June 21, 1971 - Leaving Me In Steps

Doug left me today. He is leaving me in steps. The first was Memorial Day 1970 (read that date in this journal) and the second leap was today. He flew to Florida to visit his father's mother. His leaving, the flight which took him away, the whole experience in a pure & beautiful emotion, a lovely potpourri of feelings that I shall try to describe. He was excited about going which made me glad. I thot he might hold back but he is growing up so fine & well that what hurts also makes me happy. (I cried happy/sad tears, I was full of emotion).

I went on the plane with him, not to coddle but to check with the stewardess & was glad I had, then I walked away from him for he did not need me or even want me & I was glad for the growing up & sad for the losing. I stood inside that window watching his window, seeing my reflections and just once a flick of something, perhaps a kind of waving.

Then the huge plane taxied out and around out of my vision. I walked away & out of the building for lack of knowing where the plane was. I saw then an Eastern jet taxing east on the far runway to position itself into the wind. I raced, I ran to the car, paid my parking fee, drove out & around onto #494 & pulled speedily off onto Post Rd. where I circled around off the road among the other watchers & stopped just as Doug's plane was receiving power & racing into the wind & as it was over me I was, too, and I watched it hungrily as it rose & banked & turned to the south, diminishing & disappearing behind a hill. I raced again back onto #494 to see it again headed south. I never let go of it until it was only a spot & then until it was not even that. (I watched him disappear through a pinhole in the sky.)

And, oh, what a pull, what a wrench of the heart to see the only thing you really love disappear into nothingness - to know where he is & what is taking place but to feel him going beyond your reach - to see him & others & thousands of pounds of matter vanish as tho only you knew they had once existed & where they had gone. I wondered why I could not help crying as I drove - not just tears welling up but deeply felt & unshakable tears. I knew it was an assortment of colorful tears - his leaving me so finely, pride in & for him; the beauty of the picture of plane rising into the beloved sky, flying in & of itself, the power, the soaring; the romance of leaving of going, of growing, broadening; happiness for Doug's having such a great experience, sadness I was not having such a great experience; loneliness, the missing of him, the pain of the memory of other arrivals, other departures; my own flying experience [undecipherable] world, the whole limitless sky all around out of my eyes in a rainbow of humanness. I will never forget the joy - the purity & truth of it all.