week one of this new year: january 1-7.

in




















in this first week of this new year i wore heels and bright red lipstick. i drank peppermint tea, went back to exercise class, got out of the apartment more, gave thanks for the best girlfriends i've ever had, woke to a package with the most beautiful (and adult) wallet, and wore a new pair of jeans for the first time in six and a half years.

then i flew to cleveland, spent some time with family, and got to see one of the most spectacular women i've ever had the great pleasure of knowing marry the love of her life.

not such a bad way to kick off 2012.

written for SCHOOL PUBLICATION

in , , ,

when first asked to write this piece i was…hesitant. of the little i remember of my time at school, i regret much. my story is is certainly not one of juilliard's great successes. and yet. it is mine. for all its faults and flaws and that's worth sharing, no?

the white blank page before me disagrees. i've been unable to piece together...anything--about any of it. how does one sum up school or the subsequent three years in a nice and tidy pile of words? if the story is fragmented and messy how does one do it justice on the page? 

i lost myself at school. that's the long and the short of it. i came to new york at the tender age of eighteen and while others marveled at skyscrapers and central park i acquainted myself with an unnamable sadness. in fact, sadness became my sole companion. perhaps i was too young. perhaps i should have attended a basic liberal arts college. perhaps, perhaps....truth be told it's remarkable i survived at all. but when graduation day finally came it was not a marker of success but a desperate gasp for air. i had failed. deeply, i had failed. and i had lost that little kernel of faith in my ability to act, and as it turns out, myself. 


so i stopped. acting, that is. four years studying the thing and i couldn't stomach it. i know, i know, just what anyone wants to hear as they prepare to leave school or continue on in their education.

but here's the thing failure, as it turns out, proves fertile ground. and in the absence of acting i began to write.  i simply meant to document. to put pen to paper to help me remember or preserve a period of my life for the future. but those words became a solace that slowly unfurled me--revealed me to myself. the great roadmap of the journey inward. and i found that all that i had learned at school in terms of sounds and shapes of vowels and the discrepancy between what is thought and what is known leant itself beautifully towards writing. 


and writing, as it turns out, gave me back my life. does that sound terribly dramatic? well, it is. and it was.  
there are moments i wish i could go back and do school all over again. as the person i am now. perhaps this time i'd be ready. perhaps this time i'd get it right. perhaps, perhaps. but i have to remind myself that few stories are truly linear. we twist around, circle back on ourselves, and when we're lucky, move forward. and that's okay. my story is not done. i left acting but whether or not i will return  is a part of the story i've yet to write. 


what i mean to say is this. if things don't go as planned, that's okay. (i know, i know, everyone says that.) how to tell you--to make you understand.

how about this: failure is essential. fail as much and as gloriously as you can. fail in little, seemingly inconsequential ways when no one is looking. or fail on a stage under the lights. the thing is, others might not see it as such. and given enough time, it might actually reveal itself as something else. because when the failure fades or passes or wears another mask it gives way to a joy so profound, it lies beyond imagination--even that special brand of imagination that juilliard encourages.

and joy, more than anything else i've ever known,  is essential to art. (yes, joy).



sometimes i wonder how i'll look back on this period in my life--as a pause in the story? as a precursor to the next great plot twist? a time when i was tied to nothing, living anonymously in a small, sunlit apartment, way high north on the island of manhattan next to the train tracks and nestled against the river--and i think i'll be a better actor because of these days, a better person, if nothing else. 

written for STORY OF MY LIFE

in

i've been wracking my brain all week for a good story to tell.

i could write about that time in canada i found myself seated next to a half-naked man in a theatre (and not a theatre of ill-repute, mind you). he arrived fully clothed, then there was a lot of movement, and suddenly--voila--a bare chest. let's just say, i didn't see much of that first half of arms and the man.

or perhaps i should speak of those lazy spring nights in texas when i'd escape to the soccer fields with the boys and smoke cigars as dew formed on the grass. i was not a rebellious teen. i didn't drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes or kiss anyone under any bleachers. i worked hard in school. but as senior year came to an end i found myself staying out just a little bit later, falling for a boy who would go on to follow phish around the country, and puffing on cigars by the elementary school soccer fields.

but both those stories are slivers, small bits. and i want to tell the story of my life, right? or, at least, try. perhaps, though, that's all it is right now, slivers of a story. scattered pieces waiting to come together. after all, i'm just beginning (or so i hope).

and yet, i keep coming back to this: new york.

new york is my story.

beginning on 66th in a white, stone, fortress-like building and an open-air plaza filled with boys who threw frisbees, made bets, and smoked too much pot. moving on to 72nd and a pub named malachy's where many a baseball game was taken in and the man behind the counter knew all of our names. there was my first apartment at 104th and a cat we called flaubert. i dated a guy at 190th who gave me a key to his house and promised to show me the cloisters (among other things). i ended that relationship at a diner on 70th. there's central park and riverside park and fort tryon park and the countless times i've traversed each one pounding something more than pavement.

the city is a zig-zagging-connect-the-dots of my history--of my sadness and its eventual passing. of the joy that follows, the sweet bliss that sweeps in after utter destruction.

and then there's here: 181st street. in a small corner apartment--my own little castle in the sky--a corner apartment abutting the hudson and nestled against the train tracks. and i can feel this corner apartment-- this corner of manhattan working on me, pushing me past this cesura in the story. this moment between, this hanging breath in which all is possible and all is unknown. i write this now in the cafe down the street and i, more than anyone, wonder what's next--when the plot twist will arise, when new characters will be introduced, when there will be some sort of resolution.

and the thing is, i don't know. i just don't know. but i do know i'm better for all this. better for the unknown. better for the sadness. better for the bliss. better, for new york.

better, yes, but poised for the next.

so should jenny ever have be back here again, years from now, my great hope is i'll have more to tell you. more of the story to share. more space filled in and out.

written for FAIRYTALES ARE TRUE

in ,

last night i sat staring into my skim latte, my friend alex sitting across the long and narrow, wood-grained table.

what should i write about? i asked. (i do best when prompts are dangled before me like a bowl of pepperidge farm cheddar goldfish).

what's her blog about? alex asked me.

sarah's? i lit up. oh, well, it's called fairy tales are true, and alex, they just might be. because she's tall and gorgeous and blond and she's married to a baseball player and now they travel the world together from one exotic location to the next and she's going to end the obesity epidemic with her living kitchen and yes, yes i'm gushing (and speaking at an uncomfortably high volume), but i might just be a little bit in love with her (and maybe, just maybe my fairytale  {yet to come true} looks awfully similar to this).


alex responded, perhaps you could write about what the fairytale is like when you don't look quite so much like the fairy-princess. 


scoff. kerfuffel. plunk.

(eventual chuckle).

this was not a slight on my beauty but rather against my dark hair. my, yes, brunette hair. (and also a testament to how well and how long i described just how gorgeous sarah really is). alex quickly amended the statement when i pointed out disney princess after disney princess who was not blond: belle (literary goddess and my life's great role model), snow white, pocahantas, mulan (and of course, anastasia {thought technically she was dreamworks, i think}). alex then went on to point out that i look most like pocahantas (paler skin, of course) and maybe a little like mulan. keep in mind i'm a white, irish-catholic girl from texas. thing is, he's kinda right.

as for the fairytale portion, mine is yet unknown. well, that's not entirely true. for now the fairytale is one of me living by myself in new york city and taking the world by storm (and by storm, i mean figuring it out inch by pain-staking inch).

i love new york, i do (much of the time). but i can't stop dreaming of red vespas, breezy sundresses, and sandals against cobblestone. the careless curvature of intersecting piazza and street. small, sunlit kitchens with copper kettles and adjacent balconies. unprocessed foods and bright shutters against aging stone structures.

europe has my heart.

oh, to be european! to dress like one and eat like one and travel like one. to love like one! and just as soon as i figure out how i promise you this: i'll spend my days traversing italy and france, scotland and germany, austria and switzerland, with the man i've always dreamt of and nothing but a pen, a piece of paper, and the very best camera my grubby little fingers can get a hold of.

(of course if the end days happens before this--and in new york, it's set to happen this saturday--i might be in trouble).

for now i toil away here in the states, living a charmed but often lonesome, little life. you see, i'm still waiting for the prince to arrive on his impressive white horse and whisk me away.

waiting is not quite right though. i am a modern girl in a modern world braiding my rapunzel rope one goldspun (brunet) strand at a time.

(and this is where baseball comes in). lately it feels as though i'm on the brink of something. on the brink of a new life--man, pen, camera and all. this feeling is persistent and nagging and all-together wonderful. and so the thing i keep coming back to, my touchstone words are these: if you build it, they will come.

and so i'm building. and dreaming. and sending up prayer after prayer that my fairytale comes to fruition. and i have this sneaking, wonderful, little suspicion that it just might. despite, or maybe just because of, my long, dark locks.