Our young friend Taylor has dress rehearsal today for her theatrical performances tomorrow and Saturday. Three of her fans were nodding in agreement last night as she described that jittery feeling she gets before a big performance. Everyone gets butterflies when they have to stand up before a crowd and speak, dance, sing, you name it. Everyone except the rare person who enjoys the sound of his own voice so much he never realizes he is singing out of tune.Writing in this blog about personal things and feelings can leave me feeling exposed. Naked. There isn't much space between brutal emotional honesty (a good thing) and narcissistic self-absorption (not so nice). It can be hard to stay in tune. There is also pressure of another kind -- how much to actually reveal, especially about other people. Even as I work to tell my stories honestly, I'm protecting people. There are things that ought not to be revealed, not here.
One lesson from film writing was the inherent power of leaving some things unstated. And it's true of all editing processes -- what you leave out should enhance what you choose to leave in. A certain kind of pressure builds up, almost like hunger or sexual tension, if you write your way around salient facts that need to be kept confidential. You know your reader can sense that there are scenes behind the curtain, but you don't want to unduly stimulate a curiosity you won't be able to satisfy later.
Anticipation is one of the most powerful of emotional states. That fiendishly thrilling sense that something special is about to happen. Last night, in Northern California, the ground moved. Those of us in the backyard, clustered around our young actress friend, didn't feel it, but we all started acted oddly, come to think of it. Then her cellphone rang; her brother felt it just a fence (and two backyards away) inside their aunt's house.
My older kids felt it, too, inside my house. For those of us who have been through many of these shakers, it was small -- between 4.4 and 4.6 -- and distant (Sonoma). No damage was reported.
But out here when the earth moves, other things start rearranging themselves as well. Even the slightest tremor can cause a sheet of paper to shift just so, exposing the corner of a photograph you'd forgotten. As you slide it into full view, you see pretty toenail polish on the bare feet of a pretty girl in boxer shorts sitting cross-legged on a bed reading the paper. Another flood of memories...
Other changes roll in. A close friend calls: Her documentary about online dating has just been delayed until next year, due to the turmoil in the Middle East. She confides a sense of urgency now to speed up a certain social process that was otherwise moving along rather more gradually.
Then another friend emails a hot rumor; later it turns out to be true. Someone has quit his job, a familiar workplace is suddenly leaderless again.
Your 25-year-old son discovers he left his keys to the place he is house-sitting in Marin at another friend's house in San Francisco, and now he worries whether he'll be able to get into the one out there late tonight.
You're driving around, when a tiny black screw suddenly falls from the ceiling of your car, and shortly after that, a small plastic piece that holds the sun visor in place. You remember you were summoned to jury duty but you've misplaced the paper, Maybe the earthquake took it. Probably now you'll get in trouble.
Your seven-year-old realizes she left her new Converses at her Mom's house, and that she won't feel like walking to Bart in her sandals tomorrow morning when her day camp goes bowling. You've misplaced a nice bottle of wine you bought for your friendly upstairs neighbor's house-warming party; probably it rolled away in the earthquake.
Late one night, the two of us were entwined in a car. You put your hands there and your lips here and I put my hands here and my lips there. The windshield grew foggy.
Front seat feelings, you might call them. Was that real or did I imagine it? Did this happen to or with you or did it happen to or with me? Our clothing seems to have all come undone in the dark. This is pushed up, that is pushed down. This is opened, that is unsnapped. These are cast aside. When, how, why? Who did these things?
Then, there is the mystery of the two pairs of fallen pajamas on the floor next to a wall heater. They could tell a story. When was that, why did it happen that way, where exactly has that passion gone...The earthquake must have made you do it. Things come around. What happens to you happens to me. At times like this, lovers rearrange just as lost photos emerge and wine bottles roll away. So why do I feel as if ghosts are in the room? Did they shake free in the aftershocks? Who knows what could happen once ghosts are on the loose! After all, the Holy Ghost went about his business at just such a moment as this, no?
A large hunger grows within you, suddenly a rushing sound fills your head, and time feel short, very short. We are visited by a sense of scarcity -- too little time, too little money, too little love, too little opportunity. Every moment feels precious, as if we might not be here again, that there may be no future.
What looks like the start of World War III is raging in the Middle East. Editor's Pick Collection .
Q When will they ever learn? (B. Dylan)
A They? Never? None of us ever will learn, and that sucks.
So, live in each moment, as if the next one will be your last. We know the earth will be shaking again, perhaps with such violence that our houses will all fall down.
All we have is now (F.Lips).
This is not a dress rehearsal. (Me.)
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