Week 1, Day 2

Looking for Love in all the Wrong Faces until My Intuition Kicked In

How I listen and follow its well-placed wisdom

The joint was rocking!

Bodies writing and bopping to the Rolling Stones’ Brown Sugar on a crowded, steamy dance floor of a small pub called Larry’s in a small midwest college town.

It was Saturday night. Not a night to waste at home with All in the Family. Or out with girlfriends at a movie. I’d worked hard all week in school, taking classes like Feminist Psychology, Gays in Literature, and Marxism 101.

I’d marched and demonstrated against the war and for the Equal Rights Amendment. It was time to par-ty!

The clock lurched towards 2 am. I scanned the floor for my newest favorite dance partner. Was he in the arms of another babe? At the bar stocking up? Or in the john doing who knows what?

Last Call for Love

Suddenly, the last call song echoed from the rafters with its heavy dirge-like rhythms, reminding us to Slay the Demon Alcohol. A song I loved to hate, and hated to love.

Loved to hate cause it took me out of the fantasy that the guy of my eye might end up with me. Hated to love because it reminded me I had ten minutes and only ten to make it or break it before closure.

Hurrying over to the jukebox, I hoped there weren’t too many loud rocking songs ahead of my dime. Sure enough, Janis’ Turtle Blues came on.

I look around like an eager puppy with those needy, are you my lover? eyes. There he is! Heading my way! This will be my lucky day — or night.

He grabs me, encircling my body with his arms, pulling me into him. Sometimes I’m like a turtle, Babe, hiding underneath its horny shell. His hot breath stings into my ear.

My breasts press against his chest as we rock back and forth. He’s more of a looker than a dancer. I’m a looker too — looking for love in all the wrong faces and places.

One rare night, we get together.

The love-making is more of a crush and rush than a paradigm of tenderness. Sometimes too much booze is consumed to consummate the ‘date.”

He falls asleep instantly. I lay awake wondering if he’s the one. Then back down to wondering if I’ll ever see him again.

Not like this, I won’t.

It took a long time to build up the experience that would turn into intuitive wisdom. I had to touch that hot stove hundreds of times and go, yep, it’s still hot…before I realized my strategy wasn’t working.

And the unprotected risks I took, were not worth the slim crumbs of love tossed my way.

Just when I was starting to figure this out, I fell for a married man. Hard.

I took more risks in the name of love.

I risked my sanity, my integrity, my friendship with his wife, my safety when she found out and went on a rampage, as well as my reputation.

We didn’t stop seeing each other even after she found one of my letters in his pocket. We just did it clandestinely. All the more hot and heavy for being secret — thanks to the way our brain makes neurochemicals to excite us! I was hooked!

We did use protection, thankfully, because I was not his only affair. I was Ms. Tuesday Night, and that was not a beauty contest!

By then I had intuitive voices in my head saying this isn’t right. Look who you’re hurting. But they were young and soft and easy pushovers.

Flash forward fifteen years.

Now I lived in the Bay Area and considered myself happily married to a great guy. We fought the good fight together, rarely having a fight with each other.

It wasn’t because we didn’t have issues. We didn’t have the emotional language to talk about what was wrong. Instead, we let the wounds fester.

Until he went away for a month and I took my sad, lonely self to the bright lights and big city. By then Salsa music was my thing. And dancing with much younger hot-looking Latino men ‘cured’ my lonely heart.

But this time they were looking for love in all the wrong faces. Or maybe playing the Gringa card. This time the steel-toed clodhoppers were on my feet. Metaphorically at least.

This time I got to be the green-lighter, the picker-upper, the dropper. Power proved a heady drug. Coupled with clandestine adrenaline.

Needless to say, this did not help husband and I talk about our issues. It drove a wedge farther and farther between us.

This time I took even bigger risks for ‘love.’

Not just my sanity, my morality, and my integrity. Sad to say these flings were unprotected even when I knew better.

It took having a total personality makeover in a twelve-step program — Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous — to come to my senses. That’s when my sanity began. That’s when my years of experimental experiences began to translate into mature intuition.

That’s when I stopped relying on impulse and started relying on a Higher Power. That’s when I could finally trust my gut instead of my achy-breaky heart. Twenty years in the making.

My intuition grew along with my budding spirituality.

The more I explored and surrendered, the more Help I got — gut feelings that proved helpful when followed, leaving the taste of I told you so in my mouth when not.

Program wisdom told me to be abstinent for at least a year.

I blossomed in that time, saying yes to new jobs and long-repressed creative passions. Like a butterfly emerging from the chrysalis after many years as a selfish fat caterpillar mange-manging her way through life,

I was a new woman.

With new values, new loves, and far too busy and involved in life to date.

Until we rolled into the new millennium. I thought I was ready. For the most part, I was. Stress on most.

I met Gary (not his real name) on Match.com, quite taken with the photo of him and his two girls, ages 8 and 11 at the beach. I was ready for some daddy energy in my life, and excited to see what being a ‘family’ felt like.

It was lovely. Cause I did it right. I followed my intuition.

We talked about everything, especially how we were doing with our nascent relationship. We built intimacy and trust layer by layer without skipping stages.

We didn’t have sex on the first date or even the first ten. We took our time, especially because of the kids. I didn’t even get to meet them till it was clear we were committed to each other. I respect the heck out of him for that.

There was a time early on in our relationship when some friends who’d just met him tried to tell me I’d made a bad choice. They pinned that on one misunderstanding and the fact that his brother was mentally ill.

I didn’t even have to go off and meditate.

My intuition was johnny-on-the-spot. That’s their issue with him, not yours, it said loud and clear. As a result of their finickiness and my clarity, we got the whole mountain cabin to ourselves while the friends crowded on top of each other in another house.

Experience + Spirituality = Intuition

What I’ve learned about intuition is, it grows out of experience. But it takes a willingness to surrender to Higher wisdom to fully blossom. To develop into a clear strong voice that insists on being heard and followed.

Hearing it is only half the process. I have to follow it.

Doing so confirms its wisdom and strengthens its voice. As my trust in it deepens, it surfaces sooner and louder the next time. And the next, etc.

Once it does, it’s the greatest GPS one could ever enjoy.

P.S. Gary and I are no longer together because I listened to my intuition. He wanted another child and I was not on that page.

It felt right to let him have that dream with someone who shared it, rather than continue to be on two different pages. Rough at the time, but we’re both happier for being cognizant of this, and following our guts.

Thanks to Diana C. and Riku Arikiri for a deep-diving prompt!

Marilyn Flower writes political humor and satire to delight socially and spiritually conscious folks. She’s a regular columnist for the prison newsletter, Freedom Anywhere, where she writes about faith and prayer. Five of her short plays have been produced in San Francisco. Clowning and improvisation strengthen her resolve during these crazy times. Stay in touch!