I have been corresponding with Clay Lowe for the past year or so. Although we are the same age and spent our youths in the same town in NJ, we have never met in person. In the days before I wrote publicly about my mid-life crisis (part 1, part 2), I corresponded extensively with Clay to clear my thoughts. He, among other things, is a poet. I often lack the words to describe fully what I am thinking or feeling. I asked him whether he might, with his skill, capture my feelings, my internal struggle, in a poem. We corresponded for weeks while I tried to gain some clarity about my future, my path. On the day that my ex and I decided to divorce, I wrote to Clay and shared that decision.
My last words to him on this topic were these: I used to see my future, personally & professionally, decades at a time and that comforted me. Now I can't see even 6 months out and I feel so liberated, hopeful, (and OK a bit panicked).
He sent me this poem the next day. While he has better work on his blog (check it out: http://www.claytonlowe.com/), it does capture the feeling I had back around the 4th of July.
Thank you Clay, my friend & kindred spirit.
Dr Earnest and Professor B
I
Professor B. knows the candle is burning low
She confessed, stood, and watched him go
II
Freedom unleashed a flood of tears,
how many years had she been locked
away forced in the shadows while
Dr Earnest stole her life and her ambitions
A life sentence of promised love and happiness
Forever, was more than she could bear to pay
A promise she could not keep, a promise made
on her behalf as Dr Earnest smiled and laid
the last brick leaving her to cower in the dark
III
But now she was free from all of that the open
road lay before her, wind in her hair, sun at
her back, unlike Eve, she lacked the capacity
To deceive her lover anymore, she packed her
bags to go instead, in search of what she didn't
know, but hoped to find behind the rising sun
She quietly closed the door on predictability and
responsibility, and watched her house, her home, her
life sink into the distance of her rear view mirror
IV
She sighed relief, pushed the pedal to the floor
and headed for the beach to watch the bonfire roar
Epilogue
Eos waited by the side of the road
she was hitching a ride to see the tide
and watch them burn in effigy Dr Earnest
and her pride
They danced around the open flame
singing songs of praise, would the
gods of domesticity hold them to blame
for what they'd done, sacrificed a tidy
life of predictability and bore for the open
road and freedom to explore
