In case of MENTAL VACATIONS

Here are two of my favorite places.  The first place is one I’ve always known and loved.  It’s called – and why not – TriciaLand.

TriciaLand is full of Ferris wheels and carousels and sheep.  I’m not sure why there are sheep, but there are.  There are SO MANY sheep. 

TriciaLand is outdoors, obviously.  The terrain is lush and hilly.  It’s always daytime and always summer.  If I had to place TriciaLand in the physical world, I’d say that it’s in Ohio.  It’s sparkly, full of bright colors, and things going in circles.  The Ferris wheels and carousels have discovered somehow the secret of perpetual motion.  If they play music, they all play the same song.  And if you want to ride on one, you have to jump onto it with a flying leap.  Same thing getting off.

The sheep are friendly.  They’re wonderful companions and they’re never annoying.  They’re not cartoon sheep, though.  They don’t talk.  They don’t make expressions.  They’re real, honest-to-goodness, farm-style sheep.  And, again, there are SO MANY.  And, again, I’m not sure why.  But I like them.

Meanwhile, half a world away, there’s another cool place.  I just discovered it last night.  It’s called Michaelville. 

Michaelville, as suggested by the name, is considerably less outdoorsy than TriciaLand.  Michaelville is a room – sort of a hang out – with cool chairs everywhere.  Prominently featured is a large, glass display case, which is subdivided into compartments of various sizes.  In one compartment rests the perfect pair of headphones.  In another, the perfect umbrella.  Other compartments feature photographs of important people.  (And, yes, there’s one of me!) 

In Michaelville, there’s an iPod that always plays The Beatles.  There’s a TV that alternatively shows The Muppets and Mr. Bean.  There’s also an open window through which a cool breeze blows.

But most of all, it’s full of Michaels.  Michaels of all shapes and sizes!  Michael Jordan hangs out there.  Michael Douglas.  Michael W. Smith.  Michael Mouse (better known to his friends as Mickey).  And of course, my favorite of all these men, Michael Pickering.  And what do these Michaels do, you ask?  Naturally, they hang out together, talk, laugh, and eat tomato and cheese sandwiches.

And, until very recently, these two places have been very far apart.  But if you were to visit TriciaLand today, you might hear all the carousels and Ferris wheels playing the same song: “All My Lovin'” by The Beatles.

And if you went to Michaelville right now…chances are you’d bump into a sheep.  

In case of THE RENAISSANCE

So I’m home in Ohio.

I feel wonderful.  I’m back with the fam.  I’m sleeping in my old bed.  It’s goddamn COLD outside.  Yeeeeeeesssss.

And as I anxiously await Christmas (and every next conversation with Michael), I find myself sorting through the ghosts that live around here.  I have stories.  Lord, I have so many stories.  But I don’t know how many of them even matter anymore.

There’s this branch of therapy.  I was reading about it for a paper once.  It’s called “narrative therapy.”  Basically, it’s built on the premise that human beings have an innate sense of narrative, of story.  Like, try asking someone for his life story sometime.  He can’t tell you all of it.  So he will select episodes and scenes that he thinks are important.  These are the scenes he uses to define who he is.  These are the back-stories of the character he plays in his life every day. 

And so narrative therapy attempts to reconstruct someone’s life story.  The therapist will suggest that the patient select difference episodes and moments from his life, happier moments, or stories with more meaning and order, and use these episodes to construct an untroubled character for him to play. 

It’s pretty cool.  But boil it down?  It’s the art of letting go.  It’s the art of starting over.  Simple. 

Impossible.

But worth a shot.

The more I talk to Michael, the more of my stories that I tell him, the more I want to just scream, “BUT NONE OF THESE THINGS MATTER ANYMORE.”  Because honestly?  Honestly?

I don’t hurt much these days.  I’m not too angry.  And I’m really not scared.  I’m playing an untroubled character.  So somewhere along the way I think I must have decided to begin my period of reconstruction.  My renaissance.  It’s like I’m not even much interested in my life story any more.  There’s nothing in it at all.  I would make a terrible TV show. 

It’s maybe why I haven’t been blogging much lately.

Hm.

In case of DRAMIRONY

Hello, Ohio.  I’m yours.  Yours.  Yours forever.

I really am SO Midwestern – which is boggling, if you think about it, considering I didn’t even grow up in Ohio.  Not really, anyway.  I wasn’t born there.  And I didn’t have any sense of “Ohio” when we lived in Toledo.  So my life in Columbus was really only two years long.  Aaaaaaannnndddd…they were the worst two years ever.

But Ohio is planted deep in my heart.  It’s as deep and old as the roots of my family.  And we’re still growing there, still at home in the Ohio earth, spreading and changing and becoming new with each passing year.  There’s no feeling on earth like coming around that last bend in the gravel driveway and glimpsing The Burrow through the pines.  There’s no color on earth like the oak and maple trees in spring, the cattails by the pond in the late summer.  There’s no view so pretty as the view out that big front window when the world is covered in snow. 

BUT.

The crazy thing? 

I can’t live there.

I wish I could.  I honestly wish that I could.  But I’m a writer and it seems that Ohio doesn’t want me to write when I’m there.  It’s like the worst dramatic irony ever.  DRAMIRONY!  I’ve really never written anything good in Ohio.  It dries me up and when I sit down with my computer or a pen? No words come.  For some reason…no words come.

Maybe someday they will.  That’s what I keep hoping.  Maybe after years of life in the tumultuous spiral galaxy of Los Angeles, maybe I’ll go home.  And maybe my hands or my heart will unclench and release and I won’t be plagued by writer’s block and I can sit in a rocking chair on a porch in a sweater and write write write in the richness of life in Ohio.  Maybe.

Ah, Ohio!  I’m yours!  Yours forever!

But not yet.