MAJOR PLANS
O’ahu Hawai’i
May 2022
I’m just gonna go ahead and blame Bali on Branden.
For months, after our return from his Warrior Retreat in Peru, Branden had been in and out of Hawai’i, staying in my guest room while we worked on his book. Our friendship had evolved from Branden dragging me out of grief to me dragging him through drafts. It was good to sit at a table again, in front of a a whiteboard, breaking structure and content. It was good to feel like a writer again, even if it wasn’t my story.
Branden wasn’t much for all that sitting. There were morning workouts and afternoon runs and every night, a meeting on our yoga mats for the online Yin course taught by one of his favorite teachers, Carlos Romero, a Venezuelan surfer yogi teaching at The Yoga Barn in Ubud.
To say Carlos is magic is almost insultingly dismissive of his gifts.
Carlos is beyond magic. What that man channels is so thoroughly aligned with Source Energy that even 6,000 miles away, via pre-recorded videos, the healing energy in my Hawaiian living room was palpable. With just the sound of his voice, my home was transformed into a healing hale, a yoga shala, a temple.
Each night, Branden would tap his laptop space bar and then we were off, spiritually transported to a rainy night in Bali, Carlos’ teachings guiding us through the asanas. At some point, Branden and I would both drop into a deep trance, quite literally knocked the fuck out, then at 2 AM, we’d wake abruptly from a deep savasana, gasping for breath, as if resurrected from a coma, both completely disoriented, out of time and space, but feeling…remarkable.
That’s the only way I can describe it.
My body, my spirit, my soul, my whole essence felt remarkable.
No grief. No suffering. No past. No future. No pain.
Just pure presence.
This happened repeatedly until finally, one night I turned to Branden and said, “If this is what Carlos can conjure online, I want the full-dose of his curative ju ju, live and in person. I think I have to go to Bali.”
Branden nodded, “Let’s go.”
There was just the glaring issue of, you know, widowed motherhood.
Being Cecilia’s “person” was my full-time job. Between losing her uncle, her dad and all her friends (ie. her whole world) in Los Angeles, Covid lockdown in Hawai’i and switching schools post-lockdown, Cecilia’s “innocent” childhood had pretty much been obliterated. Over and over, my attempts to steady the ground under her feet just failed. Miserably.
The only certainty in the chaos of her life was me. Me, with the morning bowl of cereal. Me, driving the car. Me, on the beach, digging holes. Me, crying on the couch. Me, running the bath. Me, rubbing her feet at night. Me, me, me.
We’d become intertwined.
And I was fine with that.
Exhausted, but fine.
To be so close with my daughter, after a lifetime of estrangement and abandonment in my own maternal relationships, was more than a gift. It was a miracle. A daily miracle to get to be her person, her protector, her guardian, her advocate, her…everything.
It took Branden moving into our guest room, shifting the energy of our home and bearing witness to our daily dynamic, for me to question whether I’d crossed the line from maternal love and interdependence into codependency.
Maybe I wasn’t Cecilia’s everything.
Maybe she was mine.
Branden was the one who convinced me to go to Peru without Cecilia in tow. Yes, you read that correctly. I was actually considering dragging Cecilia with me to Peru because I could not imagine how she’d live without me for fourteen days and not totally fall apart.
News Flash: She was fine.
Still, the idea of flying to Indonesia and leaving her in Hawai’i, for more than a month, surrendering her full-time care to Nicole or Sammy while I jetted off to study yoga and meditation, seemed…selfish to the max. The antithesis of a good, stable, normal mom. The stuff of which memoirs are later written.
Not to mention, tweendom was looming. Cecilia was ten, which meant I had maybe two, three more summers where she wouldn’t cringe to be seen with me in public. These were precious, fleeting days. Days when she still loved her mama. I couldn’t spend them traveling without her, again.
I wanted one more summer with my little girl.
One more summer to be her everything.
One more summer of us.
But the yoga...
Just like I knew, in my heart of hearts, we had to move to Hawai’i, that I had to carry Clayton’s ashes to Vegas, that the owls were leading me to the Amazon - I also knew, in my heart of hearts, no matter the hardship or inconvenience, I had to take this selfish step. I had to study yoga with Carlos in Bali. His teachings were essential - foundational - for the next level of my spiritual growth and healing. And that meant my ten-year-old daughter was going with me.
It’s almost cute…looking back…
I actually thought I was going to Bali for me.
The trip to Bali quickly ballooned into a three-month excursion throughout Southeast Asia. Kicked off by Branden flying to Ubud to teach with Carlos, the plan was for Cecilia to finish her school year then we’d meet Branden in Thailand where he’d study Muay Thai, I’d sit in meditation and Ceci would learn ceramics.
Ceci and I would then fly to Indonesia where I’d study yoga with Carlos and she’d enroll in summer school then we’d head back to Hawai’i, maybe hanging out in Korea or Australia on the way home. Branden might join us in any or all of those places, depending on his vibe.
Now, let me stop and address the obvious.
It is moments like this, in a memoir, where I usually yell out loud to the book, “What, are these people, all loaded? Do any of them actually work?” Because that is the sane response to a travel itinerary like the one you just read. “Who, in the real world, can take three months off, spending thousands of dollars, to go study yoga and ceramics overseas?”
The answer to that is...actually, a lot more people than you’d think.
Most of them are Europeans, who get a month (or more) of paid vacation days every year so, obviously, they travel but there are plenty of Americans among them. Digital nomads, eccentrics, the self-employed, artists, teachers on summer breaks, there are lots of young, single people exploring the world on their own terms. And yes, even some families and retirees too.
Travel isn’t a luxury for some people. It’s their value system. It’s their priority. It’s how they spend their time and their money. That’s what travel is for me. My school and my religion. The way I gather stories, make memories. Travel takes me outside the limits of my narrow perspective. It forces me to evolve.
But yes, there is a trade-off.
The biggest one.
Every cent I spend to rent a beach house in Hawai’i, to travel the world, to consult with healers and therapists, to educate my daughter and be her full-time, stay-at-home mom comes from Clayton’s life insurance payout. Our comfort, our therapies, our exploration and my privileged blessing, the freedom I have to wake, feed, play and sing my daughter to sleep each night, that all came at the cost of my husband’s life.
The price we pay is steep.
And maybe I should have used the money to buy a house in Los Angeles, stay near our friends, keep my job, create a sense of security in Cecilia’s home and school life, even as every thing around us burnt to ash. Maybe I should have behaved like a rational, reasonable, logical human being and not tromped around the world with my kid in tow. Maybe I should have chosen stability instead.
But haven’t we all figured out by now, this deep into a second memoir of my sad widow tale, that stability is a myth? That death can come at any moment and wipe out everything? That the ownership of anything - a home, a car, a job, a marriage, a future, hell, even our own children, our own bodies - is purely illusion?
I mean, really, haven’t we?
All I can tell you is this...
I would give every cent back, in a second, if it meant he were still alive.
Every. Fucking. Cent.
It took hours, no, make that days, online with Google Travel to figure out all the flights, villa rentals, vaccines and visas but eventually, Ceci and I were ready to go. We had boarding passes, shots, a cleaned out house, packed suitcases and a whole host of fellow travelers lined up to join us.
Branden wasn’t among them. He’d been called back to Vegas for another family emergency, which broke Ceci’s heart. She’d become very attached to Branden during his long stay in our guest room. She liked getting piggy-back rides in the front yard, being chased around the house in a game of tag, braiding Branden’s hair on the beach.
She liked it so much that one day, she pulled me into her bathroom for a quiet chat. “Mama,” she said very seriously, “I really like Branden.”
I nodded my head in agreement, “I really like Branden too. I’m glad we’re friends.”
She shook her head with frustration. I was not getting it. “No, mama, I mean I really like Branden. I want him to be our new family - so you need to start walking around the house more sexy. Like this.”
Cecilia then placed her hands on her hips, pouted out her lips and proceeded to sashay around the bathroom on her tip-toes, shaking her booty and shoulders as she walked.
It took my full restraint to not even crack a smile. I pressed my hands to my heart and waited for Cecilia’s runway walk to end and then I said, very calmly, “Cecilia, I am one-hundred percent sure if I walk around the house like that, Branden will definitely NOT become a member of our family.”
That was the end of the discussion but I knew, deep down, Cecilia harbored a secret wish for Branden to be her new dad. I knew she was disappointed that neither I, nor Branden, were “walking around the house more sexy” and that our friendship was truly just that...a friendship. She had big hopes for the three of us to spend the summer together. It wasn’t meant to be. Branden flew back to Vegas while I made plans for us to meet Jeff in Bangkok, Kez in Chiang Mai, Dia in Ubud, Reyes in Canggu and Major in my bedroom, for what I assumed would be our last time.
Our six-month, on-and-off-again “situationship” had devolved into little more than a weekly text and a monthly hook-up, which only happened if he was on the island. His job kept him traveling and his poor communication skills kept me guessing. I’d get a text picture of the Eiffel Tower and have to assume he was in Paris.
After a week of silence, I once got a random photo of him having dinner with a teenage boy and had to deduce, by comparing the shape of their eyes, that it must be his son. As a word-loving writer who’d been married to a highly-emotional actor, Major’s military stoicism was maddening.
In my healing sessions with Jenna, I referred to him as “The Mirror of Nothingness.” Major only reflected back at me what I projected onto him. He offered almost nothing of (or about) himself, ever. It was an occupational hazard, I suppose. Twenty-five years in the military, bounced around from place to place, never married. Major was unencumbered - a plus - but also disconnected - a big, big negative. It wasn’t enough to keep me emotionally or intellectually engaged so why bother to stay in touch through the summer?
We said our goodbye in person, but the next morning, as I leaned through the driver’s side window of his sedan, I realized I was stuck. He hadn’t rolled the window down enough for me to actually kiss him. For a moment, we just stared at each other, until I said, “I can’t get to you” which was both a metaphor and a literal statement of fact.
Almost reluctantly, he leaned forward, out of his comfy leather seat, to meet my lips and kiss me goodbye, leaving the window exactly as it was. The glass between us, half up/half down, keeping me out, keeping him in, protected in his luxurious sedan, untouchable, unreachable. Major was just like that car. Beautiful to look at but really expensive to maintain. The cost was my continued loneliness.
That’s why it took me completely by surprise when I heard, “Text me when you land. Send pictures.” - coming out of Major’s mouth. Uh…wait, what? We were gonna stay in touch? I was confused. Why, exactly? Wasn’t this sayonara?
Of course asking Major any of those questions would have been pointless. First, they would need to be submitted in writing and secondly, they would go completely ignored for seven to ten days before I’d receive a totally unrelated political meme or photo of some globally famous landmark with no accompanying explanation.
So I called my childhood friend, Dawn, for a “what the hell just happened” conversation. Dawn has married her fair share of Marines and speaks fluent “militarese” having been in service, as a spouse of active duty jarheads, for most of her adult life. Dawn was my translator and had gently encouraged me, in the past, to be patient with Major. “He shares where he is. A picture of his son. You’re probably a very grounding influence for him.” Once again, she interpreted Major’s seemingly dismissive “stay in touch” as a genuine emotional bid. “This man cares more than you realize.”
Maybe Dawn was right. Maybe Major wanted to be missed by someone “back home” and that’s why he sent texts of his boarding passes. Maybe Major sending the photo of his son was his version of intimacy, allowing me a blinking glimpse inside his world, his family. Maybe the political memes were meant to be shared jokes. Maybe the unsolicited dick pix was his strange (but thoughtful?) attempt to distract me from life’s stressful moments.
Or maybe Major was a big old player, in his fancy car with his hot body and global investments, bread-crumbing and dick-pixing me in order to “hang on loosely” - a phrase I learned from “Ironman” the biggest player I ever dated, a former exotic dancer turned doctor, who’d made a literal career out of keeping women in states of hopeful anticipation. Offering up only an infinite loop of maybes.
In truth, it didn’t matter.
Major came into my life, at my request, and was exactly what I needed when I needed it. I wanted an age-appropriate, hot dude who wouldn’t ghost. A man who didn’t want to move in, get married or play step-dad to my daughter. A grown man with his own interests and his own place and his own life - so he could stay out of mine.
At that time, it’s all I was capable of handling, all that I wanted to handle.
But when you’ve been married to someone who adores you, whose eyes light up when you smile at them, who moves heaven and earth to make you happy - who talks your ear off about their passions and supports you in the pursuit of your artistic dreams while you help them build their own business, it is very, very difficult to settle for anything less. Even if it’s temporary.
Maybe I was ready for something more major than Major.
Maybe it was time to try.
Maybe that’s why I’d left that voicemail for Kez?
Is that what I’d actually done?
Asked him to try with me?
I didn’t really know.
Kez and I never discussed that post-Olomana hike voicemail. We just started planning our travels together. Ceci and I would get to Bangkok before him but he’d meet us in Chiang Mai. We wouldn’t live in the same villa but we’d do some weekend trips together. He’d go with us to Bali but he wasn’t sure if he’d join the yoga training. Every conversation was about logistics. We didn’t discuss our affectionate connection in Peru. We didn’t discuss the physical distance of Texas. We didn’t discuss the tearful goodbyes or the hours spent on the phone. We didn’t discuss the post-hike voicemail.
Like all my possessions in Hawai’i, it just got shelved and stored away.
Something we’d unpack later.
Go To Chapter 2 Bonus Materials