The Surface Sometimes Cracks...to Reveal the Tracks...

You know, I’ve actually been here before.

Different circumstances, but a very similar feeling of heartbreak over pinning my hopes on something over which I had no control, but a compulsion to follow.

(Forgive me if you have heard this story already. I can't remember if I ever wrote it here, though I know I've told it out loud.)

It’s spring of 1990. Jim Henson is still alive, my hair is terribly tall, I am ironically wearing leggings and long sweaters, just like now, and I am similarly adrift. I’m sort of still “with” Chris, worried about my family back home, “experiencing” my freshman year at college, but not really there. No community, no anchor, only one friend, and a complete lack of certainty about what’s around the bend in the road. And then I took a theater class and met Dan, who sat beside me each day, listened to my laments about my boyfriend back home, and took pity on me, tribe-less and lost, and brought me to lunch at the dining common with him one May afternoon, where I met a boy named Bill, and lost my heart at once. When I expressed my interest in this quirky, funny, flirty boy to Dan, he pronounced it a brilliant choice (which I did NOT, at the time, read as a brilliant substitution for my affection for him while he spent the following year in England) and pledged to do all that he could to help me win this boy.

And to his credit, he did. He sent me a photograph of him that I taped into my journal, wrote me letters through the summer with details of Bill’s little interests and experiences, and it all fed the flame. I spent the entire summer trying to get over Chris, and planning and plotting how I would make this elusive Bill-boy love me as soon as September rolled around.

I created a soundtrack (of course) which included songs about destiny and conquest and included titles like “Will You Marry Me Bill” and “One Fine Day” and “Long Before I Knew You.” And may I take this opportunity to remind you…I had met him ONCE. One time. One dining common lunch which included chocolate milk and a jello fight. For the two months that followed, I sang to him in my car, wrote his name is curly script in my journal, and named our hypothetical children.

September came, and I decided that rather than audition for the show he was writing and directing and risk NOT being cast, I would apply to be assistant director. I got the job, and of course saw that as a “sign” that our destinies were knit, and it was only a matter of time. I attended the pre-show meetings, the auditions, and the first rehearsals, wearing short skirts and giggling and flirting as if I had declared it as a major.

Then he called and told me he was gay.

He was so nice about it, so compassionate as he quietly broke my heart into a gazillion pieces. No pretense, no attitude, nothing to make me feel foolish, just sensitivity and kindness, for which I will be ever grateful.

There was all kinds of weeping and wailing and lamenting to my non-theatrical and very astonished room-mate, and a whole new soundtrack of dramatically tragical songs of heartbreak and dashed hopes, and I slowly talked myself down from the rafters.

I actually feel like that now, about this house. I did the same sort of plotting, planning, envisioning, and Co-Creating with the Universe, and it didn’t go my way.

Except…

If I hadn’t been crying into my Bartles and James wine coolers over Bill at a cast party, I never would have been found by Elise and sworn my life-long devotion to her that day. I might not have been a part of Schoolhouse Rock at all, and then there’d have been no Janna, no Pete, no UMTG... no Patrick. (And to extend it out, no Amelia and Abby making Greek Mythology posters just for fun here in the Vacation House living room.) If I hadn’t asked Dan to give me the skinny about Bill, we might not have started writing, and I might have missed one of my life’s most significant relationships. Where would be? Who would I be now? I shudder to think.

I'm coming around to seeing the destiny in all of it, to knowing that sometimes you have to crack things open to see a path you hadn't considered before, to understanding that Good Things often come in Unexpected Packages. I'm getting there.

I know that tomorrow will find me pulling myself up by my flowered boot-straps and scanning the listings and setting my sights on a new and hopefully better house-of-dreams. Today, I’m still wallowing and reading trashy vampire novels and drinking a Fauxmopolitan, which is basically a big-girl version of Bartles and James Wild Berry Wine Coolers, truth be told. And that’s okay. Because as Maria would say, when your heart gets broken, you cry a little, and wait for the sun to come out. Rumor has it…the sun’ll come out tomorrow.

See? I’m already quoting the corniest of musicals. I must be on the mend.

Onward.

When it rains....

...it freaking pours.

I left my coffee in the car this morning, and did not have enough time to go back out in the rain to get it. You'd think that in a school of 1000 people, a girl could get a decent cup of freaking coffee in this place.

AND, I just found out that Michael Feinstein is closing on Broadway next week, which is crushing because I was totally going to get to see that in July AND meet Michael Feinstein because I know someone in the show, and I was going with Jamie, who knows everyone. No meeting Michael Feinstein. No singing a little duet with him on the ghost-lit empty stage. No making wild monkey love on a grand piano while he croons Gershwin in my ear. Yes, that TOTALLY could have happened. (Well, if either of our husbands would have allowed it.)

Too many dreams dashed for one day.

Why I Don't Gamble

I took a risk in selling my yellow house for the hope of getting this new and better house, and though it's not definite that we're not going to get it, we got some bad news today that makes it look unlikely.

And though I'm going to try not to be bitter, and try not to raise my fist against the sky and lament the unfairness of the Universe that I put so much faith in...I'm still choking on disappointment right now. The sellers are in a giant mess from their credit cards and their irresponsible lifestyle, and so now we lose out.

And I'm going to try not to be overly dramatic, but there's something wrong with a country where the people who work the hardest and try to live a good, responsible life have to pay for the mistakes of the ones who spend their Christmas in Hawaii. I spent mine scrubbing my house from top to bottom for the new people to move in.

So while I know we'll find somewhere to go, and that we'll find something adequate, I know there will be no room of my own, because that will be the first luxury on the list to go. And I know I'm going to miss that most of all.

You'll not be spotting me at Foxwoods anytime soon. Or ever.

Seven Things

Here are seven things I'm happy about:

1.) It is the Happy Six, the six month half of my year where I get home, and I'm done. I don't have other work to do. I don't have staging to write or emails I have to send or anything besides caring for my family and watching too much TV and reading Good Books or Trashy Books or all of my back issues of Real Simple. It's been hard to relax into that since I am not at my own home, but I'm doing the best I can. So I'm happy about that.

2.) Next weekend is Easter, and though it brings with it the yearly why-are-you-damning-your-children-to-hell-for-not-giving-them-Jesus business, it also brings chocolate covered peeps and the Saads Easter egg hunt, whihc is one of my favorite days. We have pictures of the kids from when they were tiny, tearing through the Saads' giant back yard in mud boots or winter coats or short sleeves. The parents stand about with cameras and mimosas, and in most of the years, we've had a new baby to sniff and coo over. This year, we've got Maya's debut, and there's something about new babies and Easter and daffodils and crocuses and Cadbury Mini Eggs that remind you that life goes on, and spring can fix almost anything, if you let it.

3.) Glee will be coming back soon.

4.) My mom took the girls last night so Patrick and I could have a date, and that was...good. I don't write about my marriage here, nor do I intend to now, but it was a good evening. We went to see my cousin MaryKate competed in the Mass Drama Festival, and she was stupendous. It was fun for Patrick to come there to watch her in Boston because he had competed there in high school, and then we tromped around Boston until we were tired. Which was at, like 8:00 p.m., 'cause we're super old, but we still had fun.

5.) Amelia has a feis today, and though it causes me suffering to endure a day's worth of skiddle-dee-diddle music and a seeming lack of organization, I'm always glad that I can bring her to do a thing she loves, see her be excellent, and know that nothing else I have to do today is more important than that.

6.) Though I may be homeless in four weeks, I know I have places I can go, people who will have us in our hour of need. It's a very comforting feeling.

7.) I got invited to have tea with Elizabeth Berg. Yes, THAT Elizabeth Berg. Only twenty people got invited, and though it's at an inconvenient time, I'm totally going. Because I got invited to sit down for two hours with my favorite author. When does that happen?

I'm stopping at seven things I'm happy about, because seven is a magical number and that's what I declared, but a little P.S. is...I could have kept on going. I could have listed 101 things that I'm happy about right now, and that's what I'm most grateful for.

Keep the cheer coming, Universe. I really appreciate it. Right down to my toes.

Kodachrome

I’ve been asked to blog.

Actually, twice today I was asked, by two different people. I wonder, sometimes, why anyone reads this. Is it because they actually already love me to some extent, and want to hear my little stories because I don’t have time to call them on the telephone, or is it because someone enjoys how I put things, or how I spend my days as a mother/teacher/writer/wife (but not necessarily in that order)? Or is it because they know that they are hearing a voice struggling to emerge after a long, long climb? I don’t know. But whatever the reason, if that someone is you, thanks for visiting me.

Someone wise, one of the wisest, recently speculated that I probably am using this particular life journey to make up for some past-life where I was unable to speak out. My goal this time ‘round is to find my voice, to stand up loud for who I am and what I think. I am inclined to agree, and embracing that knowledge has infused a new energy in my life that is propelling me forward. It’s quite a recent development, a long time in the making.

I am not who I was one year ago. I am not who I was six months ago, or four months ago. I am all of the sudden someone new, a person I have been working toward.

I don’t know how I’ll be in the world yet. I know that I can finally say that there are things I know for certain. There are friends I know for certain. There are goals I have for certain and their inevitability is iron-clad. And I knew it all along, so I can trust the realization now. I have the perspective as I near 40 that I really, really hoped I’d have. Not rose-colored, not sepia-tinted, but maybe a tiny bit Kodachrome. You know that color of the 1960’s Disney Live-Action movies, like Summer Magic and That Darn Cat? Like that.

I am celebrating my 40th birthday by going on a vacation with a group of my women friends. And there will be some drama, and some ruffled feelings, but mostly, there will be connection, and a real celebration of where we’ve been, and where we’re going. That is precisely how I want to spend my 40th birthday.

My new house is part of this, I know. I am Envisioning with all of the passionate energy my spirit can muster. And, if I may be so bold, that is a significant amount. It’s time for that phone call, the one where they say, “It’s yours. It’s time. Welcome Home.” It’s time.

Sea Fever

That picture of Amelia was posted because she is entering a contest to win a trip to the new Harry Potter Themepark from the Ellen Degeneres show. The tag line for the contest is: "Do you have a precocious child who knows everything about Harry Potter?" Why, indeed I do. She wrote an essay immediately, and I've been trying to post her entry but am having trouble with the link.

She's absolutely, positively convinced that she will win, and I see no reason whatsoever to dissuade her.

The pond behind the vacation house was in a frenzy during this storm, but more than anything, it made me miss the ocean. I am not often overly nostalgic for my childhood home in Hull, but storms bring my spirit back there immediately. I think that when you're born to it, there's no removing the salt from your blood. I very nearly drove down there on Sunday just to watch the waves. (But went to see Percy Jackson instead...there's got to be some Poseidon connection in there somewhere.)

One of the few poems I've always had memorized is the one by John Masefield that goes:

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way, where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

I know there's a piece of my soul infected with Sea Fever, the gypsy in me, and she gets a little wound up when the Nor'easters come.