When in love or in doubt, toast hazelnuts

When in love or in doubt,

Toast Hazelnuts

February 5, 2012

Right now, I don’t have time for flowing, romantic daydreams about cute, charming, newly single men.

I’m not complaining about my life. Trying to compose a professional life that allows me the most time with my son and offers time to write on a regular basis is time consuming. I barely squeeze in much needed time with friends.

However.

Some crazy, surprising feelings have been bumping into me and jostling me about. It is tricky-with these new, bulky imaginings everywhere- to move through the day, to be present to my lovely child and to stay on top of a fledgling business. To deal with immediate and relevant tasks like, say, dinner, I have to rein in these la-la-la musings and shake them off as silly.

I can’t laze around and bask in quick conversations that I’ve had with a crush. No! It’s a school night, going on 6:30 and dinner is not even a theory. And, K, is hungry, tired and headed for a class 5 meltdown if I don’t get him some protein fast.

You see…I have met someone who has caught my eye. More than that, he has awakened narratives and desires in me that I thought were over, dead, extinct, irrelevant. (For example, I feel pretty again. You can’t beat that with a stick.)

For this, I’m truly, truly grateful to him. To feel enthusiastic about kissing someone and wanting to have dinner and chat for hours with a kind, generous AND attractive man is lovely! To know that kind, generous, intelligent men exist in the real world and are not just fictive creations of Jane Austen is a relief beyond measure.

Since I had not had, for years and years, the flowers-coming-out-of-my-chest feelings about a specific man, I was getting ready to settle. I was going to settle for someone who was nice enough but didn’t really light my fire. If he was good enough to do the dishes three times a week, I was ready to close my eyes and compensate him with sex.

(I hate doing dishes that much.)

But there is someone here, who lives in my neighborhood no less, who is so lovely. He is so charming that he could get away with doing the dishes only once a week.

I might even do his dishes. Every now and then.

Ummm hmmm. That’s right.

He’s that cute and fun.

But.

He is in the mucky, yucky split-up soup.

and I can’t-No, I can’t!- as much as I’d like to, shower him with valentines and/or do his laundry.

So to speak.

He has to go through this crazy, dark night of divorce proceedings alone. While I ache to be his opiate and save him for all the pain, that is not fair. It is not fair to whom?

It is not fair to ME.

I’m MORE than an opiate!

Though I can be the very best drug for men with bruised egos and broken hearts. They are cured and whistling in about five to nine months. And they drop me like a broken, used vial.

FINALLY, I understand this. Only have to make that mistake three times before.

So…I need to box up and reign in my moony, kissy kiss, wish-we-were-stuck-in-a-broken-elevator feelings. (BTW, you KNOW it’s a really crush when you have the broken elevator feelings. I mean, classic. You want to escape life and time and be with that person!) I need to zip that up and make dinner.

It’s hard though. Isn’t it? It’s hard to stop thinking about a crush. Especially when it’s been six years since you’ve had a proper crush.

And it’s really hard to stop thinking about your crush when you are alone.

Like today on my walk, when I was alone, I gave in to lovey-dove, la-la-la musings and I dream and dream about a life together with him(whom I just met two weeks ago What am I, a 12 year-old?) I picture us playing with all our kids together at the playground trading off playing with different combinations of kids; I see us walking on the beach arm-in-arm while the kids dance in the sand ahead of us. I imagine us wrapping Christmas presents, drinking red wine and talking about our favorite movies and novels. Then we ‘unwrap’ each other and have avid sex next to perfectly decorated Christmas tree. Then we cry together when we hear ‘Silent Night’ playing quietly, thinking of our beautiful children and exquisite each other. Looking up at the twinkling lights, the delightful child-made ornaments, and the angel and star on the top of the tree, we have more perfect sex. We love each other so much that we don’t get tired. Not even during the pre-Christmas marathon with four kids running a-muck.

Ah yes. Our lives will be blissful forever.

But then, as I continue to walk, a sage, aunt/angel voice checks in and says: “Ahem. Darcy?”

“Darcy,” the angel voice says: ”Why don’t you admit what you want? Just say it.”

OK. Yes. I do want it. I do want a

ReLAAAAAtionship.

I want a relationship with a wonderful, generous and intelligent(single) man who is also a committed, funny parent like me.

Like this guy. The guy who has caught my eye.

I WANT that. I don’t want to live alone anymore. Meeting this man makes me not want to be a single parent anymore.

I want to work together with someone else cool on this adventure.

But this is FRUSTRATING! (I tell the grown-up, kind, aunt angel voice in my head, as I walk swiftly and look at the heron hunting in the grass.)

It’s frustrating because just last month-just last month! I was on Stinson beach, alone and happy as a clam.

Remember?

I was on the beach on the Solstice and I was taking pictures of my long, tall shadows (a perfect self-portrait!) and I LOVED being by myself. I didn’t want to be with anyone else. My life felt-WAS-IS!!- full and delicious and sparkling. I have my son; he and I are both healthy; both growing and learning; I have wonderful friends and family. My first novel is almost finished. All’s well in the world.

But NOW, today, my life doesn’t feel completely full. I want to share more of it. I want to share with this man. Even with his kids. (Which is insane since I just met them.) What’s going on?!

Then the sage auntie angel voice says as she looks kindly over her glasses at me: “Well, that makes sense. To want all that. He is lovely. However, Darcy, dearest. Maybe, just maybe, your desires could be distorting the reality in front of you.”

Then we both, the angel voice and me, sigh and nod.

Yep. That’s what I was worried about. It’s happened before. It’s happened that my bigger-than-the-sky desires have changed the reality in front of my eyes.

“But then,” the sage angel says, “you and he might be falling in love. Could be. But only time will tell. You aren’t going to know for a while. So stick to your other projects and concentrate, as you do so well, on K and your creative ventures.”

Yes. I agree with the aunt angel in my head. I need to stay the course that I have been on. And I will, I promise.

With this stolid realization, however, I feel sad and pouty. The pouting and melancholy lasts for the rest of the day. I am grumpy to K and I go on a tirade about the dangerous amount of media that he watches at his father’s house. (As though it’s the child’s fault. Poor little guy.) After I have rambled on about video games and brain cell destruction to a 5 year old, it’s time to make dinner. And I don’t give a rat’s ass what we have for dinner! (I cross my arms and knit my brow like a good, grumpy five year-old.) The adult mom inside me stands up straight and raises her stern eye-brows at the little girl me.

“K is not the only kid who is hungry…” The mom in me says. Then the adult/mom me realizes that you catch more flies with honey so she cracks a smile and said to the little girl Darcy: “What would cheer you up right now? I know! Hazelnuts! Your favorite! Let’s toast Hazelnuts!”

The Little girl Darcy loves that idea. So the mom and the little girl Darcy work together. They have a drink of water. They get out the cookie sheet. Even the plunk, plink of the raw hazelnuts as they pour onto the cookie sheet is cheering. Then I open the oven and slide the cookie sheet in. ‘Thunk’ goes the oven door as it closes. Something is cooking. We are moving forward.

In moments, the kitchen smells nutty and divine(a bit like my Christmas wrapping sex fantasy), eggs are cooking and the green beans are being snapped. I’ll have the hazelnuts with my green beans. Yum. K is crunching on carrots and hummus thinking of words that begin with P. We are back on track. We are on our way to a cozy dinner.

(When K is in bed, I wonder if new Mr Wonderful likes hazelnuts. I’m tempted to text him and ask but I get my computer out instead and start writing this to you.)

PS If you all are fighting anger instead of pouty, moony bittersweet feelings, a great option is to buy hazelnuts still in the shell. Then get out the hammer and bang those suckers to oblivion(careful not to smash the nut meat). I did this when I was making stuffing for Christmas when I couldn’t be with K. I missed him dreadfully; I was crankyand lonely. But banging the nuts with a hammer and cracking those hard shells kicked the pouts right out of me.