Wednesday, March 17, 2010

The Curtain Rises

Have you ever been with Taurus? I don’t know about the men but the women seem to have drama, something like you would expect from Leo. I was raised by a consummate actress, Tony Award caliber, one who could direct as well. I mean this literally. She acted and directed. There is something about it. You just sit back and watch sometimes. Trouble comes when such a woman enlists you, demands that you perform. It’s for your own good, you know. I wound up defending against it on all sides. Finally my mother figured out that she didn’t want to test our relationship that much and she backed way off. She didn’t have any choice. I made sure her choices for me turned out terribly. I was a really unpleasant teen.

I have matured. Now when I run into a woman like that I just enjoy the show. I notice however, that I am not about to easily follow suggestions that come like stage directions. My last girlfriend is a marvelous example of a lady capable of producing a show. She possesses the endearing quality of not usually demanding participation. So often, what she was doing was wonderful and I freely wanted a part of it. She became the choir director for a time of the church choir we were in. She also bought for her house a Playel grand piano, in part because I can play. I loved having the chance to play that. Her best gift to me was to go into my closet when I didn’t know she did that, pull out my guitar, a 1966 Martin O-18 (parlor guitar) and go get it completely refurbished so I could play it again. She did that for my birthday in our first year together. That is the best birthday present anyone ever gave me. I had stopped playing in 1973 when I had no money and had worn out the brass frets over seven years of hard play. This gift got me to return to playing and it pushed me forward into other musical things too.

I should say about this drama thing, it might mean what we call a drama queen but it doesn’t have to. For the most part my mother was not a drama queen, just sometimes. My last girlfriend was nothing like what you would think of as a drama queen.

The Curtain Rises

The brightness reveals
you, not so bright that my eyes
shut tight in white heat
but more like stage lights
and make up would help reveal
your dramatic truth.

You are dramatic.

I hold a box seat, season
tickets to your show,
purchased at full price.

April 22, 2009 3:45 PM
modified
March 17, 2010 7:07 PM

9 comments:

  1. HA! Full price. And so it is.

    We are curious even to ourselves sometimes. Sometimes we are dramatic when we don't want to be. Sometimes it overtakes us.

    What your last girlfriend did for you with your guitar was a mighty gift. Wish all gifts could be like that. I find gift giving near unbearable any more. I want to give gifts of perfection like this but the honest truth is that the opportunity just isn't always there. Funny, that.

    xo
    erin

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  2. When someone gets your core...understand the one thing that makes your skin stand up and sing with electricity...that in itself is the exceptional gift. To have noticed your deepest need, perhaps when you yourself had forgotten.

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  3. Erin, thank you for your comments today. Yes, full price.

    Annie, I have had good fortune in this regard as well, my wife of over twenty years was magic at gifting others. My last girlfriend too. I am terrible. My taste is not much good and I lack the kind of courage that gift giving requires. I just want to throw money or gift certificates at the problem, or flowers.

    The whole issue lays me flat, which is probably why word verification's word for me here is "prone".

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  4. I avoid drama when I can. I lived with a queen of drama for the first twenty years of my life. That was enough for me.

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  5. Karen, drama fits behind the proscenium arch. Sometimes it spills over, hence the interesting lives of actors. The worst are the wannabes who may not even know they are missing their calling to acting and get it all confused with real life.

    That's part of what is so difficult, no?

    We know it's an act, but if they are really good with the bullshit it may not be possible to exactly unravel it. Calling the drama queens (and other royalty) on it is near impossible because they often believe their own b.s. passionately.

    While my mother was not really a drama queen, she did revise history to a remarkable degree at times.

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  6. To carry the metaphor further, wouldn't it be great if you could preview the show before it opened, so you'd know if it was worth going to see? You can tell a flop from a hit pretty early on. (All my first dates have an intermission so I can muse.)

    As for the zodiac: I'm the Libra child of a Taurus father and Leo mother, which gets real aggravating at times. :P But somehow I always end up crushing on one of those two signs... maybe know what to expect.

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  7. Joseph, did your mother and father have a challenging relationship of their own? Those signs are reputed to work together with difficulty. Both are prideful, though in different ways. Taurus does not assume center stage belongs to him, and Leo is sure it does, but both are sure they belong on stage. My mother had Leo rising. That made the drama thing pretty full blown.

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  8. Pisces is Neptune's child, with a tendency to a misty and vague presence on the planet, but more than vivid dreams to make up for that. Pisces is hard to grasp, hard to keep hold of. Pisces loves the world but the world is full of fantasy. Your art feels like Pisces to me.

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The chicken crossed the road. That's poultry in motion.


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