Monday Prompt

Life Tastes so Bitter and so Sweet

I could drink a case of it and still be on my feet!

I better know what bitter means if I’m to write about it.

Monday’s topic is bitterness. Tuesday’s is resentment. As they say in the Serenity Prayer, grant me the wisdom to know the difference.

Resentment has to do with regretting and/or living in the past. Anger and disappointment on a slow burn. A smoldering fire that could be fanned into hot flames at a moment’s notice. But for now, it’s on the back burner.

Bitterness has an edge to it. The Google dictionary has two definitions.

The first one is in the world of taste — bitter being one of the flavors our tongues recognize along with sweet, sour, and salty. So a lemon, which I have no trouble eating raw, is considered bitter.

Over time my palette has adjusted so much that most lemonades are way too sweet for my taste, while lemons are a welcome addition to vegetables, fruits, salads, fish, and all kinds of tea.

One of my favorite words is bittersweet. I love that combination. In taste and flavors like dark chocolate. Or citrus. Or love.

Which reminds me of Joni Mitchell’s song, A Case of You. In it she sings:

You’re in my blood like holy wine. You taste so bitter and so sweet. Oh, I could drink a case of you, Darling, and I would still be on my feet.

Can you relate?

So many relationships were like that — not all pure and sweet. But not all mean and bitter either. So my first love, Bob, was a fellow peace activist, engaging companion, and an attentive lover. That’s the sweet.

He was already married and quite the lady’s man. That’s the bitter — to not only be the mistress but one of many. So many that I called myself Ms. Tuesday Night.

But oh were those heady days in Southeastern Ohio at my school — Harvard on the Hocking (River) in the early 1970s. The world was ablaze with Nixon’s lies, long hair tie-dyed lovers’ starry eyes, as we took to the streets, singing, dancing, chanting, making love, not war.

Fast forward to years later, when I became that fickle one, being married with many misters — if that’s the right word. More serial than nightly rotation.

I wasn’t bitter, being high on the adrenaline rush that fast lifestyle wrought. But I’m sure I left a wake of bitterness in my trail, starting with my then-husband and the many men I picked up and dropped in lightning-quick succession.

True confession: my whirlwind of affairs began shortly after a miscarriage.

It’s a connection that’s hard to look at.

We’d been working hard on getting pregnant. We’d done the obvious tests — having sex on a pillow and dashing to the clinic without cleaning up. Being swabbed and scoped to see who was the culprit.

It wasn’t my husband.

He was relieved to see his spermies swimming healthily in happy amplification. I was glad for him, though he never did have children. The grace was, he was willing to do so with me.

That we couldn’t was not his fault. Was it mine?

At the time, I clung to the fantasy that having a child would solve our problems and forge us as a family.

Was my acting out with these other guys a form of biological protest?

Was I bitter at God for messing up the plan? Or at my ex for not being able to read my mind and fill up the empty places in my heart? Was I bitter? Am I still?

If I am, it’s buried so deep I’m not present to it. I experience it more as a simmering resentment. Or if I was, it was short-lived.

Once I got into sex and love addiction recovery, it felt like a blessing that we did not have children. Especially after we separated.

But we had a name picked out — Pillara.

Actually a blending of two names. The Spanish, Pillar — our favorite character in Hemmingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls. And Lara, another favorite character from Boris Pasternack’s Dr. Zhivago.

Had we had here, she would be thirty-seven years old now. We might be grandparents. We would have had a connection with each other as we shared the parenting, even if we still went our separate ways.

One thing I deeply regret, so deep maybe it does spill over into bitterness. Once my former husband hooked up with his current wife, he cut me out of his life. I think she insisted, and he obliged.

I saw him once a year at a mutual friend’s holiday or birthday celebration. Then that stopped once he remarried. The last time I saw him was at least ten years ago at this mutual friend’s retirement party. We sat across from each other. I asked him how he was, and he said, angry! Ouch.

I spoke to him more recently. To get his blessing for a Medium article on making amends. He was amazingly candid and chatty — yet another miracle in my healing process. One I am deeply grateful for.

So while these things border on bitter, they don’t have the stinging bite I associate with that word. According to Merriam-Webster, the second definition of bitter is marked by intensity or severity.

Many of these memories are more bittersweet than bitter.

But then, so is much of life.

We’re about to inaugurate a new president at the height of a pandemic. We can’t party in the streets as would normally be the case. But we’re no less enthusiastic.

The sweetness of victory is tinged with the bitterness of the last four years, last year in particular, and especially last week.

So, yes, bittersweet — the taste of modern life.

Thank you, 𝘋𝘪𝘢𝘯𝘢 𝘊., for this week’s reflective prompts!

Marilyn Flower writes political humor and satire to delight socially and spiritually conscious folks. She’s a regular columnist for the prison newsletter, Freedom Anywhere, where she writes about faith and prayer. Five of her short plays have been produced in San Francisco. Clowning and improvisation strengthen her resolve during these crazy times. Stay in touch!