Looking for Ladybugs

October 10, 2014 LesleyPearl3 Comments

My friend Kerry told me to look for ladybugs while I was in Italy.

He was referring to the part of the movie, Under the Tuscan Sun, when the sexy, older ex-pat from London tells Frances, a recently divorced American reinventing herself in Italy, that looking for love is like looking for ladybugs. That when she was a child, she would spend hours looking for them, eventually tiring and falling asleep in the grass. And when she awoke she would find herself covered in them.

I wasn’t sure I was looking for love in Italy. Or even a romance – although I assured him and others that my heart was open to the possibility. However, as the days to my departure date grew more near, I was more than certain I was here to do something.

I saw my first ladybug when I arrived in Umbria, 24 hours after arriving in Rome.

After I nearly took the wrong bus from Arezzo to Cita de Castello – twice – and a young man named Leonardo approached me, offering help in English. After we spoke for nearly 45 minutes – talking about writing and language and being “black sheep” – and friending one another on Facebook.

After Giulia and Elide – my contacts for the AltroCioccolato, the “other” chocolate festival I came to volunteer for – picked me up at the bus station. And after bringing me to Roberto’s house – one of the festival’s founders – where I sat in the sun while he plied me with buffalo mozzarella, tomatoes – shiny with olive oil, and espresso.

It was a few hours later, driving to pick up groceries at a biological food co-op. A large ladybug graced a sign announcing that our destination, The Happy Worm, lay ahead.

The next day, I saw three more. One embellished a pizza parlor sign. Another, actually a mess of them, covered a car steering wheel.

The final one landed on another of the volunteers – Duncan, the youngest of the group and the only other American. He asked me if I wanted it, knowing nothing of Kerry and our conversation. I told him I did. He put his arm next the mine and the ladybug crawled over to me without any prodding. And refused to leave.

That night, I found myself in the city’s hospital. What had merely been a health nuisance while I was in the states had escalated enough for me to make contact with healthcare professionals back home at .99 a minute.

I was fairly certain I would have difficulty getting a live voice at Northwestern Hospital, so I called my physical therapist to ask her advice. She told me to call my doctor. That she wasn’t comfortable giving advice on this matter. When I told her I didn’t have an internet connection, she looked up the number for me.

Several holds, disconnects and phone calls later, I was advised by a medical assistant to seek attention.

I knocked on Giulia’s door and told her I needed to go to the hospital. As she dressed, my roommate Ingrid, from the UK, offered to join us for moral support. In the piazza at midnight in this sleepy village Giulia – a native of Italy – asked around for a cab. A stranger offered to drive us, dropping us off at the hospital and wishing us buona fortuna — good luck in Italian.

Ninety minutes later I was warmly assured by a doctor that I was in fact, ok. I received a bill for 25 euros which I was instructed to pay the next day. And Elide – whom Giulia had called – drove us home.

Earlier that evening, in the hospital, I broke down in tears. Overwhelmed. Afraid. And aware that my ex-husband, a doctor – was no longer “my person.” That I was “alone.” Giulia responded, wrapping her arms around me and saying, “We are your family.”

And I realized that ladybugs weren’t just on signs and steering wheels and the arms of volunteers. That ladybugs – that love – followed me everywhere. All the way to Italy. To Umbria. Just south of the Tuscan sun.

Why Yes, I Am A Tourist

October 5, 2014 LesleyPearl1 Comment

First gelato in Rome... — First gelato in Rome…

I used to have this thing about being a tourist.

I never wanted to ask for directions. Carry a map. I didn’t even want to do anything “touristy” – including going to the top of the Eiffel Tower. (Thank goodness it was rainy and cold and there was no line, so I submitted. And, of course, it was fabulous!)

Instead I got lost in the neighborhoods of Puerta Vallarta – where a kind stranger took pity on my ex and me, intuitively knowing we couldn’t possibly be in the right place and asked us where we were trying to go.

Somehow I associated it all with white Reeboks. A fanny pack and speaking very loudly.

The last time I traveled alone – and by alone I mean not meeting a friend or traveling together as a group, which means Dublin and Rwanda don’t count – I went to France.

I was participating in a volunteer project, but I started off with a few days on my own in Paris. Intent on playing the part of the Parisian.

That night I wandered the streets of the City of Lights, slightly drunk – alone. I was scolded for smoking in the non-smoking section of an outdoor café. (Who knew there was one? In Paris!) And I called my then-husband sobbing. I had wanted to travel alone. And suddenly I felt very alone. I didn’t like it.

The days that followed weren’t much better. That is, until the day I left for Avignon to join my volunteer team, when I was able to remember a single word of French and use it, thus communicating with an old woman at the train station. “Plutar.” She lit up. “Plutar! Plutar!” Yes, yes, I was going to Avignon too – later.

So I was a little bit nervous about coming to Italy alone. Even though I chose it.

I know traveling alone can be lonely. And scary. There is no one to get lost with. And it has been my experience that getting lost together is far less scary than getting lost alone. And yet, at the end of my first day in Rome, I haven’t gotten lost. And I don’t feel lonely. Or alone.

Perhaps because I’ve asked a lot of questions. Of the teenage boys on the train from the airport. “Why did so many kids get on all at once at this stop? Is there school on Sunday?” (Nope. Game and comic festival.) Of the man behind the counter at the newsstand. “Can I buy a ticket for Tram 8 here?” (Yes.)

And of a woman on the platform in the middle of the street. “Is this the right stop for Tram 8 going towards the city center?” (Yes. And she even reminded me when we got to the third stop, my stop. I had mentioned it to her.)

I asked my host where I might eat and he suggested the very same place as a friend of mine in the United States had. And then I asked him to show me on a map how to get there.

I ambled. I rambled. I looked for street names on buildings and found them on about one-third. I held out my map and “stood in it” like Joey did in London on Friends.

I got lost. I got found. Or maybe I just got turned around. But I didn’t panic. And along the way I heard music in Piazza Santa Maria Trastevere and enjoyed my first gelato of the trip – yogurt, pistachio-hazelnut-chocolate and single-sourced cocoa. And just before handing me the cup, the server lopped on an extra spatula full…just because.

I took things slowly. I found my way to the river, crossed over and made my way to Piazza Campo De Fiore. Yes, given the time I can read a map. I also found the famed Grom gelato – there’s an outpost shop in Manhattan – but decided to save it for another day. However that didn’t keep me from checking out the flavors at another shop and tasting the ginseng and one with candied fruit when invited to.

I finished with dinner at Ai Spaghettari – where my host and my friend had suggested and I had the carbonara, also suggested, along with melon and prosciutto and a macchiato.

All around me were Italians glued to the soccer match on television, and a fair number of Americans plotting their next move. And I was one of them.

I’ll Be Your Mirror

October 1, 2014 LesleyPearlLeave a comment

Overlooking Lake Michigan, at Dawes Park...where, up until this year, my congregation has done tashlich. — Overlooking Lake Michigan, at Dawes Park…where, up until this year, we have done tashlich.

A couple of weeks ago I received an email from my rabbi. It was not directed to me individually, but to the entire congregation. After 17 years with our synagogue, he was leaving.

I wasn’t entirely surprised. But I didn’t know how I felt about it, or what to say, either. So I did nothing. No email. No phone call. Which, for this rather impulsive person, is growth.

Except that I continued to do nothing.

I skipped a part of Rosh Hashanah tradition, tashlich – joining the rabbi and cantor and other congregants at Lake Michigan to empty my pockets of the residue of the past year. That which I no longer needed. And considered skipping second day Rosh Hashanah services too.

This was highly unusual.

I’ve been blessed with a close, personal relationship with my rabbi. He led me through my conversion and through my get, my Jewish divorce. I traveled to Africa with him and other congregants during the summer of my divorce, and I have met with him more or less monthly for the better part of the past five years.

And it hit me. I was avoiding. Or at least I think I was avoiding. Rather than facing the pain of change, of uncertainty, of not knowing what to say, I chose to ignore it, ignore him – telling myself I would say something eventually. When I had the right words.

I wondered if these were the same thoughts that The Chef and Mr. 700 Miles had when they chose not to further pursue a romance but didn’t or couldn’t say anything about it.

I was doing what had (potentially – I’ll never know for certain as I do not live in their minds) been done to me.

I first had the realization I was not free from this behavior a couple of weeks ago. Just before returning to San Francisco, my home for 14 years.

I had a friend there I knew I owed an amends to – I just wasn’t sure what it was.

About four or five years ago I told her I needed space. Without warning. Without lead up. I did not return a couple of her phone calls in a timely manner, and when she called me on it – in a voicemail, simply asking if she had done something wrong and if, in fact, I was ok – I responded with an email, something along the lines of “I need space. I’m sure you understand.”

She replied that she did not understand, but would honor my request. And, with the exception of a single message wishing me well I was moving to Seattle, and my thank you in response, we had not spoken since.

Until a couple of weeks ago.

When, preparing for my trip, I realized I had done to her what had been done to me — almost. I left without explanation – almost without a word.

I phoned before my visit and asked if we might meet. If I might right my wrongs. She graciously said yes, and we did.

My amends was simple. That I had walked away when she needed me most, with barely a word or an explanation. That I had been selfish. That I had been wrong.

And then we talked.

About who she had been in my life and who I had been in hers. How she remembered things and how I remembered them. About why I had not been able to be there for her – because of “my stuff” and how it and I got triggered. Things I had never told her.

There were tears. And there was healing, for both of us.

I found myself thinking that perhaps The Chef and Mr. 700 Miles had come into my life, at least in part, to be my mirrors. To show me my behavior.

Mr. 700 Miles finally did make contact with me. His words were simple. That he had “left” because he fell in love with someone else. That he was sorry. And with those words that last bit of wondering, that last bit of residue, was gone. Like the residue I would normally rid myself of at tashlich.

I wanted to write back, “Thank you,” or “Was that so hard?” But I did nothing – other than thank him and wish him well in my heart.

However, I did make contact with my rabbi. I sent him an email that night after the tashlich that wasn’t. I apologized for having been so silent. I told him I had assumed he might be overwhelmed by the response of congregants and others to his news.

And I told him I didn’t know what to say. But that I honored his decision. The graceful way he was moving through this transition. And that I hoped we would find our way to a new chapter in our friendship.

I did go to second day Rosh Hashanah services, where we talked briefly about what I had written. My tears drowning out my words.

I let them flow, rather than trying to talk through them. No longer avoiding. No longer doing what I thought had only been done to me.

Artist Date 89: Fifteen, Sixteen, Seventeen…Twenty-Two

September 26, 2014October 31, 2014 LesleyPearlLeave a comment

Walking west on the new Bay Bridge, while the old one is torn apart, cast away... — Walking west on the new Bay Bridge, while the old one is torn apart, cast away…

I am a marker of time. I look for patterns in numbers, hoping to find or make meaning of them.

Like last week.

I had been aware of the numerical arrangement in front of me for awhile.

September 15. My spousal support would be cut almost in half. September 16. Two years since the dissolution of my marriage was made final. September 17. My Divorce Buddy’s birthday. The man who walked lock step with me on this path. Also the day I would board a plane bound for San Francisco, for a friend’s wedding.

The same friend whose home I stayed in the last time I was in the Bay Area. When every morning I would write “I am alone because I am getting ready to be alone.” The words gliding off my pen, seemingly without thought or effort on my part. When my then-husband asked for a divorce.

It all seemed “full circle.” As it should be. Recognizing the pattern, the blog began writing itself. The same way those prophetic words did each morning. Of themselves.

And yet, September 15 came without fan fare. I did not check my bank account to confirm the new, lesser amount had been deposited. The 16th was much the same. I felt, remarkably, “nothing.”

On the 17th, I forgot to call my Divorce Buddy to wish him a happy birthday. (Unlike me, he’s not a marker of time. I imagine he may have been grateful for the oversight.) I was too busy packing.

Which left me wondering about 18, 19, 20 and beyond.

Eighteen had me meditating in Golden Gate Park — returning to the “twice” in my twice-daily practice — and then running into my first massage instructor. (Ironic, as I was staying just a few blocks from the massage school I attended and later, where I taught — although I didn’t realize it until I arrived and looked out the window.)

Nineteen, 20 and 21 had me walking on the Bay Bridge and dancing under redwood trees, all the while fielding the persistent question, “When are you moving back?”

My answer, a surprising and consistent, “I don’t know.” Followed by the insistence that “I’m just waiting for the earth to stop shifting beneath me.” And “The universe will tell me.”

It always does. Oblivious to any date on the calendar.

Like it did on 22, my last full day in San Francisco. The only day of my seven with alone time specifically set aside. I returned to Golden Gate Park — to the Japanese Tea Gardens, a place I had never been before. And then to Ocean Beach. A place I went often…especially when life felt crazy. I’d stand in the sand, squint my eyes and wonder if I could see across to the other side if I tried hard enough…knowing I never could.

The place I took my ex-husband on our first date. Where I kissed him for the first time. The ocean wind whipping my once long hair around my face, showering it with a fine mist of salt water.

I sat on the white-washed wall separating the beach from the parking lot, wishing I had something to throw into the ocean. Something to “give away,” to further separate me from him. To further cut the ties that had kept me tethered — unknowingly, until this trip — to him. I had nothing. Nothing but words. A prayer.

“Let the love that began here, let it end here. Let it wash out with the tides. And let something new wash in.”

Twenty-three I arrived home. The eve of 24, on the Jewish calendar, a new year began.

Twenty-five. Today. I worshipped in synagogue this morning but skipped taslich — the ritual casting away of sins, that which no longer serves us. I had already done it…a few days early.

And I prayed, “…let something new wash in.”

Artist Date 88: Tied

September 14, 2014 LesleyPearlLeave a comment

It’s Sunday and I’m not at dance class…which feels really weird. I’ll be away more than here – to San Francisco in September and Italy the following month – so it didn’t really make sense to enroll this session. Except it’s “what I do.” Except today.

The sun is hot, the air is crisp and the sky is a perfectly blue sky blue. The kind of day I would lament missing if I were in the dance studio.

I jump on my bike and pedal to Wicker Park for the Renegade Craft Fair: Artist Date 88.

There’s a DJ spinning records and it’s all I can do to not spontaneously bust into dance. Although I’m pretty sure no one would mind.

There is leather and pottery. Fibers and lithographs. And lots and lots of jewelry.

I strike up a conversation with a young jewelry maker from Wisconsin. We talk about art school – where she went, my desire to go. She is flanked by her mother who notes the wholehearted support she offered her daughter in following her bliss.

For years I blamed my parents for my not going to art school. Truth told, I don’t think I had the drive, let alone the chops. I fancied myself a fine artist but I didn’t have the discipline. A discipline I only found later in life – much later, in my 40s, when I took on Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way for a second time.

Feeling desperate, crazy and on my knees, I embraced the book as others might the Bible or the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Viewing it as a salvation. The keys to the kingdom. The yellow brick road.

I took on nearly every suggestion – most noteworthy, the bogeyman – the Artist Date. That hour or so alone each week to fill my creative coffers. Scheduled. Planned. And penciled in to my calendar.

A commitment to myself and my creativity.

It changed my life. And I’m pretty sure saved it. Or at least my sanity. It forced me to focus on me. Not in a navel-gazing way, but more in a “What have you done for me, lately,” Janet Jackson kind of way. Except I’m not asking some no-goodnik while dancing at a diner…I’m asking myself.

When I speak of it, I feel like the Pied Piper. And today I should have brought my flute.

I run into my friend Whitney, who introduces me to a colleague, who innocently asks, “What brings you here?”

The answer seems obvious. The art. The weather. The promise of Black Dog Gelato. Instead, I tell her about The Artist Date.

As I speak, I become excited by own story. Almost as if it is someone else’s story. And I am reminded that my life is really quite magical. That I AM the woman I always wanted to be. A cool, creative, urban chick. Like the women I saw in photographs when I was 12 – waiting on line for a shave or a Mohawk on Astor Place in New York.

It is the same feeling I have talking to the boys from San Francisco – where I lived for 14 years – who make and sell tea, T-We. We talk about what took me there – a job. And what brought me here – love. For my then husband, when I followed him to Chicago for medical residency. And later for myself, the people, and the place itself – when I returned by choice, alone, a little more than two years ago.

It’s the feeling I have trying to put a ribbon into an old manual typewriter – part of a salon set up on Division Street by a woman renting vintage furniture. I tell her I learned to write on a typewriter – an IBM Selectric – when I was in journalism school. About editing the newspaper on boards. Printed stories rolled on to glass with wax and hacked at with a blue marker to fit the page. It is the work that took me to San Francisco. To Germany and Israel.

It’s the feeling I have talking with the woman who make shoes with ribbon laces – MOPED. I am lacing up a pair with gold ribbons and wonder aloud if they might not serve me well in Italy.

We talk about volunteering overseas. My upcoming flight of fancy at a fair-trade chocolate festival in Umbria, where I will live in an apartment with other volunteers from around the globe, and play out my “I live in Europe” fantasy. I tell her about volunteering in Rwanda and in the South of France. How traveling this way allows me to go alone without being alone. How it ties me to people and place and purpose.

Like the ribbons I pick to take with me – seven in total. Purple. Black. Grey. Pink stripes. Navy stripes. Silver glitter. Gold.

Ribbons that tie me to these shoes.

To the ground. To myself. To this life. The one a 12-year-old imagined – right down to the shave.

Hacked

September 7, 2014 LesleyPearl2 Comments

“Hey.”

I’ve been waiting nearly six months for this. Not this exactly. But something like it.

Not waiting exactly. I stopped doing that, having expectations, a long time ago. But those close to me assured me I would hear something – some sort of word or gesture or acknowledgment – someday.

Tuesday is someday.

I am leaving dinner with my girlfriends at the Birchwood Kitchen. Lindsey and I are considering going to Martyrs to hear an Afro-Caribbean band. Our friend Toast has put us on the guest list.

I look down at my phone. There’s a Facebook message. It is from Mr. 700 Miles.

My heart stops.

Mr. 700 Miles. The first man who ever walked out of my life without a word. (Strangely, I have had this experience twice now. I’m certain there is some sort of lesson in here I haven’t yet mastered.)

A man I grew up with but didn’t really know. He lives about 700 miles from Chicago – ergo the name.

He was going through a divorce when we reconnected on Facebook. I was on the other side of mine. Our stories were remarkably similar. Very quickly, an intimacy blossomed between us – first in status updates. Then in private messages, telephone calls and Skype dates.

I was smitten. I felt like I’d always known him. And at the same time, like I’d been waiting my whole life to meet him.

And then one day he was gone. No call. No text. No Facebook message.

I reached out to him a single time – about five days after missing our Skype date – and left him a message telling him it was clear he couldn’t “do this.” That I had no desire to convince him otherwise. And that I was sad. Sad we weren’t “doing this.” But more than that, sad he couldn’t tell me.

I reminded him we were friends. That we had always been friends. I told him I wasn’t angry, and implored him to contact me. To tell me what was going on for him.

Two hours later, when I hadn’t heard from him, I knew that I wouldn’t.

And then, Tuesday…”Hey.”

I looked up from my phone, leaned into Lindsey and said, “Let’s go hear music and dance.” My reaction surprised me.

Once upon a time I would have freaked out. I would have burst into tears. Or worse, burst into drama.

Once upon a time I would have dashed home (no mind that I had other plans) and called or messaged him and waited for his reply. Or if I did go out, I would check my phone all night. Or at the very least, I would talk about it, about him, and nothing else – all night.

That’s not what happened.

Instead, I sent a text to a mentor and friend who knows every intimate detail of the story of Mr. 700 Miles. I let her know I had received his message. That I was going to hear music with Lindsey. And planned to do nothing until morning.

And Lindsey and I did talk about it, about him – some. And we talked about other things too.

She marveled at my calm. I felt empowered.

“I’ve been ‘waiting’ six months. He can wait a night. Let him squirm.”

These are not my words. But there they were.

And then we danced. At times, we were the only ones on the floor. I felt confident and sexy. I wondered if the bass player was single. I did not check my phone a single time.

Around 10:30, we left.

When I arrived home, I went to his Facebook page. Some wise, intuitive part of me guided me there. His status read, “I was hacked please don’t open messages.” (No punctuation.)

My heart sank a little. Not because I wanted him “back.” Not because I still wanted to “do this.” Because I thought I might get an answer. A courtesy. Because I thought my friends might be right.

Because I thought he might prove to be closer to the man I thought he was, instead of the frightened boy he turned out to be. Because I missed my friend.

But in that sinking, I recognized a victory. A miracle, really. My response, or lack thereof. And it was all mine, regardless of who reached out to me, Mr. 700 Miles or his Hacker. I acted different. I was different. I didn’t try to be. I just was.

I didn’t just feel empowered, I was empowered. I didn’t just feel confident and sexy, I was confident and sexy.

And I did not check my phone a single time.

Artist Date 86: On a Scooter, With a Boy in Front and Chocolate in my Pocket

August 26, 2014 LesleyPearlLeave a comment

Final moments in St. Victor la Coste, France. I hiked up to this crumbling castle every day.

I leave for Italy in 39 days.

I only recently bought my plane ticket, and just last week decided exactly where I will spend the days following my volunteer work in Umbria. I have not booked a single night at a hotel, pensione, hostel or airbnb.

This is highly unusual for me.

By now I would have secured a room for all of my nights, and outlined a rough itinerary of my days – making certain I knew when each museum closed. I learned this from my friend Tim, who saved the Louvre for his last day in Paris, not realizing it closed on Tuesdays. He has lovely pictures of the outside.

I would have purchased my train tickets and made copies of my passport. My travel books would be dog-eared and yellowed with highlighter.

I have done none of this. I’m not sure why.

And so I find myself tucked into a big chair in the back of the Book Cellar, pouring over travel guides – more out of necessity than anything. Fodors. Rough Guide. Lonely Planet. Thick books on the whole of Italy. Thinner versions on Rome, Florence and Tuscany. Artist Date 86.

I recall my first travels overseas – press trips to Germany and Israel. I was in my 20s and had dreamed of traveling abroad. Everything was handled for me. Flights. Hotel. Itinerary. And yet, I sat at San Francisco International Airport before each trip – terrified.

Flying out of SFO in 1999 to Spain – my first overseas trip with my then boyfriend, now ex-husband — felt wholly different. I wasn’t alone.

One Saturday morning we somewhat impulsively bid on Priceline tickets to Madrid. By afternoon, we were sprawled out on the floor of Borders Books – leaving a few hours later with copies of Frommers – Europe on $100 a day and Madrid, Barcelona and Seville.

We traveled overseas together several times over the next few years – me carefully crafting an itinerary each time. Yet, a part of me longed to travel alone, as so many of my friends had done after college.

And at 37, I do it.

At the time, I feel too old to throw a rucksack on my back, sleep in hostels and shower in train stations. I find a trip volunteering in the south of France, building walls as part of an architectural restoration project.

I spend a few days in Paris by myself when I arrive. It does not feel glamorous and exciting as I had imagined. It feels scary and lonely. I wander the streets alone, slightly drunk and call my then husband — crying. A few days later I join my team in Avignon. Surrounded by volunteers from around the word, ranging in age from 21 to 73, I feel joyous and free. I have found my place, my role. I am the friendly American who drinks too much and gives massages.

Building walls in the South of France. 2006.

Eight years later, (I will turn 45 in Italy) I do not drink anymore. I do not have a husband anymore. These things that I leaned into ceased to serve me long ago. This time, this trip, I must lean into myself. My hesitation in planning suddenly makes sense. I am afraid.

And yet, I have a plan, a purpose – I am again joining volunteers from around the globe. This time, at the Altrocioccolato Festival – known as the “other chocolate festival” – outside of Perugia. This time, my alone time is on the back-end of the trip – and I will have a better sense of place. This time I have people, “waiting” for me in church basements. People who also used to drink too much but don’t anymore – people like me.

My friend Pam says I will go to Italy and meet a boy on a scooter and never come home. She tells me that I am brave. That she doesn’t know anyone else our age doing what I am doing – traveling, alone. I do not feel brave.

And I remember what I’ve been told, that bravery isn’t the absence of fear, it is walking through it anyway.

Or perhaps flying through it – direct from Chicago to Rome on Alitalia. Or riding a scooter through it – an Italian boy in front, and chocolate in my pocket.

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.

Artist Date 83: On The Path All Along

August 5, 2014 LesleyPearlLeave a comment

I’m late.

I peel myself away from the Lebanese pastries – empanada-like sweets filled with sweet cheese, the other with nuts, covered in rosewater – special for Ramadan. From this conversation which is at once both playful and real. That reminds me what it feels like to connect deeply. To be met spiritually.

I dash into my apartment and dial into the conference call – 7 Pathways to Freedom, Love and Abundance. Artist Date 83.

Debbie is mid-meditation. I sit down at the table, rest my feet on the bar that goes across the underside of it, close my eyes and let myself fall into her words.

She suggested the workshop following my most recent clairvoyant reading and healing. It made sense to me. I knew I needed a pathway. Or more to the point, help continuing on the path I am on. Lately, I’m having trouble seeing the road.

Nearly two years out of my divorce, I expected to be, to have been, in a relationship by now. I expected to be financially fully self-supporting.

I’ve had men in my life. Moments of romance and intimacy.

Months of late-night phone calls navigating the sloppy paths of our mutual divorces, followed by a road trip on the sloppy path cross-country that brought me home. Hours-long make-out sessions lasting from steamy evening into near dawn. Skype dates where I bared my soul, and my body, on the promise we’d “give it a go,” throwing caution to the 700 miles that lay between us.

I’ve had work.

A place to show up – more days than not. Money. Benefits that don’t fit neatly into an offer package. No health insurance or paid-time off. Instead, the opportunity to make an impact. To work with others. To stumble in a safe place. And to shine brightly too.

Cobbled together with the cash and prizes of divorce, I’ve had enough to live on. More than.

But I want more. More than moments. More than enough without spousal support. (Which, sooner rather than later, I will no longer receive.)

My hope is that something will open up for me in this workshop. Some chakra blockage will get knocked loose.

I close my eyes and listen to Debbie’s words. I am overcome with shame.

Shame for the relationships in my life where feelings don’t match.

Shame for the sex I’m not having.

Shame that I was set free…and remain free.

(The words slip off of my fingertips now, in real-time, as I write. Freedom. One of the promises of the workshop. It is not lost on me. But in workshop time I only feel shame.)

“I am ashamed that my friend’s feelings don’t match my own.” The words slip past my lips as we share our experiences of the meditation.

(And again, in real-time, I realize this is not exactly true. I think of this particular relationship, where we share a deep connection – a love for one another that is acknowledged often and freely by us both. What is not matched is where we are in our lives – what each of us is available for.)

I speak my embarrassing, humiliating truth and nothing bad happens.

A half hour later we disconnect. I do not recall a thing I have heard. I am grateful for the audio link which will arrive the next day.

I brush my teeth, wash my face, and write my nightly gratitude list. I am grateful I do not feel like calling Mr. 700 Miles today. For Lebanese pastry and time with a friend who loves me. I am grateful for therapy tomorrow and the Cheryl Strayed book I am reading, Tiny, Beautiful Things.

The list goes on. Long. Abundant.

Freedom. Love. Abundance. The workshop promises. All right here, right now, in my life. I am on the path. I always was. Now I can once again see it.

Artist Date 82: Avec moi-même

July 28, 2014 LesleyPearlLeave a comment

Big Kahuna Yard Sale. The Chicago Mosaic School. Viva Vintage Clothing.

I am walking down Ravenswood Avenue, following the elevated Metra rail tracks. A pathway I have taken hundreds of times. Except that I usually don’t go south of Montrose. I haven’t had a reason to. And I usually walk on the east side only.

Except today.

Artist Date 82.

Earlier tonight I ditched my plans to attend an end of Ramadan feast for Muslims and Jews. I am tired and overwhelmed and this small gesture seems like a big step towards self-care.

It is not easy as I am of the variety who fears missing out on something fantastic. Of the variety more comfortable going and doing than sitting and being. Even though I have maintained a meditation practice for more than 12 years. Even though I make my living, in part, doing massage – the stillest work I can imagine.

I like an Artist Date rich with stimulation – music, prayer, food, potential tumult. Like an end of Ramadan feast.

But today I choose to fill myself in the quietest, stillest way I know how. Doing one of the only two things that made any sense to me during my divorce and for months after. I am walking. (Writing being the other.) Walking somewhere familiar. (Ravenswood between Lawrence and Montrose.) And then somewhere new. (Ravenswood between Montrose and Irving Park.)

It seems like such innocuous newness. Hardly worth mentioning. And yet, I see all sorts of things for the first time.

A Latin restaurant. A pilates studio. Ballroom dancing lessons.

A beer-tasting room. Several artist studios. AVEC painted on a building. And again on a bridge.

French taggers?

I take photographs of the tags and send them to a friend along with a text that reads, “Um…how do you pronounce that?!”— referencing the hotel concierge who suggested he and his date have dinner at (emphasis on hard A)vec.

He texts back “Aye-Veck!” and “Aw, Heck” and continues on and on in French. I get about two-thirds of it, then confess I know just enough French to order pastry and ask for directions without embarrassing myself in Paris. (I may or may not understand the response, depending on the speed of the speaker.)

We go back and forth like this for a bit and I realize I am very much AVEC. I am very much WITH my friend. Which is lovely and fun. I adore him and we laugh a lot. But this is not why I am here, wandering Ravenswood Avenue, alone.

I think about the rules I created early on for my Artist Dates: Do not do anything I wouldn’t do on a “real” date. Answer a telephone call or text. Listen to music. Check Facebook on my phone.

Eighty-two dates in, I’ve loosened up on the rules, perhaps even forgetting them – until now.

I stop texting and slip the phone in my pocket.

I am amazed how quickly, how easily I can be pulled from myself, from one moment into another, from what is right in front of me.

Forty-five minutes ago I took my ear buds out and paused Aretha Franklin on Pandora. The sound of the Queen of Soul distracted me from myself, so I put the music away. Now the words and this relationship distract me. I put them away too and return to myself.

AVEC moi-même. With myself.

A Wandering Jewess

My Journey Back To Self

Tag: divorce