Moviemaker Mind

“You need a life coach” my friend Nancy declared. I agree. Sometimes she says things that are so simple but profoundly true and her genuine compassion makes her messages reach their target. Her statement got me to thinking and now it is 3:30 am and I am back at the keyboard. I do indeed need a life coach.

The pattern is the same, I acknowledge. It is almost as though I surface to the 1st dimension where people do all those real life things and then I submerge again to that strange other place.

Somewhere in there I think there is a lack of self-confidence about that 1st dimension. I know that I never received instruction of a true practical value from either of my parents. I did, however, take to heart the principles of fair play, honesty, honor, courage and ‘good breeding’. I was taught to do what is right – no matter what the price. Not that I have only done what is right but in things I deemed as significant like standing up to a bully, a gun-waving maniac, saying no to making a cigarette commercial for Benson & Hedges – that sort of thing – I have done the right thing.

Unfortunately, I have always shot from the hip, reacted to attack and walked away from cutthroat situations because I refuse to compete or take ‘crap’ and bolted for freedom and an uncertain fate. I am learning to think first these days.

Here late in my forties my parents are saying things like: “you should’ve been a writer” and, “you should’ve stayed in nursing”. Well, you can keep the nursing part, honey! As for the writer – I don’t know that my style is market friendly.

But that brings me back to the point of where I am now – 49, barely surviving financially, in a strange country with no ‘real’ job. My entire life I remember my parents absolutely loathing their jobs. It so profoundly affected me that I made an oath to myself when I was very young that I would never ever continue in any job that I loathed just to pay the bills.

Due to my erratic school career – too many schools with minimal choices for subject matter – I never seemed to be anywhere long enough to find direction or validation. And once you’re marked as a troublemaker you’re doomed. If you weren’t the mathematical type, you were forbidden from studying Latin or taking woodwork.

I wanted so much to study Latin, I loved the way the words looked and sounded. It was like a secret code. I was so envious of the kids who were smart enough to do math. Instead I was forced to take Domestic Science (the only non Math-hinged course available to girls) and got into a great deal of mischief and subsequent failing grade. Making the livid purple cake and encouraging a classmate to drink an entire bottle of food colorant did not help my case.

I studied the dictionary while other kids paid attention in class. I would wonder how the words came into being. Who started to give a particular something an associate word or sound? Like ‘bucket’ – if you say it over and over it takes shape and you can tell that it fits. There are thousands of words like that. I would daydream all day long, all year long about life, pirates, adventurers, ancient history, philosophy and how I could make my mother happy.

Now I am ready to finally leave school and be a grown up. At least, I think so. It could change.