For some reason, Rob is less needy lately. When he isn't in constant monologue trying to describe every experience he had while we were apart during the day, I'm more curious about how he spends his time. I have questions for him and we can dialog. This works for me. I guess without Rob breathing down my neck, the time we do spend together seems more...pleasant!

Our trip to the meditation center was helpful — our program allowed us time together apart from the group, plus time apart from each other. We struck a nice balance.

Due to the quiet-hours rule and no television, we went to bed together at the same time — a big change in routine. At home Rob retires after 11 and I fall asleep on the couch. I usually wake around 1 or 2 and go to bed. That leaves no awake time in bed together. At Kripalu we stayed up comparing notes on the workshop and laughing about quirks of the other participants. I felt downright close to him! (I even let him spoon me as we fell asleep.) 

This closeness has come just in time for the stressful holidays. We're about to embark on a four-day family extravaganza covering 1200 miles, three families, and two turkey dinners. Into that mix throw a new step-father; a father with Alzhiemer's and a needy girlfriend; and a brother who says he's not going to show up, but just might, probably drunk, flask in hand. If there's a time I ever needed a partner, it's now. 

A friend forfeited her Madonna concert ticket when she went away on sabbatical to Italy. I'd rather be in her shoes roaming the Tuscan landscape, but since that's not possible, I was happy to accept her ticket.

I don't know Madonna's recent music, but can sing every word of her first few hits "Borderline," "Lucky Star," and "Holiday" — and even remember the grapevines and jazz hands of the routines I made up to go with them 25 years ago! Anyway, I knew the show would be a mixed-media extravaganza of video and dance — why not indulge in a little escapism, rock-and-roll style?

But hours before the show, Madonna publicist announced her and Guy Ritchie's plans to divorce. So what might have been for me a carefree evening of utter abandon, singing and dancing along with Madge, turned into constant analysis of her every move. Ooh, was that sadness in her voice when she sang that lyric? Was she referring to her own pain in that song?

When she spoke to the crowd I listened only for her to mention her impending divorce. When your own marriage is on the rocks, you are keenly interested to know how others in the same boat deal.

Certainly the crowd was responding to her specific situation and trying to buoy her through cheers when she sang the telling line "You must love me." But it wasn't abandonment she was feeling when she finally decided to address the elephant in the room.

"This song is for the emotionally retarded. Maybe you know some people who act like that. God knows I do." 

Can't recall the last time I laughed so hard, for so many hours as I did last weekend. This is what happens when you put three women in a car for a good long road trip and throw in a few matching rainbow T-shirts.

My friend Tracy came out to Oregon for a quick spin through the state and lucky me, I got to ride along for the tour with her and another of our good friends.

The thing about travel is what it does to the soul, my soul anyway. There just is no quicker or more efficient therapy than driving away from life for a few days, for just long enough to fully appreciate everything you're coming back to.

Okay, of course there were a couple moments of "Hmmm, I could just keep going and never look back." Except, I couldn't. In every shop something took me home. Some little thing I couldn't resist buying for my girls, and for their dad, too. And then all the happy rush of waiting to see their faces when they opened the packages.

When we took a wrong turn, or more precisely, when we — slaves to technology that we are — mindlessly followed the GPS along a three-hour stretch of one-lane, shoulder-less forest service roads, all hairpin turns and death drop cliffs, straight up and over the Siskiyou Mountains instead of cutting down across the Redwood Highway through Northern California as we had planned, I just kept laughing. White knuckles and all. It's like that on the road. You take the adventure as is comes and let go of everything else. The plans we're so attached to.

I kept thinking on that drive, "This, this is the souvenir I want to bring home from the trip. Home to my relationship."

Every time my vision is jacked by an unfortunate turn into the wilderness, let me remember to drive slow, hold tight, and laugh myself all the way up and back down again.

I get to take a little break from my life today and go out on the road with a couple of my girlfriends. An actual road trip with no small people in the back seat asking how much further and chanting "I want out of this car right now!"

Yay!

It's only for two days and it's almost all of it driving, but the truth is I wouldn't care if we didn't stop at all. I love to watch the world through an open window, the way movement makes my mind turn faster and how my spirit feels freer and all my songs come louder to the rhythm of road.

It's a five-hour drive down into Southern Oregon where we are going, down through the northern most tip of the Redwoods and to the coast, and what I remember is how the trees grow more and more impossibly big around the bottom the closer you get to the water.

How I can tilt my head back, look straight up the trunk and everything in my periphery, both directions, is the bark. Up in the canopy is a world that goes on its way oblivious to us, and the smallness it brings in me is perfect. Forty percent of all the world's animals live up the treetops, a hundred feet above the ground.

We're always down here trying to negotiate with the little bits of information we can gather in our limited view. And everything we're in feels so enormous. The weight of tangled personal drama that we can't get high enough above to see where the edges blur out.

I want to climb to the tips of the trees, one branch higher and one branch higher, to where I can see how the pieces all fit together and everything makes sense. Breathe in and understand what it is to be small in the world and the universe and let go of the ways our crippled little vision keeps us trapped in the illusion that our confusion is desperate.

I noticed Sarah McLachlan's song about divorce made the First Wives World news blog, so I thought I'd give a shout out to pop singer Pink. Not that she needs it. Her single "So What," in which she sings about her divorce from her husband, motocross racer Cary Hart, has reached No. 1.

I don't know much about Pink, but clearly she has, um, balls. I'm not referring to her bad-ass styling and punky sound. I'm talking about how she not only exposed her raw and unsettled feelings about her ex-husband to the world through song, but she put her ex in the video!

But while the lyrics belie her need for a bit more closure ("So what...I don't need you...And now that we're done, I'm gonna show you tonight") in the video it's clear, these ex-spouses have moved beyond anger to place where they can deal with each other, as friends.

In fact, it's rather sweet. Even as she sings: "You weren't there, You never were, You want it all, But that's not fair, I gave you life, I gave my all, You weren't there, You let me fall," Pink and Hart go from play-acting, to playful, to a bittersweet caress. Check it out here.

Aww.

According to People.com, Pink wrote on her website that her divorce was "‘not about cheating, anger, or fighting" and that she still considers her ex a ‘good man.'"

I imagined a trip to the Greek Isles in my last post. I'd like it to be a month-long journey at least, so I could really drop out from my harried city life and revel in a slow life governed by the natural rhythms of day, night, and season.

It's not quite the same, but my Labor Day vacation will be an island getaway of a sort. Rob and I are flying out to L.A. and ferrying out to Santa Catalina, a hilly rock of an island off the southern Californian coast.

This is the first time in months Rob and I are going away together, and it's the first time in a couple of years I'm looking forward to spending time with him. What's different? I'm not sure.

I'm waiting and seeing rather than grasping for an immediate resolution to our discomfort. Rob is still working at therapy, and we're seeing a therapist together. We're both growing and changing. Apart or together? Not yet sure. But why not try to enjoy each other's company in the meantime?

Actually, this trip could be an important test. I've heard it's not a good idea to go away on vacation to try to fix a marriage because it's easy to get along in paradise, away from the stresses of normal life.

But if a successful romantic getaway can't predict successful romance back home, an unsuccessful romantic getaway — one plagued with fights or, worse, boredom — certainly can't predict one either.

So this weekend may be telling. Stay tuned.

I dream of visiting the Greek Isles and navigating the twists and turns of the road — between mountain, town, and beach — on a scooter. I lean into turns that open toward vistas dotted with bright white villages shining in the intense Mediterranean light. From every vantage point, ocean surrounds.

I can't make my dream getaway happen right now, but I'm not waiting around, either. I've manifested a bit of the experience here at home: I bought a Vespa to get me around the city in a style reminiscent of my dream, and at a fraction of the cost — to my wallet and to the earth (75 miles per gallon!).

I scoot between neighborhoods, from yoga studio to post office to library. My skin soaks up the sun but is also cooled by the breeze I create as I open the throttle. It's...freeing.

I haven't always felt free in my marriage. But freedom isn't about having the most comfortable arrangements — living in the house, working the job, and with the partner we always imagined. Freedom is an inside job, and inner freedom cannot be buffeted about by the vagaries of life. It is steady and true.  

I can't deny, however, that a solitary ride on a late-summer afternoon — waning sunlight and warm breeze on my face — doesn't jump start things for me.

Out on the leafy streets I capture a momentary sense of freedom. The Vespa is...my new joy toy.

A friend of mine who has a life coaching business dropped me a line recently: "Hi, thinking of you, what's up?"

His quick and light email ended with a thud: "Remember, being single is not a burden, it's an opportunity!"

Nice sentiment, but what? I had just made the decision to stick around in my marriage and try really hard to improve it, so the note seemed ill-timed, if not downright rude. I wrote to remind him, maybe not gently enough, of my change of tack.

Well, apparently that line was just his automatic signature, phrased to inspire the bulk of his clientele, and not a message to me personally. Oops. Hee. 

We sorted it out easily, but my quick and strong reaction was telling. I'm super-sensitive about my situation, and not always open to advice. Gotta relax.

It's hard, though. When I was young, marriage was made to seem a happy inevitability, a final destination where, having found my one true mate, I would dwell in peace. When instead it's a road pitted with doubts, the going can be rough, and I can get moody.

Life may be a highway, but ride it all night long? I need rest areas, exit ramps! 

I took introduction to psychology in college so I have a general idea of what the term "passive aggressive" means. It wasn't until recently, however, that I really got to witness it in person.

Apparently my husband has decided that this is his newest way to complain about the things I do without actually complaining about them.

Here are a couple of examples, which could easily be compiled with a slew of others for a "passive-aggressive husband reference manual":

The other day my kids and I went out to lunch with a couple of other moms and their kids. I don't eat out for lunch all the time, and this was an impromptu get-together. I had packed my husband a lunch that morning for him to take to work so he had leftovers. When he gets home he tells me this: "The guys at work said, 'Let me get this straight...she gets to eat out for lunch and you have to eat leftovers? Man, that's messed up!' Ha-ha!"

Translation: He's ticked off that I got to eat out and he had to eat leftovers.

My husband recently did some volunteer work with the guys at church that involved a lot of physical labor and when he got home he said, "Bob told me he was so glad that his wife and daughter were out of town because after we finished up he was going to go home and take a long nap without interruption. Ha-ha!"

Translation: He wants to take a nap but knows that we already agreed that he would take the kids so I could get some work done. He's hoping I suggest he takes a long nap and I'll just stay up until two in the morning working.

How do I know it's all passive aggressive? These comments don't even go with the flow of conversation. They come out of nowhere, and he gives a long pause afterward as though he's waiting for me to fall to my knees and beg his forgiveness for going out to eat with my friends/not offering him a four hour nap/whatever else I do that ticks him off.

As memories of six days of sea and jungle explorations sink in, my eyes open to an old truth about myself.

Years ago I toyed with thoughts of Peace Corp service, working my way around the globe, or a job "in country" with an NGO. When my ability was questioned by parents fearful of such a life, and as my debts rose, I abandoned those dreams. I came to think them ridiculous. (Handy mechanism, to reject away what you actually love but cannot have. It makes the not-having easier to bear!)

But seeking cross-cultural connections and serving others are the only things I've ever felt called to do. Now I'm curious: Can I tap into the strength of purpose I've always had down deep and honor my interests and pursue my dreams?

These days I have more tools in my toolbox and take much better care of my emotional self. Debt can be managed, and my relationship with Rob doesn't have to keep me stuck. Where before I saw obstacles, I now see creative ways to manage concerns. I see opportunity.

With Rob's evolving understanding and acceptance that I can't play the role of a typical wife, and a bit of saving and investigation, I might just be able to get what I always wanted.

This would not be an easy life, to be sure. But fearless exploration of my interior as I trek through new exteriors, and a strong home base from which to depart and return, no longer seem unattainable. Unconventional perhaps, but not unachievable.