Challenging People: Uses Of… in Everyday Ramblings

Last night I finished watching La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet and enjoyed it.

This is a link to it

It took me a week. Even though I am teaching a more reasonable amount of classes I still have a lot to do. The DVD must have been in my Netflix DVD queue for a long time. I am sure I was looking for something to watch that was not dark and bumped it up to the top, but that said, it still was months before I got to it.

Mr. POA (Patron-of-the-Arts) must have recommended it a couple of years ago or longer. I met him because I was invited to dinner at his place (he is a fabulous cook) with my boyfriend at the time Mr. Zanzibar to meet Mr. POA and vet him. An old girlfriend of Mr. Zanzibar was now dating Mr. POA and she was proud of him and wanted to show him off. I think Ms. Samba is the previous diary name I have used for her, because she used to be an out there Samba dancer.

If this all sounds confusing and slightly incestuous don’t worry, it gets worse. :)

I noticed as I was coming in to the lovely old apartment in San Francisco with the huge kitchen with the black and white checked linoleum floor that Mr. POA had a pair of slightly worn toe shoes hanging from their pink ribbon off the handle of his bedroom door, which I though a bit unusual for a straight confirmed bachelor who lived alone.

So I asked something diplomatic about ballet in general and found out he was a passionate balletomane and had center section season tickets close to the front at the San Francisco Ballet.

And we were off!

Ms. Samba likes opera and hates ballet. (She is a big woman) and Mr. Zanzibar likes more ethnic type dancing and to this day is an institution in the Zydeco scene in the Bay Area. To say Mr. POA and I hit it off would be an understatement. Both of us are relatively reserved in public and Mr. Zanzibar and Ms. Samba are both anything but. (Mr. Zanzibar is one of the nicest warmest people on the planet.) To the bemusement, innocent at the time, of our companions we moved from ballet to music to art to movies just chattering away at each other for the rest of the meal.

We double dated a bit for a time and it was always the same.

Eventually I broke up with Mr. Zanzibar, broke his heart it is true but he still speaks to me, and Mr. POA frustrated by Ms. Samba’s drinking and erratic behavior (oh and pressure to marry her) drifted away and one day Mr. Zanzibar called me up and said you need to ask Mr. POA out on a date. You need to make it clear it is a date; that you are interested in him, you guys are kind of made to be with each other. I had often seen Mr. POA at the ballet. I was taking classes then and going standing room and I would chat with him during intermission and he would take me home.

It only took about 8 weeks, eight nerve wracking but wonderful weeks for us to start looking for a place and move in together after that. Ballet shoes and all.

The problem was, I wasn’t (how do you say), as mature as I am now and took a lot for granted and Ms. Samba, who wasn’t taking anything for granted and was in denial about his breaking up with her started (unbeknownst to me) working to get him back almost from day one. After Mr. POA’s brain surgery for a non-malignant tumor, she won. He asked me to leave and took back up with her as if I hadn’t existed.

This almost killed me. And the hurt lived on. After a reasonable interval we started exchanging emails and he would share with me what he was seeing and enjoying in the arts. I spent the day with him and went to a museum with him last time I was in San Francisco, much to, I admit to being thrilled to hear, Ms. Samba’s consternation.

I told him a few years ago that it all hurt too much. Every time we had contact it reminded me of the betrayal and pain. And he honored that until last year when he sent me a quick email with apologies about International Ballet Day where they were live-streaming classes from major companies all over the world. It was wonderful and we exchanging a few emails during the event.

Lately I have thinking about my extraordinary sister and her ability to forgive and let bygones be bygones while protecting herself from current emotional pain. And I am reading this book on fear and anxiety and letting go of old patterns and I realized that I have this rich and engaging life and though I lack a kind of ideal companionship I need contact with like-minded people.

Mr. POA is now 71, almost 72 and he has no power to hurt me anymore.

I don’t “want him back”. I think honestly with all the travel and opera and food he and Ms. Samba have experienced over the last 20 years (they still don’t live together and he never married her) that we are all happier the way things worked out.

There would have been no Mr. Finch. And honestly, while I loved Mr. POA body and soul, Mr. Finch was the love of my life. And while very challenging, he (and the role model of my sister who was also very challenging) made me a better person.

A person who can forgive and let go. Really really let go.

I had an email exchange with Mr. POA last week and he suggested all sorts of things to watch when I have time.

I was glad to share that information with him. He made me laugh.

Last updated February 24, 2016