I am going to hell for this.
What’s better than a hit? A few chocolate-covered almonds and espresso on repeat. Tell me one reason I should not celebrate my good news with a dip back into the murky waters of …
No, I agreed I wouldn’t write or talk about her. My best friend objects to any future words about … Stopping now.
As an indoor cat…
My thoughts are not about survival. (I’d like to achieve this in my actual, physical life.) My compassion is for myself in this difficult moment. And how that care translates into a wider care for the world at large. There is very little I can do about world politics. I can stop harming people with my flattening of their human lives into characters, but… Then I would no longer be a writer.
Do you think Lady Chatterley was written out of pure imagination? Nope. Our sexual pioneer was watching his beloved in a sanctioned relationship with a younger man. Lawrence was dying. Why should Freeda be lonely and sad? The material in the most salacious book in English literature was from first-hand experience. Go figure. Another one of my literary jackrabbits, Henry Miller canonized his womanizing, his addictions, financial failures, and devotion to the real muse of his life, Anais Nin.
Reading Nin’s little conversational book on D H Lawrence, you begin to understand why Miller lost his mind on her writing. Her journals were published on his recommendation. He adored her. The movie Henry and June captures a bit of the fury and passion of their literary and intellectual tryst. The fire was Miller, the vessel, and comfort, Nin.
Writers across time have struggled with money. I am part of a great river of writers and artists who do it anyway.
“Write because you cannot not write.” My paraphrase of Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet, now out of print, so available without copyright through any publisher that wants to copy and paste his words. How about a new, modern, radical translation? Like the kerfuffle over The Stranger, Camus, and the first line of the book.
Translated in most editions as “Mother has died.” In a more modern and academic translation, the word Maman in French is known to be a familiar term, not a formal term. “Mama has died” would be more appropriate. In the case of my mom, “Nana has died.” I called her Nana after my kids adopted that handle for their favorite reliable adult in their lives. Even as I was falling apart after the divorce, my mom, their Nana, provided the “maman” they never had. The mother of my children has problems of her own. Emotional availability and being reachable are two of her tragic flaws.
The rains have come and washed away the dust and pollen of the false Spring. Now we have more typical Winter conditions in the South. Rainy. (No floods please, god.) And cooler. Perfect for my ascetic practice at my powerless and water-less monastery of the mind and cats. The cats are in charge, for the most part. Navigators, mainly. They need me for food, water, and warmth.
Living animals gravitate to fire (safety) and warm cuddles (tribe). We are like early wolf>dog beasts. We are hovering around the campfire, hoping for scraps of food. Protection from the bigger predators. An occasional sweet treat or back scratch.
I’m a lot like those primitives. I need warmth, water, power, and comfort. My copilots, Sid and Hunter, sufficiently reconstituted me from my last three-year relationship and its ending. The breakup was not mutual, but it was cordial. Until I said, “I’m going out on a date next week,” we were friendly and chatting every few weeks or so. She moved back to CA. As our mutual friend reminds me, “She moved away.”
Right.
In my most recent brush with greatness, she moved away. Got frightened. In a random event, say at the beginning of week four. A miscommunication resulted in a fearful disconnection she never fully recovered from. But the details were simple and nonthreatening. Her environment, her divorce, that was the climate of fear and doubt that I was navigating, willingly, with her. And suddenly, she got the idea, “He could leave me.” Yep. That’s a real possibility. That moment, when I was trying to show my Braving (Brené Brown) abilities. She would say she knows all about BB, has a few of her books in her library. She doesn’t understand Braving, and if she’d heard of it before, I had to defend my action. I drove my car back to my house. (Protection of her from my misdirected anger. So I could sort my own shit and not pull my normal bullshit on her.)
From that moment on, her heart began the sad process of defending, worrying, and pushing me away from the closeness we were building. She balked. She got scared. She remembered she was in the beginning phases of a divorce from an 18-year dysfunctional marriage. She talks about the two exes as if they were so damaged and unavailable. I’m listening. Wondering, “Um, do you apply these ideas and standards to your own behavior?” She does not.
She… Had a huge impact on my life. Different from what she might imagine. She lit my fuse and set me into orbit. After the “leaving,” she devolved into fear. False Events Appearing Real. She was making up shit. Ghosts of her previous or current marriage, I don’t know.
Fact: I can’t push a relationship any more than I can push a metaphor, even when it’s not working. This is no metaphor. We touched off a soul love hallucination. She took my hand and trusted that I was taking her to a wonderful place. I wrote love poems, brought Valentine’s Day gifts a week early. And a book of new poems, about what was happening between us, unpublished and private. I shared them, read them, to her.
Like my music, she was nonplussed. Like the cut flowers a few days ago.
Oh, I’m three days sober. (Checking in.)
Displays of love or creativity were expected. “You keep leaving me,” she repeated. By the last day, her mantra had changed. “You are a liar. You never liked me.” And in a lovely turn of chameleon-ing, she texted, “Let go, John.”
Well, cats never forget a nice warm lap or a good head rub. Nor do I. Back to the Desert Solitaire plan, well, for a few rainy days while I set up to meet the dancer.
The Secret Girlfriend, I thought. What if no one ever knew who the girl was? She was anonymous. Unidentified or tagged. This is sort of how her “still married” filter worked. We couldn’t really be seen together in her neighborhood. Or her local grocery store. Or… Well, I don’t know. But she turned down 90% of my outside event offers. Join me at this… She was opting out.
The big opt-out for the moment is in place. She used to text me: You’re going to miss me and come back to me in a few hours. It always happens.”
It was such a miss. I wasn’t going away for “alone time” or to recover from my own triggered nature. I was moving on with my rich life. I would be quiet rather than verbose. One song rather than ten. Quiet. She would go through an evolution.
> Anger > Sadness > Regret > Prayers of goodwill
> Do you want me to come to you?
Not this time, sweetheart. The carnival is moving to a different location. The tents and animals are packed. We are waiting for the train and the contract pending for our next performance.
I think 2026 is going to be a good year.
Mindfulness Mantra: Celebrate Moments
Stop for a moment, notice the time, notice your position in space, your relative position to those you love, and act accordingly.
This is all that matters. ∞
*conundrums unsolvable
dig into the deeper meaning with the Cloud Pilots
> back to index: proofs of life
Look >> There’s a new Facebook Group on *hyperfiction*
© 2026 john oakley mcelhenney, all rights reserved
*conundrums unsolvable
dig into the deeper meaning with the Cloud Pilots
> back to index: proofs of life
Look >> There’s a new Facebook Group on *hyperfiction*
© 2026 john oakley mcelhenney, all rights reserved
