De Ce Monde Secret de l’ Amelie Americaine

Reaching out from lovely Paris is my great online friend Barbara Joly who sent me this excellent reminder yesterday. Back at ya girlfriend!

I’m supposed to send this to FIVE BEAUTIFULWOMEN, but I know more than 5 beautiful women - and you’re one of them!

Below is a wonderful poem Audrey Hepburn wrote
when asked to share her ‘beauty tips.’
It was read at her funeral years later.

For attractive lips, speak words of kindness…

For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.

For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.

For beautiful hair, let a child run his/her fingers through it once a day.

For poise, walk with the knowledge that you never walk alone…

People, even more than things, have to be restored,
renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed;
never throw anyone out.

Remember, if you ever need a helping hand,
you will find one at the end of each of your arms.

As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands; one for helping yourself and the other for helping others.

If you share this with another woman, something good will happen. You will boost another woman’s self esteem,
and she will know that you care about her.
It’s BEAUTIFUL Women Month
TAG YOU’RE IT!
Dance On, Sister

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It’s now time to get back to reality. Mr. Republican Hair Part and I have exchanged emails, admitting that there has been a certain malaise about our lives since his departure last week. I missed a phone call from him this morning. Still I have to remind myself to not focus all my attention on one person. Especially someone who seems to be focused on someone else.

Feeling the pain, the fear, the potential vulnerability, and finding the grace to not cave in on myself and hide away from the world like a little girl. This is my challenge to myself. I don’t have to enjoy it. I just have to show up for the opportunities.

When my financial adviser called to invite me to a short cocktail party, I decided to go. Not because this is my social crowd of choice, but because I have to acknowledge that my opportunities to meet men and date might improve, if I expand my circle beyond work, beyond, the French classes (which are predominantly filled with women), beyond, the circle of friends who are already married, settled, and otherwise not prone to putting themselves “out there.”

This week I have purposely crammed my schedule with new friends, classes and social events.

My “to do” list.

Arrange times to hang out with acquaintances who live in Westchester. Expand my social circle. Stop hiding in my apartment. Even if it is a fabulous apartment.

Educate myself about a potential second source of income so I can more easily afford the new house. Stop taking the path of least resistance, work wise.

Attend wine tasting for this year’s release of Beaujolais Nouveau at the Alliance Francais. I am going alone. It doesn’t get more uncomfortable than that.

Make a dentist appointment, and get two cavities filled. It doesn’t get more potentially painful than that.

And, finally buy my airline ticket for the holidays. Even though I love love love my chosen family, every holiday I am usually the only single person, kissing no one under the mistletoe. It doesn’t get more lonely than that. I remind myself continuously that,”You are lovable, you are safe. You life is what you have made it.”

Everything happens in it’s own time, even if for the moment you have to feel the pain, and do it anyway.

“New York is a great city,” I wrote in an email to Mr. Republican Hair Part. “Determined and creative spirits thrive here because it forces you to know yourself, know what you want, what you don’t want, and be focused about getting it.”

I think it is time I start to listening to my own words.

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We stood in Penn Station waiting for his departure gate to be posted after spending the weekend together. We were silent but harmonious. The weekend had flowed and unfolded gently. There was nothing about him that had grated on me, except for the fear that it would not happen again. Like a warm cup of coffee, being treated like a woman had awoken in me, a deep need for more. The highlight being when he put his arm over my shoulder for five hours, intermittently holding me close, while we listened to music at a local bar. He was a bit tossed at the time, and what happened in the Mercury Lounge was going to stay there. Naughty confessions about the past and all.

Two friends standing in front of us tearfully spilled their hearts out and held each other’s hands. Mr. Republican Hair Part and I looked at them, appreciating their expressions of love and then smiled at one another. I had been surprised with my candor, although I had only known him peripherally for several years. There he had been in the background, living his life as a prince among men. Yet I know that at this point we are definitely JUST friends.

There were zero episodes of fun-killing tension or friction, although Mr Republican Hair Part is someone who on the surface is very opposite to me in many ways. We navigated our decisions about our weekend and our opinions on life with humor, compassion and aplomb. I slowly realized how our experiences had shaped us in complementary ways, almost as if I was suppose to have those experiences so that I could appreciate someone JUST like him.

But unfortunately, I know full well, that he is unwilling at this point to give up on his uncommitted, twelve time zones away, pseudo-girlfriend, living in another country. And I have to respect that his true romantic attentions are elsewhere, and make sure that I do not get ahead of myself. Love is not an intellectual concept, and on this we both agreed.

I turned to him, after the two friends in front of us parted ways and said,”There is a movie called Love Actually. Hugh Grant plays the prime minister, and in the first line of the movie he says, “Where ever I get gloomy about the state of the world I think of the arrival gate at Heathrow airport. The general opinion is that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don’t see that. Mother’s and fathers, girlfriends and boyfriends, old friends, new friends…Love actually is all around us.” He smiled really big, and we continued to people watch while we waited for his gate to be announced.

When it was, we hugged tight, he smiled at me and said, “I had an amazing time.” There was something that I didn’t know how to interpret in his slightly cheeky smile. I couldn’t translate exactly what it meant, so I smiled back without saying a word. We said our goodbyes, and I turned around and left, aching a bit, each step of the way.

For now, I was accepting goodbye with no assurances, except that he wants to come back very soon during the holiday season. No specific plans had been decided upon, but I kept his bed made on the couch where he said he slept, “so comfortably”. I am not ready to wash the sheets just yet.

Relief from this anxiety came this morning when Mr. Motorcycle stopped by my desk and said hello and offered to bring me the crossword. He was obviously pleased by my reaction when I smiled and accepted wholeheartedly. I needed an assurance, an attraction, something that would once again fill that insecure, pin-hole sized vacuum in my heart. Mr. Motorcycle’s fundamental look of stupid on his face when he saw me, was that medicine.

If I could find someone who gives me that look, along with the noble, courageous, forthright nature of Mr. Republican Hair Part, then I will have found the “perfect man.”

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Is my guardian angel speaking through friends and coworkers? Or am I going to be left hanging, alone with my faith, leading to no concrete results? While Mr. Republican Hair Part and I finalize our arrangements for next weekend, Mr. Motorcycle decides to go for another round of back door flirting today at work.

It started with my hat, worn to cover a very bad haircut, but became some kind magnet for compliments from three male co-workers. Mr. Motorcycle took it one step further and handed me a computer print out of the cover of a DVD titled “Fievel et le Nouveau Monde”

“So, when are we going to head out west to California.” he asks slyly.

“Uh?” I shrug not sure if he knows, that I know, that he just got back from California on a trip with another woman, even if she was a lesbian.

“Isn’t that where Fievel went to? Your hat is just like his. When are we going on our trip?” He counters, and I finally make the connection between the print out he gave me and his first question.

I back out gracefully with an uncommitted one liner, and exit the stagehands office, painfully conscious of the tension between us.

Back in the safety of my of station, I drop the paper in front of my computer, and turn to a cameraman, who witnessed the whole interaction.

“What do you think he meant by this?” I point to my picture of Fievel, a french mouse, with an optimistic rudsack slung over his left shoulder.

“He’s flirting with you like a sixteen year old.” He instantly retorts.

“Flirting doesn’t mean he actually has any real feelings for me. He keeps doing things like this, yet he’s never come out and said, “Hey, would you like to go out for a movie and dinner?”

“Why don’t you something about it?” He counters.

“No, I want someone who will put himself out there and come through the front door, not another “backdoor bob” I stated flatly.

In my old age I’ve become someone who wants a man who will tell me his intentions up front and will follow through. I’ve become dogmatically old fashioned about my demands. I’m ready for my good guy. While Mr. Motorcycle is undoubtedly very outgoing, outwardly confident, tall, and handsome, there is a part of me that feels like a little girl in his presence…hiding a bit and more quiet than usual. When our eyes meet there is an electricity, but neither one of us seems to know if we want to honestly acknowledge that current, or let it be.

Recent murky dating waters have left me feeling a little insecure, confused, and faithless, even as I pray faithfully…not for anyone specific, but only that the right person comes into my life. I hope the powers that be don’t take it personally that I have a hard time believing my prays will be fulfilled. There is also a part of me that knows that no man will be 100% perfect, and I do not want to push someone away who may be right for me, but a bit awkward.

Putting aside all prejudice, I ask the cameraman an honest question, “What do you think of him. What do you know?”

The cameraman stopped his work, and turned to me, “I think he was living with someone recently and she cheated on him and left him for someone else, yet I don’t really like him honestly. He has a mean streak, and I think he can be a bit controlling. Who knows, maybe she had had enough and decided to break free.”

It was really all that needed to be said. Instantly, a wave of fear and sorrow overtook me. And of course, it was almost time to go on the air. I pushed back tears, and focused on my work. The cameraman touched my arm gently, like he could read into the years of repressed fear, and frustration, that I would betray myself and fall for someone, who would really deeply hurt me.

“I think you can do a lot better.” He said compassionately.

My only fear. Will I find it? Will I know it when it happens. Will I believe in the moment, or callously overlook genuine affection. Or will I look back years from now and realized my missed opportunities to finally get it right. And I am not talking about Mr. Motorcycle.

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With Mr. Motorcycle hopelessly engaging in “geo-caching” adventures with a woman who also likes to sleep with women, just like he does, and also rides a motorcycle (they have so much in common), I’ve decided to focus my attentions on Mr. Repubican Hair Part.

After some email exchanges, we are now in the process of setting a date for him to visit me in my new home in Westchester, and to explore the Big Apple together, as friends, as distant relatives by marriage, not genetics, as confidants who have engaged in decisive, honest, tactically appropriate, emails… that have led him saying the following,”

“Wow! You take a direction and go the distance. Your
“off the beaten track” list covers the bases. Sprinkle
in my touristy things and we have a plan. Pick an
upcoming weekends that works best for you and I’m there.”

With baited breath I responded to his email with the best weekend or weekends to embark upon our adventure. Fully knowing that my irrational exuberance might prove to be my undoing.

I called our mutual elderly relative to get a reality check, to see if there was further intel that might quell emotions that can only be accounted for, in part by a highly active imagination.

In paraphrase:

“We talked for over an hour. I’ve always been closer to him than his brother. He’s always been the black sheep in his family ” She continued, “He talked about his girlfriend or his NOT girlfriend.” She seemed to be as confused by the status of his love life as I was, probably as he was, at this time, refusing to decisively define the exact nature of their relationship.

I chose to lite another candle tonight. The same one as before. Yet I added another line to the pray I said before I lit it.

“I do not want the perfect man. I want the man who is perfect for me. Please don’t let my affections go where they are not meant to be.”

I do not know where this infatuation will go, but at this time, I’m choosing, to appreciate, the infusion of energy, and pray, that if it is not meant to be, that my heart, will not be damaged to the point that I’m not open to any real love under my nose.

I only hope that I will understand the way in which this pray is answered.

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Like a rejected lover, Brooklyn made sure to say his own set of “f-you’s”, today, as it is my last day in Borough.

“You don’t want me anymore. Fine.” He stated, unemotionally, while passive aggressively making my life as difficult as possible.

There was the last romantic walk down 7th avenue one more time for my morning ice latte and croissant.  Neither of which were remotely as good as I am use to.

Walking home, my dog was nearly jumped by a rottweiler, whose owner, a cantankerous old man, proceeded to yell at me for over-reacting to his dog’s behavior.

I couldn’t find my car, or remember where I had parked it the day before.  Secretly I think Brooklyn moved it to waste yet another hour of my time.

I am running on empty and running against the clock, as the painting, cleaning, and packing are still not done in my apartment.   Every time I settled down to focus on yet another undone chore, I find that I still to not have all the tools I need to complete the job.   Nothing is getting done.

Then my blackberry was  lost at a U-haul store. When I returned to retrieve  it, the sales clerk proceeded to tell me that he had never found it.  Although, I know that was where I left it. My blackberry along with all of my personal information is probably being sold on Fulton Street as I write this entry.

Brooklyn knows I live and breathe by my blackberry, and thought of all of the countless people who will be calling me to coordinate this move tomorrow would send me into a spiraling panic.  He wanted me cut off from the world, but he failed to grab my lifeline. I plunked down my credit card, and $500 dollars and two hours later, walked out of the cell phone store with a new one.

Secretly, he was grinning.  I know it.

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He stood in front of his kitchen window, peering at me in my apartment, five brownstones away. Someone who had thrown me out of his life, as a friend, when I could not give him what he wanted.  We were friends a year ago, photography buddies, who took pictures together of a Brooklyn parade, and headshots of his niece for her modeling portfolio.  He held me when I cried about the violent death of  a relative, and the subsequent conviction of the one responsible.

I did not understand him. He did not understand me.  We were different…opposites, my small blond frame set against his looming six foot plus, dark one.   Yet we told each other truths that you do not tell acquaintances or friends with whom your reputation relies.  For a brief time, we reached across the heavy burden of our conditioning, and were friends.

____

Today I told Jackie that I was moving.   I stopped to say hello as I always did, as she sat on her stoop in front of her brownstone.  Jackie, always says hello whenever I passed her on the sidewalk.  “How are you doing baby-doll, she says in her casual, authentic tone. When the drunk witch became too much to deal with… I found myself in Jackie’s apartment, pouring my righteous heart out. She played mediator, and confidant.  The drunk witch and I were able to stand down from our positions on the battlefield, because Jackie intervened.  Jackie understood, “You gotta do, what you gotta do, ” when the drunk witch resumed her reign of terror, and I had to take actions to protect myself.

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“The best tenant in the building is leaving, yet we couldn’t get rid of the worst one” stated my building’s super, named Mickey, referring, of course, to the drunk witch.  This was in fact the biggest, most open display of affection I had ever received, from her.  Although, I had always sought to maintain good relations with my neighbors, most of them looked at me, with an observed distance.  We were different.  For a time, the drunk witch and I were the only two caucasian tenants in the building.  I knew what their experience had been with her. I had hoped that the Halloween candy I put out for the kids, and the chocolate I bought back from Paris would be enough to soften the distance between us.  Mickey was always there, however professionally detached, to help me with my apartment or babysit my pets. I knew I could always rely on her, yet I never really knew her.  Was never invited to share a meal with her family, many of whom, live in various apartments in our building.  Yet I held back from moving sooner because there was always comfort knowing that she was there.

___

Like Brooklyn, the drunk witch is fundamentally unchanged,  yet esoterically altered, like a highlight in your hair, or the type  of wine you might choose to order with dinner.   She finally kicked out the boyfriend of eight years who broke her arm, and fought in the hallway with her mentally unstable son.  She didn’t kick him out for the violence, or the infidelity.  She kicked him out when she found out that he was stealing her money.   Like Brooklyn itself, the girl’s got her priorities, however skewed and screwed up.

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