Part 2, I am Leaving You Jake, Goodbye!

I read these words to him as we sat on the log by the fire eating our brown sugar and cinnamon oatmeal from paper picnic cups with fold out handles, the waves of the Pacific Ocean breaking on the shore just steps from our shelter,.a massive 12x12 ft. root ball of a giant tree that had been blown down by some strong and terrible storm, and washed ashore. It lay there helpless on its side. I, too, had been toppled, my roots exposed, family of origin gone, a marriage of 28 years destroyed, and left to raise Alki, my Granddaughter alone.

His response to my writing was a simple raised eyebrow as he left to take his coffee to the beach as I wrote. That was the kind of response I had been getting now for some time, well, as long as I can remember. Since his divorce, he couldn't talk about marriage, could hardly say the word. He had been smitten by me, he said, and while his proposals of marriage were sincere, he couldn't take a first step.

He needed time to struggle with himself, he said. I wondered why he didn't just take it, if that was what he needed.

I had experienced too much loss already, and that with this seeming no concern for future or my desires was writing on the wall that I couldn't ignore. No longer willing to access my feelings, and no evidence that Jake was a prince coming with the promise of warmth to rescue my feelings from their deep slumber, I planned to leave and begin a new life, AGAIN!

I took a break from my writing to scoop the oatmeal into my mouth with the plastic picnic knife he had provided. He came back to sit beside me and read the new entries I had made. He watched as I wrote, and then he said,” he lifted me and carried me to the tent where my warmth and passion were rekindled.” These were his words of choice.

“Ha! You wish!” I said, and we laughed, but the passion was gone for me. I was going through the motions, my responses were as dull as the picnic knife, and as plastic! Any joy I had felt languished now, like the froth left on the sand, remnants of a great wave.