DIRTY WORDS

FAITH used to be a dirty word in my house.

It conjured up people in white hoods hating on Jews, hating on blacks, despising anyone considered ethnic . . .

FAITH ANGELS PRAY:  all about the same category.

People who spoke these words were people who used their sameness, their religion, their faith as an excuse to demonize and subjugate other humans.

These words tagged along with the G _ D of my Southern Grandparents. They had a lot of Faith in G _ D, as long as you didn’t say his name out loud.

I made that mistake while playing checkers with them on my first solo grandparental visit. Dr. Pepper and mixed nuts by my side on the card table, me dumfounded by this board game playing – we never played games in my house – I executed the major faux pas of saying:

“Oh god,“ when I made a bad move.

Granddaddy immediately pounced on me: “We don’t say that in our home.”

I had no idea what that he was referring to . . .

“We don’t take the lord’s name in vain . . . we don’t say his name out loud.”

I was mortified. Cheeks red. Humiliated. I was a shy soft-spoken kid who rarely uttered anything.

I wanted to run from their canyon home overlooking SeaWorld, knock over the wobbly card table, and go back to my kvetching pessimist atheist communist adjacent Jewish grandparents in Los Angeles.

Cold sweat was gathering under my pits and I couldn’t stop ruminating about Granddaddy’s frequent “GOSH DERN IT!: expletives – wondering what the difference was . . .

I had whispered  “oh god” and had gotten in trouble, but Granddaddy would express his distaste for liberals, freeloaders, for women, with a healthy GOSH DERN IT ALL! . . . Which seemed much more damaging to my 8-year-old ears.

In Ann Arbor, our home was famous for being a repository of language and enlightened instruction. With my mother at the helm, our living room, which was more of a library, became the classroom in which the entire neighborhood learned about profanity, cussing, and responsible use of language.

It was here, on the scratchy blue wool couch, that my third grade friends would sit while my mother explained the difference between saying “shit” and calling someone “a shit.”

To exclaim, “fuck!” in an appropriate manner was not profane, but it was not okay to call someone a “fucker”, or an “ass”, or “shithole bitch cunt.”

“It is how you use the word, not the word itself,” said my wise mother.

My friends’ eyes would grow wide as they were given permission to artfully use language in our home.

To this day, many of my friends credit their understanding of profanity and their comfortable relationship with shit and fuck, to my mother’s tutelage.

(For the record, neither my brother nor I ever called our parents by any derogatory or demeaning name.

I feel I missed adolescent rebellion entirely. Given permission to speak and drink responsibly, there was nothing to rebel against!

And, I remember when I was a teenager and went to friends’ homes and heard them scream “you fucker, you asshole . . .” at their siblings, even at their parents!!! . . . and I was mortified!!!)

Back in San Diego, I was not to be released from that game of checkers just yet – and ten minutes later – I did it again!  I said “oh g – -“  . . . eating the letter d.

Stern looks from Grandmommy and Granddaddy. Disappointment.

And I can say this left an indelible mark on my soul.

It was here that I got hardwired to be afraid of G _ D.

His name became associated with judgment, mistakes, censure — with being other, Jewish, wrong — like the atheists in that den of iniquity, Hollywood, their tainted blood running through me.

With that kind of G _ D on my mind, and the constant condemnation of my Jewishness by school friends bent on saving my soul:

“You are GOING to hell! You need to take the Lord Jesus Christ as Your Savior!”

“Hallelujah, Amen, on our knees let us pray for your salvation, ask the Angels, HAVE SOME FAITH . . . . . . . . . . . >>>>>>>>>>

“YOU ARE GOING TO HELL AMADAES >>>>>>>>>”

I got spooked by FAITH.

Creeped out by ANGELS.

Confused by varying versions of G _ D:

He’s all loving all-knowing he’s judging you are damned you are loved he doesn’t exist he’s everywhere  . . . whatever you do:

DON”T TAKE HIS NAME IN VAIN!

Whoever whatever he is . . .

And so, every time I heard someone say, “just have faith,” I would cringe.

“Pray and ask the angels,”  – I would feel the censure, see the stern faces and pursed lips of my Grandmommy and Granddaddy.

Then, George Michael came out with his hit  “You Gotta Have Faith.”

While doing my chores, washing the kitchen floor and vacuuming the crevices of that gosh derned blue couch, I would hum the melody, but pause when I got to the hook, “You Gotta Have Faith” . . .

The word still made me nervous.

And then, G _ D decided to play a practical joke on me.

I met a musician and theater director named Faith, and I was going to film her and her sister Jill for my next USC film project.

Somehow, I had to get over my problem with that word, with her name – or else I was going to be in trouble.

And boy was G _ D laughing now.

Faith was no KKK white hooded creep . . . she was a talented short dark-haired as Jewish as Jewish can be girl from Chicago – with an equally Jewish sister and an outspoken dynamic Jewish mother like my own.

How could this liberal Jewish Girl be named Faith?

Yes Faith Soloway, I credit meeting you with being the jump off point for my spiritual journey . . . a faith-based approach to understanding what the fuck’s going on . . . and there will be a post honoring you and this moment, but for now . . .

It’s been 20 years since I met Faith – and FAITH THE CONCEPT THE LIFESTYLE THE WORD . . . is my constant companion.

FAITH is always a place I need to return to when shit is fucked up, so that I can be returned to G _ D or whatever I happen to be calling my higher knowingness at the moment.

It seems my personal life lesson can be summed up as:

YOU GOTTA HAVE FAITH.

Even my persona astrological card of destiny, based on my birthday, goes by the name of:

VICTORY THROUGH FAITH.

I pray, I see angels, I talk to my higher knowingness, I practice faith, and yes, I am still Jewish and still love to say FUCK! At the right moment – and

I’ve fully embraced:

It’s not the word itself: it’s how you use it that matters.

 

 

 

OUR FATHER OF THE CAMEL TOES

Camel toes:  I need to talk about this.

We, as a country, need to talk about this.

I am not referring to the crotches of yoga pant clad 40 something mommies running to pick their kids up from whatever lesson, sport or healing session they’ve thrown them in to “self-realize” and materialize at a high level . . .

Nor am I referring to certain celebrities and their famous nether region divisions . . .

I am referring to the FATHER OF OUR COUNTRY:

GEORGE WASHINGTON.

To be fair, this national issue was brought to my attention by none other than TPINSS (the person i’m not seeing seeing).

I am eternally grateful, as you should all be, for her laser vision, and attunement to the important details.

My friends and fellow countrymen:

George Washington suffered from a severe case of camel toes, which becomes even more disconcerting when realizing that the Father of our Country did not produce an heir, and was believed to be  . . . sterile.

(Lord only hopes, not impotent.)

On our excursion to The Ronald Reagan Library, to see The Bloody Pillow, TPINSS and I were shuttled through many halls of Reagan and Presidential phenomenon.

Midway between Ronnie’s boot collection and Lincoln’s Bloody Pillow . . . we found ourselves in an exact replication of the Oval Office during Reagan’s Reign.

As about twenty of us listened to the docent’s explanation of the President’s massive wood desk, made from the timbers of the HMS Resolute, TPINSS tugged at my sleeve, and pointed up high, to our right.

“Do you see it?” she whispered.

Did I see it? How could I miss it?

Beaming down on us like a fully split, well, camel colored toe . . . was the crotch of George Washington.

I stopped listening to the docent and something about the Queen of England and another hard wooden desk.

I couldn’t believe my eyes, and I couldn’t believe I had missed this important detail, national detail, in all my years of history reading.

The Father of Our Country had a severe case of camel toes going on with his camel colored breeches.

 And someone, some decorating queen, chose to hang this Charles Wilson Peale portrait of Washington in the oval office, our most public expression of power as a nation.

I didn’t know whether to be horrified or amused.

Does everything sacred always have some secret sexual twist?

It’s long been my suspicion that many of our revered figure heads and beloved heroes have been gay, lesbian, cross dressing, transgendered, impotent, sterile, s & m loving individuals.

And, I think it’s marvelous.

(And, I’m not putting all of the above in the same category for you PC minded folks.)

It’s just common sense. Something other than the societal norm must drive a person to such extreme heights of power.

What better fuel than harboring a secret sexual identity?

Every time I hear of another “beloved icon” getting busted in a men’s bathroom, or coming out, or admitting to something deemed aberrant by society, I shrug in boredom.

Have we learned nothing from the examples of J. Edgar Hoover, Anderson Cooper, countless celebrities who have come out, politicians who have been exposed for various sexual proclivities . . .

I’m boring myself even attempting to make a list.

But, I digress. I have moved from Washington’s case of “the toes” to celebrities ejaculating in glory holes . . .

(Can you tell I have just finished reading Scotty Bower’s book about Hollywood movie stars and their proclivities, “Full Service”)?

What interests me most about Peale’s portrait of Washington hanging in the White House (and I imagine it is gone now – Obama seems to have been on an Oval Office Art Make-Over) – is that it shows the Father of Our Country as a soft, rather feminine progenitor. His eyes are kind, cheeks a bit downy, hips adequate for childbearing, and then . . . the camel toes.

The Father of Our Country, as revealed to dignitaries, heads of state, and to the American people is no ramrod hard throbbing virile breeches bulging he-man, but a rather kindly feminine individual.

And what does this say about The United States and the American people, the children of this Father Washington?

Were we birthed of a Father who was more like a Mother? Was our Father a transgender figurehead? Is it then truly our destiny as a people to be a “kinder gentler nation?” as suggested by another man of dubious sexuality, George Bush senior?

These are the important questions that have entered my psyche ever since witnessing Washington and his camel toes.

I have tossed and turned about what this means as a citizen of the United States. I have called the Reagan Library trying to get answers: about the portrait, where it came from and how long it’s been there.

And, this has sent me on a search for pictures of Ronald Reagan and possible Ronnie camel toes. He did wear a lot of tight ranch pants.

I wanted to see if I could make a connection between Washington and Reagan: Kindly Father Figures and a hidden feminine side. Revolutionary War >>> Cold War.

My investigation is still in progress, but did yield this one photograph of Ronnie:

While I did find this photo from an internet search entitled “Reagan and Camel Toes,” I am not certain it is proof positive that there is a direct correlation between Ronnie and George. I’ll wait for the return call from The Reagan library on Monday.

In the meantime, I will continue to sleuth the true sexual identity and proclivities of Father Washington . . . and somehow, would like to think that despite the shock of Our Father’s Camel Toes, George Washington’s crotch does represent our true mission to live up to being a kindler gentler nation.

HERMES

I once was midwife to a big red helium balloon.

In a seedy motel on the Michigan Illinois border . . . I carefully tied the balloon’s string to a rickety bedside table and with precision popped the sucker >>>

Out came a soft mauve stuffed pig I promptly named:

HERMES.

Hermes being an orphan – mama dying during childbirth – I adopted the pig, and we have lived together ever since, from Chicago to Ann Arbor to Santa Cruz to Santa Fe . . . LA . . . >>>

For the past five years, Hermes has been the gatekeeper of my library. He sits atop a row of atlases and books on military weaponry.

I pet him every now and then, smooth his ears, dust him off. He is an adult now, and not much for my maternal fussing.

I was reminded of his unusual birth this morning when TPINNS (the person i’m not seeing seeing) sent me a picture of the Water Tower in Chicago. It was in this area, the Water Tower Place, to be exact, where Hermes was conceived and placed in my care.

At the top of the Water Tower Place there was a Gund stuffed animal shop, an incubator of sorts. Here, Hermes was conceived and nurtured inside a red helium mama. And here, I found him gestating, waiting to be born.

That was decades ago and Hermes has his own life now. I’m certain his own opinions and aspirations  . . . but I do love stopping by his throne of tomes to pet his ears and act the part of “mother.”

When TPINSS’s photo appeared on my iPhone, I raced to the library to send her a pic of Hermes atop his perch . . . but he wasn’t there! I know we’d talked a few days prior, the familiar ear fluff and dust off. I searched the bookshelves, behind the tables and chairs – but nowhere to be seen!

I marched through the house, overturned boxes, rifled bags  . . . still no Hermes.

And then it hit me – the hard hard business of growing up.

You see, my life’s been going through some difficult changes. My home has been shattered:  emotionally, physically, philosophically, sold out from under me . . . I’ve lost some family members . . . and a move, in all ways, is imminent.

I’ve been dragging my feet with the physical tasks of this change. It’s been hard to sell things, dump things, and close some chapters. But, bit-by-bit, I’ve been biting the bullet and doing it.

Last week, urged on (or was that terrorized?) by deceased Grandma Pauline’s voice in my head “get rid of your childhood curios! You’re too soft . . . get rid of it!!!” >>>

I got a black trash bag and solemnly went through the house, room by room, gathering crumpled mementos, gadgets that were gifts, and yes . . . special stuffed animals.

I loathed the thought of my soft supple pig going into such a dark place – but spurred on by Grandma Pauline! I comforted myself with the knowledge that Hermes would have new adventures and new parents.

One last pet, and his mauve ears went down into the bag to go to Goodwill.

It’s silly, I know, but realizing that Hermes is forever gone from my life, like those innocent anticipatory days in the Midwest, well, it hit me hard.

Socked me in the gut.

I know, soap opera worthy, but it’s true.

One single tear shed for lost . . . lost . . . I don’t want to say youth . . . I will say . . . innocence.

A single tear shed for lost companionship, and for being soft, and growing up . . . learning hard lessons.

And then I wondered . . .  did I give away the wrong thing for the wrong reasons?

Without Grandma Pauline in my head, without these difficult changes, would I have chosen to chuck Hermes into a black trash bag?

Probably not.

Do I have a habit of giving away the wrong things and keeping the wrong things too?

Today, stewing in loss, I’m turning this thought over in my mind, in my heart.

Yes, I do believe I often give away what I should keep, and hold onto that which harms me.

Hermes never harmed. He only brought pleasure. I rue his departure, and hope he sits high atop another bookshelf with happy people who will never give him away.

 

THE BLOODY PILLOW

On Sunday, we went to see the bloody pillow.

Lincoln’s Bloody Pillow.

TPINSS (the person I’m not seeing seeing) kindly got me out of bed – out of the canyon I’d been submerged in for days – and took me on a date to see the bloodstained blue and white striped artifact.

Why, you ask, would two poetic head in the cloud hibernating types rise from crisp white hotel sheets, leave vistas better than a John Ford film, and fight the weekend traffic on the PCH to mingle with after church Reaganites?

Why?!?

Because of  The Bloody Red Rocking Chair!

When I was 7 years old, my second grade teacher, Mrs. Sharpless, took us to visit Henry Ford’s Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan. At that age, I was already a history freak and rabid reader – inhaling a children’s series of biographies at about 1.2 per day.

I lived and breathed Colonial, Revolutionary, and Expansionist America: rolling my  blue Levi cords to the knee to effect breeches, turning down the collars of my white oxfords to represent an 18th century collar, and putting tacks in the bottom of my Buster Brown’s to make a clicking sound, that to my ears, approximated the sound of my brogans striding down a cobblestone street in Williamsburg, Virginia.

I lived in the space of history: somewhere between The Declaration of Independence and Reconstruction.

Greenfield Village was fantastic!  . . .  I was beside myself when I saw the filament inside the incandescent lightbulb at Thomas Edison’s Menlo Park Laboratory – the invention of light so close to my fingertips!  – and there was the parchment Confederate money in my pocket  . . . and The Wright Brother’s Bicycle Shop  . . . but then we came to the roped off room with low lighting.

Being shorter than most of my classmates, I couldn’t see what made the tall boys and girls in front gasp. I strained to see beyond their heads, but I couldn’t.

I had to wait my turn.

The class moved on and for some reason, I found myself alone, hands on the velvet rope . . . and there it was >>>

The Red Rocking Chair From Ford’s Theater!

The one Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in:  blood stained, with his blood and his brains smeared at the top of the red cushion.

Suddenly >>> I was light-headed.

My hands gripped the velvet and began to shake. I felt like I was going to fly outside my body. My eyes started to blink rapidly. I was flashing back to the night of April 14, 1865 at the theater, as if I were in the Presidential Box with the Lincolns!

Eardrums pounding, about to explode like a Howitzer Cannon, and a deep whirring noise overtaking my head . . .   all I wanted to do was crawl under the rope and throw myself against the chair . . . caress the stained cushion . . .

And cry.

A museum docent saw me shaking, hands fastened to the velvet rope, and ushered me out of this hushed sanctuary  . . . back to my giggling classmates.

Clearly, I was the only one who took this assassination stuff seriously.

But, something happened to me when I saw that rocking chair. I can still feel the  buzzing sensation when I think about it, or when I see that famous photograph of Lincoln right before he was killed.

TPINSS is also from the Detroit area. She’s seen the chair and remembers: the hush of the room, the blood on the cushion, the shock of being so close to the physical end of an era . . .

And so when she heard that Lincoln’s Bloody Pillow, from the night of the assassination, was at the Ronald Reagan Museum, she rallied us from our reverie to go experience another artifact from the night of the crime.

The thought of Simi Valley on a Sunday, 100 degrees and Ronald Reagan was a bit much . . . but to see the pillow . . . to be that near, once again, the physical end of an era . . . >>>

What we didn’t know was that the clever museum heads designed the Lincoln Exhibit, “Railsplitter to Rushmore” (that alone should have warned us!), so that one had to labor through a labyrinth of Reagan before ever getting to the Lincoln paraphernalia.

We did our best to avoid Ronnie’s jovial countenance jumping out at us from every wall: Ronnie beaming while discussing nuclear destruction, Ronnie radiant about the economy, big toothy grin about the Berlin wall, Ronnie smiling wide about his brush with assassination … >>>

At one point TPINSS and I were locked inside a darkened room that replays Hinkley’s assassination attempt: 3 screens going “bang! bang! bang!”  – then the lights go on and you see Reagan’s new blue blazer with bullet hole, and the burgundy sweater he wore at the hospital . . .

Finally released from that room, we zipped past more “My Fellow Americans” photo-ops, and pairs of ranch boots . . . and saddles . . . and more boots . . . past an odd stuffed horse thing with saddle and no legs that some geezer was trying to “ride” a la Urban Cowboy for his wife’s iPhone . . .

Next,  a traipse through an aged and dank Air Force One interior . . . out the rear end of the plane . . .  and down past Reagan’s pub – good ole Irish guy he was  – up an elevator, down another corridor >>> until we found ourselves face to face with a frightening and what can only be described as:

Ginormous Lincoln BobbleHead.

At last! Lincoln Artifacts!

As TPINSS and I got Sunday bumped by khaki-clad families trying to read descriptions pinned next to indecipherable books and letters . . . it became apparent that “Abe Lincoln: Railsplitter To Rushmore” was a random melange of second and third-rate traveling antique show pieces.

Sensing there wasn’t much to see, we did our best to dodge small children and grandpas regaling bored family members with tales of the Mary Surratt hanging. (The exhibit did contain a key to a jail cell of some conspirator ) . . .

We had to get to that bloody pillow!

Darting past a collection of too many law books and pieces of paper that itinerant lawyer Lincoln might have used once, touched, or Herndon his law partner had been in possession of  . . . we came upon a wide area sectioned off into two separate “rooms” – one Mary Lincoln’s, one the President’s office.

Just as I began to osmose that the antiques and carefully strewn papers  looked a bit too staged . . . I noticed Daniel Day Lewis (as Lincoln) orating emphatically above my head on a tv screen, and then heard a pretty Asian lady reveal that the clothing in Mary Lincoln’s room was the very same as worn by Sally Field in Spielberg’s film.

The line between Hollywood and History was fading fast . . .

I wondered if the kids in the room even knew that half of this exhibit came from a Dreamworks set, and that President Lincoln himself was never on a DVD?

But, what did I expect? We were inside The Ronald Reagan museum for chrissake! If a Howdy Doody B list actor can go from screen to Democrat to Republican to President! without missing a beat . . . then a historical exhibit can do the same!

But still! That damned bloody pillow was nowhere in sight!

Off the movie set, we were shuttled down another corridor to more “what might be the third known copy” of this and that . . . to the requisite Mathew Brady photograph of twisted bodies at Antietam, rigor mortis jumping out of the frame . .

And then . . . in the very last room, behind a red velvet rope . . . a bed, with a blue and white striped pillow . . .

THE BLOODY PILLOW?

I couldn’t see any blood and couldn’t figure out why they would leave such a precious piece out in the middle of the room. Anyone . . .   even I could jump the rope, grab the pillow, and race out of the Railsplitter exhibit  . . . >>>

I looked down and noticed a plexiglass container with another blue and white pillow squished inside. I strained to see some flecks of blood. I did see something in the middle of the thing.

I took a breath and waited to feel something. For my hands to shake or my body to tingle.

Nothing.

I asked TPINSS what she thought. Was this another ” might be the third known artifact . . .” or was this the real deal?

TPINSS exhaled.

Did she feel anything? Not really. Wait, yes, she felt like she could see Lincoln’s head cushioned there, as he was dying.

“It’s the real deal. Can we get out of here? Starving. Need . . . sushi,” she said.

And that was that.

Anticlimactic.

No tingling, no electric spike up my spine, no hand tremors . . .

Starving, we headed out, past the final installation:

“Marilyn Monroe and Lincoln.”

Groan in unison. Oh god . . . is that Spielberg’s next film? Or did Ronnie star in a B movie with that title back in the day?

The line between Hollywood and History . . . . . . . . .

I DO DRAMA

“I don’t DO drama . . .” seems to be the battle cry of many ill adjusted well coiffed people in Los Angeles.

Not doing drama seems to have taken the place of anger management as the meme of the moment.

Funny thing is, the more I hear people say “I don’t do drama,” the more drama abounds.

What does it mean to “not do drama?”

Does this mean I put myself in the corner and disengage from life? Do I put a protective “NO DRAMA” shield around my aura or run as fast as I can away from any self-help, Artist’s Way, 12 Step Group >>> lord knows showing up in a space to “share” is a sure-fire way to ignite drama . . .

This morning I was hanging with the person I’m not seeing seeing – hereafter referred to as TPINSS – and I know she’s not interested in drama. We agreed we don’t seek out dramatic situations, gestures, demonstrations.

But, just hearing about the first few months of her young life upon arriving in Los Angeles and then comparing with my first six months in the city, this is how it adds up:

gay scandal I’m unknowingly  caught in the middle of at USC, bank robber and drug dealer roomies, entire Grad school cheating, mafia signed music partners, major music industry cabals, insurance fraud . . .

That’s just a collective snippet of our first, but separate six months in the City Of Angels. Those are mere details, broad brush strokes, but this doesn’t account for the players in these schemes:  the emotions, breakdowns, fits, incarcerations, meltdowns, crying jags, anger blow outs . . . of many highly dramatic people.

But, we don’t do drama . . . This shit just happened around us . . .

And this drama still . . . just happens . . . around us. We don’t do it, engage with it, create it . . .

When did we denizens of The City Of Angels become so afraid of being labeled “dramatic” or “drama loving?” Jesus Christ (who by the way was the exemplar of dramatic!) we live in THE city that makes its living from CREATING DRAMA! Los Angeles is the entertainment dramatic throat chakra expressing capital of the world!

Why would we not want to be of the place we call home?

How can we escape from the influence of the DNA of this city?

Is there anything more absurd than a human being living in Hollywood scoffing at the idea of “drama?”

I’m calling out to my fellow Angelenos to CLAIM INVOKE FEEL REVEAL REVEL AND SURRENDER TO THE DRAMA OF THIS CITY!!!

SURRENDER to the DRAMA WITHIN!

(and remember, the way out is the way through . . . what you resist persists . . .)

Want to get out of drama? Allow it to move through you >>>

CITY OF ANGELS IS A VIRGO

Yesterday was The City of Angels birthday.

LOS ANGELES IS A VIRGO.

That’s right folks. A Virgo. 

Our fine city is the whore . . . and the virgin. 

We angel citizens work and work and work . . . even if that work has to do with self-aggrandizement . . . our work is never finished.

Lala land is less head in the clouds and more head obsessed – with perfection, criticism (or discernment to say it in a more positive vein), and rubbing clean all that appears dirty. All that glitters IS gold and if it ain’t, we will scrub it and meditate it into GOLD!

Namaste!

This is the city where dreams come true dreams get dashed and then we incessantly process how they got dashed and reinvent ourselves.  We colonic out the gunk, hot yoga soul cycle out the toxins, miracle course ourselves back onto our path, get back to raw and real while driving in our air-conditioned cars! It’s fantastic! 

In The City of Angels you can BE ANYTHING! EVEN THE DEVIL!

And then you can ream him out:  dispel the darkness, the pain, the fear, and do it all over again! Go from Angel to Devil to Angel to Diva to Desperate . . .

Nothing is real in the City of Angels – and guess what? We know why!

Because everything is an illusion. Only love is real. 

Love reigns in the City of Angels . . . as long as you are perfect, on the search for perfection, reworking, rewiring, redoing . . . LOVE IS ALL THERE IS.

LOVE IS.

And, I love Los Angeles. I love it even when it gets me down – when I am faced with my shadows of imperfection, when every shiny car and adjacent studio script star attached conversation pilates yolates perfecting person mirrors back my failures my shortcomings . . . my demons. 

I love Los Angeles for always giving me a chance to get it right. To come back to the knowing that I am whole. That I am complete – and yes – perfect as is.

I love this city for cheering for me when I finally stand up and shout out my truth, my authenticity. This city never lets down an authentic I AM ROAR!

Happy Birthday LA . . . The City of Angels . .  Where we fly together . . . In our perfection >>>

HARPER’S LAST EMAIL

HARPER’S LAST EMAIL.

via HARPER’S LAST EMAIL.

Suicide (Options)

“I do or I do not do something”

“Suicide. I’ve thought about it, but you either do it or you don’t do it, so I didn’t!”

This is the conversation I overhear while sitting down to write a post about my generation and our downwardly mobile slide >>>

I continue to pen my thoughts regarding Gen X, but this suicide conversation  bombards my space . . .

“Let someone else fucking write it! Let someone else save the world! I’m fucking done!” shouts the balding man in his 50’s to his patiently listening date:  artsy lady swathed in layers of peacock and plum clothing, black mane from a bottle at the 99 cent store.

“It’s not in your be – ing to commit suicide,” she says . . .

And the conversation goes on and on about his pain and not sleeping for months, onset of Parkinson’s . . . how he either will DO IT or he WON’T DO IT . . . till she says to him . . .

“We are on the bastard course – we have nowhere to go – let someone else do this thing, write this suicide stuff – let’s go get a martini — “

And off they go >>>

And I succumb . . . to the will of the universe.

I will write another spot about suicide. I’m not finished with life, I’m still writing, and despite my best efforts at self-reformation . . . I am still trying to save the world.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Everything’s connected and happening at the same time. It’s physics . . . it’s god .  . . it’s the great spirit source . . . it’s whatever however you want to name it.

Life imitates psyche, psyche imitates art, art imitates . . . you get the point.

My post about my ex committing suicide in New England . . . by way of pills . . . employee of Harvard University until her death. . . this story has come full circle. Connected.

I recently signed up for a novel writing class at Harvard. This itself – is novel. I don’t take classes in subjects I love. I prefer to leave my passions as they are – inspired, fresh, child-like, passionate. I stepped away from degrees in Creative Writing, History, and Music so that I could preserve my innocence.

But, for various life reasons, call it contrary action for you spiritually minded . . . I decided to sign up for this class at Harvard. But first, I looked up the teacher and his specs to make sure I could handle having my passion adulterated by instruction.

WHOA!

I see the name of the instructor,  Prof. W. Holinger, and realize this is the same guy I took Intro to Creative Writing from at the University of Michigan decades ago, my first and last class on the subject.

How on earth is this possible? Do you know how many creative writing teachers there are in America?!? It’s an over population problem – nearly every would be writer goes into teaching because a writing career path is well . . . often a thorny trail at best.

My first assignment in Creative Writing 101 was to write a 30/40 page short story. Four weeks in, I still didn’t have a clue what to write about. Every class I did attend I would mutter that I had no idea what I was going to write about . . . and suffer the pursed lips and shaking heads of my peers . . . Amadaes, on the fast track to failure.

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It’s 8 pm, the night before the story is due. I am sitting in a dark dank theater watching Antonioni’s classic . . . “L’Avventura.”  I’m sweating during the long extended scenes. This IS Antonioni’s oeuvre  of composition over dialogue. Let’s just say I have a lot of   s p a c e   to think about worry about stress out about tomorrow’s story deadline. And then this sentence fills my head:

“She thinks over her options: pills are easy but how to get them, slitting wrists messy but cheaper . . . “

The film ends . . . I bolt home to my computer . . . begin with that sentence . . .

“She thinks over her options: pills are easy . . .”

and write until the thing is due at 10 am. I never even read it over . . . Amadaes on the over-nighter track to . . .

Next class. I walk in and Prof. Holinger is beaming at me. He decides to read my story “Options” to the class. I sink in my chair, watch as the pursed lips of my peers turn into thoughtful smiles. For some reason, my over-nighter draft about suicide has connected with my teacher and classmates. Prof. Holinger pronounces me “a writer….”

… and off I go to degrees in Film and Communications – still avoiding scholastic commitment to my beloved subjects . . .

. . . and here I am again. Right back where I started. Same teacher. Same beloved subject. Same storyline . . . and Harvard.

When I wrote “Options” I didn’t really understand what I was channeling, why I wrote a story about a bookish female committing suicide with a cocktail of pills. I hadn’t considered suicide, didn’t have any close friends who had done the deed . . . and only had heard hushed whisps of failed attempts by high school acquaintances.

But that female voice had been so insistent in the theater, carrying me through a rushed night of writing, creating a plot . . .  as if I was channeling someone’s story.

And today, I cannot help but think that I did pick up some etheric channel when I wrote “Options .” I tuned into the cosmic wheel of a happening, images that would come into my life materialized  . . . and find me here . . . processing a very tangible grief . . . of a woman who took her life, after carefully thinking over her options, with a special cocktail of pills . . . and I’m off to Harvard, where I last saw Harper, and off to Prof. Holinger, to begin where I left off . . . with my passions . . .