Well, we did have this one time together that I will never forget. He and I went on a date, I'm wearing this smoking hot red dress, Dwayne (The Rock) arrives all handsome and suited. He tells me how incredible I look and comes in for one of those long deep kisses.... those chiseled arms wrapped around me... later he's opening the car door for me and gives me a confident smack on the behind (one of those, "he can do that because we've established it's his, and we will be handling that later" kinda smacks)... and i think how lovely it is that we are this comfortable couple now.  
 
So I woke up before it went further,
but seriously, after every break up, Dwayne appears:
in a picture, a new movie release... he reminds me not to forget about him. Case in point, the very next day after the break-up, I found this picture of him while clipping magazines for collages.
 
Is there any clearer message than this?!
But my point is (sorry The Rock gets me a little distracted),
the point is that now I can keep this picture of my one celebrity crush out in the open, admire it and feel no guilt.
Thank you break up for giving me back The Rock and for this picture, which affirms my long held belief that my kitty would be in great hands with him.
 
2.
I no longer feel any pressure to be in any specific location, at any set time, or settle in any particular region in order to maintain a relationship.  I will move, and would have moved, for love but perhaps this wasn't the city or person meant for me.  Not having to consider how my choices intersect with someone else's schedule and geography, while I plan next steps,  makes everything simpler.
Thank you break up for giving me the whole world, even if I am alone in it again.
 
3.
Since we broke up at the height of my loving him and being into him; the only thing bad about it, from my perspective, was that it ended. There were only a few recent days of strong uncertainty and doubt, where I thought it might be over, but other than that I was blissful and imagining the next time we would see each other. So we didn't run it into to the ground, which may have been its eventual destination.
 
Kinda like if you love chocolate more than anything else, from this one store. And then you find out suddenly that the store is closing its doors, today. You may never have your favorite chocolate again and it's devastating. BUT, let's say you were fortunate and recieved notice of the closure after you've been living in the chocolate store for almost a year, in chocolate heaven... yeh, you're still sad and broken up about the closure, but it's hard to have regrets or rage since you've had a sweet few seasons of goodness before it came to an end.
 
Sure, I might never have left the chocolate store if it had stayed open forever... but who knows, given a few more months I may have become tragically allergic. Just like the relationship could have morphed into something unrecognizable.
Thank you break up for letting me indulge in satisfaction until the very end.
 
4.
The bar has been raised to new heights.
The nine months was so outstanding, I can't imagine settling for bullshit mediocrity in any future endeavor. My ex is a grown ass man, he's smart, he's honest and real, he's secure and can follow through, he makes me think about and look at things differently, we travelled together, we danced together, we worked out together, we did regular stuff like buying groceries and watching sports. He's handsome, has a great body and we took good care of each other while it lasted. I don't remember ever wanting someone so much or being that consistently and strongly attracted to someone.  I didn't "settle" on him, I chose him. We mutually pursued each other and both gave so much energy, effort and positivity to our time- whether we were together or at a distance. I'm exiting a relationship that felt pretty ideal, it just couldn't be sustained over long distances and conflicts of schedules and timelines.
Thank you break up for convincing me what I want actually exists and is possible, even if it doesn't always last. 

Pondering my life this early pre sunrise moment,  in this day that is only percolating and not quite begun. I will see the dawn rising in an hour or two. Maybe I will get dressed in warm clothes and go out to meet it, in all it's glory. I could go run in it, see how fast my legs can take me on this empty stomach and slightly emptied heart. 

My hurt asks me to get in my body: to sweat, to breathe fast til I'm out of breath, til there is a pinching in my lungs, pain of strain in my legs. These things that bring me back to my body and out of my mind. Perhaps if my body is racing my mind can be still. Perhaps if my heart accelerates from exercise it will forget the pain of love and loss and remember that it beats for survival, not some perception of pleasure, theories of unending friendships, or beliefs that there is a match for it. The heart is a functional organ, not this imagined creation. 

But the poet predicts her future in verse.  The subconscious capturing of ideas on the page is sometimes a psychic act. Perhaps I've always been able to tell the future, so there are no real surprises when i hold pen and paper or press letters on a keyboard. This is the place I become, that spot where ink and words find the page and collide. Ideas turned into tangible reflection. 

I am the paragraph unfinished with a topic sentence drafted. Eventually there will be a conclusion to this thesis that my everyday life is writing. This struggle is research for my becoming. There is no other topic more relevant to my life than myself. Who I am, where I am, where I'm going... These ongoing questions arrive at daily answers that are perhaps only as permanent as sand's location on a beach. These too shall be in flux, I too shall be moved, by wind and waves, footsteps and the constant act of being. Today is no different to the ocean or the moon; they continue in their cycles, adjusting to the time and season, but their essence is constant. My essence too is a constant,  everything else remains in motion.

I recorded this video blog 3 weeks before I left Portland, Oregon and headed to Georgia! Another video blog will be coming soon! 
ENJOY!

I remember Union Avenue, and a neighborhood where everybody looked more like me. Ironic that, as a child, being in N/NE Portland during the summer  was an all-Black experience. There were no white neighbors. We walked to visit with my great-grandmothers neighbors and friends up the road, and cabbed anywhere further. Lloyd Center was an outdoor mall, and as teens we avoided specific downtown spots that were hang outs for racist skinheads.  Then crack came…

Now, a  few decades later; I stand only half a mile from my great grandmother's former house, that now is home to my father. I see two youngish yuppy white women jogging down MLK, in expensive running gear. Everyone sitting in the coffee shop, that I just exited, is white. Sometimes, I just want a cup of tea without a gentrifying reality slap across the face and reminders of community lost. 

Portland has changed. 

I'm less than two weeks form the opening of Roots, Reality & Rhyme: The One-Woman Show. Rehearsals and practice are acts of repetition, with required emotional engagement. Feels like pulling all of the skeletons out of the closet and asking them to dance. The role of the actor is to inhabit the character, embody the scene and NOT act...  So I am becoming a better dancer. 

Gliding my way over muddied, potholed places of memory; sometimes I still act surprised to find my shoes dirtied. As if I could walk through repeatedly unscathed! I court the geography of my past,  mend the wound of a break-up, adjust to being without either of my grown-ups living at home. I am living alone, for the first time in my life. 

I know this place, this intensity of emotion and expression, where it is just me and the bones, left alone to twirl after twilight.

My daughter just flew back to California for winter term. My son, who recently moved out, starts a new job tomorrow. And me… well, I’m 3 weeks away from the first ever staged readings of my one-woman show and about 4 months away from relocating and leaving Portland. 

A lot is going on. 

Last night my daughter didn’t sleep much. She stayed up til close to dawn working on two essential tasks. The first, finding a way to cram her needed possessions into 3 duffle bags, a backpack and a carry-on. She threatened to drop out of school in order to knit all day, the rigor of her major and Stanford taking a toll.  She taught herself how to knit hats over the break watching youtube videos. She’s beautiful, brilliant, funny, creative and my youngest. And since this will probably be the last time she is at the apartment before I move out, her 2nd required task was to go get rid of anything lingering that she didn’t want or need, so it would be ready to go into storage when I leave.  She left for the airport in the morning.

My son just missed her because her ride came earlier than we expected. He and I had made plans to go shopping downtown for work clothes; black slacks and button downs. He’s about to start a job that will actually cover his expenses. As a young 20-something, with roommates and bills, this time around work has new meaning. When I look at him, even though I can see him through all his ages, I can no longer kid myself and see him as a "kid." My son is a stunningly handsome young man, who wears the hell out of a suit.  He went in to meet the manager and walked out with the job. I’m not surprised, he’s charming, deep and thoughtful. Our mission was successful, even though his lean height makes pants shopping complicated.

Then, I headed straight to a 2 hour rehearsal. Ran lines and worked on delivery with a friend who is a movement and performance artist, in the space where the show will take place. From there I met with the principle filmmaker, he showed me b-roll footage he captured  that will be part of the 2 remaining visual segments for the show. My schedule for the next few weeks, and all that needs to get done, is intense.

On the way home from the whirlwind, it sinks in.

Everything is different.
I am a playwright now.
I am an independent artist, full-time.
This one-woman show is 3 weeks from opening day.
I am living by myself for the first time ever in my life.
After 20 years living in the 503, soon I will be leaving Oregon.
Time to embrace changes and do something new.

Well 2015, it's nice to meet you and this looks like the start of a beautiful adventure.

My children are no longer children. Now 19 and 21 years old; my daughter attends college out-of -state and in the foreseeable near future, my son will be moving out. Many of my friends and cousins are just now having babies or spending their days chasing  after young children. I can honestly and definitively say that, after 21 years of raising children, I am ecstatic to be on this end of parenting. I am now entering the joy of being a parent of grown-ups. Things are different here, but I truly appreciate the view.  I'm going to share more of my observations with the hashtag #whenyouhavegrownups  

Feel free to join in!

#whenyouhavegrownups  Watching stand-up comedy is much simpler. Sure, the comedic field maintains  a high probability of potential offensiveness, but your grown-ups have heard it all before, plus they probably even picked it out on netflix  and already watched it anyway.    

I am  so excited to collaborate and brainstorm with the talented and amazing Jana Crenshaw on the one-woman show for Roots, Reality & Rhyme. Her creative direction truly inspires and is helping craft the detailed vision for the staged production that is coming in the fall of 2014! 

Working on storyboarding and scripting the concepts for individual pieces and the transitions. We already have a solid draft of  what pieces will be included as well as  their order. Feeling super inspired.