Life is a Tango

CHRISTIANITY “To understand the world, knowledge is not enough. You must see it, touch it, live in its presence and drink the vital heat of existence in the very heart of reality.”
Teilhard Chardin
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1 Who Am I…? What Are We?

Jo McRae…Widow? Does that medieval label define me now?
A rumbling beneath the plane seat brought me back to the present, and to the shuffling, coughing and checking of seat belts all around. Soon the huge plane lumbered out onto the runway, then turned from an awkward creaking beast into a splendid, powerfully-made machine. It felt like a force of nature as it pinned me back into the seat. I silently prayed, Into Your hands I commend my spirit… just in case of calamity.
Turning to my seatmate after the landscape vanished outside, I smiled. I was embarking on a tour and I knew the woman next to me was also a member of the group. She fastened friendly dark eyes on me from above a small, vintage body of advanced years clothed in a flowing traditional Indian sari.
“Hi. I’m Jo McRae,” I said. “We met earlier at the gathering of tour members, but there were too many names for my brain.”
“Mine is Sonya Saguna,” answered my seatmate, as she wiggled under her seatbelt with child-like anticipation. “I’ve been dying to see South America all my life. It’s unbelievable to finally have that dream come true, with even a stop in Mexico to finish off the tour. I can't wait for the lectures sprinkled all through the trip on out-of-body experiences, near-death experiences and extra-terrestrial evidence with the Inca and Mayan ruins. To get this all in one package is a trip of a lifetime.” Her enthusiasm was contagious.
I nodded, “I’ve seen our guide, Jack Zuko, on the television History Channel. Now we’re going to actually see some of the places he talks about.”
Thinking back to the group meeting a few hours earlier, our guide had seemed more attractive than on television, with a thick bodied, olive-skinned and silver-haired Mediterranean look about him. The tour, Expand Your Horizons, consisted of twenty people, appearing to be very culturally diverse.
Leaning across Sonya, I saw that the tour participants seemed to all be concentrated close to us, across the wide jet. We were grateful that we had two seats close to a window and not in the wide center section that contained several people in each row. Our tour group was an unusual bunch of folks and I tried to guess at their religions and countries of origin.
“Sonya, what religion are you?”
“I’m Hindu, but that is a reeeeeeally broad category with some attitudes and beliefs I don't personally hold,” she said.
“I’m Christian, but I don’t understand so much that passes as Christianity today. Actually, sometimes I’m embarrassed because it doesn’t sound like Jesus to me.” We seemed to have something in common with our ambivalent religious feelings.
As Sonya’s eyes fastened on my face with such an open kindness, impulsive thoughts spilled right out of my mouth, unbidden. “This life we’re given is so exhilarating… and so devastating. I’m hunting for the purpose—the reason.”
What in the world made me pop out with that, and to a perfect stranger? I wondered.
“Oh Jo... You have some important thoughts stewing in your mental cauldron! What's going on?” Not showing any surprise or judgment, Sonya just watched me and waited, smiling encouragingly.
“Well... I’ve always been enthusiastic about life. It’s been filled with marriage, children and a rewarding nursing career.” Grinning self-consciously I admitted, “I was an avid, ‘rabid’ collector of landscaping plants to complete my rock and waterfall gardens. And it’s been a passion of mine to read just about everything I could find on spirituality.”
I stopped talking as I heard the plastic cap “pop” on a little airline liquor bottle. The smell of bourbon wafted up over my seat from a man who was about to enjoy a nightcap drink. For me, that smell was indelibly attached to heartache. Emotion choked back any further words.
Sonya’s face and body bent forward toward me with complete attention as if to coax the words out of me.
I swallowed and continued, “Before my husband, Ron, died unexpectedly of a heart attack, the marriage had become a challenge. The handsome, self-assured architect I married eventually became disillusioned as the styles of houses and buildings changed into something he could not appreciate. There was no market for his beautiful, earthy, rock and cedar designs anymore, at least not in the city where we lived. His copious social drinking became more constant, although he dutifully continued to crank out architectural plans for which he had no passion.
“At night he drank to cope, and I became like a second wife. His companion… and comfort… was the bottle, not me. I fought for him. He agreed to rehab, dried out and then couldn’t hold on to the sobriety. I planned trips—the bottle went along. I screamed and yelled, bought sexy underwear, drank with him. Nothing could get through.
“A man’s self-worth can be so tied up with his vocation—his work—that his sense of self vanishes with the job. I think, to him, the ultimately fatal heart attack was a release from the misery.
“Through those lonely years, Al-Anon, the support organization for friends and families of alcoholics, saved my sanity. ‘Sick in the head’ myself, and exhausted, they nurtured me back to health. For the first time, I learned to trust my Higher Power, God―to turn over the controls of my train-wrecked life and it actually worked! Agonies subsided—problems solved themselves.” Smiling, I told her of a sign on my mirror, my mantra. “Let Go or Be Dragged”!
“But when Ron died, everything fell apart. Our son did too—grabbed a bottle and vanished, himself.
“Three years later, I just can’t get a grip back on life. All the legal, financial and social adjustments are done. I sold our house and gardens and passed our furniture and various belongings to our children because Ron was involved in every piece. The memories kept hurting too much. The kids and grandkids now come to see me at my apartment on a little lake surrounded by woods that God takes care of. Still, there’s no zest, no joy. Darn it, I’m still here… for What?” Continued...