All In the Timing

What I really want to know is...Can an Island betray you?

Here I am, back on Cape Cod a place where I grew up. A place that has fostered all of my vision’s and inspiration’s for spirit and nature. The first place I ever taught yoga, did a back-dive, went clamming, worked on a scallop boat, acted professionally, and fell in love with the man who came from here...my “so-called soul-mate”.

I had a dream and we were here together and so much about this place became about “us”. We met on this Island and we shared so much of it together and yet it was his birthplace and he was the “Prom King” when we made our rounds. Everyone shared a fondness for him and wanted his attention. It bring’s to mind Lisa loeb’s song “Sandalwood”. The lyric’s that get me are “I’m trying to keep cool, but everyone like’s you.” This is how I always felt upon entering the Cape with him. Sure, I have my “peep’s” and people love me here...but there was no comparison to “Prom-King” stature. Don’t get me wrong I am not competitive in this way but I longed for his attention and his company and whenever we were here it was spliced ten-fold.

That said, a year and half after the relationship I return to this Island without this partnership. However, I carry the full weight of knowledge that he was here when he made his crucial voyage out of my port and chose to take his cruise ship into new territory.

Basically, he was on the cape when he made the decision to no longer be present in our relationship.....that’s really all you need to know and that’s really all I know to share with you, regarding his decision.

So, a year and a half later I return to this Island I consider my homeland, my touchstone, my spiritual birthplace and for the first time ever, I feel threatened.

There is a beautiful quote by Marianne Williamson, “You are what you defend against.” So who who knows which came first here the chicken or the egg. I am certain my defensiveness did not assist my Cape Cod return in any way, in fact I know this to be the first time ever I felt I was in unwelcome territory on Cape Cod.

The night I arrive, there is an electrical/lighting storm and the cottage I am in shakes and throbs and light’s up and dead tree limbs fall all over the roof of the house and wind shakes and throttles the small place. The tiny cottage light’s up and then quiver’s with the force of nature (normally very exciting!) This unnerves me oddly...I am a lover of nature and storms included but I feel attacked and unwelcome. My cottage suddenly has a very “Shining” unappeal and I cannot rest amidst this brutal storm. I toss and turn and fixate on axe murder’ers and houses caught in a blaze from lightening and I marinate in all of my poor decison’s made here on Cape Cod.

Great night for rest and relaxation.

The next day, there is this heavy cloud of humidity and smelly thickness in the air.

I go for a run and so much of it hit’s me with a clarity and certainty.

I no longer trust Cape Cod! Because his heart was moved to leave me and it happened here! The Island has betrayed me and it lurks in the coyote’s howl, in the dense humidity, in the thick brown body of the spider in the bathroom of my cottage...the Island is telling me to leave.

My underlying persistance keeps me present despite the trying turmoil.

I take my Godaughter’s to the ocean I am dying for a break from the humidity and I am certain the ocean will offer it. Yet, I carry the knowledge of “Great White” sightings on the cape...several! So I carry a watchful eye as I dive into the waves (frigid and intense).

My Godaughter’s watch and wait turned off by the cold and the drama of the ocean. No one else is in the water at our beach.

Eventually, they follow me and have an earnestness to stay in the Icy water way longer than me. I stand “Lifegaurd” watching the horizon for any sign of shark...Ready to pummel, hit on the nose, curse out, take down, you name it I will protect.

The worst in store for my sweet girls was a bit of wave intensity in that they both got taken out by waves and rolled and surprised and came out coughing and heart’s palpating.

I wrapped them in my towel and encouraged their bravery....what more can you do?

One is fourteen and the other thirteen, they are on the brink of understanding the kind of turmoil their heart’s will experiance. They already understand loss to some degree, their father has passed and yet I think they will be processing this for a lifetime I do believe it has aged them beyond their mean’s.

Do they understand love?

The wave’s have pummeled them both at seperate interval’s and yet they both want to go back in after they have resumed their normal breathing pattern’s, found the spots where the rocks have scraped them, figured out what happened.

One was in the thick of the wave, right in the middle, I watched it take her up and thought she was too much in the center, the other was in front and had cleared the nasty roll of the wave. I saw her limbs as the wave took height, her tall figure lifted up and carried by the wave and I thought to myself “she is too much in the center....”

Like a gymnastic’s coach knows they are off by a hair or a centimeter. The wave lifted her up and shook her down...she was fine. The other has a discomforting habit of turning her back to the waves which makes me an annoying person on the shore,

“TURN AROUND!”, “DIVE’, “STOP LOOKING AT ME!”

Her wave took her at the worst possible place in the rotation. Her back was turned, she was looking at me, the wave had already begun to curl and it grabbed her and threw her into the mix like the smallest minnow of the pack losing it’s school...or “cool” in our terms. She came out of the water terrified, choking and trying to breathe.

I wrapped her in my damp towell and held her.

That was me....in my relationship.

My back was turned when he made up his mind. That’s the worst kind of blow you can suffer. It makes your arms cross around your midriff when you contemplate another dive.

Fortunately for me I only recognize this source of pain when I visit this Island....I am immune to it elsewhere.

I can handle a moment or two in this nasty surf figuring out how to land my feet, how to swaddle my emotion’s, how to make peace with nature who never meant to harm me.

It was all in the timing and I met the wave at precisly the wrong moment.

I get it now...thanks to the Cape and my constant guides who follow me here.

This place will always be my touchstone.