So the first day of autumn is here. The day started cool, breezy and cloudy. By evening the sky cleared and it warmed the quiet town ever so slightly. Last night was my usual Saturday night at the "wing" as the air force legion hall is called here. I guess to distinguish it from the regular Canadian Forces "legion" that it sits beside. I met my friends Mary, Eva and her husband. Judy, Joan, and Rebe didn't show last night. There may have been a band elsewhere, and they are not big fans of Karaoke. Nor am I, but there are a few good singers and its better than sitting in my place waiting for emails from Shel or Joey. We sip water and dance rather badly I think. The attitude and music the very same as my nights spent in small taverns deep in the mountains of Appalachia during my years on the road.
Mary has become my special friend, after my very short relationship with Judy. Mary is a mature woman, tall with dark curly hair. She has lived her whole life on the island, born up the road a few miles in St. Eleanor's. She left the island once many years ago to go to her nephews wedding, I think, in Brampton, Ontario.
Her life has been a typical island, if not maritime tragedy. Her abusive mother kept her from her father who died, like mine, when she was 15. After a marriage that left her unable to remarry save she lose her support, she has had several variously awful romances. The last was with a trucker who was seemingly seeing another woman the whole time, 15 months, he was with her. This story is repeated in some form or another by almost everyone I meet here.
Mary and I dance and have been somewhat cuddly and close on the dance floor. We "waltz" as they call any dance to a slow song here, even when its rock and roll twist music. We often stay in embrace after the music stops and the dance floor empties-to the astonishment of everyone. Its good in some ways, but I doubt Ill get another date at the wing as I seem "taken". But it is a pure friendship and I suspect it will remain so.
I meet Mary Sundays and we talk for hours about family issues, good, bad, and ugly. Finding some comfort mutually in trying to discover why our relationships are so failed. It is quite sad. But the talks help. Today I showed her photos from my past lives-the big house, kids as babies playing at the New Jersey shore. My airplane, Mercedes, Chimney house-my red 'vette convertible with Shel lounging on the hood seductively somewhere in the mountain west years ago.
These are things as alien to her as a walk on the surface of Mars. I am attracted to her simplicity, lack of bitterness, and good church-going heart. Hours past and I just got home a bit ago. I missed my Sunday call to Joey as I had lost track of time. We sat today at the yacht club, as the mall was closed this Sunday, as it will be now as the tourists are gone away home, back to school, jobs, and the reality of the outside world.
One thing we discuss is my leaving PEI. Forever? For a month? Never? She overflowed like a happy teenager at a prom when I suggested I may not leave at all. It breaks my heart as I fear I may have to break hers. She won't be the only lady here that will miss me. And I will miss each and everyone of them.
No news today from my wayward Shel. Divorce now is imminent and I will have to file the papers soon. Shel wouldn't be able to, and she seems to think that we just go to the courthouse and sign a paper. It is , of course, more complex. I find the whole process distasteful and although I love my island, all those times I could have just stayed in PA with the kids makes me feel embarrassed. You see, I had three chances to stay in PA and chose each time to return to the island. Either to be with Shel or to try and get her to come home. As recently as August 5th, Shel was moving back in with me and/or going to Calgary with me. But no. It didn't happen.
So the three years I have been here seem a bit wasted. I mean that I could have had a little time with the kids as kids. But they have grown up, suddenly while I was here trying in vain to recapture a marriage that as I realize now was over in 2003. I guess.
I read Shel's journals from the 90's and she tells page by page of he unending love for me. Well it seems ended. One way or the other I must escape that bind. A new life-here on the island of dreams and sorrows, or back in harsh reality down south, in the states, my home home in Harrisburg to be near my beloved children.
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