Mamma Mia - Here We Go Again!

It's official. I'm a terrible blogger. But I fully intend to rectify that in the months to come. Almost a year to the day that I last blogged I'm back, full of good and wordy intentions, and I have company.

Last July I was in a place of speculation regarding the next stage in my life, uncertain of how I felt about the possibilities ahead of me. I think I was subconsciously channeling my inner earth mother at that time because in May I gave birth to our son, William Logan Mitchell, and my world was changed forever.

 

I am still uncertain of how I feel about the possibilities ahead of me now that Will is in our lives, but I'm beginning to understand the insane and overwhelming power of motherhood, that carries with it a definite shift in perspective and the knowledge that it's the possibilities inherent in such a precious gift that allow us to make sense of what might happen next.

Welcome to the world, baby boy. Anything is possible.

Time for something completely different?

I wonder if it's true that time is literally speeding up. Google seems to suggest it might be. Is the world really spinning faster or is it just some sort of brain-compounding metaphysical illusion? It certainly feels like we're hurtling through this whole process faster than ever before and I'm not sure I'm entirely comfortable with that sensation.  Here is what I know:

1. It has been 7 months since my last blog-fession.
2. In just five months more I will be at that improbable milestone birthday, 35.
3. Everything is changing.

More than ever, if that's possible , I find "time" to be if not a point of contention then at the very least a topic for contemplation. I dwell. I preamble. I age, most disconcertingly of all. And as I do, I find myself with one foot firmly astride two very different possibilities. 

The first - my career, though I'm sure there may be a more suitable word for it. The idea of my career, which I carry around with me like a shiny pebble, still has an iron grip on me and promises to be a worthy venture, a great adventure, eventually. The second - that most pesky of adversaries, my biological clock, which seems to be suddenly acutely aware of my next birthday and urging me in all sorts of new directions. So I sit on the fence with a pebble in one hand and a clock in the other and it's all quite a giggle, really. Waiting. Watching. Wondering which of the two will have the sheer tenacity to show up sooner and shape my life to their liking. Conflicted. Excited. Uncertain. Marveling at the beauty of timing - of time - day in, day out.

I need a project. I'm anxious to sink my teeth into something that challenges and inspires me, to immerse myself in that total self-awareness that comes with stepping out on my own night after night, surrounded by friends and well-wishers, allowing myself to fall into the journey, one step at a time. Which hat next? Actor? Mother? Is it really time for something completely different? Because that happened fast.

People Like Us came from sharing the stage with a dear friend a couple of years ago. But as I'm reading it now, time-piece firmly in my pocket, I can't stop thinking about what things will be like when that next phase in my life is finally ushered in. It's funny how perception can alter, how two very different sides of myself can sit so comfortably atop one idea. It gives me hope that maybe it's not impossible to be all these things at once instead of each one of these things at a time. Maybe it doesn't have to be finite. Maybe time is more lucid, more forgiving than I give it credit for...

People Like Us...

What I have to say is stuck,
Trapped between my heart in my mouth
And an empty page,
Nervously tapping at my chest
In the moment before I take my place beside you in the dark.
Crushed by the weight of silence,
Short of breath,
Lacking strength. 

I am clumsy.
I am quiet.
I fall over.
And nothing comes to mind at all.
Except there's the sound of your voice
Calling me back
And teasing me gently
Allowing me the joy of spilling my heart
On the floor of this room.
Handing me your thoughts
As if they were mine.
Trusting me,
Letting them fall.
And catching each one on the way down. 

And so we sweep and dip and spin and play,
Holding on
Crashing down
Brief and beautiful and shining.
And I am full,
At my richest, my ripest, my most vulnerable.
Safe but uncertain.
Surrounded by people like us,
Quietly plotting to take over the world
With these words. 

Cold hands, warm heart.

On my way to an appointment on the Upper East Side yesterday afternoon a woman and her little blond French Bulldog walked towards me. From half a block away the dog looked exactly like a Lego storm trooper which, as they passed me, I realized was down to the rather smart gray puffer coat he was wearing. On my way home an attractive man of about sixty strolled arm in arm with a gentleman I took to be his much younger Latin lover, the pair of them bundled up against the bitter cold looking like a catalog photo and in no hurry whatsoever as they made their way to wherever they were going.

I'm not sure which tableau cheers me more, but both seem suitably festive and worth noting.

It's beginning to sound a lot like Christmas..

Cadman Park was virtually deserted last night, as Lola and I ambled about, sticking close to home the way we frequently do these days now that it's dark and cold and there's plenty of good television on. It's a comfortable pastime, dog and I, with the gentle rhythm of stop/go (me) and sniff/pee (her) carrying us around the neighbourhood each day in uninterrupted and contented silence. Sometimes we take longer than good manners deem appropriate when strolling by the un-shuttered windows of the old brownstones in Brooklyn Heights and drinking in the lifestyle to which we have yet to become accustomed in those vast tiled kitchens and sumptuous living rooms. Sometimes we wander carelessly along the Promenade, remembering just how much more magnificent Manhattan is when viewed from the outside. I love those walks because they remind me of the journey I'm on, what it took for me to get here, and where I'm going. But lately it's been Lola's choice and we've been spending a lot of time digging in the dirt and rolling in the leaves in the park.

Someone has planted little American Flags on the fence posts around the circular shrubbery arrangement in the middle of the park, and this irks me. I am, for some reason, irritated by such a blatant and unnecessary display of patriotism in my little corner of Brooklyn, though of course had these been tiny little Union Jacks I would have concocted an entire back story for their sudden and mysterious appearance and no doubt considered it a message from the universe at large, one of the side effects of my walks with Lola being the tendency of the mind to wander freely and run movies in my head.

Lola and I once wandered into the park early on a Sunday morning to find an elaborate breakfast for two, complete with table linens and china plates, champagne, flowers and a violinist, waiting patiently beneath the trees for it's party to arrive. I smiled about that all day. On another random rainy day I took this picture, which I'm quite fond of. A dad and a little girl of about 3 years old were running in circles in the rain just out of shot, but it was the umbrellas that pulled my focus. I think I like the idea of imagining who they belong to rather than telling the whole story.

For the past couple of weeks, aside from the ubiquitous helicopter that has been circling over the Brooklyn Bridge like a buzzard and which Lola has been keeping a close eye on lest it steal her soul, there has been one other constant in Cadman Park that I have come to look forward to encountering each day: the sound of a lone trumpeter patiently and carefully working on the opening refrain from Joy To The World, safely out of the way of dog walkers and runners looping around the edge of the park, bothering no-one and being left to his own devices in the shadow of the War Memorial. I have no idea what this guy is practicing for, but he is without doubt the most earnest and diligent musician I have ever encountered. He's out there every evening, rain or shine, bundled up and trying to make the notes work through gloved fingers, he isn't asking for an audience, he isn't asking for money. He's just trying to get this right, to play this piece of music as perfectly as he possibly can. And although I've never spoken to him -  I've never really even seen his face - I look for him each night as Lola and I stop/go, and sniff/pee, and snuffle past the tiny area of the park he has claimed as his own for these few moments. And thanks to this unassuming gentleman of indiscriminate age striving to be the best he can at this one festive task, thanks to the trimming of my tree and the gathering of friends around the piano in an impromptu raising of hearts and voices one Saturday evening in December, as I make my way through my first winter in Brooklyn, it's beginning to sound a lot like Christmas...

Lazy Blogging

When I began this blog just a few months ago I really did intend to update it regularly. I love to write. I want to be better at it and in order to be better at it I need to indulge in it more often. But, as has been the theme of this year, life seems to get in the way of all of those well-intentioned projects that live in my head surrounded by daisies and ponies and that seem like such a marvelous use of my time. Perhaps 2010 will bring with it the inspiration to bypass my Sagittarian tendencies and actually blog/decorate/read/scrapbook (delete as appropriate), which is what I really want to do with the time I have to myself.

I'm thinking about this because I just read my wonderful friend Paula's most recent blog, at Confessions of a Slightly Neurotic New Mother. She is cramming every spare minute outside of work and wifery into being with her beautiful baby girl, and still finds time to write heartfelt, inspiring blogs about the challenges that go along with her new role as Super Mum! All I have to deal with is the occasional run around the apartment with a Swiffer and remembering to feed animals twice a day - I should be able to blog more consistently.

Anyway, Paula is not only my inspiration for motherhood, but also my inspiration to write something - anything - today!

So, in keeping with the theme of poetry that started this blog off all those months ago, along with the desire to obliterate my MySpace page (where my original blog lives from many years ago) and the fact that today tastes like winter for the first time this season, here's a poem I wrote while deep in the throes of my first NYC winter in 2007. And now, as I look out of my office window on a wall of grey, the building next door blocking out any real notion of what the weather might be doing, I imagine it is dusk in this city I love, and starting to snow, and somewhere in the HBO version of my life the camera is panning up and away over Manhattan to the sounds of Baby It's Cold Outside (the Tom Jones and Cerys Matthews version, obviously), gearing up for Christmas. And I find myself wondering what will be waiting for me when this winter passes, as they inevitably do, and I come face to face with another spring...

The First Kiss

You creep up on the city.

Silent,

Breathless.

With an icy whisper

You catch me,

Almost home,

And make me listen for you.

You caress my face

Dancing on my cheek,

My tongue,

The inevitable eyelash.

I linger.

The air is crisp like sheet glass,

The streets blurring in your presence.

And a man in a long coat says,

"How perfect."

And holds the mittened hand of his

Wife of twenty years

And smiles.

The first kiss of winter.

The promise of long nights

And warm fires

And good wine,

Playful and inviting,

Fluttering in my path.

The first dusting of days to come

Gently teasing the romance out of

Another January.

But you don't stay long.

This is just a sigh for you.

You sway,

You fade,

You slip away.

And in the time it takes to notice you were here

I am left wanting, wondering,

And waiting for spring.

Well Worn

I'm trying to figure out how to pace and fill this blog. My original intention was to utilize it as a place to house and share some of the poetry I've written, but I fear that might appear tedious and self-indulgent over time. That is assuming anyone reads this in the first place, so I don't suppose it really matters! Until I am spurred into social commentary it's about all I have to offer. That, and random thoughts that come to mind when my brain is idle for a while.

Scotty and I have been married for 47 days. A co-worker is celebrating her 1 year wedding anniversary tomorrow. As we passed each other at the water cooler this afternoon she made a comment that the honeymoon is officially over for them as of tomorrow evening. Which got me thinking about how important this first year of married life is to me, about how differently our relationship feels as husband and wife, in spite of the five years we have spent together prior to that one beautiful day on the beach when we said "We do".

I understand now why people keep asking me how it feels to be married. It's supposed to be more than it was before. And it is. It is somehow bigger, somehow more important than it was, even though nothing has really changed. Which gives me hope that when we reach that one year mark, rather than falling blindly off the edge of the honeymoon period and resignedly accepting that the excitement is over and the future is nothing more than a conveyor belt of squabbles and weight gain and mounting debt, there might actually be another subtle, imperceptible shift that occurs at that milestone, just as it did 47 days ago, knitting us closer together with a strength of heart and a vision for the future that reminds us of why we chose each other in the first place.

I wrote this a couple of years ago after Scotty and I went to a Broadway show together. I think it may have been Les Miserables, which was a disappointing revival of one of my favourite shows. We were sitting behind an elderly couple who could not have been happier to be there or more content in each others company. It made me wonder if Scotty and I would stand the test of time quite so well.

Well Worn

Her hand fits inside his so easily
Finding it's way into the space worn in after all these years
Day after day smoothing away the rough edges
And becoming comfortable

He leans close to her face
And whispers something said a thousand times
She fusses a little more than he likes
But they are used to each other
He pats her knee
And they settle into the seats they claimed as their own so long ago
The routine they claimed as their own so long ago
These are good seats

He still insists on polished shoes and a crisp shirt
And she keeps every Playbill
In a shoebox in her closet
A history of countless nights talking over coffee
After the curtain comes down

I am fond of old men who dress for the theatre
Who have read every line on this page
On this face
And still let themselves lose themselves in yet another story
While remembering with a smile the follies of their youth
I am fond of old ladies who rouge their cheeks
And wear too much Chanel No. 5
Who refuse to wear flat shoes
And can teach me the value of an Yves St. Lauren suit

Me
Me and my vintage Levi's and bare feet
Knotted beneath me on this velvet chair
Me and my diet coke and peanut M&M's
And hopes and pains and holding of breaths
Waiting for my future to appear on this stage
Waiting for my future to whisper and fuss
And if we're lucky
Maybe wear as well as they have

An Actor Prepares

The theatre company I am affiliated with here in NYC, Mind The Gap Theatre, my British lifeline, was potentially handed the fattest, juiciest, most mouth-watering bone today. I say potentially, as nothing is definite yet. But there is a chance that we may have found a home. For those who don't have any frame of reference, that's nothing short of huge! We're still processing the info and the possibility. More as things (hopefully) become concrete.


I wrote this in January 2007 on the R train to Brooklyn after responding to an ad on Craigslist about a sitcom pilot. I got the part - one scene, a few lines, a modest beginning. Big names were attached the the project. I was thrilled. But after months and months of meetings and re-writes and pre-production, my role was cut. I never even stepped foot on set.


Anyway, this seemed relevant, given today's possibilities, and reminds me of where my journey has taken me since I've been an actress in New york.

An Actor Prepares

I am at my most alluring now

Standing in the kitchen in socks and lace.

Hair dripping

Skin prickling

I am bent in concentration,

Surrounded by an army of utensils

Filled to overflowing

Boiling furtively

Hissing frantically

Slopping water around the room.

This is a covert operation

A clock-ticking, skin-scalding, towel-missing operation

It requires diligence and ingenuity and timing.

I spit icy curses at timing and broken boilers

As I improvise on this pivotal day

When the success of this particular battle depends largely on good grooming

And Estee Lauder Idealist Skin Refinisher.

I do not cut myself with a brand new razor,

In spite of the fact that I have a curious audience purring at me in one hand

And my left foot in the sink.

I navigate the tricky part around the ankle

And the stubborn curve of the knee

With the grace of a prima ballerina.

The grande-dame,

An old pro,

Undefeated.

My foundation smooth and strong.

For a moment I consider hot chocolate and a movie

As an alternative to the endless war waging outside of my kitchen.

When I am done

Louis rubs his furry face against my silky skin

He seems pleased.

I feel validated.

He traces my path to the closet with interest,

Lapping at the soapy footprints that will not be attended to,

Dancing around invisible mice and dangling things

And snagging my favourite sweater.

I throw it onto the bonfire of knits and wovens building on the bed,

Languishing lazily,

Accepting of their fate.

They are not part of my armour today.

I fight with the hairdryer

And do not understand the attraction of natural bristle brushes.

I primp and preen and tweak and tease.

I apply smoky eye,

But not too smoky.

I intend to imply only the slightest hint of spice.

I am in stealth mode.

I study myself from every angle

And decide less cleavage is required for today's attack.

I layer.

It's a necessary modesty

Of a similar tone to my No. 7 Nude lip gloss

That suggests an easy grace befitting of a non-recurring sitcom character.

On the train I count stations

And enter the unfamiliar world of

An Other Borough.

I watch sleeping people

And crazy people.

I stay alert.

I idly wonder if there may be four or five other

Blond-haired, blue-eyed

Non-Union Receptionists

Stacked neatly in garbage bags in this guy's bathroom.

But I get off at 68^th Street,

Check for smudges,

Slip into my most charming smile

And ring the bell.

- January 13^th, 2007 ('R' Train to Brooklyn)