...And it makes me feel like a child...

(Days of Me--Creative Writing)

I'm glad she's gone, that naive girl;
I'm glad I can breathe without her.
For so long, too long, she clung to the good
The world hadn't written, the way
Things were destined
To remain undestined.

I miss her, false hoper, faith haver,
Fate forcer,
I miss her, believer
And doey-eyed dreamer;
I miss all the mistakes
Mistaken as pure fate;
I miss all the gamble of cards.
I miss having ten broken hearts.

I dread being conscious
And rightly optimistic.
What horror there lies in the truth.
Call me free needer, and childlike deceiver;
Say I've grown up too fast,
But I'm content without pain of the past.

I Dreamed a Dream

First off, I apologize. I've been forced to write a narrative poem about a dream, and I really am a narrative prose person, so gag your way through this and forget it exists.

I Dreamed a Dream
There was a faded light,
like the sun was rising,
but perhaps it was a nightlight.
I sat up on the couch
from the mid-70's,
the room a rusty orange,
wondering where I could be-
but I knew without knowing
it was my grandmother's home;
so I swung my legs off the couch.

I rounded the corner, the light
still quite dim, and to my
surprise found a man.
I knew him before knowing
I was being dragged off,
and I quivered with terror in
the van. Was it a van? Was it
a truck? My cousin soon joined
me on the seat up front.

The long ride to Cali was done
in a blink, the street name
Unicorn something. I felt excited
horror as we stopped at a home
with a crater in the wall
as a door. My phone charger was
missing, and I just wanted to call home,
though why I'll never be sure.

It was he who kidnapped me, the
man of my legends. The singer, the
angel, my organic soul's companion:
Jason. Jason Mraz.

Acting Like You're Somebody Else

Fifteen shows and it's taken me till the sixteenth to realize what that dubious feeling is I get every time a script's in my hand.

(Pardon for those who aren't partial to the technicalities of theatre and acting, but this rant has been rolling through my brain for days. It needed to be voiced. Er... written. Er... blogged.)

First, I'm miffed that my character always is non-existent --in spite of my best efforts-- until all of my scenes have been blocked. (Non-theatre nerds: blocking is the movement--dictated by a director--of a given actor on stage.) We finished blocking Charley's Aunt on Tuesday, and for the remainder of the day I could not get it out of my head. Granted, this may be assumed by the untrained (aka myself as I was a year ago) that I was inwardly well pleased on having a stage kiss this show.

But that wasn't it at all.

Every time blocking is finalized, there is part of me that does not leave the show; when there's nothing for me to focus on (and sometimes even if there is) I find my thoughts and heart back with the script, seeing myself on stage moving with the words. But after Tuesday, I realized for the first time that this... feeling wasn't just me striving to have a good performance. It seems as if the moment I'm given a script, and the moment the blocking is down I am no longer just Erica. It's as if the act of learning a person's steps and reading a person's words has inserted the person inside me, and for the duration of rehearsals and performances their soul lives in harmony with mine, drawing my attention back to them at given points in the day.

It was interesting to stand there at work, mulling over my character's love interest, but for the first time doing so in her eyes, not mine. In the past (and you early blog subscribers should recall), I took the deep amorous affections felt by my character to be my own emotions. I would build on them to a point that once the final curtain fell I still harbored those feelings. Honestly, we humans can talk ourselves into anything.

And I'm worried this isn't making sense.

I've come to realize that my "good" performances are not me at all. The few times I've ever felt ridiculously accomplished with a show have been the few times I wait in the wings with no recollection of my lines; only the blind hope I'll get out there and remember it all.

But in those instances I don't remember. I just do--I just take the stage and for that show I am not Erica being a person. For that show I'm letting that character's soul take the reigns--not even comprehending my doing so. For that show I am merely standing mouthpiece.

And it's all so strange to think about. My epiphanies about Lottie Child and Cinderella's Stepmother were so perfect, there was no way they were not given with some form of help. And yes, I do firmly acknowledge the fact that God has helped me, and that those thoughtless, wonderful performances are rightly credited in His name, but at the same time--and I mean this with no damnable disrespect--I feel almost as if God is only responsible for my inner openness to the spirit of any given character. I feel He gave me that gift, and the characters come as they come, almost with no affirmation on His will. By entrusting me with this gift He entrusted me with all that comes with it: namely any character I care to acknowledge.

And thus far Donna Lucia d'Alvadorez will be the easiest, most difficult character yet, because she is so firm and opinionated in her mannerisms--and her presence is so strong--, but I cannot get her to enlighten me on how to act accordingly under her name. There are moments she lets me see, and I only hope I can learn to play her.

And play her well. Because this constant, consuming, sweet feeling of love will not leave my being; and it entirely belongs to her.

A little bit of Erica, by my side...

Attention advid blog readers. I would like to inform you that I will be posting various works from my Creative Writing class to this blog. So don't be concerned if my posts differ from the norm.

A Text Poem:

(honk) Im not going to
take it. (honk) I'm NOT
giving you the bird.
Sure, you think that you
can make it. (honk) I
think you are absurd.


These I Have Loved:

I’ve loved quite a few, my short years of life,
It’s been quite the hay-ride indeed.
And now in spite all the strife
I’m alright if I forget my desperate need.
If I remember my faults, remember the wrong;
I brought all the pain on myself.
So, see my rough path—the bumpy, the long—
But mostly my loves, above else.

I loved one in first grade, his eyes were brown,
And his hair was the same—and soft.
He was taller than me, the toast of the town,
And, man, did I think of him oft’.
Come Valentine’s Day I wrote him a note
Professing my undying love.
If he’d talked to me prior—he hadn’t, the dope—
He must’ve decided nothing was enough.

At fifth grade I found him—my soul mate, my true—
I could see us together for sure.
When he’d come it seemed fine if he I never knew,
But Cupid’s sweet love was in store.
So I pinned and I waited for my sunset to come,
To be swept from my feet by the lad.
He moved ‘way just months later—my love, my one—
Back to the home of his dad.

I survived most middle school drifting
On by, no boy really meaning much more.
(Though, I confess, I imagined a fling
When did return the knight of before).
I struggled in idiocy, trying to gain
Love from a boy who loved not me;
He kept in my heart as the awkward years drained
But come end my heart had grown empty.

To move further on, I must say that boy’s gone;
For good. He is not coming back.
And in high school I found one
To end all others, but of sense I still firmly lacked.
I believed we had love, in my mind
On my own, but really I was just the fan.
He was the pop-star, the God sublime.
I was the ego’s one night stand.

So I mulled through depression and hated my luck.
Curse love! What has love done for me?
But I see, now the smoke’s cleared, I was a schmuck.
Love isn’t forced, it must be.
I can list all I wish of what could have once been,
But all at the back of mind
I see all that it takes is letting love in
When the love offered isn’t my design.

Goodbye to You

I'm considering changing the name of this blog to My Golden Now Year or Year of Change. But not really. I'd prefer the blog name to match the URL, which it currently does, it just seems like all I ever feel urged to post on falls under the category of My Golden Now Year.

Today we put my dog down. He's been with us for ten years now, born November 8, 2000, received Christmas day from our neighbors (We still paid for him, but due to my brother being best friends with their son, and the fact that we were neighbors, we only paid $300 for a pure-bred lab. That's pretty unbelievable.) My daddy said when he picked the pup he was looking at the pile of puppies and one wedged his way out of the middle of the stack, went to the edge of the pen and did his "business", then returned to the pile and dug his way into the middle.

He was also the fattest.

But I'm getting off track.

In spite of the habitual urge to great my biscuit as I come home, and in spite of the lack of safe fur to nestle my face in, I feel nearly unaffected. Of course, now, sitting here pondering over it my eyes are watering, and I have been a little off-kilter today (and I trace that back to the turmoil of a deceased pet), but I really feel.... at peace.

And it made me think of my golden now year because it's the very same feeling I had upon learning Jason Mraz is engaged; not that the death of a pet is equivalent to celebrity engagements, but to me both things are very life-altering, and I somehow feel indifferently at peace. I accept it without dragging myself through the sludge of pity to acceptance. I left for home this morning, my ill sad dog at home trying to throw up food that wasn't there, and I felt okay. I really felt like, just as I said about Mraz, like it's just a chapter of my book closing. It's another thing necessary for my golden now year to bring me all the growth it's meant to. It's another opportunity to embrace change.

And I'm sure it'll take me a few weeks to stop looking for a squishy doggy face, and my heart may break whenever I find a black hair at the edge of my dinner plate, but I feel it's best for both of us he's gone. He wasn't taken so I could grow, that's not what I'm saying. But it's almost as if both he and I, me and my Tank, needed him to depart this earth now for our own cosmic reasons. I just hope the pooch found his mum in heaven. Because it sure is quite around here without him.

The Opportunity Express

Opportunity knocks. But it really doesn't. It's actually a Conductor there to say there's a Train for you at the metaphorical Train Station, ready to take you to a greater destination. All that's left for you to do is get to the station and climb aboard.

Well, Opportunity didn't knock. I saw the Conductor coming and raced to the Train Station to await the longed for "All aboard!"

I sat on the platform admiring the Train. But I wasn't called aboard; it was desolate of a crew.

I picked my fingernails and gave the Train anxious glances. But I wasn't called aboard.

I began securing all the cars for their departure: checking that they were each properly latched to the other, and then in turn to the Engine.

I began gathering wood to feed the fire.

But I wasn't called aboard.

I opened the furnace, to check its heat. I stoked the fire. I added more wood. I adjusted the coals. I let more air in and still more wood and still more air and I stoked it till my brow bled sweat and all it amounted to was the explosion of the Engine. I did not ensure the Train would leave with me as a giddy passenger. I ensure that the Train would never leave, regardless of my being on board. I left the Train desolate, to be dragged away and recycled for other Opportunity Trains of people strong enough to wait.

And who's to say, in but a moment's time, the Conductor would have tipped me his hat. Who's to say he'd have bellow "All aboard!" and taken my hand as I mounted the steps.

Who's to say the Train was truly going to leave, but my exuberant human nature brought me to forcing Fate and destroying that destination. And perhaps the Train would have taken me somewhere only to shortly pick me up and return me to my original standing, the only difference being my minutely wiser outlook toward similar situations. Or perhaps that Train was one of two much larger Trains, and the passage on either affects life's outcome immensely. Perhaps I destroyed the better option.

Or perhaps the Engine isn't in fiery ruin.

Perhaps it just needs a little more wood.

Life is an hourglass glued to the table

Well, as you may or may not recall, my last post was on my "golden year" being a year of change and moving on. It seems that twas not the only thing this year shall be. I read my darling Jason Mraz's blog a week or so back (see www.freshnessfactorfivethousand.blogspot.com should you care to taste his literate fruits) and he said his New Years resolution was to live in the now: to forget the past, the future, to take the 'new' and make it all 'now.' Then he wished all reading a Happy 'Now' Year.

I thought that was wise of him. Now Year... It's been going through my head the last few weeks. And today, a new semester started, and in Yoga Jan explained we will learn to focus and live in the present, to forget the past and live in the now. Yoga is wishing me a Happy 'Now' Year. And again, in Creative Writing after lunch, Mrs. Sides (on speaking on rapid-writes) explained to write what you feel right now. Whatever happened at lunch is in the past. It's "digesting." Write in the now. Happy 'Now' Year.

So, I suppose all I'm saying is at first I took Mraz's message as a quaint play-on-words to someday evoke in my life, but I suppose Fate is telling me it's yet another aspect of my 'golden year'. Living in the present, focusing on the task at hand. Finally learning that this life isn't a dress rehearsal, which is a harden lesson to learn that it appears. Even to a theatre nerd the phrase doesn't quite work. Why? Because--I learned during Cinderella--not do I only take the metaphorical performance of Life as a dress rehearsal, but I also take the very solid, very real stage performances as mere practices.

Always. I cannot remember a show up until West Side Story where I knew the choreography at an average, fluid level by opening night. Two years before I had succeeded in learning the Act One Final in Suessical the Musical Jr. on closing night. Needless to say, if you ask me to dance it now I'll merely look at you until you are awkwarded from my presence.

And I found myself delaying my grasp of the Stepmother's character up until the final curtain. Yes, I knew her well by dress rehearsals. Yes, she was the greatest, strongest roll I've played to date. But yes, I could have discovered a whole new dimension to her, but I didn't. Because somehow I'm wired to think the time will come later for me to do so.

I'm thankful this golden year is teaching me the pleasure of the present. I should have learned this lesson--metaphorical and literal--years ago. But I'm glad Fate is pitying my thick mortal mind and is instructing me properly to be better.

Now, let me fully embark on my Golden Now Year.