things left unsaid

Letter to My Heart

/ autumncircles / Leave a comment

Dear Heart of Mine,

As I begin this letter, I honestly wonder what I will say. I have attempted to make amends to you before and upon reflection wonder if they can really count as amends if I don’t change my behavior?

When you were a young heart, freshly beating inside this new body of mine, I am sure I loved you, protected you. Even without memory of those days, I can still feel your connection to my soul – our soul.

As we grew and our journey took many paths, some of my own making, some not. Through all of the winding roads, terrifying back alleys and sunlit streets, you kept up your end of our commitment without hesitation or skipping a beat.

I, however, have taken far too many risks with you, with us. Fortunately, the majority of those chances have turned out well and we are living a relatively happy, content existence today. It hasn’t always been that way and I fear there are still some danger zones I am not able to overcome that may end up harming you.

I’m sure you remember the number of failed relationships both in love and friendship. Today we know those were never meant to last anyway, yet at the time they were extremely painful when they did not need to be. We have the loves and friendship of our life now that make us the most joyous, most complete. It all seems like I should be totally comfortable in the skin of this body, with the air we breathe, or the songs we sing.

The thing is, I think I am getting signals that I am not, that something is missing and the most troubling aspect is that I am unclear as to whether these electrifying pulsations are coming from you wherein the truth lay, or from my brain which we all know can be a battlefield of confusion and treachery.

For example, I have this friend. Her name is Vivian. She has it in her brain that she is disappearing little by little each day, literally. She doesn’t drink or take drugs but she has convinced herself that she is not far from fading out of this universe into some other realm. I love her. She is my friend and I want to help her, but I don’t know what to do.

She has told me how fulfilling her career has become after years of searching and yet she doesn’t think anyone really notices her. She is madly in love with her husband and believes he is with her, but she never hears him say the words. I have been around her kids – they are totally awesome, loving and funny creatures and still Vivian thinks she is somehow totally screwing them up. She spends hours on end confiding in me how she longs for concrete evidence that she is doing a good job, has the love of her husband and that her children are all right despite her varying and sometimes quite explosive temperament.

The more I listen to her, the more confused I become. I begin to think that she is talking about my life and not hers. I constantly remind her that she need not seek love and validation outside of herself. She has that naturally from within and simply misplaced it temporarily. I have told her at least a gazillion times to talk to her own heart in order to find the truth of how much she is loved and will never simply disappear. I cannot seem to get through to her. She still doubts, still worries that one day pieces of her will start to disintegrate until there is nothing left.

She’ll have strong stretches of time where she is okay, where it really feels like she believes she is all right and nothing has left her. Then something small will happen, like a forgotten lunch or a misunderstood comment or a challenge with her kids, and it’s as if she and I have never, ever spoken! I know it’s selfish because these are Vivian’s problems, but it is so frustrating for me! I give her my time, your time and she repays me with depression and arguments and yelling? Why won’t she listen to me, to us? It makes me want to cut her out of my life completely, to not listen to her long drawn out protestations of insanity anymore.

And here, dear heart, is where I fear I am failing you. I don’t cut her off. I am incapable of not listening to her and getting mixed up about whatever she believes is wrong in her life. I want so very much to “fix” her and her thinking, I lose track of our life, our love.

And for this, I am truly sorry. I owe you more than that. I owe our life and loves more than that. With the marking of this day, this beautiful sunny day where all things are possible, I begin anew – again. I will protect you from the confusion that my brain brings and not allow Vivian’s invisibility complex – whether real or imagined – effect our connection.

Together, sweet heart, we will beat strong and in unison for our well-being, happiness and peace.

Love,

Your Body and Soul

(For more letters to hearts, visit http://www.blogher.com/)

Pinter and the practice of pause

/ autumncircles / 5 Comments

It has been a long time since I studied Harold Pinter’s work in a scholarly fashion and yet I was saddened by his recent death.  I love the seemingly simplistic dialogue in his plays that were anything but simple.

Pinter had the miraculous gift to put ordinary people into misleading situations that often brought about emotionally brutal results.

And, of course, the pauses.

Cannot help but love the pauses.

When I was an actor, interpreting the air and being alive during those pauses was more than an exhilarating challenge – it was akin to  becoming a prima ballerina.  To get it right could take years of experience and training and yet it needed to appear effortless to anyone watching.

It could be as basic as letting the directed time pass until your next line or it could be as difficult as thinking of the eight million things you want to say until the sound of the scripted words makes the journey from the bottom of your diaphragm through the saliva pooling at the back of your throat where it finally escapes through your possibly trembling lips.

Those are the pauses I remember.  Those are the pauses I have more experience with in my real life.  I have never, ever been even remotely adequate at allowing time to pass without marking every second with a blistering bombardment of questions waging gangland warfare on my conscious state.

Fortunately, as I’ve gotten older and have less time in which to participate in these paralyzing games, the previously determined pauses are fewer and their duration far shorter.

The unexpected pause, however, still, well – gives me pause.

A comment from one of my kids that pierces my sternum because it comes from someone too young to couch it behind anything but the truth.

A pointed remark from someone I had believed was not capable of tossing them out at me especially when it is repeated and shared with others.

The extra wrinkles, continuous pain from a distant surgery, and rapid mood shifts that I was not warned about occurring so early in my aging age.

The moment unimaginable news is delivered about someone I love that absolutely alters my cellular makeup.

The intensity and reason for the pause may have varying levels of degree and importance within whatever hierarchy the linear part of my brain has placed on my life while the pause itself reverberates the same Pinteresque array of colors in the other.  Together, they create an internal conversation akin a stage play performed by extremely talented actors without an audience.

Voice on the Phone
You know, it was our anniversary on Monday.

Pause. [Me thinks “oh, shit” what do I do now?  How mad is she? I really did mean to call – even picked out a present but just ran out of time to get it done.]

Me
Oh. Yes. I am sorry. I forgot.

Pause. [Me thinks the Voice on the Phone is thinking, I cannot believe you didn’t call – what does that say about you?  What does that say about your relationship with me?]

Voice on the Phone
Yes.  Well, I almost forgot, too, until he reminded me.

Pause. [Me thinks well, crap, you forgot my birthday more than once.  I didn’t realize we were keeping score but now that I know we are I guess it’ll have to be game-on.]

Me
Well, I am sorry I forgot – Happy Anniversary.

Pause. [Me thinks I don’t want to fight with this person.  I want to love this person and have this person love me without conditions like I thought it was supposed to be.  Will it never be possible?]

Voice on the Phone
Thanks.

Silence. [Me thinks I won’t outlive this one either.  It will be added to the ever-present grade-book that I don’t know where it is hidden nor the grading system in which to get a passing grade.  I guess that’s okay as long as I remember the rules I was never told.]

Me
Okay.  So, I’d like to order a large sausage pizza with light sauce and black olives?

Voice on the Phone
Will that be for pickup or delivery?

Proof of my proving abilities

/ autumncircles / 3 Comments

I have perfected an annoying art form of attempting to prove the unprovable.

For me, trying to do something – anything – in order to prove a point I have neither been asked nor have any reality-based need to prove is like trying to force an elephant through the exhaust of a mini-cooper. I might actually be able to get it to fit, but I would have to chop up the entire beast into small pieces, stick it in a blender until liquefied and then let it boil into a gaseous state. By that time, there is nothing left of the originally magnificent creature I so desperately wanted to prove I am of kindred benevolence.

I know this because I have metaphorically killed more magnanimous creations than I am admittedly capable of calculating.  I will either make half-failed (or half-successful, depending on your optimism vs. pessimism tendencies) efforts to do it myself, actually do it myself with varying levels of success (or failure), or sit paralyzed in fear of not doing it perfectly thereby not doing it.  The only way I won’t do it is to let someone else do it for me.  I have some switch inside that pulls the choke out at the slightest indication that I may feel left out of whatever wondrous triumph is about to occur.  Unfortunately, I pull so hard that I open up too much and inevitably stall out creating a self made vacuum bag full of words never shared, works of almost art, plays produced in my head, and songs never sung outside my car.

Want proof?

Hollis and Jolleen – a children’s book about two best friends and their adventures through a knot-hole in a tree to the world below filled with talking frogs, daisies and a mole.  Partially written with a TYPEWRITER.

A Way Home – a play I began writing while living in NYC and had a staged reading of in like 2003.  It still needs final edits.  (PS – I lived in NYC from early 1995 to early 1997…;o|)

Bhogobaan ekane ache – a written account of my spiritual journey – first written in 2003 with minor updates over the years.  Sent to some publishers and a monologue from it got me cast in Ochen Chotto Schpiel (see next point).

One Woman’s Voice – a compilation of about 40 poems of mine up until about 2004.  Sent it to a few publishers but figured work got in the way.  And my playwright’s revival in Ochen Chotto Schpiel (which did generate quite a bulk of very short plays that now reside only in my memories – both cranial and hard disk.)

Dreaming Tales of This and That and a Splashing Humpback – another compilation of over 30 poems for kids of all ages.  24 are done, the rest almost – but I need to illustrate it, although I don’t really draw very well.

Numerous visual arts – paintings, fabric, mixed media – that I have more supplies for than actual completed pieces.

Very brief foray into the possibility of an artistic tye-dye business.

This blog which I almost started for years and now only update periodically.

And, oh yeah, I have a Bachelor’s Degree in Drama – emphasis Acting.

Whew!  That’s a lot of almosts to cram into one old four-drawer metal filing cabinet stuck in my home office!  And it doesn’t even include the lists of aspirations I swallow deep down underneath rolls of Tums and diet coke – dancer, singer, cellist, elected official, world news anchor, race car driver, motivational speaker, smoking hot babe with perfect cha-chas, covert spy and mime extraordinaire.

Okay – really sounds like I’m headed towards the typical mid-life crisis, doesn’t it?  Yipes.

Katie – Bar the door.  No, seriously – bar it, lock it, nail it shut – goodness knows where this line of opening up and spreading my mid-life cheer will send me!

P.P.S. Truly just kidding about the mime part.

P.P.P.S.  See my point?