Spring Forward

Now that I have my Skirt! blog, I find my writing brain operating differently. When ideas bubble into my consciousness lately, they shape themselves with that audience in mind. So I think Debfeb Diaries may evolve into a more personal journal-type blog, but I will never be one of those “Today I ate French toast” bloggers. It doesn’t matter. As long as I’m writing, I’m happy, audience or not.

The Universe sure is responding right now, just a few days before my birthday. The Globe Magazine essay, renamed “A Mattress Built for Two,” appears tomorrow. It popped up online prematurely earlier in the week because of some weird web glitch, then disappeared, but I got a sneak preview and I’m ecstatic.

Then I have two job interviews, on Monday and Thursday, for good, interesting jobs with benefits. On Wednesday, I have my Skirt! photo shoot for the April “24/7” feature. Me? A photo shoot. Very strange. I am sweating the wardrobe part and the makeup part and whether to spring for a manicure. It's not in my budget, but I think I will.

I’m getting my stuff out there at readings too. On Friday the 13th, I read an essay called “Dear Diary: Where Is Luv?” at the Center for New Words open-mic night in Cambridge. Two writing group friends read too—quite the love fest for those who gathered. There’s nothing better than writers supporting writers. This past Thursday, I read the same essay at another open-mic night at Back Pages Books in Waltham. Besides a couple of group buddies (who rocked), other readers were quite the eclectic bunch, ranging from an excruciatingly well-meaning über-geek and his excruciating “poetry” to a very cute, soulful young man’s soulful love songs. Definitely crush-worthy. Too bad he was old enough to be my son, if not my grandson.

So much activity, so much excitement. I’m more energized than I’ve been in months—it seems everyone is. The sun is stronger, the days are longer, the snow is melting, the air is crisper. Spring is springing. It feels so good.

And on Friday I enter a new demographic group: 55+. How did that happen? Can it be me? I feel like my life is just starting.

Better late than never.

O My Love

In honor of Valentine's Day, here is another excerpt from Where Is Luv? Oh, the drama, the longing, the hormones! If thou can beareth it, taketh thou back in time, and remember.

December 1, 1968

I changed a lot today. I grew up a bit. I discovered something. I don't know exactly what but it was and is beautiful: this feeling. Went to Romeo and Juliet starring Olivia Hussey, 16, and Leonard Whiting, 17. Terribly moving, vivid, exciting, sad, beautiful, expressful, deep. It hit me like a bomb and I have been in a daze all day. I feel I must find someone who loves me and needs me badly! I feel that I will find him soon! I don't know if this is true but I live until that day! I have taken a deeper outlook upon myself.

Oh God. This sounds so silly yet all day I have been captured by this dream and ache for love and beauty, such that Romeo and Juliet shared!! I even wrote "poems"—something I never do! They have probably all been written before and are all clichés but my brain fed the thoughts to my pen and it was a new feeling! I thought Shakespearean—I thought of love and beauty and purity!! Oh! I can't explain it! I cried so hard afterwards and I want to cry now, too!!

Came home in a daze. Ate. Washed hair. Wrote and read. Cleaned room. Prepared for tomorrow (school—ugh! Harsh Reality!!). Tests and Exams and Projects are so superfluous—to my one and only goal ---> to Love or at least to have this incompleteness in my soul fulfilled. "Goodnight, Goodnight! ... parting is such sweet sorrow!!" Ahh, goodnite. Love, Deb

O my love, I seek not for thy body
Only for thy soul
What lies within you is beyond my comprehension
What lies without I only know is mine.
I love thee
But I seek not for that which I may have
I seek for what I cannot have
My soul aches and yearns for love
Love only your soul can return!

Where must I search?
Where does he hide?
Need he but murmur the stirrings in his soul,
Would he then my soul capture!

The love brewing in my heart!
My soul and my mind must be fulfilled!
When not, thence come the expressions of my body: Tears
Tears, the outlet of my soul
The salty droplets have but no meaning to she or he
Only to me. Only to these lips of mine which absorb this dew
My love! When you come not, then these sweet dewdrops
Will turn to frost!
My anguish is none if I know of but one man
To love, so that together our souls may be one.