De Ce Monde Secret de l’ Amelie Americaine

I’ve had a bit of writer’s block recently. To put it succinctly, I just haven’t been able to spell out exactly what has been going on in my world without some trepidation about the consequences. It’s the fear of hurting those who I care about. Do I dare tell the truth?

It hasn’t all been bad. I’m sleeping in my own bed again, which I haven’t done for months. Don’t worry, my therapist also looked at me strangely when I said those words as well. There’s no deep terrible childhood secret. My couch felt safe. I can sleep on a couch because it keeps me one step ahead of myself. I simply don’t feel vulnerable or out of place there.

It’s like your favorite frumpy sweater. It swallows you whole and yet you don’t have to share it with anyone. There are no messy emotions or discord to throw you off center. It’s protective and very cushiony. It won’t sap your emotions to satisfy it’s own devices. It won’t try to manipulate you into doing something that you don’t want to do. It absorbs the weight of the day and asks nothing in return.

You can’t always follow your heart unless you go it alone. And I prefer the safety and company of my own thoughts to the controlling emotional demands of others. The quickest way to alienate me is to tell me how I’m suppose to change myself to fit into your world. I am too old to “reinvent” myself so that I’m acceptable to others.

Still my insomnia wears on. Although I’ve discovered that there is a time when the city does quiet down. I know this because suddenly my television sounds louder without any ambient noise to compete for my ears. I turn the volume down and wait for the next hour to roll by. Sometimes I slip deeply into dreamland, other times I just end up petting my cat and enviously watch her close her eyes, purr and sleep.

It’s also hard for me to fall asleep unless I play the same four Harry Potter movies in the background. I know all the dialogue by heart. This is my routine. Like setting the alarm for 6 a.m. even if I know I’m not getting up until 8:30. My friend Sara hates these movies because the line between good and evil is so black and white. It’s precisely that lack of grey that gives me inner peace. My tightly wound habits reassures the child inside that I know what is coming up next, and it is all going to be okay.

All this may seem like a just another uninspired post by a very average woman living a bland, vanilla life. Maybe I do need a change, but today sleeping in my own bed is just enough, knowing that the man who is responsible for her death will spend the rest of his natural life in jail. I can’t say anymore. Please don’t ask me.

Listen to this podcast

It is almost Thanksgiving and the temperature has dropped here in the big apple. This Thursday while everyone is still in bed and the turkey is thawing out in the kitchen, yours truly will be camped out somewhere along Broadway with my other production brethren working on local television coverage of the Macy’s Day Parade and generally freezing my two-cass off. It is SO NOT GLAMOROUS!

Here are photos I took in July on another set at the Brooklyn Navy Yards. It was a former Naval barracks during world war two and it kinda felt haunted at the time. But I had fun with my Nikon.

Listen to this podcast

I bought my first carnation today. This was a big step. It was not that I hated carnations, but I avoided them like you avoid the restaurant where your ex-boyfriend took you on your first date. The experience tickled all of your pleasurable senses, but the thought of looking at the table where you shared your first kiss, knowing how the story ended, is too much to bear. And being the vibrant, forward-thinking, keep the momentum going toward the blessed future, personality type, you’re trying to avoid anything that might trigger a moment of regret or depression.

So you avoid these triggers, like you avoid Dan Fogelberg on Lite FM and those nifty holiday songs remade by an aging pop star. These commodities of modern life are suppose to sooth away the winter blues, but instead make you go into endless emotional loops like a song that won’t get out of your head.

This is why I kept pink carnations at bay. I read somewhere that smell is the one sense that goes right to the memory centers of the brain without being processed first. This means that you experience the memory and the associated emotions before any astute reasoning, or calm affirmations can even enter your consciousness. There is no emotional protection, if a memory has been associated with a particular smell.

The problem is, I love pink carnations. I love their ultra floral smell, their tight pink ruffles, and the way, when you touch them, they spring back to life. They are resilient, even when they are drying out, they don’t easily brown or loose their bloom. One of the few concrete memories I have of my birth mother was a moment when she reached out of her catatonic state and attempted to embrace a bit of life. She wanted flowers.

» Read the rest of this entry …

Listen to this podcast

“ A Chinese poet many centuries ago noticed that to re-create something in words is like being alive twice. At the taproot, to seek change probably always is related to the desire to enlarge the psychic place one lives in.”
–Frances Mayes in Under the Tuscan Sun

For now I’m just holding my breath and remembering all the good that has come into my life over the last year since I returned from my trip to Paris. I’m no longer so exhausted. I’ve almost completely extricated myself from situations that were pulling me down, sucking out my life force, and I’m still financially afloat. I haven’t been pulled into any uncontrollable vortex, where sudden change or quick reactions are necessary for my survival. Yet, selfishly I can’t help but feel that this is not enough. I’m grateful for all that I have now, but I desire change.

My biggest fear is that this is a spiritual deal breaker. You know the kind you make with your G-D when you say, “If you grant me this one wish, I promise to….fill in the blank”.

In this case the deal I made seven years ago was, “All I want is to make a life in New York, what shape it takes is up to you, but please give me the opportunity to make something of myself. I promise to accept what you give me and be happy.”
My wish was granted. I’ve been through some real shake ups but there was always a way to recover and move on to bigger and better opportunities.

At this time no rug has been pulled out from underneath me. No crushing or unexpected blow has forced me into action…yet I feel that urge to move beyond this invisible fourth wall that defines the boundaries of my routine, everyday life. I’m not sure if I deserve more than what has been offered or if this is the time to mobilize and face the resistance, and take another leap of faith, knowing full well that I could be making a huge mistake.

But another leap where?

Listen to this podcast

She handed me twenty dollars back from my deposit and told me to go buy myself a bouquet of fresh flowers. “Make sure you replace them at least once a week. A woman should always have fresh cut flowers to cheer her up on dreary winter days.”

It was February, snowy and gray. She was leaving for two months to travel in India with her significant other and I was subletting her studio apartment in the East Village. She made it clear that this small expression of beauty was important to her. Perhaps she thought that if I was the type of person who’d promise to keep fresh flowers in a vase, that I also might be someone who’d take care of her home in her absence.

Hours later I sat alone and stared at the colorful tulips I had found at a deli for $6. They were beautiful and dignified, especially under the soft tangerine light that was absorbed by her pink walls. She was right. This was beautiful, in that flower grows out of a crack in the sidewalk kind of way.

I hadn’t realized how exhausted I felt until now. The room was silent except for the slow hiss of the radiator. I couldn’t move. Instead I sat in her wooden chair next to the small kitchenette table and took in every feature of her modest but heartfelt home. Her costumes were in the closet, and large glamorous hats were dangling from hooks that were haphazardly placed on the beam that held up her loft bed.

» Read the rest of this entry …

Listen to this podcast