The Art of Letting go...

Two years ago—in the midst of my ‘Single Girl’ life before the D.E.B.—I bought a wedding dress. I had no beau, no chap, and not a single wedding prospect on the horizon.  After putting in an Emergency Call in to St. Jude (the Saint of Hopeless Causes), I decided to follow the rather zany advice of my friend, "Bible-Belt Debutante":

“Honnnnneey,” she drawled down the phone, “You gotta show God you believe!”

By buying a wedding dress? – I said in disbelief. “Yeeees!!” she shouted down the phone (and I could sense that a “Hallelujah” was forthcoming shortly thereafter.) “You have to step out in faith! Like Lazarus! As the Lord once said, ‘Build it, and they will come’! So, buy the dress and the man will follow!”  

Nonsense? Perhaps. An excuse to go shopping? Why not.

So buy ‘the dress’ I did. In fact, I got so into this “Jesus said ‘build it and he will come’ idea” that I went ahead bought four (4) bridesmaids dress as well! (Anthropologie on Fifth Ave had a huge sale.)

Well, the D.E.B. did arrive. And so began a waiting game. A game of patience. It does make you wonder, doesn’t it, how our system is set up: Woman waits patiently (or not so patiently) until Man decides to ‘seal the deal,’ and pop the question. (I suppose there is always “Leap Year” for those gals who prefer to take matters into their own hands. )

As I’ve mentioned before (see posting: “Always Something There to Remind Me”) I have had varying degrees of success in my skills of waiting and patience, and thankfully I have been able to vent most of my angst here.  

Of course, friends were always ready and full of advice, also of varying degrees: “He’s got until February! That’s what I say!” – Banshee Friend wailed. “If he hasn’t done it by then, pack your stuff and get back to NYC!” (I have learned that doing the opposite of what Banshee Friend has to say is often the best way forward for me.)   

The best advice I had came from a sage and highly intuitive friend who advised several months ago that the best way to “gain what I want” is by “letting it go.” I could tell by the tone in her voice that another “act of faith” would be required on my part.

“Stop waiting for ‘The Proposal’,” she demanded. “You don’t need it. Just live your life. Let it go. Make peace with the situation you are in now.” And, just before she hung up/rang off: “Get rid of the dress.”

It took me a few weeks, but I finally got up enough courage to do it. To let the “faith dress” go, and ultimately to let go of what that wedding dress symbolized and represents. To relinquish control, and, as my Psychic Friend would say, “To trust the Universe.” So, I channeled my inner Angelina Jolie, and listed the “faith dress” on eBay.

The D.E.B. proposed 5 days later. 

Kindred Spirits

Suddenly, I seem to be surrounded by amazing American women photographers who have followed their hearts and dreams to England. To be sure, there is something powerfully creative in the British landscape, in the very air here.  It is here that I feel most connected to my creative self. I can’t describe what it is about this place, I have tried (unsuccessfully) on more than one occasion to capture it in writing on the page. But I can see it in their photography. For me, "word-herder" that I am, it is language/syntax/sound (obviously manifested in the works of Shakespeare) that drew and continues to me to this place creatively. I like to walk where he walked. Some days, I look up at the sky, or walk by the River Avon, and wonder to myself: “Perhaps, on a day like today, Shakespeare went for a walk along this path, and was been inspired to write: ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?'”

The very landscape of England breathes poetry. I always have that sensation when I am traveling by train through Warwickshire, the trees are poetry on the landscape.  My new-found friend (though I feel like I’ve known her forever!) Chele Willow shares this sensibility, and has an incredible eye for visual poetry. Through her lens, I see what I fail to express through words  on the page. Here’s one of my favo(u)rite photographs of hers:

 The D.E.B. and are planning a short “holiday” in November to visit “the rellies” (relatives) up North in Yorkshire. I am soooo thrilled to have a chance to finally make it up to “Brontë Country” in the Lake District. And, I really love the D.E.B.’s rellies, so the Brontës are a bonus. Looking forward to experiencing the landscape that inspired Emily, Charlotte and Anne; and of course having a tour of Castle Howard – which I am claiming as my ancestral home!

Elizabeth Harper is another American photographer transplanted to the UK, in Cornwall. To me, Harper seems to possess a warm and sensitive eye that capture’s the very heartbeat of the moment she is shooting. This one of hers struck me to my core. 

Guess I need to acknowledge that day-by-day I am growing increasingly more and more “broody”.  And, as I am often  reminded by one or two of my friends (?) here, the clock is ticking, and I will soon be running out of time. (Comforting.) I look at this picture, and wondered what I’m doing with my life...

The D.E.B. wants to be a Dad, and I really want to make him a dad. He would be a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful father -- I don’t think I have ever met a man more pre-disposed to fatherhood than the D.E.B. As for me, I think I would make a good, if somewhat zany, mother.

As Shakespeare wrote: “the readiness is all.” Are we ready? Am I ready? Will I ever be “ready”? Like Hamlet (big leap here, but go with me), I choose to think and over think, to hesitate, debate with myself, consider all the options &etc., where a more brash and ‘Fortinbras-like’ person would just act and do. And think later. Maybe, I should try harder to channel my inner “Angelina Jolie.” 

Post script –

The tempter washing line has had the ultimate last laugh. Bright, gorgeous, sunny, WARM, late October day.  Spent all morning laundering every item of washable clothing we owe. Got everything on the line before the peak of noon. Feeling triumphant, only to sit here now, some two and half hours later to watch as buckets of hailstones and rain descend upon the nearly dried laundry. Curses! Fooled and foiled again!

Always something there to remind me...

I tried to open a British bank account online the other day. Faced with a choice between opening an account with Barclay’s or Lloyd’s TSB, I did what any sensible Manhattan girl would do. I made my decision based purely on aesthetics. Having a preference for lime green, I found the Lloyd’s TSB logo the more appealing of the two, so I went with them. Once I landed on the Lloyd’s website, I made short work of the virtual application. That is until I got to question number 3: "What is your relationship status?"

First of all, why is my “relationship status” any of their business? Is a person’s money greener if they are married, or widowed? The list of choices before me were: “Single, Married, Civil Partnership, Divorced, Dissolved Civil Partnership, Widowed, Legally Separated, Common Law, Engaged, or Separated.”  Truth be told, this a very fine, extremely p.c. and inclusive list, with every possible intimate arrangement therein. All except for mine. For, I am none of these. What does it mean to look at a list of relational options, and not see ones self there at all? Clearly, "More than single, less than married," is not a viable option.

The frustration I feel stems from the fact that for some reason, I have found it hard to accept my current status as “The Girlfriend.” I find myself breaking into a mild sweat, and choking on my words whenever I am forced to introduce the D.E.B. as my “Boyfriend.” The thought has only just occurred to me that all this time I could have been introducing him, as I have done here, as my “Darling English Boy.” That would be more exotic, and certainly sexier than “Boyfriend.”

Girlfriend? Ugh. I am too old to be someone’s “Girlfriend.” No self-respecting dame over the age of 35, and under the age of 60, wants to be relegated to the realm of Girlfriend. Surely, I am not alone in feeling that the terms “girlfriend” and “boyfriend” belong to the relationship categories of the very young (as in: “Oh, yes, Tommy, our 3 year old, has a new girlfriend,”) or the very old (“Have you met Grandma’s new boyfriend?”).

When one has reached a certain age, that terrain between youth and old age, one feels that only terms with a patina of mature respectability will do, particularly: fiancée or wife. (Heck, even “mistress” and “lover” are better, or at least more robust, than the saccharine and anemic term: “Girlfriend”.)

This may be the one US-UK cultural difference I struggle to surmount. “Girlfriend” is a very common designation here in Britain. It is not at all uncommon to meet unmarried couples that have been together for “donkey’s years,” as they say, who have a house, three kids, and a summer home in Tuscany, who still refer to each other as “Girlfriend” and “Boyfriend.” My American mind boggles.

My wonderful "Superstar Writer Friend" has done her British best to clarify this perplexing social conundrum for me. Marriage, she explained, is actually viewed pretty differently in the UK. In Britain, getting married is not the requisite relationship “deal-breaker” it is and/or seems to be in the US. For many British couples, “the big step” or the most significant acknowledgement of their long-term commitment is taking the plunge of living together and building a home. Superstar Writer Friend, and several other ex-pat Brits I know who now reside in the US, have each said it was not until they moved to the US, that they realized how much more important (symbolically and culturally) marriage as an institution is to American women, and how American women/girls are so much more in invested in it than their British counter-parts.

Marriage. What does it really mean? Of course, I often ask myself: Do I really need a piece of paper to validate my relationship? (Angelina Jolie clearly does not.) And then, an even better question: Is it marriage that I'm after, or just a wedding? 

It doesn’t help that I hail from the “United States of Bridezilla,” where as little girls we are inundated from the womb with “the white dress directive.”  The dress, the flowers, the cake, on and on. And, yes, I will confess, like many a true-blue, Southern-born girl, I already have “the dress” – bought “on faith” when I spotted two and a half years ago – and the bridesmaids’ dresses, too. (Okay, look, Anthropologie had a sale…and I bought easily mendable sizes.) All of this acquired, held on reserve, in storage, for the right time and the right man to come along. I have no doubt that the D.E.B. is the right man, but when will be the right time?

My Darling English Boy has assured me, has given me his promise for our future together. On New Year’s Day morning last year, he gave me a beautiful platinum and diamond band, and a pledge that we will one day wed. Because we often see ourselves as characters from a Jane Austen novel, his gift of a ‘promise ring’ was so touching, so romantic, so perfect, so us. I felt anchored and assured in his love, until a friend—who is no longer a friend—laughed, and said to me: “Yeah, well, my 8 year old son just gave his girlfriend a promise ring, too!” Or, when a waiter off-handedly commented into a conversation he was not a part of: “Promises can always be broken.” And the next person who asks me: “Has he proposed yet?” is going to get an earful!!!!

The D.E.B. has not proposed, and it will probably be quite sometime before he does. To this, I have resigned myself. I have resigned myself to be patient and understanding. Appreciating that in addition to our different cultural perspectives on this issue, there is the added complication of the “Once Bitten, Twice Shy” syndrome. We have both been married before; and I think women are far, far more resilient than men following a divorce and the demise of a marriage. The lure of the dress, the flowers, yummy wedding cake, being the center of attention, and the Pottery Barn Gift Registry gets us gals back in the saddle in no time!  Yee-ha! I mean, just look at Elizabeth Taylor! To be fair, and not just because this is about my Darling English Boy, I do seriously think it is more difficult for men to grieve, re-group, and ‘move on to the next one’ after a long-term relationship has sadly bitten the dust.

So, I shall just bide my time until he is ready. I would be lying to say that I have accepted this situation without more than few moments of frustration (or random outbursts, during which I haven’t revealed the real source of my vexation), or that I have not, on more than one occasion, seriously contemplated the advice that I should consider drugging his food.

"When in Rome, do as the Romans."

For now, I shall wear the mantle of  “Girlfriend” as best I can, and strive to do so more gracefully. The D.E.B and I both know what is between us, and what is in our hearts. We know where we stand, and what we mean to one another. The “ambiguity” of my “status,” and our relationship exists solely in the minds of others, and what they do not see. Which is, as Shakespeare wrote, just “the outward show” and merely a question of aesthetics.