An Uncommon Bond

by jeff brown

  When I got home that day, she was gone. And so was all her stuff.

  There is no sound like the silence after your beloved flees. I suppose I should have been relieved that the little brat had left, but no such luck. I fell to the floor in a crumpled heap of anguish. Though I cried from a real place, I couldn’t escape the idea that all of these challenges were superfluous, as though there was some transcendent truth that superseded the silly details; as though we were just distracting from the heart of the matter, back and forth, to and fro, opening and retreating, loving and testing. Or was I just deluded, after all?

  I lay on the carpet all night, chilled to the bone. Had I not known better, I would have thought I’d contracted a virus. But it was far worse than that—a heart attack, a heart-ache of twin-flame proportions.

  What do you do when your heart walks out the door?

  Brace yourself.

  12

  Karmageddon

  I stumbled up with the sun to get ready for court. If ever there was a day to ask for an adjournment, it was today. But I had no shot at it—broken-heartedness doesn’t mean shit to a trial judge. The harshness of the world doesn’t end when we are torn to shreds.

  I stayed in the shower for a long time, hiding from the world, riddled with confusion: How could she do this to us? Who trashes this kind of a gift? The whole world longs for even a moment of great love. What fool runs from it?

  Baffled, I lay down in the tub, letting the steaming hot water crash down on my exhausted body. I wanted to curse her, but I was too tender to hate. My heart was blown wide open. It would take something much worse to shut it down. But what to do with this open heart now? Should I surrender to her choice, or chase her down?

  On the way out of the house, I came upon a scene in the lane between my house and the neighbors. Violet, the elderly Jamaican lady who lived next door, was kneeling at the foot of a dead squirrel with two of the neighborhood kids. I shuddered, concerned it was Little Friend, the squirrel that Sarah used to feed. Until I got up close—this one was much younger.

  “Saw it fall from your roof this morning when I was hanging the laundry,” Violet recounted, her voice crackling with upset.

  “So strange. Squirrels almost never fall from heights,” I said, uncomfortably aware of the synchronicity between Sarah’s departure and the squirrel’s untimely exit.

  “God works in mysterious ways, Lowen. A few nights ago a bird hit my bedroom window and died. Been in this house for 47 years and never saw that happen once.”

  I didn’t dare to ask if the bird was a red cardinal.

  I had to wonder—is this the way the universe works? When a connection is moving in a deeply true direction, everything around it blossoms with life. When it goes down a dark road, does the discord get reflected in the outer world as well? Or was my pained mind simply drawing conclusions that reflected its current despair?

  I looked up and saw another squirrel peering down from the roof, staring at the events below. If I wasn’t mistaken, she looked upset by the loss of her beloved. Or was I projecting again?

  On the drive to the court, I called Sarah’s cell phone incessantly. Her phone was off. When I got to the courthouse, I sat on the front steps and attempted to gather myself for the ending of a trial. Turn heart off, Turn mind on, Turn heart off, Turn mind on.

  It was my turn to address the jury in a complex fraud case. My client, an elderly Italian man, was accused of misrepresenting the books and stealing recipes from his long time business partner. They owned a chain of popular bakeries, and my client was allegedly selling the recipes to their competition in exchange for retirement property in Panama. The irony wasn’t lost on me, as I too felt like a kind of fraud, one who was being unmasked for his foolishness before the universal courtroom. Luckily, I had written the jury address before Sarah took off. If I had to ad lib, I would have only spewed nonsense.

  At the first recess, I tried calling Sarah again. No luck. Then I called her parents’ home. No answer and no machine. Hillbillies!

  The trial ended at noon with an acquittal, thankfully. And now my real trial began. No distractions now, only the searing pain of loss.

  Before I went back to my empty home, I met Daniel for a taco lunch. Probably the wrong move, since Sarah and I had kissed over many tacos at the same restaurant. In the line to order, I kept flashbacking to the last time we were here, when we shared a chorizo and drank the perfect margarita. To make matters worse, I directed Daniel to the table we had eaten at. Because that’s what you do when you are sad about love—you dig the knife in even deeper. What the fuck?!

  Daniel had just completed a ten day Vipassana retreat in the Berkshires and was calm as a cucumber. I was already annoyed before he opened his mouth.

  “This is the first time I’ve spoken in ten days,” he said. “I even drove back from the retreat in silence.”

  “Wow, you didn’t talk to yourself all the way back from Massachusetts?” I asked sarcastically. “That’s quite an achievement. Good thing there are self-serve gas stations. How was your workshop?”

  “I got so hungry there, I ate like a horse. But I stayed disciplined with my practice. But first, how are you feeling today? I read your text. Why did she leave?” he asked with great compassion.

  I didn’t have an answer, not even a pretend one. With tears welling in my eyes, I turned my attention to my tacos, and spent the rest of the meal in silence with my dear old friend.

  Fall from Grace

  After Daniel and I parted, I got back to compulsively calling Sarah. Still no luck. Or, perhaps much luck. Was there really anything to say right now? Too sad to sit still, I decided to leave my car parked in the city hall underground lot and walk home.

  As I walked, I felt into my interior landscape, ravaged by weeks of conflict and confusion. Great love was invigorating, but it was also exhausting. I would have expected this degree of depletion from military training, not from a love relationship. I wanted to find some respite, but the questions wouldn’t stop: How does one prepare for great love? Is there a recipe, a formula, a path to follow through the gnarly forest? Must we work on ourselves first, or does the real work begin after the love arrives? Must we create certain conditions to attract it, or does it come of its own accord? Does it choose us, or do we choose it? And how on earth do we protect it? What kind of girders do we need to keep it solid? And how do we develop them if we are lost in our triggers?

  I was entirely unsure what to do next. I could hear a rational voice telling me not to chase her, but that voice was overshadowed by a far more powerful inner voice calling me toward her. I could even hear Sarah’s soul calling out to mine, asking me not to give up. Wherever she was in physical form, her spirit was hovering near, attempting to communicate.

  That’s the thing about soulmates. They don’t stop dialoguing when they are physically apart. They simply turn on the soulular phone and communicate in the deep within.

  After turning onto Augusta Avenue, I saw Dude sitting in Bellevue Square, the concrete park at the south end of the market. He was eating a churro dripping with caramel sauce. Dude loved his pastries. I reached into my pocket and handed him a tissue. He took it and wiped the sauce from his beard. We made small talk—rare for us—before he went in for the kill.

  “You look like shit again. She gone?”

  “What are you, a frickin’ detective? How the fuck do you know everything?”

  “Not complicated. It’s written all over your face. Plus you’re carrying a big wad of tissues in your pocket. Men don’t carry tissues unless they’re having love troubles.”

  That’s probably true.

  Before I could say anything more, an elderly black man called out Dude’s name from across the square. “You’re up, Dude!” he shouted, pointing to one of the outdoor chess tables at the edge of the park. Sitting on one side was a young girl, clearly waiting for her chance to checkmate the Dude.

  Then Dude got up and walked toward the garbage can at the end of
the bench. He was just about to throw the last bit of churro out, when he remembered his manners. “I got to go. This kid keeps beating me, but I feel lucky tonight. Do you want the rest of the churro?”

  “No, thanks Dude. I prefer my churros whole,” I said with unnecessary attitude.

  Sweet man ignored me. “Whatever happens, keep your heart open. If not, it will all have been wasted.”

  Wasn’t it already wasted? I wondered.

  He tossed the rest of the churro into the garbage and went off to play chess.

  By the time I arrived home, I felt oddly calm, in that exhausted state where everything slows down. I lay down on the couch where we had so often made love and continued to dialogue with Sarah’s essence. Trapped between a rock and a heart place, she couldn’t disentangle from me, but she couldn’t hold this love safe either. Equally fearful and full of longing, she was searching hard for an answer. But was there an answer to be found? Or was it simply a choice to be made? The choice to love bravely, even amid the most ferocious patterns and triggers. Essence to essence, we hearticulated some more:

  I can’t give up on us.

  I can’t either... but I have to.

  There is no have to.

  There is, Lowen. I need to be free of this prison.

  How can love be a prison?

  When it locks us in with our pain.

  Shit.

  I can’t find the key.

  Shit.

  I got up to call her on the real phone. But it was still off. The pain intensified. Come on, Sarah, answer the fucking phone. I wandered around the house, looking for signs of her. I needed something to fill this desolate void. I went into the sunroom where she loved to rest. There was a small card with writing on it edging out from under the pillow. Reluctantly, fearful of more pain, I reached for it. In her familiar scrawl, this time in black crayon, was another variation on our favorite love graffiti. This one stung:

  When two hearts beat

  in the same direction,

  they go to war.

  Ouch! This is what you leave me? Fuck you!

  I went down onto the futon in child’s pose. Anything to feel safe. After some time, I turned over onto my back. When I opened my eyes, I was struck by a picture of Sarah I had taped to the ceiling. It was one of the first pictures we took, kissing in the forest in Colorado. Our eyes were open, sparkling with delight. Oh Sarah, Oh God. In a way, nothing had changed since that moment. Nothing ever could. I unbut-toned my shirt and placed the picture on my chest, facing my heart. Closing my eyes and remembering her body, her smiling eyes, those light wet kisses. Come home, my true love, come home and kiss me.

  I reached down to masturbate, but my heart wasn’t in it. Pleasure wasn’t currently on the menu. I lay there, agitated, trying my best to keep the inner wolves at bay. But they wouldn’t have it. They were all out of their cages, prowling for prey. After a few hours, I managed to fall asleep, until I was awakened by a strangely comforting dream. This one touched deep.

  I dreamed of my Auntie Dora, my mother’s sister. She had died some time ago, but sometimes appeared in my dreamscapes. In this dream, she was walking beside me on a forest trail, holding my hand. I kept asking her questions, but she remained silent, focused on the path ahead. At some point, I tried to free my hand and cut off the path. She grabbed on tighter. I turned to look her way, and she stopped and looked right at me. “Now is not the time to let go, Lowen. I’ll be keeping you close for a time.”

  I woke up with a jolt at exactly 7 a.m.—sweating and startled. I reached for the phone to call Sarah again.

  At last, I heard the other line pick up—someone fumbling.

  “Sarah,” I exhaled.

  “uh-lo,” said the breathy, sleepy voice.

  A man’s voice.

  I had no idea who he was but I knew what had happened. I hung up the phone and vomited all over the futon.

  And then, I vomited again.

  There are no words for that fall from grace.

  No words.

  13

  Care(less) of the Soul

  Spiraling into a vortex of black, the lights went off everywhere. Oh my Goddess, Where do I go from here? Breathless and bloodied, I lay down on the floor, desperate for support. My own inner floor had collapsed, like the chain snapping on an elevator. With no warning—plummeting DOWN. Please, God, give me something solid.

  I heard my soul pleading with hers: Sarah, oh Sarah- how could you do this? What kind of madness is this? No, just tell me it’s not true. OH SHIT, it is true, isn’t it? How many lifetimes till we get this right?

  I couldn’t sit with the feelings. Too damn intense. I got up and paced. I opened the fridge a hundred times. I opened every self-help book I owned, looking for some stupid spiritual aphorism to tide me over. I walked around the house like a lost puppy, searching for comfort anywhere. There was none to be found. I picked up the phone to call someone but I was too embarrassed to share. I turned every picture of Sarah upside-down. I was turned upside-down.

  I could feel my heart turning against itself, blaming me for everything. Suddenly it was all my fault: You horny shit. You should have kept it celibate. You caused this catastrophe. Why can’t you keep your cock in your pants? The writing was on the wall, fool!

  Oh shit, her writing was still on the wall. I grabbed some pushpins and bed sheets and covered them up.

  It felt easier to blame myself than to blame it on Sarah. If it was her fault, there was no turning back. If it was my fault, there was still a chance of redemption. All I had to do was behave differently and there would be a different outcome. Delusional thinking is of great value in times of tremendous suffering. It can be the only thing that keeps us alive.

  I fled the house to go for a run, but I was too mangled to get very far. Actually, it was more than mangled. It was a fucking heart holocaust. A karmic misappropriation of funds that left me spiritually bankrupt. I lumbered into the back alley, and fell down to one knee, in submission to God. Then I threw up again. Tears mixed with vomit as I lay down on the mucky ground and dialogued with the universe, or its satanic rep, seeking salvation: Come on, Universe. This is a fucking joke, right? This didn’t really happen, did it? There is a way through this, isn’t there? Or maybe it’s a great blessing? Rumi was right, wasn’t he? “Don’t grieve for what doesn’t come. Some things that don’t happen keep disasters from happening.” Is this what he meant? That if we had stayed together, something worse would happen later? But what could be worse than this? This IS the fucking disaster!

  I went back home and threw up again. Then I darted into the garage in a blaze of madness and grabbed a can of black spray paint. If the writing is on the wall, let’s remove the writing from the wall. Fucking graffiti. I went upstairs to the sunroom and got to it. As I sprayed, I inwardly cursed the words she had written.

  I woke before the dawning morning to sit

  and watch the stars for a while.

  Liar!

  I thought about how some of them out there are binary,

  two that share a common motion.

  Bullshit!

  Then I remembered,

  you are the poem in my soul singing softly to me.

  You were in my heart

  the very moment my soul was conceived.

  And then I fucking betrayed you!!!

  After I had darkened every bit of graffiti I could find, I crumpled into a heap of exhaustion on the bedroom floor, the walls now as black as my soul. I fell dead asleep, empty paint can by my side.

  When Nightmares May Come

  I awoke before dawn, overcome with tremendous anxiety. I quickly dressed and fled the house, desperately needing to move. As I walked, my self-hatred turned to hardcore rage. I wanted to call her out on the bitch that lived inside of her: You little bitch, you fucking hypocrite, you gamesy vixen. You invited me to this open-heart party, then ate me alive. “Be true to us, Lowen! Please be true to us!” As if! What a fucking joke. What a deadly projection.

/>   I had visions of flying down to Boulder and punching the dude out. But how could I blame him? She was the cheater, after all. It could have been anyone.

  Fuck that little shit—I’ll punch him out anyway.

  The sun was starting to peek through, as I stormed through the market. I stopped at all the locations we frequented, trying to make sense of it all. Not a chance. Maybe there was some higher perspective, but I couldn’t see it. Instead, I sat in front of our favorite coffeehouse and tormented myself with beautiful memories. Oh the knife, it twisted.

  There was one memory in particular that kept at me. It was a Sunday morning after a full night of exquisite lovemaking. I was sitting in the café window watching the market wake up when Sarah bounced in and playfully sat on my lap, also facing the street. Whenever I turned my head, she turned her head too and laughed, “We are a four armed Cyclops, Ogdo. One eye is all we need.” It was the sweetest thing. We drank chai and watched the world go by as one.

  The fond memories ended there. By lunch, I mustered up the will-power to walk home, all the while tormented with visions of Sarah fucking some other man. One question kept eating at me: Did she fuck him with the ring on? Did she fuck him with the ring on? Did she fuck with him with the ring on?

  With more triggers than a firing range, I lay on my couch in the most intense pain I had ever experienced. If ever there was a time I needed my emotional armor, it was now. All opened up with no place to go, I was stripped entirely bare—unclothed, undisguised, skinned alive. Spasms of agony ripped through me as I searched my consciousness for a mechanism, any mechanism, to numb this pain. But after months of opening, my habitual defenses were long gone. I was heart wide open when this bomb dropped, and my armor too far from the battlefield to serve me. I should have taken her threats of polyamory more seriously.

  Was the whole universe laughing at me? It sure felt like it. I had been seduced, widowed, cheated by love itself! I had been so sure of us, and so dismissive of other connections. Meanwhile people in more ‘practical’ relationships were falling asleep together night after night, and I was lying alone on my couch, with Lightnin and her fur balls at my side. And I had named her Lightnin—an eternal reminder of Sarah’s fleeing feet! Idiot!