Moving On

It's been six months to the day since I last wrote.  Six straight months of sorting, reliving, moving, discarding, earmarking, revisiting, and preparing for the sale of the stuff and for the sale of the house we've had as our home for the past 23 years.

Physically, it's been daunting.  The amount of things that have gone from house to basement or attic or separate rentals or storage units has been exhausting.  At my age my knees are hurting, my feet are too, and at night, my hip bones ache.  It has all been done in the sweltering heat of an unusually hot southern summer.

Logistically, it has been the challenge of shifting things from here to there, truckloads, carloads, and still — there is always more.  I call it the fishes and the loaves.  You think you're done but you open another door, another closet, another hidden recess, and find there are still items to deal with, to decide, to divest.


Emotionally, it is what you might imagine. An endless confrontation of the memories of every moment you have lived.  I found an album where I had placed every engagement and wedding card we received.  There was a box with each and every gift card and greeting card from the time I was pregnant through their second birthday.  I had no idea that there were specific cards made that said —  "Congratulations!  You're Expecting Twins!"  I had about twelve each of the three designs that were made.  I had no memory of such cards.  

The cards represented all the well wishes, all the outpouring of love — from those we knew and those we didn't.  Gifts from people's mothers I'd never met.  Hand-knit teeny-tiny white baby booties from Jean-Louis' mom in Paris.  Matching hooded sweaters trimmed in blue and pink with pom-pom ties from Susan's co-worker's mom in Nebraska or North Dakota.  Ceramic plates with cherubic babies hand-painted by Aunt Doris on my father's side, with their names and weights and birthdates.  Loving expressions of joy at our great gift of healthy boy-girl twins.

Box after box after bin after bag of photos capturing the moments of our 36 years together — the vacations, the birthdays, the holidays, the milestones — all smiling and hugging and picturing happiness.  

What do you do with the thousands of images that you've stockpiled before things were digital?  The wedding photos, the engagement, bridal and baby showers?  What do you keep?  I, who always had walls and stairwells hung with framed photographs of family.  I don't want them staring me in the face.  Looking at me with eyes that question the close of that life lived.

Others are selling off the art, pottery, jewelry, household goods and knickknacks of my past.  I've kept quite a bit but moving into a house that's one-third the space forces you to be selective and I have been.  Let us hope that my former treasures find places in someone else's home and that they will bring pleasure to others as they once did to me.

I feel relief that it's almost at the end of a long passage.  The six-month road of dismantling what once was.  I feel a sense of lightness and ease at no longer being weighed down by so much.  And even better, I love my new home.

It is a tremendous gift to love where one lives  — to feel a sense of comfort and real happiness — to walk in the door and smile at the things you see.  I feel that here.  I settled in very quickly, probably because I've felt "homeless" for the past twenty months.  My nest is made and I am cocooning at the moment.  When I open my eyes in the morning I see a half wall filled floor-to-ceiling with sixteen pieces of art that I adore.  Lauren's framed wedding invitation with its silvery tree.  The blue castle from college-friend Peggy.  The framed Folon poster all signed on the back from my Random House buddies celebrating my first real apartment in Manhattan. The lovers kissing "In a Sentimental Mood" by Havlicek from Shirley Sender. The tiny painted grove of trees by Norman Kaplanoff bought in the basement of a Ukrainian church on the lower East side for 50¢ (unframed). 

Two more tree etchings, one from my daughter, bought in Florence (bottom) and one from my son that we picked out together one Christmas.  

Various representation of and from New York: the Flatiron Building, the Chrysler Building, the Brooklyn Bridge... 

                                           

and the lovely print of swimming goldfish that I bought on the street outside the Museum of Modern Art from a Chinese artist named Zhyoo (and I have never been able to track down).

The gorgeous watercolor of the Colorado mountains painted by Lynnie's sister Joannie Shapiro and...

   

"Shadow of the child I used to be" by m. ensign johnson.

I am a shadow of the person I used to be. Empty of virtually all my former identities...no longer a daughter, sister, not a wife, not a couple, not a co-worker, not a teacher, and not a mother in the way I was for 20+ years. Emptying me of the marriage, the house, the possessions and feeling hollow is hard but I'm beginning to feel the openness — in being able to start again and figure out just want I want to fill inside. What I want. 

What I want. Not what is expected. Not what I think I should be, need to be, have to be. Just what I want. 

I don't know what I want, but it's nice to begin imagining.

Wish me luck.

Doodling for Direction

For a long, long time, all my doodles were arrows coming and going, up and down, sideways, never getting anywhere.  Pointing, reaching, looking for direction.  I often felt boxed in by those arrows.  Trapped in no direction.  In elementary school, in high school, in college, in every job I've ever had — I was always worried about where I would end up.

Now I'm sixty-three and where have I ended up?

Back at the beginning.

After a working career of 40-plus years (I'm not including working at the dry cleaners from ages 8-15,  or pricing at the pet-supply warehouse, not counting serving in the cafeteria at Northeastern or working in the Registrar's Office at Finch); after a number of apartments, single and shared, a six-year relationship, a 29-year marriage, a townhouse that almost foreclosed, a big house, two lovely children boy-girl twins; now after all that I'm again seeking direction.

Direction is a funny thing because there's no one "right" direction in life.  For any place you want to go, there are oh-so-many ways of getting there.  Will you walk? bike? or drive? Do you go the fastest way or take the most scenic route like my friend Nancy who bobs and weaves this way and that, avoiding the main roads, even highways if she can.  Unlike me, she goes the "back roads" while I — well I just want to get there quick as I can.

Part of the difficulty now is just deciding direction.  My first choice of direction was to leave our town and live in New York — return to the hustle and bustle of of city streets teeming with people, alive with music and plays and magnificent art and always, always, always, the possibility of human connection.  I have had great moments of "positivity resonance" with men, women, and children here in the Big Apple.  People like me/unlike me, close in age/decades away, of similar persuasions/of radically different views.  These connections rarely seemed to happen in the town where we raised our family because we lived in cars to and from the same places.  And we didn't have many couple friends.

Most couples attach to other couples and do things together.  They go to concerts or movies, camp, play cards, take vacations together. I think these couples usually meet through their young children — but that didn't happen for us.  We moved to teach in a small school where most of our colleagues were far younger and single and transitory — each around for a few years and then on to the next career phase in another part of the country or the world.  Our friends are in Iowa and Santiago, Chile or elsewhere but not so many here.

Now it seems that the dream of New York may be a dead end and my direction points me back to North Carolina where I've spent the past 24 years. In a way, and surprisingly, that's beginning to excite me.  There are new things for me to focus on.  We're selling the house and emptying out 35 years of objects and memories.  Every Monday night I'm free-form dancing with about 25 other people for 90 minutes and NO talking!  I'm back to volunteering for the two non-profits  that I support.

Maybe the time has come to procrastinate — to start doodling and see where those arrows take me.
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For the past few months, I've been in a women's writing group that meets weekly at a neighborhood senior center.  I am by far the youngest of the seniors but they're a real bunch of characters, all with interesting thoughts to write.  We spend about 20-30 minutes writing and then we each read aloud and share our piece, followed by comments.  Before we begin, the table is strewn with pages of images torn from magazines (brought  by our writer-facilitator Rosalie) to help prompt one to write if needed.  

This is the image I saw that prompted me to write this post. 

I Remember Me

In my writing group sometimes the prompt is an image.  I choose a black-and-white photo taken with an iPhone 6s of a very sweet freckle-faced young girl. This is what I wrote...


I remember pastel-pretty smocked dresses of lavender and blue 

        and black patent leather Mary Janes, sitting at a child-sized table 

with a dainty tea party, set with delicate white china 

decorated with pink flowers and green stems and 

lovely, lovely, triangle-shaped crustless cucumber sandwiches with their cool crunch and tiny luscious chocolate petis fours and ornate silver spoons and large folded cloth napkins gracing our laps...


I wish, wish, wish that little girl at that table 
                at that tea party 
                                         with all those beautiful things 
                                                                               had been me.

The Year of the Monkey

I don't know what the monkey signifies in Chinese astrology.  In my family, the three of them are snakes and I'm a dragon.  I don't know anything about snakes and what I knew about dragons I'd forgotten, except that I wrote about being a dragon in a post,  The Newest Baby Dragon.  

This is not the original image but its spirit is similar to that of my tin.

For me the monkey conjures up an image of impishness and always has.  My first year in college I went to Harvard Square and shopped in a very fanciful 70s store called Truc (was it underground?) and somewhat uncharacteristically but actually characteristic of my urge to buy things for my "someday-children," I purchased a colorful metal tin similar in size to a cigar box except square.  The circus image on its cover starred a smiling monkey on a unicycle center-ring.  This monkey made me smile and being a student of Sociology 101, I decided to flash that tin at the unsuspecting riders on the T (Boston's transit system) to see how they wold react.  Nine times out of ten that monkey would elicit a simple smile or a big grin.  Only occasionally would the person frown or look away in annoyance.

Another impish monkey I think of is the one in Heidi the organ grinder's monkey who delights Shirley Temple by leaping in through the open window, swinging from the chandelier, and wreaking havoc on Frau Rottenmeyer. That monkey made me laugh with his mischievous ways. 

This bag is from Bloomingdale's in New York... 

I fear that somehow Bernie Sanders is a monkey in the minds of the electorate.  He appears impish enough with his straight-talking, spit-in-your-eye Bernie-truths about the ways things need to change. (Single-payer healthcare! Free college!)  And just like that organ grinder's monkey running amok, Sanders keeps upsetting those proverbial apple carts.

Then we've got Trump posturing, postulating, pontificating and preening — the epitome of monkey business.

And there's Ted Cruz — monkeying around with his position on immigration and even Donald Trump.

I guess no matter which side of the fence you're on, seems as if this truly is the Year of the Monkey...

A River of Words

When I'm writing
It feels like a stream. 
A stream of words
pouring out of me
that create a river that
flows and surges
and carries my thoughts
of times past,
regrets not addressed,
and sorrows lost.

Sometimes it feels good
washing me clean
and other times
the muddy rush of debris
and mistakes
and missteps
drowns me.

february 5, 2016

This is a special-to-me thrift-store watercolor I bought signed Ellie Reiner, 1952.  It certainly seems to be Central Park in New York.  For a time I thought it might be done by Rob Reiner's mom, but I checked it out (via email) with Rob's son and it seems not.  

You're not seeing its simple, rounded, thick but elegant, gold wood frame because I needed to crop the image.

NOT MATCHED by match.com

For the purposes of this post, all names have been altered to spare anyone embarrassment...except for ME.
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Thinking it was finally time to start seeking male companionship I thought, "Why not try match.com?"

I already knew three people — all slightly older than I am and all people I liked — who found five, yes FIVE, successful, happy marriages between them.

Clearly this was an indication that through match.com it was possible to find true love.

And — this is important — there was a free 7-day trial.  What was there to lose?

My sanity for one.

Not to mention time.

First, you answer a series of questions that categorize you and the person you're looking for — in the broadest of terms: physical characteristics, age range, hobbies, likes, religious and social habits.  Fair enough.

Next, you write a profile...how much or how little is up to you.  I simply said I was looking for someone to share a meal, movie or museum visit with — I wrote next to nothing because I just didn't know what I wanted to say. And yet soon my inbox was filling with all sorts of unknown and difficult-to decipher communications.  

There's 

a "wink" 
                 a "like" 
                                a "chat" 
                                                 possibly leading to ... an email.

At first, it seemed novel and fascinating...guys were reaching out to me, wanting to contact me, liked me!  Each communication I opened was a new possibility, an opening in the closed universe I'd been living in this past year.  I clicked on the link to view their profile, looked at their photo (if there was one), and then read how they described themselves and what they said they were looking for in a woman.

Some wrote gushingly; others forthrightly, some with humor.  Some put next to no effort; everyone was looking for the love of their life.  

Often when I'd click on someone who really looked promising, I'd get:

The profile you're looking for is not available at this time.

Instead take a look at these.

It made no sense. Where were they? Why weren't they available to see? 

And then there were the ones I was able to see.  Well, they were time-consuming.

I'd read through and be interested but then — then I'd see that the guy was in his 30s or 40s or be living in Miami, Baylor, Texas, San Diego, even Nashua, New Hampshire or Butte, Montana! What the F**K? Why would anyone be trying to date someone that lived states away?  MY profile I said I was looking for someone within 20 miles of New York City...how was this filter not working?

It took me three days to figure out that I wasn't actually seeing my "mutual matches." To see the guys who fit what I was looking for, I had to go to Search Mutual Matches...and then a whole crop of pics and profiles popped up.  And it took me that long to figure out that there were people who were just looking for an electronic pen pal. Someone to add a little vicarious excitement to one's life and "chatting" through match was a way to do this. 

Love2loveU thought I wrote "a lovely profile that makes me want to get to know you" and worldtraveller "enjoyed my profile and thinks "we could meet for coffee and start a conversation ..I'm looking for a serious relationship, but leave me a text and I will send you one." Or TruthfulOne who emailed "I wanted so much to meet you from your profile and pic. You have this intriguing and intense look about you that I love it. I would enjoy talking with you... " and more and more and more. But their emails often seemed as intense as a therapy session.  Way too much information for an opening salvo and far too revealing for my sensibilities.  It just seemed insincere and uncomfortable.

I went through those mutual matches but anyone who said they played basketball five times a week, or put camping and hiking first on their list of interests or said they were "God-fearing" or "NEVER" drank, well these were clearly not the best matches for me.

If they were looking for "athletic and toned," not me.

If they were looking for someone who wanted to settle down for prolonged kisses and a life together, well, that just wasn't me at this moment.

Eventually, after days and hours of sorting, reading, deleting, replying, "You look nice but you're too far away...good luck in the search!", I got down to three men that looked good to me, sounded nice, had similar interests and were in New York City. [Or so I thought.]

I decided to email a message expressing interest.  And they each replied.

All looking for true love, a "one-man woman," someone who wouldn't break their hearts.

One was in Shanghai on extended business.

The next was in Brazil.

The last was deployed in Iraq handling bombs and ammunition, not due back until end of March. (Or was he? Turns out there's a huge scam of men claiming to be in the military but simply wanting some electronic entertainment from the wife, and saying you're in the military gets you a free pass from any one-on-one involvement.)

It left me totally, totally, TOTALLY confused and disappointed.  I just want to sit across from another human being at a Starbucks and talk.  Is that so impossible?

How are people successful at this?  

What am I NOT getting?

On day seven, I was relieved to quit the whole thing and give up on the online version of the dating game.  The thought of trying eHarmony or OurTime made me squirm.

Time to go back to the old-fashioned way.

Tried going in to a neighborhood bar by myself for a glass of wine, just hoping to meet some other singles to talk to but couldn't do it.  I just stood outside the door looking in or walked back and forth thinking I'd propel myself inside, but didn't have the nerve to go in...

Know someone you want to introduce me to?? 

This Year's Tree

For those of you who wanted to see this year's tree...I am happy to give you a glimpse...

My flying Dutchman, a lovely metal crescent moon with cupid from my college roommate Julie, a yellow taxi cab complete with wreath from Lauren, and in the upper right (not a good shot!) a laser-cut scene of Iowa from dear friends Nicole & Aaron.  The purple sparkly beaded ball I think was from Louise...that little elf I found for 10 cents in a thrift store of course!

There is that wonderful doggie with the halo, that darling cut-out doll girl from Shirley (and it has two companions) and a button boy (truncated head in this shot) from Maria & Dan who host a fabulous Italian-inspired Christmas Eve every year!

The metal boy with the suspenders crossing his back was from Robin very early in our relationship, the birdhouse from good friend Susan here at home, my little tiger from Pottery Barn Outlet decades ago on West 26th St., that fabulous Gramma with her basket (which actually has a teeny, tiny pair of red plastic scissors that  actually open and close but I hide them because I'm worried they'll get lost in the shuffle), that teddy with the 2 was from my mother-in-law when we found out we were expecting twins but they hadn't come in to being yet, and that beautiful blown glass swirl was again from lovely Lauren.

Well the reindeer, thrift store, the Santa with lantern, thrift store.  The desk a great teacher-present and the gingerbread wreath with the boy and girl, again, from our favorite Auntie Barbara to celebrate when we were expecting the twins.

Well the last of the shots (but by no means anywhere near the last of the ornaments!) my darling pull-toy jester whose legs and arms slide up and down, a gorgeous purple crescent moon (I have so many moons) the Hungarian slipper that I think was from my mom, and the wrapped presents from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and there are round hatbox ones too!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!  HAPPY HOLIDAYS!  HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Thank you one and all for your love, your support and your wisdom....

Can I Make My Inner Child Happy?

From the time I was in second grade I lived disappointed.  People around me seemed to be living the Father-Knows-Best life but in our household Father Didn’t Know Best.  Some classmates’ had homes with tall glasses of cold milk and scalloped china plates piled with still-warm-from-the-oven cookies on the kitchen table.  Our house was dark and scary and mostly devoid of parents.  And when they were home my father’s temper could erupt at any moment, (usually did) resulting in every hollow-core door upstairs having the impression of a fist or a foot through it.

Never woke up feeling as if every day was a bright new beginning.  Didn’t feel as if things were more positive than negative on balance.  Always lived in some state of worry.  Worry about my explosive father and my too-hard-working mother.   Worry about my in-and-out-of-the criminal justice system brother, worry about money.  Lack of happiness caused me to leave my original family as soon as I could.  I prayed and dreamed and wished for the Prince-Charming-rescue.  

It never came.

Decades later I left a 17-year place of employment, a loving relationship of more than thirty years.  The unhappiness was crushing.  While I’d been happy over the course of those decades, I never lived happy. There was always WORRY.  worry about the kids, worry about my weight, worry about hanging on to our jobs, worry about raising the kids and raising them well. Why was happiness so elusive?

I felt I’d lived my life doing flips and somersaults and one trick after another to get someone’s attention, to make me valuable to those around me, to be perceived as lovable.  I was always looking for the fulfillment and the happiness and the joy to come from outside me.  I needed someone or something to give it to me.

In my youth I wowed’em with my cuteness, in elementary school my writing, and then In high school with my pep and energy and smarts. In my 20s it was seduction and sex, in my 30s it was my strategic thinking, knowledge and ability to fit in pretty much anywhere. 

Thrift-store shopping gave me a modicum of happiness for many years, finding and collecting things of beauty that gave me pleasure to display. All my things, my fabulous finds, garnered me praise for how I displayed my eclectic finds or how little I spent and how valuable they were.  But over time that pleasure faded away and wasn’t enough.

Caregiving had become another means of gathering love.  I’d give and give and give of myself in the hopes that it would give back to me, fill me up. And for a time it did.  But then over time caregiving turned in to caretaking and all that giving depleted me. It felt as if my wrists were embedded with small spigots that were always turned on full force and my life force was streaming out of me all the time.  The giving was leaving me empty.

Leaving my marriage put a stop to all that output. 

What will take its place?

For oh-so-long my focus was on what I wasn’t getting, what my family, my husband, my job, or my friends weren’t giving me and now, well, having lived the past nine months on a logistical and emotional roller coaster, I find myself facing new truths.  In all that unhappiness what was my role?

Like tectonic plates shifting beneath my surface I’m going through what feels like seismic change. The ensuing tidal waves, volcanic eruptions, and deep chasms seem as if I’m in a dark and frightening abyss where I have no foundation, no anchor, no port in this storm.

All this upheaval is leading to new surfaces, new peaks, new valleys to explore and consider giving me an opportunity to view my world through a different lens.

That inner little girl grew up knowing she was damaged goods and no amount of razzle-dazzle is gonna fill that big black hole inside. 

Time for a different approach.

So in the spirit of filling my own happiness, I ‘m working on some new tracks.  I’m listening to music, music, music.  Music that makes me want to sing out loud, music that makes me wanna jump up and dance, music that makes me cry and cry and cry. As my friend Judie says, “Crying is underrated.  It’s good to cry.  You’ve got something to cry about.”  So I’m letting myself cry but trying not to fall apart at the seams.

The other night I pushed myself out of my little box and got dressed and went alone to a local business holiday party open house and though I dreaded walking in by myself I made my way out to the tented courtyard where I could hear great music playing. All I wanted to do was dance and I just decided that if I wanted to dance, well maybe I could.

Now, let’s be clear: no one else was dancing yet. But I went up front by the band in a corner and as they channeled Stevie Wonder I just let myself move to the great saxophone playing and my face became one big smile.

I had a great time, saw some couples I knew well and not-so-well;  managed to survive the evening without drinking myself into oblivion or picking up that guy who was eyeing me most of the night. 

Recently I ventured out again and went to a “wave” "ecstatic dance" session (or at least I think that's what I was at) where for 90 minutes twenty+ people spent the time dancing freely and passionately — with NO talking allowed!  NO talking the entire time!  All communication was non-verbal.  It was an experience of sheer joy — dancing, moving, connecting to some great dancers — with no judgement and no expectations.  

I may not be able yet to fix that little girl, to make her feel she’s not damaged goods, to reassure her that she is entitled to feel happy, to fill that black hole that seems impossible to fill...but I am working toward making me feel happiness, practicing being happy, and right now — my joy comes from dancing.