Welcome to my recipe for disaster. On Thanksgiving Day this year my daughter will be 21. I am trying to combine a milestone birthday, a holiday, the umpteenth anniversary of my father's death and a tentacled divorce. I can't even tell you the half of it because doing so here would compromise the privacy of people close to me. I'm leaning toward Jet Blue. I will focus instead on stuffing.

My favorite stuffing story was the year I decided to make the bird at my house and transport it to my late brother Stephen's home. People were not relaxed. I was never known as the turkey girl and I that year I was going to show them! 

Everyone at the table watched in awe as my mother pulled a plastic bag of innards out of the stuffing cavity. I can still hear my brother's hysteria. This year I'm at it again...shoot me.

For decades it was my mother's Italian egg stuffing recipe. A combination of, roughly, a dozen large eggs, a handful of grated Locatelli cheese, a handful of chopped fresh Italian parsley, enough plain bread crumbs to thicken the mix till it drips off a spoon and a little salt and pepper. This then blows up inside the turkey and is absolutely delicious.

My sister-in-law Susie started going with her sausage & chestnut stuffing and my stuffing allegiance is now challenged. Actually, I am open to stuffing suggestions. Got any?

A while back — a long while back — I wrote about how in those first few months after Levi left I couldn't stand to look at anything that reminded me of him. This obviously included pictures of us, his clothes, his stuff etc., but also included things that he had bought for me: jewelry, clothes, dishes, and so on.

Although this has changed somewhat — I am once again wearing my favorite pair of jeans, even though he gave them to me — it hasn't completely gone away.

Levi's splitting plan (which was equivalent to that of a criminal running away in the night) wasn't conducive to hauling furniture along with him.
 
Although, he was slightly crafty and snuck a few of his favorite things into a storage shed before he left, I was left with quite a bit of furniture.

(Now that I think of it, I never did say thank you — better get on that.)

Not initially having room for all of it, I put most of it into storage also. (Too bad Levi and I weren't on better terms, we coulda probably gotten a sweet two for one deal.)

Well, now I have the room, and a need, for the rest of the furniture. I have enlisted my friends to help me fetch it next Saturday.

"Why didn't you get it earlier?" my friend Rachel asked. I told her the truth: I didn't quite have the room for it, and, I couldn't stand to look at it. She told me that she had that same problem when she had broken up with a long term boyfriend. "Yeah, I think its a common symptom of breakups," I told her.

Then it hit me. I had an idea. "Wouldn't it be great if I could find another woman with a storage shed of furniture that shed of furniture that she couldn't stand to look at? "We could trade!!"

Jake spent so much time out of the country, and for such long stretches of time, that my world, when married, was split in half: my life when he was home, and my life when he wasn't.

It was one of the things I least liked about our relationship. I didn't like that the pieces of my life didn't mesh, that we didn't share any friends, that he was so separate from the other things that were important to me. 

I worried that this dual existence couldn't possibly be sustained. And, of course, it couldn't.

Now I'm in a position where I'm trying to find that: I want my relationship life to be a part of the rest of my life, but, at the same time, I don't want to lose the life that's just me. How do I balance these things?

Living together this summer made finding balance difficult for the first time. Normally, when Mike and I see each other, we stay at each other's apartments — but it's for maybe a week at a time.

Suddenly, there was no looming deadline. And suddenly, I was confused. I wanted to see him. I wanted to see my friends. I wanted to see my friends on my own, but I also with him. I wanted to spend time alone, but didn't want to lose time with him.  I didn't know when and how to fit all these pieces together.

And because I didn't even realize this was what I was struggling with, it just meant that I was a pathetic sniveling mess a good deal of the time, without being able to offer an explanation.

Now I know, though. It's likely that I'll be moving to New York next year, and living together when I do is a bad idea, for now.

Yes, it's nice, when we're both busy, to have at least that 10 minutes in the morning, but having my own space is still too important to me to give up.  Figuring out how to merge these two lives a little at a time is something we both need.

This summer, Mike and I tried a Cohabitation Experiment: sharing an apartment for the month and a half I was in New York.

Said experiment was an epic failure.

Why was it a failure? Well, really, we just weren't ready for it.

But that's the easy answer. Plus, who didn't see that coming?

The girl: not-so-long split from a long term marriage, terrified of relationships in general, overly-analytical and prone to panic. 

The guy: has never lived with anyone before, equally skittish of a Relationship-with-a-Capital-R and all that might entail.

Obviously this was going to end badly. But just leaving it at that wouldn't give us much to discuss, would it? And who wouldn't rather pick apart all the little nuances?

Plus, in all seriousness, this "failure" was, in many ways, really good for this relationship — at least, from my end. In trying to figure out just why I had such a hard time, I think I'm in a much better position to move forward.

Having all your neuroses jump up and down on your head all at once does wonders for figuring out how to deal with them. At least, once you're done panicking.

You fall into a pattern, in a long distance thing. It's not real life, so much, when it's only a week, two weeks at a time. Real life is on hold. So when, suddenly, you're in the relationship and in real life, and sharing an unfamiliar space, and not on your regular schedule...well. Things get confusing.

But with some thought on this, with some distance — I'm less likely to make the same mistakes again.

Next Post: Specifically, balancing. 

In my ongoing quest to spend a month happily living solo, I decided to spring for some fresh, fanciful fare.

I've just finished reading French Women Don't Get Fat. It seems the French drink a lot of champagne and that, somehow, ingesting quality ingredients keeps their women from over eating.

I scored beautiful local goat cheese at the Hastings Farmers Market and picked up a lovely pink Brut for under $40.

I don't usually drink alcohol while I'm alone, but I'm in survival mode and the kids don't get back until after Labor Day.

Popping the cork and pouring the Brut into a pink marabou martini glass, purchased at the TJ Maxx bargain rack, life seems sort of okay for the moment.

This was not a reward for spending a month in isolation. I don't need a reward, because I know that a workshop or trip to the Omega Institute is coming up.

However, I'm convinced that every night I spend alone is going to help me be a stronger person.

Admittedly, as I'm having these thoughts, there is a strong craving for a Valium or something else that will make me feel numb.

I used to feel desperate if I didn't have a man in my life. I still feel desperate, but when I compare the relative peace of my little blue house in Hastings to my married life in the mansion, with my over-the-top, angry ex-spouse, I'm satisfied with my decision.

But when I think of the things I gave up to be a hermit, I want to cry. Family and friends from the last 20 years are gathering on Fire Island this month to swim, laugh, and sail together.

Flirting with single guys, and sometimes even the husbands of my friends, chatting with the hunky lifeguards, and making the rounds to Saltaire, Fair Harbor, and Kismet were all part of my married life.

Feeling popular, rich, and loved seemed ingredients for a perfect life. But they're not.

Since the divorce (two and a half years ago) and in the last year, I have discovered something quite wonderful. It is that each and everything that we do is important. So, consequently, I am no longer in a rush. Seems I spent 12 years rushing, rushing, rushing to please, to prepare, to arrive on time, to make sure "they" were on time, to get things done. And it nearly killed me.

Today, I take pleasure in the smallest of things. I simply look at the job at hand and begin. I cut linings for my friend's drawers today. I did not over think it. I did not look at all the drawers and think, "Oh, my God, there are so many of them."

She gave me the assignment, and I poured myself into it. I sat in the sun at my "work" station, which was a bench on her deck. I sat on a cooler with wheels, and I had a razor blade and a block of wood, an ink pen and a tape measure to complete my work.

I sat and drank a Smirnoff lemonade thing and began the task at hand. I did not care if there were rolls and rolls of this shelf liner that needed to be measured and cut and that the dimensions had to be 19 ¼ for some and 8 ¾ for others. I spread the material and measured and marked and cut using a quarter round to hold down the liner. I ran my blade as close to the quarter round as I could, paying attention to the fact that I wanted the edges to be smooth and not ragged.

I accomplished my task.

When the kids spill Pepsi or milk. When my dog gets sick and throws upon my floor or when the kitchen pipe under the sink leaks and I have to stop my current task or effort to relax and must stoop, bend, twist, unscrew, wipe, I do it willingly and almost happily.

I am a grateful Samurai, today. A soldier with Krud Kutter and Lysol as my weapons.

There is this hot little Italian named Bertazzoni. She is my friend's new best friend. Cooking. It's a great way to begin a relationship. It's a great way to help heal old wounds.

She cooks. Regularly. And now that her new hot little Italian has arrived, airfreight from the Old Country, she promises mouth watering delicacies that will, as she says, change me forever.

It has lots of knobs. She's still reading the manual, but she doesn't want to rush it. She tells me that she wants to understand exactly what happens and why it happens and how it happens. She can do this with her Bertazzoni.

It's a $12,000 gas stove. But to call it a "stove" is to demean this invaluable 48-inch stainless steel warm, ready to perform piece of artistry. She had a brother in the gas industry so she got the stove for half price, plus shipping and handling from the "Old Country."

I came to her home today to see it.

It moved me. Six burners, and each different dependent on the goal of the chef. One for bringing water to boil almost instantaneously. One for a slow, steady heat that will gradually take your entrée up to the perfect temperature and consistency. One that provides a way to almost double boil.

There is no husband like a Bertozzoni. No man will ever understand our need for the perfect temperature, for the perfect weight and height and stiff endurance in the good times and the bad. No, no man can compete.

Cook.

I am a woman in a very small kitchen with an ancient electric stove that offers little solace for me, but I manage to create my famous enchiladas and lasagna and even the crust less cinnamon and powdered sugar dusted French toast.

I don't have a Bertozzoni. I have a crappy $200 Kenmore, but it will do.

Springtime in Middle Tennessee is beautiful. The house I live in had flowers planted already, but for two springs they haven't bloomed. My landlady tells me that they are Irises. But, as I said, they haven't bloomed, so how would I know?

Irises come in many colors. The prettiest I think is the periwinkle blue (don't you just love that word — periwinkle — I love saying it). But for two springs, I've seen no blooms.

That changed this morning, a morning of my third spring. I'd seen it coming because I watched some green leaves sprout, thicken, and become stalks. Every morning, the stalks grew a little taller, and eventually I began to see the tips begin to swell. There was something good coming. I could see it, and I could feel it. 

Your recovery from a divorce is much like my Irises. The roots are still there, and the plant is living, drinking and growing, but simply not producing a flower. It may take a year, two years even longer, but as long as you're still there, standing and living, you're okay. 

What you will discover along the way is that you eventually will not feel quite so forlorn. You will notice that you are smiling a bit more, and that what used to bring you joy seems to be gradually easing itself back into your heart.  

A beautiful sky painted in dozens of colors that nearly moves you to tears. A sudden breeze that waves branches of trees and makes your hair blow around your face like an actress in a movie. A butterfly. Four-week-old kittens. Your favorite song suddenly playing on the radio and so you turn it up and sing along and feel alive and free and, dare I say it, happy. 

Keep the ring! Wear it, don't wear it. But for God's sake, keep the ring! Sell it, have it made into a necklace.

Was your ring important to you? What does a wedding ring mean? You belong to someone? Wait, that would make it more like a dog collar and a rabies license wouldn't it? If lost, please return to Mr. so-and-so at such-and-such address.

Okay, now I may just puke. Did I say keep the ring?

But, you can throw away reminders, photos, papers. I tossed and burned those, too. It made me feel good. It was like shaking off the last really awful memories of a very painful and disappointing marriage. I was glad I did that. 

Of course, what about the photos with your ex and your children? What's that old saying, oh yeah, "that's like throwing out the baby with the bathwater." Yeah, I held on to those photos. It used to hurt to look at them. It doesn't anymore.

When you can look at the photos or the items that came into your life while you were married without feeling pain or sorrow or regret, you are healed.

I don't seem to care about anything related to that part of my life anymore. I am moving forward and onward and upward. I am no longer "anyone's" possession. 

Nobody owns me. I am my own person. I am free.

And, my fellow FWW visitors and bloggers .... me likey, me likey a whole lot! 

No one to judge me. No one to bitch because there isn't any tea made. No one to expect, demand, blame, cage.