Rox and Roll

That Reset Button

Recently, I returned home to NorCal from home in Vermont.  The states are almost as far away from each other as one can get in these United States and, though the politics are similar, the attitudes are about as distinct as the weather.  There's an ethos to mountain people that runs in my blood.  There's a collective conciousness in Vermont, a belief in the common good that imbues every social interaction I have there.  In Vermont, and throughout those mountains in which I grew up (a bit further south in Wild and Wonderful West Virginia), I feel a total absence of self-absorption, self-importance, self-aggrandizement, self-anything.  People just are, simply, but they are far from simple people.  They don't change the landscape of the tech world with the next next thing in the Cloud, but they can tell you which clouds are which and what it might mean for the weather, which will affect their crops, their snow, ski tourism, and, therefore, the economy.  Same endgame -- way, way different strategy.

I'm not saying that Silicon Valley is full of narcissistic assholes; though it has its share, it has a huge share of wonderful people, too.  I'm just saying that Vermont is absent any arrogance, and that is so refreshing and restorative to my spirit that I return to the Valley having truly "reset" each summer, prepared for the onslaught of self-everything. 

This year, though, that reset took a different turn, for, while away, I made a life-altering decision to end my relationship of 22 years, 15 of those spent married.  It is unlikely that I'll ever write about the reasons for this decision, for, ultimately, it is a private matter.  That said, I don't want to be the subject of gossip and rumour, so I'd rather declare it up front: I've filed for divorce from The Guv.  It is a decision made without hesitation or regret after seven months of marriage counseling that I entered with an open heart, trying to save our union.  I loved the Guv for 22 years and likely always will.  But some pretty awful things happened that irreparably broke our marriage, and I reached the day when I couldn't look myself in the eye anymore and stick in there, not for the kids, not out of fear, not for anything.  I finally decided that my "self" mattered a lot more than I thought it did.

My focus these days is on my kids, and, when they sleep, it's on me, trying to figure out who I'm going to be.  I've been someone's Better Half for over half my life -- since I was 16 years old -- and I'm not even sure I know who I am without my best friend at my side.  Sometimes I forget the depth of my pain, and then, in those dozen moments each day, I want to call him to ask a question, to share a story, just to hear his voice -- and I can't do that anymore.  I reach for him in the night, and the bed is empty and significantly colder.  It's like a habit that I have to break, and it's a pain worse than death.  I once read that when you love someone so much it hurts, the only way to stop it is to love yourself enough to stop the pain.  I'm working on that now, and I know that I'll get there on the wings of my children's smiles and on the backs of a host of Silicon Valley girlfriends who somehow always know just when I need them -- and on my own strength, which I am only now realizing I had in store.

There are a lot of negative things about divorce on which I could focus, but I'm going to remember my lifelong mantra: I choose to be happy.  Of our 22 years together, 21 (by my count) were outstanding.  I know what it's like to be richly loved and to give the same in return.  Good memories made cannot be taken away or revised, even in the worst of battles, and I cherish them all -- every love letter, every photograph, every recollection.  Two beautiful children came from our union, and they truly are the best of both of us.  And if I had it to do all over again, knowing even that it'd end this way, I'd sign right back up (well, save the worst of the past year).  I have few regrets about the life I've lived to date.  I walk away from my marriage knowing that I gave it my all, and that my all was enough even though it didn't work.  I walk away with a heart full of love for a family that exists in a different form now.  And I walk away knowing that I'm young enough to start over when I'm ready, and I will.

The Guv and The Soap

Oh, how I love my husband, the Guv.  I've loved him for over twenty years, through what was left of high school, college, various jobs, two kids, two guinea pigs, a dog, four homes, two apartments, one pizza oven, a not-quite-midlife crisis convertible, you get the drift.  Our life has ebbed and flowed and changed in amazing ways, and it seems like life together just gets better and better...

... except for one thing: travel.

It's not that I don't like traveling with the Guv, because I do, especially if it's without kids and the agita that comes with driving a gazillion hours with both of them in a too-small convertible on a family road trip because the Guv refuses to drive my much-more-comfortable-for-road-tripping minivan.

But that's another post.

The thing about traveling with the Guv is how he tries to Save the Earth through using the bare minimum in hotel products.  If I unwrap a soap in Hotel One, that soap is going to travel with us to Hotel Two, Hotel Three, and Hotel Umpteen until that soap is finished.  And he removes other ones before I can unwrap them, because I have to finish Soap One from Hotel One before I am allowed to unwrap Soap Two from Hotel Two.  Soap Two is "disappeared" before I even notice it's gone.  I cannot have Soap Two, because it's cheating on Soap One, which, if I don't finish it that very trip, will Kill the Earth.

Follow?

[As an aside, you know how Jack Nicholson unwraps about 300 Neutrogena soaps in "As Good As It Gets," uses them once, and throws them away?  Yeah, I'm thinking the Guv is not a Jack Nicholson fan.]

Says the Guv, "If hotel products aren't completely used, they are thrown out.  And throwing out even a mere sliver of remaining soap is unconscionable, unthinkable, unimaginable, ad un-eco-freako" -- or something like that.  And so, if you open the cabinet below our bathroom sinks, you will find approximately 5,942 unopened hotel soaps -- because The Guv also takes the wrapped ones, because he once heard that they even throw out unopened ones between visitors.  I am no longer allowed to buy him his old favorite Lever, which I really loved to smell on his freshly-washed skin.  He uses hotel soap, soap that will outlive, outplay, and outlast us all, because no human being could ever use that much soap. He says he'll use them for the gym... you know, the gym at his office that he uses maybe weekly after a super-early morning conference call, after which he comes home to shower... home, where he uses hotel soap, which means the saving-it-for-the-gym-thing isn't really working.  He says he's saving money.  He may be saving the earth and money, but, clearly, he is not saving my sanity, because the problem is that, with rare exception, I really don't like hotel soap.  I don't like the way it smells, I don't like its waxiness -- not even the good stuff -- and I don't like its littleness.  So, we're at an impasse: I'll buy my Lush body wash and Dove sensitive skin bar soap and use them both in one shower.  (Ouch! says the Earth.)

So, anyway, this vacation, I had a plan.  He recently brought home soap I actually like: EO.  I took three cakes of it, one for each hotel switch.  We could all use it and then leave it behind at the end, right?  RIGHT? 

No.  EOS1 (that would be EO Soap One) followed us from Hotel One to Hotel Two then back to Hotel One for Stay Three.  (I didn't follow that either, but the point is that the soap followed us.) 

I can be zen about this.  At least I used the soap I like.  And the Guv dried it and rewrapped it so carefully between stays that it wasn't gooey and gnarly.  And really, if he wants to take that on, I shouldn't object. 

What I will do, though, is go through the cabinets under our sinks and donate at least half of what's stacking up down there.  I'll have to open each soap to make sure that it's one that he hasn't used and saved for later, because that happens a lot.  He says it's his way of Saving the Earth.  I think he's trying to kill me. 

P.S. I'll resuscitate with Starbucks hotel-pack coffee, because we have dozens of those, too, because we're saving the earth, and coffee farming, and my coffee budget, one foil-pack at a time. 

P.P.S. Please don't think I'm being mean to the Guv.  He vets all of my posts, and, noting my anxiety about the soap following me, he actually suggested this one.  Isn't he a keeper?!

Happy Birthday to My Favorite Pizzaiolo

The pizza oven is here!  The pizza oven is here!  And it arrived just in time for the Guv's 38th birthday!  Whoo-hoo!

Here's a picture of my personal pizzaiolo, Brooklyn-born "The Guv," with one of our first pies.  Cooking in this thing is an art form.  One has to build the right kind of fire, burning hot (up to 800 degrees), and the fire is moved around the oven to properly heat it.  When the pizza goes in, it takes about 90 seconds to cook.  Magic! 

Tonight, we celebrated the Guv's 38th birthday with some fantastic friends, and the birthday boy himself tossed and baked some fabulous pies.  If it feels like I'm using a lot of superlatives, it's both because the Guv's pizzas are that good and because our friends bring good wines with them. 

When good friends, good wine, and good pizza come together, nirvana happens. 

We are so very lucky to live here in Silicon Valley, making our dreams come true (including this oven!) and surrounded by smart and fun friends who love pizza us.  

But since this is the Guv's birthday post, enough about pizza and friends: let's talk about why, this year, I celebrate him a little extra.  Here is my birthday toast (hiccup!):

Guv, we've shared twenty great years of belly laughs, stories that never grow old, conversations that are always interesting and inspiring, and a whole lot of fun.  I remember your 18th birthday, on which I gave you a picture frame with a picture of us to take to Yale.  (It was pink.  What was I thinking?!)  This year, you've gotten a convertible and a pizza oven.  So for my birthday, I'd like a Vespa and ... wait, this is your toast.  Seriously, this year has been hell, and you've had my back every step of the way.  I have no greater friend, and, as far as old men go, you're alright.  Keep that pizza coming, and I might keep taking care of you in your old age.  I hear that metal peel you're holding can double as a cane.  Just remember, before you come chasing after me to chastise me for this post, you don't want to throw out your back or anything.  Those kinds of things are a lot harder to fix as you approach AARP-eligibility 40.  But even when you get there, I'll be right beside you, and I'll lend you my arm if you need some help hobbling... 'cause that's how we roll, together.  I'll love you even when you're 98, you know; God-willing you'll keep me laughing that long.  To many more birthdays, pizzas and fun times, I toast you with a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY!  xo

Love Is ... This.

Twenty years ago today, the Guv and I met for the first time.  We attended boarding school, where he was a graduating senior, and I was a year behind him.  While we had common friends, it was a big school, and I didn't know his name until that day ... or maybe the day after.  I called him Mr. Captain Varsity Baseball, a tribute to the fact that a) a jock asked me out, which was weird, because b) I dated poets and musicians, not jocks, so a distinct nickname was in order, and c) he was impressive and warranted a "title."  Besides, I've always been a sucker for a baseball uniform, especially worn by a rather handsome man.

Within hours of our meeting, though, I knew that the Guv was much more than a cute guy in a uniform: he was (is) the smartest man I've ever met.  I won't claim that I fell in love that first day -- it took six days -- but I was intrigued.  At 16, I felt sure I was what we called back then a "senior fling" (he was headed to Yale the next year, and I'd be left behind) -- but I was okay with that, because, for nearly three weeks, I would have access to that vast library of his mind. 

Near the end of that first few weeks, one of us wrote a note to the other -- I can't remember which one! -- that said, "Let's take each day as it comes, and worry about later later." 

We haven't spent a day apart (at least not at heart) since May 13, 1990.

Now I share his last name, and our son plays baseball.  In a month, we'll head back to the school where we met and remember the past fondly while wondering if our children's footsteps will ever grace the same halls.  

Especially in the past year, when we've learned a little bit about the "in sickness and in health" part of our vows, I've given a lot of thought to this crazy life we've built together.  I realized that, for us, this is what love is: the unpredictable, welcoming the blind turn in the road and embarking on it together, growing and changing in different ways, but always side by side ... having kids, but not losing each other in the process, seeing ourselves in them while letting their lives unfold by their own script ... always having something to talk about, and never losing the conversation ... sharing dreams both individual and together, supporting each other when our plans take different paths, but always returning to this one shared home and heart. 

Five days after we met, the Guv told me he loved me and, moreover, that he'd marry me someday.  I spent the night talking to girlfriends in my dorm about whether or not I should dump him, because, clearly, he was weird.  By the next day, I realized he was right.

So, Guv, happy 20th.  You were right.  (There, I said it.)  I love you, too, to the ends of the earth. 

Of Valentines Past

For as long as I can remember, Valentine's Day has been my favorite holiday.  I think it started when I was in 1st grade in Arlington, Virginia.  I remember the school lacking Christmas/Hanukkah holiday festivities because there were a lot of orthodox families who didn't acknowledge those holidays... but then Valentine's Day came about, and the school exploded with big red hearts and a feeling of love.  Everybody loves somebody, my teacher said.  Amen to that!

Fast forward eleven years to 1991, my first Valentine's Day with the Guv.  I was smarting from the previous year's Valentine's Day, a lovely evening spent with a boy on whom I had a major crush... only to find out that he was seeking advice from me on how to get back with his ex-girlfriend.  But in 1991, something was different: my boyfriend, a Yale freshman, wasn't going to be with me on Valentine's Day, because it was mid-week and my school in Massachusetts might as well have been a million miles away.  I vowed not to be bitter; we'd be together that weekend to celebrate.

But there he was.

I came out of the library, where I spent my recesses -- what can I say?  I'm cool like that -- and noticed a spectacle.  Then, I heard the yelling... "ROXANE!  ROXANE!  WILL YOU BE MY VALENTINE???"  I turned and ran back into the building, embarrassed beyond belief.

Not really.  I walked over to him, my jaw on the ground.  He had skipped school and forked over a lot of cash for a train trip to be with me on this special day.  He had a huge bouquet of balloons, and flowers, and a heart-shaped box full of Russel Stover chocolate-covered cherries, which, unfortunately, I loathe.  But that didn't matter, because there he was.  And he's been there for the subsequent 17, almost 18, Valentine's Days.  Although he almost wasn't...

I was certain the Guv would propose marriage to me on Valentine's Day 1996, but he didn't.  I spent three days trying to figure out why before he finally popped the question on February 17, when he started driving north from our Boston apartment on the coldest day of the year. I giggled the entire way, even when I said "yes."  It was five minutes until 4 pm on a bitterly cold Sunday, yet I've never felt warmer. 

Valentine's Day remains my favorite holiday, but it matters a little less now; every day is Valentine's Day when one is surrounded by as much love as I am.  I remember every day how lucky I am for that.  Happy Valentine's Day to you and yours, and may you, too, find yourself in love's warm embrace, this year and always.