Knowing Janice

Considering the Solitary Way

I’ve often wondered if our path through life is in some way predetermined, or if it’s more an improvisation. Maybe it’s a little of both. Seems like a wondering that’s worthy of taking to a walk on a beach at dawn.

***

Recently, I was listening to a conversation on the Talk Easy Podcast between its host Sam Fragoso and his guest, the comedian Sarah Silverman. She was speaking about the dying time of her father, an apparently gregarious, courageous, and fun loving man. He had divorced Sarah’s mother many years before, but built a life going forward with his second wife, Janice. Earlier during the same month that he was stricken with a life-threatening illness, Janice died suddenly after a brief row with a fast moving terminal condition.

As her father’s illness progressed, everyone gathered up as close families will do — Sarah, her sisters, a couple of their kids — all acting a little goofy around what would become his death bed. Apparently, it was this family’s way. Seems the old man had a treatable condition, albeit against the odds, but instead of subjecting himself to an ongoing therapeutic adventure, he opted to let things go, saying he’d had enough — that he just wanted to go be with Janice. The doctor weighed in with the family, advocating for treatment as his ethics required, yet admitted if it were him, he’d likely make the same call.

But I wonder if there could have possibly been a more exquisite way for Sarah’s father to declare the perfection of the life he shared with his beloved Janice, than for her name to be on his dying lips — the matter-of-fact way he would set the remainder of his life aside in the belief he could join her. Some who read these words will not have to imagine becoming this close to another, to having known such an abiding history as to transcend the margins of earthly life. I consider them fortunate indeed.

There are times in a life when the possibilities come tumbling down. They tend to happen toward the end, right around the time when the existential wondering starts to kick up a bit. One such possibility for me involves the likelihood of ever meeting an allegorical, maybe even mythical, Janice. I’ve spent a long, long time wondering what it might have been like to know her, but at last, I think I’m finally giving way. A persistent little voice still whispers, though — something best chalked up to old habits.

***

On the last full day of summer, I arrive on the beach in Milford, Connecticut not long before sunrise, about an hour into a flood tide that’s still low enough to keep the gulls busy feeding. The sand bar leading out to Charles Island, a half mile offshore, is covered over at the far end, but I walk on the sandy, shell-strewn surface as far as I can go, checking behind me often. Across the top of the island and farther out over the water, a gang of low hanging clouds is lined up and pointing toward dawn. High, feathery cirrus clouds streak the sky south and east. It’s chilly with a light wind, and I’m wearing long hiking pants and a hoodie for the first time all summer. The early-morning autumn cool has been with us around here for some time now, and I’ve finally relented.

The coiled sun vaults out of the watery horizon after a brief introduction by a smear of scarlet and orange, and slants its warm light against the clouds for a moment or two. I often wonder what makes the sun appear with such a range of velocities — this morning, it only took about ten seconds from the first crowning to full rise. Things in this world are so changeable.

***

As I wander back toward the beach along the length of the sand bar, I consider the thin, solitary path this life has mostly held for me. It almost seems to be a matter of destiny, maybe even a vocation.

I am the only child of an only child, and, in ways, my father’s path was vaguely similar. I was with my mother as she died, and I remember how my father had excused himself just moments before her final breath. He needed to be alone, though I still wonder today if they were somehow complicit — the timing was uncanny. I think those who have been joined for a long time are capable of this. But he lived for another 13 years, and as alone as one could imagine save for my weekly visits, and maybe some sacred, secret conversations with my mother.

It seems for me to be an only is, at least in part, a matter of lineage, and of identity.

I was speaking with a close friend some years ago who is a Catholic priest. I asked him if, hypothetically, his superiors were to place him elsewhere in the world, how that might sit with him in his innermost life given the love he had for his current assignment. He answered instantly. “Well, of course I would want to go anywhere I was needed,” he said. “my only interest lies in what’s best for the Order.” I replied with a genuine sense of awe at his willingness to uproot his life without even an inner reservation in obedience to his religious vows and the greater good. I will never forget his nonplussed response — “Seems to me that’s what a marriage is all about.”

I do believe a solitary life has led me to a greater appreciation of those who are given to share the entire length of their adult lives with a beloved. I know it is not always easy. The selflessness required is staggering. Living alone for the past 14 years, I’ve fallen hard into the notion of extended periods of solitude, yet I’m still not sure if this is a preference or an adaptation. I look to my habits of writing and reading and walking — all performed mostly in solitude. It seems perfectly natural. And yet, to be in relationship has always been so meaningful, even if I’m less than adept.

I recall an inner dialogue from quite a few years ago while on a long walk. It was after I had moved to my present home, but before I’d been called to walk the first time in Spain. It had to do with some principles for living that seemed right to me, consistent with this innate sense of I — this name we all call our most essential selves, that which despite all that has befallen us has never changed, not ever. There were some qualities for this way of life that I had listed then, but the most fundamental thing was that I would no longer consider the idea of living my life. It would, instead, be a life lived, given over. It became my vow then. I feel moved, after having fallen short often enough, to renew it now — just to see what right things might happen if I can stay open to it all. Maybe some good will come of it.

Peace,

Stephen