Well...both my teams lost tonight - the Yankees are out of it for the season and perhaps Joe Torre, a great manager, will be booted from the Bronx. Maybe worse was the complete last minute debacle of the Buffalo Bills who had the game won. "Not again!" I keep thinking. It's funny that I can get so wrapped up in a sporting event - pinning my hopes and emotions on something really intangible. And yet, when I am rooting, shouting and believing, it seems as important as anything. I would think that to be a healthy ritual, and yet, when my hopes are dashed...when my cheers turn to jeers, I find myself depressed - literally. And that can't be good. I guess I want to back winners so that I can feel like I'm a winner. Does that make any sense? I know that I have had success in so many things during my life but I have also had intense failure and obviously, as we all do, very personal loss.
I guess, that in the past year or so, I have been particularly sensitive to failure. I feel that ASTC has failed (for the most part); my 14 year relationship has failed and I often feel so alone; feelings for others always seem to be dashed when they don't feel the same; career opportunities pass me by; I find myself making irrational or maybe more accurately, rash choices.
It's funny. Whenever I am feeling any sort of extreme emotion (which is most of the time - I mean have I ever had an even-keeled moment in my life?) I always turn to music as my solace. When I am really joyful I want to sing and when I am really depressed I want to sing.
So tonight, I turned to one of my favorite groups from the past: THE LITTLE RIVER BAND. Usually, when I am down and out, I like to listen to music that many would find depressing. But actually, knowing that someone else has felt the way I do, always gives me hope.
I share these two songs with you from YouTube...I really love them - the first is really how I am feeling lately. "I'm getting lost in the crowd...hear me crying out loud. Just want you to know, I know that you had to go. It's all up to you but whatever you do, take it easy on me." The second is actually sung by Player singer, Peter Beckett. And there are other great hits by this group - click their name above to go to their official website and you'll be amazed at all the hits they had and hopefully you'll be REMINISCING!
Showing posts with label loss. Show all posts
Showing posts with label loss. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Those we miss...
There are so many reasons why we miss people: they have left this world, they have moved away, they are forced away from us, they are fighting in wars, they leave, we push them away, life just takes us in different directions...it goes on.
Today I had a great "comeback" as it were to the audition scene - so much joy and excitement and energy. So many talented young people (I was the old guy among hundreds of twenty-somethings) but I made it thru "type out," sang my 16 bars, was asked to sing a song from the show, asked to move and then called back to dance. Ultimately the dancing did me in (I ain't the hoofer I used to be), but it felt great to make it so far on my first "open" audition in five years and my first dance call-back in ten! Daddy didn't do so bad!
But in the joy of it all, there were people I thought of, people I wanted to reach out to, to call, to touch. At that moment, my eyes began to well and I just...missed them. First and foremost, my family - Mom, Auntie Carm, Dad. How I miss the chance to talk to them, to hug them, to love them. I know they were with me today; giving me strength and bringing my best talents to the table. They watch from above.
And I miss you...you with the blue eyes and the sweet smile. Mostly I miss your soul - that spirit that sparked my love to begin with - and of course the words shared and the occasional simple touch. We haven't spoken now in almost two weeks. I know this loss is my own doing - you wait for me now to call you or write you but I can't bring myself to do it.
You are, simply...the one. I think of you every waking hour, without exception. And the nighttime does not shield me from you either. How I wish that this absence would make your heart grow fonder, but reality tells me it will not. Now that our project is finished and our days no longer connect us, do I ever cross your mind? You have stolen my heart. And today, in my ecstatic joy between call-backs I longed to reach you on my cell, to share this news with you. And at days end, I ached to meet you for dinner and catch up and share our lives. But I can not just be a friend to you. My feelings are already so much deeper than that. And as our time together became more frequent, it also became more uncomfortable - neither of us finding our footing. So I have finally let you go - actions speak louder than these words, right?
However, at days end, as the shadows creep along the side of the house and hide the roses in black, I miss you...terribly.
Today I had a great "comeback" as it were to the audition scene - so much joy and excitement and energy. So many talented young people (I was the old guy among hundreds of twenty-somethings) but I made it thru "type out," sang my 16 bars, was asked to sing a song from the show, asked to move and then called back to dance. Ultimately the dancing did me in (I ain't the hoofer I used to be), but it felt great to make it so far on my first "open" audition in five years and my first dance call-back in ten! Daddy didn't do so bad!
But in the joy of it all, there were people I thought of, people I wanted to reach out to, to call, to touch. At that moment, my eyes began to well and I just...missed them. First and foremost, my family - Mom, Auntie Carm, Dad. How I miss the chance to talk to them, to hug them, to love them. I know they were with me today; giving me strength and bringing my best talents to the table. They watch from above.
And I miss you...you with the blue eyes and the sweet smile. Mostly I miss your soul - that spirit that sparked my love to begin with - and of course the words shared and the occasional simple touch. We haven't spoken now in almost two weeks. I know this loss is my own doing - you wait for me now to call you or write you but I can't bring myself to do it.
You are, simply...the one. I think of you every waking hour, without exception. And the nighttime does not shield me from you either. How I wish that this absence would make your heart grow fonder, but reality tells me it will not. Now that our project is finished and our days no longer connect us, do I ever cross your mind? You have stolen my heart. And today, in my ecstatic joy between call-backs I longed to reach you on my cell, to share this news with you. And at days end, I ached to meet you for dinner and catch up and share our lives. But I can not just be a friend to you. My feelings are already so much deeper than that. And as our time together became more frequent, it also became more uncomfortable - neither of us finding our footing. So I have finally let you go - actions speak louder than these words, right?
However, at days end, as the shadows creep along the side of the house and hide the roses in black, I miss you...terribly.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
This one will always be for you...
WITHOUT YOU
I recall an impression…while initial, something severely stronger than a glance or a touch. As each moment passed, hours becoming days, beginning to border on a year, the image was now concrete – it was you…always you, from the moment I saw your face. I have loved others; I have cared for many, but somehow in this snapshot of time, you have pierced my soul like no other. Poetry, so often allowing me to express myself when all other forms of communication fail me, seems rather insignificant and unintelligible as I hold it up to the light of my passion for you, but it is what I have to offer you now:
You are the rays of sun that dance on the water at sunset on the river. You are the fire that snaps and sparks in the roaring fireplace in the mountains on a frigid day. You are laughter from a bus of grade school students on their way to see the safari for the first time. You are stars and diamonds and strawberries and stained glass and a multitude of brightly colored roses along a white picket fence in the south of France. You are, all that I have wished for. You are…my love.
But alas…all that I feel for you, like an enormous wave breaking on the sand, washes back from whence it came and the reality comes clear – the picture in my mind is only that – a fantasy of images that I created for us without your approval; without your consent. And now I am beside myself with grief. I have lost you before I ever won you. Not that you were a prize or a raffle or a trip for two to an exotic port (although I have dreamt of us together in such a place). I could never think of you so trivially. And yet, while my heart should be full, as we have shared so many stories; laughed about our lives and come to call one another friend – indeed I should be grateful…I am somehow destroyed. As if the half-full glass I have struggled to envision for my life has a hole in the bottom, which can not be repaired – eternally empty. I am forced to ponder age old questions that have haunted greater minds than mine and stumped the geniuses of our age. Why do I love you so? Why can’t you see what I see; feel what I feel? Why do you incapacitate me and flood my senses with emotions that possess me? Why has the journey led me to this moment if we two can not be one? I do not have the power to force your feelings and yet I can not eliminate my own. I am left, in this shadow of a dream, standing alone, compelled to watch you from a distance as you flourish and find your way…without me.
I recall an impression…while initial, something severely stronger than a glance or a touch. As each moment passed, hours becoming days, beginning to border on a year, the image was now concrete – it was you…always you, from the moment I saw your face. I have loved others; I have cared for many, but somehow in this snapshot of time, you have pierced my soul like no other. Poetry, so often allowing me to express myself when all other forms of communication fail me, seems rather insignificant and unintelligible as I hold it up to the light of my passion for you, but it is what I have to offer you now:
You are the rays of sun that dance on the water at sunset on the river. You are the fire that snaps and sparks in the roaring fireplace in the mountains on a frigid day. You are laughter from a bus of grade school students on their way to see the safari for the first time. You are stars and diamonds and strawberries and stained glass and a multitude of brightly colored roses along a white picket fence in the south of France. You are, all that I have wished for. You are…my love.
But alas…all that I feel for you, like an enormous wave breaking on the sand, washes back from whence it came and the reality comes clear – the picture in my mind is only that – a fantasy of images that I created for us without your approval; without your consent. And now I am beside myself with grief. I have lost you before I ever won you. Not that you were a prize or a raffle or a trip for two to an exotic port (although I have dreamt of us together in such a place). I could never think of you so trivially. And yet, while my heart should be full, as we have shared so many stories; laughed about our lives and come to call one another friend – indeed I should be grateful…I am somehow destroyed. As if the half-full glass I have struggled to envision for my life has a hole in the bottom, which can not be repaired – eternally empty. I am forced to ponder age old questions that have haunted greater minds than mine and stumped the geniuses of our age. Why do I love you so? Why can’t you see what I see; feel what I feel? Why do you incapacitate me and flood my senses with emotions that possess me? Why has the journey led me to this moment if we two can not be one? I do not have the power to force your feelings and yet I can not eliminate my own. I am left, in this shadow of a dream, standing alone, compelled to watch you from a distance as you flourish and find your way…without me.
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Welcome to my blog!
I have a blog associated with lulu.com (http://people.lulu.com/blogs/view.php?user_id=512690), where my book is distributed, but not a great deal of traffic finds its way there. And so, I decided to begin a blog here and hope you find some solace, or some chuckles or some symbiosis from my posts. Since I have been focusing a good deal of my energy lately on my first book, FLOWERS IN AUTUMN: endings and beginnings, I though I would begin by sharing one of the poems from that book. You can also feel free to preview the book for free online at http://www.lulu.com/parplaywright.
Enjoy and as always...be well.
A Flower in Autumn
I saw you last night - running, playing, hitting.
You had a glow like a candle inside a pumpkin on
Halloween.
I tried to touch you but you were gone - a haze.
I heard your voice - yelling, screaming, crying.
Your pain echoed like a call inside the catacombs.
I searched for you until I lost consciousness.
I awoke at your grave; snow stung my lips.
The wind blowing as though millions of souls were
breathing at once,
and then, calm.
I began to dig through the snow at your grave
as if to resurrect your spirit from the frozen earth.
And then, all at once, I was paralyzed.
There, in a drift, in front of your stone it stood.
One flower poised as a sentinel fighting the fall.
A flower in autumn.
My tears, frozen to my face; my breath choked inside my
flesh.
I thought to turn and run, and then I heard you whisper -
"Brother I will not forget you."
Through all the years I'd never known and now from
death, life.
Then I stood, fighting my own fall, shouting the show into
circles -
"Nor I you, nor I you."
I wrote this poem in my brother's memory who was born in 1964 with Downs Syndrome and died at the age of 16 (when I was just 14). His life was a deep inspiration to so much of what I have done and his love was the most pure love I have ever known. I am certain that he is my guardian angel and that when I see him again, he will indeed be running and playing and hitting.
Enjoy and as always...be well.
A Flower in Autumn
I saw you last night - running, playing, hitting.
You had a glow like a candle inside a pumpkin on
Halloween.
I tried to touch you but you were gone - a haze.
I heard your voice - yelling, screaming, crying.
Your pain echoed like a call inside the catacombs.
I searched for you until I lost consciousness.
I awoke at your grave; snow stung my lips.
The wind blowing as though millions of souls were
breathing at once,
and then, calm.
I began to dig through the snow at your grave
as if to resurrect your spirit from the frozen earth.
And then, all at once, I was paralyzed.
There, in a drift, in front of your stone it stood.
One flower poised as a sentinel fighting the fall.
A flower in autumn.
My tears, frozen to my face; my breath choked inside my
flesh.
I thought to turn and run, and then I heard you whisper -
"Brother I will not forget you."
Through all the years I'd never known and now from
death, life.
Then I stood, fighting my own fall, shouting the show into
circles -
"Nor I you, nor I you."
I wrote this poem in my brother's memory who was born in 1964 with Downs Syndrome and died at the age of 16 (when I was just 14). His life was a deep inspiration to so much of what I have done and his love was the most pure love I have ever known. I am certain that he is my guardian angel and that when I see him again, he will indeed be running and playing and hitting.
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As Snoopy in You're A Good Man Charlie Brown (July 2000)
