Next! Two

Instead of jetting off to Italia for pasta, vino and cultura a la Julia Roberts, I opted for two weeks of gallo pinto, cerveza and naturaleza. I said adios los Estados Unidos de America and hola Costa Rica.

I’m not usually a tour taker, but with my sudden need to get away due to my recent split, I booked an adventure tour and hoped for the best. Arriving in San Jose, I met up with the group. A bevy of single travelers, we were: beautiful, blonde and serene Ella from London; sassy, sophisticated, Scotch-drinker Jessica, also from London; From Belgium, leggy, outdoorsy, boy crazy in the best possible way Celine; cute, feisty and daring Polish Ana; and tall, quiet and unassuming Englishman Jerry.

Our first stop was the town of La Fortuna. After a long hike in the national park, we paused at dusk to observe Volcan Arenal and down some Cacique Guaro, the national liquor of Costa Rica, before hitting the Baldi Hot Springs. In the otherwise quiet and dark night, Baldi was pulsating with sound and light. Locals and tourists mingled, sipping pina coladas in pools illuminated with soft green, blue and golden lights as salsa y merengue music blasted into the tropical night.

Slipping away from the group and into one of the quieter, more isolated pools, I lay down on a tiled chaise lounge half submerged in the hot spring water and half in the cool night air. The sound of a waterfall drowning out the distant music, I stared up into the sky, clear and heaving with stars. I felt all the miles of distance stretching out between me and New York City, me and Jack. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and began to let the door close on him.

It wasn’t long before I learned that everyone in our group had been nursing a broken heart of sorts. In Tortuguero, an isolated stretch of land between a canal and the Caribbean accessible only by small boat or plane, we stayed at the rustic All Rankin’s Lodge. Spending the hours from late afternoon to well past sunset in hammocks by the canal sipping Imperial beer, we moved past polite surface conversation, delving into the deep and meaty bits of our lives. By our second day in this remote spot, we began discussing our relationship statuses at home and why we’d all taken this trip. I started with my Jack story.

As I ended my tale, Jessica piped up, “That’s exactly what just happened to me!” Followed by Celine, “Me too!” and then Ana. We’d each encountered an extremely similar break up in recent months, with the same reasons for the split and the same timeline. For Ella and Jerry, some very tough relationship endings were in the not too distant past as well.

It’s amazing how two weeks of spending time with simpatico souls, falling asleep to the symphonies of frogs outside your bedroom window, looking into the inquisitive faces of baby sloths, and feeling the warm sand in your toes as you stroll to Pacific beaches with gangs of capuchin monkeys hot on your trail can restore your mind and feed your heart.

On my last day of vacation, lounging in a pool in Cahuita, I made a resolution. The sentimental journey must come to an end. No more strolls down memory lane. No more repeat offenders. I must exorcise my haunted relationship house of all boyfriends bygone. These forays into my love past appeared oh so romantic but these past loves turned out to be nothing more than transparent, fleeting ghosts.

So a new journey begins. Striding down East 57^th Street last week, I was literally moving forward, my brand new Anthropologie dress fluttering out behind me. I opened the heavy wooden door, stepping from out of the sun and heat into the dark and cool bar. My new strappy high heels click-clacked on the floor announcing my entrance. He turned around.

Next! One

If journeys end in lovers meeting, then journeys begin in lovers parting.

I just began a new journey.

When last we left off, I’d determined to exit my poetry and Scotch cocoon. My Burns Night resolution in full effect, I’d spent several weeks dating incessantly. Son of the Black Panther, Cocky Lawyer Dad, German Personal Trainer…Then, just as I was about to retreat back into my world of Rabbie and Ledaig, the ghost of boyfriends past followed me into the present. Again.

Like Casper the Friendly Ghost but with a strong jaw line, wide shoulders and sex appeal, Jack had fit the bill of PSM (Potential Scotch Man) when last we met. Unfortunately at that time, I was fresh off my break-up with Half Baked, my live-in boyfriend of three years, named so for his affection for the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream flavor, not weed. When I bumped into Jack at Shoolbred’s sipping Lagavulin in front of the fireplace, I was surprised to see this love specter in one of my favorite watering holes and thrilled to learn that he fit the PSM bill now more than ever.

Quite a romantic courtship ensued. Nights at the opera and Scotch, dinner at Picholine and Scotch, slow dancing at home to Nina Simone and Scotch. And then it happened one night a few weeks ago. Another theme that has haunted my love life past popped up in the present with a “boo!” Jack, voice nervous, began with “I’m falling in love." The chaotic jumble of words that followed ended with “I’m scared. I’m not ready.”

Here it was, once again, the “I’m scared” lament. This is a possible relationship, not Scream. Is the prospect of love, the real thing, that frightening? Is it terrifying enough to send a man running from a woman as if from Jason at Camp Crystal Lake?

I wasn’t afraid of love, but I did my own brand of running. In the spirit of Eat, Pray, Love, I decided to take a trip.

My Heart Belongs to Rabbie

Born too late. That’s me. Always with the love affairs with the dead poets.

Last night, I celebrated my latest literary crush, Scottish poet Robert Burns. With his dark, dashing good looks and his workingman’s poet persona, Rabbie is a bona fide sex symbol as far as I’m concerned. So he was a bit of a scoundrel with the ladies, but that just lends to his legend. And, anyway, what great romantic poet wasn't? (Keats, I suppose.)

January twenty-fifth marks the bard’s birthday – yesterday he celebrated his 252^nd – an event commemorated by Scots with Burns Night suppers featuring haggis, Scotch and poetry. I honored his birthday with a quiet evening in the cozy comfort of home. Fancying myself his Clarinda, I read Ae Fond Kiss and let the gentle smoky sting of Ledaig single malt kiss my lips.

“Had we never loved sae blindly,

Never met—or never parted,

We had ne'er been broken-hearted.”

As I read his words, I realized that I’ve been hiding from the living men dating pool since New Year's Eve. Come sleet, snow or dark of winter night, I needed to get back in there. Rabbie would want me to.

Highland Toddy

Deep in the January doldrums, I met my friend Remy last night at Highlands, a Scottish gastropub in the West Village. Their Highland Toddy, made with Famous Grouse, maple bitters, brown sugar, Compass Box Orangerie and clove, and the thick fluffy snowflakes that began to fall outside, got me back into the winter spirit.

For Auld Lang Syne, Part Two

Back home in New York City, the winter had not been so magical, featuring dates with the likes of the Freelance Artist, who at 41 still shared a 2-bedroom in the East Village with 3 roommates because he “doesn’t like to live alone” (translation: “I’m an unemployed codependent”), and the Lumberjack. While quite sexy with his plaid flannel shirt and facial hair (I came of age during the era of grunge, what can I say?), the Lumberjack’s dating skills hadn’t evolved since the death of Kurt Cobain.

Over the winter, I’d also experienced a bizarre emotional hit and run by an ancient history boyfriend. I’ve known Tad ever since we dated for a few months in college. On the night in question, I’d dragged good sport Sandrine to a party he was having at his apartment on the Upper West Side. It started out innocently enough, with Tad and I waxing nostalgic about our past with various party guests. As the night went on, however, the nostalgia express jumped the track. I’d been chatting with Sandrine and random others when Tad suddenly joined our group, and, severely intoxicated, began ranting about the “hot Italian boyfriend” I’d started dating after our break up. As the other guests we’d been speaking with awkwardly dispersed, I confirmed with Sandrine, “You just heard that right?” Sandrine replied, always the psychologist, “Looks like someone’s been harboring some feelings for a very long time.” I should note that Tad had broken up with me and I hadn’t started dating Mario until almost a year after the Tad split. Mario had been super hot though. Tad did get that bit right.

After a short-lived early spring fling, I’d found myself nursing a bit of a broken heart by midsummer. My heart wasn’t broken because I’d been so desperately in love; it was more in the way Michael Corleone’s heart was broken by Fredo’s betrayal in The Godfather II. It had come at the hands of one of my dearest guy friends. Josh and I had been super close since meeting through work five years ago. We spoke the same language and shared a love of Eddie Izzard, pub grub and Scotch. Through the years, Josh had always lobbied for more, but I’d always been concerned about our age difference (he was five years younger than I) and potentially upsetting one of my closest friendships.

Then one night in May, Josh passionately declared his feelings on a rainy and foggy 59^th Street and sent me reeling with an amazing kiss. I could no longer deny our connection, and given the chemistry of that kiss, I didn’t want to. I’d realized that I’d been keeping this great guy at bay out of fear. Weeks of dates and drams had followed. I’d even opened and shared the Crested Ten I’d carried back from Dublin the previous summer (you know that you rate if I actually share my stash). And then at that crucial six-week mark, just as it started to get serious, Josh flipped out. I knew it was because he was afraid, but I also knew that I couldn’t continue to date someone who scares so easily. I needed that man who’d so boldly told me how he’d felt and kissed me that night on the street. I had no choice but to cut and run, ending our relationship and our friendship.

In the aftermath, I kept wondering why it happened. Why did something so seemingly great come crashing down into a million awful pieces? Had this just been a practice drill for when the real thing comes along? “This is a test of the emergency relationship system. This is only a test.” Followed by a beeping tone the equivalent of nails on a chalkboard. Had this been proof for myself that I could take a chance on love, that I could go out on a limb, that I could fall, and that I could get back up again? But I already knew the answers to these questions was yes.

Post pushing my broken heart aside and filling my fall with dating, my year now ends with this: kissing my drunken friend Ned in the back of a taxi. While it felt very nice and comfortable, I felt fairly certain that this wasn’t fate or true love, and that the next day we’d recant this backseat interlude. Dropping Ned off at his Midtown hotel, I thought about the specter of boyfriends past, present and future. Maybe the lesson of Ned and Josh was that I didn’t have to go 3,000 miles to Arctic Norway for a perfect kiss. A perfect kiss could be found with my most familiar friends and in my well-traveled paths.

As the taxi dashed toward the Upper East Side, I couldn’t help feeling that regardless of the ups and downs that the New Year would surely bring, I was racing toward another year filled with magic, surprise and possibility.

For Auld Lang Syne, Part One

It all started this weekend with a kiss in a taxi on the way home from a holiday party.

Under the influence of eggnog, Christmas lights and carols, I was sharing the cab ride home with my long-time friend Ned who was visiting from California. We’d just crossed 14th Street when Ned turned to me and started stroking my hair and whispering romantic sentiments in my ear. It could’ve been all the eggnog he’d consumed or the inevitable moment in a ten-year friendship in which there’d always been a “will they/won’t they?” factor. But it was Ned’s wistful tone and words that made me think this could very well be the result of Yuletide sentimentality.

Looking out the taxi window, which was now fogging up as Ned nuzzled my neck, I had to admit that I’m often sentimental around the holidays. I choke up at that first drawn out “I…m” of White Christmas sung by Bing Crosby. By the time his voice warbles at “sleigh,” I’m usually sobbing. I’m not so sentimental when it comes to relationships though. Like Clara of Nutcracker fame, I generally banish with the throw of my slipper the hideous and insidious Mouse King ex to the past. But this night, with the year drawing to a close and Ned’s hands closing in on my drawers, I couldn’t help but think back on this year’s romantic travails, and how the ghosts of boyfriends past had come into my present, and the boy friends in my present were apparitions of boyfriends yet to come.

The past boy specter is not an unfamiliar sight to me. Periodically it makes its presence known, appearing at odd times, often when I’m really happy with another guy. It’s like it just knows. Last year had actually ended on this theme: with a flirtation with an old crush, initiated by said crush just as I’d finally met a guy I rather liked. Both had become ghosts by Christmas.

This year, however, had started on a promising new note: with the kiss of a handsome Englishman at midnight on New Year’s Eve in Tromso, Norway as fireworks lit the night all around us.

It had been unexpected. Just the night before, while freezing out in the countryside looking for the Northern Lights, I’d mused to Cassidy and Sandrine, my best friends and travel companions, that gob-smacking attraction felt about as elusive as the Lights (which did elude us that night). Then the next day, there I am waiting at a bus stop in Tromso and I turn around to find inviting hazel eyes looking back at me. In this magical place, with long, bitter winter nights and barely breaking days that easily inspire fireside snogs, this sometimes cynical city girl met a charming, soft-spoken and independent man who was good with his hands and goes on holidays alone. I guess you never know when or where romantic things will happen. It’s just a question of how far you’re willing to go. Sometimes it’s 200 miles above the Arctic Circle far.

Tromso and the Englishman had set the bar high for the New Year. I’d wondered what the year would hold back home in New York City.

Scotch Snapshot

Today. 6pm. Lillie’s, Union Square, NYC. Ducking into this Victorian-inspired establishment, which was decked out in bows, bells and bulbs for the holidays, I found reprieve from the biting cold outside in the sweet, smoky taste and warming sensation of Bowmore 12 year old single malt.