Black Eye: Escaping a Marriage, Writing a Life

True Colors

True Colors Yesterday, because it had rained almost all day and was too muddy for biking, I left my Norcroft writing shed to walk for half an hour along the Highway 61 frontage road. The rain had stopped, but the world was shrouded in mist. The gray sky and flat light made every color stand out: velvet brown on the tiny alder cones, crimson leaves on scrubby bushes growing by the side of the road, young balsams green as a Christmas tree, dried grasses a subtle palette of yellowgreens and golds shading to tans and browns. Some flowers still hung on: the lustrous white pearly everlasting, a purple clover, a few small yellow blossoms on the tip of a mullein stalk. A daisy, love me, love me not. A few days ago, hiking the Oberg Mountain loop under blue sky, the world sunny and clear, I stood at an overlook and was sad that the color was gone. All I saw were acres of birches, the branches bare and gray. The world shows its true colors. But which colors really are true? The saturated yellow of a black-eyed Susan in the fog or the drab gray of leafless branches in the sun? Of course, the concept of “true colors” has nothing to do with sun or mist, bare trees or brilliant blossoms. It comes from the world of navies and pirates, sailing ships, the duplicitous ruse of concealing flags, and war. n 74 n Saturday morning, March 1, 1986 March at last! February has been too long for all of us. Slush, ice, the worst kind of winter. At least it is now light until six o’clock, and there seems to be some hope of spring. TheThin Ice signs are up all over theTenney Park lagoon. Yesterday I learned that a documentary I produced won an Ohio State Award—a big honor. The station will help pay my way to the awards banquet next month at the National Press Club in D.C. On the way home, I stopped to get strawberries for a special dessert to celebrate the award and say goodbye to Sara, who has bought a house and is moving out. But at dinner, Stu made a horrible scene. Sara’s friend Katie had come to help her move; they were also going to baby-sit David, Eli, and David’s friend Andy while Stu and I went to a concert. Katie said she’d parked in front of the garage and would move her car when Stu and I needed to leave. Stu immediately got into his “arrogant boss” role. He ordered Katie to move the car immediately, and ranted on and on about how rude Katie was, parking wherever she wished, with no regard to anyone else. Sara was upset, and I was furious, because Stu’s behavior was simply inexcusable. (I also felt guilty, because Sara and Katie were doing us a favor, and we were not helping Sara move.) I blew up at Stu on the way to hear Alexander Lagoya, and I was so upset I could not enjoy the music,even though I love classical guitar and Lagoya was technically incredible. At one point during the concert,when Lagoya was playing an ineffably beautiful,liquid passage,a siren wailed outside. It seemed to me that if I could only maintain the beauty and serenity of life in the face of the tumult Stu creates,I would have achieved a great deal. n Tuesday, March 4, 1986 A dreadful session with B this afternoon. I just babbled the events and emotions of the past two weeks, feeling that I am back to where I was before I started seeing him, terribly conflicted about whether there is any True Colors 75 point staying here and struggling. For what? I suggested that maybe I was unable to leave because I was denying how bad things really are. “No,” B said.“You don’t seem to be denying.You’re just loyal.” Too loyal for my own damn good. I have been having breathing problems again. I thought maybe this shortness of breath was caused by the thyroid medicine I take, but I stopped taking it two days ago. I am beginning to be convinced it is stress. I can’t even be euphoric anymore about “doing something” for my state of mind. I’ve been doing something for...