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I think I'll get some cats.
I don't need a port for a ship to come in.
I don't need a stable for a white horse.
I'll get cats. Multiple cats. Inbreeding cats. Cats who will lay claim to the sofa and the laundry baskets.
They will all have names that begin with Mr. and each one will remind me of a Mr. that got away.
The cats will welcome me when I come home. They will circle my legs and purr. They will vie for my lap.
They will silently remind me of the other sounds of silence in my life:
- The silence of grown up children leading their own lives.
- The silence a teenage daughter suffering a monstrous mother.
- The silence of routine.
- The silence of my phone.
- The silence of my inbox.
Ahhh. The deafening silence of my inbox.
No white smoke yet on which feels worse: no mail in my inbox in the myriad dating sites, or myriad irrelevant mails.
I hear a voice in my head (probably my mother's): "Lower your standards! you never know!"
- I have already lowered my "looks" requirement from Ben Afflek to Woody Allen.
- I have already lowered my "education" requirements from University to No Spelling Errors.
- I have already lowered my "conversationalist" expectations from Pithy Quips to Not Monosyllabic.
- I have already lowered my "age range" expectations from Born after Woodstock to Born After Hiroshima.
- I have already lowered my "physical activity" expectations from Athlete to Ambulatory.
If there is any advantage to being divorced, it is the opportunity for a Do-Over.
Is there anything wrong with wanting this Do-Over to be with someone who takes my breath away?
In the meantime, "I turn my collar to the cold and damp" and I wait it out.
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With the steadfastness of the changing moons, another Passover will be ushered in in a few hours. I am waiting for the eggs to get to room temperature. (A poor planning fiasco on my part that they weren't left out all night. At least I took the meat out of the freezer.)
Passover is a favorite holiday in Israel. All branches of the family tree, the twigs and their spring buds, converge on one home, whose kitchen miraculously produces a spring bounty which will feed the masses and still be left over for lunch the next day.
Despite the inherent joys of holidays, I have - in the past - known melancholy and sadness, at times when I was alone and the extended family home eluded me. More than one Passover over the years has brought me to the airport just so I could be with my mommy.
Just over a year ago I was nursing a broken heart. Admitedly, under the circumstances, it never should have been out there to break. But it was and it did and creativity and other good things came of it.
This year, this Passover, I feel wind in my sails. I am propelled forward to new adventures.
I am 7 kilos lighter then I was a month ago, and watching that small weight on the doctor's scale move left every week. My hair is a fab new color. I am convinced that all in all, I am quite a catch.
So I won't tell you about the guy that has my interest, except to say that I also have his. And that, in and of itself, is special.
It is not a given in my life that every man I fall for also falls for me. Nor is it a given that I should expect no less.
For this past year I have been working on that elusive truth - that mutuality is the key.
Mutual emotions, and mutual expectations of where they should lead, is the minimum criteria before indulging in even a fleeting thought of a glimmer of a trace of a hope of a relationship.
It is the absolute understanding that what isn't here now should not be waited for.
I have been working so diligently on making these words true in life that maybe the universe has finally put me on its radar for better things. Maybe something momentous will happen in my life.
And maybe not.
At the very least, for now, for this moment in time, I am feeling pretty good. I want to believe that by the time the Brisket is finished, I will be quite the happy camper.
In the meantime, while I bake the flourless cake, while I add enough matzo to sink the knaidlach, I wish everyone a very Happy Passover. And like the Israelites out of Egypt, may we all find our own personal Freedom.
Amen.
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