Stop-Up

I was stuck, all alone, in my gym elevator the other day, and while it was only for a couple of minutes it was significantly terrible. I imagined myself never getting out, immobilized in some sort of ironic purgatory, where the apparatus's simple function of up and down had been halted, and I was snagged in the crosshairs or cross-wiring. There I was, unable to go about my life, just stagnating, lodged-up, cemented into a circumstance I had no business in. Gee, I thought, this scenario sounds vaguely familiar. Not vaguely, actually, resonantly familiar, so familiar it makes me want to choke, and run for the hills. Except, I don't have the comfort of the hills up ahead because I've been caught in a major snag, unable to wriggle myself out from in it. So I see the hills, but I cannot experience them just yet. It's a total tease. During these last two years of looking for a permanent job, with hopes and promises that flare up for a time, burn slowly and then die-out, the stop-up has been more than a mean case of claustrophobia, it is no-find-job-o-phobia. Like the faulty elevator caught between floors one and two, whose red alarm button was mysteriously not on duty, there is no tangible "help" button to be pushed insistently. When you're caught between jobs, you're your own best self-help button. It's lonely when no one wants to know you very much, and when no matter how much you fake the smile, it's still strained. But, eventually you get rescued. By yourself. The experience of the stop-up provides an uncanny ability to apply knowledge that is held in reserves, like survival water in a camel's hump; this ability comes rather readily and magically from some seeming fairy potion that helps you manipulate your environment, however small and narrow it may seem at the moment. The space eventually has to expand based on your powers to envision the hills just up ahead. I was rescued eventually from the elevator muck-up. It was no knight in shining armor, but a female gym employee who was nice, but didn't really understand the seriousness of events, she was only driving-by, until she herself would be stuck in the stop-up.

The Stretch

People who know me, know that I often feel the need to stretch. I'll break into stretch as a character in a musical would into song; I'll be going about my business, and bam, I feel the need to expand and extend, to enlarge and distend. Really, I have often thought it to be a way to reevaluate my physical awareness and capabilities - a cause to reach and continue from one point to another. I think the urge was borne out of one of my voice lessons at college, where my instructor advised that I stretch and bend over, and life would have a new and easy meaning; the day's events would somehow brighten as I curled upward. And guess what? No matter what - I feel better after a good, deep stretch.

Now, "the stretch," has taken an all new meaning and status. The stretch of time looking for a permanent job, the length of it, of reaching out to people I know, I have worked with, and people I don't know and perhaps will work with at some yet undisclosed time in the future. And of course, there is the matter of stretching my patience beyond the ordinary and normal limits; of extending my scope in my job search, and being a human putty, malleable, flexible, adaptable, stretched hither-nither, until I hit the final stage of search. And then, what a satisfying stretch it will be! I think I'll celebrate this occurrence with a split, or at least I'd attempt one. I'd be an elastic, ecstatic Elena. A supple Sue. A flexible Fanny. And as my teacher said, life will be brighter apres la stretch.

Sprout!

There's a funny little article in the current New Yorker about the actor Christopher Walken, whose starring in the wacky Broadway production of Martin McDonagh's dark comedy "A Behanding in Spokane." The article talks about Walken visiting his childhood home in Astoria, and then there's a funny little quip about Walken marveling and reveling in the eventual sprouting of his avocado pit - which he suspended in water with three toothpicks two months before. "Look, my avocado is growing," he said. "Isn't that great? It's been sitting there for two months, then it did that." I think it's kind of wonderful that an actor of his stature and fame is so pleased by his developing taproot. It also reminded me of why I liked his particular brand of wackiness, and it got me to thinking about myself and my experience these last two years. I have something in common with the avocado taproot. I am in a state of suspension - direction and options are endless, but not evident at the moment. I keep waiting in suspense - buoyed by an invisible support - in the form of the eventual laws of nature; of a pit growing, sprouting after a long gestational period. I believe in my talents and the things I have to offer, even though I've been floating around in this murky no-man's land for a while now. The weather and the fact that Spring is a sproutin' is helpful, and serves as a good reminder, that even after a bleak Winter, a young shoot can always spring up, and set forth with her belated but nonetheless, stalwart plan.

Dove In The Wreckage

I feel like Judy Holliday at the moment. Or at least, one of the actress's zany characters. Maybe you know the ones I mean? The ones that no matter what - precipitate farce; farce happens to them, farce happens to me. Far far-out farce, the kind that is kind of tragic, but at the same time a little funny, because it just keeps coming, gushing really, and it's so darn illogical. Just yesterday, I received a letter from an unknown name but familiar address - the address of my friend who just passed away. I thought it might, maybe, be a letter from his family acknowledging my heartfelt condolences written on my best Italian note-paper (my friend loved Italy). Or perhaps, a last minute note from my friend just before he passed away and sent only now. Or a note from the heavens with an earth-bound address so as not to set off suspicions. Or a small inheritance. But alas, it was none of the above. It was instead a bill for services rendered, or not-rendered. It was a bill from an unknown woman bearing my friend's address. In effect, it was a sham bill charging me for my ten-year friendship. Oh, the inanity of it all! And because I feel like Judy Holliday these days, or one of her naive, vulnerable, tender angels that suffer iniquities intently, with a teeter-totter walk, dimples, and squeaky voice, I thought instead of taking it all in, I would just have a hearty chuckle and a quizzical look on my face that reads "this can't really be happening, can it?" Not possible. I'm just having a bad two years full of hot-air, and buffoonery. Opera buffa with real-life sets. However, as much as I want the bull to roll off easily and efficiently, I have to be honest, that the series of events in the last two years have hurt as well. My funny-bone has been knocked one too many times. Even Judy might have permitted one of her cinematic incarnations to let out a brassy cry along with an embarrassed giggle.

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Last week, while sending out resumes, and cover letters, I peered out the window, and saw a dove nesting in a filthy construction site. The delicate beauty of the dove juxtaposed alongside the coarse dirt and scum of the site made me sad. To my mind, this distressing tableau was a microcosm of all that is going wrong in the world - of man's encroaching step on nature, on animals, on the environment; of an animal having to make do with the little space he has left, even if that space is polluted. I identify with the dove, not only empathically, but I feel I am sort of like the dove. I am trying to go about my life, pressing on with my career, but I've temporarily chosen hostile ground to set up my nest. The construction can't go on forever, there has to be a resolution right? Eventually, later that afternoon, the dove got up and out of the site. I think she went to follow the sun, having had enough of the wreckage and the curious dawdling presence of farce.