1. I’m attached to an old faux satin fabric Chinese food take-out container pocket book. It’s dusty. I love it. I never use it. I don’t know what to do with it. It was a gift.
2. My Chinese take-out box is like my life these days: grand and broken down; beautiful and off beat; ornate and useless; full of potential, empty inside, happy and sad. Like life.
3. This is my life these days: nephew in a musical, living with me, singing all the time, throwing himself into it, full and rich. Me: proud of him, vicarious like an old, has-been theater person, over the hill, never reached the heights; loving every minute of it, the cast, the songs, the energy. Nephew comes home at 11p.m. pumped up after the show and wants to go out for a drink. Last night we went to Felicia’s. The exciting theater life. Then we go home and he starts cooking to wind down. He has to eat a lot. He burns up so much energy. I have to go to sleep. I’m working in the morning. The smells are so good and the conversation is flowing so I stay up too late and I eat a little something at midnight which gives me indigestion and interferes with my sleep. And there’s a steady flow of visitors passing through to watch him perform: his wife was here for 5 days, his aunt on his father’s side is here now, his friends Lula and Giovanni are arriving tomorrow, his dad is coming Sunday, his in-laws are coming next week some time. And why do I feel responsible for all of them? Is it because I can’t bear to miss anything? Do I get my fulfillment from other people? Am I empty inside like my Chinese box? Am I holding on to my youth like an old fool? Or am I just having a good time, a little debauched but not too bad. I’m not robbing banks. I’m just eating and drinking and staying up late and not stopping for a second. And I’m going to Grassroots too. Who do I think I am?
4. Stop judging, judging all the time. Who cares? What’s the difference? Indulgent thoughts. I’m lucky I can do all this. If I collapse, so be it. There are more important things in this world. Stop my mind. Let it go. Keep running. It’s a phase. It will end. Everything does.
5. Last Monday we put our old, sweet kitty to sleep. Her name was Pearl and we called her Snooky. She came to us 10 months old and pregnant 16 years ago. That first night she miscarried 9 dead babies while we midwife her, talking to the vet, on the phone all night long. Throughout her ordeal she let us pet her and she purred. We bonded irrevocably. And now, at the end, she was so sick. She hid under the couch, her little tail sticking out. And whenever I went down to see her she ran up to me to let me pet her and she purred. I sat on the rug and she walked around me in circles while I petted her and I sang to her and she purred.
6. I hold my feelings in a box. I close the box. I hold everything inside. I run around in circles. I’m too busy to feel. I hold myself together. I spread myself too thin. I hold my feelings in a box. I live a grand and broken life. My outside is ornate, faux satin red fabric, off-beat, old, dusty, yet still standing.
7. Today I’m here in writing group. Then I’ll go out for lunch. Then I’m working all afternoon. Then I’ll listen to music. When I get home I’ll see the nephew after his show. Maybe we’ll go for a drink. He’ll tell me how the performance went, the audience, the cast. I’ll listen passionately, vicariously. I’ll listen with all my heart.
