Love Notes

I had a conversation come up twice this week with married girlfriends on how to keep the spark lit between themselves and their husbands.

One girlfriend has been married for 21 years and she told me that she’s lately gotten into flirty texting… nothing overly explicit, but just enough to add some fun to each other’s day. Another has been married for only 8 years, but has finally decided that it’s time to put her career on hold and start a family. We giggled when she said that she has to remind her husband consistently that she’s an oven that takes time to warm up, not a ‘press a few buttons’ and I’m as hot as a microwave.

My girlfriend number one is a physical therapist and told me of the men that are holding their gazes at her body parts longer than she’s comfortable, trying to cop a feel of somewhere or veiling some sexual comment. She told me of an old man who must have thought he was younger than he was saying to her ‘you should wear red tomorrow’…when she told her octogenarian that she didn’t own anything in red, he pushed the subject by saying you don’t own ANYTHING in red? She replied ‘no, nothing’….she then refused under any circumstance to massage any part of the old man—which would have normally being part of a physical therapy session.

My advice for my first girlfriend was a 1, 2, 3 surprise. That she should squirrel away some money over the next few month that her husband doesn’t know about and flabbergast him with ‘we’re taking one suitcase, we’re leaving in two hours, we’re going away for three days—surprise! The kids are being taken care of; all appointments have been rescheduled.

Advice for my second girlfriend came because we went out for some ‘coffee and chit chat’ she was complaining about how expensive the food is in Manhattan so she and her husband decided to brown bag their lunches—but cheeses and meats were still costing them about $60.00 per month. I suggested to her that along with his sandwich, she should place a pair of clean panties into his lunch bag or brief case. She laughed—I was serious.

Repetition dulls the desire for intimacy. New place, new experiences, new adventures-- especially ones that cause a burst of adrenaline, should always increase libidinal drive. That is one of the reasons that doctors recommend that if a woman is having difficulty conceiving, that she go on vacation. I also recommended that she buy a very nice leather bound notebook where she and her husband could ‘discuss’ their fantasies. Keep the book in the same place so that either of you could read the other’s thoughts, desires, experiences and feelings as you chose to. I’ve known boyfriends and girlfriends who have done this, but it’s not sexually charged. They just keep a diary of their dating life. I think it’s lovely—especially if it turns into a marriage to have remembered each of those special moments; but the problem is ‘who has the diary, when'? With the sexual diary, what you get is the element of surprise of not knowing if or when your fantasy gets to come true.

In Shmuley Boteach books he frequently talks about how he believes that the purity ritual of separation between a man and his wife in Judaism is a perfect balance of a coming together in friendship while a woman is in her monthly cycle and a buildup of lusty desire for when she is able to once again have intimate relations. Much like the act itself of your bodies coming together and pulling apart, so to, is your desire for each other.

I’ve thought about men giving me their own love notes and me, theirs. I can remember one morning turning the key and opening the door to my office and in a great big whoosh of air, what seemed like a million notes of ‘I love you, I need you, I want you, marry me’ bits of paper went flying all over the place. It must have taken him a long time to slip each note under my door; I couldn’t have been more annoyed. What might have been charming under a different circumstance left me needing to stop what I was doing and clean my office.

More darling, though, was something else given by the same guy when I had gotten the worst case of the flu I have ever had. We were working together and I left the house feeling perfectly fine. Within a half hour of getting to work the projectile vomiting started leaving me feverish and bed ridden for 10 days. I told him not to come over—that he didn’t want what I had…but it didn’t matter…he needed me more than he needed not to be sick.

He bought me a Waterford bud vase and put pink roses in it—and he gave me something that I still have. It must have taken him at least a day to put it together: he made me was an ‘all about Fran’ activity book. There were crossword puzzles in it. Three across: Fran’s favorite sandwich. Answer: Tuna. Seven down: What is the one non-word, word that Fran says all of the time? Answer: Ewwwww. There was a flip book, connect the dots; all sorts of things to keep me occupied and thinking about him…I’m smiling as I write this. He was the funniest guy that I had ever known; we laughed together all day long. He photographed me, painted me, and wrote songs for me. He loved me. A couple of years ago I found his website…I knew that he had married someone else; he stayed in touch for a while after his marriage. It was almost creepy to me that he found a substitute for me that was as close as he could possibly find. We didn’t look alike, but her birthday was the same day as mine; she did what I did for a living. She loved him more than I ever could have and I’m O.K. with how it all turned out.

But even now on his website; there in the annals his life’s achievement remains my homage. A critic had written of me as his subject ‘she is as timeless as art itself’. He keeps it on his site because somewhere inside of him, for the place and time that once was, I still mattered.

And then there was Jay. I hadn’t seen him in almost 25 years. I was in his office, my head down, thumbing through a magazine waiting for my appointment. In my peripheral vision I could see that he was talking to a patient, but he wasn’t looking at him; he was staring at me. When I went into his examining room he told me that up until recently, he had saved all of my pictures, all of my cards, all of my letters—in a box in his parents' house; his wife didn’t know. His parents had their house flooded and he had lost them all. He’s been married for at least 20 of those years; I would have never imagined that anyone; anywhere would have ever saved them; but he did. I copied all of the pictures that I had of us and the time we spent together in Grenada, put them in an album tied it with golden ribbon and left it at the front desk of his office.

I’m envious today of those times in my life. On our first date I met Jay’s whole family. The date started at his two year old nephew’s birthday party, and it ended at having dinner at Tavern on The Green. It’s a different dating world today, and one that doesn’t bring me nearly as much joy. I had a phone call tonight from a guy who I haven’t heard from in at least a year. We’ve never met—he lives in Miami, but he made contact; I suppose he was hopeful that I might still be interested. He mumbled something about sweeping me off of my feet; I’m less than impressed by his year-long dereliction and no real attempt to rectify the neglect. Perhaps he was checking the women in his harem and somehow the number of those still adoring him seemed light. Was I still available? Check. Might I still be interested? Ummmmm….

In a day and age where despite rhetoric to the contrary the possibility of a relationship still rests squarely on the man; what is missing however in men that are my age, is honor. The sense of honor that I felt the men possessed when I was younger; when a man showed up and made his best attempts at winning my heart. There was jewelry, an offer of a two week trip to Greece...I wish it were so today. No, I'm no longer young with lots of men vying for the chance to win me. But what I see generally is the downgrade of societal acceptance of a man is who is no longer willing to be responsible for having caused a woman some sense of pain or suffering at his own hands. Women in all of their tear filled angst are expected to buck up and take responsibility for their own sexual choices, protection or romantic trauma. There is a delicate balance of women today needing to be the gatekeepers of their hearts and souls; and yet trepidation; wanting so very much to be vulnerable and open; while at the same time being unable to verbalize the begging of men to gingerly hold their hearts and by extension, their bodies in their hands.