Create the path that is right for you.




Sun 6/29


I look out my bedroom window as I lie there; the garden all green and growing. I've got begonias in soft peach colors growing in the wheelbarrow, in back of which a long rectangle, my northwest wall, grows two variety of cosmos, marigolds, scabiosa, zinnias, asters, blue cornflowers, dianthus; the baby's breath flowers were my only failure.

Then there's the vegetable garden with tomatoes, lettuce, swiss chard, basil, cucumber, poblano chilies, green beans, corn, (tough time with corn, something underground keeps eating the seeds,) scallions, radishes, thyme, parsley. A hydrangea plant and another of unknown species (it came from my last apartment; I cut a piece off when I left, bask at the southeast end of the garden. Against the northwest wall I am growing black, deep rose, and orange coleus in clay pots, behind that I've got sunflowers growing against the fence (they were a giveaway from Burpee seeds.)

The other wall? My picnic table with its pot of a red and white begonias on it. But tonight as I lie here looking out my window, I see very little of this, rather I am treated with the sight of fireflies cruising along, one then another, little sparkles in the night and a soft breeze at the window. Not bad.

I went for another audition this week. It was for the part of an FBI superior; they emailed me the sides thus allowing me to memorize my lines. Four lines which are by now imbedded in my mind for the rest of my life. The company wants to make a pilot for a TV show called Boukovsky, Russian mafia guys against the law, sounds interesting. In my lines, I grill a hot dog, junior agent about opening an investigation against the Boukovskys. I had 3 days to learn the lines and I prepared myself thinking how to play my role. A female FBI superior is someone who's had to deal with hot dogs all the way up to her present position of power. She's got to be tough, smart and strong.

In the end, one has to trust one's instincts about what will happen in the little room where strangers wait to size you up. I wore a black pantsuit, cream colored blouse and gold disc earrings Ð a professional. I must say, it went very well. They even gave me an actor to work with. I played it low key and masterly. Later that evening I decided I had crossed the Rubicon, I could now call myself an actor.

Another such crossing occurred in my neighborhood this week. Since I have moved to Harlem getting my clothes washed has been the bane of my life. The women working in these places take pleasure in disrespecting me and wreaking havoc with my clothes. So I tried having the clothes picked up at my house and delivered, but that was absurd costing me double what I normally pay. I then tried getting them done in the Columbia neighborhood; it entailed lugging laundry up the equivalent of 5 flights of stairs. During all this time I have been angry and unforgiving of my neighbors. I made a point not to shop in Harlem. No way was I going to spend my money in business establishments where I was treated contemptuously.

With two weeks worth of laundry and a dwindling supply of panties, I had run out of ideas, and places to take my laundry, I decided to return to the Laundromat where I first took my clothes and wash it myself. I bring a magazine and settle in, only 2 other people in the place. After my laundry is washed and dried I offer the magazine to a woman. Reading material being akin to a bottle of water in the desert at a Laundromat, I am gratefully blessed. I have decided to forgive and get beyond this. I am not liked by some people here; that's a fact.

I say, deal with it!