My Appalachia

by Sidney Saylor Farr

  Grant gradually grew reluctant to go out socially. I was keenly disappointed, because in the isolated years of my first marriage I had day-dreamed about going to parties and celebrations. I had put on weight, and I suspected that Grant was no longer as proud of the way I looked as he had been when we first got married.

  Again I was repeating behavior from my first marriage. While I was married to Leon, sex was a chore, and my only comfort seemed to come from eating foods I loved. Now, with Grant and me having less sex than we’d had earlier in our marriage, I repeated the pattern. I sublimated my desire for sex into love of food. The more distant my husband became, the heavier I got.

  We never talked about what was wrong. Grant said later that he didn’t like to bring up unpleasant topics because he didn’t want to hurt me. I did not bring them up because I was afraid of what he might tell me.

  Before Grant and I were married we promised each other we would always be open and honest about everything that pertained to us as a couple. We promised to give each other freedom to be who we were and to express ourselves as we saw fit. Grant kept his promise all the way. He gave me freedom to be myself. He always encouraged me to be the best that I could be. He was never jealous or possessive in any way.

  I could not give Grant the same freedom that he gave me. My heart implored, “Just let me be with you whatever you do, wherever you go.”

  Now I can see how I must have made Grant feel trapped. After the romance died in our marriage, I grew more afraid of losing him. I knew he was unhappy, but I could not seem to do anything about it. At this point we seldom did anything together just for fun. Grant was busy teaching piano and doing school counseling, and I worked full-time in the college library and wrote in my spare time.

  While we still lived in Asheville, we began reading books about Edgar Cayce by Ruth Montgomery and Jane Roberts. For both Grant and me, the idea of reincarnation seemed to ring with truth. I knew Grant well enough by this time to believe that no one would ever choose to be homosexual. Perhaps, I thought, in many of his previous lifetimes he had been a woman.

  When Grant and I moved back to Berea, we kept on reading all that we could find on the subject of past lives and other aspects of what was just beginning to be called the New Age genre. We met Phyllis Henson, who was also a seeker. With a friend of Phyllis’s, Grant, Phyllis, and I began to have a meditation session once each week at our house. Our goal was to learn how to meditate and grow in spiritual truth. We felt that we were making progress, and the meditation sessions continued. Our small group grew to half a dozen people.

  Then, in November 1984, Grant told me he wanted a separation. He told me he had met a man named Jack, who lived in Oregon. Jack owned an antiques shop and wanted to hire Grant to work in the shop. Grant informed me that he had plane reservations for December 4.

  For the past three years Grant had been corresponding with several men he found on a “Brotherhood” listing—a network of gay men. I found this threatening—not just that he was in touch with people I didn’t know, but that it was all gay men. Grant had met Jack through this network.

  Grant and I had already made plans to spend Thanksgiving with Grant’s Uncle Haywood and Aunt Kate in Swannanoa, North Carolina. The coming separation loomed over us during the drive to Swannanoa. Before we arrived, I developed a bronchial congestion and felt utterly miserable.

  On Sunday morning of Thanksgiving weekend, while we were in North Carolina, a telephone call came for me. My sister Hazel, in Indianapolis, had suffered a massive stroke and was not expected to live. The family wanted me to come to Indianapolis as quickly as I could. Grant and I hurriedly took leave of the Farrs. We stopped at our house in Berea, packed some suitable clothes, and were on our way again. It was the saddest time for both of us. At the hospital we were told that Hazel had died an hour before we got there. We stayed with my sister Sharon Rose and her husband, Joe, until after Hazel’s funeral.

  At the funeral home, my son Wayne, who was by then divorced, came in with his three sons, Richard, Jason, and Justin. Wayne looked terrible. He had been working outside and his hands were raw in places from exposure to the cold. Grant told Wayne that he was leaving home and asked Wayne to come to Berea and stay with me for awhile. Wayne agreed. I was glad that Wayne was coming to be with me.

  Bruce had graduated from Berea College in the spring of 1984 and had applied for and been accepted in a work-study program in London, England. He had left in September. He wrote occasionally, describing his job and London.

  The first Saturday after Grant left was a bad day for me. The snow and ice kept me home. I thought I’d die being there alone, remembering other Saturdays and other weekends.

  Wayne arrived from Indianapolis around 6:00 P.M. a week later. We spent Sunday at Pineville Hospital. Mama, who had been in intensive care for congestive heart failure, was now out of intensive care and in a private room.

  We stayed with Mama until noon and then drove to Stoney Fork to have dinner with my sister Della. She was not yet home from church, but her daughter Linda was. She and I had dinner on the table when Della got home.

  Then Wayne and I returned to Berea, and I immediately started the laundry. Six loads! It took me until eleven that night to get it done. I couldn’t sit still anyway; I needed to keep busy.

  On December 19, a letter came from Grant. “Mostly,” he wrote, “I feel a sense of separation (not loss) from so much that I love—you, friends, Taylor [our pet dog]. I know this sounds terrible, but in a way Taylor is the most painful of all—for two reasons: (1) There was no way to explain my leaving to him. (2) I foolishly didn’t allow myself to say good-bye to him; I couldn’t handle it and saying good-bye to you, too.”

  Grant sent me an antique cobalt blue vase for Christmas. It is unsigned, so the maker and date are unknown, but its shape and pattern date it before 1940, he said. It was a very expensive piece. He wrote, “The vase has wonderful vibrations and I want you to have it.”

  He went on to write that he wanted to come home, but he had unresolved questions. “What did you do to me? What did I let you do to me? What did I do to you? Most of all, what specifically do I want to be different? What do you want to be different?”

  I knew when I married Grant that he was bisexual, but I believed, albeit so naïvely, that our love for each other was so profound and true that he would never need/love/fear/require another man. From the start he encouraged me to make friends and have a life of my own apart from him. Grant said to me on more than one occasion, “If you see somebody that you find attractive, feel free to go to bed with him if you want. It won’t bother me a bit.” That hurt, of course. I wanted it to bother him.

  After our relationship became strained, Grant turned more to friendship with other men in Berea, and began corresponding with still others. Every letter that came for him was a threat to me.

  I believed that Grant was being unfaithful. As ardent as he had been when we first married, I knew his sexuality had not died. I raged at the thought that he could be satisfied sexually while leaving me to do without. But I never once considered someone else or was attracted to another man while I was married to Grant.

  During those fifteen years of marriage, when Grant told me almost daily that he loved me, I believed him. I gained a lot of weight during those years. Not only did I use food as a substitute for sex; I rationalized my overeating by telling myself that if I were fat, I would be unattractive to other men. It was a coward’s way of not facing facts. I got to eat what I craved and irrationally justified it as saving my marriage.

  I decided to go to London and spend Christmas with Bruce. I asked Wayne what he thought of the idea; he said, “Go for it!” Brother Jeems, Della, and Linda also encouraged me to go. Even Mama didn’t protest, as I thought she would. She did say she’d worry about me; I told her that I would probably be as safe in London with Bruce as in my own home, where I could fall down the stairs or suffer some other misfortune.

  My first trip overseas! I am so gl
ad that I had the courage to go, even having to borrow money to do it. The next chapter gives details of my trip to England that Christmas of 1984.

  Berea in January 1985, when I returned, was filled with snow and ice. Wayne wanted to go to Indianapolis to see his boys. But we had to wait for the weather to moderate. Little Taylor, our dog, was so happy when I got home. I know he felt that Grant and I both had abandoned him.

  Some days and evenings that winter I was fine; other times I felt as if the very core of my existence had been taken away. At those times I would take a tranquilizer and try to work hard at chores to keep busy, directing my frustrations toward the task I was doing. Or I would spend time on things I enjoyed, anything to keep busy and try to find meaning in my existence.

  Wayne and I finally got to Indianapolis at the end of February, and then Wayne brought his boys back with us to Berea for a visit. I loved having my grandsons around. When it was time to take them back home, Richard begged to stay with his dad. Marilyn, his mother, agreed, so my grandson lived with me that winter, until Wayne got an apartment of his own.

  On February 26, 1985, Grant wrote:

  From November until now has been very difficult. So often I want to return home, and I only want to live with you—usually. Returning to live alone is sometimes appealing, but not usually ... I can’t really imagine living in Berea and not living with you. You are still such a vital part of my life. You are on my mind more often than you probably imagine.

  Hopefully, if we do decide to try it again, we will be more appreciative of each other. I’m sure there were times when you would have liked for me to say I appreciated you and felt that I took you for granted. And I know I felt taken for granted often . . .

  I... feel we are still married in the spiritual sense. I sometimes think we could never divorce spiritually because what we’ve shared and felt has indeed been very special.

  During this time I recorded many reflections in my journal. In every human heart, I wrote, there is a book of truth, bound with worn-out strings and shredded ties. I think for me, the truth in my heart—my identity—is bound with strong fiber and tied with steel bands.

  If I could make my body transparent and be able to gaze into an X-ray mirror, what would I see? Would I see an actress with her powdered face and rouged cheeks imitating beauty or ugliness, whichever the script calls for at that moment? Would I see an ugly form made of clay that is still malleable, still waiting for the master artist to complete his work? Or would I see a butterfly that has emerged from its cocoon only to find itself in a steel cage?

  Other people tell me who I am, but after they leave their words fade and I still don’t know. They praise the writing I do; but I look at it and know there are thousands in the world who could do it better than me. Somehow my mind and heart cannot hold the image of my reality.

  Whether my time is long or short, and whether my being is broad or narrow, I must find my reality. I must take the chance of losing everything I now value in that search.

  If I were a furnace, I wouldn’t be afraid to melt fine gold or rough rocks or rusty iron. If I were a river, I wouldn’t be concerned about the streamlets and muddy brooks that mingle here and there with me. I would only be concerned with my journey to the sea. So why should I be afraid to start this journey? Is it because I have to be so painstaking and conscientious about everything? (These may be virtues, but they certainly have not eased my mind or delighted my heart.) Why should these things stand in my way?

  It’s taken me a long time to find out what love for other people is all about. Now I’ve got to find some way to love myself.

  This journey may bring death to many parts of the person that I am. I may have to be pulled, screaming, out of my shell. There may have to be fire and smoke and pain. It hurts to part with illusions, the old security of acting like a chameleon, taking on the virtues or the vices attributed to me by others.

  One song the singers knew a long time ago was about valleys lifted up and hills made low—death at the heart of life and life in the midst of death. I may have to walk this valley, at least part of the way, to find what I must, and I have to walk it alone, because no one can go with me—not even Grant.

  Who am I? I alone must decide this on the evidence I see and feel. Do I speak the truth? What is the truth? I’ve run the highways and the long corridors so long I’ve forgotten how to stop and look for truth about myself anymore.

  So I speak of a journey—and yet part of it will be a journey standing still. I have read that only lonely people know freedom, that it’s better to be on the outside in the dark and be free than to be in a gilded cage, looking beyond the bars.

  But in the dark outside—if that is where I must go—where can I find the wind that blows and the new waves forming on sands of time I’ve never seen and don’t know how to find? How can I hear a different drummer drumming somewhere—if that drummer exists? How can I find my true identity—if it’s there? I believe it is there, behind that door or in the next room—but I have lost the key.

  To find the key I may have to walk backward with bleeding feet and a troubled mind to the time in my childhood when in innocence I lost the key. Perhaps I just mislaid it. Perhaps if I go backward in faith even though it is a tortuous journey, a hand will guide me to the place where I left it. And I can unlock the door and be free! Oh, to know who I really am, to tread on the razor’s edge for a while, to savor being free—the greatest gift God could give me.

  GRANT DECIDED TO COME BACK in March. Bruce also came home from England and got a job at a motel in town. He did not think I should let Grant come back. There was tension between the two of them, but Bruce worked nights and weekends at the motel, and the three of us managed to live together.

  My revived relationship with Grant was slow at first; I resented that he had gone away, resented all the pain and anguish his leaving had caused, lived with thoughts of his infidelities, wondering about the possibility that he would be unfaithful to me now, in Berea. Gradually we got to a place where we could make love again, but not very often.

  At last 1985 drew to a close. Grant and I were invited to a New Year’s Eve party at our neighbor’s house. At that party we met a young man named Caleb. Little did I know how much meeting him would change our lives.

  Grant had come back from Oregon with a real love for antiques. He decided to rent a booth in an antiques mall just down the road past a ceramics studio that Caleb owned. Grant began stopping often to chat with Caleb. Later in the spring Grant and I opened our own antiques shop on Short Street. During 1986, I began to notice how often Caleb’s truck was parked on the street in front of our shop, and how often Grant’s car was parked in front of Caleb’s studio. If I said anything about it, Grant was immediately defensive, saying that I didn’t want him to have any friends, that I was trying to control his life.

  On December 12, 1986, I wrote in my journal:

  I keep looking for perspective and mostly find narrow frames of the here and the now.

  The wind is blowing . . .

  The winds pass, and something speaks to the souls of men. It is not required of us that we succeed, only that we be faithful to the highest goal in us.

  The wind flows through the trees with the sound of water. I must be the wind, listen to the message of the wind ... fly with the wind.

  I knew Grant would go on spending time with Caleb. But I was determined to trust his sense of fair play, to believe he’d spend some of his quality time with me.

  I decided to concentrate on change for myself. It was not too late to change the way I looked and felt.

  As I concentrated on me, I tried to release Grant. I decided not to make any demands on him outside of the everyday, routine responsibilities of day-to-day living. I knew I had to get on with my life. What I had feared for the last ten years of our marriage had come to pass: Grant had found that another component of his love needed fulfillment. And he had found someone who could fulfill and satisfy him, someone who made his life richer and
fuller in every respect.

  In December 1986, my mother died. She had been ill with congestive heart failure for several years. Grant came down with a bad cold the weekend she died. He said he just did not feel like going with me to Stoney Fork. I understood, but at the same time I could not help thinking of how I had stood by him when each of his parents died. I did not admit it at the time of Mama’s death, but I was hurt and angry that Grant made no effort to be with me. I imagined he would spend time with Caleb while I was at the funeral.

  Every day I prayed that God would take away the anger and bitterness in my heart. Why should I seek to destroy every good memory and replace it with hate and bitterness? I asked the universe. If Grant were forced to choose between Caleb and me, I knew that I would not be the chosen one.

  On March 15, 1987, Grant moved into an apartment with Caleb—one street over from where I lived. When I drove to work I passed the end of their short street and always saw their two vehicles parked side by side. I would feel such a wave of anger it would take an hour or so at work to cool down.

  At the beginning of that year, I had joined a diet center, which required my going to the center every morning to be weighed. I believe that daily routine saved my sanity.

  In April of that year, the Berea Community Players cast a play entitled The Octette Bridge Club, about eight sisters. I auditioned and was cast as one of the sisters. Rehearsals and work kept me busy for weeks and I welcomed the activity.

  On April 23, I drove to London, Kentucky, to speak at a district meeting of Girl Scout leaders at Sue Bennett College. A good friend, Mary Carnes, went along with me. I enjoyed her company, and we had a great day. When we got back to Berea, Mary spent the evening with me; we watched television and talked.