THE FROG HANDLED MUG: Chapter Seventeen

I take the window seat and Sarah and I buckle up. The Boeing 737 takes off from Hartford, hits a air few bumps on the way up and eventually levels off at thirty thousand feet. Perspective is everything, don’t you think? Once the Boeing hits cruising speed, about 500mph, it seems as though it is the earth moving below us rather than the Boeing moving above the earth. It’s called constant velocity motion…no acceleration. Why does a shrink know this? Because this particular shrink has been obsessed recently by the speed of light and relative motion and time. It is only when accelerating that I can feel movement. Once the acceleration stops I feel as though I have stopped. This has to do with the speed of light and the relative motion of the observer. I’ll bet you didn’t know that gravity affects time, and that time cannot be separated from space. I didn’t either until my dream era began. I would actually live longer if my apartment was on the bottom floor of the Eldorado, but I’m not going to give up the view for a life that is only a millisecond longer. Here’s an extreme example of gravity’s affect on time. If I am standing on the event horizon of a black hole where gravity is so strong that light cannot escape its grasp I will see all of history pass before me in the blink of my presbyopic eyes. You on the other hand, standing on earth will see me frozen for all time at that one place on the event horizon.

Being on the Boeing makes me think of all that. Time is tricky business, as I am discovering. The 737 makes a quick stop in Charlotte and a couple hours later touches down on the tarmac of St. Martin. We had booked a room at the Cupe Coy Hotel right on the beach and near the golf course. I don’t golf, but I think the courses are beautiful and easy to run on as long as I don’t get hit by an errant fossilized egg. I’ve had a few golf carts chase me down in my day. I don’t challenge them any more. I see them coming and head into the deep rough and off the course.

Our room looks out over the beach. It’s not crowded like Misquamicut is crowded. If you get to Misquamicut after 11am you’re lucky to find enough sand to walk on. Not my idea of a good time. Coney Island and Jones Beach is the same way. Maybe I don’t like people. Sarah is still in good enough shape to wear a two piece suit. I on the other hand wear a one piece. Sarah points out that I’m in better shape than Kingsley when he played Ghandi. Sweet of her to notice since he looked like a skeleton. I think she says that only because I have on a normal bathing suit and have deep sixed the meat hanger Speedo. I picked up a few choice phrases of Sarah’s. Funny how that happens to all of us. There is plenty of hot sand to cast our blanket upon, and when I say hot I‘m talking oven cleaning hot. We lather up with SPF #30 and begin to bake. I quickly put up the beach umbrella and start writing. That spigot that opens up when I run opens even further at the beach. Maybe it’s because I love being at the beach more than any other place.

“What are you writing?” Sarah asked.

I show her the paragraph you just read.

“Well, you do look better than Kingsley in Gandhi and I’d rather see you au natural like that young gentleman over there than clad in the ridiculous Speedo.”

I look to my left and there sits Adonis and Aphrodite in all their splendor. “Why are we Americans such prudes?” I asked.

“Speak for yourself, Augusto.”

To my amazement, and, I must say pleasure, Sarah proceeds to peel off her only two items of clothing. She looks at me with a challenging gaze and an impish smile. Naturally I oblige and join Sarah in her nudity. I am putty in the hands of gazes and smiles.

“Now,” she said, “as for your question, you already know your take on it. I assume you want to know mine. Why?”

“To build up my knowledge base so that I might better help the prudes of the world who wish to break out of their bonds as we just have.”

Sarah hammer-fists my quadriceps. “No, really,” she said. “What does it matter what I think about American prudishness. Honestly, Augusto, I don’t think about it. I have never had a confrontation with a prude. I don’t judge them and so they don’t appear in my life. Are you writing this down?”

“Yes, Dear.”

“Do you know the difference between primary and secondary experience?” Sarah asked.

I ask her to tell me.

“Primary experience would be if I was sun bathing in the privacy of my yard and a prude came by and gave me an earful of her opinion about my proclivity to lie in the sun in nothing but my birthday suit.”

“Or,” I said, “I’m standing in the grocery line and an old man or woman is counting out pennies.”

“Right. Secondary experience would be my watching news footage of a group of prudes picketing Moon beach in Rhode Island. Actually, I don’t think it’s a nudist beach anymore. Maybe they did picket.”

“What about war,” I said. “War seems a primary experience as it affects so much.”

“The primary experience is when you are personally in the war as you were in Vietnam. It is secondary for you now.”

“What’s so important about primary and secondary experience?” I asked. “Both drive me nuts as it pertains to war. I hate war.” I look to my left and Adonis is making-out with Aphrodite. He is having a primary experience. Mine is secondary if my understanding is correct. Sarah follows my gaze and gives me a wink.

“What is important, Augusto, is that often I will catch myself in an emotional reaction to a secondary experience, like watching that couple over there. My reaction can be anything because it is dependent upon me and my beliefs. I might feel uncomfortable watching if I was with a man who I was not ready to be intimate with, or I might be stimulated as I am now. Those, however, are both secondary experiences. It covers the full gamut, but it is not about that couple, because it is a secondary experience. It is about me and what I believe is appropriate or inappropriate behavior at the beach. It’s a secondary experience because it is not me that is engaged in it.”

“It looks to me,” I said, “that most people react to secondary experience. I know I do.”

“Secondary experience often puts in your face what it is you believe. My girlfriend Alice goes off the deep end over fat families on food stamps that buy nothing but junk food. She bumps into them all the time at the Big Y. She is slim and eats nothing but organically grown foods that she can easily afford. That is her choice, but she goes into big time judgment over what someone else does that has no immediate impact on her experience other than her reaction to it. If everyone chooses then so do obese families that eat junk food. As I’ve told you many times, they don’t need saving. They don’t need fixing.”

I think about that for a moment, and try to conjure a scenario that will trip up Sarah and her primary, secondary theory. “OK,” I said. “What if you are at the Big Y and you see a mother physically abusing her child. That’s secondary experience and it is her choice. It is also the child’s choice. Do you ignore it?”

“I would not ignore it,” Sarah said without any hesitation.

“Aha,” I said. “Gotcha.?

“How so?”

“If it is the mother and the child’s choice what gives you the right to intervene?”

“For a man that played Gandhi you have a short memory. You are taking the position that has enslaved the east for millennia. Karma. It is their karma. What about my desire? I have in internal guideline about this. I will intervene on behalf of myself. I understand they are in their own little dance for their own edification. I do not intervene to judge, but to give them a stop point and to honor my own guidelines. Remember, Augusto, I am a part of their reality just as they are a part of mine. I will not go against who I am. My intervention is for me and in that way I can withhold judgment of the mother’s behavior. Read my lips. I-Intervene-For-Me.”

Sarah has great lips. I set aside my note book and kiss the lips I just read. It feels more than natural. It feels…sublime. I have no expectations of Sarah other than she be Sarah. I’ve not experienced that in myself before. I languish in the sight of her, the smell of her and the taste of her. A scream breaks through my bliss. It is Adonis. We look toward the sound and see Adonis at the water’s edge in all his glory. He is frantic and Aphrodite is nowhere to be seen. He points toward the water and screams out in French. It is clear at that point that Aphrodite is beneath the sea in the area where he is pointing. Sarah and I rush to him, and in broken English he tells us that Aphrodite went for a swim and disappeared. He cannot swim. At that moment Aphrodite breaks the surface of the sea and gasps for air.

Sarah and I rush into the water and swim to the area we last saw Aphrodite sink back into the sea. We dive under and Sarah sees her at the bottom. I see her next and join Sarah in the rescue. Aphrodite is limp and not breathing but we manage to get her to the surface and haul her limp body back to shore, a mere thirty yards away. Less than a minute of CPR produces a geyser of salt water and a deep sucking of air. She is alive and crying. They thank us profusely in broken English then Aphrodite storms back to her blanket. Adonis follows, his tail tucked between his legs.

The save feels good. It all seemed so automatic. It all seemed so dramatic. Aphrodite created a crossroad during her experience. In a world with no accidents it could be no other way. Would she understand what she had just created, or would she understand it as I would have only a few short years ago? Shit happens! That’s what I would have thought. I better swim with a life vest from now on. That old thinking won’t give her any insights. In a world of accidents, coincidences, luck and victim hood I never learned much from the things I felt just happened to me.

We hear Aphrodite screaming at Adonis. We can make out a few French words. She is accusing him of abandoning her and he is apologizing. I can see her point. He never made an attempt to save her, and the water was not that deep. But, fear is fear. Aphrodite grabs her suit, puts on her sandals and storms off. I sense their relationship is over. Sarah agrees.

“She needed an excuse to break up with him,” Sarah said. “She is a woman who hates to hurt people she cares about and couldn’t just come out and tell Adonis that they were through. She needed what to her would be a legitimate excuse and she created one.”

“She will never believe she created that for this purpose,” I said. “Someday we will no longer have to nearly kill ourselves to do what a mere few words would do. She felt so responsible for his feelings that she needed to create an ‘out’ to break up with him. Now he is the one that feels responsible for the breakup. How does a man reclaim the woman he loves after he refuses to even try to save her? Hell, he didn’t even do the CPR.”

Sarah laughed. “It sounds to me like you are leaving him out of the equation. What did he create? He also created a break-up. Looks to me like they both created the experience for the same reason. Even if neither one of them consciously desired to end the relationship they are now finished with each other. It is so difficult getting our minds away from the belief that thought creates and chooses. Aphrodite didn’t fake her drowning and Adonis didn’t fake his fear of the water.”

“You were magnificent out there,” I said. Sarah knows I mean it, knows that I am referring to much more than her magnificence in the face of crisis. Every breath Sarah takes is an act of magnificence to me.

Sarah leans over and kisses me. It is much more than a thank you kiss. We gather our things and quick-step back to our room. If you haven’t been to St. Martin I recommend it. Not so much for sight seeing as for romance. But then I suppose much of it has to do with the one you’re with. If he or she is a troll then romance isn’t going to happen. Sex might, but not romance. So I amend my recommendation for St. Martin. It is a great place for romance if you are with the right person. Sarah could not have been more right. Adonis and Aphrodite could not have been more wrong.

On our last day on the island we book passage on a large catamaran called the Big Cat and set sail for St. Barth’s with four other couples. St. Barth’s is a small island about two hours sail from St. Martin. It is on the Big Cat that we meet a most unusual couple. Tanya and Ralph Okando met two years ago at the Boston Marathon. I must have seen each of them. I stopped competing in the BAA marathon in 1985, but haven’t missed one as a spectator since then. I usually park myself with my buddies at the twenty-five mile mark on Commonwealth. It’s near Fenway.

The Okandos have twelve months of marriage under their belts and ten years of paraplegia. Tanya was thrown from a horse a la Christopher Reeves, while Ralph got his from an eighty year old woman that failed to yield at an intersection Ralph was biking through. Sarah and I do not engage them at first. It’s terrible to say, but we don’t want to get too close and then feel obligated to help them all day. It is what it is. I feel no guilt over it…well, maybe a little. I notice Sarah going into quiet mode, that physical place she goes to when connecting with energy.

“They have the most open energy I’ve ever seen,” Sarah said.

I am curious. “What does that look like?” I ask.

“It reaches out, invites,” She said.

“Invites what?”

“Interaction, connection. I see no defense. Their energy acts as if they are whole…and they are, of course, but at the level of their energy. Their energy does not reflect their paraplegia.”

The Okandos sit ten feet away. The wind and the water mask Sarah’s voice.

“I had a paraplegic as a client several years ago,” Sarah said. “From her waist down her energy ventured no further than three inches away. It was as if she believed she was half a woman and her energy reflected it.”

Tanya and Ralph have upper bodies to die for in a culture that is hell bent for comparison city. It is clear that they love being physical in their bodies, legs that work or not. Sarah’s words put in to focus what I am feeling. I am drawn to them despite my beliefs about being responsible and not wanting to engage that belief in this moment. Their energy trumps my fear. Sarah and I introduce ourselves, the only couple to do so, and move next to them. From that point on the day picked up speed.

Half way to St. Barth’s the Big Cat lowered its sails and the skipper invited us to dive into the vast Caribbean. The Okandos are the first off the boat. Sarah and I dive into their wake. I tell them I saw them at the Marathon two years ago.

“Small world,” they say together.

“Actually, it’s pretty big,” I say, sure that they don’t understand my meaning, even though I understand theirs. “How did you get over it…the legs, I mean. You seem almost not to care.”

Tanya laughed. “It was a dream,” she said. “Want to hear it? Most don’t.”

“I’m all ears,” I said.

“Before the accident all I cared about was being the best cross country rider in the world, male or female. At eighteen I made the US Olympic equestrian trials. I love horses and riding, but I love winning more. My goal replaced everything I valued. I judged every moment of my life in terms of reaching my goal of being the best. I was wicked to be around. My nickname was ‘horse bitch.’ I was proud of it. Then came the fall.”

Tanya dives under the water to cool off her head.

“For a year afterward you wouldn’t want to be around me. I wallowed in self-pity, and nobody could do right by me. Then came the dream. It was a simple dream, but big. I saw my legs in a casket and my self standing next to it, whole. There is a plaque on the casket. It reads, ‘there is no greater sacrifice than to give one’s life for another.’ I understood it immediately. Me, Tanya Reading – that’s my maiden name – could not be whole with my legs. I mean I could have had I listened sooner, but my beliefs about who I was were too strong to overcome without drastic measures.”

“Who were you?” Sarah asked.

“I was what I did or didn’t do. I was nothing outside of what I accomplished or didn’t accomplish. That sucks in a world that sees only what I do. Don’t do and I don’t exist. Losing my legs was the greatest thing that ever happened to me.”

“But you’re still exceptionally competitive,” I pointed out.

“Sure,” Tanya said. “I love to compete. I love challenges. I love to push myself. The difference now is I don’t beat myself up when I lose. Now it’s about the process. I came in third in that marathon you watched. Had I come in third when I had my legs I would have freaked. I was good then at beating myself into a bloody pulp. I am content with what is, now.”

Neither Sarah nor I respond. We tread water to keep from drowning. I wonder if it’s a metaphor…our treading water. Khidr spoke in Tanya, and unlike Moses, she got it. It wasn’t fate that took her legs and turned them to straw. It wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t bad luck. Tanya turned it from those things into a gift. Ralph’s story was similar, but without the remembered dream. He had the dream, this I know. Ralph just didn’t bring it to conscious awareness. It worked in the background for him. I think way back to when I believed that dreams were nothing more than the brain sloughing off the detritus of the day. What tripe!

There is something magical about sailing on a catamaran on a turquoise sea. The sail back from St. Barth’s is quiet. The experience is more a dream than a reality, a metaphor itself for something other than it is, pointing us toward a place deeper than the one we know.