I couldn’t ask her if she registered. I didn’t want to embarrass her. But what would they do to her—to us—if she hadn’t? To prepare myself, I pictured the situation. We’d be going up the escalator in Lytton’s department store in downtown Evanston—a usual haunt. We always used the ladies room at Lytton’s on our once or twice weekly visits to the allergist. After making our contribution in the long row of stalls, we’d look at the rounders of ladies wear. The ladies room was gray and white. The store was gray and white. We were gray and white. The PSA was gray and white. Maybe I just remember everything from the early 1960’s as a grayscale image. We were light years from the rainbow streaked 1960s that would arrive when we moved to California at the end of the decade.

The PSA voice would come over the store’s loudspeakers. We were trapped on the escalator—we’d have to go to the top to get off and come back towards the exit. That would be too obvious. We’d better run up the mechanized stairs and hide in the rounders. I pictured the uniformed men—much like the NAZI’s my Mother had fled less than 25 years before—pushing aside the clothes and finding me hidden in the center, knocked down by their guns. What had they done with my Mother? Where had they taken her? And where would I go?

I could probably get back home by myself on the bus. Or would they find Daddy? Daddy traveled for work; he was never in town when anything happened. I would just have to learn to get on the downward escalator faster and lessen the time for escape.

I’ve never told this to anyone else who remembered the PSA’s, including my Mother, years later.

I’d have to get used to it, so I’d take a little breath and squeeze it out. It finally stopped clattering as it fell off my lips. It modulated into the rest of the sentence. It didn’t have to be capitalized. It’s just a word, after all. Just another bay filling up along the rocky coastline of my life.

What a relief.

Suddenly everyone was doing it. All those nice stable couples I knew where splattering all over the windshield of happily-ever-after-ness: a midlife no-rest stop.

Stop saying we, start saying me. I’m owning my life once again, or is it the first time? Who remembers. Make some decisions: who do I consult? Will I ever sleep with a man again? Who needs them anyway?

Geez it feels great. I should have gotten out years ago.

I’m so tired of figuring out all these little details. How can I make decisions that will affect the rest of my life and my daughter’s life when I’m so off-balance? When I don’t know whether to love or hate? When I don’t even know what this word means. D I V O R C E. What am I? Some country western singer with big hair?

Yeah, who kicked my dog

I don’t have a dog

Right, I’m busy taking care of myself

And my kid.

And I don’t have to take care of a so-called grown man.

God I have great friends. This is a great town. I’m so comfortable here. And my shoulders feel like I’ve just put down my trenching tool. I have energy: myself; my anger; my stereo, silence; blood running in my veins.

Looking back on that banquet of opportunity and permission—my undergraduate years—I would occasionally walk down the steps of the intercampus bus and enter the inglorious West Bank complex—a sea of blue plastic chairs—thinking “if I got married and pregnant I wouldn’t have to do this.” As if that would save me from that rewrite or research. As if that would save me from working hard without knowing if I was good enough, or any other kind of enough. Nice thing about the Minnesota skies: once I left the protective tunnel, the frozen air would slash such nonsense right out of my lungs. Once again I was a strange little coed working far too hard to get too little done—familiar frustrations of method.

So today, when “run away” flashes though my mind, it’s not just fear of the creative, it’s not just the special vulnerability of having to create art and knowing it just might be shit. No, I’ve always hoped someone would save me from the moment, the task, the possibility of foolishness, uselessness or failure. Let’s be specific—some man. I hoped he’d take the mostly benevolent reigns from my Father, tell me what to do, believe in my gifts, and push me in the right direction. Yet I’ve found over and over that I don’t much like taking that direction when it’s actually offered. I didn’t even think to listen to my Father. I’ve regretted listening to the other men long and hard more than once.

I have definite ideas about most things—just not about that simple-sounding matter of what I want. The ideas are in there, somewhere, in an unlabeled file, floating through my capillaries and cells, bouncing against the edges of my heart but never landing squarely in the light. My male advisors have had their own agendas or imaginations too limited. Maybe it boils down to the inability to really understand the other.

I can start to chuckle at “run away.” It’s a reflex as involuntary as a sneeze and like a sneeze, it’s just an interruption in the moment. But I would relish someone with some good ideas, occasionally.

Here I was, socializing with those people I wasn’t supposed to socialize with—the female secretaries and administrators so excited about my huge belly and impending status-change. The lunch table was buried in wrapping paper, ribbons and excitement. One of those pastel packages held a small misshapen yellow bear.

My “lovies”—important friends, confidants and mentors—were stuffed dogs and cats. What did this presage for the little allergic-to-be child that was me? These were the only kitties and puppies I nuzzled and nuzzle them I did—to the extinction of their “fur” and through many replacement eyes and noses. I only learned latter that you were “supposed” to have a teddy bear. Ah, my child would be a normal kid—that elusive goal of mine. Here was her bear.

But this bear didn’t even look like a bear. The ladies explained—this is a bear for very little babies who are too small for scary-faced, limbed bears with choking-hazard eyes. Yellow Bear was soft, gently be-rattled, washable and gender neutral.

He carefully minded the empty crib for a couple of weeks and came with us to the hospital on labor day. He became the star of parties, a favorite of the paparazzi and gave rise to a song. And his disappearance became the cause célèbre of letter-writing between me and the Gund company.

Of course it’s the favorite stuffed animal that takes the most journeys and therefore increases the odds of disappearance. And face it, how long will a kid cry when she loses the toy she didn’t really care about? I don’t think my four year old lost the bear. And while I tend to misplace things, I always find them. The disappearance of Yellow Bear still mystifies me. Yes, I blame myself.

Finally, I wrote a long impassioned letter to the Gund Company, complete with a recording of the song I’d written a year or so earlier about Yellow (co-starring a few other choice bears.) I was pretty sure they must get lots of these letters and figured they probably had a procedure for handling them.

The concerned-and-corporate-toned response asked for a photograph of the bear. I sent the picture complete with the adorable infant who had grown to love it so much. Their next letter apologized; this bear had been discontinued quite some time ago and while they searched arduously, they could not locate the model in yellow. However they found one in pink. There would be no charge for this bear as it was damaged by a permanent smudge on its nose. Did I want the slightly-defective non-replacement bear?

Of course. I washed the little nose a few times and hung onto the bear, wondering how to best introduce it. It lacked Yellow Bear’s charm completely and was no substitute. Still, it wasn’t a bad bear. One afternoon during nap time, I tried to slip it in her bed, excited by the prospect of her reaction when she woke to see it. But the tiny infant-appropriate-rattle woke my hard-sleeping child to the query “Yellow Bear?” The nap was lost and the loss refreshed. But this closed the replacement quest.

Many months later Gund sent another lengthy corporate missive. During a semi-annual inventory, they located a replacement yellow bear. If I would enclose a check for the retail price with my answer they would send it. “Yes! Yes!” pulsed through my temples as I raced to my checkbook.

Another couple of weeks and the bear arrived: brand new; absolutely perfect; charming and never to leave the house again—at least not without all the other household possessions in tow. He got along well with the other animals and was accepted as a substitute. He’s right downstairs—in a house my daughter has never lived in. And to this day, if I should happen to start a sentence with the phrase “What do you think I found?” in conversation with my adult daughter, she’ll answer “Yellow Bear.”

When I decided to thumb through Ireland, I got busy putting all the fear-laced warnings about hitch-hiking out of my head. I hadn’t contemplated the also-fearful-and-more-likely reality that I’d be expected to converse with perfect strangers for hours. Before I could get too nervous, the view, the comfort and the repetition of the road helped open up my travel-mind and loosen my ear and shy-tongue.

In Swansea I filled my few days easily. I traipsed the castle, shopped for old watches, and sat still for a lengthy rant on the crown and the dole from an articulate resident squatter. The next day I played in the surf, getting horribly muddy in my new travel sandals. It didn’t occur to me to give them more than a cursory wipe and leave them outside. My elderly hostess scrubbed them to a clean and broken–in state, to my embarrassment. Over my cold beans, cold toast, cold egg and fabulous marmalade the next morning, she informed me that she and her husband strongly disapproved of my travel plans—the ferry to Ireland. “Why just last week several of our Welsh boys were killed”—soldiers serving in Northern Ireland. I knew tensions were high, but I was shocked at the hostility for the land and people across the small channel of water. I listened politely, promised not to go to Northern Ireland and set out for the ferry terminal.

We sailed overnight. I woke early stretched out in the ferry’s public lounge with the TV blaring the state funeral for Éamon de Valera, the former prime minister and partial architect of modern Ireland, whom I had never heard of. My heart sank a bit as I glimpsed something of my ignorance. Why was I traveling to Ireland? I certainly didn’t know anything much about the place. I wasn’t seeking my heritage, as so many Americans do. I read John Osborne and Brendan Behan. I loved the language. I liked the Guinness and the whiskey. So now I walked into a country somewhat in mourning, with it’s inconsistencies and controversies freshly stirred, as if that weren’t always the case in the mid-70s.

Customs gave me pause, unexpectedly. They searched me ever so thoroughly, not for the guns and bombs the London police had been checking for in my purse in theatre lobbies, but rather, for condoms. Clean on all fronts, I entered the City of Cork, thumb aloft.

My first ride, gave me the bit of political history I needed. I understood parts of each of his sentences about the devotion and infamy of de Valera. Mostly, I secured a little grounding in the dialect and the ways of the road. Those hours of ear-training were essential and the luncheon pint a nice surprise.

This middle aged man who stopped for me in his tiny well-worn car with no radio would be typical of my rides over the week. Our gab was entertainment for a long drive. In this green and friendly place a long drive was any distance between towns.

One driver left me in a pub while he made a business call in a small town. He came back for me and toured me all over the county. We wandered around small stone huts, stone circles and stone fences. A truck driver on holiday and his passenger, a young runaway, took me to the cliffs of Moher, where we crawled along our bellies to the edge. (I understand the people are fenced away, these days. Too bad; it was thrilling and a great lesson in how a gulls leg is fastened into it’s body.) I was just an oddity in the day’s drive for these folks. They became a part of my trip, my travel ethic and my thirty plus years of memory.

No driver ever asked my name and I was too green in the art of conversation to properly introduce myself. But before I quite sat down in any car the driver asked my religion—Catholic or Protestant. I was taken aback at first. The ride didn’t seem to be conditioned on a particular answer. After the second time, I came to relax. I wouldn’t be scorned when I answered “Jew.” Quite the contrary, my exotic pedigree gave the driver license to deliver his views most candidly.

I didn’t realize how odd it was to spend the day with someone still nameless until, awaiting the next lift, I had rejoined the ubiquitous sheep at the side of the road . Although we hadn’t gotten to names, each driver spoke fearlessly about all the important things, especially politics, religion and sex. I followed suit, of course. It was a replete with wonderful twists of gab that roamed through history, family, the crystalline logic against reuniting with the Northern counties and the inexorable heart that craved it, all delivered with a kind-hearted glum sense of fate, wear and tear, as befitted the year and the dismal economy.

I barely touched Ireland but I learned maybe her greatest lesson, talking to people. My meanderings along her fuschia-lined roads trained my ears and my traveler’s quest for serendipity. I still love Osbourne, Behan, the whiskey and stout.

I’ve disqualified myself from rejection. Before anyone has the chance to reject me I just wipe myself away. I don’t care so much, really—so clever. When rejection sneaks up on me from behind, I whirl around, chase it up the hall, slam the door shut and RUN in the opposite direction.

Rejection: He didn’t love me any more. He even made me stop loving him. Loss, emptiness and, ahh…. relief—rejection’s silver lining. Relief that finally the old dead stinking rotten thing I was clinging to finally broke apart into brittle chunks of dust in my hand. It was disgusting. My clothes became soiled with the mildew and rot and I was left sneezing stinking particles, but finally I was rid of the old thing, years after I should have plunked it into the garbage and have done with it. Rejection/relief entwined.

Rejection: Not rejection in so many words, mind you. Rather, the glower of disapproval, the glottal of discomfort, shoulder of rigidity, eye of annoyance and four quarts unavailability. Add tears and you’ve got a pretty commonplace heartbreak soup. I detected rejection in every sigh, every lack of enthusiasm, every depressive response. You know, a lot of it was just him; it really wasn’t all about me.

Rejection: I smelled it in the air like a gas leak. Once it’s in your nose it’s everywhere. Sometimes I was looking in the mirror. That’s projection–a clever cousin. Criticism, projection or mischaracterization—whatever it was—eventually it blighted every plant in the garden. Words, feelings, interpretations all seemed to come from this incompatible place. I couldn’t breathe.

Rejection: You are so wonderful. In the bright rich light of your love, I become more and more wonderful too. Strains and gouges heal. I fill back into myself. I’m becoming a swan. What? You wanted a duckling? I’m too big? too flamboyant? too loud? I laugh too much?

No, my beloved, I’m just the right size. I cannot contort myself to make you a world you could not make for yourself. I’ll take rejection, thank you.

Rejection: Who isn’t haunted by the roaches that creep through the brain’s kitchen at 4 a.m.? I couldn’t see and create myself when no one else even bothered to see me. So I signed up for some expensive coursework. You can’t cram for exams at the School of Hard Knocks. They grade on attendance and participation. You have to show up over and over and over again. Rejecting rejection–Magna Cum Laude.

I’ve walked the streets of small towns, big cities, beaches, exotic continents, parks and neighborhoods, all alone. I’ve made most decisions big and small alone. I’ve trod the hardest trails alone: father’s death; mother’s deterioration; divorce; child’s illness; career dissatisfaction. I didn’t know what to say when asked by the partners and friends I’d kept at the periphery. Even I didn’t see the invisible barrier.

I wouldn’t call myself a loner. I have pockets of people: new friends to make; old friends to catch up on; and calendared gatherings. But I’m just fine alone—even in a movie theater—that most forbidding of lone adventures.

Some came closer, spun out, and hated the not-knowing and shifting priorities. Some would have been there for me had I let them. And some got through and took a bit of the strain from my tired bones.

You might not have noticed just how alone I am. After all, I lived well-loved with my parents for eighteen years. I spent thirty years as part of one couple or another. But coupling can be so isolating. At its worst, it steals the generous mantle of solitude and replaces it with missed-opportunity.

In unconnected hours face-to-face, drenched in the ice-water of failed intimacy, alone finally becomes loneliness. My strong right-side withered under worm-eaten embraces, preoccupied hearts, and habitual sex. The unearthly weight of sadness, the black weight of doubt, the sharp stones of anxiety, sent me sprained and sprawling atop the original ruin.

You might not know it’s ok to be alone. But alone stands on two strong legs. Feet may tire, shoulders ache, and breath rasp, but the slow stride uphill can continue almost indefinitely, alone.