The 2017 Ed Sheeran track New Man showed up on my playlist this morning. It’s sung from the perspective of the old boyfriend, ruminating on the new boyfriend:

I heard he spent five hundred pounds on jeans
Goes to the gym at least six times a week
Wears boat shoes with no socks on his feet
And I hear he’s on a new diet and watches what he eats
He’s got his eyebrows plucked and his arsehole bleached
Owns every single Ministry CD
Tribal tattoos and he don’t know what it means
But I heard he makes you happy, so that’s fine by me

In a 2019 interview with Esther Perel on The Knowledge Project, Perel touched on the big relationships of our life, and how breakups — and the quality of the breakups — inform the quality of what comes next:

And not all of us will necessarily only have one relationship, an adult relationship. We will have two or three, many of us, and some of us will do it with the same person, but others will sometimes change. And if you can live and to the best of your ability, wish good to the other person, wish them well and wish you well, then you actually are more prepared for the next relationship.

The more you remain tied in your bitterness, the more you bring that with you. The way people live the previous relationships, the quality of the breakups, is really at the heart of how people start the next relationships. How much they will trust, how they trust, how they collaborate, how they protect themselves, how they anticipate what had happened, how much they bring these invisible others, exes with them, be they ex-partners, husbands, wives or boyfriends or founders.

It’s really very interesting to see the parallel of those things.

In a Facebook support group for widows and widowers I read this morning a post from a woman who’d just received her late husband’s phone from the police. Among the things she found there was his FitBit app, and in that FitBit app she found the recording of his heartbeat in the minutes up to and at the point where he took his own life.

The afterimage of reading that has been careening around my head all day. I can’t shake it. 

I have little in my own grief to relate to the enormity of that, and yet the pain behind her words, the rumination, the wonder, the angst, the dreadfulness of her discovery, the questions, it all resonated with me on some level.

And thinking of Sheeran’s lyrics and Perel’s words, I can’t help but thinking that while we are steeped in the all manner of songs, movies, and advice columns about romantic-life-after-breakup, finding your way through death and grief and everything that means—and it often means hard as nails turmoil—and finding your way to your next adult relationship is something we in the Kingdom of the Grievers are left with Sleepless in Seattle as a model for, shrouded with an extra coating of guilt, shame, and confusion about whether it’s even a right and proper thing to consider.

Perel is an advocate for “conscious uncoupling” as a way of ending a relationship, an opportunity for a deliberate mutual accounting and recasting, and is in that context that she was speaking about the utility of a good breakup. For the bereaved, there is often no such opportunity.

Things.

End.

Whether it’s suddenly and unexpected, or incurable and drawn out, the opportunity for a conscious uncoupling is rare  

No matter how much I wish to think of myself as a clean room project, “the way I live the previous relationship, how much I will trust, how I trust, how I collaborate, how I protect myself, how I anticipate what had happened,” to paraphrase Perel, is woven into me.

In the most positive light, I have come to know myself in a much clearer way, and have been granted the opportunity to actively think about the answers to all of those Perel questions, and more.

At my worst, I am shadow boxing with past versions of myself, reacting to unhealed hurts and phantom pains.

It’s a harsh notion to think of “building back better” when someone has died. But nonetheless that’s what all of us, seeking connection again, after death or circumstance, seek.

I didn’t have an opportunity to consciously uncouple.

But I have been granted one to consciously couple, bringing all that I’ve learned, about myself, about trust, about collaboration, about protection, to my life with Lisa.

There are struggles.

Many.

The “invisible others”—both sets—are always there.

But there is joy in the discovery, the uncovering, the adventure.

It feels good to be alive.  

Lisa and I are plotting to install a life preserver at the unsupervised beach nearest to where we’re spending time this summer. We’ve got the container and the device, and now turn our attention to mounting the container on a pole on the beach, a job that’s required us to level up to my first concrete job.

I purchased an 8 foot length of treated 4x4 at Home Depot, along with a bucket and a bag of Quikrete Fence n’ Post. Finding the fastener selection at both Home Depot and Kent disorganized and lacking in variety, I purchased the stainless steel nuts and bolts at Fastenal, which is my new go-to place for nuts and bolts.

Yesterday morning I set to see about drilling the required holes in the 4x4, and finding our borrowed drill bit collection without a ⅜ inch bit, I called up nearby Joe Dunphy Custom Woodworking, where they generously agreed to drill a couple of holes on short notice (nicest bunch of people you’ll ever meet).

Returning to base, I channelled my inner This Old House memories, and got the post plumbed up inside the bucket, using odds and sods to secure it:

Next, I suited up in eye and hand protection, and an N95 mask, heeding the dire “you cannot rely on pain to alert you to cement burns” advice on the Quikrete bag. Following the instructions, I poured half the bag into the bucket, added 3 litres of water, then poured the rest of the bag in, tamped things down, and stepped back to let the magic work.

Initially the mix looked suspicious, like I’d added too much water, and was doomed to failure:

I paid attention to the guidance on the bag not to fuss, and by 8:00 p.m. we had something closely resembling dry concrete:

Rather than moving on right away, we decided, as the concrete wasn’t fully cured, to give things another 24 hours.

It’s kind of a miracle to realize we mortals have the capability to do things like this.

While I was fussing about with hold drilling and concrete mixing, Lisa and L. were down at the beach digging a hole into which the post will sit, an impressively-deep execution:

Later tonight, or perhaps tomorrow morning, we’ll move the post-and-bucket down to the beach, bury it in the sand plumb, affix the housing, and install the life preserver.

Total cost of the post job:

• 8 foot 4x4 post: $17.79
• Bucket: $4.97
• 3 pack of N95 masks: $12.82
• Eye protectionL $7.99
• 60 pounds of Quikcrete Fence n’ Post: $12.45
• 2 stainless steel bolts, plus (too many) nylock nuts and washers: $21.28
• Level: $9.99

For a total cost of $87.47.

Olivia and I had a quick pop-in to Starbucks by the mall while we were out and about this afternoon. I ordered a cold brew, and she ordered a Frappuccino. 

My drink came out almost immediately, but Olivia’s was nowhere to be seen after 10 minutes, so I asked the staff if her order had gone missing.

They had a very good excuse: while we were in line, an order for 390 Frappuccinos came in, and each one generated a sticker to be stuck on the cup. That’s a lot of stickers, and Olivia’s got lost in the sea of them. They were very quick on the rebound, and she had her drink in-hand about a minute later.

But, 390 Frappuccinos!

Who in Charlottetown ordered 390 Frappuccinos on a Monday afternoon?

How do you transport 390 Frappuccinos?

Does a Starbucks have enough Frappuccino gunk to make 390 Frappuccinos?

The mind boggles.

I find cars notoriously difficult to sketch: something about all those angles. And the confounding roundness of the tires. Something inevitably ends up being not quite right. An automotive uncanny valley.

Sketching my car this morning was instructive, in part because I realized that it’s far less red than I think of it. The red roof is a substantial thing, of course, but otherwise it’s a black car with some tactically placed red accents.

A long week, punctuated by a bicicletta under the gazebo by the shore.

My grandfather Dane Rukavina, who we called Papa Dan, had his 15 minutes of fame sometime in the 1970s, via the cover of the Brantford Expositor. My father must have requested a print of the photo, as I have this copy.

Somehow the word got out that he had the best beans in town in his garden, and he’s proudly holding them up.

The man I see in the photo is evocative of the grandfather I knew: his scruffy face, his hat, his eyeglasses, his jacket.

But I don’t recognize his smile: was this the only time he smiled? I also see my father’s face—he smiled a lot more though—and a little bit of mine too.

I was looking up a reference to the Frankfurt Protocols¹ in my book this morning—I knew I’d written something there—and I came across this passage, written October 14, 2014, just after Catherine was diagnosed with incurable cancer:

I had a good talk with the psychotherapist yesterday, which was really helpful. Not because she was able to give me any answers, but simply to give me a chance to talk about how I’m feeling, which felt like a luxury. I asked her, as we were finishing up, what I should be watching out for in my own mental health – when am I danger of breaking? She said that as long as I kept myself open to what I’m feeling, and keep talking – to Catherine, to Oliver², to others – that I won’t break. I might wither, but that’s only natural, and she stressed that being able to wither in front of Oliver is a good thing, as he² needs to know it’s okay for him² to feel things too.

I’ve recalled that guidance many times in the last 10 years. I have, however, focused more on the “I won’t break” part, and less on the “as long as I kept myself open to what I’m feeling, and keep talking” part, at my peril.

If I’d done a better job at that, the journey from there to here may have been healthier.

I didn’t break, in the end; but I managed that more by girding myself against the possibility than by being open to my feelings.

1. As explained in the book, if you’ve just flown a transatlantic red eye flight to Frankfurt, ”once you land, and while you’re waiting for the next flight, all normal protocols are suspended: if you feel like having a Starbucks Frappuccino, you have a Starbucks Frappuccino. Or two breakfasts. Or you buy that copy of People magazine.”

2. “Oliver” now identifies as Olivia (she/her). We’ve discussed the best way to handle references to her in the time before her transition, and her request was that I leave them as-is, but footnote them like this.

Our neighbours (and print shop landholders) at St. Paul’s Anglican Church have outdone themselves with this year’s Pride staircase.

It’s remarkable how difficult it is to find a simple cherry pie recipe, especially in this age of “Jump to Recipe” followed by 3,000 words of meaningless SEO bait. But I found one: 4 cups cherries, one cup sugar, 10 tsp of corn starch, and (my addition) a splash of lime juice.