I Will Not Want What I Haven't Got

In my old house where I lived with my husband, I was a gardener.  We had a lemon tree, oranges, tangerines, grapefruits, plums, pomegranates, figs, loquats and guavas.  Other than fresh-squeezed o.j., I don't think Mr. Ex ever tasted the bounty of my efforts, but our daughters and I ate all of  it. One summer when they were  little girls, we ate so much squash from the vegetable garden that they're still sick of the stuff.

In my new place with its tiny patio, I confess I was a bit relieved.  I brought 2 rose bushes in pots with me and planted a box of herbs, but I left it at that. Weekends were spent writing for the MFA program or reading.  My back hurt less and my hands and nails always looked presentable.  Going  to the farmer's market would be fine, I said.

Then a few days ago the guy I'm dating brought me a bag of loquats he'd picked from a feral tree in his neighborhood.  Every slice through the peachy skin to the white melon-like flesh gave me a pang.  And all week there was the scent of spring in the air and I missed my yard--the way I used to smell the jasmine mixed with lemons as I lay in my bed with the French doors open to our balcony.  A couple of days ago, I noticed there was a guava tree on my street in flower and I began to fantasize about rustling guavas in the wee hours of the morning.

Today I went to the Armstrong's Garden Center in my new neighborhood and bought a dwarf Meyer lemon tree, a kumquat tree and two very large pots and 2 bags of potting soil.  At another nursery I bought a "pesto bowl" with a tomato plant, basil and parsley.  There really isn't room on my patio for anything else, but if there were, I'd choose a fig tree.  I used to like them warm from the sun, rinsed under the garden hose.

But now I'll have something I never had at the other house--kumquats.  Yummm.

My Pretend Life

When my so-called real life ended about two years ago, I began trying to re-imagine myself.  I considered everything. Answering those work abroad ads, joining the Peace Corps (I have an application in progress and yes they do want people my age), moving back to my hometown, or at least back to the midwest where I'd be closer to family if I felt myself slipping off the deep end (yes, the deep, deep end was an option I considered, too.) I thought about putting my stuff in storage and just moving around from this to that or getting into some kind of communal living situation.

But now I've done something that is none of those things.  I bought a second condo.  My daughter and her friends will live there and cover the expenses and I have an air-bed there tucked into the corner of the strangely big-as-a-bedroom laundry room.  An air-bed with white sheets and a white comforter and two feather pillows waiting for me in a room with plaster cracked like a roadmap so that I can lie there and study the wall and wonder where I am going.

I've made up a pretend life for myself in St. Paul.  Where I practice yoga. The cooking class I've registered for.  Where I buy yarn and the bar where I never miss a happy hour and the bookstore where I work part-time.  There's a good smelling  salon where I get the perfect haircut and my neighbors have me over for dinner every week.  I like my imaginary life.

And I like my new real life, too.

Another Step on the Path to Reincarnation as a Writer

Ever since my friend Shanna applied for a writer's residency at McDowell and got it, I've been filling out applications, too.  While she was at MacDowell Shanna sent me a photo of her room and I burst into tears at the thought of sitting in the chair next to the big stone fireplace and pecking away at my laptop while others prepared my meals and sheltered me from the everyday world. I asked to see her application when she got back to L.A. and what I remember is this: The first item on the form was List your prizes and awards, most recent first--and then there were 8 or 10 stark black lines waiting to be written upon.  Shanna (according to my memory) wrote, "You're kidding, right?" The rest of the application was in much the same vein. But Shanna is an utterly fabulous writer and her writing sample was the key that got her a month at a very prestigious residency program.  

MacDowell rejected me when I applied a year or so ago. But I applied to a few others.  I got into the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and Vermont Studio Center. 

Then I got rejected from the Millay Colony--twice.  But recently I've been notified that I'm an Auvillar fellow for the fall and will be going to France to write.  Today I got a call from Ragdale and I've been awarded a residency there, too. Little by little, I'm becoming a writer.

I need better work habits, but eventually hope to become a writing machine.

Army of Friends

"Everyone who loves you will be standing behind you in that restaurant tonight," my friend Karen said.  I pictured her with the phone to her ear, sitting on her couch in her cozy house in Portland and then I began to imagine a phalanx of loved ones lined up in the candlelight with Mr. Ex and I sitting across the table from one another.  I continued to think about my friends and family as I got ready for the meeting with Mr. Ex and laughed myself silly as I drove to the restaurant while picturing my contingent of support magically squeezed into the backseat of my Prius.

I got to the restaurant first and had a minute to collect myself.  It was weird how comfortable I felt when Mr. Ex strode up to the table and sat down.  I suppose the two of us have shared a restaurant table about 2000 or 3000 times and last night didn't seem all that different.

We've been stuck in our post divorce financial negotiations for months.  So last week I conceded the issues I thought were hanging us up.  "I still want to settle this sooner rather than later," I wrote to him in an email after I agreed to pay my own grad school tuition and forego any claim on his bonuses. 

Last night he gave me those things back.  

I didn't ask.  He offered.

Maybe he saw the people standing behind me.