Viola Speaks

Viola hits the big time!

Or at least the NY Times.

It's a bit surreal...

...my story's 'out there'...my sex life's 'out there'...I got published!...damn, guess I need to take this writing thing seriously...

And I will.  Promise. 

Somewhere Evan's smiling on me.  I know he's very, very proud.

 

PS:  Cub and I (yeah, his name's really Manuel) did resolve our blowout last month, a couple days after my last post...in a platonic, we'll-always-be-friends-transforming-romantic-love-into-friendship-love kinda way of course, nothing more.  (Although a few friends do keep checking with me to make sure he's actually still in California.) 

PPS:  Isn't the illustration awesome?  The guy really nailed the essence of it.

 

 

Holding On

“That echo chorus lied to me with its
Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on"

--Neko Case

Download 03 Hold On, Hold On

I’ve had a rough go lately.  Ironic, since there’s so much good in my life.

I finally got my own place and it’s lovely—Jersey City, 2 bedrooms, 2 blocks from the Hudson and Manhattan views. 

Work’s busy.  I’m finally ready for a fuller agenda, and have a nice mix of part-time roles:  Teaching (brings out my nurturing side, which doesn’t get much expression nowadays), strategic planning for the Zen guys, consulting and a new nonprofit advertising gig.

And best of all, looks like I’ll be published soon, in the NY Times no less (one reason I haven’t posted here—spent the summer writing this longer piece).  I’m still processing—“official” recognition of my writing, a broader audience for my voice and story.  Beyond now seeing myself as a “real” writer, where will this take me, what doors will open?

And my friends are still amazing.  The grief conventional wisdom holds that bereaved parents are lucky if they have one good friend who sticks by them.  I have…well, just about too damn many to count.

So what’s the problem?  I’ll be blunt—I’ve had serious ‘will to live’ issues the past month or so. 

It’s up and down, but overall I’m just tired, my soul’s tired.  The kind of tired sleep doesn’t help. 

It takes a lot to stay positive—manage grief, the pain, the memories, be with other’s children without self-pity, love my apartment and my life, without undue focus on the events that brought me here. 

I’m different, in some ways radically, and the growing pains on my 43-year-old psyche are almost too much.  My relationship to money is different—it’s hard to take the Fidelity rep seriously when my real issue is finding reason to live another 20+ years (no answers for that in their scripting). 

And “career”—that’s for people whose worlds weren’t destroyed.  Instead I focus on paying the bills (not quite there yet), and more importantly, creating meaning out of the debacle of my life.

I live with much heaviness, darkness, probably always will—no ‘getting over it’ or ‘moving on’, just learning to live with it.  It takes joy and happiness to balance, and that’s missing for me right now and perhaps why I’m struggling.

After a ridiculous number of breaking-ups and getting-back-togethers, Cub and I finally parted (really, really) this summer.  We ended well, particularly given that we had feelings for each other but were ending it anyway.  (I finally wanted something longer-term, he didn’t.)  The NY Times essay is about us, how he helped me heal.  I wrote it to both process and put “us” in the past, while creating a memorial of sorts.  He loved it.  Probably still does, but its being published brought up issues this week, with the final result of our hurting each other in ways we’d never have thought possible while actually dating.

This lovely essay, all about my finding hope after loss, through the joy, connection and love he brought to my life…and now, a battlefield between us, strewn with the dead bodies and carnage of anger, betrayal, rejection, disappointment, hurt feelings and sorrow. 

I hope we have the energy and will to go out and clean up the wreck.

I’m holding on.

Cooking With Dan, Saturday After New Year’s

It's been awhile.  (But not gonna write about "why I haven't been writing"--how tedious).

Taking a writing class the next couple months, deciding to get serious, see where it goes. First assignment: describe a physical activity I love such that the reader can imagine it.  Hope I succeeded.

And yes...as my girlfriends already know, a supporting player has rejoined the stage.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I glance at the clock…almost 2:30 already.  I should get started.

I walk to the fridge, open the door, kneel down to the vegetable bin, start shuffling through my palette…yep, need the mushrooms, pull those out…collard greens too and the meyer lemon of course—should I make that first? Yeah, I’ll make it first—can re-heat later.  Close the bin, look through the rest of the shelves…tofu, check, fresh dill, check, sour cream and crème fraiche—they should stay cold for now.

Stand up, set everything on the counter, walk over to the onion bin, sort through, pulling out two shallots and a head of garlic.

Wait, I need some company.  Music? Or a podcast?  Definitely too early for a glass of wine, my other cooking companion.  Decide Dan Savage is in order—get my laptop, arrange it on a spare bit of counter.  Discovered him five or six months ago and have methodically cycled through his back library ever since, in the process developing a bit of a fag hag crush on this highly entertaining sex advice columnist.  He’s wonderfully educational when you’re going through your 20s in your 40s.

Apples next…hate peeling apples, but they are a key part of apple crisp.  Better butter the baking dish too.  Cut the meyer lemon in half—it’s a somewhat wrinkled specimen still leftover from the bag I brought home from Cali after Thanksgiving—squeeze some juice on the peeled, cored, sliced apples, then peel a couple more.  Ick—this one’s got a bad spot, into the compost it goes.  Throw in some cinnamon, a bit of sugar, oh some cornstarch too, maybe some ginger and definitely nutmeg (freshly grated, of course).  Start cutting the rest of the lemon into teensy pieces (ouch! it stings!), throw into the apple mixture and pour the whole mess into the buttered dish.  Then make the topping—can’t go too far wrong with brown sugar, chopped pecans, cinnamon, a bit of flour and lots o’ butter. I slowly massage the butter in with my fingers, until it’s all smushed together—kinda messy, but kinda fun too.

And into the oven it goes.

Yum.

I take a break, listen to Dan for a minute—yeah, this girl definitely needs to dump the guy…damn, almost getting to where I can predict most of his answers.  Wish he’d been around when I was young, might have saved me a lot of grief.  (Who am I kidding?  Thought I knew everything.) 

Look at the time—nearly 4.  Picking Cub up around 5:40…unless he misses the train.  Always a possibility. 

Still haven’t wrapped my head around being with him again. It feels good and right…but only because I’m ignoring my rational self, trusting my intuition.  Still getting comfortable with ‘not knowing’ and living in the present tense.

My old approach didn’t turn out so well though, so I’m game.  Scary sometimes though. 

Back to dinner.  I rather think he’ll love this tofu mushroom stroganoff (what is it with me and vegetarians?)  Couldn’t find any one recipe I was happy with, so triangulating between three. Another part of the new me—I used to be a total slave to the recipe.

My cooking’s never been better.

Drain the tofu, wrap in paper towels, set aside.  Then start dealing with the mushrooms…shitakes first (save the stems, maybe I’ll make a broth), then the crimini. Wash, slice, wash and slice…it’s a ton but they cook down.

What’s going on in his head?  He wouldn’t schlep out to Jersey if he wasn’t into me (no Manhattanite ever does)—but is he going to have another intimacy freak out and end it? 

It’s loss—not intimacy—that scares me.

Of course either of us can end it any time, that’s the deal with non-committed relationships.  Hell, it’s always the deal, even with marriage—I didn’t let 17 years hold me back from leaving. 

Not going to have much of a life if I never risk another loss. 

The timer goes off.  Pull the crisp out, take in a big inhale of apple-cinnamony goodness.

So what changed in his head from last summer to now?  And why doesn’t he see me as long-term? My age?  (I turn 43 in a week—gulp.)  Understandable—despite all the culture’s cougar talk, the older woman/younger guy thing still brings up issues.  I’ll ask.

Dan wraps up another podcast while I start peeling garlic and chopping shallots…time for that glass of wine?  Only hesitate a second before pouring.

Coming Out Of His Closet, Part 1

My ex-husband is gay.  (Or maybe bi.) 

Still not sure if he’s sure, but at any rate he’s somewhere on the Kinsey scale other than where I’d assumed for eighteen years.

No ‘new’ news here—I found out three years ago as our marriage was unraveling.  (For the record this fact accelerated the unraveling but didn’t start it…that’s a whole other story.)

My reaction to this game-changer may have been atypical, at least based on what one reads and sees on Oprah regarding mixed-orientation marriages.  (Do we know a damn thing in our early 20s?  I clearly didn’t.) 

No wailing, anger or shame for me.  Rather…relief.  I wasn’t crazy—there was a reason we weren’t emotionally connected, it wasn’t all in my head.

It explained a helluva lot, beyond our emotional connection problem.  (Not to get all stereotypical, but he was enormously helpful around the house and has exquisite decorating taste.)

After this reveal however, my ex must have been unnerved by the ease with which I began psychologically moving into supportive, soon-to-be-ex-spouse mode.  A couple days later he asked “But we’re going to stay married, right?” 

My surprised look and honest response—“of course not”—clearly wasn’t what he wanted to hear.  The ‘confession’ was soon retracted (“never mind!”) and he insisted the marriage had to work.

When told I didn’t believe him, his petulant “well, you have to!” didn’t improve matters.

He did his damnedest to slam his closet door back shut and lock me in with him, but the gig was up.

Things were about as ugly and awful in the following months as you’d think, made worse by our utter inability to deal with conflict.  He desperately tried to hang on to everything our marriage represented to him (“respectability,” “normalcy”), while I miserably tried to reconcile the woman who knew she had to leave to save her soul with the guilt-ridden mother who knew the impact divorce would have on her son.

Yes, this was what was going down when he died. 

The fact we spent my son’s last five months on earth dealing with this bullshit—his first day of first grade, his last Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, his parent's 40^th birthdays—just absolutely breaks my heart.

And then he died.

After the last of our family left two weeks later, our five-bedroom colonial was utterly silent.  An empty bedroom.  Empty playroom.  Clothes, pictures, Christmas gifts unused, birthday gifts bought and wrapped but never given. 

And two estranged, devastated people unable to provide the other any comfort, emotional zombies moving through the endless days and weeks that followed. 

I finally moved out five months later.  The Kinsey scale was beside the point—I was in survival mode.  Our one remaining bond was a heartaching, bittersweet memory. 

We both had gaping wounds to heal and tremendous shit to work out. 

On our own.

Big Loss, Little Loss: Part 2

My grieving day was uneventful but necessary. 

A long nap (my go-to ‘I-want-the-world-to-go-away’ coping mechanism), a walk to the library, some reading, writing, household chores…all the while my mind accepting and processing in the background.

A mid-summer’s mid-day dream—I’m grocery shopping at the Fairway in Harlem (I used to love going there when we lived in Riverdale, after my son was born).  The place is deserted, vegetable bins completely picked over.  I walk alone through the aisles, trying to find something, anything, I’d want.  I try a couple ‘samples’ still lying around, picking through remnants, but nothing’s right.  I’m too late—the crowds came through, took the good stuff, there’s nothing left.

My dreams sometimes leave me wondering, but not this one.  (Damn it unconscious, things aren’t that bleak!)

Life’s little losses take me right back to the big loss, no matter how unrelated. 

Losing what matters, comfort on my journey—pet, relationship, friend—is an unwelcome reminder of everything else I’ve had to let go of, what’s no longer in my life.

That said, despite appearances to the contrary I’m not on vacation…I’ve been busy, learning perspective and coping skills. 

A few guiding truths and principles help me bounce back and keep me centered:

• I still have my self, no longer the scary thought it once was—and this core turns out to be stronger, tougher, funnier, wiser than I ever thought possible.  And it’s enough.
• We’re all connected at a higher level, loss is an illusion (or at worst, temporary) and love underlies all.  (Yes, I really believe this.)  
• Change is inevitable, old makes way for new, life and love aren’t a zero sum game (despite the shopping dream). 
• It’s okay to feel like shit when loss happens—if it was real, important, had impact, it’s right to mourn.  But however I feel today, it’ll be different tomorrow. 

Four seemingly simple truths, two and a half years to learn, internalize, put into practice. 

It’s Sunday—my housemate’s kitten wakes me at dawn, ready to play…I’m not, so I toss him out of the room, knowing we’ll kiss and make up later.  After rain last night, it's sunny, low humidity, nice breeze.  Hydrangeas, bee balm, daylilies, coneflowers in bloom, black-eyed susans and dahlias on the way. 

I’m back in the writing groove. 

And it’s all okay.

Zen proverb du jour:  “My barn having burned to the ground, I can now see the moon"

Big Loss, Little Loss

Within a year of my son dying, both cats did the same.

They were old, had good lives.  Boris went four months later, before I’d moved out.  He was ailing; we knew it wasn’t long.  One day he hung on until my ex got home from work, then shuddered and left (“what took you so long?” no doubt going through his head). 

By the time I got home he was stiff, the hole in the backyard dug.

I was numb.  The kick upside the head from watching our son die was still fresh and left me unable to feel much else. 

Life was dark, loss everywhere. 

Natasha hung in another eight months. She also went downhill after our son’s death, with both kidney and heart issues, requiring meds, subcutaneous fluids and frequent vet visits.  Once the house sold I took her, my ex needing a reprieve from the death scene.

She was clearly going to die on my watch, but not because I wasn’t diligent. 

Two refugees from our old life, we provided each other comfort in tough times.

I got the call from the vet where I boarded her while driving up to Tahoe with my brother.  She’d been fine when I dropped her off, but took a nose-dive shortly thereafter.   After a few perfunctory ‘let’s try this’ maneuvers (adding to the final vet bill), I gave the okay to euthanize.

Losing her hit me a bit harder.  The waves continued pulling things off the relatively empty beach of my life and it did seem just a bit unfair. 

I had four “biggies” all within a year—only child, marriage, home and job.  (Don’t try this at home.)  Given the enormity of losing my child, you’d think other losses wouldn’t be as big an issue…only somewhat true.  They’re still losses and I grieve each one. 

Impermanence (the Buddhist concept that nothing stays the same, change is constant) being what it is, loss continues.

Which brings me to the latest relationship pulled off my beach. 

Cub and I are finally done—for real this time.

Even though I had no long-term aspirations, knew it had to happen sometime, it’s for the best, blah, blah…it still isn’t easy.

Half the hurt is rejection (in order to continue I had a small ‘ask’…turns out my ‘small’ was his ‘big’ and no-can-do), compounded by his semi-fumbling of the deed by being a wee too blunt about how I’m not a priority.  

Half is I got a lot out of our rather unconventional, multi-layered relationship and wasn’t quite ready to say goodbye.  There’s no one else quite like him in my life and I’ll miss him.  (I’m quite sure there’s no one like me in his either but that’s clearly less of an issue).

So today’s been a grieving day. 

In another bit of unhelpful honesty, he bottom-lined it as we parted—“I won’t worry, you’ve been through worse.”

True.  If only each little loss didn’t take me right back to the big one.

Cub Redux, Part 1 (Or, the Lincoln Tunnel Booty Text)

So things took a slight turn this weekend. 

The metaphorically bi-polar emotional life I described a few months ago (where I precariously balanced two women in one heart and one body—the searching-for-a-reason-to-live bereaved mother and the unleashed bedroom temptress) took a uni-dimensional turn six weeks ago when I kicked the Cub out of the den.

At first my spirits perked up when a new guy hit the pipeline…cute, age-appropriate, outdoorsy type, a writer…woo-hoo!

Never made it out of the email stage.

I give good email (if I don’t say so myself).  This guy?   My charming, witty and funny writing self couldn’t get more than a sentence or two out of him.

After a final bizarro exchange where he asked if I liked to ‘dominate’ (apparently because I’d reached out to him first—WTF?), he finally copped that his girlfriend just dumped him and his “friends” thought he should “get back in the game.”

(A quick gender-bashing aside—how typical.  Don’t think or process, just jump into the next bed.)

Nada since then.  Cancelled eharmony (so done—although I did get the teaching gig out of it) and now figuring out a new pipeline strategy.  Because yes, I know it’s all about ‘throughput’. 

And no throughput’s been happening here.

So between my son’s birthday, the ever-dawning twin realizations that not only is there is no bottom to my well of grief but also that I really do need to reinvent myself career-wise (I just can’t go back, maybe ever, to corporate life or a 9 to 5), plus no cute guys to provide affection and distraction…it’s been a tough month or so.

Which brings us to Saturday. 

In the ongoing effort between Cub and me to prove we can be (just) friends, he invited me to an event.  In honor of his father.  So I could meet his parents.

Sort of weird (okay, now that we’re not going out, let’s meet the parents!).  Even weirder, I said yes.

First we met for lunch.  It was pouring, my shoes were soaked.  It was our first live convo since ‘the night’.  Small talk, catching up, some awkwardness. 

We didn’t ask about the other’s dating life.

Then met the family.  More awkwardness.  For god’s sake, I’m 42, a mother, respectably married nearly half my life and am bravely facing a trip through hell—in a watching your only child die and delivering his eulogy kind of way—and here I am projecting onto people thought bubbles like ‘oh, so you’re the older, tragic woman who slept with our son, huh?’

Yeah, it’s my shit (not theirs).  But it shows how on an everyday level I feel like a freak sometimes, a walking embodiment of people’s worst nightmare.

As I left, our platonic goodbye kiss turned halfway not-so-platonic.  Our eyes met.  We knew.

I wasn’t out of the Lincoln Tunnel, heading back to Jersey, before I sent the text—“Plans later?”

Big mistake?  Or open exploration of the relationship gray zone?

Stay tuned.

When It's Open, It's Over

It’s two years later…life’s evolving…and Viola too.

•    Shorter posts = more posts:  I’ll try…I do have word count issues
•    Wider array of topics…grief’s now a part, not all, of my life

Voila.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The cougar/cub thing’s over. 

Damn fun while it lasted.

We very much enjoyed the moment, the chemistry and intimacy…and didn’t look much beyond the next date. 

And all along told our selves ‘it’s not long-term, not serious, we’re dating others, open relationship, blah, blah.’

All cool.  Until it wasn’t. 

It came down to different dating goals.  He wants to hop from towel to towel on a crowded beach on a hot summer day.  Moi?  I prefer a private beach cabana to which I invite one carefully selected guest at a time.

Neither of us are beach people.  You connect the dots.

Eventually of course his visiting other towels resulted in a sunscreen application session.  Once he reported back on this—and stated his intention to continue—‘open’ instantly stopped being theoretical.

I didn’t like it. 

No more cabana visits for him.

As far as these things go, we ended gracefully.  Difficult, but civil conversation, awkward last night (when you so know it’s the last night), hurt feelings, emails back and forth…but it took only three days to move from cranky ex-lovers to friends.  

No longer a ‘friend with benefits’…just a friend.  We were good for each other.  And probably still will be—he’s a great guy. 

He hurt my feelings, but didn’t break my heart. 

And as I told him, it’s not like I’ll never have hot sex again—just not with him.

Sophie Meets An Unmarried Woman

Lately I’ve been thinking of grief as a chronic condition, something I’ll always have to deal with, including remissions, relapses and ongoing management strategies. 

Right now it’s learning how to grieve in the midst of living.

My pattern till now has been to be either ‘okay’ or very ‘not okay’ with little in-between.  And ‘not okay’ is so bad that when I’m ‘okay’ I’ve done what I can to keep ‘not okay’ at bay…lest I slide all the way back to Despair and then right back into bed. 

Which really won’t fly once I’m working again and have places to be, people to see.

I got through Christmas and New Year’s emotionally unscathed—but have begun to fear a ‘relapse’ sometime soon. 

But my 42nd birthday was this week.  And I had plans, was being taken out on the town, surprised even.  After my last two birthdays (my 40th a particular horror show, although at least my son was still alive), I was NOT going to jeopardize this fun with an untimely grief spell.

But I feel it coming.  The second anniversary of his death is a few weeks away.  And I’ve felt a few twinges lately. 

Bear in the Big Blue House (one of the sweetest kid’s shows ever) came up during a recent convo about kid’s TV…and it took me right back to my early years as a mother and the shock of realizing how absolutely, unconditionally, painfully even, one can really love another. 

This love, our intense bond, rocked me to my core.  Diaper commercials never made formerly unsentimental me cry, but other stuff did.  A.I. came out a couple months after he was born and the previews left me a battered, emotional lump (it’s about a mother who rejects her android son because he isn’t ‘human’).  I still haven’t seen it and never will.

I was the first of my friends to have a baby and while I was prepared for the work and lack of sleep, I wasn’t prepared for how pregnancy, birth and nursing would impact my view of myself as a woman, how thoroughly life-changing adding ‘mother’ to my identity would be.

The memory of Bear singing the Goodnight Song with Luna, my young son asleep on my lap, brought all this emotion right into the present day, during a normal, everyday conversation.  It stopped me mid-sentence.

The woman that is “me” has been undergoing even more profound identity changes the past two years.   It’s bizarre enough discovering the single, sexy woman with a bit of a wild side, long buried beneath the suburban, pony-tailed, long-married mom…it’s even more strange unleashing this long repressed self at the same time I’m figuring out how to be a ‘bereaved’ mother with no surviving children.

Life as one part An Unmarried Woman, one part Sophie’s Choice.  

 It’s a touch intense.  And has apparently made me fairly intense, or so I’m told.  (I’m apparently so not the typical dating relationship it takes my FWB days to process and recover.)

Not sure about this story’s ending, but I do know it’s gonna be way better than Sophie's.

The Dating Thing, part 2

So figured I’d do an update on my dating activities prior to my big trip (yep, leavin’ the country for almost 7 weeks.  Viola will be on hiatus starting end of next week, unless I get inspired to post from abroad…will be back in July.)

Headline:  Mr. Soul Mate hasn’t made his appearance yet.  And while it’s all still highly entertaining, it’s also getting annoying—no news flash to people who’ve been single longer than a few months, I’m sure.

A few personal insights and observations:

•    You haven’t lived until you’ve discussed Brazilian waxes with your father  (resulting from my original dating post).  And you really haven’t lived until you’ve ‘air drawn’ the female anatomy to point out that the ‘landing strip’ isn’t where the ‘planes’ actually land.
•    Does anyone feel chemistry on a first date?  Ever?  Or is it just ‘oh, he seems kinda nice, isn’t an asshole, so I guess I should go out with him again?’  Where’s the line between following your gut and being too picky?
•    If there’s only a close-up picture of their face in their profile, be afraid
•    If he sends emails seemingly designed to bring out your motherly (or therapist) instinct (the ‘Eyeore effect’) be very afraid
•    Gotta admire the balls of a guy who calls to push back a date an hour because he has to work late, and then two hours later stands you up.  Of course since I was semi-considering using him, I can’t really complain about him not using me, now can I?  Oh, sure I can.
•    Why do some guys age so much worse than women?  (Although I know some women who’ve aged badly too…sadly enough)
•    Ten years out of business school most men are married with small kids—that pond’s totally over-fished.  And I’m ahead of the curve (or an ‘early adopter’) on the divorce front it seems, as well.
•    Don’t Facebook secret crushes from years back—although doing so does reinforce why the universe let them remain only a secret crush

My favorite dating moment of the past month?   After getting stood up, chatting up the guy next to me and making a date of it including dinner.

Damn proud of myself.