Overcast...

Maybe it's just me, but I feel so much of my life is struggling to get through the overcast skies of my life. I always feel like storm clouds are over my head or threatening. I feel certain that I am always searching for the sun, and when it peaks through I am grateful for it and very excited and energized in those moments, but then they are gone. Is it my personality? Is it my clinical depression? Is it my circumstances? Am I just a miserable, cynical, S.O.B. who can't ever be happy? (Don't answer that). Can I at least find a way to have the sun be out a little longer?

Well...in addition to my figurative overcast sky today, it is also "literally" overcast. And as you know by now, rainy days and Mondays...

Yesterday was another great day of auditions and I confronted some ghosts from the past (in people I had not seen in years) and overall it was a sunshiny day...but the clouds did move in once I got home...alone...as usual. I feel that loneliness is becoming this regular state of mind for me. In truth, it is an actuality - I am alone right now in my life and not sure I am handling it all that well. I miss being in love; I miss having my family with me; I miss sharing a life with someone. Ah well, overcast and gray...what a day, what a day.

So today, as much as I didn't want to get out of bed after my big audition day yesterday, I forced myself to go out in the rain, pick up a dear friend Kay and take her to see a concert at the UBS Atrium. She reminds me a great deal of my Mom and I know she is lonely too and often depressed. Seeing her light up and smile when I get together with her is a wonderful gift. And we always have wonderful talks about life and theater and music and people and the "way the world used to be." She is a wonderful lady and I wish I could take some of her pain away, but alas, our time together always must come to an end and she rushes to get inside so I don't see her tears. She doesn't know that I cry them too. It is hard to be alone and have so much time on your hands, no matter what age you are.

But let me share a bit about the concert and bring a ray of light into this diatribe. The concert is put on by The Hudson Riverfront Performing Arts Center (where I worked for a year as Assistant Director) and Bruce Sherman who is working his butt off to try and see this arts center built on the riverfront in Weehawken. There is a summer concert series and then today kicked off the UBS Atrium Series Concerts. The Quartet today was amazing and it was great fun to be there.

If you are in the tri-state area you should know about what Bruce and HRPAC are trying to do and come see a concert - they are free and open to the public and the variety and caliber of music is unmatched. Click on the homepage image below to be taken to the website.

Rainy days and mondays...

always get me down. LOVE The Carpenters. In case you are in the dark (not because of the rain, but because of this post so far) Rainy Days and Mondays was a hit song that went gold for The Carpenters. It was written by Paul Williams and Roger Nichols. Here is a link to a performance of this song on YouTube. I have to say, when I searched and found this today, I did cry. A true and special vocalist.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPmbT5XC-q0

Actually, I'm not doing so bad today. Completely pooped from the weekend and all I have to do, but not so bad. I promised another poem and painting so here they are. Enjoy!

AT LAKES EDGE

The waves walk upon the sand.
The air of dusk runs through my nostrils.
The leaves waltz together one last time - yellow, red and orange.
I limp...exhuasted and worn.

I see you pass me, all of you, walking hand in hand;
sharing your warmth in love and in lust.
I share mine this night with the autumn clouds -
the water-worn sea gulls;
the muffled sound of Dixieland Jazz in the distance.

Again I am alone.
In the deepest corner of my soul,
I feel the chill that nothing,
not even your heated hands in front of the fire
can warm.

And I have hurt you and you me,
and our dream of perfection has wilted away -
creating the ordinary.

The painting is Sailboats at the Lake, acrylic on poster board by my Mom, Genevieve Riviere