Love Letter to My Farnow, From the Dancing Queen

September 24, 2013 LesleyPearlLeave a comment

The side of my face is pressed to yours. I feel your beard against my cheek. The bone of your right pelvis against my own. Your leg gently, but firmly, straddling mine.

You dance tango. But we are not dancing tango.

No matter, it is the sexiest dance I’ve ever had in my life. I’m certain of it.

I have not danced like this in more years than I can count.

I am referring not only to the leg between mine. Or the man, 10 years my junior, to whom it belongs. But to the friends surrounding me. My farnow, the Kiwi word roughly translated as “family of choice.” Farnow I’ve known for 20 years. Farnow I’ve known for just 20 minutes.

We are dancing to Patti LaBelle. Donna Summer. The Cure. New Order. All of us. Like we did in Detroit. In San Francisco. When I was 20-something and it didn’t feel like “a thing” to stay up late to go dancing.

I am sweaty. Low to the ground. All hips and legs. I feel vital. Sexy. Alive.

“You are in a very good place,” my friend Steven tells me. He is right. I am.

But not for the reasons you think.

This isn’t a story about sex.

This is a story about recognizing another one of my teachers. About the universe tapping me on the shoulder, inquiring exactly where I am with the old idea I tossed into Lake Michigan – along with stale bread. the ritual of tashlich – on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, just a few weeks ago.

The day I muttered, “I let go of the idea that I am only good for sex.” Over and over, like a mantra. The notion being that I might be attractive to men for more reasons than this.

Prior to my marriage, I used my sexuality like a calling card. A year outside of its dissolution, I’m not sure what is. Or if I have one at all.

Earlier in the evening, we did a different sort of dance. Flirty. My ass to your ass. My back to your chest. Your leg between mine for the first time.

“Is this ok?” you ask. Yes, I nod. It is more than ok. I cannot stop grinning.

And then…you are sitting on a stool, no longer dancing. I am not quite sure what has happened. I think it has something to do with the girl sitting next to you, but I am not certain.

I do not want to interfere with anyone’s real life. I am on holiday. This flirtation is fun. But I do not want to hurt anyone. So I leave it be. I leave you be. Mostly.

I dance with Steven and Tim. Anja and Derek. Anne-Marie and Tom. Everyone but you. I ask G-d to help me to be to be present to the people who are with me and not to worry about those who are not.

Later, when you are alone, I apologize for possibly getting you into trouble with a girl. You insist I have not. But that you are certain I am one to get into trouble. You are teasing me.

I tell you it is incredibly sexy when you reach down between your legs to tap on the cajon – the box drum – which I saw you do the other night, playing music with my friend, Tim.

I notice you don’t drink. Neither do I. We talk about living life feeling everything. “EVERYTHING,” you say slowly, emphatically, with a knowing smile.

We talk about G-d. That yours is like Star Wars, “The Force.” That mine is magic, poetry and serendipity. The kind of stuff I couldn’t think up myself.

You ask me about my work. My Judaism. My writing. We talk about your music, the religion of your upbringing, and our friendship with Tim.

I tell you I enjoyed dancing with you. You smile and reply that you enjoyed talking with me. I am flummoxed. It is as if the universe is asking, “Remember your taslich mantra? The one about being attractive for other reasons…Are you paying attention?”

We dance that slow, sexy dance, and say goodbye. I kiss either of your cheeks, feeling your beard against me again. I ask if I will see you again on this trip. “G-d willing. Allah willing,” you say, and list a couple of other names for G-d, but I do not hear them. I am touched by your response.

And you are gone.

I go back to the floor and join my farnow and dance until DJ Gerry can play no more. I think about you whispering in my ear that I could surely tango. That I am a good dancer, but I must know this already.

I do not see you again. I am a little bit sad, but not at all surprised. It isn’t necessary. I have received your teaching.

I want to tell you this. And that my meeting you is a wink from the universe – is G-d. But I do not. It seems too intimate. Too much.

So I blog instead. My sober artistry. A kind of “love letter,” sans stamp. Destination: Dublin, Ireland. I sign it,

“Until ‘the force’ conspires for us to meet again. In gratitude, Lesley.”

Artist Date 39: Story of O (pen)

September 15, 2013September 15, 2013 LesleyPearlLeave a comment

This Yom Kippur, this Day of Atonement (or At One Ment, depending on your school of thought), my Rabbi spoke about being open, and staying open – vulnerable. To change. To transformation.

This is a story about open.

I am anxious to write it. It is so tender, so personal. And yet…I have given voice to seemingly every other experience in this year following my divorce. Specifically regarding the season of suggested “not dating,” and the process of creatively romancing myself on a weekly basis vis a vis, the Artist Date.

I am standing in front of a wall of condoms. It is 11:30 a.m. I need supplies.

I pulled into the Pleasure Chest on the way home from leading a Weight Watchers meeting – Artist Date 39.

I took a lover last week.

We are in wildly different places in our lives. Not surprisingly, we want and need wildly different things. And we are wildly attracted to one another.

He’s younger than I – which is brand new to me. He captured my attention with a flirty quip in regards to my Artist Dates. Something like “I’m not sure what these entail…but I qualify as an artist (I think), and I am free tomorrow.” (Insert flush across my cheeks, across my chest, here.)

But I wasn’t. Or the next day. Or the next.

Until Rosh Hashanah night – the same date my divorce was final last year, on the Hebrew calendar – when the gods saw fit for me to tell a new story.

The days leading up were ripe with sexy texts and suggestive emails. And our nights together made good on what had been promised in words.

Yummy. Naughty. Playful. And then, Over.

“We can’t do this,” we agreed. That while decidedly delicious, an ongoing entanglement couldn’t meet either of our more pressing needs. And might even cause us harm.

Usually I would be devastated by such a fleeting romance. But I’m not. I see it all as a gorgeous transition. A little poke (no pun intended) from the universe that I have opened myself up just a little bit more. To sex. To love. To possibilities.

That’s not to say that I don’t miss the attention, being pursued, and getting to know someone new. Yes, he is in fact, another artist. Darling. Smart and sweet. But not “the one.” At least not now.

This is new to me too. Not trying to make him “the one.”

I used to insist, “this time is different.” Until my friend Teresa gently pointed out, “It’s always different…and it never is.” She was right. It was the same story over and over. Me believing that he, whomever he was at that moment, had the power to make me beautiful, desirable, whole.

My young artist didn’t make me those things. He merely held up the mirror.

Being an addict, I (of course) want more. But I am not acting on those desires. I am respecting our decision. Respecting him. Respecting me. Respecting us. And trusting there will be more, with someone (s) else.

And so, I find myself standing in front of this wall of condoms, not for “us,” but for the future.

There are the usual suspects. Trojans. Kimono. Durex. Latex and non-latex. Flavored. Ribbed. Knobbed. And some I don’t know. Plaid boxes. Sir Richard’s. Sounds fancy.

I am certain any will do. But for some reason, I decide to call in the experts. I walk over to the glass counter. On the other side is a woman with a mess of red curls, funky glasses and a great big smile. Her name is Sara.

I tell her I need some help. That I haven’t bought condoms in a while. That I recently took my first lover since my divorce. The first man I’ve been with, other than my ex, in 15 years.

“Congratulations,” she says. “On the divorce. And the lover.”

She comes around the glass and we walk over to the wall together, where she educates me on the finer points of my choices. I am reminded of the years I spent at wine tastings, discussing the subtleties of nose and terroir. Sara approaches our conversation with the same mix of knowledge, passion and joy.

This is what she tells me:

Latex isn’t what it used to be. It no longer smells like Goodyear Tires when the foil is ripped open.

Stay away from the Trojans. Too thick.

Pleasure dots are nice for both. There’s a little pouch on the underside that creates friction.

One brand is nice. Doesn’t taste bad.

“I’d stick with these,” she says, gesturing to Skyn, Kimono, One and Sir Richard’s. “Or you might want to consider a sampler pack. Includes a couple of dental dams and latex gloves.”

She leaves me to shop and reminds me she is available if I have any questions.

So many choices. I remember coming home from Rwanda last summer, standing in front of the yogurt selections at Whole Foods and bursting into tears – overwhelmed by the abundance. I feel a little bit the same way.

I pull down a couple of boxes and choose a variety pack from Sir Richard’s – purple and grey plaid. Made in Boulder. For each condom purchased, one is donated in a developing country. A little altruism with my orgasm. Nice. I also grab a small box of non-latex Skyn. I don’t have a latex allergy but, someone else might.

I take a quick spin through the aisles before I leave. DVDs. Vibrators. Strap Ons. Lube. I grab a bottle of Sliquid and meet Sarah at the register.

She excuses herself from the couple she is assisting with harnesses.

She nods approvingly at my choices, runs my credit card through, and slips a flyer listing free workshops in the bag. All of them have passed.

Before I leave, she tells me that she divorced more than 15 years ago, and more than made it through. “I learned how to advocate for myself sexually,” she adds. “It’s been great.”

I believe her. Both on the advocating and on the great. I’ve already opened myself to it.

Artist Date 38: Creating Community…It’s Not About the Shoes

September 6, 2013 LesleyPearlLeave a comment

I don’t know if I filled my creative coffers this week. By my spiritual and social ones are brimming over. And that will have to do this week for Artist Date 38.

Overlooking Lake Michigan, at Dawes Park.

Rosh Hashanah – the Jewish New Year. 5774. I’m at Dawes Park in Evanston for the ritual of tashlich – where we empty bread from our pockets into a body of moving water. Some think of it as casting away one’s sins. I prefer a gentler interpretation. That I am simply cleaning out the residue of the last year. Whatever is stale. Has been sitting around in the corners of my consciousness slowly growing a somewhat furry mold.

I’ve stuffed a package of naan bread in my bag. It’s been in my freezer since November. A friend brought it to a party I had, to go with the curried lentil soup I was making. I’m not much of a bread eater, so I tucked it away for just such an occasion.

Another woman has matzo. I could have brought that two. I buy too much every year.

It is my third High Holiday season with the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation, so I know where we meet. But this year is different. I not only know the place, but I know many of the people here too.

My friend Phil is here with his family. He introduced me to this congregation – specifically the Rabbi — a number of years ago, when I was feeling particularly wayward and spiritually lost.

Since that time I have developed a close relationship with Rabbi Brant and Cantor Howard. They are tuning up for this short, mostly musical, service that precedes the tossing of the bread. Jeff is tuning up as well. We met a couple of years ago at a Shabbat morning service I attended just once.

He seemed to sense I was new and somewhat hesitant, and warmly welcomed me in. I have had several encounters with him since them. Perhaps my favorite being when he sidled up to me during last year’s High Holiday services.

He said he read my blog postings from Rwanda and that he liked my writing. I thanked him and told him I used to write professionally. “It shows,” he said. And was gone.

Moments before I had silently cried out to G-d, asking what the plan is, what it is I was meant to do. I recall looking up toward the heavens, smiling and saying, “got it.”

Mary Jo is here. Brant introduced us several years ago when I completed my conversion to Judaism. She joined him and Howard as my witnesses, and was there in that same role when I received my get, my Jewish divorce.

I am now on her permanent invite list for Passover, and the breaking of the fast on Yom Kippur.

I feel a tap on my shoulder. It is Rachel. She is a Weight Watchers member I know.

Monica is here with her family. We met at Shabbat services at the lakefront a couple of years ago. Michael is here too. He blows the shofar every year at High Holiday services. He introduces me to his daughters who are following in the family tradition.

I see Hannah. She used to wear her head shaved like mine but now she has a mass of ringlets. She tells me that she’s bought a condo and that she broke up with her boyfriend. She introduces me to her friend Kelly and we agree we must get together.

A woman I have never met before approaches me. Her name is Sheila. She likes my shoes and takes a photograph of them.

Yes, they are “the shoes.” The shoes that have seemingly come to identify me. My orange Fly London peep-toe wedges.

The first summer I owned them, people literally chased me down Michigan Avenue to find out what they were and where I got them. It was fun, talking with all sorts of people I wouldn’t otherwise meet. And today is no exception.

Walking to the water, a tall woman with a mess of dark curls puts her foot next to mine. “Nice shoes,” she says. She is wearing the same ones in pewter.

She tells me she is tossing out the year of rehabbing her broken wrist. It is healed. I do not tell her what I am tossing. Instead, I tell her I like our shoes so much that I have two pairs. That the second I bought before my divorce was final, when my then-husband kindly said, “Do what you need to before we separate our monies.”

I bought a new lightweight massage table, a Torah commentary, and the peep-toe wedges in mustard. We laugh at my choices.

I wish her a sweet New Year and peel off to throw my bread, my karmic residue. There are so many things I could get rid of. The litany that I repeat every year – self-doubt, unkindness, judgment of myself and others. I recall that last year I tossed away my identity as a wife.

It was a Monday. I knew divorce papers were signed on Mondays in the county where we filed. I had a sinking feeling at that moment that I was officially divorced. A call to my mediator later in the day confirmed it.

Today I am casting away what my friend Lisa likes to call “an old idea.” I am embarrassed to admit that I have continued to hold on to it. Actually, I’m not sure I was consciously aware that I had it, but a series of recent events has cast a glaring light upon it and I can no longer turn away.

I point myself east, tear off a piece of naan and whisper to myself, “I let go of the idea that I am only desirable for sex.”

It is windy and the naan flies back at me. I turn west off of the dock where the waters are still. I repeat the words.

I’ve got a lot of naan so I say it a couple of more times, ripping and tossing. Ripping and tossing.

When I am done, I am approached by a woman. She asks me about the shoes. She is radiant and I tell her so. She tells me about her job search. Her cancer.

I suddenly remember that people used to tell me things about themselves all of the time. Friends and family, and random, almost strangers too. Cab drivers especially. I realize people are talking to me in this way again.

It’s not the shoes. Because I wore the same ones last year…I am different. My heart has healed just enough to let some of my light shine out. I am open and there is room for others. They sense it and come in.

Artist Date 37: Before I Was a We: San Francisco Days, San Francisco Nights

September 1, 2013August 30, 2016 LesleyPearlLeave a comment

I love a Woody Allen movie. How it is always unmistakably his, from its first moment. Jazz crackling through a phonograph. Names in vintage font scrolling across the screen, inviting me in. Makes me think of Buster Keaton or some other silent-movie great. Another time. Dreamy and romantic.

Like San Francisco, where Blue Jasmine takes place – Artist Date 37.

Sitting in the Davis Theatre, I am home – to this place I lived for 14 years. To familiar street names like Van Ness and Post. And the windmill at Ocean Beach. The sky is a pale, whitish-grey. Fog. Wind. Like it usually is, as opposed to some Hollywood idea of the California coast.

The shots of Marina Green are spot on. South Park too…although it would have been a long walk there from 305 South Van Ness, where Jasmine is coming from, into the final scene. A solid half hour or more. But this is something only a San Franciscan would know.

Like knowing Noe Street is pronounced “No E” and not “No,” as it was incorrectly called on Party of Five, the 90s Fox hit show.

Like knowing the Dirty Harry movies filmed prior to the Loma Prieta earthquake – when the Central Freeway still ran along the Embarcadero.

When I moved to Chicago in 2007, every sentence out of my mouth began with, “In San Francisco…” It took a long time for me to even consider letting go of my identity as an adopted Californian. (I grew up outside of Detroit.)

It is one of the things that kept my ex and I together, and that ultimately tore us apart.

We came here united in our assertion that the Bay Area was the only place worth living. Hubris, in a New York center-of-the-universe sort of way. We identified as “other,” “different.” And we were certain that this was a mere sojourn.

But I got schooled. My eyes opened. I quit expecting Chicago to be San Francisco (or Oakland, where also lived). I was able to see all that was right with this place Frank Sinatra called “my kinda town.” And I fell in love.

We never said it, but with this simple opening up, I broke our unspoken rule. I “betrayed” us.

I’m not thinking about that today, sitting in the darkened theatre. Instead, I am thrust back to a time before that, before us. My single San Francisco. The place where I became a grown up. Sort of.

Chinatown. Teresa would send me here on days when I was blue, with explicit instructions to treat myself to something inexpensive and wonderful. A silk change purse or lipstick case with a mirror inside. Embroidered slippers. Each just a few dollars.

Marina Green. Rachel lived nearby on Chestnut Street. Every Saturday I would walk from my apartment in Haight-Ashbury to her tony neighborhood for brunch and the hope of spotting the former conductor I used to date.

South Park. The DJ took me to this then-off-the-beaten-path hip, cool patch of green for lunch. I wanted it to be a date, but it wasn’t. I knew what he was available for when I invited him to come by my apartment following his shift at the after-hours club. I thought I could change his mind. I couldn’t.

He was kind, and we developed one of those painful friendships – the kind where I waited for the day he would look at me and realize I had been there all along… loyal. And then pick me. Strangely, we did pick one another from time to time over the years…but never for the long haul.

He spun records at my wedding. That was his gift to me. I saw him in San Francisco the last time I was there. Over noodles, he recalled our unorthodox wedding. That I was the only bride he knew that danced to the Sex Pistols. His words fell onto the table with a thud. Neither my then-husband nor I said a word.

On the drive home, my now-ex asked me for a divorce.

Perhaps I let go of my strong San Francisco attachment because it was “ours.” Blue Jasmine reminded me of what was mine – alone.

Wednesday night disco at Stud Bar. Day-long walks through Golden Gate Park. Burritos the size of my head at Taqueria Cancun.

A reclaiming.

Waiting For This Moment, With No Idea What Comes Next

August 28, 2013 LesleyPearlLeave a comment

I am on the kitchen floor. My back slides down the refrigerator and I collapse in a heap, sobbing. I have been waiting for this moment.

Hiking in the Badlands. The difference of a few days.

A friend of mine often called from the kitchen floor when she was going through her divorce. I thought somehow I had evaded this. I was wrong.

I tell my friend Lisa this. She is in Chicago. I am in Seattle. It is a year ago today.

I cannot put together simple thoughts. I do not know what to put in the car. I am leaving tomorrow. My books are boxed and ready to be shipped when I have an address. I have done nothing else. Lisa tells me to wake Michael, my friend who has offered to help bring me home.

I lie down next to him in his bed, turning in on myself – into fetal position— and weep. I want him to comfort me. To wrap his arms around me. He does not. He tells me to put on a pot of coffee. That we have work to do.

I have given away most of my clothing. It is too big. What remains I lie in a large Ziploc bag. Michael attaches the vacuum hose to it and turns it on. We are giddy watching my Calvin Klein dresses and still-too-large, but-I-wear-them-anyway,Old Navy jeans get shrink wrapped into clear, plastic pancakes.

He loads my belongings into the 12-year-old Civic, making good use of every available inch of space. I just watch, as if this is “happening” to me. I feel disconnected and numb.

When he is finished we climb the cement stairs outside of my house to the top of Queen Anne Hill. My cousin Lois has invited us to come eat apples from her tree. It is sunny and warm. We sit in the backyard and talk while her dog, Tsipi chases the tennis ball Michael tosses to her. He is the dog whisperer, much like my ex-husband, and she knows it.

Later, we meet Ernie and his dog, Cordelia – a tea-cup pinscher – at Molly Moon’s for ice cream. One last cone – half honey-lavender, half salted caramel. One last goodbye.

That night, I meet my ex in the bedroom that used to be ours. That is his now and has been for a few months. I forgot what a nice view it has. And that the walls are still painfully bare. I look at the duvet cover from Ikea. I don’t remember when we bought it, just that we did – together. There is cat fur on it. Like there always is.

I say goodbye. I don’t remember the words. Only that I ask for his blessing for a relationship I’m not yet having, but hoping for, with a man we both know. A man I have grown close to in the months since he asked me for a divorce. “If that is what you want,” he says, referring to this man.

Michael is watching television on the couch. I sit next to him and link my arm in his. I rest my head on his shoulder. There is a slow-motion battle scene on the screen. Native Americans in traditional dress and men in cowboy hats. It is another time. Music. An arrow goes through someone’s chest and he falls, slowly, slowly, slowly into the water. It is dreamy and surreal. The show. This moment. I still feel like I am watching all of it.

Tomorrow we will begin our journey home.

I don’t remember going to sleep. Just waking up. Meeting some friends one last time and taking photographs. My friend J gives me a card, sharing his feelings for me. I have suspected them. He has kept me at arm’s length my entire year here. It was “the right thing to do,” he says.

I stop at Macrina Bakery on the way home to pick up coffee and morning buns. I mention I am going on the road and the barista gives me the drinks for free. Michael is pulling together his things when I get home. My ex is gone.

And in about an hour, I will be too.

I don’t yet know what lies ahead. Just that I am going. That I have chosen to go.

I don’t know that I will camp under a blue moon along the Missouri River. Hike in the Badlands. Or shoot a gun for the first time in my life.

I don’t know that I will bury my birth mom. Fall head-over-heels in a crush that does just that. That I will reclaim my rightful name as writer.

I don’t know that I will once again fill my house and my closet with someone else’s treasures. That I will still be single one year later. That my dream of becoming a Rabbi will fall away from me like molting feathers.

I’m not sure that I could comprehend any of it if I did know. But I didn’t have to.

Over the years, my ex frequently said it would be my turn next. One year later, I know that it surely is.

Artist Date 36: The Happy Show

August 25, 2013 LesleyPearlLeave a comment

I am chewing on a piece of ginger candy and drawing a daisy – poorly – on a square of yellow paper, giggling to myself. The enormous blow-up animal in the other room, the one with its ass cocked north, is dancing around in my head. I am happy. Not just in a general way. But in this very-present, animal-ass-in-the-air, right-now moment.

I give it an 8.

I’m on the fourth floor of the Chicago Cultural Center, at The Happy Show – Artist Date 36. Two people mentioned it to me within two days of one another. I take it as a sign.

Walking in, I am asked to rate my happiness and to take a gumball from the large, plastic tube with its corresponding number. I say 7. Popular number. This is the least filled cylinder, followed by 10.

Ten. No greater happiness. Unless it goes up to 11 in a This Is Spinal Tap sort of logic. I have been at 10…in moments. And I think that’s sort of the point – recognizing pure-bliss, happy, 10 moments when they happen. And thanking your lucky stars.

Noticing the runny yellow and crisp white of a fried egg. The chills up your spine every time you ride a scooter on a beautiful, windy road. No helmet. Listening to music you love, but don’t know well enough to have stories associated with it. These are Stefan Sagmeister’s – the show’s creator – happy moments.

Mine is on my bike. A vintage, Raleigh three-speed with a basket and a bell. Except I wear a helmet. And I don’t listen to music. I sing. Usually Rosemary Clooney’s “Do You Miss New York,” or Talking Heads’ “Road to Nowhere.”

“There’s a city in my mind, come along and take that ride and it’s all right. Baby, it’s all right.”

Sagmeister designed album covers for Talking Heads, as well as my hero, Lou Reed. I wonder if he designed Little Creatures, the album this song is from.

I am photographing every inch of the exhibit – Sagmeister’s 10-year exploration of happiness – literally. The language is so spot-on. I don’t want to forget a single word – all of it printed on yellow walls, in fonts that look like handwriting. Some words are cleverly crossed out. Perfectly imperfect.

Rules to live by, culled from Sagmeister’s diary, manifested in print, sculpture, video, and dance.

“Uselessness is gorgeous.”

Thousands of cigarette papers are taped to the wall with fans blowing on them. I step away from them to see the words embedded in the paper. It is gorgeous. I think about my friend Pam noting that I wear a $2 shirt from the Salvation Army with $85 underwear.

Not quite –$35 is my max.

“Make the first step.”

I watch a video of a group of Balinese girls performing a dance, unrolling strips of yellow fabric, displaying these words. Sagmeister recalls his mother approaching people, rather than waiting to be approached.

“I do this,” I think. Almost always.

“Over time I get used to everything and start taking it for granted.” Sagmeister writes the words with his finger – in the dirt on a car, in soapy suds on a man’s hairy chest. With playing cards and with hotdogs.

Yep. It’s true. And, Sagmeister explains, even the words “I love you,” said by the same person, become boring. I think about my ex-husband. In the year since our divorce, he has often told me that he misses our life together. And that I look really good.

I want to tell him he should have thought about that before he opted out, but I don’t. I know there are reasons our marriage stopped working. Among them, I am certain, that somewhere along the line we took one another, and our life together, for granted.

“Actually Doing the Things I Set Out to Do Increases My Overall Level of Satisfaction.” Agreed.

“Everybody Always Thinks They Are Right.” ‘Nuff said.

“Drugs Are Fun in the Beginning But Become a Drag Later On.” Ditto.

On my way out, I am asked to draw my symbol of happiness on a square of yellow paper. No smiley faces allowed. It is the second time I am asked to do this – the first time, on the way in, I draw a heart on one side, two stick figures holding hands on the other. This time I draw a daisy. I don’t know why. It just makes me smile. Like the flowers I buy for myself most every week at Trader Joes.

Hans – my favorite, morning check-out guy – once gave me sunflowers. Pulling them from my basket, he asked if the blooms were for me. When I told him that they were, he responded, “They are on me. And pick up a second bunch on the way out.” I think it made us both happy.

I walk through the exit, which has been made into art. The words, “every” precede “exit,” and “is also an entrance” follow it. As instructed, I push a button and take the card which shoots out. It reads, “Find a reflection of yourself and tell it what you really think.”

On the way out, I stop in the bathroom. I look in the mirror and whisper to myself, “You are lovely.” My lips curl into a big smile. And I am.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

And you? What do you say to your own reflection?

Artist Date 35: Disgusting, Filthy, Transcendent, Delicious Neruda

August 19, 2013 LesleyPearlLeave a comment

The other day my friend Gene asked what poetry I was reading. I wasn’t. I wasn’t reading anything at all. Nothing since the juicy Anne Sexton biography, the one that served as an introduction for us.

I asked him to make a suggestion. He didn’t hesitate.

Pablo Neruda.

“Disgusting, filthy, transcendent, delicious.” His words not mine. I was immediately hooked.

A few days later, I am at the Harold Washington Public Library, looking for Neruda – Artist Date 35.

I saw this place for the first time just a few months ago, on the way to a party in the South Loop. Driving down State Street, I asked my friend Liz what the building was with the great green gargoyles on top. She told me it was the library. I made a mental note and kept driving.

The gargoyles are calling me as I approach it. I feel giddy and excited to be here, in this place I’ve never been before.

Disgusting, filthy, transcendent, delicious. Seemingly homeless men are sitting on the low wall outside of the library. I take a photograph of the El train sign and am hit by the stench of sewer. I suddenly realize this is the Library stop. The only time I pass it is on my way to Midway airport, when I have to travel the whole of the Loop before heading south. I feel silly. Like I should have known.

I walk in a side door and follow the marble hallway to the main entrance. I have never been in a library this grand. The one at Michigan State University may have been larger, but it looked like post-Cold War “throw-up architecture.” Like the kind I saw in Dresden. Utilitarian.

I don’t recall visiting “the main library” in any city. I have tended toward community branches in Oakland, Seattle, the suburbs of Detroit, and here in Chicago. I am shocked and a little horrified. In fact, I don’t want to admit it here.

I think of George Peppard slipping his book into the stacks at the New York Public Library, Audrey Hepburn at his side. Genius.

Kids are playing ping-pong in the room to my left – some sort of summer program. Ping-pong. It feels almost quaint.

I climb the stairs to the third floor – circulation. I look up Neruda on the research computer that has replaced the card catalog. Seventh floor. On my way up, I read the quotes painted on to the walls.

“My Alma Mater is the Chicago Public Library,” David Mamet. “Wisdom begins in wonder,” Socrates.

I look at the sculptural art. Twisted wood. Women leaning against the wall. They look so serene. So comfortable. I want to lean in like that. Feel that safe.

I stop at the post highlighting today’s activities. “Inside the Whale,” a dance performance. The story of a woman swallowed by a whale, and how she learns to live in her own skin. Too bad I missed it. I could use a few tips.

I am looking for PQ8097.N428713. I wander into the language section. Books and magazines in Japanese, Russian, Arabic. I like how the characters look, neatly lined up in rows.

Continuing on, I am face to spine with a slew of books on publishing. How Fiction Works. Writing Erotic Romance. How to Grow a Novel.

I pull So You Want to Write: How to Master the Craft of Writing Fiction and Memoir by Marge Piercy and Ira Wood from the shelf. It does not seem like a mistake. I tuck in under my arm and keep walking until I find Neruda … waiting for me.

He is sloppy. His books are not lined up neatly, orderly. Some are lying on their sides. Others are upside down. I randomly pull a few and find a table.

Odes to Opposites. “Ode to the present.”

“This/moment/as smooth/as a board,/and fresh,/this hour/this day/as clean/as an untouched glass/ – not a single/spiderweb/from the past:…

“This is our/creation,/it’s growing/this very/instant,/kicking up/sand or eating/out of our hand./Catch it,/don’t let it slip away!/Keep it from vanishing into dreams/or words!/Grab it,/pin it down,/make it/obey!/Make it a road/or a bell,/a machine,/a kiss, a book/ or a caress.”

Yes. Make it into a kiss. Or a caress. Please do.

“…try a ladder!/Yes,/a ladder:/rise/out of the moment…Up and/up/but not too much – just high enough/to/patch the holes/in the roof./Not too far;/ you don’t want to reach heaven…You/are/your own moment,/your own apple:/pluck it/from your apple tree./Hold it up/in your/hand:/it shines/like a star./Stroke it,/sink your teeth into it – now off you go/whistling on your way.”

And I do. With this. With Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair. With Marge Piercy and Ira Wood.

Later that evening I receive an email from Gene. He wants to know if Neruda showed up for our date. I tell him that he did. That he was a total gentleman. But that I kind of wish he wasn’t…being divorced for nearly a year and all. I laugh at my own joke…and sink my teeth into this present.

Avoiding the Deliberate Manufacturing of Misery

August 16, 2013 LesleyPearlLeave a comment

Part of the “uniform” of my 20s was a black, suede backpack. I was living in San Francisco, but bought it at St. Mark’s Place in New York. Its contents varied depending on where I was going, but two things were a constant– condoms and a portable toothbrush.

These two items collectively served as a reminder that I was ready for anything. And that the world was full of possibilities. A sort of slutty message of hope.

I’m not in my 20s anymore.

And yet, I’ve been carrying around a handful of condoms in my bag – tucked into a zippered case, attached on a string – ever since my ex asked me for a divorce last May.

My friend Mary Kate noticed them last week when I was leaving her house, as I was pulling my keys out of the zippered case. I saw her glance. Not in a nosy way… just following my hands.

Busted.

I told her about the black backpack. San Francisco. The condoms and the toothbrush. How I felt like anything was possible.

I also told her I felt like a 14-year-old boy who carries around a condom for so long that his wallet is now imprinted with a circle. But that carrying them somehow reminded me that I’m ready. Like a Boy Scout. “Because you never know where you are going to meet someone…”

She laughed. She always laughs – it is one of her more charming qualities – and teasingly said, “Right. You’ll just meet some guy, bring him home and sleep with him?”

Hmmm…

She already knew the answer. So did I.

Once upon a time, “Yes.” But not anymore.

Not because I’ve had an ideological shift. It’s not a question of morals. Never has been. Just the painful awareness – which I’ve written about at length – that I am not capable of casual. And the guidance I’ve been given to avoid the manufacture of my own misery.

I learned that with Mr. Thursday Night last spring. And with the Southern Svengali in the fall.

It’s not about the sex. (Because we didn’t have sex.) It’s not about ridiculously-devilishly-handsome good looks. (Although both of them possessed those.)

It’s the connection. The energy. The emotional intimacy. That’s the turn on…and what ultimately brings me to a physical connection. I thought it was always my body moving too fast. But really it’s my mouth. My ears. My heart.

I mentioned this conversation to a friend the next day. She asked if it had occurred to me that every time I open that zippered case – which is several times a day, as I keep my keys in there also – I remind myself of the sex I am not having. Or, more to the point, of the intimacy – both physical and emotional – that I do not have in my life right now.

It had not.

The deliberate manufacturing of my own misery.

She continued speaking but I heard little of what she said as I was stuck on this new idea. I unzipped the pouch, pulled out the sleeve of condoms, walked into my bedroom and put them in the drawer next to my bed. All the while, she kept talking.

“I just took them out of my bag,” I interrupted.

I added that should I find myself in the position where I “just have to have sex, right here, right now,” I can go to a Walgreens – most of them are open 24/7.

“Perhaps that would serve as a pause,” she replied.

Genius.

It’s been a little over a week since I took the condoms out of my bag. And the world still feels full of possibilities.

Epilogue: In taking photographs for this blog, I noticed that the condoms had expired. I promptly tossed them in the trash.

Artist Date 34: In It’s Proper Place

August 12, 2013 LesleyPearlLeave a comment

I hired a professional organizer.

I have admitted that so many areas of my life had become unmanageable, and then asked for help. So why not here? I’m tired of the stacks and stacks of paper that have no home.

I am, as Maggie – the professional organizer – said, “the tidiest, unorganized person” she has ever met.

We met last week for a consultation. My assignment prior to our first paid meeting, this coming Tuesday, was to go to The Container Store and “just browse.” My only guidance was to think of “boxes” – four of them. In. Out. To Be Dealt With. Want to Keep – Just Because.

We agreed I would take photographs of items that interested me, but that I would buy nothing. It seemed like an easy Artist Date – Number 34.

I was mistaken.

I rode my bike over to The Container Store this afternoon. Tossed my basket in a cart and began my work. Up and down every aisle.

Almost immediately, I was overcome with sadness. All around me, groups of people. Couples shopping together. Roommates shopping together. Moms and dads and bound-for-college kids shopping together. Together.

I remembered shopping here with my ex – when we moved to Chicago for his residency. I felt wistful stumbling over the collapsible mesh cubes – the kind we bought to store our record albums. He didn’t think they would work well, but I knew better. Three of them sat under the Parson’s table, holding our music collection – his and mine. I left them in Seattle.

Albums I bought in high school at Sam’s Jams in Ferndale. The Specials, debut album of the same name. Elvis Costello, “Punch the Clock.” Howard Jones, “Human’s Lib.” My mother’s copy of the original Broadway production of “Hair.” My brother’s copy of Queen, “A Night at the Opera.” There is a piece of masking tape on the front cover with his name and our telephone number written in magic marker. I’m not sure how I ended up with it.

I knew every word to every song, having spent hours on my blue-shag carpeting, in my bedroom, singing along with the words printed on the album sleeves.

I don’t have a record player, so I left them. Plus, they were too cumbersome to pack. Funny thing is, it’s not the lost records that choked me up. It was the damn mesh cubes.

And the laundry aisle. I remember spending hours trying to find just the right laundry bin to collect my massage sheets and take them back and forth from my office to home, to be washed and folded. First I bought a cart with the idea that I would take the train to and from my office. With sheets. In the winter. I quickly gave up this environmentally-conscious fantasy and started driving to work.

I found a lot where they cut me a deal because I was a local business owner – $14 a day. A steal, considering I was right off of Michigan Avenue.

Tony, the Palestinian kid who hooked me up, got fired right before I moved away. I always felt badly about it – even though I hadn’t done anything wrong. I used a red, collapsible “laundry” backpack to haul my sheets the six blocks from the lot to my office.

I missed having someone to discuss options with today. I suppose that is why I took photographs, to discuss them with Maggie.

I looked at fabric bins. Metal bins. Cardboard bins – some made of bright, solid colors, others printed with flowers and graphic designs. Bins made of recycled paper. I snapped photographs of each product and its accompanying card, describing the item and listing its price.

I got distracted by travel supplies. Luggage tags. Hanging dop kits. (I need a new one. Mine is torn.) And Ziploc bags for creating more packing space – like the space bags I used when moving cross-country. I stacked my dresses and trousers inside, while Michael used a vacuum cleaner to suck the air out. We were giddy when the first was complete. Shrink wrapped clothes.

I remembered that I needed hooks for hand-towels in my bathroom. Milk crates for my prayer and meditation nook – to lift my deities and ritual items off of the floor, and to be covered with a piece of fabric I bought in the market in Kigali.

I also remembered that Maggie and I discussed finding a solution that didn’t involve putting anything else on the dining table – which is also my writing desk, my art table, and where I spend about 80 percent of my time when I am home.

I looked at hanging solutions. There weren’t many. A few different kinds of folders that hang from the wall. Some painted metal. Some plastic.

Then I wandered into the Elfa department – custom solutions for the closet. So complex there are employees specific to just this department. I know people go wild for the yearly Elfa sale, as it is pricey.

And yet, open, wire drawers on casters seemed to make sense. With a top to hold my printer. I looked at other shelving units as well. I remembered our conversation about rethinking how I consider my dining area. That is it really more multi-purpose. Think function rather than fois gras or fondue. I serve neither. But I do throw a hell of a dinner party. And it needs to work for those occasions too – especially as Rosh Hashanah is right around the corner and for the past 19 years I have, more often than not, hosted a holiday meal for stray Jews and others.

I thought about my friend Tom who is going to string two lines of wire across the wall opposite the windows so I can hang photographs, cards and collages with metal clips – slightly reminiscent of the drying lines in the darkroom I once inhabited.

I picked up several catalogs, tucked them into my bike basket, and did a final sweep of the store.

I felt myself welling up the entire ride home. I wanted to be excited but I wasn’t. I was sad. Acutely aware that this was yet another step in creating my home, my life, without my ex. Acutely aware that we don’t talk much lately – my choice, to save both my heart and my sanity. All of this necessary, but still painful – nearly a year after our divorce was final. Time takes time.

I thought about something Maggie said. That there is always something more under the disorganization – something else going on. She believed the stacks of paper, the lack of “home” for my things, was me being afraid I couldn’t put my hands on something when I needed it. A need to keep all of my things near.

My friend Kevin refers to this as my issue with object impermanence. The notion that until a certain age, children do not believe in that which they cannot see. Put a towel over your hand, et voila, you have no hand. At least in their minds.

It’s like that with me and people sometimes. If I can’t put my hands on them – see them, feel them, hear them – it is as if they were never there. It’s better than it used to be. At least to me. I’m not sure what Kevin would say.

So this organizing business – finding a home for my things, learning to be ok with them in their proper place – maybe it will spill over into the other areas of my life. That the people I can’t put my hands on anymore – for a variety of reasons –perhaps they too will find new homes. Tucked away in my heart. Never gone. But in their proper place.

I Just Haven’t Met You Yet

August 8, 2013 LesleyPearlLeave a comment

I’ve been keeping a nightly gratitude list now for close to 10 years. The practice was first suggested by my then spiritual-business teacher, Anne Sagendorph-Moon.

I would buy small, lovely journals and packages of 36 fine-point markers, and each night, in bed, write my list – a different color for each blessing in my life.

The practice has taken different shapes and forms over the years. For the past few, I have done it on my computer, exchanging my list via e-mail with a friend in San Francisco.

So whenever a gratitude list is suggested as a part of any spiritual practice, in my head I tick it off as “Got it.” “Done.” Until yesterday. When I had a *new* experience.

I am in week 2 of Walking in the World, Julia Cameron’s follow up to The Artist’s Way. The book resonates deeply for me as walking and writing were the only things that made any sense during my divorce. Either action had the power to ground me – almost immediately. Still do.

My assignment yesterday was to take a 20-minute walk, with the intention of naming the blessings in my life with each foot fall.

Off I went, down Ainslie Street towards Winnemac Park – a few short blocks away from my home. A place where I can duck into short paths, surrounded by tall, weedy plants, and feel like I am far away. As I began walking, I began naming – to myself, my lips moving in the silence.

“I have a home. I am in Chicago. Japanese maples.” It felt contrived, forced…but I kept muttering to myself anyway. “My friend Julie. Michigan blueberries. I know how to be alone.”

I was flummoxed. Was it really true? Did I really know how to be alone? Not just survive sans partner, all the while “wishin and hopin and dreamin,” but really know how to be alone and really be ok with it? Even grateful for it?

Yes. I think so.

This is not to say I wouldn’t like to meet a mate. It’s a pretty universal desire, as my friend Mary Kate pointed out to me. But it is how I live my life “in the in between” or “until that time” that determines my “ok-ness.”

I’ve been great with the action part, filling my life with dance, writing, friendship and family. Travel. Writing. Recovery. It’s the perception part that was kicking my ass. Until it wasn’t.

I’m not sure what happened. I used to think being alone meant I was a loser. Unloveable. Undesirable. I suddenly don’t feel that way anymore. I see my aloneness, to quote a good-bad Michael Buble song, as “I just haven’t met you yet.”

I remember being in my 20s. My friend Carlos set me up with his business partner – a Jewish doctor. He owned a great, stone cottage on a lake. Good art work. But we had little in common. Little to talk about. I wasn’t excited. About him. About us.

But I liked the idea of him. Of us. And I thought, “I can make this work.”

Thankfully I didn’t have to. I got a job offer in San Francisco not long after we met. The universe at work.

I recently had that thought again. I met a man. Nice looking. Easy to talk to – especially about our divorces. But that was where it ended. We didn’t have much else to say.

As I was having those “this could work” fantasies, it hit me – why would I bother?

I know what it is like to meet someone and feel literally swept off my feet, equilibrium disrupted. To wonder how it is we ever didn’t know one another. To have so much to say to one another that we both wonder how we will ever get it all out…but delight in trying anyway.

This wasn’t it.

So I added to my list: Grateful to know what excited feels like. To have experienced it. To remember it. To have faith that I will experience it again.

Grateful to know when I’m not excited. And to know I would rather be alone than to settle. To know how to be alone so that I am never beholden to anyone again.

And then…

I am grateful to know what great sex is like. I am grateful to know what it feels like for someone to be wild about me. To not be able to keep their mitts off of me. Touching my hair, my face, my hands, my ass. Kissing me in the middle of a crowded room because he “just had to.”

Thank you Mr. Sexy Photographer from Detroit. Thank you short, horny, Jewish artist. It was a long time ago. But I remember. And I have got to believe these weren’t limited-one-time exclusive offers either.

That is a new idea. To believe in abundance in ALL things. Including love.

I am grateful for that too. And for the women who promised me I would arrive here one day. The ones who cry when I share this with them. They are abundance. They are love. I am loved. And grateful for it.

A Wandering Jewess

My Journey Back To Self

Tag: divorce