The Girl on the Plane



clouds from plane 2


woman on plane





And together, HUSBAND and I, got off the plane.

The Dance I Now See





“Last night was amazing. I’m crazy about you.”








I just grieved.



Evidence gone.

Just like that, his transgression was erased.




New York City fascinates me…for all the obvious reasons…the flash and theater and amazing eateries and Wall Street and Central Park and Prospect Park and Bryant Park and coffee shops…oh…the coffee shops…


But more than all that and the other thousand things I could list, I am fascinated with the life underground.

I am fascinated that the subway stations are such a part of the fabric of the streetscape that sometimes they are hard to see. I’m fascinated that people, young and old, fat and skinny, employed and homeless, move at a (relative) uniform (fast) pace and don’t see 20 stairs as a barrier to use (unlike much of the rest of the US). I’m fascinated that no one ever seems to glance at a schedule, or look at a map, but they get everywhere they are going. I’m fascinated that people bring their groceries on the subway, go to prom on the subway, go to work and school and dates and doctor’s appointments and meetings with their architects and, now that I know what I know, meetings with their whores. On the subway.


I’m fascinated that there is a whole life underneath the ground. A life that includes shops and restaurants and advertising and crime and cops and rats and music and people. There is New York City on top, in the light. And New York City underneath, in the dark. And they are both filled with drama and death and life. The underneath knows about what’s above, but all of what’s above doesn’t know about underneath.


My life had an underneath too.

There was a little bit of underneath that I knew about, but lots that I didn’t. It knew…my underneath knew what was above and outside, but only let little snippets of itself be known. Until it had to.


My marriage had an underneath too.

There was almost nothing of the underneath in my marriage that I knew about…except little snippets that HUSBAND shared…little little snippets…until a big snippet came out and all the other snippets eventually appeared from underneath.


I’m not willing to live with any underneaths in my personhood or personal life anymore. Truth is, they all are one anyway, they just like to keep the lines of demarcation and pretend they each have their own territory in my soul. But they were at war, battling…the underneath and the above.

They were at war. And I won.



A tiny word, just two letters. But a word of enormous implications. It is literally pivotal, and sometimes the only thing between right and wrong. Good and bad. Healthy and unhealthy. Wise and foolish.

OR is fundamental into most moments and most days. We stop at Starbucks OR we don’t. We do? Perhaps we are a bit late. Perhaps we spend the $10.00 that we would be better not spending. Perhaps we take in calories it would be better to avoid.


Woven throughout so much of our journey, we have OR junctures, and we often –  even mostly – zip right past them without too much thought, and usually get it right. Even if we don’t, the cost isn’t too high: We get up (make the bed OR not? This outfit OR that? Breakfast OR not? Vitamins, yes OR no?) We head out for errands, work, volunteer (Make time for the gym, OR not? Take this route OR that? Stay in this lane, OR change?) You get it. You live it.

And then there are big OR times…these we realize have implications of huge import, and we weigh lots of factors and consider outcomes. Things like get married OR not? Have a baby OR wait? Send the little one to this kindergarten OR that? Big university OR small…rural OR city… You get it. You live it.

There are also categories of OR that we think we don’t have to consider but later realize we should have. Things like sunscreen OR not? Eat dessert nightly OR not? Dinner out frequently OR not? And twenty years later, we realize the better answer as we deal with basil cells, added pounds or smaller bank accounts. You get it. You live it.


ORs are a hard thing for us betrayeds. You see, we think the decision to step out of the bounds of the relationship you have established as exclusive is one that should have been weighed, and the outcomes should have been considered. We struggle with the early steps of cheating: when the cheater first signed up for a dating site. When he wrote up a Craigslist ad. When he opened the door at a certain establishment. When he first had a conversation with someone that niggled at his soul a bit because he knew it was slightly out-of-bounds…but made him feel good. When he chose to share his cell phone and exchange text messages or set up an alternate email or agreed to meet at the art museum. Each one of those steps, those moments wasn’t OR screaming don’t forget me! Don’t forget there is an OR and there will be fallout from this step and this step and this step?!!

We betrayeds don’t understand how OR didn’t shake him up, how he could make this momentous occasion a zip-past-the-moment time and just stepped right on into his betrayal. Maybe it did…and he did it anyway after weighing it all? And the Other Woman, too…she was faced with OR after OR after OR and kept choosing the OR that lead to deception and pain and rippled out from there.


Nearly two years out, and HUSBAND has searched his heart and mind and soul. He can’t really answer this one – how he had the OR minutes and junctures and just simply ignored it little  moment by little moment until he was making that call and sending that text and meeting that woman and taking off his clothes and it may be one of the areas I have to know that I don’t know and never can or will know. He admits he had to quell it, but he can’t explain now how he did. It is one of those haunting thoughts that tugs at my soul, because I, too, have had those OR moments. And I chose him. I chose us. I chose honor.

So OR…speak up. Shake up. Don’t give up. And may we become a people who give you a voice – you are wiser than we want to admit…



HUSBAND and I went to watch a talk last week at a Creator-Innovator event. One of the speakers, involved in the space industry, mentioned ‘the Overview Effect’ and described it much like Wikipedia:

“…a cognitive shift in awareness reported by some astronauts…refers to the experience of seeing…the Earth in space…a tiny, fragile ball of life, ‘hanging in the void,’ shielded and nourished by a paper-thin atmosphere…national boundaries vanish, the conflicts that divide people become less important, and the need to create a planetary society with the united will to protect this “pale blue dot” becomes both obvious and imperative…”



Imagine if we could all somehow gain the perspective, and change the way we live and think and see and respond to each other. Even in our own little space….much less globally…how the ripple effect would change our world.

Imagine if it didn’t matter if two cars merged in front of you and not just one (or none, depending on you).

Imagine if you had extra food from dinner and you packed it in your car and when you saw a homeless person on the way to work you handed them a home-cooked meal. And didn’t worry about getting the container back.


Imagine if you mowed your lawn and then mowed the neighbor’s lawn instead of complaining about how they never mowed their lawn.

Imagine if the neighbor that you mowed the lawn for came over and asked if they could scrub your windows when they were scrubbing their windows instead of complaining about how you never clean the mildew off your windows.

Imagine if your friend who has lots of money donated to the local community college and didn’t get a building named after him, but did reduce everyone’s tuition by $100.

Imagine if we didn’t care about manicured lawns so much and instead allowed the indigenous “weeds” to grow strong and beautiful and flower in their season and everyone in the neighborhood thought it was beautiful.

Imagine if we spent less time suing each other over issues and more time hearing each other’s issues.

Imagine if we did less compromising of individual wants, and more negotiating together toward shared mutual vision.

Imagine if we learned to value each other because we are humans, not because we have stuff or looks or are a particular gender or race or religion.


Imagine if families didn’t break up and when things got rough we banded together to help any way we could – all of us.

Imagine if we only had a glimpse into the heart of each other and when we saw the joys and the hurts and the excitement and the sadness we cared.

Imagine if we spent so much time and energy focused on helping others that we didn’t have time to worry about our stuff.

Imagine if our emptiness and hurt and fear and anxiety was filled with people who showed us our value and worth instead of getting artificially high on pain killers or pot or alcohol or synthetics.

Imagine if people honored each other enough to help them keep their commitments and find solutions even when their resolve was running low.


Imagine if somehow we could embrace and experience the overview effect in our own lives in our own homes in our own neighborhoods in our own towns in our own states…and it caught on…and caught on…and caught on.



Another Kind of Weary

The last three weeks have just done me in.












Reflecting on Deception









