27 January 2018. It’s You.

/ Dar Dawson / Leave a comment

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If you asked me five years ago, on a regular Saturday morning such as this, anything having to do with dating or coupling (outside of business or creatively contributing to something) or, God forbid, Love and such, I would have quickly changed the subject to you, your life and goings–on; or my daughter or our home or my employment (or my employer) or a movie we should see at the Cinema Arts Center (because likely, I had already seen it, alone, and will always tell someone when something is really worth the price of the ticket.)

What we would *not* have talked about was “r e l a t i o n s h i p.”

Strung out letter-by-letter because after divorce – those of us once-married (remove the ‘i’ and you’re “marred”, if you didn’t already notice) are somewhat loathe to jump back into the dating pool, let alone broach the subject at all. So, we literally d r a g it out (or avoid the word and idea altogether.)

Five years ago, single-mothering my then-14-and three-quarters-year old offspring, in a too-big (and cold) old house with indoor/outdoor cats and a puppy with the worst case of PTSD – ever – we would NOT have talked about Match.com or Plentyoffish or speed-dating or blind dates or group dinners or meetup.com or meeting someone in church or taking a class or doing another show or volunteering (I was already doing that) or how involving myself with yet another oddball-people-project adult male who needed more help and more ego-massage than anyone in their right mind would ever take on would be really stupid (but oh so familiar. And easy.) I would have to be NUTS to get involved with anyone again – be they near or hundreds of miles away. I was done and comfortable knowing I would be my nephew’s ‘crazy Ant Jaye’ until the title aged-out as he aged-up.

And, yet…here we are.

We do not use the word “r e l a t i o n s h i p”.  We use “partnership”.

We do not talk about getting married, though people who don’t know us refer to the other partner as “your wife” and “your husband”.  It’s funny.

We do not cling to each other the way we might have, earlier, younger, when one might believe the more time you have together the better things get and nothing could possibly go wrong if you lost yourself in another person losing themselves, too.

We do not lose any part of our Self from being part of something together. And that is the very biggest treasure: I get to be me, He gets to be He, and we get to be we, how ever we see fit.

Oh, hello, it’s you. It’s going to be you.

And how delighted I was to have that realization strike, just about five years ago, dead center in my chest, when meeting you for the first time, as adults, in the middle of Penn Station in the middle of New York City in the middle of our lives. It was very different than when we met, briefly, at 13 and 15; fish in the pond.

Hello, it’s you.
Happy Five, this Friday.
ox

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24 July, 2014. (Journal)

/ Dar Dawson / Leave a comment

Some of you are dancing to stay focused on a single candle flame of thought.

Some of you are wrestling with obligation and responsibility, and choosing indecision as the companion who leads.

Some of you are up late pretending you’re not tired or that, soon, sleep will come and the sofa will be ‘just as good’ as the bed, where you would otherwise be sleeping alone.

Some of you are not alone but with family or friends, celebrating something elated and sweet – or simply held captive by banal late evening news.

Some of you are paying bills or mending socks or finishing the dishes or folding laundry, watering the dog, wishing there were fresh sheets on the bed, sweeping the spiders outdoors (or into a square of tissue into the toilet).

Beside an oscillating fan or bathed in dry, cool air conditioned bliss.

All of us are seeking.

Sleep, a partner, a missing piece, a cure, a level of satisfaction, an answer, a reply, a touch, a word, a recipe, a bit of enjoyable nothing, a meal, a grace, an overwhelming need to just give in and stop (or go), a growing list, a shrinking waistline, a good laugh, a bad joke, a moment of pure joy, a titillation, a note, a diminished sense of responsibility, a mentor, a guide, a map, a tool or the ability to leap a barrier – just once.

All these are ingredients, life-affirming, no matter how annoying or pleasant.

All of the scenes in all of our different windows are breathing and living and contributing to this July summer night. You contribute to mine, and I to yours, however miniscule and unbidden. I hope it is good for you; it is perfectly out of sync and lopsided here, for me – and that is really just fine.

When In Winter. (Prosery)

/ Dar Dawson / Leave a comment

Such good heat in summer. I have a co-worker, skin over bones she is, who goes out into the mid-day oven wearing a sweater, to warm up from the chill of the AC. She returns flushed and rosy and happy to be warm for a little while.

Let’s remember this, shall we? When we’re complaining of heating oil costs while adoring favorite sweaters, and hosting guests at holiday time, and, if we’re lucky, quietly cuddling with those we like best.

Let’s remember sleeping without a top sheet, screened windows and the sound of cicadas and crickets and distant concerts or carnivals. And the grilling and freshly grown gems, and the farm stand colors palettes, and cityscapes undulating in grossly hot afternoons. And any other summer experience you hold dear (or annoying). Let’s remember them all well.

Love the fresh fruit, and the gawdawful heat, and the surf, and the garden, and the skin you expose – as daring as that makes you feel regardless of your size or shape, and the sudden rolling thunderstorms.

Love it all. It’s why we’re here.

DJ Dawson

First published July 19, 2014.

Rabbit Mother, Tiger Daughter. [Journal entry 6.9.14]

/ Dar Dawson / 2 Comments

I am not going to fight.

I am going to vastly improve my argument (and it’s pretty damned good already).

I am not going to point out the obvious (at least not obviously), and I am not going to name-call.

What I AM going to do is be there. Be present, and supportive, and listen and focus on what is important: She is. My daughter, my child, the pine cone to my fir.

I am a Rabbit raising a Tiger. It is not always easy.
I am a Scale raising a Ram; she butts her head, hard, into every.single.thing.

She will learn tact and compassion, and how humor is our lifeboat during difficult times, and how it is my primary way of coping *any* time – to see the humor in every situation.

She teaches me what it is like to be enraged, fully, and to express myself – as she does – with no filter, with passion and heat and language and every venomous bit of vocabulary when provoked or frustrated (or tired). Her anger is pure and without apology or shame; mine is always “polite”.

She teaches me how to let go quickly and move on, and that there are, in fact, people who just do not deserve to know you. This is a new concept for me, for I have given myself away in pieces my entire life. You wanna piece? Here.

She teaches me that to love someone is to also be in love with how you feel about yourself when you are together. This is new to me, too; I thought loving someone was always about exhausting yourself just to make the other person feel they were loved without any doubt; it never really mattered I received less than I gave.

So many lessons we share, together.

DJDawson 2014

Once, When the Tide Was Low. [Personal essay.]

/ Dar Dawson / Leave a comment

Full disclosure:
I’ve been there.
on the serrated edge of the coin
one side stay
the other, go.

Several of you have,
too.

Whatever Divinity changed our course
steadied us to remain,
I am, now, grateful for it
(though was angry and frustrated, then.)

On the bathroom floor (it’s almost always there, isn’t it? Those personal tar black come-to-Jesus low-points on tile or shag pale sky throw rug, in the dark regardless of time of day)
pills and booze
or
booze and more booze
(“recreational” my ass)
hollow hopelessness in
unimaginable quantities
unfamous uncelebrity (who’d miss me? who cared) unsure unspecial
unexcused unnoticeable unneeded unnecessary unattached un-everything
un-craptogether.

Until the Divine or fear of angering my Mother(s) or what if or _________ whatever reason people decide not to go…I cannot remember anything other than not being as fearless as when I came into the bathroom. In my 20s before marriage before child before God and everyone, it was just misery and me and something else that needed to come through.

I’m glad it did.

My decision to share this odd prosery is not for comment nor criticism nor praise. But if sharing my imperfections and humanity, my vulnerability, with someone who thinks we think they have their shit together (when they think they actually don’t), and that person needs someone to talk to or just somebody to sit next to. I’d like to be that lighthouse for them.

You’re not alone even when you believe with every cell that you are.

STAY.
Thank you.

DJD 08 June 1018

On This Day: 5 May, 2016. [Journal Entry]

/ Dar Dawson / Leave a comment

Woke up staring “rushing” in the face.

I need to stop rushing, nudging things sooner than later and believing sooner is better. Sooner is, possibly, rushed not better. Sooner is, perhaps, an escape hatch from discomfort. Go through, not around – that is the learning process: through, not around.

Rushing causes accidents and butterfingers and necessary items forgotten in a hurry on the counter. Rushing makes people uncomfortable. They feel squeezed or claustrophobic or, well, rushed.

I do not want to rush.

I just want certain things now, but not at the expense of my self-respect and not at the loss of organic timing and growth.

RushRushRush.
Hush.