The children were not horribly surprised by the outcome. But that didn’t make it any easier for them. Their parents had been together for many years, and I don’t think they ever witnessed an argument or fight. In some ways, they might have been partially relieved, although I don’t want to speak for them. Each needed to try to make sense of it. I took each one aside separately to talk about it. They all told me how sad they were about it. I told them that I was sad too. To Ira’s and my relief, the children never really took sides. I think it helped that neither Ira nor I was filled with animosity or blame. Things were more uncomfortable after the separation when the children came to visit me in the house where I had moved. It was hard to acclimate to the fact that their mother had a new home and, consequently, a new life. Seeing my children’s difficulty was painful to me, and it was the only time when it felt challenging to stay the course and stick with my decision. There were weak moments when it would have been easy to fall back on old ways.
But this situation was a case in point why John had come into my life. He pushed me to mature. It was truly the first time in my life that I had the backing and support, and finally the courage, to be who I was—and be more of who I was. He challenged me to confront my fears, always pushing me forward. He loved what I did and not only understood my need for self-expression but encouraged me to go further. On one occasion I had an invitation to give a speech. I told John, “I can’t do that.”
“Of course you can.”
So I wrote the draft on the airplane ride to the site. It wasn’t as hard as I had thought. The talk was very well received.
He said that any healthy relationship always has to be about mutual ascent, the act of always lifting each other up. It’s not about being one-up like “you’re down, and I’m up,” or vice versa. For the almost twenty years we spent together, we made that reciprocity work on a daily basis. Whenever he gave a speech or taught a class (which was always standing room only), I never missed it. He always went with me everywhere when I worked, too. Being left-brained, he loved all the mechanics and details behind the scenes. He even learned how to work the lights for my show. He watched how it was done and said, “I could do that.” And he did it well!
My friends thought I was totally crazy when I told them that I was going to live with John on his sixty-foot motor yacht in Marina del Rey. Before, I would have agreed with them and said forget it. But suddenly my attitude was, “Why not? I’ll try that.” It was important to him because that boat was his home. He loved the sea. That’s where he had chosen to live, and I wanted to support that. The decision turned out to be great, and before long we upgraded to a bigger boat and later a still larger one. We loved taking it out for excursions up and down the coast to Santa Barbara, Newport, and San Diego. Our favorite destination of all was to drop anchor on the ocean-facing side of Catalina Island.
In case you’re wondering about the very practical issue of closet space for women, it can be problematic on a boat. Keeping my office/apartment solved that quandary. More important, what about privacy? Aren’t you a little bit too much in each other’s faces? That was another misconception. Yes, it is intimate, but there’s always a place to be alone on a boat if you need quiet time (especially when we upgraded to bigger boats!). You can go up on the deck or find a space in the cabin rooms below.
Making this move to live dockside was another case of opening up and experiencing something completely new and exciting. Where I might have been rigid and all but closed to entertaining the possibility of living that kind of life, I let go and thoroughly enjoyed the process of sharing with John to make that experience comfortable and cozy. In truth, it wasn’t so different than living in a triplex in New York City. I truly loved it. It was one huge example of that welcome relief I felt. With John I could finally let go, freed of feeling forced to take charge of all the details like I had for all those years.
Living on the boat, and almost everything we did together, worked so well because we had a process that kept us together. Chemistry may bring you together in the beginning, but process keeps you together. We always found a level of enjoyment no matter what we were doing. It never felt like caretaking, doing something you really weren’t interested in out of obligation and hating every minute of it. For example, John liked boxing just like my father, but it wasn’t what you would consider my prevailing interest beforehand. However, I watched every fight with him. I knew every fighter and probably ended up more passionate than he was. Likewise, John didn’t attend plays or master chorale concerts much before he met me, but he
