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Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letter box

I remember speeding around in my SUV last spring, windows down and sunroof open, singing with imaginary others beside me: "Jai Guru Deva, Om"...Crooning to the heavens or out to anyone in the cars beside me who would listen... And I remember my heart was just about to jump right out of my chest, and my voice was full and deep and reached out from all the way down in my belly.

I thought at those moments I was invincible.

Images of broken light which dance before me like a million eyes

And I remember walking with him on an usually bright day, around a tremendous circle of water- the mirror the clouds looked down into as they adjusted themselves above us, and I thought the path would never end... But then we walked, to the end of the world, and I saw that it was glorious. And then he asked if I would like to have it... And I said yes, please. And then a week later he put it in my hand.

The problem is I don't think anything else after that could ever top it.

Pools of sorrow, waves of joys are drifting through my open mind

I remember sitting at tables, across from faces I love, being showered with presents... and realizing I had everything, feeling so full, and feeling done. I got everything I wanted... there was nothing left to impress, to plead for, no more reason to suffer.

At these times, I felt lucky. I also felt lost.

So then I undid it all. Tore down my happiness, complicated feelings...

I guess... I just don't like to feel done.

Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup

I used to tell my mother I didn't know how she could ever settle for her boyfriend. I mean sure, they got along well enough sometimes, but sometimes I just wondered if it was really enough... I just wondered if she could do better. She said she was happy with what they had. I never asked her again. Now they are married.

Successes scare me.

Cause after the struggle, the longing, the wondering if he and if i and if we will ever tell each other... well after all that... then what? What next?

In acting class we have been talking about avoiding going to neutral in our acting scenes, in other words -for you "civilians" as one of my professors likes to call non-actors- always be going for something as your character, always be trying to get something from the other character. Know what you want from that person, and then do everything you can to get it. It makes the scene more active, and more exciting as you as the actor have to try a variety of ways to get what you want from the other character. Many actors go to neutral after they have actually gotten what the want, or loss the battle completely. This often results in losing the audience, as we become uninterested in the action on stage because there is no longer a conflict.

So there ya go.

Which is mainly to say, I am scared of going to neutral. Because if I stay too happy, too settled... I guess I am afraid I might just disappear into the background. My life will no longer be interesting to my audience. I get to these highs... and I feel great... and then I continue pushing everything in some other direction. So it seems there always needs to be some obstacle, some conflict. Most of the time in the struggle for greatness I am the cause of that obstacle all by myself.

Birds flying high
You know how I feel
Sun in the sky
You know how I feel
Reeds driftin' on by
You know how I feel
It's a new dawn
It's a new day
It's a new life
For me



So I sat there on my bed, waiting for the wave of guilt to crash down on me. And I sat for another few minutes, and sat... and nothing happened. In fact, I felt about a million pounds lighter, and I breathed as I sat there still silently expecting the residue of it all to creep back into my skin and humble me. But nope, nothing.

Whoever said breaking up is hard to do was an idiot. And possibly a singer.

Well, maybe it’s only easy if you are a drifter like me. See cause drifters, like me, don’t really get “in” relationships in the first place. I mean sure, all the signs are there, the visits, the movie going: whatever it is people in real-ationships do, however, the drifter rarely commits oneself fully. For the drifter, I mean err... me, to settle down one solitary significant other must have all the qualities of ten significant others, and be supportive of the drifter’s wandering nature. For this soul, love alone will never be enough. It must always search and find perfection in the total aspect of life.

So I finally answered the phone. On the end was an angry, explosive, guilt-dishing man hoping to save a non-existent real-ationship. What he would find is a blunt, relaxed, half asleep woman who had already been liberated from such spells, who had already found salvation in the kindness of strangers.

See because there I was, bitching, discussing the latest of voicemail messages designed to make me feel like a monster, humble myself and walk back into the trap. After hearing all this, “Erica, where are you? What is going on? What is your problem? I’m concerned about you. You need to quit playing and call me. You know you are wrong....”, instead of feeling guilty I got selfish. I got angry. After all, since when is living your own life such a crime? I am really good at it: playing the loving and faithful companion. I am really good at giving him and all the others whatever it is they want, seldom a selfish moment when I ask for something of my own. But if I give everything else, why shouldn’t my hours be mine to distribute? Shouldn’t my time, at least, belong to me? Actually you know what, that is not up for debate. I need my own time. Sometimes. And that’s it.

Let’s get back to the point. There I was, bitching, and in through the door walks an angel. It had to be an angel because the timing and delivery was so perfect, and I have always believed that irony is at God’s disposal. And there he was, white sweater draping over his jeans, totally oblivious as to how he was being used at that moment, about how he would, in ten minutes, change my entire life. And then he showered me with joy, with happiness and strength in the form of game board pieces with pictures of my smile. He laid out friendship right there on the table in front of me, in the form of personalized monopoly squares and Shop for Peace currency. He gave me a tangible love in the form of little Monkey Besos, an inspiration and hope that could only be attained by the memory of doing the Cha-Cha under the moonlight. Inspiration. Hope for something better. Faith that something better does exist. Exactly. I found faith in Eric.

And all I could do is stand there, laughter and tears spilling out me organically, from somewhere really down deep. I felt as if it was the ultimate catharsis, and as emotion poured out of me like a river I couldn’t say anything. Well anything except, “Eric, you have no idea.” I fell into his arms, and my mascara ran down his white shirt, and I felt so impulsive, and so alive. Something that had been missing for a long time. I wanted to run off and feed a village, or have a passionate love affair, or... whatever. I just felt alive.

So I answered my phone. I answered the questions that needed to be answered. I wiped my hands clean and am ready to start anew. If you ask me, it must have been the neatest breakup on the face on the planet. Because I wasn’t holding on, lingering there, afraid that if I left, or if he left or we parted, that nothing else would fulfill me. Or fulfill him. No wave of guilt attacked me, I didn’t even really explain everything to him. Cause maybe if I let him go, he will find his very own faith. And see that doesn’t make me feel guilty at all, it makes me smile.

Raindrops on roses, etc etc

I never throw anything away. My room at home is piles and piles of letters, songs, unfinished poems and boxes full of pictures. But everything I hold onto is not as romantic as that. I also have tiny t-shirts from kindergarten classes, a Fred Flintstone figurine that I squeezed into a Veryfine juice bottle (this contraption may in fact be the 8th wonder of the world... I thought about giving it away as the prize for the homemade present contest), and other assorted phone numbers, clothes, shoes, unpaid bills, etc. I used to have this fantasy that I was saving it all for when I was famous, so that the president of my fan club could auction it all off on EBay and give me a hefty percentage. But it has been getting slightly out of hand; I have become a collector of other things too, of friendships, of jobs, of men. I keep holding onto all of these things because hey, I might need them one day, and if I throw them away I will look for them, they will be gone and I will be lost.

I get so attached to all of my things, they somehow begin to define me. When I am walking down the street with my brown tinted sunglasses and favorite flowing jean skirt, I feel more confident, and happy with the me that I present to the world. I like it when people admire all of my stuff, or my tastes, or how I manage to work two and three jobs and take twenty-one credits a semester. And its true, I do get known by these things, these labels that I have taken on because of the physical things I like to surround myself with. Maybe its just not a label either, perhaps it actually affects my personality, perhaps I am truly what my exterior presence displays to the world. Then again, it’s probably more likely that I not all those things, but parts of me would certainly like to be.

So where does that leave me? Lately I have been throwing things away. Trying to. There is a constant struggle to break free of the emotional attachment to these objects of old that represented to the world the way that I used to be. I remember when I painted over my dresser this summer, I painted right over all those names and messages that though they would last forever, that I thought would serve as a solid record of people who cared about me, who were once a big part of my life. Something to look at on the hard days to remind me that I was not always alone. But still, I got out my paint, and took specifc, warm joys in running my brush over the smooth surface, gently coating the memories of the past with new ambitions for the future. And I think that’s really what this is all about.

Ironically I remember when he came over later this summer and saw the dresser, painted in black, adorned with gold, covered in new things that are of new importance to me, and he bitched about his name being covered up. Well I thought to myself, “What the hell does it matter? It’s still there; it’s just not on top anymore.” And that right there, is EXACTLY what this is all about.

I never stopped loving my things. I never traded them in for newer or better ones. I just used them as foundation for loving other things. As I grow and my interests change, the image I begin to project gets bigger and badder and more adult and closer to where I want to end up after it is all done and said. So, I have been tucking away some things for EBay, the things that can’t really be painted over, that have to stay as a memory in themselves. Like Fred*. Holding onto only the necessary as I stumble along the narrow path.


*I meant Flintstone. Ok so the boy’s name just happens to be the same.