anybody besides the forlorn rags of growing old. I think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of Old Dean Moriarty the father we never found. I think of Dean Moriarty, I think of Dean Moriarty.

This cinematographer-philosopher’s vastness and the his recollection of Dean Moriarty — his loss of Dean as well as his vision of their adventures across America — are tied together in a mutual cause-and-effect relationship, for not only does the act of reflecting on Dean call to mind the immensity of the country, but thinking about the vastness of America also causes the narrator to think of Dean Moriarty. In other words, the loss isn’t a self-contained, festering sore, but rather it’s an expansive feedback loop that occasions philosophical grandeur.

Which, in my own grand stream of consciousness of loss, brings me once more to Walt Whitman, master of similar poetic techniques that tie together both the tiny and the vast. At the end of “Leaves of Grass,” the narrator bids the reader farewell and dissolves into the very landscape that has formed the fabric of the poem. This loss of the narrator is not to be mourned, but instead creates an opportunity for the reader to look everywhere for the poet — in the air, the dirt, the water, the rocks:

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering.

I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

The last scud of day holds back for me,
It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on shadow’d wilds,
It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.

I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,
I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.

Am I over-thinking this? Am I grasping for a more philosophical, expansive explanation of this loss than is called for? Perhaps. Perhaps it’s just a plain old rejection.

But my feelings are my own, and I own up to them, and I know that these feelings about Wade’s rejection do not necessarily have to involve despair or depression, and I believe that life’s downward twists have more meaning than simple explanations convey. Make no mistake, my sense of loss feels like a hole in my body filled with a stinging emptiness, but I think it also serves as a catalyst for reflection and understanding and hope.

Maybe the only thing that will come from my reflection is this essay. Maybe this experience will serve to keep me honest and educate me as to the likelihood of future acceptance and rejection. Or maybe these words will be diffused into the air and water and rocks and become part of the fabric of vast narratives.

And when you see the birds wheeling to the sunrise-orange sky at the beach, when you think of the small towns and universities and plains and mountains and islands and country roads and highways that have defined the geography of your life, when you contemplate the thousand tangles of fate and fortune that bring us together and split us asunder, when words fail you as you lie on your back in the grass, scanning the skies for the planets and stars and comets and satellites in the deepening dusk, perhaps you will catch yourself thinking of me and looking for me underfoot.

I will wait for you.

 

Cog and Re-cog

In his message to me, Wade writes, “I barely recognize you anymore.” Without going into his logic, or my loss, I would like to explore the word “recognize” because it contains assumptions about the world and about the speaker’s relationship to that world.

The root is gnoscere from Latin (and gno in Indo-European), which means “to know,” and is found in reconnaissance, reconnoiter, gnosticism, and other words that have to do with knowing or learning. So co-gnoscere would have the “co” for “with” or “together” and the “re” means this co-knowing takes place again. The way we’ve used words for the past hundred years makes it seem as if “cog” is somehow the root of this word, which isn’t really harmful because it also ties together the concept of cognition and mental processing.

The word comes from O.Fr., from L. recognoscere “acknowledge, recall to mind, know again, examine, certify,” from re- “again” + cognoscere “know” (from co- “with” + gnoscere “become acquainted;).

The list of definitions shows that the act involves knowing, accepting, approving, or admitting something or someone, often a thing or person that was known before.

1. To know to be something that has been perceived before: recognize a face.
2. To know or identify from past experience or knowledge: recognize hostility.
3. To perceive or show acceptance of the validity or reality of: recognizes the concerns of the tenants.
4. To show awareness of; approve of or appreciate: recognize services rendered.
5. To admit the acquaintance of, as by salutation: recognize an old friend with a cheerful greeting.

You can forget a face or a place, but the act of recognizing it involves an act of re-knowing it, and realizing that you do, in fact, know this place. The act of recognizing is active, requiring some amount of mental effort (or cognition) to place new information (odd face or place) into a context of prior knowledge, weaving the past and present into one reality, or recognition.

In other words, recognition isn’t a passive activity; the new information doesn’t recognize the passive you, but you and your mind have to do the activity to arrive at a re-cognition.

To return to Wade’s statement about barely recognizing me any more, his words suggest that he is able to weave the new Joyce information together with his long history with George, but just barely. The “barely” suggests a feat that’s achievable, but dangerous and extremely trying, and I picture Wade hanging from a ledge, and while it’s technically possible to pull himself up, it’s not worth the effort. Maybe it’s not a very long drop, or maybe his fingers are giving out, or maybe the goal of being safe on the ledge simply isn’t all that attractive any more.

In other words, I think he’s trying, but it sounds as if the effort is too much — the mental activity of making two very disparate sets of facts make once set of sense is overwhelming him, and his choice, sadly for me, is to give up on this work, perhaps taking the route of nostalgia and the safe, known, and unified past over the disjointed, dangerous, and confusing present.

And I don’t blame him. The struggle that he is abandoning sounds a lot like my own struggle to integrate my old ways, including retaining all that was good about me, with my new ways, new body, and new challenges. And believe me, I am struck by the very same thought Wade voices, that “I barely recognize myself these days,” but unlike Wade, I don’t have the leisure of turning away from the mental struggle to re-learn myself. The ledge on which I had been hanging jutted out over an abyss, and while it was tempting to let go, I felt (and continue to feel) that pulling myself up was worth it. It’s a struggle I undertake every day — I am in a constant process of self-re-cognizing, as I have to make sense of new relationships, feelings, physical sensations.

I have to share with you, dear readers, just how frightening and difficult this process can be. Sometimes I feel like a traveler in a strange land, yearning for the comforts of home — I barely know the language and the customs, and some days are downright alien. But some days (and increasingly, a lot of the time), I feel as if I do belong in this land, that I’m no longer a visitor, but perhaps a permanent alien who might some day feel like she was actually born here. This process of becoming familiar with my new self is the process of re-cognizing who I am, actively weaving together memories, thoughts, and habits from my past with the daily sensations of the present and the hoped-for citizenship of the future. It is not something that can be done passively — it takes work, persistence in the face of setbacks, and hope that the integration I seek will be recognizable to my self and to others.

Friendship, like recognition, takes work — active work — to nurture the ties, understand each other, and accept mutual changes. If we treat our friendships as passive, self-propelled relationships, we will arrive at a time where our friendships barely exist. If our friendships are worth having, it seems to me they’re also worth the work.

 

Wade Out

Not everything is a love fest, as my (terminal) correspondence with Wade indicates. You’ll recall I saw him the other day for lunch before my high school reunion. I had not heard from him, so I dropped him an email yesterday:

Hi, Wade ---

It was great to see you in Empire Falls the other day, and thanks for helping me get that red Dodge pickup from the airport to town (we'll see if they can fix the master electrical bus).

I saw Rob Peterson and Anna Cramer out at the ranch on Saturday afternoon, and Ann reported that you and she had talked at the country club and that Keith Cravat was apparently drunk and obnoxious (I suppose some things simply don't change).

Speaking of change, I know that we did not talk about me and my life transition, and perhaps it was because of having the kids in tow (which wasn't something I had planned -- Mary Jo was supposed to be in Empire Falls Thursday night and she was going to watch the kids while I did stuff in town, but she was delayed because of a medical exam).

Or maybe there was nothing to talk about -- I don't know. In any case, what you see is what you get with me, and aside from it being a bit odd (OK, even really, really odd), life is good and I feel like whole person for the first time in a very, very long time. I'm not sure what this is like to you --- whether you're pissed off or fearful or annoyed or confused or aghast or something entirely different --- and I guess it's none of my business except that I pledged loyalty to you a long time ago and attended your wedding and have always held you as my oldest and dearest friend, and the silence is perplexing. If there's something to be done, I'd like to know what it is.

Hope you're doing well and that your kids are getting all their ducks in a row for the upcoming school year.

Yours,
Joyce

To which he responded definitively this morning:

George:

You have gone somewhere I cannot go. I barely recognize you anymore and I have had a very difficult time with this situation. You talk about “loyalty” and you insist on some definite reply from me. Since you insist, I choose to reply No. I will talk over the phone or by email, but I cannot hang out. Remember, you insisted that I choose. I would not have wanted it this way. Everything was by your choice and upon your insistence, not mine. I did my best. That’s all that can be expected of me and that’s all that I can expect of myself.

Wade

I have gained much in transitioning, have benefited in a hundred ways since I fell into the deep despair almost 2 years ago. But there are also losses, perhaps not as many as I feared, and not as many as my friends feared, but they do exist, and they feel like enormous failures as they glow white hot with my fire of doubt and regret. Some things may never be recovered through personal atonement, and that hard realization makes me feel very vulnerable.

 

Sow and Reap

As you no doubt recall from my post a week ago, I was debating whether to attend official high school reunion activities in Empire Falls, but had been getting the hard sell from my friend Wade not to go and make a sensation of myself.

I was still undecided as the Friday of the reunion arrived and my long-planned lunch with Wade approached. I dressed conservatively, with conservative makeup and conservative jewelry, and drove to town with my boys to meet Wade at the old Pizza Hut where we had spend many high school evenings pondering life’s mysteries. He met us and we had a fine lunch, talking about everything in the whole wide world EXCEPT for the big topic, which we avoided completely. While his head didn’t explode, he didn’t seem to ever really relax, at least regarding me. After lunch, he helped me with getting my pickup, which is always parked at the little municipal airport for when I fly home, and ferrying it to the Dodge house for an annual inspection and a little electrical work — and as long as we were doing things like this, everything was great.

However, having exhausted all our “doing” things, and apparently not wanting to talk about the big topic, he said he needed to go get ready for tonight’s reunion get-together. I asked if he was swinging by my place the next day on his way out to a country barbecue, and he muttered that he might.

Back at the ranch, Mary Jo and I talked about the evening event, and ultimately decided to go on a really pleasant walk with the family out along the creek in the early evening. We talked and saw a deer jump out of a hidden spot and saw a porcupine and a couple of skunks and had a wonderful time together.

I spoke to my sister, who also told me that not everyone knew of my changes despite my believing it to be the case. In fact, she had just told a couple of my classmates that day at the post office. At this point, I decided not to go to any official events because I figured that coming to events and springing my news on people all at the same time was just not right. If the reunion had been 6 months later, or if I had transitioned a year earlier, I don’t think I would have had a problem.

But I was far from lonely. On Saturday, I hosted a couple of friends (Ann and Ron) at my house, friends I haven’t seen in quite a while, and it was fun to catch up on old friends and to hear about who they had seen at the reunion so far and who they were looking forward to seeing that evening.

Wade never showed.

Looking back, I know I was itching to go, probably to validate myself in my hometown, or maybe to make a point — and I also know I probably would have been all right, but I think Wade was probably right, as was Liz: that the interval between learning of the George-to-Joyce transformation and attending the high school reunion was too short (and for some people, non-existent), and my attendance might definitely have been sensational. However, I hope I hear from friends who learned of my situation at these events, and perhaps we can reconnect next time I’m home.

As for Wade, I feel like our relationship is like the light from a powerful flashlight that is pointed towards an object far off in the distance. There was a time when the light was blinding and warm and reassuring, and it was even pleasant and comforting in its moderate distance of marriage, kids, and career. But out here on the perimeter, far from the flashlight, the power is greatly diminished, cold like the stars or the Milky Way stretching across the sky from Sagittarius in the south to Cassiopeia in the north. It’s not gone, and may even flare back up like a nova, but my hope is as dim as this distant flashlight.