When Luxury is Necessity … Reveling in Real

September 17, 2016 LesleyPearlLeave a comment

With gratitude for those who have supported my Go Fund Me campaign, “They Don’t Eat Alone in Spain” — a post-divorce narrative with an option for a happy ending, no partner required. For those who are open to possibility and serendipity. Who celebrate lovely. And revel in real.

September 9

I’m still amazed when I receive an email alert telling me someone I don’t know has decided to follow me on Twitter (@WanderingJewess), or on my blog. Like today.

It makes me feel a little bit “real.”

But only a little bit.

I think Margery Williams best defined “real” in her children’s classic, “The Velveteen Rabbit.”

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. (Named for his bald brown coat and missing hairs of his tail.) “…It’s a thing that happens to you … It takes a long time

“…That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept.

“Generally, by the time you are real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all because once you are real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.

“…but once you are real you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always.”

I feel the most real with people who don’t break easily. Who don’t have sharp edges. Who don’t have to be carefully kept. Who do understand.

People like Nora Handler.

I don’t remember meeting Nora. It seems we’ve always known one another. Even when we haven’t. And even when we haven’t seen one another in a very long time. Like lately.

I messaged Nora, thanking her for her contribution to my “They Don’t Eat Alone in Spain” campaign, and suggesting we get together and catch up.

“Sounds like a plan,” she said, adding “Lots of life has happened since we’ve seen each other.”

Indeed it has.

But we are both real enough to experience it. And to share it … even when most of our hair has been loved off, our eyes have dropped out, we’re loose in the joints and very shabby.

Thank you, Nora — for all of this.

September 11

My alarm is on my phone. I keep it on the floor so I can greet the day on my knees, with thanks.

However, I’ve gotten into the habit of bringing the phone back into bed with me afterward, reviewing who has made contact in the hours I’ve been asleep. Usually it’s Facebook — alerting me that someone has “liked” my status. The Daily OM — delivering my horoscope. Or Hilary Clinton. (Actually, her campaign.)

Occasionally it is Go Fund Me, and the symbol that — at least to my eyes –looks like a crown. It appears each time a donation is made to my “They Don’t Eat Alone in Spain” campaign.

I woke to one the other morning and this message from Kim Jupe.

“Rock it, Lesley! So glad we met in Madrid! I am a fan!”

In total, I have spent less than four hours with Kim. We met through friends of friends, unplanned. Delicious serendipity.

The moment I saw Kim I recognized her as “friend,” and invited her to join me for lunch at one of my favorite restaurants — Dionisos, where Nick the waiter is always flirtatious.

No, we didn’t eat alone in Spain that day … but in those few hours together I was reminded of the magic of traveling alone.

I seem to be open to the universe and its inhabitants in a different way when I am untethered — meeting people I might not otherwise if I were with a partner or friend. My eyes, my ears and my heart are otherwise available. It has happened while traveling overseas — in Tel Aviv, Bonn, and Avignon. Lisbon and Seville. And “at home” — in Chicago and Madrid.

Thank you Kim, for taking the time to connect in Spain. For being a part of that ever-expanding circle around me. And, of course, for your support of my “They Don’t Eat Alone in Spain” campaign.

me-and-horse-named-lola — Traveling alone in Seville … making friends of all kind. Even equine! Hola, Lola!

September 15

In her book, “When You Eat At The Refrigerator, Pull Up A Chair,” Geneen Roth writes about a friend who sees what most call luxury, as necessity. And what others call necessity, a luxury.

Think French-milled soap. A $3 mango in January. Eight hours of uninterrupted sleep.

The story reminds me of my own friend, Suzanne Pollock, and the whimsical, wonderful, highly impractical coat she was wearing when we first met. White cloth and long, embroidered with large flowers. She found it in Spain and “had to have it.”

As the words tumbled out of her mouth, I knew we’d be friends.

Because Suzanne threw caution to practicality. (A white coat?!! I nearly break out in hives at the sight of white denim … memories of an unfortunate childhood incident involving grass stain and above-mentioned trousers.)

Because she chose form over function.

Because she valued loveliness.

Because she valued herself.

Many thanks Suzanne for your recent contribution to my “They Don’t Eat Alone in Spain” campaign — my own exercise in impractical beauty and self love.

Impractical as I leave for Girona — where I will attend a writers retreat with the intention of manifesting blog into book deal — in 21 days, exactly 90 days following my departure from Spain.

Self-loving as I take my turn, embracing my own dream rather than supporting someone else’s.

in-raincoat-paris — My own wonderfully, whimsical, impractical coat … purchased in Rome, a gift to myself on my 45th birthday.

Want to know more about “They Don’t Eat Alone in Spain” — how 52 Artist Dates healed my heart after divorce and landed me smack in the middle of my own life — or how to contribute to my Go Fund Me campaign? Click here.

Getting Serious

June 29, 2016June 29, 2016 LesleyPearl4 Comments

I never imagined I’d have a byline in The Washington Post. That caliber of publication was reserved for my “serious” writer friends. And yet …

washington post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/soloish/wp/2016/06/28/after-a-divorce-where-can-i-afford-to-live-alone-comfortably/

Guess I’m a serious writer.

Up To Date

December 8, 2015December 8, 2015 LesleyPearlLeave a comment

me in segovia — Still on a solo adventure…

Up to Date.

The words are not lost on me.

I posited that this was what I needed to move forward in my writing … to tie up the past 3-plus months neatly, in context, with a bow (or a blog, or three). Tidy, clean, presentable.

And under this, tugs the idea that now that I am “up to date,” am I also “up to date?”

I’m not so sure.

In addition to writing little about my days here in Madrid, I’ve written precious little about the relationship I left in Chicago. Precious being the key word. Because it was. Because it still is. Because I wanted to, and still want to, honor his privacy…and mine.

And also because I was hopeful. Hopeful that even though we’d been doing the dance of “not long distance,” a nameless cha-cha of “I love you, but you live in another country so I don’t know exactly what we are but we certainly aren’t what we were” – that we would do long-distance. That I could have my romance and have my adventure too.

Not unlike my marriage. My marriage that ended for many reasons, among them perhaps that I often appeared more single than partnered. Not romantically or sexually single. But uncompromising. Independent. So when I moved to Chicago, and then Seattle, for my then-husband’s work, more than one friend expressed surprise…thinking I might opt to stay put and stay married.

It’s been painful to find love again and to leave it. Even though we both knew I was leaving from the moment we met. I don’t think either of us expected to tumble so head over heels over head for one another.

Upon seeing this, my friend S. – the master of turning things on their head just to get perspective — has more than once suggested I return to Chicago to “play things out, to see what happens.”

I explain that my lover never asked me to stay. That he has never asked me to come back.

“I didn’t ask you that,” he replies. “I said if you want to go find out about the two of you…then go.”

“I can’t,” I say.

“Why not?”

I pause.

Because I am here. Because I committed to being here. Because I always dreamed of living overseas and it was such a crazy, distant dream that I never imagined I’d do it. And yet here I am, doing it!

Even when it’s hard. Even when I’m not sure that I am here for any reason other than to say, “I tried it. I did it. I had the experience.”

Even though Spain might not be my long-term home. Even though teaching English might not be my long-term career.

I made a commitment — a commitment to myself.

I tell him that I don’t know when I might have this opportunity again.

That I followed my ex-husband’s dream. That it was easier than thinking about my own. But that this is mine. A sometimes vague, not-fully formed but finally-owned fantasy.

“So stay,” S. says. “But it is your choice.”

It is my choice.

And I am reminded of making the very same choice a few months before I met D. Before I decided to move to Madrid…when teaching English overseas was still in the “maybe, just maybe” stage.

It is winter. Sunday morning. I am driving to work, leaving my friend P. at my apartment. He is visiting from Michigan.

P. is a shaman and a writer. He is funny and sweet and sexy. Flirtatious. But P. is not interested in me that way. We have discussed it.

Before I leave the house he traces the space between my eyebrows – my third eye — and kisses me there. Driving, I think, “It is too bad P. doesn’t like me that way…”

And in the silence of Sunday morning, sunlight bouncing off the snow, a voice, mine…but smarter than me, whispers, “His dream is to have a retreat center in Southwest Michigan. Yours is to live in Europe.”

And I realize, for perhaps the first time in my life, I have a dream bigger than love.

I am flummoxed.

And it seems I still do.

It all sounds very Ms. magazine-esque. Strong and empowered. And at moments it is. But at other times, a lot of the times, it feels incredibly lonely and stupid. And yet, the thought of returning to Chicago before my one-year visa has expired sounds more lonely, more stupid.

And I return to the question…am I “up to date?” Here? In Madrid? I see a friend of mine embark on her first Tinder date just weeks after announcing the end of her 20-plus year marriage and I’m pretty sure the answer is no.

Kudos to her. But I just haven’t been “up to” it.

Maybe because I haven’t wanted to let go of “us.” Maybe because it was, and we were, that good.

Maybe because I’m a little bit scared to open my heart again. Maybe because I am dubious about what is or is not out there.

Or maybe, just maybe, because I’m a little bit afraid of losing my dream again…the one bigger than love. So, for now, I’m holding on tight.

Artist Date 102: Driving Me in Reverse Down a One-Way Street

February 9, 2015 LesleyPearlLeave a comment

From "Drunken Geometry" by Allison Wade and Leslie Baum — From “Drunken Geometry” by Allison Wade and Leslie Baum

I thought I would be used to this by now. Going it alone.

More than 100 Artist Dates, more than 100 solitary sojourns in an effort to fill my creative coffers, as suggested by Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way.

Lectures, live lit events, ballets, book readings. Fabric stores. Operas. Walking tours. A handful taking place in other countries. And yet my stomach does flip-flops driving to an art opening a few miles from my apartment.

If I’ve learned anything in this grand experiment it is to put one foot in front of the other, regardless of how I feel — this time, up concrete stairs to the third floor of a warehouse in Garfield Park, to my friend’s exhibit, Artist Date 102.

Allison is an inspiration.

Once upon a time she wrote marketing materials for the financial services sector. Until the day when she turned right where she would have gone left and applied to art school. Several years, several moves and an MFA later, she is a working artist and an adjunct professor in the Art Department at Northwestern University.

I hear voices and laughter before I make it to the top of the stairs. I poke my head into the first gallery. I circle the room. Large painted swaths of fabric on the wall. Furniture taken apart, mismatched and reassembled — table legs sticking straight up out of a chair, pointing at the ceiling. Deconstructed still life. Or, as Alison and her partner Leslie call it “Drunken Geometry.” But no Allison.

I poke my head into the second gallery and see my friend. She walks me through the exhibit, explaining its meaning, its genesis. Her process, her partnership. I am all in my head…thinking about my friend Rainey, the first artist I knew who created installations, introducing concepts rather than canvases.

Thinking about my own desire to go to art school.

For fashion. For photography. For the sake of being and calling myself an artist. I recall pictures I drew of myself in elementary school — wearing a beret and holding a palette — and a Saturday morning sketching class I briefly attended.

I did not go to art school.

Instead, I spent one year as a fine arts major at a Big Ten university before transferring to the journalism program at my parents’ prompting.

I tell myself I was more committed to the idea of being “an artist” than to making art. This may or may not be true. But being a visual artist was never “easy” for me.

I was fast-moving, my work somewhat sloppy. Stitches ran crooked on the waistband of a skirt. Film stuck onto itself, improperly loaded on the development reel. The inside of a ceramic slab box left rough, unfinished — the internal belying the external.

Writing came easy to me.

I placed out of freshman college English, enrolling in a senior writing seminar instead. Somewhat grudgingly wrote for the daily college newspaper. And then later, for weeklies in Detroit and San Francisco.

I did not think writing was art. Writing was…writing.

It didn’t feel sexy or tragic or dark. I didn’t wrestle with it, so I didn’t want it. But it followed me anyway…loyal puppy of a boyfriend.

I resented it. Ignored it. Didn’t take care of it. Until I needed it.

In Africa, in the middle of my divorce. When I couldn’t not write. The way junkies can’t not shoot-up. When writing felt like breathing. Like the only thing that gave me relief — the antithesis of how I feel now in this moment. Anxious.Uncomfortable. Squirrel-y.

No one is drunk. No one is ridiculously hip. On the contrary. There is a bowl of Chex Mix on the table near the drinks, and a handful of children stopping short of running around.

I see faces I know — including my own. Myself as struggling, wannabe visual artist. Perhaps this is what makes me uncomfortable. Seeing my former in-love-with-the-idea-of-being-an-artist self.

I would have turned myself inside out for if my parents would have let me. Just as I have done with the idea of so many lovers and would-be lovers in my past. The title — artist, girlfriend — who I think I want to be, driving me in reverse down a one-way street..

Talking for two in romantic pursuits, attempting to create a connection or intimacy that isn’t organically there. Chasing what’s hard — dark, sexy, tragic — rather than embracing what is light, easy, what would one day feel like breathing.

I pick up a large piece of heavy paper with words printed in pink and blue — a conversation between the artists about their process in creating.

“In all honesty for me, and I think for you, this work is agenda-less. It’s about formal play and making connections.” Allison writes.

Leslie adds, “The beginning and the end. A looping. A circle that wobbles a bit, like a drunk. Our logic and our vocabulary are of this wandering yet insistent geometry.”

Yes, for me too. Except I’m no longer drunk. Just insistent and Wandering (Jewess).

(Not An) Artist Date 67: Mundanely Juicier

March 13, 2014 LesleyPearl2 Comments

I woke up Monday morning to an email from my friend Clover, sent to her intimate circle. A report on her day, her condition, her life in Chicago as she is about to bring new life into Chicago.

“It’s a beautiful Monday morning– 40 degrees and sunny…I am feeling good and I’m on my way to work…I am taking it very slow and easy…I feel ready to burst. She is rolling around in there this morning – hanging out on my bladder. No signs of labor yet.”

My heart swells and my head feels clear. I am reminded of what is important in the world.

Tuesday.

“The snow is almost fully melted and it’s really starting to feel like Spring…I began to have some abdominal cramps. Not sure if these are the Braxton-Hicks contractions everyone speaks of, but I am feeling closer to labor everyday…

I am so tired, taking it slow and breathing lots. My body is doing such hard work!

…A new life on its way, the prospect of motherhood, the challenge of labor…”

The challenge of labor. I am Clover’s doula. (Greek for “servant.”) Her and Andy’s support and advocate during birth.

I have done this just once before, for my girlfriend Julie. It was a gift. A labor of love. Something I never considered doing again. Until a few months ago when the words tumbled out of my mouth and Clover and I embraced over a marble table at Julius Meinl, “sealing the deal.”

I pull out my pre-natal materials and make a stack of them on the floor, next to my bed. Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth, Pregnancy, Childbirth and the Newborn. Pre- and Perinatal Massage Therapy. A binder of handouts and lesson plans. I too am getting ready.

“It is Wednesday and nearly everything here is covered in a fine dusting of snow…the trees look majestic. I love this little morning surprise beauty of winter…

Andy and I started the new remake of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos, which made me feel such awe and wonder at our world and our infinitesimal place in it. I feel asleep after 30 minutes, as I do these days…

I decided to stay home from work today and relax..I am hoping that the strong sense of waiting with subside, though I somehow doubt it will. At least I am waiting along with all of you.”

This morning, out Clover's window. — This morning, out Clover’s window.

I phone Clover and ask if she would like to wait together. I had planned on writing. Or an Artist Date. Number 67. But being alone with my friend for perhaps the last time for a while seems mundanely juicier.

I remember my last day with Julie before she birthed her son, Jaron.

We went to the gym where Julie mentioned she sometimes sees my junior high-school crush. I felt excited and hopeful. She told me I shouldn’t be. That he never wiped his sweat off of the equipment.

After, we ate breakfast at Giorgio’s. Julie was excited to have French Toast, but had no room for it. Just 5’2” and carrying high, there was hardly any space between her ribcage and her baby. We laughed at the injustice of it.

Back at her house I rubbed acupuncture points on her hands and feet – “downward elevators” in Chinese medicine – to stimulate labor.

She delivered her baby the next afternoon.

We reminisce about this seemingly mundane day regularly. I recall the joy I felt being able to touch my friend. To see her so radiant. To be useful.

I feel the same way about Clover. I see her at the top of the stairs and I tear up, even though I saw her just five days ago.

She makes me a cup of tea and I pull one of her feet into my lap. I sink my fingers into her swollen flesh, searching for bone. The baby is moving about.

She tells me about a dream her husband had several years ago about their daughter, and calling her by name. They had been on the fence about having children. Andy’s disclosure became an opening in their willingness.

Clover is having a girl. She has not told me her name. I hear Annabelle in my head. I do not tell her. Like me, Clover has no poker face.

She asks me if I ever wanted to have children.

I tell her I never really knew. That, for a long time, I never considered it. Probably because I somehow knew I couldn’t stay sober for nine months. Although I never acknowledged that to myself until many years had passed without my having a drink.

I tell her about J, who regularly told me he would marry me. That we would have daughters. That he held an image of me and our girls lighting Shabbat candles – which amused me as neither of us were particularly religious.

Kind of like Andy’s dream. Except it didn’t happen.

She says at times, I have felt like a mother to her. That I showed her how to mother herself. I am humbled.

We talk about sex and love and fear. We eat carrots and hummus standing over the sink because her ass has gone numb from sitting. She hands me her hands and I rub them, pressing into the downward elevators. We cry.

The next time I see her she will likely be in labor. I will perhaps be holding her leg, telling her, “You can and you are,” my mantra during Julie’s labor.

And then we will welcome her daughter.

Pretend Boyfriend

March 5, 2014 LesleyPearl5 Comments

I tattooed my aspirations on my body lest I forget them. Lest I again consider leaving myself.

“You want a relationship, right?”

The words tumbled out of my Rabbi’s mouth. Innocuous. More a statement than a question. Nearly an afterthought as we wrapped up our monthly meeting.

“I…I think so,” I stammered.

We stared at one another. There it was. The truth. It fell flat on the floor, spreading out in the space between us. Consuming. Shocking.

We’d spent an awful lot of time talking about relationships over the years. Talking about my fathers – both of them, the biological one and the one who raised me, my Dad. My husband – now my ex. The smattering of men who had come in and out of my life since the dissolution of my marriage.

My Divorce Buddy. The one I talked to each night, into the wee hours of the morning. Half a country apart. Both of us alone, in the dark, navigating our way through the sometimes messy endings of marriage.

The Southern Svengali. Genius artist in a Johnny Cash t-shirt. He guided me through Charleston and my last visit with my biological mother before she died. Pressed his lips against mine and nothing more. Called me “Lil Pearl” and taught me how to be a better artist.

And most recently, the man I have affectionately come to call Mr. 700 Miles – referring to the physical distance between us. In our hearts…it is just inches. But in our lives… oceans and continents apart. He is clearly, plainly, 100 percent unavailable.

Separated, but not quite divorced. ”Kinda dating” someone in his own zip code. He is finding his own center – spiritually, emotionally, creatively – and his own truth. Work I have already done. Work I continue to do.

And yet, when we talk or Skype, there is a familiarity that speaks of karmic attachments and lives shared. Quite simply, I am in love with his heart.

He is, what my friend Rainey calls, a pretend boyfriend. They all are.

A "selfie," on the road with my Divorce Buddy. He never wants to show up in pictures. Hm... — A “selfie,” on the road with my Divorce Buddy. He never wants to show up in pictures. Hm…

She uses the words in a matter-of-fact way that implies everyone has one. Has had one. Like a cell phone or email address.

Deep friendship. Emotional intimacy. Trust.

Companionship. Connectedness. A shared sense of not being alone even though you are – when you are one instead of two.

But without a physical dimension, or a commitment to anything more.

She assures me that she has had several over the years. And that sometimes, pretend boyfriends become real boyfriends. But mostly they are pretend.

This has been my experience too. Although I am usually too blinded by hope to see it at the time.

Good for practice. For reminding me of my loveliness. What it feels like to be close. And allowing me to believe in possibilities.

No good at all in moments when my bed feels cold and lonely. When I want nothing more than to feel arms wrapped around me.

Downright disastrous when I bring expectations of a real relationship to it.

My friend Kerry called me out on my penchant for pretend boyfriends this past weekend. He wanted to know what I was afraid of. Why I wouldn’t try online dating. Why I wouldn’t make myself available to someone who is available.

A gift from one of my pretend boyfriends. He said that I fell out of his head and on to his sketchbook.

I felt sick inside.

“I don’t want to be left,” I said quietly in a voice that did not seem my own.

Was I referring to my partner of 15 years “leaving me?” My birth parents “leaving me?”

Or was it me leaving myself? Pushing aside my art, my values and my aspirations for someone else. Someone who never asked me to. And for something else – a relationship. Believing that alone I was somehow less valuable.

Earlier that day, I left a voicemail for one of my girlfriends. “I want a real boyfriend. Not a pretend one. I just had to say that out loud,” I announced into the digital abyss.

And I do. Someone who is here. Who I can physically feel. His lips over mine. His breath on my neck. His hands on my body.

Someone to hold on to me. And who I can hold on to.

Someone to eat with. Sleep with. Dance with.

A partner. An equal. Someone I can grow with. Grow old with.

But I want me more. The chance to be with myself. To not leave again.

Yes, I want a real boyfriend. I just don’t want one yet.

A Wandering Jewess

My Journey Back To Self

Tag: Dreams