Stroller Was a Fool

I’ve always insisted to Toad that she was my gal...not his. We’ve both admired Dominique Browning and I’ll admit that my attraction at first was superficial. Surprise I know…pretty girl…who cares about anything else? That strategy has caused me more trouble in life than anything else. Seriously, nothing else has come close. 


I only miss a few things about my marriage and the magazines on LFG’s mom’s side of the bed would be one. Shape Magazine was soft porn. Shut up. Town and Country was, well, whatever, and I always devoted fifteen minutes to it. But damn, who was this woman with the beautiful eyes? Like azure lasers, her eyes stunned me. She was chief editor of one of the magazines that lived on the other side of the bed—House and Garden.

I loved my house and I loved my garden—yes, the other things I miss about my marriage. Our house had good bones and I loved transforming it. When we put the house on the market I was insistent that the realtor include as a feature in the marketing strategy...my compost bin. I was dead serious. I explained that it was black gold…a precious enhancer, magnifier and expediter of life. I declared that anyone serious about growing anything would covet the compost bin. It was my second baby and it might be THE thing to close the deal on our house. Interestingly, no one else felt the same way about compost. I bet Ms. Browning understands.

So I’d look forward to gandering through House and Garden—devoting a bit more to it than my fifteen minutes of Town and Country time but not quite the same interval given to Shape. But what I most looked forward to was those eyes. The editor’s letter … the preamble…I’d read it but I’d drift back to the eyes after  reading a word or two. Then my marriage was no more. Then her magazine, later, was no more.

Slow Love. A chick book. No problem. I’d read a few before and defended my interest in them and rationale for procurement.

Mrs. Whaley and her Charleston Garden was great fun. The life lessons and business lessons translated from Mrs. Whaley’s garden wisdom annotate my original copy of her little tome. 

Cathedrals of the Flesh was another great chick book. Alexia Brue travelled the world in search of the great saunas, steams and communal baths. Nice.

And finally, The Red Leather Diary by Lily Koppel…… I listened to an interview with the author of the book and the author of the diary and bought it straight away…motivated by the fact that I’d had a friend, an elderly woman in Vermont who had lived the same life, essentially, that this diarist lived.

So why did I take the cover off of Slow Love? I don’t know, but I did. Thin faced on my part. Interestingly, I’m sitting in a Philadelphia hotel as I type this and it was in Philly recently that I admitted to reading said book without the cover. I rarely fail to finish a book started and Slow Love would not be an exception. But I must admit that after reading twenty or so pages I figured that the themes of love lost, letting go, renewal etc. would be the consistent deliverable therein…hardly riveting and certainly no assurance of breakthrough lessons to learn. But that was ok, she has the eyes.

The book turned the corner for me when I learned that she had a sofa in her kitchen. A sofa where her boys spent meaningful bits of their formative years. LFG and I live on our sofa and it wears a gnarly patina as evidence. Further evidence of why I should admire this woman for more than her eyes manifested in her book accumulation conundrum. Bookcases and book shelves everywhere? Even in the laundry room? Yes. My kind of woman—indeed. 

Her admission regarding to what degree letting go of her house impacted her—all of the memories and milestones—the vegetation that wasn’t cut back…for a reason. I call that compost logic…and I get it. I pulled out of the driveway of my marital home seven years ago and I’ve never, ever turned down that street again. 

I’ve never again seen the status of what I planted…the boxwoods that I lined the flagstone walk with…my neighbor called them “Gi-Joe…Barbie Doll” sized plants. I bet they’re Webkinz size by now—boxwoods are slow growers. I’ve speculated about them but I can’t bear witness to their current status. No big deal right? ADG lives hundreds of miles from his old marital home. I live four miles away.

And finally, there’s Stroller. My blue eyed editor’s on again off again friend, paramour, boyfriend. What a fool. A fool indeed.

Onward. ADG