Lying in bed listening to the oddly comforting white noise thrum of electricity and reveling in my view – I’ve never had a view before, unless “brick wall” and “soot-covered building interior” qualify as views. Mine is a dichotomous look at present and past; at left a building that sprouted overnight a couple of years ago — with a rainbow of words that was rescued, I’ve been told, from a Burning Man festival; at right old, industrial Chelsea factories, smokestacks and water towers. I love this neighborhood. What book is it – either Henry James or Edith Wharton – where the scandalous divorcee who had the audacity to traipse around Europe returns and is relegated to West 23rd Street, that hotbed for immorality? If you know the answer, please share it.
The plan still is to sweep the world off its feet. Lots of traction professionally in this past week: finished a book proposal I’ve been working on in various iterations for many moons and began shopping it. The rest is up to the powers-that-are. Good meetings with smart, passionate, driven people regarding project in which I’ve become invested based solely on my belief in it. Nothing more, nothing less. Mentoring interns on writing and critiquing screenplays. This is all good, good, good … it’s been a longtime coming and I’ve had some self-inflicted very lean years with the creative process, but at last my spell of fear-based paralysis has been broken.
I’ve recently reconnected with someone I studied with in Paris in 1990. And though this was a long time ago and we were so much younger and things were ostensibly easier, I will gratefully take 42 over 19. Not that I have much say in the matter, but self-awareness and experience are of the highest value to me. I know it sounds a bit self-helpy, but each perceived step backward gives me tenfold the motivation I need to forge ahead. I wish everyone in my life felt this way, but it’s something we need to figure out on our own. Regret is useless. As are lamenting the passing of time and complaining about the weather, but I can’t seem to convince people to stop doing these things.
Alors.
Not sure if you can see it, but at the bottom left of the photo above is a piece of a black leather rhinoceros bookend I’ve had since 2001. At the time I lived above Washington Square and I once dreamt that I had a view of the park and that the rhino was about the size of a battleship and standing in the park trying to menace me. I need to read more.
firstsweetpang 