Watching

Tuesday night.
A session with Sherrill and then dinner with friends. Good friends - so generous and loving and concerned without being maudlin. Just good food and wine and funny bright kids.
How lucky am I.
Brooke told me I should howl when I got home. I phoned her and threw my head back and howled. It was funny and terribly sad.

Abandoned middle-aged woman howling on her deck while her husband of ten years sits inside her neighbor's home charming his lover's niece and daughters. Shook them up enough that they challenged my howl by coming out on the deck to talk and laugh and show the crazy fucking neighbor that her howls meant nothing to them.

And indeed they mean nothing.

I sat in the dark and watched them all. It was sad. They performed. I watched. As M went inside I clapped and yelled "Bravo". And was a little ashamed. Because it is all so damn sad.

I ask over and over "how could anyone do what they are doing? What do they see or feel that makes any of this acceptable?" Doesn't the mean-ness and immorality and flat-out absurdity of trying to start a new life with a new lover in the house next door to the the spurned woman/ ex-friend effect them at all? Does it play in the back of their heads... or just like the deceit and sneaking around and lying... does it add a little titillation. Now they are bonded together in their righteousness. "She knew we were going to live here. It is her own fault if she is unhappy. We have the right to be here."

You know, I discovered when they were gone and there was no shadow of M's possible appearance for a few days, I was happy in my home. Truly happy and at peace. This is why I fought to stay. This is my sanctuary. I work in the garden and watch the birds and this is my home. All those years, it meant nothing to M.

I do not wish them ill. I have never wished them ill. I just wish them gone.

Neighbor's, strangers, have heard the story of what they did and stop me in front of the house to ask how I am and to admire the garden. It amazes me how many people I don't know know all about this situation. The neighborhood has really enjoyed the tawdry, cowardly absurdity of this story. They are horrified and disgusted with the possibility that M and Ka are considering living here. I don't have to say much. It is a study in human behavior.

A new life. That's what we all need. They have all the security and money, and each other - together they can find a lovely new life somewhere. And I will weed and dream and love my home and learn to forgive. Myself . M. Ka.

Sherrill wants me to stop wrapping myself in trying to figure out how they could have done this and find my salvation. This pain and sorrow is an opportunity. A gift. An amazing weight loss program. A beginning. If I don't die first, she said laughing.