Melancholy > Happiness

"I am not a happy person. There are things that do make me experience joy. But joy is a fleeting emotion, like a very long sneeze. A lot of the time what I feel is, interested. Or I feel melancholy. And I also frequently feel tenderness, annoyance, confusion, fear, hopelessness. It doesn't all add up to anything I would call happiness. But what I'm thinking is, is that so terrible?

...Happiness is a treadmill of a goal for people who are not happy by nature. Being an unhappy person does not mean you must be sad or dark. You can be interested, instead of happy. You can be fascinated instead of happy."

THIS IS HOW by Augusten Burroughs  

No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction; a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.
― Martha Graham 


* * * * * * * * * * *

The irony is that I happen to be posting this on a day, at a time of my life when I feel more "happy" than not.  I guess that's why I'm thinking about it.  Because what I've posted above pertains to me so specifically that when I am in a longer "happy" phase, it feels foreign.  I know how fleeting it is.  I can't relax into it too much.    

I also feel great comfort in the above.  It's me! I've just never known how to put it into words before.  And it let's me know that how I am and how I feel is OK.  

Tweet me @DeenaMarie 

You.

Unreal.  I can't believe you! Who would have known? You are still here! You continue to show us the ways that you are here.  You haven't left at all.  Today I knew it more certainly than before.  Even though I really did know all along.  Today it made me happy.  Today you made me laugh out loud.  You did.  I am choked up from it still.  My eyes are full of tears, but it's not sadness in me.  Not at all.  You come to visit.  You didn't leave, and you know we certainly didn't leave you.  You are still here.  

You.  

Keep coming to visit, please.  

There is no death, only a change of worlds - Chief Seattle 

Of this, I'm certain. 

Everything.

The word of the moment.
The word of the soul (my soul, reflected of yours).
Everything.  All things.  
To the brim.
Full.
So filled up, I've run out. 
The assignment of the vessel, I carry out, I tire. 
A blip in my endlessness.  
We end where we begin and begin where we end again and again.  
In all things.  In everything.  

NYC bound once again...

If you are a loyal reader of my blog then you know how I feel about NYC (In fact, you might have read the 40 posts that make up "My New York Diaries").  I love it there.  NYC has been my mistress since I was 10 years old.  I am always drawn to her.  Sometimes we fight, but she always has a part of my heart.  We are never finished.

Life is so funny.  If I can boil down all I've learned so far, it's that there is no such thing as sticking to a plan.

You may also know that my life completely changed nearly four months ago, since Chuck.  I find myself silently saying, "Thank you, Chuck", daily.

I said it before and a I'll say it again, these last few months have been everything and everything has been in these last few months.

If you told me at the beginning of the year that the chain of events since then would have led me to this spot today, I'd never have believed it.

I feel a special connection to theatre all over again.  Every so often you fall in love all over again.  I've realized that's where I've ended up right now.  In love.

Everything has been new since the shedding of my old skin four months ago.  I see differently with these new eyes.  I've fallen in love all over again.  With my husband.  My pets.  My family.  My life.  My career.  It's all new.

Because of this I have a rekindled drive to learn, to get better, to immerse in what I love, to live.

When I graduated from high school, I had a scholarship to Southern Utah University.  I wanted to study Shakespeare.  But at that time, I knew a small town would have been suffocating to me.  Then Westminster theatre department courted me.  They talked me into it.  I figured I'd try it there a year while I figured out what school to go to in NYC and I had a great time.  But as soon as I could I was off to NYC where I graduated form the wonderful Atlantic Theater Company Acting school.  I took summer courses through NYU's CAP 21 (musical theatre) and  a few years later fall courses through Juilliard.  When I came home I was lucky to keep working, and eventually, working professionally.

I've always known I love acting because it is never the same.  We are different people all through life, every few years.  Everything we go through changes our relationship and ability to the stage and roles we play.  We are never, ever done learning and getting better.  The reason why we perform is a constant question and the answer changes through time.

Right now I can best tell you I do it because it is my particular outlet to be part of storytelling.  Storytelling is essential to remind us we are all much more alike than we remember.  It is a way to heal.  It is something to relate to.  To give comfort.  To give hope.  To be part of the same whole in a world where we so often forget that.  I like to participate in that reminder.  I feel most like me when I'm doing so.  I feel most alive when watching it done well.

What I learn through acting, through my spiritual journey, through life is always the same lesson in a different way.  That all things come down to one thing: we are part of the same whole.  We truly are all one.  Made of the same stuff, reflections of each other.

Synchronicity is everywhere.  I won't go into those details but a chain of them led me to this perfect timing of being able to fly out the morning after the beautiful "The Winter's Tale" closes (Sept. 30) and stay with good friends through mid November.

I will miss my sweetheart and pup so much I want to cry every time I think about it.  It will be the longest time I've ever been away from them.  But I have also recently learned that time is tricky and that everything is so very, very fleeting.  If my sweetheart wasn't this incredible, I wouldn't be able to go.  Because he is the way he is, he fuels me to follow my heart.

I'm going to immerse myself in what I love.  For this NYC trip, and in life.

I'm going to be studying Shakespeare with Seth Barrish of The Barrow Group as well as various workshops, including Red Bull Theater.  I am going to visit friends, my favorite places, read and write.

An artists sabbatical, in a way.  I have no idea what to expect.  But as I've learned, such is life.


*favorite previous entries:


The Summer My Uncle Died 

The Always of Opposites

I'm Going to Need a Minute



Tweet me: @DeenaMarie

Self.

What she said.

"For a start we can think about all the times when we do lose ourselves.  It happens when I dance, when I'm acting.  I'm earthed in my essence and my self is suspended.  In those moments I'm connected to everything.  The ground.  The air.  The sounds.  The energy from the audience.  All my senses are alert and alive.  In much the same way as an infant might feel.  That feeling of oneness.  And when I'm acting a role, I inhabit another self and I give it life for awhile.  Because when the self is suspended so is divisiveness and judgement."



I'm earthed in my essence and my self is suspended. 

Wow.  Exactly.



"And I honestly believe the key to my success as an actor and my progress as a person has been the very lack of self that used to make me feel so anxious and insecure."


I said this very thing in a different wording yesterday when I got home from one of those turning point rehearsals (specifics coming in a later blog).  I can't believe the lifetime I've lived in the last three months.  They have been everything.  And everything has been within them.

First celebrity crush

"Who was your first celebrity crush?"

That question was brought up last night on a break during rehearsal.  

Mine? Brad Renfro.  I'll never forget the first time I saw him, it was in the movie "Tom & Huck".  Something happened that day that hadn't happened to me before.  Woah.  I was obsessed for a long time after.  I'd daydream about driving to Tennessee to meet him.  Sure that at first sight he was going to fall madly in love with me.  What can I say? I was super young.  I rented his other movies, watched them countless times until they were memorized.  Plastered my bedroom walls with pictures of him.

Unfortunately his cuteness didn't last much longer.  He was at his peak of dreamy-ness in "Tom & Huck" for sure.

When he died in 2008 I heard about it from my mom in a text.  My dad had told her and neither one of them wanted to tell me.  I couldn't believe it.  It still bothers me.


I'll always hold a special place in my heart for the one who paved the way! 

Cracked. Open.

Today I am cracked open.  I began cracking last week when I picked up a new book.

How do you explain cracked open? It is just that.  It is the image above.  That's the first image that popped into my mind when wondering how to tell you exactly how I feel.

Last week I was at the bookstore with my dad.  I was picking out a mug for my mom before heading into the books.  I had it in my hands.  "The Universe Knows" it said on one side.  "Enjoy the Journey" said the other.  I turned around and found myself face to face with a new book by one of my favorite authors, Augusten Burroughs.  Unlike his others, this one was in the new releases in self-help.

What?

You know how I've said before it seems like we end up reading exactly what we should be at the exact right moment? I wish I would have waited to say that until now.  :)

Only...I'm equally aware of how universal this book is.  Because while what we experience is unique to us, we are all so much more alike than we remember.

A couple of years ago I saw the documentary "I AM" by Tom Shadyac, and I felt it should be required viewing for all mankind.  No, really.  After just having just now finished  "This is How", I am declaring for the second time in my life, having just come across something that should be required reading for all mankind.

Sometimes someone unexpected words something in just the right way.

Again, we just don't know what it is we don't know.  And we don't know, until we know.

If I get into this deeply, and I'd like to, I'd be here for hours.
So please...just get it? Buy it? Borrow it?

Life changing.  Healing.  Clarity.  Comfort.  Shaken.  I am experiencing all at once.

My views on body image, happiness, confidence and being present have all been altered.

It is the book for you.  For me.  For everyone you know.  Please don't let the self-help category throw you.  If it could be found under "Guidance for any and every human being for any and every reason", that would do it greater justice.


Please.  Please.  Please.  Please.  Read.



Read some excerpts 

Tweet me: @DeenaMarie 
Facebook.com/TheDeenaShow

16 years

A couple of weekends ago I wore this dress.  The one other time I wore it? Sixteen years before.  I've saved all the dresses I've worn to school dances and proms.  This one was from a Valentine dance.

I needed something for a party where women were supposed to wear red, and since it was outside and hot this was all I could think of.  I had to do a side by side picture.  I'm posting and writing about this not for the reasons you might think.  Not to tell you to look how it still fits, that's not interesting.  By the time I was about 14 or 15 is when my body pretty much figured out where it wanted to be in terms of height and weight.  I have only strayed (both below and above) under circumstances that weren't natural for me.  Like recovering from a surgery (really skinny) and first moving to NYC where I drank and ate too much for awhile (the plumpest I've been).  My body knows and fights for where it wants to be.

So now that that's out of the way, what I couldn't get over was the person in the dress.  That's what was interesting to me.  What she's gone through in the nearly two decades since she last wore this very same thing!

Who she was before, and who she is now.

I couldn't believe the path that little girl had yet to go down when she went to her Valentine dance, what she would experience over the next sixteen years of her life.

And I wanted to try to write it.



Prom dates and roller skates
First kisses and first heartbreaks
Shorter hair and leading roles
Brand new friends and theatre goals
Platform shoes, a first job at the mall
Egging houses with friends and taking the fall
Coming of age with the first time
Getting sick from mixing liquor with wine
Holding a school office, graduation day
My second visit to New York City and wanting to stay
Westminster College for a year,
Meeting a new best friend to this day I hold dear
Moving across the country at nineteen years old
My world upside down with how New York unfolds
Meeting the boy of my dreams my first day there
Feeling I'd die when two years later he didn't care
Another graduation and in our final play the lead
Moving home when my family was my need
One chapter began when this one was past
Jumping into the wrong relationship and engaged too fast
Back to New York and this time with him
Breaking up and back home to do a new play on a whim
This is the part where life truly starts for me
Growing into the adult I was always meant to be
A new man in the picture, not at all like the rest
He would become my husband, he would be the best
A taste of what fame feels like, at last
YouTube, TV, news, press, runways, happening so fast
The goal of an equity card would at last come true
My first dog (a bird a cat and a frog) would live in my home, too
Many people many plays all add up the story of me
Then would come the summer of 2012, and from new eyes I'd forever see
The first funeral and loss of someone dear
His leaving taught me everything and what's precious I now keep near.
Brand new plans and the biggest chapters still ahead
To the little girl in the red dress, all this I would have said.


Tweet me: @DeenaMarie

Three months. Three things.

Yesterday was the 27th.  Three month mark.


What I've learned:
You don't know until you know.
You don't know what it is you don't know.
You do until you don't.
You don't until you do.
In all things.
In everything.


Body:
We are not our bodies,
yet we are at the mercy of what they decide to do.
Despite thinking that we are them/own them/know them.
Take care of them.
They house our essence.
They betray.


Reading:
Halfway through with "The Book Thief".  Damn it's great.
It's like slices of the following,
"Fahrenheit 451", "Matilda", "Life is Beautiful" & "Meet Joe Black".


A Bonus:
Life always gives us exactly the teacher we need at every moment. 
This includes every mosquito, every misfortune,
every red light, every traffic jam, 
every obnoxious supervisor (or employee),
every illness, every loss,
every moment of joy or depression,
every addiction, every piece of garbage, 
every breath.
Every moment is the guru.

-Charlotte Joko Beck

Dolores Haze.

I still can't get over "Lolita".  What words.  

What beautiful, beautiful, beautiful words.  

Humbert Humberts poem is in my head every day.  

One day, that last line will get tattooed on me. 

Wanted, wanted: Dolores Haze.
Hair: brown. Lips: scarlet.
Age: five thousand three hundred days.
Profession: none, or "starlet"

Where are you hiding, Dolores Haze?
Why are you hiding, darling?
(I Talk in a daze, I walk in a maze
I cannot get out, said the starling).

Where are you riding, Dolores Haze?
What make is the magic carpet?
Is a Cream Cougar the present craze?
And where are you parked, my car pet?

Who is your hero, Dolores Haze?
Still one of those blue-capped star-men?
Oh the balmy days and the palmy bays,
And the cars, and the bars, my Carmen!

Oh Dolores, that juke-box hurts!
Are you still dancin', darlin'?
(Both in worn levis, both in torn T-shirts,
And I, in my corner, snarlin').

Happy, happy is gnarled McFate
Touring the States with a child wife,
Plowing his Molly in every State
Among the protected wild life.

My Dolly, my folly! Her eyes were vair,
And never closed when I kissed her.
Know an old perfume called Soliel Vert?
Are you from Paris, mister?

L'autre soir un air froid d'opera m'alita;
Son fele -- bien fol est qui s'y fie!
Il neige, le decor s'ecroule, Lolita!
Lolita, qu'ai-je fait de ta vie?

Dying, dying, Lolita Haze,
Of hate and remorse, I'm dying.
And again my hairy fist I raise,
And again I hear you crying.

Officer, officer, there they go--
In the rain, where that lighted store is!
And her socks are white, and I love her so,
And her name is Haze, Dolores.

Officer, officer, there they are--
Dolores Haze and her lover!
Whip out your gun and follow that car.
Now tumble out and take cover.

Wanted, wanted: Dolores Haze.
Her dream-gray gaze never flinches.
Ninety pounds is all she weighs
With a height of sixty inches.

My car is limping, Dolores Haze,
And the last long lap is the hardest,
And I shall be dumped where the weed decays,
And the rest is rust and stardust.

Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita, Chapter 25

Tweet me @DeenaMarie 

And then I went to the hospital.

Last thursday I ended up in the ER.  What.  The.  Hell.  

Remember how I've blogged nonstop about all the changes that have happened in the last three months (three months tomorrow, to be exact)? And how these changes have been both emotional and physical? And how one of said changes is that I've taken up running? Yeah.  So I've been doing a lot of that.  Thursday I ran for nearly one hour straight.  That's big for me.  Running is so new.  I've worked out regularly for a couple years now, but never all this running.  When I run, I sweat.  Like, massive amounts.  When I get off the treadmill and come upstairs, I look like I've gotten out of the shower.  

There have been a handful of times I've gotten an exercise headache after I've worked out.  It happened twice after zumba, twice after the treadmill.  When I'd looked this up before, I learned I was probably dehydrated and or shouldn't drop my head below my heart.  So I gave up certain post zumba stretches and started to drink more water.  Thursday I drank a water bottle and a couple big glasses.  I felt the headache coming on again.  This was number four, and each time I've had one it's been worse than the last.  

I was trying to ignore it, and went to run errands hoping I could will it to go away.  I had so much to do.  Missing that nights rehearsal, or the next days audition was just not an option.  But by the time I was leaving downtown and on the freeway headed home that afternoon is when things got scary.

The headache was horrible.  It felt like my brain was so swollen in my head, everything was going to pop.  The pressure hurt into my face.  I could feel it in my nose.  My hands and feet took turns feeling tingly and slightly numb.  I was a little dizzy.  I started getting waves of panic where I'd get hot and short of breath.  I wasn't...right.  I was having a hard time staying present.  I felt like I could barely get home.  I have never been so not myself.  I thought I was having a stroke, or something was happening in my brain that shouldn't be.  At the rate things were happening, I figured I only had a few minutes before I would pass out or stop understanding english.  I knew I couldn't drive.  I felt claustrophobic.  I couldn't get to a spot to pull over fast enough.  The freeway seemed endless.  When I realized I wouldn't make it home, I at least wanted to get off the freeway.  

I was able to get off and park my car in a parking lot and call my mom.  She called my dad, who was closer to where I'd ended up and he was there in no time.  I called my sweetheart and I don't know what I said.  My parents called him back once they got me, and he left his studio to meet us.

I was having a hard time and was trying to calm myself, to no avail.  This was like nothing I'd ever felt.  I couldn't will myself to do anything.  I was totally silent.  I didn't want to talk because I was afraid I might not make much sense and I knew I'd need to save my concentration for talking to the doctors.  Yup.  Doctors.  I knew I needed to go straight to the emergency.  No way could I go home and wait for this to pass.  No way could I fight it off.  It was worsening.  I was getting worried.  

We pulled up and my mom got there at the same time.  They brought a wheelchair out for me and after I explained myself at the ER window, telling them it had to do with my head, I was taken back almost instantly.

Then came the IV.  I've had them a few times before.  This one was the worst.  It hurt! A combination of not being able to find a vein that anything would come out of, and my whole predicament made me cry like a baby.  

Long story short, I work out hard regularly, sweat like crazy and don't replenish my electrolytes.  Turns out water made it worse because I was diluting myself of them further.  He also told me I need to fuel myself.  I'll need to eat something pre workout.  I was low on potassium too, so I had a cup full of a potassium drink.  I sucked down the IV super quick.  I also had a CT scan (everything was fine) and morphine.  Woah.  When I have been at the doctor, or sick, or scared I start freezing and shaking and my teeth chatter like crazy.  Thank goodness for warm blankets.  

It was terrifying to me to experience what it feels like to not trust my body.  To not know what my brain is doing.  It was a wake up call to learn that the way I've treated my body for my entire life is now no longer working.  Once again, everything really has changed.  That if I hope to one day have a baby this stress on my body is exactly what I want to avoid.  I need to fuel prior to a workout.  

What I need to do, is learn.  What and when to fuel.  How much my body needs and wants to work out.  How much gatorade I'll need now with each workout.  

Good thing I love gatorade.  

I thought I knew what my body wanted and when.  Obviously what I'm doing is no longer working.  That's hard to wrap my brain around.  What didn't I know, feel, or see coming? And why?

I never, ever want to feel this shitty and have to end up in the ER like this again.  

Thank goodness for my sweetheart and parents who never left my side and took great care of me.

I don't know what I'd do without my favorite three.  

My dad sent me that pic in the hospital bed saying he's going to sell them to the paparazzi, ha ha. Me at my finest.  Hospital light and wardrobe is clearly not flattering for an impromptu photo shoot.  

Tweet me @DeenaMarie 

Me.

She parcels out her personality.  Only few end up with a rich sum.
Very few, indeed.

She keeps close and does not reveal the guts within the core.
Each parceled part, particle, varies greatly depending on environment and aura.
Depends on which version of her you met her during.

Letting out one sliver in one part of her life, she is at constant risk of misrepresentation
for it is not worth any riches to any in her presence.

To be next to her, to speak to her, is not to know her.

In another part, you get nearly all.  And if you are close enough and give enough in return, you affect and inspire and exchange.

A carefully crafted lifetime of being the asker of all, revealer of none,
she's certain no one sees past the smoke and mirrors through to the simplicity of her great trick.

To her own dismay,
doing this has taught her to shut it down rather than invite it in.

They only know she's made them feel important,
and if the exchange goes on long enough, a bit of her strength and other-wordly
qualities just might rub off.

Even so, when you walk away see if you can describe her.
Truly, try.  Make it meaningful.

You can't.

Sometimes so lost inside, she feels gone are those glory days when regal 
was a world used to describe her.
When she was special.  When she was the chosen one.

You see, it is because some days she experiences her physical presence as much larger, bulkier than it ever has been or will be because of the weight of the world that sometimes swells too much unseen inside.

These are heavy days.  It's hard to move through her atmosphere in this little slice of life on those days.

Other days she is certain she's hardly dwelling in her person at all, but beyond!
Radiating through her little space of world with all that is true in her heart.

In great danger of romanticizing everything and experiencing any and every exchange as too much, she seeks instinctually for more.  It is primal.  This need in her to have everything truly be as deep and and as worthy of the importance she assigns it.
She will make it so.

Her nervous system feels inside out sometimes and she is afraid it seeps closer to it's way out of her physicality the older she grows.

Her static feelers out to the world, translating back to her the various levels of sensitivity before she even gets that far, effective immediately.

Certain only of the fact that she is not at all her person, but a complex web, buzzing and alive, a star system too forcefully stuffed into something much to small to retain.

Constant restriction, because she is just too big.



Tweet me: @DeenaMarie

Above photo by Lauren's Photography 8/2012

Everything is fleeting

The shaved head.  An update. 

Picture above was taken yesterday on exactly the two month mark since the shave. 

Hard to believe it was first this:

And that I actually did this:

Everything is so fleeting.  Every stage, every age, every version of you and your loved ones.  In learning this, I don't mind one bit having to go through what you might call "awkward" phases of growing out my hair.  In fact, I like it.  I like that right now it wants to be in a mohawk.  Chances are, it never will be again so why not embrace it? Once that part's gone, it's gone.  

Just like when I did the initial shave.  I can't believe I crossed something off my bucket list and it's already behind me! Sure it was two months ago, but I've already forgotten what it was like to walk around with it all buzzed off.  

So many people ask why I did it.  If you don't know, please take a second to read this: 

WHY I SHAVED MY HEAD

I've never been as present as I have been the last (nearly) three months since CHUCK.  I've also never experienced such a rapid inner growth and had this much change thrust upon me.  It's made me appreciate change all the more.  I long for it.  

Forward momentum.  Metamorphosis.  Accept and allow. 

I've been meaning to post this TED talk for quite some time, one of my favorites and one that has really resonated at this particular time.  

Neil Pasricha: The 3 A's of awesome 

Please take 17 minutes and watch this.  You'll be so happy you did! 

"The cashiers at your grocery store, the foreman at your plant, the guy tailgating you home on the highway, the telemarketer calling you during dinner, every teacher you've ever had, everyone that's ever woken up beside you, every politician in every country, every actor in every movie, every single person in your family, everyone you love, everyone in this room...and you...will be dead in 100 years.  Life is so great that we only get such a short time to experience and enjoy all those tiny little moments that make it so sweet.  And that moment is right now and those moments are counting down and those moments are always always always fleeting.  You will never be as young as you are right now." 

- Neil Pasricha 

Tweet me: @DeenaMarie 

"There shall Jane's heart always break"

It's hard to have a second to write all that I have swirling in me now that rehearsals have started, but there are a couple things I need to get out before they're too distant.

I've said before how it feels like you pick up a book and it feels like it's always the exact right time to be reading it?

I was in a play this time last year with an actress who said that pertaining to theatre.  I've thought about it ever since, trying to match up past roles with life and feel like it pertained.  But I kept coming up empty.  As far as a new challenge in an acting career, I agreed.  I've been lucky to keep getting handed a role that happens to be something unlike what I've ever done.  But in relation to life, it hadn't really happened.

Yet.

Monday was the first night of "The Winters Tale" rehearsal, where I listened to the director talk beautifully and passionately about this play being a story of "forgiveness, healing and coming back to life".  The importance of the god Apollo mentioned through the story, who is of course, the god of healing.

I was choked up the entire night.

The read through was magical.  Time was suspended.  Everything was new.

This, along with the youth of the cast makes this feel completely fresh again.  The talk of bravery and guts (you all know brave is my favorite word ever since my favorite acting teacher introduced me to bravery in school in NYC) stirred in me the feelings I used to feel ten years ago when embarking on a play.  The kind of primal excitement and need to do this.  The tingle of the new.

So, clearly I am supposed to have this role, this play, at this time.  Synchronicity.

What a sneaky little universe!

I am beginning to heal and come back to life in my real life slowly and surely.  I want this theatre experience, this "The Winters Tale" to be my own personal Apollo, and I think it just will.


* * *

To remember only the rich parts.  To remember what I want, how I want.
To acknowledge, to get through mourning and to propel.
It does happen.  One day, you realize it's time to move.
Back to life.  Come back to life.
"Gone" is done.  The only choice is new.
Create.  Life.  Go.
To accept and allow and choose consciously.
Forward, forward, forward now.


* * *

I've still got bits of "Lolita" ruminating in me, too.  The last few days have been, well, a lot.  Another goodbye on saturday night, a new adventure beginning on monday.  Big time decisions being made for my life.  Feeling the need for profound change and moving forward now.  No longer time to stew in sadness, but to move ahead.

Dear New York City,
You took yet another away three days ago.  People always leave me on a Sunday.
I have lost (and gained) so much from you.  Lost people, lost loves, lost you.
New York City to me, is where I am Jane...

In me right now, fittingly...

"We all have such fateful objects -- it may be a recurrent landscape in one case, a number in another -- carefully chosen by the gods to attract events of specific significance for us: here shall John always stumble; there shall Jane's heart always break.”

― Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

Lolita

How beautiful. What a poet. When you hear "gifted author" it's those like Nabokov they're talking about. What I would give to be able to write like him! This book is absolutely relatable for any human being who has ever experienced love. Love takes many forms. Love is never black or white, but grey, grey, grey. "Grey" being used frequently as the book goes on is fitting. 

It is for those of us (all of us) who have had "wrong", "misplaced" and unrequited love in whatever the form may have been or may be. What a deep portrait is painted for us in Humbert! Yes, he clearly is stunted in his sexual development due to his Ephebophilia. But it is a very real thing and the "controversy" comes from a book written with his point of view. It is taboo in society. 

But people are people and made the people they are by the strange string of events that make up a life. By what you endure, the hand fate deals you, and the cruel mistress of time. So why not hear this story? 

His story is told with great humanity and background, making us sorry for the love and happiness he'll never have. Lolita, too, is a character held accountable by her promiscuity, by the fact that the one she does love is also a much older man, and by the fact that she (dear reader!) seduces him.  Of course one can argue she's a child manipulated. But she plays her game too, and is not painted as an innocent by any means. If she were, we'd have a far different tale on our hands.

By the time they have the conversation when she is married and pregnant, I was choked up with my sorrow for Humbert. "He broke my heart. You broke my life". Even when he had her, he never had her. 

We can relate to the just out of reach kind of love. We can relate to madness, jealousy and paranoia that comes hand in hand with that just out of reach kind of love. The point of the book is when Humbert says, " It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight." 

I hardly considered this an erotic novel, since any descriptive or exploitative sex is omitted. What an author to build and describe the longing before anything actually happens that it is actually palpable to the reader. 

I also believe everyone has flashes (to various extents) of a "strange" attraction, or fetish. Most will deny or push away to fit a norm. We all have dark thoughts and feelings at one time or another, we just vary in the depths of it. How deeply we acknowledge, connect to, and live it. 

I am sorry for Humbert as his sexuality remains stunted, and his body ages (in wonderful and terribly sad words), knowing he is surpassing...the outside isn't a match for the inside. 

This sparks discussion of the double standard. This novel to some is "dirty" or "bad", but why is it "hot" or "okay" for "MILFS" to get excited over the heartthrobs of "Twilight" or "High School Musical"?

Youth is always attractive. 

Also, I'm sure parents feel something differently with this story as well. But, Lolita is not six (again, would have been a FAR different story). I also know how I felt and what I thought during her range of ages in the book and, well, I was not always in a "little girl" mindset, either. Given the chance, who knows what I would have been capable of?

It is not a story of right or wrong, but a meditation on crossing the line.  There is no going back, and what happens when the point of no return ends horribly wrong.  This is not a happy love story. 

I loved it. Every word. I was hooked from word one. In my top five books of all time. 

"And the rest is rust and stardust."