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And So I Told Her What I’d Seen

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I told my friend about seeing her husband with another woman. After a week of talking to myself about it, going over every detail of seeing with the two of them at the bar, I just had to. My love for my friend wouldn’t allow me to remain silent. I kept thinking about how pleased he must be with himself that he got away with it, that they’d dashed out the door before I caught sight of them. And I thought about the simple fact that he was deceiving my friend.

During that week I’d also thought a lot about the nameless girlfriend Matthew had been cheating on with me. I thought about how she’d found out about Matthew and me, about how it must have made her feel—the hurt, rage and bitterness, the shock at discovering that her perfect boyfriend was so much less so.

Here’s a detail that made our situation unique—the girlfriend (I suppose I should give her a name if I’m going to write about her. Let’s call her Emilie.) was so much younger than me, half my age at the time. (For those keeping score at home, that’s 21 to my then 42, and Matthew’s 37.) She was practically a child when the two of them got together and when I first saw her in the driveway prancing about in shorts, I asked him in an email, in all honesty, if she was one of his nieces. When I was told she was his ‘friend,’ I asked, ‘Is she even of age?’

‘Of course…what do you take me for?’

This was all before I knew exactly what to take him for.

But later, not even that long after he’d struck up his new “friendship” with Emilie, he began to pursue me, and it was as if we became two completely different people when we were drawn together, two utterly different versions of ourselves who acted on their desires with little thought of the outcome.

After the heat and the passion we would become two normal people again. Matthew, suddenly quite shy, would hold my face in his hands and kiss me softly on the lips and we’d whisper our goodbyes. I would slip out via the laundry room hallway and through the side yard, back to my apartment. From there I could see when Emilie would pull in the driveway, sometimes only moments after I’d left Matthew, and I often wondered how he did it. How could he possibly compose himself, when I’d left him with flushed skin from his heart pounding so hard against mine. How could his hands not tremble when confronted with his real, presentable life at his door, opening it to her with kisses.

But back to my friend’s story. The bartenders told me that night that the man had run to the bathroom suddenly and the woman asked for the check because her “husband” had suddenly taken ill. Sudden diarrhea at realizing he’d been spotted by his wife’s dear friend? I pressed the bartenders to be absolutely certain at the details because I would be quoting their words to my friend.

Yes, they were certain.

Still, I waited and thought about what to do. Finally I realized I would want my friend to tell me. So I called her Sunday morning and told her, without preamble and without judgment. Just the facts of what I’d seen. She cried almost immediately and had to get off the phone to confront her husband. I felt dreadful.

My friend has always been very private about her marriage, which I respect. And even now in the aftermath I am not sure what’s happening. She called back that evening and told me that he denied everything, that he’d never been there, which is a lie through and through, but what can I do?

“Are you absolutely sure it was him?” she asked.

Yes, I am. There was no mistaking him.

My friend said, “I would never do that to another woman,” and I concurred. Yet I had, for quite a while–years, actually. People say to forgive yourself, that “everyone” does it. But if I could go back and wipe the slate clean and control my desire, I would. If I had the ability to reverse time and not hurt someone else, yes, I most certainly would.

Judge Not…

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I saw my friend’s husband at a bar the other night. This wouldn’t be very interesting but for the fact that he was with a woman who was not my friend, a woman who was sitting on a stool facing him with her legs tucked into the space between his open legs in an intimate posture, leaning into him as they both sipped martinis.

I felt sick when I saw them. Sick and angry and I glared at the woman with supreme indignation. Home wrecker. Bitch. Slut. Whore. All these words passed through my head as my blood seethed. And what of him? More colorful words possessed me.

When my friend’s husband saw me he glanced away quickly, and less than a minute later the two of them were gone from the bar.

The sight of them together has stuck to me since then while I’ve pondered telling my friend. But before I judged them too harshly I thought of my own past and my story. Hold on a second, I told myself. Take a deep breath and like the saying goes, Judge not less ye be judged.

Several years ago I became involved with a man who had a girlfriend. He never talked about her, never once uttered her name and so I didn’t know what it was for almost the entire time we were involved. What made the affair a bit complicated was that Matthew lived in the same house as I did—a large, sprawling house that was divided into several apartments—so we saw each other nearly every day as we went about our lives. I’m sure there are many affairs conducted in apartment buildings and cul-de-sacs and small towns where the lover can witness life going on without her. I often saw the unnamed girl arrive in her sleek sports car, then saw them leave together as I sat alone in my living room, blindsiding me with the sight, nearly knocking the wind out of me.

I saw the girl and I felt guilt. I struggled with my choice when I saw her coming and going. I battled myself constantly but I always lost in the face of Matthew. How I loved him! And how I believed I could make him see that he’d made the wrong choice.

Matthew felt guilt as well. ‘There is someone in my life, and I woke up next to her this morning feeling so bad about what we’re doing,’ he’d write in an email. We’d agree to stop and to just be friends, but two weeks later would pick it up again, unable to resist the call of passion.

Eventually the inevitable happened. When it did, I was cast out, left in the cold. I was unchosen and alone. At roughly the same time some very prominent public figures were also being called on the carpet for their indiscretions and the headlines were splashed with the sordid headlines. It felt like a personal affront when I stood in supermarket checkout lines as the tabloids exposed and vilified the other women in these formerly esteemed men’s lives.

I felt sad reading the magazine covers and thought, I am not one of these women. But was I? My affair with Matthew had felt different then what these women were describing. They talked about the promises these powerful men had made, of professing their love, and complaining about their wives. In my case, there were no promises or plans. Matthew was careful to never say a word of promise about our future. We existed only in the moment.

My memoir is about more than being someone’s other woman, it’s about what got me there, the events and emotions that lead me to put aside my ethics and morals to engage in what I knew was wrong. In the end I think it’s almost always selfish to be an other woman, no matter what a woman may claim or the things a man may say in order to get what he wants. It’s a complicated issue, one that I’m also struggling with in regard to another friend I’ll call B.

I absolutely hate that she’s involved in an affair, and that it shows no sign of slowing. As a matter of fact, it’s getting deeper, and this gives me further pause. It’s one thing when an affair is (almost) purely physical (for the men at least; I have a hard time believing that women can compartmentalize the way that men can) but when a man is so deceptive, as her lover Ken is now, it seems so much worse to me. It goes far beyond physical pleasure–when a man is not getting what he needs at home, so he seeks it elsewhere–into new territory where there’s emotion involved on the part of both parties. The emotional deception seems so much worse than the sex itself.

I’m not sure that Matthew ever expressed much emotion to his girl. After we were found out he told me that he suddenly realized that he loved her–in the midst of the loss of her–causing me to wonder if he’d ever told her that during the time they were together. Never mind telling me that he loved me, when in fact he was probably incapable of that feeling. It was always, ‘I care about you so much, J…’

   Cad. Jerk. Asshole. 

So I still struggle with these questions. Is everything justified once we know the whole story? Isn’t that what I am ultimately attempting by writing my memoir? What of B.’s relationship? If I knew why Ken chooses to lead this double life—one that he doesn’t even admit to his therapist—would I accept their affair? And what of my friend’s husband on the barstool the other night? Who am I to judge? Who are any of us, really, to pass judgment on another.

I want better for B., I claim. I want for her to be in a relationship with a man who can accompany her to her niece’s funeral, or tend to her when she’s sick (both of which she endured alone recently), not scuttle in the back door in the dark, staying only for a stolen hour or so before going home to his real life.

I want the whole package for B., and I want the whole package for myself. I want to hold out for the real thing, no matter how long it takes, and not accept less than I am worth.

The Pursuit of Madness

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I have a favorite quote by Anais Nin, which she wrote to Henry Miller when they were deep in their affair and writing furiously passionate letters to each other each day:

“I have fallen behind in the pursuit of madness.”

That’s how I feel this evening as I dare to open up my blog to possibly post….I’ve fallen so far behind and I feel as if the rest of the world has carried on just fine without me. I can blame it partly on a terrible cold that’s felt much feel like I’ve been in the grip of some fatal plague that seizes its victims first by the throat, then puts fire in the joints and bones, and leaves me too weak and fatigued to write. Then the days snowball and challenges roll in to my email inbox, and I imagine the rest of the bloggers keeping up each day while I fall behind in the pursuit of this madness, this blogging madness.

I’ve missed so much!

Or so it would seem. We are told that we can always catch up, but it feels like the pack has already rounded the latest turn and I am losing sight of you all. I’ve done much more in these past couple weeks than would have ever been possible without the Challenge. I’ve changed themes three times and think I’m happy with this one, which most resembles a real journal; I’ve installed widgets, as well as media–in the form of photos, which I keep wanting to do more of; and commented on other blogs and read many more. Yet I feel like I have still been missing something, some key element of this blogging community and experience.

My father deserted our family when I was a child of six and for much of my life I’ve felt different, unchosen. Other. And I’ve attempted to fill the father-shaped hole in me through writing. Anais Nin’s journals were the first I ever read, and I read them all when I was much, much younger, and so impressionable. She wrote constantly, and, I don’t recall, for an audience, at least not at first. She wrote, as did Henry Miller, in an effort “to realize myself in words.” They wrote to create themselves through writing, as I have written my whole life down in an attempt to understand myself. We write without filters, with the hope of making sense of our lives, sifting through the mundane to find the meaning, the patterns, the raison d’etre of all this madness.

Yet I’ve never felt alone when writing in my journals. Never. They are and were a world to me, as in, there are worlds within them, memories and thoughts and musings, photos and ticket stubs and love notes and everything else, but mainly the words. They have really been all that has ever mattered. I never intended them for anyone’s eyes but mine, only occasionally read allowed from them when I had a point to make, or a particular story to recount.

And somehow now, writing on a blog, ostensibly for others to read, I feel strangely lonely. It’s as if I can magically peer into others’ lives and see everyone out there like me, tapping away at their keyboards, trying to give voice to the ineffable hollowness that dwells inside them (perhaps), the near-desperate need to put this into words which will be read, with any luck. It causes me to wonder: what do I want from all of this? I want to touch other people’s lives, to be sure. I want my words to resonate in someone else out there. But more, I want to be touched by theirs, for their words–yours–to chip away at the gnawing loneliness and otherness that lives–alone–within me.

 

 

…And Then What Happened?

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A couple years ago I attended a writer’s conference in Boston, a 3-day event of workshops and seminars, the hallmark of which is a chance to sit with an agent, a real, live literary agent from New York, chosen from a catalogue of visiting agents, and go over your work. I had sent my chosen agent, who shall remain nameless, twenty pages of my manuscript as well as a synopsis and query letter.

I was so thrilled to be taking this step forward, to take a weekend out of my daily life, to take several days off of work as a bartender and take myself seriously as a writer. I stayed with my sister Jo at her apartment just outside of Boston, and woke before dawn to catch the T in to the hotel where the conference would be taking place. As I sat in the hotel ballroom with my name tag pinned to my sweater–one I’d chosen specifically for its lack of holes or frayed sleeve–I couldn’t believe this was really happening. I was a true writer, not a bartender claiming to be a writer. I was not the waitress circling the room clearing dishes (I have been her many times, believe me), I was not the overlooked child, the unchosen one watching from the sidelines. My dream was coming true. That day I attended several workshops, sitting as close as I could to the speakers, the authors, poets, editors, and agents, as they held court, daring to raise my hand to ask a question or sidle up to the writer afterward to have them sign their book.

That afternoon there was a massive main water break on the outskirts of the city and as a result the water was shut off completely in all the surrounding areas. When you turned the spigot it would gasp once then go silent. I was particularly upset by this turn of events as I had wanted to wash my hair and look my best to meet the agent the next morning.

When I arrived at the hotel the next day, the ballroom was abuzz with the ongoing news of the water main catastrophe. Bottled water was set out in bins of ice for us. I sat with a table of other aspiring writers I’d met the day before and several of them had already met with their agents–some had had promising interactions and were invited to send more chapters, a few were dejected and were asked to try to submit again next year. I was so nervous I could barely sip my third cup of coffee.

I was to meet with the agent at 9:00, right after breakfast. One last check in the mirror and I was dismayed by what I saw. I’d only been able to bathe myself in the bathroom sink at my sister’s with a bottle of Poland Spring water, so my dreamed-of shiny, clean, straight hair was instead a dirty, pulled-up bun, my skin was dusky, I smelled mildly of anxious sweat, and there was a fresh coffee stain on the front of my blouse.

I sighed, gathered my notebooks, and went to the conference room to await my turn. The sit-downs were held in another conference room at rows of small tables and from the hallway it looked like a speed-dating session. The aspiring writers were mostly sitting on the edge of their seats, with legs crossed in twists like glazed crullers. The agents for the most part looked aloof and chilly, like doctors hesitating to deliver a diagnosis.

I took a seat across from my agent, an ultra slim New Yorker with a mass of short, unruly hair she kept tucking behind her ears. We made brief small talk about the water situation and she grumbled, “Ugh. I can’t wait to get on a train and get home to my shower.” She clearly found Boston an unsophisticated town that didn’t have the decency to have running water.

She handed me a folder with my manuscript inside as well as two pages of notes in response to a format of several questions. At the top she’d written that she liked the idea of the ‘Diary Of The Other Woman’ very much and was very intrigued to hear what she called, ‘The other side of the story.’

I skimmed through the questions she’d answered: Does the quality of the writing come through? — Yes. Does the first page make me want to keep reading — Yes. Does the excerpt start in a logical and compelling place? — Yes. Would I have asked for a partial if it landed in the slush pile? — Yes.

There were several more questions which she answered all favorably, then she’d written, “The strength is in the premise, mining the notion of being the other woman. It’s also brutally honest and the writer is willing to utterly expose herself, important for a memoir.”

And then at the bottom, “You need to ask yourself–do you want to bring an entirely new perspective, to write a memoir in a whole new and unexpected way?”

The answer is yes. Yes I do. I believe that the strength of the book is in its immediacy, in the story unfolding to the reader just as it unfolded itself to me, the transcriber of events. Sometimes when I’m editing a scene, I’m still startled by something that happens, though I knew it was coming, and I still want to read further to see what happens next.

The agent moved her hands through her hair and said, “A memoir reflects back on a situation after the experiences have been digested and their universality has been explored. You should step back and tell the story as if it happened to someone else.”

I disagreed with her and still disagree. I mean, yes, many if not most memoirs may be written that way, but there is no one hard and fast rule for writing. My journal entries, while immediate, were also after the fact, if only a day or so, and the entries have also, obviously, been edited from their initial raw form. But each entry is like the dawn of a new day when anything can happen, a fresh, clean page on which anything can been written, just as life is lived.

Eternity In A Moment

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I’ve done a lot of reading of other blogs in recent days, since the beginning of this year and the 30-Day Challenge, and come across so many compelling posts. It becomes addictive, really, to peek into these other lives, particularly for an amateur spy and voyeur like myself, though by the millions of blogs out there, most all of us like to take a peek.

I also read ‘Handwritten Stories in the Digital Age,’ which really drew me in. There are people out there like me, who still savor the feel of pen in hand and putting words down on blank paper instead of a blank screen. Either way it is a challenge to face the abyss of white, but I find that if I just trust the process and let my fingers follow what flows, the words appear.

I am posting photos of my journals which form the leaping off point of what I am attempting to do with this blog–bringing the story of ‘The Other Woman’ from them into the world. As I wrote in my ‘About’ page, I have always written in large black art books, preferably unlined. Lines are too constricting for me. Somehow without them I still manage to stay on an even keel across the page. I stored these books in an antique cabinet after transcribing them into the computer, and occasionally pull a musty one out to flip through. Inspired by the photographer Peter Beard who kept thick journals stuffed with the detritus of his daily life–movie ticket stubs, invitations, photos, newspaper or magazine clippings, passing thoughts, snippets of poems, everything–I began see my journals more as time capsules than diaries and included in them the little everythings of life, using plain old Scotch tape to affix them to the pages, and, as can be seen from the photos, I gave each journal a cover photo (sometimes not until I was well through the journal) and quote, and a closing thought on the back cover as well. These sort of encapsulated what went on within the pages.

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I find my journals to be priceless now, especially when I open one from several years ago and find the pages are yellowing and delicate. Enough time has passed for my own thoughts and words to have yellowed–that is tangible proof of passing time, passing life. The journals were also so jam-packed with filled pages and taped-in minutiae that the seams would split and burst. My father–my Papa–fancied himself an amateur bookbinder and took upon himself the task of re-binding my journals. It was a testament to my trust of him that I handed my journals over to him, complete with not-so-innocent thoughts, naughty escapades and bitter words, and he handed them back proudly, re-bound for eternity.

Eternity. I thought everything would last forever. But eternity can only be found in each moment, I have finally learned.

In my next post I will leap forward into posting the beginning of my “book,” from the jumping-off place that I’ve chosen to begin my tale.

Snowed In–And So It Begins…

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I can’t believe I am finally entering the blogosphere, but here it is the second full day of the new year and we–meaning myself, my dog, cat, and the rest of the surrounding world–are snowed in. It is a blessing. Being snowed in means the kitchen gets painted at last, a pot of kale and garbanzo soup is simmering on the stove, the dog–a Husky/St. Bernard mix named Sammy–and cat–named Fluffy for fairly obvious reasons–snore on the bed and couch respectively, the refrigerator is stocked, candles are lit, batteries for all devices are charged (yes, those ones too), work is cancelled, social obligations are rescheduled, and nothing at all is expected of me for at least the next full day and a half. It means I have no more excuses. It’s time to blog.

My blog is called ‘Diary of the Other Woman’ because that is the name of the book I am writing, a memoir (don’t roll your eyes) about a period of my life that for a number or reasons both obvious and more subtle comes under that rubric.

The book began as a journal in real time, unfolding as life happened. I have journaled the old fashioned way for most of my life, writing every day in large, bound, unlined artist sketch books. Writing ferociously, daily, I would fill two books a year, writing about life in Boston, then in New York, and finally–and here’s where the actual book comes in–in a rural New England town where I returned home to after half a lifetime away.

It is one of the proverbial themes of a screenplay, novel, memoir or blog, it seems, the Return Home, though I was not a prodigal member of my family, just an aimless one, always seeking adventure and experiences. I returned home with the notion that I was running away from the city–fleeing the fast-paced life, the stress of working so hard to survive, from the exhaustion of trying to live this fabulous life–but mainly I was fleeing from a controlling and eccentric boyfriend. I would return home for a few months to the farm I grew up on that I’d thought I’d outgrown. I would spend a lazy summer with my benignly crazy parents, listening to the orchestra of crickets in the woods, walking along the nearby river with my oldest friend in the world, laying beside the pool and gossiping with my sisters, sleeping in my girlhood bedroom overlooking the fields beyond till I gathered enough strength to return to the city again. What I didn’t know was that I was running towards my life, towards adventure, towards a whole new story complete with heartache almost beyond measure.

At a certain point in this provincial adventure, as I duly noted it each morning in longhand in my journals, I saw the arc of storyline reveal itself. Thus I began the arduous task of transferring the thick volumes onto the computer, and am now in the process of whittling the volumes down with a hacksaw into a readable version of What The Hell Just Happened. My intent here, with this blog, is to include segments of the book and invite commentary and questions to help me on the road to publishing this memoir, ‘Diary of the Other Woman.’