The heart of the matter

Chronic dissatisfaction is at the heart of the matter.

I’ve sort of taken Todd Gitlin’s words out of context. Truth be told, I don’t have the context. I found the quote on a quote website. But it resonates with what I have been thinking as I ask myself, “What am I thankful for on this Thankful Thursday?” Because, you know, I have to do a blog post.

The first thing I thought is that I’m going to be stuck for a blog post, because I’m not feeling very thankful just now. In fact, I’m feeling vaguely dissatisfied.

And then it struck me.

That’s the thing for which I am thankful.

You see, I’ve been in my “new” house for almost three years. The big culture shock of the move is over. The adjustments of finding doctors and dentists and grocery stores and dry cleaners have been accomplished. Almost everything has been unpacked and most things have found places. The big repairs to the house itself have been accomplished. There are still major remodeling projects to come, but the walls have paint, there is enough furniture to find a place to sit and a place to sleep as required, and we have managed to acquire most of the things we never needed previously. Lawn mowers, for example.

Moving is no longer the main focus of my existence.

Now I’m moved. And I’ve got to figure out what my new life should look like–other than a life lived in service to this house.

The house is all well and good. It’s beautiful, in fact. And I am enjoying the weather and the view and the coots. I am more than thankful for the quiet–as anyone who knew me during the living hell of my previous existence is no doubt aware. We’ve settled into a routine.

And it’s just occurred to me in the last week or so that something is not quite right.

I’m not painting and plastering every waking hour, so what am I doing?

That is a disconcerting feeling…or would be, except that I recognize it.

It’s the same feeling I’ve had in the past just before something really interesting comes along. Just before I get a great job or write a play or have an adventure of one kind or another.

I don’t know what this calm before the storm presages this time. I approach it warily—as one should approach all storms—but I am thankful the breezes are stirring.

I’ll echo my niece who said, once, at a family gathering when she was…oh, about one and a half…and had been playing quietly on the floor, paying no attention to any of the adults, until she popped suddenly into view, announcing with great interest and a joyfully rising inflection,”I wonder what’s gonna happen.”

Creativity, for me, has always required space—a gestational period of boredom. I think, perhaps, it’s come round again. And I’m thankful.

I wonder what’s gonna happen.

Where, oh, where

Do the coots go in the summer?

That’s what I’m wondering today.

You see, the coots came back yesterday.

Every winter, usually in late November, we see a few coots. First there are four or five. Then there are twelve. Then there are twenty-four. And then you can’t count them.

This year, I was starting to wonder if something had happened to them. I was hoping it was just that it was still warm enough wherever they were for them to stay there, but I confess to fleeting thoughts about strange avian anomalies—like those red-winged blackbirds that mysteriously fell out of the sky in Arkansas on New Year’s Eve 2011.

So, I was especially delighted to see seven of them swim by the dock this morning. I’m almost always delighted to see the coots, anyway, because they are so hilarious, with their white faces bobbing back and forth as they skedaddle along. They are so sociable, always hanging out in groups, and almost certainly taunting the yellow lab that lived next door. I’m not sure how they knew she wouldn’t go in after them, but they did—swimming right up to the dock and just waiting until the last minute for her to rush up barking wildly before they leisurely flitted a few feet out of reach.

I get a kick out of coots.

I’m happy to have them back. It makes me feel like nature has a friendly side. (Not always my impression when the mosquitoes are auditioning for Dracula and the sweet gums are hurling limbs at me or grasshoppers are chewing my window screens.)

The coots swim by in the morning and, usually, again in the afternoon. We greet each other cordially. (Well, okay—I wave out the window, and they don’t actually spit at me or anything.) I watch with interest as the flock expands exponentially. I think they just gather friends and relations over time as I don’t think I’ve ever seen a baby coot. (A cootlet?)

I sometimes think it would be nice if they stayed around all year, but it’s likely we would take each other for granted if that were the case. It’s probably best that they remain a seasonal pleasure.

But where do they go in the summer?

The best holiday present

You could give yourself.

So, we’re in the middle of December. You’ve gotta bake cupcakes for the kids’ holiday party, shop for presents, wrap presents, ship presents, plan meals and trips, clean guestrooms and send cards, figure out a Secret Santa gift for a co-worker, attend midnight mass, help out at the food kitchen—whatever your version of the endless list that endlessly grows during the holidays.

My tip for you today is give yourself a break.

You had an extra cookie? You can let your diet go—a little bit—just once or twice.

Couldn’t find time to do your Morning Pages? The world will keep turning.

Can’t figure out how to get to the gym between work and the six holiday parties you have to attend? Maybe it’s okay to skip it.

I’m not saying throw your hands up in the air, curl up in a blanket and stop showing up to everything all at once. I’m just saying that there’s a lot to do this time of year. We’ve all got goals and To Do lists and routines we’ve set up to help us realize our dreams.

If you are anything like me, you might get to feeling really guilty when you veer off the path—and you are going to be forced off the path a good few times in the coming weeks. If I understood football, I would insert some reference here to offsides or out of bounds or whatever it is. The point is that you’re going to break the rules you’ve set up for yourself.

When that happens, you have a choice.

You can kick the ball and stalk off home, or you can say, “Whoops! Blew that call. Gimme the ball again, Coach. I can make up some yardage next time.”

I’m going to remember that, yes, I’d like to lose a few pounds, and yes, I’d like to make some progress on my novel, and yes, I want to be able to do a few more situps, BUT it’s okay if I don’t manage all of it every day this month.

Because enjoying the holidays is on my To Do list this year. . .and that’s one thing I’m determined to accomplish.

Twinkle, twinkle

Little lights.

Every year, at this time, there is a miracle of light where I live.

All the houses along the creek decorate their docks. The houses themselves, with few exceptions, remain dark. But the creek side is resplendent with light. One house even has a web of golden lights strung from tree to tree, high up in the branches and down to the ground. The glow is magnified and multiplied by the reflection in the water, and it is really quite something.

A few houses down, a giant Santa presides over wildlife and watercraft from the top of a dock’s sun deck. Bright Christmas red in the daylight, he glows and waves to the cars on the bridge at night.

There are twinkling palm trees and sea walls lined in blue and green, strings of red and purple, green and yellow spiraling around pilings, and Christmas trees built entirely of lights standing out at the ends of piers.

It’s all gorgeous.

There’s no prize for the best decoration. No reason for any neighbor to vie with any other. They do it because it’s beautiful and because people love it. When you get right down to it, nobody living in the house actually spends that much time looking at their own lights. And no one house is all that spectacular by itself.

We enjoy the totality of the experience. The whole is truly greater than the sum of its parts.

It is lovely, every night, to see the lights come on, house by house, many of them on timers with photocells, just waiting for the sun to set enough to switch on the power. It is lovely every year to see who has installed something new and what it is.

It is true that we do enjoy looking at them. I can’t really speak for everyone, but I venture to guess that we enjoy, more, the thought of the cars crossing the bridge night after night, a sudden glimpse of brightness out the side window, “Look, Johnny! Look!,” and parental hands pointing while little round eyes stare quickly, greedily, at a beauty that cannot be grasped, cannot be savored, but is offered up by a community for no better reason than because it’s pretty and because we can.

When I am old and feeble and forgetful, I hope I will be able still to see the twinkling lights of Christmas. I do love them so.

The slippery mind

I have one.

The night before last, as I was writing yesterday’s blog post, I had a great idea for today’s. It was so good that I debated with myself. Should I write it instead of the Scissor Fit post? I decided, no, I would write the Scissor Fit post and save this new idea for another day.

And, you know what happened then, right?

I didn’t write it down.

Aaaaaaaarggggggghhhhh!

The days when I could effortlessly recall every little thing seem to be gone. I can still recite huge chunks of plays I did in my giddy youth. There are poems that are permanently lodged in my brain. But the reason I came into this room two seconds ago. . .not so much.

Now, I’m not saying that I never used to forget things.

It’s a fact that about once every seven years, I would be peacefully sitting at home, about to have a lovely meal I had cooked myself, when the phone would ring and somebody would say, “Where are you?” and I would have to rush out to some important meeting that had completely slipped my mind. It was always upsetting and embarrassing, but it truly only happened about once every seven years—and almost never after I got my Palm Pilot. (I still say the Palm Pilot has the best reminder application!)

Nowadays, I rarely have meetings I am supposed to attend, but I do have other things I am planning. There are things I want to pick up at the store, blog posts I want to write, little tidbits of news I want to tell a friend or relative. It’s a bit worrisome that they slip my mind more often than they used to do.

I think it’s because I have more time than I used to have. Few things have to be done today; there’s always tomorrow. There’s a nice leisurely feel to that—except that I always seem to be busier now than I was in the days when I had a full-time job and rehearsals every night—but it does seem to rust the old steel trap.

I think one of my New Year’s Resolutions might have to be to memorize some monologues or a sonnet or two.

Just to see if I still can.

Scissor fit

Don’t have one.

A “scissor fit” is part of the jargon of my family. (Jargon: Special words or expressions that are used by a particular profession or group and are difficult for others to understand.) Although I’m not sure how difficult it is for others to understand. There’s a good chance your mother used to have scissor fits, too. Or their equivalent.

In my house, they went something like this—and usually around the holidays when present wrapping was a thing my mom was trying to do.

~~~

Scene: A suburban living room. Children peacefully going about their business—doing homework, setting the table. Okay, let’s be realistic. Children running around and raising hell—dismantling the vacuum cleaner, mopping up the spilled soda with the cat.

(There is the sound of drawers opening and closing, with increasing ferocity—and, possibly, of the cat yowling.)

The Mother: Where are the scissors?

The First Kid: I don’t know.

The Second Kid: Dunno

The Third Kid: (turning the cat upside down into the puddle of soda) I didn’t take ’em.

The Mother: (loudly) Who took the scissors?!

The Second Kid: Not me.

The First Kid: Not me.

The Third Kid: Owwww! Yowww! Yoww! Mom! The cat bit me!!!

The Mother: Somebody took the scissors. I’m so sick of this. I buy forty-eleven pairs of scissors, and stick one in each drawer, so I can have a pair of scissors WHEN I WANT ONE and what happens?! There is never a pair of scissors WHEN I WANT ONE! You all better stop taking the scissors! And if you take the scissors, you better PUT THEM BACK!!!!!

~~~

Now, at this point, a smart kid will run and hide. Only the especially brave or the especially stupid will point out that “forty-eleven” is not a real number. Either way, the day does not end well.

At my house, as we got older, this whole thing became known as a “scissor fit.” As in, one kid would come into the house with the uproar already in progress, ask “What’s going on?” The answer would come, “Mom’s having a scissor fit.” “Got it,” would say the first kid and duck back out the door.

I thought of this yesterday.

Guess why?

Because the scissors were not where I had put them.

And I don’t even have forty-eleven kids to move them around.

So, alls I’m sayin’ is—the scissors are going to go missing. It’s one of the things that happens.

Just chill.

Not a day goes by

When I am not thankful I found my way into the theatre.

In case I haven’t mentioned it before, I love theatre. I especially love musical theatre (maybe because it’s the one form I am really, really, really no good at).

That’s why I was so happy the other night to stumble upon a re-run of a PBS Great Performances presentation of Sondheim! The Birthday Concert.

Sondheim is a genius.

I’m fairly sure that’s an undisputed fact.

He has a birthday every year, of course, just like us non-geniuses. His birthdays, periodically, are punctuated by tribute concerts that get televised—thus providing those far from Broadway with the opportunity to have a little taste.

This last one may be the best one yet. (Maybe not. They’re all good.)

There are lots of good numbers by lots of Broadway stars. It’s great fun to see Chip Zien and Joanna Gleason, the original Baker and his Wife, from Into the Woods, and Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters, from Sunday in the Park with George, and two Sweeney Todds—George Hearn and Michael Cerveris—along with Patti LuPone, reprising numbers from those fabulous shows.

The pièce de résistance, however, is found near the end of the concert. As described on PBS’s website, it’s a “parade of legendary leading ladies who cap the evening with a non-stop succession of showstoppers guaranteed to quicken the pulse of all bona fide show fans.”

I’m not sure what’s more wonderful, the totally terrific numbers or the amazing ladies who sing them. First we get Patti Lupone and The Ladies Who Lunch, Marin Mazzie singing Losing My Mind, Audra McDonald and The Glamorous Life, Donna Murphy’s rendition of Could I Leave You, and Bernadette Peters’ beautiful Not a Day Goes By with Elaine Stritch capping it all off with I’m Still Here.

Big-voice belting and lyric sopranos. Gorgeous voices, gorgeous music., the pre-eminent performers of our time. It was kind of like dueling divas—but in a good way. And it was clear that—had anything happened in that theatre that night—Broadway was gone for a generation. (Fortunately, it’s all pre-taped, so any breathlessness at the end isn’t over fearing disaster but in tribute to the breathtaking qualities of the performances.)

I wish I could show you video clips of all of them, but we probably have to buy the DVD for that. I think it will be well worth the $25 bucks.

For a little preview, though, here’s part of Patti LuPone’s finale.

And the link below (it won’t embed) is the official PBS preview. Thirty minutes of selected numbers, including Elaine Stritch’s final number there at the end.

(And some of my readers, I know, will be interested to see John McMartin at time stamp 10:42.)

http://video.pbs.org/video/1661902012/

Enjoy! I sure did.

Nothing in the world

Can take the place of persistence.

I’ve mentioned part of this quote from Calvin Coolidge previously. Here, as a matter of fact.

The whole quote—one of my favorites is:

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan Press On! has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.

The reason I bring it up today is that I am thankful for persistence.

Today is the 180th straight day of blog posts here. Six months. Six months of figuring out something to post, of preparing it, of setting up the appropriate links, adding the appropriate tags, scheduling the post and hitting the Publish button.

If you think that’s easy, you’ve never tried it.

But, I made a commitment to myself that I was going to do it, and I have persisted. Some posts have been better than others. Some days, I have had to drag my feet out of the muck and mud of I-don’t-feel-like=it, and push through the boy-this-post-stinks, and overcome the is-anybody-there-nobody’s-reading-it-anyway bugaboo. (“Bugaboo” — ‘now there’s a word to lift your hat to.’*)

So, I’m thankful for persistence, today.

Every time you face a challenge you get better at it. Not only do you get better at achieving that particular goal, you get better at achieving all goals. Once you prove that you can, it’s very hard to fall back on ‘I can’t.’

I was reminded of this recently, not only by my 180 day anniversary, but also by one of those not-so-rare bursts of synchronicity in a post on this same topic over at Dumb Little Man. (Good blog, Dumb Little Man. Just FYI.)

Of course, later today, persistence in dieting (another of my current goals, albeit a bit half-hearted) will likely fall by the wayside. I’m thinking fresh baked chocolate cookies and vanilla ice cream—a treat I first had at Joe Allen’s in the heart of the Theatre District in NYC. (I think Joe Allen’s may be the first restaurant I ever went to in NY after I moved there—although I didn’t have the cookies and ice cream that time.)

You have to have a balance, after all. Dieting can pause for a moment for a little celebration.

180 days!

* Luce, William (and Emily Dickinson), The Belle of Amherst

How can I know what I think

until I see what I say?
~ E. M. Forster

That’s what I’m wondering today—it is Wondering Wednesday, after all—as I’m casting about for a specific topic. Basically, I’m wondering what I’m going to write. (This is a regular phenomenon since I took up blogging.)

It’s not that there is not a lot about which to wonder. Surely, there is something I think and about which I would want to communicate amongst all the mysteries at hand. Look at the state of our politics here in the United States, for example. Now, there’s something—a lot of somethings—to provoke wonder. But we don’t have a day of the week whose name begins with the letter ‘R,’ so you are all spared a regular Rant Day. I have promised myself the blog will be positive—mostly—so, you know, politics. . .off limits.

I wonder about the future. Do I need to figure out what’s next in my life, or will the Mayans solve that problem for me?

I wonder if I’m ever going to write another play, or have I inadvertently retired? (Or, is it a moot point—see Mayans.)

I wonder what I should do next in renovating my house. Is it time for a kitchen makeover? Wouldn’t we like to have a bathtub? And does that mean the entire bathroom needs a makeover? What comes first in the rest of the house—the carpet or the windows? Will I ever have furniture?

I wonder who bought the house next door and if they will be good neighbors.

I wonder why the coots haven’t yet returned from Capistrano—or wherever they go in the summer.

I wonder if anything, anything at all, will persuade the squirrels not to hang like bats, head downward, clinging to the coquina and if I will ever get used to an upside-down furry tree rat hanging head high over my front door.

Lastly, I wonder which of these and many other questions will be addressed in next week’s Wondering Wednesday post.

‘Cause this one’s done.

The best cure for insomnia. . .

. . .is to get a lot of sleep.
~ W. C. Fields

Okay, so that’s a bit snarky—in true W. C. Fields style—but there’s a valid point there.

How do you get a lot of sleep when you can’t sleep?

In my experience, all that stuff about hot milk and eschewing caffeine and counting sheep doesn’t really work that well. Everybody’s different. Your mileage may vary, but I haven’t found those things to be effective.

There is one thing that does work almost every time, though.

I wish I could remember where I found this little tip, because I like to give credit where it’s due. The problem is, when I found it, I was thinking more about whether it would work than about who provided it. This was long before I’d started a blog—long before anybody’d ever heard of a blog, in fact—so who knew I was going to want to write about it?

Since I can’t remember the source, however, we’ll have to go with me just assuring you that it doesn’t belong to me, I didn’t think it up, and whoever did deserves all the credit.

Here’s what you do when you are having trouble getting to sleep.

It involves counting—but no sheep. (No alligators, no raccoons, no animals, vegetables or minerals.)

First, you lie on your back. Breathe deeply in and out. Count on the exhale. 1, 2, 3, 4.

Turn on your left side, breathe in and out—1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.

Turn onto your back. Same breathing drill. Count to sixteen.

Turn onto your right side. Breathe. Count to thirty-two.

You keep doing this, doubling the count each time you change positions. To be honest, I have never managed to get to my right side and the thirty-two count. I usually fall asleep somewhere in the middle of the sixteen count.

I think it works because the breathing is relaxing and the counting focuses your mind on something other than whatever obsessive-compulsive thing it would otherwise be gnawing over.

So, if you ever have trouble sleeping, give this a try.

Sweet dreams!

Elaine Smith Writes

Anything She Wants