Your Happy Place

I had a meeting again tonight with another group of divorcees. All of them to a woman was desperate to have her story told-I looked around at

this group of well-dressed, educated and articulate women and thought how they must be as mothers, lawyers, accountants, writers.

They must be or MUST HAVE BEEN formidable. These were women who could run countries, feed armies and raise villages but one man

had unraveled each of them so that they would appear to someone unfamiliar with the devastation of divorce like crazy people, spilling their

stories in torrents of words and emotions. Some were still in that state of adrenaline-fueled fear that is sometimes about losing all their possessions

but more often about losing their children. As the time passed and each one relinquished the floor and their over-lapping comparisons

of ex’s and lawyers and judges stopped, I told them all to get ready because all of this torture would end-it always does and that they must

think each individually about “their happy place’. Where and when had they been happiest and it was OK to keep it to themselves or share it

and they need not feel guilty if it was college or pre-children or as mundane as a shopping trip to Loehmans or a day at the beach.

We all have one-one happy place, where we can retreat when everything seems made of putty, falling-down and spoiled. That we will never

have our sea legs again. That we are unmoored. My happiest "places" my and memories were usually of my childhood, my  father, my

mother and my brothers. Hot Alabama summers with my brothers at the Cahaba River and cousins in tire swings swarming into the

Cahaba River's warm but no doubt polluted waters. We need to grab those memories to move off of the desperation and the fear and KNOW that we can get back to that "happy place" and then some!

But we need to remember a "Happy Place" that is strictly adult-a place to aim for-a pace to be recovered. A place that with hard work and patience

and fortitude we can GET BACK. For me that place will always be with my former backer, Fred Distenfeld, who worked with

me at KLEINBERG SHERRILL and made my life so wonderful that every day was magic! Fred came around when we were absolutely down to our

last nickel and our last alligator skin when my daughter was young, a toddler. Driven off by my ex-husband who begrudged him his money and

his weekly thirty minute meetings we had come to a nasty end when my ex refused the logical decision to close our Atlanta store and factory

and move it all kit and caboodle and employees to Fred’s Long Island factory, With difficult economic times and rising rent in Atlanta for a

factory that was atop our store in coveted RETAIL space it was the only prudent decision and I AGREED but my ex knew better and sent us

headfirst into a nasty lawsuit and into years of financial distress. But my Happy Place was with Fred. At his office. At his Mother’s house

happily going through her collection of vintage bags, preserved like Vatican relics in their pristine decades old-boxes and dust-bags. Her pride

in her son and her husband (both parents wereHolocaust survivors) served up with coffee and cookies. During the darkest days of my divorce I would

go back in my mind to Fred. Always Fred. One day I can remember vividly- I am in our retail store on 65^th Street with Fred and my daughter, Anabelle,

comes in all ringleted hair and I grab her up and go to shop at a sale at Jacadi.

I for the first in a long time sure that the credit card would work and Anabelle in her patent leather Mary Jane’s and smocked party dress dolled

up to beat the band. Or Fred and I on a plane bound for Italy and a trade show talking about G-d and the meaning of existence or checking in at the

hotel and finding perfect calming rooms after the jet lag or window shopping on the weekend in Milan and me surreptitiously sketching all

of the competitions latest samples and it being a Saturday and Fred’s Sabbath me signing the checks at lunch and dinner and Fred looking

everywhere for a gift for his wife, his children. Fred always there and solid and good and protective… letting me almost exhaust myself into a

faint as I drew new bags and plotted new PR tactics. Smiling, understanding and kind. A brother. A river. A happy place.

This weekend I was a bit lax in my blogging because I was getting cauliflower ear speaking with a number of folks who contacted me off the site. From Des Moines to Manhattan, Mothers and sons, I hope I helped but I am more than ever convinced that this is a plague largely whipped into a a frenzy by the matrimonial courts or family courts (if ever an expression was less apropos). I know from my divorce that Falujah is less combustible than the courtroom and the militia more friendly. I have met many divorcees who were dealt cruel blows from my JUDGE- ( please wait just a minute while I throw another artfully thrown dart at her withering visage on my dartboard). Yes, she has a bit of a scorched-earth policy here in New York-seems to be quite  fan of the handsome and abjectly sad and forlorn looking husband and turns a blind eye and deaf ear on all entreaties vis a vis money. She has sent each and every stay-at-home mom back to work. (Women who supported their husbands through school and early careers and have been out of the workforce for decades-her favorite rejoinder-GET A JOB. "

  Has cruelly ignored  all EVIDENCE of non-payment of Child Support or Interim Maintenance. When my lawyer said that my EX had refused to pay a Doctors bill while clenching the bill in his sweaty hands (oh,  yes even the lawyers are frightened-a courthouse sport enjoyed by some ) she screeched in her special crone-ish, harpy-ish style "he is a perfect Father." Evidently not when it came to that swimmers ear emergency room visit. And when my lawyer carefully explained that YES my client did give her husband the bill-in fact she has been filling out HOME expense reports for decades she barely looked up before retorting...as if THIS had anything to do with the issue at hand "she has money." She was the one who said that my salary of TAKE HOME $261.00 a week was not enough and gave me a RAISE of $250. I was livin' large! But she has done far worse to other divorcees and trust me is not partial to the fairer sex-in fact its as if she wants to get even with all the girls who might have been the popular girls in her High School, the cheerleaders, the ones with handsome husbands with their eyes cast down and their lawyers paid up. But I KNOW FAR FAR WORSE-Judges who have taken bribes, who have engaged in cronyism, who have sent children back to abusive spouses. A Mother called me who had claimed that her husband was a sexual abuser-a pedophile and weary from Divorcees at that moment I chalked her up as a crazy until 4 months later when her 6 year old daughter had presented at the Emergency Room with an STD-I could have bashed my own head in...that I had not believed...that I had doubted...but Judges who don't listen are destroying our families. If only we could take the Judges to Court. Stay tuned for more Judges Gone Wild stories. As for my Judge she got what she deserved-her own miserable self and not a pair of pom poms in sight!

I love my God Children. I am the proud God-mother to two daughters and two sons and they are my LIFE!!! They have each in their way supported me through many a dark nite. Milyn Satterfield, my eldest, lived with me in New York immediately after my divorce so she came in for some of the bleakest, anxiety-laden, angst-ridden moments and she gave me a Christmas present that I still treasure and I read it again today. It is a Bound Book with my name as the engraved gilt title-and here are her entries (I have given up smoking thanks to Nicorette but those early days had me off the nicotine wagon but I DIGRESS). This present saw me through a Christmas when i scrounged up change to get Anabelle  a gift and got a free tree from a kind florist and decorated it with candy from the CVS. I was at the nadir of my despair and it was my first climb out of the abyss of my own fear.

Page 1- Marcia Sherrill The Handbook 

Page 2- She is listed in the Yellow Pages under "Psychology and Intervention Specialist." 

Page 3- No, she is not sick, She is just self-medicating with Thera-Flu (It's the perfect KLONOPIN chaser). 

Page 4- When she is having a meltdown, no need to worry, one hug and she's cured.

 Page 5-Don't panic if she bolts away from you when you are walking down the street, in heels of course, and in between taxis and emits a shrill cry of "I HAVE ONE". This is Marcia's simplistic homage to the French bulldog.

Page 6- You can tell the aproximate time of her departure from the apartment by how many of her footprints have DRIED. A Marcia Trademark.

Page 7- Yes, she is eating Rembrandt Toothpaste and a tube is nestled in her bra.

Page 8- There's a magnet under her skin which pulls all of the Janovic  Plaza painters in.

Page 9-Her friends are either crazy, drunk or stoned as coots (or my favorite ALL OF THE ABOVE)-EDITORS COMMENT-They aren't all crazy-there is Deenie and there were a couple of fellow divorcees with a predilection for Xanax

Page 10-Black is her signature color (it goes with her Top Hats and Hasidum Hats).

Page 11- She tis at McDonalds.......she always claimed she did and I have witnessed her in action-she says it makes them feel like they are in the service industries and she is right 

Page 12- If all taxis are off duty she will stick out a leg and both arms and this is the official Ghetto Cab flag-down.

Page 13-Her ideal moment of happiness is being with the Belle and me and takes place on the subway when a mariachi bands is bustin' out on the platform.

Page 14-Her stalkers (she has many) consist of 95% of all phone calls. The rest is business & possible a call or two from the OLDEST 9 year old you'll ever know.

Page 15- Anabelle let your Mother put on her make-up in Peace...in the subway, at the dinner table, in the taxi, at the D & D Building, at your school, at the doctors, at Tepper Galleries, at the park, at the orthodontist, on the toilet, on the phone, at the concert.....

Page 16- Dennis Leary and Tommy Lee . Say no more MMMMMMM....

Page 17- She works like a bit*h. More like a hustler really. 

Page 18-Open to all religions...Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Kabbalah, The Ministry of Cars.

Page 19- I assure you it is nothing you said...Marcia always thinks she has cancer...

Page 20- And she is always quitting smoking....

Page 21- Yet somehow is cancer-less and still smoking... 

Page 22- Pellegrino with LEMON thanks!

Page 23- Patience of a Saint. Schedule of a Vampire. 

Page 24- Hard to believe she is not a high-dollar hooker. Hard to believe I know, but she is a prude. I SWEAR! 

Page 25- Smokes Old Lady Cigarettes. So does Dennis Leary. is it fate with the Marlboro 100's man???

Page 26- The best MOM ever!

Page 27-And best God Mother-( Well, thats a GIVEN) 

Page 28- Why go all the way to the Library when Marcia's room is next door?

Page 29- She claims she is always early but I've noticed she always 30 minutes to an hour early-she thinks being late is dissing

Page 30- Shes's certainly got a thing for the geezers.

Page 31- She WILL get IT photographed-Whatever IT may be.

Page 32- She never eats and says she is a Chia Pet and lives on air.

Page 33- She always sleeps with earplugs and then the dog, Noel, sh*ts them out.

Page 34- Christmas stockings are always hung by the chimney with care-in AUGUST.

Page 35- Codename? Swifferella

Page 36- The worlds oldest backup singer. 

Page 37- Welcome, you've got mail-17,536 new messages and she checks it everyday!. 

Page 38- No, she just didn't do a line-she is just like that.

Page 39- Yep, she's read it!

Page 40- Wash clothes with cascade in event of no detergent (then light your hair on fire with the stove....Marcia Trademark). 

Down south we call it a HURRY UP OFFENSE (at least we who cried at the Sugar Bowl do) and thats what The Birmingham News sis for us at Victory Over Divorce today when they granted us a beautiful, informative and DEAD-ON feature about our launch this week. Jimsey at Magic City Moments had announced that we were coming but Kathy Seale (Writer/Editor extraordinaire) kick us into  end zone with this fantastic bit of journalism. WOW. The team in New York kit their keyboards and were amply rewarded for all the late night, oil-burning as we tweaked the site over the last several days and nights. This was an amazing day as I fielded dozens of emails and phone calls from my 45 first cousins and long-lost school friends from John Carroll and even Our Lady of Sorrows-thats 300 years ago. 

My favorite personal chef in Alabama is thinking of becoming our first mentor, who knew that you could take your culinary interests and parlay them WITHOUT going to school into a career cooking for folks. And my hairdresser from MOP had an idea about divorcees interning intstead of attending costly Cosmetology School-so we are getting invaluable info and ideas. Keep'em coming and God Bless Alabama! And The Birmingham News-it feels great to be  a Home Town Honey as my Aunt Gloria always likes to say!

Dealing with divorce
Posted by Kathy Seale / The Birmingham News January 08, 2009 7:27 AM

Marcia Sherrill could've used a Web site like hers, she says, when she was going through a divorce almost three years ago.

So she spent the past couple of years creating Victory Over Divorce, she says, to help others avoid some of the legal, emotional and financial tolls of divorce that she experienced.

"It does not have to happen to you," says the "49 and proud of it" mother of one, who splits her time between Birmingham and New York. "We offer you the resources: `Don't waste your money on that. Try this.'"

The new site includes informational videos from a panel of divorce-related experts, including attorneys, therapists, a social worker and a private investigator. She plans to add more experts to the panel, too, although some have been harder to come by than others.

"I can't seem to get a priest, a rabbi and a minister," she says.

Sherrill's site also offers a DivorCycle spot - a free swap meet, of sorts, for divorcees. There is info for exploring new careers, too, and links to state resources, such as divorce laws, domestic abuse and child support assistance.

Divorcees can post their divorce documents on the site, or upload videos about their divorce experiences. They can read inspirational blogs as well, and connect (or vent) to like-minded souls in a chat room or forum.

"Yeah, you can rant and rave about your ex," she says. "It's cathartic."

It's not, though, the point of the site.

"This isn't just about, `Oh, poor, pitiful me,'" she says. "It's about `Pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start all over again.'"

The site isn't geared specifically to women, either, she says. Her brother (Billy Sherrill, the site's chief operating officer) offers "a nice men's perspective.

"Women and men are blind-sided," she says. "They wake up one day and their world is in chaos."

After Sherrill's divorce, she was left with a relatively meager $27,000 and "no health insurance," she says, after a career as a high-end handbag designer and co-owner of an international fashion accessory design business with her ex for 24 years. "I had to scramble."

Nowadays, she's a design partner at Roland Antiques in New York, and a consultant with www.1stdibs.com (a site for antiques and mid-20th century furnishings).

Her interior designs have appeared in magazines such as New York Magazine, Elle Decor and House Beautiful, and she's appeared on TV programs such as "The Today Show" and "Trade Secrets."

She's also written columns and a couple of books, including "Portraits of Hope," which profiled breast cancer survivors such as Betty Ford, Linda Ellerbee and Jill Eikenberry.

Initially, she planned to write a book about divorce, too, with stories of men and women "who had been there, done that, so future divorcees could learn from their mistakes." She deep-sixed those plans, though, when she realized the potential of cyberspace.

"I thought, `I can make this so much bigger and more powerful and more helpful if I can do it as a Web site,'" she says.

Her plans, which include podcasts and streaming video, are ambitious. "I want this to be one-stop shopping for divorcees."

Even though getting there, she says, has taken more time, money and energy than she ever imagined.

"It's been frustrating, but it's been fun," she says.

OK, with the craziness of our early Post-divorce year, Anabelle and I had managed to lose not one but BOTH of our dogs. With my weekly travel and the chaos of the Company Apartment in New York, our old Frenchie Peach Blossom had been exiled to Jojo’s house in Alabama and our puppy, Noel, had been scooped up by my friend Gregg and taken for a “visit” to New Orleans where he promised to Breed and Return. Sort of a Catch and Release program. Only as his unamused and long-suffering wife later informed me the year and a half old pup turned up at her Garden District home in  full heat  (her first) and enjoyed the non-stop attention of her fleet of Water Spaniels. Mardi Gras was underway and what with one thing and another we feared for the worst - Span-hauhaus. I was horrified. The vet assured us that Noel was not expecting but so much time had passed that she had bonded with the extended clan so that when I went down for work-she was hurriedly ferried to Maine by her doting new “Father”. So, as things began to settle down in New York with the store there and work going well, Anabelle and I started shopping for a Frenchie. My ex was never keen on my bulldog obsession as Frenchies can cost 2-5 thousand so we had managed to get Peach Blossom and her predecessors from various rescue outfits. Blossom actually coming to us from a breeder where she had been a breeding bitch for 3 years in a crate after her win at Westminster for Best of Breed-her name was Madonna. 10 years later and thanks to Jojo’s careful all-meat and Worchesthire Sauce diet, Peach Blossom was a full 12 pounds heavier and now deaf and mostly blind and not travel-raedy by any stretch of the imagination. But we wanted and NEEDED a French Bulldog. So we hit the internet and found as if by Miracle- a rescue Frenchie only an hour and a half from Birmingham. This is actually critical because as far as I know you have to travel to get a French Bulldog rescue-the rescue crew adamant about no air cargo. So, off to rendezvous with my older brother, Jerry, and his family in Atlanta we deterred to the Alabama countryside to what was in fact a Boxer rescue-er with over a dozen boxers in residence and a lone Frenchie, Missy. As Billy and I unsuspectingly made our way downstairs we opened the doogie gate only to be meet with a shark-like frenzy as 2 tons of boxers met us literally head on-I was knocked to the concrete and emerged bruised and ecstatic-sort of like swimming with dolphins but with way more slobber. Billy was smitten by a 9 month old male boxer and I held fast to Missy. We stopped back by on our return from Atlanta and decided Billy should join us and rescue “Charlie.”

A great deal of worry and cleaning ensued as we prepared for the HOME VISIT in Alabama from the boxer folks. How could we possible clean a house of 4,000 square feet crammed to the rafters with Jojo’s “treasures.” There were 1000’s of beaded dresses she had  “collected”, 100’s of needle-pointed pillow covers, 10,000 books, a metric ton of fabric for her sewing projects and every toy-book-scrap of paper of our collective childhoods to be dealt with. The two-car garage had not housed a car in over 25 years as it was the repository of craft projects and dead plants and several refrigerators and freezers full of way-past-their-expiration foodstuffs. With Momma and Billy double-handedly keeping Marlboro in business, smoke hung in the air like a dense miasma. We cleaned with untold fury. We “hoovered” the living and dining rooms which had been untouched for decades and offered our best hope for a decent impression. The Boxer Rescue Birmingham point person showed up and was delighted-they loved a “lived-in” home and second hand smoke’s unsalutory affects were but a bit of bogus science-bBilly passed with flying colors. We would get “Charlie” after the New York French Bulldog folks had made their home visit. Our New York apartment was tiny but immaculate and crammed with antiques and as et-friendly as could be-stools abounded-our dogs slept with us-we knew it was cramped but it was on the doggie paradise of the Upper Eastside a mere block from Central Park. They visited when our cousins were there-it was all just a formality. Then we waited and waited and the call came-Billy had passed but we hadn’t. Seems they did not like the old building or the antiques and they claimed there was no elevator-there is one-it rarely works-but how could they know? Anabelle and I dusted ourselves off from this crushing disappointment and vowed to pay retail.

I faced what many divorcees have-an exodus of all those ex-family members that I had spent my entire live loving and tending. It happened suddenly. One night the New York Police came to our house for a DOMESTIC INCIDENT (no-he did NOT hit me but there was a whole lot of screaming and threatening goin’ on-Anabelle and I had spent some hours laying down in a cold bank vestibule because we did NOT have any money to get home from Hebrew School). Well, my best friend, Carey, happened to call and got involved in the melee and soon enough we were on conference call with my mother, Jojo, and his momma, Mimi. When my Mother implored his to intervene with her son who may have had a few cocktails with his sister while we cooled our tushes on the bank linoleum, Mimi did not want to get involved and years later I guess I understand but I am harshly critical of my own child and do not have my childs-perfect-it is, I think Mimi may suffer from a bit of that Particular malaise. No kidding when she knew so little about him-he masked everything so well-twenty plus years of hard core cigarette smoking and he would still drive home stopping at the last exit to gargle with mouthwash douse himself in cologne and pop in a piece of gum. Smelling like a Dakor salesman at Saks  he wafted in in a cloud of aroma-none of it smacking of nicotine. No, I was the resident smoker and the one of the lives of the party-the others being the sisters and nieces. Not a one of us wasn’t gregarious and extroverted-we were a squadron of cheerleaders looking for a team and we found it -The Home Team-OUR TEAM. I pulled as hard for us as anyone! I adored Mimi and still do-Te reason this topic comes u now-is that we have just celebrated my daughters Bat Mitzvah in November and it was the first time most (99%) of us had seen or spoken to one another-AWKWARD? No not for me. But I did think then as I was surrounded n the dance floor with some of my favorite folks-all of whom proclaimed their love for me-their missing me and all of our time together. And I’m talking some Hard Time- 25 years of nieces and nephews and cousins and cousins of cousins of cousins who lived with us in Atlanta or New York or stayed with us or needed help with a resume or a job or a boyfriend. Weeks every years spent together for every holiday, high holy day and even the most far-flung wedding or bat mitzvah. My own family of two brothers and 45 first cousins we barely saw-They just didn’t merit the money for extra visits and vacations. There was 2 days at Christmas and a couple of hours at Thanksgiving –OK  a couple of days  but every visit was brevity itself with my ex scowling and unhappy-but at least blissfully smoking as the whole family clambered for the ciggies-even the Doctors in the family. So, I was glad to see them all again and though my nieces Julie and Brook had stayed in touch. It was 2 down from about 50 and it hurt. I know of other divorcees where the lost spouse is still a part of family life-even if the bitter spouse-the one with blood ties has to be restrained in a  concrete cell but that didn’t happen to me and it didn’t happen to a lot of others. We mourned the lost of that missing family-aching like a phantom limb and thought of that vast time as wasted. And too often we are the ones who were wronged-lost our homes, our jobs or in my case MY BUSINESS and MY MONEY and MY HOME. But still tey stood on idly watching or at least knowing that I and my child lived barely above the poverty line-yes, a year before I had a full page story in town and country and the year before 5 pages in Southern Accents and now I went to the store with my ten year old who looked up in innocence and asked, Mommy , can we afford the good cheese?” And most times we could not because the market for a designer of alligator bags that fetch $10,000 is limited to about 5 companies-ALL conveniently located in Europe-so I did not have a skill set that would keep me employed and scrambled for work and opened an antiques store in Birmingham with my brother (another casualty of my ex-having “lost” shares “promised” to him with a hale and hearty “Don’t worry I am taking care of you.” So, brother Billy who had once lost a fiancée when our company couldn’t pay his salary and he had to move into our house in Atlanta and was also thrust dead center in the whole extended family clan and loved them too….what was not to love? They were fun and in the case of my sister-in-laws and my Mother-in-law damn near perfect! Angels!

So, at the Bat Mitzvah with my daughter telling me I was the best Jewish Mother alive (and I am Catholic) and all of my missing family holding my hands as we danced the horah- I was happy. I was home-only for those few hours but HOME.