love and cancer, part 1

my favorite psychic asked me if i've met anyone, "you know, a man who's kind and a bit sexy?"

i started laughing and she did, too.

my answer: "i am bald, i have no eyelashes and very little eyebrows, i weigh about 104 pounds, i am perpetually nauseated and exhausted... i spend half my week in the hospital and the rest too tired to get out of bed, who do i meet apart from irish nurses brandishing chemo needles?"

i should add to that list of endearing qualities, i have 2 out-of-control teenaged daughters and a very clingy almost-11 year-old one.

my mental answer: how could anyone be interested in a repulsive and sexless bag of bones? even my ability to make intelligent conversation is hobbled by shrinking short-term memory. how could someone love me if i grossed myself out?

this particular blog is about dating across cultural and racial divides.

standing in the shower today, after the perpetual shock of seeing myself naked in the mirror, both muscles and fat reduced to stringy flesh and papery skin infused with the strange chemical fragrance of my chemo drugs, i am less a woman and more a feeble asexual alien.

race, religion and economic class are not the only insurmountable rifts that separate human beings - now that i have cancer - illness can be one of the biggest divides there is.

my cousin was on the arranged marriage circuit. he was briefly interested in a beautiful, eligible young woman who was also going blind. "is he crazy?" shouted his mother. "he'll have to drive her everywhere, look after her - what kind of life does he want? and on top of that, she's going bald." thus, no proposal was registered. the poor guy went back on the meeting track.

what shocks me is that it's perfectly reasonable and completely acceptable - and everyone seems to agree with his mum - to dismiss someone sick (god knows what other virtues and qualities she had) on the spot. in fact, there is no taboo at all in dropping someone because she or he is sick. which i am.

have i met anyone? i have vague flirtations online. i smile at people in shops and they often smile back. but am i or anyone else willing to the leap the abyss?

and if someone did cross over, what would be there?

a stick figure.

i find myself thinking i need to wear false eyelashes and make-up and push-up bras and bright colors. all those loud, overstatements of femininity. because there is so little else.

i wonder if i create a garish outer "woman," if the inner one will follow suit?

i used to be married to a man who was a cross-dresser. he longed to be a woman. when he dressed up, he said, "we can be sisters.." in a soft, simpering voice.

i used to be horrified by his over-the-top drag. the bright lipstick, the mascara, the earrings, the scarf, bra and "chicken cutlets" - even the hyper-feminine gestures and the voice - along with the sexy dress, hose and pumps. his costumes and act turned us women into caricatures. jokes.

my femininity was based on confidence. i didn't need frilly polyester underwear or blue eyeshadow or stilletto heels because my being a woman was undeniable. i was petite, pretty, i had breasts, glossy long hair, i could have babies. too many accoutrements would be overkill. like putting a huge painted sign HOUSE on the side of a house. if it wasn't obvious to you, you weren't very smart.

but now that - like my exhusband - i am trying desperately to conjure up my inner woman, that part of me who was pretty and fun and alluring, i wonder if i shouldn't go out and tart myself up. i am wondering if putting on the dog (pun intended, i suppose), wouldn't be part of my healing.

would making the effort to make myself pretty be part of being nice to myself?

the thing about being sick is, you do it alone.

i've been blown away by my family. my brother and my sister-in-law have been my constant companions in the hospital. my mother and father have been back and forth to new york city every other week for seven weeks. my friends have been visiting, holding my hand in hospital, bringing food, cooking food, bringing presents and flowers.

but in the end, they get up and walk out of the hospital and you are still there, hooked up to the i.v. and wearing a dead-ugly blue flower-printed gown and fuzzy socks and bedroom slippers.

they get to go back to real life. have a nap and feel almost normal again.

and you get to live there.

when you're in the midst of cancer treatment, you live there in a big way.

even if i dressed up as a woman, i don't think i could take it on the road.

all the time, i'd be thinking of the tragic moment when i peeled off those false eyelashes and the wig, when the push-up bar came off and the acrid perfume of chemicals seeped through the flowery deodorant, when my the lipstick clung in pieces to my chapped lips and i turned back into a stick figure.

can you fall in love when you have cancer? yes. yes, i'm sure you can. you could fall desperately in love with someone who stood by you. someone who loved and cared for you all along. your wife or husband or long-term partner.

but if you're on your own, "meeting someone" while you're in treatment, while you still believe you're sick, is impossible.

this is the moment to learn to love yourself. all bald, scrawny 100 pounds of you.

i ate lunch alone in a japanese restaurant the other day and, like a teenaged girl, i marveled at how i had become a woman (again). my voice is melodious, my fingers are long and poised, i move gracefully. i was pleased with my company.

my date with myself was a success. i found myself charming. i might even try for a second one.

squandered sperm

ok, for you men out there - this post is after a discussion with my sister-in-law about who is responsible for a child.

her theory: if a woman gets pregnant, it's her own fault. if she decides to have the baby - and the guy doesn't want it and wants her to have an abortion - she takes the responsibility herself and can't hit the father up for financial/emotional help afterwards.

my theory: guys make a decision the minute they have sex without birth control. actually, in some cases, the minute they have penetrative intercourse. let's face it, women - and all human beings in general, except for your own self - are wild cards. you never know what deep-seated memories are triggered by which events.

so you, the guy, may hop into bed with someone thinking that it's a done (footloose and free-loving deal) and she may get pregnant and suddenly all her thoughts of motherhood and her own childhood and the bizarre behaviour kicked in by hormones and who know WHAT she will do.

basically, you just handed her a loaded gun - that you loaded, btw - and now, if you didn't take precautions earlier (and sometimes even if you did). you are going to have to deal with the consequences.

even if the consequences are that she falls madly in love with you (a la fatal attraction) or you fall madly in love with her (and she's not interested).

sex is a complicated and emotionally-fraught act.

do it without thinking and you could end up dealing with the offspring (and the mother or father) for a good 18 years.

mercury retrograde

the clock changed and i'm trying to move forwards not back.

briefly, this summer, i fell back in love with an old boyfriend. probably because i've been in a rapidly accelerating crisis situation and i longed for something safe, tested, worn-in and comfortable.

he showed me, through innumerable signs exactly how unsuitable he was. when i needed help moving, he said he'd come and instead called me 5 hours after it was all over. no explanation. in fact, he showed up late to absolutely every meeting, even when he chose the time. over the years, he'd borrowed money from me, and now - despite my panicked financial moment - he still didn't offer to help or to even buy my kid a box of popcorn when he met us in the movie theater. he just ignored her hints.

still i could feel the sexual tension between us and the longing in the way he left the apartment. i could feel my kids' pleasure in his presence.

and after a pathetic last-ditch effort to re-connect, the illusion suddenly crashed to the floor. he was the same person i had walked away from. he was his same sweet, loving, irresponsible and self-centered self.

back to internet dating and all its related irritations.

like first of all, why do people simply ignore your qualifications? i am not interested in white men over 40. i even put it in the first line of my description. not because i am racist, just because i did that already.

probably the same reason i fell back in love. because you see what you want to see. because you project all those qualities you dream of on thin structure of the person you know.

there is something so 2-dimensional and impossible about meeting people that way. no one ever seems to look like their picture. almost inevitably, they look worse and are 2 inches shorter. no one can spell or write comprehensible sentences. or if they can, they are total disasters off the page. how can you meet everyone? and how can you possibly narrow your choices from a tiny profile?

ah. off to the acupuncturist to ponder further.

motherhood

i seem to fall in love with men who are - to a man - children.

they are incapable of seeing other people as anything other than extensions of their egos.

laughing even as i type this. my current paramour, more than 15 years my junior seems to be more patient, wise and able to put others first than any of the men nearly hitting 60.

so what's the reason for my arrested development?

my desire to be a "superwoman" to look after everyone?

here's a warning sign. when you find you are looking after a man - an adult - and he's requiring more attention than the actual under-18 members of your household and helping even less, then you probably need to question your motives.

you can't re-make your messed-up childhood, or re-make his, no matter how hard you try.

past lives

woke up yesterday morning in the midst of a dream of an ex-boyfriend.

he was so close to my face - i haven't seen him in years - i could feel his breath on my skin, see every pore and sense the muscles tensing in his cheeks. what's funny is that, without that dream, i could barely have remembered what he looked like.

in my dream, i was sitting in a sidewalk cafe and i saw a man riding around past us on a bicycle, shooting the street through a movie camera that he wore on his face like binoculars.

i was fascinated by the project. then he got off the bicycle and walked towards me. i recognized him and called out his name. the friend i was with in the cafe, dashed off to chase her child. i was thrilled to see him and he got closer and closer.

suddenly, he was inches from my face, about to give me a kiss. and i saw that 20 year-old smile so clearly. looking at him, i thrashed myself through consciousness to wake up - late for my ramadan pre-sunrise breakfast.

still in the afterglow of my dream, i made some eggs and pondered it.

i realized that the guy i saw in my dream couldn't have been my ex-boyfriend. not ever, in waking life. i saw him for what i'd dreamed him to be. a filmmaker with a handmade camera - because he'd always had a unique point of view. in real life, he is probably a manager of a business or a contractor. something safe and content.

let's call him joe. joe had a difficult childhood because his parents weren't helpful, his siblings weren't interested and no one else had been either. he was abandoned early on.

and somehow i could look at him and see his potential. all the possibilities of what he might have been if he'd had wider exposure, if he'd had more support, if he'd had the advantages of an upper middleclass childhood.

but the truth is, i could never be the person who would help him overcome that. and, in reality, he never would.

and i thought of a recent ex and realized how often i see someone's untapped potential and see them for that - perhaps dream that for them - while they might never reach it. they might not even see it themselves. they might not even want to.

and it made me wonder how often one is in relationships where you see only the best in someone while they see only their obstacles. and that maybe understanding your partner's setbacks and insurmountable barriers can do you both more good that envisioning where they could be without them.

my old man pt 2

so lately i've gone a handful of dates with 20-somethings.

and while i don't know if they saw me as a haggard old crone (it was just my 45th birthday), i felt a bit empty afterwards.

what i love about younger guys is their enthusiasm, excitement, energy and optimism.

but i walked away wondering what we talked about.

maybe i was intimidating. maybe they were shy. but somehow the conversations lacked depth. they felt like missed trains.

i'm not interested in cynicism, excessive analytics or psychological digs, but isn't there a middle ground?

love in a headscarf

met a women at the MLT conference today called Shelina Zahra Janmohamed who's written a book called, LOVE IN A HEADSCARF about her search for love - both romantic and divine.

she also has a blog www.spirit21.co.uk

wondering about dating/falling in love with a woman in a hijab? compelling? or does it freak you out?

read her book and her blog which gained her the title, one of britain's 50 most powerful women, for tips and information.

she showed up at the event with her husband - a muslim and a south asian - so i guess the search is over.

but i'm really interested in how it played out...