The rabbi always says you can't change the world until you accept things just the way they are. I think that applies to myself as well. I am always fighting against myself. Dr. L says change the negatives to positives. Make the foibles things you love about your self...
I love that I'm terrified to take responsibility
I love that every new assignment scares the shit out of me
I love that I think I will suck at every new thing I try
I love that I watch tv and smoke pot during all of my free time
I love that I make most of my time free time
I love that I haven't worked to improve my skills since the last job ended
I love that I barely do any writing and then I lament that writing doesn't come easy
I love that I revert to the excuse that I didn't study writing or filmmaking in college
I love that I've realized that I didn't do or learn much at all in college
I still love that I graduated summa cum laude
I love that I love doing nothing most of the time
"I'm coming out west for my birthday," he tells me, that beautiful hunk of man I crushed on for a decade. A boy to me, though he's about to be 42. We were intimate friends for years who'd only met a handful of times. He's tall and broad and tasty.
He's going to Vegas for his birthday and I snigger silently. The boys, they love the gambling and the whores. He's going with the guys. Even though he's married now and has a big-eyed jug eared kid.
He tells me again the next time we mail. "Did I tell you I'm coming out west." Asks me how long it took me to get there when I went to meet up with the gals. "Too long," I reply. It's nearly 300 miles. I still don't get it. "I guess I won't be seeing you," he finally writes. Oh jeez. Is that what you meant?
What did he mean? I have faith he's a faithful husband but I let my mind go there for just a second. I haven't thought about his big chocolate-colored muscly frame in years but for an instant I think about sliding under the sheet beside him. He's soft now too but I feel only the weight of my belly sinking toward the center of earth, heavier than the room, and I can't stay in that place.
Turning 60. Hitting 60. Banging hard on 60. Really just sets it in stone. I've been over the hill for so long I can't even remember what's behind me. My belly, empty of babies, shy of men, full of shit and fear.
Awakened this morning by the sound of something banging against my house. This is the third time this week. At least I wasn't in a deep dream this time. It's 7:30 in the morning, golden sun creeping over the ridge across the way looks beautiful through a crack in my purple crushed velvet drapes, but it's too early for me to be out of bed.
I wonder if it's the little girls from across the alley playing basketball but it's 7:30 on a Wednesday morning. Why would they be out there? One time in a driving rainstorm the girls were playing in the alley, using wheeled vehicles like trikes or carts with steering wheels. They banged into the garage door over an over again. I just smiled indulgently. Didn't want to be like the the neighbors who berate them and fight with their parents. Those two are sweet to me and I love them from afar. Anyway the girls are so much older now. I don't even know which is which and forgot their names long ago.
I decide it was the birds (it wasn't). Tap tap tapping. Not the same as banging. The birds on the skylight, sometimes thwap thwap thwapping. The gulls with their webbed feet. I thought it was a break-in the first time it woke me. Birds on the skylight or wind in the vertical blinds. I grabbed my grandma's scissors and called the neighborhood watch. Police cars jammed the lane and me in my nighty. Just an ankle long t-shirt, so unforgiving. With all the cops there and me clutching the shears, I thought of my fat and the spectacle I was.
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
“Every day, think as you wake up, today I am fortunate to be alive, I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it. I am going to use all my energies to develop myself, to expand my heart out to others; to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. I am going to have kind thoughts towards others, I am not going to get angry or think badly about others. I am going to benefit others as much as I can.”
In another gallery a young man displays "cityscapes" of Los Angeles using official hazard paint. They're impressionistic swishes of red, black and white lines over bigger swishes of traffic lane yellow, curbside red, metro bus blue. Beautiful and reminiscent of the jet age, jazzy 60s. Half a dozen iterations of the same idea.
I'm supposed to be writing, writing what I know. Writing and writing. But this blog is mortifying. It's the same story over and over again. The same story of childhood bewilderment, adult sadness, silver years self doubt. L said many artists depict the same idea over and over again (see KR "floating, floating") and I saw that there. I don't know why yet, or where it's supposed to take you. It feels limited and useless to continually "worry" the same memories like beads on a string (while I could be stringing pearls for the sake of heaven).
You must see the film The Other Son. Le Fils de L'Autre (more accurately translated The Others' Son, much more descriptive) is the story of two boys switched at birth, one Israeli, one Palestinian. The boys are raised in close, supportive, loving families, one in Tel Aviv and one behind the wall on the West Bank. When the switch is revealed, both boys, age 18, have to cope with the thought they're living in each other's lives, in each other's skin. Mothers, fathers, siblings all have to re-examine identity, enmity and love. This is a great movie, in French and Hebrew. The filmmakers are French.
I got to see this film at the Museum of Tolerance , where the filmmaker failed to appear but comments from the audience, in a bit of post-film forum, ranged from "This film gives me hope" to "Islamists are at war with the west" (two Israelis) to "There is no Occupied Territory. This is the State of Israel" (an American). This is a beautifully crafted piece of work that is a must-see for Middle East peaceworkers and I could not wait to tell you about it.
Hate is such a luxury. One can so easily indulge when you know little or nothing about a people, race or nation. How easy it is to objectify the unknown and then turn the object into a monster.
Lorraine Lévy’s “The Other Son” rips that luxury out of the hands of her Israeli and Palestinian characters when she forces them to meet a monster — who is their own flesh and blood.
The movie sounds like a gimmick and you cringe at the many ways it could go wrong. But it never does.
Once the truth is out, Levy and co-writers Nathalie Saugeon and Noam Fitoussi explore the rippling effect it has on the two families, with each trying to cope with the fact that their own flesh and blood has been raised across enemy lines. Yet rather than dipping into pure melodrama or piling on the socio-political messages, the filmmakers tend to keep things extremely personal, revealing the emotional repercussions of the events on each character, as well as the human costs of the decades-long conflict.
http://prod3.agileticketing.net/websales/pages/info.aspx?epguid=1b480240-2738-4c73-be1f-483c23114bbf&evtinfo=36396~cb15eca8-60ee-4994-aed0-3a80721900eb San Francisco Jewish Film Festival
While nothing can dampen both mothers’ love for their children, it is the other family members, particularly the fathers that have the most trouble adapting to this new reality. Everyone is forced to reconsider their identities, values and beliefs. Restrained and nuanced performances from the entire multinational cast (led by Emmanuelle Davos as Orith) elevate this memorable and touching family drama into an unforgettable viewing experience. A must-see for parents and for grown children. In other words, for everyone.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/28/the-other-son-trailer_n_1836043.html Watch the trailer here
How deep in a rut am I that it's a major victory if I just get one thing done? It's not depression, it's denial. While I'm in this house I feel safe. Until bedtime. Me and the demon weed. Then I realize I'm almost dead, the nest egg will dry up, I'll be old and alone (if I'm lucky) and might as well move to Miami.
I dream that I get called in to work but things go wrong that are out of my control. I'm chastised and pissed and I wake up unsatisfied.
Today I walked up and down the driveway for 30 laps. Because the Stairmaster wouldn't turn on. I could have done more. Next time 40 laps. My legs have stopped hurting. Can't believe the squats found so many unused fibers. My one thing is exercise. And now this. That's two.
