The Bachelorette

I’ve been watching The Bachelorette for the last couple seasons and it’s occurred to me, more than once, how excellent and hilarious it would be to cast forty and fifty-somethings instead of the fresh young twenty-somethings the show favors.  Less bikini time, probably, but so much more interesting for all that mileage on the odometer.

And, when the ad comes on, “If you want to be the next Bachelorette…”, I’ve always thought, oh, I should call.  And then I’d remember I was forty-something.  And then I’d remember I was married.

I’m still forty-something (forty-three, I’m forty-three, you can’t shame me, ol’ forty-three) but I’m not married anymore (well, okay, technically I am, but logistically I’m single).  And so I’m conducting my own untelevised version of  The Middle-Aged Bachelorette.

I met Ben in 1998, long before online dating was ubiquitous.  From my smug married perspective, it always seemed like such a weird idea.  When Ben and I broke up, one of my first questions for my girlfriend/sisters was “Please don’t tell me I have to online date.”

Cut to…I’m now not on one, not on two, but on three dating sites.  One of them, Tinder, is especially ridiculous/delightful.  It’s a phone app, and it’s mostly pictures.  You swipe right if you like them, left if you don’t.  If you both like each other, then you’re free to communicate.  I swipe at odd times – school parking lots, walking my dog, at work.  I’m like the proverbial kid in the candy store (“I’ll take one of those, two of these…”).

I’m interviewing applicants for the boyfriend position.  Who knows how long that job will last given my year of upheaval, but I’m sure it’ll be highly rewarding while it does.  I’m perfecting my selection process, getting efficient, as I always do:

Rule #1:  Text back and forth enough that you’re confident you have sufficient commonalities but not so long that you feel like you really know each other before you’ve met face-to-face (high expectations, vast disappointment).

Rule #2: Talk on the phone before the first date.  You then know if you can feasibly talk for an hour once in the same room.  You can tell a lot from a person’s voice.

Rule #3: Keep the first date to an hour in duration.  Warn them ahead of time you have somewhere else to be.  If it’s bad, you’re out of there without a lot of awkwardness or wasted time.  Even if it’s good, you avoid propelling the relationship too far, too fast.

Rule #4: No kissing on the first date.  I’ve broken this rule almost every time.  I like to kiss, I can’t help myself.  My friend, Jane, developed “The Kissing Test” when she was single, the basic premise being that if there’s any attraction at all, kiss them.  Kissing is very informative.  But if you can at all help your slutty self, no kissing until date #2.

Rule #5: Do not horizontal with anyone you haven’t spent a lot of time with.  It just causes heartache (at least for me, emotional girl that I am).  Your bodies get ahead of your brains and hearts.  You think you know each other and then you turn the lights on and it’s like, “Oh, who are you again?”

Rule #6: Throw all the rules out the window if you so choose.  Because, really, how long is this phase going to last?

Something that always baffled me about The Bachelorette was how she could kiss so many different men, carry on all these relationships at the same time.  Now, in my own bachelorette phase, I get it.  This week I have five dinner dates five nights in a row with five different men and I’m looking forward to each and every one.  Nuts but true.

Okay, yes, I hear you out there.  She’s escaping the hard realities of divorce, distracting herself with men.  You are absolutely right.  And at least for right now, it’s fun.  A brand of fun I barely remember.

And once Mr. Right rounds the corner, or at least someone I want to dive deep with, I’ll let this nonsense go.  And free up a whole lot more time for reading.  Until then, would you please accept this rose?

This Old Heart

Life is full these days.  I’m working four different fledgling careers (if you count this one, which hasn’t been getting much sunlight lately), disentangling my financial/legal/emotional life from Ben’s, learning the ropes of single motherhood and, oh my lord, starting to date.  First kiss after a fifteen-year relationship?  I could write a book.

But mostly what I’ve been doing is thinking about the nature of love.  Nothing like a break-up to make you look at yourself, how you give love, how you accept it, what’s working and more pointedly, what’s not.

And here’s what I’m finding when I look back on my forty-three years of offering and receiving love: my default, most basic, deepest truth is that I feel unlovable.  Terrible but true.  Hard to take in love from that place.  Easy to extend too far in the other direction, giving everything to try to achieve what seems impossible.  Will you love me if?

And, yes, I know this belief is false.  In my brain, my fine, functional brain, I know I’m as lovable as anyone.  I’m a good person, there’s no doubt.  In my best moments, I can be selfless, I can certainly be fun, I’m bright, I’m kind, I’m very much myself.  There’s a lot to love.  I know that.

But my heart, my heart needs convincing.  And I have no idea how to do that.  Somebody else’s love?  That’s probably not going to do the trick.  Not until I’ve somehow healed this battle-scarred heart – it’s not broken, I won’t say that, because I have great hope that I can fix it.

And so every time lately I find myself back on my couch, staring out the window, certain that my heart will never fill, never be filled, at least not completely, I grab my phone and send a text – a group text to my two oldest friends, my sisters, in spirit if not in blood.

I write: “I’ll find love, right?  I am lovable, right?’

And they, however entrenched they are in their own full and complicated lives, however many times they’ve answered these very same questions, will say, “Yes.  You will.  You are.  You don’t have to believe it right now, we’ll believe it for you.”

So I’m going to let them carry that one.  I’m going to keep stretching this old heart, I’m going to do my self-love calisthenics.  Open and open and open.  In the words of E.M. Forster: “Courage, Miss Honeychurch, courage and faith.”

Held

As Ben and I dismantle our marriage, I’ve been thinking a lot about my parents.  And, this is awful, but I’m glad they’re dead.  Let me rephrase, I’m glad they’re not alive to see this.  

My parents were married for 39 years until my dad died at 60.  While their marriage wasn’t easy, she an extreme introvert, he an extreme extrovert, she depressive, he explosive, they managed to go the distance.  I know that if they were here they’d have some choice words for me about letting my marriage dissolve.

When my father died and then again, almost twenty years later when my mother followed him, as well as being devastated and heartbroken, I was also freed.  There’s something about being the oldest generation in your family that’s empowering.  Your choices are your own, for better or worse.

Yesterday was an incredibly difficult day.  I won’t go into detail but suffice it to say, I spent a good two hours on the couch sobbing, crumpled tissue piling up on the coffee table.  Last night as I was trying to go to sleep in my new bed in my new house, the day rushing around in my head, completely exhausted but unable to sleep, feeling very small in a big world, it struck me that maybe my folks wouldn’t have been as hard on me as I’m imagining, if they were here now.  Laying there, under layers of quilts, I felt as unguarded and tiny as I was when I was their little girl.  Back then, even if they disapproved, they still put their arms around me.  I have a feeling it would be the same now.

I woke up this morning in the dark, a new day.  As I was driving to my ridiculously early barre class, I watched the sun come up and I thought about my parents.  I thought about them reaching out from wherever they are and somehow holding me up.  It made me cry, of course, I’m crying now, but it helps.  We’re allowed to fail, I suppose, and still be loved.

Changes, Changes

The first book I ever read, a tattered paperback picture book called “Changes, Changes”, now sits on Mihiretu’s bookshelf.  It has no words so that made the reading easy.

Every picture is made of colored building blocks, different sizes, shapes and colors.  You know, early seventies, you make a wobbly tower and then knock it down.

The book begins with a man and a woman, both made of blocks, standing facing the reader.  The next page they begin to build a house with more blocks.  Soon they’re living in the house then, whoops, the next page a fire has started.  They take blocks from the house and build a fire engine and hose, which they use to extinguish the fire in what remains of the house.  But, oh no, too much water, soon they’ve created a sea.  No worries, they use their blocks to build a boat.  And on and on.

So now I’m imagining my life in blocks.  I start as a small block person but add blocks to become a grown-up.  I build a stage set and take my place in front of it.  Then Ben, made of blocks, enters stage right and together we build a little house. We add a little block baby, then another.  We take the blocks from the little house and make a bigger house in which the four of us live.  Then we build an airplane, fly to Africa, and build a jumping, running, soccer-ball-kicking Mihiretu.  And so it goes, one thing building to the next, always changing.

The last few years would find the block Ben and the block Liz back-to-back tending block children.  Then maybe eye-to-eye, one block finger raised, one block hand on hip.  Then, finally, after many pages, the two disassembling part of the big house, Liz carrying blocks away, making a smaller house.

I’m here in that smaller house now.  I moved on New Year’s Day - fitting, I suppose.  We are separated, Ben and I.  We are, each of us, all five of us, taking the blocks we have and building something new.  These changes, sometimes they’re a fire, sometimes they’re a sea.  But you keep on building.  You take what you’ve got and keep on going, making whatever you can.

Type

Mae is 11 years old, wears size 10 shoes, stands five feet four and weighs the same as me (she has Capron cow bones, I have Lavoie bird bones).  She is easy in her changing body and Jennifer Lawrence gorgeous.  If you looked up lovely in the dictionary you’d find her hooded Eskimo eyes and Mona Lisa smile.

The kids are in three different schools with three different calendars.  This Thanksgiving week, Mae and Mihiretu were off school, Lana in.  That made for a couple of Mae-Mihiretu-Mom days.

We went to the mall on Monday and while Mae was selecting jeans and Mihiretu was riding the escalators shrieking like a pterodactyl, something struck me. 

“You know who’s really going to tease you when you get a boyfriend?” I asked, handing Mae a pair of size 27s.

“Who?” Mihiretu asked as he skidded into Mae.

I nested a hand in his curls.  “Mihiretu Capron, that’s who.”

Mae groaned and gave me a half-concealed smile.  Mihiretu hopped from foot to foot in delight, thrilled with anticipation.

The next day Mihiretu and I (and Sunny the Dog) walked Mae to a friend’s house in the neighborhood.  Coming towards us down our wooded lane hobbled an elderly man, his neck frozen into a permanent stoop.  He walked a small, long-haired dog.

“Is that a cat?” asked Mihiretu in his version of sotto voce (not sotto at all).

“That’s a dog.”

We passed the man.  He gave us a friendly nod as Sunny lost her mind barking at his cat.  Just as I was pulling her back into line, giving her my “I’m the boss, not you” lecture, Mihiretu said, again in his “quiet” voice, “Hey, Mae.”

“What?” she said, looking at him sideways, already knowing some mischief was coming her way.

“Dat guy yo’ type.”  His eyes sparkled, he wore a Cheshire grin.

“He is not my type!”  She flailed her arms in indignation but she, too, was grinning.

“Oh yeah, Mae, he yo’ type.”

Where did he hear about types?  Probably the same place he heard about “upper cut punch” (I gonna give you an uppa cut PUNCH!).  No matter, the kid’s got a killer instinct for what makes people tick.

And, Mae, bless her, laughed along with us, adolescent though she may be, far more poised than I ever remember being at that age, room in her heart for a small ridiculous boy.  As for her type?  I’m thinking he’s going to be pretty cool.

1 2 3, Magic

As I’ve reported again and again, this last school year was a challenging one for us.  By summer, we were all a wreck.  Enforcing discipline with Mihiretu had become nearly impossible; the smallest correction would send him into hysterics.  And because we couldn’t realistically discipline Mihiretu, we really couldn’t apply different rules to the girls.  Home was chaos.

With every day of summer vacation, Mihiretu relaxed.  With no institutional triggers, remnants of the orphanage, he was no longer in fight-or-flight.  By July, we saw our opening.

While I’m an ardent reader – I carry books with me everywhere, to meals, to brush my teeth, to bed – I hate self-help books.  I buy them, particularly child-rearing books, read a few pages and then they join the pile on my bedside table, never to be touched again.  The reasons for this are two-fold; my reading time is my pleasure time – I don’t want to be working - and I hate being told what to do (even if it’s what I need to hear).

That said, this summer Ben and I read a book called “1, 2, 3, Magic!”  Exclamation point aside, the title is accurate.  It is magic.

The basic premise is this: you sit  your kids down and reiterate the rules of the house.  Then you explain that the first time they break a rule, a parent will call “One”.  No explanation, no discussion.  The second time, “Two”.  And, the third time, you guessed it, “Three”.  At this point the child takes a time-out in their room – for as many minutes as years they are old.  When they come out, everyone moves on, no discussion, no guilt.  Very simple, too simple, it seems.  But, like I said, magic.  Within a week of implementing the plan, we were living a different – and far more peaceful – life.  There is no more arguing, no more screaming, no more teasing, no more bloody scratches etched on small faces.  The kids abide by the rules and everyone’s happier for it, particularly the kids.

Mihiretu runs down the hall, shrieking, really just to hear himself shriek.  “Mihiretu, that’s one.”  Ten minutes later, Mihiretu chases the dog.  “Mihiretu, that’s two.”  Five minutes after that, Mihiretu climbs over the couch.  “Mihiretu, that’s three.  Here’s the timer.  Go to your room.”  No parental yelling, and then, beautiful thing, I have six minutes of silence.

It’s a bit baffling.  When we tried time-outs before, Mihiretu would – I’m not kidding - climb out his window, run around the side of the house and make faces at us through the glass door.  This time around, maybe because the consequences are clear, and we’re so even in the delivery of those consequences, he goes to his room and he stays there.

My favorite part, I have to say, are the howls of frustration when the kids are counted into a metaphorical corner.  Lana sasses me – “Lana, that’s one.”  “But, Mom, I was only –“   “Lana, that’s two for arguing.”   “This counting rule is so stupid!”  “That’s three, take nine in your room.”  “Aaaargh!” as she stomps down the hall.  Extremely satisfying.

Now when Mihiretu knows he’s broken a rule he’ll look at me out of the corner of his eye to see if I’ve spotted the infraction.  If I count him, he’ll wave his open palms and say, “Oh, sawwy, Mama, sawwy” and skitter away.  This is the kid who when we’d ask him to stop (screaming, slapping, swearing, spitting), he’d yell “Or what?”  We’ve found our what.

I enjoy being with my kids now – something I couldn’t honestly say when we were deep in the pit of despair last year.  We’re having so much more fun because we’re not spending our time arguing, redefining our boundaries at every turn.  Ben and I are Charles-in-Charge and it feels so good.

Next book down on the dusty stack by my bedside? “Cesar’s Way”.  Watch your back, Sunny, watch your back. 

The Utility Room

Our lives this past year haven’t been easy.  Mihiretu had a terrible time in kindergarten at the public school, ergo Mae and Lana had a terrible time at said school.  Your brother throwing himself to the black-top in screaming terror during an all-school fire drill isn’t a recipe for social success it turns out.  Therapy all the way around.

This year we find ourselves in three different schools.  Mae started at the public middle school last week.  Lana found a safe spot among some key friends at a small private school in Fairfax.  And Mihiretu is at a Steiner-inspired school in Sausalito; calming colors, no bells.  While this has proved to be logistically difficult (three kids, three start times, three end times, with miles between them), they seem infinitely happier.  They each have space to be themselves in an environment that suits them.

I started a business in June.  A bit counterintuitive, I realize.  Three young kids, one of whom has suffered trauma, therapy appointments to coordinate.  But I’m finding this work is giving me a little space of my own.

I have always sewn.  I come from a long line of seamstresses.  My maternal grandmother emigrated from Romania to support her family as a seamstress in the New World.  She ended up having three children in quick succession and succumbing to depression and pneumonia in short order but no matter.  She sewed.  My mother sewed.  I sew.

I make quilts, I make clothes.  Most recently, I’ve gotten into upcycling.  I find old cashmere sweaters at Goodwill, haggle with the cashiers (“There’s a hole here under the arm and it’s quite pilly?  Could you come down from $12?”) and bring the buggers home to wash them, felt them, cut them up and make something new.  Blankets, scarves, hats, sweater-coats.  I find vintage quilt-tops at flea markets.  These are the pieced together beginnings, not yet a blanket, abandoned as much as a century ago.  I clean them up, mend them, then finish the job some long ago granny started.  I layer the top with batting and a back and hand-quilt it.  A labor of love – it takes forever – but I adore it.  I carry a basket with me everywhere and pull out the current quilt to work on at odd moments – playdates, school pick-ups, wherever.  I make messenger bags out of vintage European grain sacks, little girl dresses out of used men’s t-shirts, dog bowl stands out of old wooden fruit crates, summer dresses out of antique German nightdresses.

In May, a store opened in Fairfax, our little town.  It’s called The Garage and it’s a design collective.  Housed in an old Volkswagen repair shop (hence the name), it’s a mélange of different work; handmade jewelry, handcrafted leatherwork, vintage finds salvaged and repaired, on and on.  And now, in the midst of this loveliness, is The Utility Room.  That’d be me.  I work behind the counter a few hours a week but mostly my work is finding and making.  I’m busier than I’ve probably ever been – a typical evening might find me simultaneously packing school lunches, ironing a t-shirt dress and rewiring an old rotary phone for resale.  I’m busy but I’m happy.  The kid’s world changed for the better and so did mine.

I think a lot about Virginia Woolf’s idea of having a room of one’s own.  I don’t actually have that.  I have a high counter the length of my living-room that’s home to my sewing machine, my serger, my computer, my cashmere, my quilt-tops.  I don’t have a physical room but suddenly I have mental room, I have the Utility Room.  I have a thing that’s just mine.  I’m not just the support staff for Ben and the kids.  I love being a mother.  I love it more than anything.  But I also love having work that’s my own.

I got my first paycheck recently since my last acting check in 1999.  I used some of it to buy shop-girl shoes, a pair of bright blue clogs.  Work shoes.  Because, between drop-offs and pick-ups, between Trader Joe’s and laundry, between making beds and making dinner, there’s a little slice of time that’s mine, that’s work.