Alive?!

I wrote this about a year ago.  I'm choosing to share it now.  I still feel this

but now, I can be honest.   I can tell you.  This is more a spoken work than

a poem, but I need to share here and now. 

      Alive?!

My heart hurts.

It bangs so hard in my chest –

Every day –

 just about all day, the only time I don’t notice is when I’m doing something very physical,  
  like…moving rocks.

I can’t believe I’m not in the hospital.

My heart hurts and bangs so hard it’s as if the whole world can hear and see it pounding there. 

I look sometimes –

but I can’t see it with my seeing eyes. 

But sometimes I can see –

 with those other eyes –

my mind’s eyes –

 pushing my skin, my breasts, my ribs up just a bit –

 I can see it –

 I can hear it –

 beating –

 so loud.

Sometimes I’m surprised I’m heard when I speak.

Sometimes I’m surprised to hear words at all for my heart and my stomach seem to migrate to my throat –

often –

making breathing and speaking a rather labored affair. 

All that banging and constricting takes up so much room.

Will it ever stop? 

Will it lessen?

Or will I just become accustomed to this unusual bodily arrangement of parts?

An alien to my body. 

This body of heartache and grief –

 I am forced to dwell in –

part of,  yet separate.

A loved one said “Perhaps the pain is keeping you here.  Without it you would just float away.”

Perhaps that is right.

Perhaps pain is a friend, waking me up –

 to life. 

For surely, alive is what I feel –

or present at the least –

here and now –

 the colors so loud –

 the scent of everything sweet and foul upon the air –

 and the pain so always present,  keeping me

tethered to now.

Declaration of the Occupation of New York City

This is huge.  I cannot sit quietly by.  I am the 99%.  I am out in the streets.

Petitions

I recently received a petition to ask the congress or the president or someone in power to forgive student loan debt.  I think that is utterly ridiculous.  As long as the system stays the same, those loans need to be paid back so other young people can get them as well.  If no one pays, where will the loans for the new freshman come from?  How will next year’s seniors finish school?  Unless the system goes to one like England has, where anyone who is a citizen can go to school for free.  Then I would agree that we should forgive all the loans.  Until then, there are some things that ought to be left alone. 

Jerry my Phone Gnome

So the other day, my phone stopped working properly. By that, I mean, I could no longer hear the person on the other end of the line, but he could still hear me. I found this out, when I finally got the speaker phone to turn on and I was told how annoying this was getting. This is spoken by my very patient husband. It only took 3 or 4 calls to him before I realized something was amiss and another 2 to figure out how to get the speaker on before he hung up again.

The reason things like this happen to my phone is Jerry. Jerry is my phone gnome. Jerry wreaks all kinds of havoc with my phones. Yes, that’s plural. Jerry seems to travel from phone to phone enjoying my company and watching my frustrated antics as each subsequent phone ceases to operate properly. Of course Jerry isn’t actually a gnome, but he hates it when I call him that. Since this is the only way I have found to get back at Jerry and cause him some annoyance, I find myself taking the opportunity every chance I can get. Jerry seems to want to play at least once a week and sometimes every day. Jerry is quite unpredictable. But I have grown to love Jerry over the years and I can’t imagine a life on the cell phone without Jerry there to cause static, dropped words and calls, screwed up speakers and of course the wrong dial.

Agnes Under the Big Top: A review

We saw Agnes Under the Big Top last night at the Long Wharf Theater in New Haven, CT. My favorite part, was the set. This design was truly amazing and the show is worth seeing just for that reason. It seemed so simple and yet did so much. There were so many moving parts it fun to watch. They did a great job of creating the subway station. I loved the platform signs that showed the scene titles. The subway station feel was great. From what I read, this set was very elaborate and required a bit of machinery. I wish I knew better how to talk about set design because this was very cool and I know I am not doing it justice.


I liked the lighting too. Again, it felt like being in the subway station, waiting on the platform, seeing the trains go by. The way the stage was lit between scenes, really worked as well. I liked being about to see what was going on and the set would change. The way the crew moved with the rhythms as they changed scenes was awesome. It all flowed to rhythm of the trains...it was brilliant.

The acting was fine. There were a couple of outstanding performances, but mainly outstanding moments. I loved the human music machine.

I'm not sure why but the show, overall, was just ok. I'm unable to pinpoint what it was that prevented it from being anything other than good. I always knew I was watching a show. There were moments that really stood out and I would forget for a moment where I was and enter the scene with the characters, but for the most part that didn't happen.

We should have stayed for the "talk-back" afterward, maybe it would have helped make sense of it, but I do think art should be able to stand on its own. I do love the theater though and a good (not great, not bad) show is way better than no show. There was much to admire and be in awe of so for me it was still a win.