First visit to a nudie beach

I spent the day at Gay Head on Martha's Vineyard, where there were a bazillion naked people; all but two were men. I've seen the hugest scrotum EVER and the tiniest package so scrunched up that it looked like one pin prick could make it explode.

I took a looooooong walk all the way down the beach, enveloped in complete solitude, carefully averting my eyes whenever I passed a naked person in my path. When I got about 5 feet from one of them he yelled out, "Was that you I saw running down the beach earlier?"

Huh whhaaaaa?

Some naked dude talking to moi?

I turned around and indeed my gaze met his and I stammered, "Well, I ran for about 2 minutes over there until it got too rocky, so you might have caught me in my 2 moments of glory." Then he caught up to me and admitted that I was quite far away at the time, so he wasn't sure it was me.

Then me and naked dude took a nice stroll together, getting acquainted.

He asked me where I was from. And what I did. And how long I would be on the vineyard.

I asked him the same.

We each answered our questions, him all naked and stuff and me all bikini'd, and then he reached his towel. Turns out I was in the next alcove over.

I've decided that if he were straight and I was even remotely interested, and we ended up getting married, it would have been a GREAT story about how we met. He totally naked, me politely averting my eyes, all that magic happening on the beach at Gay Head.

Actually, the thought I had while sitting in my fold-up chair, watching naked man after naked man walk past my towel, was "WOW. THIS IS DISGUSTING."

Seriously.

I have seen only a handful of naked men in my lifetime. And by the time I get to see them naked and walking around, we have moved blissfully into the stage in our relationship that makes me sigh, "Huh. We're at the walk- around- naked- stage of our relationship. How nice for us."

But today I was able to quintuple the number of men I've seen naked within the first five minutes on the beach.

And after about an hour I decided: "Umyeah, I don't really like the nude beach thing."

And I don't.

There are images I will never be able to erase from my memory. The bleach blonde dude who wore nothing but sunglasses and a shell necklace. The pregnant-looking british guy who had a bulbous tummy and floppy hat. The hairy dude that wore an iPod in an armband and strode by on a mission.

Whyyyyyyy must I now have these people etched into my brain AND this blog?

I've clearly been traumatized, yet I can't blame them at all. I put myself there, and I watched each and every one of them as they were walking by in all their splendid naked glory. And, yes. The first place I looked was THEIR PENIS.

And also yes, I PASSED A JUDGMENT on each and every one of them.

At first I didn't realize I was judging them -- I thought I was in it for the waves and scenery -- until one of them walked by and I RECOGNIZED HIM BECAUSE HE HAD THE SMALLEST PENIS I'VE EVER SEEN. To my credit, the second time I saw him I thought he seemed familiar simply because he was badly in need of a haircut and he walked with a hunch. But then I glanced at his hoo-ha and remembered with breathtaking clarity... oh yeah! This guy has the smallest teeny-weenie I've ever seen!

The ironic part of this whole judgmental thing is that I am truly in the "size doesn't matter" camp. At least in my experience. It really, really doesn't.

But -- especially in HIS case -- I think it really, really would. And there he was, fwipping it around the beach amongst all the other men who were able to give us a true FLOP -- and he just didn't care enough to cover it up. There you have it.

Go, Tiny Dude. Go. Fwip to your heart's content.

But as I was saying. Being around a million naked men (where were the women?? I could have handled the women!) made me realize that I need me some more intimacy with my nudity.

There's something brilliant about it, really. The first time you see someone walking around naked. I haven't seen it all that many times, but each time I have, it's always been accompanied by a certain feeling that WE have reached a certain INTIMACY that you don't reach with anyone, including TOTAL STRANGERS.

But there they were! Sunglasses, penises and all! And I didn't even know their names!

It felt wrong.

I remembered when I was 6 years old and was dying to see a penis. I all but begged my father to show me his. I was so insanely curious that I pretended my room was an infirmary, specializing in penal injury. Just in case he ever needed it. And he STILL didn't let me see it.

I had to wait until I was in 9th grade, when I was able to borrow a porno movie from my geeky lunch crowd, and watched it for 5 minutes every day before I was afraid my parents would come home and catch me. Even still, the penises were not three dimensional and walking five feet away from me. Somehow, I was okay with that.

Fast forward seventeen years, and there I was. Today. 30 and a half and just trying to get a tan on a beach in Martha's Vineyard. Surrounded by penii. Penii and scotums and sunglasses and iPods. Had I known at age 6 what was in store for me at 30, I probably would have just waited.

Looking down at the moon

On a flight back to Boston last night I looked straight out the window to see a perfectly periwinkle sky. Only one brightish light broke the smooth color, so I looked down to see what it was. Ummmmyeah. It was the moon.

Something about it seemed wrong, right away. In the first nanosecond I was like, "Oh right. The moon." Then, half a nanosecond later I was like, "WHAT THE HELL IS THE MOON DOING DOWN THERE??"

It's amazing what can fly through your brain in a nanosecond, and it's amazing how many nanoseconds I have to endure sometimes before things start to make sense to me. Once I went through the impossibilities (Did something mess with gravity? Is my plane in orbit? Did some cosmic turbulence reposition the moon?) and still nothing made sense, I had no choice. I turned to my neighbor.

"Dude! Check out the moon!"

He leaned over me and looked out the window, then turned his gaze downward until he found it. So at least I knew I wasn't crazy. Or, at the very least, this guy was nuts too.

He was quiet.

But I needed him to have answers. NOW. So I asked, "Why is it way down there?"

Still, he was quiet.

Then the plane straightened out, pulling us out of a steep right bank. The moon slid back into place.

I started laughing. "Ohhhhhh! I get it." I could feel my face flaming red.

He just kind of went "heh" and sat back in his seat.

WELL COME ON. I had to look down to see the moon! And I hadn't felt the plane banking! ANYONE could have made that mistake. In fact, I'm convinced that my seat neighbor was quiet because he couldn't figure it out either.

Strange thing is, when I really did think the moon was under us, I didn't panic. I just sort of figured that's how it is now, and then tried to figure out why.

Sort of like the rest of my life at the moment. Oh, all sorts of things fall somewhere on a scale between slightly to mostly out of place. Things that used to feel normal simply don't anymore. Not much has changed, yet everything feels different. Is it turning 30 1/2? Is it living in the same place for so long that I have the seven year itch? Is it time to switch jobs? Move across the country? Read more self help books? Do something radical? Or nothing at all? Do I ride it out? Slip out from under it? Barge right through it?

It's trippy, really. To wander from day to day not connected to anything. To travel the same paths as I have for years, but nothing looks the same. To be home and not feel at home.

This displaced feeling threw me off for a while, but I'm getting the hang of it now. In fact, I think I'm getting damn good at it. It's about not fighting it, or freaking out about it. When you look out the window and the moon isn't where you think it should be, figure out why it moved, wink at it and move on.

So that's what I'm doing. I'm in the figuring out stage, and it's big fun.

Actually, it kind of sucks sometimes. But it's not long before it becomes fun again.

After all, it's not often that your entire life spins into complete chaos. So when it does, you'd better do what you can to make the most of it. I've become the falling whale in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Whales and humans need to know one thing about everything, and that is: WHY?

I'm asking myself all sorts of hard questions, and I'm giving honest answers. It's amazing what you can learn when you're ready to do both the asking and the answering. You can unravel years of things that never made sense, then enjoy the surprise when, suddenly, they do.

Piece by piece I'm sorting through my past -- sordid and placid, dramatic and boring-- holding bits up, examining them, then putting them back in a slightly different place than where they were before. Unraveling life this way is not particularly comfortable, but I'm getting used to what it feels like with everything in its new, unfamiliar position. Like rearranging furniture in an old room, you don't always like it right away. But if you've done it well, you create more room and make it easier to walk from one side to the other. Then it's not long before you couldn't remember the way you had it before, and you like it just the way it is.

Wink at it, and move on.

On the marriage of my fake boyfriend

I remember Simone, a woman I worked for when I was a freshman in college. That made me... what? 18?

Simone was 28 and I thought she was reaaaaally old. And wise. And SO worldly. She was worried because she wasn't married yet, and I was a little worried too. I mean, TWENTY-EIGHT and she was still breath-takingly single. Almost time to start collecting cats, for fuck sake.

But was she cool in my eyes. She had great hair. She had great style. And she had fantastic lingo. Even just the way she said, "Well, you know how it goes," made me feel as though I actually did know how it went.

Simone reported to my uncle, so she didn't have much to say about my being there. I think mostly she humored me, and she made me do crap work. I'd go in, fill out some more forms, hand them to her, and then... just... sit there. It was the unglamorous underbelly of the music industry, but I didn't mind. It was entertaining enough to listen to Simone yell across the office to Jennifer, another "older" singleton, about her guy du jour.

It all seemed wildly exciting and adult to me. Back then I thought they didn't know I was listening, because they'd talk about some fairly private stuff. But now that I'm past the age that they were, I can identify with the apathy of sharing your love stories. Who cares if you told Man X that you liked him and he didn't give a crap? At the time I thought I would die the death of a million humiliated fourth graders, everyone pointing and laughing while they strung me up in the gallows. But now I know that Man X is like Man Y is like Man Z. You file through them, one after the other, until one of them sticks around. The ones who don't are just the faceless subjects of another love story shouted across office walls. No shame in that.

Of all the stories I heard flying between them, I remember only one.

Now, at 18 years old, I was in the middle of my first love. And that love was so profound and consuming, I couldn't stand the thought of it ending. Ever. So when I overheard Simone tell Jennifer that a guy she had been seeing decided to marry someone else, I was devastated for her.

Why was she at work? Drinking her usual coffee? How did she get her clothes to match, her car to start, or even get out of bed that morning? I just HAD to say something to her. I knew that she thought I was an annoying pain in the ass, but come on. We were both girls, and we both knew that the most important thing in the universe was boys, so I was compelled to be there for her.

When I handed her my stack of forms I asked, "Are you okay? I overheard your conversation with Jennifer."

She was quiet for a minute. At first I thought it was because she was pissed that I had been eaves dropping. But then she said, "What conversation?"

Huh? The one that should have you in a heap on the floor! I had never been so in awe of this woman's grace and poise.

"About the guy you were seeing? He... um.... " oh God, don't make her cry by bringing it up. "...he’s getting married?"

I could see it register in her eyes. "Oh. That." She put down her pen and leaned forward. "You know what, Cella?" Dramatic pause here. "When you get to a certain age, you’re just happy when someone you care about finds someone to spend their life with.” She glanced sideways, then back again. “You know how it goes."

But I didn't. I really, really didn't get it. I stood there a couple seconds longer, trying to rearrange my face from sympathetic into something more appropriate. Which was ... what, exactly?

Before I could figure it out, she reached for the forms and suggested that I go call some radio stations to check on the status of our albums.

So I did.

I worked for her for two more years. I listened to the details of a half dozen other love sagas, ordered a bazillion CDs for radio stations, talked with radio personalities I'd heard on air, saw some great shows and met a bunch of rock stars -- but the one thing that stuck with me long after I left that job was her calm demeanor when she told me about this guy moving on.

I've turned it over in my brain in different ways through the years. I thought about it when I broke up with my first boyfriend. Would I have accepted the news that he had found someone else right after? I don't think so.

I found my second love. He was with me for 4 years. Sometimes I'd think about what she said and it made even less sense to me, because he never would have left me. I trusted him more than I trusted myself. So what did she mean, I'd be happy for him to be happy with someone else? By the time he did find someone, it was well after we had moved in different directions, so that wasn't quite the same thing.

My third boyfriend left me with nothing but unanswered phone calls and a million questions. Years later I found out that he had left me for someone else, and even the time that passed between us didn’t keep it from stinging when I learned that news.

And still, I wondered, WHAT THE HELL DID SHE MEAN??

Maybe it’s the magic age of 28 that does it. Because it was about that time that I met someone who, on paper, was my perfect match. We did everything together. He was my default date to parties, we shared an interest in photography, we talked for hours into the night. He made it clear that he was interested, but I wasn’t, so my friends called him my fake boyfriend.

I have no idea why I wasn’t interested. Crappy timing? Boyfriends number four and five were still heavy in my heart, and I needed to do some soul searching before I could be ready for the thing he wanted to give me. I think I hurt him when I told him my intentions, but thankfully he kept me as a friend.

Time went on. I forgave boyfriend number five, finally got over boyfriend number four, tried boyfriend number six, then rekindled with number three and that didn’t work, so then I went on to date my own versions of Man X, Y and Z. And L, M, N, O, P. Had you been in my office, you would have heard my own apathetic love stories, shouted over the wall to my cube neighbor, who listened politely.

He remembered stories of my fake boyfriend. He met him many times, in fact, and couldn’t believe I hadn’t gone for him. So when he heard that my fake boyfriend was getting married, he made a point to stop by and ask me about it.

He asked, “So what do you think about that?” But I could see what he was really asking. The subtext scrolled across his expression like headlines on CNN: So how are you now, Cella? Remembering your fruitless dating history with the alphabet guys? Did you think you’d be in a serious relationship by now?

The truth is that I did get a little pang when I heard he had found someone to marry, but jealousy isn’t the right word for it. It’s more the wistful concept of something that could have worked, but didn’t.

And then I got it.

I thought for a minute then said, “You know what, Mark? Sometimes you’re just happy when someone you care about finds someone to spend their life with.” I tried to ignore his expression and the subtext still scrolling between us. “You know how it goes.”

And it looked like he did.

Betrayed by songwriters

What would I do without music?

Musicians are the bards of broken hearts, bringing empathy and inspiration to needy people like me, when just about nothing else can make it feel better.

Yes, I've been dumped. Yes, I'm doing fine. Most of the time. Because I am an amazing, independent, lovely, filled-with-life, fantastically resilient, finds-humor-in-everything, optimistic, hoplessly romantic woman who has been through this heartbreak thing too many times to count. I know the routine. And, yes, I know that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, this too shall pass, whatever will be will be, my soulmate is out there just waiting for me, yadda yadda BLAH BLAH BLAH.

I hear ya. I know this. I got it. In fact, I've got it plastered all over my fridge and cube walls and in notebooks that I carry with me everywhere. But, like, enough already with the clichés. Enough with the reassuring thoughts. Sometimes I'm too tired to reach for inspiring quotes, old wives tales (they're already MARRIED! TRAITORS!), mantras, self help books, therapists, etc. etc. etc.

Sometimes what a gal really needs is some homegrown local folk music, sung by songwriters who have eschewed traditional employment to dive full-time into their pain, write fantastic poetry about it, and sing it out for fragile 30-somethings like me to feel validated and not so alone in this crazy world of love.

The just-been-dumped golden rule: Consume yourself in an activity that you enjoy.

So I found a folk music place downtown that has a show every night. I've been going there a lot lately. I hunker down in the basement venue, in my very own folding chair, surrounded by hippies. We listen to the singers and their acoustic guitars and their witty stories between songs. There's something extremely therapeutic about it. I can zone out for three hours and hang on every lyric. The artist is up there singing about broken hearts and lost loves and unfulfilled dreams, so it's like I don't have to feel my own. Sure is worth the $12 admission fee.

I've been going to this place show after show, feeling inspired by these people who have put the unspeakable into words. They really put it out there -- here's my pain, listen up, I'm going to tell you all about it. I love them. Because, really, the rest of us aren’t allowed to show our vulnerable side. If I walked around the office with my heart on my sleeve the first two weeks after my dumping, people would have avoided me at all costs. No one wants to watch anyone fall apart.

No one, that is, except for the people who have lived to sing about it.

And not only do we love listening to them, but we love to sing along! Turn it up in our cars! Play the same song over and over again until we stop crying!

And it’s not just an estrogen thing. This is what I love the most about Frank Sinatra, Johnny Cash and Bruce Springsteen. We all know that men are supposed to keep it together, show no emotion, play it cool. But not Frank, Johnny and Bruce. They have voice, man. And guitars. I don’t care if they belt it, croon it or mumble it – they are emoting all over the place. Not only that, but they get men – even manly men – to join in too. I love the image of some dude with 25 tattoos listening to Johnny’s “Hurt” while fixing an engine. Or a cool corporate VP singing along to Bruce’s “Secret Garden.”

So thank God for our soulful musicians.

And thank God it really helps to hear ‘em sing it live. Sometimes the only thing that gets me through a day is looking forward to a show at night. Finding a connection, however one-sided, with someone who gets it.

But nothing can be perfect, and neither is my relationship with the folk singers. Damn them, it was going along so well … until. UNITL! Until one of my favorite woman artists, right in the middle of a heart-wrenching song that totally told my story, STARTED LAUGHING.

Shyah! Laughing!

She messed up a chord progression or something.

Um, excuse me, but nothing in the universe is funny when you’re consumed with the kind of heartache she was singing about.

She recovered. I was a little stunned that she could find anything remotely close to joy in a moment of recalling such pain, but I forgave her. Until. UNTIL!!

Until I saw her laughing AGAIN after the show!

That’s when it hit me. She’s not always miserable.

It’s not that I wish unending misery on anyone. But it’s the same sort of thing my friend said about therapy. She knows her therapist has other clients, and has a life of her own. But my friend would prefer to imagine that her therapist exists only in her office, and only for her, there whenever she needs her to be.

That works for me. Because I want to be able to turn to my favorite folk people when I need someone to understand. What if they wrote my favorite, most misery-inducing song 7 years ago? And they’re over it now? What if they’ve moved on, and I’m the only one left dealing with the crappy love feelings? Or, WORSE, what if they wrote the song, not because they experienced it, but because they had nothing else to write about? What if they wrote it for a workshop? What if the song I played obsessively for 3 weeks was just an assignment?

Bah.

I feel so used.