We had our first snow of the season. Now we have lovely white snow everywhere, but soon it will turn dirty, so enjoy it while you can.
The holidays, especially New Year’s Eve, were hard for me when I was single for 13 years. I am not a New Year’s Eve party goer, but I also don’t like being alone. Sometimes I was invited to a party, a couples of times I went to First Night, an arts program some cities sponsor to keep people away from the booze and into venues for music, art, dance, and poetry. During these years I was asked out once by a man I had been dating for a short time, but realized we did not fit well together. So when he asked me out for New Year’s Eve, I made some kind of excuse. I hate rejecting someone, so I think I made up something plausible. Sometimes a white lie is better than the raw truth, when you know the person will be terribly hurt.
One year I went to Kripalu Yoga Retreat Center in the Berkshires of Massachusetts. It snowed and we were in a winter wonderland, surrounded by mountains and brisk, cold air. A friend and I signed up for a weekend workshop entitled Finding Love. I was surprised to find so many men in the group. I always thought men were too shy, too macho, or too proud to attend such as event. But I was wrong and glad I was wrong, because I learned a great deal about men’s feelings regarding women that week-end. As one of the characters stated in a novel I just read, Suspicion of Guilt by Barbara Parker, “Men are another species, darling. Their minds don’t work the same as ours.”
This is a picture of an iceberg that I took while on a cruise to Alaska in June. It’s actually quite beautiful, especially with the blue undertones.
One of the best sessions was one in which we broke up into small co-ed groups. The workshop leader, herself divorced and happily remarried, gave one person in each group an old-fashioned waitress pad and I think an apron. (I volunteered for that job. I had been a waitress a long time ago and thought this would be interesting.) Each person gave me their “order” for a mate. My list included such items as: someone with a good sense of humor, someone who was family-oriented, and a man who was a generous lover. Interestingly enough, when I did meet my second husband, I came across the list in moving and discovered that he filled the bill almost perfectly.
So, my advice to you, if you want to be in a relationship, make your list and hang it in a convenient spot so you will see it and review it often. Put what you want out to the Universe and the Universe will answer. Just saying, “I want to meet a man or a woman” isn’t good enough. The Universe wants specifics! Start your list!!
