Inspired by "Salento"

Pitt-er Patt-er on the window sill.

As the rain droplets fall and turn to ice in the frigid air,
You pluck at your guitar strings with wild care.
The frenzy of notes you play make me dance with hungry rhythm in my hips,
And I can't remember the last time I tasted hot sugar on my lips.

If only your fingers could play me like that guitar,
Maybe I could run from this place, run so very far.
Maybe I could be your musical weapon or magical muse
I could be your tiger, your fire. Please light my fuse.

I want you to inspire me, make my dead heart beat
As if blood still pumped through this bag of meat.
Bend me, fold me, as long as I can create
Beauty from life before it is much too late.

Touch me, let me wonder as I wander through
This deep forest comprised of only you
Your hot breath, smooth skin, radiance and desire.
Let me be your muse, let me be your fire.

And maybe there'll be hope for me still.

Winter

The tree is bright with globes of silver, red, and white, and the snow reaches above the shin. The dog is sighing in hopes he might beg cutely enough for another treat, and the family sits in the kitchen, nibbling on cookies and resting after eating the giant Christmas meal of soup, salad, potatoes, roast pork, and roast lamb.

At least, that's what we do here.

I sit alone in an attempt to digest the past year and see if I accomplished anything to mention. I really haven't. This year has been a failure of sorts, of course with its small achievements and smiles.

I flew home to Ohio on Wednesday night, sick with a fever, a cough, and chills. In doing so, I realized that I'm slowly destroying myself. Currently working two jobs, I come home and feel the tingling luxuries of suburbia, where a college grad can rest and take her time finding a good job while she saves money to one day move out and buy a home. We know that I did not follow the Jesus of Suburbia slow guide to success in hopes of living in the same city as my family and the many people I remember from high school. I looked for lights, like a moth to a flame, with big ideas and unfathomable dreams beating like drums against the walls of my head.

But are my fears correct? Is there no rest for me? Am I doomed to live a life of the ordinary? Am I to work my fingers to the bone simply to pay the rent and the bills that keep me from sleeping in my car? Because the Lord knows coming home for more than a week at a time is not an option; I know my sluggish corpse of a body would grow easily accustomed to the swell of the leather couch and the love of the dog's kisses and the brilliant sound of the family's voices...

And my mind would waste away, more so than it already has. I'm tired, and therefore have no drive. Virginia Wolfe's theories of work and writing ring all too true in my mind. I stress more than anyone I know, except for my father, because I worry about the future. I'm a hesitant artist too concerned with where my next paycheck will come from and what it will cover.

I prayed in Church last night, really prayed after I received the thin wafer meant to represent or actually be the Body of Christ, depending on who you listen to. I normally recite a Hail Mary and an Our Father after this centuries old transaction, but this Christmas Eve felt different. I'm in dire need of a miracle. I don't mean a miracle in which God or an Angel hand me something to better my situation, simply a miracle of the heart or mind. I desperately need to start thinking differently. I want to be creative again, I want to have a job that I look forward to in the morning. I know we all struggle through hard times, and I know none of us are handed more than we can deal with, but this Christmas I just want to know what it is that I am meant to do.

I am frightened of my future. My brother tells me I don't really have one. Am I to be married to a poor actor? Am I to continue to work two jobs? Am I ever going to write something of meaning again?

I realize this blog entry, of several, has a self-pitying theme which I surely apologize for. But it is my blog. And at least I am writing.

Autumn.

Today I sipped coffee and orange juice while watching orange and yellow leaves fall from the sky. I'm in the woods, sitting in the kitchen of a beautiful home whose interior was decorated when the 70's style was at its peak. I'm on the border of New York and Connecticut, and the area doesn't feel very different from the Ohio woods I am familiar with.

This street smells of money, and the lake nearby is beautifully kept in place by a man-made dam with a medieval architectural style.

I like it here, away from the city. It's quiet. Peaceful. This is a place where a writer should write if they have an inkling.

There are projects coming my way. And I'm both excited and extremely nervous. These projects, with deadlines, will force me to do what I love. At least, I hope it does.

I hope to come back to this neighborhood to shoot a part of my pilot. I think it would be lovely, to say the least.

Sayin' Something

All right.

I've remained mum about this recession. I can't anymore. I'm angry. I have two degrees. I excelled in both high school and college. I like to think I'm talented and creative. My managers and former bosses adored me, save one because she was an off the boat Italian with no prior restaurant experience. Yet, I spent my lunch hour at my current production job applying to server positions in NYC. Oh, and did I mention that my current job is outsourcing? First to Florida and then to India. Yeah.

I'm taking two steps back, and I hate it. I'm better than this. And I know I can make money doing a "survival job," as my boyfriend calls them. I just don't want to. I didn't work so hard in school so I could do that.

I have talented friends/associates who graduated with and after me who have network jobs, and I'm happy for them. I just want to know why my resume, my skills,and my name were overlooked.

Damn it all. I swear.

Believe.

I wish I could.

Lonely

It’s in the still silence of the evening. Though you turn on the portable AC to not only cool the bedroom and drown out the silence, you still feel it there.

It’s loneliness.

She hides within the old bricks of your building, between the keys of your blackberry, behind the unused radiator, and sometimes in the very vulnerable crevices of your mind.

You detect it in your voice when you speak to your mother or when you whisper to your lover. And you wonder if your voice is playing tricks on you, if your whole body is playing some sort of unfunny joke that really has no punch line.

Just a punch.

To the gut.

You want to tear it out so you can feel something that isn’t loneliness. Maybe when the warm liquid covers your shaking hands and the body heat escapes your abdomen, maybe then you’ll feel something closer to life.

After all, the fading of life is still a work of life.

Right?

Or would that simply induce more loneliness?

Into Nothingness

From my second floor apartment in this quiet neighborhood of Brooklyn, I can hear the tenant below practicing piano. He or she plays I think almost everyday, and I find the notes mellow and soothing. Now, I'm not sure if he/she is a teenager, a composer, an engineer, or a housewife. I have no clue. I just hear the person playing, day after day, most evenings, and in the afternoon hours of the weekend.

There is also a woman who sings in my apartment building. I hear her alto voice in the evenings sometimes; she's practicing opera. She could be an actress or a soon-to-be actress.

And here I am. It's Sunday, and my boyfriend has come and gone; he works all day on weekends so we don't have the ability to walk through the park or go to the beach on my day off like other couples can. It's okay because I don't really like to be seen in my bathing suit anyway, but it'd be nice to have the option.

I should be writing. I should be finishing my fanfiction. I should be writing my sitcom and carrying it around to shove it into the faces of NBC or HBO or CBS or ABC execs, pleading, "Give me a job where what I do is meaningful." But I'm not. Instead, I'm doing laundry and scrubbing the tub on the Lord's day of rest. My mother doesn't give me grief for this. She, after all, is a neat freak and would straighten up the house on the Holiest of holidays. Of course, I know this really doesn't matter to either of us; it's simply an old Croatian/Catholic tradition and we felt we should continue.

But I'm getting off track.

Unlike the piano player and the opera singer, I am not honing my skills and trying to make progress. Instead, I'm being voyeuristic (using my ears as Jimmy Stewart used his lens in Hitchcock's Rear Window) and trying to imagine why they do what they do. Why do they love their craft so much more than I do these days? Why am I not craving to write anymore? Have I become that mundane? Do I no longer wear the label of writer or artist? Have I lost my creativity?

I've tried. I have. I stopped taking pills that would alter my mood and make me complacent; I know that I write my best when I'm racked with sobs or depressed beyond belief. Well, Widow Sadness and her estranged lover Master Anger returned but didn't bring Lady Creativity. I feel as if I had opened Pandora's Box but Hope wasn't inside with all the rest of the world's torments.

Of course, this leads to doubt. I doubt my skills. I doubt my purpose. I doubt my career choice. Why haven't I been writing? Why haven't I finished my Harley Quinn tale? I love that character, yet I let her hang in limbo without resolution.

I don't know how to fix this void. How does one FORCE herself to be creative?