December 23, 2011

"The Gift"

There are reasons we’re moving, even though this mountains house feels like home to me. The lush preservation land-without-neighbors behind and the unobstructed view of green everywhere reminds me of my little girl window in my little girl house. I’d lay in bed, my feet resting up wooden walls, and spend afternoons staring at leaved branches for clarity. There were possibilities in those greens that mesmerized me. And when we began dating I saw it again, felt it again, and I knew I was returning to myself after a long journey away. 

Our new house will have the ocean and not the mountains, and the children are very excited. The small town where we eat dinner will be so close we’ll bike to the pizza place and walk to the market. The road with thirteen turns, strewn with debris after every storm, will no longer be in our way home. Our unpolluted view of our own private Matterhorn will no longer be ours--the way the moon lights it up, the way the clouds wrap it like a chemise. The constant drizzle and the thunder and lightening when it pours, the deafening of streams turning into rivers, will all be someone else’s.

Instead, waves roaring will lull us to sleep and there will be sand everywhere. The sea will rust everything that’s not plastic or stainless, and our skin will ruddy from salt. We will build castles and make angels. We will be hugged by the endless blue, and our back yard will be the whole horizon.  

This sounds trite, but this is the happiest I’ve ever been. Nothing yet has gone horribly wrong in my life, yet I am wary of celebrating too soon. Deals fall through, promises are broken, and intentions are often fumbled--it’s human nature to fall short, to mis-deliver and over-extend. But today, for the first time in the eight months since I met the man I’ve always dreamed of, I am allowing myself a little unadulterated joy. 

There’s a diamond ring and babies and a new house in my future, and only a slight chance of passing tears, mostly the children’s, and mostly for normal children things. 

Today I had lunch with an old friend. “Everyone is dying,” she said. “Everyone knows someone who is dying right now.” Her face is spotted with acne, her breath is sour. And since I’ve known her forever, I know that when she said “you’re not having a glass,” I know she really meant, “I’m dying for a drink, even though it’s noon and I have to go back to work.” 

Her heart is broken. This time last year, she thought she had found the love of her life, even though her ex was clearly toxic, abusive, and manic. “This is the opposite of what I imagined. This is the farthest thing from what I hoped.” 

And for the briefest moment I wanted to temper my joy, to put it away for her sake so she wouldn’t feel so alone. Because we choose the families we keep. She is my sister, who listened and questioned and kicked my ass, even when it wasn’t necessary. But when it came to pocketing my happy, I couldn’t. 

Because every Christmas since my father died, I’ve been thinking that same thing about death, and finally I feel something other than disgust when carols play, when lights wink and glow, when I visit the mall and leave laden with parcels. There is no ex-husband in my ear bemoaning religion and commercialism. No wine-filled nights with women like my friend, complaining about sexless marriages or abusive lovers. 

Instead, there are stockings dangling and sugar plums twirling, there are lists scrawled by a Santa-hatted girl. There is a small boy who has studied each present under the tree and a man who sings “Jingle Bells” like Frank Sinatra. Which is why I’m a little sad to leave this house filled with so many good memories. And why I’m a little scared to think of next year and all that might change or disappear--will I wake next Christmas morning to less than a lump of coal?

Putting my fear away, I think of what my friend said and how it means we should cherish the moments we’re given. Because we only get one life. We only get one chance to be present to each perfect moment. And we don’t have that house by the beach or the diamond ring or the baby. We don’t have anything, my lover and I, except his two perfectly imperfect children and this house with this magical view that always reminds me of when I was a little girl whose daddy was still alive. It’s helped me to know again that my world is replete with possibilities.

December 20, 2011

Untitled

I remember running from the room, the curled up way I went around afterward. I didn’t want to tell anyone. I was ashamed. 

Earlier, I’d picked him up from the place where he worked. A mechanic, his arms and chest were taut. He had scrubbed the tips of his fingers, and they smelled like Orange Crush. I shifted into gear, smooth. “I’m impressed,” he said, reaching over to palm the nape of my neck. 

He lived on the first floor of a four-story walk-up. I had never been so far into the valley before, and I remember thinking how green it was back there. There was a railing we walked around to get to his front door, and the brown paint was chipping, exposing a sharp shimmer. I looked back to the jagged road that went up the mountain, and saw the tail end of a white car disappearing behind the weeds. 

He drew the curtains. I sat on the futon, watched him go to the fridge for strawberries, whipped cream, and a bowl of brown sugar. The container snapped open. He fed me. I closed my eyes and trusted him. 

Soon, his lips were on me, tracing my neck. Then they were skirting my clavicle, his citrus hand squeezing my breast. I don’t remember how all my clothes came off, but they did, and I was on my back with my feet in the air. 

When he shoved his dick inside my anus, I screamed. I yelled at him to get off. But he wouldn’t stop. The pain was terrible. Acute. Unbearable. He was stronger than me. I pushed with my knees, shimmied my feet against him, and got free. I was crying, in shock, reclothing with shaking hands. 

I tried not to look at him, slumped, head hanging, staring at his belly. 

He didn’t stop me, and for this I am still grateful. 

I was nineteen when I escaped.

Today is a morning almost twenty years later. In the dark upon waking, my lover fiddled with my breasts and stomach. He has been wanting to try anal since I met him, even though I told him that story. And this morning I dared him. 

Curling my legs up against my body, he positioned his penis, fumbled a few times, then found the hole. Pain seared through me, and he immediately dismounted. He walked to the bathroom and I heard the water run. Limp, I laid with my eyes closed. I wanted him to hold me but I couldn’t say the words. He splashed water with his two hands onto my body and threw the covers over me. 

He couldn’t have known that I was breaking. And he got it soon after--wanted me to look him in the eyes, wanted to say ‘sorry,’ wanted to take it back. But he couldn’t. 

I am writing this because I want it to go away. I want everything to be fine, to go back to the way it was and how I felt so safe, so loved. I want to write it away, for it to be outside of me, so I can say I’m over it. I want to forgive him because I know it’s not his fault. 

But I am curling in against my will.  The folds of my heart are closing in, atrophying, and there is a lump where there wasn’t before, even if I try to ignore it. It goes deep, even though it’s new. 

So I decide to have a talk with that 19 year-old. 

“I’m sorry I hurt you.” I say. “I’m sorry you were hurt. I acknowledge you, and I love you. Your pain was real. But you don’t exist any more, and I am not going to allow you to overpower my intellect.” 

And I let the words seep in and root. I feel the pain falter, fade to a dull ache. And for the first moment all day, the present me regains power, opens up again, freer than before and stronger, too.  

November 27, 2011

"Sun-Chasing"

There was racquetball and heavy sobbing in that court alone last Thanksgiving. I was angry, and with all my strength, like Zeus pitching thunderbolts, I threw my shoulder after each ball. Why do I crumble at the end of episodes when I knew I shouldn’t have hoped but did anyway? There on the wooden floor, I screamed myself hoarse before balling myself up. I wept until, aware of the echoes, I stopped, picked myself up. I went home to my ex husband who flipped past the Macy’s parade on his way to CNN or MSNBC: an unmoving appendage of the couch I stopped seeing. Skittish and unasked, he plugged himself in, so the sound wouldn’t resonate past the door I’d closed to shut him out. 

This year my new boyfriend packs me into a truck. On our way to a beach house he’s rented for the weekend, he stops to buy me a tangerine bicycle. It’s cheerful next to his black cruiser. Thanksgiving day, we pedal into town and eat acai bowls, then ride along the shore with the traffic so close, each auto blows hot sand and gravel at our faces as it passes. I close my eyes, blinking long. We don’t talk much except to stop and admire the surf or reach a spot that’s too tight to share with a car. I am self-powered, gliding against the warm, my sunscreened skin absorbing it all.

There is turkey in a restaurant later, and we talk about what we’re thankful for. “I finally feel complete,” he tells me, and our eyes lock in. I look away. I don’t trust this thing, and never really have. It hurts me to say this because I feel the same as he does. I just don’t think it will last. How does one travel from a rumpled mess on a wooden floor to soaring on a tangerine bike? From a broken thing to one so whole? Can we become reborn? Is it even possible? 

My defense mechanism is to instantly forget everything, good or bad, so that neither will singe my heart or set it aflame. I’m accustomed to living in the moment, do my best to absorb this sun over all else, Amen. But like an addict, I can’t just numb out the bad--the good goes, too. I wonder about how to live closer to balance, and if I dare. What if I hoped, what if I reminisced, rather than selectively remembering bipolar instances or laughing out when he calls me as his future wife, like a joke. 

He is surfing now. From the window, I watch him cut up and down the faces of waves, the white wash chasing him from behind. Lithe and graceful, I notice he rarely turns back. But his memory is impeccable and he talks easily about having more together. I love him and know I could love him more by truly letting him in. It worries me though; how does one love fully without losing the self?

Suddenly, I am an impostor, unable to keep my shatteredness sheathed when a Christmas song plays on the radio; my reticent tears disobey my command to “stop!” Everything closes in on me again--the anniversary of my dead father, the anniversary of my divorce. The way I slayed myself both times for the sake of those men, my private sobs finally rampant, running freely for the woman I was, I am, and perhaps will be forever. 

It takes so much courage to let go and be free. And I don’t know if I have enough, having squandered so much already. What if I had faced an entire year alone, like I vowed to do this time last year? Would I feel less or more like giving up on everything? I wish to be gliding again, next to that shore slammed by ten-foot waves, the dusky sea splash burned off by the winter rays. I wish to be silent again, my face smooched between the canopies along that path. Where Christmas didn’t matter, where anniversaries were remote, where there was nowhere to hide from the sun.

November 14, 2011

"Trusting The Nymph"

There is guilt in writing. Guilt in spending time doing something I love over something that might help me to pay my mounting bills. A trilling bird out the window, and I concentrate on the lilt and flit of her song. She doesn’t have to worry; all is provided. I want that knowing. And though I know it exists, having stepped out into nothing and been caught before, it’s so hard to decipher where the line between pushing and waiting is drawn in the air. I keep trying without much result. I must. 

A spare moment. I steal it away from my demanding self, from my lover and his children, from my facebook friends. Unfettered, I stray from what I should be doing and venture toward what I love despite the consequences. A text vibrates. A phone call ignored. Emails tick into my in box, and I know I am a bad person. It makes me want to cry a little, so I do. 

It is a Monday evening, and the television is off. The children are with their mother, my lover has a meeting, and I wonder why I am not bored as they would be. If they were here, one would be at my side, reading each line over my shoulder as she is wont to do. The other would be whirling around, cheshire-grinning when he gets away with skimming his clothes across the kitchen floor. And my lover would be singing at the stove, I’m sure, bumping and grinding while fixing me eggs and toast. So you see, I’ve been a little busy with my instant family.

Forgive me. It has been too long since I last wrote, and each day I have an idea I bury for later is an idea wasted: inspiration frittered away like too much jam. Earlier I was feeling sorry for myself. I woke to a flat tire and a huge zit on my face. The rest of the day didn’t get better, so I resolved to come to my lover’s home, empty of everyone but me to get some work done. But my page wouldn’t load on the internet, and it happens that I am tired of “friends” who don’t actually exist in my unvirtual reality, so I gave up. 

This is my lesson for today: know when to give up. The world has not crashed in all around me yet. Cordoning myself off from the rest of the world, I meditate on the many ways this applies: the student who likes to argue, the grown man who won’t admit he’s wrong, the colleague who needs to get every time he gives, the self-absorbed child, the selfish me. 

There is a peaceful warrior inside me I must tap into, who knows when surrender is best. She weighs what I’m losing with what I’m gaining, lets me walk away vulnerable and still loved, though my world becomes less and less peopled every day. 

But quality over quantity, right? Tomorrow, the cackling nymph will streak past in his birthday suit proclaiming “Full moon! Half moon!” as he plays with his little white gluts. His sister will giggle and squirm, twirling behind in a polka dot dress and yellow boots. Then the nymph lord will trounce along, shirtless in all his glory, gather me up in his arms and kiss me softly just below my eye. And I’ll belong again to something that means the world to me. Something that exists still even though I can’t see it right now. I trust it. I must.

September 14, 2011

"Six Months"        

The magic number approaches—if we can make it past six months, I thought a few months ago, we’ll be in the clear. But that’s only ten days away, and there is no clarity except that I’m in love. I’m amazed by the way my boyfriend considers me—how he tickles my back when we’re standing still, always asks me if I’m okay, rubs my calves and kisses my toes. He takes my advice and tells me how smart I am.

Six months later, and he still loves to sleep with his arms around me, which proves it wasn’t false advertising—all that talking we did before we had sex. Whenever I freak out he stays sane, tells me that this love is sure—the surest thing he’s ever felt, that it calms him and makes him feel safe.

So why do I still wonder about the future, worry that the bottom will collapse out from beneath us, and fear my heart will break? Why am I not so sure, even at this, the point at which I thought I would be?

I think it may have to do with the entirety of what we are. Because we aren’t just us; we are his parents’ white-knuckling-it since he got divorced, his children’s false alarm screams for ‘Daddy’ that wake us in the middle of the night, and his ex’s verge-of-tear depression.

And we aren’t anything in my world except the occasional dinner with my mom. We don’t stay at my place or do things with my friends who drink and swear like I used to. Which begs the question, where have I disappeared to? Have I melded so completely into this new life with kids that I’m no longer the me I used to be? Or have I chosen something better for my arteries and my liver—a life I never knew I always wanted to live, a life full of little girls giggling and little boys’ tantrums?

Am I somewhere in the middle—the parts I’m not super comfortable with, trying to catch up with this newness? Will the day come when I break out and away from this grinning person who calmly picks up scattered Nerf bullets and dirty shirts because I want to give back some of what I’m getting, want to nurture these beings who keep making my heart soar?

Where.

Am.

I?

I am six months from the old me whose calendar was always full of lunches and dinners, drinks and movies. But where did she go, who attended events in high heels and short skirts, who accessorized and perfumed, who danced under strobe lights, sipped wine and amuse bouched? Is she sleeping?

This me wakes at 5:30 a.m. instead of after 8:00, drinks herbal tea and not coffee, and spends her days with less clothes and more sun. Instead of happy hour, she runs miles alongside her boyfriend and they talk about work—something she’s missed ever since her father died. She eats things with acai more than meat, and never after seven. She’s in bed by nine, and makes love before falling to sleep and dreaming about the multitudinous blues of the ocean.

Everything changes. Then it changes again. But I’m embracing everything about this me, even the feminine parts that would once have made me gag. That he orders for me. That he’ll pick me up and carry me to bed. That he opens doors for me and buys a second set of everything I need at his house because he wants me to feel at home there.

And maybe it’s because I’m becoming more of a woman than I’ve ever been that I barely recognize that person I used to be, who paid all the bills and complained about not getting laid; it’s because I was that person that I can tell the difference.

And maybe six months isn’t enough to be sure about anything. Because there is chaos inherent in children; it lives beneath their beds and nestles inside the follicles of their hair. The only way to placate the drama of brothers stealing socks and sisters pinching biceps is to feign sureness, to pretend to know the answer of what’s fair, and to keep believing that the change which comes will make them (and us) into better people.

September 6, 2011

"Gestation"

It’s been nine months since my ex left—a gestation period of solo boredom punctuated by alternate bouts of sheer joy and panic.

The time we went searching for a restaurant one night in the South of France, the twilight seeping slowly down the sides of the richest indigo sky you’ve ever seen: orange and purple, and no clouds at all. Our steps clacked on the cobblestone and in the distance, a guitar and a voice like a cello. We searched the clawed streets for bouillabaisse, ducking under potted ferns and wrought iron signs advertising shoe repair and flowers for sale. The air was warm; I remember that.

And perhaps it’s the weather—this stillness is the same as that night. But I admit I disremember a lot about my marriage; only now have the forgotten shards of why I was happy pierced through the assuredness I needed to divorce.

My boyfriend says my ex was a jerk, but that’s only because I’ve only told him the bad stuff—how he wasn’t there for me when my father died, how he drank too much, smoked too much, complained too much.

The ghost of my ex is in my kitchen right now asking me if I know how much he loves me as he painstakingly flours and breads the parmesan croquettes I asked him to make. His grandmother’s recipe in long, cursive letters on a slate blue card. Grinning from ear to ear, he takes the ghost of me in his arms and nuzzles his nose inside my ear, smooshing a stubbled kiss on my cheek.

Do you know I haven’t mourned him at all? Haven’t missed him at all? Does that make me a bad person?

Anniversaries are for remembering. Nine months ago, he left. I began this life alone after ten years of togethering. I wonder about him; where he is, how he is, want to tell him something about how thankful I am for all he was to me. 

We finally found a dim patio next to an alleyway. Warm light filtered from inside through the dirty window, poured over the checkered tablecloth. Our table wobbled. Our rosé sloshed. There were snails in shells the size of small pebbles that we picked out with sewing pins and whole fish cooked in parchment paper with chunks of lemon. We switched to red and got good and drunk. We didn’t make love again, passed out instead with his hand on my hip in the house next to the vineyard, in that stuffy room.

What are the things we remember and why? Where is the truth? Was my ex an asshole, or was he flawed just as I was flawed—telling him about wanting things I shouldn’t have wanted, speaking half-truths because I couldn’t see the whole?

And isn’t this life about growing together? Is this impossible? What will I want ten years from now when what I want right now is the opposite from ten years ago?

Tonight I am a planet circling around myself, remapping memory—the landscapes of my past. To tell the truth, I hardly recognize myself. Who was that woman sleeping next to that man, dreaming of watermelon and Skype? And who am I now, drawn to another man who I barely know but feel so drawn to, the core of me magnetized to the core of him?

I can’t guarantee I won’t divorce again. But there is yet time to make more mistakes, to keep walking this terrain searching for a self I recognize and her perfect companion. Tonight I throw my head back, become a whirling dervish praying for love to guide my way.

August 30, 2011

"A Prayer for the Obstinate Learner"

It’s a difficult thing, this living in the moment. I breathe out the cramping, breathe out my lower back pain. I’m trying to be conscious to this thing that comes once a month, but it hurts. No shit. Forgetful or optimistic to a fault, I never expect for it to be this bad, this wrenching. But it always is without fail, Amen.

My body keeps trying to teach me something about humility—that I can’t keep going, powering through the yuck of menstruating, that I have to listen to my body and be gentle with myself. It’s a practice I’ve been relearning every month, and like that other lesson I keep forgetting about being here now, it’s impossible to remember until it’s impossible to forget.

Because my mind rushes past this moment all the time. I worry about what things will be like if we marry, when he’s going to propose, and how his kids will react. I think of them resenting me and I try to hedge them off by allowing them space to get accustomed to my presence. Sometimes I forget that they’re not equals and I find myself flinching when they start benign sentences that begin with, “I hate,” “I never want,” and “You.”

Later, like it always happens, I’m alone again, back inside my real life in my little house that’s perfect for just me. The echoes of their laughter still ring all around and I realize I’m falling in love with that sound, beginning to fear it may be one-sided. And it’s the most inert I ever feel. I relearn again to be present, to let go of the past before I yearn too much to be with them again, lest I forget to do my work.

I am strong. And I love this man more than I’ve ever loved anyone. Be thankful, I tell myself. This is all you ever have. Because the future will come in its own time and the past is gone. It’s simple really; all I need to do is observe this pain and release it. And until I learn this lesson—I mean really learn it, I’ll always be on the cusp of happiness looking outward for true joy when it can’t be found anywhere else but inside me.

July 21, 2011

“Who Knew?”

            “I just knew,” the old woman says, matter-of-fact. Next to her on the old couch, her husband of fifty years glazes over, stares straight ahead. “I knew, like you know about a good melon.”

            What did she know and how did she know it? It seems I’ve searched for that knowing for years—all my life, even, yearning to know something about someone else, about love, about where I was ‘supposed’ to be.

            But belonging is tricky business. In all my past relationships, that sense only came after multiple negotiations I made with myself—he would eventually get a job, fuck me, stand up for me, not take credit for everything I accomplished, get friends of his own—you get the idea. The list was long, but the benefits outweighed the compromises until they didn’t any more.

            Part of the reason I married was because I could see myself growing old with my ex—I could picture us wrinkled and creaking on matching rocking chairs. I could see the ashen wood porch, and the long grass beyond silver, bending with the wind.

            The problem with this picture is that though it’s a nice sentiment, it wasn’t my idea. It’s from some movie I saw, something I appropriated from John Travolta’s Phenomenon. And like the opening quote from When Harry Met Sally, those were actors—not real people. My idea about relationships is a construct filmmakers (read ‘society’) push to promote order, to encourage assimilation of ‘the American Way.’ 2.5 kids, a mortgage, and a steady job: the trilogy I’ve been consciously trying to escape since I can remember.

            But I never ran from love, believing I could have it without the rest.

            Which is why it’s ironic—hilarious, even—to be exactly where I am right now. I have a mortgage, a steady job, and I’m embarking on a relationship with a man who has two kids.

            After all the fuss, turns out I want to have kids of my own, too. With him.

            For the first time in my life, I just know something. For all the searching I’ve done, I finally get it. Knowing doesn’t mean I’m clairvoyant. It just means we fit. Perfectly. And it feels right, no matter how much I turn it inside-out looking for flaws.

            This time, I look into the future, there’s no sitting on rocking chairs or watching grass grow—there’s nothing orderly about it. Instead, there is chaos—kids with the flu and kids winning football games, playing hooky hiking in the mountains, and finding post-its with messages like “you captivate me” in my underwear drawer. There’s going to bed at 8:30 at night so we can get up to watch the sun rise together, visit farmers’ markets with organic eggs, and seedless watermelon. There are broken sinks, peanut butter fingerprints, and lots of lovemaking.

            There is no script and no perfect words; instead there’s the real me living a messy life. In complete and utter bliss.

July 9, 2011

"Love or Death"

There are endings in beginnings, things we see but don’t speak about: the unnamed things we ignore, preferring to hope. He didn’t want to see me more than once a week, didn’t want to have sex, didn’t open doors, didn’t tell me I was beautiful. And I should have known; I should not have married him.

I ignored the thing in me that knew, telling myself, “it’s not that bad,” and “the differences will work themselves out.” Because he wasn’t me, and expecting everything to be aligned and perfect is unrealistic. But it was there to be seen, had I paid attention. It was there, and I didn’t.

J says she’s leaving her lover, feels “stupid” for wanting him back. P tells me the same, and when I ask why she loved her, she doesn’t know. “When she’s not having a ‘fuck you’ fit, she’s really sweet.”

It’s like this: we never want to let go. We judge ourselves. We hate our instincts. We want things to go back to the way they were because within our unhappiness there was sureness: something we counted on.

The problem is if we ignore, pretend for a while, quiet the thing inside that always knows, that truth becomes. It gains momentum until one day it knocks us over: a tsunami from forever away.

It happens on a Tuesday at the dry cleaners, on a Thursday afternoon walking the dog, after Sunday brunch with our best friends. We come home to find our world saturated with truth. By then we’re up to our knees in it as it continues to rise, knocking us down and dragging us out into the rip curl of loss. We can’t breathe, can’t figure out which way is up, take in so much bad shit we think we’re going to die. Some of us do.

Others figure out how to stand up again, try again, love again.

It took me thirteen years to get over my first tsunami. It wasn’t easy. And I thought I had died. I was sure I did not have the capacity to love fully. My transplanted, plastic heart worked just fine from a distance, and he accepted it, knew it, loved me in spite of it.

But this time is different. The things that concern me have more to do with how very in love we are. I worry about jealousy. I worry about moving too fast. I worry about his children and my lack of mothering skills.

I know these things may bring their own death, their own destruction. But this is the first time in my life I’ve trusted a man completely, and these fissures of worry have more to do with my own capacity to handle all that comes with having an instant family.

I speak my fears to him. Like droplets, they melt into his skin, become part of him. I allow my hope to fill in this brokenness, knowing all the while this love may still kill me.

July 1, 2011

"Ring Shopping"

Don’t get your panties in a bunch. We didn’t even get close to the engagement section. Well, that’s not entirely true; I was sized, and in case you’re wondering, I’m a four and a half. “Skinny fingers,” he grinned.

In Tiffany’s, he promised to show me “the good stuff”—stuff I had always passed on my way to the back to buy gifts—not for myself, of course. For graduations and birthdays. Fifty-dollar key chains and the like.

“You physically jumped away from the engagement ring section,” he said.

I laughed, commented on the pushy saleslady to divert. Because it turns out that I’m not ready to marry just yet, even though I love him. Fuck, it feels like I just got divorced. Comparatively, these past three months don’t quite come close to the seven legal years with my ex, plus the two and a half before we got engaged.

Granted, he is sweeping me off my feet—something I said I would never trust in. Pragmatic to a fault, I’ve always believed in the bricks and mortar of the third pig’s house to the wispy straw dreaminess of the first. It wasn’t sexy, this idea I’ve had of relationships, but it was sturdy.

Take today, for instance: we woke early, went for a run together, then he made-to-order my omelet with mushrooms, spinach, and cheese. At the mall, he bought me Asics and some new running clothes. It’s something he’s been wanting to do for weeks, and finally I let him, even though I don’t need any of it.

That’s how we ended up in the proximity of the place with little blue boxes.

“Do you like that one?” he pointed to a princess cut solitaire with baguettes.

“That’s another kind of ring,” I said, refocusing on the round one with the square aquamarine center.

And though I’ve never been in love like this—where I am standing at the beginning, can’t think of a single reason not to be together, and the little voice in the back of my head that compromises and waits for something to change hasn’t even politely coughed—forever seems like it’s coming too fast.

It’s something we’ve talked about, something he knows—that the word, ‘marriage’ makes my skin jump, that I want to enjoy this nowness of being courted, that there are two huge unknowns I need some practical working knowledge about before we can really think about it. And we’ve got time. We’ve got the rest of our lives.

June 30, 2011

“Write or Die”

I can’t say exactly how long it’s been, but for some time now, I’ve been having this recurring dream: I’m riding my bicycle in a familiar neighborhood with a winding road. I know the houses, I can name the people in those houses, and the canopied corners guarded by fat barks feel like home to me.

Last night, my dream was the same except some houses that used to be blue were now red, and others that used to be white were now green. Change was happening, and I didn’t know who these new people were; it seemed I had been away from this place for too long. When I rounded the bend to start my descent, I suddenly found myself in a car.

Cruising down a strange, mist-filled gulley, a curtain of snow flitted in the distance and the road glistened and shone. I pulled to the shoulder, just next to the dying grass and gravel, and realized that ice coated the asphalt. The anemic road was straight, without railings, and plunged into a ravine.

This morning I went to work. I ate lunch with my boyfriend. Next to  our walnut table two women discussws something just beneath my comprehension kept us from touching. Instead, I told him that I sometimes wondered about withholding sex from him with the intention of keeping him interested.

“But punishing you would mean punishing myself,” I said. “I won’t do it.”

After my chamomile came, he reiterated the same: “Sometimes I feel like I should be a jerk to keep you on your toes. I haven’t because so far, this is working.”

Our musings probably originate from both our previous relationships where drama was everywhere. Lurking behind the Bambi eyes given and received, there were reasons why neither of us should have stayed six months in either situation. But we did. And then they were over.

I hypothesized that people who have resumes containing strings of six- or twelve-month relationships manufacture drama because they don’t know any better. These relationship rookies think there’s a need to keep things interesting because what will they do without the adrenaline high they get from their significant other? How will they know they’re in love without the constant crutch of feeling something outside of themselves? And why would they stay when they are no longer the center of that other person’s universe?

But the truth is this: one day we will stop talking. We’ll take each other for granted because we’re too comfortable or busy or bored. If things keep on the way they’re going, it’s inevitable. And that’s when the work begins. Three months in, the promises he makes about never taking me for granted are lovely sentiments, but I know this kind of wooing takes lots of energy and more time than either of us eventually might have.

And one day we’ll lose a parent, a friend, or a job. We may even (heaven forbid) lose a child. And when that happens—when the world shifts so completely that everything is out of focus and we have to find ourselves again, we’ll also have to relocate each other. Through the blur of tragedy, we will have to adjust to not recognizing our own reflections and fight to see a place for the other person.

When that day comes, even the sturdiness of all the things we have in common and all the love we feel for each other may not be enough to keep us together. When that day comes, I want to be able to love him and let him go.

But aside from those certainties, there’s this thing I’m doing that will land me right where I was just before I decided to divorce: I’m working really hard at something that has nothing to do with writing in order to ‘have enough.’ But what is enough, really? And if I don’t carve out writing in all my days, no amount of money or love from a good man will account for what I’m losing.

And I think my dream has to do with that change—how I’m constantly putting my writing away and how it keeps falling lower on my list of priorities.

Staring at the icy road, I have to make a decision: write or die.

June 19, 2011

“Don’t Feed the Monster”

“My sister loves me,” I repeat to myself despite the fact she has punched me in the stomach. Again. The first time was at her daughter’s birthday party, and it wasn’t a metaphor. At the bowling alley black-lit with glowing neon cut outs, the disco ball spun and glinted a Saturday night vibe one late Sunday afternoon. People I mostly didn’t know milled around in borrowed shoes, mingling and drinking fruit punch from plastic cups. There, next to the door, sat a fold out table piled high with presents and the soon-to-be offensive sheet cake with cursive lettering, “Happy First Birthday!” in confettied bright blue.

“Will you hold her?” my sister asked.

Handing her daughter off to me and dashing away to swipe up some possibly malignant punch across the room, my sister left no instructions. And being a childless aunt, I did my best to bounce the birthday girl up and down as she began to cry, realizing she was abandoned with an unqualified substitute.

Desperate for a cure as her whining increased, I tried something stupid: I dipped a small finger into the white frosting and brought it to my niece’s lips. It was her cake, after all, and why have a cake for your birthday if you’re not going to at least taste it. Granted, her tooth count left much to be desired, and I’m not sure she was cognizant of the difference between regular food and this special cake thing, but it made perfect sense to me.

A pink polo and white chino shorts blur came rushing at me, and I did what anyone would do: I pulled the baby closer to my body to protect her from this meteor-like object that was on a collision path toward us, would surely throw me off balance, and send my ass in a trajectory that made the slightly flawed sheet cake into a bull’s eye. My sister’s right fist stopped short of planting all the way into my belly before she snatched her child from out of my grip, causing the cries to become ever-more strident.

“She can’t have sugar,” my sister snapped, her face screwed up, contorted in anger.

“I didn’t know.”

That first time, she subsequently forgot it ever happened, then made me feel like a crazy person for even suggesting it. But I was there. I know what went down, and my sister has not been gentle with me in the interim. Which is why I was already wary when her daughter’s ninth birthday approached and my niece informed me that I was assigned to “watching the kids.”

“But what if I want to be one of the kids?”

“You can’t. Well, maybe you can. I’ll have to ask my mom.”

It was a sign, so when the evite came, I knew I wasn’t getting asked to a party—I was being enlisted to work for birthday cake. Did I say that whenever I get especially crazed about wanting babies of my own and wondering if I’m too old to start looking for husband number two to father those children, it’s usually because my sister has said things along the lines of, “you’d better get serious if you want it to happen,” and “you’re not getting any younger, you know.” Of course I know. So this is the drill: I freak the fuck out until one of my friends talks me down from the I’m-losing-it ledge of trying to figure out my entire life in one afternoon.

“Don’t listen to your sister,” my friends say, and I eventually return to the present and loving-what-isness.

Anyway, my niece who is a bit of a worrier of things big and small, expressed some concern about the fact that my husband number one disappeared.

“I miss him,” she supposedly said to my sister. “You aren’t going to divorce Daddy, are you?”

I get it—her best friend’s parents also recently divorced, and my niece is feeling anxiety about the stability of her own life, yada, yada, yada. I feel her, really I do, but my ex is not coming back from the other side of the world to ease her pain, especially since his constant remarks about her had to do with spoilt brattiness and her abundance of hugs for everyone but him. He thought she hated him.

The other week, I brought my new beau to a family gathering. After seeing us together and hearing he has two children, her concern surfaced again, and rather than correct her daughter, rather than disclose to her that her very own daddy was also previously married, rather than allow me to tell her the truth, my sister, in her infinite wisdom, instructed me to divert.

“If she asks about your boyfriend or your boyfriend’s children, ask her a question back..”

“Why?” I asked dumb and unsuspecting. “I’m the fun aunty. I’m the aunty who tells the truth.”

“No,” she said, firm. “You’ve become the evil aunty who took away two children’s daddy.”

Forget that I am completely paranoid about meeting these two children whose father has been divorced for two years because their mother cheated on him. Forget that I have absolutely no experience with motherhood, or that I suddenly have been rethinking this desire for children based on these insecurities. Forget that my logic follows this arc: if my niece, who I’ve known her entire life and have always been loving towards can label me ‘evil,’ that these two strange children will hate me grows ever more likely.

Instead, let’s focus on the fact that my sister has managed to punch me in the stomach yet again, and it hurts. I spent an entire eight hours of my life worrying about all this kid stuff, finally feeling as if I’d rather walk away than risk it. I had to call my mom, who talked me out of it.

“It’s not true. Don’t even think about it,” she told me.

And it was great advice—when I allow the monster of my insecurities space, it breeds and grows. Just like joy and happiness, whatever I put my energy into takes over, infusing my life because my perception is 100% of my truth. I have to trust that I’ll meet his kids when I’m supposed to, that my neurotic niece loves me, that my other nieces and nephews love me, that I am good with kids.

Forming boundaries is also part of the monster starvation diet, which means I will not be attending my niece’s birthday party, and it’s quite likely I won’t be missed. The twelve or thirteen other nine year-old girls will most definitely take most of my niece’s attention. I’m not trying to punish my sister or my niece. I’m not trying to do anything but protect myself from getting punched again, figuratively or literally.

But there’s something I need to say to my sister, who consistently takes any commentary that’s not cheerleading, morphs it into criticism, then redirects it into a full-scale defensive attack, much like that first real punch she doesn’t remember. I need to tell her that this is my life, that though I want her in it, I won’t hide my boyfriend from her daughter just so she can feel secure in a world full instability, full of divorce. It’s not fair. But like having my cake and eating it, too, perhaps that’s part of the insane reason why it can’t be which I still don’t get. All I know is when I was a kid, birthday cake made everything better. All I know is it makes no sense to have cake if you’re not going to eat it. Besides, monsters don't even like cake, do they?

June 9, 2011

“That Time”

Once a month I get an excuse to be a crazy bitch—to cry and laugh hysterically, to lay in bed all day and eat chocolate. I’ve been told that many take offence at the suggestion that their behavior might have something to do with monthly hormonal shiftings. Perhaps it’s because they believe they should always have this excuse that comes with the right to be as imbalanced and rash as they wanna be, but I don’t think that’s fair. I have control over my emotions and actions for the most part, and I’m responsible for how my psychosis, neurosis, and general brokenness mutates into action.

But even though it’s been happening for many years now, I’m always caught off guard. Take today for example: by nine a.m., I wanted to go home. Never mind I was at my lover’s place, having woken to the sound of torrential rain and the warm of him nestling me into bliss. When the birds began chirping we dragged ourselves out of bed, ate oatmeal, and planned a walk.

“Do you want a latte?” he asked, recalling how I depend on a daily cup, then driving me to the Not-Starbucks café in the middle of town.

I got quiet. All of a sudden, as we rode past the monkey pod trees lining the street, I craved aloneness. How do I say ‘take me home,’ I thought, without it coming out an accusation?

We parked, and I shoved my hands in my pockets, trying to keep my overwhelming irritation in, and walked slowly to the place, trying not to spill any attitude onto him. Waiting for the guy to froth my milk, my lover’s hands massaged my shoulders, his warm melting my malaise.

“Are you okay?” he asked moments later.

“I’m grumpy.” I realized then I had to make a bigger effort to fight the funk.

Later among the ironwood trees, we watched the charcoal sky turn slate, the clouds foreboding more thunder and lightening. Straddling a grass green picnic bench, his hands held mine inside the pockets of my wind breaker. We faced the wind.

“I should be in front of you,” he whispered behind my ear, licking the ridge and sending goose bumps across my expanses.

I wanted to divulge how afraid I was of infidelity—how I’d spent so much effort avoiding it, how I felt something was off.

“Hey, look at that,” I said instead, noticing a puffed out cardinal whose wings wouldn’t work against the wind. Harassed, the small feathers around the beak were a dried-blood-kind-of-brown. A larger, bright red one came along, hopping past our feet; its eyes sizing us up.

He told me when he was a boy, he’d tried to save many baby birds, but they’d all died in his care. It would be when he was a man, after many years of marriage, that his wife would cheat on him and they would divorce. Obviously, that death would be worse.

Following our walk, we went back to check on the baby bird, and found it still struggling to stay upright against the whipping. My lover went to the trash can and picked out a makeshift shovel cut from a gallon container. He placed the serendipitous tool next to the small bird, and nudged it in, gingerly holding the handle at his hip.

When we got back to his place, he found a bigger-than-shoe-box, lined the inside with paper towels, and covered it with terry cloth. It was for his kids, he said. But I think it may have been for him, too.

When it was time to pick them up, we woke from our nap, and made love again, his mouth at the back of my ear. And whereas I can usually concentrate on my physical sensations, all I could think of were the rolls of my stomach and the fat of my thighs. He’s going to cheat on me, was playing on repeat.

Of course, this track is nothing new. I know all the verses by heart, and they have absolutely nothing to do with him. But my body image is usually quite healthy when I’m sane. And my fear of infidelity dates back to the early nineties, to the last time I surrendered to love. I didn’t break from it then, but the fissures are still definitely there, the old fingers filling up again, bleeding out into this love. Usually I have a better hold on my insecurities, and can easily call upon the amount of men who ogle me as I walk down the street, remember that cheating is more pathetic for the cheater than the jilted.

And even though I’ve been shoving chocolate in my mouth for two days, even though his calendar said it was due today, I still didn’t expect my insecurity to so surely shove my peace out of the way.

On the way from his place to mine, I closed my eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “for not feeding you lunch.”

I’d said I was hungry, which was true, but this was not what I meditated on as he drove. Instead I wanted to be so far away from him. I wondered about never seeing him again, and I imagined what it would be like to break his heart. Mine, too.

Because when I let myself know what’s true, I’m terrified, elated, and sure: I want to run away and save myself from this sense that the bottom will drop out below me. But I’m drawn to this kind man, who has given me no reason to doubt. And I know that he is the love of my life.

My license to craze came after he dropped me off. Suddenly my world made perfect sense—I was menstrual, emotional, irrational. I allowed the crazy bitch to take over because there was no way I couldn’t. And even though she’s still here, hanging out, smoking her nasty insecurity cigarettes in my near, her hacking helps me know it’s not really me, and that once she leaves, I’ll get my peace back.

June 5, 2011

“I is. He is. We is.”

I try my best to love this moment. If I concentrate hard enough on each second, I love and let go, love and let go, love and let go. Meanwhile, the self that gets in the way of a greater knowing makes the “I” disappear, and being connected to everything flourishes. But I have a job and students, I have writing to do and people to interact with, which means I fail at living at that higher frequency all the time.

My mom says I throw ‘love’ around like it’s candy when I should more accurately say that I care about another person. But whereas I differentiate between ‘loving someone’ and being ‘in love,’ she encourages me to be careful with my words.

“You are a writer, after all.”

But I maintain I have loved a lot of people, though I can’t say the same for ‘in-loveness’ in my life. Instead I married my best friend, whom I loved, but who I was never in love with. How does that happen? The short answer is I needed someone safe, someone trustworthy, someone who would never cheat on me, but there were a number of reasons why I did not need to marry him.

One of them was notthe way he is still my friend even after I broke it off, or the way we talked on the phone the other day and I felt free to tell him I met someone else—someone serious, someone who took me to Hawai`i.

This someone tells me the definition of love changes over time, with each new relationship. It makes me wonder how many times he’s been in love—how he’s stayed hopeful despite the brokenness he’s had to endure. It’s likely we’re all broken somehow, and I know he’s had his share.

But this time feels different to both of us. We agree—being together is like being home; a home so pure and comfortable that neither of us has ever experienced this feeling outside of ourselves. Our first lunch date lasted so long, the restaurant was setting up for dinner by the time we finally left. Every time since has been fluid with easy conversations, rants and questions, comfortable silences, too.

Plus he knows how to use ‘proffer’ and ‘foibles,’ knows how to spell they’re, there, and their. He understands the difference between a prologue and an epilogue, and writes me long, articulate emails about how he feels about the world. And me.

When he touches me, I feel a flash like an ice shower which fades into a sensation akin to a stick of room-temperature butter being glazed all along the path of his hands. And when we sleep he locks me into his arms, but it’s never stifling—like a violin case made to fit the instrument, it’s as if he was built to hold me.

The other day we were at the ocean and I sliced my foot on a rock. Shirtless, his maple muscles were covered with dry salt crystals and literally glistened in the sunlight. He bent over me, took my bleeding foot in both hands, and examined the wound as if it were a fragile thing—a wounded wing or the broken-paw of a kitten. The waves washed the rocks, clunking them together behind him while he looked up at me apologetically.

Pulling my skin flap in the opposite direction of the cut, like ripping off a band aid so that the sting abbreviated, he grimaced at the thing that hurt me.

“Do you want me to carry you back?” he asked.

All of this scares the bejesus out of me because I’m not accustomed to being loved so well; I’m used to doing most of the loving, so all this receiving freaks me out a little. Okay, it freaks me out a lot.

Another day we went hiking. There in the mountains, we used ropes to scale up vertical cliffs to reach verdant and panoramic plateaus. At the top, a cloud engulfed us. He used his entire body to shield me from the blanketing rain. Afterward, we clung again to the ropes to clamber down, and never having un-scaled a mountain, I found the backwards descent most unnerving.

“I have to trust the rope,” I told him. “It’s not easy.” It made me think about my reasons for staying on the edge of my feelings about him, even though he had done nothing suspect.

“Nothing is free,” I said, “I’m just waiting for the bill.”

“What would that look like to you?”

“I don’t know.”

But maybe I do—maybe I’m afraid I’ll need him, that I’ll love him and he’ll disappear. Maybe I’m waiting for the real him to show up and want something I can’t or don’t want to give, to expect me to become someone I’m not, to be dissatisfied with the way I [fill-in-the-blank]. It’s happened before, and I have the scars to prove it—my cynicism about receiving is transparent, obvious, plain.

It was easier to give because I always knew how much everything cost, and though I can’t say my love was ever truly free, I tried to give only what I could without resenting. I tried not to expect anything back. But I don’t actually have that past. Nor do I have the future.

All I have is this moment, all I have is this right now. And right now, I am in love. Concentrating on that rather than all the ‘used to bes’ and ‘ifs,’ I attempt to love what is. When I do that, the energy of this in-loveness spreads out past my ego, past the atmosphere of us, and into a connectedness with everything which can’t be bad for the universe. So my walking meditation becomes loving this moment, allowing for the free exchange of giving and receiving, and letting it go of all the things that scare me.

For the most part, I stay calm and focused, present and aware. I’m grateful for the ease I feel whenever I’m in his near, but there are times I can’t gauge how far I’ll have to fall should the worst happen. I freak out about breaking irreparably, just like he does. And I have to remind myself to have faith that god is always with me, is me, is him, is we, and that aligning with that makes everything perfect; that’s the rope we have to trust.

May 28, 2011

“Some nights stay up till dawn,
as the moon sometimes does for the sun.”
-Rumi

It’s 5:46 a.m. I’ve been up since around three, moon-gazing at the sliver of white light in the sky punctuated by a bright star to its lower left. It seems like some sort of Arabesque calligraphy—a secret I translate to mean something like serenity. And perhaps if my heart was breaking the backward “C” might mean something entirely different—a scythe or tenterhooks, an errant nail, a malignant thorn.

But this is not the case, and being a writer, I search the symbol for a reflection of how I’m feeling right now, finally deciding that my interior world is freakishly devoid of drama for the first time in about two years. There is no agony about divorcing, no angst about a womanizing lover, and no feigned apathy in response to an emotionally inept fireman.

Instead, I look around my life and this is what I see: my own space and dreams, my own work and passions. And a man who seems too good to be true. Yesterday in yoga, my instructor said this: “meditation will give you the answers to the universe.” It just so happened that I’d been deeply contemplating my breath at the time, and his words prompted this thought: what if this relationship that seems like a forever-kind-of-thing is only about learning a lesson? What if there is no future for us, no next year, no next month? What if this peaceful elation is temporary, just like everything else?

You’ve heard that change is the only constant. My past illusions of stability culminated in asphyxiating stagnation and the realization that my mind changes more often than not—something that frustrated my ex immensely. But without mental malleability, I would still be a control freak, believing my ideas were best, and closing myself off from the magic that has infused my life. And here’s the thing about magic: you can’t dictate how it manifests. It can’t be planned.

Taking the future off the table means facing those hopeful expectations and releasing them. Granted, there is a sadness to considering the rest of my life without partnership because I always thought that collaboration was the best way to learn anything. It’s what I teach my students and what tons of pedagogy research has shown: that peer learning reaps better retention and more meaning for people. And I is people.

Which means I want that opportunity to thrive in the search for Truth, to be brave and afraid when faced with risking the safety of knowing for the multitudinous benefits and consequences of growing with someone. Because if it’s not him (who is definitely not perfect, but may just be perfect for me) the rest pale in comparison.

And why settle for less than exactly what I want? I did that my whole life, and it got me here. I refuse to do it again. Still I practice releasing the ifs, even though they’re good. I encourage him to just be himself, instead of imagining him as “The One;” a practice a friend who’s engaged to be married suggested at the start of this dating endeavor.

And because I believe in a healthy dose of hubris to stave off my ever-burgeoning ego, fatalism in this instance, though probably not immunizing me from heartache, kind-of curbs my impulse to meld. But my intuition about the fireman was right on—there was a forever kind of ‘something else’ finally resulting in our ability to actually be friends. Could the quest to let go last a lifetime? Because this one lesson has been on my mind forever. It’s something I practice every day: my Sisyphean effort to become something more.

It’s all quite confusing—a mental web I’ve made to bridge my fear of getting maimed by a guy with a whole lot going for him. And he says he’s scared, too. Being present to that fear is like pigeon pose, where you, half-splits-like, sit on a bent leg with the other straight back—it hurts a lot before it feels good and releases. Without the freedom to be afraid, maybe we’d both sabotage ourselves. And maybe this is the beginning of the end. So I force myself to stop trying to know something I can’t and trust that the present will keep bringing me what I need.

May 20, 2011

"Pocketsful"

“You know the nearer your destination, the more you’re slip sliding away.”
-Paul Simon

Today everything will change. There’s no way it can’t, which is why I woke at 3:43 a.m. and couldn’t get back to sleep. Exactly one week ago, I was landing in Houston for a much-needed break from all this change, escaping into another life so I could figure out how to proceed in mine. My cousin spent most of our time together listening to me waffle as I pained over whether I was ready for the ‘something more’ I claimed to want when I started dating.

But here’s the thing: dating is an intoxicating ego boost. Who doesn’t want to be the celebrity in her own life, fielding emails and phone calls, texts and voicemails with one question asked over and over again: when do you have time for me? On the receiving end of all this attention, I glistened in the spotlight, shimmering from being adored, desired, and pursued.

And these were not losers, oh no; these were successful men with jobs, making at least $100K per year (well, I let the slam poet in the back door because of the performance I’d seen of him on the internet, but I was surprised such a talented guy wanted me). My calendar was full and it was invigorating. I felt young and hot from the compliments that kept coming, but my destination hazed en route to the partnership I had proclaimed I wanted.

This isn’t a bad thing. For all my focus on being present, it’s no wonder I got lost gazing into the eyes of a different man every night. I was fully there when the contractor’s dimples first appeared, when the slam poet’s knuckles grazed my knee, when the fireman’s sweet beer breath warmed my cheek, and the hotelier’s hand burned the small of my back. But it was Escrow Guy who moved me.

So when he told me he didn’t like my boundaries—that he wanted to see me exclusively, I talked the talk, but I wasn’t ready for the walking part. My cousin said he manipulated me into a relationship when I’d clearly stated I wanted space, and maybe this is true. I had to choose between dating—being the bouncer for a fascinating line of men who, well-dressed and on their best behavior, waited to get past my door and a guy I felt connected with in so many ways.

Going away to reset my head was exactly what I needed. I took my Match profile down and slipped off to consider my heart. The constant buzz of being the center of my own dating universe with eager explorers eventually petered out. It’s a good thing because had I stayed, I’m pretty sure I would have ruined everything; my initial reactions knee-jerking me into strange destructive patterns.

Because I sometimes don’t believe I deserve happiness, that missing my want will take something away. Becoming my best potential requires overpowering that voice that hates change—that worries about starting on what's next, that frets about what to do once I’ve got everything.

I have the power to choose everything in my life because perception is one hundred percent of the truth, which means that with this partnership stuff off my list of things to do, I could concentrate on different dreams. Being present means each moment is perfect, that I am learning exactly what I need from the people best equip to teach me. This is how I balance my fear of change, how I reassure myself that if I watch closely, I can suss out the universe’s signs for where I’m supposed to go, replacing my wants with faith.

Today, everything will change. Then it will change again. Making room for it inside myself is work I must do in order to choose happiness. If I refuse, change will knock me down and break my heart, and it will hurt more than it has to.

May 6, 2011

“I will not go naked”

My friend, N, defines the term, ‘dating,’ as ‘an implicit assumption that all participants are simultaneously pursuing multiple partners.’ I shouldn’t feel bad, she encourages, because I’m seeing not two, not three, not even four, but five men at the same time. According to her, until an agreement to the contrary (i.e.., ‘commitment,’ a.k.a. ‘The Talk’) is negotiated, I have every right to date however many men I can fit into my social calendar. Other friends have made a distinction between ‘dating’ and ‘seeing,’ which has proved too fine for me to grasp; it has something to do with passing first base, but I can’t say for sure.

Through my multi-tasking experiment (based on this definition, I’ve never actually ‘dated’ before—instead I’ve had a string of long-term relationships), I’m finding that this is likely why my last beau only had time for me once or twice a week, even though he didn’t have a job. And perhaps this is why I’m doing it—because I spent the past six months waiting for a boy to call me. Let’s just say I ain’t-a-waitin’ no more.

I tell myself it takes time to connect with people, to get to know them, to find out if there’s something more than instant attraction. This is where I went wrong last time: I thought I knew something I didn’t, and what I’m seeing with my perfect hindsight is that he never was that ‘into’ me. Instead, he strung me along for quite some time with gifts, fancy dinners, and spooning; and once or twice a week I fucked like a porn star, slept in, then was rewarded with eggs benedict and a non-fat latte.

Maybe he liked me a little more than I’m letting on, but frankly I’m a bit jaded from the whole experience. If he could hold me at a distance for such an extended amount of time, what does that say about me and my desire to connect? Was I really just practicing being alone with training wheels, or was I waiting for him to fall so I could figure out how I felt about him? When I’m really honest with myself, I know the later is true. What is it about me that needs to be wanted, and how is that keeping me from truly facing myself and learning something about freedom and independence?

Of course, dating so many people may not the best way to discover the answer. I do get to have the power, which is something I was missing last time, having handed it over willingly for the chance to ‘be known.’ Why can’t I let go of my ego again and allow what’s supposed to happen? Talking a big game is my forte, and I can meditate all I want on being present, letting go of the future, and releasing the past, but if I can’t ever really try again, what’s the point?

Yet being jaded has its benefits—I’ve finally realized that the game aspect is necessary; being too available is not good for the hunter instinct, and if I want a real man (which I do), he needs to feel like he’s actually catching something. Lying down in his path and letting him do whatever he wants makes it oh-so-not-thrilling. So I set boundaries. I make plans with friends, my niece, my mother—whomever, so I’m not always available. I cancel and I flirt. I have not gone naked.

Plus, I’m living the high life—men willingly buy me dinner, gifts, and comp executive suites for my girl’s night out. I get to have interesting conversations with fascinating people who really want to sleep with me, which means they’re on their best behavior, while I somehow get to be as unapologetic about being myself as I ever have been. Don’t want what I’m selling? There’s the door, Mister. I got a line here, so hurry it up if you’re on your way out.

Last night, my frontrunner kissed me after our fourth date. There are a lot of things I like about him, but the way he kisses isn’t . . . how do I say this . . . isn’t . . . mind-blowing. Cher’s “It’s in his kiss” comes to mind, though the last mind-blowing kisser I had was during my early twenties, when kissing was one of my favorite sports. Is my bar set too high? Everything else is promising, so how important is it, really?

And there I go again, compromising. My other forte: I am an expert at explaining away things that really should matter. So maybe I need some time to think. We’re supposed to go out tomorrow night, and I know our physical communication will escalate because it can’t not. So he’s not earth-shattering in my mouth. His tongue played havoc with my shoulder blades and neck; the space just above my breasts bore up to meet his lips. And his chest and back are things of beauty, not to mention his stomach and the dip right between his breastbone. I want him. Trust.

But I don’t want to have sex. Which is why I’m considering canceling. Blue balls are an excellent reason for a man to keep trying, and he’ll have two weeks to think about me because of our over-lapping trips out of town. Plus I want to see these other men to their logical conclusions. I’m intrigued by the slam poet I’m coffeeing with Saturday morning. And the charming hotelier with a killer singing voice is a sweetheart. Then there’s the slightly insecure fireman who makes me laugh and the burly contractor whose cheek, when it brushed against mine, was soft as a baby’s.

Mostly, I don’t want to have sex because it muddles my power. It’s like kryptonite in that the last time with training wheels guy, I had sex then stopped being myself. Finagling him into falling in love with me didn’t work, and I never got to figure out if there was that ‘something more’ because he decided there wasn’t first. The more he pushed me away, the more determined I was to be strong and the more I cried alone, excusing his absences without ever asking for a reason. Pathetic, right?

So fuck that. For now, I’m seeing everyone I find interesting. And, taking N’s advice, I will not apologize or explain myself. I will not feel guilty because I am interviewing but perhaps not actually in the market to hire. It’s the first time in my life that I am not beholden to anyone, and I’d like to enjoy that a little longer. But truth be told, I’m a horn dog. I want to see the frontrunner again bad, and going a little farther than dry humping might do well for his imagination while we’re apart. Mine, too.

May 4, 2011

"In Vain"

Confused,
I search through poems by Jimmy Santiago Baca and Francisco Alarcan:
snake poems, love poems, and screen-door-and-summer-day poems
the answer somewhere in the pages,
the answer somewhere in the air.

I summon all my intellect against time and gravity
wanting for something to be wrong with you.

The other night stuck outside my locked gate,
you rang to ask if I had a dog.
Practiced in the art of boundaries,
I walked slowly down the path
let you ogle me from the other side.

I’m no longer that woman who makes excuses for lovers.
I’ll just leave. I won’t turn back.

At dinner, we talked about babies and super heroes,
the first time we were kissed and the last.
There was a list. We did not talk about your ex-wife. My ex-husband.
And beneath the table, legs crossed,
I waited for you to touch me.

The void that exists between us
is aching, pulsing as it waits.

When you dropped me off at 1:30 a.m., I leaned over
your armrest expanse to kiss you goodnight
but reaching the other side, you did not meet me half-way.
Instead, you waited with your eyes open.
I pecked you on the lips and slipped away. Into the ebon night.

April 24, 2011

“Pretty Girl Blues”

I don’t do anything half-way. So when it came to dating without strings attached, I decided to go for it. Enthusiastic, I jumped on Match.com again (the first time was six months ago and I went on one date with the guy I saw exclusively before he dumped me) and waited for something interesting to come along. I’m not sure if this works for everyone, but I definitely want to be pursued. Winking/emailing/interesting first means I’m taking the initiative, which undoes the entire premise of being chased, so for the most part I don’t do it.

I didn’t have to wait for long. Emails at the rate of twenty-plus per day began filling up my inbox, and I had to change my filter settings. In the first three weeks over a thousand people had viewed my profile, which doesn’t mean anything except I take a pretty good picture. My main photo is a shot of the right side of my face in black and white. My hair is tied back, and I’m not smiling (all apparent ‘no-nos’ according to Patti Stanger of Millionaire Match Maker fame). In fact, the moment that picture was taken, I was on the verge of tears—my constant state of existence while I was dating Mr. Exclusive.

Perhaps enacting the prey in my picture helped these men get the idea—here was a woman who wanted saving/ravishing. But I must admit, this is a misleading signal; I can take care of myself and have been doing just that for the past four months. Before that, I took care of my ex-husband, too. And I don’t know how to say this without coming off conceited, but I guess maybe I’m kind-of okay looking.

I was talking about this with my sister-in-law, who shares a similar ethnic mix and is drop-dead gorgeous. As a teenager she got so much attention she began to distrust the men and women who complimented her. She wanted to be appreciated for more than her perfect smile and luscious hair; her fine skin and flawless body (trust me, she’s had more than three kids and every time, her body bounces back within weeks of giving birth. Because we don’t share the same genetic makeup, I have every right to hate her for this). “That’s why every time your brother tells me I’m hot, I get angry.”

They married when she was twenty-three, and at that age, I may have felt the same. As a child, I heard, “You’re gonna be a heartbreaker” more times than I can count, which I didn’t really understand. Contextually, I understood that this was a good thing, but the words meant something I never wanted to do or become. If just being meant I would hurt someone, something would have to change. When I was older I remember gaining weight and not combing my hair to go deeper inside myself without the distraction of the world telling me I was pretty. And to a certain extent, it worked. I didn’t stop being pretty, but I actively sought out men who appreciated what I had to say over those others.

Which is how I came to marry my ex. He might have complimented me on how I looked maybe once a month, but his most constant comment had to do with my mental acuity. After ten years of this, I came to realize that perhaps being comfortable with my physical and intellectual qualities might be more rewarding, not to mention more accurate. Being who I am means being pretty, which likely won’t last my entire life unless, like Sophia Loren, I defy the laws of nature and never sag or wrinkle (that later already setting in around my eyes).

I’m lucky. I get to choose from a population of men who have lots going for them, and whether or not they admit it, they want the whole package just as much as me. Because if he can’t turn me on with his smile as much as his witty banter, a disconnect occurs between the libido and the mind, and I end up faking it ‘til I make it—something I vowed never to do again where matters of the heart are concerned.

But even if I were supermodel material, which I am definitely not, personality makes me spicy. My neuroses and quirkiness prove I’m interesting to be around. The way I see the world, based on my travels and experiences and hurts make me different, and like my completely unique fingerprints, I’m the only me that will ever be. So twenty emails or two; a thousand views or a hundred, men on the other side of the ether beware: placing me on a pedestal because of the way I look will only end in broken toes.

December 27, 1010

"Hard Core"

Sometimes I go to the gym twice a day. It’s my happy place; my sweating body, the only thing I have control over during this time of flux. I don’t mess around when I get there, preferring only the hardest classes. I do spin with a dirty blonde who compares us to her five a.m., Marines-only class that complains all morning about everything. We don’t bitch. That’s why she likes us better.

She shouts, “get it, get it, get it” at the top of her lungs, encourages us to “get what we came for,” and says, at the beginning of each interval, “make this your best effort.” Sometimes when she’s counting down the last few seconds of a ‘level ten effort’ and no one can breathe, she gets to ‘two’ and repeats it a couple of times, just to torture us. She encourages us to “dump it,” to rid ourselves of whatever gets in our way. When she sprained her ankle and pulled her hamstring, she still came to class. Once she even showed when she wasn’t fully recovered from laryngitis.

I keep my head down when I’m spinning. I stare at one point on the floor, clear my mind, and push my muscles until they yelp at me, then I push some more. I half-listen to her rasp coming at me over the pumping bass, opting to tune out when she talks about what’s coming up. I’ll get there when I get there, I figure. And it’s not like I’m walking out before it’s over. Instead, I concentrate on wringing out my center like a wet sponge, and I envision all the crap I don’t need dripping out of me. By the time class is over, I’m usually flushed and knock-kneed, struggling to stand up straight.

On the days I feel really masochistic, I follow that up with Bikram yoga. The hundred and ten-degree hot box smacks me in the face before I exert any energy. I usually get there a few minutes early to acclimate, fitting in the best power naps in that humid bright room. In the beginning we stretch our lungs, which never fails to make my body glisten. Then for ninety minutes, I stretch and pull on my limbs, I twist and contort my organs, and I think about nothing but the pain of breathing, of my close-to-ripping muscles.

Wringing my body again from the inside out, I open my heart in spite of everything that’s happening in my life. In those difficult positions, I tell myself to “dump it,” because what I want is to be healthy, whole, and genuine. I want to be exceptional, to grow into my potential, to leave a legacy that has more to do with being proud of myself than anything else. Everything that gets in the way of that must go for now. But this paring down isn’t easy.

I’m trying to keep up with the change that is happening in my life, trying to make sense of this lone-full-ness. And my body is a tool I use to process the pain of divorcing my husband, and of recently realizing that I was attracted to two emotionally unavailable men.

The first was like an Abe Lincoln gigolo in that he could only tell the truth, but could not bring himself to only sleep with one person. Instead, moth-like, he was “attracted to the light in bright people,” which means he attempted to fuck anything with tits. He told me how much he loved me, how much he needed me, and for about six months, my practice was about undoing my attraction to him. If I pushed my body hard enough, I thought I could detoxify him from my heart. But when that didn’t work, I searched for emotionally guarded man number two.

This time, I was discerning. Before we ever slept together, I told him I was concerned about a pattern I’d noticed in all of his narratives. It seemed that every one of his stories ended with his disappearance. But when I asked him about it, he explained how it was not true, and he promised not to go ‘poof’ on me. But Thanksgiving came around and he canceled. Another clutch moment occurred and the same thing happened. We weren’t in love—not even close. But like my big brother used to do when I was little, this guy kept one hand on the top of my head and the other above his head, holding his heart as far out of my reach as possible.

Not to get all Freudian and shit, but I really think it all stems from my relationship with my dead father. My first emotionally disabled man didn’t know how to give a hug. Even when I wasn’t in trouble, his negative attention to me included teasing, irritating, and making demeaning jokes. So it stands to reason that I would marry a guy who was exactly the same, right? Wrong.

My ex-husband is nothing like my father. He is kind and he always has my back even when I am wrong. He encourages me to do whatever I want, is gentle, soft-spoken, and trust-worthy. I always feel safe with him because he tells me the truth. And after ten years of being with him, I know he genuinely loves me, still.

But he took credit for every good thing I did, and was forever in a bad mood, bitching about something. To him, the world is a terrible place full of awful people. I was the only person he actually liked in that world, so he built his entire social life around me. And that became part of the deal breaker that ended us. I was also the bread-winner in the family, which put a huge strain on me, leaving me feeling as if I had to buy sex. So I wound up with the narrative that I wasn’t attractive—and for all the bullshit, at least guys one and two helped edit that out of my story.


My friend, whose name means the prayer mudra in yoga, says I’ve been through four tsunamis and I’m still standing—that most people would have bowled over after just one, but that I’m so generous, I keep looking for someone to give my heart to. She says it’s time to be generous with myself for once, to heal myself, and attend to my own needs before anyone else’s.

And so, for the first time, my practice has become about closing my heart to others. Soaking with sweat like I’ve just gotten out of the pool, I concentrate on only me, and stop myself from thinking about my most recent foray with emotionally guarded man number two, his attempts to win me back, and his admission that he’s got issues. I cut myself off from thinking I can fix him, that we might fall in love, that he might express some iota of feeling about me without my prompting it first.

On Christmas Eve, I finally heard what he had been saying all along—we were having sex: no more, no less. We weren’t dating, with the possibility of having a relationship. I finally got it: we went out to eat when he was hungry, and he’d call me if he felt like it. I was not a consideration for him—in fact, I’m not sure I even existed when I was not present. “I only do what I want to do,” was his stated modus operandi, which meant that if I wanted a say, I was not going to get one where he was concerned.

There was no drama, no pressure, and no future for us. And whereas I thought that might be what I wanted, I sat with it and found out that it is not. I don’t want a meaningless relationship and I don’t want meaningless sex. I don’t want to be the only one giving Christmas gifts and the only one expressing my feelings. I just don’t have the energy to keep justifying it to myself, and like a child who’s palmed a hot stove, I’m already beginning to feel the heat.

So I’m closing my heart to him because he’s not good for me, even as a friend, because relationships should be about give and take—not dominance and submission (the later, my stated theme word for the entire ordeal). I want to be free to love and be loved. I want an equal partner or nothing at all. And ready or not, I deserve more. Either way, it should be me that gets to decide, and not some guy who thinks he can put me on ‘time out,’ or leave me flailing my arms unable to touch his heart. I’m walking away from playing that game. Besides, right now the person I really want to be in love with is myself.

Which means that the things I’m dumping are his possible desire to remain friends and my guilt for not wanting to nurturing him through anything. I’m dumping my panicked reaction that harried me to find both guys one and two, now that my ex-husband has moved out of my life. I’m dumping my shame at being a strong woman who financially took care of everything and who, some might say, was suckered into it by my twice broken-backed ex. I’m dumping my fear of being completely alone, the feeling that I’m running out of time, and my desire to know what’s going to happen tomorrow today.

Instead, I remember how once I’m in any exercise class, I commit to stay the entire time. There, I use my body to rid itself of emotional, spiritual, and physical barriers, discovering what I need by dumping what I don’t. And there’s a calmness there—a truth that is above perception—that there is time, that I have as long it takes to heal myself. That living in the moment doesn’t mean feeling like it’s my last. Instead, it’s about accepting what is. Because I’m making room for something else—something that needs a lot of space, something bigger and better than I have ever known. I’m making room for myself—that unwieldy, gigantic, atomic thing I’ve never given much attention to because I was always preoccupied with the man in my life. And who knows—I may just change the fucking world.