defying gravity...

i am back from the promised land..no, not israel...boca...thankfully missing the brunt of a brutal cold spell...flying delta this time which was sad because there was a time when it was a somewhat "classy" airline...and now saying "no frills" would be a severe understatement...adding to the glamour, and our being held somewhere in the skies over philly because of a little snow at laguardia, was the incessant cough of a young woman in front of us who i think had bubonic plague...anyway, i am back and it is the end of january..therefore, we are in the middle of the avalance of award shows...tonight's was the sag awards...this is the one where actors vote for actors...actors schmoozing at tables as the telecast crawled along...they kept showing the food at the tables...which of course was never touched, this being hollywood...they could have just rolled it all over to food kitchens in the area...but i digress...there were many talented actors in the room...but i kept waiting for the movie stars...for a cue from the orchestra...for everything to turn to black and white...tuxedos and satin...burt lancaster...bette davis...cary grant...katherine hepburn...hell, i would even settle for a generation or two later...shirley maclaine...warren beatty...julie christie...and always, jack...but here i am watching winners and losers...many around my age...many fighting the age fairy with the talented skills of hollywood surgeons...some more successfully than others...but all reminding me of the swift cruelty of time...as if the mirror at 6am couldn't do that already... and it's easy to be an armchair critic...loving julianne moore in "game change" but wondering who let her out of the limo in that dress...then sighing as i am 52 also...still dreaming of winning a golden statue...but I'd be armed with a neatly folded acceptance speech...and a roll of some "fashion tape"...just in case...

girl, put your records on....

i heard carly simon's "that's the way i've always heard it should be" on the radio today and got nostalgic...for the songstresses of the '70s...i remember doodling lyrics on the back of notebooks...every line speaking directly to me...the quiet  angst of teenage girls...carly...joni mitchell...linda ronstadt...and for those "life sucks" moments, janis ian...some songs featured their own lyrics...some the pure poetry of dolly parton...karla bonoff...images of vinyl...the excitement when purchasing a new record...scrutinizing the pictures...the layout...playing them over and over again...the first awful scratch...revealing to everyone your favorite song...or chorus...and i catch my breath and wonder...was i ever that young?...were they ever that young?...the radio snaps the moment...taylor swift is whining that "we are never ever getting back together"...it's like an audibly-induced coma...it makes me secretly wish that harvey weinstein would sell her as the next kate winslet...keep her from the recording studio...ah, well, "that'll be the day"...

the wind beneath whose wings

so i am sitting in horrible traffic...three blocks...twenty minutes...we won't discuss a lane closure for road work on one of the busiest strips in nassau county during the height of rush hour...i am listening to the radio...changing a station...and there is bette midler..."wind beneath my wings"...back in the day when she was transitioning from wonderfully wicked to wonder bread...i almost sing along...then catch myself in horror and quickly change the dial...the broadway channel briefly saves me with the overture from "chicago"...original cast...back before that went from wonderfully wicked to wonder bread...but those bette lyrics get me thinking...and i am mulling over a thought...what or who lifts us when we are down or when we fall...we all can think of a "hero"...someone who has been our champion...but really, when we stumble, don't we really save ourselves...i am not going to bring in faith...many will argue the intervention of a higher power...and i am not here to argue for or against...because even the act of being saved means we reach out at our weakest moments...a 50/50 proposition, if you will...so i guess when bette had us crying our eyes out...before we cried over barbara hershey's awful face work...the wind beneath those wings was really the firm clasp of a friend walking you along...personal training wheels...holding then letting go...maybe realizing, like dorothy, that you had the power all along...here's wishing that in these uncertain times we all have a hand to grasp and our own wings to fly...

everything old is new again...

new year's eve...a little over a week into official winterland and i am trying to resist the urge to hibernate...i imagine that if i locked myself away...with pen, paper, laptop and coffee brewing...that suddenly my eastern european roots...those of the suffering russian stock...would run through my veins...out my fingertips and i would be the next tolstoy or maybe pasternak...but this has not come to pass...mostly i would eat and get fat...because the russian stock would send me in search of bread...i would dream of lush pumpernickels and such...as 2012 closes i promise not to beat myself up so much...the stack of poetry rejections will not define who i am as a writer...certainly not as a person...maybe there will be a few unspoken resolutions..ones i know i may partially keep...such is human nature...as i catch a glimpse of my reflection in the window i wonder what i would look like...a russian writer 100 years ago...getting it all on paper while revolution swept like a blizzard around me...well, maybe the moment hasn't arrived for my inner-tolstoy...but i bet i'd rock one of those big russian hats...lara and anna karenina would have nothing on me...wishing you peace in 2013....

Death, be not proud...

as i sit and write, it would seem those mayans were wrong...or were they?...it has been a week of death, so to speak...an unfathomable tragedy at sandy hook elementary...which left those of us with no direct connection to the victims with a punch to the stomach and a catch in our throat...not with the personal task of a burial, a wake, a shiva...but then this week death started creeping from the perimeter...a lovely woman i have had the fortune of knowing from my writer's group lost her husband of many years to alzheimer's...i embraced her at shiva and saw her loss, her pain, and relief as well...her wish for his peace was answered, but what of her peace?...and then a funeral for a cousin, whom i had known so well as a boy, so much less as a man...a contemporary, born five weeks apart...sitting at his service and thinking about loss...what does it mean?...the eulogy and accounting of his life muffled by my memories of so long ago...the ones we try to grasp before they too are buried...memories of unspoken dreams of youth and sometimes in the pure bliss of having lived for the moment...i promised as i was handed the shovel graveside, battling a cold december wind, that death would never wrestle my memories...when it is my turn my soul will fly intact...floating with the unsung songs of all who went before me...

the root of the matter...

tuesday...the sun makes a return...i should be sitting at a large rectangular table at the old church in huntington...listening to stories, essays, prose, poetry and all in between...all delicious...served up by my fellow writers at the women's center...instead...i am seated in a dentist's chair...root canal...i am told the presentation of the roots, canals, etc. are unusual...rare...and i am laughing on the inside thinking what a waste...the unusual and rare in the base of some forlorn molar and not my head...the tooth is stubborn and i need many shots...i will probably drool till at least new year's...but i am not worried...even with hopes of being in the city a few times for the season i know that this look will allow me to blend in with the masses...really, does anyone flinch when they hear horror after horror...subway pushings, shootings in broad daylight...even lady liberty must want to put down that book and puke these days when she gets a gander at these masses...yearning to breathe!...yes, i'll move my lips with purpose editing my latest poem...drooling...smiling on the inside when the row of subway seats is given in haste to this mad poet...

We are such stuff as dreams are made on...

sleep...the curse of mid-life...we either get too little...or too much at the wrong times...or more precisely, find it easier to sleep at any time other than night...on a train (past your stop)...during a play...a movie...a sermon...through the last crucial 5 minutes of your favorite tv show...sometimes the very act of sleep becomes...well...tiring...because of dreams that leave you anything but rested...lately i have had vivid dreams...and i am the goddess of all creative in them...i create an amazing campaign slogan for a product...footnote...i am neither a copywriter or marketing exec...i am taking curtain calls while being showered in bouquets...ironic as i have not been involved in theater since freshman year of college...yet, when i sit to write...there is nothing...when did i slip into this parallel universe?...where are the poems?...and as i wait for creative divine intervention...you will have to forgive the kvetching stream of consciousness (or unconsciousness) of this blogger...sweet dreams...