I came home from work and was surprised to find movers preparing to move out Martha's furniture. Martha was not present. I sent the movers on their way without the furniture and changed the lock on my door. Speaking through the closed door, Martha's lawyer told me she was divorcing me and she wanted her furniture.
One...(more) thing I can say about Martha, she was an excellent cook. During our two years together, I'd gained 30 pounds. Since I enjoyed dancing, two weeks after Martha left I was in Greenwood Inn's singles's bar dancing the weight off when my future soul mate came into my life, in May 1980.
This story begins in 1973, with my business failure, with my tax consequences, with my “bigger than life calling.” David set out slay Goliath. I attacked the IRS. My departure follows, followed by my sea adventure, followed by my emerging as captain of my ship. By the way, I beat the IRS. Martha's departure completed my first step in my reality creation and triggered step 2. My soul mate appeared two weeks later at Greenwood Inn. My first three wives was a side issue. The real me and my purpose began to emerge after my “bigger than life calling.”
Could it always be true that we must first find a bigger than life calling before our real self and purpose emerges? Is it not strange that at the right moment, at the right place, my soul mate appeared? This thought would not have occurred to me had I not been writing my memoirs, nor this following thought: The universe's movements illustrate order. As part of our creative process, we've been freed to make choices. I'm being told over and over in the story of my life that we come with an identity and a purpose. Numerologists Javane and Bunker calculate that my path of destiny number is 7. “You psychically separate the true from the false and can discover and reveal some of the mysteries of life to a waiting world.” Let us proceed with this idea in mind.
I was sitting at the bar in Greenwood Inn. The last thing I wanted was another female relationship. A woman at the end of the bar kept looking at me. I swung around on the bar stool and my gaze fell on a petite, attractive, young lady with curly auburn hair wearing blue jeans. She was with a female companion. The two of them walked past me and stood by the dance floor watching the dancers.
I introduced myself. Her smile was captivating. I asked for a dance. The moment our hands touched I felt her warmth. I wasn't sitting with my dance partners. But this partner was different. I'm normally reserved but we sat and chatted for hours. It was like visiting with an old friend I'd not seen for a long time.
In step 1 in my reality creation, I was the pioneer seeking his identity. I cut my umbilical cord with my old life-went to sea for two years on a sailboat I named Bold Venture. Strictly one my own, there was no better way to find my identity. Numerologists Javane and Bunker put it this way: “The hydrogen ions which sprang into existence under 1 are now hurtling through space. They will be drawn toward one another by the law of mutual attraction, or the law of number 2.”
Karen's female companion soon departed. I drove her home and made a date to hike to Multnomah Falls. On May 18, 1980, our first date is a day I will never forget. Karen and I hiked the trail to Multnomah Falls. We were sitting on a log chatting when I noticed that it had turned black in the northwest. We hurriedly walked back to the car. On the radio, we heard that Mt. Saint Helens erupted not 50 miles to our northwest. We got none of the effects of the blast. It blew out the north side of the mountain, away from us. It isn't every day that a volcanic eruption takes place nearby on your first date.
My astrologer said, “somewhat detached unless you find yourself truly in love, in which case you will be unreserved and totally committed.” A couple of months after Karen and I met, I flew to Texas to visit my son. While there, wife number two asked me to join her for lunch at a hotel. At lunch, she suggested that we take a room and discuss getting back together again. Had Karen not appeared when she did, I might have fallen. This woman was not meant for me.
On my return from Texas, Karen met me at airport. I hugged her, tears streaming down my cheeks, convinced that Karen was sent to me. I picked up a bottle of champagne on the way to my condo. We awakened to a glorious sunny day and sat sipping champagne in front of the curvilinear glass wall of my 15th floor apartment, allowing us a view of the nearby Willamette River, and to the east Mt. Hood's glistening white peak against a backdrop of deep blue. I saw in Karen's eyes, for the first time in my 55 years, a gentle woman made for me.
After I found myself, I found my mate. The end of the old, of resurrection at sea, a new life in the making. Martha wasn't part of it. Something told her to leave at the right moment. I look at Mt. St. Helens' eruption as a symbol. The phoenix was a fabulous bird that after a life of five or six centuries immolates itself on a pyre and rises from the ashes to begin a new cycle of years. The phoenix is an emblem of immortality or of reborn hope. One of the leading authorities on myths, Joseph Campbell: “Someone who can create something more than the normal range of human experience, someone who has given his life to something bigger than life,” Campbell was speaking of those of us who go out on a limb for the fruit.
I'd held my secret until now. “How would you like to take a sailboat cruise on Puget Sound,”pausing (Karen looking puzzled). “I've chartered a boat for a week. We can board her today.” Karen was thrilled! We packed and drove to Seattle, boarding the chartered sloop, and spent the night tied to the dock.
The next morning we headed out against the chop in brisk wind. This was Karen's first time to sail. Karen, sitting on the high side looking ahead, I asked her how she liked it. She turned, red nosed, and said what I knew she would say: “I love it!” We anchored in 20 feet over a gravel bottom, which means letting out a lot of rode. Should the wind shift, our scope would put us in contact with other boats anchored nearby. I didn't have a choice. About 3:00 a.m. I heard, “Ahoy there, we're going to bump!” We pulled in our anchor and set sail for Seattle, her lights twinkling in the distance. At sunrise, majestic Mt. Rainier in golden splendor rising above the city, we silently slipped into the harbor.
As we approached the dock, I instructed Karen to stand at the bow with docking line in hand, jump to the dock, secure her line to a piling, leaving plenty of slack for me to swing the aft in. “O.K., Jump,” said I. Karen put one foot on the dock just as I started swinging the stern in. Her legs parting, Karen squealing, a gentleman rushed over and grabbed her outstretched hand just in time to stop her from plunging into icy Puget Sound.
We breakfasted in a café on the dock and were off again, this time for Hood Canal, a long slender finger of ocean cutting through the steep forested slopes of the Olympic Peninsula. As the sun set, we anchored in Squamish Harbor, as far as I was concerned, a million miles from nowhere. I pulled out my guitar and started plucking. Karen made the drinks. In the twilight, mist floating just above the water, something this late bloomer didn't know, I was fifty-five and learning that love is for the young at heart.
Not all people's astrological charts follow the characteristics and events in their lives. Mine follows my life too close to call it coincidence. A friend did a computer generated astrological compatibility report for us. Under Your Relationship with Karen, “You should have become instant friends from the very start… The platonic thing was there from the start, and there is a sense of the brotherly and sisterly between you. Even if lovers, you will always be first and foremost good friends.
When I read this, I recalled that Karen has said on our first date, I want this to be a platonic relationship.” I thought at the time it odd that she would say that. I asked Karen why. She didn't know.
What is your thought? I'm led to believe, from a great many connections in the events of my life, that we are born with a purpose and a mission; the right mate appears when we are on our path of destiny. I've been led to believe we are born with a purpose and my mission is share what I've learned. That's why I've been led here. (less)
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