An Important Realization. Thank You, Jessie

Everything is so very dry here right now. The bananas may have died back anyway in the freeze but everything else should still be green. I am watering my coconut palm as well as the Turk's cap that Ellen sent me but even the chenille plant which I thought was indestructible is withered and crackly-looking. The leaves on the azaleas are drooping like the head of a man who has fallen asleep sitting up. The hydrangea's leaves are curled and their branches look entirely dead although they're not. They'd be losing their leaves anyway at this time of year but somehow this year they seem to be sad in a way I've never seen them. Anything I don't water looks to be suffering but I keep telling myself the plants are merely doing what they must do to conserve their energy during this time of draught. 
I hope that's true. 

I decided today that if I didn't get out of the house I probably never would be able to again. I've been wanting to go to Goodwill and Jessie said she wanted to go too and we met for lunch before we hit the racks. It really was good to get out and interact with other human beings. We talked for a long time over our salads before we started our thrifting treasure hunt. I honestly thought that maybe I'd shop for some jeans but as Jessie had warned me, there are no good jeans at Goodwill. They're all stretched out (almost all jeans have a great deal of spandex in them now) and are cheap brands and she was right. In a way I was glad of that because I didn't have to go into the dressing room and try any on. 
Jessie is known in this family as "Mean Aunt Jessie" which, on the one hand, is hysterical, and on the other hand, is true. That girl will set you straight although she tries to be gentle with me. Mostly. Today I think she was trying to convince me that there are other types of pants that are probably more suited to me than jeans but I was not to be moved. She'd hold up nice linen britches to show me, the kind with rather free-flowing legs and so forth and I'd just shake my head. She looks great in this type of pants because her legs are as long as the Mississippi River and although for my height, my legs are long enough, I am very short-waisted and feel like I'd look like a complete dork in them. And why that matters is beyond me. I guess I'm just not ready for complete dorkahood yet. 
At one point she showed me a track suit which did, I admit, have a very interesting pattern to it and asked me if I was ready for the track suit portion of my life. 
I had never considered this but after I did, I decided that no, I was not. 
In other words, I didn't get any pants. Nor did I find a new hoody which I need because I've lost my good one. Which I got at Goodwill some years ago. 
We shopped the housewares and I found a plate to add to my collection of mismatched china and I love it. 

I would take an entire set of that pattern. 

But they only had one plate. So I bought it. 
I got two new placemats which I do not need in the least. They are yellow. And Jessie found me a new-in-the-box set of pottery tools which I really do need as I have pretty much destroyed the original beginner's set she got me when I started taking pottery. These new tools are also cheaply made but they are new which makes them better. 

And that was the sum total of my shopping today. 
Sigh.
My new Crocs have arrived though, so that's something. 

***********

While Jessie and I were having lunch, she said something that caused me to have an epiphany. Something so obvious and which I sort of already knew, but not in the precise way I can clearly see now. We were talking about the fact that her daddy is coming home tomorrow and how him being gone for two weeks seems so weird but that he seems so happy hanging out the guys in the woods, doing guy things like hunting and eating steak and Lord knows what.

And what she said was, "Yep. He has an entire separate life, doesn't he?"
"Yes," I said, "he does."
And I had never really thought of it that way. My husband has an entirely separate life from the one he lives here with me. I am not saying this is a bad thing. Perhaps we all have separate lives in one way or another. 
But Glen's separate life is so very removed from the one he lives in Lloyd. He is responsible for no one when he's up in Canada while here, he is responsible for me and for our children and for our grandchildren. Not entirely but he feels he needs to keep watch over all and make sure everyone's okay as best he can. He's not responsible for anything that goes on at Moon Plaza and if a tenant calls him with a problem, he calls a plumber or electrician or whoever needs to deal with the problem from right there in Canada instead of heading out immediately to go see if he can fix whatever needs fixing. He is not constantly reminded of the repairs that need doing here. The bills can wait. And so forth. 

And all of this is good. I think the fact that he takes this time for the other life is probably going to extend the years of his life. Lives?

BUT, what my epiphany was, is that the dreams I have so frequently of my husband having another woman who loves to hunt and fish and drive pick-up trucks, as well as another child they share, is how I have framed the real other life in a way that perhaps is more understandable to me. In the dreams he doesn't tell me that he's leaving me for the black-haired bitch but rather it is implicit that I need to share him with her, just as I know I have to share my husband with this whole other world he can shape-shift into as easily as I can sit down here and enter this world of writing which is my other life, I suppose. 

And somehow this realization is comforting. My husband is not leaving me for this imaginary hot huntress any more than he is leaving me for the woods and the world of men. 
He is not abandoning me. He is simply enjoying doing something he loves that really has nothing to do with his love for me or our family or our life together. 

That was a lot. I feel like I just spent a month in therapy. 
Will I now not ever feel jealous of the fact that he can go off and live in a completely different world? 
I doubt it. 
But I can recognize where the feelings of jealousy come from. 

And by this time tomorrow if all goes well, he'll be home, shape-shifting with ease back into the world I share with him. 

One more thing- a musician I have admired for many years died a few days ago. His name was Todd Snider and he was only 59 when he transitioned, as they so often say in the obituaries around here. The cause of his death seem to be a little hazy and I know he had some problems which prevented him from taking care of himself the way he should have but that doesn't mean he can't be mourned, doesn't mean his life and work and talent can't be celebrated. He was touring behind his latest album which was entitled High, Lonesome, and Then Some, when he died. I've written about him before and if you want, you can read that that HERE. The post was more about the Rolling Stones than it was about Todd Snider but they are indeed tied together. 

There are many news articles about his death but here's NPR's obit. 

Bless you, Todd. You surely blessed us. 

Love...Ms. Moon