blindsided
by karen lauritzen

I plodded through the doorway of the grocery store on a bright, clear sunny day in the mountains of Western North Carolina with little enthusiasm for the task. It wasn’t because I don’t like to cook or shop.

I’m Italian. I have an herb garden, grow my own buttercrunch lettuce and heirloom tomatoes, create original recipes and don’t eat frozen dinners. I’m also sixty-one years old. There’s just so much enthusiasm I can muster for a task I’ve probably repeated 2132 times, give or take extra trips to the store on holidays. But now my nineteen year old son was home from college for the summer and a single-woman refrigerator of yogurt, Parmesan cheese and zucchini wouldn’t do.

By the time I saw him next to the meat department, my shopping basket was loaded with giant pasta shells, fixings for lasagna, a turkey breast, chocolate oreos, extra mayo and white bread. Everett strode toward me in Bermuda shorts, a striped golf shirt and sandals. I was used to seeing him in a choir robe and finicky white dress shirt . His easy, casual dress matched the way he swung his hand-held, single guy shopping basket over his arm. It seemed as if he was on his way to a picnic. He still looked fit, wore wire rimmed glasses and appeared to have just gotten his neatly combed grey hair cut. He came to a dead stop from his casual stroll, smiled and stared straight at me, then at the contents of my shopping basket. I looked at his basket and noticed it held a loaf of French bread and bottle of Merlot.

“How are you managing this first year?” We belonged to the same church. His wife had died a little over a year ago . I swept my bangs to the side with one hand, glad I’d remembered to wash my face and run a comb through my hair before leaving for the store.
“I’ve done a little decorating,” his eyes brightened, “Gotten rid of the heavy drapes and carpeting. Put in mini-blinds and hardwood floors. The place is now full of light. Couldn’t stand it so dark.”
“Ah, yes. Good” I was a ten year veteran of widowhood. “It sounds as if you’re defining your space.”

He looked at me as if he had a clear understanding for the first time of exactly what he’d done. “Yes! That’s it.” I noticed that he was only several inches taller than my 5’2” height.

Then he leaned forward slightly toward me, “Would you like to go out to dinner sometime?”

“Sure. Give me a call. I’m in the church directory.” I knew that Everett was a past president of the Brevard Music Center volunteer association.

I liked the concerts. It would be good to get out and socialize more I said to myself, justifying this sudden leap into the world of dating.
After all, I continued my monologue as I pushed the groceries through the self check out, he probably won’t call. He was just being nice to a fellow church member. But if he does, it’ll get my brother off my back. He’d been bugging me to date for years.

In the past ten years of widowhood I’d been interested in exactly two men. I’m picky. I’m picky about men because my marriage of twenty-two years was a good one. I’d been good friends with my late husband. So that was my standard. I felt anything further had to be as good or better than what I had or I wasn’t putting in the time and energy required to make a good relationship work.

Since my husband died I’d worked as hard as any single parent to raise two boys, see them through their teen years, care for two aunts, a mother, and now that they’d died, was visiting my ninety four year old father daily at the assisted living center several minutes from my home.

I’d also begun writing in women's groups three years earlier. The writing had become part of my daily routine. I had close relationships with other women writers. I had structure to my emerging life in the form of workshops, a critique group, a regular Thursday writing class for free writes. I had a life I really loved. I was comfortable, productive, busy.

I had no illusions about dating. I knew it was work. There was no magical prince going to sweep me off my feet, then become a combination gourmet cook, housekeeper and great lover. I had second thoughts about adding another person to my life, especially anyone who was high maintenance.

There was also the issue of thinking about the way my body looked at sixty-one. Did I really want to have another human being besides my gynecologist see how various body parts had moved, shifted and sagged in the past ten years? There were days when I could barely stand to look in the mirror even though I worked out regularly, was reasonably fit and still wore a petite small. Also on my mind were all the complications of introducing a boyfriend to my children.

Well, Everett hadn’t called me yet. I hauled my groceries home in the car, recalling the twinkling in Everett’s eyes on the drive home.
My last date was thirty-two years ago. In that time I’d forgotten all the labor, angst and energy involved in the process of getting ready: changing outfits sixteen times, being sure clothes are clean, they match, showering, washing and styling hair and all those accessories.

Accessories. Now there’s a word I hadn’t considered for years. And, of course, at sixty-one, I would be adding sundry lotions and ointments, five kinds of anti-wrinkle creams lathering my sagging spots with extra moisture for that youthful look.

I spent nearly two hours getting ready to go to the Music Center for my first date with Everett. I checked the clock on my bedside table at ten minute intervals, anxious I’d not complete all the necessary preparations. So much to do. So much renovation going on.
My nineteen year old had never seen me date, of course. He’d never seen me spend so much time locked in the bathroom. I was used to seeing him in this mode, but certainly this was a new twist for him. Halfway through my ritual I heard a knock at the door, “Mom, are you ok in there?”

Timed to the minute, Everett arrived, “You look beautiful.” I felt curiously delighted, almost thrilled by the small compliment.
We walked the few feet from my home to his car. My sandals slapped against the slippery lotion coating my heels. I slid into the passenger side of his car. He got behind the steering wheel and smiled at me. Then I felt it. Small sparks flew between us. I blinked my eyes. A knot formed below my navel. What’s this? My breath caught in my throat. I couldn’t think of anything to say. The air in the car felt supercharged.

Everett spoke rapidly, lurching from subject to subject in the four minute drive from my home to the concert. Maybe I’m making him nervous with my silence. Is something happening with him, too? I hadn’t planned on this. I was blindsided.

His hand slid under my elbow to assist me to my seat in the concert hall. My entire body tingled at his touch. I heard the reasonable part of me speaking, “Get a grip!” Then a new voice, “This is delicious.” I felt giddy and fifteen years old again. We sat side by side and the notes from the jazz concert seemed to penetrate my skin, enter my pores and fill me. I stole a sideways look at Everett. He sat upright in his seat, his palms face down on his knees looking straight ahead and only to me as we clapped at the end of each piece. I worked hard to breath normally because my breath wanted to come in short gasps. Suddenly, I was ravenous although it was only three o’clock in the afternoon and I’d eaten a full lunch.

Familiar chemistry, years asleep, felt brand new. I knew I wasn’t hungry or dizzy. Not at all. I knew I had fallen one hundred percent in love in less than an hour.

What this woman wants in relationships has changed over time. What I need has changed as I’ve changed. The creative writing I’ve done in the past three years has brought me to this place. My writing has allowed me to heal in a way I hadn’t healed before. My writing has allowed me to become fearless in all that I do.

When I commit to words I’m clear on who I am. I’ve learned through my writing to be honest, go to those deep places to find my best work. To trust, first myself, then my writing. My work has allowed me to be more fearless in relationships. It’s given me a kind of courage, an inner safety net I only knew before outside myself in another person.

My children love Everett because he demonstrates, in his behavior toward me, that he truly loves me. His family, our mutual friends and our new friends support us. My writing is better for it. I’ve moved from writing fiction to adding poetry to my writing.

We’ve decided not to do the legal thing. We’re planning, instead, a commitment ceremony we’re writing with our minister. This is, after all, a passage for both of us that we want to celebrate.

My life is completely changed, yet still the same only better. It’s enriched beyond measure by this rare gift of love a second time in my lifetime.

Am I scared? Sure. I’m also scared when I write and put all those words out there for the world to read. It’s just me and my work, naked for all the world to read. This relationship is like that, too. It’s just the two of us trying to do a decent job of loving each other.
Am I certain that its the right thing to do? I’ve never been clearer.

 

Karen Lauritzen lives in Brevard, North Carolina. She participates in writing groups with Clarityworks. She is fearlessly completing her first novel of woman’s fiction and can be reached at klauritzen@citcom.net.