Dear Reader, the sweet nothings have been murmured, the roses delivered, the valentines calculated and expensive dinners put on plastic. Now that the yearly ritual created to warm up winter with romantic gushing is behind us, let’s spend a little imagination on creating a new holiday; let’s have one to honor ex’s. How might we celebrate keeping connection after the dismantling of romance?
It might be you don’t want to go there. After all, there’s a reason the chorus of George Strait’s song “All My Ex’s Live in Texas” ends with “that’s why I hang my hat in Tennessee.” It might be too painful for you to consider the first love of your life from third grade or third marriage. Maybe you don’t want to remember the fantasy you almost consummated in high school or the particular details of The One Whose Name You Will No Longer Speak. But it is only human to love and lose. And we live so long now; you might want to consider that. Trust me, after 20 or 30 years it gets boring to root around in your heart to find the right grimace to go with stories about That One. (It’s boring for your friends anyway.)
Driving along Aspen Street recently I caught sight of a man and woman hugging with such tenderness, that I gave up frowning through my windshield to look for a downtown parking place. The sight of them brought to my lips words from a Tess Gallagher poem: “…when you hug someone you want it/to be a masterpiece of connection…” It was a hug so beautiful it caused me to study the two in my rear view mirror until I realized I knew them, and then I realized they were ex sweethearts hugging, right there in public but with apparent and marvelous-to-witness private delight.
How would this world be sweetened, I thought, if it became the habit of ex’s everywhere to briefly return to the delight of their previous connection instead of the dismay of their falling out.
That would amount to a whole lot of hugging, of course because it is not common to have one true love anymore. Family trees look less like trees with branches and more like subway maps these days: lots of stops with many ways to get to happily ever after.
I once started an evening college class by telling students to “Describe the loves of your life. Leave nothing out. You won’t have to share.” 17 heads bent to journals for seven minutes turned into twenty minutes of pens moving because they didn’t want to stop. And after writing they had much to tell each other about the multiple loves in their lives. This became very fertile ground for discussing that Raymond Carver short story, “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.”
I think we’re ready for Take-an-Ex–to-Lunch Day. (I hope I get at least two invitations out of this column.) Songwriters could write verses about the complexity of keeping connection after separation. Instead of re-hacking the usual “I will love you forever” sentiments, there would be lines to teach us how to actively keep love alive after parting. How to love differently. Without shrinking or remorse or blame. Forever even.
To keep my single person’s sense of humor through the Valentine’s Day plague this year I re-read Mary Oliver’s book-length poem, The Leaf and the Cloud. When I got to the lines
Scatter your flowers over the graves, and walk away
Be good-natured and untidy in your exuberance.
I felt a sensation against my ribs like a blowtorch fired up to open a cage. My chest felt like that hulking safe in the lobby of the Weatherford Hotel: that black fortress that used to hoard cash stands now with its mighty door open and on the inside are delicate paintings. (Have you ever looked closely at that heron?!) Oliver’s lines made me think, wow, endings happen, but you don’t always have to lurch away with sorrow. Instead cast off the flowers and go be happy. And as messy as loving and loss is, you can’t help but be untidy if you choose life.
If it was the custom once a year to send chocolates to an ex we might agree to romp after romance reshapes. Be sportive with the afterlife of love. Jointly decide against grim good bye in order to walk away into frisky anticipation of a fine hug one day.
