It’s a gorgeous summer Saturday in New York, so this will have to be a quick post, as my bicycle and I are yearning for the sunshine. But before I go out a-frolicking, I want to report back to all of you, loyal readers, who have undoubtedly been AT THE ABSOLUTE EDGES OF YOUR SEATS wondering how my love life is going. So here’s the report:
I am on a romantic sabbatical, meaning that I am taking some time off of my normal romantic misadventures to think and to study, and to possibly publish a tawdry expose about each of my exes. Since this is the first time that I’ve been actively and wholly single in about a decade, I’m having a really self-indulgent time going to yoga and reading and riding my bike and napping, while changing jobs and moving apartments on the side. Still, I’m a little bored. To fill the time, I’ve spent hours upon hours slogging around in the sordid details of every single one of my crumbled love affairs, reviewing each ghastly breakup, and agonizing over a long history of love gone awry.
I’ve realized in this excrutiating and exhilerating exercise just how much I’ve learned from all these gorgeous and disastrous lover affairs, and I feel admittedly lucky and, surprisingly, have very few regrets.
Here are the top ten things that I’ve learned from my lovers over the years:
10. How to blanch a tomato
9. How to build a fire
8. How to surf (kind of)
7. How to roll a joint
6. How to merengue
5. How to strip and re-finish wood furniture
4. How to play the banjo
3. How to change a tire
2. How to build a bike
1. How to escape when being chased by wild turkeys or other fowl
Not bad, huh? Makes me feel like quite the renaissance woman.
I hope that all the survivors on the other side of those crashed-and-burned loves have tread off as well with some kind of new skill, something that they learned along the way. Because every time I change a tire, I grin ruefully at the memory of a sweet roadside kiss with a jack in my hand. And every time I’m being chased by wild turkeys…well, that hasn’t happened again. But if it does, I’ll remember a romantic Thanksgiving spent in the mountains of Arizona. And every time I slip the skin off a tomato and am left holding its exposed flesh gently in my palm, I feel a distinct and wonderful stretch in my heart that is remembering what it felt like to be in love for the first time.
And if that’s not lucky, I don’t know what is.
Tags: Add new tag, love, luck, nostalgia
August 19, 2008 at 5:10 am
I love how, rather than learning something introspective, you’ve taken tangible skills from each of your relationships. I admire that. I also admire how fearless you always are in matters of the heart. Maybe someday I’ll learn how to do that. And blanch a tomato.
August 19, 2008 at 4:20 pm
I spent a good 15 minutes after reading this trying to think of what wordly skills my exes have left me. Can’t think of any. Is that completely sad or what?
Miss you.
