The Writer's Retreat at Lake Arrowhead

After weeks of not writing, I've come away for the weekend. I didn't bring my divorce in a box, or piles of bank statements. I brought an empty journal, my laptop, my Kindle and a few writerly books and magazines.

There's a blue lake here and an even bluer sky. There are words in my journal.
Re-baptized.

photo credit: California Fishing Online

Exposure

Blog=Web log.  In other words, a log to be read on the web. Restricting this blog's access to the reading public does not serve my purpose. Which is to say: Here I am. Writing. Read it.
A writer needs exposure.
I could have created  a new blog. Maybe something less problematic--like Cooking for Agoraphobics or Recipes for the Chronically Depressed
It might go like this.
I don't like to go out. Especially in winter after sunset. I might be starving, and my refrigerator will have only 6 lemons, a half-empty carton of milk, a swallow of orange juice, 2 eggs and some yogurt. My pantry will be just as sparse. The freeezer? Gin. Vodka. And a mostly empty carton of lemon sorbet. But I can cook you dinner, and you will love it.
Dinner #1 or Orange is a Happy Color
Bake a sweet potato. Bake it in the oven, not the microwave.
Melt some butter, and swish it around in the what's left of the orange juice. Set aside.
Toast some sunflower seeds in a black skillet. Watch them carefully or you will set the house on fire.
Pour the sauce over the sweet potato. Garnish with the sunflower seeds.
Serve with a side of yogurt.
Dinner #2 or Red is a Happy Color
Toast the dried out dinner roll you brought home from a restaurant a couple of days ago. 
You may brush it with olive oil & foraged herbs.
Or you may spread it with canned tomatoes or spaghetti sauce sprinkled with parmesan. 
Serve with a side of yogurt.
Lunch #1 or Orange and Yellow Are Both Happy Colors.
Gather whatever fruit is growing in your backyard or your neighbor's yard or your alley.
Peel and eat.
Breakfast # 1 or Coffee is a Happy Color
Make coffee. 
Get over your disappointment that the milk is empty.
Substitute ice cream or chocolate (preferably milk chocolate) or powdered hot chocolate mix. Or maybe Kahlua.
Don't use yogurt.
I could have started a new blog. But I like this blog. So here it is out in the open, and the people who get themselves in a tizzy over it shouldn't read it.

Apricots, Sadness & Joy

Yesterday I flew from L.A. to Baltimore. I remembered making the same trip in August of '08 when I came to deliver the sad tidings of the demise of my marriage to my mother in person."No, No,No!" She said, crying and stamping her feet. We were about to go out to dinner, and I decided to just blurt it out while we were gathering everyone together in my cousin David's kitchen before getting into our cars. My mother's twin, my Aunt Millie, was in her wheel chair by the door and hadn't quite heard what I'd said, but she burst into tears at the sight of my mother crying. "What's wrong? What's wrong?" she kept asking. "E. & Denise are getting a divorce," my cousin said. But with all of the commotion, she still didn't hear. "E. & Denise are getting a divorce," my cousin's girlfriend shouted. There we were, the five of us crammed in a  narrow kitchen in a squall of tears and shouts. But after a few minutes my mother rummaged a tissue out of her purse and blew her nose. "I hope his mother shoots him," she said.
My mother is somewhat less feisty these days. She almost died from surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from her lung last August and has had to give up the apartment she once shared with my aunt. She has a room at my brother's place now. My aunt lives in a nursing home with both of her legs amputated--lost to peripheral arterial disease. My cousin is old enough to have begun collecting social security.
And I am stunned at all the calamity and sadness that has visited my family since my marriage ended. Or maybe I'm stunned that I feel the pain of those hurts more than the happier things--an enagement, a wedding, the birth of a baby, the headlong falls into love, my own graduation.
I am laden with joys, but still wearing the veil of an unfinished sadness.
And what I picture as I write this is my apricot tree back home on my patio in L.A. Determined to reap its crop of lucious fruit for myself and spare it from an invading army of squirrels, I wrapped it in three layers of bird netting a couple of weeks ago. It looks sad to me--like a widow in a black veil. And I worry that it's not getting enough sunshine to ripen its fruit.

Addendum: After reading Allegra's comment, I have to post this picture I took in an apple orchard in southwest France last fall. The contrast in these 2 images--bride and widow--has made me re-imagine the imagery I must try to employ in my future as I re-invent my life.

Offer Rescinded

I was surprised at the outcry over my offer for compromise. Friends didn't like it. Blog readers I haven't met in person didn't like it. I let their comments roll off of me for a day or two. They don't understand the finer points of all this, I thought. I'm going to do it anyway.
Then today. The money I had hoped to take from the joint checking accounts isn't all there. The money I thought we could split 50-50 from an investment account isn't all there. A huge chunk disappeared 7 weeks before he left me. Another chunk was moved yesterday.
I've rescinded my offer.

photo credit: Sean Kelly