AWAY (alone)

October 2, 2017 LesleyPearl5 Comments

My friend Clover knows I love papercut artist Nikki McClure and has twice bought me calendars of her work. Each has a beautiful image of the season and a single word. BECOME for January. RETREAT for April. LINGER for September. This morning I turned the page to October –AWAY.

Yes, indeed.

AWAY (alone) is the gift I have learned to give myself each birthday (whenever possible), each October 20.

Forty-five began with breakfast in Rome and ended with dinner in Paris. That evening, crossing the Seine from the Right Bank to the Left, I looked out at Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower and thought, “Who goes to Paris for dinner?” and then, “I do.”

What followed shook me to my core. Alone on my birthday in arguably the most romantic city in the world I thought “I don’t wish a man was here.” “I don’t wish a man was here.” And then, “I don’t wish a friend was here or that I ate anything different or wore anything different or that anything was different.” It was a moment of pure contentment and total bliss – fleeting and remarkable.

That trip – specifically my time spent in Rome – catapulted me on to a trajectory that had me living in Madrid six months later.

I had met a woman a few weeks earlier while volunteering in Perugia. Upon my arrival in Rome, she insisted on throwing a dinner/birthday party in my honor. As I rode the tram from the residential Trastevere neighborhood to Pyramid station on a Saturday night, flowers in hand, I thought, “It’s like I live here,” and then, “I can do this.” I knew just what the words meant – although I didn’t yet know where I’d be going … or how soon.

Forty-seven found me back in Paris waking up to a text that read, “Yesterday’s kisses are still on my tongue. Delicious. Happy Birthday, Gorgeous!” I spent that afternoon on a walking tour of Montmarte with a woman I had met just that morning. We shared a chocolate tart before parting company and she sang me Happy Birthday. That evening, I walked back to the bridge where I had found contentment and peace two years earlier – alone, eating a falafel from my favorite stand in Le Marais, and equally blissed out.

The romance lasted a glorious six months. My friendship with the woman from the walking tour remains strong.

I’ve often said I am best on the road, on my own.

My internal travel clock grows loud and restless at about the five-month mark. My spirit calls for its sojourn. AWAY (alone). Some might call it running … but I don’t think so.

AWAY (alone) is a detour. It is a place where unfamiliar roads open my eyes and force me to pay attention to what is in front of me. I believe it is in that paying attention that magic shows its face and I am awake enough to notice and respond to it.

I leave for Montreal in 19 days – my 48^th birthday – AWAY (alone) and wonder what gifts await me.

The Accidental Dater

April 25, 2014 LesleyPearlLeave a comment

I accidentally started online dating.

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

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

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

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

I didn’t get very far.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That was two weeks ago.

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

I have not responded.

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

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

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

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

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

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

We do not communicate every day.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Artist Date 50: When the Messenger is Hot

December 4, 2013 LesleyPearlLeave a comment

My friend Betsy gave me a book of hers a few days after I turned 40 – one that she wrote, as opposed to one that once upon a time made a difference in her life but is now collecting dust on the shelf. Just after I told her about my crush on a mutual friend of ours.

I told her that I was committed to the commitment of my marriage. That I loved my husband. That we had grown in wildly different directions, and were continuing to do so.

That I would see this other guy, our mutual friend, every Saturday morning in a church basement, where we would sit across the table from one another. That he was funny and smart, a writer. That he spoke my brand of crazy, which meant that when I talked, he would nod in that knowing way. The same way I nodded when he spoke.

That I was pretty sure he liked me after he brought me an entire smoked salmon for my 39^th birthday. And that I liked him. (Blog: I Think the Fish Guy Likes Me)

Or perhaps I just liked the way he made me feel. Seen. Heard. Understood.

Betsy made a happy-sad face and told me the story of When the Messenger is Hot.

I’m standing in The Brown Elephant thrift store in Andersonville – Artist Date 50. Her book of short stories by the same name stares back at me from the shelves of fiction.

I smile a big toothy grin. It’s some sort of message, I think. Which is really the crux of the When the Messenger is Hot.

That people, objects, and experiences come into our lives for a reason.

Sometimes their appearance, or disappearance, is painful. Sometimes it looks nothing like what we imagined.

And sometimes, according to Betsy, God provides a pretty attractive delivery vehicle to make certain we pay attention. In her case, a bad boy with the heart of a poet and a tattoo on the inside of each of his wrists, Chinese symbols for “child of God.”

She thought he might be the love of her life. Or at least great sex. Instead, she came to see him, and their single date – which she rated among her top 5 – but never led to another, as a template of what a date should look like – “…love songs and flowers and candles and lollipops.” A reason to have faith. A harbinger of things to come.

I’m still not sure what message the Fish Guy came to deliver me. That there are attractive men all around who will bring me clever and intimate gifts that say, “I know you?” (Because really, I don’t know any women other than myself who would swoon over a piece of fish.) That my then-husband wasn’t the only one? My own harbinger of things to come?

That my brand of crazy really isn’t so crazy? That that “too much” that I fear being, really isn’t too much?

The Fish Guy moved away from Chicago – to Florida, so he could fish. Seriously. But the message of When the Messenger is Hot stuck with me.

The words became my shorthand for meeting someone seemingly special and not getting what I thought I wanted. And an opportunity to look for lessons where I thought there might be love.

The teacher who taught me about spiritual intimacy through shared prayer and meditation, and long conversations about God.

The Southern Svengali who taught me about creative companionship. What it was to be inspired by another, to have a muse. And to be a muse.

The divorce buddy who taught me about unconditional love and friendship. Who packed my car and drove me home from the West Coast to Chicago, even when things were awkward and clunky between us.

I think about buying Betsy’s book, just because it is here. Even though I already have a copy. Even though I have sent copies to several of my friends. But I leave it.

I pick up a collection of short stories titled Tongue Party, and a hardback copy of Like Water for Chocolate, both for $1.37, instead – curious what messages they will deliver.

Artist Date 46: Why I Am Here

November 2, 2013 LesleyPearl2 Comments

Some Artist Dates are easy alone. Museums. Lectures. Dance performances. Opera. Theatre. Some, like movies, I even prefer that way.

Live music, however, is far more difficult. Even when the audience is children. Perhaps even more so.

And yet, this is the set up for Artist Date 46.

I am parked outside of Schubas. My friend Matt’s band – Future Hits, self-proclaimed Fun (Yet Secretly Educational) Music for Kids, Families and Teachers – is playing this afternoon. It is a Halloween performance and party for children, hosted in collaboration with Whole Foods, The Kite Collective and Adventure Sandwich.

I stand in awe of how Matt puts himself out there. Performing. Recording. Last year, Future Hits cut its first CD, Songs for Learning, funded by KickStarter. This past summer he spent a month in South America, improving his Spanish. An ESL teacher for Chicago Public Schools, he requested, and received, a grant that paid for everything.

But right now I am standing in fear. Rather sitting, in my 13-year-old Honda Civic. I feel anxious about going inside. I don’t have children.

I sometimes feel this way walking into synagogue by myself – which I began doing several years ago.

As fresh meat, I was quickly swarmed and warmly greeted. Peppered with questions. Top on the list: Do you have children?

“No.”

“Oh…”

Pause. Uncomfortable silence. I often feel I have to fill that space. Say something clever or pithy to put us both at ease. I am getting better at just letting that dead air “hang.” Like summer in Charleston. Heavy. Still.

I wonder what they are wondering. If I cannot have children. If I am childless by choice. If I am waiting for the perfect sperm to swim into my life. I am told that this is none of my business.

Mostly, I imagine they wonder what brought me there. It’s a reasonable enough question. And the assumption that I have children is equally reasonable.

Many, perhaps most, join a congregation when their children are of school age. They recognize it as time to do what their parents had done – provide their children with a Jewish education. Sometimes for no other reason than, “this is what we do.”

Perhaps the second most popular reason for joining is the gift of a complimentary one-year membership, given when the Rabbi or Cantor of that congregation marries a couple. (I will have to query my Rabbi to see if I am correct in my speculation.)

I walked into synagogue for my own reasons. Neither recently married nor considering a Jewish education, I am the Jew who converted to Judaism. It’s a long story. One that doesn’t fit neatly into conversation over coffee and pastry after services. But it is mine. And I am assured that I have a place in the congregation.

Nonetheless, it is often still daunting walking through those sacred doors alone.

It is too at Schubas. Even after seeing my friend Joe, smoking outside. He doesn’t have kids either.

I walk in, pay $10, get my hand stamped and say to the bouncer, “Am I the only one here without kids?” “Nah,” he replies. Looking in, I’m not so sure.

The lights are dim and a bunch of little people in costumes are making kites and eating granola. Matt and his band mates are dressed in caveman attire. Think Flintstones.

Our friend Lily is selling CDs. Gene is on the floor with his son, Oscar, making a kite. Jenny is helping her son Seth into his costume.

Matt’s mom, Rhonda, is here. His dad too. I love Rhonda. Our conversations meander from fashion to Transcendental Meditation (which we both practice) – seamlessly. I feel like the universe has conspired for us to meet. We pick up where we left off last time.

Matt is delighted to see me. Grateful for the support. He always is.

I remember the first time I heard him play, at the Beat Kitchen. I arrived early and was standing on the corner outside. When he saw me, he dropped to his knees – on the sidewalk – his hands in prayer. Total gratitude.

This is why I am here – to support my friend. But I forget, falling into a swirling pit of “me.” Self-conscious about my childless-ness. Even though I (mostly) chose not to have any.

And then the music starts and I forget all of that. I forget myself. I have seen Matt perform many times, but this my first time hearing Future Hits. Even though I was a KickStarter supporter, which earned me a button and a CD.

I’m surprised. The music doesn’t feel like kids music. It is pleasing to my ear. It’s not sing-song-y like Barney. Something to be endured. I am delighted watching Emma go from bass to flute to tambourine.

The kids are invited to dance. They do, with joyous abandon. Oblivious to the concept of rhythm. I would like to shake a tail feather myself…but I’m suddenly self-conscious again. So I watch instead. Although I do raise my hand when the band asks if anyone’s birthday is in October.

There is a kite parade for the kids to show off their creations. More music and a dance contest. The winner – dressed as a werewolf – leaves with a Halloween-decorated bag of schwag.

And soon after, I leave too. Holding tightly to the light I see in Oscar’s face. In Seth’s. And the lesson they teach me. Beaming over the simplest things. Costumes. Music. Paper kites. They do not concern themselves with why they are here. Just that they are.

A Birthday Story: Celebrating What Is

October 21, 2013 LesleyPearlLeave a comment

It is four something in the morning. I woke up at the same ungodly hour yesterday – my 44^th birthday.

I have always loved birthdays.

My birthday didn't begin with laughter...it ended with it. — My birthday didn’t begin with laughter…it ended with it.

I’m a big celebrator in general. Ask any of my Weight Watchers members. I love to clap and give out Bravo! Stickers for behavior changes. Those subtle little miracles.

“Where else do you go that they clap for you?” I ask.

Well, 12-Step meetings. But I don’t bring that up as it isn’t germane.

Birthdays are like that. It seems the whole world is clapping, rooting for you, that day. Mostly.

This year I awoke feeling a little less clap-y. A little less celebratory.

I’d been aware of a low-grade sadness tugging at me for a few days. Aware this was my first birthday since my birth mother died.

We found one another in October of my 40^th year.

Ours was not always an easy relationship. Some days I think she would have jumped in my skin if she could have, while I took a more tentative approach to our relationship. Timing. Expectations. Boundaries. Those were our lessons. And we were one another’s teachers.

She sent me flowers when I turned 40. A card the following year. And then phone calls the next two. She wasn’t well and it was difficult for her to get out – both physically and emotionally. This year there would be no flowers, no card, no call. I felt sad.

Like I did when her name was read at the memorial service on Yom Kippur. Like I did when I returned from Ireland last month and felt like calling and for the first time realized I couldn’t. I find myself surprised by the sadness, although I’m not sure why. It makes perfect sense – at least on a cellular level.

So there was that.

And there was the aloneness of being not-so-suddenly, but-still, single.

My ex was a great gift giver.

Birthday and anniversary mornings I would find a card on the bed, slipped into place when I got up to shower. A gift would come later. Usually something I had spied and mentioned in passing months earlier. Something I had forgotten about until I saw it again. A hand-carved wooden jewelry box. Strands of smoky quartz and hand-colored pearls.

2013-10-20 20.19.35 — Kristin. Who reminds me of the love in my life when I cannot see it.

He gave me a watch when I turned 42 – my last birthday with him. I had been wearing the same Seiko tank since I was 14, gift from my Aunt Betty. She had lost hers. Found it. And gave the original to me.

I replaced the band and battery several dozen times over the years. Until the crystal broke and a jeweler told me it couldn’t be fixed.

I didn’t like the watch he bought me. I don’t know if I would have liked anything he bought me at that time. He had recently asked me for a divorce – and then recanted the next day – but it was there. The truth about our relationship. It was over. We just hadn’t cut the cord yet.

He was hurt and offended that I didn’t like his gift, but offered to take me shopping so I could pick out something else, anyway. I couldn’t do it. I kept the watch. I am still wearing it.

When I woke up early yesterday, I noticed the absence of a card. Of a body in my bed. Specifically, my ex’s. I do not crave him being there – but I was used to it. To him, for so long.

I rolled off my mattress and dropped to my knees in child’s pose – both a stretch and a prayer. “modeh ani lefanecha. Thank you G-d for returning my soul to me.” I asked for several obsessions to be removed. And then, still on my knees, I opened Facebook on my phone. The messages had already begun to pour in. Old neighbors. Acquaintances from grade school. Family – by origin and by choice. From Africa. And from just down the street.

I wrote. Meditated. Showered and went to work. Weight Watchers. It felt life affirming. As did dance class. I made lunch and took myself shopping at my favorite resale shop. I bought a grey wool coat that ties at the waist. It fits as if it were made for me.

I talked to a few friends on the phone. Around five a girlfriend picked me up and we went to do what we do to make sure we don’t drink today.

I used to make a big “to do” out of my birthday. Or at least try to. Those expectations often left me feeling sad and frustrated. I was unclear why. But today was delightfully ordinary.

It ended with cheap eats at a large, bright Pakistani restaurant on Devon Avenue. The kind with a menu posted on a TV screen. Where you wait in line to order food and pick it up on a tray. Where you eat with plastic utensils.

Where I feel conspicuously white.

There were eight of us. Among them, my divorce buddy – the man I walked lock step with through the dissolution of our marriages. And then watched my friendship with him dissolve. I hadn’t invited him. But there he was. I was delighted.

“Of course he’s here,” Kristin said. “He loves you.”

I decided to believe her. And to believe in all the love around the table. JB’s. Tom’s. Matt’s.

Rebecca’s. Brian’s. Kristin’s.

And to focus on it. To focus on who was there, instead of who wasn’t. The calls, texts, cards and Facebook greetings I did receive. Instead of those I didn’t. (Well, mostly.)

We took pictures and ate fried bits of goodness – both sweet and savory. Drank lassis and tea with evaporated milk.

I came home and ate the last of my sweets. I felt a little overly-sugared. Overly stimulated.

And I fell into bed. Alone. Sated. Full.

Artist Date 43: It Never Occured To Me I Was Good

October 18, 2013 LesleyPearlLeave a comment

I used to hate Harry. Not him personally. Just dancing with him.

And not exactly hate. More like fear. Dread.

It’s not like that anymore. It hasn’t been for a while. But that came later. Much, much later.

So it was a pleasant and still somewhat unexpected surprise to find myself pedaling to the Andersonville Arts Weekend, specifically to see his work – Artist Date 43.

Harry is like my friend J, who I have written about before (as have other bloggers – cursing his talent). An artist savant. J made Mission-style bedroom furniture his first go at woodworking. He didn’t even know what Mission-style was.

I imagine it is like that for Harry too – that his fingertips simply release the art locked up in the canvas, the stone or metal.

I am not this kind of artist.

Consider my recent foray into clay, my first in more than 25 years.

I enrolled in a first-time potter class at Lil Street Art Center. Bought my bucket and toolkit. Attended all of the five, three-hour sessions. Came in on the weekends to practice. And never came close to mastering centering.

Or even getting the hang of it. Which is problematic as centering – which is exactly what it sounds like, getting the clay centered on the wheel — is pretty much essential for anything of beauty to emerge.

I didn’t have much more success with trimming – cleaning up or “editing” my pots. Ditto for slab work or glazing.

I left the class with a few sad pieces I have scattered around my house – doing utilitarian duty. A tray I lean spoons on when cooking. A tiny bowl with salt in it, sitting on top of the stove. Another sitting on the window sill of my shower, filled with stones and glass I collected at the beach.

A cylinder glazed white, where my sponge lives.

I realized this work would be work if I wanted to be any good at it. Or even just better. Like dance.

While dancing always felt natural to me – at clubs and at parties – moving across the floor in a structured class was something else entirely. Which is probably why I avoided it for so long. For fear of not knowing what I am doing. Looking “stupid.” Not in control.

The take away from my early years regarding art, music and sports was that talent was innate. Period. There was no talk of practice. Learning a craft. Or of doing for sheer joy.

I learned those lessons late. First, from my step-mother, who began painting in her 60s. I recall her early efforts – shared with me in cards and notes. Then seeing her work, in her home studio, years later. Whimsical watercolors of cows on oversized paper. Framed. I wanted them for my wall.

I learned them again, a few years later, in dance class. I have a visceral memory of my instructor Idy going right and me moving left. Him reaching up, and I, down.

“Like this, Lesley,” he would say. I swore I was doing the same, but clearly I wasn’t. Again and again. Looking at one another in the mirror. Me giggling. Them him. Until I fell on the floor in a heap.

Learning to laugh at myself. To feel the drums. My bare feet on the floor. The joy and wonder of my body leaping. Contorting. Flying.

That is, until I met Harry. He was, and is, what I call a teacher’s teacher. Reaching for rightness. What is correct. He filled in when Idy traveled. I hated it.

Walking into the studio and seeing him, my heart would sink. Frustrated by his seemingly constant corrections, I would bite my bottom lip to hold back tears.

One January, when Idy returned to Senegal, Harry led the entire session. Driven by my frail ego and fear of being found out as a “dance fraud,” I did not enroll in class. It was the first time I would not dance on a Sunday in more than a year.

I missed it.

I talked to my friend Lisa at length about it. She suggested I pray. For the resentment to be removed? To be right sized? To be teachable? I don’t recall her exact directions. I just remember, being desperate. Praying. And things changing.

I found I could dance with Harry. And I could even enjoy it.

Especially when I nailed a step, or a series of steps. He would stand in front of me clapping his hands shouting, “Yes! Yes!” I was both thrilled and embarrassed at the same time, grinning ear to ear. Then losing my footing. And laughing. I knew he wasn’t lying.

Or when he had me demonstrate a step, moving across the floor, with the other dancers following. Because I “had it.” This happened just once.

Truth told, I developed a little crush on Harry. The safe kind. I was pretty sure he was married and had been for a long time.

I found out for certain on Sunday, meeting his wife – who showed me his jewelry. Rings with enormous oversized stones – too big for my tiny hands. A copper and silver band that made my fingers look long. A snaking chain of tiny stones, each marked with a symbol. I wrapped it around my neck again and again until there wasn’t anymore. Heavy.

We talked about dance and artistry. About marriage. And giving one another space to grow.

I saw Harry a bit later that afternoon, showing his paintings and sculpture at a different location. He waved to me from inside the store as I was approaching. And once inside he introduced me to his daughter and told me about his work. His inspiration. His process. I listened.

And then I told him how I used to feel about dancing with him. And how today I love it. That I am a better dancer because of him.

His response floored me.

He told me he can’t stand idly by when someone is so close.

It had never occurred to me that I was close. That he pushed me because I was good. Not because I was bad. That if I were hopeless, he wouldn’t have bothered at all.

He saw me, right-sized. Teachable.

(Video: Dancing with Harry)

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151412384026731&set=vb.554046730&type=3&theater

Cotton is the Proper Gift for a Was-A-Versary

October 14, 2013 LesleyPearlLeave a comment

Today is my wedding anniversary.

Twelve years ago today... — Twelve years ago today…

Except I’m no longer married.

What do you call an anniversary that is no longer?

Was-a-versary? Once-upon-a-time-a-versary? Just plain shitty?

Are there traditional gifts for it like for a wedding anniversary? Paper for the first year?

Yes, of course. Divorce papers.

And cotton for the second? According to the wedding website, The Nest, cotton represents durability and the ability to adapt.

Yes. This is so. Even on days when I feel really fragile.

I don’t remember this day last year. The first. Perhaps it was just too painful and my brain protected me, blocking it out. Like it does, I am told, with the pain of childbirth – this “amnesia” being necessary for the perpetuation of the species.

The amnesia has cleared. And this year I am more than present for the pain.

It hit me out of nowhere, or so it seemed – arriving Wednesday and continuing to linger like a low-grade cold that lasts all winter long.

I arrived home from my cousin’s wedding, the second in less than 30 days, and was riding my bike when I felt a rush of energy shoot through my body. It centered in my heart and moved out to my extremities. Coursing, over and again. Sharp heat.

I pedaled as hard as I could – trying to force flush this poison from my system. It didn’t budge.

My eyes welled up behind my oversized Old Navy sunglasses. My nose flared and felt hot. But I couldn’t quite squeak out a cry.

I needed more than a cry. I needed a wail.

This is the feeling I used to drink over.

I should have seen it coming. The weddings. The short-lived sex with a boy 12 years my junior. It was great fun, but as so often has been the case in my history, over practically before it began. Over before I was done.

Tim, Master Cake Maker. — Tim — Friend, former roommate and wedding-cake baker.

He told me up front he was in no place for a relationship. But “a little sex won’t kill me,” he said. Funny, I told him it might kill me. I knew that somehow my heart would hurt, but I couldn’t help myself.

And then I cut a cord that tethered my ex and I together. I told him I could not be his best friend.

Our divorce was about as amicable as they get. We lived together through it all. Used a mediator. Never went to court. The whole thing was done in less than six months.

The night before I left Seattle we sat on his bed waxing nostalgic – remembering him calling me and asking me out for the first time, and me asking “Why?”

He said I was pretty and I had cool shoes. And then he looked in my eyes and told me I was still pretty. That I still had cool shoes. The next morning, I was gone before he woke.

We were close for a while. And then we weren’t. I began to heal. I leaned into the people about me. Into my art, my writing, my dance. He noticed the change in me. In the dwindling frequency of our conversations and commented on it.

“I guess you need space,” he remarked. I did. But I was so afraid of losing him in my life that I asked for it in a wishy-washy sort of way. Backpedaling often.

When he said it again, a week or so ago, I replied in the affirmative. This time with a little more backbone, adding, “I cannot be your best friend.” He immediately, expectedly, retreated.

On Wednesday, home from my travels, and the whirlwind that has been my life for the past few weeks, I felt the culmination of the days and of my experiences. Grief. Sadness. It crashed over me like a wave, and all I could do was feel the incredible force of it.

It reminded me of body surfing in Punta Mita with my ex – the Pacific Ocean as warm as bath water. I got caught by a rip tide and was thrust down into the sand beneath me, head first. Terrifying. I began to flail, unsure which way was up. Until I remembered what I had been taught.

Don’t fight. Stay still. That my body would naturally float to the surface. And it did.

I never told my ex, or anyone else, about the experience. Until now.

I’ve been back in the ocean many times since then. The experience remains with me. A shadow. A teaching. A reminder, like all of my experiences – especially the most recent ones –I am durable. Adaptable. Like cotton.

A Wandering Jewess

My Journey Back To Self

Tag: Lessons