It Started with a Bracelet and a Leap of Faith.....

A few days after the roof top phone call that catapulted me into descension…. I met a young, Indian man.  No… it’s not what you think. 

The rooftop where my life changed

It started with a bracelet.  It ended with trust.  

I don’t believe in coincidences.  I believe in serendipitous intersections.  Since that dreadful night in Jaipur… and now that I’m coming to attention in my life…. I’m aware of so many lovely, spine tingling convergences of people and matter and experiences and airflow.  The bracelet was a catalyst for one such serendipitous convergence. 

I love jewellery.  I love “in-your-face,” “not-for-the-faint-of- heart” jewellery.  I make art jewellery.   (www. giuliettadesigns.ca). I love to spend time with other people who make jewellery.  So… when I saw a gem stone bracelet... that I hesitated to afford...in a high end jewellery store in Jaipur, it started me thinking about deserving.  Do I deserve?  What do I deserve?  What do I deserve… when my world caves in?  Answer...  this bracelet!!!!  Nevertheless, with admirable discipline, I walked out of the store without the bracelet.  I took a photograph instead. 

The bracelet!

A day or two later, I was wandering with a friend through the maze of alley ways that make the outdoor market in Jaipur a surreal experience.  A man invited us to follow him to his store.  My friend is a kick-ass girl.  We’d been here before.  So we followed.

Across the busy street (taking our life into our hands)….  down the dark alley…. past the monkeys… through the ancient door…. up the stairs… and into a tiny, spare, austere store.  Greeted by boys and men. The norm here.  India is a country fuelled by testosterone.   My friend wanted earrings.  I wanted THE bracelet!

Monkeys, monkeys everywhere!  

The young man, Kapil, who served us wasn’t more than 25.  But, he’d already logged over 10 years in the jewellery business. He showed us lots of earrings.  And then… I thought to ask him if he could make MY bracelet.  He could.  For one-third the price of the one I’d seen at the jewellery store!

The rest of the story is a leap of faith… for both the young man and for me.  Me, trusting that he could make the bracelet I wanted, exactly from the photograph I'd taken...  before my trip ended.  He, trusting that I would pay him in full.  I gave him a 30% deposit.   He gave me a promissory note.  We would meet in Delhi in 30 days at my hotel.  He with my bracelet.  Me with his money.  Promises made.  Leap of faith taken.

For the next month as I toured India…. grieving….. head to my knees a good deal of the time…. thinking about deserving…. this determined, ambitious young man followed me with texts and photos showing the bracelet in progress. I was excited. 

Kapil's bracelet.... Diamonds, emeralds, rubies & sapphires 

It took Kapil 6 hours of driving from Jaipur to Delhi in a rental car to meet me at my hotel... with MY bracelet.  The bracelet he made exceeded my expectations.  It is exactly as it was in my photograph.  It is even more beautiful. At a time when I had little faith in menfolk…. this tenacious, courageous, young man… starting his business with conviction and determination….rekindled, reignited, revived... with a spark... my faith in men.  Little did I know when I ordered the bracelet 30 days earlier that the gift Kapil gave me wasn’t a bracelet.  It was a belief in the goodness of men. It was trust.   

       

Me, Kapil and the bracelet. Thank-you!  

A Double Dose of Sisters, a Few Good Men and Cheezies.....

A necessary prescription for kick-ass (k-a) healing? 

Point Roberts, WA

Available at most grocery stores 

My heart healing... a work in progress... involves the following:  

A double dose of sisters (I have two); India; Nature; A good counsellor… who lives close to...  nature... and to angels (mine does!);  My inner child; Friends…. the ones who aren’t afraid to tell me the butt-naked truth… and then tell me again because I have to learn most things twice! A tall glass of wine… prn; Nature; Barbara's Cheez Puffs (the best!), A fair settlement agreement; Klondike Solitaire; Point Roberts; Trashy magazines (whatever this is to you?  For me It's "Hello" and "People!" Yikes!!!! That's the most difficult confession than anything else I've written so far! )  Nature, Vietnam (with my sister), Giggles…lots.... prn, A few good men… especially my son and the sons of others (you know who you are!) and ... One tiny house…. in nature!  (More about tiny houses later!)  

I was in Rajasthan, India when the main man in my story descended into adolescence and called us off. Again!

Love, loyalty, longevity... pushed aside.  No going back this time.  No talking it through.  No recourse.  No reconciliation. No crisis.  I’ll never know what the limits are on trip cancellation insurance.  I’ll never know if it covers marital departure.  There was shock.  No awe.  But, no going back. No doubt. I never doubted the healing capacity of India.  Atleast the clarity of intent, if not action, was liberating.  

Elizabeth Gilbert knows that India is a good place to heal.  India’s also a good place to get hit over the head with a good dose of reality.  Because… India has the unique characteristic of cradling and holding… of sustaining grief.  So does my sister.  She was with me in Rajasthan.  Healing my heart began with India… and with my sister.  

Suffice it to say that like Lidia, my sister graduated to the “50 something” club for loss and grieving at a very young age.  Her first husband commit suicide as a result of PTSD, albeit after they had already separated.  But, in her mid 20’s, she was already on the front lines of his descension into disequilibrium.  It‘s not fair to lose two husbands to death in one lifetime.  But, as the cliché goes…no one said life would be fair.  She came with experience. 

My relationship with my sister has been hard won.  Typical for siblings… especially so close in age… we did not always get along.  But the want for intimacy was there.  Like all intimate relationships, we worked at love with the same ingredients my main man rejected.  Loyalty, desire, determination, tenacity… and a willingness to learn how to listen.  When we left YVR for India in a flurry of excited expectation neither my sister nor I had any idea that the trip would become one big test… of love.  Love for India. Love for each other. Love for ourselves.  

Back to the Edge: Inebriated by Misguided Loyalty, University politics and Vancouver Real Estate....

Lidia Yuknavitch is a hard act to follow. 

But… back to the edge and my story.  For context to the following… read my post on September 2... if you haven't already.  

Long Beach. Miles of stranded and lost jelly fish... as I felt in 2007

The gong show… first go-around, happened in 2007. The man I’d loved forever, left me for dogged pursuit of youth… his... Chapter one. Then after three years apart, I took him back… with a misguided determination to love and accept him for who he was. The narcissistic nurse/ fixer upper in me, determined to absolve and heal the narcissistic adolescent in him.  Silly... silly me!!!!  I was inebriated by denial, loyalty, tenacity and a misguided sense of purpose.  But, not before a whirly round of emotional whip lashes and virtual body bruises that would have sent me directly to bed had it not been for a semester of courses to prep for, a gaggle of students to teach, a tedium of meetings to chair, university politics to stay clear of, a painfully long commute, a side business to manage and… unbeknownst to me at the time … a new grandbaby on the way.  Life was busy. At 53, round one saw me sucker punched.  But… I felt purposeful.  Valid.  People needed me.

During those 3 years of estrangement from my partner…. as I bore witness to his arrested development and stupidly pined for reconciliation…. Red Flag! Red Flag!  Red Flag!  Where was Dr. Laura when I needed her?.... I was laid off twice from my university teaching position. (University politics is down and dirty at the best of times.  In the worst of times, it felt like a battle of David and Goliath.) 

     

My Goliath!  

“David”… that’s me!.... won the first round.  Thanks to my savvy financial advisor and an opportunistic accountant …. my argument testifying for inappropriate dismissal was confirmed and approved.  The university powers-that-be relented.  I received a decent severance package.  And, then… I was rehired!!!  For a few minutes I felt triumphant!  But, less than a year later, the whole mucky muck started all over again and I was laid off for the second time.  This time, I surrendered in favour of sanity. I accepted this as an opportunity to be the fulltime artist I always wanted to be. I reluctantly retired from teaching at 55. Plan B?  

While my personal drama of betrayal and loss slithered painfully along, my middle sister’s husband was diagnosed with brain cancer.  He was 49 when he first got the awful, devastating, life crushing news. Thus began a 3 year battle that both my sister and her husband were destined to lose. I wasn’t in the best frame of mind to be much of a supporter, but I offered what I could.  My brother-in-law died at age 52.

 

Four months later, my mother… with whom I shared a very close relationship… suffered a massive heart attack that took her out suddenly at 78. That’s young in todays world. The loss of my most ardent cheerleader and compatriot in misguided thinking, was and still is, enormous.  

Beautiful Mom and her chickadees

In light of the layoff and because I needed to downsize my expenses, I decided to sell my house... the one I’d lived in, raised my son in and cherished.  My adult son was horrified!  He still hasn’t forgiven me! 

Since I loved my house, I naturally thought everyone else would too. I expected it to sell in record time and well above the list price. Not an unfamiliar scenario in Vancouver’s surreal/unreal and volatile real estate market. But… I listed it a few weeks too late for a fast, profitable outcome.  The house languished on the market for a couple of months before selling well below my original price. I miss the enveloping, familiar and comforting threshold of my modest but beautiful, little, character home, circa 1929. I don’t miss the gardening, the mortgage and ongoing expenses of owning a house. Today I live in a new townhome. I haven’t quite adjusted. It feels like a hotel!!! 

And, then… I put my cat down. 

In less than 3 years, I lost the man I loved, a relationship I’d worked hard for.  I lost sex!! I lost a job I loved…. twice!  I gave up my nest and my neighbourhood. My best friend of 35 years, died young of complications related to MS, my brother-in-law died, then my mother…. and then, my cat! Thus began a series of secondary losses as my immediate family lost hold… of each other.... and spiralled apart. Yikes!!!  In terms of loss and grief, the universe was making up for lost time. 

Then, just 6 months ago... because I have to learn everything atleast twice...the whole shit-a-roo happened all over again!!!  

And… that’s what brought me to the edge.  Not to the edge of sanity.  But, to the edge of loss, body numbing grief, introspection, rumination and confidence. In the blogs ahead I’ll tell you about the journey back and making acquaintance with my inner child.  It’s still a work in progress. One that includes the kick-ass girls I’m so blessed to have in my life. They are my posse.  My docents. My brazen ones. My angels.  

Little me! The child I lost sight of. 

Don’t get me wrong.  I don’t pretend that my story is unique. By the time we reach 60 it can be the norm.  For men as well as for women.  These are the voices over 50 that I want to hear…. loudly.  How women... and even men... rise above the ashes of their own lives and turn into phoenixes. These are the stories I want to share.   

    

Note:  There is a basic rule of disclosure.  I’ll tell you my story… if you tell me yours.  I’m ready to listen.  Follow me and comment. 

Blissful ignorance and "Wild." The calm before the second storm. 2011 

A Brief Side Step from the Edge... to Introduce Lidia...

....Lidia, Yuknavitch, that is.....

I’ll get back to my own story about surfacing from loss and grief soon.  And… I promise I’ll get to the kick-ass part.  But, I’m feeling a little self-conscious that, so far, this blog is all about me.  Combined with previous FaceBook postings, I don’t want to bore friends and readers or potential blog followers with the assumption that my emotional shit show is all I want to talk about.  It’s not!  My intent at this new beginning is to set a context for what got me to writing about all of this in the first place and why I think my 60+ voice might be important.

It’s also my intent to introduce and talk about other kick-ass girls who support me, inspire me, move me to breathe…. deeper, longer, more.  Women from my own life.  But, since I read…alot....  especially memoirs about girls, I thought I’d interrupt the story line from time to time to talk about some books I love and the kick-ass writers who wrote them. 

I’ve already made two previous references to popular books by Cheryl Strayed, Wild and Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love.  Masters of kick-ass, for sure. But I also enjoy reading… in fact, I prefer reading…. memoirs that aren’t made into movies.  Most of which I get from the only library in Point Roberts, WA.  And... my favorite library in my world!  (Thanks Kris and Rose, and others whose names I don’t know, for separating out the memoirs and biographies from the rest of the stacks.  For one who suffers from over stimulation at the best of times, I appreciate the size and scale of this tiny, comforting space... and the friendly people in it.)  

In this post, I want to talk about my favorite memoir, A Chronology of Water, written by my queen of kick-ass girls…  and the bravest writer I know…. Lidia Yuknavitch.  Now, I don’t know how old Lidia is.... but she has surely experienced excrutiating loss… of herself… and... OMG!.... of her tiny still born daughter. She graduated to the 50+ class for loss and grieving early in her life. Her gift as a writer to get raw and personal…. who opens the wound and bleeds.... who makes words her own.... who doesn’t write in complete sentences... rocks me to my core.  No one writes about loss and grief the way Lidia does. No one writes about love and sex... the way Lidia does. You can find her on Face Book. But...  you can't friend her because she's topped out! 

She has a new book out, this past July.  I haven’t read it yet.  But, I will. 

Kick-Ass Girls and the Shit that Makes Us!

My intention with this blog is not to dwell on gut wrenching, body numbing losses that turn out kick-ass girls.  Loss isn’t sexy. The voices of women over 50 are quiet because most have, or soon will, experience loss.  But… people don’t want to hear about loss.  It makes them feel uncomfortable.  Edgy.  Unsettled.  It’s a good reason to get busy.  To inebriate.  But, life is loss.  My intention in this blog is to acknowledge… yes!… validate… listen to… allow…. what takes us to the edge.  In my case… what took me to the edge of the Pacific.  To the wilderness.  To the edge of nature.  But...  of more importance…. what brings us back. How do kick-ass girls deal with the seemingly bottomless pit of grief that inevitably accompanies heart pounding, bone gripping, life changing losses. How do we process that which seems unfathomable in our 20’s, 30’s and 40’s. How do women over 50 go “Wild?”  How do women over 50 “Eat, Pray, Love?” 

So what got this woman… me…. just one tiny leap over 61…. to the edge of the Pacific….camping alone?   It was a curve ball that landed with a heart stopping thunk in the form of a sudden, unexpected, body numbing cancellation of my story with the man I’d loved forever.  Thirty-two years in, he changed his mind and decided… in the blink of an eye… to marry a woman 30 years younger who barely speaks English!  This is what took me to the edge of Vancouver Island on Barkley Sound. 

One day my man and I were “making love” (I put this in quotations because, looking back, I’m not sure that’s what it was!)…  in apparent trepidation of spending five weeks apart. Two days later we kissed fondly as I bid farewell. Three days after that, I anxiously paced the roof garden of a travellers hotel in Jaipur, India, in the dead of night while he told me he was in love… with youth!…  and wanted a trial separation. I‘m sure he said “trial” just to soften the blow.  Either that or he actually believed he could have both me and her!  I was done!  Finito!  The End!  Thirty-two years together and the house we were building… Gone!  In one short, cowardly, long distance phone call… care of Vodafone.

Truth be known, I can’t say that I didn’t have warnings.  I’m embarrassed to admit that an earily similar trial of betrayal, cowardice and estrangement happened 8 years earlier over the same woman.  At that point I really hadn’t experienced much loss… yet!!!!  That was all about to change.

More about my story in my next post. 

See you there…… On the edge! 

Send me yours!  

Kick-Ass Girls! An Introduction.

Hi!  My name is Julie and this blog is intended for Kick-ass girls. That is.... girls who kick life in the ass when they're knocked down. Girls who pause, then inhale deeply and exhale with ferocity when life knocks the wind out of them. Girls who allow themselves a time out.. however long... but get back up. Girls who are fearless.  Girls who fight back.  Girls who show the way.  Especially girls over 50.  I know lots of them.  And... I'm going to tell their stories.  

The idea for this blog started quite unexpectedly on a camping trip. The seeds were planted before I left…. alone…. for the wilds of the Pacific coast when I couldn’t find anything on the internet about women over the age of 60 camping…. in tents…. or in anything for that matter…. alone! 

There’s lots about “Wild” girls age 20/30 something… trekking. (Thank-you Cheryl Strayed!).  Or, 30/40 something “Eat, Pray, Love” girls finding their way through spaghetti, ashrams and rice paddies.  (Bless you, Elizabeth Gilbert!)  Or more 20/30/40 something girls, who look like Stevie Nicks… “glamping” in “she-sheds” and tear drop campers… with dogs!  But, nothing that I could find, about 60 something women…camping...in tents, in RV's in Westfalia’s!!!!  Or, glamping, she-shedding or road tripping! The voices of women over 60 are strangely quiet.  There’s a void. A chasm. A whole generation of experiences… that I want to hear about.  Why? 

I know a significant number of beautiful, health & fitness conscious women over 60 who camp alone… in tents…. with or without companions… travel to places well off the beaten track, ride bikes long distances, start businesses, work long hours with ambition and purpose, build houses, learn new things, start new careers, make incredible art, sell incredible art, have sex, want to have sex!!!.

Notice that I didn’t say do yoga, garden, meditate, cook for their families, look after their aging parents or their grandchildren.  Yes… the women I know, over 50, do all of those things too. They are gorgeous, kick-ass girls!  Who want to have sex!!  But, all the women I know have experienced loss.  Sometimes more than their fair share of loss.  Many are motivated by hair splitting, grief.  (But they still want to have sex!)  And… that’s why, I think the voices of women over 50 are disturbingly quiet. The kick-ass girls I know do all of the things I mention above, inspite of gut wrenching, body numbing loss. Loss of relationships, partners, children (god forbid!), parents, jobs, health, beauty and purpose.  Losses such as these are a normal part of life for women over 50. The women I know rise above their considerable losses with an attitude that says Fuck-you… I’m going to do this anyway!  They inspire and support me because I’m a kick-ass girl too.  I keep good company. 

The purpose of this blog is to share my kick-ass girls and to tell their dynamic and inspiring stories.  I also want to hear your stories about the kick-ass girls that you are and know and the stories that made them that way.  

Julie V K