April 28th, 2010

Please send your ADVICE to two single women, whose lives are suddenly crashing in chaos!  Zoe and Sophia, BFFs for thirty years, find themselves unexpectedly cast into the world of re-creation and redefinition after decades of being faithful wives to George and Marty.  They need advice from anyone willing to help them.   For instance, what advice would you and your BFF give if you asked each other “WHERE ARE WE GOING?  AND WHAT WILL WE FIND?”  Any advice you can give to Zoe and Sophia would be helpful, but this is what they said to each other. 

The day started softly with the rising sun. Mist hung like chiffon over the water behind Sophia’s house. Swiftly, two great blue herons rose through the mist, fleeing a sudden invasion of mallards and Canada geese. An ancient snapping turtle swam the center lane of the lake as he journeyed toward the dam at the other end, sinking every few yards, foraging for prey. Ospreys hovered overhead then plunged feet first into the shimmering surface when they spotted a good catch old snappy had missed. Once the ospreys ascended, clutching fish in their claws, they broke toward the sky, their slow wing-beats changing to glides as they soared.

Zoe rolled over and watched Sophia wake up. She reached out and stroked Sophia’s soft, light hair. Poignant pictures pricked her, snap shots of moments that filled thirty years of their sustained love as best friends. Sophia’s eyes fluttered open, and a smile sprang out to greet Zoe.
“Don’t give away your power, Sophie.”
“I won’t. Never again will I give away my power.”
“Let’s take a walk.”
“First, I need coffee.”

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April 11th, 2010

Please send your ADVICE to two single women, whose lives are suddenly crashing in chaos! Zoe and Sophia, BFFs for thirty years, find themselves unexpectedly cast into the world of re-creation and redefinition after decades of being faithful wives to George and Marty. They need advice from anyone willing to help them. For instance, what advice would you give your BFF if she asked, “WHY DOES MOVING TO FLORIDA FEEL SO RIGHT EVEN THOUGH I’M UPROOTING MYSELF FROM MY LOVED ONES AND EVERYTHING FAMILIAR THAT I CHERISH?” Any advice you can give to Sophia would be helpful, but this is what Zoe said.

As the sun began to rise, Sophia lay sleeping in her 1770 home in New Hampshire. Canada geese squawking overhead awakened her. Voltaire, her border collie, lay by Sophia’s side. She tried to reach over to pat him, but her huge Maine Coon cat, Tolstoy, was asleep on her stomach, pinning Sophia on her back like a beetle. She poked Tolstoy until he moved off, then she rolled over and wrapped her arms around Voltaire, smelling the scruff of his neck. Finally, she arose, walked to the french doors of her bedroom, and looked down at the lake behind her house. A few feet beyond the doors, mist hovered over two weathered rocking chairs, where several birds perched. When Sophia opened the French doors, her pets bounded outside, and the birds took flight.

Sophia stepped out of the room and stood on the dew drenched grass for a moment. She breathed deeply the spring air, which reminded her of a San Diego dawn in December, delicious and inviting. When she turned to go back indoors, her eyes scanned boxes of books, suitcases filled with clothes, paintings stacked against the wall, and electronic cords wrapped with tape. Contemplating another day of sorting, discarding, lifting, cleaning and packing heightened the stiffness in her limbs. Anticipating another day of culling through decades of joy, struggle, pleasure, pain, dreams, disappointments, love, and loss deepened the heaviness in her heart. But what she tried to avoid was starting the day feeling anger and pain about her husband Marty’s betrayal and departure from the marriage. Her move to Florida was an attempt to regain the spirit that seeped from her daily, an attempt to retake her power instead of handing it over to him, like a nameless servant delivering wine to a drunk king.

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April 2, 2010

Please send your ADVICE to two single women, whose lives are suddenly crashing in chaos! Zoe and Sophia, BFFs for thirty years, find themselves unexpectedly cast into the world of re-creation and redefinition after decades of being faithful wives to George and Marty. They need advice from anyone willing to help them. For instance, what advice would you give your BFF if she asked, “HOW DO I FORGE A RELATIONSHIP WITH GEORGE THAT ENCOMPASSES RESPECT, COMPASSION AND GOODWILL IN ORDER TO HONOR THE YEARS WE SPENT TOGETHER?” Any advice you can give to Zoe would be helpful, but this is what Sophia said.

At midnight Zoe and Sophia were wide awake. Both women sat at their laptops in their 1700s New Hampshire homes, five miles apart. Zoe was feeling acute stress about her divorce trial the following morning, but she also felt grateful that her sister Chloe had traveled from Boston to support her.

Sophia worried about Zoe’s divorce hearing too. She knew just how vulnerable her best friend was and that it would take very little for her to cave into her pain. But Sophia was also consumed with releasing her anger toward her husband Marty and the way he recently dipped selfishly back into her life for a couple of weeks, and then returned to his girlfriend Fugly.

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March 20, 2010
Please send your ADVICE to two single women, whose lives are suddenly crashing in chaos! Zoe and Sophia, BFFs for thirty years, find themselves unexpectedly cast into the world of re-creation and redefinition after decades of being faithful wives to George and Marty. They need advice from anyone willing to help them. For instance, what advice would you give your BFF if she asked, “I’VE BEEN IN A PATTERN THAT DOESN’T FEEL GOOD. DO YOU THINK I CAN CHANGE THE PATTERN?” Any advice you can give to Zoe would be helpful, but this is what Sophia said.

One late afternoon Zoe rushed around her house, cleaning again each spotless room, deflecting thoughts that stalked her like little harpies. She was acrobatic in her ability to dodge these thoughts, but the one sure method she removed from her repertoire of agile moves was her dating websites. She was on lockdown with the laptop until she figured out why she needed connections with the faces and words of so many strangers.

Sophia sat with her elbow leaning on the dining room table, her hand cradling her head. She tried to write, but all her mind did was listen to the rain and think what a perfect metaphor it was for her life. The rain was like tears that echoed her pain, but rain was restorative, infusing life into withering plants. She knew she wasn’t a drought-blighted plant, but sometimes she felt like one.

Zoe knew she needed to talk about her thoughts when their whispers escalated to screams. So, she called Sophia.
“Hey, Sophie, what’s up?”
“Nothin. How are you?”
“Not good.”
“Why not?”
“I’m restless. Three days ago I banned myself from the dating sites and resolved not to talk to or see any of the men who keep pursuing me. It just feels so empty.”
“What made you decide to do those things?”
“I realized that whenever I feel lonely, I panic.”
“So, being by yourself scares you?”
“My skin crawls, Sophie. My stomach churns. I feel like an animal, cornered by prey, trapped in my aloneness.”
“Does staying busy help, Zo?”
“Yes.”
“What do you do with your time?”
“When I’m not at work, I drive and stare mostly, and if I’m not driving and staring, I’m trying to figure out how to sleep.”
“Oh, baby. That’s depression at its worst. Has there been anything bright in your day?”
“Florida Guy called. He was very kind to me, in a friendship way. He recognizes that what motivates me to fill time seeking male attention is a need to plug holes of loss and abandonment from my past, going all the way back to my father’s death when I was eight. He gets it.”
“Doesn’t Florida Guy count as one of the men pursuing you?”
“He’s different. I have strong feelings for him. And he’s in Florida. All we can do is talk and write since I disabled the Webcam on my laptop.”
“Is he helpful? I mean, does he offer you good advice?”
“He says I need to change my thinking. Maybe that’s the secret to solving most things we perceive as problems. Just change the way we think about them,” said Zoe.
“Did you say the secret? I haven’t finished reading The Secret, but I think the message is pretty simple, really. Change the ways we think because our thoughts have a powerful influence on what we bring to ourselves.”
“Yes, simplicity itself,” said Zoe, “but it’s not so easy to do, especially when we can’t see the trees for the forest. What’s going on with you?”
“I can’t talk about it on the phone. You wanna come over?”

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February 10th 2010

PLEASE send you advice to two single women, whose lives are suddenly crashing in chaos! Zoe and Sophia, BFFs for thirty years, find themselves unexpectedly cast into the world of re-creation and redefinition after decades of being faithful wives to George and Marty. They need advice from anyone willing to offer it. For instance, what advice would you give your BFF if she asked, “HOW DO I LET GO OF THE PAIN AND BEGIN TO HEAL?” Any advice you can give to Sophia would be helpful, but this is what Zoe said.

Zoe was dog tired when she awoke the first morning back from her business trip to L.A. Sparky lay on the floor next to her snoring, so Zoe didn’t move a muscle for fear of waking her stroke-impaired Lab. She knew the minute Sparky was conscious, she’d have to race to get him outside before he jettisoned a yellow stream from his bladder. As Zoe lay there, she thought about the night before.

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January 23, 2010

Thank you for the WONDERFUL ADVICE you’ve offered the two single women, whose lives are suddenly crashing in chaos! Zoe and Sophia, BFFs for thirty years, find themselves unexpectedly cast into the world of re-creation and redefinition after decades of being faithful wives to George and Marty. They need advice from anyone willing to help them. For instance, what advice would you give your BFF as she said, “HEY, SOPHIE, ARE WE “WORKERS” WHO TAKE THE BUS OR THE OTHER TYPE OF PEOPLE?” Any advice you can give to Zoe would be helpful, but this is what Sophia said.

As Zoe floated just beneath the surface of awake, she sensed things were not quite right. Where was the smell of Sparky’s nightly plops, involuntarily purged from his rear end? Sparky was Zoe’s stoke-victim yellow Lab. Yes, he was incontinent and walked sideways, but he was the sweetest dog known to woman. Where was the cold heavy air, which sat like a pall over her head? Where was the scratch of her woolen long johns? Where was the cough of the struggling furnace in her 1790s N. H. home? Wait a minute–who was that long, lean gorgeous man lying next to her? Zoe’s smile awoke her. Not bothering to cover her naked body, she slipped quietly from the bed, aching to smell ocean air. She tiptoed past Sophia’s room, not wanting to wake her friend, who always had trouble sleeping at home. In the soft darkness of pre-dawn, Zoe threw open the french doors leading to the deck, closed her eyes and stepped outside as the warm Florida breeze bathed her face.

Sophia was not asleep. No, she was sitting in good Buddhist meditation posture, legs crossed, hands on thighs, right outside the french doors. The dreamy aspect of the moment splintered once Zoe walked over Sophia, lost her balance and plunged, face first, on the deck. Sophia was knocked on her back when Zoe’s knees raked across her face. But Sophia, the bastion of focus, remained legs akimbo, hands still on thighs, breathing in and breathing out.
“Fuck sake, Sophie. Why there? Why right in front of the door? Not two feet to the left or right, but dead center in my path.?
“Sorry, Zo,” said Sophia, swimming out of the open space of her spiritual journey, into the mired waters of Zoe’s scorn. “At least Sparky wasn’t here to pee on me. Hey, you wanna go to the Botanical Gardens today?”
“No. I want to lie by the ocean and get a tan.”
“You wanna go to the Collier County Museum?”
“No.”
“You wanna go to the Naples Information Center?”
“Fuck sake, Sophie. I want to lie on the beach all day roasting like a chicken on a spit. Anyway, go brush your teeth. Your breath is drowning out the sea air.”
“Well, you should consider doing something about your hair, Zo. Your bed head might be mistaken for a rat’s nest.”

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January 1, 2010

Could more of you PL-EASE offer advice to two single women whose lives are suddenly crashing in chaos? HELP. Zoe and Sophia, BFFs for thirty years, find themselves unexpectedly cast into the world of re-creation and redefinition after decades of being faithful wives to George and Marty. They need advice from anyone willing to offer it. For instance, what advice would you give your BFF who said to you, “I and I don’t need a therapist. We have good times.” Any advice you can give to Sophia would be helpful, but this is the advice Zoe gave her.

Every few nights Zoe and Sophia slept at each other’s houses, just to help with the transition– from being goodly wives who rubbed their husband’s backs in bed, brought their husbands dinner on a silver tray, also in bed, and who wrapped their long, lithe limbs around their husband’s bodies at night–to the shimmering fifty-something women who slept alone (more or less). On one evening just before Thanksgiving, Sophia decided to sleep at Zoe’s house, and for the occasion, Sophia bought the first bottle of scotch she had in months. Scotch was the tithe that bound during the first five-and-a-half months after Zoe’s marital split, when she camped out at Sophia’s house. In early June Zoe moved back to her own house, just five miles up the road.  But there was little difference—both women owned marital homes built in the 1700s when Thomas Jefferson walked the earth—and both houses sat on large wooded lots on Lake Winnipesaukee.

However–they had one other option. After Sophia put her hands around Marty’s neck one night in September, applying no pressure at all, she begged him for the truth about his affair. She had been lying next to him for an hour and decided that she was either going to throw herself in front of oncoming traffic outside, or she was going to ask the question she knew the answer to–but dreaded hearing–with all her heart. Her choice of nights was a good one since Marty suffered from really bad diarrhea and lay to her left, rolled into a fetal position.
“Do you love her?” Sophia asked.
“Yes, I do,” said Marty.

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