I know. I wasn’t going to blog again until the new Courting. I make up rules so that I can change them. I was just going to throw in some pictures, but, uh….The post below this one is the one I care about
On the first sorta warm, not too cloudy, no rain in the forecast, day I walked from Coney Island to Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. I didn’t include pictures of Brighton Beach, Manhattan Beach or Seagate, three Brooklyn hoods I walk through to get to Sheepshead Bay.
I love getting lost and always put in some getting lost time. Alas I have begun to know these neighborhoods too well.
They’re clickable.
See? Not just a tree grows in Brooklyn but a Palm Tree. Maybe it isn’t real, but it’s the intent that counts. It looks lonely.
Some days I write, not for here, and good words come so easily. Other days they come in torrents but when I re-read them I wonder why I even bothered.
It’s really how my writing goes that determines my mood. I feel worthy and exuberant when it goes well, and as if I shouldn’t be inhabiting space on this planet when writing goes poorly. I understand that’s an extreme irrational feeling, and I can change my mood because negative thinking breeds negative actions.
I truly believe in the power of positive thinking. I believe that all Palm Trees should be real but there is room on this earth for things that look or seem absurd.
If I had to categorize myself, and I prefer not to, I would call myself an Ironic Absurdist.
Today was one of the bad writing days. There was supposed to be a thunderstorm. I was looking forward to it, but the weather forecast changed. I did wonder how there could be a thunderstorm in 50 degree feels like 48 temperature, but like all of us, I have learned not to question strange weather.
I remember exactly what I was doing sixteen years ago today, at this time. At home, on East 63rd Street freaking:
“Daddy had a little stroke. Don’t come home.”
Never listen when somebody tells you that. It might be your last chance to really say good bye.
My mother lived another decade. She never stopped missing him.
Come grow old with me. The best is yet to be
She so wanted that. Instead she went into the darkness without him.
Forgive my introspective melancholy. I want to know a love so pure that everything turns dark without it. I want to know a love so pure that even your children and grandchildren can’t make up for it.I was trying to imagine my mother’s love for my father. We did make up for it, in a way
I really want to go to a good party. Where life is celebrated. I do so yearn to celebrate life in all its glorious messiness.
Lucia and I would sing “girls just want to have fun.” constantly on our way to or from fun.
I want that innocence back badly. Baring that a good party would do.
On an entirely different subject, I wrote a post on personal blogging and was going to put it in a large blog, but I truly enjoy writing for my blog, or very occasionally, a friends blog, only.
I need to focus on writing as opposed to blogging. In the new blog I’m going to have a sidebar “250 word rant.” I can blog on that every day, and must limit it to 250 words.
I have been posting every three to four days. I think I should limit the regular posts to one a week for my sanity, for much time to focus on my books with two half days off a week.
Since I have been focusing on writing a novel, the words have been flowing. I even have a time frame, and very rare for me, a workable synopsis that I have broken down into an outline. This is very unexpected and sort of exciting.
I might put the synopsis into the new Courting. It’s not a story that can be “stolen” though the subject hasn’t been done my way at all.
Though it pains me to do it, I’m going to buy cork board to put in the wall across from my desk. I like bare walls, though I have a six foot “working” subway poster of Dancin’ on the wall just across from it. I have had that poster forever as the person who designed it was a friend of my father’s.
I need the cork board to keep character, chapter, and plot notes. I also need to find my tape recorder so I can walk around talking to myself as I get my best ideas when I’m walking. Fortunately, everybody looks as though they’re talking to themselves these days.
This book is coming so easily it scares me. Then I remember all the years of writing everyday as much as possible.
Then I remember I have to sell it. But for me to write a precise synopsis, an outline, and mess my wall up with cork board is an amazing step in itself.
I bought this apartment with my spatial retardation in mind. I didn’t go far enough. It took all this time for me to realize that the problem I thought I had was the major problem. Damn life would have been so much easier if doctors had seen this then.
i feel like the pioneer who had the covered wagon that was mired in mud for too long, and couldn’t get to the Oregon Trail with the rest.
The wagon somehow got out of the mud with flying wheels so I’m making up for much time spent trying to navigate.
What a beautiful blog - visually stimulating - so delicious I right away started thinking about strawberry icecream. lovely! thanks
It will be more so, soon.
“I want to know a love so pure that everything turns dark without it. I want to know a love so pure that even your children and grandchildren can’t make up for it.”
yes but in a way that sounds horrifically frightening.
I like the last vision of you in your covered wagon landing at your present apartment in Manhattan. Love it.
Wonderful post - I so related to how the negative associations can mire you on certain days.
Oh and the plastic palm tree is excellent.
I don’t think you can stop blogging nor should you. Just do it your way whenever you like.
Nice pictures.
Hey,
I found your blog through surfing at Blog Explosion. Just a quick Hi
Cheers,
Franco
I make up rules so that I can change them.
Truer words were never spoken
Writing completely affects my mood, too. One of the reasons writing is a lonely profession, or in my case, passion.
I saw a lighted fake palm tree in someone’s back yard the other night. I have no idea what possesses someone to think that’s a good look for the lawn.
If I ever visit New York again, you’re taking me to Nathan’s! (And Caridad. And Famous Original Ray’s.)
Oh, and I always wound up with a broken axle on the Oregon Trail. Seems like it usually took two or three days to repair. But I figured it was better than cholera or dysentery.
Yep, rules were meant to be broken, especially rules you make for yourself. I’m glad you broke that rule, and I’m not sure you need any.
Beautiful post! You describe your parents’ love for each other with such affection.
there are no blooms nor butterflies so beautiful as those that unfold from their buds and/or cocoons late, my friend. that said, you are so fully articulate, well-written, and amazingly observational, i don’t view you as a late-bloomer/tardy butterfly at all (much less as one who arrived behind everyone else in that mud-caked wagon). our voices change as our lives do, dear Pia, clearly you’ve developed a flair for expressing yourself in ways that beautifully reflect where you are, at any given moment in time. you have a gift.
you grow (or so it appears to my admiring eyes) in ways most of us dream we could. you continue to see/explore/relate to events of your past with a mind set upon appreciating/understanding/learning, in order to move forward, always forward, and that’s just plan brilliant.
can’t wait to see your new blog — i’ll try to be better about commenting, tho’ you need to know that even when my words aren’t here, my star-struck eyes most certainly have been. xox
I loved the pic of Nathans at the end, I’m actually gonna be visiting coney Island for a week in june and can’t wait now, doing loads of reserch into the area.
I’m so intrigue - and I can’t wait to get a nathans
maybe see you there.
Holla
ML