Author: Heather Robinson

You might have guessed.

But just in case you haven’t, I will admit it. I am starting to date again.

I know.

I signed up for a site here called “Adopt un Mec” (yes, adopt a guy) where the woman gets to be proactive, but still…all of my insecurities are coming back up. Popping like popcorn and I definitely feel on the fire. Tears have fallen. But there have been moments of fine delight too.

Last Sunday, it was warm enough for my date and I to have a glass of wine in the sun on a café terrace. We would talk and then hold each others gaze. It was within that look where words were not needed that inspired me to lean over and kiss him. He hadn’t seen it coming. It was such a good kiss that an elderly man walking by stopped to say, “Bravo. c’était beau ça.” We laughed and I shooed our observer away.

I have worked so hard to get here. Even if I am at times struggling mightily not to slip back into old patterns of being – and most certainly to risk in trusting again – I feel sparks of pride too. For I am trying, not always doing and I took over a year to just be with me. I didn’t rush and as much as long to be held, I do not want to fall into anyone’s arms either but act knowingly.

It is such a waltz of advance and retreat.

The most confusing element for me is disappearance. A contact will start to be established, launched by the man, and when “the mayonnaise starts to take hold” (as they say here), poof! No further sign of life. It has happened so much that I finally asked some of my guy friends about it and they responded that some people just want that reassurance, to know that a certain woman finds them interesting.

Admittedly, I stumble too and patience has never been my strong point. I can reveal far too much too soon if I am interested in someone but I also can blow my lips in frustration if it feels like making conversation is akin to pulling teeth. I have had far too many messages that say simply, “Comment ça va?” and I don’t really know what to do with those, well-intentioned as they may be. There is a musician who has left me his phone number, I don’t know why I haven’t called him yet.

This is not completely new. I was seeing someone for three months and did not write about it here as he is an exceptionally private person. I can be too. It is a line that we all find, over and over again.

It feels strange and wonderful and vulnerable to be meeting men anew after so many, many years with my ex. And yet, oh how I love them. Men. There is the age issue. I have been contacted by a lot of younger men and conversely I am not 100% confident about sharing this 48 year body yet, especially with men my own age. Sometimes it feels like work to write in French when I don’t want it to and long to just jot off a quick reply in my mother tongue. We shall see were this goes, if it even, finally, goes anywhere.

The question is: Can I do this and remain true to my own sweet self? I don’t know yet…

 

My heart is not on my sleeve, it is in my eyes. I have the opposite of poker face, I cannot hide. And so yesterday, the tears fell at will; I let them fall.

At 1:15 I was still in my pyjamas, I hadn’t done yoga and was staring at the sky. I shook myself and instinctively called Le Violette; Corinne answered. When she asked, “Ça va?” I replied, “No, I am tired and sad. I know it is late but can I come for lunch?” “Of course. We will wait for you.” I can get ready very quickly these days, shower to makeup and dressed in ten minutes. I felt trembly in my hurried steps out the door, little under a big blue ahead.

I jokingly call Alex “my fiancée.” It is a running gag that we share. Half-Sicilian, half-French, he wants to work in the States. I want to be sure that I can remain here. So we have decided that a wedding would solve our problems, this despite his being 25 (making me definitely old enough to be his mother). He is a ferocious flirt. When I walked into the restaurant, his face narrowed, “What is it? Love?” No, I shook my head. “I hate to see you like this,” (it is rare that he is this serious) “I will punch whoever did this to you. Do you want me to do that?” I shook my head again but with a smile, my lips pursed tightly to hold back the tears.

They spilled over when Corinne gave me the bises and we agreed that this eclipse was shaking us from the inside out. Nicholas, her usually stoic husband, admitted that he wanted to throw a chair he was so full of unlikely emotions. When Alex delivered my plat du jour, I didn’t care about being the crazy American crying over tandoori chicken. The room was full of regulars, as I am too. They had to come out, those crystal little drops and so they did.

It was the same later in the day, the record on repeat, when I took myself to the salon for a blowout, a once a month treat. Sabrina retracted from her smiling hello quickly. “Oh, vous avez un petit mine.” It is slang. To have a sad expression. The opposite of having “un bon mine.” “I can’t talk or I will cry. I just came here…” “…pour changer les idées?” She finished my trailing sentence. Again, all I could do was nod but still the tears fell. All through the shampoo and often through closed eyes as I sat in her chair. She did a wonderful job. She always does. She doesn’t mind if I don’t talk. I tip.

Even though it is now the day of the eclipse, they are gone now, the tears, having run their course. I feel more solid and will do that yoga that was ignored in a bit. Root to rise, as they say. And the why of them? There was a reason. Some not so kind things had been said and it opened up that gaping yawn of questioning about the future and what am I doing? And where will I go? Yet again, it wasn’t linear and it never ceases to surprise me what buttons can push others, hidden.

I am trying so hard to harbor trust that all will work out for the best. And to not knee-jerk look outwards for approval but within. I keep running up against the challenge of patience, as I want change to happen now. But I have to participate, to do the work on my end, both practical and dreaming in order to arrive. And all of this in my manner for there is none others that matter, no standards to be heeded. I forget that. Sitting in the sun at a café post lunch yesterday, I scribbled in my journal about a gesture that I had offered: “It came from the heart. I come from the heart…I come from the heart.”

 *These photos are from a singular extraordinary door in the Marais. I could have stayed longer in the looking. May whatever doors feel closed in front of you open willingly under the bright light of this Blue Moon…

…My hunger is currently not for material goods but rather experiences and I can dine contentedly on the shifting beauty of a molten sky ahead. Le Bon Marché is no longer My Happy Place. It has been replaced by a wicker stool at a random streetside café. I watch and listen.

…that I am no longer intimidated or apologetic to meet an Instagram friend and to make that contact real; And that I agree with what said friend stated as we parted ways, champagne double-clinked, that I will make things good wherever I go. That I bring color to Paris makes me blush, however, still.

…that Art is a fraction of the biggest Dream made solid. And we might die without it (or perhaps we already are, yet fighting it). And I don’t care how dramatic that sounds. The wings are there if only we let them lift.

…that I am strong enough in my sense of self to go to the Hotel Crillon as if I belong there. Because I do. And that isn’t about money. Every seat at the bar was taken but I will return and try again. Even the oldest classics can be reborn.

…that I am not afraid of the rain.

…that I can introduce myself at an event at Déco Off as a writer and a photographer. Because, despite appearances, I am. I tend to forget.

…I saw that I can talk to anyone and engage with them as human to human, direct. And what a gift of existence that is. One that I have earned. I had to go all the way down to know how connected we are and how simply.

…I remembered again, again, again. That I am Open and that I am Stronger than I think. 

 

This trip was an invitation by my friends at Atelier Vime as part of their self-pronounced “Make Heather Robinson Great Again,” program…which made me laugh so hard. It still does…I am a ready and willing recepient…thank you, friends.