Dating For Widows

Last month, I had the honor of read­ing in “The Mama Mono­logues” at Corte Madera Book Pas­sage, along with NY Times best-selling author Kelly Cor­ri­gan and many other tal­ented Writ­ing Mamas. Spe­cial thanks to Dawn Yun, founder of The Writ­ing Mamas, for mak­ing this laugh­ter and tear-filled event pos­si­ble. We raised over $5,000 for Abelina Mag­ana, a North­ern Cal­i­for­nia mother of three who was shot 15 times and lived to tell. If you would like to make a con­tri­bu­tion to Abelina and her chil­dren, all of whom are still very much in need of our help, please send a check to: Attn: The Mag­ana Fam­ily Fund, Bank of Marin, 1450 Grant Avenue, Novato, 94945. Please enjoy this video of my piece, “You Think You Know,”...

Match​.com. E-Harmony. Yahoo Per­son­als. J-Date. Yup, I signed up for them all. I was a mama on a mis­sion to find love online. More sites, more options. I had tried the club scene. Blar­ing music. Dim lights. Too much booze. “Nice toes,” one guy had said, look­ing first at my feet and then straight at my chest. Tall, dressed in black slacks, button-down blue shirt, full head of blonde hair. He cer­tainly was attractive. But way too young and way too inter­ested in my breasts. Tall, dressed in black slacks, button-down blue shirt, full head of blonde hair. He cer­tainly was attractive. But way too young and way too inter­ested in my breasts. “Nice toes?” The white tips of my toe­nails peeked out from my three-inch-high red, strappy...

    My dad is Lutheran, my mom is Jew­ish. My child­hood exposed me to tra­di­tions from both denom­i­na­tions, but I cer­tainly wouldn’t describe myself as religious. Spir­i­tual, yes. Reli­gious, no. In fact, if there is a god, I’m still pretty pissed off at him. Today, though, I can’t help but con­tem­plate the reli­gious mean­ing in both Easter and Passover. Seven years ago, on Easter Sun­day, my hus­band, Erik, and I admired our 17-month-old daugh­ter, Tatiana, as she care­fully grasped pur­ple and pink polka-dotted eggs in the grass. “Do you think about how lucky we are,” I said to Erik. He rubbed my ripe, preg­nant belly. “Yeah, I think about it at least five times a day.” Erik was a rising-star...

  A friend of mine recently asked me, “Do you ever have sex with Evan and imag­ine, just for a moment, that you’re hav­ing sex with Erik instead?” Nor­mal thing to won­der about a remar­ried widow, I suppose. Actu­ally, I love that she asked me this. But the answer is NO. Never have I imag­ined, in the heat of pas­sion, that Evan was Erik. I did, how­ever, imag­ine that other men I dated were Erik. Of course I wanted them to be Erik. When you watch your 29-year-old hus­band slide down the kitchen counter and die, there is a cer­tain amount of denial that comes along with the territory. Like star­ing at the door. Wait­ing for the knob to turn. Erik, you home? Nope. Not home. Or com­pletely vacat­ing your preg­nant body...

Erik folded his hands beneath his black sweater, his thumbs fid­get­ing with the wool. “I know we’ re sup­posed to go to din­ner,” he said, “But I don’t know if I can even eat right now.” I laughed. “What? Am I mak­ing you sick?” “No, no, not at all, it’s that … it’s just a lot, being with you.” Our break-up three years ago was the far­thest thing from civil, and I knew, after not see­ing eachother for all of that time, we were both uncer­tain of what we should do with the pal­pa­ble sex­ual ten­sion that now filled the two-foot gap between us on the couch. “I was just teas­ing. I know exactly what you mean. I didn’t think I would be so happy to be with you. Oh, wait, that came out wrong. It’s not that...

Three years had passed since the last time I had seen Erik. This would be inter­est­ing, I thought, as I fin­ished draw­ing the black eye­liner on my upper lids. I slid into a just-tight-enough pair of black pants and declared the match­ing vio­let sweater set win­ner of the “I want to look good, but not too good” con­test. My bed was made for the first time in weeks, its invit­ing pur­ple and red che­nille cov­ers set­ting a serene and sen­sual mood. It was time to present myself as the suc­cess­ful baby pho­tog­ra­pher. Time to show that I was a together 26 year-old woman, some­one who learned from her mis­takes, some­one will­ing to take respon­si­bil­ity for her actions. Time to apol­o­gize for all of the crap...