Tonight there was a much-awaited, chatted-about fat golden moon coming over the treetops. I tried to get a close-up photo, but my camera is either not powerful enough or I don’t know how to set it–the same frustrating story I encounter again and again in tech-world. All I got for my efforts was a streaky misshapened blob of an image. Why do I persist? I’m convinced that if I capture the moon on “film,” I will know Something once and for all. While I drove to the burned-out bridge near my house to try and photograph the moon, I listened to Lucinda Williams singing “Sweet Old World.” The litany of things given up squeezed my heart with each refrain. At the same time, her honey-coated, slack-jawed  Southern diction made me think of home as it never was and never will be. Earlier in the day, I was single-mindedly searching for an Andrew Marvell poem to illustrate a point I wanted to make about a blog post. Tonight, I only wish I could open my heart to the moon instead of worrying about whether I capture it in words or take a close-up photo or make a telling, sophisticated connection between the moon and my soul. I want to curl into that big apricot-colored luscious, chewy, sweet orb hanging over my driveway at 10pm. No photos, only sense memories. No documents, only dreams. The moon is close to us this month — send your longings up to meet it halfway.

Dear Local Hardware Store,

Don’t think you’ll lure me in this year to your newly stocked garden center with the burlesque displays of overblown geraniums and the promise of Edenic juiciness waiting to be coaxed out of heirloom tomato plants. I know your game. I just came in here for a garden hose nozzle because mine is broken again the same as every spring I will not pause at the bags of mushroom compost or rich black manure or reliable old pine straw. Don’t even bother to push the marigolds forward to say hello with those big sunny smiles. This year I’m not going to be whipped into a buying frenzy by cart after cart of plants being loaded into Hummers and Volvos.  I’ve been through it with you so many times. The glib promises that our love will grow and ripen. That the thyme I plant between pavers will spread out like eternity. That raised beds are lush breeding grounds for summer’s dinners. No, no and no. Because I know how this love story ends. The heartbreak of nemotodes. The failure to thrive. The wilt, the black spot, the mildew growing on my Martha Stewart roses like jailhouse tattoos. I’m stopping my ears to your siren song of foolproof upside-down tomato planters, ingenious soaker hoses and Earth Boxes. This summer my yard can go wild, my soil can fail the county extension test, and my vegetables can come from the Farmers’ Market two blocks away. Including the cucumber I’ll use to garnish the Hendricks Gin I’ll be drinking on the porch instead of pruning, pinching back and pulling weeds.

Oh god, I was so sad tonight for so many reasons:  work disillusionment, personal disappointments, early-morning optimism beaten down by reality. Some of my friends live too far away to see in person. Others were busy with their own preoccupations or occupations. Some had let me down; some I can’t reveal myself to–my fault, not theirs. So I worked late and went across the street to a neighborhood restaurant, took my favorite seat in the far corner of the bar, tucked invisibly against the wall, and worked on magazine pages and journal notes. The bartenders there are tender and protective of my privacy, so I felt at home and anonymous and relaxed and not needing to cry as much as I thought I did. While I wrote, I eavesdropped on the two young girls next to me at the bar chattering and laughing and wondered what their stories were when one of them turned and asked me about the mala beads on my wrist. She and her friend were probably 30 or more years younger than I am and yet so open and funny and authentic. A casual conversation that deepened until we had revealed several intimate things about our lives. And  as introverted and shy as I am, I felt drawn out and less alone. Our paths may never cross again, although I hope they do, but in a couple of hours, we clicked and crossed boundaries of age, orientation and upbringing to make a connection. It reminded me that I am always looking for BFF-forever friendship, undying loyalty, when actually my life can be nudged forward and lifted up by momentary kindness, the sharing of secrets and opening my heart without expecting anything in return. And sometimes that’s all you need to get you into the next day.

I’ve lived in my house for about 10 years and never once realized how dark it was. I would visit my daughter on the west coast and berate her for not having enough lamps and yet failed to note how I had to squint to read in my own home, couldn’t quite see the dust  bunnies lurking in the corners and just assumed darkness was my metier. When friends of mine added a bedroom to their house and it was filled with light and lovely lamps, I wondered why I had been depriving myself. But don’t we often do that? Maybe not in a literal way, but our soul secrets languish in darkness because we believe ourselves to be “bad” for having certain thoughts, tendencies or weak spots. For instance, part of me is utterly selfish. How awful, and yet until I bring it to light I can’t understand why or if there is a remedy or even if I want a remedy. When my Shadow comes out of the dark naughty spot, I can welcome it into the family of contradictory feelings, emotions, actions, wishes, desires that comprise my flawed and fatally attractive self. I love my new lights to live by, lights to undress under, lights to reveal all. My stretch marks mean I’m flexible. My wrinkles mean I’ve known anguish and ecstasy, laughed at bad jokes and worshipped the Sun. My aging hands have waved goodbye, wiped bottoms and scrubbed floors, grasped at love that was never meant to last, written a few real words, buttoned and unbuttoned, held too tight and not tight enough. Let there be light — to help us see more clearly, to allow ourselves to be seen, to reveal the hidden corners of our souls.

Tonight there is a sweet potato baking in the oven, a block of Emmentaler Swiss cheese coming to room temp on the kitchen counter preparing to mate in sweet butter with sunflower bread, and a glass of Malbec breathing quietly by my side. I’m home. There are days when I’m eager to go out to dinner, meet someone for drinks, dress up for a party. And then there are days when I can’t wait to pull into my driveway, have the motion light on the corner of the house welcome me, wash the day off my face and hands and sink into the bliss of home. When changing into pajamas feels sybaritic and the idea of a heavy down comforter makes me think of sleep as a lover. When dinner for one is not lonely but lovely. When the prayer flags are doing their job and spreading blessings with every breeze. When I’m not longing to be in London, Paris or Mendocino — anywhere but here. When my house lives up to the name my daughters gave it — Happy Shack. When I’m flying the mental Frida flag. When I feel lucky to have a fractured ankle instead of kankles. When my Kindle is filled with books to be read late into the night. Lucky, lucky me. Happy, happy shack.

Tonight I almost uploaded the photo of the man I loved to death. I think our love affair literally hastened his death or at least the death of certain romantic illusions we shared. But I’m a little shocked at how reluctant I am to put his photo up for public consumption. After all, isn’t that what we do on blogs? Reveal and expose in the name of sharing, connecting, getting closer? And yet, I find that there are still some people and events that I cannot share simply because a photo or a blog entry will not do them justice. I can say, “He was so emotionally hungry that I could never fill him up,” or he could say, “She withheld her love to punish me for me for my sins.” And both of those statements are true and neither of them tells the whole story. He loved and punished me. I loved and froze him out. We loved and yet could never bridge the distance between us. We truly wanted to devour and incorporate each other. Shocking, embarrassing, neurotic, but I don’t need to be forgiven. In Digital World we want to tell all, explain all, probe all, show how sensitive we are, use our lives for fodder and then move on, but I can’t. No memoir I write could contain our worlds, explain or forgive our flaws, make anyone else understand the folie a deux we danced. And that is why I hate memoirs–because at base they fake it or betray it or leave chunks of information out that they don’t even know they’re missing. Our truths shift every day, according to whether the sun shines or we hear “our” song on the radio or we are distracted by life or struck down by a memory. Odi et amo–a mystery that no longer needs to be solved. So this is what I looked like when he fell in love with me, but I will never show what he looked like when I fell in love with him. Because as long as it’s a secret that I refuse to share with the world, he still lives inside me and the love goes on.

One morning, my red journal seemed so inflammatory lying on the bed in my room in London. As if it could explode any moment. But in fact, I pull my punches in my journal, unable to be truthful even in the most private of pages. If I were, smoke would curl out of the pages, the fire of my words and thoughts would leave scorch marks of anger, lust, taboos, envy, desire, fiery sorrow, unlived lives. When I was a girl, I had a diary with a lock on it, but now I would love to have a high tech journal that would self-destruct if anyone but me opened it — maybe then I could discover/reveal the me beneath the brown paper wrapper. I think the reason I’m always irritated and unsatisfied when I reread my journals is that I don’t quite recognize the person in the pages. The one whose life seems rote rather than real. The one who is so used to hiding her thoughts from other people that she doesn’t recognize them herself anymore. Sometimes I catch glimpses, as if original me just dashed around the corner before I could catch her and bring her to fully dimensional life on paper. Instead, I find fragments of truth scattered through a series of journals, none of it adding up to a complete volume.

* The best vacation memories are unexpected. Although I took this photo from the London Eye, it’s not the Eye I’ll remember but this vibrant, color combination that I happened to catch accidentally. It’s not Big Ben but walking across Blackfriars Bridge and along the river on a cold, wet night.

* There’s no use looking back at what  you failed to do or anxiously awaiting the consequences in the future. What I didn’t do was plan sensibly for my financial security. What I plan to do is be brave about it.

*NEVER turn on your iPhone overseas. If you insist, just open your bank account and let the money drain straight into AT&T.

* I love watching the way British people use their silverware. So elegant that it makes me feel like I’m sawing a log when I’m cutting my fish.

* There are very few things I’ve purchased in my life that I would miss now if I’d passed them up.

* I have no desire to make my own skin care products out of grapefruits, avocados, oats or whatever.

* If you have loyal for-life friends and a really good rechargeable vibrator, you can be reasonably happy without being married.

* Something I read in a magazine this month and wrote on a Post-it note: “Year by year all is unclear, but day by day we find our way.”

If you’re single, do you ever feel frustrated reading the ubiquitous articles in women’s magazines or the discussions on Dr. Phil type shows that focus on the sex lives of married women? If you believe the media, the only women sanctioned to have sex in our country are those with husbands. There are no doubt thousands of single women readers who have the same equipment under the hood, but no drivers, and yet all they/we get are “10 Proven Ways to Make a Man Want You” or “How to Please a Man.” But what if you don’t — gasp! — have a man? What if these magazines ever woke up and commissioned articles that discuss the benefits of masturbation, the best vibrators and where to buy them or the role of fantasies in a satisfying sex life? What if they endorsed the idea that nourishing a healthy libido — single or married — enhances your general creativity and overall mood and sense of self? That you don’t have to be with a partner to nurture your sensuality and desire. That expensive lingerie and perfume will make you feel desirable even if you’re the only one to appreciate it on you. That if your tool box includes sexual toys, you’re not a loser but a lover. That some women believe that you can enjoy erotica and still be a feminist. What if we grew up understanding that life doesn’t start for Sleeping Beauty when the Prince crashes through the briars into her bower and wakes her from her long slumber with a kiss – that, in fact, she may have been enjoying a sexy little dream that didn’t even include him, just his best friends, Prince Charming and The Beast.