Deja vu

I don’t want this one to be like the other ones - me standing here, my heart in my hand, holding it out to you. You, standing there, looking at my heart, pondering it, making me think it’s yours to take. But I’m left standing there, heart out, soul out, with no one to take it.

I want to hope you’re different. That you’ll reach back, your own heart in your own hand, holding it out to me, letting me ponder it. Because I want to reach back to you.

But I don’t know if I can hold my hand out that long anymore. I’ve done it too many times, only to be left alone and empty.

So if you’re going to take it, take it soon. And if you’re not, then tell me know and I’ll put it away.

To hope again, the next time…

This moment

These are the days I live for.

Got up this morning, too early for me, to teach Thanksgiving art camp at Mission Renaissance. I was glad I only had two kids because that means an easy day for me. I brought my watercolors with me so I could do a quick little painting while I was teaching. I do this so that I don’t hover over the kids and make them crazy. Great kids, really easy camp day. Couldn’t ask for me. Getting to do a job that I love is a great way to start a day.

The painting came about after a Career Success Group meeting the other night.

Okay, guess I should back up a bit.

The Career Success Group is a group I run that helps us set goals, figure out the big picture and what you have to do today to get to your ultimate goal. I started doing this with another group of friends a long time ago and we had to disband because we all got too successful to keep meeting. I decided to start it up again recently because I have achieved all of my initial goals set so long ago and needed to refocus and figure out where to go next.

We met on Sunday night at the wondrous apartment of the newest piece of my heart, Mark. He’s an awesome guy who played a dead body for me this summer during “Blonde Alibi”. He’s become a good friend and a great colleague.

After the CSG meeting, I hung around to clean up and he and I engaged in our traditional shot of Jamesons as we went over stuff from the meeting. We talked until the wee hours and at one point, we were pouring over a book of art by painter J.M.W. Turner. So beautiful! Mark then challenged me to find some inspiration in the book and lent it to me, along with a couple of plays to read.

Okay, so that brings us to today and the painting. I think it came out all right, for a quickie painting done while I was teaching.




Mark had also offered up his living room as a place I could come and write whenever I wanted to, since I usually write at a coffee shop because there are far too many distractions at home. So today was the first day I took him up on that.

I swung by his place, showed him my homework, which he praised very nicely. We chatted, he started the kettle for some hot cocoa for me (it was chilly here in LA today) and then headed into his room to work and I curled up on his overstuffed, very comfy couch to write.

Bliss.

Sometimes, writing at the coffee shop gets too loud, too noisy, too coffee-shop-y. To sit in a cozy apartment with no distractions, no coffee grinder going, and just write was amazing. Occasionally, I could hear Mark singing along to the music coming from his room and that just made me smile. I was worried about intruding but obviously, that wasn’t a problem.

Mark came out a couple of times just to chat and see how I was doing. The company was more than welcome. Then we walked up to the store, picked up some French rolls, wandered back and he made us soup. We sat and ate and chatted about absolutely nothing.

Finally, I decided I needed to head home. Quick nap. Quick shower.

Then I met Mark at our friend, Marie’s, script reading tonight. Marie is an old friend. I produced “Father Xmas” for her years ago and am delighted that she has circled back into my life. She is also a part of the CSG so we went to support her. Her script was awesome, part “American Werewolf in London” and part “Bill and Ted”. Funny, raunchy, very excellent. Mark and I laughed our asses off. And the other scripts read tonight were also very well written, great comments from the members of the group, strong actors. Mark and I both networked our little butts off. Mark walked me to my car and gave me a big, warm hug and good wishes for the holiday (he’s going home for the holiday - and he’s the best hugger in the world - next to Ranger Smith) and I headed out.

Home now, with a purry, feisty kitty tackled my hands. Feeling very satisfied, very loved, very much enjoying this life I’ve built. While I hope that some day I can let go of where I came from to get here, I hope I never lose the appreciation for the life I have put together. Yes, I can’t pay my rent (quite literally - probably getting a three day notice tomorrow). Yes, it’s a struggle sometimes and it’s certainly not easy. But on days like today, where I get to spend my time painting and drawing with awesome kids, spend a significant amount of time creating while in the company of a friend I adore and then share in someone else’s amazing creativity, I wouldn’t change a single moment of what I’ve done.

Melissa Etheridge echoed on my IPod - I want to stay here in this moment…

From 8/26/06

For some reason, as I'm working on the play version of this blog, this particular post struck me as timely and relevant right now. So enjoy a blast from the past. And stay tuned, I may start posting either new blogs or reposting some of my favorite ones from the past.

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(From my blog, dated 8/27/06 - Titled "Crossing Lines"

Then, in trying to find something inspirational to send to Monica to wish her luck on her interview tomorrow (today by the time I post this – good luck, sweetie!), I found this on storypeople.com. Thank you, Brian Andreas.

“I have too much to lose, she said, if I cross that line. Like what? I said. She could not think of anything that day so she said she'd get back to me. Since then I've been thinking what I would lose if I cross my line & I haven't come up with anything either. There's always another line somewhere.”

We spend our whole lives avoiding crossing lines – picket lines, yellow lines, invisible lines we’re not even aware of. Those are the hardest ones, those invisible lines. What are they? Where do they come from? How do we find them if they’re invisible?

This ties into the all-consuming conversations lately about the men in our lives and all that goes with that, hence, all-consuming. My friends and I feel that there are lines there that have been laid down that we don’t dare cross.

But what if we did? What if we did take that bull by the ever-hesitant horns and vault over that line written in chalk on the floor? What if we smudged it a bit and moved it ever so slightly to a more advantageous spot? What if we ignored it altogether?

“What would I lose if I cross my line…”

That’s the tough question. I would lose my…

How about fear? I have begun to learn in the last year (2006) that crossing lines doesn’t mean finding pain and disaster on the other side. Of course, most of my line crossing has been fairly safe, mostly involving creative endeavors in my life. My biggest line cross was the end of June last year, when I saw a life on the other side of my line and I decided to leap over it and grab that life without worrying about crossing a line.

Fear keeps us all on this side of our line, not allowing us to even peek over that line in case there might be something we want on the other side. If we peer over that line, we might see another set of eyes peering back over their own line back at us, wanting, needing, begging someone to lead them over their lines. But the thing is this, we’d have to cross our own lines to reach out to those eyes – no matter how appealing – and we don’t seem to be able to do that. That line, though drawn in Magic Marker or chalk or by our own toes in the sand, might as well be a brick wall 18 miles high and as wide as a continent.

“What would I lose if I cross my line…”

Excuses. As long as I stay on this side of my line, I’ll always have an excuse for not crossing that line. It’s too soon, it’s too hard, it’s too soon, he’s too close, we’re too… the list is longer than I could ever post on this blog. That line protects me from being hurt, from being open, from being injured. Excuses allow me to hide behind that line, keep that line in front of me so that those eyes on the other side of the line won’t be able to see me and reach me. And maybe those excuses keep that other pair of eyes from reaching out from behind their line to help me climb over mine.

“What would I lose if I cross my line…”

My heart. If I cross the biggest line in front of me right now, I could lose my heart and maybe not ever be able to reach the eyes on the other side of his line. That’s the biggest chance of all – crossing your line, hoping that the person you’re crossing it for finds the strength to somehow grab you and be pulled across their line to join you in the middle. Because most people won’t cross their line. Most people live their entire lives behind that line without ever poking a toe over it. Maybe they’ve crossed it before and lost their heart to the middle. So they’ve gone back and hidden behind the line again, not ever daring to even venture a toe over it. There are some that seem to leapfrog over their lines when it comes to so many things in their lives but when it comes to their heart, that line becomes the wall again and their eyes disappear behind it. But if I never venture over that line, how can I know if he will venture over his? We cannot spend our lives peering across the lines, protecting our hearts, and hope to find happiness or love along the way.

“What would I lose if I cross my line…”

Nothing. Everything. It’s time to find out which…

See you on the other side.

Who are you and what are you doing with her?

Okay, I realize I don’t really blog anymore but I couldn’t let this one go…

I was talking to the wonder that is Zadra the other night, bemoaning my continued ability to fall for men who really appear to want to be with me, yet won’t. Yes, once again, I’m in that spot, dear readers. Cuz I’m an idiot and apparently like to torture myself.

Anyway, Zadra peppered me with questions as only she can do. Her point was this is now the fourth time (well, maybe third cuz we decided one of the guys is an anomaly) that I’ve kind of fallen for someone who really, really, REALLY seems interested, all the physical contact, saying all the right things, and yet, no movement in the romance department.

Now, I realize most guys are kind of dense about this kind of thing, which makes me laugh. My guy friends will say, in one breath, if a guy likes you, he likes you and he’ll let you know. Then in the next breath, they’ll say, but we don’t always know if you like us so then we’re scared to make a move and sometimes we just are too afraid to make a move, especially if you’re a friend already, and then we get scared cuz what if we’re wrong or maybe we don’t see the signs… You get the picture.

But Zadra brought up a really interesting thing to me the other night. Despite the fact that these men all have very different personalities, they all share traits that I apparently find attractive - very, very smart, very funny, grounded, dependable, consistent, emotionally supportive, did I mention smart? All great traits and I understand why I want those traits in the man I’m with.

The other thing these men share - they’re all with what I would call the “Oprah Cult” - women who live and die by what Oprah says and which books she says you should read. They’re the ones who think “Eat, Pray, Love” can change their lives. The ones who accessorize by Glamour, only without the originality, and who are the ones whose lives will only be complete with the husband and the white picket fence and the dog, as long as the dog is the kind that Oprah tells them they can have. They live perfectly fine lives within their white picket fence world and they get down right offended when you point out that life within that picket fence is not perfect and maybe Oprah isn’t right and that “Eat, Pray, Love” isn’t about your life, it’s about someone else’s and your trying to bogart that experience isn’t going to enrich your life, just empty your wallet. They live ordinary lives with ordinary expectations and will look back in thirty years and maybe wonder, for a half a moment when Oprah’s at commercial break, if maybe there could have been more. But then Oprah will come back and tell them, yes, you can break out of the mundanity of your life, but only if you buy this book that’s on my best seller list. And they’ll look back and think, I did what I was supposed to do, was with the kind of guy I was told I should be with and I lived the way I was told I should live.

I know I sound harsh and I don’t mean to. These women are very lovely women. They’re sweet and they’re well-meaning and they’re always very kind and gracious to me, particularly when it comes to my hanging out with their men. They work very hard and they struggle with all the same crap that I struggle with. They’re perfectly fine women.

Well, “fine” to me is not a great adjective. In a writer’s group I used to belong to, if you brought in pages that were solid and okay and straightforward but maybe a little vanilla but not bad enough to criticize, they were called “fine”. Fine because there’s nothing really wrong with them but there’s nothing really right with them. They kind of exist and they don’t offend anyone so they’re fine.

I find these women “fine”. I know this because I used to be one of that cult. I was “fine” for a long time. I was what I was supposed to be. A good wife because I cooked dinner most nights of the week. Fine because I supported my husband and made sure he came first. I read Oprah’s magazine and took all her advice. I did accessorize a little better than Glamour and always stuck to my own style so I deviated from the cult a little bit. But I tried to do what I was “supposed” to do and be who I was “supposed” to be, whether it was by his expectations or my interpretation of what a woman was “supposed” to be.

But I left the cult because it almost killed me. I discovered I had more to give than good chicken dinner. I had more I wanted than just being a pretty accessory. I had more to say than just “yes, dear”.

And maybe that’s why these men find me attractive but maybe a bit scary. Part of me is that woman who will make dinner and take care of them when they’re sick. Part of me is that “fine” woman who is what she is “supposed” to be. But the other part of me is the scary/sexy/attractive part. Maybe a little dangerous. I’m a woman who does what she wants and doesn’t necessarily “need” a man to hold her up and carry her along. I don’t need you to tell me how to run my career, I don’t need you to tell me how to cook dinner, I don’t need you for all the things that society has told women they need men to do. And that’s maybe a little scary and daunting and exciting for a guy. A woman who doesn’t have windshield wiper emergencies. A woman who can hold her own in any room. Yet who can be kind and gentle and loving. And who really needs them just the way the "fine" women need them, but maybe that's not quite as obvious.

But I’m not comfortable, maybe, for most men because of this. I don’t feel like the other women they know because I’m not like the other women they know. I’m like the bad boy that women are drawn to - different, exotic, thrilling but just a little scary.

So these men, while they may be drawn to that weird, different, uncomfortableness that is me won’t ever step outside their comfort zone to be with someone… well… uncomfortable. We’re just not made like that, I guess. We see something different, we desire it, but we’re afraid to go after it because it’s different.

Then Zadra asked me about why I’m drawn to these men. Yes, they’re smart, funny, talented, sincere, grounded, all that stuff. Is that my comfort zone? Am I looking for something familiar, something comfortable and missing something unique and exotic and scary? Am I doing the same thing, looking for something safe instead of something I want?

That’s a hard one because I want - I need - someone stable because I’m not terribly stable. I need someone to ground me, but I also want someone who’s ready to leap off the cliff with me, maybe pausing to grab a couple of parachutes and some rations for when we land.

I know I’m comfortable with these men and they make me feel safe. But does that mean they’re “safe” and “fine” and I’m not willing to step out of my own twisted version of the white picket fence? Am I seeing what’s on the other side of the fence, something that is maybe not so white-pickety, that may be a little scary, a little different?

Hmmmm… I’m not sure. I’m not seeing many options other than those standing in front of me so I’m not sure I’m missing something. But Zadra’s comments made me stop and think about sitting in my comfort zone and whether or not I’m just following my nose to something familiar or are these men not familiar?

The hardest thing is the new guy who won’t date me has raised some red flags in my head. He’s so similar to my ex in so many ways, I should avoid any contact with him at all. Zadra sees it, too. But most of the familiar things are the things that attracted me to my ex in the first place, although there are a few of the deep, dark things lurking there. However, he also has many traits that are not like the ex, which is the saving grace, I guess. But it brings me back to am I attracted to him because he feels like someone I’ve been with, something I know? Or am I attracted to him because I’m just attracted to him?

I have no answers today. Not sure I ever will. But it got me thinking and it’s something I will have ponder more…