What do you buy at Crate and Barrel?

So I was wandering through Crate and Barrel last night having a text message fight with my boyfriend. I went in specifically to kill time, hoping that if I admired the $2000 leather chair or the espresso stained coffee table long enough, I might someday attract them into my living room. But naturally I was distracted, because it's really hard to fight when you're using only a thumb, and I didn't notice much of anything. In fact, I circled the same floor two full times before realizing it, and then I was so disoriented it took me a crazy amount of time to find the escalators.

Fight aborted (not resolved), I tried to focus on some dinnerware. The store was about to close, but I felt a desperate – okay, angry – urge to buy something, anything, quickly. I stood in front of a mini waffle griddle for some time (security definitely had me in their sights by now). Not a mini griddle; a regular griddle that made mini waffles, but there was no top to it, which really confused me. Still, I wanted it. It was cute. And good for smacking someone in the head.

I didn't buy it. Instead, I started thinking about the crap I DO buy: that at fortysomething, I deserve to have these nice things. That these things represent a happy home. That if I can't afford to have a dining room table with matching sideboard, I've somehow failed. And speaking of failed, how about this one? That I'm too old to have a boyfriend, for Pete's sake, and to be feeling the same communication frustrations I've felt a hundred times.

I moved on to contemplate a napkin ring. Shiny, gold, pretty. Suppose that when I said to someone that my feelings were hurt by a certain behavior, that person were to hand me a so-called napkin ring. Wouldn't cost much, but as a gesture, how nice. Then if that person wanted to say 'we really need to look at the entire table, at the way you're serving things up,' well...fine. But start with something shiny, please. That's all I'm asking.

People who shop here must know this. They're undoubtedly mature, self-actualized grown-ups. In order to be able to make a decision faced with so many beautiful options, a person has to have her life defined. Traditional? Or contemporary? I thought I was traditional, with the kids and husband and house. But now I find I'm contemporary, with an Ex, an inflated T-Mobile text package, and a boyfriend. I'm wandering the aisles, wondering where I fit and what fits me.

The same thing happens when I go walking in a nice neighborhood. I love to look at houses. And in windows, if possible. The nicer the house, the happier the family. Isn't that right? I'm not so foolish, but I do covet various places not so much for the houses themselves, but for the life I imagine would go with them. If only I could live there, or there, I'd feel younger, be more forgiving, listen better, argue less. My days would have that gauzy, soft focus look, like a Hallmark movie.

But why do we (because I assume I'm not alone here) ascribe such meaning to structures or objects? Why do we think life has to come in a certain color, match a set, or be made of brick? Is it that it's easier to look at pretty things than at ourselves?

I don't know. But if we had a nice big shiny bowl, we could throw all these questions in and have a party. I'll text you the details when my thumb stops aching.

Fint Som Snus

Hasn't everyone had that experience of seeing an old friend or acquaintance out of the blue, maybe in the grocery store, or at the gym, and ducking before being spotted? Why do we do that? For me, there's always the certainty that of course so-and-so won't remember me. Nevermind that we sat next to each for three semesters and I know the name of her first pet (Ginger) and that poor Ginger was run over by my friend's dad in their driveway. No, I am the owner of a sort of invisibility cloak.

So I'm making it one of my goals to attack 2010 with a little more presence. Driving by a 1-hour t-shirt place the other day, I even considered having a shirt made: Yes, I AM taking up space. A more confident cloak, so to speak. To ready me for those inevitable run-ins.

But don't you hate how those run-ins have to turn into run-downs? The whole 'what's new?' thing is exhausting. 2009 happens to be My Year of Divorce and I haven't begun to compose my What-Went-Wrong (in 100-words or less) essay. That's led to a predicament. I'm lonely for friends, but don't want to be constantly rehashing my life.

Still, a girl's got to eat, and an old roommate happens to own a fabulous Swedish restaurant on Foster Avenue called Tre Kronor. I haven't kept up with Patty like I've wanted to. We lived together before either of us met our husbands. Now she has five kids, owns and runs both Tre Kronor and The Sweden Shop with her husband, and still looks fabulous and has a friendly smile for everyone. They're the hard-working, have-it-all couple that have me reaching for my cloak, thinking 'they're much too busy for little 'ol me!'

I was telling a friend all this as we sat outside Tre Kronor devouring a heavenly apple danish. The waiters are perky, Nordic-looking students from North Park University, and they wore powder blue t-shirts that said "Fint Som Snus," which translates, I'm told, to "fine as snuff," or, as we would say "right as rain." Patty's husband Larry happened by, and he surprised me by saying he wanted to call Patty over, sure that she'd want to see me. Conveniently, they live right across the street, and moments later she was running over. She gave me a big hug and the first words out of her mouth were "I've missed you!" I don't know if it was hearing that, or if I was still high on the apple danish, but that breakfast, that run-in, made my week. It couldn't have come at a more perfect time, desperate as I was for a reminder that no, I wasn't invisible. I was fint som snus.

My friend will never know how good she made me feel that day. Unless I have a t-shirt made. What's Swedish for thank you, thank you, thank you!!?

I Love You...For Now

The subject of unconditional love has been coming up repeatedly for me lately. I went to see (500) Days of Summer at the McClurg Theater downtown -- a fabulous venue by any standard, yet something about its cavernous interior always gives me a surreal sense of isolation, even when the seats are packed. Or maybe the surreal sense comes from the time I was there for the debut showing of Public Enemies, starring Johnny Depp and filmed in Chicago, and all the extras were there too, dressed in period clothing, which made for that time warp feeling. Or maybe it's that, earlier, I'd actually seen Johnny Depp on the red carpet and the place will be forever lonely without him. Talk about unconditional love...

But I digress. In (500) Days of Summer I loved the part where the main character Tom, in the throes of lovesickness, says to Zooey Deschanel's character Summer something like "I want to know that you're not going to feel differently about me tomorrow." And she looks at him with those big doe-eyes and says, "I can't give you that. No one can."

It reminded me of the lyrics to a Split Endz song: "You know that I love you, here and now, not forever. I can give you the present. I don't know 'bout the future. That's all stuff and nonsense."

Harsh, I thought. But true?

Unwillingly, I re-lived my first heartbreak, when my college boyfriend turned to me one night and said "I don't love you anymore." In my twenties I believed love was something you couldn't turn off. It was like a magical spigot, once turned on it would be stuck on, pouring love like water into eager upturned hands. Twenty years later, I've seen a few faucets dry up. Sometimes in little drips, other times like a sledge hammer coming down on an old fixture. When my husband told me he'd been cheating on and off for ten years, and had just spent 12 hours with someone in Las Vegas who was destined to be his new love, it was a crash course in the changeable nature of love.

Now I find myself wondering if the only love that can't really be destroyed is the love we have for our children, or our parents. Those primordial relationships are in our very DNA. We'll stretch the ties to near breaking, but only because we're confident there's some high-quality elastic there. With anyone else you can spend years learning each other and one day be handed a big red-letter F, flunking an exam you didn't know you were taking. There's my cynic.

But then I'll moments of such expansive, joyous love toward someone and it does makes sense. Time truly seems to stand still. In that kind of love there's no future because there's no room for it. Constructs like tomorrow, next week, next year only cage it in. There's still a learning curve, yes, but no striving, no grade.

I wonder if the next time someone says "I'm just over you," I'll be able to remain philosophical. And I can't decide if knowing it can happen at any time makes love more precious. Or just makes me sad.

Warrior at the Ready

Yesterday, while I was in the middle of a yoga class, my muscles warmed, my mind clear, my sister popped into my head. I haven't seen or spoken to my sister in more than 2 years. Last I saw her was in a hotel room at an Embassy Suites in Colorado where my family had lured her for a drug intervention. She's a crystal meth addict, and was high that day. Despite our tearful, pleading letters, despite our interventionist's efforts to reel her in over 4 long hours, despite the bed we'd paid for at a rehab in California (we had new sheets in the suitcase! With pink flamingoes on them!), the intervention failed. My sister fled the room and we were forced to deliver the "kiss-off" letter. Just your standard "you are dead to me until you're ready for help" letter.

Two years later, she's still not ready. So I've put her out of my life and, mostly, my thoughts. Which is why her interrupting my downward-facing dog was remarkable. For the first time in a long time I had a clear conviction that I would see her again. Alive. I just felt it.

Then my mother sent me an email saying that she had a meltdown yesterday over my sister, that she cried all day. Now my mother and I don't talk about my sister much anymore. It's easier that way. So it seemed a strange coincidence that she came to us on the same day, disrupting our careful indifference. I told my mother that maybe she's thinking of us, that our "feelers" are being activated for some reason. Still, there's nothing we can do. If she calls, we've been instructed to repeat the script: I won't talk to you unless you're calling for help.

I'm hoping that my sister doesn't call my mother. She'll crumble for sure. She won't be able to follow the script. Better if she calls me; I've prepared. I've done some warrior poses with this very situation in mind. I still haven't the slightest idea if I'll say the right words. But in the meantime, I've got strong thighs and the hope that they'll get me where I need to go.

What Price Passion?

I spoke to a friend today who told me his wife is leaving her job as a vice president of a major Chicago advertising firm. She's fed up, he said, and wants to take the rest of the year to figure out what she really wants to do. He said she's always hoped to open a bakery. I loved hearing this. Who isn't cheered by a good "follow your dream" story? We all wish we had the courage to chuck it all in search of some bliss, but how many of us actually do? But no sooner had I voiced my enthusiasm when my friend began hedging. It would all depend on whether his wife could adjust to the severe drop in income. How many cakes would she need to sell to make her dream worthwhile?

It was a question similar to one another friend posed to me last night: how much money do we really need to be happy? She shared a "fact" she came across while blog-surfing: that supposedly $40,000 a year is all one needs to be happy. Enough to cover food and shelter (though not cable TV) and the rest is gravy. Or icing on the cake.

The problem is, we all want our cake, but...you know the rest. It's easy to put a price tag on the things we want to acquire, but not so easy to quantify the things we give up. When there is no one there to pay us or pat us on the back for our efforts, can we still feel fulfilled doing it? Can it even be called a passion? Does it get downgraded to a hobby, or an avocation, or worse still, a past time? Playing checkers is a past time. And it's hard to imagine anyone leaving a job to pursue a life of checker-playing, unless it's at the retirement community.

But hurray for those who take the plunge and resolve to do what they love! How else can you find out if your passion is priceless, or only priced to sell?

Beware the Bread!

Today as I was loading the kids into the car to rush them somewhere, a neighbor flagged me down. She was holding a stale piece of bread in her hand. She was a new neighbor, having just bought a foreclosed house on the block. Had I seen anyone trying to get in to the house? she wanted to know. She waved the bread and said, "Someone's coming in. Someone left this for me on the windowsill. I don't eat bread." She told how she'd found chocolate chips on the table another time. And yes, some bags were missing. As she went on about her various theories about who might want in and why, I started to worry about the little ears that were perked up in the back seat. My daughter and her friend are 4 years old. they love watching Scooby Doo but worry incessently about ghosts. Would they have nightmares now of burglars? For that matter, would I?

I promised to keep an eye on the place and made a mental note to start using my alarm system. I pulled away and looked worriedly in the rear view mirror. Sure enough, both kids looked pensive. "Did you hear that?" my daughter said, wide-eyed. "She doesn't eat bread!"

Do you know the way to San Jose?

This year, after twenty years in a relationship, I found myself unceremoniously dumped back into the single life. More than a little bruised, I decided to add to my misery and post a profile on Match.com. My first attempts were tortuous. I knew exactly what I didn't want, but listing negatives didn't seem the way to go. I needed to talk about myself. Sell myself. Problem was, without my significant other, who was I? I tried probing friends gently, afraid they wouldn't be able to define me either. Brown hair, brown eyes, enjoys reading and dining out. Big yawn. Finally, late one night, I accepted the truth: I was the most uninteresting person on earth and would die alone, probably of boredom. I marinated this truth in a couple of glasses of wine and dozed, despondent, on the couch. Then, a memory: I once saw an improv sketch at a theatre in Chicago where each actor stated his name and said 'these are the things I know." Simple, but it made an impact. I gave it a try, and here is what I wrote:

I'm Tammy and these are the things I know: I know that I'd like to meet someone who exudes kindness and compassion, who is loved by animals and children, remembered fondly by a former English teacher, and who has at least one family member on speed dial. I know how to twirl a baton. I know that I will never win awards for cooking or performance art. I know how to speak a little Dutch. I know that I love to be inspired, and find inspiration mostly in nature (human and Mother). I know how to do a mean sun salutation (oxymoron?). I know that the reality within reflects the reality without, and that the secret to peace is accepting the impermanence of all things. I know that the first time I see my kids eat a salad I will weep with joy. I know that I enjoy diagramming sentences, but hate to read instructions, that I love to throw parties but I'm uncomfortable in the spotlight. I know that I love to see people using their talent, whether it's singing, acting, designing a house, or testing the super collider. I know how to weather a storm. I absolutely know that I will never run the Chicago Marathon again. I know the sublime joy of being inside a crowded jazz bar in the Latin Quarter and the look of the sun setting on the island of Santorini. I know the wisdom of 'all things in moderation,' that I don't like extremes, and that I'm happiest when there is a balance between rest and activity, solitude and society, care and carelessness. I know that everyone is fighting a battle and the ones who surrender are the ones who win.

I do NOT know the way to San Jose.

Putting this aside (I had a hangover to prepare for, after all), I forgot about it for a few more weeks. When I read it again I thought I must have been channeling some other being. The person I'd described was me, but a forlorn, forgotten me. A dusty self image waiting to be picked up and polished off. And the funniest thing? Reading it made me want to meet me.