Artist Date 66: Risk It. Sell It. Consider It.

March 10, 2014 LesleyPearl9 Comments

I recently entered a Weight Watchers-sponsored contest called, “You Only Live Once,” where I described a bucket-list dream, one that is possible only now that I am a healthy weight.

I had two. One, to dance in Senegal with my instructor Idy Ciss. The other, to dance Alvin Ailey Workshop classes in New York.

Before Class. "I am here!" — Before Class. “I am here!”

I didn’t win. But clearly the universe heard my desire as I am about to walk into a 90-minute Master Class with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater – Artist Date 66.

I feel a little bit like Jennifer Beals in Flashdance. A self-identified outsider taking another step inside the sometimes seemingly-closed world of dance.

I notice the opportunity a few weeks ago while purchasing tickets for the Ailey shows. The class lists as intermediate, and I hope my six years of West African instruction will qualify me.

Three days before the workshop I get a call from the Auditorium Theatre requesting payment. I am in.

I am over the moon.

And now, standing at the studio doorway, I feel I should be more nervous than I am. But as I told my dear friend the night before, “The worst that happens is they say, ‘You suck. Please sit down.’ ”

I can live with that.

Inside I meet Kristen. She recognizes me from the Ailey shows earlier in the week – seeing me pin a slip of paper to a board in the lobby reading, “How Does Alvin Ailey inspire you?”

“To Dance. No matter how badly.” I scrawl.

Today I will get my opportunity.

There are about a dozen of us here. I am the oldest by at least 15 years. Surprisingly, this lends me a sense of calm and confidence, which I do not question.

We are joined by company member, Antonio Douthit-Boyd. He appears to be wearing slippers on his feet – quilted booties. I wonder where he is coming from as it is snowing outside.

He moves quickly through the warm up. Much more quickly than I am used to. I breathe and do what I can. So far so good.

He moves across the floor, making adjustments to each dancer’s movements and posture. “Widen your legs. Go lower now. Keep your balance. See.” “Jut your hip first. Muuuch more movement. Excellent.”

He comes to me. I do not avert my eyes, hoping he will not notice me, in case I am doing it wrong. I smile at him.

“Beautiful flat back,” he says, touching the space between my wings. I lower into the squat – legs wide, and come up on to my toes. Antonio meets my outstretched arms with his own, our fingertips touching. My legs are shaking. I struggle to balance. “Good,” he says.

Before class begins. — Before class. One of the “significantly more trained” dancers.

The other dancers have had significantly more training than I. It is clear. Ballet. Jazz. Modern. They nod knowingly to the terms Antonio throws out. And more importantly, they can execute them. I am in over my head. Kind of. But I just keep moving. Smiling. Trying to mimic the other dancers.

I notice that I am not frustrated. I am not angry. I do not stop.

I do not ask Antonio to slow down and bring the class to my level. I do not burst into tears.

I have done all of these things previously.

I am not jealous or envious. I notice the beauty of the dancers. Their bodies. What they can do.

I am amazed by my response.

I am equally amazed that I occasionally “nail it.”

Moving across the floor – a quick, leg-cross-over-leg, jazz step. Hips wagging. I think of Harry Detry, another of my teachers at the Old Town School, calling out over the drums, “Shake your babaloo!” “Sell it!”

I am “selling it.” And I know it. Antonio does too, clapping, “Yes! Yes! That’s it.”

But the final movement has me stymied. Leap, cross over, lift the other leg, turn, lift the other leg, jump. Or something like that.

I am not even close.

No one cares. No one is watching me. They are watching themselves. I am free.

And in that freedom, I see the pattern that will keep my body in constant motion. Give me my momentum. Right leg back, left leg back, right leg back, left leg back.

After class. All smiles, with Antonio Douthit-Boyd.

“Yes, better.”

It is. But I still don’t have it.

A couple more times across the floor and I might. But it doesn’t matter. I risked being “the worst.” And by all accounts, I was. But I don’t feel like it. Not even close. Just less trained.

Pulling on my jeans, my body feels different. My pelvis is open. Open – I could drop a baby out of me with a single squat – open. I like it.

It is the ballet, I am certain of it. The one type of dance I never consider.

I do not have a ballet body, I tell myself. I don’t even know what that is. It is an excuse.

And I am out of excuses.

I consider it.

Artist Date 65: A Revelation

March 8, 2014 LesleyPearlLeave a comment

I just “shhh…d” the women next to me.

I feel like somebody’s cranky grandmother, but I can’t help myself.

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. From Revelations. Photo: Paul Kolnik

This is my religion. The dancers and choreographers, my gods. And it requires my complete attention.

It feels like blasphemy as I type the words, but it is true. The stirring between my legs. It rises up my spine like Kundalini energy uncoiling, to my heart – which leaps, and spreads as a flush across my chest and face. What is usually reserved for sexual liaison – either alone or with a partner – comes to me in dance. Really good dance.

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is really good dance.

This is my seventh time seeing the company, which may sound like a lot –until compared to Sheila, who I met during the pre-performance cocktail reception. She and her husband have seen Ailey every year since the company’s inception in 1958. It is, perhaps, their religion too.

The first time I saw Ailey I was 24. I watched, rapt. My former lover — the sexiest man I had ever known – at my side. We spent a month together. Twenty-nine days more than I expected. This was our only “real date.”

The second time I saw Ailey I was in the middle of an alcoholic relapse, although I didn’t know it at the time. Following yet another month-long stint without drinking, an effort to prove myself “not alcoholic,” I conveniently forgot all the reasons I had put down the drink and picked it up again that night.

I saw the company three more times. Each of them sober. In Chicago. Once, with my then-husband, the other two with girlfriends.

This is my first time seeing Ailey alone – Artist Date 65.

It feels significant.

Significant because I have treated myself to good seats. Dress Circle. Row AA.

I have learned I cannot watch dance from the cheap seats – looking down on it from up above. I have to see it straight on. As I do most things.

I’ve admittedly been spoiled. Much like the first time I flew overseas, when the German Consulate paid for my Business Class ticket on Lufthansa. It is hard to go back.

It is the same with men.

Significant because there is a cocktail reception before the show and I don’t drink, have a wing man, or a purpose for mingling other than “just because.”

Ever fiber in my body says arrive late, skip the schmooze and head straight for my seat. But I resist. I have been taught courage is not a lack of fear. It is feeling it and moving forward anyway. I am strangely curious to see what will happen.

I meet a gaggle of girls in their 30s. They have never seen Ailey.

We talk about their work. City politics. Chicago neighborhoods.

We talk about my Artist Date. My blog. Boys.

I meet the “since-1958 Ailey fans,” and their daughter – a dancer.

I navigate the plush stairs and the too-small type on my ticket on my way to my seat. My dance instructor calls out my name. We embrace and all at once, Chicago feels like a town. My sense of connectedness expands.

The theatre darkens. The dancers emerge.

“Night Creature.” From 1974. I have seen it before. Like “Revelations,” Ailey’s signature piece that closes every show. I remember the polka-dot light patterns on the floor.

It is both familiar and fresh. I feel the leap in my heart. And a knot in my stomach.

The women to my left are whispering – non-stop.

I pray for patience. For tolerance. I pray they will stop. Useless. I turn and put my finger to my lips. “Shhh.” It is quiet.

At intermission, I feel a hand on my shoulder. It is one of the women I “shhh-d.” She offers apologies, which I quickly and easily accept.

Two Dancers -- Khara and I. — Two Dancers — Khara and I.

“Do you dance?” she asks.

I tell her I do. She says that she used to, and everything melts between us. We are connected. We are the same.

Until she tells me about her dance history.

Although not a dance major, she danced seven days a week as an undergraduate student at Washington University, filling her free hours with courses in ballet, modern, and jazz. I reflect on my four years at Michigan State University – smoking pot and drinking with the big boys.

I do not feel like a dancer.

My five-plus years in West African dance classes – beginning at the age of 39 – feel small in comparison. Amateurish. Perhaps they are.

I ask her to take a picture with me for my blog. “Two dancers,” she announces, as if reading my mind.

I choose to believe her. To allow my status to be independent of her experience. Of Sheila’s.

It is a “Revelation.”

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.

Artist Date 55: Saving Myself. No Wand or Wings Required.

January 6, 2014 LesleyPearl4 Comments

I’ve been having a hard time getting myself out on weekly Artist Dates. Ever since I hit that “magic” one-year mark.

Carmel and I. Extras. Fans. And Friends.

Maybe it’s because, as suggested, I didn’t date for a year after my divorce became final. The passing of 52 Artist Dates meant that that year had passed. And perhaps on some subconscious level I thought it was time to date others instead of myself.

Even though nothing, absolutely nothing, has changed in my romantic life. Even though I don’t even have a crush. And for perhaps the first time in my life, the world still feels full of possibilities. That is a big change in my romantic life.

Or maybe it’s because maintenance is hard. Of anything. Eating well, moving my body and maintaining a healthy weight. Staying sober. Meditating. Artist Dates.

Each serves me, makes me feel better, be better in the world. It would seem I would only want to perpetuate these patterns. But somehow it doesn’t work that way.

My brain is a liar. It tells me “I’ve got this.” Which, when it does, is the exact moment I need to redouble my efforts. And I need other people to do that. To remind me that my brain is, in fact, a liar. And of what actions I can take anyway.

It’s why I work for Weight Watchers. Surround myself with sober individuals. And probably why I only meditate in the morning but not the evening, even though Vedic meditation is a twice-daily practice. I’ve been doing it alone ever since I left California in 2007.

The Artist Date is a solo process. No one would know, or probably care, if I did or did not engage in it. Except me. By stating my intention and blogging about it, I invite others in, and I stay in the action of it. Action that always makes me feel better.

So I was grateful when I saw a Facebook post from my friend Lori late Friday night, asking if anyone was available to be background talent for a music video she was filming the following day. Without thinking, I said “yes” – Artist Date 55.

“Who knows?” I thought. “Perhaps I will meet Mr. Right…”

By morning I wasn’t so sure about that. When I opened Lori’s email with details for the shoot, I found myself feeling incredibly resistant. So much so, I told her I may have spoken too soon.

I shared my “dilemma” with a friend who reflected back to me that I am a woman who does what she says. And so I did.

But when I arrived, the first words out of my mouth were, “Do you have enough people? Because if you do…” Yes, she said, adding, “If you have somewhere to be, go…”

But I didn’t.

Knowing that, something shifted. And I decided to stay.

I took a seat on an empty bench where the Windy City Rollers practice and watched the girls go around and around in circles, fading in and out of the fog of the smoke machine – the set for the music video, for a song written by one of the skaters, Xoe.

I joined about a dozen extras as a Windy City Rollers fans. Our job was to rush the red team after winning the bout. To jump up and down and high-five the skaters, and each other. Simple enough…even for a non-sports fan like myself. But first, we waited.

I watched the big cameras zooming in and out. Xoe’s stunt double — dressed like a guardian angel with wings, a wand and a sequined dress — “saving her” from herself, and knocking out a couple of the Rollers in the process. I looked at the snack table and thought it could use a makeover. That I would replace some of the donuts, Oreos and chips with fresh fruit and vegetables, hummus and low-fat cheese. But nobody asked me.

A woman I know just a little, but like quite a bit, showed up and she and I talked like old friends for the better part of the afternoon – telling stories about boys, our bodies and travel.

I noticed the high concentration of men on the set – lots of tattoos and wool hats. But I didn’t “recognize” my mate.

The day ended with a whack upside the head. Literally. It was an accident.

During a “pretend” fight scene,I leaned into the fist of a wisp of a girl standing next to me. She apologized profusely. I laughed. It somehow seemed right. Like I had definitely “connected.”

This morning, I put my hand to my forehead. It was sore. A little tender spot reminding me of how much I fight myself. And of how I can save myself – no wand or wings required.

Becoming The Man I Wanted To Marry

January 3, 2014 LesleyPearl3 Comments

In the past 48 hours, I have found myself thinking, “My ex would be so proud of me.” A lot.

But the truth is, I’m so proud of me.

I’ve been doing a lot of the things he used to do. And doing them well. Or well enough. Most of them, weather related.

I grew up in Michigan and lived there until I was 24 years old. So by rights, I shouldn’t be phased by snow. But I am. Especially driving in it.

Living in California for 14 years meant I didn’t have to concern myself with it. Except in the mountains, and only then when there was accumulation. Climbing the winding roads to Bear Valley, I would pull to the side when we hit the snow line in Arnold, and without a word, hand over the keys. Without even asking. It was just understood.

When we moved to Chicago in 2007, it was similarly understood that he would drive when the roads were dubious. That he would dig the car out, if necessary, and carve out a parking space on the street — “holding it” with random household items that would not blow away.

This is no longer an option.

I realized this on Tuesday afternoon, New Year’s Eve, as I watched big, fluffy flakes come down in sheets, sideways. I had made a commitment for the early evening and invited a friend to join me. It was her first New Year’s Eve single again, and without her children.

And so, with no one to hand the keys to, and a strong desire to make good on my word, I got behind the wheel. The side streets were a mess. The main roads weren’t much better. Snow was falling faster than the plows could pick it up. And it seemed there were precious few out on the roads.

As my friend Chris often advises, about most everything, I “took it slow.” Like most everyone else on the road. I didn’t hold the wheel with a death grip. I didn’t take silly risks either. I met my obligations, but also made it an earlier night than originally planned.

Feeling bolstered by the experience, and also frustrated by letting the weather dictate my social calendar, I drove to the South Side on Wednesday for a New Year’s Day party – filling the hours with good friends and good conversation, and my belly with black-eyed peas and seven greens, for health and good luck, as is the tradition in the south.

Driving home I could feel the snow rising under my car. Gliding on top of it. It felt scary and kind of fun at the same time. And I was both pleased and relieved when I parked the car for the night.

Luck ran out this morning when the Honda couldn’t quite make it over the inches of fluffy powder that had accumulated around it, and that continued to.

I sort of expected this and took the train to work. On the way home, I bought myself a spendy new pair of winter boots, as the ones I was wearing had begun to leak. After dinner, I went back outside. Started the engine, brushed the snow off the car and shoveled a pathway out from the white swath that neatly tucked it in. I knew I had to before it froze overnight and I was stuck until spring’s thaw.

I know this all seems terribly basic. But the truth is, I haven’t done it in more than 20 years. Since I left Detroit. And there, I depended on my father to crowbar open the occasionally frozen-shut door. Or I skipped work entirely if the roads seemed questionable.

It all sort of reminds me of this great line from Torch Song Trilogy. In the final scene, Harvey Fierstein tells his mother, Anne Bancroft, “I have taught myself to sew, cook, fix plumbing, build furniture – I can even pat myself on the back when necessary – all so I don’t have to ask anyone for anything.”

My foray into shoveling and driving in inclement weather doesn’t go quite that far. Nor would I want it to. I’m ok with asking for help. And I’m grateful for the people who do for me what I truly cannot do for myself.

It’s more like the postcard I have stuck on my white board. A Lichtenstein-style cartoon of a woman, her word bubble reading, “Oh my God! I think I’m becoming the man I wanted to marry.

It’s true. I have. And not just when it comes to snow and cars.

Artist Date 54: Sew, Here I Am Again

December 31, 2013 LesleyPearl1 Comment

I am afraid of fabric stores.

I am aware that this is a somewhat unusual fear. Sharks. Spiders. Speaking in front of large groups. Of course. But fabric stores…

And yet, I love them. Floor to ceiling bolts of brightly colored cloth, every pattern imaginable. Zebra skin. Tiny elephants. Frida Kahlo faces.

Shiny scissors of every size and price range. Silky ribbon and trim. Envelopes stuffed with patterns – what I imagine to be the Holy Grail of well-fitting clothing.

Trouble is, I can’t sew. And I am terrified that I wear this deficiency like a scarlet letter. An indelible ink tattoo on my forehead which reads, “She doesn’t know what she is doing.”

I’ve tried. In high school, when I had designs on a career in fashion design. I knew this skill was non-negotiable. My mother’s friend offered to teach me. Together, we made a skirt out of a blue-green burlap-y material. I was pretty delighted, and I wore it a lot. But I still couldn’t sew a button-hole, make pleats or even thread a bobbin on my own.

About 20 years later I took a sewing class in Berkeley, at the shop next to the cleaner who washed and folded my massage sheets each week. Up the hidden staircase at the back of the store to the loft above it, I sat with six other women on Tuesday afternoons for four weeks. And when it was over, I walked out with a very expensive kimono – which I wore for years, until it became greasy from the oil I slathered on my body every morning and no amount of cleaning could take it out. And no closer to knowing how to sew.

I visited a fabric store on Queen Anne Avenue in Seattle a couple of years ago. I was embarking on The Artist’s Way for the first time and took myself there on one of my tentative, first Artist Dates. I felt intimidated and scared, hoping, praying no one would ask me if I needed any help. No one said a word to me.

When I returned to Chicago, I stated my intention to make curtains using ironing tape on Facebook. My friend James was horrified. He sent me a private message saying “Please,don’t,” and offered to sew for me. He did. Mustard-colored with sprigs of white blossom hang in my living and dining rooms, one set tied back with bow ties, the other with scarves. Cartoonish leaves in grey, orange and green cover my bedroom window.

All of this comes rushing back to me as I walk into The Needle Shop, Artist Date 54 – a crazy mingling of curiosity, desire and fear.

Hanging in the windows are bolts of the happiest, most whimsical fabrics I’ve ever seen. I promised myself I would go in “one day.” Ever since it opened up across from the Trader Joes where I shop no less than twice a week. Today is “one day.”

It is small inside. There is nowhere to hide. I take photographs of the bolts. If anyone asks, I will say I am thinking of making pillows and want to see the fabric in my living environment.

This is not untrue. My friend Julia said she will show me how. And that she can help me shop for a starter machine so I can really learn – through practice and repetition.

No one asks. Instead, a sales clerks encourages me to take swatches, pre-cut and pinned to the bolts, along with tags of price per yard.

Brown cotton with turquoise doves and cream-colored plants. White with graphic grey and yellow flowers. Green with turquoise ginkgo.

I wander over to the bin of patterns. They are “high end.” Nothing like the McCalls and Simplicity patterns strewn around my ex-mother-in-law’s sewing room. (Although they have these too.) Sassy 1950’s style tap pants and bras. Messenger bags. Wrap dresses.

The fantasy returns. I will learn to sew. I will make my own clothes. I will have trousers that fit like they were made for me. Because they were made for me. I will make couture. I will make curtains and pillows. I will surround myself with gorgeous, happy, sumptuous fabrics.

I sit down in a stadium folding chair with a sewing book written by a cool-looking, hipster chick. I am immediately overwhelmed and quickly put the book back on the shelf.

I pick up a card listing sewing classes. Easy alterations. Roman shade. Ragland sleeve top. Sewing 101. “We show you how your machine works.”

Yes. But first I need a machine.

Not today though.

Today, this “one day,” I leave with a fistful of fabric scraps and the notion that there may be something here for me – a reason I continue to find myself in fabric stores nearly 30 years after my first visit.

Perhaps I am bound for a fourth or fifth-act career, in fashion. Perhaps I will just learn to hem my own trousers. At not-quite 5’3”, petites are still too long.

Or maybe it is nothing more than my Libran birthright, which calls me to surround myself with beauty. The swatches in my bag, a talisman – guiding me.

Artist Date 52: Exactly Where I Am Supposed To Be

December 17, 2013 LesleyPearlLeave a comment

This time last year I was on my knees. Literally.

It was my first holiday season divorced and living back in Chicago, alone. My girlfriend called me out on my obsession with the man I like to call the Southern Svengali — the one I kissed for two nights while in Charleston in late October. She said she could not hear about it, or him, anymore.

My non-relationship was affecting my relationships.

I felt desperate and scared. I called a friend who advised me to get on my knees and ask God to remove my obsession him every day.

I did. But I needed something more.

I remembered the comfort I had found in the structured creativity of Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, and decided to pull it out again — a hopeful, albeit artsy, roadmap out of myself.

This time, in addition to taking on the weekly reading and writing assignments, I committed to the weekly Artist Date – the weekly hour or so block of time, alone, to fill my creative coffers – and to a weekly blog about it for a year. Fifty-two Artist Dates. Fifty-two blogs.

Thursday is Artist Date 52.

I am sitting in a Starbucks on Michigan Avenue killing time before Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. It is 6 p.m. and I have been downtown since 11. I am tired. I am questioning the wisdom in staying here as opposed to driving home at 2 p.m. when I was finished with my work and returning later.

Until I get the text which lets me know I am exactly where I should me. It is from my friend Matt. He is at a coffee shop around the corner, also killing time, before his couple’s therapy session where he will ask his wife for a divorce.

I tell him where I am. Within moments he is standing over me and then we are hugging each other tightly. Teary.

I remember when he told me that he and his wife were separating, more than a year ago. I still lived in Seattle, but was visiting Chicago – smack dab in the middle of my own divorce.

Matt is appropriately anxious. I reflect back to him how thoughtful he has been through this entire process – never rash. We hold hands and we pray together, in the middle of Starbucks. It doesn’t seem strange.

He leaves. And shortly after, I do too, pulling my wool long-underwear back on over my tights. It is December and the temperatures are already in the teens.

I love Chicago at night. Especially during the holidays. Michigan Avenue twinkles with white lights, and skaters glide around in circles on the tiny patch of ice in Millenium Park.

I walk up “the hill” that is Randolph Street to the Harris Theater. My body has once again adjusted to the flat Midwest and takes note of the incline.

I pick up my ticket at will-call and make a beeline for the bathroom, peeling off my long underwear. Winter in Chicago is a lot of work.

My friend Lori is coming out. We embrace and talk excitedly about her ceramics show. Lori is a genius potter. We met her at Lil Street Art Center, where I was stumbling through a beginners’ class. Lori taught me how to glaze.

She asks if I will come back to Lil Street. I am not certain as I have committed my creative energies to my writing and my dance – at least for now.

She asks if I remember Kevin from the clay studio and reminds me he is a member of Hubbard Street. I do remember. It is one of the reasons I am here.

We part company and I run into a woman I have danced with. She is enrolled in Level three West African Dance. I am in Level two. Later, I see Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

The world seems small and I am a citizen of it. Or, at the very least, a citizen of Chicago.

The woman in the seat next to mine is alone. As is the woman next to her. We make easy conversation. She is a Weight Watchers member. I am a Weight Watchers leader. She is looking for a massage therapist. I am a massage therapist. She is a widow. I am a divorcee.

She tells me she lost her husband four years ago, and she tears up. For the second time today I am clear that I am exactly where I am supposed to be. Right down to my seat: BB10.

The performance, One Thousand Pieces by Alejandro Cerrudo, is inspired by Marc Chagall’s America Windows – the installation I visit every time I am at the Art Institute, my favorite. I shared it with Matt a few months ago when we met downtown for a member’s-only café re-opening. It was summer and we sat in the courtyard noting who was checking the other out. It seems a long time ago.

One Thousand Pieces, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago

It is my first time seeing Hubbard Street Dance. The dancers’ bodies are strong. Gorgeous. Not sinewy, like ballet bodies. I think my legs approximate the same shape as theirs, albeit less toned and I feel at the same time cocky and ashamed admitting this to myself.

The stage is glossed and looks like water. I am looking for Kevin. My eyes occasionally roll back into my head. This almost always happens to me at performances. The lights go down and my sleepy kicks in. Except for last year when I saw Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre – twice.

My seats were good – dress circle one night, main floor the other. My experience was dramatically altered by looking straight at the dancers as opposed to peering down at them. I vowed then I would always buy good seats for dance. These seats are good – the Harris Theatre is small and there are no “bad seats.” But not good enough.

And then it is over.

The performance, but not my Artist Dates. They “work.” Like being on my knees works. Not so much in desperation (although I am certain I will find myself there again many times in this life), but in prayer – the antidote to it. Exactly where I am supposed to be.

Artist Date 49: Content In My Role As Second Tenor

November 26, 2013 LesleyPearl2 Comments

I am a second tenor.

rain 2 — Lake Street Underpass, by Errol Jacobson

So says Steven, who I met on Thursday at the Palette and Chisel, at the opening before the opening of my friend Errol’s art show, “City” – Artist Date 49.

Steven is a member of the Chicago Gay Men’s Chorus – the beneficiary organization of 20 percent of tonight’s sales. He is introduced to me by the Kent, the Executive Director, who is introduced to me by Stephanie, Errol’s partner.

We are chatting when he gets the nod that it is show time. He grabs my hand and says, “Come on, let’s go.”

“I don’t sing.” I protest, remembering my friend Teresa insisting the same when she was asked to audition for Beach Blanket Babylon in San Francisco. “Can’t you just belt something out?” So she did – the theme song to the Flintstones. She didn’t make it past the first verse.

“Of course you do,” Steven says. “You are a second tenor.”

He does not push further, but instead, joins his colleagues at the piano.

When he finishes, I ask him how he knows I am a second tenor. “Easy.” Everyone who claims to not sing is a second tenor. It is an easy range to sing, he explains. And there are lots of them – second tenors – so it is easy to be one among many.

I love the idea of me – a straight, Jewish girl who can’t carry a tune – surrounded by gay men singing Christmas carols. It seems somehow “right,” although certainly not congruent to the notion of “one among many.” I have weaseled my way into more unlikely settings. But I am pretty certain he was jesting.

He reminds me of the chorus’ upcoming holiday shows, and invites me to come watch open rehearsals on Sunday afternoons – both potential Artist Dates (Stephanie mentioned my practice to Steven and Kent when she introduced us) – then warmly takes my hand in his and bids me adieu.

Tonight is actually the second Artist Date Stephanie has “invited” me to– the first being her and Errol’s home in Bucktown, which was highlighted in a garden walk this past summer. I am humbled and touched by her interest.

However, I notice that tonight, unlike most of my previous Artist Dates, stirs up very little in terms of thoughts, emotions and memory. I am decidedly – without having made a decision – present.

I notice the chicken satay and Vietnamese spring rolls. The brownies and fruit pastries from Alliance Bakery. All of which I avoid.

The mild flirtation from the bartender who tells me I look like a character from a show on A&E. “But much better looking,” he says. I smile and tell him I do not have a television.

Errol’s paintings. So much rain. Like tiny kaleidoscopes sliding down windshields. It is wet outside tonight. And cold. Winter is coming.

I am drawn to the saturated colors of “Backlit,” “Shadows” and “Days End.” Purples and Yellows. And I tell him so.

My friend Dina asks if I recognize where “Backlit” is painted. I do not.

It is Paris.

She can tell from the roofline, she explains, using a fancy term I don’t know to describe the classically Parisian use of attics.

Dina lived in Paris 30 or so years ago. I always imagined I would live there. Or New York. Or that I still might. They feel familiar to me – they always have. And I’ve never been lost in either one.

Yet, right now in this moment, I feel no desire to be anywhere but Chicago. In spite of its cold, dark, rainy-ness.

I am driving my friend Leslie home and I mention that the man I asked out for coffee via Facebook has not responded. It has been more than two days and I am surprised by his lack of contact. It seems out of character. Mostly because I think he is a man, and not a boy. I am a little disappointed, but nothing more. I’ve made no investment. The crush diminishes.

“And then there were none,” I tell her.

And for once, I don’t mind.

Up until now, life without some sort of love interest felt sad. Somehow lacking. The crush, the flirtation, gave me a sense of hope. Of possibilities.

But I don’t feel sad right now. Absent is the familiar pain stemming from the fear that I will be alone.

Frankly, I am a little stunned. I am afraid to give this experience a voice. That I will jinx it.

All I know is, right now, my life feels full. With friends. With art. With possibilities. And I am, blessedly, not particularly troubled by what I lack. And by moments too far ahead.

It is as it was promised to me, that I would find contentment where I am right now. Content in my role as a second tenor. One among many. Easy.

Shaking The Coke Bottle and Other Sexy Little Gifts From the Universe

November 22, 2013 LesleyPearlLeave a comment

My friend Dina calls it “shaking the Coke bottle.”

That feeling when “nothing” is going on. When life doesn’t feel sexy. When I am going about my business doing what other people do. Grocery shopping. Paying bills. Taking out the trash. And, seemingly, not much else.

I don’t like it. Given my druthers, every day would be my birthday, New Years’ Eve and the 4^th of July all wrapped into one. (Actually, I don’t really care for either of these holidays, but they speak to the notion of fireworks and something shiny, new.)

I want to make “something happen.” Anything. Ergo, Dina’s Coke bottle. I imagine it as glass, and filled with soda made from sugar, not corn syrup – before it was retro. My thumb covering the opening. Fingers wrapped around the body. Shaking violently and knowing when I let up a spray of sticky sweetness will shower me, and anyone in my midst.

Sounds great, actually. The sweet spray, that is. Trouble is, the mess. And the dreaded clean-up. Sticky residue.

Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way series, writes that “too much drama equals not enough work.”

There is no drama right now. Not enough work either. Correction, it is there. I just don’t seem to be doing it.

Entering billable time for the past month. A tedious and mundane task that will take me, at best, 45 minutes.

Submitting two pieces – already written – for publication. Their titles and the word “pitch,” scrawled on my white board months ago and never erased.

Tackling the looming job search.

What I am doing is writing. This is a good thing. (Consider that the word “write” is tattooed on my right, inner wrist. “Left” on the opposite.)

Except when it keeps me from taking small actions that chip away at what appear large and overwhelming tasks. When it keeps me from making those satisfying little check marks on my to-do list.

This morning, while journaling my morning pages, I gave words to the hidden fear that the Coke-bottle fantasy seeks to remedy, or at the least, cover up.

That I will run out of subject matter to write about. My blog will grow dry and fallow. My life will grow dry and fallow. I will grow dry and fallow.

There is no romance. No big, new job. No decadent travel in the works. There is “nothing” going on.

What I forget is, when I do what’s in front of me, the rest, somehow, seems to magically take care of itself. And often, sexy little gifts from the universe emerge – if I choose to see them that way.

Strangely, it is not a linear process. A plus B does not equal C.

It is like weight loss.

There are weeks when I do everything “right,” the scale registers a gain and I call it a liar. And weeks when I do everything “wrong.” It shows a loss. And I thank the weight-loss goddess and keep on moving. When this happens to my Weight Watchers members, I remind them that it is what they do most of the time that matters.

Or like marketing. My spiritual business teacher insisted that we students reach out to 20 people a day and speak our vision – what we do, what we offer, what we promise.

“I am a massage therapist and bodyworker. I help people fall in love with their bodies, take care of their bodies, and do things they never imagined possible.” Twenty times a day.

When I did this, clients came to me. Not a single one directly from the outreach. But from other places. The universe answering my call. Proof that energy begets energy.

Or, as my friend Teresa used to tell me, “Nature abhors a vacuum.” Or, eventually something is going to happen.

So today, I will do what is in front of me. I will lead two Weight Watchers meetings. Meet for another informational interview. Go to a friend’s gallery opening.

I might even drop an email to my friend Steven about a trip to Italy we’ve been considering.

As I commit to this not-so-sexy stuff, the footwork, I feel my grip loosen – fully aware that the sticky, sweet will go flat. But that my life has not. Even if it sometimes feels that way.

Post Script. I met a milliner at tonight’s art opening. She shared that she used to make hats full-time, but that she had to get a “real job” when she got divorced. She found one, with great benefits and vacation. And that leaves her time and energy enough to continue to make hats.

“We’re looking to hire,” she offered. I smiled at the synchronicity. I told her our situations are strikingly similar, handed her my card, and asked if we might talk further.

Sexy little gift from the universe. And no clean up.

No Longer Waiting. And Other Little Miracles

October 7, 2013 LesleyPearlLeave a comment

I have a bit of a sugar hangover. I blame the French meringues. Stacked in big glass jars. All shades of gorgeous. Purple cassis. Cocoa salted-caramel. Yellow-cream.

I blame the lemon and apple tarts, covered with glazed domes, glistening, yellow and red. So shiny and perfect, at first I think they are glass.

I am at my cousin Andrew’s wedding.

I had not planned to eat so much sugar. I never do. Just like I never planned to drink so much, for things to go sideways, as they often did. Especially at weddings.

This is no longer my experience. At weddings. Or anywhere else for that matter. I don’t stick my hand in the cake (already cut up and served, thank goodness) on the way out the door. I don’t offend the groom’s cousin by dissing where he lives. The bride doesn’t have to separate me and her 17-year-old boy cousin who I am grinding with on the dance floor. The one who thinks perhaps this is his lucky day. Or night.

I am grateful.

And I am triggered.

By this girl – a woman, really – who reminds me of me when I drank. She stumbles back to the hotel with us, barely putting one foot in front of the other. Shuffling. Earlier, sitting at the bar, I watched her eyes roll back in her head. Her words don’t make any sense to me. She is speaking gibberish.

I remember making dinner for my girlfriends many years ago in California. Being drunk before they arrive. My friend Rainey, sweetly, sadly, telling me she doesn’t understand what I am saying.

Nobody tells this girl she doesn’t make sense. No one seems to mind. She smokes a joint thick as a cigarette and waves it about. I have to leave.

I am triggered by my brother. Showing up to the wedding with his new girlfriend. It isn’t her. Or him, for that matter. But that he always has a girlfriend. Always had a girlfriend. Always.

I am triggered by my aunt’s stories of dating in her 40s, after her divorce. The seeming line of suitors, one more exciting than the next, waiting for a chance to be with her. Her year in Italy, living with a Count.

My aunt and I. She is so beautiful. I can imagine her line of suitors.

This is not my experience. Any of it. And yet, the shame that rises is all mine. It is so familiar. The shame I used to feel in my drunken-ness. The shame I still sometimes feel in my alone-ness. Even if I have – mostly – chosen it.

So sugar seems like a good idea. At the end of the night. Alone, in my cousin’s hotel suite. Tired. Waiting for him and his husband to take me back to their apartment where I am staying.

The meringues are like a siren. The shiny slices of mango torte know my name. Even the leftover pastry from the morning is alluring. All from the patisserie where my cousin works.

I sample each, many times over. Quickly. And then…I stop. I realize I am going to be physically uncomfortable very soon if I continue. I say this out loud to myself. I realize I am uncomfortable in my skin right now. Triggered. I call my friend Matt and we talk it through.

I do not shame myself for using food. It is a small miracle. A victory. As is the stopping while I am in it.

This morning, it all feels a long time ago.

I am walking to the market to pick up some yogurt and produce for the apartment. A coffee. I am dropping into “my life” here in Minneapolis. My life for two and a half days.

I marvel at how easily I can make a place my own. Like I did in Dublin, with Steven. Renting an apartment. Finding my coffee shop. My grocery. My people in meetings in church basements.

I’ve done this in many places. In Brussels. In Charleston. Even my hometown, Detroit. Here, this morning in my cousin’s city, I remember a time when it wasn’t like this.

I was 17. My parents sent me to Los Angeles to visit my cousin – their high-school graduation gift to me. It is my first time traveling alone. I am terrified.

Andrew goes to work, leaving me with a key and suggestions of where I might go while he is away. Places I can walk to right out the door. There are plenty. Surprising for Los Angeles, but true.

I can’t leave the apartment. I am stymied. Paralyzed. I hang out with the cat. Listen to Carly Simon. Smoke his weed. Drink his booze. And wait for him to come home. While Los Angeles waits for me.

It is no different in the years that follow, as I continue to visit him in Los Angeles. I stay in when he is gone. Alone. Afraid.

Perhaps it’s just age. Or maybe it is travel. But I cannot imagine sitting inside today, waiting.

Just like I can’t imagine being the drunk girl at the wedding.

I can almost imagine men lining up to date me, like they did for my aunt. And that in itself is another miracle, that I can even imagine it. Even if it hasn’t happened. But I’m not waiting on that either.

Instead, I think about now. About dancing all afternoon at the wedding. A three-piece band – keyboard, stand-up bass and drummer – playing jazz and swing. About Peter swinging me around the floor. A strong lead, I follow easily. He dips me at the end of each song and I smile big. It is not a love connection. We are just dancing, having a great time.

About Emiko, my cousin’s friend from Los Angeles. She literally watched me become an adult, in those years that I visited, when I afraid to leave by myself. We talk as though no time has passed, picking up the thread of easy connection and filling in the blanks.

About Monica, my cousin David’s wife. The last time we saw one another was at my going-away party – when I was leaving California, with my then husband, for Chicago. The city I embraced as my own – even though it was his dream that brought me here.

About her words to me.

She tells me she is excited for me. For this time in my life. For the adventures I’ve lived, and those I am about to live. That I look amazing.

She doesn’t see the fear. The worry. Just this woman who flew in just this morning to show up for her cousin. For her family. For her life. Not waiting…for anything. For anyone.

This morning, walking, writing, making Minneapolis mine, if only for a moment…I see the same woman. No longer waiting.

A Wandering Jewess

My Journey Back To Self

Tag: Fear