Day 208: Cherry Heering Manhattan: Bourbon, Cherry Heering, Bitters
I don't believe in fate. If some controlling force put into motion what happened last night, it would have a lot to answer for. Fatalism is an all or nothing proposition. If it's responsible for the joys, it's responsible for the sorrow. It would be responsible for my anxiety and depression, the outright theft of an amazing woman before her time and a hole in my heart which will never be filled. Oh yeah, there would probably be other things like the Holocaust, the Inquisition and the slave trade fate would have to answer for as well. Sometimes, though, chaos works in such strange and interesting ways as to question that belief in coincidence, if ever so briefly.
My date with Rose was going well. She's being interesting, I'm being charming. We're about an hour in and ordering our second drink. I had only brought up Dahlia once, briefly. We discussed a lot about art and travel and the Southwest. We had discussed writing and she asked what my blog was about. I think, "Here we go. This is the point where the date goes off the rails. I'll pull the band-aid off quickly and get back to talking about the weather."
"My wife died seven months ago." Those words are barely out of my mouth when she starts laughing a sort of disbelieving laugh, the kind of laugh that implies an inability to process the new stimulus presented. "My boyfriend died seven months ago," she replied. Then it was my turn with the awkward laughing.
All the nerves and worries melted away. Those mines I talked about earlier, for the night, they were all diffused and we danced on top of them for the rest of the night. We spent a lot of time talking about grief and how it affects the creative process. The different tragedies and horror stories turned the strangeness into a magical evening.
Despite it all, I'm not sure if Rose and I have much of a romantic future together. She's an amazing, interesting and intelligent woman, but a lot of desire is not so much a choice as a factor of body chemistry and the subconscious. I suppose the subsequent time we spend together will determine how that factors in. Besides, the whole point of this adventure is to figure out what desire means to me, a task requiring a modicum of restraint. If I can avoid falling in love, I should. I'm just not ready to care deeply yet.
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Stage 9: Synchronized Minesweeping
Day 207 - Cider, I guess. Maybe more, I suppose we'll find out.
So I've decided to start dating. The decision, personally, feels rash on my part. I'm not "over" Dahlia. Six months and twenty-three days have gone by without her leaving my thoughts for long. It seems disingenuous to pretend that coupling is a good idea at this point in time. I can't say I haven't been thinking about it, though. If I'm honest, I've been thinking about it for a while now. Long before Dahlia passed, I was anticipating and fearing this moment.
To put it mildly, I don’t have a lot of experience dating, and the experience I have is about 12 years old and very Midwestern. That puts me about three decades behind the times in Seattle. I consider myself a feminist and internalizing both the theory and practice while rotating around the posturing involved in dealing with the opposite gender can be maddening. While I've got a lot of good advice from my friends, the only way to bring my knowledge up to date is to date several women and be awkward in as many new and different ways as possible.
Dating kind of requires that I know single women near me, and I don’t know very many. I know three, and the number interested in cisgendered, straight men is less than that. As someone in that position, I did what I suppose lots of people my age and younger do, and signed up for an online dating site. While the rest of it hasn't been quite as easy sledding, I do have a date tonight.
Part of me is really worried about stepping on a landmine. I'm worried about mentioning Dahlia in the wrong way and closing off for the rest of the date. I'm worried about the awkward silences. The other part of me hopes the date goes horrendously. I have a lot of awkward silences to get through. I have a lot of stumbling over mentions of my dead wife. The sooner it happens the better. It should happen while I don't know what I want out of dating.
This woman, let's call her Rose, seems like a very good candidate for a trial run. We're meeting for a drink at Capitol Cider. If that goes well, we may head to Sun Liquor. The date can end whenever we'd like to declare it. She seems like a nice and interesting person, but I'm not convinced there's going to be a spark. If it goes well, great. If it doesn't, there won't be much lost.
That said, a lot of thought has gone into exactly how much of my life I've made public to Rose. It seems impossible that mentioning Dahlia won't occur, especially if things are going well. I'm still having difficulty finding a way to talk about myself outside of the context she provides. So it's clearly going to stumble out of my mouth sometime, but how much of a topic it becomes can affect how the rest of the night goes.
But I suppose all that is the point. The whole goal of me dating is to try not to be awkward, be awkward anyway, and try the process again. We'll see how it goes.
So I've decided to start dating. The decision, personally, feels rash on my part. I'm not "over" Dahlia. Six months and twenty-three days have gone by without her leaving my thoughts for long. It seems disingenuous to pretend that coupling is a good idea at this point in time. I can't say I haven't been thinking about it, though. If I'm honest, I've been thinking about it for a while now. Long before Dahlia passed, I was anticipating and fearing this moment.
To put it mildly, I don’t have a lot of experience dating, and the experience I have is about 12 years old and very Midwestern. That puts me about three decades behind the times in Seattle. I consider myself a feminist and internalizing both the theory and practice while rotating around the posturing involved in dealing with the opposite gender can be maddening. While I've got a lot of good advice from my friends, the only way to bring my knowledge up to date is to date several women and be awkward in as many new and different ways as possible.
Dating kind of requires that I know single women near me, and I don’t know very many. I know three, and the number interested in cisgendered, straight men is less than that. As someone in that position, I did what I suppose lots of people my age and younger do, and signed up for an online dating site. While the rest of it hasn't been quite as easy sledding, I do have a date tonight.
Part of me is really worried about stepping on a landmine. I'm worried about mentioning Dahlia in the wrong way and closing off for the rest of the date. I'm worried about the awkward silences. The other part of me hopes the date goes horrendously. I have a lot of awkward silences to get through. I have a lot of stumbling over mentions of my dead wife. The sooner it happens the better. It should happen while I don't know what I want out of dating.
This woman, let's call her Rose, seems like a very good candidate for a trial run. We're meeting for a drink at Capitol Cider. If that goes well, we may head to Sun Liquor. The date can end whenever we'd like to declare it. She seems like a nice and interesting person, but I'm not convinced there's going to be a spark. If it goes well, great. If it doesn't, there won't be much lost.
That said, a lot of thought has gone into exactly how much of my life I've made public to Rose. It seems impossible that mentioning Dahlia won't occur, especially if things are going well. I'm still having difficulty finding a way to talk about myself outside of the context she provides. So it's clearly going to stumble out of my mouth sometime, but how much of a topic it becomes can affect how the rest of the night goes.
But I suppose all that is the point. The whole goal of me dating is to try not to be awkward, be awkward anyway, and try the process again. We'll see how it goes.
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
Stage 8: Assessment
Day 200: Rye, Aperol, Simple syrup, blood orange bitters. I don't have a name for it yet. A "Blurred Reflection," perhaps.
Six months, half a year since Dahlia left… left isn't the right word. Left implies intent. Active rather than passive; subject rather than object. She was taken, stolen, robbed from the ranks of the living. In some respects, six months is a milestone. A point in time to reflect, and determine personal progress. A period to look back and determine what going forward means.
Looking backward involved watching the funeral service. It was difficult to get through. I cried on and off for the first 20 minutes, pretty much entirely through my eulogy, even though it seemed relatively light hearted at the time. Around the time her friends began discussing the stories of her life, my parents called. It gave me a break, time to gather my thoughts. By the time I was done discussing some asinine topic or another with my lovely mother, I had time to put things in a little more perspective.
The rest of the viewing left me in a state of somber joy. Her friends spoke so well of the joy Dahlia brought to everyone's life. Instead of sadness, I was overwhelmed with gratitude. The thirteen years we spent together are irreplaceable and were cut short, but moving forward would be impossible without them. I ended up more grateful than sad, which is as good as things could have went.
Looking forward meant figuring out what the next six months looked like. It's a scary, blurred proposition. I don't know what a lot of it will look like, but the one thing I know is that I need to accept failure better, especially when it comes to other people opinions and certainly when it comes to my own. It's amazing how willing we are to forgive our friends, but completely unwilling to forgive our own failings.
With that in mind, I decided to find something I could fail fast and spectacularly at. Considering my limited previous experiences, dating seemed like a good choice. I'll be sure to discuss all the failures in awkward detail as they happen.
Six months, half a year since Dahlia left… left isn't the right word. Left implies intent. Active rather than passive; subject rather than object. She was taken, stolen, robbed from the ranks of the living. In some respects, six months is a milestone. A point in time to reflect, and determine personal progress. A period to look back and determine what going forward means.
Looking backward involved watching the funeral service. It was difficult to get through. I cried on and off for the first 20 minutes, pretty much entirely through my eulogy, even though it seemed relatively light hearted at the time. Around the time her friends began discussing the stories of her life, my parents called. It gave me a break, time to gather my thoughts. By the time I was done discussing some asinine topic or another with my lovely mother, I had time to put things in a little more perspective.
The rest of the viewing left me in a state of somber joy. Her friends spoke so well of the joy Dahlia brought to everyone's life. Instead of sadness, I was overwhelmed with gratitude. The thirteen years we spent together are irreplaceable and were cut short, but moving forward would be impossible without them. I ended up more grateful than sad, which is as good as things could have went.
Looking forward meant figuring out what the next six months looked like. It's a scary, blurred proposition. I don't know what a lot of it will look like, but the one thing I know is that I need to accept failure better, especially when it comes to other people opinions and certainly when it comes to my own. It's amazing how willing we are to forgive our friends, but completely unwilling to forgive our own failings.
With that in mind, I decided to find something I could fail fast and spectacularly at. Considering my limited previous experiences, dating seemed like a good choice. I'll be sure to discuss all the failures in awkward detail as they happen.
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