Once Again-Put Out That Fire In Your Head-With Patty Griffin’s "You Are Not Alone" In Mind

By Fritz Taylor

Sam Lowell didn’t know how the whirlwind hit him, how his long affair with Laura Perkins had hit bottom, had made her leave their home after so many years together (although “years together” unlike in prior generations was not the glue that held most modern marriages, most modern relationships together as Sam well knew from his own two failed marriages). Didn’t know that his inability to put out the fire in his head as he called it got rolled up into causing the break-up.  

Frankly, after Laura had gone and he had that lonesome nighttime to think about the whys and wherefores of how that whirlwind caught him flat-footed, he should have known that things were wrong, had gone freaking wrong and he didn’t have sense to pull back. But then that fire in his head wouldn’t let think straight, wouldn’t let him see what was right before his eyes-his inattention despite his assumption that he was attentive, his undervaluing Laura’s positive affect on his homely life and he not being at peace with himself had led to disaster.

Funny he thought one night, one night when the loss of Laura had hit him hard and he decided to have a few glasses of wine to fight his depression he had been several years before had been the one who said they could not continue on acting as essentially roommates ( that reintroduction to wine after a long period indifference to alcohol stemmed from a suggestion of Laura’s that they have a weekly “wine date” to just sit around and talk, talk foolish stuff or whatever was on their minds and he had bought into the idea without an argument). He remembered the day exactly since he and Laura were driving north up to Carlsbad on U.S. 5 from San Diego when Laura had made some off-hand surly remark, or he took it as surly not a word associated in his mind with fragile Laura, and that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. He went off, started talking about how they had drifted apart, how they were not connecting anymore, and that things had to change or else they were headed for a split.   

What Laura did not know, or at least she did not say anything about it at the time, although she said plenty later when the flame hit the fan, was that Sam had been maneuvering his way around getting out of the relationship since he had struck up what seemed to him a breath of fresh air promising relationship with a fellow high school classmate, Melissa Loring, whom he had run into on social media around their mutual interest in their upcoming 50^th class reunion from Riverdale High. In high school he had attempted to make a play for her but was told by a confidante (who had his own motives to give Sam disinformation) that she was “spoken for” something that meant something in the working class culture of the “Acre” section of Riverdale, and most of his friends had grown up with (only later to find out that “hands off” business was honored in the breech more than the observance) and so backed off. Melissa and he laughed when he told her that story and the treachery of that ill-fated confidante when she told him that guy had “hit” on her knowing very well she was not spoken for. In the end that budding reunion-driven affair did not lead anyway since Sam had backed off (and Melissa too once she saw the writing on the wall about Sam’s, what did he call it, soul-mate relationship with Laura) but it was a close thing, a very close thing.       

The price of peace after that Melissa upheaval was that Laura, after having plenty to say about his treachery which he accepted without grace but with the knowledge that something was seriously wrong with their relationship, had insisted that they go into couples counselling which Sam was in no position to deny although he was not much into the “touchy-feely” stuff that idea implied in his mind. In the event Sam actually believed that the counselling helped (it had been the source of that wine date idea and a few others that seemed very practical to help break the routine of their lives) and that he was being more responsive although he always had sneaking suspicion that Laura was still burned up about the Melissa affair, believed that was one of the hidden causes of this final break-up that was breaking his heart.    

Things were at times rough-edged but they got some real benefits and practical tips out of the experience (although Laura as they talked through the final break-up felt that the counsellor had “favored” him as a professional lawyer, a talker, over her as the quiet, reserved and fearful of talking that had been instilled in her by an overbearing alcoholic father). So they moved along made breakthroughs and had some defeats but Sam was committed to the process one hundred percent once he got over his New Age touchy-feely hang-up. Laura had always wanted to go to Paris and as part of the reconciliation process they planned a Paris trip about a year into their couples counselling. They had planned to see the museums they had so much about and through Air B&B rented a garret for their week there. Everything went well, went as well as could be expected given the vast travel and set-up and they enjoyed each other’s company immensely during their time there.

However about a week after they got back Laura lowered the boom on Sam for the first time, told him she wanted to leave (or for him to) and was on the verge of leaving when she came up with the idea that he should go to group counselling-or else He consented and amazed Laura with the speed with which he found a group and began getting some help. (Sam said that the couples counselling experience had opened him up more quickly and that he was “under the gun” and knew he was, knew that the fire in his head had brought him to another impasse.) That group experience, while not always directly beneficial since he did not open himself up on many occasions and he had also seen himself for a period as an “assistant” moderator to the professional psychologist running the group. Had not taken advantage of the occasion until as it turned out too late where he expressed his deepest feelings that he was not at peace with himself, had not sought the needed rest of an aging man, was filled with unresolved inner turmoil, and had not put out the fire in his head.  

Sam continued in the group for most of a year as he had committed himself to do in his agreement with Laura when summer came and they took their usual Maine seaside vacation. Again they had a great time. Then a week or so later  lowered the final boom (There might be something to it if the reader gets the idea that Laura had some issues around her own paths to happiness or unhappiness but this story is about the fire in Sam’s head not Laura’s). She had determined that she would not back down with her desire to leave this time. Said among other things that her always fragile heath was being affected by the tensions of late in the household and that she though Sam was part of the reason for those problems. This cut Sam to the quick, began that process of self-examination in earnest about the fire in his head    

Sam tried for the month they still had left together before she finally packed her bags and left to let her words about him not being at peace with himself, not growing old gracefully, and that he should not have spent so much time trying to please her in good ways, and some frankly silly ways which he recognized once she pointed out the episodes that had upset her in the recent past. He recognized that some of her points were valid, had something to them. The kicker though was that she since her retirement Laura had tried to find out who she was, what she was to do meaningfully with the rest of her life, to find some spiritual balance, and to live more in the present. So a lot of what anguished her about her own plight was exacerbated by Sam’s problems, with his restlessness. Laura had always been close to the New Age remedies being offered by the Cambridge crowd that lived and died by some such therapies. Of late she had been doing what amounted to spiritual acupuncture which she claimed had both released positive physical energies and had made her more aware of what she did not want. Said Sam should look into the possibilities of that therapy to help him find his way, help him whatever search was driving him to distraction, and maybe, just maybe help put out in the fire in his head.                       

Sam had turned seventy earlier in the year we are chronicling, an age unlike others which represented to him a certain definitive milestone, a negative milestone (remembering the biblical three score and twenty) in that his health had taken an unexpected turn for the worse. He had always considered himself a healthy person but a whole series of pokings and proddings by several doctors and their prescribed medications had sent him in a tailspin. The cluster of medications had actually turned him a bit off-center, had made him grumpy and distraught and he knew it, although that knowledge had come too late once he decided to check out the value of the medications for what ailed him. Got taken off a couple as counter-productive. Obviously with a decline in health, the aging process, thoughts of his own mortality began to plague him but rather than slowing him down and making him more reflective he was driven in his writing and his political work to make sure he had a worthwhile mark on this wicked old world as he   expressed his fate one night to Jack Callahan over a couple of drinks. So Laura and his two world were colliding and he was clueless about the other one.      

But sometimes even an old curmudgeon like Sam can learn a few things in life. He did take Laura’s advice, too late for them but he did take it, about seeing that spiritual acupuncturist (he had not been opposed to acupuncture per se since for his aches and pains he had gone to one for a number of years just not once claiming to lift a person’s spiritual well-being). More importantly he had, also at Laura’s suggestion, taken up meditation, a very hard task for him, very hard. So he for his own benefit at last was trying to become at peace with himself, trying one last time to put out the fire in his head.