Busby Berkeley Dreams

Who doesn’t adore Busby Berkeley? Those innovative camera angles, twirling feathers, whirling stages, and hundreds of stunning showgirls creating a fantasy world of frothy pink carousels, blooming flowers, rushing waterfalls, and glittering snowflakes. I can spot a Busby Berkeley number anywhere, and they light me up deep in my soul with their sheer awesome beauty. They are sublime in the truest meaning of the word, meaning you stand there unable to speak because you are looking at something so beautiful it goes beyond words.

And that’s how I felt about my marriage.

In my mind, my groom was wearing a tuxedo and a top hat, and I was wearing a sparkling gown trimmed in feathers that swirled into a sea of sparkles with every twirl, and we were dancing through an outrageously beautiful life together. It’s apropos that “our song” was Busby Berkeley Dreams by Magnetic Fields.

It encapsulates so much of our relationship.

I should have forgotten you long ago, but you’re in every song I know…”

I met my ex in 1999 at a record release party at the Viper Room in LA. I had decided 1999 was the year I would make all my dreams come true, just in case Y2K wiped us all off the face of the planet. So two weeks into 1999, I met my ex.  He was the president of some record label and had produced an album for my dear friend, Chuck E. Weiss. Chuck E. had written a song on the album for me called “Oh Marci.” It was a kind of pirate French gibberish song, and Chuck E. said he had put a code word in it so my friend would know it was my song. The code word was “Coco”, the name of my cat. Chuck E. loves cats, and he had given me a kitten as a gift. I named the gift Coco Bojangles. So here I was at Chuck E.’s record release party in my black lace sparkling gown, dancing and dreaming as usual.

My ex always told me that when he saw me, it was like a bolt of lightning and he had never seen such a beautiful face. I also felt the lightning blast through me when I saw him. He was my type: nerdy, tall, messy hair, glasses. But he lived in a far away land called Massachussetts and I planned to stay in LA forever, so that night at The Viper became just a beautiful memory. We would both ask Chuck E. about each other, but that was the extent of our relationship, until two years later when I decided to go to grad school at Harvard. My ex was the only person I had ever met from MA so I asked Chuck E. for number of “that guy from the Viper Room two years ago,” so I would know at least one person.

We had a Busby Berkeley courtship. I’m talking whirling stages, glittering veils, hot buttered rum candles and a connection so strong the world erupted into a cloud of starlight when we were together. I was getting my Masters degree and my mind was getting blown daily… and being courted by my ex, my heart was getting blown nightly. He swept me off my feet with incredible meals, vibrant discussions, nighttime walks to the lighthouse, homemade molten lava chocolate cake, stunning flowers, heaps of gifts, diamonds from Tiffany’s, ski trips, and of course, music. He wrote me many, many love songs, like “As Long as My Baby’s Near” and “You Brighten the Corners,”  which he sang to me at our wedding. “All the nights and all the days, I dreamt of you/waking up, only to find grayness around it all/ and you, you brighten the corners.”

I was head over heels for him, well, as it turns out, part of him, my fantasy part, the Busby Berkeley part.

Whining and pining is wrong and so
On and so forth, of course, of course
But no, you can’t have a divorceI haven’t seen you in ages
But it’s not as bleak as it seems
We still dance on whirling stages
In my Busby Berkeley dreams

Growing up, the biggest lesson my father ingrained in me was this: “Be honest and let the cards fall where they may.” Lying is/was/will always be a deal breaker for me. I told my ex that many times and he held me and said how lucky for us that we were both such sticklers for honesty, and proceeded to spend the next twenty years spinning an epic web of lies so wide and intricate I could no longer tell what was up and what was down.

When I caught him in epic lies, which I did a few times over the years, he waged a love bombing campaign so massive I was pulled back in. There were more diamonds from Tiffany’s, and pink sand beaches rented for just the two of us, moonlit dinners in remote jungles, Paris trips, sobbing on his knees and begging me to stay, more beautiful songs written for me and recorded while weeping, going to therapy and saying he had worked out his issues and he’d never lie again.

Every time, I was still whirling on our Busby Berkeley stage, so I’d reach out my hand and say yes, let’s try again. I wanted to whirl with him forever.

The tears have stained all the pages of my true romance magazine…

I was crushed when my marriage ended. But how could I live with myself if I chose to stay with someone who couldn’t tell the truth? What example would that set for my children? That it was okay to allow themselves to be treated like a doormat? That is was okay to stay in a relationship full of the bone-burning sizzling sting of betrayal over and over again? Now, when I feel despair and the dark trenches of sadness, I ask myself is there a person in the world who will never betray me? And I can look in the mirror and see that one person in the world who will never betray me. It is me. I will never betray me again.

Last week he sent me a selfie, which he does once in a while, and sometimes I see his face and I’m overwhelmed with love for that face I know so well. I have gazed on that face in the golden glow of love on the pillow next to me for almost two decades. It was the face that pressed against mine for life’s most sacred and intimate moments: holding my hand when I gave birth to our children; on his knees mopping up the blood when we lost a joyful pregnancy; reaching back to take my hand when we evacuated from New Orleans and I was sitting in back with the baby, and it was his hands that lifted my father out of the bathtub when he could no longer stand on his own.

Sigh.

But sometimes with those selfies, my ex doesn’t even look familiar–he looks scary and dangerous, and I think, “I wouldn’t  want to meet this person in a dark alley. I would run towards the light to get myself to safety.”

Which is exactly what I did.

Now, I still lie in my pink puffy bed in the dark of night, and I place one hand over my broken heart, and close my eyes and feel myself dancing on a whirling stage. Sometimes my ex is with me in his tux and top hat, and hot tears run down my cheeks and pool in my ears. But other times, the best times, it’s just me on that stage, with my two beautiful children, one wearing his own tux and top hat, and the other in her own swirling magnificent gown made of starlight and fire, and every time we all twirl, my gown spins out into sparkling golden blossoms of truth that rain down over the three of us.

And now you want to leave me for good
I refuse to believe, you could
You forget we’re not made of wood
Well darling, you may do your worst
Because you’ll have to kill me first

I haven’t seen you in ages
But it’s not as bleak as it seems
We still dance on whirling stages
In my Busby Berkeley dreams…