Full moon + solstice = a new beginning

I need to say a few things about waking up alone on a Sunday morning. 1) this hasn't happened nearly as much as it should have in the past 5 years. 2) it's a very special kind of quiet that lets me feel my body aches and hunger and clarity and especially comfort. 3) why was I afraid of this? I haven't even gotten around to having a warm drink to complement my warm blanket. This can only get better. I have my cats, who are bopping around like they're happy to see me, tossing toys back and forth, murmuring little grunts as they play, stopping to check out the view.

I changed my furniture layout yesterday. I was attempting to consolidate the clutter, make better use of the windows, open up the main room. Can't believe I didn't think of this sooner. I was so focused on filling up my free time with social activities that I didn't allow myself time to get into my own magical head space. Here I am, in that space, feeling like I went far away on a soul searching journey. And I'm at home! I missed the feeling of home. Once my brother visited me at my studio apartment in Ravenswood, the last really cool vintage place I lived. He said something about how I can always make a place feel homey (implying that it wouldn't be his choice to live in an old building with antique lighting and whatnot, but this was not so bad). It was one of the best complements I ever got.

Today I'm in my perch, 4 floors above the corner that is the historic center of my historic home town, in a fairly new and perfectly functional attached home. No complaints. I just watched a Canada Goose approach from a quarter mile away, and fly off to the North. It's been a mild winter to say the least, and the goose confirms all of our confusion.

On another house-cleaning note, I broke up with Michael. It was a no-brainer. Or an all-brainer. Yeah, all-brain decision. I woke up at his house for the last time a couple weeks ago on a Sunday. Woke up feeling stressed about brushing my teeth before offending him with my morning breath. Feeling obligated to relieve his sexual urges. Knowing his kids were texting with demands for rides and visits. My own daily needs were so far down the list I couldn't see them. And this had been going on for a year. 5 years, really, if you count all the false starts. But it had really come to a point where I didn't see a way to fix it. I simply didn't want to wake up with anyone else anymore. I wanted this very thing, to wake up and be concerned only with my self and my daughter. And my pets. Mine, not his poor ailing sleeps-all-day dog.

I met Michael within a month of my separation. It was an awful, anxiety-ridden, rainy April night when I desperately sent out my plea to the readers of the match service to come and save me. He was the only one who answered. He was recently separated too, and sort of homeless, since half the time his wife was home with the kids and he was squatting at a friend's condo. Talk about two drifting souls looking for something to hold on to. We had fun, forgetting our money troubles and broken hearts together. It was actually one of the most fun times of my life, in between the terrifying moments of realizing I was going to be on my own. We traveled, we danced, we laughed, we slept and ate and drank and talked and reminisced about our former married selves, we grieved together. That was such a gift. And the gifts kept coming. And then he had the chance to try falling in love with someone else. My heart broke again, not a total shatter but a big tear. But I realized it was for the best. I found someone else too, someone else who needed to grieve. It wasn't as fun. But it taught me some new things. And it had to end.

I hadn't had much time to embrace my new world of being officially divorced, and off the dating circuit, when Michael started coming around again. This time he was open about sharing his kids, and wanted more to do with Zoe. It was the same man but a totally different attitude. I tried to play it casual. But how could I ignore his attention? He knew how to get me to open up. And then I'd retreat. And that made him sad. So we got into a pattern of him seducing me and me falling all in, and then me taking my life back. And over and over as time permitted, on a bimonthly basis since that's when Zoe would be visiting her dad. They started to feel like conjugal visits. It hasn't felt right since we returned from Italy. I came home to the prospect of a dead end job. Our best friends had moved away. I had my family. But they deflected any mention of my companion. They met him once, at Brian's crawfish boil. He came in his own car, obviously tight on time, focused on having to go back home for his son's baseball game or wrestling match or something. They didn't seem to dislike him. But they definitely didn't try to pull him in to our family tradition. It wasn't until December of this year that my mom and I had a conversation about what it would be like to pack up and follow our friends to Colorado. She asked if Michael would move with us. In that way that mothers ask. It wasn't so much the actual words that carried meaning, as the disdain in the wrinkles that formed in her nose and eyebrows as she asked the question. I told her I felt like he was purely my companion, not my partner. It seemed to appease her. And weirdly, as I said it, it appeased me too. He wanted to be a partner, and he showed great potential. But partnership to me felt like a punishment. Like being grounded. I'd be relegated to a tiny house in Skokie, not just me but also my daughter who has had the privilege of growing up with her grandparents a few steps away. She'd have a smaller room, she'd have to share everything for the first time in her life, or confine herself to avoid conflict. And so would I. In this tiny house I couldn't imagine being confined to a corner of a bedroom, with barely enough room to tiptoe past the dog bed and zero room for clothes and personal tokens and space to do all the weird crafty things I like to do. No. This was not a once in a lifetime proposition. I was not coming into this relationship with a deficit. I was already set up in a spacious, clean, bright and cozy spot that was perfectly affordable. Could I finally just admit that to myself and go on with my life as I pleased?

I made a clean getaway.

Here I sit, on my comfy couch, under my comfy blanket. Free to be all the things that I am. Going all sorts of places. Revisiting all my favorite memories. Ready to soar like that goose. I'm already 4 stories high, I wonder how much higher I can go?

Note to Michael

Alone in her home, maybe for the first time in years, she laid on her stomach in the dark, typing into her mini laptop. She created a person on an Internet match site who went by the name Susan. She was a smart, creative, thoughtful woman, who was in search of a "single male for friendship or dating." She didn't know what kind of friends she would encounter in this anonymous world of selfies and lyrical autobiographies. But with the exception of a few desperate-sounding, couldn't write their way out of a paper bag types, the possibilities seemed promising. She thought she had known loneliness when she was single. And then, a new, more wrenching loneliness as a mother of a baby girl, her husband desperately holed up in the farthest corner of their home reeling with regret. But this rainy cool spring evening as she sat in the dark, too anxious to turn on lights as the sky faded to black, a stark new sensation of loneliness washed over her. Her revisions were labored, she didn't want to appear lost, like this was a desperate plea for validation. Of course it was.

Earlier that week she had filed a petition for separation. She chose a lawyer by Googling "Divorce lawyer Rogers Park." Mr. Stone gladly obliged her request to represent her. She met him on her day off in a nearby suburb. His office was filthy. Subway wrappers littered his desk and floor. Instead of fleeing, she took it in stride. After all, she was doing a deed that unearthed so many unpleasant, even nauseating feelings, that sitting in a dank basement office discussing the exorbitant cost of divorce-it felt perfectly in line with her mood to be surrounded by garbage. He didn't shake her hand. "I got a thing..." he said. Germaphobe? Warts? She didn't inquire further. He was young, but his beard was very long. And he wore a sad, wrinkled white shirt with odd strings hanging from his belt. A few minutes into their conversation it became clear that he was one of the Orthodox Jews she had grown used to seeing in the nearby neighborhood, often walking to and from services on Saturdays. He was a real estate lawyer. This didn't sway her from seeking his counsel for her divorce. Turning back was not an option. She made it this far, she would just see it through, this unchartered journey she was about to embark upon.

Fighting through a stinging headache, she typed, reread, edited, added, subtracted, reworded, and selected photos of a younger, brighter self. It was exactly like applying for a job, and carried the same anticipation and weight of filling out an application for a job whose requirements were only vaguely known.

This person was easy to create. She had a great job, a family, a respectable history of being a city dweller with some street cred. She knew the bike trails, the cool bars, after living in Chicago for 12 years she knew the city like an old friend. She was a chameleon who could adapt to her surroundings. She's studied all sorts of environments and people. All she needed to do was get noticed.

And just hours later, you noticed.

You asked to meet her at a restaurant in her neighborhood. You were late. And that was acceptable. She knew you had kids at home. You were determined to meet her though. She was thrilled. She drove with the radio blasting the theme from Footloose. She ordered a shot of whiskey to calm her nerves. When you arrived you flashed her a warm, but reserved smile. You sat at a table that was uncomfortably high for both of you. You talked about work, college, sports (it was a sports bar). You didn't like the service. It seemed like you were in a hurry to get through this part. And then you paid the bill and said your goodbyes in the parking lot. You gave her an extra long, silent look. She smiled awkwardly. And that was it.

She went home alone and thought, well, that wasn't so hard. And thought about the possibility of meeting others. This guy was a CEO, after all. He probably had lots of opportunities to meet other women. She would chalk it up to experience and move on.

She couldn't have predicted that only 6 weeks later, she would exit a plane in New York City under a full moon, and walk into a hotel lobby to find the same man in an ill-fitting, and nonetheless, handsome, tweed blazer.

For 3 days they enjoyed one another's uninterrupted company. Long walks, lazy breakfasts, views that she knew only from TV and movies. Her 35th year, her most difficult and painful year, ended in a sweltering haze of soothing infatuation.

Seeking answers. And a new floor.

I've been talking for 2 years about how I want to get rid of the carpeting in my condo. Anyone who knows me has heard by now that I'm exploring all my options. I've been to the hardware store to check prices, talked to friends about suggestions for installation, asked my parents about their own experiences with putting in new floors. It's a sort of big step in my journey of owning a home. Picking something I like, coughing up a lot of cash to do it as well as I can afford to. With the intention of getting some enjoyment out of the floors before I cash in on my condo and move on to my next home.

This week I saw a Luna ad on TV. I'm sure it wasn't the first time I thought of calling them. But it was the first time I focused on the part of the ad with the phone number, not just the jingle but the actual blocky numbers on the screen. The next day I dialed and requested an estimate.

Back story. A month earlier, I had heard from an old college friend that he needed someone to do some art restoration. I happily offered to take in the work. He just started working near my office and so it was easy for him to pop by and drop it off. He suggested we get lunch. Without hesitation I said yes. We talked about the old days, we joked about all the people we used to know, where they are now, and I remember he said that he's more interested in the "now," like what I'm currently doing with my life. It was a cool little nudge to break away from the nostalgia trip I was stuck in. Our conversation instantly got more interesting. We've grown a lot, it seems, just in the last few years, and we agreed that now in our 40's we are more secure and happy, choosing our partners and friends and work, rather than bouncing around searching like we did in our 20's and 30's. He talked a lot about his improv experience, and I started naming names, since I've known a lot of (maybe my favorite) friends over the years who had ties to improv. In recent months I've had many conversations about improv comics and started paying much more attention to the specific people I like in the business. Even joked about how my best friend and I should take classes. Something always told me that's where I fit in best, even though I myself feel to shy to "perform," except around my closest friends and family.

Anyway, after our lunch I had a strange sense of confirmation that there was a reason I gravitated to that group of actors/improv'ers in college. And now.

So Luna sends me Steve, who happens to live a couple miles away in the same town. Right away we get to talking about how this is his day job, how he's about to get his pilot picked up by Amazon. So many strange coincidences after having just talked to my college friend. They've both auditioned for similar roles at the same audition company near my office. Almost as if I gave the green light for the universe to send me more of the thing I know and like, and he literally arrived at my door. He's not the person I want to partner with. That was pretty clear. But something tells me he had a purpose in showing up.

Or was this just a really talented salesman who saw how easily he could bend my artistic, romantic sensibilities, and make a nice commission along the way?

No, this is about me choosing. I neglected my needs for years, put off making choices so I could reserve funds and emotional energy. I'm learning to choose what I like every day, and push away what I don't. I'm discarding clutter so I'm not distracted by all the garbage that's gotten in my way.

We negotiated. He made his sale. And we kept talking. And he told me about his spiritual beliefs. And we got to talking about laws of attraction, and how he believes he manifested his dreams of working in television by way of his interactions with "psychic mediums," which I admit is pretty kooky. He belongs to a "church" where he practices this kind of new age-y faith in asking the universe for healing and guidance. I can't help but like that, it's what I'm after too. Aren't we all. But he told me about an exercise in which you focus on a particular thing, like, he gave me the example of "waffles." If you continually focus and wish and pray on that idea, he says it will find its way to you. He says he tried it, and in a subtle, yet obvious way, he got his sign in the form of a plate of waffles being pushed across the table. He assured me it will work if I try it.

After he left I had a throbbing headache. I felt anxious and over stimulated. Perhaps his ADD was too much for my empathic brain. I couldn't stop the spiraling thoughts and slept badly. I was trying to think of a thing I wanted to manifest. Words kept coming to mind, but each thing I conjured had so many frightening connotations. Rocket, for one, kept coming to mind. And Money. Who wouldn't want to manifest money. But for some reason I felt like choosing Money would come at the expense of losing a loved one, like an inheritance. That's too risky, I don't want money in exchange for losing someone. I'd rather be poor. I decided a bird or flower would be more innocuous. But not an obvious bird or flower, like the ones I see on my table at work or in the bushes or in Michael's backyard.

I chose Gladiolus.

Lately I'm very fond of and grateful for my dad. And many years ago I remember my mom saying glads were his favorite flower. It's not a spring flower, so it would be a stretch to see one in nature. So, here it is, my carefree and whimsical request from you, Universe. Show me some glads.

Ache

Aching is part of life. I tell my little one to hang in there when she doesn't feel like going to school or to her dad's. We all feel that way sometimes, I tell her. But the truth is I feel that way now and I don't want to hang in there. I want to go to sleep for a year. Shut the door, go from snoring to hazy waking back to snoring until everything gets rebooted.

It's sort of a headache. It starts every single day when I hear my alarm. A prickly feeling behind my temples that creeps down to my stomach and makes me want to check online news because it feels like I'm in shock, processing some vague unpleasantness, that maybe I've sensed a disturbance in my slumber and that if I scour the news I'll discover the source of the panic I feel. By now I should know that even a skyscraper collapsing in a metropolis couldn't produce this sort of dread. It's a special kind of darkness I feel when I wake, mysterious and dank. Like my own insides are rotting, and I'm waking to the realization of slowly rotting from the inside again, and again.

Life and death happening simultaneously. Like a tulip emerging in spring, with leaves that are stunted from the last freeze, but pushing up regardless of their deformity. Each new year from the bulb emerges a smaller and sadder plume of color, until it becomes sterile, monochrome. It stands briefly, then wilts back to its nucleus where it resumes its sleep, gathering what nutrients it can in the dark as it hides comatose, awaiting another miraculous, though increasingly less impressive, resurrection.

Extremity

Tan, ragged, spotted, worn. Used and rewarded. Held and wrung. Flashed. Flailed. Slashed. Healed. Pushed and pulled. Bruised and broken, burnt, sore, swollen, chapped, chafed, calloused, flaking, seared, bleeding, grotesque.

Soft. Strong. Nimble. Adept. Resilient. No adornments needed.