Five AM

I often think of your mother's white cat.

How, at the end, her hair was matted and her movement slow. No one wanted physical contact with her but that was all she craved.

The only place you dared touch was the little triangle between her eyes down to her nose. That was enough for her. Enough to go through the night and wake the next day.

Until, at last, she trudged under the bushes and disappeared.

My cat has curled up beside me. He hums at my nearness, loves to have his back or some part of him touching me. It was not always thus.

He is getting old and I wonder at his change in behavior. How he no longer snaps at me out of fear, how he seems to truly sense when I am unwell. I wonder how many more years we have together.

I used to hate the white spot on his little triangle, the one that mars the otherwise symmetrical markings on his face. Used to think that, besides that spot, he was quite a handsome cat, for trailer trash.

It is now my favorite thing about him. I pet it, as if it gives him power. As if it prolongs the time we have together.

He owns me as much as I own him.

The saddest girl to ever hold a martini

A very kind soul has pointed out that I seem, perhaps, a little sad. 

Well, that internet Heather has seemed a little sad.

I forget that these entries are viewed as a representation of myself and can be taken quite literally.  Oftentimes I'm trying ideas on for size, and that's simply all it is.  I do know that inspiration can strike when times are tough.  I'm unsure of why this may be.  I have only found that comfortability doesn't breed creativity.  At least, in my experience.  If you're too busy snuggling into your lover's armpit, that is the best and only thing in the world.  Perhaps you'll pen love sonnets galore, but, more often than not, you'll be gazing into each other's eyes and ordering Thai food.  Not saying that's a bad thing. 

I've been thinking a lot about creativity and productivity.  I've been wondering why I'm drawn to more solitary mediums lately.  Wondering why so many authors seem so very sad.  Wondering why, from day one, I'd been interested in being directed and molded, the muse and not the maker. 

It's that last little query that has me going today.  I've always been willing to place my trust into everyone else's hands.  I do very little trusting of myself.  And I think it's maybe the kernel of my unhappiness.

So that's what's going on here.  I'm taking control and I'm taking charge.  I'm asking for what I need, and maybe even sometimes for what I simply want.  And I will not be sorry.  This, to me, feels very bitchy to write.  But it's not.  It's absolutely not.

This is one of my very favorite days.  Let's go out and live it, yes?

Dear,

Let me start with an apology.  It will be the last of them.  I'm sorries are tiresome to say, and likely more tiresome to hear.  I'm sorry begins to sound like my cat's plaintive meow, or like walking up a gravel driveway, or like the teacher in Charlie Brown.  It is wind from my damaged lungs, up through my vocal chords, bouncing around my teeth and tongue, and tepidly released to you and the world.  So, for the last time, I'm sorry.

It's not your fault.  I know that now.  I fancied myself an excellent communicator once upon a time.  I was wrong.  I'm still learning what it means to need something, to voice that need, and to hold on to that need, come what may.  There was a time when you'd convince me otherwise, voice your opinion that it was selfish, or foolish, to need this or that.  I'd listen and think, of course, of course you do know better.  I was constantly in a state of flux, my brain working overtime flip-flopping and adjusting to make everyone else comfortable.  But I can't do that anymore.  I'm thirty years old.  Do you see that?  Or do you still see me as I was at sixteen?  When I'd test my boundaries; when I'd embarrass you.  I've been the ungrateful, willful child who pierced her navel, who can't remember driving directions, who sometimes sneaks Marlboro Lights, for all of my adult life.  And I've been trying to patch that up, to be a nice person, to make you proud.  But that has been doing far more damage than good.  It's not your fault because I've never addressed it, never said, this is who I am, and I am different than you, and that should be okay.  I've enabled the very thing that has kept us apart. 

So, if you are the slightest bit curious, this is who I am:

I am silly.  I am creative.  I need to have an outlet for that creativity.  What for some is a childhood phase is for me my lifeline.  I am sensitive.  I am nostalgic.  I need music like I need air.  Eating and drinking are not about simply filling the hole for me.  I'm happiest when I get a few hours of that in the company of loved ones.  I don't give up easily.  I am proud.  I can be indecisive and easily influenced.  This is because I don't trust myself.  I'm working on these things.  I sometimes suffer from depression.  Working on that, too.  I can't be in the house for too long.  I love California.  It feels like it was made for me.  Or I was made for it.  I need trees and sunshine.  I like to be able to practice yoga and to go hiking.  Sometimes both in the same day.  I need other creative people around me.  I will probably live here for a very long time.  Don't take it personally.  I need my space to be clean and to be organized.  Through the years, I've relaxed my standards on this.  I'm not currently attending church.  Don't take it personally.  I find spirituality in the same trees and sunshine I mentioned earlier.  I should probably be working with animals, because people overwhelm me.  I'm girly.  I miss being an actor.  I don't have a lot of friends, but I would do anything for the ones I do have.  If you're reading this, I would do anything for you. 

I hope this helps.  I hope you can still love me.  I hope we can be better than ever.  I hope you trust me and my decisions.  Or at least, that they don't worry you unnecessarily.  I am learning what is best for myself, and I will honor that.  I hope you can understand that that is not a reflection on you.  If you take one thing away from this, please let it be those last two lines.  Oh, and this: that I love you, very, very much.

She also thinks:

There are so so many things held in our hearts.

All we want is to release them into the world, and for someone else to catch them.

To grasp the ribbon at the end of the balloon before it floats away.

And to nod, and say yes yes I understand.

She thinks: 

Perhaps, this is why we make art, and why we make love, and why we make war.

She thinks:

I’m no good to anybody in person. 

 

In person, you can overwhelm me physically, in person, you can silence my words.

Seem eager to own me.

So.

I should correspond only in letters.  Freely, unfettered.  There you know nothing of my fading beauty, of my trouble with living.  Perhaps you hear my voice, or what you remember of it.  Perhaps the musicality carries over in the pretty arrangements of my words.

Perhaps you will think me better than I am.

Perhaps I am better than I think I am.

The letters will be sent by sparrow.  Dropping down, he will land, blinking.  A note will release from his beak.  Should you be inclined to respond, he will wait for you, and then return to me.

This is how it shall be done, she thinks.

One Plus One Plus One Equals Three

I've long been a fan of Dorothy Parker's stories.  After spending most of my Christmas travel time with her, I've been thinking about her excellent he-said, she-said narrative stories (which she claimed were "over, honey, they're over" in this interview) and I can see how she'd also admire Odets, and thought McCullers was "good".

Just good.  My word, if I could scratch the surface of her just good.

However, I cannot imagine she'd much like Jennifer Egan, though she's a recent favorite of mine.  I especially like her last answer in her interview here.  She's on to something.

Here's to 2013, the year of more reading and less stressing.