Supernatural Law

                                 Truly. You are seeing this correctly. No, I have not gone
                                               "fade to white", but this frame has for sure.

           Ah. Today is and must be a tremendous mashup of mega proportions. Why? I will tell you why . . . because yellow wall paper style-in a good way!!!!-I am, to copycat my favorite anti-depression robot man-attempting to FORGE MEANING and build BUILD IDENTITY in this oh so swiftly moving and fast escaping helium filled ballon glistening rainbow gobsmack of a brilliant jewel of a planet sailing through galaxies unknown. Ebola count? Staggering to go back to March when numbers were low and it seemed barely an evil whisper among those who knew. Those on the front lines as we love to say. Fast forward to NOW when the debate is flying as to how best to help? Oh my goodness, I remember when I had two sticks as legs and hair that stuck pretty much straight out thanks to an ill met match with some hair clippers-1960's style-when I was reading a magazine about a population far far away that was starving. Little kids with rib cages like cages and corpses on streets amounting to not much more than a skeleton and on and on-the photos were black and white stark. I had a kids morbid fascination with hunger to death, all things dead, and people dying as they lived but I CAN CLEARLY REMEMBER, even to this day, reading commentary that proposed letting the people starve to death . . . that our planet was crowded enough and this was nature's way of cutting the weak. And now, once again, I read the same thoughts and rational on the Ebola hotlines. Contrast those ideas with the testimony of the health worker who discusses how her children are grown and she has nothing to lose and she must respond to a humanitarian need despite fears for her own safety and life. I know that I could never be that brave.

                                   From my back deck. Remember I told you that I ripped off part
                                    of the fence? Now I can see for miles and the trade winds
                                                               are strong.

And speaking of superheroes . . . so, discover for yourself why I am obssessed and moved to tears by the graphic novel of RECALL AND GIVEN. It should be easy for you to find, I am not going to provide links or any of that nonsense-just read about this comic. It is a story of love that knocks me off my feet. I can time travel with this one as well, remembering back to a solid couple of years dedicated to reading every comic and graphic novel I could get my hands on-back in the superhero days, back in the collecting days, back in the curl up and read days. Recall and Given. It is a beautiful thing. And moving right along to more beautiful things . . . rather than bemoan this odd time slip of NOT working two and three jobs at a time, working like an idiot, working too hard, and working hard enough to take my back out, for the MOST PART, I have had the time of my life visiting my beloved family, spending more time than ever with actual friends, spoiling the hell out of my dogs-yep, the hell is gone-,  researching everything from "where are the survivor season one players now" to teaching jobs around the country, cake recipes during Mozart's lifetime to how to comfort an old dog, and watching old movies, bad reality, practicing my craft and sullen art, and READING. Mostly I have discovered, rediscovered (which is one of the gems about staying on the planet this long REdiscovering past loves) my first love in this life-READING. And as I told you last post, I have read my way through a brazillion cyber articles, 15 and counting books, and magazine articles by the dozens. For the first time in a decade I have moved my chess piece of "reading" from a drowsy half hour before passing out, to hours during the day-HOURS-outside on my front deck, in my back yard under the Totoro tree, and sitting up in bed with a huge mug of coffee.  
 For this thinking and reconnecting and forging and building time, unexpected, I am eternally grateful. Grateful to whom you might ask? Yes. That is a valid question. Type it in. Thousands have asked the same thing. Here is the path I am choosing and putting into practice right now: I am grateful to THE PEOPLE in my life. I am grateful for children that care enough to listen, friends that care enough to hunt me down, and strangers that care enough to share a bit of conversation. Under the great vast umbrella of gratitude deserving people I can feel myself remembering to find tenderness and humor and joy. "Being grateful" just wasn't enough for me . . . I have to know-grateful to whom? For what? And when I take an unknown out of the grateful equation and put in people that I know, it is powerful. Now the smallest exchange holds potential for worthy connection and the ordinary realism becomes magic. Magic Realism is the name of the place where I always want to live. Always.

                                   The darkest of chocolate, pumpkin organic!, and raspberry
                                      buttercream with ginger and chocolate chips.
                                                       Happy First Day of Fall!

I guess what this mashup is attempting is a sort out, of sorts, of a brain packed with why can't we? and we must! and a virtual download of heartache over our mess of an existence, my gratitude for the people who care for me and love me and make my life wonderful,  apprehension shading into anticipation of working times ahead-oh those theatre hours!!-and an all around treasure chest of  a little girl with her teacup poodle walking on State, bike racks permanently mounted in the street of a city that can't be bothered to accomodate middle income, a man telling me that I smelled wonderful-better than the deli counter he was surrounded by, a guaranteed spot in this years Faeriefest-yes, seriously, I am the faerie cake baker!!, birds cuddling down much earlier and with no quieting of goodnights, a slight chill settling in,  the promise of a new painting to grace the absolutely covered walls of my Pandora's box home, children busy in their own lives, Sancho still presiding over Command Central, my foor leggeds greeting me like the windups in Blade Runner,  and one FINAL QUESTION which is one of my favorite and best mysteries so NO I won't google it and PLEASE do not tell me . . . but go back and look at my first two photos and you will know why I am enamoured of this one particular time every single evening when the SKY FADES TO WHITE!!! I am always walking around, my jackrabbit self, watching and wondering and trying to capture those moments and oh my goodness-why does the evening sky fade from blue to white? WHY THE WHITE?
And my sign off for this glorious day and night that will never come again? If you are one of my very special people, please know that I am grateful for all you have given, all we have shared and will share, and for the time we have spent together. My door is always open, my dogs are always barking rascals, I rarely have food and I don't drink wine, you will most likely find me buried deep in something either profound or absurd, but you are ALWAYS WELCOME to brave my Bohemian Paradise and ponder the big and small questions. Oh. And eat cupcakes. LOVE ALWAYS!!
                                                                                                                                                           

Beauty and the Beast

                                     This is where i spent some of the happiest mornings of my life.


Tonight is a remembering back one, a casting in reverse to some days early in May when i felt alive-really alive-not just content, or sun-baked, or comfortable-but engaged and alert and excited. i had that happy little kid feeling of anxious anticipation . . .  perhaps i will meet the man of my dreams walking down the street. maybe i will end up behind the bagel counter, serious, sincere, and slinging bagels and tofu spinach spread with the best of them. it could be that i meet up with writers not afraid to sit in dark corners with dim lights in order to hash out characters unsavory and climates not tropical. the person catching my eye on the train across from me smiles and i notice that she has orange dyed hair and screaming bright neon blue running shoes. she has a death grip on her high tech computer bag. i love her. this city where i spent five glorious days was just like me! constantly moving, rarely sleeping, and usually too loud. i smell better than this place, for sure, not everyone reeks of violet french perfume-some prefer the stench of rat, but there was so much talking! and eating at odd hours! and crowds of pigeons, people, taxis, signs, and food carts. i loved every single caffeine fueled, high energy, pavement pounding second of my time there. no regrets. no regrets. i felt alive. i felt glad to be human, glad to be busy, glad for discovery around every corner, glad for experiences planned and unexpected, glad for the connection and conversation.

                                This was the sign on the front outside wall of the bagel cafe.

When people ask me if i enjoyed my visit and i explode with happiness just being asked, more often than not they scoff and tell me that if i lived there i would feel differently. you were just visiting, they say, you would get so tired of the people and the trains and the crowds and the stench. and that is precisely when i know that they have not done their homework on me. oh so wrong they are! i have so much energy i am banging off the walls of this city. how do you costume 300 kids people ask? why do you work so much? don't you ever want to relax? but here's the thing, ever since i was little i have had this internal voice-louder than a heartbeat-that lets me know that my time on earth is limited. i hear the tick and tock of my life's moments flying by and believe you me, even in the heart of the most beautiful, perfect, tranquil city on the planet-i can still hear that clock coming for me. it seems as though there is still so much to learn, and experience, and discover, and know and just witness! i am the eternal snoop just going everywhere with my notebook and noticing and writing down ideas and impressions and trying to capture my time here in some measure of a way. the past couple of years have brought me too much time spent rewatching the same films, living for the next installment of some favorite show, and sitting on my ass in front of a computer. wait! i am not old yet! please don't roll me off to some corner and sit me in front of a television! the streets are calling, dodging those taxis, admiring the smartly dressed, walking dozens of miles a day, feeling the weather change, clouds rolling in and out eclipsed by building of super human size, have i truly spent my time? am i too old now to do much more than dream?

                                                    So here is what i did do.

i realized that if i tore the porch fence wall completely off of my back deck, then when i sit in my hauled off the street wingback chair i can see out into sancho's field next to me and practically for forever. it feels good. it doesn't look that impressive, for sure thousands of miles away from the scene i just described to you, but i do feel a bit better about life. tearing off that wall let's me glimpse the old theatre and got me to spend a couple of days felling waist high weeds in the field itself-like i did two years ago trying to recover from sancho's death. and i didn't tear the wall off-i got my screwdriver and spent the better part of an afternoon removing it in an oh so professional way. if you are young and reading my words, do a better job than i did at staying connected and vital so that when you are as old as me you don't have to be constantly dredging up your cups and whining in them trying to figure out what the hell to do next.  and it also doesn't escape me that i blogged (still so hate that word) for a solid month straight LAST september so i know that part of my restless about to break down the walls of my cage going bat shit crazy gypsy wild woman spirit is simply a matter of being in between theatre seasons. work will start again soon and there will be precious little time to sit in my chair and dream about anything. but right now, while the sun is setting and another night closing in, another day gone, i am remembering back to a time when my feet hit the pavement and i felt home again. really home. like i belonged. LOVE ALWAYS!!