January 1

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 six months after Zoe’s marital split, when she camped out at Sophia’s house while Marty and Sophia were still together. 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 the same lake.

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 with his “business partner,” Fugly. For an hour Sophia lay next to him then 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.

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December 30^th

Do you have advice to offer two middle-aged, 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 wanted back her copy of the book WHEN THINGS FALL APART by Pema Chodron? Any advice you can give to Zoe would be helpful, but this is the advice Sophia gave her.

When Zoe’s and Sophia’s marriages splintered into matchsticks, the first thing they did, after crying like feral cats, was to become Buddhists.  Zoe’s therapist gave Zoe the book When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron.  Since Zoe’s marriage collapsed a few months before Sophia’s, Zoe had time to read and apply the concepts about living in the moment, accepting herself as she was, trying to replace anger with compassion and so forth.  Zoe kept the book next to her computer at all times and read it in between corresponding with dozens of Match.Com guys who wanted to date her.  Occasionally, she spilled food and drink on the book in a fit of sexual excitement, after particularly graphic exchanges with her growing stable of men, but she was always careful to clean off the book.

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