Thrusting

Thrusting into the previously unrevealed.

What was really becoming unknown to us was each other. What I felt was a turning point towards each other, the Planet viewed as the beginning of the spinning away. What I saw as my new found freedom of diminished pain, the Planet saw as the emergence of an new illness.

It was 1997 and the beginning of the economic times that the Federal reserve Chairman would describe as irrational exuberance. For me it truly was. Irrational with a capital I. But I could walk some distances now. Something I had done with glee for hours on end as a young man was now returned to me. Something that had become a looming dread with every other step for the last 17 years. Perhaps the pain had giving me a singular focus on my career. Now I saw the possibilities of living a life. I thought the Planet was included. Perhaps the Planet thought different. But the Planet stood mute, and only told me what she thought I wanted to hear. Seven years of marriage had not cracked the Planets conflict avoidance crust. I know not if the Planet had heard conflict avoidance until the end of or orbital time. Nor was I one to dive to the Planet to test the existence of gravity either. We all have our reasons. If the Planet would have shared more would things be different. If I had shared differently would things have changed. Things are never different. They just are. Until they are not.

So I spent the next year walking, quitting smoking, and thinking. The increased flow of oxygen to my brain was staggering. What had my life been up to that point? Why had I been blessed with so many things? I had attained more than I had ever dreamed. I was grateful. Yet something was lacking.

The singular pursuit of shilling for corporate America seemed less important. I was back to plunging into the bright lights of the big city by day. A big city I had been unable to enjoy was again open to me on foot. I was free to walk, explore, take long solo lunches outside. But those do not aide commerce, nor keep or increase billing numbers. Math is everything in the score keeping of the invisible hand. The self help mantra's the Planet oft repeated would ring in my ears.

What would you want to look back on and say you wished you had done more of when ringing the reapers doorbell? Would it be put more hours in at work? Editing of more feminine hygiene, beer, fast food, pharmaceutical television spots. Each night as I plunged down the South Shore into the depths of Indiana The Planet was apparently plunging into depths of her own.

Judith Janet Planet was not happy when I was there. Judith Janet Planet was not happy when I was not there. Judith Janet Planet was not happy. An unhappy Planet is never never a healthy Planet to inhabit. As entering the Planet became more infrequent, our orbits fell into decay. The Planet never denied entry, but it was clear the Planet was not seeking to be entered. At least not by me. Is timing everything? If I was staying up late, the Planet would retire early. If I retired early, the Planet might stay up all night. On those mornings when we woke together, rare since my Journey to the city called for early rising. The Planet did not rise early or easily ever. Only when the satellites rose did the Planet rise, and even then not necessarily so. The satellites, I had noticed in my stump health hiatus, had their morning down to an unusual and sometimes distressing self sufficiency for ones of seven and five. With a stay at home mother, perhaps too much so.

So it was in these climates of a seven year marriage, children of seven years and five years, career in it's seventeenth, when my alter ego Old Hatched Head appeared. Thick at the back, with a razor sharp leading edge, began to cleave into my new feeling of empowerment, health, and self confidence. The Head began to come to the fore. Slicing into my life; interpersonal, business, and spiritual relationships with the intention of making things better. Eek.

Can a hatchet ever make anything better?

Witness the Planet

The Planet was always planning. The Planet had dreams. The Planet read voraciously. Everything from romance novels to every self help book that was released. Or so it would seem. So the Planet either had discovered her reborn self, or had kept it hidden from me and now felt it had to come out. Of course we did the family church thing at the local Presbyterian church, and that was something the Planet could sink her metaphysical teeth into. Presbyterian's may have been a little wishy washy for her rediscovered or newly forming fundamentalism, but the Planet was forever trying to fit into her surroundings. The Planet tried hard to blend into and reach accord within the cosmos. My first hint was her habit early on in the dating process to not only begin to parrot phrases that I used, but to quickly complete my sentences. Now I know I don't have a huge repertoire, but after dating someone a few months this can be a little disconcerting.

But being a courtship that was cut short by the pregnancy induced two minute marriage drill, there wasn't much time to dwell on the implications. But as I stare back from the eternity of this now I can only shake my head and ponder the endless question of “Why were my eyes so blind." I wanted to be loved. I wanted to be close to another human being and the Planet I would later discover was a master of becoming whoever she intuited the person she was with would want. I think we all operate on that level to some degree, either consciously or unconsciously, and especially early on in the merging process. A talent perfected out of child like necessity resulting from her constant moves as an "Army Brat”and the depredations of youthful yearnings to fit in, feel accepted, and then eventually loved. A very human and constant condition in us all. How we deal with those inborn drives makes all the difference in our actions in this sojourn we are all on.

My being around, as anyone who has a dailey absent spouse will tell, interjected my presence into a households daily routine. Dysfunctional or not we all have patterns we adhere to, and whether we wish to change them, are trying to change them, or are oblivious to them, only we can instigate the change in our day to day. Outside interference has it's price's and consequences. Despite the positive out come to my health, the newly gained knowledge of the operation of my household was a revelation. While my presence should have freed up the Planets time for her business pursuits, it in reality drove a deep wedge between the illusions the Planets gravity was spinning and the reality of the situation. Denial of depression even with the treatment of professionals runs deep. The Planet needs space for her orbits. My additional gravitational influence had it's effect on the Planets orbital patterns and merely accomplished sending the Planets orbit further from it's true bearing. As any orbital disruption in axis or orbit will attest to, it sent waves of change rippling through the Planets core.

This point in the journey deeper into the heart of Indiana was not only the apex of my joy, but the the embarkation to the final thrusts into the absolute depths of despair.

Thrusting into the previously unrevealed.

This guy has to look up unlimited in the dictionary and he makes how much? Three words for Sprint and I'll bet Danster doesn't have to look them up. Sell Sell Sell !!!!!!!!!!!!!http://bit.ly/eSPN7u

Doctors Know

I had been living with pain for sixteen years, and it had begun to be unbearable. Re-fittings were all that was offered. Never did a doctor or anyone suggest a period of time off the limb to promote healing. After all, with employer paid insurance they seem to be reluctant to suggest such a remedy. Who's buttering who's bread is always in play on one level or another. There is also the consideration that time without a prosthetic may lead to a costly resizing and re-fitting regime, also not a very popular solution in our hyper productive age. As workman comp professional once told me, “Once the lazy bastards stop working they never want to work again.” So stuff some newspaper into a good solid lace up boot and get back to pounding the pavement and delivering optical elements like you were before, and stop your whining was the unstated message. So I had for the past sixteen years. No charity for me , thank you. But then pain and festering became intolerable. The solution from the medical experts was that if the infection couldn't be beat, they would have to amputate more of what remained of my poor mangled appendage.

So I did the unthinkable and took my treatment into my own hands. I followed there recommendations and took the antibiotics, and soaked the stump. But I also took a leave of absence from work, and instead of wearing a prosthesis 16 hours a day, I stayed off it and only wore it a few hours each day to do laundry and clean up after the Planets spinning. Two weeks later, on the visit to the doctor, he seemed pleased and said things were looking good, patting himself on another save. But of course there was the precautionary not out of the woods yet. I took it to heart and extended my leave for a total of two months. Was it the antibiotics? They never worked before. Or was it the combo platter of the pharmaceuticals and pedestrian prudence that saved the day. Well, research shows that research works and this will never be researched. Who knows?

My leg had never felt so good after that time. I felt rejuvenated and was walking and feeling better about than since the date of the accidental dismembering. I was in heaven. It was the best I had felt walking since my foot and I were separated by a Checker taxi. I felt alive. I was a mobile mono ped without alternating interior winces.

But the planet didn't like me being around that much. I should have noticed. Me being there was interfering in the arrangement with her girl Header, as the young lads Clark and Addison dubbed her. Even though her business was never a money maker, I always heard how her Director had explained you have to have things in place so you can focus on your goals. That meant money out of pocket to create conditions conducive to opening the abundance the universe has to offer. Priming the pump , so to speak. It was nineteen hundred and ninety six, six years down the South Shore path of Indiana, and we had already refinanced once and had taken out a home improvement loan. Half went to improve, the other went to pay down Planet incurred credit card debt. Or as we used to call it, "The Saturday Morning Supprise,” being the time I would sit down to do bills and books for the household. This was before internet access to account statements was prevalent, but with me being home statements were no longer as likely to disappear from the mailbox. There was more to quickly follow. But the Planet wasn't worried. The Planet's trajectory was hooked into the cosmos. I was frantic and insecure while feeling quite full of my ability to heal myself. Those were heady times and long before I even had an inkling that the Planet and I were never on the same page. For that matter we were never reading the same book.

I was reading from the the " I don't want to be crippled and alone at fifty" script of post Rene Abuduh and pre Planet days, whereas the Planet was reading the current version of what these days is called "The Secret". The Planet planned and little else occurred during the day. The Planet did not like having anyone other than toddlers and Header around to witness her day to day routine. Once revealed the Planet wisely sought professional help leading to the many diagnoses's of everything from ADHD, to Thyroid distress and everything in between. Plus the depression and the most importantly concealed manic part that was never caught or revealed, with the ensuing multitude of chemical concoctions du jour in the search of the magic combination of legally prescribed drugs. In the meantime I had a beer or three, but no longer to take the edge of the physical pain, but the edge off the other pains and anxieties. Excuses abound. It was no secret that there was trouble afoot.

Also Sprach The Planet

Also Sprach The Planet


There we were. The planet and I were locked in each others gravitational pull. Each dependent on the other. The inevitable exchange of energies both expressed and unexpressed. Communications continue on all levels of existence, aware and unaware. Things are communicated and exchanged always, over distances vast and small. Effects are caused and visa versa.

The use of resources expends them, does replacement ever really keep up. The important question should always be are they being squandered, or wisely used for enhancement of the sojourn. Just as natural resources can be expended in decades while taking millions of years to create, so leveraging futures of satellites for the Planets and my goals can make the balance show a negative flow. But then was paying attention to the net loss flow creating more of the same. Was not acknowledging it going to change that trend? When do you stop throwing good energy after failed outcomes? When you start looking at the world and begin to feel total connectedness of all things many things become apparent. I wasn't looking or feeling, so nothing was apparent. As for my present hindsight? Delusion, deduction, or dementia? But whilst in the gravitational pull of the Planet, either needy, selfish, or on a mission and not aware of the total interconnectedness of things, one only feels drained.

Yet as merged as we both unknowingly were, looking back on things that you can never change much becomes apparent. Or so it seems now. The Planet and I were wearing each other out. Hopefully some of that energy was transferred to the satellites. Because they were just that. Open and receptive little sponges soaking in all around them. Bless the little sputniks hearts. While the Planet and I were draining all our energies in some sort of gravitational fracas, just as the earth from a distance may appear the calm blue marble spinning in the vastness of open space; while on ground level the dirt is full of rot, decay, and festering malignancies, so all appeared serene on the surface of our existence. But from such things birth comes forth.

As the unchanging landscape of the bleak and economically depressed South Shore panorama snaked by dailey, these were the thoughts that would fill my brain. I felt less and less connected to the world of business, more and more drawn to the world created in the depths of Indiana. My heart was drawn to what I really cared about. The Planet and the satellites. The next eye candy moving picture show to hawk and maintain market share of the newest snake oil or must have widget that must be possessed for fulfillment and prosperity was losing it's importance to my existence. But the cash flow this generated did not. Twenty years of success, which felt effortless, had lulled me into to a false sense of security. But our DNA demands competitiveness. It also gives us awareness of damage being done to it's structures. The pain, the demands had given me had made me numb to what was a living chronic infection. Only I could address the pain because it was mine. Each step was being counted. Measurements were taken on the necessity and benefit each step would produce. But the seeping festering wounds must be cauterized.

I knew what I had to do.

Drive by Communication

Drive by communication

It seemed that as our rotations fell further out of sync, the planet spent less and less time rotating on me, or me on the Planet. When less time is spent together, communicating either on the baser or higher levels, just how does one relate to the other. When the flows that make up a marriage stop, and given the difficulties of cross gender communication in general the home ecology can stagnate and poison itself. Worse yet what seemed to be a tactic akin to throwing a hand grenade into a room and running for cover became the Planets favorite mode of relating "important issues". For whatever reason the timing of broaching subjects always happened right before I had to get to the city for work on that South Shore Line, or she had some place to be (still gives me the shivers to imagine what that might have been) when a topic deserving of a lengthy discussion would be broached. I often had the feeling that as far as the Planet was concerned, the pin had been pulled, the safety had been released, and the grenade was now in my court. Unable to be completely explored at that moment, and an expedition unable to be resumed later in the day due to the Planets daily sunset. When the days light set on the Planets rotation, there was rarely any planet left. Tired, worn out and unresponsive. As I was worn out, in pain, and deadened by my daily endeavours. There was no exchange of any kind of energy. Only the need to recharge to continue on our separate orbits. So it went.

So the initial intentions of my daily trip into the darkness that is Indiana was the conservation of resources. Since the laws make all resources common, they had become the Planets as well. The two satellites had been launched, and the Planet had the luxury of being a stay at home mother. I came to notice however, in that rather rustic and isolated enclave on the banks of Big Lake Michigan, that there were two kinds of family organizations. The ones were the mothers stayed at home, with all the inherent horrors that implied to the Planet, and those that were two career families, and could afford or had the family near by to afford them the piece of mind, and freedom that child care can bring to the situation. The stay at home moms would look down on the working moms as shirking their maternal responsibilities, while the career women would smirk and disdain the stay at home for being drones and hopelessly oppressed by their domestic situations. By being good wifeys and mummsies they were viewed as leading less of an enriched life than these driven career birds of prey. The planets polarity was torn. The solution was in how the realities were viewed in the larger context.

Polarities within the family, polarities within individuals. What do you get when you have no dreams and the other has many dreams. What if the influences of feeling you have to keep up with the Jones's's next door is not realistic with the present cash flow. While the Planet was thoroughly ensconced in the day to day surroundings at one end of the South Shore line, I was in a struggle with pain, fatigue and the trying to maintain a career that, like so many things in my life up until then just seemed to happen.What I had set out to do, on the surface I had invariably done. I had much help, but then I started to feel and reject those who had helped. I was now throughly in the Planets gravitational pull. She was my reality. But what reality had the planet embraced. I knew what I thought I knew, but I realize now I did not know, and the Planet wasn't talking. I was talking but not apparently getting through. My presentation was ineffective and harmful to the Planets sensibilities I really didn't understand. What bothered me I vocalized, but apparently not in a language or a style that was being received by the Planet.

We all have different needs. Since I really didn't know or didn't admit to myself mine invariably made me unable to understand and supply the Planets. Planetary needs where plenty, and the drive of the Planet were never ending, and to me unfathomable. The Planets spinning was ceaseless, and apparently unable to gain the traction necessary to produce the desired result. I suspect now that result was an income for the Planet. For the Planet is always in motion. A decision that would not be revealed to me until years later, and much hemorrhagin of finances and resources. Financial prosperity was spewing into the universe at amazing speed, and I was unable, or unwilling to plug the holes. I never knew where they where or where they would materialize next. Life was a never ending fire drill. I could fool myself that at least on paper, because of a booming stock, economy, and real estate markets we were actually staying ahead of the game. I was wrong, as I started to be consistently wrong about almost everything. You have to put everything in place as if you are already successful or you will not be able to achieve what you want, sayeth the Planet, out of the pages of her many self help books. Worse yet I started to read them. When your major influence in life is your relationship with the Planet, you start thinking with in the same spheres. But I knew not what the grand planetary design was at the time. I would just get brief exposure at times, and only when there was no time for discussion. From now on I make my own time, because it is to costly not to.


Also Sprach The Planet

The Planet Is.

The planet is:


many stories
always changing
always tired
losing things
forgetting things
reading
buying things
gone on Saturdays
joining groups
sick
taking on more outside responsibilities
leaving more things undone
setting goals
wanting her way
caring
not caring
searching for peace
feeling unappreciated
repeating things
finishing sentences
trying to belong
never satisfied
expecting different results
hiding things
not speaking
cooking
warm chattering
going to therapy
spinning out of control
spinning into inaction
residing resplendent in squalor
not knowing where to start


What is the planet doing?

If I thought I knew I know I was wrong.


Which of course begs the question. What the hell was I doing. Which is probably the only question any of us can answer with any authority at all. The truly sad thing is that I would probably get the answer wrong. Sadder still is most of us would.

But I can tell you what I thought I was doing even if it was no where near good enough for the Planet.

earning a living
helping with the satellites
keeping the household books
doing the laundry
doing yard work
paying the bills
trying to make income faster than the planets outflow
thanking genuinely for ever kindness showed
being grateful
being a loving husband
being a responsible father

Gosh, I am so special. At least these were the things I thought I was doing. Was I succeeding. The answer to that becomes apparent as the journey on the South Shore Line continues. All answers become self evident upon closer examination. The real trick is to stop looking with our heads and start to see with our hearts. Now that the panic attacks have ceased it is much easier to do.

Caring for the Planet was indeed a full time job. Where as I come from a long line of stoics, there never seemed a time when the Planet wasn't tired, in pain , just plain tuckered out. I tried to understand incapacitating maladies that have nightly occurrences, but the stoic in me is ever skeptical. Being a couple that had dutifully read "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" while in marriage counselling, I tried very hard to go against my nature and try not to fix things. So what's the natural response. I guess I chose to listen when verbalization of issues out of my control were offered and then do nothing. Maybe that wasn't the right response.

Oopsy.

The Little Lords of Doom

Is it inevitable that they visit every Planet? I don't know. What are the first signs? Is it the increasing signs of neglect. Showing up not only on the physical side of the household, but on the satellites as well. Is it the first time you get home early and discover that the drapes have not been opened all day and the house is still dark. Even though the hasty claim of “closed for nap time” is made. There was a lot of napping going on in those days, and not by the two little lads. They obviously had vast amounts of time, especially Addison, to create huge crayon based murals on walls all over the house. While I have always been an advocate of the arts it never dawned on me to question that toddlers would have the swath of unsupervised time to create such masterpieces on walls as opposed to supplied paper. But I trusted.

Was it the vast number of self help books and novels of all sorts that piled up in the two places the Planet orbited most that should have heralded the stealth arrival of the Little Lords of Doom. Or was it just the piles of everything that gathered on counters, stuffed into closets, piled on desks, thrown into the garage. The vast amount of fast food wrappers that seemed ubiquitous on the floor and in the back of the mini van. Or should I have been concerned about the mail that was picked up at the mail box on the corner, but never made it into the house. After all, the Planet had the care and feeding of the beloved Clark and Addison to contend with. Who could not understand the leaving of a few bills that have fallen behind the seats of a mini van inhabited by the two celestial terrors that are young boys in the throws of the terrible twos and beyond. Even if the bills contained large charges that where not mentioned either in passing or in family finance discussions. Was this screening of mail a tactic learned in one of those ever present self help books.

However meals were always prepared, The Planet was a born earth mother southern girl in the kitchen. I never thought twice about my arrival in the door and her saying take care of the boys I have to get out of here. That, from what I hear, is very common amongst mothers in the last decade of the Twentieth Century. It was quite enjoyable to care for my young sons. Quite refreshing after having to deal with advertising people all day, and strangely similar in more ways than I care to mention. Battle though it was with the apparent lack of routine things like brushing teeth and picking up toy's was hard to enforce when it was unknown to the lads on a daily basis. You pick your battles after all. But Planetary battles pick you in reality.

And thus the Little Lords of Doom continued their insurgency.

Planetary Signals.

Communication can take many forms. Verbal, visual, aural, physical, intuitive, and perhaps one of the most effective, omission. As in any relationship there is always an exchange of resources, and often times we feel that we are transacting a fair exchange. Whether it is time, financial, affection, loyalty, or sharing resources, these are all part of the give and take that is existence. But there is no ledger in the sky and the value of resources can often be misunderstood or even in dispute. Balancing that ledger on a planetary scale is neither easy or even possible with incomplete or inaccurate information. This is where rifts can slowly form into canyons of astronomical proportions. Silently but persistently they grow. Imperceptible in the day to day activities of life.

So it was with Judith Janet Planet and myself. Like the running water of a river that can form grand canyons, so we continued on the river that was our life together. Much of my time riding on the South Shore Line, and working. Much of the Planets time seeing to the day to day welfare of the satellites Clarke and Addison. But today's world does little to reinforce the value of such domestic endeavors. We certainly give lip service to the sublime pursuit of parenting, but with the same conviction of “have a nice day”, that we pass from one another in our daily interactions. So when Planetary goals are not being met, and when Planetary compensation is felt inadequate, needless to say the polarity of the Planet may begin to go askew.

There were many signals, some heeded, some unrecognized, but in retrospect, they were there. Talking didn't seem to work. Fucking becomes infrequent. Actually became nonexistent unless initiated by me, which can become problematic for one that has issues of self image to begin with as well as a disinclination to convince people to do things for my own satisfaction. Add that toxic brew to a Planet with many of those same issues and it becomes clear that a happy ending is less than certain.

Then the ultimate clue, missed by the clueless me, was dropped.

“It's not you , it's me”, said Judith Janet Planet.

Ball-Less

Rene Uhbaduh said that all my meanness got cut off with my foot. She was wise for her years, but maybe a little low. I sometimes feel that my balls were removed at the same time. If nothing else poor body image, not that I ever was a pretty boy. But the Planet had body issues of her own, both before and after childbirth. Add latent evangelical Christian backgrounds and children to the mix there wasn’t a lot of naked, grape sharing time to be had. Perhaps a more intact me would been more amourously aggressive which might have been just what the doctor ordered for the Planets evangelical prudery, and the conflicting emotions in me combining the reverence for the sainted mother of my recombined DNA and the object of my burning lust. Then again maybe not. What may be a concise summation of the 14 year marriage to Judith Janet Planet?

As the daily trip upon the South Shore wore down my body and soul, so did the ever growing divide between our orbits. At first there were huge upsets about finances, household chores,and time for each other. Unfortunately many of these raged silently within both the Planet and myself. Like volcanic activity, only occasionally bursting forth from either one or the other, but rarely simultaneously. In retrospect it seemed neither of us wanted a confrontation, and there was so many other things to do. Work schedule kept me away long hours each week day, and the satellites growing and becoming mobile filled the Planets daylight hours.

Another aspect was playing out, the ramifications of which I was not aware of. The Planet herself came from a fractured solar system, a state of affairs I was unaccustomed to having come from what was, if nothing else, a more outwardly stable orbit family. More of the old school of stay together because of the kids, and then stay together because we have nothing better to do. Which arrangement is of greater or of lesser value is beyond my judgmental capabilities. The Planets Paternal Planetoid had contracted cancer. The conflicting emotions that were playing beneath the Planets surface were in full eruption interuptus. If such emotions were attempted to be shared with me, I obviously missed the signal. So they remained below the surface and festered.

I busied myself with trying to stay ahead of the ever increasing out flow of income, weekends of landed gentry maintenance activities and praying the Planet wouldn't be to demanding on social commitments allowing me a few moments rest on my days at the ranch. I found pleasure spending time with my sons, the Planet had it up to her polar ice cap by the weekends and felt no more time of hers was necessary with the little moons. She lit out of there Saturday mornings like a comet with a mission. Usually missions of the gapping maw of senseless consuming I would discover.

Within a year the Planet called for some counseling. So it was off to the counselors we went. We had three sessions together with the counselor, after that the Planet was chosen to attend on her own because Sigmund's brother French felt she was emotionally blocked. Well, that was it for that counselor. It was back to spinning within the vast emptiness of space for the both of us.

Can you hear a Planet scream in space.

Pain

Pain becomes part of life. Everyday takes into consideration the number of steps, or better to say the minimum number of steps to complete a task. But I moved blindly from day to day, searching to find an accommodation between my workaholic ways, and my new responsibilities. The stress that I felt, and the pain that I felt grew and grew everyday. It had been hard to feel good about myself for years. Accomplishment in a career that seemed to be slowly killing me, and the new weekly regiment that left little time to enjoy the things that I thought I was working for. This is not an uncommon feeling for many of us. Yet the increase in economic compensation was steadily losing ground to the economic demands of the Planet and the satellites. Any mention of receiving an accounting from the Planet was greeted by a flood of defensive maneuvers from Janet. I was unaware, and still am to this day, of the depth of emotions any mention of expenditures elicited from the Planet.  She was on a different operating system from the one I was on , and there was no finding an interface between the two.

Perhaps it was the Planets way of dealing with an empty life. For some  having a home and two satellites would be a fulfilling challenge. The opportunity to be a stay at home mom to some would be the most precious of gifts. The most ideal situation that this existence can bestow some would say. So many in our time cannot affords that luxury. The chance to be there through the early years long after maternal corporate leave runs out to many is an unattainable extravagance. Apparently it was. Yet there is so much to do and to experience watching the growth of a new human, who would choose to turn them over for ten hours a day to well investigated strangers. Good references or not you still never really know.

But the planet was an adrenaline junkie as well. She thrived on the company of others. The challenges of a career creating and transacting commerce is a drug all it's own. The appreciation of peers, the social interaction of others, and the feeling of a job well done is a reward we are all bred for these days. It is how our society bestows perceived value on us all. Although much lip service is given to the value of the interplanetary family unit, the rewards are not at all apparent externally. It is a value that can only be felt within. I can only speculate that the Planet need more exterior assurance than she received from within, and to my shame from me as well.

So to the planet it was like being cast adrift in space with no communication other than the arduous tasks demanded by the new moons. A vast emptiness that needed to be filled with the only tool she felt were available to her.

Credit Cards.  

  Credit Cards can be a blessing. Used judiciously they can facilitate immediate gratification, help retailers and governments keep track of your spending, and even make a profit for those that issue them on the juice especially if you get a little behind for a month or two.

  They can also become toxic when used on a planetary scale. When you add to the mix the legalized pyramid schemes commonly known as Multi Level Marketing, the dreaded MLM, it can only set the stage for a disaster of global proportions.

  While the Planet was gestating satellite number two, she began to dabble in that most insidious and ever present grandmother of all MLM schemes, Our Lady of the Pink Cadillac. Mary Kay.  Well the planet began to nibble at that bait but birthing took priority. But after young Addison was orbited, The Planet bought into Pink Caddy dreams with a vengeance.

Now I am sure that thousands of woman have made this work for them by building their business a little at a time , reinvesting their sales to resupply their inventory, and slowly build their pyramids. This however was not how the Planet operated.

  Judith Janet Planet not only needed to buy monthly inventory at levels that would put her on pace for her ultimate dream, regardless of the existence of any sales at all, but she also needed to have people do the housework, and care for the satellites as well. The Planet, a true aficionado of self help books, had read that to achieve success you had to live your life like that success had been achieved already. Step one of business plan apparently was to run this enterprise on credit cards till it was in the black.

  However the only black on the horizon was the black hole our unwholey union was spinning into.


Yes , unwholey.

Postpartum Planet

     Perhaps postpartum depression will last a few moths in many new mothers. But on a planetary scale and by my count it can last thirteen years. All the doctors and all the pharmaceuticals could never, it seems set the Planet on her axis again. Perhaps it was the Planets attempt to overcome the overpowering dynamics of hormones and brain chemicals that made planetoid number two more of a cry for help than another manipulative deception of the Planets. Perhaps, like the hair of the dog for a hangover, nature called for another satellite to cure the bodily imbalances brought about by the first heavenly un-docking maneuver. However speculating on the Planets motives and machinations as I was quick to learn were a fruitless endeavor.

   Co-dependence has often been described as: "when I die your life will pass before my eyes." So it is with planets and moons. The planet thinks that it is doing all the work by supplying the gravity that keeps the moon in orbit. Meanwhile the moon thinks it is doing all the work with the constant rotation and falling into the Planet while supplying tidal motions of the oceans that keeps all things in flux and balance. In fact both are doing their part in the order of things. Neither able to stand back and appreciate just how codependent they are. Who is to say whether this is a healthy or unhealthy state of affairs. It just is.

   So was the Planet from the very beginning trying to pull me into economic orbit only to cast me off at the first advantageous opportunity? Was I so dense and out of touch that I didn't notice? Was I so intent on playing my new role that I thought, as well as my DNA told me I was supposed to, and apparently I was destined to play that I failed to take the hint? Was the Planet even aware of the why and wherefores of her actions and inability to act? Where we both just fulfilling our perceived roles while both ignoring where we all were headed?

  So many questions that even hindsight cannot answer. As was made apparent from the very first visit to the marriage counselor, the Planets communications were shutting down. Enter denial and I ordered the same. The Planet shutdown communications with that marriage counselor. Thus begins a search for an answer. Unfortunately as with any answer the right question has to be asked. The endless trip down the South Shore was in it's infancy as was this galatic crisis. Was it a gibbous or a waning moon? yet all planetary considerations move at their own speed.

   The Planet remained silent.

Pink Mist

The fact of the matter is children and Planets are not owned. We just become voluntary care takers for each other and those that have been placed in our sphere of influence. Often I found myself woefully lacking. But push on all parties did to try to keep open lines of communications. But storms in Indiana often bring down power and communication lines. Bring them down it did. Slowly at first. One could say the Planet's and my infrastructure would be deemed structurally deficient.

Unfortunately at this time no such inspection had taken place.

But it would.

Then there was the SS line and it’s daily reminder.There was a palpable quiver up my spine upon my first of many daily arrivals from Hoosiervillie. What I saw on the first commute on the first morning of what would become a sixteen year ordeal should have been warning enough. The manifestation in the world of the harbinger of bad things from a dream ten years previous should have been heeded.

I dreamt in October of nineteen eighty, before the world had been subjected to Ronny and the Rayguns that I was boarding a train. The platform was high up on a huge wood framed trestle. Up and up I climbed until I boarded the train. It took off like a roller coaster giving all aboard the ride of their lives. On an on it went tossing us like clothes in a dryer. Then it stopped in a huge high grass prairie. The train to return home was on the other side of this grassland. As I walked towards my train home my feet got heavier and heavier. Then my legs felt like they were in cement. I could no longer pull my legs through the high grass. I was stuck and would never get my train home. There is no going home.

So on this first morning of the first commute when I pulled in to the station I saw where that dream train ride had begun. I felt I was in another world. How true it was . It was the Planets world now. I had changed many things already. There was much more to come.

But on this morning as my train arrived in Chicago and I came face to memory with the scene of that ten year old October dream which became my October nightmare all rolled into October 17, nineteen hundred and eighty. The day of the pink mist.

As I worked through another day of pain I counted all the good things that had happened to me in the decade since. Although there stood a reminder of a prescient dream, I counted my blessings on that December nineteen hundred and ninety morning. Things in my world couldn't have turned out better.

  Or so I thought