Category Archives: Divorce

A Touch of Velvet

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When Alan loved me, his love wrapped around me like velvet; tender, caressing, sensual.  I moved through the world as if I were always enfolded in the black velvet cape he gave me for my 50th birthday.

He remained infatuated with me at the time of this birthday.  After knowing each other for 20 years, he still beamed like a boy as I pushed aside the white tissue paper and unfolded the long, hooded cape from its box.  He knew me well, knew I’d be delighted with this gift.  Still, I could see in his eyes that bit of doubt.  “Maybe she won’t like it, maybe it’s all wrong,” he was thinking.

I threw it over my shoulders, pulled the hood over my head, admired myself in the mirror as I stroked the soft fabric, then twirled to enjoy the feel of it billowing out around me.  I looked at him, at the happiness in his eyes now that he was sure of my pleasure at his gift.

Perfection.  My 50th birthday was perfect.

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Valentine’s Day #2

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Between my last Valentine’s Day as a married woman and my first as a divorced woman, (see Valentine’s Day), I spent my one Valentine’s Day as neither one nor the other holding hands with a handsome, dissolute, notorious lady’s man named Marius.

The setting for our tryst was La Perla, a restaurant on Playa la Ropa in Zihautanejo, Mexico. Our table sat alone, the furthest from the restaurant, the closest to the shoreline.  Moonlight, starlight, gentle waves, warm breezes, the sweet sound of soft voices and laughter drifting to us from the few boats in the bay; this should have been the setting for The Vixen Divorcee’s First Kiss, right?

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Valentine’s Day

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The last Valentine’s Day I celebrated with my former husband, Alan, surpassed any dream I could ever have.  None of the Hallmark writers or designers could have come up with this scenario.

Alan had been travelling excessively for business.  He missed his birthday, my birthday, our wedding anniversary.  But it’s Valentine’s Day, he’s home and

 

we’re going to make it special.

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The Poetry of Seduction

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Andrew Marvell said it best back in the 17th century.  I have never come across anything written before or since that more convincingly and beautifully expresses the compelling reasons to indulge in passion.

Alan, my ex-husband, the scientist, would never have come across this poem before meeting me.  I wouldn’t have expected him to know it.  But bless his romantic heart, he learned To His Coy Mistress, and would, when the moment was ripe, pull out a few select lines.   Always with the desired results.

But my own romantic heart hungered for more.  I wanted what he could never have done.  I longed for the man who, in a moment with stillness hanging heavily around us, would recite, unbidden, those lines for me.

I teased Alan that I would give myself, body and soul, to the man who did that.

August Rodin sculpture, the Kiss

French sculptor Auguste Rodin captured how I anticipated responding to an impromptu recitation of “To His Coy Mistress”.

 

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50 Ways to Leave Your Lover

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Alan, my former husband, and I concocted our fantasy business while idling in coffee shops and wine bars.  The mission of this company was to help broken-hearted lovers bring closure, dramatic and final, to their relationships.  We were inspired by Paul Simon to help people in pain with their struggle to be free.  We, of course, were never going to be in pain, never struggling to be free.

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Solace for a Grieving Heart #3

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The night I threw my soon-to-be-ex-husband’s clothes into boxes and hauled them out to the garage, this song from Marianne Faithful’s album, Broken English, blared away on my sound system.

When I stole a twig from our little nest
And gave it to a bird with nothing in her beak,
I had my balls and my brains put into a vice
And twisted around for a whole fucking week.
Why’d ya do it, she said, why’d you let that trash
Get a hold of your cock, get stoned on my hash?

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The Comfort of Her Arms

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Don’t you think American Impressionist Mary Cassatt captured the trusting tenderness between mother and daughter?

My mother’s robe hangs in the back of my cedar closet, where it’s been since she died 10 years ago.  Tonight I choose to wear it.

First I light all the candles in the bathroom.  Fill the tub with hot water and fragrant bubbling foam.  Then I lie in the steam and the warmth, gazing at that perfect robe hanging on the closed door.

This silken wonder was a gift from my father, and showed a rare flash of gift-giving insight.

 

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The Other Side of Me

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By Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres

What did I write for Alan that wasn’t meant for anyone else’s eyes?  What am I willing to share with you, now that he and I are divorced?

The other side of me, the side you don’t know.   The erotic side.

Before the birth of The Diary (and of the Vixen Divorcee), I wrote stories intended for Alan’s eyes only.  Stories of sexually explicit fantasies based on places he and I visited during our days of marital bliss.  Stories the likes of which will never appear in the pages of The Diary.  Stories I’m willing to share with you privately, now that he and I are divorced.

 Yours could be the first eyes other than his to read one of these elegant fantasies.

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On the Operating Table

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Ryan lay on the operating table, partially sedated and dazed from rushing across
town in an ambulance.  His problem was heart failure brought on by a congenital heart defect.  The surgeon touched him gently on the arm and said, deep compassion in her voice, “I never operate on anyone I don’t know.  My name is Mary.  Pleased to meet you.”

Ryan looked in her warm, caring eyes and said, “We’ve already met.  I’ve held you in my arms.”

The expression on her face shifted, the compassion replaced with distaste.

He added, “We’ve danced together.  At the
Arthur Murray studio. My best dance is the mambo.”

 

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Solace for a Grieving Heart #2

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You’re on the brink of a nervous breakdown.  Your long marriage and settled life lie in broken bits at your feet.  No amount of glue is going to fit that mess neatly back  together.

What do you do?

Join the Y.

Seriously.

Or a gym.  Or a yoga studio.  Or a dance class.

Put down that glass of wine.  Turn off the TV.  Get up off the couch.  Move.  Get those  endorphins going.

The first time in my life I ever joined a gym was a couple months after I initiated divorce
proceedings.  It’s one of the steps that saved my sanity.

Can you pick me out in my Zumba class? I love this class.

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