If I could live anywhere, any time, it would be Paris, the left bank in the twenties. I would love to discuss art, music, acting dance and writing with those such as Gertrude Stein, Picasso, Hemingway, etc..
My parents were artists. My father went to R.I.S.D.. I think writing songs and books and movie scripts may be more powerful than painting. I realize my father captured Meher Baba, and was an amazing artist.
I see the beauty of ballet and modern dance which I studied in college. Still, when I see a film like The Green Mile, I am so astounded by the talent of the actors, as well as my favorite author Stephen King. Also, the film making is quite spectacular, an art in and of itself.
Having a brother who went to U.S.C. in Southern California film school, he may also appreciate this.
As much as I love Vincent van Gogh and other amazing painters and dancers like Isadora Duncan, I feel, looking over the words to songs I have written in my mind, such as 'Alan's Song', that people can hide, but when you write a song from the heart, there really is no hiding. The honesty of the heart comes out so strong and true. Can anyone really paint that? Dance that? Act that? Yes, act that, maybe, write that, for sure. I feel that writing songs, poetry, which also can be hidden behind as well as novels not from the heart, that writing, true writing of songs and novels and scripts, may be the strongest of all art forms. You may beg to differ and I would love to hear you.
As a musician and mother of a musician, I know the power of music itself. Still, how can writing be hidden behind? True painting and true acting and dance, as well as music probably cannot be hidden behind either.
I apologize, because as much as I wanted to write a book that was true and real in every sense of what life is for the average American who is not privileged, like my own family, me, my kids, my brother, his daughter, and some of my children's friends and their hardships, I ended American Boys on an unrealistically happy note. The reality of life would not even have been that good, even though there were still problems.
Being an avid reader and a patron of the state library for the blind, I was tired of reading about rich people with unrealistically happy lives. This is what led me to Stephen King, and historical fiction on things such as Auschwitz survivors and lynchings of black people in the twenties, while Theodore Roosevelt was president, although he of course was not responsible but according to my readings portrayed as a racist.
I named my first son Theodore, not really after the president, but the Greek meaning, 'gift of God.'
I think in reality things are worse than my book, American Boys. The saddest thing in my book besides Daniel and Nicolas's illnesses, and Lizzy's struggles to make ends meet and find the right man, was the death of Daniel's best friend Adrien in Iraq. My kids have had friends die too. They have also had friends join armed services.
There are other causes for dying. Lizzy's parents both being still alive and both as nice, to me is unrealistic, having had a father die in my youth and a mother very cold and in some ways heartless.
I wanted things to be happy and normal, but normal does not exist, unfortunately.
Many people in this world are really mean, hiding the meanness behind pretentious niceness, which sometimes leads to out and out rudeness. This is passive aggressive behavior.
People who practice this type of communication usually have low opinions of themselves, pretending they are someone important in some way or another.
They want others to feel less than, to make themselves feel better than. They cannot accept another, another's achievements, because everything is about them.
How do I know this? I encounter people like this in my life from time to time, and I know from the type of people who do this, that these people are extremely insecure, afraid and full of self-doubt.
My son wrote a song called, 'Lesser Me You Gain.' I asked him what it was about, and he said it was about "people putting you down, pretending to give advice, only to elevate themselves and make you feel inferior." I know both sides, like the Joni Mitchell song, Both Sides Now, "I've looked at life from both sides now..."
I have been accused of making someone feel bad to elevate myself, but at the time, I had no idea what this person was talking about, and I think if I did say something to hurt someone's feelings, it was innocent and never my intention in any way.
So many people are on ego trips of one kind or another. I realize perhaps I want to be an intellectual 'giant,' lol, but whether or not that would ever be, I know I am a writer and a musician, with no reservation. Ego does not exist in true art, confidence, not self consciousness.
Be brave, be strong, 'toot your own horn' and do not let anyone keep you down. Take heed from mentors like President Obama, Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosa Parks, Emily Dickinson, Gandhi, Chopra, Eckhart Tolle, Vincent van Gogh, Ann Frank, Winston Churchill, Stephen Biko, Nelson Mandela, William Wallace, Lyn Ott, Jesus Christ, Meher Baba, Dalai Lama and/or anyone who inspires you.
Lately, I feel like 'what next? What should I endeavor to do now?' My music is stagnating. I do not like the songs I write. I have been told they are too sad. I was just trying to deal with a tragedy by writing a country song, which I thought was a good way to deal with it.
Everything is in the air. The election is coming. It worries me. I will vote, and everyone knows who I am voting for because I blog about it all the time.
The weather has been weird. I have been a little down, and trying to fight it, fight a downward spiral. I think about trying to do this or that, but my eyesight puts so many restraints on me and limitations. Sometimes I feel I am almost suffocating from lack of real purpose.
Perhaps it will change. I hope, and I will figure out what I am doing in this life. I think of being a visual artist and then I remember I cannot see. I think of writing poetry, but I have no inspiration. And, the list goes on.
I think I felt most fulfilled when I was a teacher. I miss my old house. I wish I had found a way to keep it, and that way I could have given my children a better life.
My younger son was on the swim team, his senior year of high school. We got honored at the homecoming game. It was a real highlight.
I did the finding myself, female midlife thing, yoga and meditation, etc.. Although I still burn rose incense, meditate, do yoga and Reiki, I am now lost again. I am somehow unable once again to really know who I am. I know it does not make a lot of sense, I guess.
The only books I can really relate to now, are about people suffering immensely. Perhaps that is how I feel, and I do not think it is about Alan anymore, because truthfully I am a bit bitter that Alan never got divorced. Even though his wife was in Germany, it drove a wedge. His mother did not approve of me. I think she thought I was a deadbeat, because she said, "what do you do all day?"
Alan said, "Leslie is legally blind," explaining I suppose the fact that I do not work.
I said, "I am a writer and a musician."
Later I conveyed this story to a confidant, as well as another remark someone made at a dinner I was at, where I was discussing my novel, American Boys. This woman who owns a gallery selling only her own work, said, "where do you find time to do all this?"
My confidant said, "you should say, 'I have the same number of hours in a day as everyone else' " That made a lot of sense.
When someone made a rude comment about my eyesight, saying I seemed to be getting around just fine, at some pot luck dinner, I also told my confidant, and he said, "you should have said, 'thank you for showing your ignorance.' " My friend is a mobility instructor for the blind. In fact I met him while he was doing his internship under my mobility instructor.
Well, I better go now. I have a lot more of nothing to do.
I and other Obama supporters, are a bit concerned now that Romney is ahead and it is very tied, except with Hispanics and I am not certain of the percentage with African Americans.
All I know is I cannot stand to see a guy elected who just weeks ago called half of America, victims and freeloaders who feel entitled to housing and food and won't take personal responsibility, off the record, recorded by Jimmy Carter's grandson, who was a server at a banquet of Romney's rich fat cat peers he felt comfortable enough to say what he really thinks to.
Paul Ryan is a complete fascist and totally scary with his extreme pro-life stand and talking on CSPAN about obliterating Medicaid, a program that provides health care to America's poorest, children, disabled and elderly.
The Republican party failed to mention veterans at their convention, and when confronted, Mitt Romney said he was not going to bring up a 'laundry list.' Mr. Romney, veterans are not a laundry list.
Here is a candidate who wants to increase military spending by billions and declaring now he is for peace. Do not believe him.
They want to cut planned parenthood, contradicting not wanting abortions. They want to cut PBS. Now he says he will keep Medicaid, but give it to the states. I was a bit confused by this, because I thought Medicaid was already handled by the individual states.
Also, he wants to turn Medicare, Medicaid and the V.A. into voucher programs. They would give a certain amount to the state, and have them handle it I suppose.
If he were to 'undo' Obamacare, would that not cost millions and billions more in court costs, and be a waste of a lot of well thought, well needed plans?
Alan, my friend, worked two jobs and had no health insurance. I admit Alan was a conservative, and he probably believed in the 'tea party', although Alan believed in a safety net, something the new Republicans are doing away with it sounds like. Alan was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer and worked til the bitter end almost. He could not get Medicaid or disability, because he was working. They even told him hospice was not available unless you had insurance, Medicaid or Medicare. If Alan had had insurance, perhaps he could have seen a doctor sooner for a check up, and known how high his white blood cell count was. Instead he was only given pain management and in the end his rent was payed by a charity at work for emergency cases. He was sent home to die.
Mitt Romney showed in the last debate that he has no foreign policy other than Obama's. If Obama's foreign policy is so good, why should we risk a different president, one who is known to lie?
Lastly there is the college financial aid program which would also be cut by the R/R plan. Public schools would be ignored, and we would have a nation of uneducated people, a direction we are already going in.
Romney has no regard or understanding for the poor, the middle class, the single mother, the disabled. All he knows is riches, prestige and privilege and that is not the kind of president I want. Do you?
I am awake early this morning, which I have not been for years. I hated the morning. Suddenly my consciousness is different.
Alan, my companion of six years, passed away a month ago. I could not grieve, did not have closure until last night. I was able to begin to grieve before that, when he came to me in a dream and kissed me and it felt so real.
I wonder if I am free to love again or free to not love again. I never loved Alan as much as I should have. He was difficult, but I took him for granted, treated him in ways I do not know why he tolerated, and yet made him seem like the bad guy to my girlfriends. No, he was far from perfect, snobby, high strung, a clean freak where it came to food, which is good I suppose, an ultra conservative, being Scottish, preferred the BBC, and his favorite TV show was Valley Kiss Angel.
My mother once said straight to his face, "I don't like Republicans," but he won her over because 1) he was handsome, 2) he was polite and 3) they shared the same favorite television shows, except news of course. Alan read the Drudge Report of course and listened to Rush Limbaugh. This is one election year we did not get to fight.
In 2008 we were in Columbia, South Carolina on family business and he had a t-shirt that said "Obama keep the change." I made him cover up the keep the part so it only said Obama and change.
He took me to the Commission for the Blind, where I soon became a student for five months. He gave me a cell phone so he could call me, and we saw each other on weekends when I was delivered home. I was enjoying my friends in Columbia and shopping with them, going to yoga. Alan was still married technically, although he had been separated for years and had kids of his own in Germany. He offered to buy me a ring, but at that point I did not want one.
I admit we broke up quite a few times, and then I would have another boyfriend, usually a recycled one, and when it blew up, Alan was always there to get drunk as a skunk with.
I saw a tarot card reader, friend of a friend, a guy from North Carolina. He had me pull my own card for Alan. It was the lover card. He did a spread, and told me nothing was bad in it, except an intensity to be aware of, and that was the spark that led to our fights or made them more intense. I was the jealous one, even though Alan was the one who had a right to be jealous.
He did the things I wanted him to do, like renting an apartment on the ocean, but the divorce which he was working on never fully went through. Perhaps it was good for the wife and kids that he was still married when he died.
I feel bad for his daughters. I feel bad for me in a way. I thought I was OK with this, but really I am not. I did so much wrong. I realize it was a two way street and we kept drifting together and apart. Near the end he came over a lot, and I gave him Reiki, because the pain was very severe. He had pancreatic cancer. When the pain medication kicked in, he was OK.
He would sleep over sometimes on the futon, because we were not technically together, but I would lie down with him if he invited me to, and he was comforting me. I was crying. When he gathered up the strength he took us to pick up Thai take out.
So many fun and funny things happened over the years. Once his neighbor from upstairs invited us up for drinks. Alan said, "don't talk about politics or anything personal, and only have one drink." We had already had a few at my son's gig. I said "OK."
However I ended up saying, "Are you guys married? Alan is married too, but not to me," and "Alan is a right wing Republican." Also, when he went downstairs for something, I accepted another drink. I ended up throwing up when we went back down.
Another thing I loved about Alan was that he loved the shirts I bought him, and he wore them. I gave him a green one last Christmas, a button down. He looked so nice in it and his black jeans and black sports jacket on Christmas day when he came to my mother's for Christmas dinner. I was going to complain that he was late, when he announced his father had just died. He was OK with it, though.
I miss Alan. I really do. If I had it to do over, I would have made a true commitment.
Maybe I did in my own way. I do not know. He was not perfect, I know, and him being married still bothered me, but still so many things I said and did, I would take back if I could.
No one has a perfect life like the 'Clevers', and personally I never complain about my parents or my childhood. My childhood was good enough I guess.
I did not love growing up at the center because I was too cut off from kids and did not really get to socialize until high school, and even then it was a sketchy social life. I did have my brother and one friend who was a BL kid too, but went to a different school and lived in a different part of town.
I just was not really given any positive reinforcement. I suppose they liked my music OK, but I was never given much and had to obtain thing like my first car through working, which it should be anyway. I went to music camp once, but I had to pay for that too out of an accident settlement.
I guess I say damaging, because although my father died a long time ago, I have been very shadowed by my mother. I have really been disregarded by people, and have had to deal with my mother's ego.
Some people think she is this really impressive person. They think I am nothing and no one, because I am poor and blind.
I think like attracts like, and the people who are so fond of my mother are similar to her. I know I sound jealous. It is not that. It is just that my mother told me one of her fans is her daughter. I figure what does she need me for.
