Communing with nature...

Just took a nice photo safari/hike in Wildwood Canyon. Okay, hike may be stretching it. More of a walk 10 steps, stop, huff and puff, pretend to be focusing for a picture of a flower, walk 10 more steps, stop, huff and puff, focus again... You get the idea.

It was a break I needed, though. Quiet, peaceful. I brought my nifty Shuffle along but remembered Peter blogging about how we block out the world around us with our music and our headphones and all the electronic gadgetry at our disposal and I left the headphones off. It was a lovely meditative walk/huffpuff/hike and I desperately needed it. The blue moon has been wreaking havoc with my mood the past few days and I needed to clear some of the cobwebs.

I'll post some pictures later as I took them the old-fashioned way, with my excellent Canon Rebel film camera. My digital just doesn't shoot as nice as this does.

So my advice for today - get out of your house/office/apartment/head and go grab some air. Leave the phone/Ipod/Wii at home and just breathe. It'll do wonders for you.

Luv. =)

Musings at 5:18 AM

I hate that it’s 5:18 AM and I’m wide awake.

I hate that my heart and my mind disagree so early in the morning and decided to have a full-on drag-out battle this early. I’m not ready to deal with these emotions right now but they seem to be ignoring me.

Can’t seem to let him go, despite logic, despite my brain telling me that every relationship – friendship or otherwise – has its flow, its ebb, and sometimes friendships just go away. But I feel like I’m missing a part of me. I can still feel him in my heart, the way I can feel all my good friends and the people that are dear to me.

I don’t let things go easily, particularly things that I don’t understand.

And I know there’s nothing I can do about it. At least, my head knows there’s nothing I can do about it. My heart is entirely another matter. It’s stubborn and obsessive and juvenile and given to tantrums and heartbreak. And right now, it’s throwing one hell of a hissy fit.

Maybe morning light will bring my heart some peace and my mind will rule during the daylight hours, finding a tentative treaty with this silly, stupid, irrational muscle. Maybe it’s the pending blue moon bringing this on. Whatever it is, I vote for the head to win this time so I can move on in peace.

Fear of...

I’m afraid that I will never be held again. Really held. With love. With passion. With fervor. After sex. Before sex. During sex.

Oh, yeah. And I’m afraid I will never have sex again. But, honestly, I think I can deal with that. I’d rather not have sex than have bad sex with someone I’m not in love with.

I’m afraid I will never have the shivering, quivering chills that come with delicate kisses on my neck.

God, I need to have sex.

Or not.

I just want to be wrapped up in someone’s arms, whether we’re watching TV or falling asleep.

Sometimes it’s hard when the men I adore hug me good night because that’s as close to the feeling as I can get right now. But those hugs always end too quickly and that feeling dissolves. And I’m left with this lingering want of something I can’t have.

And I’m afraid of spending the rest of my life alone in my daybed with my cat.

And I’m afraid I’ll never have that rush of a first kiss with someone. Or the rush of a second kiss. Or a hundredth kiss. Because I want someone who’s going to thrill me 15 years from now with his touch and his kiss and that may be too much to ask for.

And I’m afraid, occasionally, that maybe my ex (second one) was my soul mate and I fucked it up somehow. That he was the one meant for me and I was too stupid or blind or selfish or something-ish to see it. That I allowed what I wanted outside of our relationship to cloud what I wanted inside our relationship. I know that’s irrational and it’s stupid but it’s there.

I’m afraid that, after two marriages, that this is all I get. I had my chances and I blew them both. Now I get nothing else but the love of friends and the fleeting hugs of the men I love.

Mostly, I’m just afraid of never being held that way again. Because that leads to everything else. And, unfortunately, there’s not much any of you can do about it right now. Unless you want to send George Clooney over.

Virtual Fridge cont'd

One good thing about being a bit under the weather, I can justify sitting around, doing nothing. So I did nothing but paint this evening, while watching the evilest of all genres - the romantic comedy.

So check out my sickly paintings... working on this landscape drill I have to teach and am not feeling terribly confident about. These are the ones that I will show you. Others will never see the light of day. And a Georgia O'Keefe quickie knock-off.












Oh, and I changed my mind. George Clooney as sex slave. Robert Downey as naked house boy.

Sick ramblings of a blurry mind...

Tired and sick. Can’t decide whether to paint, draw or write. Consequently, I’m really doing none of the above.

My dear friend, Anna, commented that my blogs have been a bit cheery and bright lately and she was wondering what was going on. I laughed.

What is going on is this – I’m getting settled, I’m getting happier about my life. After two very long years, full of confusion and chaos and disarray, I feel like maybe things are finally settling down. I feel like I can kind of see my future, I can feel the beginnings of feeling the future inside me. For so long, I’ve struggled with figuring out a future without someone at my side. Now I’m accepting that my future is that – mine and will probably not have anyone in it, at least for a while. I need to plan without holding out for someone to be there. I need to take the last vestiges of my life off hold and finish the leap I started.

That doesn’t mean bright and cheery every day. Maybe about half the time. It’s still hard every day, particularly living with my folks. I love them dearly but, good god, sometimes I miss the chaos of living with Tiffany and her two crazy dogs.

Communicating with my first husband has put some things in perspective for me. Makes me realize a bit more about what I want.

I want that kind of love again. I want to love without hesitation, without fear, without panic. I want someone to take my breath away. I want to feel that thrill in my chest when he walks into the room. And I want to do the same to him. I want to see that in his eyes and hear it in his voice when he says, “There she is.” I want that first time love again.

And I’m pretty sure that’s impossible.

Partly because I still don’t have my heart back from OOMA. Yeah, I know that’s a dead-end. Yeah, I understand all the things you have all told me over the months of obsession and fixation. But the heart is a muscle with very stubborn memory retention and it hasn’t decided to come back to me yet. I don’t pine anymore. I miss his presence as I don’t see him as often as I used to and I know he’s been struggling with his own pile of crap lately. But there is a melancholy echo inside me where my heart should be and until that echo finally fades, I’m not sure I can reach out to someone else yet. The heart doesn’t always listen to logic, damn it.

And until my heart is whole again, there won’t be that potential for the kind of love I want. And I guess I accept that. Because I won’t settle for less than that. Maybe it’s nuts but I watch the women around me who I adore who are with men who don’t make them happy or don’t fulfill them or just don’t… And yet, they hang on to them because, I guess, they’re afraid of what would happen if they let go. So they settle for less than because it’s better than none. And I won’t do that, after fighting to get so much back into my life, I won’t settle for someone who doesn’t totally and completely curl my toes. That doesn’t mean I expect a perfect relationship to fall into my lap with no arguing or fighting or disagreements. That’s part of the fun of relationships. But it’s about the times in between, when things should be good. They should be GOOD. Even after fighting, I should want to make up as soon as possible so we can get back to the good stuff. I don’t want to waste more time just passing time with someone because I don’t want to be alone. To me, that would be worse. That would be like reliving the last five or more years of my marriage, where I was pretty much staying because I couldn’t see any other way.

I won’t waste that time again. I don’t consider the time focused on OOMA as wasted because it helped me define what I do want. And I think there was a window there where I could have maybe had what I wanted but I wasn’t ready to make that very scary step. I think partly because I was afraid of what would happen if we got together but I think I was also worried about becoming involved with him just because he was there and ending up like my friends – being with him because there isn’t anyone else in the immediate vicinity. I was so afraid of the “what if” with him that I chose to not even try. Maybe that’s as bad as being with someone unfulfilling, I don’t know.

And communicating with my first husband makes me know that, in 20 years, I don’t want to be here again, wondering if the man in my life is the right man. I know my first ex is struggling with something right now, he’s suggested that maybe he’s ready to walk away from his marriage of almost 20 years, and that makes me sad because he left me for her and I’m sad that his life hasn’t been happy. I would hope that he left me for something better. If he didn’t, what does that mean? He left me and ruined his life? I can’t believe that. I believe that we follow a path that is set before us and we choose when to veer off that path. If he veered, there was a reason. It’s up to him to find what will bring him back to the path he’s supposed to be on.

Okay, I’ll admit, the above paragraph had a point when I started it but my head cold is making it hard to remember why I was going there. Oh, well, most of my posts are blithering rants, why should this one be any different?

So maybe it comes down to this – why can’t we be happy? Why can’t we find what we seek and why are we afraid to seek that which can make us happy? Why do we tell ourselves we don’t deserve that happiness? Why do we fear that happiness?

I guess if I had the answers to that, I’d have my own best-selling book and my own talk show. I just know that I don’t want to settle for less than all the happiness I deserve and I may spend the rest of my life looking for that happiness but I won’t settle for less, even if I never find it. At least I’ll know that I did my best to try to find it.

Seens appropriate somehow...

Keith Urban's Stupid Boy. For no particular reason.

It all comes back around.

(the long version)

So many things in my life have seemed to circle around and return to me. The latest is this job at Mission: Renaissance. I looked into this job several years ago but due to lack of support on the home front because that job would interfere with my ability to be at RJ’s beck and call, I decided not to follow up with it. The irony is that this job would have solved a number of our financial problems.

So now, five or six years later, I am finishing my training, posted at a studio permanently. And today, the program director at Northridge, Jessica, talked to me about my future there. She has already gotten approval for me to continue my training up through oil painting. She wants me to be trained for the assistant program director position that she hopes will open up there in the fall. That means a weekly salary, benefits, paid vacation, the whole she-bang. This is after I’ve been there less than two months. All the things my ex pushed me to find in a job but always insisted on my settling for something 9-5, something more traditional.

The irony of all the things I passed up and passed by coming back into my life now staggers me sometimes. And sometimes, I am a little sad that he’s not around to share in the success I am achieving and the amazing life I am living.

Of course, because of him, I wasn’t able to embrace my success and I wasn’t allowed to live an amazing life.

I guess that’s why I am here today. He could have shared, he could have supported, he could have done so much that would have let him still be a part of this life.

But God seems to have known that these things were things that would be great for me, things that were in His plan for me, and despite the fact that I couldn’t choose to take the chance on some of this before, these choices have come back for a second and maybe a third time.

This gives me hope that other things I have passed by will come back around, if they are meant to be.

So, sorry for the rambling blog, but I’ve only got a short time between jobs to scribble this down. Much more I’d like to say about other things and hopefully that will come in the next few days.

Is this bad?

I've only but awake for 10 minutes but after dealing with my folks (Dad had eye surgery, is insisting he can drive to the doctor this morning, Mom hasn't driven in here in Burbank and, on a good day, drives probably worse than Dad with an eye patch) and I already want a stiff drink.

Hmmmm....

365 plays – I rock!

So, after weeks of misunderstanding, miscommunication and a whole bunch of misses, I arrived at the theater tonight to put together the 365 Plays at the Ark filled with apprehension and frustration. Too many things to go into here but just know that until the day before yesterday, I wasn’t sure this was going to happen at all.

I finished up the script this afternoon and emailed it off the script to the cast, unsure of what would happen.

Thank god for professionals. I walked in and the cast (Tricia, Douglas, Lindsay and Libby) were already reading through the script and working out some ideas. We read through the script, we chatted about embracing the total chaos that this had become. These actors were so open and ready to tackle anything. They all had checked their egos at the door and were prepared to go. We threw around some ideas about how to take the skeleton I had put together and make it more interesting. They had some great ideas and jumped in with both feet. We had about 45 minutes of rehearsal, laughing ourselves silly in the process. By the time we went up at 8:15, there was a real play there. Granted, it was a seven minute play but it was all there. The actors were off-book and really just went with the organic and chaotic essence.

We had a small but enthusiastic audience of four audience members and two of our own Ark Theatre members. These six people laughed their butts off and responded beautifully to everything. I was so excited and thrilled to see something that has been such a challenge and so frustrating come together in such an instinctive, organic, beautiful way.

I know that this would not have happened without the road map I wrote at the last minute and I’m thrilled, as always, to know that my instinct and my intuition was right. But nothing would have come together so well without a crew of actors willing to go on the ride with me and trusting me with their incredible gifts. Maybe seven minutes doesn’t sound like a big deal but if you’ve gone to a bad seven minute play, you know how long that seven minutes can be.

We do another show tomorrow (Friday) at 8:15 PM with a few new cast members (Trina, Rose and Janel) and I’m excited to see what these great folks are going to bring to the table.

So if you’re not doing anything Friday night from 8:15 to 8:22, stop by the ARK Theatre Company and check out our short but sweet 365 Plays.

This is why I changed my life...

Woke up at 6 am to work -

Went to MR Academy to sketch -

Came home, did some work -

Went and taught two classes (sketching and watercolor today!) -

Go to the Dodger game
with my two fav guys - Chairman () and Al ()

Came home and curling up with Twyla to go to bed -

My old life would have never allowed any of the above or any of the fun of the above (except the work part).

"These are the days that we'll remember..."

Virtual fridge and more

With apologies to Georgia O'Keefe (watercolor):



And I found out today that I have a permanent position at the M:R studio in Northridge beginning this week. I'll be teaching Tues thru Fri from about 3 til 7 and Sat from 8:30 to 3PM. Not too bad. That about 10 classes a week at $32.50 each. Yay! Money! Way too much fun. I'll also be going into the Academy once a week to keep up my training to move up through learning about tone and color and then into oil painting. Hopefully in a year or so I'll be doing oils and advanced watercolor.

Wow. And I was just looking for a fun part-time job. Silly me.

Virtual fridge - new artwork

So this is what I've done lately:



cougar in pastel/charcoal (got a little blotchy from the protective spray to seal the pastel)

and



watercolor penguins

Wheee!

Nostalgic but saner…

I think I just miss being 20. I miss the innocence and the fact that you can love that much and that hard because your heart is still new and hasn’t been battered by life yet. Even though there may have been seemingly horrible heartbreaks by 20, I think you still come into your first real, true, “adult” love unfettered by pain, open and willing to believe that this person could be your forever person. There is such a willingness to be open and loving and give yourself completely that I don’t think you ever get to again in your life because once that forever person breaks your heart, there is no mending it, there is no going back. You’re scarred for life and no other love will ever be the same because your innocence has been taken.

I’m just longing for that innocence again, to believe that someone could love me that way and that I could love someone that way again.

Stuff and nonsense.

I had written a whole blog yesterday about letting go and breathing and not clinging and finding my breath and stuff.

But that went out the window. I’m sure I’ll post it sometime soon.

What threw me off?

T.S.

My ex.

I find myself torn about this whole situation. We’ve been having lovely little “how are you and what’re you doing and, wow, you look great” kind of email exchanges. He’s on Myspace and put up some pictures of his family for me to see. I’m sure he’s perused the ones on my page as well. He looks great. He has two very lovely kids (almost adults now). And he’s still with the girl (woman) he left me for. They look happy. But everyone looks happy in pictures from Belize.

I don’t know. I guess it’s stirred up thoughts from the past, regrets about our relationship, weird longing that we never really got to have a real relationship because we were so young. It’s also dovetailing really well with my being alone at this point in my life. Lifetime movie fantasies of reconnecting with your lost love and discovering your whole life again. Yeah, we all know how much my life is like a romantic comedy. Does that make me Diane Keaton at my advanced age? (And “American Idol” is singing “How Can You Mend A Broken Heart” in the background. Poetic? Tragic? Nothing at all?)

Part of me wants to give him my phone number and say call me. Maybe if I spoke to him I’d remember what a shit he had been. Maybe I wouldn’t want to do any more than say, hey, good to talk to you.

Part of me wants to keep this very surface, very light, very hands-off. He shattered my heart once, I don’t know how much I should let him in. But that was over 20 years ago. He’s a man now, not a boy. Married, family. He’s 2,000 miles away.

Part of me that is still 20 years old aches for him. It’s hard to believe he still holds my heart all these years and all these miles later. Do you ever get over your first love? Or do you just get past your first love?

I just know that right now, I have tears in my eyes, knowing that he’s online because of that fucking Myspace symbol that tells me he is. And I want to get on instant messenger and say all the things I never got to – why did you leave me and do you regret it and how much have you thought of me and did you miss me when I left and what did I do to make you leave and why didn’t we work out and did you really love me… and so much more.

So I’d better get off the computer, hide my head and hope that I come back to sanity very soon. Because I don’t need to go off in an entirely fantastical, ridiculous tangent. Because y’all know I can go there.

Boys.

This war is over

05/07/07

This war is over…

These last few years have indeed been a war.

A war with my ex that lasted over the last three or four years of our marriage as I fought for myself, fought for my dignity, fought for my self-preservation.

An emotional war as I struggled (and continue to struggle) to find my emotional core and figure out just who the hell I am with no significant other in my life and with changing everything in my life literally overnight.

A war with my heart as I try to figure out what I want, who I want and if I am ready to want.

A spiritual war as I try to figure out and discover if this is really what God had planned for me and am I following the path I am meant to follow.

A creative war as I fight to put all the negative input from my past behind me and try to find my footing in all of my endeavors, try to figure out if these are the endeavors I should be following and just what the hell I am doing in these endeavors.

What has led me to this is a song that keeps popping up on my Zombie Ipod playlist, a song by Melissa Etheridge called “This War Is Over.” The lyrics seem to be particularly impactful at this point in my life as I am beginning to let go of things and trying to just ride out my life and see where it takes me.

So I thought I’d share those lyrics with you and see if they resonate with you like they do with me. If you have this song, listen carefully next time.

THIS WAR IS OVER by Melissa Etheridge


"This War Is Over"

Take off my shield
Carry my sword
I won't need it anymore
Find me a sky
Give me my wings
Frozen and broken but free

Tell them I'm all right
I'm coming home
Tell them I'm all right
I am alone
This war is over
I'm coming home

Take off my shame
Bury it low
I won't need it anymore
Find me the sun
Give me it whole
Melt all the chains in my soul

Tell them I'm all right
I'm coming home
Tell them I'm all right
I am alone
This war is over
I'm coming home

Take off my pain
Carry me slow
I won't fight here anymore
Tell them I'm all right
I'm coming home
Tell them I'm all right
I am alone
This war is over
I'm coming home