Line, please.

This feels foreign and uneasy. I've missed the success and escape, but stage fright can be crippling. These bucket loads of dry sand I've been trying to hold between two bare hands are beating me. Emotions, thoughts, memories and words run through me as long ribbons of blurred grains - smooth like silk, warm like the sun - leaving me hollow and limp.

I turn to my bed. The book on my nightstand, once filled with passion, adventure, images and culture, now lies silently beside my clock, resting beneath my mobile wake-up call, counting down boldly to 4 A.M. Reluctantly, 5. Regrettably, 6.

Each night, I turn off the day and blanket my soul with the safety of an old quilt, cushioning my nighttime thoughts with a pillow, sweet with the scent of home. This is my retreat.

I read my friends' lines and directions through the filter of distance - miles and years. I can hear through these flimsy walls the soundtracks of their own dramas, romantic comedies, documentaries, and musicals as their stories carry on. My own movie is paused like an old VHS. Someone needs to fix the tracking. It's shaky and wiggly.

I'm waiting for direction, the next pages of my screen play.

Improvisation is harder than it looks.

The show must go on. Put on a happy face.

How the hell did I get here?

Whose line is it anyway?

NaBloPoMo Challenges

Some of you may recall that I am participating in a web event this month called NaBloPoMo, National Blog Posting Month. Overall, I've been doing quite well. Although I technically fell out of it early on when I missed a day - even though I did the make-up work the next day!

Today, though, I am struggling. It's not that I don't have anything to say, but that what I do have to say is really not suited for this venue.

My day presented me with news of a death in my family followed by a perky little jaunt to the mall and, finally, a surreal visit with my mother-in-law, a woman currently knee deep in the battle against lung cancer. At this hour, I am left a bit empty, to say the least.

What I'd LIKE to say is about the delicateness of life and death. The relativity between the two. The older I get, the more I believe the line that separates the two is not a sharp black line of permanent ink, but a soft line sketched in pencil, jagged and imperfect.

I'd like to write that I see gaps in the line. Places, times, conditions that force people into this twisted, non-life state. Your car sits in the driveway for weeks on end, untouched by your presence. Your world become small and tight. Little things, like a trip to Walmart, become large. Until the gap in the line around you finally closes in.

What I'd LIKE to write about is how a person can leave this life and immediately, that tiny existence their days had become, is immediately free to breathe again.

What I'd LIKE to say is how odd and selfish it feels to watch your child ride the dollar carousel, coo at puppies in a store, and play on a playground while others are dealing with death and disease. And how easy life would be if you could just stay there.

I'd really like to write all about how families need to grow up and put differences aside, whatever they think they have to lose, when they approach the line. Because NOTHING is worth that much.

I'd love to write all about the good in people and how, when you're near that sloppy line, the good shines through them like the morning sun through the bedroom window. But, if you're not there in the room, you'll never see it and feel its warmth.

It would tickle me pink to write all about hurt feelings. And wounded egos. And alterior motives. And greed. And competition. And how none of those things matter on the other side.

And, I'd love to write about forgiveness. Forgiveness is the hand we hold as we cross the line, even though we leave this life alone.

But, this is not the place for that. And so, I'll close my browser and head off in search of a pen and paper.

And that, my dear readers, is why NaBloPoMo can be a struggle.

Rainy Days & Mondays

This notorious Carpenters song has been circling in my head all day like a plane waiting for clearance to land. Even though Karen obviously didn't have EVERYTHING figured out...she definitely knew what she was talking about when she sang this song.

I'm not looking forward to the climatic changes that will occur in my part of the world in a few months. (Hey, it's Florida. Our kids sweat their booties off on Halloween night, even when they have smart, beautiful mommies who tirelessly hunt down a costume that breathes...which is next to impossible to find, by the way.) Over the past few years, I've learned the power of the weather over my psyche. It's stronger than Prozac.

On the bright side, I shine with optimism throughout the summer and spring. I'm energetic and yearn to be outdoors doing things completely out of my nature...like, plant flowers and weed. This year (and you may want to sit down for this one), I actually came close to asking my husband to teach me how to start the lawn mower. Yeah! Thank God I came to my senses! Whew!! I'm positive I would have lived to regret that one very quickly...

On the flip side, what a bummer a rainy day can be. What's even more depressing, I tend to carry this sort of depression through the fall and winter, as well. Last year, I started to come to some conclusions as to WHY my emotions seem to be so hypersensitive to weather....I'm lazy.

Really. I am.

The bottom line is, I can't stand having to work harder because of the weather. I do NOT like having to tote an umbrella. I despise wet feet and pant legs, not to mention frizzy hair. (The bane of my existence.) I cannot stand having to dawn jackets, hats, gloves, and skarves just to step outside. I don't like real shoes...or socks...or, for that matter, TIGHTS. I also do not enjoy having to add layer upon layer of clothing to a body that really needs to shed a layer or two to begin with.

But alas, I have not yet taken up permanent residence in my own castle in the sky. I "get it" that I can't have my lovely summer soul year round...nor can I enjoy that elusive money tree that continually evades my capture. So, for now, I'll suck it up and cover up.

Until, that is, I move to Bali.