Richard from Texas was married once, too. He had two sons, both of whom are grown men now, both close to their dad. Sometimes Richard mentions his ex-wife in some anecdote or other, and he always seems to speak of her with fondness. I get a bit envious whenever I hear this, imagining how lucky Richard is to still be friends with his former spouse, even after separating. This is an odd side effect of my terrible divorce; whenever I hear of couples split-ting amicably, I get jealous. It's worse than that—I've actually come to think that it's really ro-mantic when a marriage ends civilly. Like, "Aw . . . how sweet . . . they must've really loved each other . . ."

So I asked Richard one day about it. I said, "It seems like you have fond feelings toward your ex-wife. Are you two still close?"

"Nah," he said casually. "She thinks I changed my name to Motherfucker."

Richard's lack of concern about this impressed me. My own ex-spouse happens to think I changed my name too, and it breaks my heart. One of the hardest things about this divorce was the fact that my ex-husband never forgave me for leaving, that it didn't matter how many bushels of apologies or explanations I laid at his feet, how much blame I assumed, or how many assets or acts of contrition I was willing to offer him in exchange for departing—he cer-tainly was never going to congratulate me and say, "Hey, I was so impressed with your gener-osity and honesty and I just want to tell you it's been a great pleasure being divorced by you." No. I was unredeemable. And this unredeemed dark hole was still inside me. Even in mo-ments of happiness and excitement (especially in moments of happiness and excitement) I could never forget it for long. I am still hated by him. And that felt like it would never change, never release.

I was talking about all this one day with my friends at the Ashram—the newest member of whom is a plumber from New Zealand, a guy I'd met because he'd heard I was a writer and he sought me out to tell me that he was one, too. He's a poet who had recently published a terrific memoir in New Zealand called A Plumber's Progress about his own spiritual journey. The plumber/poet from New Zealand, Richard from Texas, the Irish dairy farmer, Tulsi the In-dian teenage tomboy and Vivian, an older woman with wispy white hair and incandescently humorous eyes (who used to be a nun in South Africa)—this was my circle of close friends here, a most vibrant crowd of characters whom I never would have expected to meet at an Ashram in India.