Grace
Settling into gentle presence and quiet wisdom
What does it mean to [be able to] be a woman alone?
Some of our earliest training as women is rooted in desire — not the pursuit of our own desire but the state of being desired. Aloneness flies in the face of that.
Of course, I’m not alone — I’m married — but that doesn’t mean I don’t spend a lot of time by myself. The increased frequency, since both of my children are rarely home and my husband has resumed his sales travels, has forced me to take a closer look at how I inhabit that time.
Because I married young, I moved from my family home directly in with my husband, thus skipping those bumpy years of roommates and solo living. The first foray I had into living alone was during my senior year in London, and I detested it. I was frantic and desperate and dramatically abandoned — everything is dramatic at that age — and took every opportunity to fill my alone time with any friend I could snag. In the absence of a friend for company, I’d endure hours-long train rides to where my husband was working on remote country farms; the inconvenience of those rides was far preferable to being on my own.
Recently, as fate would have it, I found myself dining solo in a nice(ish) restaurant on Saturday night in the theater district in NYC. I’m no stranger to dining solo, and it doesn’t hold the same level of conspicuousness as it used to, but it is rarely by choice. I had taken myself to the movies in Times Square, a massive theater that was nearly empty; the guy just a few rows in front of me took advantage of the time to nap, and his contented snores inserted themselves haphazardly into the audio of the film. Instead of being irked by it, I chuckled to myself and took the opportunity to prop my feet up on the chair in front of me and surrender entirely to the vivacity of The Taste of Things. I adore Juliette Binoche — she’s one of the few celebrities I follow on socials — and I own Chocolate, which was the movie that introduced her to me. After being immersed for two hours in the seduction of lush gardens, simmering consumes, and succulently roasted meats, all I wanted was a tasty meal and a nice glass of wine (and a kiss, but that would have to wait). I hadn’t planned on eating after; I was just going to grab a snack on the way back to the hotel.
My walk to my room took me along Forty-sixth Street, also known as Restaurant Row. Seeing as how I’d worked up a ravenous appetite, I ducked into the first decent-looking Italian restaurant I encountered. It was just past eight, and I was surprised to see so many unoccupied tables. Aside from a few people seated at the bar and one round table with three twenty-somethings Instagramming every single little thing, the white tableclothed, soft candle-lit, gentle piano music(ed) room was all but abandoned.
Lucky, I thought, and silently cheered my good fortune. I had assumed it would be difficult to find a quick dinner in such a heavily visited area of the city.
Despite the countless open tables, the maître d’ led me perkily to the very back corner by the kitchen. I didn’t really care what was going through her mind, but I did wonder — a woman sitting down to dinner alone on a Saturday night could pique all sorts of assumptions, and I momentarily wished I could read thoughts, just for the fun of it. I knew exactly what I wanted — didn’t follow the script (peruse the menu, order all the courses); the waiter seemed surprised, a bit caught on his heels as I ordered a glass of wine and a bowl of pasta all ‘amatriciana. I smiled at his perplexion through bold red lips because, as the days and months and years pass, I care less and less for scripts and more for the smile, for the surprise, the raised eyebrow — the pleasure of observation — for pleasure, in general.
And that was just one of many experiences of late that have purposefully led me to the idea of grace. The gentle illuminations of grace have been filtering into my consciousness for some time — lingering, nagging, whispering: This is where you want to be now; I am what’s next. In past essays, I’ve explored compassion, empathy, and kindness, and now I have the urge to settle into a new prism, one of grace.
Grace, as defined by Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, includes more than ten definitions, but the ones that resonated are these: the quality or state of being considerate or thoughtful; disposition to or an act or instance of kindness, courtesy, or clemency; ease and suppleness of movement or bearing. The latter bearing the former, [as in] ease of bearing [the qualities of] consideration, thoughtfulness, courtesy, and kindness.
It’s so easy to be prickly. Grace is the opposite of that. Grace is the big picture. Grace grants the patience and ease of being to read between the lines of armor and see beyond abrasiveness to the tender underbelly of humanity.
It’s March, my birth month. The planets align again in the place where I came to be. As a woman over forty, tradition would dictate that I mourn the passing years (one of my grandmothers used to always state her age as twenty-nine and holding — it is no secret that we are taught to dread the march of time), stand in front of the mirror and count the grey hairs, bemoan the softening of my cheekbones and the rounding of my edges, trace the lines — the lines that are everywhere, and allow myself to fold into that place where women fade to invisibility.
But that won’t due.
Because I’m unfolding, I am filling up, pouring into all of those spaces of me that have gone unpainted. I am picking up my brush, stepping into the glow of my brilliance. I’m unwrapping the swaddle of my youth, the protection of my fear — that young form — so delicate, so fragile. Youth is the eager snowdrop of spring that dies back quickly. These days I feel more akin to those shrubs that grow along punishing coastlines, stunted and misshapen, but damned if they don’t hold their ground.
Or the grasses along the beach that literally hold the ground in place.
These days, I surrender to the giddy anticipation of my journey into the wisdom of the crone, the manifestation of complexity and simplicity all at once — I surrender to grace.
And grace fills the space of alone with possibility, purpose, and poise.
