Emptiness

Sometimes when I write an entry in this blog or the publisher's note in the magazine I started, I feel like I've lost my voice. That I'm just an empty chair at the dinner table of life. In this blog, I often adjust my voice for the readers I want,  and I unconsciously strive for niceness or spirituality or thoughtfulness, when really I am just fucking confused or pissed off or randomly human. But I am constantly visiting sites that have a "nice blog" icon, and there is so much adorableness and cuteness and wonderful parenting in the blogs I read that I wonder where the messy, smelly humans live. In the magazine, I also tailor what I say--snipping off an angry opinion (God forbid I should come across as bitter or aggressive) or sewing up an editorial into a nice, neat conclusion. We all crave tidy Oprah closures, but how many of us can say month after month, "This I Know" for sure? To tell you the Truth, my life has not been tidy or neatly stitched. It's a patchwork of regrettable relatives, death marches, bad decisions, loose ends, shouting matches, psycho lovers, lost chances and lasting regrets--as well as bone-shattering beauty, hopeless love, yearning for the impossible and some amazing improbable luck. I can dress up my past as yaya sisterhood, sounthern eccentricity summed up in some cute after-dinner stories (yes, my aunt kidnapped my mother and kept a gun on top of the refrigerator in case the sheriff called), but really it is also badly dressed, redneck, real-life Walmart sadness. All of which is to ask--am I the only one who has a blog life and a real life? 

Inspiration for the Bored

My inspiration board is a bit tired right now. I know I need to pull everything off and start fresh, but I resist packing away my old friends there. That might be a project for this 3-day weekend, but in the meantime, here's what's juicing me up off the board:

* The Interrobang. I just learned that my favorite punctuation mark--?!--has a name. Thanks, O Magazine. 

* Power walking the park and stopping to smell the last of the gardenias and bury my face in a magnolia the size of a dinner plate.

* Spending $10 on 5 peonies at Whole Foods because they only come once a year.

* A stack of books to keep me company in my insomnia: A Reliable Wife; The Little Stranger; The Forgotten Garden ; At the Breakers; The Help. Insomnia Books can't be too demanding, but they have to be absorbing so that I don't start to worry about bills, work or why I can't sleep. Having a few to fall back on is like having money in the bank, casseroles in the freezer, extra batteries and Beanie Weenies in a hurricane.

* Shrimp marinated in the fridge for an hour in 1 tablespoon olive oil, 1 teaspoon chipotle powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt, sauteed and tucked in a tortilla. Topped with salsa and guacamole.

* Bottomless Mimosas at brunch downtown. 

* The Savages arriving in a red Netflix envelope.

* Making my own mailing envelopes out of magazine pages this weekend.

Wabi Sabi, Sort Of

I don't know if I understand the concept of Wabi Sabi, but I do love the the beauty in impermanence, the moment just before things fall apart. Because you are teetering on the edge of  fullness and emptiness, ripeness and rotting. I love old buildings that have great bones but show an edge of decay, unfinished hems on a satin skirt, Lauren Hutton's wrinkles and cutting-edge cheekbones, Erik Satie's Gymnopedie #3 with its longing and long descent into sadness. I've stopped cutting the roses in my yard (I have a regular redneck yard, not a garden) because I'm trying to stop intervening in their natural cycle. It's hard--I always want to short-circuit it, cut the buds before they bloom and force them to maturity in my bedroom.  I've always tried to do the same thing with relationships. Instead of letting them grow at their own pace, I force them into ripeness before their time. Why didn't I ever learn to take them into my bedroom when the time was right?

Cloud-Cuckoo-Land

Today as  I crossed the bridge to go to the Farmer's Market, a flotilla of white clouds like an armada of tall ships in the sky kept me company. When the clouds pile up like that, I feel like the earth is a very tiny gondola just waiting to cast off into dreamtime. I think we could be free to go sightseeing in the universe if we only let go of the guide lines that hold us to our schedules and very important duties, titles, jobs. I would love to go sailing into the land of N.C. Wyeth and Wind in the Willows and A Child's Garden of Verses. To travel back in time to my imaginary friends and storybook lands where the usual laws of nature don't apply. It's still there somewhere behind those clouds...I can almost see it, almost reach it, almost let go of my driver's license, dry cleaning tickets, grocery list, property tax, shoes to be repaired, library books to be returned, dentist appointments, jury duty--almost. I'm just happy to know it's there even if I can't gain admittance as easily as I used to.

Wishful Thinking

Living in Hawaii for a month. I'm not greedy.

Driving the Pacific Coast Hwy, Destination Mendocino.

True Love, or some Lady Chatterley sex.

Everything on my Barnes & Noble Wish List.

A clawfoot tub in a bathroom that's bigger than my current breadbox.

Guilt-free homemade cherry pie with Breyer"s Vanilla on top.

Versailles, in autumn, in the rain.

Run a mile without stopping. And enjoy it. 

A safe suntan.

Ask Not?

I don't know what this directive on the theater marquee across the street from my office refers to, but it made me start doodling mentally and filling in the blanks. 

ASK NOT:

* for more than you need.

* for something that rightfully belongs to someone else.

* for extra dessert because you'll hate yourself for it in the morning.

* for advice unless you're going to take it.

* for an Incomplete unless you have mono or swine flu because you'll hate yourself for it next semester.

* for something or someone bad for you unless you're willing to take the consequences.

* for an easy life because you'll be a fragile hothouse flower instead of a hardy perennial.

* for just one more procedure because you'll end up looking like Joan Rivers. Even Demi Moore might end up looking like Joan Rivers.

* for closure because doors don't always get shut as we move from one room of our life to another.

On the Verge

Everything in my amateurish little garden patch is budding or blooming or getting ready to break through the earth, climb, entwine or simply rise. I love that moment of possibility before the southern sun sucks the energy out of every living thing, before it's a fight to keep the juices flowing. Right now, the sun is gilding the edges of the garden instead of giving my plants the third degree. The morning glory seeds have sent up actual shoots, the rose bush keeps putting out and we have lift-off on the tomato plants, Houston. I feel like I'm on the verge of  a new season as well, but I know that I often manage to stunt my own growth by not giving my ideas time to germinate or by not watering and feeding them enough. I grew up in a family of farmers, and I know it takes constant attention and hard work to make things grow. Sometimes I'm just too lazy to tend my garden, to get up early and write, to set aside time simply to mull. My morning glories and tomatoes need sturdy fences and cages to support them as they start  to blossom, and my writing needs a daily structure and discipline in order to bloom. Send some good vibes to all of us in this little garden of earthly delights.

6 (Un)important Things That Make Me Happy

Tina Tarnoff of Thought Patterns (love her papercuts!) tagged me, and I feel like one of the popular girls at school...even though I'm still not completely sure what being tagged means in blogworld. But the task is to make a list (one of my favorite forms of writing) of 6 (un)important things I love:

1. when dogs smile because I wonder what they're thinking ("...can't wait to roll in that dead bird I found behind the house. I'll pretend to be asleep in the sun til she turns her back and then I'll make a dash for it before she catches me.")

2. online coupons from Barnes & Noble...so many more during this recession!

3. Turning the sprinkler on my plants and watching the birds that come to take a shower and dart in and out of the spray. 

4. a plethora of pillows on my bed

5. the perfect shape and subtle scent of Crabtree & Evelyn avocado soap-- I stockpile it in case they discontinue it.

6. getting home just before a thunderstorm breaks and feeling safe and snug in the midst of the sturm und drang.  

Turning Over the Controls

I told a friend this weekend that when I go to New York my inner GPS stops working. I'm like one of those sad bees whose radar malfunctions for some mysterious reason and they can't find their way back to the hive. In New York, I can read a map repeatedly before I go out the door, but I still can't make sense of a city that is actually laid out in such a rational way. I buzz in aimless circles and constantly have to readjust my sense of direction. Did I turn left or right? Am I going north or south? Is that the same corner I passed 15 minutes ago? Where the hell is my hotel? My life is like that right now...I just can't find way my way home. Home being my sense of self, my sense of purpose, my sense of Nikki-ness. For weeks now, I've been flogging myself, looking for my next big idea, my next project, my next passion. Looking for me. Tonight I started to wonder, though, if it might not be better to accept that my GPS is broken for now, that I don't have a destination and that my definition of home might be changing. And just explore the world with no purpose in mind and let the ideas and projects come to me if it's meant to be. To be a passenger for awhile instead of the pilot.