“We are on our way out, Suzanne,” my dad reminds me. “Your mom and I are on our way out. We are two old people clinging to a little raft adrift in the sea… Someday you will be old. Then you will recall this moment and know what it’s like to be us.”

My dad’s skeletal form looks so small lying in bed, his bony brown arms poking out of the covers. Sometimes when I drop by to check on him,  his breath is so silent I stand still and watch, to be sure he is still here. There is a porta potty on each side of the bed he shares with my ninety-year old mom, one for him, one for her. The nightstand on his side of the bed has a few powerful meds, some for pain, some to help him pee. The meds have kept his raft afloat for two years since the doc first announced he had prostate cancer.

My dad turns over on his side, facing away from me. I lie down on top of the white sheets and massage his bony back. “Ah, Suzanne, that feels so good. You have healing hands Suzanne… I’m not afraid to die Suzanne… heaven will be so beautiful… like paradise before the fall. ”

Knowing my love for animals, my dad always assures me, “There will be animals in heaven, Suzanne. The lion will lie down with the lamb. There will be every kind of animal, gorillas and orangutans. You will see your dogs in heaven, Suzanne. Heaven is not just a spirit world where we do nothing. It is a real world without sin. We will not eat flesh. When Man fell, all the animals fell. In heaven all the animals will eat grass… “

These days I don’t fight with my dad about anything. I don’t bring up my favorite argument that if we won’t be eating animals in heaven, why do we eat them now?

While I press my fingers along his bony spine and back rib cage, he reminds me again how I always got the short end of the stick growing up. “I was so busy working, Suzanne. I know I failed you. I ask for your forgiveness.”

As I relax into massaging my dad, he talks and talks. His voice is still strong. He is still the Patriarch of the family with strong opinions about everything. I quell the flickers of outrage I feel over the years of disparity between how he treats me and how he treats my youngest sister, the blatant favorite of his three daughters. There will be no real resolution this lifetime. Maybe next lifetime he will be my child. It’s all a Great Mystery.

“My heavenly father is waiting for me Suzanne… The Lord has been real good to us, Suzanne. This world is going to pot. We are living in end times Suzanne. Don’t you worry… the Lord is watching it all.“

I’m not even tempted to ask why God doesn’t stop the insanity. I just let my old dad talk.

My dad is a survivor. He survived three and a half years of forced labor and brutal beatings with wet ropes and baseball bats in a Japanese prison camp. I marvel how he laughs when he describes how for amusement the bored guards forced his fellow prisoners to pummel each other till their faces were bloody and swollen. He ate bugs and grubs for protein while the allied prisoners, not used to meager rations, died all around him. “The Americans died first Suzanne… they were not used to living on a low calorie rice diet.”

My dad was reduced to a walking scarecrow but, he says, the hand of God was on him. One morning he was transferred into the mountains behind Nagasaki to work in a coal mine. A few days later as he was looking off into the distance toward Nagasaki, he saw a huge mushroom cloud rising over the city. The city was annihilated by the atomic bomb. While millions of humans melted and soil turned to glass, my dad survived.

My dad often tells the story of the day that was like the resurrection. How suddenly all his cruel tormentors vanished and he saw airplanes flying low through the mountain pass where the coal mines were located. He saw by the markings that the airplanes were American as big drums of food, medicine and other supplies floated from heaven into the prison camp under a canopy of white parachutes. I can imagine the tears of joy flowing down his face as he thanked God for the American saviors that delivered him from hell on earth. At that moment the seed was planted that someday he would find a way to come to America.

After the Japanese war machine came to a halt, my dad survived the humiliation of being treated like a dark skinned outcast by the British, confined in an enclosure like a prisoner all over again. Thankfully, he was transferred to an American ship where he was treated like a human being and free to move around.

After recovering his strength at a recuperation camp, and being of mixed Dutch-Indonesian parentage,  he had a choice of going back to Indonesia or repatriation in Holland. The hand of God moved him across the ocean to Holland, where he met and married my blue-eyed mother. Nine months after their official union, I was born.

Seven years later, with a sponsor in New York, we were on a boat headed for America. Upon arrival there was a telegram announcing that the original plans for the Diets family had changed. My dad was told we were being sent to Ojai, California. He had never heard of the place but he’d had a prophetic dream about living among orange trees.

We landed on Thacher Road in a house in the middle of an orange orchard. My dad believes the dream in Holland was a message from God that Ojai was our destiny.  After five years of going to night school and days working in  orchards, building rock walls, and odd jobs working for east end neighbors like Beatrice Wood, my dad became the accountant for Thacher School. Over the years his vow to pay back the Americans who saved him from the hell of that prison camp high in the hills above Nagasaki, was realized.

We reminisce about all this as I massage him. He tells me that “Your mom and I reminisce every night about when you kids were little… Life goes by so fast Suzanne… it’s just a moment in eternity. “

Now I understand what my dad means when he says life passes in the twinkling of an eye. When I’m at my parent’s house my whole life feels like a dream. I lie on my old bed and I’m twelve years old again, totally unconscious, plotting how to sneak out of the house.

My dad has apologized a thousand times for being so hard on me. “You were the first-born Suzanne. We did our best but I failed you.”

Tonight I don’t feel angry when he says this. I forgive him for throwing my Bob Dylan and Joan Baez records in the trash. I forgive my mom for reading my journals and snooping through my stuff and yelling at me when I came home from the Haight Ashbury.

Tonight as I massage my dad he wonders out loud about all the men I’ve been with over the years and why  my marriages failed. “Was there something wrong with you or was it them… or was there something wrong with both you?” He asks. It’s unusual for him to talk to me like that, so I seize the moment and get a lot of stuff off my chest.

For a moment my mind drifts to when I was eighteen and pregnant. I remember how I had dreams about dolls in my underwear. That was a prophetic dream too but my dad did not think it was the hand of God. That was the hand of the devil.

“Dad,” I say, laughing, “I was much too young to get married at age eighteen. That’s why that marriage failed. I was just too young dad….Besides, all those men I was with were all pot smokers…”

“But,” I add, now serious, “You’re right. You did fail me. All the psychology books say a daughter’s relationship with her dad is critical influencing who she marries….You just were never there for me dad. Plus, I was so confused.”

“You are so right, Suzanne….I hope you will forgive your old dad….”

We laugh and change the subject. Now he tells me stories of his childhood in Indonesia. “I love animals too Suzanne. I had pet birds. I taught them to talk and sing and hunt other birds. One day, I don’t know how it happened, one of my birds flew into the bubbling oil… I tried to save it but things were so primitive back then….cooking over an open fire. “

In the span of two hours our whole lifetime flashes before us. Back in the present we talk about his trouble peeing. I tell him again how he should try bending his knees and resting with the soles of his feet together. I lift up the sheets and try to maneuver his bony brown legs into the Lying Down Bound Angle yoga position but that’s just too weird for him.

“Some day you will be old too Suzanne, ” he says again. ” Then you will know what it’s like…” I give up on ever teaching my old dad a single yoga pose. He’s already outlived some of my teachers and many of my students. I forgive him and my mom for never taking my classes. I forgive their utter disinterest in my interests. I remind him that he must tell me when he is in pain. That he does not need to suffer. That there are wonderful pain medications now.

Then we talk about my mom and how we are not going to put her in a nursing home after he goes. He asks me, “Do you believe in anesthesia?” I know he means euthanasia.

I tell him again about my experiences with dying people. “If you’re ready to die, you can gradually stop eating… that’s natural euthanasia, ” I say.

He tells me again how he wants me to be there when the time comes. Suddenly he sits upright. “I feel so good Suzanne. I’m hungry! I’m going to get up now. Thank you for massaging me….Tell your mother I’m coming into the kitchen.”

A few minutes later he’s sitting at the table, barking at my middle sister not to use that small frying pan to fix the tofu. He tells her exactly how to reheat the rice and tofu in the micro wave.

“Dad,” we joke, “If this was an institution they would not let you eat this late.” “Late?” he retorts…it’s not late. Come on…in Indonesia we eat late at night, when the day cools off.”

Fishing on Facebook,  A Writing Yoga Memoir, will be available on Amazon.com, other sites and bookstores, February 2012.

The Afterword is being revised – again!

It’s the Friday before Thanksgiving. The writer in me can’t help but remember my sorry state of mind on this very day, exactly one year ago. It rained that night, and I felt sad and alone. An editor friend sent me this quote, that she knew I would like:

A thought for today:

A writer — and, I believe, generally all persons — must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art.

–Jorge Luis Borges, writer (1899-1986)

Namaste.

Suza Francina

Ojai, California

www.Suzafrancina.com

Thank you, Writing Yoga author Bruce Black, for this auspicious quote:

A writer is someone who spends years patiently trying to discover the second being inside him, and the world that makes him who he is. … As I sit at my table for days, months, years, slowly adding words to the empty pages, I feel as if I were bringing into being that other person inside me, in the same way that one might build a bridge or a dome, stone by stone. … The writer’s secret is not inspiration for it is never clear where that comes from but stubbornness, endurance….
– Orhan Pamuk, Nobel Prize winner

The important question here is this: does the pathological liar know he is lying?  Or does he believe his stories?  Is he lying, or is he delusional?

The answer is: both. Sort of.

– The Last Psychiatrist: Pathological Liars

This is Chapter Fourteen, the last Chapter of a true story. All of the names (except the author’s) and some of the locations have been changed to protect the innocent, or not so innocent, depending on your perspective. 

Tuesday, May 17, 2011, Full Moon in Scorpio.

Six weeks have gone by since I started writing this story in April. I thought I had made a clean break. Except for those last phone calls a few hours after we broke up at the Garden Terrace Restaurant on March 10^th, there was no more communication between Adam and I. No phone calls, no e-mails, no Facebook messages or comments, not even a “Like.”

OK, I confess I did a peek at Adam’s Facebook page and saw that a few days after our break up he was back fishing in full swing: “I’m going to a potluck tomorrow. Anybody have an easy casserole recipe?” Seven sirens took the bait and posted easy cheesy dishes complete with shopping and baking hints, no doubt imagining Adam in his bachelor kitchen, all alone, just as I did.

It’s a good thing none of them asked if they could come along. Because there was no potluck “tomorrow.”

How do I know there was no potluck?

Because, toward the end of the time that I was dating Adam, I gradually came to realize that he was describing events on Facebook that did not actually take place in real time, similar to the emails he sent me at Christmas and New Years where he described his out of town trips. Because of my friendship with Diane, I could now do a reality check. If he posted he was going to a potluck, for example, she would observe him and report whether or not he even left the house at the time of the event in question.

Women were still falling hook line and sinker, just as I did.

Think you’d never fall for a guy like Adam? Think again. How about this one:

Spent the morning in meditation in the gardens at Krotona Hill, in Ojai. It was so quiet and peaceful. I let the beauty of the natural surroundings soak in and let my spirit wander.

Sounds sweet, doesn’t it ? Only problem is, again, he wasn’t there. Yes, he was there another time, so the spirit of the Comment is true. But on this particular day Adam never left the house. Diane confirmed that he was home the morning of the date in question.

If you think you would not be fooled, think again. Men like Adam are charming and have the gift of gab. We not only fall for them, we vote them into office. Adam was elected by the people, four times, so far. I have no doubt that if he runs again, he will schmooze his way to victory. Diane tells me that a few months ago he told her he pulled papers to run for office. When she asked him, “What if the voters find out about your past with women, “ he just shrugged and said, “The American people are forgiving. They don’t really care about personal stuff like that. “

When I told her that it was way too early to file papers for the seat in question (I called County Elections to verify this) she said, “Even after all this time, he fools me.”

Adam’s transgressions are small potatoes next to the Arnold’s and Edward’s of the world.

The patriarchy gives them all a pass.

As for me, if it wasn’t for my journals and journalistic habit of saving letters, and my new friendship with Diane, I might have dropped Adam into the cellar of my unconscious and locked the door. I deliberately avoided certain meetings and green type events, and hoped I wouldn’t bump into him anywhere, not even on the astral plane.

His letters were so beautifully written that two weeks after I broke up with him I was still asking Diane if such and such incident was really something he just pulled out of thin air such as leaving town for Christmas and New Years.

I just could not accept that a man who opened his Love Letters with “My Dearest Suza,” could be lying through his teeth.

It did not help when my women friends tried to console me by saying, “Anyone would have been fooled by him, Suza.”

Only one friend was totally unsympathetic. She said, “Stick with Honey.”

And through it all, my friendship with Diane flourished:

Yesterday I got so mad that I ran into Rainbow Bridge and bought two slices of Raw Vegan Cheesecake, the only real treat on the Planet with no calories. And a bottle of Pacific Redwood Organic Red Mendocino Wine, the least expensive bottle on the shelf. While unlocking my E-bike, I overheard two women talking about how men in their age range (50 to 100) are now looking for women to support them. One said that the last man who left her hooked up with a woman who owns a lot of property and she got him to marry her by putting his name on the deed.

I zoomed home on my E bike, sat under a tree and slowly devoured the first piece, labeled “Find your thrill on blueberry hill.” Right away I felt better. I decided to save the wine for a future emergency and fortified myself with a few more bites of the second piece, “Strawberry Fields Forever.” Then I went back inside my little apartment, laid down on my yoga bolster with the soles of my feet together in the Goddess Pose, and waited for my emotions to calm down.

And then I reached for my journal and began this story:

About five months ago, on November 19, 2010, I wrote:

Today I dipped my toe into the muddy waters of relationships. I hardly know this man and already he is causing trouble and disturbing my tranquility. The only way I’m going survive seeing him and not drown in a pool of unconsciousness and all my primal sexual longing, hopes and projections, is to write about it everyday…

May we live like the lotus, at home in muddy water. — Buddha

Still to come: Afterword

‎Three things cannot be hidden; the sun, the moon and the truth. — Buddha

*Note: Beato’s infamous observation, expressed in the heat of the moment, is not mean to be taken literally!

 – David Richo, Jungian/Buddhist author of How to Be an Adult in Relationships

 This is Chapter Thirteen, the next to last chapter of a true story. All of the names except the author’s have been changed to protect the innocent, or not so innocent, depending on your perspective.

On Thursday, March 10, I met Adam at the Garden Terrace Restaurant at 1:00 pm, as noted on my week at-a-glance day timer. When I arrived he was waiting in the parking lot.

When Diane first contacted me only five days ago, I was recovering from the flu. This made it easy to not let the cat out of the bag that we were doing a reality check behind Adam’s back. I’m a terrible liar but under the circumstances I could cough up the half-truth that I was too sick to see him. But now the day of reckoning had arrived.

For a moment it was like old-times. I was happy to see him. We walked into the restaurant together just like on a previous lunch date, looking for all the world like a happy couple. The weather was warm and the sun was shining. He told me how much he liked the lacy blouse I was wearing and that he could see that my hair had grown longer since the last time we met.

We sat down at a table near the window. I ordered my favorite Baby Greens salad, the one with sliced pippin apples and walnuts, and the vegetarian squash soup. He ordered a Tuna Melt. After the waitress took our order, we chatted about light things.

The atmosphere was so lovely and pleasant, the waitress was so friendly, it was a shame to have to bring up anything unpleasant and ruin a nice lunch date.

I decided to wait until after the food arrived to tell him I was conspiring with the enemy. Once I got started I did not want to be interrupted.

Adam asked how my parents were, how my daughter was doing and if Honey missed him. He brought me up to date on various environmental causes. The usual familiar prattle that I so enjoyed.

The difference was that I no longer wore rose-colored glasses. I saw him as a predator. I also saw him as the innocent child of God he was.

As he sat across the table from me, sipping iced tea, I remembered the things about his childhood that he told me on our first date at Farmer and the Cook.

Adam knew that the man who raised him was not his biological father.  But, what he didn’t know was that a man who often visited his family’s ranch and watched Adam grow up, was his true birth father. 

How strange it must have been to find this out at the age of forty-five, and how unsettling to realize that everyone knew but him – his mother, his mother’s husband (the man who raised him and who Adam considers his real father) his grandparents, even his aunts and uncles. 

His biological father had watched him grow up  but never revealed his true identity.

He also found out that his birth father and birth mother had one other child,  a daughter, born two years before Adam.  He had a full-blooded biological sister. That had been kept from him, too.

Adam’s sister didn’t know that the woman who raised her (the wife of her birth father) was not her birth mother, until after she died.  A  relative told her at the funeral that her mother was not her real biological mother. 

It was during her search for her birth mother that she learned that she had a brother — Adam – with the same biological mother and father.

It’s not an excuse for lying, but I can’t help but wonder how all this affected Adam’s state of mind. There is ample evidence that children sense the truth of a situation and if it is denied by the adults around them it does influence their perception of Life.

All this was in my head as I looked at Adam and wondered how a person with so many good qualities could look me in the eye and say he and Diane led completely separate lives while they shared a bed together.

When I caught his eye he winked at me but it seemed so phony.

About half way through the soup and salad I could not postpone fate any longer.

“We have some serious things to talk about,” I said, very calmly.

He did not look surprised. Or worried.

I reached deep inside and spoke to him from my heart. I never raised my voice or got mad.

I tried not to sound like a schoolmarm lecturing a delinquent boy when I asked if he remembered what I told him that first date at Farmer & the Cook. I’d said, “I demand complete honesty…”

He said, “Yes.”

We’d already been through this twice before. He knew the routine. Acknowledge what was said. Apologize profusely and sincerely. Promise to do better.

I was wasting my breath but habit has a death grip on me as well.

I revisited our conversation at Meditation Mount where I asked him if his lying to me was a one time thing. How he swore he just told those tall tales about his house so that I would go out with him. But other than that he was honest as the day is long.

He acknowledged this interchange too.

I told him that I think his main task in life is to stop lying.

He agreed with that!

Then I cut to the chase and told him that I had made contact with Diane.

I did not reveal that we just had breakfast together. Or that we talked over two hours on the phone and exchanged twenty emails in five days. I made it sound casual.

He said he suspected that we had been talking.

Dang! I should know that a predator stays ahead of his prey.

I felt compelled to justify my sneakiness by reminding him that I’d said all along that if everything was above board he should have no problem with Diane and I talking.

He agreed.

He even acted like he seemed to think it was good that Diane and I talked!

I told him that in the course of my communicating with Diane the subject of Christmas and New Years came up. I said, “Diane tells me you were home for Christmas eating a steak dinner.”

Adam shook his head. “Nope,” he said, “I was out of town both weekends.”

I sat taller in my chair and glanced around to be sure no one was eavesdropping.

“Diane said that her son will come to my house and personally testify that he sat next to you at Christmas eve dinner.”

Adam adamantly denied all charges.

And then he pulled out the “She’s Just Trying to Get Me Back” card.

“She’s just saying all that stuff to try to push you away, ” he said, mockingly.

He basically spun everything I said into a scenario where we girls were fighting over him!

When I tried backing him into a corner, he cleverly tried to turn the tables on me.

He said, and I paraphrase here, “You and Diane are just playing games. He said. She said. He said. She said…” insinuating that all this talk behind his back was some kind of a joke where no one really knows the truth.

Then he took the high road and rose above the two females fighting over him and said, “I’m not going to play this game. If you and Diane want to talk and do this ‘he said—she said stuff’–fine. But leave me out of it.”

When I came back with, “Look, either you were at home for Christmas and New Year’s or you were out of town, “ he stuck to his story.

In the midst of this inane exchange Adam struck another low blow.

He tried to lump all three of us into the same lying pot.

He allude that Diane and I were lying to each other about him.

I said, my voice indignant with great dignity, “Adam, you know very well that I have not told Diane any lies about you!”

He must have felt desperate to save face because then he had the  unmitigated gal to say to my face, “But I don’t know that. How can I be sure the two of you aren’t telling lies about me?”

Still flattering himself that we were fighting over him!

Yeah, right. As in “You take him –no –you take him!”

He said that Diane and I were just acting like we were some sort of saints.

I’m surprised he didn’t think to quote the bible: “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”

I have to say that man is fast on his feet – but now that the rose-colored glasses were off everything sounded so ludicrous .

It hit me that I wasn’t going to pull a confession out of him anytime soon .

Maybe I should have taken the coward’s way out and broken up by email. Or better yet, left him a vengeful message on Facebook.

I still had one more thing to get off my chest.

I said, “I searched your name on People Finder. And the names Priscilla Johnson and Janet Johnson came up with yours, with your same address.”

He looked at me as if to say, “So what?” and neither denied nor confirmed any significance to this.

When I asked why he lied about being married he said he felt ashamed about these marriages.

OK. The shame part I understand.

I said, “ All you have to do when someone asks if you’ve been married before is say, ‘Yes.” You don’t have to give details if you don’t want to. Just tell the truth.

“It’s not a problem for me that you’ve been married before but it’s a huge problem that you told me all these stories about why you’ve never been married..”

He just shook his head and said something like, “Diane is my spokesperson in the marriage department. She can tell you anything you want to know.”

Wow! Suddenly this woman he never spoke with was his spokesperson!

We finished our lunch.

Adam said,  ”What’s done is done. The past is the past. I can’t change the past. Time to move on.”

He showed no emotion or remorse.  

This time, unlike the other two times at the Basin and Meditation Mount where I was merciful and gave him another chance, I was clear that the time for making promises was over.

Adam did not say, “Look, I am truly sorry for all the grief I’ve caused you. I know it was wrong for me to start dating you while I am still living with Diane. I am moving out tomorrow and getting counseling …”

He said. “I’m not going to say anything to Diane about this.”

“Why not?” I naturally asked.

“What’s the point of talking to her about this?” Diane does not like to discuss things.”

I did not tell him that the person he refers to as “Diane Does Not Like To Discuss Things,” was quite the talker.

At the very end, as we were preparing to leave, he asked, “So does this mean we are no longer boyfriend and girlfriend?”

I couldn’t just simple say, “Yes, that is what it means.”

I honestly didn’t know which answer he would have liked better, seeing as I was so much trouble.

So I said, softly, ” I told you from the very beginning that I cannot date a man who is involved with another woman. The way you portrayed your relationship with Diane is not really how it is.”

He politely thanked me for meeting with him.

When he got up I walked out to the parking lot to say goodbye.

He thanked me for having lunch with him. And for seeing him in person. 

I reached out to give him a goodbye hug…but he stepped away.

After he drove off I sat stone still on the curb of the parking lot, hugging myself and staring at the distant mountains. The warm sunlight felt good.

It was only 2pm. Still early in the day.

I went home to Honey, my cats and my yoga bolsters.

I was exhausted.

I fell asleep on a big green yoga bolster in the Goddess Pose.

Then I got up and opened a bottle of organic red Casa Barranca Syrah wine.

 “A vivid wine manifesting eminent purity…”

 I sat at a table under tree with my journal and glass of wine. The phone rang. It was yours truly. I sipped wine while he talked.

When we hung up I opened my notebook and wrote at the top of the page in big bold Letters: Suza to the Universe

The Adam I love just called. He was so sorry for the pain he caused me. Said I looked so sad and so hurt when he left, sitting there on the curb. He said, “That’s understandable.” – understandable that I am in pain. He told me again how beautiful I looked at lunch with my hair growing longer and that he hoped we could stay in touch.

He thanked me for all I taught him. He said I was miles ahead of him.

He said he was going to talk to some counselor at a church or a Rabbi at a Jewish Center near where he lives.

And he invited me to an event in May. He said he would make sure I got an invitation. That’s eight weeks from now.

I left the door ajar and said I might go.

After we hung up I slowly sipped a second glass of wine. My writing projects could wait.

Under the circumstances I deserved a break.

The wine was a sacrament that quieted my mind and uplifted me into the present moment.

I took a few more sips and looked up at the vast blue sky. I saw the tops of the tall Eucalyptus trees, not far away, gently swaying in the breeze. All the leaves  sparkled in the sunlight.

After a while, maybe it was the wine,  the conversation with Adam hit me.  

Man that man is smooth!

I recorded this insight in my journal.

 How ironic that Adam was so proud of the fact that he never drank. His parents taught him not to smoke or drink or do drugs. But what happened to telling the truth?

Then I called my loyal friend Michael and asked him to meet me at the basin with his dogs. I said, “I’ve had two glasses of wine. I need someone to keep an eye on me because I am in an altered state.”

And then I went on the most magical walk with Honey.

I cut through a field of weeds and wildflowers to get to the trail that leads to the basin. Honey ran ahead, overjoyed that her mistress cut loose in the middle of the afternoon.

I clambered up a hill of rocks and giant boulders to get to the top of the basin, Honey leaping from rock to rock like a mountain goat.

Michael and his dogs were waiting at the top of the basin.

I was in high spirits! I didn’t even want to talk about my talk with Diane and Adam. In my altered state that seemed like a million years ago.

I was aware this chemically altered consciousness wouldn’t last long but for now I was happy to enjoy the eternal present.

I took off my shoes. Just for fun, I wanted to test my balance. First I stood stone still on both feet, anchoring myself to the earth and stretching my arms up towards the sky. Then I focused my gaze on a spot in the distance and lifted one leg straight up, holding my big toe.

I stood steady on one leg, like a crane, and felt my inner balance returning, albeit in an altered state.

Our little pack of humans and canines slowly circled the basin and walked a ways up Pratt Trail. The earth, the dirt, felt so soft under my bare feet and everything smelled so good.

I had my own sweet life still. Nature all around, my dogs, my yoga practice and my loyal, lifelong friends.

* * * * * * * *

Early the next morning I called Adam to wish him well at his new job.

That afternoon he called me to report how happy he was at work. We kept the conversation light. He again mentioned about going to a counselor or speaking with a Rabbi about his problem with lying. He said he realized he needed help.

A month later, when my real anger surfaced, I would remember this.

That evening Adam called again. This time I did not answer.

My old relationship with Adam ended.

My new friendship with Diane began.

Three days after I broke up with Adam, Diane wrote:

Suza, he really does not like the fact that we are communicating.  He brings it up often. Today I again asked him if he had lied about anything he feels that we discussed in the past few days.  He resounded, “No. “

But we know he lied to me about you about a lot of things.

Again he reiterated that you didn’t seem to mind at all that he was in a relationship with me. 

I told him going to a therapist isn’t going to work if he lies  It is a waste of money. 

His attitude about relationships is that it is water under the bridge. Just move on to the next one. Plenty of fish in the sea.

I asked him to lend me the book you had purchased for him (How to Be an Adult in Relationships).  I read the chapter on ending relationships.  

Suza, you don’t know how lucky you are that it ended before you became more involved.  He thinks he has an answer for everything.  He tells me, “You and Suza are just wasting your time talking about me”. 

“Oh, really?”  I told him, “That is what women do and we don’t feel we are wasting our time at all.” 

When I told him we were going to share a bottle of wine he wanted to know if you were coming here.  I told him I was going to Ojai. 

My reply

Hi Diane,

From my viewpoint, Adam owes us both a huge apology for his disrespectful, dishonest and hurtful behavior. 

This whole episode with Adam has shaken me to the core. I am questioning how I could be so duped and fooled by someone.

While I find his behavior toward women completely unacceptable, I do not want to say things I may regret.  I was kind to him when I said goodbye the other day, because I honestly hope he will stop lying and do something positive with his life.

I hope that after all is said and done that by some miracle something positive comes out of all this.

 I sincerely hope for the best for both of you. I hope Adam makes amends  for the pain and trouble he has caused you and starts being a truly kind, helpful and supportive friend!

She wrote back:

 When I asked him what he wanted out of life, he never said a life long partner. 

 He will be like all the other old goats, wanting a woman to take care of them when they are old and need help.  Who wants a man then?

 Basically Adam does not like women.  I am telling you, the next time I date a man the first question I am going to ask is, “Did you like your mother?”

 To be continued, Chapter Fourteen, the last chapter.

 Afterword.

 All relationships end—some with separation, some with divorce, some with death. This means that in entering a relationship we implicitly accept that the other will leave us or we will leave him. Grieving is therefore included in what we sign on for. But grief is built into all of life because of life’s painful events, changes, transitions, and losses.

– David Richo, Jungian/Buddhist author ofHow to Be an Adult in Relationships

–Sir Walter Scott

Don’t confuse intelligence with honesty. Just because someone has an articulate, respectable appearance doesn’t mean they are trustworthy.

From the website, Out of the Fog

Just because you meet someone at a Full Moon Meditation at Meditation Mount or a talk at Krotona, a yoga class, a Green Coalition meeting, a booth on Earth Day or any one of dozens of other “spiritual” “conscious” “green” scenarios, does not mean you should not scrutinize that person the same as if you met them at a party, a bar, or any other setting. We tend to give people a pass when we meet them in settings that we assume attract people who are honest.

–Excerpt from a conversation I had with a reader who called me after reading this story.

 This is Chapter Twelve of a true story.  All of the names except the author’s have been changed to protect the innocent, or not so innocent, depending on your perspective.[Please note that in a few places bold and italic formatting are unintentional. The blog  program put them there and I can't remove.]

Thursday, March 9, 2011,

Diane was waiting for me when I arrived at Ojai Cafe Emporium. . We sat outside. The waitress was a friend I went to Nordhoff High School with back in the 1960′s. When she took our order I clued her in.

I joked, “You’ll want to hear this conversation. About a man.”

The three of us laughed – just like teenagers. Because on one level it’s all so funny!

Diane was much more attractive than Adam had described her. She had a smiling, friendly, pretty face and nice figure.

We had already talked so much on the phone and emailed back and forth that we could enjoy meeting each other face-to-face and having breakfast together.

I ordered my favorite tofu scramble. She had a vegetable omelet.

I right away told her that I was meeting Adam for lunch at Garden Terrace. And that I planned to break up with him. But I waited till later for a good time broach the subject of telling Adam up front that we (Diane and I) were talking.

Diane revealed more about her life with Adam.

I couldn’t help but laugh as she described how much he eats. Sounded like she has this big kid eating her out of house and home.

Two hours into the conversation I said, “Diane, let’s talk about what I’m going to tell Adam.

“We’re going to have to tell him sooner or later that you and I are talking. I can’t just tell him I found out all this stuff on People Finder.

“I know I agreed to keep all this confidential but now I’d like your permission to tell him that I met with you this morning. It’s much cleaner that way.”

I was relieved when Diane saw the wisdom of this course of action.

However, she was still a bit worried Adam would sway me in the wrong direction.

She said,   “Something tells me that even with all this information you have, you still love him and would still want to have a relationship.  You think you are different from other women and things would be different with you.   All he has to do is confess his lies and promise not to lie again.  Yes or no?”

“No.”

Then she hit hard to be sure I got the message:

I worried about you falling into his trap.  Remember he told me he gets into trouble with his mouth and gets out of trouble with his mouth.  This has been going on for a long time now, he will never change.  It is an ego booster to think he can get women back after they found him out.

I am so glad you found out now and not three or four years later what kind of guy this is.   No woman deserves to be hurt by him in this fashion. 

It just doesn’t phase him. He just moves on to the next woman. Lord help us all.  You just wonder when he is going to get his due.”

As we prepared to leave, Ann said something that really struck a chord

You know what is so sickening about this whole thing is that Adam is really a soft and gentle person.  I don’t know why he has to lie.  And not just to build himself up but about stuff that makes no sense, like going out of town on that Christmas trip.  I just don’t get it.

I said, “Has he ever seen a psychiatrist about this lying? It makes no sense to me either. It’s very sad! “

By the time I got home it was almost noon. Time to rest in the Goddess Pose and get ready for lunch with Adam.

To be continued, Chapter Thirteen: Garden Terrace

Chapter Fourteen

Afterword on Writing Yoga

Go about your own sweet life and recover your serenity. The only remedy for recovering your equilibrium is to get some distance. 

–Advice from a friend when I told him how much emotional pain I was in.

Dating when you’re sixty is absolutely identical to dating when you’re fifteen.

–Comment made by same friend.

This is Chapter Eleven of a true story.  All of the names except the author’s have been changed to protect the innocent, or not so innocent, depending on your perspective.

Now we come to the most pathetic part of my all too common experience. My journal entries for the weeks following our soul baring at Meditation Mount are so pitiful that I’m tempted to sum them up in a few paragraphs and leap right into the next chapter.

What I write here is the condensed version, believe it or not.

Liars leave you in an impossible dilemma.

As I read Adam’s love letters and the notes in my journal describing what he said and did, even in retrospect I can’t say for sure what was sincere and what was a lie.

The two copies I ordered of How to Be an Adult in Relationships, by David Richo, arrived soon after the revelations on the Mount.

Adam kept his copy in his car and read it when he came to visit. He read it while he waited for me at the doctor’s office during my thermography appointment. He said he was reading it at home and while waiting at meetings.

Ann called my attention to page 85, “Qualified Candidates.”

 “A person is a qualified candidate for a relationship if he is able and willing to give and receive love, to handle feelings, to make a commitment and to keep agreements.”

I hoped Adam grasped the second item in the list of suitable candidate criteria: “Has no distracting ties that make true commitment impossible such as another relationship in progress, an old relationship unfinished…”

A few days later I wrote in my journal:

It confuses me why he won’t take the baby step of moving out of Diane’s house and rent a room.

Part of me wants to believe he is really trying but part of me doesn’t quite trust how he portrays the situation. 

 I know it’s irrational but those sweet letters he wrote make it harder to let go of the dream.

It is so painful and sad. I am still hoping. Looking for glimmers of hope.

Am trying hard to be quiet. Just go about my own life and let him work it out.

* * * * * * *

 I told my friend Macy the whole story on the phone.

She advised me in no uncertain terms to get out!

I told her that I wanted to give it more time, that I was not ready to give up, and that I wanted her to meet Adam. She invited us to her house Saturday afternoon.

Macy tells me now that she tried telling me that Adam was a pathological liar but I was too infatuated to listen. “You just were not ready to hear it. It was like talking to a wall. You were gazing at him with such adoration…you had gone off the deep end…”

From my journal, Saturday, January 15 :

He looked so sweet and relaxed lying on the yoga room floor today with Honey.

I also forgot to mention how on our walk with Honey as I sat on a rock he got on his knees, like a man proposing marriage, and asked me to be his girl friend. “I know I asked you on the phone….but I want to ask in real-life,”  he said.

 I want so much to think only good things about him.

But need to write all this down to help my eyes be wide open. I cannot afford to sink deeper into illusion.

It was over powering and irrational how in love with him I felt while visiting Macy. At Macy’s house he was in his element, identifying all the plants, advising her about her garden…

Sunday, January 16,  in an email to Ann, I wrote:

Hi Ann,

 Last night when Adam left at 9 pm I felt at peace. But this morning I feel so sad thinking back on how the range of feelings I experienced was based on him assuring me he lived alone in his own house.

 We decided to have lunch at the Ojai Valley Inn before visiting Macy.

Walking toward the restaurant we shared memories of Ojai. There is a strong bond because we have all these same memories of old Ojai. We are the new old-timers now.

 At the Ojai Valley Inn the hostess was a friend from school that I had not seen in decades. When we recognized each other we hugged and she introduced me to the other hostess as the former mayor. Interesting how that ceremonial hat seems to carry the most clout.

 At first it was very romantic sitting with Adam at an elegant table, outside, on this beautiful warm sunny day with the sweeping views of the green golf course, the Oak trees, the mountains…

 Reality settled in as the conversation turned to our relationship.

 I must have been optimistic to start with because I heard myself say,”We are on the other side of hell. We can now move forward.”

David Richo in his book talks about how hard it is for people to live with uncertainty. I see how I want to push things in the direction of my feminine fantasies but then I do back off.

Sitting there at the table I questioned Adam more closely about the situation with Diane.

What he told me is disturbing enough but also I don’t know what to think when he says things like, “If I called her and told her I was spending the night in Ojai she’d probably kick me out…” And then he proceeded to explain why he needed to report in to her and why he needed the safety and security of living there.

 I felt kind of sick to my stomach even though the seared tofu dish was delicious.

Knowing what I know now, I swear there is no way I will have sex with him while he goes home to the security of his big king size bed in his beautiful room that he loves.

 He describes Diane as “someone totally not wanting to talk about personal stuff .” As “someone who does not want to know.”

 I pointed out how absurd this going home at night thing is. We could be in bed all day–him coming home like a child by 10 pm means nothing, really.

I could choke the lying out of him when I look back on the ways he aroused me. Especially his letters. The dates in Nature. And all along he was going home to Diane.

Look, I know his Life is difficult, especially with his health issues. I just wish it wasn’t me that fell for him hook, line and sinker when he was fishing on Facebook.

I know I have to reach high and see the part I played in wanting to believe he was a free, available man.

 It is all so incredibly ironic. I just shake my head at the irony and absurdity of it all!

He says he has lived with Diane about three years. At one point he even said, “I am the light of her life.” It made me wonder about the true nature of their relationship.

He loves the beautiful garden they created together. He appears very attached.

I think back on how hopeful I felt when he came over the Friday before New Years with the garden plan for my house. Putting that in my hands made me feel he cared.

 Ann, when we were at the Ojai Valley Inn, I told him I no longer know what to believe.

Even as I write this I see the craziness of it. That is why I need  to spell it out so the craziness does not get pushed aside. So I do not latch onto the hopeful signs and ignore the rest.

 I heard him say he does not want to go from one codependent situation to another.

And I heard myself say, “Do you know the difference between codependence and co operation–working together?”

I pointed at the houses we were walking past, “Are all these couples living together codependent or are they working together to create a life?”

  I heard myself say several times that “If you had your head on straight you would take do-able steps to extricate yourself out of Diane’s house.”

 My fear is not just that he is living at Diane’s house. My fear is that even though he wants to be my boyfriend and even talks about our future that he will do something  worse to make me dump him.

That is how the shadow side works.

I think he still expects me to dump him even as he says, “ I hope you will be patient and not dump me.”

He knows very well that if I dump him he can retreat to his comfort zone and blame me. He can then tell the next fish, “She dumped me.” Or he’ll say it was a “mutual decision,” which sounds so civil and agreeable.

I hear myself telling him, “These are not insurmountable problems.  We are not talking about a long distance relationship where you live in another country. You do not have a wife and three young children that need you.”

I tell him that we need to keep these complications and challenges of the present moment in perspective.

On January 20 I emailed Ann again:

 Woke up at 1 am with the full moon beaming through my window… My unconscious pulls me by the hair, kicks me out of bed and makes me write, write, write in my journal…now I will do yoga work..get some distance…then I will type it up like any other writing project…and send to you to be sure I remain accountable …

 Ann, when I write down the things he says I still do not know what to believe so my mission is not to believe anything…just watch and see.

That night I also wrote in my journal:

January 20, 2 am

By the light of the moon the landscape looks so stark –I feel the utter loneliness and impermanence of it all.

The moonlight shines straight through the window. No wonder I cannot sleep—full moon right over my head.

For a second I find myself thinking, why, if he felt what he wrote, why did he not act?

 I wrote Ann another letter:

 The David Richo book and the pain I feel when Adam goes back to Diane’s house is forcing me to look at how the past and present are converging. I am reading and rereading many parts of Richo’s book. In truth, this is more important to my spiritual growth and yoga teaching than anything else.

My unconscious will not let me sleep (both literally and figuratively). I must keep writing down what he says vs what he actually does.

Ann, I am truly afraid Adam will break my heart, even more than he already has. He is a charming,  seductive man but (and I hope I’m wrong) I just do not feel any urgency on his part to move out of Diane’s house.

Last Sunday morning he surprised me by saying he was looking at ads for apartments for rent.

But then he hurt his back working in their garden and couldn’t go looking.

I have to remember that he did not have the urge to move out when he began dating and “falling in love,” with me. And that I only know about the situation because of Liz’s outburst after the yoga class.

 And now my foolish tender heart said “yes,” when he asked me last week to be his girlfriend.  Even as I write that I shake my head because I should have said ” I can’t be your girlfriend untill you move out…”

 Ann, I cut him a lot of slack and accept him as a flawed, vulnerable human being,  but I fear that he uses women.

 I don’t know if he ever thinks what he can do to make their life (my life) better. I think if I had a big comfortable house he might already be living with me. He does little things that make me think he wants to be a real boyfriend. He even says he wants to be the best boyfriend I ever had. I want so much to believe but have to keep doing reality checks.

 I think he really is trying… but old habit have a death grip on him!  Plus if he is unconsciously sabotaging our relationship he needs back up “friendships” to catch him when I give him the boot (that’s what my mind thinks).

 He read me the beginning of David Richo’s book while I cleaned the house. I have to say I liked his company while I washed the dishes.

 * * * * *

I lit a few tea candles and we relaxed together. I felt strangely at peace and not at all interested in sex (just felt right to hold hands, be close and a few affectionate kisses because knowing he has to go home to Diane is like  throwing a bucket of ice on my sexual fire.

Adam left at 9pm as usual.

The bottom line is that Adam’s actions and words reveal that he is a conflicted, ambivalent man.

 Definition of Ambivalent

• Simultaneously feeling opposing or contradictory feelings.

• Having two opposite or conflicting feelings simultaneously

 Yes, I think that sums it up!

 In an email to Ann, January 29:

 Adam arrived Saturday afternoon with the curtain rods I had asked him to pick up at one of those big stores (Lowe’s, the receipt says) near his house in Ventura.

He did not have to pick me up to go to a friend’s birthday party till 5 pm. Says he likes to come over early.

 He willingly runs errands like a dutiful husband. He is totally comfortable and fine with that. And he insisted on hanging the curtain rods on all three windows.

 I notice that when he does domestic husbandly things like fixing light switches how I warm up to him, just like when I was a single mom at eighteen and all men had to do was bounce my baby boy on their lap and I’d fall into bed with them.

 Last Saturday, for some inexplicable reason, we had agreed that he would spend the night this Saturday. As I recall, it came about after a discussion whether he was just a lodger at Diane’s house (since he rents a room there) or is there something more going on emotionally with Diane?

 I had a feeling he would dream up some way to wiggle out of it as I think he feels insecure about bringing our three months of sexual fantasies into reality. 

I can understand that. 

 Saturday morning, on the phone, he came up with a good one. I felt so angry I had to hang up for a minute.

He said he noticed he is having trouble breathing in my apartment. He asked if there might be mold. Then he said maybe he is allergic to the cats. He went on and on about his allergies. Said he had never had a girlfriend before with cats.

Ann, it is no coincidence that he brought this up when faced with actually spending the night with me. He said that if he goes outside every hour for a few minutes in the fresh air that he would be all right.

Other than that he was a good date at the birthday party.

He told me that his father’s bible was Dale Carnegie’s book,”How to Win Friends and Influence People.” He’s read it many times. I think that is the key to his modus operandus.

I see him using the same techniques on other people, like asking them questions about themselves, that he used on me that first date.

Ann, when we got back to my house he suddenly looked like this strange old man sitting in my room. I lit candles and told him to relax while I took Honey on a walk around the block. The candles were a clue no man could miss. You would think.

 When I came back the place was lit up. The bright overhead lights were on ruining the ambiance. He said he had to find a cup for water.

 Now you would think my wild mountain man would be lying on my “child futon bed,” as he calls it, with his shoes off, but instead he sat stiff and distant on a chair, poised to bolt out of the room.

 I think he was scared.

 I had to sweet talk him into lying on the bed. I did not feel sexual at all with his bizarre vibe in the room. Hard to believe this was the same man who wrote me those love letters and has been stirring me up and making me feel crazy with desire for three full moons.

 Part of me wanted to push him out the door but the Love Goddess inside me was not ready to throw in the towel. Yet.

 So he finally took off his shoes.

 I changed clothes. I had to feel like my yoga self. I wore a long, loose fitting, very soft top with buttons and a little black top underneath that I could pull down over my tummy and expose whatever I like–or not– and no underwear.

 In spite of all his distancing and sudden allergies, I felt relaxed and happy and very sexy and sensual. He finally picked up on it. And then it was like another entity entered his body and he felt more like the man who has been kissing me out in nature all these weeks.

I was happy when he went home a little later to his cozy bachelor bed because I am not ready to make love with him. Yet.

His ambivalence is making me a bit ambivalent.

 But the way he touched me felt amazing. It was a very special, sacred time together. When he called me the next morning at 6 am, and the sweet, sensitive things he said, told me that he understands.

On some level he does understand.

But at some point his ambivalence may wear me out.

 And the Gemini in me can see that his need to stay at Diane’s house allows me my independence. If he was snoring in my bed I might not be writing this.

 * * * * *

Hello Dear Ann,

I would describe this as a perfect day –except for reality.

All seemed well until I went to his Facebook page.

 When I see the photos of Diane and Adam’s garden I feel as if I’m kicked in the gut.

 He loves that garden. I feel completely shut out of this part of his life.

 He still tells me it would be disrespectful to Diane to take me her house.

Ann, I  know he is giving me contradictory conflicting messages –but what if I am not hearing him right. I am making a huge effort to listen carefully and not brush aside the things I don’t want to hear, and writing down what he said is a huge part of this effort.

  I don’t get it!

 I don’t want to dwell on this. It’s not my problem. I’m putting it on paper and out of my head, for now.  But it strikes me as very strange that Diane has not asked him to move.  Surely she can hire someone else to maintain the garden!

 And then, when I express concern about his living with Diane  I notice now he overreacts. He says things in a loud somewhat emotional, irritated voice, like “What do you expect me to do. Pack up my clothes in ten minutes and just leave?”

Well, yes!

 But instead I say, “No, you do not need to do anything extreme. But you need to be clear that you need to find a way to move out. It can be a stepping stone like renting a room.

I told him that even though living with Diane is convenient, the first step is for him to see that it is not psychologically  healthy for him to keep living in her house.

 Suza

 * * * *

From my journal, February 8, 2011:

 As life whirls around me I am shocked by how much I want the story of Adam and Suza to turn out well.

 I write myself messages like:

 You are hanging in there because you want the story to have an unexpected twist and turn out good.

Another month of meetings, dates, dog walks and soul baring went by. Adam was no closer to moving out of Diane’s house then the day I met him for lunch at Farmer and the Cook. Ann suggested that I have Adam set a move-out date and see what he comes up with.

And all this time not a day went by that I did not debate the pros and cons of calling Diane.

On February 20, I wrote to Ann:

They were waiting in the wings, ready to help me get off the hook.

When I looked in my email box that morning, lo and behold, there was a message from Diane Jackson. It had arrived the previous night.

The message said:

My friend, I guess I should say our friend, made the comment to me a couple of weeks ago that you would like to talk to me. My phone number is 648-xx xx

This is a land line. I don’t have a cell. I would feel very uneasy speaking on the phone with Adam in the house.  I probably know Adam better than anyone in this world.  I would insist though that he not know we are communicating.  I am a very honest person, and I don’t lie.  Sometimes that is very painful.  Believe me I have no ill feelings towards you. You did me a favor.  Diane

Saturday, March 5

Dear Diane,

Thank you for this communication. I will call you after Adam leaves your house. He said he would be in LA all day today, Saturday. I promise that our communication is confidential.  I have been wanting to talk to you ever since I found out through your friend Liz (my yoga student) that Adam lives in your house. I knew Adam back in the 1970′s (from a distance) and we have many common friends from our years living in Ojai.

These past several months I’ve come to realize I don’t really know Adam and at this point I’m having trouble sorting out fact from fiction.

 I very much look forward to speaking with you.

Sincerely,

Suza Francina   646-2613

To be continued, Chapter Twelve, breakfast with Diane at Ojai Coffee Emporium

Historically men’s greatest fear has been that women would unite.

 * * * * * * *

There is yet another problem with relationship addiction: Both rejection and acceptance fire up our adrenalin, so both are equally exciting to the addict. Thus, adrenaline hooks us both coming and going;we are still hooked when we are breaking up. We can get a fix from our partner even as we leave him. Addictions of this kind often follow the pattern of “seduce and withhold.” First I attract you to me and then I withdraw from you.

–David Richo, How to Be an Adult in Relationships

Both psychological work for individuation and spiritual practice for egolessness will always be required as dual requisites for the enlightenment of beings as beautifully and mysteriously designed as we. –David Richo, How to Be an Adult in Relationships

This is Chapter Ten of a true story. All of the names except the author’s have been changed to protect the innocent, or not so innocent, depending on your perspective. 

One of Adam’s good qualities was that he was always on time, even a few minutes early. I wondered if he would try to wiggle out of going to Meditation Mount but there he was, right at 2pm.

We drove toward the east end, past the orange groves on Reeves Road, to the very top of the steep hill where Meditation Mount sits. You cannot help but be transported to a higher plane the moment you step onto that sacred land, surrounded by chaparral, sage, wildflowers, with majestic views of the mountains and Ojai Valley below.

There were cars in the parking lot and I could see people seated in the auditorium, but all was peaceful and quiet outside.

The profound stillness that pervaded the whole atmosphere of Meditation Mount helped to center me.

We walked quietly past the Tibetan-style buildings, past The Terrace, down the winding dirt path, through the wooden “Portal of Peace,” structure and into the Garden of Peace.

We picked out a stone bench, a fairly private spot, and sat down together.

I took Adam’s hand.

We were two human beings, two ordinary mortals, two souls wrestling with our transient problems on the earthly plane.

No animosity.

I felt a wave of love and compassion for him. I smiled my most illuminated yogini smile.

“Adam,” I said, half joking to add a little levity to the situation, “You are a child of God.”

“A delinquent child of God,” he joked back.

He looked like a child that knows in his heart of hearts that lying is wrong but still hopes he can get away with it.

It was our first time together at Meditation Mount. Smart move on my part, I thought, to suggest we come here to talk.  The peaceful atmosphere was conducive to seeing our personal problems from a more cosmic perspective.

I sat cross-legged on the stone bench and suggested we be quiet for a few moments.

I closed my eyes. This was as good a moment as any to commune with the divine.

The devil must have told Adam what was coming. When I opened my eyes he launched nonstop into the story of how he discovered, as a child, that people like it better when you lie.

He said he learned to lie as  child, “ to make life easer.”

Adam is a great story teller. He described in colorful detail how he frequently forgot to shut the garden gate of the various gardens on his family’s ranch. And how he would get into big trouble when the goats and other animals ate all the flowers and vegetables.

Each time he left the gate unlocked his parents would yell for him and ask if he left the gate open.

Each time, after he confessed, his father would whip him.

He said he was only about six or seven years old at the time.

The image of this little boy getting a beating made me very sad.

No matter how often he got a beating, (“and it hurt,” he added) a few weeks or months later he would again be in a hurry, slam the gate shut and not check if it was really locked.

The way he tells it, this went on for a long time.

Then one day his cousins visited. After they left Adam again forgot to shut the gate and the animals got into the garden.

This time when his parents called him and yelled at him–you guessed it–he blamed his cousins.

Evidently they believed his lie and he did not get a whipping. His parents called the cousins parents and they got the full blame.

As Adam described the beautiful themed gardens that were his parents pride and joy, I could see what his game was — distracting me… delaying me…stalling.

He knew what was coming, but he was not about to own up.

When I wrote all this down in my journal I put in big print: HE IS VERY CLEVER!

Maybe he hoped if he talked long enough I’d forget about the whole house situation.

When he finally finished I gave him one more chance to come clean.

 I asked him if there was anything more I needed to know about the things we started talking about on Sunday.

I gave him plenty of time and space to tell the truth.

But he just shrugged —nothing more.

Then I said that I was “in a quandary.”

That sounded more diplomatic than outright calling him a liar.

I said, “I want to believe that Diane and her mom are living at your house because you want to help them… “ 

I waited for him to say something.

And then I said that my student Liz had read me an email from Diane that said that “Adam was staying at her house because of his finances…”

Only then did he admit (as if it was no big deal) that it was her house.

We talked for about two hours.

As I questioned him, I naturally heard myself say, several times, “How can I ever trust you?”

At one point, when we got to the part where he described how he could pack everything he owned into his car in fifteen minutes,  I started laughing as I saw the utter ludicrousness and irony of the whole situation.

 
I saw Adam as like a little child, lying to his mother.

He was not at all the wealthy happy homemaker man I imagined. He didn’t even own any pots and pans!

Then Adam started talking about how when he almost died that the doctor’s hands touched and saved his physical heart.

Then he said he felt like I was touching his emotional heart. His spiritual heart.

“It’s like you are peeling the layers of an onion. It’s like you are opening me up.”

Just like the heart surgeon.

And then, somewhere in all this talk about the heart, Adam said that he feels like he took my heart in his hands, just like the doctors held his heart, only instead of saving my heart he squashed it, opening and closing his fist as he said this.

I can still see the whole scene in my mind’ eye.

And now comes the richest part.

Near the end of our talk I told Adam that I needed to determine if he had a history of lying or if this was an isolated incident.

I said I needed to know if this whole story he cooked up about the house and Diane was just a one-time lie.

He looked me in the eye and said again that he was afraid I would think less of him if I knew he lived with someone. That is why he lied – so that I would go out with him.

He assured me that other than this, he was an honest person.

I wanted to believe him.

Ever one to look for a silver lining, when it dawned on me that Adam was not the wealthy catch I thought he was, I told myself, “Well, now I don’t have to worry that Adam thinks I’m after his money or that I only like him for his house and beautiful garden.”

After our talk at Meditation Mount, on the way back to my humble abode, I though that Adam and I were now in the same boat. The poor but happy, “Live Simply so that Others May Simply Live,“ low-carbon, low-impact, green sustainable boat.

That night we went to a long meeting together. My feelings ran from hot to cold. After he left I felt more conflicted than ever.

Late that night I emailed Ann,

Hi Ann,

We went to Meditation Mount to talk.
 My mind can see this situation so many different ways it scares me.
At the Mount he readily admitted  that he was living in Diane’s house. He takes care of the garden. She takes care of the house. At least that’s my impression.
 For several hours I felt our relationship was over.
 He apologized.
 More later.
 
Ann wrote back:

Wow . . .  The first thought that comes to my mind is that this (whatever is happening between you two) is a very important and healing encounter.

I wrote back:

Ann, I think your assessment is correct.
It is an important and healing encounter.
But at this point the emotions I feel are so extreme –from wanting to dump him (and he takes full responsibility and says he would not blame me) to talking about getting engaged.

He suggested it–not me.

But now he is saying he has to stay in Ventura so he is close to the hospital where his records are. Even this part is very confusing because on the one hand he tells me that is one reason he hesitates to move to Ojai but yet he goes off into the mountains and to remote areas, far far away from any hospital.

I better get the name of which hospital has his records because if he ever collapses I need to know where to send him.

Later I wrote Ann again:

Oh my God! The full horror, irony and humor of it all is hitting me full force!
My heart hurts so bad. 
I just remembered how all this time I though this was a man who kept his own home. I recall saying to him, “One of the things I like and really admire about you is that you are not looking for a woman to keep house for you…that you have made a beautiful home for yourself.”
All this time I thought all those photos on Facebook were his house!
  
So ironic! Everything in the house belongs to Diane. If I understood correctly (and maybe I didn’t)  he does not even own a pot or pan. He says the kitchen is the size of my yoga room.
But how could he let me go on and on about how I liked that he was self-sufficient and enjoyed homemaking.
I FEEL SO DUPED!
More later –have to process this somehow and see the light!

Adam called the next morning around 6 am and my machine recorded his message:

“Good morning Suza, it’s Adam, it’s early …Hey a couple of things… I certainly apologize for all the hurt and disturbance I’ve caused… I let my emotions cloud my common sense… anyway I hope you won’t give up on me.”

I wrote Ann again:

Adam left a message on my machine saying he misses me… and how much he appreciates everything yesterday at Meditation Mount.

I am in too much pain to call him back at the moment. I don’t want to say anything I might regret.

I am haunted by how on Sunday he could have explained everything. Instead he added a lie on top of the lie by saying Diane and her mom stayed at his house because he wanted to help them.

I explained the whole story of what I found out at Meditation Mount.

Ann replied:

Wow. This is stranger than fiction, all right.

I’m sorry for your pain. You might want to Google “pathological liar.”

JUST BE GLAD YOU DIDN’T LET IT GO ANY FURTHER!!

On January 12 I wrote in my journal:

It scares me to be with someone who can look me in the eye and lie.
I still feel like I am in shock.
Plus I still do not know what to believe.
I taught this morning. After I teach this whole thing seems like a distant dream. When I do my own practice I feel a direct line to God.

I feel complete unto myself.

I need a break from Adam.

Later I emailed Adam:

My Dear Adam,
I am in too much pain to call you back. From here on the future of our relationship is in your hands. I have done all I can.

With love,
Suza

While I wrote about all this in my journal Adam called. He said he just gotten out of a meeting and he would try to reach me again, a little later.

I wrote Ann:

I am not going to call him back. We had a sweet parting last night. He knows where I live. If he is serious about me he can come over anytime and talk to me face-to-face.  

Ann replied:  

I do think you need to tell him (on the telephone!) that you’re going to take care of yourself by ending the relationship–without vindictiveness.
 
I wrote back:

 I already told him that if he wants to keep seeing me he has to move out of Diane’s house.  

  
He knows he stirred me up. He even said something about how if I drop him some other man will get the benefit.
But that’s not how it works.

Ann agreed. She wrote:  No, it’s not.

Later she wrote:
Would you like to borrow a wonderful book I have by David Richo, titled, How to Be an Adult in Relationships? I have read and reread the chapter “Choosing a Partner” and its subhead “Qualified Candidates.”

I wrote to Ann:

I’ve been reading the link on Relationship Scam Artists. At least he’s not a thief like the man that woman married!

She wrote back:

Yes, that is more than sad. 
Suza, I think you need to let him go. In friendship. But don’t see him any more, because you’re addicted to him. It’s your life, but that’s my advice. I don’t think he can help himself.
I went to amazon  and started reading the book Ann recommended,  How to Be an Adult in Relationships.

I ordered two paperback copies

What I read gave me peace of mind to return Adam’s call. We would both read the book and get through these bumps in the road.

When I called Adam bared is soul.

[Oh my God, I am such a sucker for soul baring.]

“At the end of all his talking ,” I wrote Ann later that evening, “I said to him that there was a book I wanted us both to read. He is such an avid reader and he readily agreed to read it. He even looked it up and said it looks good.”

Ann, I could not tell him I would not see him anymore after what he said.

He apologized again and thanked me profusely.

He told me how much better he feels now that the truth is out.

He realizes things may not work out between us but that he needs to do the things I asked to get his life back on track.

He talked about how much I’ve taught him…that “Honesty is the best policy.”

Ann, my plan is to keep him at arms length –but I am not ready to say “I don’t want to see you again.”

We are going to read David Richo’s book together.

Later that evening Ann wrote:

I hear you, sweetie. You know that I would really like things to work out for you and Adam. You’re in love with him, and I think he’s in love with you, too. I’m just worried that he’s too out of whack to get back on track. But we’ll see. Eyes wide open, fingers crossed.

I wrote back:

Eyes wide open is right. I’m on high alert for any more lies.
In a way it feels like he is a child. He keeps saying I am miles and miles ahead of him…that he has already benefited enormously from knowing me, while he has been nothing but trouble.

Ann wrote back:  True enough!

The next day I wrote:

Well, Ann, it’s Thursday night, two days since I Iast  saw Adam. We have been talking on the phone. About everything.

Actually he does most of the talking.  I try to be a better listener and not interrupt. 

For all his faults, it’s a great relief to be with a man who expresses how he feels.

This is so hard. This morning he was telling me all the thing he wants to do for creating wildlife corridors. It makes me fall in love with him all over again. The rest of this stuff seems so small. The lives of so many creatures are at stake.

As he was talking I vowed to be his friend no matter what.

I want to be supportive of all the environmental things he is so passionate about.
The whole thing really does put me in a quandary.

We have worked through so much shit in nine weeks!

I think he has apologized  about fifty times for his lies and what he has put me through.

He tried to explain again why he lied. But not to justify.

He repeated parts of our conversation at Meditation Mount, and emphasized how serious he takes it all.

Then I told Ann:

Tonight, as he was telling me how his day went, he paused, and said, “I hope this is OK , but someone asked about my connection to Ojai,and I said “ My girlfriend, Suza Francina.”

Then there was another pause.

He sounded so serious.

Then he said something like, ” I’d rather ask you in person, but I guess over the phone will do. Will you be my girlfriend? I would be so honored to have you as my girlfriend.”

Ann, my eating–all-alone heart just melted.

I said “Yes, I’d love to be your girlfriend.”

And then he talked about what that means to him. How good I am for him. How I will keep him on track.

And now he knows where he stands and he won’t have other relationships.

Ann, I don’t know what to do!

I want to give him a chance.

So then I said, “Well, if I am your girlfriend then you are my boyfriend.”
“Yes,” He agreed, “ That’s how it works.”

And then we were cracking up over how adolescent it all sounded.

He has meetings all day tomorrow. We plan to have dinner Sunday night.

Suza

Ann wrote back:

So, you have a boyfriend!!

Well, I can’t help rooting for you two.

If he’s really done telling lies, then love will find a way.

As I read these words three months later, I shake my head in disbelief–I can’t believe how naive I was!

Recommended reading on Lies, Liars and Lying

http://www.outofthefog.net/CommonBehaviors/LiesLiarsAndLying.html

http://www.wildmind.org/metta/special-lovingkindness-meditations/war-meditation-text

Or more to the point, See Life for what it really is, not what you want it to be!

An hour had flown by since my student exclaimed, “Oh, that’s Adam Johnson, Diane’s boyfriend.” Adam offered no explanation and I was biding my time to pop the question, waiting for when the moment was right.

We went for a Sunday morning walk. I waited till we were at the basin near Pratt Trail, where we sat on a boulder, while Honey ran free.

Up until an hour ago, it had been a great week. Friday we’d met for breakfast at Ojai Coffee Emporium. Adam had started doing “couple stuff” like helping me with errands, grocery shopping and picking up my sweater at the cleaners. We made plans to go to a birthday party, meetings, a Thermography appointment and have lunch with my friend Ann.

He was talking about renting a place in Ojai, preferably in town. He said several times that he had been thinking of moving back to Ojai even before he started seeing me.

That’s how life is sometimes. Just when you think things are coming together, things fall apart.

I waited a moment while Adam got comfortable on the hard rock. I sat cross-legged, facing him.

“Adam, “ says I, in my wise-crone tone of voice, “I heard what my student said when she saw you standing by the door after yoga. Who is Diane?”

Without missing a beat Adam said, “Oh, Diane is an ex girlfriend. She’s staying at the house while she gets back on her feet.” (Not his exact words, but that was the gist of it, spoken in a “It’s no big deal,” tone of voice.)

Either the man had no conscience or he was telling the truth.

Adam proceeded to explain the nature of his noble relationship with Diane. He described how she lives in one end of the house, he in the other.

”We hardly ever see each other. We are like two ships passing in the night.”

Then he explained that Diane’s mother also stayed at the house. She has Alzheimers, is bedridden and in a wheel chair and Diane takes care of her.

That made it hard for me to insist that he give them the boot, even though that was my gut reaction.

It was all too much for my simple mind that all these weeks had imagined Adam’s bachelor pad with two fireplaces, a huge, fully-equipped kitchen with him all alone, baking that cake I read about on Facebook, patios and princely gardens. There were no stacks of Depends or urine soaked sheets in that scenario.

“But Adam,” I questioned, “If this I true why didn’t you tell me in the first place? It gave me a terrible shock when my student said you live with your girlfriend. I imagined the worst. I really felt awful.”

He said, “The only reason I didn’t tell you was that I was afraid you wouldn’t go out with me if you knew my ex girlfriend lived at the house. But you’re right. I should have told you instead of you finding out like this.”

I really didn’t know what to think. Should I be feeling compassion for someone having a hard time?

I tried not to get too emotional but something didn’t jive.

“This is very serious. If it turns out that you have lied to me I am turning my back on the world. The pain of it is unbearable.”

It sounded dramatic but in the heat of the moment that’s how I felt as memories of past betrayals came to the fore front.

I’m thinking to myself, “For crying out loud! If I can’t trust John Muir, Honest Abe or a kindred spirit who loves nature, who the hell can I trust?”

Suddenly Adam couldn’t take it. He stood up from the rock and started to head back to my house.

He said, “I think I better leave now. You don’t deserve this.”

I took his arm. I said, “No wait. Just help me understand it. It’s just such a shock…”

There were never any pictures of Diane or her elderly mother in a wheel chair on Facebook.

I tried asking logical questions like what would happen to Diane, her mother and the house if he moved to Ojai? And did they pay any rent or utilities?

I tried to make sense of something that made no sense.

We talked about telling the truth. How one lie leads to another lie.

Then I had a brilliant idea. I said, “Let’s go to your house so I can meet Diane. Then I can see the situation for myself and not feel so weird about it.”

Adam said Diane sleeps late on Sunday. She might still be in her nightgown. As a courtesy, he would have to give her a few hours notice before bringing a guest over. That he was not comfortable with that idea.

I pictured this woman Diane puttering around the house, glad to have the place to herself and how I would feel in her shoes if Adam showed up with his new girlfriend.

So I didn’t push it.

By the time we got back to my house I was emotionally exhausted and starving. So off we went to the new Hip Vegan Cafe.

The place was packed. The food was fabulous. Two of my yoga students walked in. I smiled. We kept our conversation light. Adam was off the hook for the moment. 

 I did not know what to think as he headed home to his garden, Diane and her mother with AD.

That night I wrote a letter in my journal, to myself:

Where it stands now is that you do not know the true Nature of his relationship with Diane but inwardly you cringe.

 You HOPE for the best—you run these last ten weeks over and over again in your mind. You have a pack of emails and Facebook messages to prove the depths of his feelings but you are bracing yourself for the worst because a) Fact is she lives in his house and b) Liz said she thinks “they were still together at Christmas.”

Your mind is in a whirl. You don’t know what to think. Is he a pathological liar or is he sincerely trying?

A little later I e-mailed Ann:

Not sure how I feel about all the lies he had to tell.

He had to tell an awful lot of lies and half truths to perpetuate his living alone story for two months.

Two days ago he said he could rent out his house and get a house in Ojai. When I asked him if he really thought he could rent  out his house he said “In today’s market, it would be a piece of cake…”

But what he really had in mind was that Diane and her mom could keep living in the house.

I just do not get why he did not explain this from the beginning.

Today he said he does not need the rent money and that Diane and her mom could keep living in the house for free. He said maybe they could pay utilities.

It’s all very confusing. I asked him why would a man who claims to be looking for a relationship live like this?

He admitted that it has crossed his mind that having Diane and her mother at the house keeps relationships out of reach.

That same evening I received this email from Adam. adam1@gmail.com writes:

My Dearest Suza,

 You are so right when you say “You and I have a lot of things to sort out.”

I have hopes and dreams of a great long lasting relationship, but I also have fears.

 It seems like sometimes I am a prisoner of my own thoughts and feelings. You are so close to me, yet I do so many things which seem to drive a wedge between us and our ever growing relationship. 

Like I said today, it seems that true love is always a hair away from my being able to grasp and accept it.  You have awakened many feelings in me, which I had brushed aside for so long.

Suza, you are a strong and patient woman. I am so grateful for that quality in you. I am blessed to have a woman of your quality in my life, but sometimes it seems like I don’t appreciate or respect that. 

I am trying, I want to succeed, but my past fears and emotions get in the way. You don’t know how hard this is for me. You have truly “rocked my world” in a way I never thought possible.

  I need to let go of the past, enjoy today and move forward with you into the future.

Suza, believe me I am trying.

With my deepest love,

Adam

Seconds later, I sent this eternally hopeful reply:

My Dearest Adam,

We need a quiet place to work things out. If your finances allow you to rent a house in Ojai I hope you seriously consider it. We could work out the details later, after you get your bearings and are more sure of your feelings and where you really want to go with this.

 Now that I know you have an ex girlfriend and her mother living at your house, I do not see going away on a weekend trip as a solution.

A relationship with me is within your reach. But it will require that you put my needs on equal footing with your own.

Looking at you, I see a wonderful, worthy man who could be a hundred times more effective in the wider world and realize your true potential.

Namaste,
With love and respect,

Suza

I also sent an email to my student Liz to remind her to contact Diane.

Hi Liz,

When you have a chance can you find out the situation with Adam and Diane (I think that is her name)?

I am so thankful that you happened to be there right at the exact moment when he arrived.
 

Thanks again for telling me!
 

Suza

Late that evening there was a reply from Liz:

Hi Suza, I emailed Diane today to find out if they are still together. If I don’t hear from her via email tomorrow, I will give her a call.  I also checked with a friend of mine who is close with Diane who thought that they were still together at Christmas.

 What did Adam say when you asked him about being Diane’s boyfriend?  

 Liz

I wrote back:

Hi Liz,

I honestly don’t know what to think.  Adam gave me the impression that he lived alone. I have gone out with him for about eight weeks (lunch dates, hikes, dinner) and he always goes home early. When I asked him about what you said he said that Diane lives at the house with her mother who has alzheimers. He said Diane is a former girlfriend  and they lead separate lives.

He says Diane takes care of the house. He insists their personal relationship is over.
I am going to keep him at arms length until I find out more. He says he wants to help Diane. That’s why she lives with him.

I think I am still in shock.  Thanks for your help.

Suza

PS If they were still together at Christmas then this man is a pathological liar. He said that he went out of town at Christmas and New Years. Please find out what you can.

Thank you!

Monday morning there was this reply from Liz:

Hi Suza, I have not heard back from Diane yet, but she doesn’t always check her email.  Honestly, I hate to say this, but I doubt that it is a “roommate” situation.  She doesn’t seem like the type of woman who would put up with that.  I’ll see what I can find out.  Adam must know that this is going to all get back to Diane one way or another!  

Monday night I got another shock.

Liz called to say that she spoke to Diane.

“Diane says they broke up around Christmas. But Adam is stills staying at her house,” Liz reported.

“Her house?” I interrupted. “Don’t you mean she’s staying at his house?”

Liz laughed. “No…Adam moved in with Diane. He lives at her house.”

I tried to straighten Liz out. “Oh no, that’s not true. Adam says he’s letting Diane and her mom stay at the house so she can get back on her feet.”

Liz laughed again.

Finally she convinced me I had the story backwards.

This was too big of a lie for a phone confrontation. I needed to talk to Adam face-to-face.

He was already scheduled to come to Ojai the next day, Tuesday, for an evening meeting.

He agreed to come by 2pm so we could go to Meditation Mount to talk.

Continued, Chapter Ten: Meditation Mount, The Garden of Peace