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Blog started in Jan 2005: 1st entries for Write in Every Genre. Then the REAL ME begins |
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It Hurts When I Stop Talking Sometime in Fall of 1998, when a visit from Dad was infrequent, and primarily at the mercy of his 88 Toyota making the 50 mile journey, I was being treated to lunch. The restaurant was my choice, I think. Sisley Italian Kitchen at the Town Center mall was somewhere my dad had not yet tried, so that was my pick. Either I was being treated to the luxury of lunch and adult conversation without my husband and 5 year old son in tow, or that's just how the moment has lodged in my memory. The more I think about it, they probably were there, but enjoying the Italian food too much to bother interrupting. Daddy and his lady friend at the time, Anne, came up together and made a day of it with me and the family. We were eating together and talking about some of my scripts, stories, coverages, poems and other creative attempts that really were not seeing the light of day. I think I'd just finished a group reading of The Artist's Way and was in a terribly frenetic mood over my writing. I think I'd just given them an entire rundown on a speculative Star Trek script. My Dad asked me point blank, “Why don’t you write it?? Anne agreed. It sure sounded like I wanted to write it. Why wasn't I writing seriously? It's what I'd set out to do when earning my college degree in Broadcasting many years earlier. Heck, I should, I agreed non-verbally. “I will.” But, I didn’t. Blogs can be wild, unpredictable storehouses of moments, tangents, creative dervishes, if you will. I'm getting a firmer handle on my creative cycle. My mental compost heap (which is a catch phrase from Natalie Goldman or Julia Cameron - I can't think which, right now) finally seems to be allowing a fairly regular seepage of by-products. That may be a gross analogy, but I give myself credit to categorize my work in raw terms. It proves that I'm not so much the procrastinating perfectionist that I once was. Still, I always seem to need prompts and motivation. Being a self-starter is the next step. My attempt to keep up in the Write in Every Genre Contest at the beginning of the year seemed like a perfect point to launch the blog. |
| Tried giving me some unique me time today by joining a group drumming their hearts out down at the REMO recreational Music Center in North Hollywood today. Nice to be able to try out different types of drums and shakers. I jammed a little hard, (Bruised a thumb) but enjoyed myself. It will be a nice group to join up with again. Just have to not impulse buy me a drum. I can have a goal to buy a drum but I do not think I should go into debt for one. |
| When an image is surreal but connects to the tone of your week, it is time to write about how you are feeling. Like many, I have recently viewed video of the Atlantic coast swelled by the forces of Nature, and noting how man-made structures like the Atlantic City boardwalk and an adjacent roller coaster sat useless, twisted and smashed out of its intended proportions, I felt the stresses of my life were mirrored in the astonishing havoc I was seeing. Small personal encounters have left me very cold, indifferent, all the way to sudden impulses to dart into traffic, which the realization of the drastic thought then brought me to tears. With an inability to handle abrupt change, I am the wreck of the Atlantic City amusement ride crumpled along the splintered boardwalk. |
| It's the rhythm of the title and the concept not the words I fill it in with. I already noted the larger idea in my film parallels folder. What endears a character to an audience? in theater, I generally do not think it is looks that rivet you. |
| I saw a therapist today, and it took a couple days of courage beforehand to figure out how I wanted to use our time together. When you have that moment that tells you to get some help -- the need is fairly clear. On the other hand, knowing what to say when the therapist asks you to describe what has brought you, that takes introspection and some planning ahead. Or at least it did for me, so I did not feel I was wasting time. I would've fallen into being shy, uncertain and deferential if I had not jotted down some key ideas that were behind my "giving in to counseling." It felt like I was talking nearly non-stop for my hour. The strongest realization was my seeing how my anxiety no longer has a recognizable modulation; in other words, not feeling at all under my control. The last two or three reactions I have had have hit hard, not tentative or forsee-able, or that I could easily ramp down from. I have no regrets for agreeing to try medication. My goal all around is to regain a balance of emotion. I cannot continuously distance myself from the emotion of all the concurrent situations going on in my life right now. My family needs me to be present emotionally, not just practically. Just how far South have I slipped? That seemed to be my question theme. |
| Due to some introspection of late, I keep coming up with ideas for lists that could become huge research projects for a lifetime or two. The one that keeps creeping in would categorize non-fiction, literature and film that involve disabilities of all different types. Ultimately, it would be a searchable database. I've worked for several agencies that have had a start on such a monster of an undertaking. I remember receiving a phone query once for a young man who was looking to document all mentions of disability from music lyrics, and he wanted to know if I knew of any resources. Made my head spin imagining how one would start. I think I suggested the National Archives. Just the number of entries for "blind love" would be staggering, I remember thinking. This has suddenly moved up in importance for me again due to wanting to relate clear examples to my now teen offspring. As much as I like writing and choosing just the right words to express, I am rarely concise. And it seems to be worse when I talk to people younger than me. Instead of assuming my youngest wants me to inflict upon her the endless list of films I love, I thought, "I need a place to catalog and summarize." To be able to say simply, "It's like..." would be so much better than the way I usually preface all my big ideas. The main one that came to mind this morning was using the Academy Award winning film, My Left Foot to explain about poverty and working with what you've got. You have a backache and don't want to take your math test today? Well, my darling, "It's like that somedays," but you can't let too many days like that hold you down. "This bloke, he had control over only one foot, and he still grabbed life by the horns!" Just one example. I have more in mind. |
| Thank Me? No, Thank You! (simplifying and paraphrasing another TUT: Thoughts from the Universe message, received today, that feels so right this week) How wonderfully my daughter might live her life if she thought of everyone, God included, being ever thankful for her presence. Thank You for showing up. Thank you for taking this life on! Thank You, for all you do, the Universe says. If I also would express as much gratitude for every act. If we all thanked God for that daily opportunity to be all that we, individually and wonderfully, were made to be. |
| Today and going forward, I have to hold to this statement that is credited to TUT: For as long as you wish to keep them in your life, Jill, whoever they may be, understanding them, as opposed to changing them, will wildly improve the chances that they'll wish to keep you in their life. Oh wow, how I love you - The Universe |
| Maybe forty-five is too old to admit a childhood / early Eighties-era weakness for unicorns and rainbows. I had a collection of unicorn items that grew from my preteens through about age twenty, and that I kept long after most might have chucked it all. I think the 1994 Northridge Quake dampened a portion of my desire for collecting altogether. The glass and plaster items lost the ground war, we'll just say. But for just as long a time I had been a writer, and one of my very favorite items was a journal. It has been away from my sight for about twelve years. I truly do not know if it awaits my rediscovering it in a box, or if it became lost upon moving in 2000. It became one of those creative items I could obsess over. The art was beautiful, and left open to allow its user to embellish -- yes, a coloring book. In its pages, which became an extension of me and my blossoming adult life, are deeply personal observations, essays and poetry. Although the best feature of this hardbound unicorn journal was the varied pen drawings of unicorns on pages and spreads, the highlight was that I had taken much care in hand-coloring my favorite pages in various media. Some pages had my own sketches in addition to a poem. In thinking I may never recover this book, I am thinking about the first line of a poem I wrote about acknowledging deep love for another. It is accompanied by a sketch of a man and woman in an embrace. Makes me a little sad to think I cannot remember the words I wrote, expect for the initial few, yet I'd swear I remember the rhythm! Don't look up There's love in those eyes So much -da- -da- da-da-da-da-da-da da-da-da da-da-da-da-da-da And the other challenge is to be honest with myself (and anyone who may read my blog) about what I wrote, why I wrote it, and how it could still be a touchstone of a life moment even when I cannot pull the exact date nor inspired words back into focus. Even as I write this, I believe that I have described my feelings about this moment elsewhere in writing. But I doubt that it is an early blog entry. I have not allowed myself this level of personal transparency often in my writing. Now I see how important the willingness to declare ideas and feelings are. I do still hide and cautiously monitor most of what I express. It pre-dated any use of Internet, so you need to understand that it did not have the potential of a world stage. Yet, as a writer, this journal was not quite private -- it was something I wanted others to see and read -- in fact, from a rejection point of view, that willingness was more courageous. I made a poetic declaration of love in high school which I later borrowed from in a more professional story's character description. That was a baby-step in which I learned how to incorporate personally expressed poetic form into fictional description. So, based fully in an actual life experience, the entry in the unicorn journal was BIG too. What I wrote, this one little part of that journal, was an emotional declaration too. But it had more to do with a very young me confronting a perception: the romantic love I would deny myself in favor of the rewards of fidelity and honoring the serendipity of friendship. So confident was our friendship in that night, I could sit across from him and talk about a trauma, and also state my realization of love for him. I felt that love walked hand in hand with a deep gratitude for him. Part of me aches right now, hoping that I always let him know my gratitude for our friendship. I paint it in my mind as such a pure moment, his simple acceptance. Of what I recall, however, I think he really kind of needed me to repeat what I had said. Then when he stepped to the door to leave, we embraced. The difference in our height never seemed more apparent to me than in that moment. This is where the poem's moment is launched -- "Don't look up..." The tone of my poem was cautionary, but it was willing to reveal all, just as I had. Placing it in my journal along with a sketch of the embrace, I had become fearless as an author. What a learning moment! The tall, embraceable young man in the sketch had my admiration, I cannot deny it. There's a wickedly romantic side of me that savors those male-female attractions that border on lewdness between siblings -- mysterious fascinations that cause shivers because it feels too right when it is declared wrong. Our lives were diverging, and I think part of me knew it intuitively. The lovely and silly thing that bonded us was having the same birthday. Part of me was fearless based on something as simple as feeling related; it felt like we could never be separated, even if I guessed wrong and said all the wrong things at the worst possible moment. I call upon that fearlessness again. Even now, I need to become a fearless woman. Safely declare my soul is good, and my love a deep well. |
| Just imagined that the pen name, "Delilah Samson" would be intriguing for a romance novelist. Is it any better than a character name? From the smothering pocket of warmth which my barely-fanned bedroom was last night (sending me silently into the kitchen at 12:55am) came the idea to camp by the picture window. The outdoor temperature from the screened window so much nicer than tepid blown air. Had this thought: My new lover is the evening air (and there has to be something more to make that a complete stanza) Gratefully I was released in bed about an hour and a half later (unexpected, but must have projected something to my flesh and blood lover). |
| Just for the record, I have had maybe three years' worth of recognition that on a Monday morning, my short term memory of the weekend is shot. Not a drug user nor drinker, so is this common in a middle-aged brain? I believe change of environment is part of it, as it is particularly pronounced when a co-worker asks, "how was your weekend?" and I can't recall. So, does this mean I get stuck in gear...If I look about at the cubicle arena that is work, does my visual brain go, "Uh, nope, nothing happened here..?" So, in the case of today, will it be a help or a hindrance that I can only fog-ily remember the argument / *slash* family discussion that took place last night? My husband sleeping on the couch, not because I sent him there, but because he is "unresolved?" |
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