The Female Confessional – by Wendyl Nissen

Here is an extract from the book Bitch & Famous by talented author Wendyl Nissen. Wendyl was a mega-stressed bitch magazine editor now turned green goddess who invents natural cleaning products. Wendyl’s motto: It’s Okay to Be a Nana.

Thank you Wendyl for letting us share this beautiful piece of writing.

Zelda

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The Female Confessional

Leaving town for a while has several advantages. You get to eat really good food, live among cultures and buildings created long before the Auckland Town Hall and say to your enthusiastic uber-tourist husband with endless monotony… nice church, nice art, nice fountain, and in Rome, nice ruins, nice Pope.

The disadvantages are that you return broke, miss your kids so much that the place behind your ribcage physically aches, and you long for your mates.

And none more so than the one you lunch with… your Dear Friend. The one you talk to every day, whine, drink wine, rejoice and cry with. That one woman you trust above all else to be honest, objective and tell you when you’re being a stupid bitch, or if you really have been wronged. The one who will always take your call even if she is in the middle of a disaster at work, and will always keep a bottle of wine in the fridge just for you. You miss her most because when in Europe you see the two of you everywhere. In a dainty Paris restaurant, sipping kir royales, slurping snails with an unusual intimacy and tucking into two pork chops and a carafe of wine, all the while chattering as only two women can do over lunch. Barely pausing for breath the chat goes on and on, at times the Dear Friends lean in close, barely missing the garlicky green snail shells with their breasts as they share the most intimate information and then lean back giggling like two schoolgirls they once were, 50 years ago.
There is nothing more rewarding, uniquely feminine and ultimately as healthy as the relationship developed between two women of a certain age who like to lunch.

Observers will never know just what Dear Friends have discussed but one thing will be certain. The two of them have, do and will share information they will tell no one else. They are essentially each other’s priest and the restaurant the confessional. Both leave less burdened by the travails of life and return to it unburdened by doubt and insecurity…

… In a woman’s lifetime she can have several Dear Friends if she is lucky, but only one at a time. There are no qualifications for the role except an understanding of each other’s life, a level of trust and a huge love for each other which inspires loyalty, respect and humour. And Dear Friends don’t live in each other’s lives. You won’t find them hanging out at each other’s house in the weekends. They are too old for that and weekends are for kids the partner and the house. Lunch is the Dear Friends temple.

Back in New Zealand Dear Friend is waiting. There’s been no chance of a catch-up for months as we’ve both been travelling and texts every day can only say so much. Where to start, and how to finish? One day perhaps we’ll scoff snails in Paris, trundle along the canals of Venice or cry on the banks of the Tiber in Rome. But for now it’ll be a long lunch in Ponsonby, which is just as it should be.

Want more Wendyl?
Follow on twitter @wendylnissen or check out her Green Goddess blog