There is something so comforting about making dinner in a kitchen in which I can twirl around (yes, I said twirl but not I am not a ballerina) and be able to look about and see space and light and - freedom.
My son and I moved into our new home a week before Christmas and I am still in awe. I want that awe factor to remain. This home gave me freedom. Matter of fact, considering the dark dungeon in which I resided with my son for 7 1/2 years, it may as well have been a prison. So now that I am "out" of prison, I do not know how to act - or react.
Last night, one of those reactions surfaces when my friend Sharon arrived for dinner and I opened my front door to her and felt .... pride ... for the first time in many, many years. I welcomed my friend inside and gestured with my arm out, smiling, that this is my home. I am no longer a prisoner. But I am still trying to act like it's mine. I'm still trying to get used to opening my blinds to let the light in. And when I do, I can see outside, the trees swaying in the (chilly) winds, I can see my neighbor's home, but I can see light and MY driveway and MY walkway, MY yard and I cannot wait for spring so I can plant MY flowers and a peony and lilac bush. And to those who know me, those two particular flowers have special but bittersweet places in my heart and hopefully will have a special place in which to grow outside my home.
But when Sharon and I sat down to dinner (she admitted she didn't like pot roast but clearly, the clean plate didn't mirror her distaste for pot roast so that makes me some sort of pot roast goddess ha ha ha ha), I felt the pride grow. This was normal. My son and his friend Mike were running amok in the house and making noise and stomping and being typical 10 and 11 year old boys. I no longer have to shush my son or squash his footsteps because there is no one below us, no one above us to care about the noise. And other than trying to eat dinner with Sharon with a Lego Nerf gun poised over my shoulder and my son ducking under the table to avoid being shot, and me wondering if the nerf bullet was going to end up in the green beans, I was genuinely relaxed. I still have my neurosis, though, about the stairs because when my son was a toddler he fell down the stairs in my old home and it scarred me. Clearly,watching him take the stairs on fleet feet and listening to me scream HOLD THE RAILING every time he comes down the stairs with those fleet feet, well, it's going to take time for me to perhaps let go a little bit of that fear.
And yes, I did go upstairs a few times because the boys seemed to think that my bedroom was way more fun in which to play and hide and being ON my bed was the perfect battleground podium for the Nerf wars. So the ceiling was creaking crazily and the lights flickered with every stomp but the laughter coming out of my son was the best music I've ever heard. It's been a long, long while since I heard my son laugh the way he did last night. And I want that laughter to continue. I will make it continue.
The best part of having dinner with a friend I haven't seen in a while is talking about all the events - good and not so good - that has transpired over the months of not seeing one another. So, let's see. We talked about men and how some possess eerily similar traits likened to a jellyfish (spineless), the Lion in the Wizard of Oz-pre-wizard (cowardly), a penis that appeared on Facebook briefly (Sharon found that - I didn't get that lucky LOL) .... near-genius men who break up with women over the phone and near-genius men who make plans for a date then mysteriously disappear with blocks of ice firmly frozen over their feet.
I personally think the "cold feet" cliche should be re-visited and "ice blockhead" should replace it because clearly some men "freeze" in the face of a possible date, some sort of a possibility of - oh heavens - a budding relationship - and we women simply wish that when men freeze, the neutrons, electrons and protons and neurons and brain waves that control their ridiculous views of how to "deal" with - gasp - a relationship - would unfreeze and be completely re-arranged so that common sense becomes the center of all brain activity.
But that would be asking way too much of the male species.
A song by new artist Christina Perri comes to mind, this particular line "you're gonna catch a cold from the ice inside your soul who do you think you are."
There is just something so wrong, so ridiculous and so immature about a 50 year old man who breaks up with a woman over the phone. Crying. He was crying, Sharon. I'm sorry but I'm sitting here laughing because I can hear the echos of all parents who say to their cryings kids "If you don't stop crying, I'll REALLY give you something to cry about.!" Hmmm. maybe I should have said that to him and mentioned casually about how I could take a little drive to his house, stand out front and scream at the top of my lungs YOU BROKE UP WITH ME OVER THE PHONE YOU SHORT FAT (you know what) ROCKET SCIENTIST JELLYFISH PUKE JERK.
Yep, that would probably work way better than the "I'll give you something to cry about" line. hee, hee.
So over pot roast, roasted potatoes with Fanny's Italian dressing and parmesan cheese and steamed green beans, Sharon and I commiserated about the other half of the human race that occupy space on this planet but seem to have their collective heads stuck either on their asses, on backwards or just non-existent.
Sharon met up with a classmate at our most recent reunion, who, according to Sharon, grew up to be quite "hot." (is that the cougar term or is that a universally used term for men of all ages?). When you go to a reunion, you USUALLY just chat about inane drivel, gossip fiercely about anyone and look around and try to figure out who's losing their hair, who's sleeping with who and the usual reunion chitter chatter.
And Sharon informed me that my intuition of one classmate's sexual preference for men was right on the money but frankly, all I can say is kudos to him for walking into the reunion with leather pants on and not caring about what anyone thought. Now THAT'S self confidence and self-esteem that any human being would kill to possess. Of course, Sharron believes it is a waste of hotness that this particular classmate is gay. Ha, don't we all feel that way sometimes? I look at American Idol runner-up Adam Lambert that way. Damn. Just give me 10 minutes with him. I'd make a valiant attempt to turn him around!!!!
But back to the "hottie" classmate with whom Sharon found herself engaged in conversation and who was peppering Sharon with personal, one-on-one questions of Sharon's life and genuinely seemed interested in Sharon. Period. And over the course of the few months, they both communicated and ultimately set up a date for December 9th which Mr. Cold Feet Clueless In The Head bailed on her and stood her up. That Dec. 9th date seems to be a bad karma day because I relayed to Sharon that was the day that SHORT FAT (you know what) ROCKET SCIENTIST JELLYFISH PUKE JERK broke up with me (crying) over the phone. So Sharon has the pre-50 year old man just bailing on her, period, and my 50-year old acting like he's effing 12 with his phone break up shenanigan.
And people wonder why women like their power tools. Take 'em out of the drawer, turn 'em on and voila. Instant gratification without all the whining and bitching and whatnot. And then they go back into the drawer. Why can't handling men and their quirky whacky ways be as easy as that?
Anyways, the dinner was great, Sharon's company even better and the sound of the laughter of two boys having fun echoed throughout the house.
Freedom. It comes in different forms, at different times.
And Sharon, the theological part of our conversation - that was truly interesting. But like you said, faith is an intangible and most of the human race want something on which to place their hands - to touch, to see, something concrete. But faith isn't that.
It's like the Red Sox of 2004 when they were down 3 games to zip to the Yankees in the ALCS. I went out on my back porch, looked up in the sky and said "can we get a LITTLE help here?"
Look what happened after that.
So sometimes, with a little faith and sure, a little bit of cynicism mixed in - sometimes you just gotta believe.
Lining up another friend for dinner. Any takers?
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