universe

An Old Letter – I like letters…

/ autumncircles / 5 Comments

P.S.  I’ll add the pre-script at the front since the letter below was written five years ago and never mailed to Mr. Damon. I mentioned it in my 25 facts and got a comment to post – so, what the hell?

In the interim, I have, of course, seen The Bourne Ultimatum and loved it! The way the end Supremacy overlaps in the beginning is so much like life to me. Before I am through passing through one emotion, another one appears on the horizon that I must also deal with. Plus, I find Matt Damon to be quite an impressive talent. He can brood with honesty like nobody’s business for one piece of work and be hysterically self deprecating in another. (check them out, but please come back…)

I tend to find messages in the oddest of places anyway. Like the other night, I heard this quote and it was exactly what I needed to hear to jump start me out of my self-induced, hormone laden funk:

“You can chose to live in a place of fear or you can believe in the best version of yourself.”

Guess where? It was Mac (Gary Sinise – whom I also totally respect as an actor) from CSI: NY.

Music also plays a big role and I love it for both the Bourne series and CSI: NY – but that’s another post. So, without further ado, here is my letter to Matt Damon that I never sent.

August 19, 2004

Dear Matt:

This may or may not seem odd to you, but that does not matter to me today. I have an intuition to write to you, and, for today, I am listening to that voice.

Over the last couple of years I’ve been struggling to find out more about my own inner truth. It has not been easy and I have had many days where I want to give up and let the person inside of me I don’t like rule my head and heart. Two years ago, I saw you in the The Bourne Identity and (here comes the whacko part) – your sincerity of performance truly spoke to me. When you looked the mean agent-man in the eye and chose not to be “that man” anymore, it was like an epiphany for me. I took that as my motto for the last two years that I don’t have to be the woman I once was – I can be my true self, the one originally intended at my birth. (Please note that I was already on an inner journey when I saw your movie – I don’t want to come across as if I am not in touch with reality or belong in a padded room. I was formally seeking answers regarding my personal identity and your movie happened to be released at that time.)

Today I saw The Bourne Supremacy. Again, I come away with such an awareness of my own search that I want to thank you. The humility you embrace in letting your inner energy display the emotion and grief your character suffers without resorting to trickery or overt machinations is inspiring. The line at the end when speaking to the daughter of the couple Bourne murdered (I’ll paraphrase, for regardless of what you actually said – this is what I heard) – “when the truth gets taken from you, you find a new one.” Without going into too much detail about my own sob story, that is basically what happened to me – my truth about being a whole person who could thrive in this world was taken from me when I was very young. I found a new one immersed in fear that I lived by for way too many years. I have seen glimpses of my original truth throughout my recent journey and try to live it each day.

I realize that you did not write the words or direct the film and that you are simply doing your job by portraying the character that Robert Ludlum wrote so many years ago. However, it is that portrayal that brings these words and film alive, and it has reached deep into at least one person far below the surface level of a great action film. It has touched my humanity and search for my own past truths in order to live a more full life today.

Thanks again and I look forward to The Bourne Ultimatum.

Sincerely,

Kathleen

P.S. See, I’m not so wacky. Just a woman searching and finding answers in any and all possible locations. Where do you find your answers?

Peace.

Lost things…

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I used to have this beautiful gold necklace. It was a gift in honor of a very sacred occasion. It was given to me, for me on that special day out of love and pride. I cherished it. I was still very young and I wore it most of the time for about as long as I can remember.

Then, at some point, I lost it.

I have no idea how it happened and it was long while, I would guess, before I even realized it was gone. I went to put it on one day and it wasn’t there. I searched everywhere – it’s not like I have a lot of jewelry or many places I would have kept it.

It was just gone.

It made me very sad.

It still makes me sad.

I reactivate my search efforts every now and then thinking it will show up or reappear out of some blissful magic.

It never does.

Most days I don’t think about it. Yet, on the days I do, I can almost pinpoint the place I last saw it. It was on top of the medicine chest in our apartment in Manhattan. Hidden away from sight. Not sure why it was put it up there, but I think it was and now I see it in my mind’s eye laying there covered in dust and cobwebs. Almost lonely from not being worn, the gold glistening so hard in the harsh light of the bathroom hoping somebody will notice it and rescue it from its obscured, lost place.

Then, if my thoughts are extra fierce that day of regenerated seeking, the internal argument begins.

“You should just let it go – you’re never going to find it again. It’s gone.”

“But what if was accidentally put it in that old black leather bag I carried then? Maybe it is stuck in the side zipper pocket?”

“Did you check there?”

“You know I did.”

“And was it there?”

“You know it wasn’t. Maybe it got stuck in between – ”

“Why can’t you accept that it may be just be gone?”

“See – even you said – ‘may be gone‘ – that sounds like there is room for hope!”

“There is always room for hope, my dear. In this case, you may need to switch that hope into to finding a new necklace.”

“But I didn’t find this one – it was given to me as a gift.”

“So, you’ll get another gift that is just as special.”

“That is not possible.”

“Well, who’s leaving out hope now?”

Needless to say, I don’t like losing things. I have enough brain chatter going on without adding the constant anguish of not knowing where something is. Or if it even still exists.

So, if by some chance of fate, you are reading this from your second floor brownstone apartment on the upper east side of Manhattan, 89th and Lex, check above the medicine cabinet, will ya?

If you find a small gold crucifix, shoot me an email, please?

If there is nothing there, well, honestly not sure what I would do with that information…

Reasoning work versus Playful rhyme

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Ladies and Gentlemen!

Entering the ring, wearing the blue silk, business casual trunks and weighing in at a whopping weight of the world status of four hundred and fifty seven pounds is our challenger!  She’s mean, she’s tough – she stomps on daisies and eats b-u-n-n-y  r-a-b-b-i-t-s for breakfast!! Give it up for the Queen of Restraint, the Bitch of the Boardroom – MS. AFFLICTED!!

[The capacity crowd boos and throws popcorn.]

And now, flying in to reclaim her original title – she’s calm, she’s beautiful – she makes us laugh and cry with her peaceful kind of love and takes her man’s b-r-e-a-t-h  a-w-a-y!!  Wearing tye-dye trunks and weighing in at a compact fighting feather weight as light as air is our people’s choice champion – put your hands together for our Woman of the World, Child of the Universe and the Zen Goddess – HARMONY’S CHILD!!

[The crowd goes wild – screams and cheers echo all the way to the moon.]

The two fighters are poised in their corners.  Ms. Afflicted is snarling and blood is pouring from her mouth as she has just bitten the head off of a baby chick. She is already dripping with a grimy, gray sweat and pounding her fists together. Harmony’s Child hovers above the canvas in the lotus position, eyes closed chanting the love of the ages oblivious to not only Ms. Afflicted, but the millions of eyes and hearts on her every breath. She glows with a light of serenity that secures her place in life.

Let’s get ready to RUMBLE!

The bell sounds.

————————————–

And, by bell, I mean the alarm clock goes off and I start my day which frequently resembles the equivalent of a Rocky Balboa sized prize fight with me battling the demons of responsibility, all cut up and swollen screaming for my family and love much like he did with Adrian.

My reality lies somewhere in between harmony and affliction.  I don’t think I am much different from most folks trying to live their lives amid the human race. And yet, I masterfully convince myself that I am the only one who struggles, who is unable to work an eight hour day, get the kids to/from school, make dinner, clean the kitchen, do the laundry, walk the dog, please the husband and fulfill creative desires without neglecting the ones she loves. My affliction is adept at making sure I feel unworthy to have these children or the true love of a husband or even the talent to write a blog. So, I don’t do any of it and the house becomes a mess, the kids watch TV and a stoic silence erupts between my husband and I. I become brainwashed to believe that my children despise me, that my husband only tolerates me because it would be too difficult to leave, and that no one will ever understand and appreciate my writing much less consider it genius enough to publish.

I read another woman’s blog the other day – clusterfook.com, which I highly recommend – and someone apparently accused her of being depressing.  She has been fighting cancer for over five years (I believe) and is chronicling her journey through a blog. I am fighting having a day job wishing I was at home writing Nobel Laurette poetry and those interminable ten pounds that I cannot seem to get rid of off my ass. My site is depressing – hers is remarkable. And the most remarkable part is that she would probably not compare our two struggles in the way I do.

The truth is that we both receive some sort of relief from writing about our lives and pain and joys and sorrows. We both carry on the tradition of humanity that began in caves thousands and thousands of years ago with simple figures drawn on the rock and grunts around a warming fire that turned into many languages of expression.

My prayers are for Lisa’s voice to delight the fires of her family for many, many more years as well as the rest of us peeking into her world through our brightly lit LCDs and keyboards.

And me?  Well, I’ll keep on-keeping on.  I’ll try new things like a joint writing project with another blogger and maybe playing at photography and work on old ones like accepting and trusting life, each other and the universe.