Just Like a Woman

Don, Jesse, and I were at breakfast on the lanai of our hotel room in the slightly run-down Maui Lu hotel just after Christmas, 2004. It was the second day of our stay, and we had decided to breakfast on the mouth-wateringly sweet pineapple we found at a Kihei grocery.  Date palm fronds swished in the breeze in front of us and a sprinkler watered the lawn. Mockingbirds shrieked and the air was soft. Don went downstairs to find a toaster and returned with, amazingly, buttered toast! 

Don and I had planned the trip for a year. When he and his son Jesse (then age ten) made pancakes on Christmas day on our back porch in the cold drizzle of a Northern California December, I thought to myself, Jesse has no idea where he will wake up tomorrow! Maui was the final stop in the Christmas hunt we set up that year, shipping a suitcase to our hotel and laying clues all over San Francisco until we got to the airport. The final clue was at the Maui Lu reception desk.

While we ate breakfast, a woman’s voice in the room next door began harangueing the men in her party, coming through loud and clear on the open balcony. “You boys haven’t been any fun on this trip,” she said. She detailed her reasons. There was no response from the men. I imagined their hang-dog expressions.

I felt proud of our quiet, peaceful family, drinking tea on that tropical morning. We didn’t say anything to each other, but I am sure we each had feelings about the fracas going on next door. For myself, it was one of those moments when I felt most like a “real” woman. I was with Don and his son, a member of a family. And we were all happy to be there.

During my first marriage, I ended up being the parent when my husband refused responsibility. I had longed to be in a family such as I now had. Being a “real” woman for me meant having a partner to work with, often modifying our own desires and expressions for the sake of the kids. Living in the context of an aspirational family life seemed to me ideal. 

Don is a great partner, and when Jesse came (he lived with his mother in Washington state during the school year), I most became what I thought of as a “real” woman, the chatelaine of a household, who made sure there were regular meals, clean clothes and living space for everyone while creating an upbeat, pleasant atmosphere. Most of the time. I did get overwhelmed now and then.

Don was the architect. He had not had the family he wanted growing up and he took parenting very seriously. But he couldn’t do it alone. We agreed on so many things that it was easy to lay down a structure. Camping outdoors, making things, traveling, farmers markets, bicycling, Thanksgiving in the woods. In short, Don was in charge of adventure. I tried to bring in civilization.

When thinking about the future, I resist the idea of “the life, or the house, or the career of your dreams.” Dreams are insubstantial. For me it is more a matter of a feeling of rightness. We live in the present, on the fractal edge between the future we are expecting and the past. As we move, either tentatively or confidently, into our futures, we can feel what is right, what makes us feel like a “real” person. I like to think of it as coming into alignment with the ground of our being. As the past settles into objective reality, the choices we have made color what is to come.

It’s different for everyone, of course. For myself, “rightness” was slow in coming. I Iived far from my family and was making the thousand subtle accommodations all of us make to our environments. Longing for Minnesota landscapes, I thought it would take at least seven years for California to become home. It did. And now when I am homesick, it is for California. Moving carefully into the future, eventually it all comes right.

We need to listen to our inner selves telling us what is right for us. Of course we often dicker with ourselves, making choices and weighing trade-offs. But do we recognize when the exact right thing comes along? It is something we share with all the beings on our planet, an existential ground of being. “Here I am where I ought to be,” says our inner self, very quietly. Did you hear it?

On Maui that year, I thought we would lay low, enjoy the hotel and the beach below it, but I had forgotten about “adventure”! Don rented a jeep and we drove all over the island on narrow roads. We found waterfalls, hidden stone pools, extraordinary beaches, amazing coffee. We visited the island's history and went swimming with tropical fish and sea turtles. I was the mom, along for the ride. Just like a woman. 

On New Year’s Eve, we watched people setting out luminarias in the sand on the beach. There were firecrackers. Jesse wanted steak for dinner. My family called from Minnesota to wish me a happy birthday. And then we left for the airport!