Category — relationships

The Tyra episode I taped (and blogged about) a few months ago will air on Valentine’s Day. The show is called “Will You Marry Me?” My appearance accounts for about 1/2 of 1% of the entire show. Although my hair takes up the entire screen. They really super-poofed my hair.

That’s me in the back, looking ferklempt (not to mention unbelievably matronly) at the real-time marriage proposal.

The dress they put me in came with it’s own cleavage, apparently. My hair and boobage were reminiscent of a 1973 Mrs. America contest. (Can you tell I’m fixated on the way I look and not the deeper meaning of the marriage proposal?! Fie!)

I taped a short segment on the Tyra Banks show on Dec 5. It was about asking The Hard Questions before you get married.

This is not the dress I wore, but it was basically this style:

Here’s what happened:

The roller coaster ride is over and I’m back at my desk in Boston wondering if the whole thing even happened at all. That’s how it is with these things. It’s like being kidnapped by aliens who perform bizarre experiments on you and then return you to earth. When your livelihood depends in any part on having your work publicized (as mine does), it adds a strange layer to the whole thing: I hope they’ll like me. I hope my book will sell because of this. Maybe my career is really happening/doomed. I hope they won’t think I’m too old/young/fat/skinny/stupid/smart. Maybe I DO know what I’m talking about. Maybe I DON’T. DO. DON’T.

I have several friends who also go on talk shows every now and then, and some of them handle it in a totally balanced way. They don’t get caught up wondering about the validity of their thoughts. They don’t go into the interview with one idea about how workable their career is and exit it with a different one entirely. I don’t know how they do it. Apparently, they see themselves as inhabiting a stable world, one of their own making, that provides a reliable working basis that they can return to whether or not the viewers of this or that show respond to them. They don’t fall into self-doubt the moment the interview is over. And this is when things go well. Forget about the possibility of your ideas being attacked!! Actually, it’s not the idea of being criticized that’s so bad, it’s the possibility of having your motives and/or intelligence impugned. That really hurts. I totally never, ever, ever read reviews of my books on Amazon for this reason. My mom used to call me whenever someone posted a good review and I had to beg her like 1000 times to not do that. I do not like going on that ride. I even have one friend (whom I blogged about previously) who was roundly criticized in Newsweek for god’s sake, and came away from it thinking, “wow, I really shook them up.” I have no idea how one holds their seat in this way, and I admire this guy beyond words.

ANYWAY. The taping. If you’re interested, here’s what happened. (In part. I can’t tell too much about the show because there are some surprise elements in it and I don’t know when it will air. Maybe Valentine’s Day.) I got to the studio with the publisher’s publicist (whom I had never met before). She had booked the appearance, which to me came out of the blue. I had no idea she’d been working on this. Thank you, Jennifer! She had hired a car service to pick us up and when we got to the studio, there was a line of people waiting to get into the studio audience. Our driver came around and opened the door for me and when I stepped out, people turned to look. At me. Weird. I could see that they were ready to see a “celebrity” and whether or not I was one, I was one to them. The projections are so unbelievably strong in a situation like this. I can see how it would be tempting to either look down in shame at not being famous or look away as if I was indeed a famous person. Holding on to your actual reality is quite a trick. (Not this and not that.) We were taken to a green room where other guests were waiting. People were running all up and down the halls with headphones and clip boards. They were all incredibly, incredibly busy but also super nice. Mostly I just waited around for the first hour, looking again and again at the notes I’d been sent about the interview I’d be doing with Tyra and a young couple. Before my segment, they were going to flash a full screen shot of my book, “The Hard Questions: 100 Essential Questions to Ask Before You Say ‘I Do’” and after the segment, they were going to give away a copy of the book to everyone in the audience. Cool!! I was going to discuss 3 of the hard questions and as I did, each question was going to appear at the bottom of the screen. I wanted to use the same wording as the screen, so I kept going over and over it. Okay, I’ll speed up this synopsis. I got taken to hair and makeup and they pumped the hell out of my hair until it was fairly gigantic. I said to the young, cute, goth-y hairdresser, don’t you think this is a little matronly? “Matronly? Never! That’s my name on top of your head and I’d never do that!” So okay, I had Gina on top of my head. Then the makeup guy got his hands on my face and plied it with every product imaginable. But he did so with such a casual air–it was like he was swabbing my face with a mop. So I was shocked when I looked in the mirror and saw how perfect it was. I’ve learned that you can really, really trust these people–that even when you think you look ridiculous, somehow it all looks great on TV. So except for the matronly comment, I kept my mouth shut. Then the wardrobe guy came into the green room with 3 dresses. One was way too big. One was way too small. One was heavenly–but a little tight around the rib cage. So they sent in a seamstress who basically sewed the dress closed. I looked down and saw that my chest had been transformed into cleavage central. How that happened, I really don’t know. I guess that’s what happens when you get sown into your clothes. They liked my boots, so I got to wear them.

The sound person came in an miked me, clipping the device onto my bra strap which showed out the back of the dress, but who cares, no one was going to see my back. Someone came up to bring me down to the stage and as we were walking, wardrobe showed me three bracelets and I picked one. I was shown to my seat on stage and everyone in the audience is smiling at me like I am someone and then there’s Tyra and the producer is shouting, Tyra, meet Susan, Tyra, meet Susan! except someone else was also talking to her so we basically shook hands as her cue cards came up and the camera rolled. (PS She’s gorrrrgeous!!) She talked to me, I talked to her, we talked to the cute couple who was considering the hard questions, and boom it was over. 5 minutes. They escorted me back upstairs, cut the dress off me and I was back out on the street with my very nice publicist and there was no car to pick us up and it was snowing and she said just take a cab and send me the receipt. My hair was still way poofy and I had a load of makeup on, but showtime was over. I couldn’t get a cab. Then I did and went to meet a friend at the City Bakery before heading to Penn Station to take the train home, gargantuan hair and all. (The guy sitting next to me told me I looked like Carly Fiorina… um, excuse me?!) I rode wave after wave of they hated me, they liked me, I did fine, I sucked. Whatever. I just wanted to get home.

This morning I woke up in my own bed and my hair was sticking straight up totally like bride of Frankenstein and there were little specks of mascara on my cheeks. I felt like Gloria Swanson in Sunset Blvd, except I was so NOT ready for my closeup. I jumped in the shower and turned the water on full speed until my hair got tamped back down into place.

This is my report.

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Taping an interview today on the Tyra Banks show!!! Totally came out of the blue. As these things do. I’ll be talking with Tyra and a very adorable couple about their plans to marry and why it’s important to ask The Hard Questions. I don’t know when it will air; perhaps Valentine’s Day.

From past experience, I know that being on TV is a total roller coaster ride. One minute you think you’re a serious superstar with important things to say to the people of the world and the next you think you’re a total loser who is fatuous AND fat. Neither one is true. Neither one is true. Neither one is true. I have to remember this and just keep my eye on trying to be a human who is helpful to other humans. Unless my segment gets canned in which case I’ll be a raving lunatic.

You never know!!

Thank you for this chance, Tyra!!

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Please check out these wonderful responses. Most people eventually find a way to get over a broken heart, but not with so much awareness and generosity toward self and ex.

What helped you? (If anything.)

Time. And our ability to keep in touch throughout all these years
after. This was a wonderful midlife romance that has turned into a
friendship for going on 15 years now. At the time of the breakup
though it was trauma. The pain lasted for at least 6 months to a
year. one thing about being an adult (hopefully) is that you don’t
go away mad when you realize there are other riches to be had. What
helped me was her easily letting me down, being honest about how a
life together would create issues in her life. And I knew from my
heart of hearts that we would be at each other’s throats in the day
to day of of a relationship. The hardest part to let go was the
sexual intimacy. I had come out of a second marriage that was
basically emasculating, manipulative (on her part), and fuel to my
rage. Once this marriage ended (a 12 years), an enormous weight was
lifted off my back and my rage, which I had seen professional help
about, deflated like a balloon in few weeks. When miss future
heartbreak and I got together it was like teenagers all over again,
something I had not experienced since before my marriage. We were
both coming out of marriages, hers a 30 year run which ended when
her husband ran off with another woman. We were both rebounders. Or
is that reboundees? She was obsessive about cleanliness in her home
to the point that a dropped peanut husk on the kitchen floor caused
her to say on one of my visits, with THE LOOK only women can
give…”we will NEVER EVER get married!” Of course i was not
looking for a third marriage so i was perplexed. At my place, which
was a bit of a mess, she had no problem. my place was my place and
how i kept it was my business. she didn’t try to change it nor
clean it (darn it). My place was a refuge from her hectic life of 4
grown kids and 9 grandkids. there is a number of things she trusts
me on, my judgment, my honesty and frankly now that we are not in
a heavy deep relationship i can easily be more honest with her. she
values my opinion.

What did you learn about yourself?

—-the first thing i learned going into this rebound relationship
was that I had not lost my touch in the bedroom despite my fallow
second marriage. the second thing i learned was that all those
years in marriage i had not grown emotionally. i had stagnated. and
this created a number of irritations in this rebound relationship.
i was an embarrassment of excess baggage. I also learned the value
of deep friendship with a member of the opposite sex and i have a
number of women friends now, many of them happily married, or
settled in their lifestyle, and their perspective is greatly
appreciated. I learned how to grow up and get rid of that excess
baggage just in time. Because that allowed me to also confront my
cancer in healing ways. I became more in control of my emotions.
and in helping others sometimes tackle theirs.

About love?

—-it don’t come around very often so when it does embrace,
cherish, coddle, nurture, feed, and grow it. Do not smother it.
Let it seek its own sunshine. Become water and live and let live.
Love has many forms. I have lots of people that I love and that
love me even though I have chosen celibacy since that relationship
ended. Not out of bitterness but out of being set in my ways and
enjoying that. If the right person came along….perhaps a well
worn path between two houses may be the ticket. Altho as a
cherished friend of mine, since passed, once said, the problem with
that is you never know who is coming in the back door. Ha!

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I’d love to hear your story for my next book.

What helped you? (If anything.)

What did you learn about yourself?

About love?

If you don’t want to post here, feel free to email me directly.

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“You see, the whole thing in marriage is the relationship and yielding – knowing the functions, knowing that each is playing a role in an organism. One of the things I have realized – is that marriage is not a love affair. A love affair has to do with immediate personal satisfaction. But marriage is an ordeal; it means yielding, time and again. That’s why it’s a sacrament: you give up your personal simplicity to participate in a relationship. And when you’re giving, you’re not giving to the other person: you are giving to the relationship. And if you realize that you are in the relationship just as another person is, then it becomes life building. A life fostering and enriching experience, not an impoverishment because you’re giving to somebody else. Do you know what I mean?” –Joseph Campbell

I was interviewed for an article in this month’s Cosmopolitan magazine: 7 Love Rules You Need to Break. TODAY show did a segment about the article about a week ago. I had nothing to do with it, but it’s interesting because you just never know where things are going to turn up.

I posted an essay some weeks (months?) back called, “Once I Had a Broken Heart.” I’ve received a tremendous amount of feedback, mostly from people who are struggling with this extraordinarily painful situation. The pain of a relationship ending is so real and cuts so deep, but we think we should just snap out of it after awhile. It’s not so easy to do. There are many Buddhist teachings on how to work with a broken heart (one might say that is what the whole entire thing is about) like this, this, and this. But much of it was summed up by this statement I read from Gloria Steinem, who was discussing her grief after her husband died:

“In depression, nothing matters.” In sadness and grief, “everything matters.”

I found this to be such a moving expression of warriorship. It makes me remember that in sadness are the gifts of deepened insight and powerful compassion. When your heart is broken, it is also broken open and from it can flow enormous tenderness.

When my husband and I began dating, we had tremendous hunger to know who the other was. Daytime was an irritating obstacle to be gotten through until we could hold each other at night, when we would make love, certainly, but mainly we looked at each other. Listened. Smelled. Tasted. Touched. He was a stranger, but I knew him. And I didn’t.

After we’d been dating for a few months, he told me a story about a defining childhood event. In his story, he was about ten years old. His father had taken him on a summer walk through a farm belonging to a family friend. In concession to the heat, his dad was in shirtsleeves, tie loosened, porkpie hat pushed back on his head revealing an about-to-recede hairline. His gait was slow and steady while my husband’s revved up to rush forward and explore things of interest before running back to tell his Dad what was just ahead. They strolled through an orchard and past a henhouse before reaching a small barn. The floor was covered with a thick layer of hay and there was a ladder leading up to a platform that ringed the upper limits of the structure to create about four feet of storage space. His father encouraged him to climb up and have a look around, but to mind his footing because there was no rail around the platform, just a free fall to the ground below. The thick wooden floorboards were swept bare and felt sturdy under his feet. It was exhilarating to be up so high in a place where only a kid could fit. He looked down and saw the top of his father’s felt hat and the little gleam of sweat on his brow. His father reached his arms up and said, jump, I’ll catch you. My husband was scared. It seemed so far to go. Jump, his dad said, just do it. I’m here. So he did and at the last moment his father drew his arms back and let my husband fall to the ground. “Never trust anyone, son,” he said and walked away.

Tears came to my eyes and I felt for his elbows, shins, palms, the parts I imagined broke his fall, and covered them with kisses. “It’s okay,” he said. “I’m grateful to him. It was his way of teaching me something he thought every man should know.” How awful to be a man, I thought. From then on, when I told him I was going to do something, I made extra sure to do it as stated and on time. No hidden lessons from me. My heart ached for him and my love deepened. Over time, the particulars of the story faded, our relationship proved trustworthy and our understanding of each other grew in scope and nuance.

Some years later, we were discussing the vaccinations his 6-year old son would receive at his next doctor’s appointment. Should we tell him now to prepare him (and preserve his trust) or spring it on him in the doctor’s office so he won’t get all worked up in advance (but threaten his trust)? I reminded him of his experience with his dad in the barn. “What would you have wanted?” I asked. He looked at me sort of blankly. “Oh, that,” he said. “I made that up.”

In that moment, I realized I didn’t know him and probably never would. And in that moment, the whole story came true.

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