Choosing To Be A Lesbian Alcoholist

August 7, 2014 LesleyPearlLeave a comment

Patsy and I in Israel, nearly 20 years ago.

The last time I saw Patsy was at my wedding – nearly 13 years ago. She officiated, combining Jewish, Hindu, Native American and British elements into a ceremony that spoke to both of our hearts and sensibilities.

I spoke to her yesterday for the first time in more years that I can count – not quite 13, but far too long.

We talked about Mickey – her mom – who had just died and what that felt like for her. About meeting in Israel on a press trip nearly 20 years ago. And so much of what had happened in the in between. Things we caught in passing, in pithy Facebook posts and the occasional email.

She had no real sense of what had happened between my ex and me. Or even that I had (happily) given up the fight with alcohol nearly seven years ago.

And because she had not been with me for every step, every man, every tear and nuance of the journey – she saw the story, my story, far differently than me. Her reflections were, in a word, a revelation.

She had recently asked me in an email if there was “someone special” in my life.

It was the question I have come to expect. To brace myself for. To both love and despise – as it can feel both hopeful and humiliating, depending on the day, my mood and the current state of my heart.

I told her that I did not. That it hurt my heart to write that.

I told her about the suggestion that I not date for a year after my divorce. How that was pretty easy as no one was really asking. (Which is not exactly true. More to the point would be, no one I was interested in was asking.) And how that year had come and gone.

I told her I had met some extraordinary men, experienced some wonderful emotional intimacy and some wonderful romance. But none had been truly available for one reason or another.

I told her I am online, like every other schlub, although it is not how I imagine meeting someone. And to keep me and my big, juicy, open heart in her thoughts and manifestations.

It was “my story.” The one I tell myself. The one I tell here.

Yesterday, she helped me tell the next chapter. It had a decidedly different feel.

I told her about the “romantic friendship” with my spiritual-traveling twin. About the man nearly 13 years my junior, who has been dancing around me (and me, him) for some months, and our breakfast date that morning. And about a similar dance I have been doing with a man who looks a lot like Daniel Day Lewis – my ex’s doppelganger.

I told her about the friend who continues to tell me, “I’m still interested.” How my feelings remain platonic. And that I have no desire to try to “make them” otherwise.

And I told her about a new man – the chef – who I actually did meet online. We’ve had just a few dates, and my feelings feel “right sized.” He is easy to talk to and I have fun spending time with him. I find him attractive and I like how he kisses.

“I think you are very genuine,” he blurted across the table a few nights ago. I like that too. Because it is kind and observant, but mostly because it is true.

Patsy replied, “You ARE dating a lot of men right now. You are having fun. You just haven’t settled on one.”

It was true. It IS true. It sounds different from “I am still not in a relationship,” even though the actual details are the same. And it feels different.

She added that in the nearly 20 years she has known me, that I have always had men in my orbit. Always. That I have always been attractive to men. Always.

This was news. I had not seen it that way.

Seems I have spent the past 30-plus years mostly noticing the time in between. The times of breakup and/or longing. And believing that everyone else was constantly in relationship – meaningful relationship – and wondering why I was not.

She reminded me of the other chef. The one I dated before my ex-husband.

And I recalled the hotel bartender in Israel who suggested I show him the pictures in my room. When I replied, “I think you’ve seen all the pictures in all of these rooms,” he asked if I was a lesbian. Earlier he had asked if I was “an alcoholist,” as I turned down a drink. Close enough.

I chose an evening with my new press-trip friends (among them, Patsy) over an overseas fling, and a good story to be certain. I chose to be the lesbian alcoholist.

And in that recalling, I saw myself as Patsy saw me. (And likely, many others.) Attractive. Discerning. At choice. I have always been at choice…in relationships. And now, in how tell my story.

With Room To Grow

June 16, 2014 LesleyPearlLeave a comment

My friend Clover is a ridiculous optimist.

She arrived at my home yesterday – plant in hand. Even though I have killed every seedling and shoot that has crossed my threshold. Easy ones – amaryllis and succulent. Even the cacti she brought me when I moved back to Chicago.

They lived in a large glass bowl with sand, rocks and driftwood, as well as a golden deity. When the first one died, I brought the terrarium to the shop it came from and watched the owner delicately place a new cactus in its place. During our conversation, he convinced me to try my hand at a succulent – a hearty jade housed in an earthenware vessel, surrounded by wire. Protected. Safe.

I too was optimistic.

I saw the jade in my morning meditation, and took it to be a symbol of preparing soil. Allowing the ground to lie fallow every seven years – as is mandated in the Book of Leviticus. Without crop. Resting. Rejuvenating.

It was during this time – in the first months after my divorce – that several people suggested I not date for a full year, and I saw the soil as myself – getting ready.

I flourished. But both the cactus and the jade withered.

My apartment gets precious little direct sunlight. And yet…

I tossed the jade, but kept the container. The shriveled, grey cactus still sits in the sand terrarium. A reminder? A warning? An omen?

Perhaps it is time to throw away this remnant – what couldn’t survive – to make room for something new. Not necessarily another cactus. But something larger and leafier, like the plant Clover brought into my home.

She insists this one is “easy.” It doesn’t require much sunlight. Just water – twice each week. And a new pot, sooner rather than later, as it is a little big for its orange, earthenware container, and will soon outgrow it.

Like me?

For the past several days, I haven’t been able to shake the feeling that something is about to change. What? I’m not certain. But I feel the rumblings within. I am both anxious and excited – eager to greet the shift.

Perhaps this one will be easy too. Water. A little sun. A bigger container…with room to grow.

Artist Date 77: Rekindling the Romance

May 26, 2014 LesleyPearlLeave a comment

I am writing my morning pages – one of two “core practices” in The Artist’s Way, my unofficial roadmap through the past two years of transition – the daily purging of random thoughts taking up real estate in my head. It is Saturday, the end of the week, and I realize I have not planned an Artist Date (The Artist’s Way other core practice) for myself.

A part of me rejoices in my loosening the vice grip I seem to have on everything. A part of me laments.

Am I entering the transition from passionate love to either compassionate love or break up? The six-month mark in a relationship when partners finally rouse themselves from bed and can think of something other than sex and one another.

If it is, I’ve had a hell of a run – 77 weeks of Artist Dates and only recently have I become somewhat bored, lazy with the idea of planning a solo excursion for myself.

Trouble is, I am the type that loves to be in love – the first six-months girl, as evidenced by my blogs. The Southern Svengali. Mr. 700 Miles. My Divorce Buddy. Ridiculously romantic stories with heartbreaking endings.

My lament is about wanting to hold on to my ridiculously romantic story with myself – with my Artist’s Dates.

——————–

Italy – quite possibly the sexiest, most romantic place on the planet – calls like a siren.

I Google “volunteer, Italy” and in minutes am poring over possibilities.

I have volunteered overseas twice before – in the South of France and in Rwanda (the trip that gave form to this blog). Traveling this way gives me a deeper sense of people, place and purpose. It is cost effective. And I meet other unaccompanied adventurers I might not otherwise know.

I find “my trip” through Volunteers for Peace – two weeks with the Milano Film Festival. Only seven volunteers are accepted, and a letter of motivation is required.

I get writing.

I send my short essay to my friend, Melinda for feedback. She likes most of it, and gently offers, “Is this an opportunity to introduce yourself as a creative, fun, movie-loving, gelato-eating event coordinator who is a world traveler and wants to visit Italy without referencing your divorce?”

Yes, it is. And so I do – removing the reference to my divorce from the essay before hitting “send.”

——————–

And so this morning, noodling over my morning pages, I settle on a trip to the library or bookstore, to pour over travel books. Artist Date 77.

I think about Powell’s and flash on a date I treated my ex to when he completed his first year of residency – a bike tour of Chicago, highlighting book stores, record stores and pastry shops.

Recalling what I have done for someone else but am not doing for myself lights a fire in my belly.

It is warm and stuffy in the library – a small, neighborhood branch. I am surprised how many people are inside, considering outside holds the promise of the spring we Chicagoans have been waiting on. Most of them appear to be studying – determined.

I find the Italy section in the stacks and am disappointed to not find a single travel book. No Fodors, Frommers, Lonely Planet.

I pull La Bella Figura: A Field Guide to the Italian Mind, Traveling in Italy with Henry James, and D.H. Lawrence and Italy from the stacks. I finger through the first, I am somewhat amused but it is not what I want to read. I am distracted by the underlining and highlighting that mars the second. I put them back, hold on to D.H. Lawrence and check out – unsatisfied.

At the Book Cellar I grab three titles and settle into a somewhat comfy chair wedged in the corner of the shop.

I am quickly overwhelmed. My plan is to travel on after the Film Festival (I am already assuming I am going.). But where? Venice? Rome? Florence?

The Amalfi Coast? Sicily?

Too many choices. Too much for a single trip. Too much to consider.

This was supposed to be fun. It isn’t.

I close the books and return them to the shelves – still unsatisfied.

Perhaps it is enough to know they are there when I am ready – tomorrow, next week, next month. When I know more, like if I am in fact going. (I will receive notice in three to five business days.) Or if I am going somewhere else. Like to Reykjavic for its film festival, or Portugal to help restore a traditional, community bread oven – other possibilities.

Perhaps all that really matters is I took action to rekindle this romance – the only one I have any control over. I recall our couple’s therapist, Robert insisting that even if only one of us is doing the work, the relationship will change.

Today I did the work…and wait for the change.

Artist Date 73: Navel Gazing

May 3, 2014 LesleyPearlLeave a comment

Navel gazing.

It is the story of my life. Or perhaps it is just my fear. That seemingly subtle line between interested self-awareness and narcissistic self-centeredness.

I begin blogging in 2012. Dubious. Wondering what, if anything, I have to say. And who, besides myself and perhaps a few kind-hearted friends, would care.

The questions become irrelevant as life becomes more Technicolor than I am used to. I have no choice. I have to write.

About Rwanda. My birth-mother’s death. Divorce. Romance. Healing.

The unexpected gift of my return to writing following a 15-year absence – what spurs me on in my early, tentative efforts and continues to spur me on today – is the return voices of others. The sense of connection, and its immediacy, is a balm.

I feel seen. Heard. Supported. And even, dare I say, useful. It seems the words I give to my name my experiences are words others have struggled to find.

In time, I find the writing itself is healing. That I am healing myself.

And yet I sometimes still wonder what, if anything, I have to say.

On occasion those closest to me take exception to my writing and I have to consider if what I have written is hurtful or dishonest. If I have compromised their anonymity. Their right to privacy.

And, when blog posts garner little response, I question if what I have to say is still relevant. Interesting. Of value.

Self-doubt. It is the devil of all creatives. Likely all people. But for those whose very lifeblood is the exercise of expression through words or clay or paint or charcoal. Violin, ballet or film. It can kill – the art. The process. The artist. Either metaphorically or literally.

Sunday – Artist Date 73 – is that kind of killer.

I am invited to Megan’s house for a salon. (Think 1920s Paris, the apartment of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas.) Her friend, Peggy Shinner will be reading from her recently published book of essays on the body, “You Feel So Mortal.”

Megan thinks I will enjoy the afternoon, both as a writer and a bodyworker. And, she thinks I should perhaps meet Peggy.

Approaching Megan’s door I hear piano music blending with animated chit-chat. Inside there is a table covered in finger foods. Slices of grainy-European bread topped with slices of egg and watercress. Cheeses, jams and chutneys. Chocolate-covered fruit. Elegantly-penned signs in front of each platter, describing its offering.

I make a cup of green tea and easy conversation with the handful of women I know.

Megan introduces Peggy and me, highlighting our shared status as writers and Jewish women. She asks me about my writing. I trip over myself, talking about my blog – life after divorce, not dating, Artist Dates, healing. My proverbial elevator pitch in desperate need of revision, or at the very least practice.

I tell her I believe it might be a book. She smiles.

Later, Megan summons us upstairs, inviting us to find a seat from a row of chairs. Peggy comes to the front of the room, opens her book and begins to read.

“I have Jewish feet,” she reads, continuing on about her father’s and how they are the same. Then digging deeper, she reads about Jewish genetics, especially as applied to feet. And how it was used against her people, my people, in Nazi Germany.

Her story is bigger than just her feet. Just her family.

I feel small. Self-important. Silly. Why don’t I include research in my writing? Facts. Or history — like she does in another essay about her mother and her relation to Nathan Leopold, who with Richard Loeb, sought to commit the perfect crime.

In a Q and A session following the reading, Peggy specifically mentions her desire to reach beyond her own story. To have a greater context.

I don’t buy Peggy’s book. I say goodbye from a distance, a wave, mouthing the words “Thank you.” I am in some sort of self-imposed shame spiral.

I come home and finish reading, “Seducing the Demon,” by Erica Jong. I have forgotten how smart, sassy and irreverent she is. Her casual use of “fuck” and “cunt.” She is my hero.

The book includes an essay that Jong read on “All Things Considered” in 2006. “On Being a Car Wreck” – a response to unfavorable reviews of this book.

“So, instead of seeing the review as a personal vendetta or sexist attack, I’m living with the fact that the critic simply thought my book sucked. So how can I write a better one?

“…Become less self-centered…How do I get over myself?…I’ve always wanted to improve and evolve as a writer…I’ve finally, at age sixty-four, gotten to the point where I realized that there are lives and characters more interesting than mine…”

She was sixty-four. I am just forty-four. Plenty of time.

Seduced By Words

April 30, 2014 LesleyPearlLeave a comment

My friend Rachel met Philip Roth when she was a university student.

220px-Portnoy_s_Complaint — The book that started the seduction.

I was wildly envious. He was my literary idol, inspiring a poem I titled, “Philip Roth Will Save My Life.”

She told me I shouldn’t be.

She said he was coarse, almost mean. Not at all who she imagined him to be. She had been seduced by his words.

Me too. As well as Erica Jong’s, Charles Bukowski’s Anais Nin’s and a long list of other’s.

Most recently, I’ve been seduced by the words of strangers – men looking for love, or something like it, on OKCupid.

Clever words couched in a seemingly shared commonality, ending abruptly when moved from screen to voice.

I should not be entirely surprised.

I’d learned about the chasm between the written word and reality, online and real-time, this past fall when a friend, a man 12 years my junior, told me in no uncertain terms exactly what he would like to do to me. Exactly. And while he made good on his promises a few days later, the flirty simpatico we shared on screen was lost in real life. All hands. No heart.

I was reminded of this truth once again on Friday – my first, OKCupid coffee date.

We made plans a few weeks out due to Passover and my schedule. During that time we exchanged several messages, but we never spoke on the phone.

I told him how to make fried matzoh, and made him promise to cover it with real maple syrup. He told me about a cartoon character his kids like who carries a flask of the stuff.

While I wasn’t convinced this was a romantic connection, he seemed like someone I would want to know.

In person our conversation was clunky, awkward – made worse by bad acoustics and me having to lean in and ask “what?” constantly.

We didn’t talk about his children’s adoption. Or mine. Or even about maple syrup, cartoons or writing – which we both do. We talked about our divorces (Hmm…) and our experiences on OKCupid. (Mine being rather limited.)

I didn’t go into the date with expectations greater than a cup of Intelligentsia, decaf –as it was after 3. And yet, I felt sad.

I suppose there is always some level of hope – What if? Perhaps? Otherwise we would never meet strangers over coffee in the first place.

I miss my ex-husband.

He was solid. I could trust him. He showed up. Period. Even if it wasn’t always in the way I might hope.

I am also clear about what didn’t work. Why we divorced.

Two years after separating, I feel like I am finally grieving.

I miss Mr. 700 Miles — my most recent romance — too. Even though, I couldn’t trust him. He wasn’t solid. He couldn’t show up. I miss the connection that cut straight through the internet, through phone calls, texts and video chats. The feeling that I could talk to him all night and into tomorrow and we’d never run out of things to say, or ways to delight one another.

I am grieving him too. Or perhaps the idea of him. The idea of us.

I get into my car and head north toward Wicker Park, where I will meet my friends in a church basement. Later we will have dinner at the Birchwood, where I will eat a green salad with warm lentils, squash and bacon and drink hot water with lemon. I couldn’t be happier.

My mind wanders, thinking about the rest of the weekend.

Dinner with my girlfriends on Saturday night.

A Sunday morning dance class and performance. And later in the afternoon a salon hosted by my friend Megan – my Artist Date of the week –where her friend Peggy will read from her just-published collection of essays. In between, I will work on editing my friend Martha’s new novel.

I feel excited about my days. About my life. And grateful for it. Grateful for its juicy-ness, with or without a partner.

I am not certain this is true for all people – looking for love or otherwise. I feel lucky.

And a little wiser now too.

I know what I read, on the page or on the screen is only part of the story. I need to listen, to hear it too.

What is being said. And not said.

The sound of gentleness. Laughter. Banter. Ease.

And my heart – beating just a little more quickly.

The Accidental Dater

April 25, 2014 LesleyPearlLeave a comment

I accidentally started online dating.

One of my online profile photos — showing my “quirky” side.

I know, right…how does one “accidentally” start online dating? Here’s how:

A couple of months ago I took a peek at Match.com.

More than a year had passed since my divorce was final, and the people who had suggested I take some time off were now suggesting that perhaps I might consider putting myself out there.

I didn’t get very far.

I began filling out a profile and got stymied on “body type.” I said curvy. I was told I was mistaken. That the correct answer was thin or fit.

I pushed it aside and entertained a long-distance love affair instead – pinning my heart to a man who lived 700 miles away, wasn’t quite divorced, and was even less emotionally available. Until he just couldn’t do it.

He never said that. He never said anything at all. He walked away without a word. And for the first time in my life, I did not demand an explanation. It was clear.

Well-intentioned friends suggested I consider JDate while I nursed my heart back to health. Once again, I began filling out a profile, as I had done with Match. And once again, I didn’t get very far.

The men I saw while trolling neither quickened my heart nor tugged at my loins. This likely says more about me and my availability than anything about them. Nonetheless, I stopped looking…even though Match and JDate continued to send me “potential” matches.

A few weeks went by and I thought I’d try again – this time, OKCupid. It seemed everyone I knew who had any online-dating success – including my ex-husband – met here. And, unlike Match and JDate, it was free.

I began filling out a profile, believing I would troll anonymously as I had on the other two sites. Within moments I started receiving pop-ups like, “Mr. OnlyHasEyesForYou viewed your profile.”

What profile? I hadn’t even completed filling one out. I panicked, but kept typing – adding photos and pithy prose describing what I am doing with my life and the six things I cannot live without, wondering if I had chosen the proper screen name.

"Show don't tell." One of the first rules from journalism school. Dancer. Traveler. Joyous. — “Show don’t tell.” One of the first rules from journalism school. Dancer. Traveler. Joyous.

That was two weeks ago.

I’ve received photographs of 20-somethings’ manscaped chests with a note asking if I fancy younger men. I’ve received cheesy, singles-bar lines like, “You are too hot to be on this site.” Recently, I received a note from a man in his 60s looking for companionship on his ranch in Arkansas. He isn’t looking for love, he said. If that comes, fine. But what he really wants company and a stay-at-home gal.

I have not responded.

I’ve discovered humor doesn’t always translate and what I think is clever might not be received that way.

And I’ve learned what looks and sounds good in email also does not always translate, as evidenced by a seriously strained phone call.

I responded by resorting to an old behavior – sharing unattractive information about myself, in hopes it will drive the other person away. While I am not proud to admit this, it worked. Neither he, nor I, followed up with one another.

I thought about writing a quick note, wishing him luck, but I didn’t. I’m not sure what proper etiquette is here. My ex tells me there is none. (He also told me to get ready for a bunch of dick photographs. Thankfully, to date, I have received none.)

my first, with one of the first men who wrote to me.

He appears smart, clever and articulate. His pacing feels in sync with my own.

We do not communicate every day.

We have just begun to share more personal aspects about our lives.

He has an adopted daughter who is African-American, and he cannot get her braids right. I am an adoptee too. My mother couldn’t get my braids right either, and my father never considered trying.

I’m talking to a couple of other men. Some seem a little too eager. And I wonder if that is my own fear or if it is the truth. Others seem a little more breezy – like myself. And that is the miracle of this. I feel breezy. I have not hooked into any of them. Or even the idea of any of them.

Turns out, online dating is an excellent exercise in detachment. People come. People go. Some respond. Others don’t. Some respond and then stop responding without a word.

Sometimes I respond. Sometimes I don’t. And sometimes I stop without a word. When it is clear there is no “there, there,” to quote Gertrude Stein.

Sadly, I’m not quite over Mr. 700 Miles. However, meeting all of these men reminds me the world is full of romantic possibilities. I’m fairly sure that this new knowing, unlike how I got there, is no accident.

Artist Date 72: I Hadn’t Even Realized They’d Been Gone

April 20, 2014April 20, 2014 LesleyPearlLeave a comment

On Wednesday, Linda emailed me to cancel our date to the Art Institute. Understandably, as she recently fell and cracked a few ribs. She is on the mend, but not quite well enough to go out.

And just like that, the universe provided me with my Artist Date – Number 72.

I’ve been struggling with them lately. Planning. Going. Writing.

I thought about messaging R. to see if he wanted to meet me. We’ve been messaging one another on OKCupid, but haven’t met yet. We will next week, over coffee.

Yes, I just not-so-subtly slipped that in…that about two weeks ago I somewhat hesitantly joined the world of online dating. Although I haven’t had a date yet.

Yes, my entire blog centers on life after divorce. The heart-breaking dalliances, and the more than year-long commitment to dating myself, courting my own creativity. But I neglected to write about this. Amazing.

Yes, blog forthcoming.

And yet, something knew better. A higher self? Just the universe at work? For several weeks now, despite my feelings and my best efforts, time and space for my solo sojourns has serendipitously appeared. And my feet have followed. Habitual. Almost like brushing my teeth. But coupled with a craving –for time. With me. Outside of me.

And so I nix the message to R. Grab a banana and a latte at Starbucks – the divorcee’s dinner – and head to the Art Institute for the lecture, “Return of the Modern Masters.” I hadn’t even realized they’d been gone.

Crossing the street I see A. reading a newspaper, waiting in line to enter the museum for free after 5 p.m. I invite him to jump the line with me – pulling out my member card.

We are early for lecture. We wander into the Nilima Sheikh’s exhibit “Each Night Put Kashmir in Your Dreams.” I saw it the day Mr. 700 Miles slipped out of my life without a word. When the heart space between us –which up until then had been just inches –became a chasm I couldn’t seem to reach across, no matter how I tried. Artist Date 68.

I tell this to A. while we view, Farewell,” a red scroll with two bodies entwined. A man peeling open his chest, exposing his heart. It reads “If only somehow you could have been mine. What would not have been possible in the world?”

I tear up.

“I’ve done that too,” he says quietly. Somehow, this makes me feel better.

He tells me he couldn’t face hurting her. That he told himself he was sparing her. Sober now, he understands he was only sparing himself.

I tell him that 700 Miles is active in his addiction to drugs and alcohol. He nods. “That’s what we do.” This is not the first time I’ve heard this in regards to him and our story. I nod, but I still do not understand it.

I show A. Marc Chagall’s “America Windows” outside of Rubeloff Gallery, where the lecture is. He hasn’t seen it before. I tell him that Ferris kissed Sloan here. I am not sure he is old enough to remember the movie. I feel like a docent, showing A. my Art Institute.

The lecture moves quickly – giving context to the positioning of the paintings and sculptures that have been returned to their rightful homes.

I am tempted to take notes. I have before, knowing I was going to blog. Sitting with A. I feel somehow self-conscious. As if he might ask why.

I think about my friend Nithin commenting on kids and not-kids filming concerts on their phones. Experiencing the music through a screen rather than directly. Disconnected. Too busy “showing” everyone where they are – via Facebook, Twitter and the like – rather than “being” where they are.

I imagine my note taking might fall into the same category. I allow myself to just listen. I free myself from the need to remember.

A. and I part ways after the lecture. He is meeting a friend for a concert at the Chicago Theatre. (I wonder if he will watch it through his phone.)

I climb the open-backed stairs – the kind that make my ex-husband nauseated and panicky – to the third floor galleries, to see the “Returned Masters.”

The galleries are crowded. I wander. Thinking about the lecture. About artist life in Europe before and during WW II. But ultimately seeing the work through my own lens.

I drink in the juicy, ripeness of Max Beckman’s “Reclining Nude.” And I wonder why I am so set on waif-y thinness for myself.

I smile at Chagall’s “White Jesus,” recalling it is a favorite of the current Pope. I notice my tendency to breathe deeply when facing his work. As if I might inhale something of him.

I recall “Human Figure with Two Birds” from the Max Ernst show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I greet it and Loplop – the bird which comes to represent Ernst, “the private phantom attached to my person” – like an old friend.

I giggle at the “Exquisite Corpse,” a game played on paper by Man Ray, Andre’ Breton and Yves Tanguy while they waited for WW II to end – each adding to an unseen figure, folded back accordion-style, out of sight.

I long to feel the smoothness of Alberto Giacometti’s “Spoon Woman” and Constantin Brancusi’s “White Negress II.”

The “returned Masters” have helped return me to my own. Out of my head and my heart. Into my feeling body. Like the Masters, I hadn’t even realized it had been gone.

Artist Date 62: Standing On…? Wondering Where I Am.

February 20, 2014 LesleyPearl10 Comments

Love is pain.

That is what the quilt says. Right in the center on a big red heart. All around it are stages, stops – like on a game board. Candy Land or Risk. Yeah, Risk.

Love. Joy. Desire.

Trust. Faith. Intimacy.

Jealousy. Anger. Betrayal.

Heartbreak. Wound.

Anxiety. Disillusion. Despair.

Loss. Grief.

It is Valentine’s Day. I am at the Greenleaf Art Center for the exhibit – Be Mine. I am meeting my girlfriends here, but they are stuck in traffic. So I am alone. Impromptu Artist Date 62. My second this week.

I step back and look at the quilt that greets me as I walk in the door, wondering where I am on it.

Joy. Desire.

I met a man. Or perhaps I should say, re-met. We knew each other once upon a time. Kind of. We are getting to know one another – not quite again – but now, for the very first time.

He is smart and funny, creative, sensitive and sexy. I’m pretty sure he feels the same way about me. We can talk for hours about anything and everything. We laugh a lot. And I find myself smiling a lot. Friends have noticed this.

There are about a thousand reasons why this will likely not work out and I will land on the square marked Heartbreak. I occasionally visit Anxiety already. I hate uncertainty. But I can’t not see this through. I want to find out about us.

Trust. Faith. I am trying to practice both in my life. Not so much with him, but with the universe, my higher power. Intimacy. Yes. We are building that — slowly. He lives several states away, so we are forced to go at this pace. Although the recent addition of Skype dates – we have one tonight – have added a heat to the flame.

I have not told him every single thing about me – emotionally vomiting, as if to say, “So can you handle that?” And, obviously, I have not slept with him. I haven’t led with my sexuality – my one-time calling card – either. Refraining from saying things like, “I think about you bending me over the butcher block and hiking up my dress around my waist.” I think them instead.

"Ungentlemanly Behavior." Artist, Cathi Schwalbe. — “Ungentlemanly Behavior.” Artist, Cathi Schwalbe.

Loss. Grief. I still find myself here sometimes too. Not as deeply entrenched as I once was. I am no longer up to my knees in it. I am standing in the sun, my feet wet, in a puddle left from the storm.

Post-divorce, grieving the loss of the fantasy, that that one person will be there no matter what. Always. That this love will quiet that part of me that silently screams “Don’t leave me.” It is a lie.

Day one of my life on the planet. Separated from my mother. I do not recall a second of it. Yet I know a part of my work here is to heal it.

I watch it get kicked up and manifest in unconscious, desperate attempts for control and certainty. As if that will heal me. But it doesn’t. Neither did a husband. Nor meeting my biological parents. The work is mine alone.

I move on to a series of men’s shirt collars embroidered with real messages from the artist’s experiences with online dating. “What kind of underwear girl are u?” “Every young man want to get laid by a gray hair lady.” “You want a naughty pic?” It reminds me I have not finished my Match.com profile. And that I probably won’t.

There are maps covered with pins and handwritten notes. Heart-shaped boxes filled with broken glass and newspaper clippings. A video of a woman covered in striped fabric dancing with a bee.

I return for a third time to a piece titled, “Love Letter.” It is long and tall, like a body. With hair at the top, words winding down the center, like buttons, and rocks circling the bottom. The artist, Sherry Antonini writes, “Love Letter is a meditation on listening inward and noticing outward; on persistence and on beginning again with what is left over.”

I read the poem running down her torso again. It is still too much to take in. So I photograph it – in pieces.

“Keep time. But throw away most other things, including reasons to worry…Watch for signs, however small. Push through with ideas, envisioning them as even bigger than you think they deserve to be. Do this until you can once again see yourself shine…

"Love Letter." Artist, Sherry Antonini. — “Love Letter.” Artist, Sherry Antonini.

“Make a list of the things you hold at core. Those essences nearly forgotten, cast aside for too long…Months or years it is that you have been bound tight and stilled, silenced in some darkness. But the beauty of light is insistent…

“First, you fill up a room, then you empty it, one piece at a time and all in its right time. No one can tell you not to. Or that you can’t. That you never will. Or won’t ever again.

“When you rotate the stones point them in line with your heart’s desire, you put your hands once again on your own gleam of power and touch possibility.”

I head toward the front door as my friends are entering. Unplanned. Serendipity. I meet them, filled, spilling over. Love. Joy. And later, this man who makes me smile big, on Skype. He notices my grin and tells me he likes it. I read him the poem, still trying to sort my way through it. Intimacy. Faith. Desire.

Artist Date 61: Permission to Want Love

February 16, 2014February 16, 2014 LesleyPearl4 Comments

I cannot remember the last time I was carded. My friend Debbie reminds me that I don’t drink, so I am not often in bars. So my lack of recent experience with carding shouldn’t be a surprise.

But I am in a bar tonight –the night before Valentine’s Day. I have been “invited” for the final performance of “Solo in the Second City” – a live lit(erature) series about the nature of relationships. Artist Date 61.

I wish I would have known about this sooner, but I didn’t. And the only reason I know about it at all is because I participated in my first ever live lit event last week – Story Club, a monthly event featuring three invited storytellers, and three audience members whose names have been pulled from a hat. Except it’s not a hat, it’s a monkey carved out of a coconut with the words, “Have Fun” scrawled on it.

It is the winter of the Arctic Vortex in Chicago and only three people have put their names in the monkey. This is seemingly unheard of. I am one of them.

I climb up on to the stage, pull on my “cheaters” and read an extended version of my blog post “I Love You.” “Thank You.” About me and my divorce buddy. About walking through hell together. And learning to walk on my own. It is tender and raw and real. I feel like I have earned my place on this stage. It feels amazing.

I am followed by Carly Oishi, a featured writer. She weaves together three stories of love and loss. I am riveted. She is speaking my heart even though I do not recall her exact words.

At the end of the evening, I approach her and introduce myself. I tell her I like her piece. She tells me she likes mine and invites me to “Solo in the Second City.” I mention it to Debbie and we agree we will go.

And so I am here, at Beauty Bar, sitting on a low bench surrounded by 1950s hairdryer chairs, listening to stories of breakups and broken hearts.

One woman reads about watching relationships bloom and wither. But only watching. She has closed her heart off. Closed herself off. I know there is more because I am overwhelmed with feeling and identification, but I cannot access it.

Another reads, perhaps more accurately shouts, about when a man drops off the face of the earth without a word. Not a peep. A text. A fuck off. Nothing. She talks about body parts that are usually covered up meeting other body parts that are usually covered up. About giving someone VIP access to that place where her children were born from. She says it is a big deal.

It is a big deal. To give someone VIP access to that place. To literally let someone inside of you. For so many years I did not think so. There was no velvet rope. No line to enter. At least to my mind’s eye. And each and every one who came (no pun intended) was given an all access pass. Once upon a time. Now single again after 15 years coupled, and solo in the Second City, I can play it differently. I can have a different experience.

I am humbled by her cautionary tale of pain. For taking me back to how it was. And showing me how it still can be. How I can be.

Carly, the co-producer of the series, is the last to read. It is the story I heard last week. But this time I can hold on to the words. At least some of them. The part about love and how you will do anything for it. To taste it. To experience it. To feel it if only for a moment.

Yes. That is how I feel. How I have been ashamed to feel. The message I can discern from the noise and static surrounding me post-divorce is “You don’t need it.” “You shouldn’t want it.” “You need to learn to be alone.”

I know how to be alone.

I go to the opera alone. Dance performances alone. Art shows alone.

I live alone.

I work and dance and write. I have a large and diverse cast of characters I call friends.

I love my life.

And yes, I want love. That kind of love.

Hearing Carly’s words I feel somehow lighter. Less burdened by my desires. Free to let go of this misplaced shame.

I tell her so after the show. That I am grateful for permission to want love. She is visibly moved.

I remind her we have met and she admits she didn’t realize I live in Chicago. “So you ‘do this’?’ Write? Tell stories,” she asks.

“Yes,” I say.

She smiles and tell me she is putting together a story-telling series of all women, and asks if I would be interested in reading my work.

I smile back and give her the only appropriate answer – “I would love to.”

Getting Right Sized

February 6, 2014 LesleyPearl9 Comments

Up until now I have shied away from online dating.

It didn’t fit my sensibility, how I imagined meeting someone. The magic, romance and serendipity of a chance encounter whacking me over the head and shaking me to my core. Entirely unexpected and gorgeous.

My body today...moving and joyful in Africa. — My body today…moving and joyful in Africa.

I recently changed my mind, thinking it might be helpful to, at the very least, see who is out there.

I’d been noodling on the idea for a little while. Then I found myself sitting across the table from my divorce buddy – the man who walked side-by-side with me through the dissolution of both of our marriages – and thought, “I could grow old with you.”

I’ve been here before with him. He didn’t share the sentiment.

At that moment I realized I had been fishing in a barrel – albeit unknowingly. If I wanted different I had to do different. Beginning with looking for someone who, at the very least, appears to be available. (Unlike my most recent, fast, woefully unavailable, flirtation. Core shaking and lovely, but impossible.)

Last night I began an online dating profile. I didn’t get very far – stymied on the first screen.

Question: What is your body type?

Answer: I don’t know.

Several I could rule out: Big and Beautiful, Full Figured, Heavyset, A Few Extra Pounds, Stocky. What about “About Average?” At risk of sounding, hm…not right sized…I don’t think of myself as “About Average.” At all. Period.

(When I mentioned to the aforementioned divorce buddy that I needed to shave my head before leaving on our cross-country drive from Seattle to Chicago, he asked that I consider not – instead letting my stubble grow. “I find it best to blend in when in Montana and the Dakotas.” “I have never blended in,” I responded. “I know.”)

That left me with Slender, Athletic and Toned, and Curvy.

I picked Curvy, filled out a couple of more screens – offering up that I am a liberal, Libra, entrepreneur who would selfishly treat myself to something special should I be blessed with a financial windfall – and went to bed.

I told my friend Kendall about the experience this morning. When I told her I chose Curvy, she told me I chose wrong.

My body (and my relationship status) as it once was.

But what about my hips? My breasts?

Curvy implies extra weight, Rubenesque, she explained. “You are not.” When one of our regular Weight Watchers members walked through the door, she posed the question to him. “Definitely not Curvy.”

This was news to me. For most of my life I would have chosen, A Few Extra Pounds, Full-Figured or, at best, Curvy. I forget that was more than 12 years ago. Thirty-five pounds ago. A breast reduction ago.

Seems my brain is still busy trying to catch up with my body. This isn’t the first time.

A couple of weeks ago I bought a new pair of winter boots. Like a kid, I wore them right out of the store – tromping home through the snow, giddy. When I arrived at my apartment 20 minutes later, I had blisters on both ankles. They were too big.

I cursed myself for being 44 and not knowing what size shoe I wear.

I went back the next day, head dipped, shoe box in hand, to see what, if anything, the store could do for me. They began by measuring my feet.

Six. A little less than six actually. But the boots were a six and one-half. And sometimes, I’ve been known to buy a seven. (These shoes usually ended up in a friend’s closet or at GoodWill. Now I know why.)

They didn’t have my boots in a smaller size, so I purchased a different pair – red leather and suede, treated for winter, with a lug sole. The salesman gave me $50 off for the “inconvenience” of having gotten the wrong size.

I always think I am bigger than I am. Even when I was bigger.

Like the time I picked a fight with a guy a foot taller than me at a bar. Drunk and messy, he swung his girlfriend around the dance floor, continually knocking her or himself into someone else. Often me. Next I knew, I watched myself running into him, full force, slamming him into the wall.

He spun around, ready to fight. He looked around, and then down. When he saw me, he appeared confused.

He grabbed my wrists in one paw, and held a fist with the other, while his girlfriend screamed and I shrieked, “Get a bouncer.” I hadn’t counted on this.

He got kicked out of the bar that night. I was lucky. I think about my brother telling me to not start something with my mouth that I couldn’t back up with my body. I had forgotten.

So I changed the body type on my profile to Slender. But that is all. I’m still not certain about all of this.

In the meantime, I’m working on getting “right sized” – physically, emotionally and spiritually. Seeing myself as I truly am – good and bad. Neither better than or less than. One of the pack. Perhaps even, “About Average.”

A Wandering Jewess

My Journey Back To Self

Tag: dating