Irreverent: Musings on Faith, Love, Life and Politics

A tease (he said)

2012-01-29T22:47:00.008-05:00

Someone once told me I was a tease.

He wasn't talking about it in the sexual sense, although it was part of the banter between us.

It was more the way (I believe) that I deliberately let little pieces of information dribble out, withholding the main point.

Who, me?

I confess -- no point in not confessing, it was obvious.

And when there's a healthy energy between two people, as there was with us, it's all rather innocently playful.

Although I'm not a huge fan of email or messaging, I do believe that it is particularly malleable for that purpose.

But there is a darker side to virtual conversations.

Sometimes it's easy to assume you understand what someone else is saying, when in fact he or she could easily have meant something rather, quite, very different.

A rather demure flirtation can take an unseen turn -- and one partner in it finds that he or she is playing alone.

Sometimes people use the language of a second life when they can't quite manage direct communication in the first one.

Then there are the occasions when being a female online makes one feel vulnerable.

"Hey, sexxy lady," someone texted me over the weekend. When I politely asked the texter to identify themselves, I got back a few anatomically ridiculous but clearly obscene messages.

As I walked through our local glades, I was torn between fury, fear and a reluctant amusement.

Here's a guy (I assumed it was a guy) who can't even get obscenity right!

I know, that's a little kinky on my part -- but it goes with the territory of being a writer with deep interest in human behavior (and grammar).

A writer from New York who went to a prep school where sexually permissive behavior was common coin among certain faculty.

A writer who thinks that in an online world where people spill their guts all the time, maybe just a little discretion isn't a bad thing.

A writer who knows where to stop.

Often.

If you want to know more...send me an email, and I'll tell you -- a little at a time.

That Mormon-Evangelical thing they do

2012-01-28T08:29:00.003-05:00

I have to admit that I've found writing about Mormon theology, and how it is viewed by some Protestant evangelicals, one of the toughest assignments I've had as a writer.

I wrote a colleague and told him that I was lost in the maze. I was happy to hear that it was tough for him, too.

If I have problems sorting out the complexities, I have no one to blame but me -- after all, who CHOSE to do the series?

Who? I need to have a chat with that woman.

http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/575933_Column--The-question-Mormons-can-t-avoid.html

To a father

2012-01-27T09:03:00.004-05:00

Dear Dad --

There's so much I want to tell you.

So much that I wish you'd known before you left.

I am sure of something -- a fact.

You were unabashedly proud of your grandchildren. They were above reproach. Any critical comment I made, whether it be about behavior or homework, was excused on the general basis that your grands could do no wrong.

It used to tick me off. Now I miss your total vote of confidence in them.

More to the point, I think that they could really use it now.

It's been a bear of a six months, Dad. Things have changed in our family. I'm not sure exactly what's happening, but we're losing something important.

I think it's probably gone forever.

Anyhow, Dad, I wanted to give you an update on the kids.

The DQ -- well, she's like Mom. She's lovely, Dad. But you knew that. She bids fair to be like her grandmother -- creative, disorganized and funny.

We're thinking of hocking the silver so she can go abroad to a study program this summer -- to be honest, it's kind of an intervention to see if being in a foreign country in a German program (she's got your gift for learning languages) would help her mature.

And Mr. C? Dad, as he was going out the kitchen door yesterday, he told me that coats were for "losers" and "sissies." Then he said that he was going to wear one anyway.

You know why?

William Henry Harrison, our President back in the day (if your day was 1840) didn't wear a coat to his inauguration. A month later, he died of pneumonia.

As a friend said to me last night, no other child in America probably wore his or her coat yesterday for that particular reason - oh, dad, do you suppose he could be your grandson?

I spy on him on Facebook (yeah, I'd have to explain Facebook to you) and watch him being a goof, and I'm thrilled.

I'm their mom, so I know how imperfect they are. But so am I, as you know.

I don't think you'd have any reason to revise your grandfatherly bias, though.

I'm crying, Dad. I'm going to sign off and mop up.

But I wanted you to know -- and somehow, someway, I want to believe that you do already.

Tell Mom and Jonathan, please.

And love to all of you.

Love always.

Your daughter...

Unseeing

2012-01-26T12:44:00.005-05:00

Lacking cane

Or balance

Most of all

Touch

A sense I no longer use.

Instead, I wander through my days

Like a bat

Set loose in daylight

Seeking I

Run up against obstacles

That only exist

When cold glass

Resists headlong rush

And I fall

Unseeing

To the ground

Eyes cast earthward

Heavenward

It matters not.

Remembering when I reached for you

Thinking your existence possible.

Blind then

No one more self-deceived than

A deluded creature who

Believes she sees.

Goodbye to"love"

2012-01-25T08:37:00.009-05:00

Yesterday I shut down my online dating profile.

I hope that I have the inner strength to keep it shut.

You see, I made a simple calculation.

I tried to figure out how much pleasure being potentially available for dates, and the hope of a relationship down the road, had brought me.

A few friends (you know who you are and I'm very glad I met you).

Then I balanced it against the pain I had experienced (yes, much of it self-inflicted).

The endless parade of men who wanted nothing but a "physical relationship" (quite the oxymoron, that).

Harley dudes whose feelings were hurt when I turned them down.

Email conversations that got hostile, because darn it, email is a rotten substitute for longterm communication.

Guys who thought fighting in virtual time was stimulating.

Men in need I felt that I ought to comfort. Yeah, I told you some of the pain was self-inflicted.

A quasi-relationship which ended in a way that left me feeling incredibly dumb and humiliated.

Email chats that lapsed into silence.

Guys who never seemed to want to risk the word "meet."

Men who lie about their age because they "feel" younger.

Indirect exposure to women who seem to live in a parallel universe I've never visited except back in the day of the soap opera.

And, oh yes, an education (purely academic) in various forms of kink that were only names to me when I began.

Gentle reader, what would you do if you were me?

The fact is, of course, that you aren't.

We all make different choices.

Many of you would have had much less tolerance for conversations that were obviously going nowhere.

Some of you would have made certain compromises, whether they be in the realm of physical attraction or emotional intelligence.

Some of you might simply yell "might as well JUMP" and figure out later if you are in roses or in a bed of thorns.

I'm a mother of two teenagers who has chosen to live in a semi-rural area. Mostly I work from home, meaning opportunities for social interaction are fewer than I'd like.

When push comes to shove, right now I have an evening and a full day in which to broaden my social horizons.

Online dating seemed like the solution.

In fact, it is often, though not always, the problem.

Perhaps I'm not going to have a guy in my life.

Perhaps I'm never going to experience the ups and downs of a love relationship.

Perhaps I'll learn, in time, to be o.k. with it.

I don't know yet.

Maybe I'll be back. Perhaps I'll lower my expectations.

Follow the breadcrumb trail here, and I'll let you know when I find out.

The painful task of closing the door on friendship

2012-01-24T09:29:00.005-05:00

Maybe a psychologist could explain.

Perhaps an evolutionary biologist (bonds mean survival) would hypothesize.

A faculty member in a sociology department might argue that I have a need to bond with others.

But whatever the reason, I rarely give up on friendships.

Until and unless I know that they are dead, I keep looking for a pulse.

The end of this one (if it is over) began with some major life stress.

The house under renovation -- a child running away from renovation. The children's dad facing and fighting cancer.

Last fall I was in the pits, a voyager through a few of the outer rings of hell -- or at least purgatory.

And I am not (hear this, God, please) a good candidate for purgatory. I like to know where I am -- to feel either the fire or clouds under my feet.

Long story short -- I was hurt by a friend's apparent lack of concern. I let her know, perhaps peevishly, via email.

A big mistake.

She took offense, and let me know, in words that stung.

I asked to hear her point of view. I confessed that I easily could have misinterpreted her behavior.

Again and again, I've reached out, reiterating my fondness for her and my hope that we can put this behind us.

Silence.

The kind of silence that makes you wonder what existed to begin with -- and where you might have compromised for the sake of a peace that never perhaps existed.

But don't friends do that for each other?

Unsettling questions, these.

After more than twelve years of friendship, she remains just out of sight, leaving only enigma.

There's been no alcohol abuse at a party.

No husband-stealing.

No unbearable narcissism.

Just a stupid disagreement between two people who considered one another close friends.

I haven't given up hope.

In the meantime, I suppose that I have a lot of material to work on --beginning with myself.

SOAP and SOPA: why are learning disability jokes considered "funny"?

2012-01-23T09:26:00.006-05:00

Why is it o.k. to mock folks with dyslexia and other learning disabilities?

Last week, as most of you know, portions of the Internet went dark, and many other sites lit up with outrage over the projected (now probably dead) Stop Online Piracy Act.

No sooner did this happen, but folks began to post SOPA "humor."

For some reason (I can speculate, but I won't, at least not here) that included a raft of dyslexia jokes.

Here's a link to one: http://www.funnyjunk.com/funny_pictures/3048453/dyslexic+SOPA/

These are probably people (I don't know them, but I'd guess), who probably trend politically correct otherwise, and would never dream of making jokes about blacks, Jews or Catholics.

Why does this stuff seem funny to thousands of readers out in Internet land?

I'll admit my bias right up front. My family is riddled with learning disabilities. And as a left-handed, near-sighted, math-challenged nerd, I've got some myself.

But I also watched my brother struggle for years with his disabilities.

I'm observing my daughter try to work with a large working memory deficit now.

And it doesn't seem funny to me, somehow. It's painful. So perhaps I'm more sensitive to not offending people with this kind of challenge.

I have my own prejudices, and I'm not proud. One is that I think that there are a lot of dumb people out there -- but I suspect, that if I get to know some of them, they might not seem as stupid as I think they are.

I'm an elitist -- a sometimes ashamed elitist.

I have a great group of FB friends -- by and large, they almost never post anything remotely offensive.

But if you know of other people might unknowingly be causing pain by passing along an email, or posting Internet snark -- please consider asking them to exercise a little compassion.

Please.

After all, empathy is only a word until you use it.

The hypnotist

2012-01-20T09:33:00.006-05:00

Black and white

Her chosen colors

Declarative sentences

Sole grammar of her days

She offers lotus blossoms

Where once he craved philosophy

Carries him away on drifts of incensed smoke

As though he could purge memories

Sweep chalkboard clean

No messy corners, lines or hopes for something deeper.

In her eyes, he sees himself

Reflected, refracted

She demands nothing

Except that he remain

Loyally swaddled

In the imagined security

Of those who do not aspire

To the profound life.

He stares

Afraid, should he turn away, and circle

He will see nothing

But his own enchanted face

Look back at him.

2012-01-20T09:33:00.001-05:00

Wouldn't it be funny, says my son

2012-01-19T16:14:00.005-05:00

We're on the train, heading through Philly, on our way to a chess tournament.

Can there are anything more peaceful and, frankly, nerdy, than a chess tournament?

Exactly.

So the kid looks out at the Market Street bridge, over which people are walking -- minding their own business.

"Wouldn't it be funny if the bridge blew up?" says Mr. C.

Possibly he doesn't see the body parts everywhere, and all the blood. Maybe he doesn't hear the spectral ambulances.

Maybe he just thinks that blowing things up is a lot of fun.

He is not a violent person, my son. In fact, he's the youngest member of a group of earnest Amnesty International members who meet at Wegman's the first Wednesday of each month..

I drive him there, eating dinner as he talks about human rights abuses and prisoners of conscience.

Yet he is an expert on many of our most terrible recent wars. He can quote military strategy at the drop of a hat.

One of his favorite sayings is one attributed to General Patton: "The object of war is not to die for your country, but to make the other bastard die for his."

How can such an irenic young man be so bloodthirsty?

Is it nature? Nurture?

A boy being a boy?

Perhaps it's just testosterone.

Now we've got a routine going.

He says: "Wouldn't it be fun?"...

And I finish the sentence with something like "if the lampost outside blew up"?

At which point the kid says, admonishingly:

"Mom, don't be so violent."

One weekend with you -- and what happened afterwards.

2012-01-18T08:54:00.007-05:00

Life in a temperate clime had caused her to adjust her expectations.

She did not burn. But neither did she shiver.

A denizen of a state where the weather is both more seductive and dangerous, he was more volatile.

It gave him an energy, a pulse, a passion and drive that radiated through the cold letters on the screen, and made them glitter.

In response, she glimmered back.

Like the lighting in the night sky, energy crackled between them.

The times when it grounded, sending branches crashing to the rich, loamy earth, were part of the atmospherics that drew them together.

Distance. Money. Children -- the realities of every day life. Anything further was impossible.

Surely, though, two such oddly kindred spirits, met happenstance, could allow themselves one night?

She prides herself on her reason, stability, common sense.

She'd never done anything remotely like this. But she'd never come to know anybody remotely like him.

They had so much to teach each other.

And if lessons are learned in a weekend seminar, who is to say that they aren't worth remembering?

Afterwards, they told each other, that among the travails, and joy, and missed opportunities, and nightmares that sometimes haunt the middle-aged, they would continue to be friends.

Friends first.

Friends in good times and challenging ones.

And so they are.

Only sometimes, when she is alone, she looks at herself in the bathroom mirror.

And smiles, remembering when she was less than sensible.

____________________________________________________________________

Fact? Or fiction? Only two of us know -- and we aren't telling.

The gash

2012-01-17T12:10:00.003-05:00

She does not see me bleed

The red pour warm inside

Leave invisible tracks across my pale flesh

The heart inside quails

As though I had been struck

And struck again.

She does not watch as I cry out

Helpless again

Hours months years piled up

Stone upon slippery stone

A friend advises

A father chastises

When I express the words that sometimes accompany

The agony of sinking.

But she does not look

Intent on spinning the careless web

Of her future

Like droplets of water

Thrown up from the ocean

Against a darkening sky

Safe Harbor

2012-01-16T23:46:00.010-05:00

Staring out the window

A suburban train

Every turn of the wheel one more circle

Home

Wishing away the years spent bootless, I long.

Your arms, a familiar spectre

Not knowing you

Still I watch

Couples weave through

Routines, gavottes, ordinary time

How sanctified they

Not knowing.

Ah, but I know

Because beyond those shelters

Lie the exotic climes

In which so many hopeful sailors do

Find themselves.

No.

Lose themselves

Shipwrecked in siren lands

Wanting wine for a thirst that

Might have once been quenched with water.

And I, listening so often

Have fancied myself more than a chronicler,

A fellow adventuress, lover, friend.

Chimerical, indeed.

My place is here among those who pattern their days.

Like a child lost in maze of misty rooms

I cry out for that which I see,

Regret the time I spent adrift in exotic shoals nearby

When what I really want is love in four/four time.

More extraordinary than it looks to those limbo lovers,

Whirling again and again around void of unfulfilled longing.

Away now the candles, incense, promise of stories untold

Not your daughter, coach, your mistress I

I wait impatiently for the stop that speaks of home

Of light, and of comfort for a child inconstant.

Forgive myself for chasing sparks when hearthlight rises tranquil.

A steady flame does not entice

But neither does it singe.

Tim and Tom and Eli: Does CHARACTER matter?

2012-01-16T10:37:00.006-05:00

Some of you quietly loved Tim Tebow and his very open displays of faith.

Some of you, on the other hand, were hoping he'd crash, burn and be as publicly humiliated

I, on the other hand, became progressively more uneasy with the tenor of the conversation -- which used a young man who happens to be an evangelical Christian as surrogate in a sometimes tense conversation about faith in the public square.

And what a crazy venue in which to have this conversation --in one of the temples of American civil religion.

Those of you who know me well know that I'm not a huge fan of the game of football.

A lot of my ambivalence about the game is because I don't understand it (as I say in my profile).

And though I'm beginning to become a bit less dumb (yeah, that's about right) about what's going on, it still often seems to me that the strategy is for grown up men to run up and down the field and crash into each other....causing as much bodily harm as possible.

When you have a game that's based on 300-pound guys tackling each other, people are going to be hurt. No matter whether you call it a tackle, or an interception, or a sack.

Football is a brutal game, no way around it.

Let's reframe the conversation.

Let's ask about character.

Tebow has gotten his moment in the sun, with his every decision analyzed endlessly. He sounds like a genuine and honest guy.

Brady has had a child out of wedlock, but unless you count having premarital sex against him, there's not a lot of scandal around him. The taping scandal of a few years ago wasn't Brady's idea.

I'm from New Yawk -- so of course, I'm biased. That aside, Manning and his storied brother and dad are dedicated to acts of charity, and generally seem to avoid the celebrity limelight.

Are they all good sports? I'm old-fashioned enough to believe that a quarterback ought to inspire the team.

What do I know? That bar has been lowered so much that anyone who doesn't end up in jail could be considered a saint.

And we also seem to worship the glamour boys, without admitting that the running backs and the wide receivers and special teams are crucial. Eli was brilliant last night, but he could not have done it without his brothers.

Look at college football and see the damage our hero worship has done...

Look at Penn State.

And that's probably what bothers me the most -- when we make a god of a violent game, and turn our eyes away from the collateral damage.

Like our children.

So can we get over expecting God to step in to help a particular team?

I suspect He's got bigger things on His mind.

Even (sigh) when the Giants are playing.

My forbidden subject

2012-01-13T12:56:00.003-05:00

There's a topic you won't see a lot of in my blog.

I don't write many posts about politics.

I used to write more.

Going back a few years, I'll see posts about Supreme Court decisions and other actions that piqued my fascination or fury.

But now our country is even more polarized that it was five or six years ago andI worry that it might be too divisive for some of my readers.

It's not that I don't have feelings and opinions.

I'll throw something up on Facebook if it's an article that catches my interest -- and though it's usually from someone in the mainstream media (that itself is a mark of socialism to some), it generally doesn't overtly reflect someone's bias.

First of all, I worry about offending someone.

Secondly, I worry that I'll get into a spitting contest with someone -- bad enough in person, it can be much worse online.

So I talk to my friends, mostly other journalists -- the ones I know will understand my passions, whether they be conservative, libertarian, liberal, or a mix of all.

Recently I've been in turmoil about the way the Israelis used our passports for targeted murders.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/01/13/false_flag

Who is killing Iranian scientists now? I talk to a FB friend about that out of public view.

These are hot potatoes, and I don't want to add to the foolishness online by continually venting about them -- unless, of course, I've checked my facts.

Unless I know I can back them up.

There are plenty of well-informed bloggers and Facebook posters -- one of them is my friend Christopher in North Carolina. Watching him respond to posters, you know that, most of the time, he's done his homework. I don't always agree, but I do respect his opinions.

As a creature of congenital moderation, I'm not always sure that I want to voice strong political opinions online.

So mostly I stick to family issues, religion, and dating.

You can make some sense of them.

Wait...did I just say that?

A mother's 'unseemly' pride?

2012-01-11T14:36:00.006-05:00

I got a phone call yesterday that made me very happy.

At the same time, I felt vaguely shamed.

The caller, the headmaster of our local, new magnet school, told me that my son had been accepted at our local magnet school -- and how competitive it was to get in.

He told me other things that don't belong in this blog.

When I tried to tell his father, he made it evident that he didn't want to hear all the things that parents normally tell each other when a child has been successful.

I was left feeling a little guilty -- and a lot rebellious.

It's about him. And about me. And about the past.

My family's past, in which my brother's learning challenges and my father's anxiety were always storms on our horizon.

My brother grew up up in a family in which academic achievement was the standard, not the exception.

In my family of origin, I was the slacker.

Even my mother's mother used to talk about being held up to the standard set by the "Berger boys" (I believe that one of them became a judge).

As bright as my brother was, trapped in a system where learning disabilities weren't well diagnosed or treated, his challenges had to have negative consequences.

I don't know if he ever made peace with these expectations. That's one of the questions I would love to ask him now.

Perhaps he would have gotten healing for with the difficulties he had -- had he lived. He was already well on his way...

I want to believe it.

As I believe that, eventually, my daughter will own her talents and her voice.

When her father rebukes me for praising his son, I think it is, in part, because learning hasn't come easily to his daughter.

We have to look for other reasons to praise her -- while continuing to hold her accountable for making an effort.

But anyone who says that academic success doesn't make a child's life easier, other things being equal, is straight up lying.

Ask any parent who has a child with learning differences. Or one who has one child who does, and another who doesn't.

When my child talks about his historical "insight", I do a gentle parental smackdown. No need for the kid to become cocky.

No one knows what will happen in the future. Who knows? He may lose motivation, get distracted by girls, or meet tough subjects that will be problematic.

Already math shows some signs of being one of these subjects.

My praise is calibrated, balanced, muted. But like a fire, it glows -- it is a chance not to rest on his laurels, but to celebrate his journey towards being a man of character.

Dating dumb: a user's manual

2012-01-10T07:59:00.007-05:00

Dating dumb?

It's not what, or who, you think (nein, nein, nein) -- the ditzy blonde of so many old Hollywood comedies. After all, the stereotype of the clueless flaxen ones is a ridiculous slam. Isn't it?

I used to think that dumb dating was only done by college students, or by young adults in their early twenties in the grip of hormones and experimentation.

Why did I EVER take him up on that dare last night?

Whose room am I in - and where did she go?

Oh my gosh, why did I ever go out for a drink, or five drinks, with my t.a.?

But I have found that it's possible to act your shoe size, not your age -- well, at any age.

A persistent mistake that people make is dating in the wake of a separation.

I'd like to see statistics on how long those relationships last.

And then, of course, there are those of us who roll the dice and date the men or the woman who has just begun to sort his or her life out.

Then there is dating someone with wildly different expectations -- he wants a relationship that leads to marriage, she is happy, after a difficult marriage, to be alone.

There is dating someone significantly older, or younger -- as I found out on a nightmare of an excursion to meet up with a guy from Columbia, Maryland, who made it clear as soon as we'd met that he was looking for someone younger. (duly noticed)

And then, yes, of course, there are men and women who date others of greatly disparate intellectual abilities. I don't understand it, and I don't think it works in the long run. That said,

people have all kinds of reasons for getting into relationships -- and some that may be strong enough to keep them there.

Sometimes dating dumb means dating promiscuously.

And sometimes it means holding back. I make lots of mistakes of the holding back variety, doing my utmost to discourage potential suitors by making it clear that dating me will involve dodging axes, swallowing fire, swimming with crocs and climbing out of moats.

Lots of moats.

But in the end, it probably is wise not to be too hard on ourselves if we make mistakes.

Because that's how we learn, isn't it?

Or at least, I sure hope it is.

The secret language of love

2012-01-08T20:36:00.011-05:00

I've heard that it's possible to stumble into somebody who speaks a language that holds the (a?) key to your heart.

It's not something that I've ever experienced.

No, I cannot be that categorical.

First of all, let me say that I don't buy into the Western definitions of love. Eros, agape, filial love --note that they were all definitions constructed by guys.

And we all know that men are "better" at compartmentalizing than women are. I don't believe that love fits into little boxes.

Today I saw a Facebook photo of my son, with another boy sitting on his lap. Both of them have broad grins on their faces, arms slung casually around each other's shoulder.

My son and this boy, who are both straight, are really, really good friends. They'd probably do anything for one another. They'd be mortified if someone said they loved each other.

But I wonder if what they feel isn't at least akin to it.

I have a female friend of many years with whom I have shared many of the big experiences of our lives: marriages, births (in my case) a marriage crack up.

I'm sure that I love her -- although it's not likely that I need to say it.

My marriage, though no fault of my husband, or perhaps through both our faults, was no school for love. I have learned much, however, from our children.

My love for them is like a stream that flows perpetually underground, coming up now and then to exult in the sun, before sinking increasingly into the background as they age.

And from a man I learned something of tenderness, and forgiveness, and compassion.

Was this akin to love? Could we have done better?

I have no idea. But I do not think I was deluded.

What about what happens when one doesn't expect to feel affection -- and it steals upon one in unguarded moments?

What IS that habit of easy discourse, the sense that one already knows the words yet to be spoken, the rueful humor that speaks of a deeper, spiritual comradeship?

What of a knowing circumscribed by its very context, and larger than its original intent?

Perhaps it's better to speak of loving, an action verb, than of love as a theory. We like to make love sacred, when it is but a chain ordinary choices.

Or perhaps, sometimes, not so ordinary.

What is the loving action here? What does it mean to speak of friendship when the more that could be is outside the boundaries of time and space?

For to be loving is to be a friend -- and to put the other person's welfare at least on par with one's own.

Do loving actions always entail sacrifice of one sort or another? Does faithfulness mean a rule of discipline for a rebel heart?

All of these questions -- little wonder, then, I am alone.

And in the night, I shout silently -- I still know how, even if I define it differently than you. I still know how to act lovingly -- forgive me if I sometimes get the act wrong. I'd rather ache, you see, than refuse to pick up and look hard at this thorny gift, as my fingers bleed.

The beliefs of a "practical people"

2012-01-07T10:54:00.003-05:00

It's been a month since I took Christmas vacation from the Mormon series -- and it was tough to jump back into the thorny issues. Fortunately, someone at Religion News Service had the same thing on his or her mind, and helped spur me on.

As you will see, I haven't even gotten into the really hot issues -- that will have to wait until the columns to follow.

http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/564056_Column--Mormon-theology--a-lively-debate.html

Tears...and more tears

2012-01-06T08:46:00.008-05:00

I can't seem to stop crying today.

Pretty tough, with my contractor friends going up and down the stairs behind me, to conceal the tears cascading down my face.

If I could walk away, abjure this( self-inflicted) suffering, make my heart tough and weathered as old barn boards under a scorching sun, I would.

Really.

But then I wouldn't feel, or explore, wouldn't reach out, hope or know the truth -- that love is worth aspiring to -- even if for a moment, a second, an hour.

There is some consolation in that, I suppose.

I've seen how people compromise. I just can't seem to do it.

I wish sometimes I were able.

I suppose the price for turning myself into somebody else is too high...just barely.

It's not as it I have a choice.

*********************************************************************************

On the surface, I don't seem like a person prone to fanciful flights.

I've worked very hard to overcome any obvious tendencies in that direction.

Love at first sight? HA.

Sweet nothing compliments?

Try that gullible lady on the next profile over.

Generally, unless I know someone pretty well, I just laugh off racy comments.

It's so hard to take any of it seriously.

But, I have discovered that I suffer from a far more insidious and possibly more dangerous form of the disease: literary romanticism.

If it's a scenario that could happen to someone in a novel (paging Richard Russo or Michael Malone) than possibly it could happen to me.

In my love scenario, there is wit. Seems normal enough, doesn't it? We all like a laugh, or at least a grin.

Intelligence -- it's nice to have someone who enjoys the thrust and parry of conversation. I'm sure I share that with most of you.

Passion (though tempered with realism). Who doesn't like a little excitement?

Then we move into the realm of the imagination -- and that's where it all gets a bit dangerous.

Dangerous to my heart that is.

I crave adventure -- and epic struggle.

Yes, those 18th-century moralists who wrote about the danger of reading novels for ladies were right, I suppose.

To be love, true love, some dragons need to be slain along the way.

It doesn't matter, really, whether they are my dragons or his, inner or outer barriers, the stuff of fiction or the grit of reality.

There has to be something at stake to make a prize worth winning.

Add to this a tendency to be impossibly tender-hearted, and we've got the ingredients for trouble.

Perhaps this is an overly refined, overly delicate, overly dramatic view of romantic life.

So sue me.

In my finely-tuned, introverted way, I'm bent towards drama.

I like to think of it as a particular kind of realism -- the kind that says that scars and even rue are badges of honor -- the ones we get for living boldly.

I don't always live up to my principles.

But I'd like to think that someday someone will come into my life who also sees love as an adventure -- and that we'll take our staffs and a pair of stout shoes and sally forth together.

Let's not forget the swords.

I can tell already -- "we" have dragons to slay.

Pining

2012-01-05T07:25:00.003-05:00

They press invisible on me

Yearning

The smell of unwished desire

Is cloying

A manly hunger for love

Understanding

Carnality

sometimes fills the air around me insistent.

No Lady Macbeth I

No knife at hand

I do not cut

Or kill

And yet

I am repelled.

For pining bespeaks weakness

Cloud-topped castles

Fleet dreams

Cold rain

Secretive dark touch

And so, what'er befall us

You and I who count our words

The strict currency of candor

I will not pine

For you.

Knee deep in vice

2012-01-03T20:34:00.009-05:00

O.K., that's a fantasy.

I'm just not good at vice. Advice, perhaps.

But at pure vice, I'm a loser.

I'm sure many of you wonder why I have any regrets about this. But I never had the chance to sow those wild oats.

Every time someone told me where they were, I got there after everyone else had plowed the fields and gone home.

Relational and identity crises? That's quite another matter.

That's NOT a state of mind to desire, but it's one in which I constantly seem to find myself.

Or one in which I find others.

And the annoying thing is that I never quite know how I got there.

I did not choose to dwell in the misty, muddy and sometimes challenging land of moral ambiguity.

Though not inclined to a natural love of black and white (my best friends are those who knowingly discover themselves in the grey areas) I find that, often where I expect to move freely, I am stumbling instead into quandaries.

Not mine, but somebody else's.

Oftime I'll start with the noblest intentions.

Drawn to spectacle like the actress I once thought I would become, I'll allow myself to become part of the dramatis personae -- the problem is that it's someone else's play.

I'm never sure if I'm the heroine, the heroine's best friend (or worst enemy, in some cases) or the clown.

It's not long before my moral antenna begin to wave badly -- and vertigo sets in.

So many insane plot twists.

So much agony. So much inadvertent farce.

And so many secrets.

If I didn't care about the people involved, I'd write a novel.

Only the truth is, watching people attempt to figure themselves out in difficult situations isn't funny.

Or I can't seem to find a way to make it so.

I care too much about their welfare to wryly watch at a distance.

Not a blessing or a curse, it is simply the way I am wired.

I'm hoping that this last time, the price was high enough that I won't make the same mistakes again.

Likely that I may make different ones.

At least give me credit for creativity.

Everything but that...

2012-01-03T09:58:00.008-05:00

I can forgive you everything but that

Words unspoken, you burrow into the darkness like a mole

The fantastic dazzles your eyes, the real evades you

I am not all oils and unguents.

I cut.

You bleed.

They do not rise trippingly to the tongue

These syllables

And yet they are the blood, sinews, flesh

That tie together the fragile relations between

Lovers, colleagues, friends

Making it possible to envision something more than civil, sterile truce.

Courage, mon ami. Courage.

It is not a place you know.

Deconstruction erases meaning as though it had never been

Remorse binds those fragile filaments, tying one reality to another

When I can forgive you this cowardice

Reaching out out your hand to mine only in irenic dream

It means (just so you know) your opinion and actions

Have no more weight in my life

Than the breath that stirs the dead leaves

Sending them skittering across the road as we pass

Into oblivion

Love in a time of zombies

2012-01-02T22:01:00.011-05:00

I'm sitting in front of our new pellet stove.

So far, it's totally the sexiest furniture in the house.

We're hoping the jetted tub will be done soon -- the faucet has a broken diverter, which means spray comes out of the sides. Suffice it to say that we'll be thrilled to hop into it.

Although I'm sitting in a comfortable lawn chair, I'm envisioning a couch here, or perhaps some winged armchairs.

I love the couch idea, though. Idly, I dream of sitting curled up on one end, reading a novel, a man's arm wrapped loosely around my shoulder.

Can't quite envision what he's reading. Let's not even go there, at least not now.

But starting into the glowing flames, I think of....zombies.

Or rather, men and women who act like zombies when it comes to making courageous choices.

When I asked Facebook friends to ponder the concept of "zombie love," two mentioned horror movies.

One of the two suggested that perhaps the undead were those who just went through the motions of love.

What scares me is how many of us there are out there in the land of the supposedly living.

Some are married.

Some are affair partners who can't, or choose not to, communicate with their spouse.

Others are single (in theory).

In reality, they are endlessly recycling the same relationship over and over again.

The past isn't prologue -- it is present.

It draws them like a siren song, one that tows them underwater until they choke and cry out for air.

Yet when time or circumstance rescues them, it seems as though many prefer to return to the deep.

I'm not a zombie. But sometimes I feel as though I walk among the undead.

The price we pay for not reflecting on our past gets higher and higher as we age. That may be in part why so many second marriages fail -- a lack of ability to figure out why what we were looking for may not have been what we needed.

As a Facebook friend commented, however, sometimes looking back can bring sorrow. It's a trick, I think -- to learn from the past and yet live in the present!

Recently a friend said to me, rather enigmatically, that there arrives a time for us when we have to look back and choose -- the time becomes too precious to waste anymore.

On "Tell Me More" this afternoon, Bruce Feiler claimed he wants now (he is a survivor of cancer) to live each year as though it would be his last. That's his New Year's resolution. Not a bad one for all of us.

If you were living this year as though it was your last, would you be with the same partner? In the same post? Listening to the same music?

There may be good reasons to do all of those things...but only after reflecting on them.

I don't want a zombie lover. I want someone who chooses me, not a ghost.

I'd rather live in a vortex of reflection and passion and new life, and cry sometimes - than turn bland, blind eyes towards another just like me.

Actually, I've cried many times. More often during the past year than in many previous ones -- I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad one. But at least I know I'm giving love a shot.

You don't need to be seeking love to pass through zombieland. You may be looking for a new job, coping with a faith crisis, or trying to find the passionate self you left behind a long time ago.

The crossroads are a frightening place. Perhaps it seems, at this point, easier to turn back.

After all, behind you is the place you called home, not matter how dysfunctional it was...ahead lie monsters and cliffs, rough seas and rocks.

Ahead lies your dreams.

I stare into the orange and blue flames, and dream...

Freedom for the zombies. Freedom for the fearful. Freedom for those who want to be liberated.

Even a little. Your day to choose will arrive.

IS love all you need?

2012-01-01T18:48:00.005-05:00

I don't really like hurting someone's feelings, even if he is a someone I'm not likely to run into at the Acme.

Though he's not as articulate as I am (but perhaps a lot nicer) I got the message, loud and clear.

I had asked him about his political persuasions.

Oddly enough, religious differences don't bug me (although I'd have as much problems dating a Scientologist as he would dating me).

Earning differences don't bother me, although I would have ethical problems going out with someone who felt he needed to pay for everything and I'd get mad with someone who expected me to fork up for everything.

But politics -- I can feel my mouth curling -- as though, as Alice Longworth Roosevelt said about Calvin Coolidge, I'd been weaned on a pickle.

Truth is that I don't deal well with ideologues. If someone sees an issue as black or white, if he can't juggle potential solutions, if the way he thinks now is the way he thought ten years ago, I know it will be a very big stumbling block.

After I asked him about his political views, he wrote back that I was using the "politics" card as a reason not to meet him.

He is one of the last people to believe that 'love is all you need' he wrote me, implying that those who used politics or religion as a reason to not meet a man like him would find themselves alone.

At first, I was defensive. I worry that I'm turning into one of those singles who can't make room for a vital relationship, one that asks for compromise.

My life would have to change a lot. It's not a matter of making the adjustments that seem to come more simply to the young. By the time we get into our forties and fifties, we've potentially made some pretty big mistakes. And the flip side of that is that we also know ourselves pretty well.

A person who engages with us and our mistakes has got to be both forgiving and willing to tolerate some cracks in the facade.

But then I asked myself the more basic question my friend asked in passing: is love all you need?

And I'd have to answer -- no, it's not everything.

Tolerance helps -- or knowing where, as I said to my online friend, you feel compromise is beyond you. Perhaps you have to practice it, or it gets arthritic.

Physical passion for the other (sigh) doesn't hurt. Nature's joke on us is that we continue to want to feel those sparks after the belly begins to protrude, the limbs cramp up, and the hairline recede.

And compassion -- compassion is huge. If you get close to someone, it is almost guaranteed that you are going to hear things you don't want to hear.

Intimacy isn't easy. In fact, it's frighteningly hard -- else why would so many of us flee from it?

Sometimes, as I may be learning, it's possible to think you are part of the solution, and, in fact, be part of the problem.

Intellectual compatibility is important too, as I've recently discovered -- and been loath to admit to myself.

Tolerance, compassion, physical attraction, a real desire for emotional intimacy and oh yes a common language (even if it's one that you conjugate together) -- all of those, and love too?

Maybe my online pal is correct -- maybe love ought to be all that you need.

But I doubt I'll ever know.

Some of us have to learn the hard way.

My dream for you

2011-12-30T09:12:00.007-05:00

Sometimes one does not know a hunger until one can name it.

As we have.

Dancing, leaping, anticipating, words spiraling across the screen, icons pale substitutes for the gasp of laughter, the grin of surrender, the mock outrage that forgives in being articulated.

And oh, in passing, the mutual, caged, restrained, diverted desire.

Milton, Chaucer, Greene, Russell...there is nowhere, so far, that you haven't traveled, and sought, and found something of value. Even if I think I get there first, you have already found that place of delight.

Or at least, if you haven't been there, you disguise it well, my fellow fencer.

Though we have so much, the gift is tinctured, as perhaps all the really good ones are, with the reality of distance, and struggle, and of priorities.

What we seek is different, as is what we have found. Except for this tilt, pole to pole, unsought by either.

So as you stumble towards your destiny, and I trip towards mine, we make the words dance and glint and shimmer between us -- as you open to me a part of my soul I didn't even realize I had.

I name it now, and will put it aside again, in the service of reality.

For after all, my child, I am a woman of rubrics, principles and facts.

A set of facts to which I must lash myself (and perhaps lash myself with), like a sailor clinging to a mast, lest I get swept away by the "what might have beens" of dreams.

And for all that, in spite of all that I know, this castle in the sky is for you.

*************************************************************************************

At a table you sit, running your hand abstractedly through your hair, the light glancing off your face, giving birth.

The word eludes you, the word that will say all you want, and no more.

Turning to me, you ask for a synonym, an allusion, an image to nestle softly in between the mortar of your creation.

Without thinking, I provide it -- or you steal it, unscrupulous wretch.

Coming up behind you, hands on your shoulders, I lean against you, feeling your strong frame against mine.

Returning to work, only the crackle of the fire punctuating the silent, grey afternoon, we trust the knowledge that kindred spirits share so effortlessly.

No acolytes here. No leader to follow. The marriage of these minds brooks no impediment.

Later, we will take a walk, hand-in-hand, through the open fields, sometimes in amiable debate, sometimes in silence.

We watch for, seek out, wait for inspiration to arrive.

It will find us -- I, who deal in facts and argument -- you, who take words and weave them into poetic tapestries.

Through a mist of gentle kisses, mirrored in eyes that window the advancing and retreating knowledge we have of one another, we leave the introspection be for another evening.

Work is done for the day.

There are new lands to discover tonight - it is a journey I never signed up for, because no one had ever told me it was possible.

The object of his desires

2011-12-29T08:37:00.002-05:00

I've been fending off a fair number of what I'd call smarmy suitors.

They share their fantasies with me (I won't go into the details).

I get to experience the seamy underbelly of Internet life without frequenting porn sites!

Isn't it exciting?

Actually, it's repulsive and boring, if something can be said to be repugnant and anomie-inducing at the same time.

I can tell whether a guy is worth getting to know from his initial approach.

If it's "Wow, you look hot in that bathtub. Can I join you?," the terms of the conversation have already been set.

And, oh, trust me, it gets much cruder than that -- right from the start.

One school of thought might argue that I ought to be flattered. After all, how many middle-aged women get this kind of persistent attention?

I'm just tired of it. It makes me feel like a non-person. I'm really grossed out, to be truthful.

Yet I am the kind of woman (the kind who contradicts herself) who does genuinely enjoy male attention.

But it makes all the difference in the world if it's someone who has gotten to know me -- and someone whom I think is hot, too.

The matter of approach, and of multi-dimensional appreciation, is a make-or-breaker.

And then, as if to shake up my assumptions, I got this email from someone who had looked at my profile (name deleted). He told me he looked at me online and fantasized. I told him that for me, (I apologized for my vanity), that was so yesterday. Then I suggested that he should probably go out and find a real woman.

This is what I received back:

well.... it doesn't really sound arrogant I can imagine the mail you get ... I do have an honest reason for fantasizing .... in 2001 I was the victim of a violent crime, my best friend was killed and I spent 2 years in the hospital and 3 more in a wheelchair, I've been thru hell and back ...... theres been noone breaking my door down for a date .... once n a while when I get lonely I fantasize about making love to a beautiful woman its not gonna happen to me ever again ..... we all say oo yes it will ... I'm smart enough to know it won't I'm scarred from head to toe ..... it gets me down at times but its better to lay in bed and dream of you than the alternative ... your an attractive sexy woman .... thats my story ..... and thats how my life has ended ....

What could I say? I told him he alone, of all of the inept Lotharios who had contacted me, was entitled to fantasies.

And now, I'm going to try to forget the whole discussion took place.

Lament of the over-educated single female

2011-12-28T12:58:00.006-05:00

I have a thing for online guys who write me and say "hi" or "hello" as a way of introducing themselves to me.

Not a good thing, either.

Generally, I suspect that they are incapable of carrying on an intelligent conversation.

O.K., I've said it. In that one sentence is wrapped up a host of bias: classism, elitism, and other, more subtle-isms that I choose not to share with you right now.

Thus far, there is only one man who didn't fulfill my expectations in that regard -- and he was totally new to the dating scene. I was his trial run.

I was just a little bored yesterday (plus, it was raining, so I couldn't escape to the savanna and pace like a lion).

No more excuses for my bad behavior.

A man contacted me yesterday, his only introduction one word.

And then, the inevitable "Is there room in the bathtub for me?"

That's the second line that will most accurately predict whether someone has an ounce of creativity in his soul.

I didn't answer that one. Instead, I responded "good afternoon." Just enough. Just to see what I'd get back.

"How are u"?

"Fine" I wrote him. "And you?"

Well, you can see where this is going. No-where, if that can be said to be a place.

"I'd be better if I was with you" came the fast answer.

At that point, I was done toying. "You don't know me. You just know what I appear to be" I wrote him back.

Ouch. There I was, taking out my frustration on a poor schlub who just happened to want to chat with me.

It's hard, to be honest, being an educated woman in an online dating environment. First of all, you have to keep reminding yourself that lots of people hate writing, despise it and fear it with a deadly passion.

Which doesn't mean they are stupid. It could mean almost anything.

And then, if there is enough possibility to begin a dialogue, than you have to figure out what is safe to say. Can you discuss politics? Can you talk about previous relationships? What about religion?

Hopefully by then you have moved on to phone chats. All of those, except for the rare birds who are fluent in online conversation, or programmed to "get" each other's wacky ironies, are dangerous territories.

As the novelist Margaret Drabble (sister to A.S. Byatt) wrote once, one of the legacies of an education is to have all sorts of quotes rattling around in your head (often the attribution is forgotten).

It's delicious to be able to share those with someone.

Is it necessary? Well, I wrestle with that often. Maybe it's a luxury. Maybe I'm too fussy. Maybe it's better to trade quotes.

Then where do I draw the line?

I have no idea.

All I know is that, yesterday, I should have drawn it at "hello."

What I really wanted for Christmas

2011-12-27T09:33:00.006-05:00

As soon as the holiday was over, perhaps even a minute after midnight (who knows?) our inboxes were flooded with a new set of online advertisements.

One of them, from Road Runner Sports, cajoled me into saving 56% on what I "REALLY wanted for Christmas."

Which REALLY pissed me off.

Getting and spending we lay waste our powers, indeed.

We'd just gone through a consuming frenzy in our house. One child was grateful, the other accepted it as her due (that's another story). After a brief conversation with their father over spending limits, I had meekly given in.

Meanwhile, all over America, one in four kids went to bed hungry.

Did I want to spend MORE money because I felt ungrateful for what I'd been given?

Heck, no.

Yet the gaudy ad (and, I admit, a need for new running shoes) did force me to consider what I really, truly, did want for the New Year.

And here it is, in no particular order. The identity of putative receivers are disguised to protect their anonymity.

I want a friend, adopting a son from a country torn apart by violence, to have him arrive in her loving home soon. Each day without him weighs on her spirit.

I hope for the gift of time and presence for her friend, a young father with four children, fighting a terrible disease. Though I don't know them, they were never far from my thoughts and prayers this holiday.

I'd like the weight of a year of losses to lift from another friend's heart this year, leaving them with peace and wonderful memories.

A dad to have his daughter stay out of the hospital, visits which produce fear and near-death escapes.

For a friend whose quest for love has led them to compromise, I would sprinkle the fairy dust of self-respect. There is more -- so much more.

And for another, lost in a wilderness in which there appears to be no exit, I would light the candles of faith, hope and charity. Faith in the future, hope for winning the battle, and charity towards a self that is bruised and scarred but nonetheless dear.

For me? I'd love to see the New Year bring a healthier relationship with a daughter from whom I feel estranged. I'd like to be less sensitive to slights, real or not-real.

And that's just for starters, a few dives into the themes that crowd my consciousness...but I don't want to be greedy. And I also admit the possibility that, when it comes to my friends, I am wrong in my wishes.

I'm sure you have your own lists, dear friends.

This year, let's try to match up what what we really want with the relationships where we put our insight, energy and emotion.

Then we can blithely ignore those stupid ads, knowing that whatever they say we REALLY need...we know better.

THE world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; 10
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
W. Wordsworth, 1806

Tear down the walls

2011-12-25T14:31:00.008-05:00

It's late at night, Christmas Eve.

Actually, it's early in the morning, Christmas Day, a good time to reflect on the place where faith and unbelief intersect.

Being a parent, no matter how organized (I wasn't organized this year) always seems to entail early morning time on Christmas.

In this case, there are presents I haven't wrapped. But since they are in the room where my son is sleeping (we still don't have the rooms sorted yet), I can't get to them.

I'm sitting here, strengthened with hot chocolate, chocolate peppermint JoJos, and chocolate trail mix (notice a theme here?), reflecting on the evening, and listening to English carols.

It was actually a very nice family evening. My ex and I do the holidays together. We started out doing it for the kids, and now it's got to be such a normal thing we don't even cavil anymore.

Bicker, yes. Cavil, not so much.

And I'm thinking, on one of the holiest nights of the Christian year, of how tangential many churches appear to be in reaching out to society.

As faithful,we seem to perpetuate our cultures.

I have experienced this more and more as I engage those outside the arms of the Church.

It used to be that I could count my atheist or questioning friends on the fingers of two hands (not counting my relatives, of course, a wondrously colorful grab-bag of faith and politics.)

Because I had spent so much of my professional life in the womb of the church (or Church), I had become part of the institution.

I see it with friends, all the time. Good people they are, who sometime along their journey began to socialize only with "their" kind -- other Christians.

Idly rifling through Facebook sometimes, I'll see albums of people who seem to mostly hang out with one another -- and wonder if they want to expand their horizons, or are just comfortable with the folks they know.

It's normal, or natural, for that to happen to people, whether they be artists or accountants.

But I wasn't crazy about the notion when it is applied to me, for a couple of reasons.

I don't like living in a cocoon.

It feels inauthentic. And I also believe that all of us need to have friends who challenge us.

Besides, what is the message of the Gospel if it doesn't mean engaging people who don't believe it - not as superiors, but as listeners, as equals?

Jesus never said anything about superiority. Oh wait, he did -- to the religious authorities of his day.

Part of it was running into guys online who had little experience, or negative experiences, with institutional religion.

Another element was the interviews I did for a number of commentary series -- I became more and more fascinated with the choices people make about what to believe.

(As I've said before on these "pages," people do seem to have to put faith in something, whether it's a god or not a god.)

So many of my Facebook journalist friends are indeed Christians -- but they keep a strong professional line between their practice and their jobs. I guess I feel most comfortable there -- a weird thing for an ordained minister to say, I confess.

I'm not drawing conclusions about secularism or atheism, or alternative beliefs, at least not as yet. But I'm enjoying the dialogues. And I'm learning -- always committed to learning.

I still believe that if religious folks don't try to meet others in the bars, in the coffeehouses, in the workplace, the church risks becoming irrelevant.

Not sayin' that I'm good at having these conversations, or even great at being a listener.

Hostility towards Christians as a class bothers me as much as when I experience hostility from Christians about the not-religious. We can't seem to tolerate difference without wanting to throw up the drawbridges.

But I admit, that, occasionally, I am more excited about what's going on outside the walls of the institutional church than I am about what's going on within it.

And if that's the case for me, imagine, Christians, what it feels like to be searching for meaning outside the walls -- and to have already discounted us as a potential source.

My Christmas column

2011-12-25T00:10:00.006-05:00

Why do we make a romance out of Christmas, when in the lives of the poor, it could have been any other day -- except for the Incarnation?

Because, possibly, poverty frightens us -- it's particularly scary for the poor. Because it was a long time ago. Because, possibly, poverty isn't something we like to think about.

But, as Bishop McFadden said, Christ has a special love for those who are poor -- and expects that we will take care of them.

There is not much to the Gospel if it is just meant for the those of us who are well to do.

It isn't, perhaps, the Gospel.

http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/555395_Column--Hope-is-always-the-message-of-Christmas.html

Light...and shadows

2011-12-23T00:19:00.003-05:00

Heedless of the rain that soaks and ebbs

I walk the path so often taken

The road from which I swerve sometimes

in imagining

A forest of possibilities and

reefs where the unwary might cavort or drown

One, two...fifteen vultures sit in a tree

they do not seem to see me as prey

A part of the landscape, aware of

coming winter, this far away even they

Have a certain loveliness

and still I pace, crunching gravel under sneakers

The damp gradually soaking my hair

blue-eyed-wide intensity

As though as if/if somehow

I could see into your mind

and grasp the power to heal or reconnect

That which is sundered

such arrogance

All I can do is walk this path, alone but the

rabbits and dogs and oh yes, companion vultures

And reach out my hands

embracing light and shadows, virtue and its opposite

Weakness known and strength yet untried

Winter has its own imperative voice

breaking open the most guarded heart

The eroticism of discourse

2011-12-22T07:56:00.004-05:00

Now, doesn't that sound like an Eric Rohmer movie?

Rohmer, a product of the Nouvelle Vague, famously liked to have his beautiful young characters talk -- a lot.

Perhaps it's the fact that I saw a few of them in high school that explains my lust (mais oui) for intellectual conversation.

With men.

Not that I don't enjoy a good debate with the intelligent women in my life. Bring it on, sistahs.

My statistics teacher (who made a semester in purgatory just bearable) had never heard anyone ask if validity could be applied to a monkey tribe.

It's just that it doesn't have quite the same charge, somehow.

It's possible that, having grown up in a world of academia still mostly dominated by guys (and tell me that still isn't true, I dare ya) I'm used to them setting the terms of debate -- and responding, agent provocateur that I am.

"Pick me, pick me" said the slightly pudgy girl in the peasant skirts, discussing the double-entendres in Renaissance poetry in a seminar with her highly crushable mentor.

Around our table in the dining room, parquet floors and stained glass relics of a more polite age, politics and history, art and rock music were all blood sports.

The the big 19th-century table where we ate our dinners, though circular, was still dominated by my father, with his multilingual command of history, and his sometimes biting wit.

All speculation aside, I'm starved for conversation with men who can give me a run for my money, intellectually speaking.

It's not that I'm trying to be seductive. It's just that I feel so very alive when my mind is fully engaged.

I know that there are women, and men out there, who feel the same way. There's probably some kind of name for this. Could it be called the New York Review of Books fetish (update that for me, please?)

You know it's gotten bad when the topic of the effective tax rate gets me all shivery inside.

Yet given the polarized state of dialogue in this country on some of the issues that matter the most, I choose my victims carefully.

And while I might find more of them in urban areas, I'm not a kid anymore. I can't hang out in bars with sexy bespectacled guys riffing on Rimbaud and whether Ron Paul would really rid us of the Federal Reserve.

Dommage.

Maybe I'll have to see if the sexy guys come to me.

Man-at-war (and the woman who loves him)

2011-12-20T21:38:00.005-05:00

Blame it on Mr. Rochester.

Well, a girl's got to have a romantic hero while she's growing up, doesn't she?

It didn't get much better after that.

My romantic hero in my twenties (and probably still, if I'm honest) was a certain noble, Francis Crawford of Lymond.

A Scottish second son, Lymond traveled all over Western Europe and the Arab world (back in the sixteenth century this involved ships, swordplay and harems) wrestling with his past. And oy, did this sexy blonde guy have a past.

It didn't prevent him from seducing, and even fathering a few children with a succession of women (some of whom met unfortunate ends) until, at last, he met up with his true love, who was actually from his past...

But that's a whole other story. In fact, that's five whole other books of roughly 500 pages long. I highly recommend all of them.

Just don't let them influence your idea of the ideal man.

Don't be too hard on me, o.k.?

Some women go for the "bad boys." Others of my sex yearn for guys who can take them to expensive restaurants.

I have a thing for conflicted men.

Probably the quickest way into my heart, if you are a man, is to confess to struggling with some problem. It should be one that's occupying a lot of your time, or wounded you in some way.

It shouldn't be life-threatening.

But it should be just tough enough to give you that slightly careworn, Byronic air that hints of secret sorrows.

You think I'm joking?

Just take a look at my resume.

Now, most of these haven't blossomed into full-scale relationships. And before you draw any conclusions, ofttimes that decision was mine.

In fact, it's highly debatable as to whether many of these guys were really ready to have relationships.

I'll leave that to wiser heads -- many of us keep therapists in business.

All I know is my weakness for the man who, while successful in his career, and stable in the rest of his life, struggles with an unresolved conflict.

One of the wonderful blessings in my life is that a few of these men are friends -- old friends, new friends, somewhere-in-between.

Some of them have resolved the issues they had when we met, and moved on to other issues. Some of them continue to grapple -- because it is part of their personality to wrestle with big questions.

I'm a wrestler myself myself -- so perhaps it's a case of like being drawn to like.

I dunno. All I can say (hey, it's late at night) is that, instead of liking my men a little on the trashy side, I like them a little bruised.

Not enough to be ugly, mind. Just enough to draw my empathy -- and my quixotic, nurturing heart.

A woman of inconvenient principles

2011-12-19T21:18:00.005-05:00

Yes, I have principles.

They just lurk way outside the box, like the rest of me.

They also tend to crop up at strange times.

Just because I am congenitally not quick to judge (I believe there's something vaguely biblical about this), does not mean that I am without any internal monitor.

Let me amend that statement.

I judge the U.S. Congress, the poor quality of Hershey's chocolate, and the length of my daughter's skirts all the time.

But people's lifestyle choices? Not so fast.

In part, this is due to my abiding curiosity as to why people chose to live the way they do.

I figure that I darn well better understand it, at least from the outside, before I say much about it. And, as a writer, I'd rather describe it from the inside out, so that you have enough information to make your own judgments.

But put me at a party with an orthodox Democrat, and I'll become the conservative moralist -- in part, because I am the spawn of generations of moralists. A devout conservative?

Given the chance, I'll start ranting about the "too big to fail" banks and climate change (an issue on which I am irritatingly consistent).

So what are my principles, such as they are? A few are simple, and this list is by no means exhaustive. I suspect that you share most of them.

Be kind. There's an awful lot of meanness out there.

Be generous.

Think before you speak.

Turn love into a verb of action.

Use the phone and in-person meet-ups in addition to email, texting, and other toys.As I watch my daughter online, I worry that she won't have the communication skills to handle "real" life.

Compromise when possible.

Politicians in Washington have made a mockery of the idea, and yet it is essential if we are going to thrive as a society.

Extend your hand. Apologize first.

Be gracious, whether the cards fall your way or they do not.

But what happens when you have gone as far as you can go -- and the distance between you and a friend, neighbor or spouse still yawns?

Don't sell yourself out.

I am determined that no one mistake my attempts to be kind as weakness of character.

As I've noted before, as we grow older, we become more and more the people we are going to be the rest of our lives. Though I want to stay nimble, I have no desire to become a cloak spread across the mud for someone to step on.

Which is why I seem to end up having the "no friends with benefits" conversation so often. If a guy really likes me, he's going to hang in there (or may never bring it up initially to begin with). If he wants something more superficial, he'll move on to seek lower-hanging fruit.

If a coworker, a friend or a lover can't handle the authentic person you are, you both have something to work on. Sometimes you have no choice.

Often, the choice is yours.

Because I'm such an inquisitive (nosy?) person, I often come crashing into my principles, rather than easing up to them.

You may be less curious -- and more sane. It's simpler that way.

Sometimes the box isn't meant to confine you, but to protect.

I just don't know what I'd learn about human nature if I stayed there.

Set him/her free

2011-12-18T16:51:00.008-05:00

Stop clinging.
Open your hands wide.
Let someone move away from you if she or he wants to walk.

This isn't an easy lesson to learn.
It really is a relational paradox.
But it is proved accurate, at least in my life, again and again.
If someone doesn't feel free to leave, then he or she isn't really at liberty to stay.

The more emotion we use, whether it be with a child or with a lover, to engage them and keep them standing in one place, the more they really want to scram.

As we grow up, we sometimes find that dependency appears to pay dividends -- it makes people worry that we won't be o.k. if they need some distance, or maybe even need to take a break from a relationship.

"He or she won't be able to cope if I leave." How many times have you heard that?

Then there are the folks who continue to battle with their ex-spouses or girlfriends long after the relationship is really over.

It's a way of staying connected, but it means they are never truly free to move forward with another person.

It's even harder when you do care about someone.

Parents and children find striking the right balance very tough. I know that I have, with my daughter. For years I took her frustration personally, and as a reflection of my failure as a parent.

Now, though I'm not a model of balance, I try to step back and not simply react -- to leave space for her to feel her own emotions, instead of feeling mine.

When it comes to romance, I have also learned not to cling. This may be easier for me than others, because I crave and relish independence. It's actually harder for me to reach out than it is to be alone, which is why I need to keep working on connecting.

But at least I know, when I sense myself becoming vulnerable to someone, whether it be a friend or a potential "more" to back off, and allow them to make their own choices.

They aren't honest ones if you make them for someone else.

Sooner or later, he or she is going to wake up and realize they've been manipulated.

And you'll be alone -- because he or she needs to have reasons to stay that are wholly their own.

Which leaves you free to become the guy or the woman you want to be -- one capable of meeting them in-between, adult-to-adult, with a sparkle in your eye, mischief in your smile, and the excitement of moving forward, and not sideways.

Of course, there are also those who can't commit...but that's another blog post...

Feed me

2011-12-16T07:30:00.003-05:00

Feed me with shared sunrises, silent before the twice a day magic of its rising and sinking.

With feta and olives at night after a day spent paring slowly the lists that fill our days.

A hand held out after a hike over rugged terrain, until at last we arrive at the peak, speechless.

The sparkle of a heated debate on politics and art and even sometimes religion, done without bitterness.

Feed me with tenderness.

Knowing the places where I limp, you will not trip me up, but place your hand there for a moment, gentle as the kiss of a spring breeze.

I will do the same for you.

We will be merciful to one another, small irritants serving only to polish our edges like exotic marble.

Our arms at night a haven -- and a carnival ride.

Feed me with the truth.

In lofty phrases when we engage in the disputes that beguile and seduce our straying minds.

In self-mockery and sweet admonition that causes me to burst out in surprised laughter.

A vision that stretches, searches and complements my own sometimes skeptical one.

You, another traveler met fortuitously on the road. Me, a dusty pilgrim, lifting my near-sighted eyes to see with you, and through yours, alone and together as we tread the rocky, gorgeous byways.

Docility in relationships: a fatal flaw?

2011-12-15T08:55:00.004-05:00

Know how you are positive that you "aren't" something -- but you aren't sure what that "something" is?

As a child, I was a voracious reader (back when reading was actually practiced by more than a small number of Luddites).

So I'd figure out what a word meant in context -- which meant that I often got it slightly wrong. Often, now, when my son asks me what a word means (he's the same type of reader) I am curious as to what it actually means -- so I go look it up.

Here's a great definition for docility -- "the trait of being agreeably submissive and manageable."

Could this definition in any way be construed to apply to me?

I guess I could, under certain circumstances, be agreeably submissive.

But manageable? Heck no.

We carry certain traits from our past, certain habits that crop up again and again in multiple relationships.

If we had a critical parent, say, we might have found that being meek kept us out of the way of his or her anger.

We might have tried to blend into the walls, so that we might not be noticed.

Possibly we might find ourselves expecting that our children will also be docile.

I was a well-behaved child (which doesn't help me much in today's more open society). But I was also a quiet subversive.

If you were one of those kids, you know that with a little intelligence, you can get around the system.

The feisty females who were so much a part of my upbringing were strikingly intellectually independent of male influence.

Well, of anybody's influence.

It's not that we didn't have men around. My dad, for example, was a very strong character. It's just that we didn't think they got to make all the rules.

That leads to, shall we say, a certain eccentricity of mind.

Being kind can open doors.

Being meek? Not so much.

If you have found meekness adaptive, I am willing to admit that docility may benefit you. In fact, I can see many situations where it may pay dividends. I just can't see it working as a ploy forever.

Maybe it's because I'm just so damned bad at it.

On the topic of love

2011-12-14T08:45:00.006-05:00

Something you said got me thinking -- as it so often does.

And it wasn't even something you said to me, but to one of your many readers, so eager to share their praise, insights, or sometime criticism with you.

We get waylaid, you and I, by the need to voice the obvious -- which has not seemed to dull with repetition, but to sharpen, rather.

Can a lover indeed benefit the beloved, as you opined recently -- without trying to change him or her?

I wondered -- even if the lover doesn't intend to change the subject of her or his affections, isn't that person altered anyway?

Sometimes love isn't even experienced as love.

As a parent, I have learned that what I can offer my older child right now feels to her like restraint instead of affection. To her, love is often measured in what I can give her, rather than in less material ways.

Yet I do believe that my proffer of boundaries and discipline will come to seem, when she is old enough to understand why, like a gift.

Whether it will change her or not, I am not sure.

And I also believe (although in this I may be a bit delusional) that love can heal.

Love that doesn't drink at the waters of Lethe, but acknowledges the wounds of the past. Love that is received by the beloved in the spirit in which it is meant. Love that doesn't seek to bind or constrain.

I see that to this enticing notion I have added some pretty difficult caveats.

To be human is to be challenged to practice love again and again, even when you feel bruised and terrified and cynical.

Those are all human emotions, too. We are muddled and oft un-analytical creatures, acting on emotions and ideas we don't really pause to understand.

But we are capable.

Back to you, my friend.

The territory of conversation you and I haven't covered stretches out before us, opening new vistas as far as the eye can see.

Like a butterfly, I chose to alight here today, in between the tasks that call me.

Thank you.

Nichole Nordeman – Hold On

When does a house become a home? The first shower? (Or the 30th?)

2011-12-13T08:06:00.005-05:00

As molding goes on, tiles get cemented to the floor, and the heat actually starts to work, the house is taking shape around us.

My bedroom ceiling is painted a bright Provencal blue. At night I lie in bed and stare out at the trees through the big glass doors, currently bare of curtains (details to come).

Sometimes it feels as if I am sleeping outside, the stars and moon illuminating the bed.

In a week or so, the spiral staircase will arrive, linking the downstairs to the upstairs.

Although pretty much every finishing in the house was purchased on sale or after a hard bargain, I have ended up spending the most money in the bathrooms -- and they look it. The pink-tiled shower, green onyx vanity and grey marble floor in the upstairs bathroom are lovely.

I can't wait to use the shower.

I am only now beginning to feel like this house is really going to become a home for us.

Even the two cats have reverted to their old ways -- meowing oddly in the night until we tell them to shut up, chasing each other around the house, sleeping at the foot of our beds. After months in the basement, our black and white male cat would like to sleep most of his day away on my lap.

But since I'm not about to turn into a crazy cat lady, I don't allow that.

It's just that our felines think I'm a crazy cat lady.

Among one of the really dumb questions in an online dating site I saw recently was: "would you date someone who owned a cat?" To which one smart guy responded: "WTF? Who "owns" a cat?"

Even as I write, my old friend Tad is here to paint the upstairs ceiling. Because the house is two stories high now in the loft area, it is the architectural element that ties the upstairs and downstairs together.

Oh, don't I sound hoity-toity. I'm not, you know. There is some risk involved here, both financial and emotional -- at least for me, with my conservative ways.

But I'm hoping that the gain will be more than the cost. And it's getting to the point where
I can imagine this being the case.

Particularly when I look at the trees, or the kid's rooms, the dining room, and imagining parties and intimate dinners, showers and glasses of wine on the deck.

Happy times. Maybe some sad times. And times to chase that elusive sense contentment.

Or maybe just to await it.

I think I can manage that!

Vienna, whipped cream (mit Schlagsahne) and "you"

2011-12-11T22:19:00.006-05:00

Vienna is a place whose charms have grown on me.

As a child traveling around Western Europe with her parents, it was, as I recall, the place we had spaghetti with sugar (can this be right?).

Growing up, the fabled Austrian city was the setting of the Trapp Family Singers escape from under the very eyes of the Nazis.

As a young adult, I loved the romantic aura of the city where Sigmund Freud met Sherlock Holmes in the "Seven-Percent-Solution."

But it wasn't until I saw the city as two young lovers roamed around it in "Before Sunrise" that its glories really came to life for me.

I loved the way that they talked...and talked...and talked some more, the cafe's and the churches and the bridges over the Danube a backdrop for their journey of self-discovery.

I don't usually think of the Austrians as a romantic race (ok, I'll give you Gustav Klimt), but that movie gave me a whole new view of the town.

So sometimes I wonder...with whom would I like to wander around Vienna -- if I can't get Ethan Hawke to take me?

With whom would I drink hot chocolate with whipped cream...or just skip the hot chocolate?

With whom would I abandon the superego, at least temporarily, and admit Freud was right about that naughty id?

I have a few ideas.

Linda Eder – Vienna - 2007 Remastered LP Version

To jump...or not.

2011-12-09T09:40:00.006-05:00

I used to avoid the idea of dating a never-married man -- if one would contact me, I'd nicely inform him that we suffered from a bad case of incompatible lifestyles.

It's one thing to be not-married at thirty.

It's quite another to have never jumped the broom at fifty.

But what "quite another' is it?

There could be all sorts of reasons why someone hasn't gotten married.

They fell in love a number of times, but never felt certain enough to dedicate themselves to one person.

They had responsibilities to parents or others that meant they didn't feel right about taking on a new partner.

They weren't mature enough at the time.

They were committed to a career, and are now waking up to the notion that life is short.

And let's face it -- not all of us should have gotten married. My ex and I have made lemonade out of lemons, but it hasn't always been simple, or easy.

If kids are the best product of a union that went south, was that union a good choice? That's one of those questions I can't answer. I would say yes, but I wouldn't say "yes" for you.

I respect men or women who know they can't handle a relationship, or know they need time to heal from a bad one, and stay out of one. Why inflict more pain?

To some mid-life women and men, the lack of a romantic relationship is a problem they must solve -- instead of a chance to get to know themselves better and figure out what went wrong.

So they run the risk of ending up, when the narcotic wears off, of ending up in a feedback loop of broken romances.

To others, like me, it's scarier to enter into another one, and possibly make mistakes that could also inflict distress on me and someone else.

I am less and less inclined to be defined by someone else's insecurities or traumas.

Overly cautious? Indeed. I run the risk of not experiencing love.

I'm not sure what that looks like as I move on. Does it mean a less committed, possibly more superficial relationship?

I don't know. For someone with a degree in deep, that's a scary prospect.

Darn, middle-age is tough. We trail our history and doubts and dreams with us, experienced as the most jaded rake, and naive as teenagers.

I can't speak for the married -- as I know from having been in one, marriage is also defined by the individuals in it.

But for me, I know that I'm trying to stay limber -- I don't have to be his "little woman" to be engaged by a man I respect.

Even when I hobble, I hobble with determination.

Hot bod, agile mind, kind heart: what's not to like?

2011-12-06T08:18:00.010-05:00

One thing - he is an expatriate from the North living in the land of the Tarheels -- and I am here.

Somehow he stumbled on to my profile. I don't know how. Because of my household responsibilities, I am rigid about not looking beyond a certain circumference.

He gave my dating c.v. the virtual dating good housekeeping seal of approval.

When I read his profile, a few things stood out. He's a darned good writer (like me, he's a "creative"). He's whimsical and doesn't mind going off on tangents. He's literate and smart.

And oh -- did I mention -- he is better looking than someone with those other natural gifts has any right to be.

I have a thing for tallish slender guys with glasses and laugh lines around their eyes. They make me a little crazy.

I decided to shoot him an email. Almost immediately, we were deep into (virtual) conversation about pretty much anything that comes to mind.

And we really haven't stopped.

Both of us lead very busy lives. He's got kids, a demanding professional world, and an active social calendar.

And if you are reading my blog regularly, you know about my world.

He likes to make me blush. I like to tease him back.

A few weeks ago, after asking me whether I wanted to receive it, he sent me a photo.

Let's say that it left a lot to the imagination. And neither of us are slackers in that regard (imagination-wise).

He looks amazing -- someone who works hard to keep his body in shape. Boy, does it show.

I didn't respond in kind. Like I really needed to say that?

Yet both of us are camera hogs, and there are probably pictures of us in some FBI file in D.C.

I just hope they have the flattering ones.

We both enjoy our conversations. It's darned tough to be witty online, particularly when you have a pro on either end of the dialogue.

But he makes me laugh. I seem to have the same effect on him.

I'm not his usual demographic, he told me. A bit younger, he tends to attract women like bees to flowers. Now and then we share stories.

We're both complicated people, with ghosts and shadows. We dance around those, but also acknowledge them.

And while sometimes we give in, we avoid, as he said to me yesterday, the predictable and degrading course this kind of friendship could take.

Honestly, I think we like each other too much to fall easily.

Will we ever meet? I don't know. We are far away from each other. He's seeking true love closer to home. Neither of us is wealthy enough to fund frequent flights.

As for me, I'm not sure what I'm seeking, but in that we may be more alike that I am willing to admit right now.

I'd like to meet up. I think about it -- as I said, both of us have a surfeit of imagination.

Right now, I'm willing to wait and see what happens.

And be thankful that I sent that email.

There's blood in Marian, Madame Librarian yet. And he sometimes gets it leaping.

I'm Elizabeth, and I'm an addict. You may be one, too.

2011-12-04T09:38:00.006-05:00

It was a bright, lovely fall day on Saturday -- but you probably noticed that.

The recipient of a few hours of leisure time while my son filmed himself re-enacting the battles of Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor, I went for a long walk around Springton Manor Farm.

Now owned by the county, the farm was once, so I've heard, owned by two single ladies who left its many acres of hills and streams to people like us to enjoy. I often wander down there, and while hiking around, say a brief prayer of thanks to those long-gone women for their generosity to me and the rest of the hoi polloi.

We're so fortunate to live where we do. If I'd been been less tense yesterday, I would have been more able to take in the pure gift of the water and the breeze and the light.

Instead, I was like one of the warriors in "Braveheart" or in the Civil War battle that my son was filming -- on guard, distracted, worried about a threat that I would not see coming, and searching for it anyway.

But there was no threat in that cloud-studded sky.

I am a stress addict.

Argue whether or not it's my fault -- coping with six months of medical crises, the challenges of parenting a daughter in full-scale adolescent rebellion and a clever mind she doesn't choose to use, living in a house where I have no authority, and the day to day problems of looking for work would be stressful for anyone.

And then there is the fact that when it comes to relationships, I am both overly cautious and perhaps not careful enough. Who knows? Why should I think myself exempt from the human condition? Everyone acts foolish now and again.

Sometimes two people do it together.

Meet Elizabeth, who let her heart rule her head and got hurt. Lesson learned.

The fact is, though, that life is improving. The house will be done within a month or so. The kid's dad is getting better (though he's also less willing to take on the parenting fray). Whether my daughter chooses to do her or work or not is up to her -- all I can control is my reaction. Growing into a young woman of striking loveliness, she has been given much raw material with which to sculpt a life.

Perhaps maturity will enable her to grasp the nettle with both hands.

And my son continues to be a source of almost unalloyed joy, not solely because he reminds me so often of the mother and great-grandmother I adored.

So why am I constantly on guard, increasingly plagued by the migraines that used to visit once a year?

Because, right now, that's what I know. Because where once I used to self-medicate with food, I find that doesn't satisfy me. Because I'm not much of a drinker. Because I never took up smoking.

Because I haven't had either the discipline, or the drive (until now) to be otherwise.

And because, probably, I was born wired. Anxiety is a family trait.

Recently, I've been reading Mary Karr's autobiographical "Lit." It's the story of her often tragic family life, and her struggle to medicate away the pain with booze and a crushing lack of esteem for herself and those around her.

Her recovery is based (as I read it), in part, on accepting that her mind, her questions, her snotty over-intellectual attitude get in the way of self-acceptance, of forgiveness, and of God-acceptance.

There's an urgency and discipline in the last part of the book the reverbrates in me, like the tinkling of a Buddhist prayer bell.

It is time.

Time to reach for health.

Time to embrace pleasure, whether I fall across it, or someone offers it. Unless, of course, they live in the South (smile).

Time to accept that right now, I am in this place -- and that it gives me a lot to work with.

Time to trust the good in myself -- and in others.

I don't know if any of what I have written finds an echo in your heart -- but if it does, carpe diem.

For now, as Jon Kabat-Zinn reminded me virtually this morning -- now is all the time we have been given to work with.

Make the most of each moment.

A Mormon primer

2011-12-03T07:32:00.002-05:00

As I started a series on the Mormon faith, I realized how little I knew (beyond the controversies) about day to day Mormon life.

One of the great things about being a writer is that you can pursue a topic -- and often get paid to go deeper.

Even if you avoid reading about your own denominational polity, it may be a good idea to bone up on Mormon faithlife. You never know when someone is going to ask. I think.

http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/543510_Column--A-look-at-the-fundamentals-of-LDS-church.html

Why (torrid) instant messaging makes me crazy

2011-11-30T21:23:00.011-05:00

O.K.

This isn't really about torrid instant messaging -- although we'll get there for a few lines near the end of this post.

My apologies to those who decided to read this just for the parenthesis.

I have a larger target: instant messaging in general.

Today I was rifling through a few dating profiles before I returned to my commentary on Mormons (a particularly dry one, I might add -- we get to the hot stuff in a few weeks).

A fellow pinged me -- he wanted to chat.

I didn't want to chat. But he had sent me a particularly nice email this week, and I felt bad about turning him down after I'd thanked him for the email.

So I signed in for twenty minutes or so of slow agony.

I'm a fast woman, quick with the puns and the questions and the sometimes stupid jokes.

He wasn't -- it took him about three minutes to respond to my comments.

Telling me that I was a procrastinator and a "kindred spirit" was the last straw.

Perhaps, I said. But I'm going back to work.

Bye.

By and large, I find instant messaging clunky, slow and difficult.

How many times have you wondered if the person on the other end was serious -- or had actually intended to be funny?

How many "grins" and "smiles" and 'lols" can you use in one chat?

What if you've really ticked someone off, and they are annoyed? Or what if you discover after you have apologized profusely that they weren't mad at all?

Because I'm incorrigibly curious, I find myself, at the end of a conversation, starved for information.

Were theytruly enjoying the chat? What else were they doing while chatting with me? Did they feel a need to return to work, but were too polite to tell me? Were they getting sleepy...very sleeeepy?

What weren't they saying? What would I have known if I'd seen them face to face?

Chill is easy to read in a virtual chat -- but warmth is harder to telegraph.

Generally, it helps to have a context. My friend Mollie and I can pretty much pick up where we left off, even if we left off a few weeks or a month before.

It also helps if the person on the other end is a good writer. Boy, does it help.

Sometimes it's even intuitive.

If you know someone, even if you haven't talked for quite a while, nature can take over. A rhythm come back with astonishing ease. There is some knowledge that transcends even the clumsy oafs on either side of their computers.

Banter is possible online. But you have to be really good at it to get your point across or you are trying so hard you can practically see the smoke and mirrors.

And if someone doesn't want to move from online talk to the cell phone or landline, it is possible that they aren't serious about wanting to get to know you better.

In which case, perhaps you shouldn't be, either.

Now, as to those torrid chats. You realize, of course, that you have to adjust your definition of torrid to accommodate someone more familiar with Victorian poetry than modern sexual mores.

Think reticent fourth-grader.

Once you have done that, I can proudly say that I've had a few with someone clever, and very audacious. Happy am I that no one was here to see my slightly maidenly blushes.

In addition, in my past, I have exchanged some emails that came close to messaging, so fast did they fly across our lines.

But all they did, in the end, was to intensify the thirst I felt to look into someone's eyes, hear his voice, have him wrap his arms around me.

It was like eating a Hershey's bar when you crave Belgian chocolate.

I am not a big fan of messaging, as perhaps you have discerned.

That doesn't mean I'll stop using it.

But it does mean that I'll continue to be careful about how, and when...and, of course, where I use it.

I wouldn't want my kids to see me blush -- or fall asleep at the monitor.

Too smart for her own good seeks good and smart

2011-11-29T08:07:00.009-05:00

Some of my would-be suitors are nuts. Some are, let us say, salacious. Some, I fear, must be smoking something a little "tropic,"-- like the guy from New England who thought it would be great to meet up for a series of romantic "rendezvous."

The New England coast in wintertime? My dear, you have got to be kidding.

Last night I got an email from a man who wanted to meet me that was actually painful to read.

Here it is: "You are way smarter than I am, & you will likely think that I have trouble verbalizing my thoughts (because I do). I enjoyed reading your profile which clearly displays your gift of writing, and what you are seeking in a man. I do posses some of the qualities which you describe, but not most. I thought I'd take a chance and write to you in the hopes that you occasionally like to dumb it down a bit. If you review my profile and find even one thing which could possibly put us on a level playing field, I'd be happy to hear back from you."

I felt so bad for this guy -- and I felt a little bad for myself. Again and again (perhaps three times a week) I hear from men who aren't as vulnerable, nor as touching, nor as, frankly, poignantly realistic as the man who emailed me. Before I try to find words to gently say "no thanks" I shake my head and ask myself -- what was going through theirs?

Before I hear from a stream of folks criticizing my elitist attitude, let me be clear that not having a degree isn't a sign of lack of intelligence. Having a child with ADD, and knowing painfully the awful cost of going on for a degree, I'm very aware that lots of people don't go on to college for a multitude of reasons.

So it's not (although sometimes it is) about the degree. It's really about using your head and heart to investigate the world around you.

As I try to recalibrate my life with a full plate (renovated house, renovated educational credentials, full-scale search for paying writing work, teen children), I am realizing that, generally speaking, I need to be with someone who shares some of my intellectual interests.

And it's not even that I am that intelligent. In a lot of ways, I am merely ornamental, or even a bit hazardous.

I recall Al Gore (who, of course, had motive to be mean) saying that George Bush (43) was one of the most "incurious" men he'd ever met. I want a "curious" one (and I don't mean just an eccentric man).

Men oftentimes seem a lot less fussy about what's upstairs. People get into relationships, generally speaking, for a multitude of reasons.

Truth be told, I've run into lots of bright guys online who use their generous helping of grey matter for questionable purposes. I scare myself sometimes with the notion that perhaps I'm going to morph into someone who has walled off their feelings, too.

But I am too far gone down the intellectual trail I've been on to spend my Saturdays riding Harleys without a helmet and attending yard sales.

If I'm going to get into trouble without a helmet, at least I'll do it with a craft beer in one hand, and some decadent poetry in the other.

Feet firmly on the ground, that is. Because, for sure, the rest of me is not.

Affection and heartache, one year on

2011-11-26T15:56:00.011-05:00

Once there was a middle-aged woman who saw herself as the soul of commonsense and moderation. She guarded her feelings as though they were precious jewels.

To indulge in drama, in the ups and downs of male-female relationships and to fail (for that was how she saw it) could have an impact on her relationship with her children -- and they came first.

She saw enough of that silliness around her -- men and women coming and going as children got attached and then abandoned.

With a bit of pride, she thought "I will not be that kind of parent." And it wasn't as if on her infrequent dates (she was very finicky) a man had swept her off her feet with his charm.

She was to find out that, at least in her case, that wasn't the way it worked.

He had recently suffered a significant break-up (details blurred for the sake of privacy). His dating profile was posted, he freely admitted, to salve some wounded pride. What did she have to lose by meeting him?

Simply a dinner out with a new potential friend.

When they met, for a casual dinner in a local Thai restaurant the week after Thanksgiving, he gave the impression of being stunned. Tears in his eyes, those of a person who has suffered a great grief, belied his words about moving on.

While they had a shared passion for the written word, they worked in completely different fields. An avowed atheist, he had little time for organized religion, seeing it as the root of many social evils. When she confessed that not only was she religious, but an ordained minister as well as a journalist, she waited for the conversation to skid to an abrupt halt, and was surprised when it did not.

She liked his humility. His tears touched her. She enjoyed his intellect. It became clear that his children adored him, always a gold standard for her.

But that's where it stopped that night.

He wanted to see her again -- just as friends, they agreed. Again, and again, as the months went by, she teasingly assured him that she didn't think he was ready to date.

The veteran of many, many more relationships than she, he was of another mind.

The conversations on the phone grew longer, going well into the evening. Emails would fly back and forth, their frequency increasing day by day.

She had the sense, in those early days, that he sometimes turned to women for guidance with his romantic life -- women who would blithely interpret other women for him, telling him where to file them. That wasn't her m.o.

The very things that divided them became chances for discussion, for new understanding and laughter. They seemed to be larger, more tolerant, more grown-up when they shared their differences with each other.

They seemed to turn each other, sometimes, into better people.

She challenged him. He came back at her without rancor.

They didn't always speak the same language, but they taught each other new words.

She didn't notice when she started to have more than sisterly feelings for him. Because, if she hadn't, why did they have to have the obligatory sex conversation (s)? If she was just a friend, why did she keep an ear attuned for the women he was dating, and how seriously he took them?

She didn't care became...she could wait. Wait for him to deal with the devastation of the relationship gone so terribly wrong, with the wounds to his confidence and his faith in women. She was good at waiting. It's not as though she needed to study for the role.

A few kisses, some movies, nights out -- a growing affection in the midst of the tempest that was his life (thank you, Prospero).

On a sunny, warm spring day, light flooding the windows of her daughter's bedroom, she stared out the window as he said that he'd like to start spending more time with her, to find out if there was a possibility of creating more than a friendship. O.K., she said. I'm scared, she added. I don't know anything about romantic relationships.

There is more, but it was between them.

And then, swiftly, the landscape changed again. Woe betide those who underestimate the lure of the raven, his Bellatrix Lestrange, Mr. Rochester's "sweet demon. "

She wanted back into his life.

One evening of escape together, playing at being a couple at a charity benefit, the night flowing by without effort, making it seem easy.

One night.

The would-be daters agreed that it would be best if they had no contact (for the sake of privacy, I will not go into the details, for this is my version, not his) while he figured out what to do about the other woman. She had a prior claim.

But it was in that month apart that things changed definitively. In so many ways. Watching him writ large, she walked the hills of her town alone and cried, day after day, the pounds slipping off her bones like unwanted weight on her spirit.

As it turns out, his lover was just toying with him. Perhaps she couldn't stand the idea that someone else found him desirable.

No matter. When their inevitable (as it turns out) breakup came, he was also a different man.

It took his friend a while to figure that out.

One evening they spoke on the phone, the hours sliding by with their old ease. She seemed to feel, he chided her, as if they could pick right up where they left off. He needed freedom. He needed to date other women. He needed to figure out who he was in the wake of the breakup of his prior very long-term relationship.

She agreed. Based on what she'd observed while he was under the spell of the blackbird, she also wasn't sure what to think, she told him. They would work it out, he said.

A week and a half later, it all fell apart. She didn't have everything he wanted, he said.

She didn't become aware until later, when she saw an anniversary date on Facebook, that he had already begun to date the woman with whom he is now planning a life.

Our friend, who had little acquaintance with magic, wondered how else to understand this ease, banter, insight, and lack of defensiveness.

Now she doesn't trust herself to know real tenderness from the chimerical kind.

She doesn't know anymore what constitutes a healthy relationship.

She still believes it's about change and growth and passion.

What that looks like for her, she's not sure. At least for now, she is attempting to define it differently. She, too, is changed.

She is pretty sure of one thing, however.

He won't remember that they met a year ago.

Driving down a crowded road towards the local mall the day before Thanksgiving, streets clogged with holiday shoppers, tears spring to her eyes, and a sob escapes her lips. What an interesting reversal - she's in tears and he's madly in love.

And she doesn't even know why she weeps.

After all, she's moved on, too.

Bad timing, with her daughter in the car, her daughter who sees so much and understands so little about adult love and friendship. "What's going on, Mom?" she asks.

Quickly she spins an amusing, distracting story, hoping that the child will forget the sad and recall the bizarre.

A year, and so much has happened. Maybe, in time, she will see the time they spent together as a gift. She wants to be there so badly -- not to wait.

But she can't speed up her steps anymore. So here's to anniversaries. Even when they don't exist.

A "woman for others" tries to find herself

2011-11-24T22:08:00.005-05:00

Last night I told a perfectly decent potential date that if I said I was available, I'd be doing him a disservice.

He lives an hour from me, you see. He wasn't put off by that comment. So I wrote him back and put it in black and white on the screen. I'm free Friday and Saturday, I told him (I didn't mention that right now, due to my ex's weakness following his treatment, I'm not sure I could promise him that).

I haven't heard from him again.

I don't go to conferences. I don't belong to the RNA, where I'd see colleagues. When I go somewhere, it's normally because one of my children has to be there.

This past four months or so, I haven't even seen my friends.

It's time to grow up, I think.

I'm not sure that my monastic life is entirely a product of all of the outside strain this past six months, though that hasn't made it simpler.

With my ex being sick, it's been the perfect excuse to hide out, turning down the invitations I get because the kids need me.

And, I confess, I'm afraid. What if something happens when I'm in another city at a meeting? What if something happens to a child and I'm on a date in another town, the woman who never abandons her kids?

What if I turn into someone incredibly self-centered?

I torment myself with the "what-ifs, " building a cage around me that is both tight -- and feels safe.

But life is too short to sit at home and wait for outside circumstances to change.

There are moments when not to change is to paddle backwards.

I think I may be at one of those points.

To trust that I can move outside the campfire is not solely to trust my own abilities -- but to trust those of my children, and my ex-husband.

In family, in work, and in matters of the heart, there are times to be bold and determined.

I'm looking for my life as a writer, as a colleague, as a friend, and as a lover -- I know it's here, somewhere. I may not be totally free, but I am freer than perhaps, most days, I dare to wonder.

A threesome before coffee?

2011-11-22T11:55:00.005-05:00

Sitting in front of my computer screen, I'm in the kitchen of my house.

Envision the scene -- it's early. Well, before nine o'clock, anyway. This girl hasn't even had her first cup of coffee.

Make that tea.

There's all kinds of banging and talking going on throughout the house as the contractor and his associates put down hardwood floors upstairs.

O.k., so don't try to envision the scene. Just trust me that it's chaos -- and I'm not a morning person.

It's certainly too early to get into another conversation about threesomes.

But I do -- because the fellow is a friend, and because I'm fascinated ( I'm a journalist, remember?) that so many men in the online dating biz are focused on them.

As I've said here before, I have led a very chaste life.

Don't judge, alright (sticks out her tongue). I don't really get the full dimensions of the current sexual/romantic/dating landscape out there.

But I can't tell you how many guys have raised this issue with me - often as an opening gambit.

R U Kidding?

I'm forced to confront a few possibilities.

Men my age (give or take a decade) had such boring sex lives while married that they want to spice them up.

Men my age routinely have sex with more than one person (not very likely).

Men my age want to do the menage thing so they can talk to other geezers about it in thirty years or so in the retirement community.

Men my age think I'm a likely candidate for a threesome.

The last idea is jaw-dropping to me.

Read my profile, I tell them, just like I do the guys who ride Harleys. Read my profile -- don't just look at the pictures.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry. With some guys when we get part the initial exam, we can go on to the syllabus.

I have to say, though, that it makes me wonder what my friend's husbands are asking them at home.

Trust me...I'm not about to ask you.

The allure of a middle-aged woman

2011-11-20T22:45:00.004-05:00

"Who are we? Talented younger man seeks daring, confident older woman.. for electrifying,non-traditional, lasting relationship as dear friends, confidants and lovers. I am seeking a strong older woman who has the confidence and desire to meet a good and decent younger man. I find a woman who has that certain mature and "knowing" look far more appealing. You have lived enough of your life to know what you want, and you are not afraid to go after it. You desire a man who can satisfy you on all levels, emotionally, spiritually and physically. You have an inner beauty that exudes to the outer being. You are sensual and sexy, and you know that "sexy" has more to do with the mind than with the body. You know you deserve the best that life has to offer. You have a youthful outlook, a thirst for adventure. You know you can keep my attention and interest.”

I wasn't daring enough to write the guy who viewed my dating profile.

No matter.

This weekend, the universe seems to be conspiring to tell me that to some younger guys, femmes d'un certain age are hot, hot, hot.

I needed to hear this. I still have moments of heart-ache, though I've gotten some good medicine for the hurt (from a master doctor).

I'm not talkin' cradle-robbing.

There seems to be an approximately fifteen year window here.

But given the emails I've been getting this weekend, I'm finding out that some guys like the idea of dating an older woman. Or at least they see the woman, not solely the age.

I'd already learned that (and very nice it was, thank you). This was just corroborative

evidence.

Do they tend to think that all of our experience has made us better in bed? I haven't heard a hint of that in the men who contacted me this weekend.

But if I had to guess, some of these gentleman feel that one of the most seductive organs a woman can bring into a relationship is her mind.

Curiosity? Check. Mental agility? Yes. A bit of a wild child streak? Got it.

And I have to admit that having my mind taken as seriously, more seriously than my chronological age feels really good.

Because let's face it. After the age of roughly 35, men or women who want to date younger are going to have to sacrifice something.

It could be maturity. Or physical attractiveness (although that can be in the eye of the beholder). Or intelligence.

I'm just blown away that a guy finds my curious mind as desirable as my body. Or let me phrase it another way: that he finds my empathy and wide-ranging, all things considered intellect an advantage. That's a new one.

Empathy, which comes from experience, usually is paired with intelligence. In fact, it's pretty hard to have true empathy without some understanding of the larger human condition. That comes with age – and it comes with emotional maturity.

As we approach and pass the milestones of middle-age, some of us seem to want to jump into a box, and pull the edges around our heads -- becoming more and more of who we were.

We recapitulate. Or perhaps we capitulate. It feels safer.

Not me.

I'm attracted to men and women (as friends) who want to push the boundaries -- for us, there is no box (at least right now --- of course, we most of us end up in one).

I won’t stop trying to look and act the best that I can be. I like to look as good as I can without going all crazy with needles and stuff.

I'm a constant learner. And I try to keep a mind open to new ideas and experiences.

I suspect that means a lot to an adventurous man.

Some of them find that exciting.

"I think you are AMAZING" wrote a fan today.

I'm not all that.

But I am intrigued by the idea of exploring the many facets of a relationship.

Perhaps the men who contacted me over the past few weeks believe, with me, that a dangerous mind shouldn't go to waste.

I don't intend to let it.

A free woman in Paris

2011-11-18T08:20:00.004-05:00

This morning I heard from a journalist friend who lives across the Atlantic ocean. He's really a smart guy.

But he's not just intelligent as in thoughtful and well-versed in a lot of fascinating topics.

A while back my friend married a Frenchwoman he met while serving in a foreign news bureau. Now he and she live in Paris with their family.

I have a cousin who used to live in Paris. And I still imagine it (having not seen it for decades) as one of the most romantic cities in the world.

A city in which one can tumble out of bed (of course, one does not sleep alone in Paris) and walk down the street to sit as a sidewalk cafe for breakfast at noon.

A city in which one can walk for miles along the Seine and catch glimpses of the Paris of 400 years ago.

A city in which a debate about poetry can be taken as seriously, if not more so, than one about politics.

One in which people care about style, but aren't obvious about it.

I want to be in Paris. I can't get there right now.

Yet the city of La Belle Epoque, of croissants and Proust and stolen kisses waits on the horizon, tantalizing and gorgeous.

I trust that Paris will be there when I can.

Wanna come?

Polyamory: a (serious) reconsideration

2011-11-17T09:06:00.006-05:00

I'm aware of the religious, ethical and practical arguments against polyamory.

I got it.

So if you are going to be shocked by what I am about to say, I advise you simply not to read this post.

Of course, that pretty much guarantees that you WILL read it.

A few years ago, a friend told me about polyamory, those who have multiple relationships or many loves.

Actually, it could just be one other love, or one other lover.

Polys are clear that it's very different from swinging, where men and women engage in sex without emotional attachment.

Jealousy is the obvious problem with that choice. I'm not sure how they manage it.

There are so many obvious reasons why this is an unsuitable lifestyle for me -- the problem is that they are mostly in my head.

My heart says something else. I'm not entirely sure what it's telling me, and I'm trying to sort it out.

There are so many things, in the romance arena, that I'm trying to sort out.

And there are so many things I know.

I'm tired, and I'm losing patience.

Patience with guys my age or older who need to date younger women to validate their masculinity.

Patience with guys who haven't dealt with their issues and riff on the same theme with a few variations.

Patience with men who won't 'fess up to having baggage.

Also, as much as I respect them, engineers and I don't share much of a common tongue.

I thought that I had endless stores of empathy - but it may be a good thing that I have a limit.

I hope this is, metaphorically speaking, a fertile period.

I know that something in me is changing.

Perhaps it's time to take some risks.

I don't know if they look like polyamory. Given my cautious personality and beliefs, I tend to doubt it.

I don't know whose face he wears....and if I did know, I wouldn't say right now.

But there's a lot about which I'm not as sure as I once was.

And guess what? That can be fun.

I'm not going to turn into a spinster....a confirmed bachelor, and likely to remain so (pace Henry Higgins).

There ARE mouths to be kissed after mouths to be fed (forgive me, Stephen Sondheim).

And I'm goin' looking for him.

Let's see if I'm girl enough for one guy. I think I have potential.

PDA among "friends": How much do you expose?

2011-11-16T08:35:00.005-05:00

There are all kinds of reasons I've been thinking about this question recently.

And again, some of them will remain nameless.

But I am being reinforced in my prejudice that what you say, or don't say online, says something about who you are. I find this fascinating -- and a bit dispiriting.

For sure, there have been times when I've made an ass of myself.

A lot of my friends online choose to say nothing. They prefer, apparently, to conduct most of their lives offline.

Some of my other friends have alternative personas. That's really intriguing.

I sometimes wonder what the heck they think when I post a blog update, or some rant from one of the media outlets that gives me the privilege of ranting (and even getting paid for it!).

And then there are folks who sometimes let it all hang out sometimes. I don't know too many of them.

And I may not even know them well.

But I do wonder: what were they thinking when they posted a status update or wrote on a blog?

Did they realize that what they wrote might say more about them then perhaps they would want others to know?

Or do they take the risk, and jump, with forethought and bravery?

Do they gamble that readers and "friends" will be kind?

Because I take on a public persona now and then, I have gotten all kinds of comments. I am well aware of the risks of exposing myself.

But I also know it's what people aren't saying to you that may matter more.

And I wonder what I have opened to public view without even knowing it.

In the meantime, I'm in the hunt for dignity. While it seems like an old-fashioned virtue, it might be one we should bring back.

I'll let you know if I find it -- offline. Because if it's found online, the person behind it ain't saying anything.

If I was with you

2011-11-14T23:36:00.006-05:00

If I was with you...

I'd race up the hill, throw myself on the ground, and roll with abandon to the bottom, grass in my hair, the cool day staining my cheeks red.

Smiling crookedly up at you, I'd pull you down beside me, both of us laughing and amazed that such childlike play came naturally.

If I was with you, I'd let you pay me the most brazen compliments, half-skeptical and half-charmed, both of us knowing that it was a delightful game.

We both know how to play at serious.

If we were together, I'd kiss you with a passion that would burn all of my years of self-denial and care and prudence to smoldering ash.

If we were in the same place, be it mountaintop trail with the fragrant pines overhead, or running along the sea, where the sand hills rise and fall in the late fall breeze, I'd slam the door on tomorrow.

We both know that tomorrow arrives whether we want it to or not.

If we were to meet in that place where dreams and hopes collide, I would open myself to you and the moment, listening to the part of my spirit that has been so frequently subdued and ignored.

I would be the woman you see in me.

You would be freed from the invisible burdens you carry.

But it is only sometimes that I allow myself to dream -- and wonder how to channel that passion in the here and now, the flame that burns so far away, the dream that lies out of reach of my open hands.

To push the door ajar, even for those moments, is an act of determination I have not allowed myself until now...the luxury of imagination that defies rational thought -- and soars and cavorts and rises, illumined for a moment, against a night sky.

Holy Ghost Girl

2011-11-13T14:59:00.005-05:00

Why is it good to wonder?

Because if you don't, whether you be atheist or believer, whether the topic is stars or sand, you become smug in your certainty.

Because if you don't, you miss the mysteries that lie around each bend.

Because if you don't, you never live the questions.

And if you do, oh, if you do... those of you who wonder, know what you don't know already.

It is not a bad place to be, the land of wonder.

http://www.philly.com/philly/entertainment/literature/133684203.html

A post I hoped I'd never have to write

2011-11-09T14:15:00.005-05:00

More than ten years of parent-teacher conferences.

Application after application for special services.

School after school...pursued with the evanescent hope that somewhere, somehow, she would learn to care about scholarly achievement.

Yesterday something in me died. I had reached the end of what I can accomplish, at least for the present.

Tuesday was the day that I gave up hope of making a constructive contribution to my daughter's education.

My ex and I went to a meeting yesterday with her IEP team. With her ADD diagnosis, such meetings happen often. This one was to plan goals for the next year.

Our daughter straight up refused to attend the meeting. She seems to look at most of the counselors and learning support team as adversaries.

In recent years, that has come to include me.

The women gathered at the table, with one exception, recommended that given our daughter's resentment, we back off.

Because she's so bright, she does well on tests. But she has an awful record of handing in homework. So the school will be satisfied with "C" grades.

I don't fault the counselors. The school has done all they can.

It's a stunning indictment, instead, of us as parents.

We could never agree on boundaries, or standards, or discipline.

I was always pushing for order, for consistency, for consequences.

Again and again, I found myself pitted against both my daughter and her dad -- I became the enemy. I had so little space to be a mother.

Yesterday I surrendered.

No more monitoring. No more calls to teachers. No more taking the lead. No more trying to keep it all together as it fell apart again and again.

She and her dad are in charge.

I have done nothing to help my daughter become a productive citizen. And I failed at the one of the most basic tasks of parenting - helping to raise a disciplined and hopeful child.

Yesterday was a grim one, indeed. And the reverberations have only just begun.

I'm not the woman you dream about

2011-11-08T06:52:00.004-05:00

I'm not that woman.

I'm not the one who has made her life's work loving you, who would wrap you in the silken cocoon of a life with you as a center, and everything else as accessories.

You see me in the parking lot having a heated, quiet debate with my daughter, followed by a reluctant grin.

Or walking through the countryside with my son, pondering the grimy world of politics or the battles of the Civil War.

You and I pass each other on the running trail, sweaty and flushed, wrapped in our own mysteries.

I respect mysteries.

Distance is sometimes a friend.

With the man of my dreams, I could bring home experiences and conversations, like tapestries to be unraveled and viewed at our leisure.

The woman who visits your dreams wraps you in her fierce embrace. Every day she would remind you in ways overt and half-heard of how much you mean to her, and how devastated she would be were you to ever leave.

There you could never question. In her arms you could brook no doubt.

It is where you want to be, dreaming -- most of the time.

In my face you would see friendly skepticism pass like clouds over the green earth, even as I signal affection that sometimes does not dare to speak its name.

I am a fan of questions.

You long for certainty -- and you wonder, with the taste of poppy in your mouth, if you will find it with the woman who haunts your dreams.

I prefer to be awake, as fully as possible -- and to catch the eye of one who looks back at me, surprised, and pleased.

If we both trip on the sidewalk, it will be because we have truly seen one another -- and want to keep on seeing.

You pass me on the trail, feet thudding against the gravel --and, for a moment, you open your eyes.

Strike up the band!

2011-11-07T08:22:00.007-05:00

Friday night, when y'all were out on hot dates or snuggling with your honey (or that's my fantasy), I was driving the kids to evening activities.

Remember Friday? It was a cool evening, with the moon rising in a clear November sky.

The DQ was part of the stage management team for a Stage West production. Mr. C and his pals in the band were going to hang with the big boys and girls on the field at the West football team.

No surprise that I was going to the play.

Football is Greek to me ( except when the Giants are playing and reprise the winter of '08). And as the sun went down it was getting cold, shadows lengthening against the back of the middle school.

Dinner? Not enough time.

The book that has to be read by Wednesday? Why are there deadlines?

Instead I walked over the fields to the track that the middle school and high school teams share. Except for a woman bundled up against the cold, and a hardy middle-aged guy running in shorts, it was empty.

As I walked over, I began to hear the sound of instruments near the high school.

The wind section, chasing a harmony in the twilight. The drums, beginning a persistent growling thump.

The music of the night.

White pants and blue jackets with crossed stripes. Cockaded hats whose feathers moved in the breeze. Cheerleaders already waving their flags and throwing their batons on the field as the stands began to fill.

Remove the mid-Soviet era style buildings and this could have been anytown, anywhere in America, seventy-five years ago.

What can I say? It was a lovely moment of uninvited nostalgia and patriotism -- the best kind.

After pacing the track for a while, lost in thought, I saw the band on the move. Hoping to catch a glimpse of my eighth-grade lad, I chased them down the road that leads to the rear of the stadium, where they were to play.

Using my cellphone, I snapped a few photos for posterity -- and came up with this blurred muddle.

Of course it was impossible to capture the mood, the music, the moment.

I shouldn't have tried -- the fact that it happened at all was a minor miracle, one I'll treasure for a long time.

A woman who needs kissing

2011-11-04T07:55:00.004-04:00

"You need a lot of kissing."

That's what you said to me. And other things that will remain between us.

Boy, are you right.

Just in case you are wondering, I don't kiss and tell. Even if we could right now, I wouldn't. Odd as it may seem, given what I do disclose, I'm careful to protect the identities and hopefully the self-esteem of friends and family.

But I just wanted you to know how much it meant to me that you recognized that.

Because my first responsibility is to my family, and my children as they grow, I can't afford to be impulsive. My close relationship with my kids has a natural cost -- a lack of time for adult companionship.

Perhaps I've been too wary -- although, sadly, I look around and have little reason to question my choices.

As the parent of kids from a split family, I want them, paradoxically, to believe in love that lasts.

Even if mine didn't -- or if it morphed into something closer to friendship and respect.

The past few months, in spite of a fair amount of male attention (which can so easily disappear) I've felt as though I didn't have time to be feminine. Loss can do that, too -- cause women to feel as though they can no longer evoke desire. Sometimes it's hard to find the truth amidst the remorse.

And so it's liberating, in a way, to admit, as I did yesterday, that yes, I do need lots of kissing, holding, and (private) sweet talk.

As perhaps we all do, if we are willing to admit it.

It's wonderful to be seen, and appreciated. Really seen.

I hope that someone does that for you too, readers.

Now where the heck is my mascara?

Kindness: could it really be attractive?

2011-11-03T08:15:00.006-04:00

Worn out with care-giving -- between my ex-husband and my children, and concerns over animals essential abandoned during the last month, the dilemmas never seem to end.

Night after night I tumble into bed, some problem stewing in my brain.

And a few things came together this week, and not in a good way, to raise some big questions in my mind.

Does it pay to be patient, and caring and a good listener? Sometimes it seems as if the people who find material and even "spiritual" happiness in love and in work are those who focus on the path before them, and not the needs around them.

Maybe blinders, or rose-colored glasses, aren't such a bad thing to own.

Sometimes "good" seems wimpy, inept, and weak.

Good, as my son might say, is for losers.

Recently, however, someone (you know who you are) planted a notion in my head.

Could kindness actually make you more attractive to someone?

Could a mature attitude towards love and relationships make you more appealing?

Could it actually be sexy?

Honestly, I usually think of my character traits (and trust me, there are many arenas in which I'm not mature) as a defect.

It hasn't helped me "win" at love so far. I'm not clever enough -- or possibly I'm far too analytical to plunge forward on the strength of overwhelming emotion.

Those who say that virtue is its own reward, I often think, must have been smoking something.

But for what is perhaps the first time, I'm wondering if perhaps some guy will come into my life and appreciate my stability -- may even, after much heartbreak, find it intoxicating.

Maybe I'm the one who is smoking something. But what's the alternative? Not like I can dig the miniskirts and weed out of the closet.

If nothing else, my friend this week helped me see something I think of as a deficit as a potential plus.

And for that, I thank him.

Meow! Hiss! Why catty is so high school

2011-11-01T22:28:00.015-04:00

If he ever heard me say something mean, a friend once said, he'd fall over.

Maybe he's toppling right now -- but possibly for entirely the wrong reason.

Generally, I try to avoid snarkiness - except about politicians.

Members of Congress.

Doctrinaire conservatives -- actually, I'm really not nuts about doctrinaire anything, except maybe within the pages of a theology text.

I can get downright cutting when it comes to people like Jon Corzine. Whaling away at liberal hypocrisy is also a sport.

Hmmm....am I turning into Oscar?

Jon Corzine...what's he doing in post about women and cattiness?

Back to your cage.

For the past few days, I've been pondering the whole subject of female jealousy.

Fear and hurt can evoke female insecurity -- and thus, cutting comments about other women.

I don't think it's healthy.

But does it flatter a guy who is its supposed object -- or subject?

On this subject, my daughter is probably my most reliable source of observation. And from what little I can figure, possessiveness and cutting down other women doesn't seem to make boys, or guys, feel particularly valued, or special.

Or perhaps the drive for security, or to take down others to make yourself feel better may begin that way, and then start to get, well, messy.

Honestly, I don't know. All I can see is that it amps up the drama factor.

I'm capable of it -- but I can't recall having been in too many situations where I felt tempted. Oh yes, I've blurted out secrets (thankfully,these times are rare). And I've been critical, straight up directly critical, when I've felt someone is a DSM diagnosis waiting to wreak havoc.

But generally, I'll go out of my way to avoid saying nasty things about people who may matter to those who matter to me.

I believe that in some way mean actions, and words, come back to hurt you. They pop up in your path, and memory, when you least expect to see them, and cause more destruction.

Having thought about it over the past few days, I'm coming to the conclusion that it's all about the company you keep.

Compassionate, responsible, mature people with high standards for personal interactions challenge me to be my best self -- and to want to bring out the best in others.

Let's leave it at that.

Because, yanno, as much as I'd like the skin sans laugh lines and hair without a trace of grey, I don't want to play those teenage games. I'm not good at them -- and I never want to get an "A" in meow.

Trust: if you don't have it, can you ever get it?

2011-11-01T09:08:00.005-04:00

Or can you get it back?

I've been thinking about this issue on and off.

It isn't a constant preoccupation - more like the finger you broke playing volleyball in college that nags at you when the weather is cold and damp.

Just like it's been the past few days.

I am not a person who trusts easily -- it takes a while for me to share my secrets with others, let down my guard, admit others to the nightmares and dreams that are in the background.

I''ll share a lot with you upfront -- but it's what I'm holding back that is perhaps more precious.

On the other hand, I am going to trust you -- to the extent that I believe you are genuine, sincere, well-meaning.

I'm not a jealous person -- living in dread has got to be such a drag. As many times as I've been burned, there are so many other times when my confidence in friends and family has been rewarded.

I try stay open -- feeling that the more confidence you have in someone (someone sane and healthy), the more she or he will live up to your expectations.

Perhaps it's my philosophy of life.

I see us, so often, as driven by interior forces we don't understand, the demons and angels of our nature.

Sometimes what seems to be an opposite reaction will, in fact, be the same old same old pattern of relationship.

It's easier, much easier to forgive the clueless than the malevolent.

But that doesn't mean that it's easier to trust them once that trust has been violated.

One can like someone, wish them well, even be their friend, without trusting them completely. I suppose that there are degrees of candor and of vulnerability.

I look around me, when I have leisure to contemplate, and ponder what will happen to friends and family in relationships where there has been a rift.

Can it be mended?

And what about in my life?

I don't know. But I remain, behind the wide gaze and the warm spirit, in general, exceedingly cautious.

Saturday's Phoenixville Phrolic

2011-10-31T09:23:00.011-04:00

eFor most of us who were looking forward to a lovely fall weekend and got more than six inches of snow instead, Saturday's weather was a big hassle.

More than a hassle. The weight of the snow brought down not only power lines but branches of beautiful old trees, and some more recently planted, that were not able to withstand the wet flurries.

I feel for all who had to deal with power outages and the loss of their lovely old trees. And then there was a fire in Phoenixville on Sunday -- frightening for neighbors who live near that area.

So it wasn't a great weekend for a lot of us.

But for me, Saturday was the first chance I'd had in more than a month to carve out a day uniquely for myself.

Mr. C was in Harrisburg with a teacher at an anti-torture conference (they came back by bus when the trains were canceled in the late afternoon). At the last minute, the DQ got asked to attend a retreat up north.

Their dad had a lovely visit with his daughter.

And moi?

I began with a massage -- I'm trying to be more intentional about shedding stress.

Then it was off to Phoenixville and a meet-up with a friend at Steel City Coffeehouse.

I'd never been to the coffeehouse before -- I loved the slightly industrial, slightly dark, hipster vibe.

After chatting for an hour or so, we wandered the streets in slush up to our ankles. A stop at Bridge Street Chocolates and a nice chat with the owner kept us warm enough to contemplate a brisk walk through the backstreets of the town.

On our way back to Bridge Street, we stopped at the Black Walnut Winery store -- where the self-described "grouch" manager told us about the live music and BYOF dinners they have on Saturday nights.

As I said to my pal, I don't get to do things like that very often. And I'm really ready to nail some adult time.

After we parted, I stopped at the Stove Shop and talked pellet stoves with a true believer who sold me on getting one once the house is ready for it.

Then it was down to Wegmans -- and back to the kid's dad's house to drop off groceries and talk to my step-daughter..

There is more, gentle reader, but no need to share it.

Sometimes life surprises you. Lack of control isn't always a bad thing.

Perhaps that's a lesson I need to keep on learning. At any rate, I don't seem to have a choice.

"Simple Love" like yours?

2011-10-26T22:09:00.008-04:00

This afternoon, as I was going out the door to exercise, the genome at Pandora sent the Alison Krauss song "Simple Love" via the cloud to my HTC -- and I took off like a bat out of hell.

Oh no, I thought. Not what I need to hear.

Two children born A beautiful wife Four walls and livin's all he needed in life Always giving, never asking back I wish I had a simple love like that I want a simple love like that Always giving, never askin' back For when I'm in my final hour lookin' back I hope I had a simple love like that

It's a lovely song, for sure. And if I don't think about whether it makes any sense, it's cool.

It hangs around my head.

But then I start to wonder. Who do you know who is "always giving, never askin' back"?

And you religious types aren't allowed to answer "Him."

I guess it's the concept of "simple love" that gets under my skin.

Love is complex -- even the love of a parent for a child.

Layers of history, of closeness, of distance, forgiveness, awe...love is an unsearchable mystery, a dark star which also glows bright as a campfire on a chilled night in wintertime.

Love can embrace ambivalence, coldness, even times of anger and perhaps jealousy (although I tend to think of jealousy as a sign of co-dependency).

Why then do we try to boil it down to -- well, simplicities?

And sentimental simplicities at that.

Over and over again, I see online profiles (and have met offline guys) who seem to want to recreate themselves in new relationships. I don't know this for sure, but I'd guess that the new ones look, in many ways, remarkably like the old ones.

But we bring the same old twisted selves with us to each new relationship. And we aren't simple.

To be in a "simple" relationship, we may have to simplify ourselves -- bury parts of ourselves that we either don't want the other person to see, or that we leave behind so that we can feel safe, and loved.

One has to ask, then -- what kind of love is this?

I've begun to realize that I'm looking for someone who isn't practiced at love.

He may be awkward about it. He may be as inexperienced as me, as gawky, as hesitant.

He doesn't fall easy, and he don't fall fast.

But he does know how -- because he's dug deeply with friends, with family, with his ideals and perhaps with his God.

Does such a guy exist? I dunno.

Take a listen to this song, by the talented but much less famous singer-songwriter Adrienne Young.

"I'll love you in the winter when the roots go deep...love is about winter as well as springtime -- and a love that doesn't embrace those opposites, doesn't see in them twin sides of the same whole, may not be a love that can go the distance.

I want...a complex love like that.

Over the edge

2011-10-26T09:15:00.006-04:00

I so appreciate the quiet -- the hour I may have before I have to pick up this invisible burden and start again.

Wrong on that. My ex is ringing from the hospital, with a list of things that he needs for me to take up to Paoli - stat.

Thank goodness it's Paoli, and not the University of Pennsylvania, I think -- because right now I'm not sure I can contemplate that drive without hysterics.

Downstairs in his home, the floor is littered with paper and plastic the medic left behind when he showed up this morning around 4:30 a.m. Two nice young policemen -- one of whom introduced the team as: "We're the youngest officers on the force....and this is the oldest medic."

When I told my son, after he woke up later this morning, he sat silently on the bed. When I asked if he was o.k., he shook his head "no."

I rubbed his back for a while. What could I tell him?

That it would all be o.k.? Who knows what will occur next?

A few weeks ago, Mr. C. broke out in hives. This week, he thought they had returned -- a few nights ago, I woke up and found that his light was on. He'd been freaked out, he told me. Crawling up beside him on the bed, I held him,, like the toddler he'd once been, until he slept again.

This Saturday, he's going to an anti-torture conference -- which may distress him more. But he wants to go, to act like an adult, to find ways to help.

In that respect, I suppose, he's like his ancestors.

How can I help my children when I have so little left to give?

It seems that all I do is crash into deadlines and manage crises. I can't remember the last time I laughed, punned, or flirted. All of which I need to do regularly.

Today I found out that my house won't be done for another two months -- it's hard to know what or who to blame, but the reality overwhelmed me. What to do? Where to go?

How to keep my children, particularly the sensitive, more altruistic one, from losing it?

How to stay sane myself.

I have no answers.

But I better come up with some....fast.

Meanwhile, back to the hospital with the things that my ex needs...focused on only the road ahead .

A walk on the (sort of) wild side

2011-10-25T11:24:00.007-04:00

I was frustrated last night.

As I wrote a friend, I wish I knew more single guys with intestinal fortitude (a polite way of saying what I mean).

That really means courage. I wish that more men didn't fold like a paper fan when someone challenged them. I wish that they could take a position that might entail setting healthy boundaries.

I wish that there weren't so many Samson's seeking their Delilah.

And yeah, I know there are lots of things that men can say about women. Generalizations are toxic...trust me, I could write the copy.

And have written it.

All this to explain why I was in a crazy mood when I checked out my "viewed" page on a dating site.

Well, well, there was Diderot.

OK, so I wasn't being viewed by an ancient French writer. But this fellow, who was pretty good-looking, had taken the name of a renowned French skeptic from a few centuries before.

How could I not view his profile?

He's a writer -- even better. I have a soft spot for journalists, God knows why.

So what he lived in D.C.? We could have passionate meetings at a hotel near the Inner Harbor in Baltimore. We could stroll around the shops, go to the Aquarium, take in an Orioles game (well, perhaps not).

I shot him an admiring note -- but as I was signing off, I noticed that under orientation he had chosen "bisexual."

Oh dear. Too late.

When I got back on, he'd written me back. He loved my third photo, he said -- and didn't I look like a dominatrix?

Actually, this isn't the first time I've heard men say this - believe me when I say that in my pictures there are no whips or high-heeled boots in evidence.

He also said that he didn't share my faith, but did respect it.

I hate to say it, but many of the most intellectual guys I know are atheists.

That was cool, I wrote, but I couldn't wrap my mind around the bisexuality part.

He preferred women 90/10, said Monsieur Diderot. And he didn't cheat.

He thanked me for being so nonjudgmental. Then I confessed my clergy association.

Are you offended that I find that oddly sexy? he wrote back.

No, I wrote back -- I told him about my favorite hedonist, and how he had owned up to similar feelings. I guess it's the transgressive piece.

Send me a picture he wrote.

As you can imagine, I had reservations about that -- but I was also enjoying the back and forth. It made me feel a little wild -- without having to act on it.

But I did speculate...I have, as I have said to friends before, a mind that is a sometimes more than G-rated version of "All Things Considered."

Could I? Probably not. And was he being totally upfront with me? Who knows?

I signed off to prepare dinner for the children, and when I got back on again, his profile was gone -- as if it had never been.

I have to admit, that weirded me out a bit. It may indicate that he's not sure whether he belongs on a dating site for those with more vanilla taste.

Maybe he'll show up again -- and we can continue, at least, our conversation.

My Paoli hospital vacation

2011-10-24T09:53:00.006-04:00

Some folks go to Hawaii.

But I chose Paoli Medical Center.

Sunday morning I took a routine blood pressure check. We have a family history of hypertension, so I try to stay on top of it.

It was high -- on the border between call the doctor tomorrow and worrisome. I took it again -- it was higher.

I'm going to the hospital, I told Mr. C. He told me he was coming with me -- which turned out to be expensive. Boys who have little to do but sit around emergency rooms need to be distracted with frequent feedings, just like bears in a zoo.

When the doctor came in, I told him about my regimen -- functional single mother, running two households, working journalist, and part-time caregiver to my children's father. Who was coming home from four weeks of cancer treatment yesterday. The man with whom I hadn't shared bed and board for more than six years.

Dr. Shrestha listened sympathetically. He thought that my blood pressure would go down when my stress level went down, he commented.

Was I sleeping? Was I anxious?

I thought of the weekend -- a wedding rehearsal on Friday. Wedding rehearsals are always stressful -- a bunch of strangers, women hysterical from too much planning, and the mechanics of moving crowds of people through a space most of them aren't familiar with.

Then a brief interlude with a friend at a noisy bar -- "we may act younger, but we're too old for this" I said to him as we escaped into the chilly evening, heads ringing from the overmiked singer.

Baseball game and lawn mowing on Saturday (my yoga class has been temporarily sacrificed). Wedding itself on Saturday afternoon. Dinner with kids and study for midterm that I should have taken a few days ago.

Collapse on Sunday -- I guess, after weeks of this, it was predictable that I would break at some point.

I snuck around to glance at the blood pressure monitor.

Guess what? My pressure was going down -- because, I guess, I was in a place where I felt someone was caring for me. The doctor assured me that it was going to be all right.

Lesson? I'm going to work in time to take care of myself -- the massage here and there, dinner with a friend, a pedicure, meditation.

My yoga class. And perhaps, who knows, some walks with friends in more appealing environments.

I can't do all of this on my own. Sometimes, when you are used to being lone ranger, you have to get your butt kicked to realize that it's o.k. to lean a little.

As long as you don't topple.

Two religious hypocrites, one damaged daughter

2011-10-21T13:36:00.008-04:00

I'm a bit off institutional religion today.

Perhaps you will see why in a minutes.

This morning I went to have my hair highlighted - caramel, if you are interested. It's a long process, so one expects to spend significant time with the stylist.

Brian couldn't be there, so Callie (that's not her real name) volunteered to take me on.

I knew we had a few hours to kill, so I settled in by asking a few innocuous questions. How long did she have before she got a "chair"? What area did she live in? Where did her family live?

I picked up on the determination and the work ethic right off the bat -- what I didn't notice until we were well into foils is that the girl wasn't telling me a whole lot about herself beyond the surface.

Not until we were at the wash bowl did she disclose that she had a one-year-old at home, and that her mother now lived in the South.

She's got seven siblings, and all of them live in the Midwest, she told me.

By now, the gears were turning. How lonely that must be sometimes, I said. But I didn't want to push too hard -- after all, she was simply a 19-year-old woman who was coloring my hair.

It wasn't until we got back to her chair and I asked her about whether she had time to go out with friends that the mask of the happy career woman slipped.

Not easy to keep up with friends when you get pregnant your senior year in high school, she commented.

Hard to make it when your family kicks you out of the house when you are seventeen for being pregnant.

Her family is very religious, she told me, and when they learned that she intended to keep the baby, her step-dad said she couldn't live with them anymore.

I hadn't said anything about being ordained, and now I darn tootin' was going to hold off.

I asked her if she and her mom had reconciled. She thinks that her mother, unduly influenced by the step-dad, does feel guilty.

She's being treated for depression and anxiety, she said. She doesn't like to revisit her past (with her birth father).

And when she is in the room with the therapist, she badly misses her mother.

I looked up -- and the mask of the happy, self-sufficient woman was gone. Here was a girl, a girl close to my own daughter's age -- trying to make it in a world where she couldn't trust the people she loved the most.

Tears were in my eyes -- and fury in my heart.

Fury at the way that people cover up their cold hearts with a veneer of faith. Disgust with the way that some adults put the interest of their husband or wife above that of their own children.

Yes -- I don't know the whole story. I'm sure that mom, and even the wicked stepdad, have a side of it.

But now I know Callie's story -- or a part of it.

So what do I do now?

I told her that I'd think about it -- and would come back if and when I had some ideas.

Not because I'm religious. But because it's possible that it's the right thing to do.

Mellow Malvern moments

2011-10-20T09:29:00.003-04:00

This post is about doing almost nothing -- just enjoying being in the moment.

And that's something I almost never get to do right now, so I'm celebrating it.

Running two households (did we turn off the lights? feed the cats? where the heck ARE my contact lenses), writing on deadline, taking classes, driving kids to and from school -- no wonder I pace or race the sidewalks of Exton Station (when I can) like a madwoman with a caffeine jones.

But on Sunday, I had an hour to spare after church.

The boy was on a retreat, and the DQ's youth group leader had invited her out to lunch.

Yippee! Time enough for stroll the Malvern Harvest Festival.

I love Malvern. We almost lived there when when we first moved back from D.C.

Anthony's, an Italian restaurant with helpings of pasta enough for two guys with a healthy appetite, has been a family hangout for years. It's not so much the food as the atmosphere that makes you feel "at home."

In recent decades, the town has become a bit more upscale. The older homes that line some of the central avenues have gotten face-lifts. Friends have a huge new home on its outskirts.

But given some of the slightly ramshackle, cottagey homes that occupy many of its side-streets, it can't develop too much of an attitude.

Malvern is, in many ways, a family town -- though perhaps haunted, literally, some claim , by the ghosts of slain Irish immigrants who built the tracks long ago.

The air was warm, the sun shining down on the jewelry vendors and local businesses as they gave out candy and key-chains.

I stopped to chat about state government with a college student giving out pamphlets at the table of a local legislator. Spoke to a young man hawking wind power. Looked at some lovely carved bowls.

Buying nothing. Selling nothing. Watching over nobody. Just another face in the crowd. Boy, did it feel wonderful.

Weaving my way through the hordes of children, parents and singles also grateful for the lovely day, I picked up a frozen yogurt and ambled slowly back to my car.

It was time to get back to church and pick up my daughter -- but when I need to take a moments vacation from the many responsibilities weighing on me this week, I can recall that Malvern moment -- and feel the sunshine on my face. And smile.

The guy who thinks for himself--he's hot, hot, hot

2011-10-19T07:57:00.010-04:00

It was time for the phone call.

Due to circumstances beyond my control, I'd had to put it off a few times.

So we'd exchanged a few more emails -- I had questions.

Shoot, I always have questions. I betcha I spend about a third more time in a normal conversation with a guy asking questions than answering them.

But though I did ask, occasionally, I mostly listened to this fellow talk about geopolitics. He's really smart. Apparently, he's also got an incredible memory for dates.

At the end of the conversation (which I had to close because I was getting my hair done for a family photo shoot I'd bought on Groupon how superficial is that...), I wasn't sure that I'd be able to keep up with him.

O.K. Let me be honest here. I have the ability to keep up with a man like him. But I don't have the work ethic.

I don't mind exchanging opinions. I've been giving another fellow quite the online workout, mostly for fun. He seems pretty resilient.

On the other hand, as I've lamented before, I'm incredulous as to what now passes for thought on the Internet.

In part because the new Facebook format is so annoying, I miss a lot of posts. But I've actually blocked the feeds of certain friends because of the endless number of quotes and links that they post.

An article is great -- particularly if I have the sense that you've actually read it.

Some status updates stolen from others are pretty funny. Family pictures? Fantastic. Links to your own work? Well, that's part of why we have Facebook friends. Our achievements and ideas are fair game.

But I'm not interested in the gospel according to Rachel Maddow, Bill O'Reilly, or the latest pop-culture guru.

Am I picky? Yeah, probably. But there's an epidemic of second-hand thought sweeping the country -- and it's abetted by the ease of our social media.

Again and again, I see profiles in which men ask for the same independence from potential dates -- they don't want a woman who will nod and say "yes, dear."

My "perfectly imperfect" imaginary man? He'll be clever enough to read carefully -- but lazy enough to skip the front page on Saturday mornings. He'll know about baseball (tennis will do, in a pinch) and what's going on in British conservative politics. When someone mentions Greece, he won't think they are speaking about French fries - but he won't be above the occasional sentimental chick flick with a side of Raisinets.

He'll be able to talk about religion and politics on the couch and off of it.

And he'll have his own ideas. Lots of them.

I prize creativity.

Bring it on.

Now would be good.

Thirtysomething angst, twenty years on

2011-10-18T08:22:00.006-04:00

True confessions -- I was a total "Thirtysomething" addict.

Oh yeah, I know. Yuppies. Self-involved, idealistic, sometimes selfish children of the late 1960's, anguishing in a sometimes very silly way about where they had misplaced their idealism.

I lapped up every minute of relational drama as Michael and Hope, Eliot and Nancy, Melissa, Ellyn, Gary (oh, Gary) and the gang struggled to act like adults -- and very often screwed it up.

For many of us, it didn't hurt at all that the show was set in Philadelphia (and perhaps could be partially credited with putting that wonderful city back on the national map).

Way back when, it was the show to which I turned to explore my own experiences and dilemmas as someone who shared a ballpark age and economic status with the cast -- I, like many of you, could project a little into a future that seemed like ours.

I didn't have a child to interrupt my attempts at marital intimacy , like Hope and Michael.

But my maternal clock was ticking, bigtime, so I enjoyed "spying" on their problems.

Melissa and her insecurities about guys? The writers, who really were fantastic (the show has been listed a few times as among the twenty best series ever on television) really seemed to understand how tough it was to be a single woman trying to navigate a married world.

And wasn't Miles Drentell the boss you loved to hate? Everyone has had superior like him -- smooth, hard, a little sleazy. Only Miles was more so.

For those of us who worship at the altar of paralysis by analysis, "Thirtysomething" was the sometimes soapy, often funny, frequently rueful show that fed our obsession.

And maybe that's partly why I miss it -- and why I so rarely watch television now.

It's a different era -- but a lot of the relational, moral and political issues we struggle with haven't changed all that much.

Change the hairstyles, the restaurants, and the actors, and a bunch of clever writers could easily find new ways to make their world seem very familiar to modern thirtysomethings.

And for those of us who like to time travel? I think we'd still recognize ourselves in these characters -- even if we do it with an apologetic smirk.

Picture as an exhibition

2011-10-17T08:38:00.014-04:00

I've been thinking about what it means to be physically attractive recently. It's something that many of us think about, whether we say that we do, or not.

After all, this is a culture that prizes looks -- or, perhaps it may be more accurate to say that throughout time, in many cultures, certain physical attributes have been given a certain marketplace value.

And, in studies sure to be controversial, many have argued that good looks get men and women ahead, not just in the bedroom, but in the boardroom (read this article if you wish to be depressed/informed.)

What this means for those who didn't win the evolutionary, and possibly ridiculously cultural lottery when it comes to looks?

One just has to try a little harder -- and be smug about the longevity or intelligence or creative genes you do have!

All of this speculation was prompted by a picture of a friend I came across a month or two ago.

It was one taken in his twenties, way before our ways crossed.

He's a fine looking man now. But in his youth, he was more than fine (and not just in that "seventies or eighties way," as a much younger mutual friend of ours said. Some of us remember the eighties).

And no, my friend wasn't Sir Edmund Gosse (though you have to admit he was hot in a late 1880's way).

Seeing that picture prompted me to ponder whether good looks make a real difference.

Does it really ease your access to that first job? Do looks mean that people are more willing to trust you? Does it mean that women, or men, are more forward?

And what are the implications of being advantaged? What happens when you are hired? Are you more persuasive? What effect does it have on your romantic relationships?

I wasn't a particularly attractive college student -- a classic example of hiding whatever assets I had under Indian print skirts, scarves and the classic freshman twenty.

It wasn't until a really bad breakup in my early thirties/late twenties that I started to take care of myself. In my case, I began to get better haircuts, learned to use makeup, started to exercise and lost the twenty(this is not the scrip for everybody -- I am a believer that curves can be lovely).

I've never had conventionally good looks -- but I stopped questioning the benefits of playing up what I do have.

Although, I have to admit that even now, when I have a fair number of guys bidding for my attention, I still sometimes wonder why -- it's a throwback to those old days when I blamed myself for every time a guy chose the blond.

Now I look in the mirror, and most days, like what I see -- as do some guys I respect! (And women, thank you for your moral support when I truly need it).

What would have happened if I'd played up the exotic in my twenties, instead of hiding under a torrent of wavy brown hair and loose jeans?

Who knows? I realize now that physical beauty is a limited and frangible coin -- if we aspire to look great in our seventies, it better come mostly from within.

When you look in that mirror today, pick your good features, and vamp them for all they are worth. Then fuggedaboutit -- let your confidence , sweet nature, and smarts shine.

That's what matters in the end.

Besides, it could be so distracting to have to boot guys or girls out of the way with their chocolates and invitations to dine when you are going out to lunch, or the restroom.

But boy, wouldn't it be fun to have had the chance?

PS -- Allen, I didn't see your comment until just now. Thank you. I just published it. You have always been a wonderful morale-booster -- a younger man discerning enough to appreciate women of a certain age, and kind enough to tell them!

Portrait of Sir Edmund Gosse by John Singer Sargent, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Hey, she didn't "steal" your boyfriend

2011-10-12T20:57:00.008-04:00

She's sitting in the car next to me, phone glued to her ear, totally into the drama.

As far as I can tell Caitlin (names have been changed to protect the guilty) cheated on Mark. Caitlin had been going out with Ron, but when they broke up about a month ago, she transferred her affections to Ron's best friend (Mark, of course).

Now Mark, you see, had previously dated someone else in their circle -- Anita.

In fact, Anita has gone out with Larry, Alex and Billy -- all of whom once went with Caitlin.

All of them, at one time or another, have been wracked with pain, possessiveness and fear.

It's amazing that my daughter's friends find time to attend school. Probably the main purpose of doing that is to catch up on gossip.

What both amuses and annoys me is how this small clique of young men and women keep recycling their boyfriends and girlfriends -- producing the expected storms, tears and heartache.

On the one hand, it's funny. On the other, their world seems rather small.

The DQ doesn't seem to be listed among the "cheaters" -- phew. It's been a looong time since high school, but I' m aware that it's a hard reputation to live down.

Even if she didn't love the drama of it so much, I'd still be puzzled when it comes to helping her work her way through the steam.

Not only did I not do a lot of dating when I was younger (still don't), but I really don't "get" jealousy and possessiveness.

Oversensitivity? Yeah, I've been called on it. I tend to take some comments way more seriously than I should.

I do recognize that jealousy is a pretty common emotion, though --- and that it often comes from a place of deep hurt.

I've had a few difficult break-ups -- but even in cases like those, I didn't feel intimidated by the other women.

I sometimes play a little game.

What it would take to get me all riled up about another woman -- beauty? Brains? A fantastic body? The kind of wit that impels men to gather around her at parties, like bees to a flower?

It seems to me that it's silly to blame someone else, like my children's friends do sometimes, when a partner decides to leave -- a person can't be tempted without choosing to give in.

And one can't hang on to somebody else who doesn't want to be held. He or she will slide through your hands like oil.

I try to teach my daughter these things. But I fear that she's got to learn them herself.

Perhaps she will discover what a dead end jealousy can be from watching her friends suffer.

Or perhaps she'll find a calling as a therapist -- and get reimbursed for what she's doing freely.

Eventually, I hope she discovers that the freedom to choose has to be the freedom to lose -- only then will you be able to gain more than you ever imagined was possible... back when you wore the fearsome shackles.

Better than sex? the tearful follow-up

2011-10-12T10:35:00.003-04:00

A few hours after I posted my rather frank examination of the lack of intimacy in my life (see above), a former parishioner commented on my link.

First of all, he's a wonderful person, and I adore him.

He's also a person who isn't happy when a "lady" speaks of sex in a public forum. He "worries" about me, sometimes, he says.

His well-meant comment has prompted all kinds of soul-searching on my part, not to mention a few tears.

As a blogger who is also ordained, I occupy a strange space. Sometimes self-revelation is a risk.

I have standards, but they aren't necessarily shared by all of my fellow faithful (how could they be?). We look at moral issues differently, and there are many shades of debate on some of these topics.

Was it inappropriate for me to own up to desiring sexual/emotional/intellectual intimacy in my life?

More pointedly, was it inappropriate to do so in my blog?

To link it to my Facebook page?

I don't have an answer. But I do know that it's part of what has driven me further and further from parish life.

My independence and desire for candor is a double-edged sword.

And so, I have no place to lay my head, metaphorically speaking -- neither conservative nor liberal, chaste by conviction or emotionally promiscuous, atheist or traditionalist.

But this is where I stand.

By choice.

And, today, a little sad.

Better than sex? Really?

2011-10-12T08:06:00.013-04:00

Cake (with caramel frosting.)

I hear that there are 326 recipes for "better than sex" cake at www.cooks.com alone.

Not to mention cookies, or or chocolate, or booze.

Hunter Thompson, back in the 1990's, argued in a book that politics was better than sex (though right now, with Congressional approval ratings in the basement, politics may be the penultimate anti-erotica).

Ummm....cell phones. They rate high on the "top ten list" of things that are better than sex because you can turn them on...and on (the list is linked below).

Well, with the exclusion of in vitro fertilization, I've tried pretty much everything on the list (I'm willing to work my way through the cakes).

And I'm not convinced that anything on it is better than emotionally intimate, hot, monogamous, tender and self-revealing sex.

Awww....did ya HAVE to add all of those adjectives, I can hear some of you groaning.

I know that a lot of guys don't -- I've had those conversations. Many, many times.

Perhaps that's why I remain alone for now (that, and a complete inability to see how I could shoehorn a relationship into my current life).

Despite a steady stream of aspirants (yes, I know that sounds arrogant, and I am puzzled by it), I don't seem to be able to move from the step a to step b to the somewhere down the road that would lead to appropriate sex.

Which doesn't mean that I can't imagine, at some point, wanting to be intimate with a man. Or that I don't think that it could be considerably better than a delicious chocolate cake, or a good run (though I love those, too).

Slow, revealing intimacy with a smart guy could be fantastic.

Oh yes, intelligence -- another criteria that is high on my list, and one which many men seem to appreciate and look for in women as they get older. Perhaps it's because, as they say, the brain is the biggest sex organ. There's something about a clever mental tease that is invigorating.

So do I think anything is better than sex?

Oh, probably.

I just can't remember what it is, right now.

http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-things-better-than-sex.php

I know a way to make you laugh at that cowgirl as she's walking out your door...

Throwing away the playbook

2011-10-11T08:46:00.003-04:00

Are we on the verge of some kind of real change in America? Or do we have a democratic system that placates and marginalizes dissent?

For all you folks who hoped that I would be talking about football when I stuck the word "playbook" in the headline, sorry to disappoint you.

For those of you who were praying that I wouldn't, this is your lucky day. I don't understand football strategy, and even mix up simple baseball plays now and then -- a woman's got to know when to keep quiet.

Back to politics.

Like you, possibly, I've been watching the recent explosion of "Occupy Wall Street" meet-ups around the country, and pondering what it means for America - and for our democracy.

As with the rise of the Tea Party, pundits are divided -- is this a bunch of anarchist, far-left young folks who are looking for a cause? Are they the usual suspects, brothers and sisters to protesters who show up at anti-globalism demonstrations around the world?

Are the people holding marches and sleepovers around the nation the left's answer to the Tea Party? Could they find common cause with the Tea Party?

I don't have the answer to any of these questions (add omnipotence to things that are not on my list today).

But I do think, in opposition to the disdain heaped on them by some right-wing pundits, that there is cause to take OWS seriously. By themselves, the protests might not mean all that much -- though that's arguable.

In the context of the broad discontent shaping American politics, high unemployment (particularly among young people) and an economic picture that shows little immediate promise of getting brighter, they may mean a lot.

It's worth paying attention, not solely to OWS, but to what happens with the deficit reduction committee, the Stock Market, the Eurozone debt hurricane, and jobs figures.

If they don't show signs of making substantial change, we could continue our downward slide.

Then lots of us might wish OWS was simply a bunch of dreadlocked students -- instead of groups with genuine grievances, and nowhere to go with them.

The "what-if" game

2011-10-10T08:10:00.008-04:00

The Red Sox, the Yankees, the Phillies...I'm still shocked that none of these teams made the second round (at least), of the playoffs.

Like many other fans, I play the "what-if" game. What if the Yankees had beaten the Tampa Bay Rays? What if the Sox had beaten the Orioles (the ORIOLES, man)? What if the Phillies had managed to dig deep for two runs instead of zero in the final of the five-game series with the Cardinals?

What if Derek Jeter's last at-bat in the bottom of the eighth had gone a bit deeper? And what if Alex Rodriguez ever did what he gets paid 32 mil a year to do?

It's a weird feeling to realize that in the World Series the East Coast teams with the largest payrolls, and some of the best pitchers and batters in America were simply outplayed.

But in baseball as in life, we can't linger too much on the "what-ifs."

I made a connection a while back with a gentleman named Jim who lives above Morgantown, Pa.

After a phone call that went on for quite a while, in which we really seemed to hit it off, we made a lunch date.

Then came my son's hive attack. The lunch had to be postponed.

When I approached him again, it was too late (at least for now). He's begun to date someone else -- and he's not the type of guy, he says, to play the field.

What if we'd met? What if we'd liked each other? What if we'd had another date?

What if somehow someone entered my local column for a Pulitzer?

Get the idea?

One can't dwell on "what-if's", except for a moment.

Regret -- and move on.

"Maybes" (those that have some link to reality) are another matter.

Perhaps in the year 2012 the East Coast teams won't fold near or in playoff time -- or won't break our hearts by getting so darn close.

Yes, America, we East Coast folks DO have hearts.

Perhaps Jim, the summer connection, will once again be free to meet -- though I'm not wasting a lot of time reflecting on this.

And perhaps my editor will submit my Lancaster column for a Pennsylvania press award (if I remind him).

"Maybes" are possibilities with some promise.

"What-ifs" can be recycled...as dreams that impel you on to greater things. But they can sometimes keep you from moving on.

And sure things? They can happen if you work hard enough.

The trick is learning to know the difference.

The slippery word..."evangelical"

2011-10-09T13:25:00.001-04:00

What IS an evangelical? We assume we know the meaning of this oft-used adjective/noun.

But do we?

http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/474882_Column--What-does-it-mean-to-be-evangelical-.html

Dignity -- S(he's) got it -- or s(he) don't

2011-10-07T08:27:00.003-04:00

In counseling class we've been talking a lot about self-disclosure.

It's a group dynamics class, constructed to help us understand how groups work. We're acting as a group -- and the clear, if implicit expectation, is that we'll share more, become more intimate, as the weeks go on.

I like the folks in the class, most of whom could be my children.

Yet, as I said to the class on Wednesday, I find it restful NOT to reveal a lot. It's a break from the 24/7 domestic drama that is my life right now.

I did share in class that I'm curious by how much people reveal about themselves online now -- often inadvertently. What does disclosure mean in a society where so many of us are letting it all hang out?

What you choose to share in comments on a blog, in a Facebook status update, a chat room comment, or what you dig up from the Internet and offer to readers on a website can tell readers an awful lot about who you are.

Sometimes it tells us that you may be one standard deviation (at least) below the mean (which may be the sum total of what I understand about statistics).

Dreck often reigns over brilliance.

I am a professional discloser. I do that in commentaries, in blogs, and sometimes in tweets (though rarely, nowadays). So it may seem like a contradiction to say that I hope that when I share, I do it with appropriate boundaries.

A few weeks ago, however, I had an experience that chastened me -- and served as a warning. Although it all got straightened out in the end, I learned a lesson about mouthing off in virtual reality. I hope I learned a lesson, anyhow.

We're all being watched by others -- and judged, whether we like it or not. What we say is a pretty good indicator of who we were -- judgmental or merciful (sometimes both), patient or sharp (sometimes one follows the other), joyful or depressed...shallow or deep.

It pays to think before you post -- though we're all probably going to look back and shake our heads at our own foolishness. That's the price we pay for liberty -- the freedom to be stupid -- and the tolerance to let other people do the same.

The land of despair

2011-10-05T13:40:00.001-04:00

This is one of the darkest days thus far in my life as a parent.

And I can't imagine how it's going to get better.

I hope that's a failure of imagination.

I doubt. I doubt. I doubt.

The legal and emotional implications of cutting loose my daughter

2011-10-05T10:00:00.004-04:00

It was the email from her English teacher that tipped me over the edge this morning.

The DQ had only done the beginning of a paper. She'd failed her reading test.

When asked why, she'd told her teacher that her dad was in the ICU, and she was upset -- after a week and a half at home and in class to write the paper and prepare the assignment.

It's normal to be distressed when your dad is in the hospital. But she uses this kind of excuse often, and in many less tough circumstances.

I've been working every day to stay on top of her assignments (something many parents don't have to do with 16-year-olds).

When I saw the email, I called the DQ and left a message -- no privileges unless and until she starts getting her work done. And, by the by, how dare she use her dad as an excuse? Had she no shame?

Almost immediately a text came back: She would emancipate herself. I wasn't her mother! I would NEVER be her mother!

I have to admit, I enjoyed the idea for a few moments.

Then common sense kicked in. I don't think she could actually get "emancipated." There's no neglect, no abuse -- bickering and tears don't constitute grounds for emancipation.

Not to mention that I want her to succeed -- and she still needs our help.

I'm not the wisest mother, nor always consistent.

But I'm making a full court press to follow through.

And her dad and I have seen evidence of change -- teachers report a polite, engaged, and responsive teenager.

Except when it comes to classwork, and homework.

The DQ does have to emancipate herself. But right now she seems to think that this is about failing to live up to the expectations of others.

Instead, it may be about freeing herself to truly explore and appropriate her deep potential.

I can't do that for her.

But darn it, I'm still her mother. And I have to act that way -- whether she likes it, or not.

Whether I like it, or not.

Guess what kind of day it is today.

My fantasy dinner

2011-10-04T13:43:00.003-04:00

This past few weeks I have been up to something that is becoming depressingly normal -- telling otherwise eligible men that I can't possibly date them. I'm fairly sure that one otherwise cool guy has thrown in the towel after the aforementioned child hives incident.

Travel on vacations -- impossible.

Long-distance relationships -- New Jersey might as well be Canada.

Guys without kids -- enjoy the life of the bon vivant! Write and tell me how it goes.

You'd think that this would be good for my ego. I'm totally sick of it. I guess it would be worse if I attracted no attention, so I'm not complaining about that.

I'd love to go out to dinner with a hot guy -- if I could somehow get past the preliminaries.

I was very aware, at a lunch last week (which seems like a century ago) that I was being sized up, evaluated, even perhaps undressed (which really isn't something I even consider on a first date, but I'm not a man).

I'm totally starved for frivolity and relaxation, not to mention flirtation.

It doesn't matter where my fantasy dinner takes place -- a diner or a classy Main Line restaurant would be equally fine.

We'd already be comfortable enough with each other that everything and anything would be on the table, as it were.

Gentle joking would be par for each course, and occasional blushes would cleanse the palate for the next rejoinder.

Silliness, even giddiness would be accepted in the spirit of friendship -- and now and then, something a bit deeper.

We'd know one another's weaknesses -- and it would still be O.K.

Maybe now and then we'd hold hands, or exchange a kiss -- no pressure, no calculation.

I feel my lip beginning to curl -- which tells me that right now I'm not even in the ballpark, let alone on the field.

First I have to start saying "no thanks" -- and it's going to be a while before I can.

But boy oh boy, I am ready.

Crushing burdens -- and baffling silence

2011-10-04T08:50:00.007-04:00

This isn't a pretty topic.

But putting it on the screen in black and white may help me figure out what's happening -- and change my own behavior.

I've been puzzled by why, as I strive to maintain a grasp on complications too much for one person's shoulders, I have felt so alone.

With a few shining exceptions (a neighbor who has befriended the DQ, a Boy Scout father, my son's coach, an unexpected friend), no one has offered a hand. Emails updating friends and family have gone largely, though not totally (thank you!) unanswered.

There may be multiple reasons for this.

I'm not a good enough friend in a crisis myself. Maybe I need to pick up a mirror.

We live in a very atomized society. If you don't have local family in the area, no one thinks to offer help.

I'm extremely independent. Perhaps I give off signals that I don't need moral or physical support.

Lots of people have their own burdens, and are not in a position to take on another responsibility.

I'm not connected anymore with a church community in which folks would gather around and make casseroles, or offer to take kids for an evening.

There are so many possibilities -- and, I suppose, lessons to learn. When we're past this, I hope that I figure out how to be a better friend, more willing to offer help, and more open about needing it.

In the meantime, I just have to lift my chin, put my shoulders back, and move forward. Pity is not an option. There's too much to be done.

Living that townhouse life

2011-10-03T09:30:00.005-04:00

It was 52 frustrating degrees when I got into the house this morning.

I have a heat pump, but it doesn't work well without insulation.

Realistically, that's a month or so down the road.

This morning, my hands chilled against the keys, I'd rather be in Exton.

The kid's father is letting us stay down there while he's in the hospital.

That's given me an exposure to townhouse life that I've never really had prior to this.

I've never been a big townhouse fan, and it's mostly due to life experience.

They weren't popular in Park Slope, Brooklyn, when I grew up -- our 1902 brownstone (though similar on the outside to its neighbors) was the antithesis of a townhouse.

When I moved to D.C., the suburbs made me so crazy, with their bland sameness, that we picked a late eighteenth-century Bryn Mawr home to rent when we moved back, to the Main Line.

As I've said in previous posts, my realtor, a friend, told me it was hard to figure out WHAT kind of house would be appropriate -- I didn't fit the single mom, townhouse profile.

Of course, there is no profile. People live in townhouses for all kinds of reasons. Maybe they don't like mowing the lawn?

But I'm learning that townhouses have advantages.

Heat, for example.

Seriously -- the kids can walk to their friends houses (though my son doesn't have friends near his dad's home and my daughter has radar for inappropriate older male renters).

I see teens move from court to court on the path that circles the development -- and standing waiting for the morning bus, where they can get to know each other.

There's a tennis court and swimming pool.

As I walk or run the loop (close to a mile and a half) I look fort signs of individuality. Someone has LED pumpkin light faces on their deck, another has flowers in the back.

The smell of steak rises from one home, the odor of woodsmoke in another court.

Very different lives go on within the very similar walls.

I know that. And I'm grateful for the chance to experience the townhouse difference.

I just wish, sometimes, when I'm walking, that someone driving by would stop and say hello, or recognize me.

Then I realize that I'm not at home, and these folks don't know me.

I'm a stranger in an odd, in-between land -- and grateful for the shelter.

Back here, it's edging up to 54 degrees. Off to look for mittens.

I am not good

2011-09-30T08:17:00.002-04:00

It's when I get so tired that I fall asleep in my chair that the critical monsters raise their ugly gargoyle heads...

Or when my daughter texts me (news from the DQ often comes in a text) to say she's invited a male college student to her father's house a half an hour after I've gone for a statistics tutorial at the new house.

Or when my son puts out the garbage an hour or so after the garbage guys have already been and gone.

When I haven't signed him up for a chess tournament, connected with the Boy Scout dad who drives him to the meetings, left my own homework for the last minute.

When their dad calls from the hospital and I bitch about my day before I ask him about his.

When I don't get the kids to doctors this week and put it off until the next.

"You aren't good at this" they tell me. Other dads or moms would handle these circumstances more adroitly. Other people are more compassionate, competent, efficient, composed.

And then this one-sided dialogue becomes even harsher.

Not good at loving. Not good at being loved.

And truly horrible at statistics (though the lovely man who volunteered a session to tutor me was encouraging).

I know that much of this negative self-talk is born of exhaustion, stress, and the emotional burden of being a single parent (at least for a while). I also know that I am not used to asking for support from my local friends -- a pick-up here, a shared meal there.

I don't think that anyone would be "good" at picking up all these balls and keeping them in the air.

Inevitably, things get dropped.

I have to accommodate myself to being exceptionally imperfect.

Hopefully even lovably so.

Time will tell -- but I'm not very "good" at being patient, either.

Spring and summer memories

2011-09-28T22:20:00.016-04:00

Tonight I went for a run down Indiantown Road, turning around near Springton Manor Farm. It's not a long run, about four and a half miles, but it has its challenges.

It gets darker a lot faster in the evening. I'm still in denial that summer has officially gone, and winter will eventually be here.

A few times, I've really wanted my miner's light (which looks totally dorky on me, by the way). Instead, I just stop by the roadside, and let the speed racers go by.

There are still wildflowers by the roadside. The air is warm and humid, sweat dripping down my face, t-shirt clinging to my body.

It feels like summer - or maybe fall in the tropics.

And as I run, I think about all the times I've been down and up this hill over the past six months.

After a difficult winter in which I suffered from back problems that didn't allow for jogging, I was thrilled to get out on the open road when the snow finally ebbed.

Gradually I got to the point where I could walk and jog up the hill, past meadows and houses and schoolbuses.

After a while, running became easier, though I still look like a turtle as I clamber up the road.

During the spring, the route to the Farm became the great escape: a chance to flee stress, leave behind analysis, and observe the changes around me.

The days grew long, the trees sprouted leaves, the deer paced across the road.

There were many times when I would pay attention. Other times, I was too caught up in unfamiliar emotions.

Often I would walk for hours, oblivious to the time.

Sometimes I would cry, the lightly driven road offering a refuge. The month of May is just a blur of tears. Looking back, I am not sure I know that woman.

Thin and nervy, she was not calm, or rational, or even sane, perhaps.

I wrapped myself in solitude, as is so often my wont, like a protective cloak.

And in a summer that also owned its share of tears, the road to the farm has been an avenue for tranquility, and healing, and challenge -- the uphill never seems to be significantly different.

On the way to the Farm, I have found times of gentleness, and respite, alone and in varied company.

Who knows what the fall to come will hold as the air chills and the leaves drift? And the winter...trees weighed down with snow, booted feet tromping over glistening white.

What will the changes on Indiantown Road reveal?

It's exciting, and a little scary, to wonder.

A grown-up in the 'love game' - I hate it.

2011-09-28T08:46:00.003-04:00

He sat across from me in the restaurant as we lingered over tea.

He liked what he saw. He wants to see me again.

I looked just as he'd imagined me.

What did I want? he asked me.

That's the tough part.

I genuinely am not trying to collect male "scalps" for a collection to make myself feel good -- but neither can I imagine a relationship right now.

I'd like to imagine a relationship.

I'd like to stop thinking so much -- it's so paralyzing.

Being a grown-up is no fun.

I'd love to hurl myself into the oblivion of a crush. I'd love a sabbatical on endless analysis, scruples, and trying to do the right thing by everyone.

But the fact is, I'm not constructed for such delights.

A few days ago, I had a lunch date scheduled -- and then the nurse at Mr. C's school called. He'd broken out in hives.

He's still got the hives -- possibly stress related, but possibly not. I still have to find an allergist.

I wouldn't know "Mr. Right" if he walked up the driveway.

"Yes" almost always loses to "maybe" -- another polite evasion for "no."

I am haunted by the sense that I'm trying to adjust my sentimental heart to suit the reality of the men who appear in front of me.

I wish I could love more easily.

Someday perhaps I'll be able to form my lips around "yes" and mean it.

Perhaps there are mysteries yet to be explored, someone to pull me out of my meta-funk, and into the waltz.

Enough with the speculation...there are doctors to call, statistics to study, articles to write, and dreams to defer -again.

The man you deserve - for Katie

2011-09-26T14:25:00.004-04:00

No need to dragon-slay, no rivers to cross on horseback, no jousting to win your heart.

You have had too many false knights.

Those are the thin-armored men, whose outward form may not conform to their true selves.

But he will be very brave, this man of yours --brave enough to face down his own demons before he arrives at the castle walls (or sends you an email to let you know he's free on Sunday night-- sadly, we don't all have castles any more).

And when he arrives, it will be with humility -- a humility born of deep learning and wisdom. He's no smarty-pants know-it-all.

Owning his past mistakes, he sees in you new life, the seeds of laughter, and passion and joy.

The spell he weaves will be a mutual one, binding heart to heart in a rhythm so intuitive that you don't know the music until you realize you are dancing.

Will he look good in a kilt? Hmm...after a while, I don't think you are going to care.

He's going to be hot. Sizzling. Ravishing in whatever garb he chooses or does not choose to wear.

(Phew, I'm getting hot myself.)

Most of all, he's going to be worthy of you.

Worth waiting for, this man of substance. No joker he, but the king of hearts.

Of one heart -- yours.

Tag...I'm "it." (And terrified)

2011-09-26T08:32:00.005-04:00

He sat there in a chair, unable to move beyond it.

Now and then he would look at me, with eyes drained by hours of pain and lack of sleep.

"It's a bad day" he said. "It was a bad night."

I won't go into the symptoms, the many distresses this barbaric treatment brings with it.

The chemicals (she listed an alphabet stream of letters I can't recall) were hitting him early -- and hard, said the nurse. It was to be expected. It was what they hoped for --because it would kill his immune system, and allow a new one to take its place.

Imagine that. Give it a shot.

The kids joked around. Mr. C. messed with the bed, using the buttons to make it go up and down. But I know that they saw...and took it all in.

Love's a funny thing. We've become friends, this man I couldn't live with, the father of my children...my heart is breaking for him.

I asked him whether he wanted to be part of the decisions about parenting we'd always made together. Weakly, he told me that it would be better if I made them myself.

Then, thanks to the powerful anti-nausea drug they gave him, he slept.

And here I am.

I've never done this before.

On the knife's edge.

Balancing like a ballet dancer, and so afraid of falling.

Only I can't --because who else would be here to catch everything that is, inevitably, going to crash through the air?

I cannot surrender.

For him.

For them.

For me.

For the sake of everyone depending on me. God give me grace. Please.

The consistency of being "pro-life" to life's end

2011-09-24T14:56:00.002-04:00

http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/465850_Religion--Case-shines-spotlight-on-death-penalty.html

Don't call me Al

2011-09-23T11:20:00.006-04:00

How the heck does this make sense? How can the death penalty be pro-life? Talk about pretzel logic. Sadly, that is what we can expect from those who beat the "pro-life" drum, but have to find ways to justify their support for the death penalty.

Catholics (some) are consistently "pro-life" -- they don't draw a line in the sand when someone is born, or even does something hateful. One can debate a position that has some internal logic -- it's hard to argue with those who sport with reason.

http://www.abpnews.com/content/view/6760/53/

And then there is Texas Governor Rick Perry, representing all those who applaud when they hear another person has been executed. We really want HIS hand on the trigger (hasn't he had enough of that)?

The only good thing is that he might not be smart enough to find the trigger....

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0911/64248.html

Now this is good stuff...from a purely secular point of view. I think Dow might be right...we won't abandon capital punishment until Americans believe that the death penalty is an obscene waste, and that it's wrong for the state to kill.

http://www.beaconbroadside.com/broadside/2011/09/troy-davis-why-posterboys-dont-matter.html

This is a very disconnected post. It's how I feel, torn in a million directions, yet caught up in the world's affairs. Maybe it's o.k. to be here right now...would that I could figure out where "here" is.

May that day come fast.

If I could, I would

2011-09-23T08:41:00.003-04:00

...take the frown off my son's face and heal the pain that he carries like an invisible crown of thorns -- without hurting anyone else.

...help my daughter blossom into a young woman who owns her strengths.

...ease the depression of her friends, who cry out for the love of their parents, seduced by drugs, or a man's embrace, caught in mental illness, unable to be active in the lives of their children.

...take away the sting of self-hatred, insecurity, jealousy, and all the other things that keep us stuck.

...have the wisdom to know when to speak, and when to be quiet.

...make other Washington voices more potent than that of the National Rifle Association.

...make this rain go away, so that my neighbors wouldn't have to cope with more basement water and mold.

...be more frivolous.

....understand the fundamentals of statistics, and not cry in class when I don't get it.

...help the Boston Red Sox, one of the best teams in baseball, stop their collapse and turn the pennant race into a real battle.

I would. I really would.

But since apparently I can do very few of these things, maybe I better focus on what I can accomplish.

Write a check for a math tutor -- now that's an idea. I just need to find the checkbook.

I am not Troy Davis

2011-09-22T11:44:00.003-04:00

They hoped, hoped against hope, that a miracle would happen, and that the Supreme Court of the United States would stay the execution of Georgia's Troy Davis.

Some of them had worked on the Davis case for years -- they are a mix of human rights advocates, idealistic young women and men, people of faith who opposed the death penalty, and others who simply believe that it makes no sense to execute someone when there is, at the least, a ghost of a chance that he might not have been the killer.

Sitting, crying, praying, his supporters protested across a highway from the prison where Davis, 42, prepared himself for death -- or reprieve.

The miracle did not happen. At 11:08 last night, Troy Davis was killed -- twenty years after he was tried and convicted of killing police officer Mark MacPhail, who had intervened to help a homeless man in a parking lot when he was shot.

Some of those on vigil last night wore t-shirts that read "We are Troy Davis."

While I sympathize, deeply, I am aware that I am NOT Troy Davis.

And that's the point -- or part of it.

I'm not a young black man, caught up in a net of witnesses whose testimony was contradictory at best. I don't know what it felt like to grow in a country in which to be a man of color can easily put you at the front of the line-up.

That's not to say that Davis was innocent. And, God help me, it's not to say that I condone the murder of Mark MacPhail.

Someone killed him, and left a gaping hole in his family that will continue to leave a gap in the lives of generations before and after him.

There are all sorts of legitimate secular objections to the death penalty, based in a fundamental morality -- and in logic.

To this we add the logic of the "consistent life ethic."

Our family doesn't believe that taking one life redeems that one that was lost. We believe that life is sacred, from before birth to a person's last breath. Deciding when life begins, and when it should end, except in rare circumstances (which we will not get into here) is to play God.

Last night I took my son to Wegman's, where he gets together with his (much older) Amnesty International colleagues once a month. When I saw them after the meeting, they looked weary.

I grieved for them -- they had worked so hard. I sorrowed for my son-- his Facebook posts showed me that, up until the end, he had hoped Davis would receive clemency.

I never really did believe that would be the case. We are a country intoxicated with violence, and many, if not most of us still advocate more violence as the solution.

Last night we gathered around the television to watch the analysis as the Supreme Court refused to step in. I asked the children if they would like to pray.

Muting the sound, I asked that God be present with Troy Davis, the Davis family, and the MacPhails. Then, struggling to keep my voice under control, I prayed for our country, and for a system that cannot seem to abide complexity, or redemption, or forgiveness.

Exhausted, the children went to bed. I stayed up to know that he breathed no more.

Today, I wonder -- has anything changed? I still believe that change can, and perhaps will come -- there are (except in Texas) fewer executions and more debate about whether, on a purely secular level, the death penalty does anything to deter crime.

I am not Troy Davis.

But I am sister to those who are.

Tears, Fall

2011-09-21T07:30:00.006-04:00

Yesterday began auspiciously enough -- but it soon deteriorated.

A text from the DQ -- she'd forgotten her dance clothes, could I bring them to school?

Pouring the cereal for my son is a morning ritual on the days that he has to get on the 7:09 a.m. bus. When he gets into the kitchen, he baptizes it with milk. Yesterday, the ritual went wrong, and my normally mild-mannered son went crazy.

Cereal flew all over the counter and the tiles. Yelling, Mr. C stalked out of the room.

A few minutes later, the same scenario...

And then he went out on the breezeway, sat on a chair, and wept.

Then I finally heard what had happened. The day before, a few of his lunchroom pals had taken his food out of his lunchbox, and begun throwing it at him. It got so tough that eventually, he left the table, and found another place to eat lunch (what hadn't already landed on the table or floor).

And, of course, he's worried sick about his father. As are the rest of us. He apologized to me for the mess. Somehow we pulled ourselves together, and drove to the middle school.

I didn't yell -- the situation seemed too dire for that, and besides, I'm not a yeller. I confess that I did consider consequences -- but after I heard why he had the meltdown, I decided not to be punitive.

I did feel crushed, though. Bowed down by his pain, and by not knowing how to make it better. Overwhelmed by the weight of what I'm carrying right now. Aside from a quick word with the guidance counselor, letting her know that my son would be in touch, there wasn't a thing I could do.

While he doesn't always have good judgment (he's only fourteen), my child moves differently through the world than many of his middle school friends. For one thing, he has a steely sense of integrity, a lively moral compass, and the ability to reason through complexities that might defeat some adults.

And he can't believe that others mean him harm, or find him expedient -- a pawn in their own game.

The blood of my reforming, principled, hopeful grandmother flows through his veins -- but it's too early to know if he'll have her charm.

He'll suffer for his independence, predicted his dad. I fear that he is right.

Rightly, or wrongly, I see a lot of myself in the boy (in my daughter, it's there too, but harder to recognize). I have many character defects -- but they don't include being mean. Like him, I will go overboard to take the feelings of others into account. I'm shocked by unkindness.

You'd think I'd be better equipped, have a harder shell by now.

Their dad went to the hospital today - too early for me to drive him. He should have had a family member with him. There are so many times when he will feel alone, or sick, and no one will be there.

I am so inadequate to all the needs around me.

Nothing left to say right now, but the tears, flowing down my face, as I watch the leaves on the trees outside fall gently, inexorably, to the ground.

Acceptance

2011-09-18T09:37:00.014-04:00

I'm a bit of a mindfulness snob.

There's a lot of pap out there about mindfulness -- mindfulness in sound bites. I wonder why it's become such a popular idea -- maybe because most of us know that we spend a lot of time crazy busy and feeling guilty about it.

Let me do the trendy thing for a moment, because its convenient. Mindfulness in a sound bite -- it's being present in the moment, where you are. Accepting the bad, the ugly and the good -- the truth for now, knowing that it could, and probably will change.

But not predicting, or expecting the change -- not trying to control it.

I love the idea...I'm not always very good at it.

Yesterday, for example, I found myself behind a very erratic driver. She or he would slow down, then speed up, forcing me to do the same. This would not have mattered much to me, except that my gas gauge (I had left my pocketbook at home the day before, so was sans credit card) was below the red line. I was running on empty.

Gripping the steering wheel, I groaned. I spoke sternly to myself. I envisioned myself already at the gas station (kinda a mindfulness no-no).

I got to the gas station --- the anti-poster girl for mindfulness practice.

Today I woke up -- and although I had an ornery cold (y'all try living in a house without heat), I had a sense of freedom, of possibility, of hope.

Part of this comes from acceptance of what is, in fact, the case. The goods, the bads, the uglies. But it's not like I can take credit for my sense of peace -- it feels like it's something that is happening both in and to me.

Whatever - I'm grateful. What a gift, after a few months of transition and turmoil. And a sense of relief so deep that I really can't analyze it yet.

Part of it, I have to admit, comes from having encountered, in the past few days, via conversation and emails, some genuinely nice guys. Guys who seem to be responding to the person I am.

I have railed (just a few days ago) about the badly-behaved men who approach me online -- it's as though the universe wants to remind me not to give up hope.

Last night I traded stories of left-wing family connections with someone on the phone, doing a playful game of "can you top that"?

Today I heard from a man saying that he was compelled to write by the "depth" he saw in my eyes.

He has no idea how much that means to me. The combination of a hot guy who appreciates depth could turn out to be irresistible...we'll see. I'd love to find a guy who could share intimacy, independence, gnarliness and forgiveness with me (see below for a reprise of one of my faves).

And that's not even the half of what's been going on. All of it good. It feels wonderful to be seen..and appreciated.

I don't know if there is some kind of synchronicity between acceptance and opportunity -- I'd like to believe that, but I remain agnostic in face of the opacity of the universe.

I have no idea what's happening, or why it's happening, but so many chains feel a lot looser now.

I can't guarantee that this mood will last -- but I'm going to enjoy it as long as it does. And I hope that whatever joy you find on this lovely fall day is a gift of freedom, of optimism, of hope. Fleeting? Perhaps. But no less precious for that.

Woman on the run

2011-09-16T11:27:00.002-04:00

Sorting out my desk (I'd lost my checkbook, and was gearing up to write a huge sum of money to my contractor), I found a c.d. that I'd buried in the back of a drawer. Actually, I'd forgotten about its existence.

And when I saw it again, it brought back memories that I've been attempting (not too successfully) to bury also.

I stared at it. Then I put it aside. Possibly, in a week or so, it will disappear in a pile of papers -- there isn't a lot of room in here right now.

I know I'm not ready to play it.

This morning I had a challenging conversation with my contractor. Items in a change order concerned me -- and, as it turned out, I'd been reading the complex document completely wrong. I could see the man supervising the entire renovation of the house become more and more uncomfortable.

Finally he blurted out that his wife (who runs the business side) thought that I thought they were making a lot of money from the project. While I assured him that it wasn't the case, I felt very uncomfortable. I have the sense we haven't said what we need to say to be "clean' with one another.

Raising questions, trying to get to the core of the matter, as uncomfortable as it sometimes can be, is my way of life. I figure that it's better to have your cards on the table -- and I hope for that in return.

But truth -- this kind of truth -- between two people is unusual. It doesn't happen a lot. It's much easier to not communicate, to hide behind daily routines, to languish in limerence, lust or lassitude than tell someone you are furious, or anxious, or feeling vulnerable.

And when you can do that with someone...it can be pretty scary. Who wants to be that open? It's so much easier to get hurt when you are naked -- or maybe it's tougher to hide the scars.

I will leave the c.d. on the desk. When I can play it again, and just appreciate the music, I'll know what I've gained -- and what I've lost.

Bitter with a dash of wry

2011-09-14T21:13:00.009-04:00

I see his face pop up on my "viewed you" page, and, for a moment, I feel a rush of rage.

White-hot anger floods my veins.

He is one of many men on dating sites who call themselves "available" -- it's actually, strangely, a synonym for "unavailable."

The word "available" often means that they are married, and for some reason looking for sex/romance online (they are cheating, swinging, or stuck in the never-never land of living in the same house as the wife).

Then there was the fellow whose profile said that he had been cheated on by an unfaithful "cougar" wife...and was only seeking casual hookups himself.

Who in their right mind would want to date a man who describes himself like this?

I'm losing my patience with married guys, guys who write me emails that say merely "hi" and men who rail at me if I don't treat them with the care deserved by an ancient Roman vase.

In the old days, I'd want to know what made these fellows tick -- why were they doing these strange things online? I'd study them like an entomologist scans a bug that hasn't yet been named.

Now I just think they are total jerks -- no, some of them are babies.

I've also lost my immunity to immature behavior.

What concerns me is that, along with the disgust, I have moments of bitterness. And I'm genuinely not a bitter person.

I can find a reason to forgive, to believe, to reach out...even when it's not clear that the person on the other end is worthy of that kind of tenacity. I find it hard to think ill of anybody.

Yet I don't want to become mean, or hurtful, or vengeful. I'd rather be slightly naive than a crusty middle-aged lady, with layers like a carapace.

I still believe in love, even if romantic love doesn't come my way. Yet I hope...hope that a person will come into my life who is indeed a man of honor, even if that honor has gotten a little jagged and cracked along his journey.

Mending is something we could do as a team. I know I need healing also -- I'm very tired of being jaded.

I changed my profile header today to: "Seeking a man who looks in the mirror, broken, scarred, gorgeous -- and doesn't blink." I could love a guy like this.

But save me from the man who doesn't know he is in pieces. I do not have a spirit large enough for him.

Between she and thee: do smarts matter?

2011-09-12T22:32:00.009-04:00

Recently I spoke with two guys on the phone.

One of them was very highly educated -- so well-versed in erudition that I frankly confessed (not being an intellectual) that I couldn't keep up with him at times.

Last week I chatted with another guy -- he had one advanced degree, but his area of expertise was practical. Highly practical.

We couldn't stop sharing opinions --rather unusual for me in a first telephone conversation. Quickly we found similarities in the way we saw the political world, environmentalism, and even religion.

In other words, we drew sparks, but I didn't feel that I needed to race to keep up with him -- or draw him back from the Ptolemaic universe (or whatever universe in which the first man likes to spend quiet hours).

As I've said, I prefer a mix of smart and grounded, e.q. and i.q. And that doesn't have to mean that they've graduated college -- I hope we are moving past the time when the sole measure of intelligence is that degree on your wall (and where it came from).

I've wondered, however, what guys my age are looking for.

Back in the days before our culture became slightly more egalitarian, a number of men dated and often wed women who weren't quite the sharpest tools in the shed.

Did it help them feel more secure?

It certainly was not the case in my family -- no self-respecting female would look demure and be quiet when a man was talking. Don't think badly of the Jackson women -- we'd let the guy get a sentence or three out before we contradicted him.

When I read dating profiles, lots of men say that they are seeking intelligent women. And many of them find such women.

On the other hand, lots of men happily settle down with women who have concrete instead of abstract skills, stay in the bullpen, and tend to let their men do the original thinking for them.

It's very possible that these guys, as smart as they may be, end up very happy.

Or, perhaps, some of them end up wondering what they have missed.

As much as I fantasize about the calm, stable, concrete thinker, I know I'd miss the give and take -the spark, the dance, the engagement.

Am I dreaming? Notice, I didn't say he had to be rich or gorgeous, too. Told ya I was a realist.

The sad lessons of September 11, 2001-Lancaster commentary

2011-09-11T15:47:00.003-04:00

On one level, the attacks on America on Sept. 11, 2001, changed little in my life.

But in other ways, the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in rural Shanksville profoundly changed the way I see the world — as perhaps it did for you.

No personal loss, and yet a loss that cannot yet be measured, and a hope that refuses to die.

I lost no one I knew in the tragedy, although that in itself is remarkable in that 20 percent of Americans knew someone affected by the attack, according to an article in New York Magazine.

I grew up in New York City, and have friends in the financial service industry.

Nearly 3,000 men, women and children died that day.

When we got the news that planes has crashed into the twin towers, my husband and I were at a diocesan meeting. Sitting in a large Gothic-themed church of soaring ceilings and arches, we were surrounded by men and women in black shirts and collars.

Clothed in all the garb of tradition, and ecclesiastical authority, we sat stunned as our bishop told us what had occurred. Suddenly, everything around us became a prop, our rituals flimsy barricades against an encroaching darkness.

Gazing out at the empty skies as we drove back to the parish where I worked, I wondered — as many of you might have done — if we were entering a true apocalyptic moment.

If apocalypse isn't the legacy of the madness that took so many innocent lives, the cost has been high enough.

Those of us who lived through the attacks will probably never feel as secure in own own cities and towns as we did before.

The post 9/11 military operations we are fighting have diverted money away from important needs here at home, such as rebuilding infrastructure or fighting poverty.

The cost of these conflicts are still rising, and our exit strategy remains unclear.

Though Osama Bin Laden is dead, and many experts believe al-Qaida is very much weakened, the insurgencies continue.

Thousands of our own brave fighting men and women have died, along with tens of thousands of Iraqi and Afghan men, women and children.

Nationally, there have been more than 1,700 hate crimes reported to the U.S. Council on Muslim-Islamic Relations, according to the New York Magazine article.

The unity of purpose we felt in the days after the attacks? It feels a bit chimerical now.

And what have we gained, taking into account bin Laden's death?

I can only speak for myself: these gifts are double-edged, born in sorrow and drenched in rue.

A deep respect and wonder for those of our citizens who died that day with bravery, faith in one another, and dignity. Again and again, my thoughts return to the field outside the little town of Shanksville, and the battle waged over its skies. The courage of the passengers on the plane that day meant that it is likely that many others lived.

Heartfelt appreciation for the sacrifices made by our firefighters and police, and the volunteers who spent days, months and even years at ground zero and the other sites. It is because of them, in large part, that life in those sacred spots has returned to something approaching normal.

Gratitude to the children, widows, widowers and relatives of those who died for continuing, not only to witness to what happened that morning, but to help make our country stronger and more effective at battling terrorism.

Thankfulness for work done by people of conscience building bridges between faiths in this country — and in battling bias against our Muslim neighbors.

A stronger sense — and in this I stand with St. Augustine and the Reform tradition — that those of us who are people of faith have a duty not only to stand up against the evil that is outside of us, but the malice, hard-heartedness and lack of empathy within us.

I take personal pride in being from the great city of New York. Yes, we are home to the Yankees — don't hold it against us. New Yorkers also are tough, tenacious, compassionate and visionary, rebuilding a nerve center of the world's financial district with their gutsiness and faith in the power of human persistence.

Sunday is the 10th anniversary of the cataclysm that touched so many lives, and when I think of the lessons from that day, I recall the extraordinary life of an ordinary woman — Beverly Eckert.

Eckert lost her high school sweetheart and husband, Sean Rooney, when the South Tower of the World Trade Center fell. After he died, she became an advocate for families touched by the tragedy. About five years ago, she recorded an NPR interview that touched on her memories of that day, and of their time together.

"I told him that I wanted to be there with him, but he said, no, no, he wanted me to live a full life," she says in the interview.

As the smoke got thicker, Rooney whispered, "'I love you,' over and over," Eckert says. "I just wanted to crawl through the phone lines to him, to hold him, one last time."

In a tragedy beyond words, Eckert died in the crash of Continental Flight 3407, on her way to Buffalo to commemorate her husband's birthday.

We'll never forget you, Beverly. Your story, multiplied, is that of so many survivors, and of many Americans, determined to wrest meaning out of rank evil and stand up for the sentiment that in the end, love will triumph.

A Christian sentiment, but more than that, a human one. When I recall the very mixed lessons of Sept. 11, 2001, that's the one I choose to recall — love that stands up to evil, and will not die.