Artist Date 3.2: Enough To Say Fuck Off

August 6, 2016August 6, 2016 LesleyPearl2 Comments

Every fiber in my being is telling me to go home. To send resumes. Work on my manuscript.

That I’ve been downtown too long already. Eating lunch. Shopping for sunglasses. Having fun.

That I don’t “deserve” it. That I better get back home and get cracking. Find a job and start making money. And until I do, I have no right “playing” like this.

It’s an old message.

The first time I heard it I was in my late 20s, when my event-fundraising contract was not renewed.

“Enjoy this time,” my therapist said. “Go to matinees. Museums. Walks in Golden Gate Park.

“Soon enough you’ll be working again and you’ll regret not taking advantage of this time … Trust me, I know.”

And she did. It had happened to her.

But I didn’t much enjoy that time off. Or all the other times I’ve been unemployed or underemployed since.

Not until a couple of years ago, when I took on the challenge of the Artist Date — the weekly, solo flight of fancy as prescribed by Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way.

Until then, time not working meant time I scrambled. Wrung my hands. Ran the numbers. Sat in front of the computer. Somehow equating worry with work.

It didn’t work. And it didn’t bring me work. Just suffering. Which I seemed to somehow think I deserved.

When I took on The Artist’s Way as if it were my job, I saw the folly of my constant motion. And I learned, albeit slowly, to enjoy my underemployed status.

Friends marveled at my charmed life. Museum lectures. Book stores. Dance classes. Opera. I did too.

But deep down, a part of me didn’t believe I deserved it.

Perhaps it still doesn’t.

It is the voice that shames me for returning to Chicago after a year abroad and finding myself, once again, underemployed. And reminds me that unlike the years of 2012-2015, I am no longer receiving alimony. It says, “Be afraid.”

Even though I am doing all the right things. Sending resumes. Writing cover letters. Incorporating edits and feedback.

Registering with temp agencies. Seeing massage clients. Applying for non-career jobs.

Babysitting.

It insists it’s not enough. That I should go home and do more. As if the one hour I have set aside for my Artist Date – number 3.2 (119) – will somehow make a difference in my ability to secure full-time work.

Even though I have enough money for today. And even tomorrow.

I tell this voice to “fuck off!” and walk down Washington and into the Chicago Cultural Center. “Which, by the way,” I tell it, “is free.”

The effect is immediate. What I used to get from that first gulp of booze. What I used to think was magic in a bottle. Relief.

My chest feels flushed, my heart full. The voice is quiet. I am smiling.

I’ve been here dozens of times but today I am particularly struck by the beauty of the former public library. So much so I never make it to the exhibit on the fourth floor.

Glittering tile work. Quotes carved in marble. In English. Hebrew. Arabic. Chinese.

Light shining through the recently cleaned stained-glass cupola.

A poster that reads, “There are no degrees of human freedom or human dignity. Either a man respects another as a person or he does not.” James Cone.

Equally lovely.

I’d add, “…respects himself, or herself, or does not … enough to say ‘fuck off.’ ”

“I’m Sorry.” Or, Watch It Scatter Like Cockroaches

March 31, 2016 LesleyPearl2 Comments

I woke this morning to this message on my Facebook wall. “Any news?!?!”

It seemed like a sign – that it is time to speak my truth. To cast a light on my darkness and disappointment and (hopefully) watch it scatter like cockroaches.

Sigh.

I have not been accepted to the Institute of Sacred Music at Yale University.

I’ve known this for a little more than two weeks.

I’ve shared the news slowly. With a few friends. My ex-husband. My rabbi and other personal references.

But I haven’t been able to tell either of my parents. Post it on Facebook. Blog about it.

I’ve been transparent about so much in my life. My divorce. The failed romances that followed it. And the beautiful one that began the day after I bought my ticket to Madrid.

My struggles with weight. With alcohol. With making a life in a new country.

My breast reduction.

The death of my biological mother.

But this felt strangely tender and raw. Perhaps a little shameful. Disappointing and shocking because I really thought I was going.

Ever since my friend Spencer mentioned it to me while we were on holiday in Prague. When my spine straightened and my whole body screamed, “Yes! I have no idea what the Institute of Sacred Music is but, Yes!” When I suddenly “knew” (or thought I knew) why I had been called to Madrid. To meet Spencer and to have this conversation.

And the people around me…they thought I was bound for New Haven too.

They saw the way my face lit up, how my resonance changed when I spoke about combining my lifelong practices of writing and spirituality. How I felt like I was finally redeeming myself to myself. How the “smart girl” was finally going to “live up” to that moniker. And how I was going to give myself the gift I couldn’t until now – art school and graduate studies.

I felt confident about my personal statement and my writing sample, the glowing letters of recommendation.

“You’re going,” they said, as if they had seen the future in a crystal ball. And I believed them. Not because I wanted to. But because I thought it was already written.

Unfortunately, this was instead.

Dear Ms. Pearl:

The Admissions Committee of the Yale Institute of Sacred Music has reviewed your application with great care. I am sorry to inform you that your application has not been approved.

We recognize your dedication to the church and appreciate your great interest in the educational mission of the Institute. We send you our best wishes for success in realizing the goals expressed in your application.

Sincerely,

Martin Jean
Director
Yale Institute of Sacred Music

“Clearly it wasn’t meant to be.” “It isn’t God’s will.” “Something better is around the corner.” “Fuck Yale.” “I know just how you feel.”

I’ve heard these words, spoken with love and compassion. And while I’m sure they are true, it’s been hard for me to accept them, to take them in. I’m just not “there” yet.

I’m certain I will one day look back and view this with gratitude and the “ahhhh” of understanding. But until then, and without faith on my part, the words feel somehow hollow, a little bit like platitudes.

Surprisingly, I’ve received the most comfort from the words, “I’m sorry.”

Perhaps because they speak to where I am at this moment.

Sorry. Yes. Me too.

Artist Date 104: When Too Much is Just Enough

March 14, 2015March 14, 2015 LesleyPearl2 Comments

From the show that brought me back to a darker time in my body's journey. Photography: Jack Wallace. Graphic Design: Rebecca Willett — From the show that brought me back to a darker time in my body’s journey. Photography: Jack Wallace. Graphic Design: Rebecca Willett

I can’t remember the last time I vomited. I don’t try to. Such a violent act — my insides coming out. My body’s intuitive wisdom, ridding itself of what it identifies as clearly foreign. An organic process.

It is hard to imagine I would ever try to bring this on. But I did.

A long time ago. And thankfully, not for very long — I wasn’t very good at it.

I haven’t thought about this in more years than I can remember. Probably because I haven’t binged in at least that long.

But I am brought back to it here, in the darkened Greenhouse Theater for Danielle Pinnock’s showcase performance of Body Courage — Artist Date 104.

In these 75 or so minutes, Pinnock is the embodiment of her more than 400 interviews, her words verbatim.

She is man and woman. Black and white. Straight and gay. Young and old.

She is a former Miss California USA pageant contestant sporting a red bathing suit, gold high heels, a long blonde wig and Valley Girl twang.

She is an Irish priest with early-onset Parkinson’s Disease. A Muslim woman touching her thighs over and again — the site of her burn scars, scalded by her ex with the contents of a crock pot.

She is Tan Mom, whose 15-minutes of fame I missed somehow, and a Temple University professor who also missed her arrival on to the American pop-culture scene.

She is a gay man with gynecomastia — overdeveloped male breasts — the one who keeps his shirt on during sex.

She is a 20-something waitress who vomits.

My ears perk up when the waitress mentions “the trick” — puke immediately after eating, before any food has begun its journey towards digestion.

How could I not have known this? It is so obvious. And yet, my flirtation with this brand of disordered eating was pre-Internet, before Google was a verb and I could type “How to vomit” into the search bar.

Unfortunately, I never needed any special instructions regarding bingeing. It was easy. Intuitive.

The black-out tornado roaring through my kitchen — stuffing bite after bite into my mouth, not fully finishing the last before starting the next. No mere episode of overeating, emotional eating, or eating when I am not hungry — although all of these factors may be at play.

The binge is a high. A distraction. Numbing.

And it is shameful. A secret. Dissociating.

It is me at my friend Carlos’ house, dog sitting — on the kitchen floor eating Girl Scout Thin Mints by the sleeve and peanut M&Ms from a cut-crystal jar.

He returns, unexpected. My mouth is full, my hand loaded for the next bite. We look at one another and say nothing about it — now or ever again.

It is me lying on the bed in my underwear and nothing else, trying to bargain away the hurt — both physical and emotional. Trying to pray away the remorse.

It is me walking down the hill to one market for yogurt-covered raisins, up it to another for Pepperidge Farm cookies, and next door to a third for a pint of Ben and Jerry’s — too ashamed to buy all of this at once.

It is me successfully unloading my body of macaroni and cheese from the cafeteria before my afternoon lecture. I look in the mirror. The blood vessels around my eyes are purple and broken. I fear people will notice, will know what I have done.

It’s been nearly 20 years since my last binge. I don’t remember it. What I ate. If I vomited. Or how I stopped.

I only know that it stopped “working” — no longer providing the desired effect of distraction, and if I was lucky, oblivion. That the pain of my behavior — both physical and emotional — became too great to continue. And that I no longer do it.

A miracle is defined as “a highly improbable or extraordinary event, development, or accomplishment that brings very welcome consequences.” This is surely one.

However, I still overeat — sometimes. I still emotionally eat and eat when I am not hungry — sometimes. And I likely always will — sometimes.

Sliced pork on focaccia, oil seeps through the waxy paper, while I sit on the edge of a fountain in Campo de’ Fiore. My body says “enough” at two-thirds, but I continue — uncertain when I will be here again.

The last few bites of a burrito from my favorite taqueria — not enough to bring home.

Fresh dates in my refrigerator — nature’s crack. I have two, then two more, and then another two.

The dinner plate I push away — done — and then pull back and return to as my friend broaches the topic we have neatly avoided all night.

The difference? My intent. My response. My awareness.

I remember these moments. Some, like the porchetta in Rome, are joyous. Others, like the reminder of my “still single” status over dinner, more than uncomfortable. But mostly they are neutral, evoking neither shame nor pain, just information — a physical sensation of “too much.”

And the comfort in knowing it, and in knowing that sometimes “too much” is “just enough.”

Artist Date 83: On The Path All Along

August 5, 2014 LesleyPearlLeave a comment

I’m late.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I’ve had work.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Shame for the sex I’m not having.

Shame that I was set free…and remain free.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The list goes on. Long. Abundant.

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

Artist Date 73: Navel Gazing

May 3, 2014 LesleyPearlLeave a comment

Navel gazing.

It is the story of my life. Or perhaps it is just my fear. That seemingly subtle line between interested self-awareness and narcissistic self-centeredness.

I begin blogging in 2012. Dubious. Wondering what, if anything, I have to say. And who, besides myself and perhaps a few kind-hearted friends, would care.

The questions become irrelevant as life becomes more Technicolor than I am used to. I have no choice. I have to write.

About Rwanda. My birth-mother’s death. Divorce. Romance. Healing.

The unexpected gift of my return to writing following a 15-year absence – what spurs me on in my early, tentative efforts and continues to spur me on today – is the return voices of others. The sense of connection, and its immediacy, is a balm.

I feel seen. Heard. Supported. And even, dare I say, useful. It seems the words I give to my name my experiences are words others have struggled to find.

In time, I find the writing itself is healing. That I am healing myself.

And yet I sometimes still wonder what, if anything, I have to say.

On occasion those closest to me take exception to my writing and I have to consider if what I have written is hurtful or dishonest. If I have compromised their anonymity. Their right to privacy.

And, when blog posts garner little response, I question if what I have to say is still relevant. Interesting. Of value.

Self-doubt. It is the devil of all creatives. Likely all people. But for those whose very lifeblood is the exercise of expression through words or clay or paint or charcoal. Violin, ballet or film. It can kill – the art. The process. The artist. Either metaphorically or literally.

Sunday – Artist Date 73 – is that kind of killer.

I am invited to Megan’s house for a salon. (Think 1920s Paris, the apartment of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas.) Her friend, Peggy Shinner will be reading from her recently published book of essays on the body, “You Feel So Mortal.”

Megan thinks I will enjoy the afternoon, both as a writer and a bodyworker. And, she thinks I should perhaps meet Peggy.

Approaching Megan’s door I hear piano music blending with animated chit-chat. Inside there is a table covered in finger foods. Slices of grainy-European bread topped with slices of egg and watercress. Cheeses, jams and chutneys. Chocolate-covered fruit. Elegantly-penned signs in front of each platter, describing its offering.

I make a cup of green tea and easy conversation with the handful of women I know.

Megan introduces Peggy and me, highlighting our shared status as writers and Jewish women. She asks me about my writing. I trip over myself, talking about my blog – life after divorce, not dating, Artist Dates, healing. My proverbial elevator pitch in desperate need of revision, or at the very least practice.

I tell her I believe it might be a book. She smiles.

Later, Megan summons us upstairs, inviting us to find a seat from a row of chairs. Peggy comes to the front of the room, opens her book and begins to read.

“I have Jewish feet,” she reads, continuing on about her father’s and how they are the same. Then digging deeper, she reads about Jewish genetics, especially as applied to feet. And how it was used against her people, my people, in Nazi Germany.

Her story is bigger than just her feet. Just her family.

I feel small. Self-important. Silly. Why don’t I include research in my writing? Facts. Or history — like she does in another essay about her mother and her relation to Nathan Leopold, who with Richard Loeb, sought to commit the perfect crime.

In a Q and A session following the reading, Peggy specifically mentions her desire to reach beyond her own story. To have a greater context.

I don’t buy Peggy’s book. I say goodbye from a distance, a wave, mouthing the words “Thank you.” I am in some sort of self-imposed shame spiral.

I come home and finish reading, “Seducing the Demon,” by Erica Jong. I have forgotten how smart, sassy and irreverent she is. Her casual use of “fuck” and “cunt.” She is my hero.

The book includes an essay that Jong read on “All Things Considered” in 2006. “On Being a Car Wreck” – a response to unfavorable reviews of this book.

“So, instead of seeing the review as a personal vendetta or sexist attack, I’m living with the fact that the critic simply thought my book sucked. So how can I write a better one?

“…Become less self-centered…How do I get over myself?…I’ve always wanted to improve and evolve as a writer…I’ve finally, at age sixty-four, gotten to the point where I realized that there are lives and characters more interesting than mine…”

She was sixty-four. I am just forty-four. Plenty of time.

Artist Date 68: Power Cords

March 18, 2014 LesleyPearl2 Comments

I have given my power away.

I feel vulnerable. Ashamed. I am “that woman,” wringing her hands about “that man.”

Disgusting.

I gave my power away when I said, “I can’t do this.” Telling him I needed more. And that he didn’t seem capable of giving it to me. And did it anyway, becoming more and more deeply entwined in our long-distance intimacy.

I did it when I told him I could not Skype with him. That it was too hard to look into his green eyes. To see him look back at me in a way I can’t ever recall being seen. And did it anyway.

I did it when I promised myself I wouldn’t reach out to him for 30 days. Not as a game or a test. But to find out how he shows up. And reached out anyway.

I did it every time he mentioned bad timing, money or miles between us, and chose not to listen. Only paying attention to the part where he changed his mind, usually about 10 minutes later, saying he did want to “find out about us.”

I made the rules and I couldn’t keep them. Just like when I used to drink. And it left me feeling the exact same way – anxious, obsess-y, over-thinking. Knowing in my heart that something isn’t right, and trying to make it work anyway. Somehow believing “this time will be different.” Powerless.

***************

I am standing in my bedroom in front of a batik wall hanging of Ganesh — Hindu boy with an elephant head, Remover of Obstacles – like I do every morning.

I kick my meditation cushion to the side, put my hands in prayer, in front of my third eye, and inhale deeply.

“Lord Ganesh, give me back my power.”

I feel a surge through my body, a response, and am flooded with words of direction.

Carry Ganesh with you. Visit India. See Nilima Sheikh’s “Each Night Put Kashmir in Your Dreams” at the Art Institute. Artist Date 68.

***************

It is the Saturday before St. Patrick’s Day. The train headed downtown is filled with drunk twenty-somethings in oversized green, foam hats, green socks and beads. I put on my sunglasses and turn up Nina Simone and try to forget that he did not show up last night.

That he has not responded to my text.

That I am the one with the problem.

I get off several stops earlier than necessary and walk. It is cool and sunny and I feel happy in my grey wool coat, knit hat and red ankle boots. I make note of the galleries on Superior Street. Future Artist Dates. I feel my power growing.

***************

I step inside the Special Exhibit Gallery. It is quiet. Still behind glass doors. I stand in front of a painted scroll titled “Valley.” The canvas is green. Lush and gentle. A verdant map. I begin to cry.

“That really affected you, huh?”

It is the museum guard –a woman named Denise. She wears long braids gathered together. I nod. She says a few more things but I cannot take them in. I am lost. I politely tell her I need to be alone in my quiet. She nods. I feel my power growing.

I approach the canvas, “Farewell.” Red, with two entwined figures – one holding open his robe, displaying a map of Kashmir where his heart should be.

“If only somehow you could have been mine. What would not have been possible in the world?” The words stenciled in gold at the top of the canvas. “We’re inside the fire, looking for the dark,” on the back.

I feel like I have been punched in the gut.

The tears return. I am breathless.

I return to “Valley.” “…And though the guards searched for him with the sun in one hand and the moon in the other the demon baffled them.” Stenciled on the back.

He sought me. I am baffled, wondering where he is now. But knowing I must continue to seek myself. I feel my power growing.

***************

I share a bench and a cup of tea with a couple in the member’s lounge. We talk about shoes. About art. About recovery and vibrators and relationships. They tell me I need a man who is here. I know they are right. I feel my power growing.

***************

In some ways I feel like I have been waiting all of my life for this man. And I am “Dying Dreaming.” (The words, like all those in quotes, names of Sheikh’s canvases.)

But I also know that his life is still a “Construction Site,” while I am “Gathering Threads” — stringing together the people, places and pleasures that bring me joy, that make me whole. Power cords.

Artist Date 61: Permission to Want Love

February 16, 2014February 16, 2014 LesleyPearl4 Comments

I cannot remember the last time I was carded. My friend Debbie reminds me that I don’t drink, so I am not often in bars. So my lack of recent experience with carding shouldn’t be a surprise.

But I am in a bar tonight –the night before Valentine’s Day. I have been “invited” for the final performance of “Solo in the Second City” – a live lit(erature) series about the nature of relationships. Artist Date 61.

I wish I would have known about this sooner, but I didn’t. And the only reason I know about it at all is because I participated in my first ever live lit event last week – Story Club, a monthly event featuring three invited storytellers, and three audience members whose names have been pulled from a hat. Except it’s not a hat, it’s a monkey carved out of a coconut with the words, “Have Fun” scrawled on it.

It is the winter of the Arctic Vortex in Chicago and only three people have put their names in the monkey. This is seemingly unheard of. I am one of them.

I climb up on to the stage, pull on my “cheaters” and read an extended version of my blog post “I Love You.” “Thank You.” About me and my divorce buddy. About walking through hell together. And learning to walk on my own. It is tender and raw and real. I feel like I have earned my place on this stage. It feels amazing.

I am followed by Carly Oishi, a featured writer. She weaves together three stories of love and loss. I am riveted. She is speaking my heart even though I do not recall her exact words.

At the end of the evening, I approach her and introduce myself. I tell her I like her piece. She tells me she likes mine and invites me to “Solo in the Second City.” I mention it to Debbie and we agree we will go.

And so I am here, at Beauty Bar, sitting on a low bench surrounded by 1950s hairdryer chairs, listening to stories of breakups and broken hearts.

One woman reads about watching relationships bloom and wither. But only watching. She has closed her heart off. Closed herself off. I know there is more because I am overwhelmed with feeling and identification, but I cannot access it.

Another reads, perhaps more accurately shouts, about when a man drops off the face of the earth without a word. Not a peep. A text. A fuck off. Nothing. She talks about body parts that are usually covered up meeting other body parts that are usually covered up. About giving someone VIP access to that place where her children were born from. She says it is a big deal.

It is a big deal. To give someone VIP access to that place. To literally let someone inside of you. For so many years I did not think so. There was no velvet rope. No line to enter. At least to my mind’s eye. And each and every one who came (no pun intended) was given an all access pass. Once upon a time. Now single again after 15 years coupled, and solo in the Second City, I can play it differently. I can have a different experience.

I am humbled by her cautionary tale of pain. For taking me back to how it was. And showing me how it still can be. How I can be.

Carly, the co-producer of the series, is the last to read. It is the story I heard last week. But this time I can hold on to the words. At least some of them. The part about love and how you will do anything for it. To taste it. To experience it. To feel it if only for a moment.

Yes. That is how I feel. How I have been ashamed to feel. The message I can discern from the noise and static surrounding me post-divorce is “You don’t need it.” “You shouldn’t want it.” “You need to learn to be alone.”

I know how to be alone.

I go to the opera alone. Dance performances alone. Art shows alone.

I live alone.

I work and dance and write. I have a large and diverse cast of characters I call friends.

I love my life.

And yes, I want love. That kind of love.

Hearing Carly’s words I feel somehow lighter. Less burdened by my desires. Free to let go of this misplaced shame.

I tell her so after the show. That I am grateful for permission to want love. She is visibly moved.

I remind her we have met and she admits she didn’t realize I live in Chicago. “So you ‘do this’?’ Write? Tell stories,” she asks.

“Yes,” I say.

She smiles and tell me she is putting together a story-telling series of all women, and asks if I would be interested in reading my work.

I smile back and give her the only appropriate answer – “I would love to.”

Falling Into My Feet

January 29, 2014 LesleyPearlLeave a comment

I’m standing in the dark looking at my x-rays with Stephanie, my new chiropractor.

Tears stream down my face. I see my body. All of it. Even the IUD I had put in just before my trip to Rwanda because I vowed I would not have my period in Africa.

I can no longer turn away from the physical pain I so rarely mention or acknowledge. The pain that has been with me, moving but constant, for so many years.

Suddenly, I understand. As a bodyworker and massage therapist, it’s hard not to. But the dysfunction is so obvious a 4-year-old could point it out – kind of like “one of these things is not like the other.”

My left hip is significantly raised. Several inches significantly raised. I laugh and explain that I have a really bad case of what my friend Brian used to call “bus leg” – the stance he would take while waiting for one of four different buses that ran up and down Haight Street in San Francisco, one knee bent, leaning into the opposite hip. He would light a cigarette in the hope that this would hasten its arrival.

My body is telling my stories.

Stephanie laughs and points out that not only is my left hip raised, but my right hip is rotated forward. I step into this position – exaggerating the rise of my lift hip and the twist of my right – and I immediately feel the pain.

Stephanie shows me my cervical spine, my neck. It is devoid of any curve and tilted to the right. Cocked like a dog considering what his master is saying and whether or not to ignore it.

I tell her the tilt makes sense. That this movement, right ear dipped to the right shoulder is the motion I associate with my mugging in 2007.

Just two months sober and back in California, I am held up at gunpoint on a Sunday morning in Oakland. Blocks from where I attended massage school, where I taught, and where I treat clients each quarter, returning “home” for a busman’s holiday.

I pick up a coffee from Carerras and am talking on the phone with my friend Robyn when I feel a flurry of activity around me – circling, swirling energy, like a cartoon Tasmanian Devil. And then a gun inches from my nose.

“Give us your shit and we won’t shoot.”

“They are kidding,” I think. “In about 30 seconds they are going to say ‘We’re just fucking with you, lady,’ and I’m going to tell them this is not funny.” But they never say that. I think I am dreaming but I don’t wake up. And then I slip back through the rabbit hole of reality and scream a scream I didn’t know I had in me.

They just look at me.

I think about everything in my bag. My passport and how my husband and I are supposed to leave in five days for Mexico. The flash drive that has all of my files on it and has not been backed up. My keys. But I am frozen. I cannot say a word. I cannot push out a logical sentence like, “Let me give you the money but I keep the rest, ok?” Because this is not logical.

Instead, I cock my head to the right, opening up my shoulder and allowing them to take the bag I am wearing across my body. They pluck my metallic-pink cell phone from my hand and are gone.

I scream and piss myself running back toward the school. I have attracted attention and people who were not there just a moment ago are asking, “Are you ok?” I do not realize they are talking to me until one grabs hold of me. I tell her my story and she calls the police while a man takes my arm and walks me back to the school.

My friend Tim picks me up that afternoon. I get a new passport and go to Mexico. And when I return to Chicago, I engage in EMDR work – trauma therapy. I get relief. But the story is still in my body.

The story is my body. They all are.

The car accident on New Year’s Eve day when a Ford F-250 with a horse trailer goes through the back of my Honda Civic Hatchback. When my husband takes the car to the shop on January 2 and they ask, “Did everyone live?”

The piece of my cervix I have removed when I am 24 – ridding my body of its pre-cancerous cells. And the doctor in California who, upon examining me for the first time, says, “If anyone asks, this is not what an ordinary cervix looks like.”

My breast reduction when I am 40 and the shame and depression that follows me for years like an ex-boyfriend who won’t let go. Faint memory now, like the scars that run vertically from breast fold to nipple.

Healthy foot. Not mine. But what I imagine it looks like now.

My body has held on to each of these and made them its own – painting over experience with a broad brush stroke of pain. Not unlike the stories I repeat so often that they become my pained reality – whether or not they are completely accurate. My skewed perception becomes truth.

I come home from my treatment, take my boots off and place my naked feet on the hardwood floor. I feel the ground beneath me. Supporting me. As if for the first time. Whereas before I seem to have been standing on only a part of my feet, tottering.

I have fallen into my feet. Into my body. Into truth, and the possibility of a new story.

Your Honest, Open, Dirty, Loving Ways

November 5, 2013 LesleyPearlLeave a comment

My ex-boyfriend J is getting married.

I’ve often said nothing good comes from a sentence that begins, “So I was on Facebook…”

I actually spoke to J twice this summer. Once from home, the second time from the road -- from the guest room at my aunt and uncle's house. — I actually spoke to J twice this summer. Once from home, the second time from the road — from the guest room at my aunt and uncle’s house. With them here.

That’s how I found out. His engagement was at the top of my news feed.

My stomach sank to my feet. Hope dashed. Fantasy abruptly ended.

I felt sad. Silly. Stupid. Ashamed.

I love J. I always have. I knew him the second I saw him. I’m pretty sure it was the same for him.

We dated in our 20s. Ours was a sweet, sexy romance – albeit brief. Our breakup caught me off guard. Perhaps because he more than one time said, “I know I’m going to marry you. And we’ll have daughters. I know we will have daughters.”

I’ve written about this – about him, about us – before.

The last time we saw one another was in California – about 17 or 18 years ago – on Venice Beach. I was returning my roller skates. Until I found him on Facebook. His profile picture was a photograph from childhood. I wasn’t entirely certain it was him, so I wrote, “Is that you?”

“It is indeed me,” he replied. “And it is indeed you.”

In the years that followed, we wished one another happy birthdays, occasionally commented on each other’s status, and traded inside jokes – mostly about Philip Roth and liver. We occasionally had lengthier exchanges. Like on his birthday in 2012. I was delayed in Brussels. He was on his way out for a crab dinner. I told him I was getting divorced.

This past summer we spoke for the first time since Venice. After hearing his voice, I remarked, “Oh…that’s what you sound like.” I had forgotten.

That night he told me why he ended our relationship. I had asked many times over the years but he had never responded to that particular piece of the conversation. This time he did.

He said I woke something up in him. A piece of him that desperately needed healing – healing I couldn’t give him. That he had to do for himself.

He had been attracted to me. To our sexual energy. And that something about my “honest, open, dirty, loving way” got under his skin. “In a good way.” And he ran.

He affirmed that I had been important in his life. Just not in the way I had hoped to be.

I knew J was in a relationship and had been for many years. That he always exercised terrific boundaries.

And yet, there was always a little piece of me that held out hope … that maybe one day J and I would find our way back to one another – in that way. I didn’t live my life maneuvering around it. Obsessing about it. But it was there.

And now it isn’t anymore. It can’t be.

A couple of weeks ago J showed up in my clairvoyant reading and healing. He had in the previous one too.

The first time he showed up, the clairvoyant saw us holding hands, smiling, and taking a big leap together. She said we may never connect again romantically, but that we are inextricably bound for life.

I didn’t like that so much – the first part.

The second time he showed up, she simply said, “You just let go of him.” And that 10 percent of my energy returned to me immediately.

I had no idea. I hadn’t even tried. And I didn’t like that so much either.

But perhaps she was right, because this afternoon I did something that surprised me. I was drafting a personal note to send, but chose to post a comment to his wall instead – just like hundreds of his other friends had done. Just another Bozo on the bus. Not claiming any special status.

“Mazel Tov! Wishing you much joy.”

Not even an “XO” – our usual sign off.

It is not untrue. This is what I wish for him. In the most honest, open, dirty, loving way.

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: shame

Artist Date 3.2: Enough To Say Fuck Off

“I’m Sorry.” Or, Watch It Scatter Like Cockroaches

Artist Date 104: When Too Much is Just Enough

Artist Date 83: On The Path All Along

Artist Date 73: Navel Gazing

Artist Date 68: Power Cords

Artist Date 61: Permission to Want Love

Falling Into My Feet

Your Honest, Open, Dirty, Loving Ways

No Longer Waiting. And Other Little Miracles