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Banana Pancakes and Change

January 30, 2016 in Age Matters, Astro Matters, Cat Lady Matters, Food Matters, Past Matters, Sabboytical

One of the advantages of not being young anymore is knowing that change is not only inevitable but okay. Good times are followed by bad times, which are followed by good times again–especially once you grow out of clinging to leaky rafts. Being a change-hating Crapicorn, I’m still trying to grow out of that tendency. I’m not doing a great job, but I’m trying.

I keep flashing on a breakfast scene of about a decade ago. I was dating a guy from my hometown even though I’d been living in Brooklyn for more than 10 years. He was a big-nosed, big-shouldered, big-dicked musician who’d already fled New York for a sleepy, working-class neighborhood of Boston not far from where we’d grown up. He looked appealingly like a Founding Father and was remarkably steady in bed; he seemed comfortable with his choice to trade creative for cozy. I figured I could try doing the same. Sexy male mommies being my Achilles’ heel, I clamored for his maternal embrace.

Really, he was smart but stuck—-yet another guy held hostage by his fury at his mother.

I was at loose ends, as I am now. I’d just broken up with a woman who was such a liar that I’d come to hate her mouth though I craved what it could do for me, and I thought maybe I could climb into this hometown honey, let’s call him Al, whenever I came back to Massachusetts. I was still trying to figuring out my relationship with my family of origin, so I came home pretty often. Continue Reading →

Closing a Door, Building Another

January 21, 2016 in Age Matters, Cat Lady Matters, Essays, Spirit Matters

My office smells delicious. This is partly because I am drinking really delicious coffee, partly because my little sister sent an enormous bouquet of roses for my birthday, and partly because I bought myself a perfume redolent of a lover, a fireplace, a whiskey, and very dark chocolate.

Delicious.

This is not the only thing I bought for my birthday. I also bought a bright red lipstick, a bright yellow ladder, and a bright orange cup—all things I needed or wanted very much and assumed no one else would provide for me. I mention this because of my long-held belief that if there’s something that I want, it is on me to obtain it. This is why I went missing for the last four days, both on this blog and in real life. Experience has taught me that the best way to turn a new age is to disappear into the wild and attune with forces bigger and more ancient than those normally that drive you. If I’m being more honest—and this year I intend to practice that kind of conscious vulnerability—I also disappear to gird against disappointment.

A disappearance seemed especially wise after the recent ugliness with Mr. Oyster. So this year I headed for the hills—upstate, actually, which is a region I’ve avoided since the months after September 11, 2001. I’d intended to spend a few days at the beach but thought releasing my old antipathy would set a better tone for this new year. 2016 is all about breaking internal glass ceilings. Continue Reading →

This Year’s Laundry

January 17, 2016 in Age Matters, City Matters, Spirit Matters

As I write this, I’m watching Metropolitan Avenue through the big windows at the laundromat, which is arguably one of the bleakest places you can be, especially on a sleety Sunday evening in January. It’s a bleakness that doesn’t usually bother me, even though at a certain age going to the laundromat is an exercise in self-reckoning. I’m cheered by the communal nature of everyone’s resignation –the kids pushing each other in baskets, the mothers and fathers chattering as they fold, the millennials who appear shocked they’re washing their own clothes, the aging artists gritting their teeth as they measure out detergent. Sometimes I talk with others; as recently as last month I went on a few dates with a man I met there. Tonight I’m just annoyed–annoyed that at this ripe old age I don’t have my own washer and dryer, annoyed by the kids’ shrieking, annoying by the televisions blaring in the background, annoyed by the chemical smells hanging in the too-damp air. I think my annoyance stems from the fact that I’m at the tail end of my personal year–my birthday is in less than 48 hours–and I’m indulging in a rare dissatisfaction. I truly believe gratitude is the source of all grace and that we always have more than we realize, but tonight I need this dissatisfaction. It fills my sails with the wind to propel forward; it fills me with a hunger I need to sate; it fills my heart with the knowledge it is not yet full. For I recognize the challenge of this new year: I’m at my life’s midpoint, if I’m lucky, and there’s so much more I wish to share.

"All, everything I understand, I understand only because I love."
― Leo Tolstoy