A Lifetime Together Will Not Be Enough - And It Wasn’t
When she died it was as if his car accelerated
off the pier’s end and zoomed upward over death water
for a year without gaining or losing altitude,
then plunged in a honeycomb of steel, still dreaming
awake, as dead as she was but conscious still.
There is nothing so selfish as misery nor as boring.
And depression is devoted only to its own practice.
Mourning resembles melancholia precisely except
that melancholy adds self-loathing to stuporous sorrow
…
He awakened daily to the prospect of nothingness
in the day’s house that like all houses was mortuary.
He slept on the fornicating bed of the last breath.
He closed her eyes in the noon of her middle life;
he no longer cut and pruned for her admiration;
he worked for praise of women and they died.
…
- From “Kill the Day” by Donald Hall
Julie Was Right - As Usual
Midway through one of Julie’s short stories, The Secret Andrew, she limns the changes in the grief experienced by the protagonist, a woman whose husband had died a year earlier, by noting that she is then (at that point in the story) still unable to bear re-reading the letters the two of them had exchanged when they first met but, as the conveniently omniscient narrator points out, sometime in the future
It wasn’t.
Julie was profoundly, terrifyingly on the mark - a lifetime together was not nearly enough.
died in the bed we shared at 7:00 on the morning of December 3, 1999
from cancer diagnosed the week of our wedding nearly 20 years earlier.
I miss her every day.
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Remembering Julie On Her Birthday: August 14
I Do Remember This
As Time Goes By is another of those old-fashioned songs Julie1 and I listed in the category of “Our Song.”2 and it seems to fit the occasion of her birthday.
As Time Goes By
Louis ArmstrongYou must remember this
A kiss is still a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh
The fundamental things apply
As time goes by
And when two lovers woo
They still say, “I love you”
On that you can rely
No matter what the future brings
As time goes by
Moonlight and love songs
Never out of date
Hearts full of passion
Jealousy and hate
Woman needs man
And man must have his mate
That no one can deny
it’s still the same old story
A fight for love and glory
A case of do or die
The world will always welcome lovers
As time goes byMoonlight and love songs
Never out of date
Hearts full of passion
Jealousy and hate
Woman needs man
And man must have his mate
That no one can deny
it’s still the same old story
A fight for love and glory
A case of do or die
The world will always welcome lovers
As time goes by
Footnotes
- Julie Showalter was my much-beloved, fiercely smart, extraordinarily sexy wife and prize-winning writer, who died in 1999 from cancer diagnosed the week of our wedding nearly 20 years earlier. There are many other posts about her and her writing in this blog. For information, see Julie Showalter FAQ ~back~
- See With Julie In Mind On Our Wedding Anniversary for more about “Our Song(s).” ~back~
Possibly Related Posts:
With Julie In Mind On Our Wedding Anniversary
Married July 20, 1980
Another Of Julie’s1 Ideas
It seems as though it should have been more complicated.
After we had lived together for a couple of years, Julie thought we should be married. I was not convinced that being legally wed was a necessary step for us, and Julie made it clear that she was not issuing an ultimatum.
But, I never told Julie “No.”
And once again, it turned out that Julie was right.
They’re Playing From Our Jukebox
Shortly after Julie and I were together, I complained to her that, unlike most couples we knew, we did not have an “Our Song,” and, further, that she was the cause of the problem because no one song could sufficiently represent a relationship with her.
From then on, Julie would periodically inform me that “They’re playing one of Our Top Ten Songs.” Other variations on this theme included “Oh, that’s a newcomer rising fast on Our Playlist,” “From the Country & Western Our Songs charts, we’re listening to …,” and, perhaps her favorite, “Dance with me - that’s a song from Our Jukebox.”
They Can’t Take That Away From Me was a frequently played selection in Our Jukebox. While Julie usually preferred the rendition by Sinatra or, most frequently, Billie Holiday, I’ve lately found myself drawn to Stacey Kent’s more measured and elegant version of the ballad.
They Can’t Take That Away From Me Sung by Stacey Kent
They Can’t Take That Away From Me
By George and Ira GershwinThere are many many crazy things
That will keep me loving you
And with your permission
May I list a fewThe way you wear your hat
The way you sip your tea
The memory of all that
No they can’t take that away from meThe way your smile just beams
The way you sing off key
The way you haunt my dreams
No they can’t take that away from meWe may never never meet again, on that bumpy road to love
But Ill always, always keep the memory ofThe way you hold your knife
The way we danced till three
The way you changed my life
No they can’t take that away from me
The Photo: The photo at the top left of the montage atop this post was taken at our wedding; in it, from left to right, are Julie’s mother, Julie’s father, Julie, me, my mother, and my father. In the photo at the bottom left, the cats, from left to right, are Guido and Diego.
Footnotes
- Julie Showalter was my much-beloved, fiercely smart, extraordinarily sexy wife and prize-winning writer, who died in 1999 from cancer diagnosed the week of our wedding nearly 20 years earlier. There are many other posts about her and her writing in this blog. For information, see Julie Showalter FAQ ~back~
Possibly Related Posts:
The Other “Dancing With Julie” Story
Prom Queen For A Day
…
cause all she wants to do is dance
And make romance
Never mind the heat comin’ off the street
She wants to party
She wants to get down
All she wants to do is -
All she wants to do is dance
All she wants to do is dance
And make romance
All she wants to do is dance
From “All She Wants To Do Is Dance”
Performed by Don Henley
So You Think You Can Dance
Well, as a matter of fact, I do a better than average cha-cha and a serviceable waltz, both courtesy of a year of lessons at the Pink Barn Dance Studio in Tulsa when I was 13.1
Otherwise, I am not a dancer. Beyond fulfilling my spousal responsibilities (e.g., ethanol enhanced rug-cutting at weddings, hospital sponsored Christmas parties, and similar festivities) and sporadic episodes of private dancing safely secluded at home, I am confident that I can count all my choreographic exploits as an adult on the fingers of one hand - and still have enough remaining digits to flash an obscene gesture at anyone ridiculing at my inept attempts to trip the light fantastic. Concerned readers may now dismiss their fears that this second post (see Thanks For The Dance ) about dancing in three days presages a prolonged sequence of American Bandstand-inspired entries.
Julie,2 on the other hand, would have met the Hall & Oates criteria for Maniac Dancer.3
The Celebration
After Julie underwent her first set of operations and completed her first course of chemotherapy, her cancer went into remission. It was not until much later, however, that the signs and symptoms of her disease were absent long enough that we no longer assumed every instance of fatigue, unexplained tenderness, transient weakness, or any of the dozens of ordinary physical complaints most adults endure in the course of a day signaled the onset of an exacerbation of her cancer.
Once I ceased such psychological flinching, I was [choose one or more of the following] lucky, inspired, wise, intuitive enough to throw a celebratory bash for her. I was at least smart enough to limit my contributions to insisting this would happen so Julie didn’t have to make a self-serving decision, throwing sufficient money at it, and showing up as her escort.
Julie’s best friend and my psychiatric group’s business manager handled the logistics with consultation from Julie. We ended up with 200-300 guests, including Julie’s family, at a hotel ballroom with loud music, free food and drinks, and the other necessities for a party, including at least a couple of crashers whose exile from the festivities was commuted by Julie on the (apparently) inarguable grounds that “they seem nice enough and they do like to party.”
The key to Julie’s revelry, however, was her assumption that, as Prom Queen, she could (and did) demand dances from whomever she liked, whenever she liked from the time the music started until the hotel refused to grant further extensions on the rental of the ballroom, regardless of how much I offered.
That’s Julie in the graphic below, dancing with her Dad.
Footnotes
- When not box-stepping or cha-chaing my way across the dance floor, I still, in fact, dance much as I did in the 8th grade:
- Pull the woman’s body close to mine
- Shuffle feet aimlessly in 3/4 inch movements
- Move hands from starting point on her lower back in gradual descent until she objects (one of the advantages of being an adult is that this maneuver provokes far fewer objections from grown women than it did from 8th grade girls) or reaching anatomical regions that led to remonstrations from the Phys Ed teacher chaperoning the Eli Whitney Junior High School mixers
~back~
- Julie Showalter was my much-beloved, fiercely smart, extraordinarily sexy wife and prize-winning writer, who died in 1999 from cancer diagnosed the week of our wedding nearly 20 years earlier. There are many other posts about her and her writing in this blog. For information, see Julie Showalter FAQ ~back~
- Julie was also taken with the notion that dancing was the vertical expression of horizontal desires. At home, she would frequently start singing, apropos of nothing, a 1920s ditty, I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate, while executing an exquisitely provocative, excruciatingly salacious, way past suggestive shimmy that was so inevitably effective as a bedroom invitation that it could have been the embodiment of the hackneyed joke that Southern Baptists were against sex - because it might lead to dancing. ~back~
Possibly Related Posts:
Thanks For The Dance
They have the time, the time of their life
I saw a man, he danced with his wife
In Chicago
From: “Chicago (That Toddling Town)”
Lyrics by Fred Fisher
Let’s Do The Stroll
During one halcyon period, Julie1 and I had, instead of a house in the suburbs and two children, a 38th story apartment on Lake Shore Drive and two offices in the Loop, hers at the Sears Tower and mine in one of those Michigan Avenue buildings with a bank and a mediocre restaurant at street level and shrinks and dentists filling the offices on the other floors. Although we had, by that time, been married at least three years, we still awoke each morning moderately surprised and immoderately happy just to discover each other in the same bed.
Just after noon on a sunny spring day during this period, we were walking to lunch, my arm around her waist, on Michigan Avenue doing our best imitation of wholesome, hard-working Yuppies making their way in the big city.
Crossing the Chicago River, we were in front of the Wrigley Building on a well populated sidewalk when I spontaneously2 lifted her hand over her head, twirled her in a fashion that would have won the approval of my instructors at the Pink Barn Dance Studio in Tulsa, where I took a year of lessons as a 7th grader, lowered her nearly to the pavement3 in a flamboyant dip, pulled her back to the vertical, squeezed her body close to mine, exchanged a quick kiss, and then eased on down the road to the applause of the crowd - who may have just been clapping in relief that I didn’t smash Julie’s head like a melon against the sidewalk4 (given that she had no inkling what was going on and was stuck with me for a partner, she clearly had the more challenging role in this performance).
I never did anything like that before, never did anything like it again. But, for one shining moment, …
The Trigger Event For Today’s Post
In the 1930s, Freud famously wrote to Marie Bonaparte,5
A similar query into the female psyche elicited this response from ThisIsMary at View From A Farm House Window:
And that exquisite and confident response led to me recall walking with Julie on Michigan Avenue one especially fine Spring day.
Footnotes
- Julie Showalter was my much-beloved, fiercely smart, wickedly sexy wife and prize-winning writer, who died in 1999 from cancer diagnosed the week of our wedding nearly 20 years earlier. There are many other posts about her and her writing in this blog. For information, see Julie Showalter FAQ ~back~
- This is especially noteworthy, given that I was then even less the spontaneous sort then than I am now ~back~
- I was, one must remember, younger then and agile enough to perform athletic feats such as bending over or rising from a chair without uttering groans or wincing ~back~
- I also suspect that in these less innocent, post-Youtube days, folks are so jaded that the polite reactions to that twirl and dip would be along the lines of “Is that it?” and the less genteel commentary would range from dismissive insults to scatological abuse. ~back~
- Marie Bonaparte, who was treated by Freud and who paid the ransom that allowed him to to escape from Nazi Germany to England, is, I suspect, the only individual to have been, simultaneously in fact, both a Princess and a psychoanalyst. After marrying Prince George of Greece in 1907, she was thereafter officially known, according to Wikipedia, as Princess Marie of Greece and Denmark. ~back~
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Carol Shields On Living, Writing, Cancer, and Julie
I’ve previously posted admiring notes about Carol Shields,1 who authored ten novels, including The Stone Diaries, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction as well as the Governor General’s Award. She also published four collections of short stories, a number of plays, books of poetry, criticism, and a biography of Jane Austen.
Carol Shields CBC Interview
I recently happened onto this interview Shields gave to the CBC2 which the network’s guide describes thusly: In February 2000, she [Carol Shields] spoke candidly to Writers & Company host Eleanor Wachtel about her illness and how it changed her writing.
It is a poignant, unsentimental dialog that has an impact beyond dealing with cancer or writing books, touching on what it means to be human. In one of my postings that mentioned Carol Shields, It Must Be Great Fun To Be Meme To Me, I wrote
The interview can be found at Carol Shields on living with cancer
Carol Shields On Julie’s Death: In the shadow of her old illness
Two or three weeks after Julie died, I sent, as she had requested, perhaps a dozen messages notifying individuals not in our intimate circle of friends and family. I did not recognize most of these names, but, of course, did know about Carol Shields. At that time, I knew Julie had admired her and had taken a workshop with her but did not realize they had carried on a correspondence. Shortly after sending that letter, I received her reply.4
Updated
Additional material from Unless by Carol Shields has been added at Madeleines From Reading Unless by Carol Shields
Footnotes
- For example, in Carol Shields and Neruda at the Heck Of A Guy Internet Sunday Salon, I set forth the definitive statement on the comparative styles of Carol Shields and Pablo Neruda, which, not incidentally, is also the only direct comparison of those two writers that I have found and provided a link to an online source for her short story, “Mirrors.” As the title hints, this post also includes a brief discussion of and a link to a group of Neruda’s poems. Reviewing Carol Shields and Neruda at the Heck Of A Guy Internet Sunday Salon, I immodestly rate it a dandy Sunday post, featuring as it does the moving words of these two readily accessible, highly skilled authors writing about love and encourage anyone who hasn’t seen it to give it a quick read. ~back~
- In the same search, I also found Carol & Cohen, which reports that the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School put some moves to moody Leonard Cohen tunes in an opening night sure to shake up this year’s Carol Shields Festival of New Works. The annual fest of all things theatre takes a new turn this year to present a poetic new dance work at its kickoff gala May 24 at Prairie Theatre Exchange. I’m convinced that the alignment of two of my favorite Canadian artists, Carol Shields and Leonard Cohen, via a festival I didn’t know existed and a medium, dance, which is also a mystery to me must be significant but the meaning escapes me. Readers with expertise in interpreting tea leaves, goat entrails, Ouija boards, etc. are invited to render suggestions. ~back~
- Julie was my much-beloved, fiercely smart, extraordinarily sexy wife, who died in 1999 from cancer diagnosed the week of our wedding nearly 20 years earlier. She was also a prize-winning writer. This blog includes many other posts about her and the unlikely but true story of our romance (See Julie FAQ) as well as several of her short stories and other pieces (at Julie’s Writings and Unpublished Julie. ~back~
- Text copy of letter from Carol Shields on the death of Julie Showalter:
9 January 2000Dear Allan,
Your letter has just reached me here in England, and I was heartbroken to hear about Julie’s death. I did know, of course, that she felt herself to be in the shadow of her old illness - and I admired, so much, her ability to set that aside and continue with her writing.
Her writing had such promise, and I remember that I responded to it particularly because of its wit, which is rather more rare than you might think. She had a very quiet control over her work, but the humour was always close to the surface, part of her vision of the world. She also brought to our small class the kind of generosity and good will that such a group requires. She also contributed much needed maturity and balance. Well, I adored her - as I am sure hundreds did.
This will be a hard time for you, Allan, and for the boys. My thoughts will be with you. This has been my year to learn about health problems, too - breast cancer and then a heart condition. I will think of Julie as my example of courage. Blessings to you all and thank you for writing.
Carol Shields (Signature)
~back~
Possibly Related Posts:
Julie and The Mountain
Mount Kuchumaa
Julie1 Does Rancho La Puerta
Last night, talking with friends on their return from a week at a spa reminded me that Julie had once written something about a specific experience at Rancho La Puerta, a spa located near Tecate, Mexico2 an hour south of San Diego that opened in 1940. After some digging, I found this brief note she had written, I believe, in response to a request from the Ranch3 for accounts of memorable experiences guests had there.
The mountain Julie mentions is Mount Kuchumaa.4 Every morning, just at sunrise, we, along with many of the other guests and two staff members, would spend an hour hiking up the mountain and back. The top photo is the full view of Mount Kuchumaa, which overlooks Rancho La Puerta. I included the photo at the bottom for a sense of the climb and descent.
In March 1991 I was diagnosed with metastatic bone cancer.5 I couldn’t walk without aid. My treatment included chemotherapy, radiation, and visualization. Twice a day, I spent an hour climbing your mountain, climbing toward the sun, toward health and wellness and the new day. Some days everyone I loved waited at the top of the mountain. Others, I reached it alone and sat with the sun in my face.
Six years later, I am alive, I am well. I can climb that mountain again, not just in my mind, but with my body.
Footnotes
- Julie Showalter was my much-beloved, fiercely smart, extraordinarily sexy wife and prize-winning writer, who died in 1999 from cancer diagnosed the week of our wedding nearly 20 years earlier. There are many other posts about her and her writing in this blog. For information, see Julie Showalter FAQ ~back~
- It somehow seems fitting that the town nearest the spa is also the home of Tecate Beer ~back~
- We aficionados referred to Rancho La Puerta as “The Ranch.” Yes, I was so besotted with Julie that I spent not one but two weeks at a Mexican spa with her. ~back~
- It is in keeping with the character of the place that the spa’s literature typically refers to Mount Kuchumaa as “Mystic Mount Kuchumaa.” ~back~
- To clarify, Julie’s breast cancer had been diagnosed years earlier. The first evidence of bone metastases was found in 1991. ~back~
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Valentine’s Day 2007 Is A Wren-Wren Situation
I always liked Julie’s1 middle name, Wren.
I am pleased and