(Even now, by the way, I'm still on a vinyl Brubeck jag. Currently spinning is Anything Goes! The Dave Brubeck Quartet Plays Cole Porter, and I'm listening to "Love for Sale" as I type.)
Steph is now in Florida, on the eve of beginning a new job, and already beginning a new life. Susie and I saw her off at the Greyhound station downtown early Friday morning, and she left at 7:30 a.m. for a 26-hour bus ride to Titusville, via Cincinnati, Nashville, Atlanta, and Orlando. Since Susie had to be at school to audition for a speech, we didn't stay with Steph until she boarded, but left her as the line was moving toward the gate and onto the bus. This was the point where the driver was announcing "Tickets out of the envelopes, please!" (Steph had ordered her tickets online beforehand, and they had arrived in the mail earlier in the month.) Steph teared up hugging Susie goodbye, and I gave Steph a very cursory farewell hug, and went out with Susie to East Main Street so she could catch her bus to school and I could head home.
(I had planned to just arrive late for work, in the interests of returning to normal as soon as possible after Steph's departure for Florida. However, earlier in the week Human Resources sent me an email saying that I had one cost-savings day left, and it had to be used very soon. Not remembering it was the day Steph was leaving, I asked for May 27, more because it would make my Memorial Day weekend longer.)
Susie and I are bearing up quite well. Despite this entry's title, there was no night (or day) Steph and I decided to stop being together. It's been a gradual process, and even going through nearly 16 years of memories (my own memory supplemented, of course, by reams of diaries and shoe boxes full of breast-pocket notebooks), I can't pinpoint one point where it started to go bad. So in the end, there is little sadness on my part. There is, instead, much relief. I feel that the limbo has lifted, and the way is clear for me to look at the next phase of my life. And last Friday is as much of a milestone in my own history as 1066, 1492, 1215, 1776, and 9/11 are in world history.
The record has now gone to "What is This Thing Called Love," and the best answer I can give right now comes from the computer in WarGames (1983) describing thermonuclear war: "A strange game. The only winning move is not to play." This is not universal, by the way. It's just the way I think I have to live in order to preserve my own sanity.
I was proud of Susie Friday night, when she performed in the Cabaret Night at Dominion Middle School. The attendance was sparse, and many of the kids scheduled to appear were no-shows, but Susie and her friends were on hand to perform two brief skits from The Wizard of Oz. Susie played the Wicked Witch of the West in one scene, and the Scarecrow in another. (There may have been better attendance if it hadn't been Memorial Day weekend and if the baseball team wasn't away at a championship game.) Several of the acts listed in the program didn't happen, because cast members were absent, and the drama teacher, Emily Foster, had to fill in for some of the roles, but I was proud that Susie was front and center. Despite the fact that she said goodbye to her mother 12 hours earlier, and that she may not see her mother again for weeks, or maybe months, she gave her all once she was onstage. That makes the no-shows' excuses rather lame, methinks.
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| Dominion Middle School, where Susie will be a student until the end of this week. |
First Unitarian Universalist Church went to one service per Sunday as of this morning, and Susie and I marked the event by sleeping late. (Smaller UU churches shut down for the entire summer. The stock answer when non-Unitarians ask about this is, "What other denomination could God trust out of His sight for an entire summer?") We went to the Really, Really Free Market in the afternoon, and the pickings were slim this month--there is no way to predict it. I knew, however, that Susie would not go away empty-handed. Next door to the Sporeprint Infoshop is the Third Hand Bicycle Cooperative, and last week a generous soul donated eight or 10 children's bicycles. Most of them were for kids of kindergarten age and a little older. My friend Randall told me this last Monday, and he set aside a 15-speed Huffy Mont Clare for Susie--the only one that might have been big enough for her. Between Monday night and Sunday afternoon, he filled the front tire and adjusted the handlebars and the saddle, and now Susie has a bike. She has had limited success in learning to ride them in the past, so I'm worried that it may gather dust, but I'm hoping to encourage her to take it to Weinland Park this summer and give it a whirl. (It's in our dining room right now, because we don't have a bike chain and lock. Even with one, I'm not sure if keeping it outdoors is a good idea. I can see someone in this neighborhood owning the tools to snap a thick U-lock in half like a twig, and Susie had a bike stolen when we lived in Franklinton and kept it out front.)
Susie and I went to an excellent Memorial Day cookout in Clintonville, at the home of our friends Steve and Kittie. The undisputed star of the show was their granddaughter, who will turn a year old in July. I picked up the little girl, and she did the exact thing Susie did when she was an infant: she made a grab for my glasses, which instantly skittered to the deck. I had completely forgotten how fascinated babies are by glasses, and how they'll make a grab for them when given the chance. (Susie also loved tugging at my beard, or pulling things out of my breast pocket, when she was a baby and I was holding her. It made me very briefly consider shaving off my beard until she was older--and this from a guy who considers it a deal-breaker if a romantic partner asked me to get rid of my beard!)
Since I was (am) so proud of Susie for stepping up to the plate and performing so well on such an emotional day, I am posting this video from Friday night's Cabaret at Dominion. (Susie is in the blue T-shirt, portraying the Wicked Witch of the West--riding a push broom!--and the Scarecrow.)
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