Walking Olympia

I’m sitting at Traditions Fair Trade café in Olympia. I love this place, the multi-generational crowd it draws, a mixture of young students from Evergreen and aging hippies, peace activists, white-haired ladies and men. It brings back memories of the few years that I lived here and came often to drink a pot of tea and write, back when I was single and solitary and would walk for hours through this town by myself. When I lived on the Eastside I’d often walk down Legion, pass the old Armory, the school and ball field, the churches, while crunching on fallen leaves beneath the giant oaks. I’d visit the Japanese peace park, or go down by the marina and sit on the dock, or browse through Orca books and grab a bagel at Otto’s. But Traditions was the only place where I ever felt like a true regular, Traditions with Dick, the kindly and fierce, grandfatherly yet youthful owner, and Jodi, the smiling woman with short hair and glasses who’d always hand back your bills of change with two hands. Did I mention I love this place? It is not a place to hide behind hipster fashions and stay separate from others. It is a place to feel comfortable in your own skin. 

I was such a shy girl then. Afraid of being seen. Desperate to be seen. Afraid of being misinterpreted. And thus choosing to hide instead of risk disappointment. I was also such an intense girl. Steeped in tai chi and long solitary walks at Priest Point or in the Evergreen woods, or on long winding bike rides through town. Today, as I walked down the hill towards downtown from my mother-in-laws house, I felt a body-memory of that time in my life, that part of me that still lives inside even though she’s long been dormant. For a flash, I remembered in my senses what that felt like to be so alone, like I was then, waking and walking and searching for signs from the Universe on my own.

I was so sensitive back then, so attuned to my qi and the qi of others. It was hard for me to interact with strangers, especially men, or those with whom I was particularly enamored. Like Matthew, my future husband. He carried a quality of unattainablity to me then. Not only was he ‘taken’ and in a long-standing committed relationship, but he also seemed so rooted in who he was, so calm and confident in his skin, with eyes that would no doubt pierce through all my weak insecurities if I ever had a chance to let them. We worked at the same restaurant; he was the baker, I was a prep cook/busser/waitress/delivery driver. I didn’t know him well, but I always had a feeling about him, and once I even had a dream. Eventually, I allowed myself to wonder aloud in my journal one day: I wonder if we’ll be together one day…

Matthew, however, was oblivious to my crush and to my potential charms. He confessed later that he thought my energy a bit strange. I didn’t know then that he was born and raised here in town, that he loved goats and lived in a log cabin with an outhouse, that he was a butoh dancer and a bass player-- and that one day he’d be my husband. Our story of eventually coming together is too long to recount here, but if you’d told me then that some day we’d have a son together and live in Seattle, suffice it to say that I would have flipped out. Probably in gratitude and happiness. It would have been such a sweet relief to know that all the hard solitary work I was doing inside, all the exploration of my spiritual path and my writing path and how these intersected and were joined but not identical, would someday be redeemed with a sweet whispering affirmation from the gods, that yes indeed, some day in the not so distant future (what’s seven years?) I would be with a man whom I loved and felt fully seen by. Of course, we’d first have to go through a period in which I flirted dangerously with fear and doubt and almost fucked up our chance for good. We went through a period of drama, broke up a couple times, and quite possibly might not have found our way together again, in this life anyway—except that we were meant to after all. It wasn’t easy, as the best of relationships, the ones we learn and grow the most with, rarely are.

But anyway, where was I? Dick, the owner of Traditions, just walked by and said hello. It is sweetly comforting to still be remembered here, in this town, Olympia, where I spent six years of my life—three pre-Matthew and pre-China, and three post-China, with-Matthew. I’m grateful that Matthew’s family still lives here and so we have a reason to visit, even if our trips are hurried and I’m still tied to Cedar’s schedules. Yesterday we had a brief “date afternoon”—a walk at Priest Point, then a hot tub at Matthew’s moms. And today, Matthew skis with his brother while I write at Traditions and silently soak in a taste of the conversations and community around me. Maybe if I sit here long enough I will see someone else I recognize, even if the people I truly know in this town now are few. I never made many friends while I lived here. Even when I went to Evergreen, my friends were mostly the woods and the shoreline and the wind.

Now, as I write of this time in my life, it feels like a lifetime ago. It was another life I lived; I was a different person then. And now that I am the mother of Cedar, this feeling is only magnified. Yet I can still taste on a day like today what it once felt like to have all day, every day, to myself, to wander, to write, to read, to study, and to plan and worry about my future. To wonder what profession or career on earth might possibly contain the vast sense of what I wanted to do with my life—a feeling much too large and mythical for any clear rational answer. I can still taste this part of me, feel her inside of me, even if I am more grounded now, and less afraid.

Back then I thought it had to be all or nothing. Either dedicate my life to peace and the Tibetan freedom movement and Buddhism and writing, or be lost and sell out and turn my back on all I know is true. Back then, I was so lonely and confused. Back then, I was so pure in my intentions, so fresh, so translucent and blue.

I don’t have time to be a peace activist right now. At least not in the outward, traditional, or most obvious-- organizing, demonstrating, and petitioning sense. My peace activism, at least the place where I feel the most authentic and thus the most impacting in my actions, has always come from this meditative relationship I’ve cultivated with solitude, silence, and the page. The process of steadily growing and gaining confidence and authenticity in my voice has allowed me to become more authentic as a person, as a community member, as a human being engaged with others, learning from their activism, and sharing moments of my own. I knew this then too, but I didn’t trust it. I still thought I needed to be out there with the marchers and bullhorns. I doubted my own resistance to roles that weren’t cut for my skin.

Today, I am grateful for that girl, that twenty-something bud of a woman I once was, that girl who I’m still learning from, that girl whose igniting fire of spiritual inquiry, questioning, and aching persistent longing still teaches me right now. I don’t want to be as cloistered and solitary now as she was-- and I don’t imagine I’ll get a chance to be that solitary even if I wanted to be, at least not until I’m old and grey. But this much I know: she is still alive in me. She is the part of me that closes my eyes and inhales with a sense of gratitude and exhilaration as the wind blows across my face and the limbs sway overhead. And she is the part of me that still yearns to look each stranger in the eye as we pass on the street, and that remembers to nod with recognition and respect when I do.

Hello, friend. Hello, fellow wanderer. I see you. I know how much we all long to be seen.

The Philosopher and the Sailor

(Note: this post will make more sense if you've read prior posts- Love Letters, and The Gift.)

I’ve finally finished reading the letters. How many? Well, Els and Frank were apart roughly six months out of the year, for four decades. Els wrote maybe three times a week, Frank probably once a week on average. So, that equals 3,840 letters, give or take a few.

Back when I first discovered them and spent a week or so reading as many as I could from random years (before I had yet to order them by date), I wondered, “When will I ever have time to read these?” Now, being pregnant, unemployed, and especially motivated to work on this project thanks to a small grant, not to mention an impending due date, I have been provided with the perfect window to settle in.

People ask me if I’ve been writing lately, and I tell them, with a slight sense of guilt, that mostly I’ve been reading letters. It’s easy to do. I take out a stack of them after I’ve done my morning journaling, and this often leads to the “just one more” mentality. I make it through a year, let’s say 1975, and then I notice how the next year—1976—is so much thinner than the previous, so maybe I’ll read one more year. Then, by the time I make it to 1977, I’ve practically made it through the whole decade, so maybe I should just finish the 70s off. But when I get to the 80s, I figure, this is the final decade to go, why not just finish them all? And in this way, I have plowed through, and saved much of the writing for this project for “later.”

Although I feel like I should be writing more than I have, reading all of the letters does actually feel necessary, as opposed to other procrastination methods like, say, Facebook. And there is something to be said for reading all the letters in one continuous swoop and absorbing the big picture of their correspondence, marriage, and life.

The big picture reveals some amazing, yet sad, tedious, and often painful reoccurring themes.

Let’s start with the ways in which we repeat ourselves. The ways in which we stay in situations for years or decades that we have so many misgivings about. The ways in which our minds feed on loops, and we constantly talk about the same things. The ways in which our lives and our dreams disappoint us. The ways in which, the older we get, the more our ideas of what is possible for ourselves and our paths seem to shrink.

Els started complaining about her marriage sometime in the mid-sixties when she was in her early forties -- about how lonely she was with him away at sea for so much of the year, and about Frank’s poor communication and his lack of support of her ideas and her writing. Her discontent continued to grow stronger, as did her accusations of his selfishness, verbal abuse, and controlling ways. I’d always known that they’d had problems in their marriage, but to read the steady progression of complaints, depression, and despair, letter after letter, has been sad and surprising to me. Could Frank, this man that I’d grown to respect and revere as an adult as one of the most generous and mellow of souls, really have been so selfish and demanding of his wife? How much of Els’s point of view am I to believe, especially when Frank’s letters offer little to deny nor support her claims? It is hard to not to sympathize more with Els. Since she wrote the most often and with the most detail, it has been easiest to see their story and marriage primarily through her lens.

One abbreviated version goes like this: Here was a man who chose to be away half the year at sea (working as a merchant marine), wandering through exotic ports and living a bachelor’s life, then coming back to home base for a few months to be nurtured and fed, before taking off to travel for a few months with his wife, who cooked and baked profusely each day inside the hull of their sailboat or out the back of their station wagon. He loved to read old classics and history, especially Joseph Conrad, and claimed to be content with his lot in the world. Determined to live the way he wanted to live, and not worry about the things he couldn’t save or change.

And here was a woman who stayed at home alone half the year alone, tending to the house on a frugal budget, writing to her husband about things she wanted to repair or stocks she wanted to invest in, given permission to do as she saw best, but always first seeking his approval. Wanting to prove that she was a good saver and wife, that she could be entrusted with his hard-earned money. At the same time, trying to forge a creative path for herself, to find a sense of purpose in her existence outside of the household duties. Becoming involved in various causes, but ultimately seeking something more. Increasingly bitter that she never birthed a child—a decision that seems to have been made by Frank. Becoming obsessed with various philosophies, but disillusioned by imperfections she found in each of them, none quite reflecting her precise worldview. Wanting to write her own book to solve this problem, and also starting to write more poetry. Yet her husband didn’t like her poetry, nor did he like her analytical mind that grasped at theories. So these were pleasures that she clung to and could not share with her spouse, passions in life that she felt she needed to defend.

More and more, it was as if they lived separate lives. “We don’t really communicate,” Els complained, “it takes two.” “I have to admit to myself that I am dissatisfied, that I have been a long time. Our way of life was your choice, not mine…” And, “I realize you like to always be on the move. Since we bought this house it has been home base to you but not home, you really don’t live with me except on the Hoko,” (their boat).

In the early seventies, Els got serious and wrote to Frank about getting a divorce. She was embarking on a new phase of her life, empowered and psychologically freed by her discovery of Transcendental Meditation and the several weeks she spent meditating in Northern California. Then, a year or so later, her talk shifted to getting a legal separation. Then, who knows what happened, almost all talk of separating disappeared. In most letters, you would not even know there is any discontent. They still call each other by names like ‘Lover’ and ‘Darling Wife. In fact, even in the letters where Els complains about their marriage, oftentimes in the very next paragraph she will go on to write in a chatty tone about the plants in the yard, her daily outings, or financial business, and sign off with love and affection. It’s almost as if this dialogue of discontent went on for so long that it grew to be one of many ongoing conversations, perhaps mostly carried out in her head.

Most of the time, it is hard to tell what was actually communicated because Frank would barely respond to her words directly. Els would write long diatribes about his shortcomings in their partnership or about her epiphanies about her life and the universe, which would be answered by Frank’s terse news of when they’d reach this or that port, and an occasionally descriptive travelogue recounting some new port. In all of his letters, all I can find that answers her pleas for a change is a line here or there of token acknowledgment, such as, “Some of the things you’ve said hurt my feelings but there isn’t anything you can’t say to me,” or “All I can say in reply to all you have said is that I love you and hope we can continue to live together the rest of our lives.” What woman wouldn’t go out of her mind if that was the kind of response she got from long letters where she’d poured out her heart?

Indeed, Frank always proclaimed his love and devotion and addressed her with terms of sweet endearment, and I never ran across a cruel word or tone in his letters, which makes me think that he couldn’t have been as verbally abusive as she implied. And yet, who knows what his words (or more likely, his silence) was like in person.

At a certain point, one cannot tell how seriously either of them took her words, especially once she’d backed off of her resolve to take charge with a divorce. And there is no way for me to know what was communicated during the months when Frank was at home. What was said in person. And what bonds of friendship, shared experience and understanding kept them together despite it all. After all, they both loved nature, simple pleasures, living frugally, and authenticity in people and art. They both were kind, curious, and compassionate people, even if these traits were manifested in different ways. Perhaps they were able to reach some resolutions, however temporary, before Els’s next wave of discontent arose. (Although I suspect that their in-person communication was not a whole lot better than their letter writing, for Els also complained of this.)

I know that from the beginning of their marriage, Frank warned Els that he was not much of a letter writer. And one can also forgive him a tad for belonging to a generation (or some might say species) of males who do not readily speak of their feelings. His letters are the most vivid and interesting when he is visiting a new port, describing his forays into the back streets and markets, and his encounters with locals in cities like Bombay, Valpairosa, Singapore, and Belawan.

And for whatever reason, his letters got more descriptive in the 1970s and 1980s, whereas they were much shorter in the 50s and 60s. Maybe he was finally warming up to this “letter-writing business,” or maybe he grew lonelier and more sentimental as he crept into middle age. “I tend to lose my identity when I’m out of touch with you for too long,” he wrote. Perhaps he’d already reached the peak of his wanderlust, and yet could not bear the thought of staying in one place and settling down at a 9-5 job.



As I read these letters, I go back and forth as far as who I sympathize with, or who I identify with more. Mostly, I find myself sympathizing with Els, even though her mind, her depression, and her obsession with philosophy and figuring out the universe, would surely have driven me crazy if I had to live with her. Yet from real life, I know that it is Frank that I identify with more closely as an adult, however closed off his emotional world was, or at least his ability to express it.

Probably I would have connected more to Els in my twenties, when I too was a tad obsessed with trying to name and define my spiritual path and system of beliefs. But once I found a certain level of trust in what I knew what was important to me in life, and could start to separate the difference in what I believed versus what I knew for myself, I eventually let go of the intense sense of struggle that had once surrounded so many of my finer spiritual questions. Perhaps I’ve simply have entered a phase where this focus doesn’t interest me so much, and maybe later down the road I will I return to those questions with a renewed sense of gravity. Maybe this is a common phase for those like me who are in a home-, family-, and career-building stage of their thirties; or maybe it is simply because I feel at peace with my life right now, and am supported by a wonderful partnership, and so I don’t feel as great of a need to cultivate meditation practices (besides writing, walking, and occasional yoga), to join spiritual groups, or to pray and connect with the greater source of life that feeds me—and that ultimately, behind my daily list of to-dos, I still am humbled and amazed by. Perhaps some day I’ll be struck by some great heartache or opening again that will reorient me in this direction, but for now, my spiritual life feels less heavy and esoteric, and more of a mellow and laid back constant, an ongoing intuitive response to what each day brings, from my heart.

But I’m getting ahead of myself here. All these generalizations feel somewhat glib and too simple in light of having just read almost 4,000 letters. There is so much more I could say, so much to digest and absorb, so many tangents to reflect on, and so much to take care not to summarize or surmise too quickly, as if these letters could ever tell the whole story.