Pulling Me

I have to pay extra attention to my blog today. I have been ignoring it. I've written in it once today but I can feel that it needs more of me. What kind of partner am I? Not even a glance, a tap, or a reach since Monday.

I thought about my blog all the time though. Felt guilty for not holding up my end of the bargain. The broken promises, the instability, oh my, my blog deserves more. So going forward I will promise my blog that I will be more sensitive. I will listen when it beckons and not make excuses. I'm too tired, I have a headache, I need to work, I just don't feel like it. Those excuses don't work anymore because I am a grown up and I must be responsible. Keep my word, do what I say. If I did everything I said I would I think my life would have more color. I am going to work on this. It takes a lot to paint everyday and I am going to change my palette little by little. It's weird to me though. I've been using the same colors for a long time. I've always been a black, white, pink and sometimes red girl. Oh and purple, love me some purple. I will not let fuschia or canary yellow or cobalt blue intimidate me anymore. I'll do bright and vibrant for a while and see where it leads me.

I used to be so adventurous. Traveled on my own through Europe when I was 22 years old. I went for three months with three hundred dollars. Long story - that involves Roman Catholic nuns, Italian guitar players, Vespa's on the Amalfi Coast and gypsy's on the train from Switzerland to Venice, Italy. (Best pasta I ever had in my life was in Venice, made with black squid ink, beauty like I've never seen and so romantic I want to go there right now) Around this time I had located my teenage father that had grown up and become the CFO of Giorgio Armani. Translation - he was loaded. I was raised in a tenement building with my mother and my grandparents. She was a secretary and we went to restaurants that offered blue plate specials.

Anyway when I graduated from college in Boston, my long lost Richie Rich father, puffed his chest up and offered me either a car or a trip to Europe as a present. I didn't think twice about it, I was getting on a jet plane. My mother was bitter and furious and told me I was on my own. She wasn't giving me a dime. So I scrambled for extra shifts at the Limited Express and saved my pennies. When I boarded that plane I had three hundred dollars.

The only redeeming quality about my out of work, poet, singer, college boyfriend other than his fleeting good looks is he hooked me up big time with places to stay in Italy and Spain. He spoke three languages was very charming and always got what he wanted. (Sad to say, that is not the case anymore and he's had to deal with a big fat case of karma, squandered talent and a beer belly.) So snake charmer called all his buddies, cast his spell and I was staying on a vineyard in Tuscany, with sunflowers as far as your eyes could see. I ate buffalo mozzarella with fresh tomatoes and basil from the garden everyday for lunch. I drank homemade wine and read "For Whom The Bell Tolls" by Ernest Hemingway. I threw that book with tears in my eyes when I read the last page. To this day it is my favorite book. My time in Tuscany is a whole separate entry that ends with a proposal on a bus in Rome in front of the ancient Ruins. I said no and Italian boy barraged me with love letters on sheet music. I still have them stored in my mother's hope chest.

I remember being in love with that Tuscan lifestyle. The simplicity of it all. The Italian's love to love. It is normal to them. Just like the fresh food and the fine wine, the eating together at the dinner table and the conversations. Sweet and easy. I was pulled and I pulled the other way. I wasn't ready.

So for now, I eat pasta late in booth one by myself, made by the dishwasher from Guatemala. He is the best cook in the joint. It is perfect and tastes like Italy.
I made the right decision.
People depend on me and look to me for answers.
I lock the doors, sip my wine and contemplate my next adventure.