The Line

And now for something completely different and severely lacking in the ars poetica.

We live in an age where earnestness is often mocked. The accessibility we have to each other through social networking sites and cell phones is unparalleled. In our own little ways, we have all become public figures.

I bring this up to point out a possible factor in a disturbing dating trend. I call it, The Line. I’m sure we’ve all heard variations before. The most common occurrence is (75-95% of the time the male) ending a first date with, “I had a great time, but just to give you a heads up, I’m not looking for a serious relationship right now.” And then asks to see you again.

I used to not be bothered by The Line because I’d think, “Hey, at least he’s honest!” or, as many of us women have done, “Maybe I’ll change his mind/won’t care that this is going nowhere.”

Two comments: 1) Yes, honesty is awesome. 2) Yes, I understand that relationships should never start with one person hoping to change the mind of the other. But we all do it anyway.

It always works out for a while. Dates are referred to as “hanging out” (gods forbid any sort of expectation be set on two mutually attracted people getting to know each other). Going to a party together isn’t bringing a date, it’s just “partying.” Sleeping with each other is just for fun. Then the shit hits the fan. Because, you see, when two mutually attracted people spend a certain amount of time together, enjoying each other’s company, it is not because they’re bored. It’s because they like each other. You know, like, stirrings?

Observe the relationship guru Captain Jack Sparrow:

Gibbs: Ah! You pretended to love her, then you left her and broke her heart.
Jack Sparrow: Worse. I may have had, briefly mind you…stirrings.

Gibbs: Stirrings?
Jack Sparrow: Stirrings.

Gibbs: What, like feelings you mean?
Jack Sparrow: No! No! No! Not quite all the way to feelings. More like…
[Gibbs gives him a look]
Jack Sparrow: All right, feelings. Damn you!
Gibbs: And you left her still. Ooh! That’s low!
Jack Sparrow: Thank you.

But what happens when you begin to have… stirrings… and the other person has warned you that he wants none of that? You chastise yourself. You slap your heart around and remind yourself that he is blameless because he was honest from the start. It’s all your fault for feeling the way you do (that’s right, I just dropped an F bomb). Feelings weren’t supposed to have anything to do with it.

Just to clarify, there’s a word for people who don’t have feelings: Sociopaths.

I never knew how to counsel myself or my friends at this point, so we would generally commiserate over the mysterious minds of males and how dating is full of secret rules (like The Line) that no one knows till they’ve bumped into them. The only reason we stay quiet in these situations (actually, women don’t stay quiet about this shit. We talk the hell out of it with our friends to the point of each earning a psych degree) is because we’ve learned to not be earnest. To not express our stirrings or feelings lest we be judged harshly not only by the object of our affection who already forbade emotion, but by our own Facebook page of adoring public.

And then I grew up and realized that The Line is not a fucking Get Out of Jail Free Card.

Seriously. You can’t say, “I’m not a racist,” then go off on a tirade about how much you hate Mexicans and still expect me to believe you’re not a racist. No more can you say “I don’t want a relationship” then proceed to build emotional bonds with another person and expect to get let off the hook with no hard feelings when either things don’t work out or you can’t take the pressure and reveal your true chicken shit nature.

Other than the fact that The Line is insulting off the bat (it’s like telling a girl that she’s not good enough for you but that you’ll tolerate and use her so long as she knows it’s only temporary), it’s a knee-jerk reaction that betrays cowardice.

Yes. Anyone of any gender who says The Line is a coward.

So what if you’ve been burned before? We all have. And just because a girl is spending time with you doesn’t mean she hears wedding bells in her head. Hell, that’s the farthest thought from my mind when I meet a guy I like. Generally because I’m a dick and don’t like anyone, so someone I’m attracted to is always cause for shock. Giving a girl The Line is akin to accusing her of having proposed already.

Yes, this post has a gender bias because I’m a girl, a lot of my friends are girls, and I’m not certain how large a percentage of women use The Line (other than to politely get out of a second date), but know many men do. Bear with me on the generalizations, folks.

Relationships (excuse me, hangingoutships) don’t have to start with the complications of The Line. They can be as simple as, “Hey, we like each other, let’s find out just how much and cross the rest of the bridges when we get there because no one can fucking predict the future. Maybe we’ll get hurt, maybe not, but either way we’ll learn something.”

Using The Line isn’t going to stop you from getting hurt when you’re dumped. In fact, no matter what, relationships are guaranteed to end because (SPOILER ALERT) you’re going to die. So why use it at all? Because you’re a chicken shit, that’s why.

You know how you can actually avoid getting hurt? By having the balls to learn self-reliance by staying single long enough to figure out who you are and what you want without fucking with innocent bystanders on the way because you’re too cowardly to actually make it on your own.

Yes, I am in a remorseless mood. But I call it like I see it.

So next time you’re about to give The Line, you sure as hell have better made peace with being a chicken shit. And next time you’re given The Line and choose to continue to see the guy, know that you’ll probably have to be the one with balls and call him on his bullshit.

One of my best friends just had a baby today so now that I’ve got all that out, I’m going to revel in my emotions of joy for her and her son!

10 Years Later

Filming a video message for the happy couple

It isn’t often that we’re able to see outside of ourselves and feel the spinning of the earth slow as moment in time becomes pivotal to our lives. Becomes a part of not only our personal history, but our people’s history. September 11^th, 2001 was one of those days, but June 18^th, 2011 was even more so.

The air was warm and charged with expectation and the scent of the redwoods. I sat at a table in the grass, surrounded by friends I had bumbled through teenagerhood with, along with two special people. One was my sister, who is my other half. The other was a young man who is family in all but blood. We met at pre-school and became friends before we were three.

The chatter of the voices around us quieted as music began to play. Down the handmade stage came the wedding party. Then the groom, MrD., whose face was still that of the boy I had teased years ago, now had the confidence of a man following his dreams. Then the bride, MissL., a young woman who has inspired me by her kindness and compassion since the day we met in junior high. They were high school sweethearts who had taken their time to get to this place of union, which made it all the more festive for us guests. We finally had a chance to show them not only how happy we were for them, but how proud.

When the videographer came around after the ceremony, recording well-wishes for the happy couple, I had something to say. I didn’t know until afterwards that the entire time I was speaking into the lens, my friend from pre-school, MrT., was making funny faces in the background. Trust me, he’s good at those. Too good.

While I laughed at the revelation, I felt time slow and realized how lucky I am. How lucky we all are. Through the lens of that camera, imprinted on magnetic tape, is a record not only of survival, but of resilience and hope. It had been ten years, and we were all well.

The morning of September 11^th, 2001, I rushed into my 7am video productions class. I was irritated because my mother and siblings were all leaving after school to camp at the county fair with their livestock for the week and I would miss them. I stepped into the classroom to find the few students who were there on time watching the big screen TV. With the teacher. Anytime a teacher had us watch the news, it was a big deal. I was sickly let down when I saw that it was just a burning building in Manhattan on the screen. Why did New York get so much attention whenever any little thing happened there?

I asked what was going on and someone said that a plane had hit. I assumed it was an accident until I watched the second plane explode against the tower. I felt the working of my brain shift and try to rewire. For some reason, I couldn’t get over the fact that a plane crashing into a building actually looked exactly as you thought it would. Now that I’m older, I think what confused me the most wasn’t the truth of the image, but rather, the fact that there was no doubt behind the intention. Whoever was flying that plane was aiming for the second tower.

I sank into my seat amidst gasps from my fellow students as we watched the horror unfold on the big screen. I felt a pang of compassion for each new student who entered and wondered what was going on. I’ll never forget how silent the room was. How my blood-brother from pre-school was at my side, whispering “Oh my God,” for me when I could no longer speak.

Firemen were stopped by a reporter as they rushed towards the towers and one paused to speak. I don’t remember what he said, but I remember it was harried and that I felt a sense of comfort once they arrived. They would help everyone. They would put out the fires and fix things. Then the tower fell and that relief turned into numb anguish as we realized that every man who we just saw had died. Watching the steel crumble and the billowing clouds of debris, I wanted to cry. I needed to cry. I was able to force tears into my eyes, but they wouldn’t fall. I don’t know if they ever did.

I kept hoping that another American hadn’t done this, like one had in the Oklahoma City bombing when I was in sixth grade. I kept thinking that we were seniors in high school and that it wasn’t fair that this was the world we were inheriting. It wasn’t fair that the choices that had led up to that horrible attack weren’t ours. As a Californian who had never been across the Mississippi, until that day, I hadn’t even known what the two towers were. What Afghanistan was. But I knew who Osama bin Laden was. I stayed up late once and watched an episode of 60 Minutes (I think) that interviewed him. He promised to kill us all. I couldn’t understand why they didn’t do him then and there when they knew from the U.S. Embassy Bombings he was capable of following through with his threats.

I don’t remember the order, but we saw scenes of the smoldering wall of the Pentagon, heard of a rogue plane still in the air, headed for the White House, and a bomb in a car outside of Congress. That last report turned out to be false, but at the time, and at seventeen-years-old, it felt like the world was collapsing around us.

I left the room to call my mom on the payphone since we didn’t all have cells then. I don’t know why I called her. I was worried that between taking my younger siblings to school and getting ready for the fair, she wouldn’t have heard about what was going on. I think I thought I could protect her if she didn’t leave the house. But really, I wanted comfort. I left a message.

When I returned to the classroom, our teacher had the wisdom to mute the TV and to tell us to go to work on our video projects. No one could focus. Least of all my group. We were editing a video about the end of mankind, using footage from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We had thought we were being clever, prescient even, by making such an eerie short. On that day, we realized that we were right, and it was awful.

Our teacher came over to use and knew exactly what to say when he saw us staring at our timeline of black and white footage. “I hope you know you didn’t cause this.” We all nervously giggled. Nervous because we’d all been thinking the same thing. Our cynicism had been rewarded. We were harbingers too late.

The next class of the day was Economics and the second tower fell. The screen went dark and the anchormen and women gasped and fell silent and I knew no adults were in control. No one was. Then whistles sounded from all over on the screen. I thought they were alarms until a girl in class said that they were whistles on the jackets of firemen and they only went off when the fireman was no longer moving. The bottom dropped out of my stomach. Then a woman stepped into the classroom, called my name, and asked me to go with her.

I rose and stiffly followed while every eye in the classroom lingered on me. My mind was racing. I had no family in New York, at least not that I was in touch with. My dad was at work. Everyone should be safe, shouldn’t they? Was there another attack in California? Outside of the classroom, the woman tried to chat with me about something inconsequential, and I practiced my fake smile. Then I saw my mom and baby brother and sister waiting for me. No one we knew had died. They just wanted to see me before they left.

“They’re saying it’s worse than Pearl Harbor,” my little brother said. He was twelve and my sister was nine and they had already seen so much. It wasn’t fair.

I didn’t want to tell him that it might have been ten times worse than Pearl Harbor, for at the time, casualty estimates were around an exaggerated 60,000. Instead, I muttered “I know.”

They were still going to the fair, which surprised me. But what could be more American, what could be more defiant than continuing with rural life and commerce in the face of such hatred of our lifestyle. They wanted me to go with them but I was always serious about school and didn’t want to miss any. I hugged them all goodbye then returned to class.

The drive home felt long. Within a few hours, it looked like everyone in town had pulled out their Independence Day decorations. Patriotic bunting decorated fences. Red, white and blue ribbons were on antennae. American flags flew from cars. It was so organic and genuine that I have never seen an equal outpouring of support and brotherhood. I probably never will.

I didn’t want to be home alone that afternoon, and neither did one of my childhood friends, MissE., so she came over and after failing to complete even part of our Spanish homework because of our nerves, we made cookie dough and ate it. We watched Mayor Rudolph Guiliani give a speech. It was relieving to see at least one adult who was poised and composed, even after his city had been attacked. That night, my heart swelled as our oft-bumbling leader showed no sign of weakness and spoke to our nation of resolve, unity, strength, and retaliation.

I shouldn’t have been alone that week. My dad was around but he was at work most of the day. The silent skies were as peaceful as they were eerie. I became glued to the TV. Every morning for two weeks, I woke up at 5am and painted an American flag on my bicep. In my junior year, I had seriously considered joining the Navy. I took the ASVAB and interpreted my results with recruiters. I even considered shaving my head and talked about it so often that one of my friends shaved her head, instead. I had ultimately decided to go to college, but after the attacks, the old desire to matter returned with passion.

Our teachers kept asking us how we felt, trying to get us to talk. Our Economics teacher made all sorts of jokes. He went out of his way to make us laugh, like looking up conspiracy theories that claimed the Amish were responsible for the attacks. During one of these amusing moments, everyone fell silent at the sound of a plane. Several of us looked out the window. A girl in class laughed at our own flightiness. “It’s just a crop duster.” Poking fun at ourselves felt empowering. Yet still, I remember gazing at the newspapers from September 9^th and 10^th with longing, wishing to return to that simple world before such hate attacked our innocence.

In one class, our discussions often turned into arguments. People were eager to lay blame for what happened. Eager to express their frustration as anger, especially the boys. During one of these heated discussions, my friend from pre-school, MrT., revealed that he had enlisted and joined the 82^nd Airborne. He was going to be a paratrooper.

I came home shaken. When he had tried homeschool in sixth grade, so had I. It was pretty awful, and shortly after he had left, so had I. Now he had joined the military. I wanted to follow again.

One day, after the President’s speech asking every American to serve their country in some way, after being turned away when I tried to donate blood because they had too many volunteers, after only two people (one of which was MissL.) showed up at my 18^th birthday party because it was the same day we attacked Afghanistan and their parents didn’t let them leave the house for fear of retaliation, I lay on my bed and made a decision. I called my mom into my room and asked her to take me to the recruiter station in Capitola.

She just stared. “Why?”

“Because I want to join the Navy.”

I remember being mad that she wouldn’t take me. That she didn’t approve. That she told me I shouldn’t make such decisions while I was emotional. But a part of me was relieved that she was stopping me. And now I am happy that she convinced me that I could serve my country in other ways. The recruiters never told me what a different place the military is for women.

In the end, irritated by how my fellow students were talking about trips to the snow instead of the recent war we were waging if Afghanistan, I made a video. It didn’t take much work and was pretty sappy, but it got the job done. It was scenes of the US, then Christmas, then two soldiers in the desert, played by my brothers. One was dead. The end read “Not everyone will be home for Christmas.” It was shown at the winter assembly in front of the whole school. Several ran out of the gym crying. Other students half-jokingly accused me of “ruining their winter break” over the rest of the day. That was the point.

Later that year, MissL left our Government class in tears. Getting out of my seat, our teacher nodded her silent approval that it was fine for me to miss class to comfort her. We sat on the steps outside as I listened to what was troubling her. Some time ago, she and our friend MrD started dating. When her mother found out how serious they were, she didn’t approve, citing differences in their cultures because one of his parents was from the Middle East. There are differences between everyone, but we all grew up together in the same sheltered valley. To us, they would’ve had more differences if he’d been from Scott’s Valley, our rich rival high school. But still, her mother was trying to protect her daughter from a world she thought wouldn’t allow her and MrD to be together. Something she never would’ve worried about if not for September 11^th.

We graduated, parted ways for college. MrT wrote to send me updates from boot camp. At my university, I attended a talk on the possible invasion of Iraq. The panel of professors and attendees quickly disintegrated into a shouting match. The older generation had lost control again, which wasn’t fair when my peers were maintaining their control and making the choice to serve. I had class so I left the shouts that we would never get out of Iraq once we were in, that thousands of our soldiers would be killed. Or at least I tried to. I had to take a math test and was so worried about MrT being sent to war that I came as close to failing a test in college as I have ever done.

In the end, as we all know, we did invade. MrT served two tours in Iraq. Once, while on the phone with him, I heard distant pop. He laughed and said the locals liked to take shots at the compound every once in a while. His parents were on the front page of the local paper, holding his picture, saying they faced the reality that he might not come home every day. This was made all the more real when another young man who I had the pleasure of meeting a few times was killed. To this day, MrT wears a bracelet in honor of his memory and sacrifice.

Since we were small, MrT has always stolen my Runts whenever I have had the favorite candy sitting out. While he was in Iraq, we often sent him packages full of Runts, which were one of the few treats that could survive in the desert. Now MrT is home, and though I gave him five boxes for his birthday, still steals my Runts when he visits, which is as it should be.

I know everyone was affected by September 11^th, 2001. Some more than others, especially those in NYC. But on that happy June day in 2011, surrounded by friends, I realized just how much it has shaped the lives of our generation. We literally came of age amidst the turmoil. We were young enough to have had innocence taken that day, yet old enough to have the adults in our lives not know what to do or say to help us make sense of it all.

Ten years later, we still don’t know how to make sense of it all, but we live in an altered world. That day in June, Osama bin Laden had been dead for a little over a month. Our soldiers were finally pulling out of Iraq. Approaching our ten year high school reunion, attending a wedding, we all felt very grown up.

In the lens of that video camera is the girl telling her story of how the love between her friends was stronger than prejudice. Behind her is the soldier, still goofy as ever, alive and well after rising to the call and serving his nation. We were brought together to celebrate not only our friends, but being alive.

September 11^th, 2001 may have been a day of sorrow and death that marked us forever. But June 18^th, 2011, was a day of joy and new life that will always give me faith in hope. We truly are the lucky ones.

“Daddy”

Thursday night I attended “Pitchapalooza” which was advertised as an event where aspiring authors have exactly one minute to pitch their book idea to a panel, including an author and a New York Literary Agent. The best pitch wins a meeting with said agent. I didn’t hear about the event until the morning of, and while I knew I should do it, I hate the idea of going up in front of people like that and having something so big riding on my shoulders. My sister proclaimed herself to be Cinna from the Hunger Games and kept me on task, reciting and honing in my pitch until it was perfect and 58 seconds long. I tried to quit several times but she cracked the whip! Cinna then consulted me on my outfit and we headed downtown.

To try to take the edge off, I decided that we were actually on our way to get ice cream at Coldstone and that Pitchapalooza was just a stop we had to make on the way.

The event was held at our local independent bookstore and though we arrived twenty minutes early, every seat was taken. There were so many contestants that we had to sign up on a sheet to be put into a lottery. The catch was that the only way you could get your name on the list was to buy the author on the panel’s book. I grabbed a copy of the book (after snapping “I didn’t come here to buy that guy’s frickin’ book” only to discover a man who looked suspiciously like the author standing right behind me. Thankfully, he was just a guy running the event) and figured I could always return it later. As my mom, sister and I marched towards the cashier, a man who looked lie a Hell’s Angel biker stopped us. “Excuse me, baby, are you gonna buy that book to try to get on the list?”

“Yeah, we’re thinking about it.”

He nodded. “Okay, let me know if you do. I’ll make sure you get on the list. I have connections.”

I assumed he worked for the event and thanked him, then he added, “I’m weird, but in a good way.”

Confused, we bought the book then found a place to stand where we could vaguely observe the going ons. The biker sidled up to us and said “I’m gonna bless you, baby. I get these messages from Daddy. I don’t know what else to call him other than that, probably because I needed a daddy at the time he revealed himself to me. But he told me to bless you. I think you’re the reason I came here tonight. You’re gonna write such wonderful stories. The words will flow through you with such love, and that’s all we need in this world.Love. The rest is just distractions. You will write stories with such love. All you need is a little push to make it. I’ll do what I can for you tonight but after that, I can’t tell you what will happen.” He then placed a hand on my shoulder, looked into my eyes, and wept as he blessed me.

I’m no Christian and I’m always wary of older men asking if they can touch you, but this man fully believed in what he was doing, so the least I could do was help him feel like he’d made a difference. I smiled, and when he asked me if I could feel the energy that he did, I said “I feel warmth,” which was true.

After he tried to keep conversation going for a while, distracting us from the opening of the event, he left to check his parking meter and never came back.

Name after name was called off a list until finally, my name was spoken. It had worked! Daddy had got me onto the list! Either that or the fact that I printed my name very clearly since the rest were scrawled on the page helped. I went up, nervous as hell, and pitched. The author among the group loved my pitch and idea and emphasized how hot this genre is right now. The other three were a little less enamored. After my pitch I had all but run away and as they gave me feedback, and I realized I was hiding behind the man waiting to go after me so I forced myself to come back out.

As I walked away after their feedback, a little old lady snagged my hand and squeezed. “You did so good,” she gushed with a grin. “Thank you,” I said. “I was so nervous.” “Oh, so am I,” she replied. Another lady followed me and stopped me to tell me how wonderful she thought my book sounded, and as I turned to face her, I gritted my teeth. Not because of her, but because every time I give a reading, people follow me afterward and ask where they can buy the book. Yet I can’t get published. I’m so grateful to have their support, but it’s starting to get frustrating since I know I have an audience.

Another woman won the contest, and afterwards, we all lined up to receive the author and agent’s business cards. When it was my turn, the author held out the card, opened his mouth, and froze staring at me for a good five seconds. I thought he was trying to remember what my pitch was and I was about to remind him when he said, “I feel like you have a really good book.”

“I hope so.”

“Why don’t you send me an e-mail and we’ll see what we can do about getting it out there.”

“Thank you, I will.”

I walked away stunned. I hadn’t won yet here was an offer of assistance. And the way he had frozen… was that “Daddy” possessing him? Nudging him saying, “Psst! That’s her! That’s the blessed one!” Or maybe it was just the author thinking, “Do I really wanna tell her that I’ll try to help?”

Who knows. Maybe Daddy knows. I sure didn’t. For that was just the start of a series of curious incidents. Find out what happened the next day in my post tomorrow!

Katniss Everdeen

The most popular search that has led people to my blog has been “characters like Jo March.” It makes me so happy to know that there is still such interest in a character pushing 150 years old. I’d like to potentially introduce some of my readers to Katniss Everdeen of Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games. I you haven’t heard of the trilogy yet, you will. The film comes out March 23, 2012 and the hype is already building and rightly so. Even though the story centers around the morbid tradition of holding massive gladiator-esque matches, I would much prefer this series getting attention and investment to Twilight. Namely because of the heroine and the themes. Don’t worry, this post will be spoiler-free!

Katniss Everdeen is a character Jo March (and myself!) would love to pretend to be. She is driven, determined, inspired, charming, and a total badass who can kick butt. The books are written in first person present tense, which makes the story feel very immediate. The reader is literally in Katniss’ head, experiencing life alongside her. Since I write both novels and scripts, I usually don’t like prose written in the present tense for it makes me feel like I’m reading a script (which is always infinitely less enjoyable). However, Collins’ choice for these books has been so effective that I’ve even started working on my own piece in first person present. By writing in present tense, the reader never has to ponder the question of “when is the character telling us this story? Five minutes after it happened? 50 years later on her deathbed?”

The immersive immediacy of Collins’ prose is balanced by her deft ability to create a character with only a sentence or two to make a series that you literally can’t put down. I obsessively read The Hunger Games not necessarily because I loved the prose or because I wanted to be back in Katniss’ world, but because I had to know what happened next. If I tried to fight the urge to read, no matter what I was doing in my daily life, there was always a little voice in the back of my head whispering, “You could be reading Hunger Games.” I’ve now passed the addiction onto my sister who is partway through book two, Catching Fire.

Katniss reminded my mother of me, so she gave me the books for Christmas. My sister gets a kick out of calling me Katniss now and then to try to put me in my place when I’m being particularly snippy or mean to boys. Just today a childhood friend said that she’s reading the books and that Katniss “totally reminds me of you.” Which is what prompted this post. I won’t deny the similarities between myself and the character, and it was refreshing to read a book in the head of someone so like myself. While I consider being compared to Katniss a compliment, I am also wary of Katniss’ faults. I know we share some of those, too, and I learn best when others point out things about me, so I’m trying to learn from Katniss’ mistakes so that I might avoid them in real life.

Katniss lacks the creativity and fluidity with words that Jo March possesses, but in that regard, Katniss is a product of her environment: harsh, bereaved, and constantly on the brink of starvation. Yet like Jo, she is tough as nails, devoted to her family, full of gumption, and (eventually,)determined to make a difference and matter in her world. So to any fans of Little Women, I highly recommend The Hunger Games.

Legend of the Seeker

My sister, cousin and I have a new parody up. Check it out!

Check it out on YouTube!

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

 

Inspiration

I must away into the woods alone to let my thoughts settle like resting butterflies. I am absorbed into the songs of birds and the humming of insects, carried away on the whisper of the breeze. My mind uncoils and rests, listening. Listening. And then it comes when I am delighted by the simple pleasure of the sun on my skin, the leaves rustling over my head, the largeness of the mountain beside me. It comes when I strip away shields and welcome every hope, every impulse and delight in the little girl I am inside. The girl who loves moonlight and faerie dances and horse manes. The girl who is never afraid to express her love of all things.

It is then, when I am quiet and dissolved into the life around me, that it comes on tickling, tantalizing wings: unbridled inspiration.

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Mother’s Day

This is the card I painted for my momma on Mother’s Day. The garden is planted and growing. The air near it already smells of herbs. The wild grasses are all dry. Summer is fast approaching!

A faerie dance!

Happy Birthday, Nick!

This weekend, the little boy I nannied (also my neighbor), Nick, turned 10. I began caring for him when he was 18 months, so you can imagine how close I feel to the beautiful little boy. I had it all planned out. On his birthday, he would go on a treasure hunt around our properties to find lost “pirate gold” (lollipops). Then he would open his presents from me, including a hand-painted card. After that, we would watch the movie we had filmed a few days prior. I wrote all these tasks onto a to-do list, and on Saturday, I got to work.

I edited the movie, which took most of the day with my retarded software, then I painted the card and wrapped his gifts. I decided to save the treasure hunt for the next day so that the hiding spots would be fresh in my mind. After fixing a few glitches on the DVD of our movie, The Couch Potato Olympics, my sister looked at the calendar and gasped. It was 11pm at night, and we realized that THAT day was his birthday.

I had spent all day trying to get ready to make his first double-digit birthday special, then I missed it because I was off by a day!

The card I painted — set sail to follow your dreams!

The next day, while I was waiting for Nick to come home from a friend’s house so that he could go on his treasure hunt, we took the dogs for a walk. It was Beltane (May Day) and the air was strangely charged. On Beltane, the spirits of the Otherworld are near, like on Halloween (Samhain). Comanche pounced on a fawn almost as soon as we set out, and my sister had to grab the baby deer, and then the dog, to prevent a murder. Chee then dragged her into a pond, so we cut our walk short and headed home.

Once home, a coyote strolled right up to my brother while he was tacking up our horse Houdini. They usually aren’t so bold. Comanche helped him chase it off, then wandered off and ate what sounded like baby rabbits or a rat. Then Nick’s dog Oreo followed him down to our house and wandered around, which is something she usually never does. All the animals we encountered were behaving oddly.

After the treasure hunt, we headed up to my neighbor’s house to watch The Couch Potato Olympics. Just as we were pushing play, Nick’s mom strolled over and casually said, “You know Osama bin Laden? He’s dead.”

Talk about a crazy day where oddity and change were literally in the air!

Beltane is about cleansing to ready for summer, so I suppose a mass murderer being stripped of power was a fitting end!

New Painting

And here I thought I could get into the habit of writing a blog post a day. Oh well!

I tried my hand at painting a cover my second book, Sing Over the Bones. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a blotchy mess. I’m glad I saved the expensive art paper for my second try! I love the freedom of watercolors, but I also hate how one tiny thing can mess everything up. Like the face of the Isabel — just as I was touching the brush to paper for her features, a drop of water slid down the brush and onto the tip. So now she looks mentally challenged.

I still love the idea of this scene, though, and am rather proud of how the ship in the background turned out. Ironic given that I had to hold my breath while painting something so small!

The trials of expressing artistic inspiration are always a challenge, and my man Percy Shelley sums it up well in his Defence of Poetry.

“[Inspiration] is as it were the interpenetration of a diviner nature through our own, but its footsteps are like those of a wind over the sea, which the coming calm erases, and whose traces remain only as on the wrinkled sand which paves it.” 

Dissolving

It’s been almost a year since I graduated with my MFA from SJSU. I’ve been in school since I was two, so this year has been one of adjustments, to be sure. But the biggest adjustment has been in my head. Sometime ago I realized that I no longer thought of time in terms of months, semesters, seasons… but instead in terms of goals, events and achievements.

I also realized that outside of the classroom, I don’t always know who I am. I am confident in my field(s), but since I have been in school so long (and dedicated to my studies and craft), I have missed out on many of the common experiences and mistakes of young people. I’m twenty-seven now, but feel like I’m living my twenties backwards. Most people hunt out new experiences in the younger half of this decade, while I’m doing it in the older half!

That isn’t to say that I’ve ever turned my back on new experiences, but now that I lack the structure and demands of curriculum, I have more opportunities to explore. And explore I am! Last September, I packed up and hopped on a plane to temporarily live with a girl I had only spoken to once on the phone. I trusted the connection I felt with her, and was rewarded with a wonderful friendship because of it. We made a film with a crew that was a cast of characters in their own right, and while there were several tense moments where I regretted trusting my script and safety in the hands of an inexperienced crew, the resulting life lessons were worth it. When I tell the story of the flawed, dramatic production to friends, they say “You shouldn’t have trusted that producer!” I know that now, but I don’t regret it. Not in the least. And it hasn’t dimmed my ability to trust others who come along with promises. That could be dangerous on my part, but while my integrity is always solid, my analysis of people is fleeting, at best.

I learn about myself through others. I’m no good at sitting down and defining “this is who I am.” And I’ve developed a bizarre, nebulous consciousness of late. Maybe it’s because I’ve been visited by death and tragedy far too many times in this past year, and those experiences have shred the veils of order and reason in my world. But when I am with other people and hearing their thoughts, my own mind is relatively quiet, and I listen and absorb all they have to offer. I dissolve into their minds and see the world through their eyes. In part, this is a game — a character study. But it is also largely because I now wit hold judgment (probably too much at times) because I strongly feel, “What the heck do I know? Who am I to say that this person’s choices are correct?” I lose myself in others. I know this is a risk many actors run, but I don’t know how to stop it.

Slowly but surely, I am defining my own characteristics through others. It’s as if all the walls of my mind have fallen away and I am slowly rebuilding their structure. They will shift and change and probably never become fortified, but hey, at least it’s a start!

Has anyone else gone through a time when they felt like a leaf in the wind? Embarking on new opportunities when they arrive, sometimes for the mere sake of trying everything once? Am I too much of a Romantic?