Little Things

The historical society I work for owns two
properties: one, a mansion built in 1913;
the other, one of the first brick houses
built in Hanover, in the early 1800s.

The older house is the museum house of the Society, restored 45 years ago to as near the original form as possible.
In the yard off the kitchen is a
four-square herb garden. This garden contains four small plots of herbs and other plants divided according to their primary uses.
The plots contain cooking herbs, medicinal plants, perfumery plants, and some used for household upkeep, such as flea bane and tansy. Yesterday, as I was leaving the office next door, I strolled, through drizzling rain, over to the four-square to see which of the perennials were up. I found several mints, one of which turned out to be not mint at all but stinging nettle (I must remember to wear my glasses and some gloves when poking around plants I'm not sure about!), oregano, sage (in bloom), lavender, chives, parsley and some others I didn't recognize. I picked a few to bring home to grace my desk here in the back room. Oh, my! what
wonderful aromas and delightful shapes and colors.

I had to pull a few of the lower leaves from their stems before plunging the bouquet into water.
That's when I noticed something extra on the
underside of a mint leaf. It looked like it
might be SPIDER! web, but without my
glasses, I couldn't be sure. So, I pulled out
one of my favorite things, which I never
lend out - my Bausch and Lomb
three-lens magnifying set.

Turns out, the SPIDER! web is
butterfly eggs. Tiny (half a millimeter),
perfectly round, glistening, pearl-like
embryonic butterflies, stuck to the hairy underside of the mint leaf.
These minute bits of life, secreted from sight of predators and protected from rain by their leafy umbrella, filled me with such profound joy that I forgot
about the nettles still burning in
my hand, and the rainwater dripping down my neck.

Sometimes, it truly is the little things that make us happy, isn't it?
(C)2010 Martha McLemore

Stormy Weather

She's gone, and it is storming outside...and raining inside. What a voice, what a beauty, what a woman! She was a civil rights activist before most of the others from my generation were in diapers. She was a legend and an inspiration, no stranger to fame and fortune, or controversy.

I'm sorry she's gone, but am glad I was here while she was around.

Post Surgery Notes

I wrote some time ago that divorce begins long before you file for it and continues on for quite some time after the final papers are signed. I've been divorced once before, which is how I know this to be true. Processing the effects of this emotional surgery takes its own sweet time to accomplish, and you must allow it to do so, or it takes forever, even when you are the one who does the filing. I filed, in both cases.

This divorce was different because of the special circumstances surrounding it. While there is much I could (and want) to say about my marriage to Ex-Beloved, now is not the time, and maybe here is not the place. I will say this: getting the news that the divorce had been certified sliced me in two, which I didn't expect. I was stunned and shocked, despite the fact that I filed for divorce almost three years ago, and there was no way we could ever reconcile. I wanted out of this relationship, absolutely - unequivocally. Still, when it happened, I felt as disconnected from my life as if a guillotine had separated my head from the rest of my body. I was rendered numb and speechless, at least as far as blogging was concerned. I had nothing to say.

I gave almost half my life on earth to a relationship founded in fraud, which took me twenty-eight of those years to discover. My husband knew from the beginning (long before we met, actually) that he was not what he presented himself to be, and likely would have gone on presenting this false face for as long as it took. He had a lot to hide from the world and marriage was a necessary part of keeping those things hidden. His first wife was stronger than I was, although being married to him took its toll on her self-esteem, too. She filed for divorce after suffering in her marriage for almost five years.

In the state of Pennsylvania, a marriage can be dissolved after a waiting period of 90 days, so I could have been finished with it at the end of November, 2007, but several factors prevented my doing so, most of them fears I've carried with me from childhood: fears of homelessness and being unable to fend for myself alone. But, I now realize - coming out of the numbness that hit me last month - there was something more I needed, desperately needed, in order to get over this. In fact, I think it was key to severing our ties, more important than any property or money exchanged at settlement.

I needed to hear him acknowledge, to me, sincerely (and I know when he isn't), that he knows what he did, that he understands the impact of his actions and lies on my well-being and that he truly is sorry for it. I was waiting for something that probably never would have come, but on 5 April, any chance I might have had of receiving such an acknowledgement was cut off, like a guillotine to my neck. Like a knife, plunged even deeper into my heart.

The blessing from all of this is that the divorce was the kindest cut of all, and that I am free to make any choice I want, go in any direction I choose to take, with no unhealthy emotional strings attached to anyone to keep me bound in place.

With this post, I feel a letting go of the last 30 years, a re-attachment of my head and heart. There is a refreshing breeze, like the cool wind blowing outside right now, sweeping out the last of the pain, the guilt and the anger - the marriage cobwebs - I've carried for far too long.

I deeply, sincerely, forgive you, Ex-B, and wish you well. Adieu, adieu.

And I forgive myself, too...something likely more important than forgiving you.

(Please do not be offended, Blogger friends, that I don't answer your comments on this subject. I am grateful that you leave your compassionate thoughts; they've helped me tremendously, many times, on many issues.)