How about, Shaz, next time you go to work, the mall, or a labyrinth, you glide, slide, and twirl a bit? Wink, smile, and wave? Dip, bend, and high-five? Strut, saunter, and beam?

Just a bit?

Teeny, tiny? Or, you could just walk, Shaz. – The Universe

“Choices, choices, we all make choices” was my ex’s ex’s battle cry whenever he headed off in a different direction, leaving her behind, behind.  He wasn’t chasing skirts; he was fishing for striped bass or joining a couple of buddies on the tennis court but he was flying without his co-pilot and she wanted more time in the cockpit (no pun intended).  They were likely unconscious decisions on his part; the man was simply doing what the man wanted to do. But that included having fun without her and she didn’t like it.  Who would?

When it was my turn up at bat, I thought I could handle his buddies and his buddy weekends but eventually his lack of investment in our marriage broke me down –and broke us.  I had a full-time career too but spent every waking hour outside the office inside the home, co-parenting our children mostly with our Nanny, having fun too –and stopped missing him.  It happens.

But now they’re all gone and I’ve got at least one more decade left in me to fashion any way I want to –and that’s really the point.  No parent to answer to, no hubby to tend to, no kiddies to take care of –and no historical role models to fancy myself after… I’m in the process of scripting the unscripted, scratching my head in my love/partner relationship(s) and making it up as I go merrily along…keeping it as honest and authentic as I possibly can and hoping that’s enough.  But that’s all about me and a conscious decision I’ve made to control what I can –and go with the flow with the rest of it, trusting the Universe that what doesn’t kill me, helps me understand me, better.

Because I can’t control how others are processing the daily/weekly/monthly challenges that crop up in the course of doing what they want to do –and/or how they deal.  And I don’t want to spend even a New York minute second-guessing what the other guy is thinking or why he’s doing whatever it is he’s doing.  I can ask him; or I can wait until his thoughts become actions and I see where we’re at.

Easy for me to say; I’ve had the benefit of a long-distance perspective and time away from the front lines of midlife dating.  But my pals have been in the thick of it and are suddenly dealing with different critical self-esteem issues caused by various doses of rejection from incoming dialogue, especially from their current love obsessions:

Pailey is going to a Reiki Healer trying to exorcize CEO from whatever chakras are attached to her body-mind now that he’s moved back to LA and bought a new apartment with the old girlfriend . . .

As she gets closer to Vegas‘ promised move to New York, Emma’s imagination is on creative overdrive, coming up with way too many reasons (that would never occur to him) why it will never happen…

And Karen’s world turned upside down when The Ambassador asked me if I could bring a friend along for an evening of dinner and theater when his business partner was over from London (she jumped in at the opportunity to gussy up for a night out with a couple of uber-successful seniors).

They swallowed the love potion, invested in these relationships, played the “pleasing your man” game and are coming up empty handed.  What do we really want?

Pathetically, really, we do more wishin’ & hopin’ thinkin’ & prayin’ in the relationships we’re in, than sitting ourselves down for a reality chat and getting on with it.  Because the truth is, we are really used to being who we are, living the lives we’re living –and don’t really need a full-time anyone anymore.  We made it this far; the final stretch is a blank palate and we can paint that picture any color we want.  We just need to say it out loud –and let the chips fall where they may.

Harry Truman said more than something about a chicken and a pot — he also said There is nothing new in the world . . . just what you haven’t been enlightened about — and the man had good mid-western common sense.   The reality of CEO buying a bungalow built for two –without her, was the final shocker that opened Pailey’s eyes to where his heart was . . . The fact that Vegas is finally committing to co-habitating with Emma is forcing her to deal with years of repressed anger and frustration that’s causing her agita . . . And Karen’s night out on the town with a guy who was clearly attracted to her (and with whom she could theoretically hit the heights and see the sights) took the rose-colored glasses off her relationship with Tool Man.

Bond, James, flew in for a long weekend after two short weeks of declaring our relationship “non-exclusive.” I’d had a few evenings with The Ambassador and he just wasn’t doing it for me . . . I’d moved in to the small studio I’m renting temporarily and Bond, James, let drop that he’d been thinking about finding a place together, i.e., sharing my rent.

Wow.

It never occurred to me that he would do that, but, of course, it’s an interesting choice.  He wouldn’t actually uproot from Tampa, but he would spend more time in NYC.  Hmmm.

And so it was, as we were rolling over for a morning snuggle part-way through his visit, I had an epiphany:

We can make our relationship anything we want it to be.  Here, there or anywhere… once a week, once a month or “same time next year” — Why not?  He knows what he has with me and knows what he doesn’t want to lose.  Vegas knows too well what he didn’t have with the other women he committed to; Tool Man doesn’t want to lose that special something — that je ne sais quoi — he’s got with Karen either –but all of these relationships have got to be “bespoke” = custom-fit to the size and shape of what we want for ourselves at this stage in our lives.  Being true to our own selves.  Yes, making choices — and accepting how others love us rather than expecting them to love us the way we think they should.

So phooey to the painful parts, the agony and torture of working on yourself and stepping back out there –the real enlightenment is realizing you are you’re own best friend and okay, so when no one else is looking, dancing in the dark all by yourself is a hoot.  In-between dates that is.

NOTE TO SELF: “Alone” is not alone.

I was invited to Susy’s 30th birthday party last week.  She’s a total knockout beauty who’s parleyed her friendships with single super-yuppies into a high-end event-based dating service …and parleyed that into a possible reality TV series.  Naturally, I was flattered to be included on her list of fab friends, but seriously?? Manhattan’s Meatpacking district on a Thursday night looks like a Saturday night (don’t these people have to get up for work in the morning??) when not one little girl (and I mean tiny) has got less than 10 inches of thigh showing, stilettos that hurt my feet just looking at them and strapless tops that showed off their assets like we only saw drawn in comic book figures (Archie’s Veronica and Betty come to mind).  Not to mention it was chilly and they were all completely bare shouldered.  There were a lot of them –and only one of me, wearing jeans and a jacket, walking in flats, ok… low heels.  What ever happened to the feminist movement?

We didn’t plump up our cleavage, we took off our bras and pulled back our hair… Skirt lengths were down; platform shoes were in; we feminized pant suits to equalize the workplace… In our private time, we lessened our make-up, joined sports teams and in a really bold move, threw our heels in our handbags, forsaking fashion to don sneakers for the daily commute to and from work.  Our sexual revolution had more of an earthy tone to it; we fought for comfort — dressed for us.  We scouted out intellectual stimulation and saved the sex-cat for the privacy of our bedrooms — and I’m not sure we missed much, although you can see in the looks from our male peers (and in some of their lame attempts to jump in) that they’d trade in our hippy there/then for a little bit of the titillating here/now, faster than you can say “how would you like it if I….”

My youngest daughter calls herself a feminist but she participates in the glam of sexual dressing, intentionally seeking physical (rather than intellectual) attention from the opposite sex… Or from other gals?? According to Brielle, new feminism is about gender-bending, accepting your inner male… Allowing women to be whoever they want to be, dress however they want to dress… experiment and experience any which way… “mix it up” — sequence dresses and cowboy boots.  I dig the funky, but the rest of it, quite frankly, confuses me…

Is feminism an evolutionary process??

I suppose the takeaway from all that struggle we suffered through breaking barriers and ladder climbing in the ’70s and the ’80s, is that our daughters are advancing by parading around any way they want to, without guilt, accusing us of tagging them with what they call our old-fashioned stereotypes.  Wow!  Remember when we accused our moms of using old stereotypes on us, when we switched from Bobby socks to stockings?? Yikes.

There’s no question that part of the fun of being in the here/now is the perspective we have on what we did in the there/then — and the fact that we don’t have to do any of it anymore to get attention — from anyone.  We’re uber-busy parenting and partnering and between the two, we get almost too much attention.  I’m guessing that’s why so many men retire to play more golf… Or go fishing… They’re likely still ahead of us on the learning curve and have figured out how to back out of the limelight, relax and spend their post-glory days enjoying the man/nature thing –and a couple of daytime beers.

Maybe we should be taking notes.

Hey, all I know is that you can’t ride a bike in stilettos so if I’m going to spend my hard-earned dollars on designer, it’s more likely to be a chunky watch than a firehouse red micro-mini skirt.  And if I get invited to another 30th birthday party after hours in the Meatpacking district, I’ll fill up the jacuzzi, light the candles, pour myself a glass of wine — and send a gift.

NOTE TO SELF: It’s not easy being green.

One of the funny bones of midlife dating is the fact that we’re a bunch of empty nesters who are actively reinvesting years of well honed nurture-nature in to new adult relationships.  With grown children in various stages of financial and emotional independence, we miss the care-taking and are filling in the gaps with each other.  We live alone, accountable only to ourselves but even so, our adult children are a factor in our dating game . . . They are, after all, our greatest assets (not to mention they look better than we do, which helps our beaus imagine how “hot” we once were) and it’s fun showing them off to a prospective suitor, especially if our kids are financially stable, law abiding citizens  . . .  It’s like getting high marks for a job well done.

But the kids see it differently than we do.  They don’t want to know the details of our intimate encounters despite the fact that most of us are out of the house long enough and/or amicably enough so that our kids are now rooting for us from the sidelines. The last thing they want to see is a father-like figure, who isn’t their father, show a little PDA (public display of affection) and be rewarded with an obvious doodle under the table during the intros.

So how do you balance the old notion of their mommy dearest with the new you taking a second breath of life?

Pailey’s youngest son just graduated from college and he was crashing at her place until the last couple of weeks in August when she told him it “wasn’t working [for her]” and he’d have to “come up with a new solution.”  She was on another roller coaster ride with CEO (I knew he was still in the picture; go figure) and dealing with the unexpected turn to business friendship from the Florida guy (who really would be a terrific game-set-match to her type-A personality).  She needed to wallow in the weepies — hard to do when your son is sleeping on the living room couch.  She and her ex sold their 3-bedroom apartment to now live in separate 1-bedroom apartments, so neither can house their recent college grad without sacrificing their privacy.  I’m sure Pailey’s dictate will replay someday when her son’s laying on a shrink’s couch but net/net for now, it forced him to find a job sooner rather than later and he’s now happily launched into his future, untethered by mom’s apron strings.

All four of mine live in other cities, and in my homeless state, my ex has had to accommodate two of our kids last summer by moving in with his tall, blonde, 20-year younger, size-zero babe for weeks at a time. Not a bad deal for the old guy; not sure if all that quality time played well with the GF; he seems grumpy, but we’ll save that for another blog . . . If he didn’t curse at the inconvenience too often or too loudly, I’m guessing his grand gesture landed him a few Cub Scout points in her eyes, for being a great dad — and the kids loved having the apartment to themselves.

But I was handed a mixed bag when the 8-year-on-again-off-again-BF introduced me to his kids.  Despite the fact that he’d been divorced for several years when we connected, his youngest son (who was in his early 30s at the time) invited us over to give us a lecture about appropriate and inappropriate behavior, declaring he would never again be in the same room with the two of us: clearly he had mommy loyalty issues. On the other end of the sanity spectrum, his older son (& his wife) took me to dinner years later when daddy bolted, to declare their unconditional love for me (and we are indeed close, 2 years later).

Regardless of their behavior however, we all love our kids –and in a real flip: we want their approval (i.e. thumbs up to our love choices).  Kids matter.  They have the power now –to put a wedge in your relationship(s) –or be your greatest ally.

I met Bond, James‘ son early on in our relationship, when we were “just friends,” and his daughter after we’d become lovers.  Each time I saw them, I was careful to put him with them -before me.  Both were a little quiet at first (it’s awkward when they’re staying with you) but impressively respectful of me and I believe we are genuinely fond of one another at this point.  I have to give Brownie points to their mom for that –truth is, our kids represent us, and if we give them permission to accept & enjoy the new player, it’s a win/win/win for everyone.

So when I was in Tampa for 12 days at the end of August, Bond,James‘ kids came in for a long weekend… to see each other (his son brought his girlfriend) and to spend time with us. B,J & I enjoyed ourselves before they arrived… We took over the apartment –funny debauchery, howling at the moon when the mood struck.  Then they showed up and we switched gears… became model grown-ups, setting them up with pillows & sheets, walking to brunches and engaging their help for a couple of dinner parties we hosted; very much “en famille.”  But on another one of those evenings, when it was getting late and they still weren’t back from dinner at their mom’s, we assumed our playful positions, seductively moving to the music while we cleared the dishes … Until abruptly interrupted.  “Plan B!” he whispered frantically to me when he heard them on the walkway outside the windows – “Plan B!” –we halted (!), luckily before we lit the candles and began the begin.  We oh-so-smoothly invited the kids into the living room to watch a late night movie. I made the popcorn.

Crazy silly, but in this pseudo adolescent state of being single, I’m feeling an irresistible urge to reconnect with my own kids soooo differently than if I were still married to their dad and in a much more clearly defined matriarchal role.  Hey, my gal pals and I are hanging at wine bars, lounging in lounges and going to bed after midnight… I’m wearing big earrings, showing cleavage…We be our daughters (!!!) only with wider hips, in flatter heels and less make-up.

But as much as I get a kick out of peeping in to their mature lives, there’s just not a lot I can share with them about my escapades… Eerily like our parents, they wouldn’t get it… who we are, what we’re doing and who we’re choosing to do it with.  They probably wouldn’t approve.

So we need to be careful around the kids.  Careful about our language and especially our body language = no kissy, no touchy; forget about the candles and popping champagne at midnight… save it for when the kids leave.  And the good news is, they do.

NOTE TO SELF: growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional.

Hock und Sterb (“Hook & Stab,” the nickname of a thorn tree that grows in the Bush)

There are few more striking symbols of Africa than a thorn tree —

its gnarled branches, graceful form, jagged thorns and abundant blooms,

in many ways reflecting the paradoxes of the continent.

— www.wildwatch.com

Picture this: a king size bed under a white tented canopy in a floor-to-ceiling windowed room with a thatched roof, on the edge of a riverbank in the middle of a game reserve in northern South Africa — a hot bath, an hour massage, a glass of champagne and a delicious orgasm…. I may have found Shangri-La in the middle of the dessert, but Bond,James, just found Paradise in the Bush (with a woman who sports a Brazilian).

I think all couples on the brink of making serious commitment decisions should take a 3-week trip to South Africa.  Maybe it’s seeing real live animals walking about au natural or looking north to face the sun that brought out our primal urges but there’s something to be said for living in a glass house with all that visual exposure to Mother Nature. Chita Banana jumped up in the tree and started swinging right outside our window –and there we were, with all of them-there-born-free looking at us while we’ve got our noses up against the glass, staring wide-eyed back at them.

Bond,James, is here on business and prepped, which was fascinating in and of itself, but I too was well prepared for our trip to South Africa… I read Alan Payton’s Cry The Beloved Country when I was a teenager in the 1960s — and I selected Invictus to watch on the plane ride over. What I gleaned from both did actually come in handy — I was a bit more up on my “who’s who” in the good-guy category of what-happened-when politically since forever — and I could follow the Rugby match between Pretoria (the blue Bulls) and Johannesburg (the red Lions) when we were invited guests to the infamous game where the Lions upset a 20-year winning streak against the Bulls at the stadium in Pretoria.

But from the moment we landed in this incredibly beguiling visual of royal blue skies and gold textured earth, I felt la difference between what was and what is. Alan Paton’s beloved country stopped crying in 1994 when Nelson Mandela and F.W. Klerk decided to make this country a rainbow nation –and shared a Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts (rightly so — both were good men and visionaries). But it’s going through growing pains 18 years later and, having participated in the Civil Rights movement growing up in our country, I am in absolute awe of the true grit these folks have demonstrated to the world in letting go of the past and moving forward.  At least those are the sound bites.

Johannesburg and Pretoria are struggling between sanity and insanity from within their relatively new democratic government –surrounded as they are by other countries who are more interested in acquiring personal wealth (and wives) than they are in providing basic human necessities (food and jobs) for their people.  The former makes it tough for the spanking new speed train between Johannesburg and Pretoria to get through a week without vandals steeling the copper from the electrical lines, forcing it to constantly shut down; the latter resulted in a recent wave of xenophobia in a nation struggling with their own internal concept of freedom.

You can imagine how my antenna was up in the Bush; we were escorted to and from our bungalow after dark by a guy with a weapon lest we encounter a hungry four-legged roaming beast.  But my street-smart radar was up in the city too; I was told not to venture out on my own — and I didn’t.  Francois started a tour-guide business shortly after 1994, when he lost his job in the early stages of the South African equivalent of our EEO (Equal Employment Opportunity) –and it was from him — (and from other guests at our hotel & local colleagues of Bond,James) that we heard real life stories of personal hardship in the transition and redistribution of wealth and power.

All that aside, the landscape is breathtaking . . .  And not just the Bush.  Soweto is the most populous black urban residential area in the country, a “Township” just outside of Johannesburg, that is home to a million people.  With its acres of tin houses, it’s evolved into a showcase of sorts.  A new generation of free men and women who were recently gifted the shanties they were once forced to rent from the white supremacist government, rebuilt their homes along with their lives when it all changed in 1994.  It was a battle ground just before the change (recommended newly released South African film: The Bang Bang Club) — and there is still a sense of danger now, but there is also a very real and visible sense of pride, future and hope for a better life.

We spent just over two weeks in nearby Pretoria and experienced so much of the energy and optimism that’s just beginning to shape their current culture, including a national holiday (Women’s Day) honoring the 20,000 women who bravely marched on the Union Buildings in 1956, protesting against legislation that required native Afrikaans to carry the “pass” — special identification documents (modeled after Hitler’s anti-Semitic campaign) which curtailed their freedom of movement during the apartheid era.

And yet, in a country so richly endowed with gold and diamonds (yes, I bought one girl’s best friend and all . . . okay, so a very small one), and embroiled in cultural economic debate, there is an African beat that overwhelms.  Beaded bangles, earth-colored fabrics, exotic spices, textured landscapes — it’s all multi-dimensional African Art.  And the beautiful and graceful Springbok, their National Symbol, as distinctive in color as they are, with clean striped lines in shades of white, beige & brown — is, indeed, the multi-colors of the people it represents.

So I drift back to Makanyane, our five-star “exclusive” resort in the Madikwe Game Reserve on the border with Botswana.  With only eight bungalows and a maximum of 16 guests, everything about it is gourmet.  And the Safari . . .  where the survival instinct is imperative — and in full view, as we bundle up before dawn, dress in our warmest woolies and are handed a hot water bottle & a blanket to brave the wind chill riding around in an open-air multi-passenger jeep over dirt paths & low water crossings . . . to eye-witness the Circle of Life . . . Pumbaa and his pals tromping around, Mufasa and his brother Scar contently napping in the morning sun, rhinos and hyenas, ostriches and owls –and the most gorgeous and graceful giraffes.  We were Great White Explorers with our very own private guide.  Spoil me Tarzan; I be your Jane.

It doesn’t get better than this.

NOTE TO SELF: Hakuna matata (“No Worries”- -The Lion King)

I wasn’t quite sure that anyone would really understand my resistance to settling back down in to a routine when I got back from my six-month travels, but when I gingerly mentioned to one of my investors that I wasn’t ready to unpack my bags — “just yet,” she responded with “I’d love to lose my furniture…Just get rid of it and travel.” Her husband was in the backseat, listening in to our conversation and wrote me in an email later that week, that he, too, would love to break free the shackles of responsibility and take the time he’s earned, to do/see what he’s always wanted to do/see — while he still can.  They’ve actually done a good bit of exotic traveling in the last few years but always on organized tours for specific amounts of time, not open-ended and certainly not by the seat of their pants.

In fairness, I couldn’t afford to do it any other way than how I did it: through a couple of house swaps, a working farm, an inexpensive B&B for the few nights I did actually have to pay for a roof over my head — and some quid-pro-quo(s) for having given out-of-town guests the key to my kingdom over the years.  The last time I left the USA for an extended period of time, I was 22 and stayed away for two years. I had my whole adult life ahead of me when I returned to my home turf — and have been living it ever since.  This time I was 59 when I left –and away for six months.  I can’t do the math, but I betcha the ratio between time spent on the road when I was 22-24 and the lifetime I had left at that point, is about the same as the ratio this time around, at 59, being away for six months and the amount of life I have time for — before heading off into the twilight zone.

What I wasn’t expecting was my teenage, 1970s rebel-like refusal to replant my feet on solid ground when I re-entered my home-zone, but I’m honestly not anxious to hit the road running.  Au contraire, I’m living life as far out on a ledge as my acrophobia will allow, taking my sweet time and not tackling any serious subjects for as long as possible (like how to handle never-ending financial issues with my ex). I’m sure both my business and my pleasure play big roles in justifying my obstinacy, i.e. having committed to only one Broadway show that doesn’t preview until November, I’ve got most of the summer off before having to go into full swing on production/advertising and marketing issues post Labor Day (giving me additional time to play) — and having kept my relationship with Bond, James, respectfully in-tact during my absence, we agreed-to a fact-finding extension through Labor Day to determine what exactly we have/are with/to each other (which includes accompanying him on a business trip to South Africa – OMG!!!!).  And because we’re not majorly committing to being long-distance lovers in a mutually exclusive relationship – just yet, I’ve been dining with the Ambassasdor on occasion, exchanging texts and emails, keeping him at bay but curious none-the-less how that relationship might ultimately play out.

Staying true to my promise-to-self, not to haul up any boxes from my storage unit and switch-out my wardrobe, I continue to live in the present as if still on the road, albeit on my own home turf.  Couch surfing. I’m traveling, for the first time in my life with my favorite pillow, crashing in friends’ apartments and moving from one to another as they slip out to their vacation homes and/or vacate for other destinations. If need be, a living room couch (or a blow up floor mattress) is more-than-adequate as my sleeping space; I’m not complaining. My only concession: I organized my moving from space-to-space to begin with out-of-town visits so I could rent a car (since I wasn’t paying “rent”) and move around more easily with my luggage.

A reasonable rental car deal allowed me to go from the communal house my producing partners and I used the first two weeks in June (for a 12-performance run of our musical in development) to my beach house at the end of Long Island… And from there to a suburb outside of Boston to spend time with my kids and their kids.  After two weeks there, I gave up the car and headed back to NYC for 9 days, narrowing down a plethora of offers to reasonably alternate between a friend’s fabulously funky loft in the Village – -and Karen’s penthouse studio on the Upper West Side, responsible for watering the plants in the former and feeding the cats in the latter.  (There may be plenty of couches, but there’s no free ride.)

Sooooooo, I’m feeling free enough to think about alternative ways of working my business and alternative ways of living my life, all of it seemingly logical because I’m not uncomfortable making alternative housing arrangements.

I have to admit, however, that it does feel a bit odd to be opening up my suitcases on somebody else’s living room floor back in my own city, not to mention, seeing the insides of their kitchen drawers — but it is incredibly practical too. Accidental spills on a carpet (that called for a pricey professional fix resulting from a fairly comical failed attempt by my old Nanny, I SOS’d in my state-of-emergency) and replacement flowers aside, whatever task I can perform in exchange for lodging is a lot less than the price of a monthly sublet, and I really don’t need one (sublet) for another three months.

So here I am at 60, happy to accept kind and generous offers from friends, to surf on their couches, use their teakettles and get intimate with their showerheads, hoping to stretch it out for as long as I reasonably can.  Opening up my mind and body to living differently is becoming a metaphor for opening up both to unlimited opportunities (albeit funky), and I’m enjoying the freedom.  Freedom to reacquaint myself with my city in a new neighborhood, freedom to step back in to show business with a fresh perspective and freedom to take off with Bond, James, on yet another overseas adventure.

And what really amazes me is that after a lifetime of breaking barriers, I’m tearing down yet another, living a different American Dream for a new generation of empty nesters, many of whom seem to be reassessing their own commitments to love, habitats and an uninhibited desire to live their passion.  No longer intimidated by what we now know are life’s temporary blimps, unburdened by under-aged child-responsibility and having gained various levels of financial independence, we’re throwing caution to the wind and saying with Cheshire-cat smiles, “why not?”

NOTE TO SELF: Life’s good. Really good.   And so it is.

“There’s A Fine, Fine Line

between A Lover, And A Friend.

there’s A Fine, Fine Line

between Reality, And Pretend;

and You Never Know ’til You Reach The Top

if It Was Worth The Uphill Climb…”

I drove down from the Catskills to the end of Long Island on my two days off from the musical Pailey and I were working on, to celebrate Brielle’s (my youngest) 21st birthday and Nick’s (my son) 27th. Nick flew in from California to help Brielle organize a weekend bash out at the house my ex and I still own jointly — and I surprised her with a pair of Tiffany champagne flutes for the first toast.

It was a long drive out and, being home again, it was easy for my mind to wander back to the 8-year-on-again-off-again BF who spent a lot of the last decade at my beach house with me… Soooo, on a warm night, driving along an old familiar road, radio on, I dialed a number I still know by heart –and left a message on his machine, that I was back.

“…There’s A Fine, Fine Line

between A Fairy Tale, And A Lie.

and There’s A Fine, Fine Line

between “you’re Wonderful” And “goodbye”.

i Guess If Someone Doesn’t Love You Back

it Isn’t Such A Crime…”

It was great fun reconnecting with my kids — Lynn (my 2nd oldest) was there with her boys too –and it doesn’t get better than seeing them all together.  I hosted a celebratory dinner, spent some quality time with each, and left 24 hrs later for the drive back to our group house in the mountains and a LOL musical I believe in …  Another long drive, listening to good music.  …Soooo I called him again.

He picked up this time –and the conversation was strained.  He seemed anxious to get off the phone… Although it sounded like I woke him up, he said he was heading out the door…

“…There’s A Fine, Fine Line

between Love,

and A Waste Of Your Time.”

Not the smartest move on my part, but I thought about him a lot while I was away, missed what I remembered we’d had — and we did exchange a few emails around the holidays, our birthdays… Sadly, they drifted off in to the “he said/she said” zone…  Still, every so often, I can’t help but wonder why we didn’t last…

In the last few pages of our final chapter, we got stuck in the mud of some seemingly heavy-duty relationship issues and he suggested we take a break “to cool down.”  We were to meet two weeks later in my therapist’s office to “work them out” but when we did, he had a written list of grievances that ended with “Do not call, email or contact me in any way.” He bolted.

Stunned, I headed back to my apartment, packed up his stuff (neatly) (that was a conscious choice) in suitcases and stored them in the basement.  Weeks later, he came back for one of his suits –but left with said suitcases and all of his things.  He said he wanted to start again.  But I couldn’t.  Months later, we met for dinner & held hands –but it didn’t take long to trigger the hurt –and this time it ended with me telling him to “get the fuck out of my life and never look back!!!!” I bolted.

And that’s the part of the story that stopped one of my couple friends in their tracks in the re-telling of it when I saw them a few days later up in the Catskills…

“If you want to know, Shaz, why The Mr. and I are together for 33 years — it’s because those words are not in our vocabulary.”

That got his attention too, so she continued, looking him in the eye … “I swallow it a lot — and so does he!”

“I’m glad you said I do too,” he stammered, surprised at her sharing that intimate detail “…I guess we both do.”

Imagine that…never saying “I’m done!!!”

I remember Surfer Dude (who shall remain buried) explaining the quantum physics of those particles-of-attraction that launch many a long-term relationship as, “once ignited, forever lit.”

Hmmm…

Having walked away from my fair share of relationships with one hand figuratively behind my back and my third finger pointed upwards, I snuck back in to my selective memory bank and pulled up a few of those less than happy moments… Re-evaluating my behavior, I wondered if my life would be different now had I simply not spoken those fatal words..??

“…and I Don’t Have The Time To Waste On You Anymore.

i Don’t Think That You Even Know What You’re Looking For.

for My Own Sanity I’ve Got To Close The Door

and Walk Away…”

Karen is over-the-moon-in-love with Tool Man but worried about the longevity of their relationship mostly because of the unadulterated joy he gets from nightly partying.  He’s a young 60 and holds his extracurricular well, but she can’t… (don’t get me wrong, the girl loves to dance –but not necessarily ’til dawn).  She struggles with the reality of being Done!!!!! concerned he’ll never really settle down.  And he may never settle down the way she wants him to.  But if we take away the words “I’m done!” as even a remote possibility –and rely instead on words that express how we’re feeling, maybe something different happens.

Emma seems to know that.  She may have gotten angry with some of Mr. Vegas’s actions over their 16-year relationship (he did marry & divorce twice during that time) (ouch!) but she’s always left her curtain up for a possible encore –and he does come back to her… Most recently with an invitation to be his “country chick” in Branson, MO where he’s got a gig this summer… So maybe there doesn’t have to be a final scene in our romantic plays …

I’ve learned that words are powerful …I’ve certainly used a few expletives I’d take back if I could –but I can’t.  They may be forgiven over time but they aren’t necessarily forgotten –and that’s where the trust factor lingers.

My relationship with the On-again-off-again BF might have ended anyway, but had we used words that reflected respect & acceptance of our differences in those moments of madness, we might now be friends.  I miss that.

“oh…there’s A Fine, Fine Line

between Together,

and Not.

and There’s A Fine, Fine Line

between What You Wanted,

and What You Got.

you Gotta Go After The Things You Want

while You’re Still In Your Prime…”

Bond,James, and I are in the same time zone but still live a plane ride away.  We’re busy, leading separate lives in other cities… He’s different than anyone I’ve ever dated in many ways; some fascinating, some challenging. But we enjoy being together whenever we are, so we agreed to play “it” out over the summer.  He’s worth holding on to — and I’m watching my language.

NOTE TO SELF: Scrabble, anyone?

(*lyrics from Avenue Q)

“I don’t want to brag or make anyone jealous or anything,
but I can still fit in to the earrings I wore in high school.”

– “Cathy” greeting card

Summer in the city and my gal pals were looking great. Emma, still confidently single, cut out wheat and had already lost a chunk since she left me in London… Karen, handcuffed to Toolman (whenever possible), added jogging to her yoga and biking routine so she was fit as a fiddle; Pailey was still hot-to-trotting on the on-line dating scene, working out regularly in the gym & gorgeously petite –and JB was back on track with her Mr, planning their first vacation alone together in years. I, on the other hand, was paying the price for all the wonderful cheese I discovered my last couple of weeks overseas so my earrings were, indeed, the only things in the suitcases I was still living out of that I didn’t have to wiggle in to. My bad. Deal with it.

Not that it mattered much. Bond, James, swept me up at JFK and off my feet at the Chelsea Hotel, both of us starving for the “human touch” neither of us had since we broke our two-day record for the number of 7-minute moments followed by a cigarette (neither one of us smoke) back in March when he surprised me in Paris for the weekend. After a couple of nights in the city (and feeling rather groovy) we headed upstate for the 12-performance run of a musical Pailey and I have had (with a different partner) in development for the past three years. She rented a stately 5-bedroom stone house facing a lake, which we were sharing with our lighting, set and sound designers during the run. Bond, James, was heading back to Tampa in a couple of days so we planned to make the most of our time together despite having housemates within earshot…

It had been awhile and getting used to sharing my bed was weird; but ever the gentleman and gentle man, he did move slowly – to accommodate the reality of my having more than my fair share of scar tissue from two C-sections and a full hysterectomy — and in the dark, to appease my ego. Apparently that wasn’t enough to avoid a full-blown case of College Girl Syndrome however. Unable to cure the onslaught of that awful vaginal pulsing and burning urine with an occasional, somewhat discrete cranberry juice on the drive up there, we wound up in the ER of the Catskill Regional Medical Center in the middle of our first night in the mountains.

“Uhmm honey, you are good,” the nurse quasi whispered, leaning in & waking us up from a snuggle/snooze on a cot in the ER at 5 am. She actually winked at me as Bond, James, hopped off my gurney to use the bathroom…

” This is ridiculous…” I quipped, handing her back the blanket someone had covered us up with when we dozed off, “I’m 60 years old…!”

“Hey, honey,” she confided, apparently impressed, “I’m 55 and haven’t had a man in 5 years… You go girl!”

Even the doctor seemed to be struggling to keep a straight face giving us instructions as he filled out the prescriptions, adding extra pills “to be taken as a preventative measure” when “you (wink/wink) think it might be necessary…”

I suppose that incident brought the humor back in to the crazy of mid-life dating… If you play like teen-agers, you pay like teenagers… It was daylight when we left the hospital and my “walk of shame” was from the ER back to the parking lot –not to mention having to explain why we weren’t at breakfast when we caught up with the other houseguests at the theater later that day (!)

But the good news was that I had my first story to tell that didn’t involve a passport. I was back in the saddle, sharing my humiliating episode with my gal pals by the end of the following week when we went to the TONY Awards. And the re-telling was pretty hilarious…

We all got a little older and wiser during my absence but it was Pailey who had the most growth. Type-A personality, and divorced less than a year when I left, she was then aggressively on-line dating while waiting impatiently for her ideal man (aka Mr. CEO) to realize that she is his ideal woman. A couple of months ago, an accidental butt-dial to a cell phone he left in his apartment when the two of them met up on their bikes to watch the sunset, was picked up by the much younger girlfriend he continually swore to Pailey he was dumping out of his LA apartment… (Apparently she was now living with him in NYC as well.) Our love birds parted after an hour or so — and the girlfriend, having listened in to their entire private conversation, redialed Pailey and said enough (not to mention CEO blaming Pailey when she called to warn him that their preverbal cat was out of the bag) to wake her up to the fact that she does, indeed, deserve better.

Then she met a really Nice Guy. There were enough differences and similarities to be intriguing so after just a couple of dates and a heavily discounted shopping spree in his designer showroom (generosity is a good thing), she decided to accept his invitation to an all expenses paid “fun” weekend in Barcelona (Spain). And it would have been “fun” if only they hadn’t landed in broad daylight, changed for a quick jog –and he hadn’t proudly exposed his grossly out-of-shape shape in plaid shorts, a silly t-shirt and white socks… But alas, he did, and those white socks (!!!), for our jogging, kick boxing, petite, zero-body-fat pal, were a deal killer. Despite the fact that they are both English speakers and a few honest words followed by a “my treat” at dinner, might have sufficed, she somehow felt obligated to end their stay in Barcelona with enough drinks to pull off a Happy Ending. (Okay, so you really never know what you’d do unless you’re in it but my guess is I might have avoided the extra protein by suggesting a movie, donning my granny nightgown and opting for the couch??)

Regardless, she does get a bunch of smiley faces for putting herself out there and not giving up after some major blows –and a few good lessons were learned on that mini adventure overseas… Having parted friends with Nice Guy, she (and her closest friends) can still shop wholesale in his designer showroom. And Pailey is just fine… she’s moved on to the next man in her life: Tantra, a spiritual guy who likes lying next to her to let loose the energy flow between their Chakras.

We should all be so lucky.

NOTE TO SELF: Hang on to the reins!

I’m home.

At 59, divorced and empty-nested, I opted out of the life I was living to travel for six months, visiting people I know and love overseas.  I sublet my apartment and left the country the day before Thanksgiving to the day before Memorial Day with three suitcases, a round trip ticket to Paris and a general idea of the countries I wanted to go to in between … I had no expectations– – and experienced the trip of a lifetime.

As crazy as it seemed to be leaving my family, my friends, my work and the city I love — coming home after a prolonged absence is it’s own unique obstacle course.  I worked hard at staying in the present while I was away; didn’t want to take a minute off from my time abroad, to focus on a reentry plan, but I knew I’d have to deal with the backward to forward stream of emotions looming ahead.

I was coming home to two children who were excited for my journey and two who couldn’t understand how I could actually be away for so long, gal pals who had moved in and out of love relationships during my absence, Broadway shows that closed and opened, and new menus in old haunts.  And I was different; had to be somewhat further along on my own path after reconnecting with old friends, making new ones –and living my life wearing only what I could fit in my mismatched luggage when I took off.  Now I was coming home to an empty space that would start filling up with other noises: kids, friends, work — love.

I knew that Bond, James, (the guy I left behind) — who visited me twice along the route, was flying up from Tampa to pick me up at JFK and getting us a hotel room for a couple of nights …  I got an email invitation, just before leaving Paris, from the producer of Jacques Brel to come to a performance my first night back in town (the same production that inspired me to start my trip in Paris …) and thought “how appropriate” — and accepted. I emailed my buddy list offering up a pot luck picnic in Central Park for my second evening so I could just “be” in the presence of all my friends at once.  After that, I figured, all bets were off.

Bond, James, was, in fact, waiting for my arrival outside Customs, smiling, with a taxi waiting and gave me my first serious “wow” moment when we were dropped off at the romantically historic Chelsea Hotel. Jacques Brel was wonderful… And in a bonus moment, we met up with Brielle (my youngest) for a quick recap and nightcap before heading back to our hotel room for an incredibly tender evening of “doing a-what comes naturally” — with the lights out and his glasses off — to enhance the moment.

Happy Endings aside, the truth is, it only took me about 10 minutes to fall back in love with my city.  The weather was gorgeous, the skyline unchanged, Brielle seemed happy to see me and I was glad for the upcoming gathering in Central Park the next evening with 14 friends who rallied to the occasion.

Seeing my friends however, was easier and harder than I thought … I was certainly in familiar territory but in a brand new mind-space. Observing their easy interaction with each other, I felt oddly outside the circle.  They all looked great … this motley crew of friends I missed the most: married, single, straight, gay — everyone was happy to be there — but they’d had shared experiences during my months away that I just wasn’t there for. So I found myself quietly retreating, grateful to be among them, but shy.

Because I knew we couldn’t pick up where we left off — I hadn’t been there in too long, missed too much of their day-to-day. I was out of the loop — I wouldn’t (and didn’t) get the jokes … Not yet.

But I had a musical in development playing upstate and a house rented for a month with two producing partners, that I got to hang out in for the next 10 days, luckily, without wifi or cell service.  It was the perfect excuse; time would do its thang, allow the dust to settle and give all of us the distance we needed to know I was back — and get used to each other again.  As my friends came up to see the show, 1 by 1 (or 2 by 2) and spend an evening, we did find ways to reconnect … A morning walk, an evening talk, a shared pride in being a part of a new, very funny piece that garnered rave reviews and hilariously put me back on the map, professionally.

That was all a few weeks ago and we’re just getting our jiggy back now. They say I seem older and wiser — and maybe I am because I had the advantage of perspective — and time … the time it took to take care of me.

I settled back in to Bond,James, before he left for Tampa about a week after he picked me up at JFK, promising to give us time to figure out what we want from each other … And he helped me draw a bouquet in an email I then sent to everyone who participated in my journey, cc’d to all my friends who stayed in touch from here — my way of closing that chapter.  Attached to the email was the song I searched for but didn’t come to mind back in March when I left the Kibbutz — it certainly summed it up for me now in a shout out (with special thanks to Louis Armstrong for giving it it’s perfect voice).

I see trees of green…….. red roses too

I see them bloom….. for me and for you

And I think to myself…. what a wonderful world.

I see skies of blue….. clouds of white

Bright blessed days….dark sacred nights

And I think to myself …..what a wonderful world.

The colors of a rainbow…..so pretty in the sky

Are also on the faces…..of people going by

I see friends shaking hands…..sayin.. how do you do

They’re really sayin……I love you.

I hear babies cry…… I watch them grow

They’ll learn much more…..than I’ll never know

And I think to myself …..what a wonderful world.

NOTE TO SELF: It sure is.

I started walking… not even looking at Emma who was on line at the Royal Opera to get tickets for Sunday’s matinee. “I dropped my jacket somewhere” I moaned in her direction as I headed in the opposite, retracing my footsteps, out in to Covent Garden, around the corner, then right, past the Lion King, crossing the street where we came from, eyes focused towards the ground… on to Waterloo Bridge, looking down, left, right, for the matching jacket to my pants, that I was carrying on my arm because of the extraordinary warm weather… If you lose it, you’ll find it, I kept repeating, speed walking across the Thames. It’s ok…you can still wear the pants… Or maybe it’s time to toss them…you don’t really need them… I was across the bridge on the other side when, feeling droopy, I texted:

TEXT to Emma (2:01pm)

Gone

Walking back to you now

TEXT to Emma (2:07pm)

Just found it! At the foot of the bridge – our side, where r u?

TEXT from: Emma (2:11pm)

At the Opera House didn’t want to move

But I didn’t lose my jacket.  And finding it felt like winning — even though the only thing I won was my own jacket which I’d just convinced myself I didn’t need… At least I didn’t lose something. And Emma wasn’t upset that I disappeared… She was able to score a pair of Opera tickets for the otherwise sold-out Sunday matinee. That win cost a mini fortune — still, we felt victorious.

But oddly enough, her iPod fell out of her purse later that evening –and Sunday, I lost the stone to a ring I bought just a few hours earlier.  Craaazy...!

And even more craaazy?

We found everything... Her iPod was at the theater two days later when we could finally get back there to check –band although we didn’t find the stone to my ring, we were able to exchange it for one (let’s hope) with better glue.

Amazing.

Also amazing, the TONY nominations were announced the day before Emma popped out of the cab in front of Ian and Anita‘s houseboat (our London hosts and friends of mine since the 1990s) on Taggs Island, Hampton Court.  Our show made history again, garnering 12 TONY nominations despite having lasted only 2 months on Broadway. (So we shopped for our TONY dresses and found those too – ahha!) That unexpected validation from the theater community had a tremendous heeling effect on all of us involved in the production. Congratulatory emails came flying in –and coming, as they did, 3 weeks before going home, they seemed to be signaling a promising re-entry back into a life I’d been drifting away from…

Emma was over for 5 days — so apart from looking exactly the same as the last time we’d seen each other on our computer screens (merci SKYPE), from Thursday to Friday and Saturday to Sunday, I was putting one foot in front of the other in the sister city to NY/Broadway with interesting results: i.e., seeing a bunch of shows because Emma wanted to -and it was easy, slipping into “theater mode.” And meeting a couple of theater folks in London she knew –who are now interested in licensing some of my shows… And when Nelle (my mentor) showed up in London the following week --she made me a job offer—starting in June.

I was getting my jiggy back.

And then Anita, a gentile beauty at 71 with a shockingly hippie past, confided that she was having a difficult time adjusting to her mandatory retirement and dutifully dealing with an invalid mum she doesn’t particularly like.  A migraine paused our conversation while Emma was there, but Ian took off on a business trip shortly after Emma left for NY and Anita and I were drawn right back in to conversations about aging and parent/child relationships.  She had a difficult childhood (an abusive step-dad and a flirtatious mom) and she blames her mom for all of it. “I was alone,” she said, the hurt still very much on the surface, “raising two young children on my own…”

But she wasn’t really alone… Her mother, who is still alive, was alive then too. If Anita had known how to reach out to her mom, she might have come through for her a hundred times since then. “Surely as a woman, as a mother,” I gently intimated, “you can understand that now… You don’t have to forget, but you can forgive her…?”  Anita still has a shot at finding what she’s been missing. But as smart and intelligent as she is — even with a wonderfully challenging daughter of her own — she won’t.

As I listened to her, I thought about Brielle, who, terribly affected by our divorce, accuses me of not being around when she was younger.  Yet I worked from home and was very much present. I understand, her perception is her reality and although she may grow out of it, she could be telling someone Anita’s story – but about me, someday.

Anita still has her mother but I don’t.

And that thought led me to be suddenly struck by everyone who took care of me along the way. I didn’t ask them to; I even laughed at much of what they did, “mothering” me.  I was listening to Anita but I was coming up empty. All that nurturing was behind me; I was out-of-sync with my friends in NY… I’m not going to find my parents at the foot of the Waterloo Bridge.

I woke Anita up the next morning because I wanted to cry with someone and I knew she was there.  She didn’t mind; she said she expected that was coming.  Maybe because I was so close to going home — or maybe I was feeling lost.

Eventually the conversation got around to men and she asked me what I wanted.  “Someone successful in my business would be nice,” I managed a smile.

I found him on the train to Waterloo later that morning. Tall, handsome, divorced… he’s a successful business coach and professional comedian. We exchanged cards, he emailed and we met for lunch on my last day in London.  Turns out, he’s a hands-on dad with four kids -his oldest has cerebral palsy but they are a together family and he’s worked his career around his need to provide a presence for them.  He’s a good man and although it’s likely I’ll never see him again, I gave him a made-for-Hollywood lip-smacker when we parted — because we were both grown-ups trying to make it work – and maybe I was kissing London good-bye.

Emma and I laughed at our foibles and enjoyed each other’s company enough to trigger my focus on home. Just because you think it’s lost doesn’t mean it is. Sometimes it’s a matching jacket or a stone in a replaceable ring… But ultimately it’s the little victories that make it okay, especially when you wind up with yourself.

NOTE TO SELF: Take jacket to the cleaners.

I landed in the UK the day before William and Kate showed the world the very best of what it means to be a Royal (not to mention “young and in love”). Being an incurable romantic, I was engrossed from the minute I spotted the first silly hat to the last of the tacky outfits, running commentary with my gracious hosts, Mr. and Mrs. H, in Yorkshire. Could have done with a more tango-inspired kiss on the balcony, but all things considered (what with the Queen, the Step-mum and the Uncle who’s a bit sketchy), well… Well done! Nothing like a little blue blood spectacular to pump up the £ (pound).

But as we mature folk well know, good marriages are rare. So as I watched all the pomp and circumstance, I couldn’t help but wonder if that gorgeous dress Kate wore will look as hideous years from now as Diana’s does in hindsight — or if Kate (who I find adorable, appropriate, lovely and perfect for William -- as if I know, ha ha) will adjust to the change that’s about to happen in her life as smoothly as she managed her nuptials. As we witnessed in the scandalous unraveling of Diana and Fergie, it’s not easy being Royal. Kate’s not quite the rags-to-riches story as her hubby’s mum, but still, there’s a lot of silver polishing and tub scrubbing to manage when you “I do” to the man who will be King.

Speaking of which (bathrooms) and not that it means anything more to them than a giggle, but the farm belonging to my hosts, has 12 of them. And 4 kitchens. And 8 bedrooms. And way too many of their neighbor’s Mary’s little you-know-whats roaming about the front yard (which extends about as far as the eye can see) bahh-bahhing with good reason: this is meat-eating territory and they’re doomed.

Mr. and Mrs. H are living amongst the farmers in the “location location” where Gladiators was filmed and the county where the characters in “Calendar Girls” live (Mrs. H is the current President of the WI). We watched The Royal Wedding on a wide-screen TV in one of their many cozy rooms, virtual guests of Queen Elizabeth, sipping champagne in honor of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge… Followed by omelets made from home hatched eggs and local cheeses — and a stroll through the Dale (avoiding a zillion droppings from said Mary’s little you-know-whats, surprisingly unperturbed by our intrusion), up and over slim hinged gates in stone fences, two miles to the closest Village Square where a pot luck party was in progress, celebrating the newlyweds. Locals: good common folk, justifiably proud of their Royals that day and gloating over a marriage that’s off to a jolly good start.

And that was one of many lovely impressions I was left with after spending a few days with Mr. & Mrs. H — whom I met a couple of decades ago when I was doing business in London and he was kind enough to buy what I was selling. Some couples have what it takes to make it through the long hall, and being around them was (sigh) “lovely.”

They were childhood sweethearts who never strayed. With two adult children and five grandkids they adore, she’d been a working mom but is content now feeding the chickens, the cats and the Mr… He went from Sales Director to business owner to sitting on a number of important Boards — but he doesn’t have a clue what’s where in which kitchen…With the best of intentions, he volunteers to go fetch whatever the Mrs. asks for — and she winks, predicting the exact timing of his empty handed return, smilingly scolding him with a gently comical tone. He calls her “darling,” she calls him “sweetheart” and I’ve known them long enough to know that even when they only had two bathrooms and one kitchen, they were kind, thoughtful and “there” for each other. It would never occur to them to be otherwise.

It was a wonderful day to be in the UK; regardless of your time zone, the global community was tuned in, smiling, and feeling the love Sir Elton sings so beautifully about.

So maybe that’s why, when Mr. and Mrs. H came into the kitchen the next morning and happily declared “Bin Laden is dead,” it took a really long minute for my brain to shift from the visual of a good-looking couple motoring off in a royal convertible – to our President telling the world that The #1 Most Wanted Man on Earth was killed by Special Ops. Ding Dong the Witch is dead.

I stood, dazed, as the little TV screen in their eat-in kitchen switched from flag waving and festivals, to the concerned faces of our commanders and chiefs focused on their screen –and old tapes of the World Trade Centers going down. There were “on the scene” reports from Ground Zero (two blocks from my home), and interviews with people whose lives were changed forever on that horrific morning, as they gathered again, hoping for closure.

We were now attending a global funeral, Bin Laden’s body buried at sea; his remains as irretrievable as those innocent people he targeted ten years ago. The media went to work and we were transported back into the ‘fear’ zone, put on high alert with warnings of widespread retaliation. The Royal honeymoon was cancelled — and there were no shouts of victory at Ground Zero…Just pained silence.

I pushed back from the hype, hoping for an “expert opinion” that might offer that with the Wicked Witch dead, his army of flying monkeys might rejoice, be freed and cross over to our side…But coming as it did, on the heels of the best of Royal weddings, the contrast between their reality and ours seemed way too vast — and scary.

And then a friend shared with me the speech her son wrote to his bride on their wedding day. Oddly enough, it seemed applicable to both of these momentous events …

“…There is no other miracle than this:

That two threads (each distinct, sharing no fiber)

From sources disparate and paths disjoint

Entwine, and thus find permanence and strength;

That by their choice of shape and touch alone

They knot themselves; that keeping boundaries firm

They yet cohere: two threads becoming one,

remaining two.

From this creation flows

No thunderous shaking of earth or sky,

No word Devine or quickening of a womb

Does more than this: A new thing here is born,

And you, the privileged midwives, live its birth.”

A wedding and a funeral; and the contrast between selfless joy and profound sorrow were the shots heard around the world. What happens next?

Two ideologies, two very different events…Two threads. One, emanating from (the Middle East and) an older man who certainly had enormous influence — and the other, from (the West and) a young man who someday will…An opportunity perhaps, for peace? Too soon to know but regardless, a new thing here is born.

NOTE TO SELF: Let there be cake. Please.