Sweet

This is what a 3-day weekend looks like. I want to fall into it and roll around like a drunken bumblebee. But when I'm faced with the reality of three whole days away from work, I get confused and overwhelmed. What should I do first? Make a list of course: Get a massage; stock up on mysteries at Barnes and Noble for the weekend; make a collage; start a novel; clean the refrigerator (what the hell is that smell?); balance the checkbook; lose weight; make marinara sauce from scratch...and so on. So far I've stared out the window at the dead basil plant and recycling bins full of #1 plastic take out cartons and empty wine bottles (are the neighbors counting?). I will get to all that stuff on my list soon, I swear, but first I have to read the new People magazine and overeat. Tomorrow--brave new weekend. I will get up, exercise and make pasta from scratch--or buy it at the Farmer's Market. If I can get out of my pajamas.

The View from Here

I've been thinking about how easy it is for me to see life sunny side up, to be optimistic, passionate, creative when things are going well, but as soon as I encounter obstacles, my first instinct is to crumple, to view the world through morose-colored glasses. Twelve years ago I had major surgery to remove a tumor in my lung, and although I recovered completely and didn't require any treatment, every time I have a pain, or even a twinge, in my back, I panic and go into a kind of deer-in-the-headlights state. Then I have to talk myself down off the ledge of my own fear. I have friends who seem to right themselves so easily after an upset, like those clown toys that you can knock over but they always bounce back with a smile on their faces. They see the same world no matter what occurs day to day, but my view of the world shifts and mutates and shivers minute by minute, according to what someone says to me or the pain in my [fill in the blanks] or my failures or the state of my bank statement. So tell me...what keeps you right side up, what helps you look at life without flinching?

Soul Searching Graffiti

This graffito was stenciled on the step leading up to my favorite coffee house this morning. I wondered how many people have been literally stopped in their tracks as they reach for the door, the only thing on their minds a nonfat latte with 2 raw sugars please. I don't know who's leaving this guerilla art around town (the last one I saw read, "How much stuff do you need?"), but I love her or him. I get furious at the random tags that are sprayed on building walls or doors or mailboxes, but this quietly subversive sentence made me pause and think about what I'm passionate about beyond Project Runway, cream in my coffee, down-filled chairs, cashmere socks, hot strong tea with lemon, Kerouac, Csezlaw Milosz poetry, gardenias, Il Bisonte bags, Robert Louis Stevenson, Hawaii, all the little lovely things that bring me beauty. And of course, I love my family and friends. I love my little cottage with its prayer flags fluttering in the breeze and the ocean's reassuring ebb and flow just a couple of miles away. Those are quiet steady loves, the foundation of my life. But what would it take to knock me off my feet, make my heart race, lure me out of my cozy existence? What are you passionate about?

Paying Attention

I wrote a piece today about being aware enough of the person you're talking to that you notice the color of their eyes, and then I realized that I often don't take my own advice. So I wrote in the palm of my hand a reminder to pay attention. I'm noticing so far... 

* a scattering of rose petals in the dirt, so wabi sabi.

* how quietly my house seems to wait for me to come home after it's been cleaned.

* the sound of cars passing by when I don't have the tv on...like the tide coming and going.

* the smell of basil on my hands from pulling leaves off the plant in the yard. I wish my skin smelled like geranium leaves when I'm happy, gardenias when I'm aroused, ginger when I'm relaxed, peppermint when I'm working.

* the broody feeling of a storm building...it makes me want to have laundry on a clothesline so I could race to gather it in before it rains, having the wind fill the sheets so that you have to haul them in like sails on a boat.

* dogs barking from yard to yard across the neighborhood...passing along news and gossip I'll never know. 

Recalculating

On my recent trip back home, I had my first experience with a GPS, and I became addicted within about 5 minutes. The soothing, competent voice (she knows where she's going!) was constantly saying, "recalculating" and putting me back on course when I insisted on making u-turns, backtracking, going off on tangents. My entire trip was one major life recalculation. I had dreaded going home, re-entering all the family soap operas and having all the old ghosts jostling to ride shotgun. I'm usually completely lost and bewildered when I land in Kentucky even though I grew up there and returned year after year once I'd run away. This time I felt as if I'd finally taken control--I had a GPS, a kickass hotel and an invitation to give a speech. I was a grownup, by god. What I hadn't counted on was time-traveling, unraveling my self, and for that trip I needed a guru, not a GPS. I wish I'd had an emotional compass that would have have warned me when I was headed into uncharted territory, but I had to go over this Dark and Bloody Ground by myself. I couldn't figure out why I was so unsettled, so shaken and stirred, until I realized that for 30 years, I've been clinging to the dream of going home on my own terms, reuniting with the love of my life, and maybe settling down on a forgotten farm in the back of nowhere. On this trip, I found once and for all that the love of my life and I only had our old selves in common and that there was no going back to a land that never existed in the first place. My mind is trying to let go of that dream, but my soul is still clinging on for dear life. I think change is like my trapeze lessons--I have to trust that once I let go, I'll kick off into thin air but the bar will be there to swing me up and over the familiar horizon into a new and unexplored land. Easier to say than do. I'm trying.

Green Peace

After a day filled with upsetting communications that seemed to be beamed straight to my office from the planet of Mercury Retrograde, I eagerly anticipated coming home with carryout food, putting on my pajamas and watching what had been touted as the best ever opening ceremonies of the Olympics. Why did I get sucked in again? Yes, it was bigger than ever, as Matt Lauer promised, but the very size of it, the Bigness, the technology was numbing. Is a bloated over-the-top paean to it's-a-small-world--after-all globalism inevitable? The camera even caught George and Laura Bush checking their watches. For once, I felt his pain. The smoke and mirrors spectacle made me hungry for something clean and simple, like a green banana leaf in the rain. Like a haiku by Basho. Like the first star in a mysterious unfathomable night sky.

Hotel of Dreams

I've been staying at the 21C Museum Hotel in Louisville for the past two days. It's my second visit and I wish I could live here. The photo was snapped of the welcome mat in the lobby. It's a video projection and as you stand around waiting to check in, the sleepers move, turn over, reach out for each other. I never tire of waiting for something to happen...a potential little story unfolding before my eyes. The hotel is filled with startling, controversial, thought-provoking art installations, and it makes me wonder why schools, hospitals, and other public buildings can't be as well. I don't mean the bland pudding-comfortable stuff that generally passes for public art, but pieces like this that jar your sensibilities, move you out of your ordinary state of mind. Every time I stay here, I'm all shook up by it. Originally, I booked it to have a refuge from my family's antics when I come home to visit. Now I look forward to coming here. It's not just a place to sleep or stash my suitcase; it's a destination on its own, a place to create, conjure, recover, dream. It never occurred to me that a hotel could be a muse.