Thursday, September 29, 2005

"You really shouldn't say 'I love you' unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget." -Jessica, Age 8

When offered honestly, "I love you" is the most powerful phrase in human language.

The thing I didn't know at 8 years old was not to expect the person to whom you say "I love you" to say it back. So I lived through years of saying it, then feeling sad and sick and unloved when the recipient of my affection didn't offer his or hers in return. As if I were yodeling in the Alps, and the yodel didn't echo.

(I love the word "yodel." It makes me think of sipping hot chocolate in lederhosen.)

I'm over it, now. If I say "I love you," that's all that needs to be said. A return is icing. And I know when a return is sincere. I can feel it, like the resonance of a deep Buddhist gong in my chest.

Besides, if return "I love yous" were mandatory, part of you would always question the sincerity.

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

"Fire that's closest kept burns most of all." -William Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen of Verona

Mulholland Drive was the perfect vantage point from which to view tonight's West Valley smoke and flames. After my friend and I left our delicious dinner meeting with delightful host S in Laurel Hills, we joined other pyrovoyeurs at a mountaintop pullout to watch Chatsworth burn, with that polarized combination of fascination and horror.

No telling yet how much will be lost from this first great conflagration of the 2005 fire season...but, short of death, whatever is lost can be replaced, renewed, revisited, reclaimed.

An apt metaphor for an evening of unexpected rebonding.

No telling yet how much will be regained.

Saturday, September 17, 2005

Loft life.

The rooftop pool deck opened last night. It's fantastic...better than the Downtown Standard. More like the Sky Bar at the Mondrian.

It's pretty damn cool down here. And the crack is SO CHEAP.

Friday, September 16, 2005

"I saw them standing there pretending to be just friends, when all the time in the world could not pry them apart." -Brian Andreas

I came upon this quote tonight as I noticed the near-fullness of the moon which, for the past two years, has been one of the many constant connections between me and my very close, now estranged, friend.

Months back, I referenced a quote from him in this blog, when I expressed to him the fact that I prefer the moon to the sun. "You can't see the moon without the sun," he observed. We talked about that pithy quote not too long ago. Not too long before we stopped talking about the moon, and everything else.

He and I have moon history. An early e-mail. The first phone conversation. The first date. His first eclipse. Random calls to me to go look at the moon, when it made a particularly spectacular appearance.

One winter night, as we enjoyed a perfectly round, starkly white moon from our respective locations, I sang a song to him over the phone, based on a poem my mother had written, for which my father composed the music:

Wait with me, love
She'll be here soon
Let's watch the rise of
the golden moon
Taking her time
Brilliant and showy
Just watch her climb
Revealing her halo, pale and snowy

Will the moon appear?
She always has
There, she has ascended
Ever so still suspended
By that lofty hill
Now I hear the skylark's song
Oh, wait with me, love
She won't be long

So now I can't look at the moon, whether it's full and glows deep orange, looming too large on the horizon, or is a pristine ivory slice high in the sky, punctuated by stars and Venus or Mars, without thinking of him. And I can't help but wonder if that's true for him, too. Because, like me, he remembers everything.

Not just friends.
Moon friends.

I miss my moon friend.

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

It takes a worried mom...

As Mom does not have regular Internet access, she doesn't read her daughter's blog; her daughter reads it to her. Today, Mom heard "Target Perfect." She was quiet for a few moments, then said it was "brilliant," but was quite completely disturbed by the content and the tone of the piece. Her main concern was about my having felt like doing what the suicidal guy did in the fictional story. I assured her that wasn't what the story was about. In fact, it was far more positive: that, as heartbroken about my life as I am right now, I would NEVER shoot myself, or someone else, in despair. Or anger. Or any other emotional state. That, while there are those who take such measures to kill their pain, I am not one of them. I look, but never touch.

It is as dark a piece as I've ever written. But I'm especially proud of the fact that women whom I love and respect -- my mom, my Bananafriend, and my godmother, Padmalil, a new Zantales reader -- think so highly of, and are affected by, my work.

As life continues to shift, so will the writing, always an accurate reflection of the moment, the heart, the mind, the soul, with which I have been gifted. Gifts I promise I will not waste.

Saturday, September 10, 2005

"Remember, we all stumble, every one of us. That's why it's a comfort to go hand in hand." -Emily Kimbrough

Last night, I went hand in hand with dear friend Annie to a couple of Westside parties. She treated me, in slow recovery from my killer three-strikes week, to a fabulous dinner at Hal's on Abbot Kinney in Venice. We split the grilled baby artichokes with garlic aioli, a luscious burger with grilled onions (my personal symbolic choice), a perfectly spiced Virgin Mary with one slice of lime and three olives, and a couple of decadent bites of her Extremely Evil ice cream sundae. At the last party, we danced to the very cute DJ Josh's 80's mix with mad abandon -- the only abandonment I am willing to accept. The ribs I bruised in the move to the loft last weekend suffered, but I didn't care.

Annie's generous and understanding ear were healing balm for a soul in tatters. As are the loving, supportive words and actions exhibited by all of my close friends this past week and change. This past week OF change.

And now I sit at my new favorite Downtown coffee house, a few blocks down from SciArc, tapping into their free Internet access, writing al fresco with Lulu Leh, the Best Dog Ever Made, feeling the correlation between the shifts in season and in life...feeling fearless and protected, in surrender to a higher, finer wisdom.

I promised I'd sing my own praises after unduly, unreasonably, irrationally trashing myself a few days ago. Here: Smart, funny, talented, pretty, sexy. A little insane, completely open and kind-hearted.

And, yes...still sober.

Friday, September 09, 2005

Target Perfect

I take my heartbreak to the shooting range. I was an expert markswoman, but I haven’t shot in almost 2 years. Last time was on the anniversary of the last time I shot with my gun buddy before she moved so far away. Coincidentally, my lover was shooting a video right around the corner at the same time. Now he’s the reason for the ache in my soul.

I think pumping bullets into a man-shaped target will be good for me. It will come back to me. It will heal me. Just like yoga, meditation, or sitting in a dark, cavernous room watching flickering images on a giant screen.

They say, You know we don’t rent guns to people who come in alone; it’s the law. But we know you. They say, We’re not worried you’ll do anything stupid.

They say, and I give them no reason to doubt.

I stuff my ears with foam, slip on the muffs and goggles, and take the carry case with the Kimber 45 and the box of 50 rounds into the range.

Clip the man-shaped target and send it out 25 feet. Load the Kimber, wrap my hands around it, take careful aim at the paper form, and slowly pull the trigger. First shot: dead center chest. He’s down. He’s bleeding. He’s gone.

And I feel much better.

As I raise the gun to take another shot, I notice another shooter take his place three stalls down from me on my right. He’s alone. He must own. Or they know him, too.

Pull the trigger. Bullet tears into the target just to the right of my first shot. Another, an inch below. Another, through the first hole. Damn, I’m good. Don’t fuck with me, man. And really really really don’t fuck with my heart. I can blow yours away. I laugh to myself; as if I’d ever aim a handgun at an actual human being.

Only if the guy were coming at me with evil intent.

And my (former) guy never came at me with evil intent. He just hurt me, is all. Bad.

Another shot, this time to the center of the forehead. Yup.

The shooter to my right has yet to send his target out. I finish the remaining rounds in the Kimber and begin to load it again. I’m watching the guy from the corner of my eye; I can only see a slice of his back. He’s wearing a dark blue denim shirt, black pants. He’s got light brown hair, a little long in the back. Needs a trim, or that’s his style.

I look behind me, through the triple-paned window that separates the lobby of the gun club from the range. See John and Tina serving a couple of customers. Alberto must be in back, or the men’s room. The cops who usually hang around for a little practice are gone. It’s just me and the guy who still hasn’t sent out a target, who isn’t shooting.

I can’t hear if he’s loaded his piece. I can’t see what he’s shooting. I almost want to lay down my gun and check on him.

Then, through my earplugs and headset, I hear it. One cold, hard shot. And I see the denim shirt, the black pants, the light brown longish hair, fall back onto the concrete slab of floor. And I see the blood. Splattered onto the glass, the floor, the head that used to have a face.

I drop the Kimber and run out to the lobby, through the sound lock that takes for-fucking-ever to open-close-open. But they’ve already seen it. They’re already on the phone. They already know it’s too late.

I double over, retching nothing but bile. Somewhere in my mind I’m thinking about the minute before the shot, when I thought about looking in on him. I think about the times I’ve thought about doing what he did. I think about the people who love him, the people who love me, the people who are going to have to clean up his mess. The people I love too much to cause them so much pain. The people who are going to feel his pain for the rest of their lives. Somewhere in my memory is the notion I once heard, that suicide is the biggest “fuck you” anyone can scream. Or whimper.

I want to call the man who broke my heart and tell him I’ll love him forever, I don’t care who he’s fucking, I don’t care if we never see each other or speak again, I will love him always, and I will never shoot another bullet into another paper target in anger at him ever again.

I want to call my mom and promise her everything.

I want to see God in the flesh and tell Him I believe.

I want to sleep for a week, just to wipe out the image of the bloody denim shirt.

And as they wrap his body in plastic, and ask me the last questions, and walk me to my car, I thank the dead man for the lesson he taught me about life.

I will never forget. I am forever changed.

This didn’t happen.
But it could.

Wednesday, September 07, 2005

This is not a competition; this is only an exhibition. No wagering.

If I were in my 30's.
If I were taller.
If I'd gone to an Ivy League school. Or any institution of so-called "higher learning."
If I had lived in Europe.
If I were working with a wealthy, successful entrepreneur with a fantastic home in Napa where I could take my new boyfriend.

But I'm not.
And I didn't.
And I don't.

(In a future post, I promise to extol my attributes.)

Thursday, September 01, 2005

Lie for lie. Truth for truth.

Not an exact quote from The Book of Exodus...but I thought of it last night, after X and I saw "The Constant Gardener," at what he billed "the most beautiful theatre in LA." He wasn't lying about that.

(If you plan to see the film, but haven't yet, there are spoilers in the next paragraph, so go away and come back later.)

In the film, the wife lies about her activities to protect her husband from being hurt by the facts. We -- including the husband, played by a heartbreaking Ralph Fiennes -- are led to believe that the wife, Rachel Weisz's character, is having an affair, multiple affairs. One overheard snippet of conversation reveals that she thinks of her relationship with her husband as a "marriage of convenience." Later, we discover she's referring to something completely different.

It occurred to me this morning, as I woke from not enough hours of sleep that, if Rachel hadn't been killed, she'd have had to confess to him at some point. There's no way they could have gotten through years of an entire marriage without facing, embracing, and moving on from, the truth. But that's another film entirely.

I believe it's true of all intimate relationships. Trusted, respected, beloved partners, lovers, and friends, don't lie to each other. They may be protective and find gentle ways of making the truth more palatable. But they don't offer outright lies. Or even lies of omission, which are just as effective.

What do you do when you know a beloved friend has been lying to you...even if they're lying so as not to hurt your feelings or damage the relationship? Isn't the real damage done when you lose trust in that lying friend, when you don't know how much of what they tell you is fabricated for your protection? Is it a lie of omission on your part if you don't address the betrayal? Do we hold back from confronting the issue out of fear? Maybe the truth would be devastating. But maybe the deeper truth is they're not the friend you thought they were. Maybe you'll lose the friendship. But if they're given to lying to you, what are you losing but an untrustworthy friend?

And do you have any responsibility in this? What is it about you that has made it so easy for them to lie to you? Did you institute a "don't ask, don't tell" policy at some delicate point? If so, are you willing to change the rules for the sake of honest, full disclosure? Wouldn't there then be less questions to ask and more time to get on with the rest of your life?