The Love Wall

Once I trudged through my first year of widowhood, the heavy ache lessening each day, I found I embraced my new orderly life, my routine. Another two years followed. I would go to bed at eight, read until nine, get up at four-thirty, be at work by six-fifteen, and leave the office by four-thirty. Home, workout, make dinner, jump into my couch nest for television time with my two cats on my lap. Repeat. Weekends offered an outing for gas, groceries, and time with friends. Then I started the week over again, ticking the time boxes.

After year two passed, my friend Norma nudged me to try a dating app, convinced that my acceptance to remain alone was only a phase. She said her widowed daughter tried it and found love in two months. I scoffed. Never had I owned such control over myself. I had order. I commanded the remote. I ate what I wanted and when I wanted. A tidy existence. My heart locked up like a chastity belt. All was well, wasn’t it?

Year three, I talked to my therapist about my convictions. “I know I’m too old to date. And I don’t want to. That’s common with widows, right? Men are messy physically and emotionally. Besides, I don’t trust myself as a good picker. There’s always something wrong with them.”

My therapist, clad in fringed boots and a beige tunic top, grinned and assured me I was normal in my present feelings, on track in my grieving. She had once been a widow. She knew the route.  

She leaned forward in her brown armchair. “You might want to create a love board, though,” she said, “just in case. It’s been, what, thirty-six months since John passed? Things may change. The body may not pay much attention to your mind. Biology is like that. A love board will give you more confidence as far as your choices. If you’re prepared for exactly what you want, then you’ll be more comfortable should a possibility arise.”

Love board? I conjured up the Mystery Date game, picturing “the dud.” I asked her to explain.

“Many people use sticky notes.” She mimed a small square. “On each note, and use as many notes as you want, write down a quality you’d like in a potential partner. Say, for example, Sense of Humor. Next note, Must Have Beard. Next note, Good Listener. Keep writing every single thing you can think of, no matter what it is. Then start to arrange the notes in the order of importance. Spend lots of time with them, weeks, or months even. Keep re-arranging until you feel clear on most important to least important. Then, when you meet a person, see if they hit, say, the top three. Or maybe they just hit the twenty-ninth or thirtieth point. This way, you can gauge how to proceed.”

Homework. I liked assignments. I set to it, filling my home wall with 1x2 squares. I’d dated a lot after my first divorce. I’d had three husbands. The first two were super short marriages—I’d been in my twenties. But I knew a thing or two about what didn’t work and what did. I’d been married to my beloved John for twenty-three years. Plenty to excavate, both good and bad, from that relationship, too.

I wrote down everything that came to mind: Age 57-65. Good dancer (John liked to dance). Height six foot or above (John had been six foot four). I wrote down my emotional needs: good listener, easy to talk to, makes me feel confident, makes me feel beautiful, makes me laugh.  I added: cares about my orgasm, doesn’t live with his mother, and has a job. I didn’t want to be shallow, but him wanting to pay for dates would be great, as well as being educated. Once on a roll, I added extra elements, like no hairy backs and good kisser (nothing worse than a passion-less, sloppy kiss).

While Norma and I munched leftover Halloween candy at her kitchen table, I mentioned the exercise to her. She kept asking me what I wrote. I blushed and stammered and avoided answering. I felt stupid with my crazy menu items, like he should be a sharp dresser (John had great taste), or how highly I ranked that certain, private laugh. John had a laugh that made my ear hairs pleasantly tingle with desire, joy, and love, a deep baritone “heh heh heh” full of sexiness and mirth, a special Valentine for me alone. I didn’t want to explain myself to her or anyone else. My mind was private.

Every day more sticky notes popped onto the wall. I arranged and re-arranged, a daily ritual for a good thirty days with at least fifty items. I added warm, nice hands. Tight biceps. I felt fussy and silly, yet each statement helped me think about what I might or might not compromise on, since every relationship lacks while it enriches. Ugh. Compromise.

Yet, I also felt myself thawing. Order is lovely, but was I living the life I wanted? I had made myself into a robot, simply operating alone. Robots weren’t human.

Month thirty-seven, Norma again mentioned how her daughter found a great guy on Silver Singles. Norma said she’d help me write up my profile.

I’d recently seen Dirty John, the story of the woman conned and almost killed by a devious jerk she’d met on an online dating site. Not for me. “I’d rather meet someone the old-fashioned way, in person, by kismet, like in the produce aisle of a grocery store.”

Norma shook her head. “Fat chance of that in this town.”

True. Our coastal town held a ratio of over ten women to one man, and if he was single, he’d be toothless and drunk or a junior in high school. Otherwise, all the decent men were married. I liked those odds, though, like a thousand to one. That meant it would really be a sign from the cosmos if I met someone worthy.

A week or so later, I did pull up the Silver Singles website. Just for kicks. Just to see. It showed a silver-haired man gazing at a silver-haired woman with expectation and hunger—like a cat with a conquest. The woman, her arm crooked around him, smiled into the camera like she had the guy’s number—he wasn’t pulling anything over on her. My stomach turned. Such a game.

I’d dabbled in tarot, a small, private indulgence. I found it often quieted my mind and satisfied wonder, an explorative tool I’d use maybe once a month. I found myself pulling out the deck, asking if I might ever date again. I mean, it was hopeless, right? Who would look at a woman who had gone crepe-y and gray (but for Miss Clairol)?  I wasn’t very interesting. Watched a lot of TV over the past three years while grieving. What would we talk about? The Leftovers or True Blood or Six Feet Under—shows about death? Cooking? I’d been living off of yogurt and blueberries and anything I could microwave. The cards revealed the High Priestess, a major arcana which depicts a woman of holy female wisdom and power. The card’s meaning for me was to go within, to meditate and find insight. No direction offered. Not much help. Proof that I was destined for the elephant graveyard. Keep walking toward the end until I crumpled and died.

I had been gradually cleaning things out of the garage in the three years since John’s death, selling what I could. I posted items on a neighborhood app, including a bird cage. Someone sent me a message, interested.

When he showed up that evening, I took him back to the garage and he bought the cage on sight, telling me he’d have to return to pick it up the next day since it was too big for his car. He handed over the money. Such a sweet smile. He radiated trustworthiness and innocence. Handsome. Younger than me. Taller, too. Muscular. He mentioned offhand that he was a plumber by trade. I told him that I happened to have a kitchen sink that was draining wonky. The pipes likely needed replacing.

We set up a morning appointment and he came with his toolbox. We chatted the entire time he worked—I was cleaning in the living room on the other side of the counter. We talked of weather. The ocean. The town. We held a similar philosophy about religion and diversity, both of us open-minded. When he had to leave to get plumbing parts at the hardware store, I worked on my Spanish lesson on Duolingo and then gathered discards for the thrift store.

He returned and I gravitated once more to the living room. While I packed the box for Goodwill, he asked me what I did for a living. I told him I was a supervisor at the local college. He said he’d often thought about taking a class there. He liked variety and learning. He said he’d been in town a few years. I said I’d been here over twenty. He said he had ended a relationship in the last six months. I told him I was a widow of just over three years. He murmured condolences and grew quiet.

When he wiped his brow, I offered him cold water. As I handed him a bottle from the fridge, I swore he said something about how pretty I was. Surely I misunderstood. I smiled and went back to the living room to tape the thrift store box.

While he collected his gear, he said something again about how attractive he found me, and maybe I could help him fill out a college application? Like over dinner?

Oh.

OH.

And then he laughed. A baritone “heh heh heh” that made my ear hairs tingle.