We dine on pressed glass plates, sharing a bowl of creamed onion soup and the special of the day crab cakes on a bed of musclun greens. Gerette’s eyes are teary with feeling as she shares her pain- not knowing if the man before her, her partner and husband for almost twenty years, can meet her in her new found life of core feeling.
The ideals, which were the foundation of the relationship, are being washed over by waves of soul feeling, dissolving the walls the marriage was built on. I watch knowing it is me that must find a way to swim and breath in this ocean or loose my wife. I tremble inside, try to do my homework of allowing the feeling of insecurity and loss to fill me. But I find no words accept for the calm outer shell that sees beauty in her watery sky blue eyes but can’t dive into their depths.
My heart is breaking. I hope into God’s love. I love how she is so soft and tender at this moment and I long to be with her there, but I’m stuck. A heart attack maybe possible but pouring forth the living water of feeling I can not embody.
I am a mystery to myself and I wish to be, pray to be, completely surrendered to the father. To be able, God willing, to find in me the love to meet her now. To be birthed together into a transformed existence full of intimacy. Not trapped in an ideal which has brought me into a livelihood which I dreamed of for so long but which has turned out to be her nightmare. To enter the wet, soft , tender, fragrant embrace that lifts the soul out of the river of sorrow into the fire of a new birth.
I let her choose dessert. She looks over at me from the dessert case. I say again “what ever you want”. She brings me a sample of the cheese cake and I surprise myself in saying “definitely not this”, even though it is one of the best cheese cakes I’ve ever had.
There is a couple with a four month old, their first, sitting near us and Gerette pauses to asks them if they have been sleeping much. The man says yes, the women says no. Gerette and I recall that time with some nostalgia although it has only been 4 years since our youngest was that age. We have been through so much together, how could it be that now we are struggling to find the passion that will keep us together.
She comes back with a macaroon cake with layers of Belgian chocolate, chocolate icing and chocolate sauce dripping down the sides. Served on a blue star shaped pressed glass plate. Its so moist it sticks to the bottom of the fork. I feed her the first bite. The cake is very good and we enjoy it even though our hearts are in so much pain.