I had thought for a time that I might take my 18 month old grandson to the new "Where The Wild Things Are" movie, but now I guess not. This morning (after a full day yesterday of payment and time entry bringing me inches from finishing and creating/printing the bills) I woke this morning realizing it was Sunday, and I had yet another full day to finish that task - then I watched tv till I realized it was 10:25, and went onto my Blackberry for the hell of it to see what time the earliest show started and it was at 10:45, so I threw my toothbrush and toothpaste into my purse, washed my face and put on a bit of eye makeup (just in case the man of my dreams appeared in the next seat), put on my new MDB shoes with the rocking sole that is supposed to reduce my butt and gut and force me to stand up straight, and put on my stretch jeans with the unwashable blue inkspot (now, at this 145 pound stage, actually almost too tight) and the new black sweater coat that was $35 at Old Navy, wrapped my wool Kenzo scarf (the one in shades of turquoise and pink) around my neck, and hailed a taxi.
Sitting in the theater with a small unbuttered popcorn and a bottle of water, I noticed a young man with a little girl of about 5 and her younger brother, perhaps 3.
The studio announcement with the logo had a crayonj outline of a wild thing's head over it, and the credits had crayon words and scribblings on them. A good sign, indicating that the movie was perhaps really aimed at children.
And the creatures on the island looked large and fuzzy and just like the Sendak drawings. And so did Max in his white wolf suit.
But, the movie, though not really frightening (except for a couple of moments - such as when the wild things at first threatened to eat Max, something true to the book but much more vivid with actors and closeups), there was a bit too much violence (though generally playful - such as when one of the large creatures jumped on top of Max, followed by all of the others, one at a time, until there they were, with Max at the bottom of the pile, having created a gigantic furry Max-plus-creatures pile for sleeping; or when they took Max's lead and waged a "war" by throwing hard dirt balls at each others' heads)...................as I said, though it was not really frightening, nevertheless it was lengthy and primarily about complex interpersonal relationships.
I of course appreciated the concept of how loneliness, and self involvement (and immaturity, of course, since even the giant creatures had the personalities of children) can sabotage close familial relationships by resulting in violent acting out-angry outbursts rather than caring and concern. And I do think that perhaps a child of 8 or 10 might get it. Nevertheless, it is not a movie for small children.
And what about my two little neighbors down the row? They sat thrugh much of it (it IS a large screen and a relatively small theater, rendering the screen that much larger) but they also seemed a bit restless. At one point the little boy walked by his dad to stand in front of his sister , at one point the girl leaned over and curled into a bored sleeping position, and they did ask questions from time to time.
Did I like it? Yes. I enjoyed the special affects and the personalities. On the other hand, I love fantasy and the fantastic. I can have a great time at Disney all by myself. I remember the first time I visited EuroDisney (I think that now it is called something else). I took the train from Paris, got off at the stop, and within a few minutes found myself standing in a tiled plaza with the magic castle rising into the blue sky just on the other side - and my heart jumped, my eyes teared up a bit, and I had to stop myself from clapping and chortling and jumping and saying out loud what I was yelling inside my head - "oh boy, oh boy, ohboy, it's Disney! Yeahhhhhhhhhh!"
So, what else did I do today?
Well, though yesterday was cold and dank and dreary and wet and I shivered when i ran across the street for a coffee, today the sky was blue and the sun shone warmly and the air had that nice slightly cool but smooth perfumed smell of a spring day. I think it was maybe 55 of 60 degrees.
So I left the theater, unwound my scarf and hung it over my arm, and started just walking . A few blocks later I heard the musical sound of La Francaise and sure enough there were three young men walking just behind me. They were good looking and casually dressed in that European way of nicely fitting jeans and nice shirts and jackets, and they were chattering away in Parisian French. I had been walking quickly to get my heart rate up, but hearing their voices slowed me down. I let them stay within earshot so the sound could wash over me. Finally, they stopped at a Bentley dealership and window shopped for a bit, then pushed each other through the door to look more closely.
Then, a block later, a thin young man in a dark suit was talking into that earpiece-mouthpiece contraption that let him talk on his "portable" hands free as he stood by a black towncar waiting for whomever he was driving - and yes, he too was talking in French.
Finally, two blocks later, a group of young men and women were standing at the curb talking about their days activities in..............yes, French! As if the world knew how strongly I am feeling my urge to jump back to Paris, even if just for a weekend. Or perhaps it was just that I was near the Hotel Sofitel - but I have walked by that hotel many times and never had this "on the streets of Paris" out of body experience before.
Then, I went to Bistro Zinc and had an oeuf poche' avec epinards and Hollandaise on English muffin, with little pieces of well spiced potatoes (that I only ate part of), along with a smooth glass of beaujolais, and finally a cappucino . I drank a lot of water and at the same time read the first two stories in the Murikami book "After the Quake".
Then, I left the restaurant and breathed in the warm air and felt the sun on my fact and decided to walk for a bit, and ran into a couple standing on a street corner with an unfurled map of Chicago, looking confused. They were in their fifties - he had white hair and a red face, she had blonde/brown short hair and wore a blue jacket. I always ask such people if Ican help them, and they took me up on it . They were staying at the Palmer House and had just fnished an architectural tour on the river where they were told of the Tiffany vaulted ceiling at the Cultural Center and wanted to somehow get there without navigating the oh so crowded Michigan Avenue so I told them they could head east and take the Lake route, and decided to accompany them. So this nice couple from Seattle and I then . walked to the Lake, back south to Navy Pier where we walked part way down the Pier (and I got someone to give them a tour of the Shakespeare Theater when intermission started), and then we walked the Navy Pier, North Pier, past the Sheraton, under the Columbus bridge along the Lake and River route back to the Cultural Center where I waved goodbye.
So I have not eaten badly today, and I did exercise of sorts, and I have blogged somewhat, and it is now 1:18 a.m. and I need to get some sleep, so I think I will set an alarm for very early so I can first finish the billing, and then walk to the end of Navy Pier or the Museum Campus to see the sun rise.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Saturday, October 24, 2009
My Sister's Nostrils
I just watched that commercial about some kind of sucking candy that makes your lips pucker- the one where parents are moving their son into a dorm room, and the roomate (an Indian, or Native American kid with dark hair , moist dark eyes, and large nostrils at the tip of a prominent nose) gives the Mom a sucking candy, then interior monologues first the question of whether she likes it, then, from observing her puckered mouth sucking with exaggerated movements, and a slight glaze of joy in her eyes and upturn of her lips, telling himself that yes, indeed, she likes it -all the while sucking his candy with even more exaggerated motions that are something like kissing. And the dad and son walk in and observe the two with their eyes fixed on each other, their faces a couple of feet apart, their mouths sucking, and the very slight smiling upturns of their lips, and the son says "Mom!" and the dad drops his carton (which has a coffee pot in it).
That reminded me of my sister's nostrils. Strange, right? I remember noting to myself when we were young girls that she had rectangular, almost square shaped nostrils. Mine are oval. Most nostrils are oval. I just did a moment's research by obsrving the actors on an episode of "The Practice" (black and white) and in the advertisements between scenes, and sure enough, they are all oval. That's what I thought! But when I referred to those oddly shaped nostrils to myself (and sometimes others, or her) in the context of their shape, I always used the term "flagpoles." Not "flags" but "flagpoles". My mind was too lazy to complete the thought. Clearly, I was thinking of the rectangular piece of cloth, not the pole on which it hung, but nevertheless I used a simple shorthand the first time I voiced the thought, a wrong shorthand that was a reminder of what I really meant, but not the accurate metaphor, and then, after having done it once, my mind was too lazy to rethink it, but simply, repetitively, used the same wrong phrase always. Why?
That is the question I never thought of, until lately. It was simply a proclivity to fall, easily, into an habitual pattern of thought or action, without thinking. An avoidance of being fully aware of what I was thinking, or doing, once done. A need for repetition? For habit? For familiarity? A fear of change? A fear of the untried? A fear of failure? An anesthetizing of full awareness? Can I take this one small habit and see in it what has become a life habit? And, in so doing, if it has indeed become so, by seeing it, change that habit?
I don't know.
I know that as a child I feared change, as do most children. But more so than others? When my mom wanted me to go to camp I fought her and she gave in. I remember my fear. I feel it again clenching its fist in the bottom of my stomach. I didn't want to go away. I hated the idea of being in a strange bed, with people I didn't know. They might not like me.
I was very small, and I was very shy. "Shy." I don't know what that means exactly, except that I remember being very afraid - of so much. I was afraid to talk to people I didn't know . I was afraid to telephone anyone other than best friends. I was afraid of my teachers. I recall in the second or third grade how horribly embarrassed I was when I was too afraid to raise my hand to ask for a toilet break and, finally, the sphincter loosened from the pressure, the damn broke, and warm yellow liquid wet my pants and then my chair and then spilled onto the floor. "Look - she peed on the floor!"
I was little, and the rest of the world was big - so very big - like a giant in a Grimm fairy tale. I liked The Brothers Grimm, but I don't know why. I recall that those tales were rather gruesome - trolls and giants and horrible creatures. I also liked the Oz books, not just "The Wizard of Oz" but also "Ozma" and "Rik -i-Tik" and the others - and they, too, were filled with witches and other horrible beings, including a frightening Nome King living in a deep cave surrounded by wraith like Nome creatures whose bodies flowed and swayed against and into the stone walls, along with their long streaming hair and beards.
But in my real life, I didn't want adventure. I wanted to stay home with my mom and dad (and sister, my sometime enemy). I was afraid to be away and I still remember the comfort of walking back into my house after school each day, petting the dog, pulling out a bag of chips and some dip.
Fear and that "shyness" (a failure of self worth) ruled so much of my life. I dreamed of being a popular cheerleader, but I never tried out. I was so certain that I could never have made it. Nevertheless, years later, I learned to run a marathon, and to do yoga, and lift weights.
Today, I avoid the "shoulds" in my life by retreating to my quilted, kitty occupied couch life. I love so much curling on the couch in my messy apartment, a soft drink or water (every so often a glass of Bordeaux) and the remote and my Blackberry and a good book and the newspaper (and a bottle of Excedrin for my occasionally tweaky lower back muscle) all within easy reach to my right on the coffee table, my cuddling kitty just at my left shoulder on the top of the couch with her soft paw reaching for my arm, a quilt on mylap, clicking past unfamiliar shows into those I have learned to know and love - even reruns of episodes.
On the other hand, last month I attended an open house at a nearby college for a possible MFA. In July I ran off to France again for two weeks during my birthday month, including not only a week in my familiar neighborhood, at the left bank hotel where I know the owner and all of the employees, but also, and first, a week in the Aveyron, first taking two trains (with a short and uncertain connection) to the unfamiliar town of Figeac for two nights, then renting there a stick shift car (not having driven one for years) and driving on narrow country roads to the town of Villeneuve d'Aveyron, turning right down an even narrower road to the tiny Village of Mayrinhagues, and spending the week in a stone cottage, lighting a gas stove, listening to the morning sound of birds and barking dogs.
On the other hand, I failed to visit the town of Conques because of my fear of taking that little stick shift car onto highways for the hour or two it would require, fearing the speed, and the large trucks bearing down on me.
So, who am I? Am I a creature of habit, someone who needs to feel and taste the familiar to avoid fear? Or an individualist who salivates at the adventure of untried experiences and places ?
In college I didn't try anything truly new (except for some sexual experimentation, but never "all the way" out of fear of either my reputation or my skill, or perhaps both). I never thought to take a semester in Europe, to travel, to join the Civil Rights movement ( or even notice it existed or to care if I had noticed) I didn't join or even recognize the womens movement. . I wanted to do something creative but ended up first getting a teaching certificate and then going to law school - as I have called it so often , taking the paths of least resistance suggested by my parents. Who could I have been if I had instead travelled with a backpack through Europe, used my writing skills in any disciplined fashion?
I went from College, to law school, to a pretend marriage with someone as immature as I (a marriage that was more like two little kids playing house and having tantrums, then a mutual relationship between two adults - we pretended to be in love, neither of us having the ability to even guess what that should really mean) - and all out of fear of saying "no" to my parents, or "no" to my husband. Out of that failure to say "no" I entered the practice of law and a marriage , and moved on to motherhood (ok - let's not put motherhood into that inadvertant category - I was never sure I wanted to be a mother, and started that family out of my husband's insistence, but from the moment when my first son kicked against my innards, motherhood has always been a joy - had I followed my independant conscience instead of my fear of making the wrong choice or losing my last chance, had I developed a significant sense of self worth, and therefore had I not married at that time, I would have never produced my two sons and daughter and they would not have produced my grandchildren - a thought that is inconceivable).
But, continuing on into my analysis of my life of fear and stagnation and inertia . In the practice of law, the only thing I was confident of was my intellect - not my ability to talk to people, or my ability to think on my feet, or to reason, or to manage subordinates, or to do any of the things required of me as a lawyer. I admired one of my partners' ability to do all of those things. I would sit in his office and listen to him, with confidence and that Ivy League arrogance and that equally Ivy League humorless but socially acceptable (and required) laugh, questioning and advising clients on the phone, and fear that I could never learn how to do that. (Now, I am proud of my ability to deal with clients, and equally proud that I never developed any of his other characteristics, including his crying need to do what is considered "appropriate")
Today, in the context of law and business I have somehow developed the confidence that I could, if given the time, learn how to do anything, and the confidence and skill to deal with the interpersonal mind games needed for client control and relationships.
So, who the Hell am I? To what extent do fear and inertia rule my life? To what extent am I fearless and independant and free?
Why do I spend so much time here, on the couch, instead of here, at the computer, or there, on the road running as I once did and thereby bringing back that Audrey Hepburn body?
Why do I let so many months elapse without having written?
Why do I develop so many ideas for travel articles, and never get to them?
This blog is clearly erratic, badly written, meandering all over the place, and written without thought or writing skill. When, if ever, I develop a feel for it, and subject matter control, then, and only then, will I permit it to be read by others. In the meantime, at least it is something that I can go back to, and a place to save my morning thoughts.
Daily writing . That is at this point the only purpose. And a means to analyze who I am and out of that analysis perhaps discover a means to kick myself in my butt and move forward. I have been making some of the same promises to myself for now almost ten years. I know that by reading earlier writing, which I did this last week. Enough!
That reminded me of my sister's nostrils. Strange, right? I remember noting to myself when we were young girls that she had rectangular, almost square shaped nostrils. Mine are oval. Most nostrils are oval. I just did a moment's research by obsrving the actors on an episode of "The Practice" (black and white) and in the advertisements between scenes, and sure enough, they are all oval. That's what I thought! But when I referred to those oddly shaped nostrils to myself (and sometimes others, or her) in the context of their shape, I always used the term "flagpoles." Not "flags" but "flagpoles". My mind was too lazy to complete the thought. Clearly, I was thinking of the rectangular piece of cloth, not the pole on which it hung, but nevertheless I used a simple shorthand the first time I voiced the thought, a wrong shorthand that was a reminder of what I really meant, but not the accurate metaphor, and then, after having done it once, my mind was too lazy to rethink it, but simply, repetitively, used the same wrong phrase always. Why?
That is the question I never thought of, until lately. It was simply a proclivity to fall, easily, into an habitual pattern of thought or action, without thinking. An avoidance of being fully aware of what I was thinking, or doing, once done. A need for repetition? For habit? For familiarity? A fear of change? A fear of the untried? A fear of failure? An anesthetizing of full awareness? Can I take this one small habit and see in it what has become a life habit? And, in so doing, if it has indeed become so, by seeing it, change that habit?
I don't know.
I know that as a child I feared change, as do most children. But more so than others? When my mom wanted me to go to camp I fought her and she gave in. I remember my fear. I feel it again clenching its fist in the bottom of my stomach. I didn't want to go away. I hated the idea of being in a strange bed, with people I didn't know. They might not like me.
I was very small, and I was very shy. "Shy." I don't know what that means exactly, except that I remember being very afraid - of so much. I was afraid to talk to people I didn't know . I was afraid to telephone anyone other than best friends. I was afraid of my teachers. I recall in the second or third grade how horribly embarrassed I was when I was too afraid to raise my hand to ask for a toilet break and, finally, the sphincter loosened from the pressure, the damn broke, and warm yellow liquid wet my pants and then my chair and then spilled onto the floor. "Look - she peed on the floor!"
I was little, and the rest of the world was big - so very big - like a giant in a Grimm fairy tale. I liked The Brothers Grimm, but I don't know why. I recall that those tales were rather gruesome - trolls and giants and horrible creatures. I also liked the Oz books, not just "The Wizard of Oz" but also "Ozma" and "Rik -i-Tik" and the others - and they, too, were filled with witches and other horrible beings, including a frightening Nome King living in a deep cave surrounded by wraith like Nome creatures whose bodies flowed and swayed against and into the stone walls, along with their long streaming hair and beards.
But in my real life, I didn't want adventure. I wanted to stay home with my mom and dad (and sister, my sometime enemy). I was afraid to be away and I still remember the comfort of walking back into my house after school each day, petting the dog, pulling out a bag of chips and some dip.
Fear and that "shyness" (a failure of self worth) ruled so much of my life. I dreamed of being a popular cheerleader, but I never tried out. I was so certain that I could never have made it. Nevertheless, years later, I learned to run a marathon, and to do yoga, and lift weights.
Today, I avoid the "shoulds" in my life by retreating to my quilted, kitty occupied couch life. I love so much curling on the couch in my messy apartment, a soft drink or water (every so often a glass of Bordeaux) and the remote and my Blackberry and a good book and the newspaper (and a bottle of Excedrin for my occasionally tweaky lower back muscle) all within easy reach to my right on the coffee table, my cuddling kitty just at my left shoulder on the top of the couch with her soft paw reaching for my arm, a quilt on mylap, clicking past unfamiliar shows into those I have learned to know and love - even reruns of episodes.
On the other hand, last month I attended an open house at a nearby college for a possible MFA. In July I ran off to France again for two weeks during my birthday month, including not only a week in my familiar neighborhood, at the left bank hotel where I know the owner and all of the employees, but also, and first, a week in the Aveyron, first taking two trains (with a short and uncertain connection) to the unfamiliar town of Figeac for two nights, then renting there a stick shift car (not having driven one for years) and driving on narrow country roads to the town of Villeneuve d'Aveyron, turning right down an even narrower road to the tiny Village of Mayrinhagues, and spending the week in a stone cottage, lighting a gas stove, listening to the morning sound of birds and barking dogs.
On the other hand, I failed to visit the town of Conques because of my fear of taking that little stick shift car onto highways for the hour or two it would require, fearing the speed, and the large trucks bearing down on me.
So, who am I? Am I a creature of habit, someone who needs to feel and taste the familiar to avoid fear? Or an individualist who salivates at the adventure of untried experiences and places ?
In college I didn't try anything truly new (except for some sexual experimentation, but never "all the way" out of fear of either my reputation or my skill, or perhaps both). I never thought to take a semester in Europe, to travel, to join the Civil Rights movement ( or even notice it existed or to care if I had noticed) I didn't join or even recognize the womens movement. . I wanted to do something creative but ended up first getting a teaching certificate and then going to law school - as I have called it so often , taking the paths of least resistance suggested by my parents. Who could I have been if I had instead travelled with a backpack through Europe, used my writing skills in any disciplined fashion?
I went from College, to law school, to a pretend marriage with someone as immature as I (a marriage that was more like two little kids playing house and having tantrums, then a mutual relationship between two adults - we pretended to be in love, neither of us having the ability to even guess what that should really mean) - and all out of fear of saying "no" to my parents, or "no" to my husband. Out of that failure to say "no" I entered the practice of law and a marriage , and moved on to motherhood (ok - let's not put motherhood into that inadvertant category - I was never sure I wanted to be a mother, and started that family out of my husband's insistence, but from the moment when my first son kicked against my innards, motherhood has always been a joy - had I followed my independant conscience instead of my fear of making the wrong choice or losing my last chance, had I developed a significant sense of self worth, and therefore had I not married at that time, I would have never produced my two sons and daughter and they would not have produced my grandchildren - a thought that is inconceivable).
But, continuing on into my analysis of my life of fear and stagnation and inertia . In the practice of law, the only thing I was confident of was my intellect - not my ability to talk to people, or my ability to think on my feet, or to reason, or to manage subordinates, or to do any of the things required of me as a lawyer. I admired one of my partners' ability to do all of those things. I would sit in his office and listen to him, with confidence and that Ivy League arrogance and that equally Ivy League humorless but socially acceptable (and required) laugh, questioning and advising clients on the phone, and fear that I could never learn how to do that. (Now, I am proud of my ability to deal with clients, and equally proud that I never developed any of his other characteristics, including his crying need to do what is considered "appropriate")
Today, in the context of law and business I have somehow developed the confidence that I could, if given the time, learn how to do anything, and the confidence and skill to deal with the interpersonal mind games needed for client control and relationships.
So, who the Hell am I? To what extent do fear and inertia rule my life? To what extent am I fearless and independant and free?
Why do I spend so much time here, on the couch, instead of here, at the computer, or there, on the road running as I once did and thereby bringing back that Audrey Hepburn body?
Why do I let so many months elapse without having written?
Why do I develop so many ideas for travel articles, and never get to them?
This blog is clearly erratic, badly written, meandering all over the place, and written without thought or writing skill. When, if ever, I develop a feel for it, and subject matter control, then, and only then, will I permit it to be read by others. In the meantime, at least it is something that I can go back to, and a place to save my morning thoughts.
Daily writing . That is at this point the only purpose. And a means to analyze who I am and out of that analysis perhaps discover a means to kick myself in my butt and move forward. I have been making some of the same promises to myself for now almost ten years. I know that by reading earlier writing, which I did this last week. Enough!
Friday, October 23, 2009
Start Again - and From Now On
Haven't posted since November of last year. Several posts, and before that it was April of that year.
It's 8:12 a.m. and with the lights off the apartment is dismally dark. Rivulets run down my window and the sky is a thick blanket of grey-white merging with a misty grey Lake. With my long tie die t shirt and jeans on, the scale hit 146 this morning. Even allowing for a crapload of crap still stuck up the colon, and the weight of the clothing, that is still probably 144. The specter of 150 - a number I never thought I could ever reach is just over the horizon of a few more engorgements. Stop! I mean it - really - this time - Stop! Stop...stop.......stop.STOP!
The world is dismal and dank and dark and my life a dismal daily display of sameness....promises unkept, apartment unkempt, work undone.
I have a blog so I must use it.
The rivulets are more insistant now. Plummeting separate drops followed by streaks with long undulating tails racing down the window. Some are competing for space, crossing each other on the way down. There must be a wind, though the trees down in the park seem still - but the water runs at an angle.
There's a certain beauty in the juxtoposition of the still lushly green lawn and green haired trees just north of the flat metal of the bandshell roof, and the melange of orange and rose and dull yellow in the more tousled crowns of the stand of trees just west of the sculpture path.
Yesterday, as I lay on the couch willing myself up and at it (at something - whatever), the sky turned pink as the day rolled in over the lake. That was a day of more promise, if its entrance is indicative of anything other than the happenstance of the temperature and precipitation. I choose to believe that it is. But, then, what did I do yesterday? I worked on the MFA application, and in the process I read old articles, travel pieces, political prognostications, and a cuple of stories, dating back from before year 2000. Some were not bad, some were pretty good, and all of them reminded me of how long I have been promising myself that I will get to it, get at it, start writing, start reading, develop discipline, lay out an even slightly marked though meandering life path.
So today, perhaps there is a dankness that the pushy part of my personality needs to break through. A challenge. Better than the smooth sailing of a pink and clear sky? With the pinkness comes hope and a quiet smile and perhaps a lethargy. With the dark and the wet (and perhaps even some cold) comes a need to do something.
And 146 . If that isn't a challenge! And a horrific sign. A precursor. A future. A failure of hope. An evaporation of my still continuing self image - that interior self of Audrey Hepburn who just requires some discipline to break back out. Those pictures of myself on the refrigerator. That picture not on the frig but still clear in my head of me standing in a large room filled with revelers one evening at Club Med (at the age of forty plus), wearing tight and very short cut off jeans and a little tank top and looking damn good!
So what about today?
Well, I AM writing. Drivel, repetitive drivel, but nevertheless something. And in the blog. At least I HAVE a blog.
And then there is France. I have this insistant hunger in my stomach to be back on a narrow street with cobblestones, to sit at Cafe Panis with a glass of red wine, to talk about le truc and how I am desole' about quelque-chose, and to decide that I want to prendre un verre and apres ca peut etre something simple, and to read Le Monde, and sit on the second floor of Shakespeare & Co. with writers and readers and Lynn or Thirza and to feel a part of an arts community, to be someone with something to say, and the ability to say it with panache and metaphor .
Today is a day of writing drivel, expressing my unhappiness with my lot, and watching, still (now at 8:40) the hypnotizing streaks and drops racing down my window, and the glow of the red blinking light on the land line on which I never check messages, and feeling the accusing eyes behind me of the piles of papers and books on the table and before me on the desk and surrounding me on the book shelf and the floor, and the undone dishes slogging in the sink, and the tightness of my jeans over my stomach, and the filthy feeling in my mouth.
And then, I watch a quiet cat with large round eyes looking at me lovingly from the arm of the couch, and hear the soft movement of another snuggling in the basket on top of my blue and gold flowered cloth bag, and decide to close up this useless blog (till later?) and walk to Starbucks for some coffee, and then get to it................whatever...............get onto something.
It's 8:55. My teeth are clenching and scraping against each other. I realize I am hunched over the computer. Need to move things from the floor so I can wrap my legs around the wheeled table , move it closer to me, and sit up straight. If possible, it appears to have become even darker and more dismal outside and in this room.Only the computer screen and the hall light that I neglected to turn off last night when I dozed off after Greek food.
This day must start.
Now.
(Whatever).
It's 8:12 a.m. and with the lights off the apartment is dismally dark. Rivulets run down my window and the sky is a thick blanket of grey-white merging with a misty grey Lake. With my long tie die t shirt and jeans on, the scale hit 146 this morning. Even allowing for a crapload of crap still stuck up the colon, and the weight of the clothing, that is still probably 144. The specter of 150 - a number I never thought I could ever reach is just over the horizon of a few more engorgements. Stop! I mean it - really - this time - Stop! Stop...stop.......stop.STOP!
The world is dismal and dank and dark and my life a dismal daily display of sameness....promises unkept, apartment unkempt, work undone.
I have a blog so I must use it.
The rivulets are more insistant now. Plummeting separate drops followed by streaks with long undulating tails racing down the window. Some are competing for space, crossing each other on the way down. There must be a wind, though the trees down in the park seem still - but the water runs at an angle.
There's a certain beauty in the juxtoposition of the still lushly green lawn and green haired trees just north of the flat metal of the bandshell roof, and the melange of orange and rose and dull yellow in the more tousled crowns of the stand of trees just west of the sculpture path.
Yesterday, as I lay on the couch willing myself up and at it (at something - whatever), the sky turned pink as the day rolled in over the lake. That was a day of more promise, if its entrance is indicative of anything other than the happenstance of the temperature and precipitation. I choose to believe that it is. But, then, what did I do yesterday? I worked on the MFA application, and in the process I read old articles, travel pieces, political prognostications, and a cuple of stories, dating back from before year 2000. Some were not bad, some were pretty good, and all of them reminded me of how long I have been promising myself that I will get to it, get at it, start writing, start reading, develop discipline, lay out an even slightly marked though meandering life path.
So today, perhaps there is a dankness that the pushy part of my personality needs to break through. A challenge. Better than the smooth sailing of a pink and clear sky? With the pinkness comes hope and a quiet smile and perhaps a lethargy. With the dark and the wet (and perhaps even some cold) comes a need to do something.
And 146 . If that isn't a challenge! And a horrific sign. A precursor. A future. A failure of hope. An evaporation of my still continuing self image - that interior self of Audrey Hepburn who just requires some discipline to break back out. Those pictures of myself on the refrigerator. That picture not on the frig but still clear in my head of me standing in a large room filled with revelers one evening at Club Med (at the age of forty plus), wearing tight and very short cut off jeans and a little tank top and looking damn good!
So what about today?
Well, I AM writing. Drivel, repetitive drivel, but nevertheless something. And in the blog. At least I HAVE a blog.
And then there is France. I have this insistant hunger in my stomach to be back on a narrow street with cobblestones, to sit at Cafe Panis with a glass of red wine, to talk about le truc and how I am desole' about quelque-chose, and to decide that I want to prendre un verre and apres ca peut etre something simple, and to read Le Monde, and sit on the second floor of Shakespeare & Co. with writers and readers and Lynn or Thirza and to feel a part of an arts community, to be someone with something to say, and the ability to say it with panache and metaphor .
Today is a day of writing drivel, expressing my unhappiness with my lot, and watching, still (now at 8:40) the hypnotizing streaks and drops racing down my window, and the glow of the red blinking light on the land line on which I never check messages, and feeling the accusing eyes behind me of the piles of papers and books on the table and before me on the desk and surrounding me on the book shelf and the floor, and the undone dishes slogging in the sink, and the tightness of my jeans over my stomach, and the filthy feeling in my mouth.
And then, I watch a quiet cat with large round eyes looking at me lovingly from the arm of the couch, and hear the soft movement of another snuggling in the basket on top of my blue and gold flowered cloth bag, and decide to close up this useless blog (till later?) and walk to Starbucks for some coffee, and then get to it................whatever...............get onto something.
It's 8:55. My teeth are clenching and scraping against each other. I realize I am hunched over the computer. Need to move things from the floor so I can wrap my legs around the wheeled table , move it closer to me, and sit up straight. If possible, it appears to have become even darker and more dismal outside and in this room.Only the computer screen and the hall light that I neglected to turn off last night when I dozed off after Greek food.
This day must start.
Now.
(Whatever).
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