I have been involved within the last two weeks with selling Jane’s home, renting mine, garage sales, and collecting cartons from local stores — in Green Valley they break down the cartons within the store itself with a press. In my hey day we walked behind the drug store and picked from the crop. Now I need go to a package store or Office Max. Of course, I am “weeding” out papers and books that are a kind of human lint. I get upset when I see Rochelle’s death certificate and quickly return it to the envelope; I see birthday cards from my daughter and son, one alienated from me while the cards say that I was a good father. And so it goes. I throw away letters and reviews that at one time were vital news to me, personal collectables. We change. I enjoy shredding up tax returns that are about 10 years old. The fear of government rests upon all our conditioned heads. We are a fear-driven species. Jane and I jointly conceived a new title for our next book, either hers or mine: Thank God, for Death.
No one chases me out. Never has, never will, but others might perceive it as such. Here are the reasons for the cyberspace yentas we know and the neighbors we would love to fumigate. Jane has had enough of her overly conditioned, indoctrinated, and mother infatuated family, she who weaves her web like a malignant arachnid. In the three years since we have been a couple, Jane has separated from an overly merged and rather destructive family. In that time, she has written and published a children’s book, finished her master’s degree, lost 40 or so pounds, traveled to Spain and Portugal, become an honorary Jew — no conditions on that, removed a prosthesis from her chest because I couldn’t give a damn about her mastectomy and has generally observed and emended the scripts in her life which have hindered, harmed and detoured her path to freedom. Her two siblings will not understand this paragraph and the mother is Scarlett O’Hara with all kinds of psychological impediments. Jane is as free as a bird, having finally separated out from the family gelatinous. Our relationship has been essentially one of mutual freedom and reveling in being free, so off we go to adventure in Nevada. The deadly fumes of senescence in Green Valley will be quickly forgotten.
And I am leaving four years of litigation with an ex-wife which has left her with withered documents in her hands. I have been judged three times in three different actions to have been innocent of all crimes and misdemeanors. I give all of Tucson to my ex in exchange for my freedom. As I told the judge at the very first day of litigation, this is a matter of integrity and I will not deviate or budge until my innocence is vindicated. And it has been. Assaults upon my integrity, lies, slander and gross allegations have been shown to be fabrications. I don’t run from Tucson. I walk out of it. At 68 one does not mess with this old cocker. I have had to endure, particularly as an ex-shrink, mental illness, inflammatory rhetoric and gross misperceptions about who I am, about my character in general. I leave dead roses and walk away with lilies in my hand. The fact that I had to endure a DNA test (a swab in my mouth) to prove my innocence has made me only stronger.
Jane leaves for Vegas with grand spirits, to chart a new life free from manipulative control, demeaning and trashy behaviors. I leave behind rage, volatility, paranoia, impulsivity, narrowness, and viciousness.
One pinhead in this trailer park community once told me in an open meeting that I should go back to Beverly Hills. Of course, many currents to that remark — to wit, the class structure within this society we don’t deal with and a whispering current of anti-Jewish sentiment. What every potential Imperialist should learn lest he or she will feel bad or misunderstood, is that people do not want to be “uplifted,” like ministers in Hawaiii trying to have the wahinis put on bras. People resent change, resent intellect, resent attrempts to have them improve unless they come to it themselves; not a bad idea but that may take centuries and in this town perhaps never. I don’t have the time.
A wise shrink once told me not to expect much from human beings. I learned well at his knee. I only expect things from me, that is how I am made, but I expect nothing from you. The consequence of this is that I am less disappointed with human behavior. No, it is not a subtle way of protecting one self from being hurt. Apparently I find it to be reality. Try it out with your kids. Your parents. One concept I’ve shared with Jane is that within the family often terrific pain is given without any measure of insight on the part of the deliverer of such anguish. That is, I’d rather have to face a Nazi who wants to destroy me so that I can prepare to deal with his hate rather than deal with the wheedling, smiling French collaborator who gives me a piece of bread and helps me into the cattle car. We are often hurt by people who have no idea of what they are doing. Consequently it is a struggle to leave them, or separate out from them. Jane’s family has no idea how dense, grossly insensitive and good old plain vanilla-like stupid they are. They have outsight and are outer-directed individuals. If confronted, if challenged, they proclaim innocence. Consequently it is very hard, especially when a child, to fight off those who proclaim their love for you while all the time giving your mentally acidic suppositories.
Since I am considerably older than Jane, we have a mutual pact. When the sandman comes, she should continue to struggle for self-liberation, continue to be the artist, perhaps go on to school to become a therapist for she has tasted of so much pain that she could help others once she acquires the skills. Her literary background will help her immeasurably to make all the salient associations one has to make with a client. What does that mean? Feel yourself associate to Rosebud at the end of Kane and you’ll get a glimmer of therapist as artist. We both have tasted in our different circumstances of the bitter brew that family and society can give us. Jane refuses any longer to be hampered or crippled by disfiguring members of her family whose own personal lives are in a downward evolutionary spiral.
As for me, change is a bitch, but as the ancient Greek said, it is a constant. The crap surrounding a move out state is just aggravating, but I will prevail. I feel that old anxiety grab me about the throat when I begin to contemplate all the things to do, all the things that could happen, all the contingencies, all the unplanned events and accidents of human error. However, I have my health — so far, and I am glad that I can adventure even at this tenuous time in my life. Oh, Matt, every moment has been tenuous!
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