My eyes change color. Most of the time, they are a strange brownish green, which starts off a bit golden in the color, quickly leach into an odd brown, and then oozes at the edge into a very dark green. But they aren't always that color-sometimes they turn a very murky brown when I drink, and I understand that when I get angry, they get very brown. But when I look up at the sun or if I cry, they get this amazing green color. It's almost like the green you expect to see painted in the children's section in a library, or a first spring blade of grass turn. It's very surreal.

Saturday I walked into the house that I lived in for 2 years and hugged my remnants of my past. I hugged X Partner Unit, both of us with our wedding bands off. I hugged my two cats, and I confess I cried just at holding the compact warmth of them. They made buiscuits on my chest with their paws and offered up their warm white tummies to me, and all I could do was hold them and cry on them.

I packed up all of my belongings, and they all fit into 23 boxes in the dining room. 23 boxes. That is the worth of who I am, the sum total of me. I am a week and a half away from turning 30, I have no equity, and I have two divorces behind me.

It didn't take long to pack me up and ship me out of X Partner Unit's home. We filled up 2 enormous trash bags with the parts of me I didn't want anymore, and took me to the tip, where I was flung over the side of a "burnable" garbage container and will be left to mulch.

There were many tears. Mine, when I hugged my cats and said goodbye to my home. His when I told him that I would always love him and that I am a better person with a better heart for having known and loved him. Ours, as we scrawled our names and signed our marriage away on the court documents. Mine again as I left the house, having to push one of the cats purring soundly off my lap and run out of the house, so as not to try to take her with me. X Partner Unit took me to the airport and dropped me off, hugging me hard, both of us crying, and watching until the swish of the automatic doors at Arlanda closed behind me.

And just like that, I was back on an airplane again, back to England, leaving Sweden.

This time, I think, for good.

And I cried from the moment I entered the terminal. I cried through customs, I cried into the terminal. I called Mr. Y, we had a fight, which made me cry even harder. I got on the plane still crying slightly, despite having a very funny book called "Holy Cow", about a woman's experiences in India. The cabin crew looked very nervous around me and were extremely accommodating. They became even more so when they saw the seat next to the window was occupied by a young woman who was also crying.

When they served me a Sprite and tried to cheer me up, I whispered "It's ok. It's something in the water."

The woman next to me, slender, pale and blond, was crying softly too. She would dab at her eyes with the edge of her pink pashmina shawl wrapped in a knot around her thin shoulders. Her neck was very graceful, and she smelt of apples and heartbreak. She tried to read but kept giving up, and I confess I tried to the the newspaper twice before realizing that nothing was sinking in.

But neither of us could talk to each other. In between us it may have looked like it was just a seat containing my tan cashmere coat and her black Prada bag, but in reality it was two sad women who couldn't have found the words to talk, let alone determine what language to do it in.

And it was then I looked out the window and saw the perfect, blooming white clouds. The sun was out, radiant and dazzling, and all I wanted to do was stick my arm out of the plane and just feel a little patch of sun on my skin, a little moment where the hairs on my arm would turn golden in the light.

I realized, with a start, that it had been a long time since I just sat there and looked out the window on an airplane. I may have flown on hundreds of flights...and all this time I was taking them for granted. I should've been paying attention. There is always more going on outside my hollow aluminum tube.

The clouds broke then, and I saw beneath me was the chopped up dizzying green and the slow, serpentine sprawl of the Thames. And for just one second, my heart felt lighter.

There was England.
Could it be that I felt lighter for being home?
I sat back in my seat and let the sunlight play tag with the seats in the plane, radiating when they hit me, and opening my face to the sunlight.

And when I got off the plane, after customs and after waiting in the world's longest immigration queue (my flight arrived at the exact moment flights from China, somewhere in the Middle East, the U.S. and India had arrived, and all of us were stuck in the "damn foreigners" queue), I stopped in the ladies' room. I walked up to the mirror and looked up, and there it was.

Greener than green eyes.

-H.

PS-broadband access has been ordered.

PPS-Brass has sent fabulous pics of that fabulous Luuka in Colorado, so I will try to get them loaded for tomorrow's post.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 05:51 PM | Comments (21) | Add Comment
Post contains 998 words, total size 5 kb.

1 I share your optical chromovariety, during the winter my eys will deaden to a dull grey but with the first days of spring they start to shift ending in a vivid green mid summer before winter approaches again. Did Brass get my email?

Posted by: Rob at March 22, 2004 06:09 PM (kXZI6)

2 Hope Helen, that is what you found on the plane looking at those clouds and more of it in the 'damn foreigners' line. Now i hope you can hold on to it Keeping my fingers crossed for you, Abs x

Posted by: abs at March 22, 2004 06:14 PM (lnpfn)

3 Never make the mistake of thinking that the things you own are what define you. That's just stuff. With or without any or all of that stuff you are still you.

Posted by: Jim at March 22, 2004 07:07 PM (IOwam)

4 My eyes change colour almost daily, which is why I'm never sure how to answer if someone asks me what colour they are. Most of the time they're blue, but they can be grey, green and a sort of bronzeish colour too. I haven't got a clue what causes them to change like that.

Posted by: Gareth at March 22, 2004 07:35 PM (NHA9E)

5 *hugs* I'm glad your eyes and your new land are green. Many blessings Onyx

Posted by: Onyx at March 22, 2004 07:36 PM (G3591)

6 I'm still a kid when I fly. My favorite part is the final approach where on cloudly days you feel like you're ploughing through mountains made of cotton. Just once I'd like the pilot to say "Damn the flight plan, let's go check out those interesting clouds over there!" I'm glad you've closed the lid on Life #5. No peeking. It seems you've got more turbulence on the ground right now. I hope it clears off soon.

Posted by: Paul at March 22, 2004 07:44 PM (bWfDG)

7 Heln- I have to agree with Jim, your stuff does not define you. You are who you are with or without your stuff. *HUGS*

Posted by: Sue at March 22, 2004 07:49 PM (rZmE1)

8 My eyes do the same thing. Green when I cry, blue when I'm happy, gray when I'm sad or depressed, and a torqouis color when I've been in the sun.

Posted by: Andrea at March 22, 2004 08:11 PM (strQe)

9 Oh, I agree-stuff doesn't define me. I've walked away from all of my possessions twice now, and I am doing it a third time. Still...it feels a bit weird to have sold my soul to companies all these years and yet have nothing to show for it.

Posted by: Helen at March 22, 2004 08:14 PM (VByzF)

10 That's funny about the eyes: when I cry, mine are deep brown. When I laugh, deep brown. When I'm happy, deep brown. They're pretty much deep brown all the time. Brown, brown, brown. You didn' t sell your soul, Helen, and you don't have nothing to show for it. You sold parts of your mind and body, but not your soul. Your soul is intact, and up on these pages for all the world to see. And it's a good soul, Helen. Strong, and caring. And you don't have nothing to show for it. You have new friends (lots of them) and new life experiences with which to inform your actions now. As you've said many times, you came through. All of the *things* are just window dressing. You came through.

Posted by: Jiminy at March 22, 2004 08:46 PM (bhLQn)

11 You shoulda kept the cats! Long time back I was talking to mmy cat at the time about my problems. When i asked the cat what I shold I do, he answered "Feed the cat!", which of course was the correct answer! Cats have great insight into human problems...

Posted by: passenger at March 22, 2004 08:51 PM (DPz2+)

12 My eyes shift around as well, from various shades of green to blues and hazels. It depends on my mood and what I'm wearing. But deep, intense blue is my warning sign to leave me alone! Sorry you've been crying so much, hopefully this is the bottom and you're climbing back up now. And what's with all the fighting with Mr. Y?

Posted by: Johnny Huh? at March 22, 2004 09:10 PM (AyewP)

13 Green eyes and a new beginning. Perfect belongings for turning 30 I think.

Posted by: Rebecca at March 22, 2004 09:12 PM (ZHfdF)

14 I think we are both taking our stress out on each other, Johnny my dear. And I know he agrees. We just need to find a way to support each other with our common experiences, instead of tearing each other apart.

Posted by: Helen at March 22, 2004 09:14 PM (VByzF)

15 Dang you get a lot of comments...

Posted by: jordan at March 22, 2004 11:42 PM (X2NWj)

16 I echo what Abs said, hold on to the hope. And to repeat what someone asked a few days ago, where do we end pressies for the big 30!

Posted by: Stephen at March 23, 2004 12:39 AM (w/U8f)

17 Hey green eyes Its been a big battle Helen,but youre on the upside now....I can feel your sadness in leaving PU but, isnt it nice that he was the one that hugged yu and kissed you at the airport. Hes your friend and always will be. A true friend is worth more than all the *things* you aquire in your life, Take care Xxx

Posted by: butterflies at March 23, 2004 03:55 AM (karT6)

18 {{Hugs}} All the best with England. I'm sure things will get better between you and Mr. Y.

Posted by: plumpernickel at March 23, 2004 05:11 AM (Zo4W0)

19 I learned from my divorce (in 1993) that boxes contain stuff. Not me. The stuff is simply reminders of places I have been and things I've collected. The true test of this is that I can't remember 99% of the things that I didn't get when I left.

Posted by: zenwanderer at March 23, 2004 05:57 AM (HSk4A)

20 grey on a dull day, blue on a sunny day, and green at night. and as everyone else said too, you're way more than the sum of your possessions, Helen. You're the sum of your memories, and your experiences, and your dreams. And you seem to be very rich in all of those.

Posted by: melanie at March 23, 2004 10:15 AM (jDC3U)

21 My eyes are hazel usually, blue when I'm happy, green when I'm pissed and soaked and leaking right now because, of all things...you had to leave your cats. Jeezus...after all you've been through...how goofy of me to focus on the cats, I suppose, but...I wish with all my heart you could have been spared that little bit (ton!) of heartache. Please, please get a kitten or two and let me know when you do so I can think of you without crying. You are such a strong, brave, amazing woman...you deserve pure, unconditional, undying love in your life. Get the kitten(s)...please. (Before I start trying to figure out how to 'overnight' ya a couple of mine...*hugs*)

Posted by: Stevie at March 23, 2004 12:19 PM (moxap)

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