51/50: The Magical Adventures of a Single Life

by Kristen McGuiness

  “I want to keep walking, Lidia. I am trying to do the things to just keep walking.”

  And then I tell her how on my way to her house, I called my dad, and I told him I would find a flight to visit him.

  “Really, K?” he barely whispered.

  “Really, Daddy.” Because I know that I can blame Nana or my dad or that little girl inside for all these fears and failings, but the truth is until I make them right, I can only blame me. I look down at the stones Lidia has laid out for me, and I choose a small crystal in the shape of a snake. Lidia tells me it’s perfect.

  “Why?” Finally, after months, I get up the courage to ask.

  “Because it is the stone that allows you to find the truths that you keep hidden inside.”

  Before I lie down, I tell her, “Lidia, I feel it. I feel that my preteen self knows so much about this. That she holds the answers.”

  And so we go in to find her. Lidia begins by holding a crystal pendulum above me to gauge where the energy is flowing. And though neither of us can explain why or how, the pendulum begins moving with a momentum that would be scary if I didn’t feel like I was the one causing it. And then I am in a full vision: I am in a maze, holding my middle school self, and she is vomiting it all out. All the nasty words and insecure thoughts and unnecessary fears. She falls back on me, and I continue to hold her. My real body is practically levitating with energy while I do this, and I can tell that something in me is fully turned over to this work. I don’t know if it’s real or not, but I don’t care. I need it to be in that moment. I need to heal these wounds. And so far, this work with Lidia seems to be doing the trick. It seems to be showing me things I haven’t been able to see before. It seems to be giving me a hint of the big picture.

  “She wants chocolate.” I come out of it and can feel my teen self desiring something sweet.

  “Chocolate is often the reward for magic, like in Harry Potter,” Lidia informs me.

  “She also wants to go to the arboretum.”

  “Then, take her.”

  Later, I get a chocolate milkshake from McDonald’s, and I look to see if there is an arboretum with a maze anywhere in Southern California. There is only one, and it is in La Cañada, home of Noelle and my future life. On Sunday I go to the arboretum, and when I ask the sweet Eastern European lady working there where the maze is, and she takes me by the hand and leads me to it, I know that this day is charged with magic. Even though I can see above the hedges, I still let myself get a little lost. I get to the middle and follow Lidia’s direction, “Sit in the middle of the maze and imagine there is a spike of energy going from the top of your head through your first chakra.” I get to the middle where there is a donor memorial—stone tablets on the ground with the names of people who have passed away. Smack dab in the middle is a stone that says, “In memory of Nana,” and a shiver so strong bolts through my body.

  I sit on that stone, and I channel that energy. And then I open my eyes and look around, and I know that someday I will not do this alone.

  40

  Date Forty: Archetypes Away

  “We are not on a date, Henry Monk!” I shout. But we are standing in line at the silent movie theater, and he is buying my ticket. As I hit the relatively nice button-down he has dressed himself up in, I know, that whether I want it to be or not, I am definitely on a date with Henry Monk.

  And it’s really no surprise. Henry and I have known each other for well over a year, and started a 7:00 a.m. Friday meeting together last spring. He is a poet, a father of two, and an incredibly cerebral man. He is also in construction, is as big as a bull, and looks a lot like Bruce Willis. It’s not that I don’t find Henry attractive because in certain instances, I do.

  When I saw Henry at a meeting over the weekend, I found myself in an easy conversation with him about lying in bed all alone on Sunday mornings and our current states of mind on the subject. I told Henry that I spent my day watching America’s Next Top Model. I explained that I view the bed as my personal cell phone charger. It restores me to full strength.

  Henry laughed. “You really have this thing wired, don’t you?”

  “What thing?”

  “Life. You’ve got it down. You should go around and teach seminars or something.”

  I laughed, but my current grasp on life is temporary, and I know that. Just last week I was waking up caught between the loneliness and thoughts of suicide that Henry had just told me he had been fighting. So my techniques are by no means a perfect science.

  “Well, I figured I’ll at least try to stay alive until tomorrow because they’re playing Satyricon at the Silent Movie Theater,” Henry joked.

  Henry looked around the room, and though I didn’t know if that was an invitation, I couldn’t help but ask, “Fellini’s Satyricon?”

  And that’s how I end up not on a date with Henry Monk. Because I really do want to see Satyricon, and I kind of want to go on a date with Henry Monk. But it’s much easier to admit the former than the latter. Because I’m not sure what my motive is.

  Henry Monk was at one point an up-and-coming musician on the mean streets of punk rock Hollywood. He hit his bottom like many do, with a speedball in his arm, dying in a motel bathroom stained with his own shit and vomit. Most actually do die there. But not Henry. At that time Henry had a four-year-old daughter and a five-year-old son, and their mother could no more take care of them then Henry could. So he went from Mr. Motel to Mr. Mom. He got sober, raised two kids on his own, continued to write poetry and be an inspiration, and still managed to find himself broke, single, and suicidal at the age of forty-eight.

  His kids are now grown, and last year, when I first met him, he seemed to have everything I wanted. He wrote and performed poetry. He had a dog named Tennessee. And a gorgeous girlfriend named Camille. And he seemed to be a sage to those who knew him. Then as I got to know him, I realized he was a nerd like me. And not long after, the gorgeous girlfriend and he broke up. And more often than not, I see him riding his bicycle, not because he wants to but because he doesn’t have the money for gas.

  I do have the money for gas, so I drive us to the theater. We get there early and go to a great little arty bookstore up the street. They have The Criterion Collection DVDs, and stellar production value, and annoying clientele, and incredible bookbinding. I love books. The way they feel and smell. Their texture and color and design. They were one of my first addictions. Henry walks past me and makes an aside, “Stick with me kid. I can show you around.”

  I want to say okay. Do that. I have been dying for someone to show me around. To lead me to the hidden bookstore on Fairfax, to the silent movie theater, to the underground Vietnamese restaurants, and the best trails in the hills. I have been waiting for the person that knows and loves this town like I do, that can unlock the door and lead me even further into her wonderland.

  And I get the feeling that Henry could be that kind of guy. But I know that he also never could. That I would learn what I wanted from him and be gone. That in the end, we would both be left embarrassed.

  We walk back to the movie theater, but we still have some time to kill. We sit down at an outdoor chess table across from the movie theater, and I don’t hold back. The sun is setting right across the street from us, and it could feel romantic until I ask, “So what happened between you and Camille?”

  “Oh, God.” Henry rubs the top of his balding, closely shaven head.

  “What? I’ve always wondered. You two seemed so much in love.”

  “We were. We probably still are.” He looks back over at the movie theater, into the setting sun, because these are always tough topics. “But we were also incredibly toxic for each other.”

  “I hate that,” I tell him.

  “Yeah, I think we’ll always love one another. I do. But we’ve gotten together and broken up too many times to ever try it again. It wasn’t even painful anymore. It just became frustrating.”

  I thought so. I knew that’s how that one worked. You c
ould see it in them when they were together, and I saw it in her eyes as much as his when they broke up. And I know what that’s like because as I sit there and listen to Henry describe their relationship, I cannot help but think of Oliver.

  My uncle Tom called me the other day to tell me that he and Cindy are breaking up. I would like to say I’m surprised, but I’m not. Because just like Henry and Camille, just like me and Oliver, they have tried too many times to get around the issues of fear, bad timing, and ultimately, the indifference that comes when you just can’t put yourself on the line anymore.

  Henry and I sit in a comfortable silence, and I look out as the sun begins its final sink over the setting. We both watch as it slips behind the hills and off into someone else’s horizon. And I remember when I was seven years old and dreamt about Oliver. Of course, I didn’t know it at the time. In the dream a boy came to me asking for help. He was around eleven, and I loved him immediately. I asked my mom and Nana if he could stay with us, and they said yes. But when I went back to tell him, he was gone. I went to school the next day, and I told everyone about that dream. And I wondered if I would ever find him again.

  It was only about three weeks into my relationship with Oliver when I did. I was helping Oliver move into his new place, and I was unpacking a box of pictures when I found a school photo of that eleven-year-old boy. The sandy brown hair, the scared brown eyes—I even remembered the slight pout in his lower lip. I didn’t need to ask it, but I did. “Is this you?”

  Oliver was putting books away on the other side of the room. “Yeah.” He came over and looked at the picture. “Yeah, that was right after my mom left. Ugh,” he said as he practically shivered. “I remember I had to borrow a shirt from the neighbor because my dad didn’t know how to do the wash. It was a bad year.”

  He handed the picture back to me and as had become a routine in our romance, he pressed his lips into my forehead, his face against my hair, and I could feel in his breath, in the long, soft inhale of my scent, that he had been waiting for me too. But I never told him. Because how do you say to someone you’ve only been dating three weeks that they came to you in a dream when you were seven? That they asked for your help. That you’ve been looking for them ever since. And that is the paradox of love. Whether it is some ancient business from our souls, an old relationship from another life that we just have to play out in a typically painful pattern, or whether it’s a question of chemistry—that which attracts also repels. Or whether it simply goes back to what Lidia said, “We can only love as much as we are willing to be hurt.” And when we allow ourselves to love someone like that, when we search our whole lives to find them, we are just primed for destruction when we finally do.

  Cindy, Oliver, Camille—the great loves are like that sinking sun. We are blinded by them, and we keep seeing them in our vision long after they have gone. They are forever burned into who we are, whether we get to keep them or not.

  41

  Date Forty-One: All-American Dates

  On Tuesday night I go out on a real date. It’s been a while since I’ve met anyone in such a traditional American fashion. There was no Internet. No drunken/sober hookup. No anonymous meetings for sober people. Just me and some guy standing outside of a bar, talking. As American as apple pie.

  On Wednesday I go back to the Pasadena meeting, but this time with my wingman in tow. Sometimes I wonder if Mimi’s boyfriend wonders where his girlfriend is because it appears she is as determined to see me coupled as much as she is to stay that way. But I also know that one day, when I do have a Carty in my own life, I hope to be as available and as in touch with my friends as Mimi is because despite the fact that she has all the fears and concerns and “what ifs” that are inherent to a relationship, she somehow manages to walk through hers with amazing aplomb.

  After my last shuffle in front of Mr. Pasadena, Mimi offered to help me out, and so we both go to the meeting, and at the break we wait. We are standing in the middle of an aisle, and Mr. Pasadena is walking toward us. Everything in me wants to run, and much like Lidia on her Peruvian mountain I freeze. I do not know what to do, what to say, but Mimi is my condor, and she comes flying out of the side of the mountain and moves toward Mr. Pasadena.

  “Thanks for such a great speaker tonight,” she says to stop him. And he does stop. And though he thanks Mimi, he looks directly at me.

  “Yeah, good choice, Mr. Secretary,” I reiterate.

  Mr. Pasadena reaches out his hand to me. “I’ve noticed you recently. I’m Chris.”

  And I smile and say, “Hi, Chris. I’m Kristen.” I can feel Mimi beaming beside me, and I am so proud of myself in this minute that I almost forget to introduce her, but I do and am feeling a little more normal in this easy social engagement in which I take part nearly every day. Chris stands there smiling at me. “Do you live in Pasadena?”

  But before I can answer, an older woman swoops down out of the blue. Another condor, but this one is not on my side.

  “Christopher! I was looking for you, honey,” she shrieks. And in an instant, Chris is literally being dragged away, still smiling at me but clearly attached to another. I turn to Mimi, and though I am disappointed, more than anything, I am relieved. I did it, and in a way that’s all that matters.

  Mimi shrugs. “I guess Mr. Pasadena already has a Mrs. Pasadena.”

  “I guess so,” I say, smiling.

  Mimi takes hold of my hand. “That’s okay. We’ll try again this weekend.”

  And so the following Saturday, we return to the bar where Braden works, and we drink our Red Bulls, and we flirt with some men. Mimi is pretty clear from the start that she has a boyfriend, so the attentions are quickly redirected towards me, and I hold my own. Unfortunately, there is no one with whom I would want to trade numbers until we are walking across the street to leave. I notice him as we walk out, but it takes a second for it to register. I turn back around to look, and Mimi proves yet again that she is a condor because she is not missing a beat.

  “Who are you looking at?” she asks.

  “No one,” I say with a shrug.

  “The guy in the button-down?” Mimi is relentless.

  “Yeah, but we’re across the street now.” I had walked too far before I had thrown the look behind me and missed my chance for an easy introduction.

  “Let’s go back,” she demands.

  “Mimi, that’s silly. I didn’t like him that much.”

  “You haven’t met him yet. We’re going back.”

  And so we pull a ballsy U-turn, wait for traffic to pass, and then cross back over to the bar, walk up to the guy and his friend, and thrust out our hands.

  “Hi, nice to meet ya’ll,” I say.

  It was a bold move to be sure. And one not quite worthy of the intended destination. Brad from Boston. Brad didn’t even have to tell me his name—I could have guessed it. Good, middle class upbringing. Small Northeastern school. Moved out here to be an actor. Now works in some entertainment-adjacent industry. He is also younger than me, which again never scores points. But he’s nice, and we have an easy flirtatious banter outside of the bar, and he asks to take me out. And I say yes.

  A few evenings later, we meet at a relatively nice restaurant in Silver Lake. We dine outside, talk about politics, and toss around some easy jokes. It is 2008. We are in the middle of an election. And I have begun to realize that the minute I start hearing the words, “after eight years, I can finally care about politics again,” come out of my mouth on a date, it might as well be over. And that’s not to say that my rediscovered passion toward American politics isn’t worth anything, but it is to say that it is a very easy comment. Some sassy little turn of phrase I can use to keep the conversation moving.

  On Monday my 51st date, Ben, e-mails me on Facebook. I had found him online a few months back, but it wasn’t until my recent depression that I finally requested that he be my friend. He accepted but wrote no more than that. And then last Friday, I ran into him at a meeting. I saw him giving
his phone number to a girl but didn’t let that stop me from going up and saying hi. I ended up getting into a conversation with the girl instead and lost Ben in the mix.

  They next day he sends me a message, and we began e-mailing. Big, extended, funny e-mails. We speak the same language; we make the same jokes. Ben compliments my writing and sense of humor. We end up exchanging numbers, and when I tell him I am about to go on date #41, he tells me to report back. So after my boring date with Brad, I call him. I am not nervous about it. Ben feels like a friend to me, and we end up talking for over two hours. In fact, I can’t remember when I have chatted so easily with a man on the phone.

  I feel incredibly comfortable with him, perhaps too much so. By the end of the conversation I have audibly and admittedly peed while being on the phone, and then just to prove how inept I am at snake- charming a man, I tell him how many people I’ve slept with. I could write the book on what not to say to romantic prospects, which I guess I am.