How do I even address this situation? First, with a bit of explanation, perhaps. After I got riffed* from my job in Colorado at Peterson AFB in August 1977, the family uprooted and moved from Colorado to California where I got a position at Beale AFB. The situation there proved to be totally undesirable, so I transferred to McClellan AFB in North Highlands, suburb of Sacramento, in May 1978.

My husband worked briefly at McClellan but never got a permanent job and quit in a huff, blaming a number of people in Personnel for the situation. The fact that I now worked there created a serious stress in our relationship. Someone had to be employed to support the family and I had always had the higher paying job so it made no sense for me to quit. Thus I sought some support and sustenance for my efforts, not illogically within my office.

Maybe I was simply clutching at straws but a co-worker/supervisor and I developed a peculiar bond, probably mostly one-sided, but he was always gentle and careful with me and I felt he did have some deeper affection for me than just any employee. Yet it never became physical or really went anywhere--it was just the raft that kept me afloat for six difficult years until my step-daughter was out of school and I could seek a transfer back to Arizona.

I always knew there was a line that I could not cross and I never seriously considered ending my marriage. It was difficult to be 'torn between two lovers' in that way and I suffered for my transgression but without it I am not sure what I would have done. Again, my life or at least my sanity and will to live were saved by clinging to an illusion of love even if its reality did not exist.

Looking back, I suppose it was an ill-kept secret in the office, but no harm done in the long run. Within a year of my departure, he divorced his second wife and married his secretary, I am told. Perhaps I got the best of it. Who knows? We went our separate ways and I never really looked back after I left in the fall of 1983. From the remote perspective of some thirty years I feel foolish for the angst and drama I created here but in its way, it was honest and a reflection on who I am or at least who I was at that time.

*RIF is an acronym for reduction in force, used here quite improperly as a verb!

Christmas 1978

A gift is not measured by beauty or worth

Nor even the coin it cost;

A red rose in bloom is a sweet lovely gift

But not long to hold ere it's lost.

The eye lost the beauty, the nose lost the scent

But the heart the memory can hold

'T'was a gift from the heart with no value or worth

Except for the message it told.

Friendship is both gift and giver,

With love her troth-plighted mate

And the friendship and love imbued in the gift

Are the elements giving it weight.

With apologies to Charlie Russell

A Year Ago (5/79)

A year ago we had not met so how was I to guess

That one May morn I'd meet you who would soon come to possess

The part of me still lonely after all these years--

You, who with gentle wisdom could erase my deepest fears.

A year ago I had not seen the smile I know so well,

The eyes now so familiar that have me in their spell

My name you'd never spoken nor yours run through my mind

As day and night its come to do since something came to bind.

The world will tell me frequently I've no right to care for you.

Though I acknowledge it is true, in spite of all, I do, I do.

To Stay, To Go (6-27-79)

If once I could get you out of my mind

Maybe the courage for going I'd find;

Maybe if I tore you out of my heart

Somehow I'd learn to like living, apart.

Yet deep within is no wish or desire

To escape the sweet burning pain of this fire,

To do anything but drown in this sea

Of love and of you that is sweeping o'er me.

The terrible glory of being so near

To the one who above all the world I hold dear

Is only exceeded by knowing, so plain,

That all my devotion is surely in vain.

And yet when I look back into your eyes

I cannot believe their tenderness lies,

I cannot believe the warmth of each smile

Is only intended to tease and beguile.

So I hate the convention and all that decide

I must stand alone and not at your side

While the restrictions that keep us apart

Like a hedge of brambles keep tearing my heart.

Tell me to stay or tell me to go--

And yet you will not, you cannot, I know.

I must just take the answer I saw in your face

And love you as always--and stay in my place.

Monday's Rose (7/79)

How many poets have proclaimed, "My love is like a rose?"

(Roses are among the fairest of flowers that native grows.)

A red rose says I love you in a sentimental way

And a rosebud unfurls slowly as love grows, day by day.

After two days without you, too many hours apart

I find I'm looking for a way to say what's in my heart.

With Burns and Browning I can't compete is painfully clear,

So it's just a rose for Monday because to me you're dear.

Gifts (7-9-79)

For I shall take the warmth that I find in your smile

To weave a sunshine cloth and wear it for awhile...

I will make of it a robe to guard against the chill

That I find in the world to shelter me until

In another place and time perhaps we meet again

And recognize each other in joy, without the pain.

Then I shall take the light that I find in your eyes,

That rivals any star I've seen in any skies

To make myself a lamp to drive the dark away

Down the corridors of time where I can't tell night from day.

As I wonder all alone, an alien in this land,

Your light will give me hope to carry in my hand.

Those gifts you've given me are more precious than you know

For I could buy their like nowhere at least not where I go

I cherish them more each day because they keep you near

And even more when I go as soon I must, it's clear.

Now each time that I feel the sun caress my face

I welcome that warm touch and dream you in its place.