The Kids Are All Right

I’d like to take a moment to give myself a little pat on the back.

I have excellent taste in friends.

I think this is no small accomplishment, particularly since I am well known for making poor choices in general.  But when it comes to choosing friends?  I rock.  And apparently I always have.

I recently had a whirlwind weekend adventure with one friend I hadn’t seen in nearly a decade, and two others I hadn’t seen since high school.  It was the sort of thing that could have been a shitstorm of awkward moments.  Instead, it was an absolute blast.

If our younger selves could have glimpsed us - nibbling tapas, sipping drinks, laughing hysterically and sharing meandering tales of our lives in locations near and far - I think they’d be amused as hell.  They’d also be pleased that we didn’t call it a night at nine p.m., but instead made our way to a show and rocked on, drinking beer from plastic cups, into the wee hours of the morn.  That I was only carded because I had tickets at will-call is beside the point.

Today one of my new favorite bloggers, Aussa Lorens, posted about the wistful way autumn nudges us to reflect on the past and make plans for the future.  Summer girl that I am, I have always found fall especially bittersweet.  I am reluctant to trade my flip flops for boots, yet the storyteller within me is romanced by the chill in the air and the smell of woodsmoke.  I also find myself haunted by the ghosts of plans never realized, the trail of losses inevitable in life.  While I’ve had a lot of amazing experiences and have checked a fair number of accomplishments off my lifetime to-do list, there always seems to be more I have yet to attain.

But my friends…

I am sometimes amazed at how lucky I am to have so many kind, funny, creative people in my life.  Old and new, my friends remind me that while we cannot help the losses in life, the successes are worth celebrating.  We who were once thrown out of school for everything from questionable fashion choices (exposed nipple rings, anyone?) to day drinking in math class are now running successful businesses, creating art and music, exploring nature, raising children, rising above tragedy, doing our part to leave the world a little bit better than we found it.  I’m not sure what kind of youthful trouble the friends I met later in life have under their belts, but I know that whether they were buttoned-down overachievers or wild, fired-up messes, their experiences helped shape them into the sorts of people I am very, very glad crossed my path.

This year, as I move from bare toes in the sand to the crackle of a fire warding off that seaside chill, I will try to think less of what’s missing and more of the amazing blessings I can count as mine.

Real friendship, of course, chief among them.

www.kcwilder50ways.com

UnNaked

I had blue brie, crackers and hummus for dinner the other night.  It’s okay, though - I added some grapes to round out the leftover cocktail hour fare and make a meal of it.

Well, okay.

Fermented grapes.

Or, as the French might say, wine.

As some of my loyal readers have noted, I am no longer naked (read: alcohol-free).

My Naked in 2014 post explained some of my reasons for ditching the bottle as 2013 morphed into 2014.  I’ll try now to explain why I’ve picked it back up.  (And yes, one of the possibilities is simply that I’m a drunk and this is what we do.  But, hey - here goes…)

For starters, my Naked post wasn’t as naked as it could have been.  I had reasons for quitting that went beyond a desire to sift through past drinking-related behavior; namely the sudden downward spiral of my marriage and the way I was self-medicating with alcohol.  But that wasn’t stuff I was ready or able to discuss publicly just then.

If I’m entirely honest, The Ex and I got - and for seven years, stayed - together at least in part because we drank together.  And let me tell you, we were awesome drinking buddies!  It was the secret to our success.  We were a case of opposites attracting, but after a few drinks, who cares how whomever voted in the last election?  Who cares about bills or housekeeping or in-laws or any of the other baloney that comes to light in marital arguments?  Have a drink!  Have great sex!  Have…

A midlife crisis?

As 2013 wound down, it became clear to me that I had some big, tough decisions to make.  And that making them while intoxicated would be a bad idea.

I sobered up and assembled a widely-varied team of professionals to help me sort out how my past had led to my present - and how it might yet impact my future.  There was stuff I needed to work on, so I did.

I still do.

Probably always will.

See, I get it.  None of us is ever “finished” with this life stuff.  It’s forever a work in progress.  I could very well be a delusional alcoholic who’s gone back to happy hours and champagne brunches because, well, I’m a delusional alcoholic.

I could be someone whose circumstances led to occasionally unhealthy use of booze to avoid reality.

I could also just be an ordinary person who sometimes behaves well, sometimes doesn’t.

Here’s the thing: I like cocktail hour.  I like hanging out with friends and feeling that buzz and being silly.  I like beer on the beach.  I like wine downtown.  I like drinks on a train or in the rain, on a boat or with a goat, or with just about anything but green eggs and ham.  I like sometimes being a consumer of Chardonnay in unladylike quantities…and sometimes being the girl who sips tea while working on a manuscript.

What I don’t like is drinking to avoid talking or feeling or being real with the people in my life.  And I think I’ve put the brakes on that.  Full stop.  I am focusing on the honest, genuine, good stuff from here on out.

Naked or otherwise, I just want to be happy.

And, yes - have cheese and crackers and (fermented) grapes for dinner now and again.

www.kcwilder50ways.com

What Was She Thinking?

I want to give Jennifer Lawrence a hug.

Not only did someone hack into her private photos, steal them and share them with the world, but then came the sadly-predictable response.

Why on earth would a celebrity take nude photos in the first place?

What was she thinking?

I dunno.  My guess is that she thought she had a basic human right to keep her private life private.  That the very public nature of her job shouldn’t mean the public owned her.

No?

Ricky Gervais rightfully caught flack for Tweeting: “Celebrities, make it harder for hackers to get nude pics of you from your computer by not putting nude pics of yourself on your computer.”

As a social media acquaintance of mine commented: “That’s like saying if you don’t want your TV to get stolen, you shouldn’t have a TV.”

Duh.

This whole JLaw “scandal” makes me feel a few things viscerally.  Specifically:

1. We need to stop devouring celebrities.  Someone who makes movies or music or otherwise gives of themselves for our entertainment should not have to face mobs and flashbulbs and paparazzi while taking their kids to school or the grocery store.  They certainly shouldn’t have to worry that private pics will become public.  And don’t give me the whole bullshit they-make-so-much-fucking-money-that’s-the-price-you-pay argument.  No one should have to sacrifice their entire life to earn a living doing something they love.  The public needs to stop behaving like brainless animals in the face of celebrity.
2. We need to stop slut-shaming women.  Whether we’re talking about nude pics, short skirts, high heels, whatever.  Let’s make sure the next generation never utters the words, “She was asking for it.”    Because no matter who she is or what the context, no woman is ever - ever - asking to be violated.
3. That’s what the hack of Jennifer Lawrence’s private photos was: a violation.  As Lena Dunham Tweeted:  “the person who stole these pictures and leaked them is not a hacker: they’re a sex offender.”  Exactly.  Can we get that through our collectively-thick skulls, please?  If you hack into someone’s personal photos and steal nude pics, you are no different from the Peeping Tom under the window or the flasher in the park.  There is something wrong with you.
4. There is nothing wrong with taking nude pics.  Society needs to knock off the faux-prude baloney.  Women are hyper-sexualized in the media.  But take a couple of racy selfies and we’re all gasping and pointing?  Puh-leeze.  We all know you’ve got dirty shit somewhere on your iPad or smartphone.  It’s just not an issue because you’re not Jennifer Lawrence and no one wants to see you naked.

Look, if someone wants to hack into my pics and find some naughty stuff to make public, I’m thinking a good scandal might actually help with book sales.  So if you think the world wants to see shots of a chick lit writer who spends most of her time in boxer shorts and a David Bowie tee, writing sex scenes with a cat at her feet, chardonnay in her coffee mug, and a little crust of Toblerone and brie at the corners of her mouth, I’m your girl. 

Leave JLaw alone already.

www.kcwilder50ways.com

The Constant Gardener

One of the things I found most difficult when I left my home of the past five years was that it meant leaving my gardens.  When The Ex and I bought the property, there were no gardens.  There was an overgrown mess in the back yard, some vine-choked trees in the front yard, and a sparse lawn punctuated by muddy truck-tire ruts.

The Ex immediately arranged to have the dead trees removed, and shortly thereafter an actual driveway was installed.  But it was when I - a compulsive gardener - began excitedly making plans for flower beds and slate paths and bird baths that we had the first of our arguments about our new home.

You see, to say the house was in need of TLC would be to greatly understate matters.  We had our hands full with gutting and framing, flooring and sheetrock.  The Ex was correct in stating that the yard was the least of our worries.  He didn’t understand why, after spending a July afternoon ripping out 1970’s-era wood paneling and shag carpeting that reeked of stale dog urine, sweating bullets, I would choose to swing a pickaxe at the earth until the sun set and the mosquitoes devoured me.  He didn’t understand why I would rise early on a Sunday to machete my way through the brambles that had grown over a long-neglected vegetable garden.  He didn’t understand, and he made clear that he didn’t like it.

He’d come out of the house red-faced and scowling, waving his hands.  “Stop!  Stop!  What are you doing?”  I’d look around, trying to figure out what he meant.  Where was the emergency that had him so upset?

Oh, right.

I was gardening.

I just didn’t get why he was so bothered.  I didn’t mind if he felt it was time to sit down with a beer.  Why should he mind if I wanted to have my own beer while up to my elbows in mud and mulch?  I asked him that question every time he looked with disdain on my latest project.  He never answered.

Over the years, I transplanted a dozen trees, shrubs and perennials from locations they’d outgrown to places where they thrived.  I added more than three dozen new plants and trees.  The year my father passed away, I planted a dwarf blue spruce in his memory.  The variety?  Fat Albert.  It felt like a private little joke, as my dad’s name was Albert, but he was anything but fat.  I ran a 300 foot extension cord to the tree and decked it out in little white lights so it would sparkle in the darkest of winter nights.  I loved looking out my bedroom window on snowy evenings, the twinkle of that tree in the midst of my sleeping gardens making the child in me think of the lamppost in the woods of Narnia.

Recently, I greeted the real estate appraiser who’d come to our house as part of the divorce settlement process.  “I love your gardens!” she said as we walked the property.  “Great curb appeal.”  As she gushed over the lilacs, the hydrangea, the multiple varieties of holly, I felt faint.  While for years the story I’d told myself was that I was building a happy home, I realized every single shrub and flower bed held the memory of an argument.

"Some women buy shoes," I’d once told The Ex teasingly.  "I buy plants."

He never cracked a smile.

I never did learn what he so disliked about my gardening.  Was it that it took time away from him?  Was it that it cost money he felt shouldn’t be spent?  Was it that he’d been assaulted in childhood by a rogue rhododendron?

In the end, I don’t suppose the “why” of it matters.  The gardens I planted are no longer mine.  They are browning in the late summer, and I am moving on.  They will bloom again in the spring, and if The Ex doesn’t tend to them, I imagine my badass gardener self will suit up all in black and creep into the yard at midnight to prune and weed and water.

Yup.

When you hear of a woman in South County arrested for trespassing andgardening at night, you’ll know just who they’re talking about.

www.kcwilder50ways.com

Turn to the Left

As many of you know, my only kiddo - a/k/a The Boy - leaves this week for college.  He’s psyched for it, and somehow his excitement seems to have translated into a penchant for dressing like Hunter S. Thompson:

I love it.

I love it, but I try not to say too much about it.  Parental endorsement of fashion is presumably the last thing an 18 year old kid wants.

Still, between you, me and the blogosphere, I love it just as I love seeing kids with pink or blue or green hair - and I love that there seem to be so many of them now.  I love seeing teens with fearless fashion sense and a creative, offbeat outlook on life.  I love that, at least in some corners of the world, our culture seems to be shifting in a way that allows young people to have fun expressing who they are.

As a teenager, I wanted desperately to let my freak flag fly.  My mother bought me khakis and Keds.  I bought combat boots and lace tights.  Trying to leave the house in my preferred attire was like trying to convince Sarah Palin that Hillary should be our next President.

Mom, horrified:  “You can’t leave the house like that!  You look like that crazy Madonna person.  What will your teachers think?”

Dad, stern:  “You’re ruining your life.  Do you want to be a degenerate?”

I thought this was kind of funny coming from a guy who was a fan of David Bowie and Lou Reed, but clearly what was acceptable in rock star fashion was not acceptable in suburbia.  What I didn’t get was why.  I just wanted to wear combat boots and lace tights.  Maybe occasionally use makeup to turn my massive eyebrows into something deliberately severe, a la Siouxie and the Banshees.  What did any of that have to do with my teachers?  Did I ever say anything about their horrific fashion sense?  Those polyester pant suits and orthopedic shoes seemed to me far more likely to carry one down the road to ruin than the occasional blue streak in my hair.

But damn, folks love to fixate on the superficial.

If I had a nickel for every time I was told to do the very opposite of what I wanted to do - of what felt natural to me - well, I’d have a shitload of nickels.  And for what?  I spent my youth fearful of exploring, constantly told to zip my lip, change my clothes, fix my hair, be mindful of what my teachers, my grandparents, the neighbors might think.  That limiting mindset stuck with me for far too long.  I am 40 years old and just now beginning to live the life I’ve always imagined.

It makes me gleefully happy to see so many young people encouraged to have fewer hang-ups and secrets, and more awesome, life-building experiences.

My words of wisdom?

Wear what you want to wear.

Say what you want to say.

Stop worrying about the superficial stuff and go do fabulous things.

Because our world gets better every time we stop worrying about what the neighbors might think…and just get off our asses and make the neighborhood a better place.

www.kcwilder50ways.com

Now give a listen to my new favorite groove: ‘Secrets’ by Mary Lambert.  If this earworm doesn’t make you smile, check your pulse.

Demons

I was shocked and saddened to hear of Robin Williams' death, an apparent suicide.

The trouble with celebrity is that it makes us feel we know people.

Complete strangers?  Somehow we feel we know them.  The omniscience of their work makes us feel a sense of familiarity, of kinship.

And then, because they are human - and because we don’t really know them - they do something that catches us utterly off-guard.

Robin Williams was the funny man.  He was Mork from Ork.  Peter Pan.  Mrs. Doubtfire.  His stand-up routines were foul-mouthed brilliance.  In many of the darker moments in my own life, he made me laugh when I wanted to cry.

I met my friend Cathy - Cat Woman, as I called her - in 1992.  We were neighbors at first, then roommates for a while.  Cat was an artist, musician, and general three-ring circus.  We rigged up her microphone and PA system for karaoke nights in our house.  We sang even if her dog Debbie was our only audience.  We had no money, so we crashed local art openings and wine tastings as an alternative to dinners out.  Cat ruined two of my blenders making paper.  She atoned with jewelry and hair clips she handmade for me.

When my son was born, Cat became his honorary aunt.  She taught him to play piano.  She painted his friends’ faces at his birthday parties.  Cat was a spitfire, and the kids loved her.  She was the life of any party.

She battled her demons, though.  For all the years I’d known her, we’d discussed this openly.  Cat was bipolar.  I suffered from depression.  We compared our afflictions, weighed the pros and cons of different treatments.  On a little road trip in 2007 - to see Gordon Lightfoot in New York (I know; don’t hate) - she seemed especially sure she’d beaten her demons.  I was glad.  Back in our hotel room after the concert, we watched Man of the Year.  Robin Williams starred as a political satirist who wins the Presidency thanks to a computer-voting glitch.  Cat dozed off just before the end of the film.  She was laughing one minute, sleeping the next.  Just like old times at the house we’d shared years earlier.

In November of 2009, Cat and I chatted on the phone for nearly two hours.  Her demons had returned earlier that year, and she’d moved away from New England to live with family.  I missed her, but she sounded good.  Better.   She promised to send her new mailing address for my Christmas card list.

It never came.

In time, my attempts to track down Cat’s address for my Christmas mailing list became something more fraught.  Her voice mail box was full.  Then there was a recording saying the line had been disconnected.  Email went unanswered.  I tried to remember her sisters’ married names.  I called our mutual friends and learned that no one else had heard from Cat in a while.  A sinking feeling grew in the pit of my stomach.

It was spring before I learned what had happened.  A mutual friend called, and the tone of his voice alone told me that Cat was gone.  I waited for the details: she’d killed herself in December.  On some level, I wasn’t surprised, yet I was literally brought to my knees.  One of my very best friends was gone.  There was no undoing this.

I thought, then, of all the times she’d called me in despair.  She’d let me talk her down from so many ledges over the years.

Why couldn’t she have let me talk her down from just one more?

I took a pickaxe and shovels to the front of my lawn.  I hacked and dug and crawled on my hands and knees.  In a strange whirl of sadness and anger, I made a garden where there was none.  I planted flowers for Cat and waited to feel better.  Eventually, I built a Little Free Library in her memory and anchored it in the garden, thinking how she would love something so grassroots and community-minded.

You know what I really wanted, though?

I wanted my friend back.

Ultimately, I realized that what my friend wanted was simply an end to her pain.  She wanted a better life, but she couldn’t find one in the skin she was in.  Whether she found peace in the end, I will never know.

What I know is this:

Cat was a bright, shining star.  She was blessed with talent and passion and kindness.

Much as it seems the celebrity Robin Williams was.

I didn’t know him.  Most likely, neither did you.  He wore different costumes, became different characters.  Maybe he was as uncomfortable in his own skin as my friend Cat was in hers.

Now, for his family and friends and those truly who knew the man behind all the guises and humor, the pain begins.  My prayers go out to them.

Rest in peace, Mr. Williams.

{And please, if you or someone you love is battling demons of their own, seek help.  And keep seeking help.  I’ve provided a link to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention here, but there are plenty of other options.  Reach out.}

www.kcwilder50ways.com

The Big D

There’s a joke that goes something like this:

Why is divorce so expensive?

Because it’s worth it.

Ha.  Ha.  Ha.

Yesterday was the longest, strangest day of my life.

I was wearing the dress I’d intended to wear to my wedding rehearsal dinner three years prior.  You know - the dinner that was canceled because Hurricane Irene forced us to bump the whole carefully-planned event up by 36 hours?  Anyway…

Yesterday, I had to face a courtroom full of strangers and answer questions about my marriage and how it all went fabulously to shit.  I suppose that’s not exactly how my attorney phrased it, but that’s what I heard.  Immediately, my mind got stuck on the idea that I didn’t feel it all went fabulously to shit.  I felt that most of the time it was all pretty damn good - but something at the core of it went quietly, insidiously to shit.  Did I not get to explain that?  Should these voyeurs not at least be required to hear the full story?

It seemed not.

Worst of all, there was The Hubby - very, very soon to be The Ex Hubby - sitting next to his lawyer, somehow looking to me just like he did on our wedding day.  Handsome and stoic and uncomfortable.

I lost it.

In front of all those strangers, I dissolved into a shaking, blubbering mass of jelly.  I had two clear thoughts: one was a wish for instant death, the other was that I must certainly already be brain dead, having applied eye makeup that morning.  I looked like this:

"Do you need time?"  the judge asked.

A voice barked sharply:  “No.  I need this to be over.”

It was me.

Snapping at the judge.

Luckily, it seems if you are forty-ish, wearing rumpled Ann Taylor, flapping your hands like a deranged bird and sending mascara down your face in rivulets reminiscent of Courtney Love at Kurt Cobain’s funeral (or, OK, Courtney Love on a good day), you get a pass on some things, even in court.

Ultimately, the divorce was granted, and The Ex (get used to his new title with me) and I did what any newly-divorced couple would do.

We went fishing.

Yeah.  Not kidding.  I kind of feel like when it comes to the whole Conscious Uncoupling thing, I out-Gwyneth-ed Gwyneth Paltrow on this one.

We went fishing.

With no children - named after fruit or otherwise - we still decided to at least try to replace a negative experience with a positive one.  We went out on the boat (his boat, by court decree) and drank beer (his beer) and cast lines into the water.  The fish never bothered us.

At some point, it began to irritate me that we were out on the water enjoying a gorgeous summer day as we had so many, many times before.  As if we hadn’t just been granted an “absolute divorce” by one stranger in a room full of them.  Seven years together.  Seven months apart.  One hour and fifty-three minutes in family court, and it was done.  I tried talking politics, hoping for an argument that would remind me of why we separated in the first place.  But The Ex wasn’t taking the bait any more than the fish were.

So we just took the boat out into the chop outside the harbor.  I love choppy seas.  I always want to go as fast as possible, while The Ex generally prefers to take it slow.

"Go fast," I said.

The man who wouldn’t look at me in court turned to me and smiled.  It was the thinnest, saddest smile at first, but it grew.  He leaned on the throttle and aimed into the whitecaps.

And I felt the smile creep back onto my face.

In the wake of my divorce, this much I know:

• Silence is toxic to marriage.
• So is valuing the opinions of others over those of your spouse.
• The wolf allegory is true: whichever one you feed will win.
• Pop music is also true: sometimes love just ain’t enough.
• A man who didn’t understand me worked hard at providing me with the things he thought I needed to be happy.  (That’s something.)
• I did the same for him.  (I hope he feels that’s something.)
• There is no substitute for genuine understanding and communication.
• The whole “tis better to have loved and lost…” thing is true.  You only understand that when you are hollowed-out and broken.

                        But still grateful.

www.kcwilder50ways.com