So, I am sitting down to dinner at the "Communal Table" at a restaurant in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Everyone is really chatty - it's a lot of fun! And we start going around the table telling each other what we do. I explain that I am on a book tour - and that creates a lot of interest. Even more interest when I tell my new found friends that my book is called Shameless: How I Ditched The Diet, Got Naked, Found True Pleasure and Somehow Got Home in Time to Cook Dinner!
"Wait a second, said the women with red hair in her sixties sitting right next to me. My mother told me about this book! She just heard about it on the Dr. Laura Berman Radio show! She called me and told me that I needed to get this book!
The interest in my book suddenly rose to a higher level around the table
Everyone wanted to know what the book is about. I explained that Shameless is the story of my mid life sexual awakening within the bounds of my marriage. The red headed woman moved her chair closer to me, and suddenly it seemed that we were in a very intimate conversation as the other members around the table fell into different areas of discussion.
I explained how I had wrestled with inchoate sexual frustration and that led me to working with paid hands-on practitioners after 26 mongamous years. That I had stumbled onto this world of sacred sexuality and trained hand-on practitioners who helped educate me about my own sexuality in a safe and boundaried way. I shared how they had helped me learn to speak and uncover my own desire as well as finally being able to reach for it for myself. I had her laughing with my story - as my book often makes people laugh and cry. The red headed woman sitting next to me, reached for my hand - it was a very intimate gesture.
"Are you telling me that there is hope for me?" She said.
"What do you mean, honey? " I asked.
"Well - I haven't had anyone touch me in a sexual way for maybe 20 years. I miss it so much. I would never cheat on my husband - I love him. But I need something more, and I feel like there is something missing inside me. Just like you were, I don't even know how to get started again! Or how! If I could somehow fill this gap in my life, I believe that everything would get better. Even my work!Sometimes, I feel as though even my clients know that something huge is missing in my life and it puts me at a disadvantage. I am simply not whole. I don't want to leave my husband - but I feel like if I don't fix this that I am becoming like a grape dying on the vine."
I looked into this woman's eyes and she was crying. Right there in the middle of this communal dinner table.
"Are you alright?" I asked her - suddenly worried at what I had unleased in her.
"Oh yes - these are tears of joy. I feel like I was meant to meet you! My mother mentioning your book last night - and here we are together right now. I can't get over that there are hands-on sexual practitioners that will work with me. I knew that this must exist - but I didn't know how to find it. Or if it was really available or not. I'm feeling half cured already - just knowing that there is a possibility for me to get help."
"Not just help darling, but there is also pleasure - and I beleive that pleasure is life transformational. I lost 7 dress sizes once I allowed pleasure truly back into my life. I love that you are willing to take a chance to wake up your own sleeping beauty." I whispered to her.
"Pleasure?" She said. "We are taught that we aren't really allowed that right? That sexuality is only for making babies. Nothing else. But I don't believe that. I think that it is bigger than that." The red headed lady commented almost to herself.
This woman who I had never met - asked me to hug her. I took her in my arms and held her. Then she wanted to take pictures of me with her iphone. It was a funny, sweet and awkward moment. She wanted to remember me - this woman that was bringing her the good news that she would not have to cheat on her husband to understand her own sexuality. That there was a possibility for her to figure it out and then perhaps even bring the learning back to her marriage. That it was possible to do this within the boundaries of her marriage in a session with a practitioner - whose only role was to help educate and support her in her journey.
As I paid my bill - she turned to me one more time - "Thank you. I think that this dinner may have changed my life."
When anyone asks me why I how I had the courage to write Shameless - from now I am going to share the story of dinner in Santa Fe with the lady that had hope in her eyes.
