October.05.2008
I'm looking for a nice way to say I'm out...

I want out.
We're moving.
incaseofsuccess.blogspot.com

October.05.2008
You’re awful; I love you

There’s this scene in Ocean’s 12.
Matt Damon is trying to get Tess (Julia Roberts) to pretend to be Julia Roberts. And she’s freaking out about it. At last, in desperation, she draws the line by declaring, “It’s just WRONG.”
Matt Damon stares for a few moments, then slowly, hesitantly, he asks, “You mean like…ethically…?”
And those of us watching the scene crack up.
It’s funny! It’s funny because these people are thieves. These people are liars and swindlers and they seem without moral code. But it’s also funny because we love them and this is what the world is like today.
Of course it’s not ethically WRONG. Nothing is ethically WRONG! There’s no magical ethical line anymore we can point to as dividing wrong from right. There are certainly actions we don’t AGREE with. But that doesn’t make them automatically wrong. What does wrong even mean? Is “wrong” synonymous with “sin”?
I used to think so.
It’s funny how much I used to think. “Sin” was an incredibly common word in my vocabulary growing up. After so many years of Sunday School and at Faith Christian, how could it not be? I was so judgmental, had such clear ideas of who was living in sin and who wasn’t. We all did.
But then we grew up. We realized that the Bible is a currency America doesn’t value. We realized that even if it was, it isn’t the solid ethical gold we were lead to believe. It’s unspecific; it’s cheap paper. Nothing more. And so we began to trade in our words like “sin” and “wrong” for terms we could use in public. We don’t judge anymore. We disagree. That action just isn’t “us,” just not “wise,” just “probably not a good idea.”
And most days it doesn’t bother me. Our new position isn’t weak or watered down. Our values are the same. We’ve just swapped our money out at the current exchange rate. What good is it to walk into a restaurant in America and demand that they respect your foreign currency?
I don’t know.
Most days it doesn’t bother me.
But the other day, I met a man who wanted to talk to me like we were still back in the Old Country. He wanted to draw lines of “sin” and “wrong” around me and my life. He didn’t want to bend, didn’t want to trade anything he had for anything America could offer, just so those of us over here would take him seriously.
I admit it was hard to take him seriously.
But is it so ridiculous to cling to what you were given as a child and told, “This has value. This is worth something.” Is that so crazy? Just because other people don’t understand it?
Is that so, dare I say it, WRONG?

September.18.2008
You’ve got your ball; you’ve got your chain

I feel like I won’t remember this summer. Like, I can picture myself years and years from now, telling stories about college and post-college and I can’t think of a single story from this summer that I will want to tell. Nothing really great has happened to me, nothing I’m proud of. I look back and these past four months have passed in a haze, like one drunken night, with only the sketchiest pieces knocking around in my head the next morning.
I’ve felt numb. I’ve felt uninspired. Granted, some days are better than others. But I can’t sense my own blood in my veins. Am I moving, breathing, alive? It’s been too hot, too discouraging, too slow. And every day is like the last. Only the numbers on the calendar change.
I hope beyond hope that the coming of fall will change all this. I hope as the nights get cooler, the temperature will bring my senses into clearer focus. Like water splashed on my face. Like a cup of coffee and the crunch of a leaf under my shoe. I need the cast of characters around me to assume some expressions, some emotions. I need my job to structure my days so that when I wake up, I’ll know if it’s a Tuesday or a Sunday. And I need that difference to mean something.
I need to stop feeling sorry for myself! I want my life to be about other people, not ME! God, I am so BORED with me! I’m boring! Please, please, liberate me from my own head! I need to make real friends, not just the FRIENDS on TV.
That promise, that day of hope I felt before I moved out here, that I was going to become someone? I know that it’s true. My life will still become a love story. I still believe it. I trust my premonition – if that’s what you want to call it. But I’m still waiting for it to come to pass. I’m still waiting, groping around in the California heat and smog, looking to lay my hands on that chance.
Not too long ago, Andrew asked me what I want. What do I actually WANT? And the truth is, I want impossible things. I want the loves that I’ve lost. I want back the people that have left my life. I ache with their departure and every reminder (of which there have been many, lately) of what used to be. I want impossible things.
But even more than that, I want my faith in those loves back. I want to be able to say what Katherine says with confidence – that I, we, had something incredibly beautiful. And now it’s gone. But at least I had it. And that there’s always more love to give!
I should start running. Swimming. Eating healthy. Buy a pet. Doing my laundry on a weekly schedule. Keeping the kitchen clean. Writing an hour a day.
Start making the world better instead of bitching about L.A.
I should get over myself and get over this endless summer.
And this entry is a part of it. I’ve decided to break the silence. I’m coming back from the dead.
I got a job.

July.29.2008
And when her edges soften, her body is my coffin

It has occurred to me that I will need to go on living.
When I was younger, I imagined that I would never grow old. I thought I would live briefly and brightly and die young. Immortalized. A bit of a tragedy. I don’t know why I thought so.
But lately, I’ve realized that I’m not talented enough to die all that young. I need to live thirty or forty more years at least. I’m not a genius; I won’t accomplish anything worth immortality before middle-age. I’m not a prodigy. Dammit.
At the same time, though, the prospect of a long life is looking more appealing. It’s nice to know I don’t have to be Steven Spielberg. I don’t have to be signed with Universal at 21 and the director of Jaws by 30. Those things would be nice. But I can just be myself for a while. I can figure out what I’m supposed to be doing. I can write slowly, growing into the words as they pour out of me. I can fall in love if I want to, without the pressure of my career on me like a dead weight. I can let God take care of the timetable of my life. That’s a cool thing to realize.
The problem here is that I don’t WANT to do anything but write. And since I’m NOT a prodigy, I have to find a way to live that will support (not crush) my habit. Thus, my job hunt has been unfruitful and frustrating as hell. What does the world WANT from me?!? What am I supposed to do in these years between here and there?
Good god, I’m spoiled.

June.6.2008
No amount of coffee, no amount of crying

My grandma is a really emotional person. I mean, this woman will cry at the drop of a hat. Like every time we say “Happy Birthday, Grandma,” for example. She opens the floodgates constantly, multiple times daily, it seems. But she’s also one of the strongest women I know. And at my Grandad’s funeral she faced an ocean of sympathetic friends and family – and, yes, she cried – but she kept this chin-up attitude. She’s a bastion of hope and faith. She was able to look at them all and say, “The Lord has it under control.”
My mother takes after her. My mom cries a lot. And my sister? Even more so.
And for some reason, that was never something I wanted. I always admired those girls that were bad-ass and never cried. I never thought crying was okay, had no desire to take after my grandmother or mother or big sister. I was determined to break the cycle. So I killed it. I killed my emotional impulses, spent years perfecting my methods of choking back tears. Determined not to let anyone or anything get to me. Sneered at the weakness of lesser women.
But lately, I’m realizing, my grandma is not a lesser woman. My grandma is a greater woman than I can hope to be.
Because when you really stop and think about it, about life, about love, about God…how can you NOT cry from the fullness of it all? The richness of being human brings me to my knees. My grandmother doesn’t cry when we say “Happy Birthday” because she’s being sentimental or weak in any way. She cries because she gets it. She gets how incredible moments of love and joy like that are. She grasps them in their infinite grace and just gets overwhelmed. She’s full of love. Full.
Suddenly, I want to be that. I want to be so full of love that I have to cry whenever I realize that the world is so beautiful and painful all at once. I want all those bright colors that my grandmother must see through her glasses.
After everyone left the funeral, I got to witness something. My grandmother was wheeled over to my Grandad’s coffin. And my uncle helped her out of her wheelchair. And, face to face with the body of the man she was married to for 58 years, my grandma just sighed and said, “Daddy, daddy, daddy.”
And, to me: “That’s a good picture of him. He was much more handsome than that, but that’s a good picture.”
And as I broke from the simplicity of that idea, my grandma just sat back down in her wheelchair and said, “Goodnight, Grandaddy. Goodnight.”
Love. There is so much love in her.
So screw anyone who says that crying is weak. I know strength when I see it.

May.27.2008
Lying here beside you with arms and eyes open wide

On an evening in early June, 2005, I was on my way home from the Ohio State Fair. It was the end of a good day, a hot day, sunburned and sticky with sweat and ice cream sandwiches. One of my best albums, Jimmy Eat World’s Bleed American drowned out the fair traffic and lulled me into a happy daze. I’m too short; a seatbelt strap kept me from really resting comfortably under the arm of the boy next to me in the backseat. But I was dazzled by bursts of light around me, like white-hot flashbulbs around the car, poignant streetlights in yellow and red. Crimson and clover, over and over.
That was the night of my first kiss.
But, no, that isn’t this. I was already in love then.
Okay. There was another night. It was a cold night in California, unusually and unseasonably cold for April. I didn’t realize it was so windy and I didn’t dress properly for it. So I invited someone with me back to my apartment. This was someone new in my life, someone I’d just met. Words and thoughts jumped back and forth between us like a ping-pong match, a chain of ideas we linked furiously together. We talked in desperation. We talked in earnest. We talked in relief of finally finding someone to talk to. And that night, for fear of losing it all, I asked him to stay.
And that (that!) was this.
My question, hanging in the air. The moment right before he said, “okay.” The yawning emptiness of knowing that something was about to happen.
I buried my Grandad on Saturday. And in the minutes and hours since then I’ve realized that something is about to happen to me. Something is about to happen to me.
It’s like the Conductor has raised his baton. And, momentarily, before I know it, the incredible strains of some divine symphony will come floating into my life. I feel like I’m about to begin a song that I will sing for years, with all the breath in my body. I’m going to scream it, go hoarse screaming it, let it come tumbling out of me in melodies I will already somehow know by heart.
I’m about to be a part of a love story.
My Grandad’s life was a love story – a love story between him and his God, him and my grandmother, him and his family (us, me!), and him and the strangers his met so frequently and so warmly. Him and the universe. Clarity. Music. Song.
And because that’s what I want, what I long for, what I’m created for, that is about to happen to me.
My life is about to become a love story. And maybe I’m not about to meet someone, but who cares? I am about to become someone. I can feel it. It’s all the suspense of a first kiss, the moment squeezed together in your chest before you say it, out loud, realizing that it’s going to change everything. It’s the split-second your fingers hover over the keys before you write the first word. It’s the toast before the glasses clink, like sucking in frosty air and holding it there in your lungs before you breath it back out.
I can’t wait.
Eric, you’re about to happen again.

May.23.3008
Here Comes The Flood -- Peter Gabriel

When the night shows
the signals grow on radios
All the strange things
they come and go, as early warnings
Stranded starfish have no place to hide
still waiting for the swollen Easter tide
There's no point in direction we cannot
even choose a side

I took the old track
the hollow shoulder, across the waters
On the tall cliffs
they were getting older, sons and daughters
The jaded underworld was riding high
Waves of steel hurled metal at the sky
and as the nail sunk in the cloud, the rain
was warm and soaked the crowd

Lord, here comes the flood
We'll say goodbye to flesh and blood
If again the seas are silent
in any still alive
It'll be those who gave their island to survive
Drink up, dreamers, you're running dry

When the flood calls
You have no home, you have no walls
In the thunder crash
You're a thousand minds, within a flash
Don't be afraid to cry at what you see
The actors gone, there's only you and me
And if we break before the dawn, they'll
use up what we used to be

Lord, here comes the flood
We'll say goodbye to flesh and blood
If again the seas are silent
in any still alive
It'll be those who gave their island to survive
Drink up, dreamers, you're running dry

May.12.07
Even if you cannot hear my voice, I’ll be right beside you, dear

Emma asked me today how I was doing with Oliver!.
Answer: Still processing.
Oliver! died quietly, in the midst of my trip to California, getting ready to go to Bermuda, and this, what’s happening now, the slow end of my Granddad’s life. I didn’t have to sit there, watching painfully, as every scene concluded for the last time. I didn’t have to stand on stage during senior night and say goodbye to Emma and the other seniors as they spent their last few minutes in the spotlight. It wasn’t so bad. It just faded away.
It doesn’t feel gone, doesn’t feel over. And I haven’t given myself the chance to stop and grieve. No post-show depression this time. Not even the emptiness I usually associate with the conclusion of a creative process like this. Just…it’s not done. In my heart, it’s still happening.
I did spend a lot of time during the show, though, wondering why there wasn’t joy in it. It wasn’t delightful. It wasn’t fun or exciting or uplifting. Sure, we laughed a lot. Sure, practice was the highlight of my day. And, yes, there was magic in it. But I would say overall that Oliver! came together with a sense of seriousness. Of maturity. Of desperation.
Tom Sawyer was a show full of rebellion. It seemed incredible, wonderful, impossible that we students should be given the chance to have a show to ourselves. We bucked the system and took it over, doing whatever we wanted with a spirit of ownership. It was a hilarious play, full of surprises and never-say-die attitude. We relished in our own potential. We knew it was good. We knew the school had never seen anything like it. Those were the days.
Seussical, the next year, was a young show. It was a play for kids, by kids. The handful of seniors we had that year anchored the show, but they were still a little gangling and awkward. They had a new freedom. Everyone goofed off and played and became fast friends. The show wasn’t great, but they loved doing it. It was fun. It was fun.
Then Fiddler on the Roof. An unusual fit, but a good one. Everyone stretched their newfound acting skills and tackled a little bit of drama. Yes, Fiddler ends on a downer, but it’s a comedy. And the kids played it like a comedy. They really became Anatevka, they became a town. They formed up, started realizing that they had the power to change, not to just to play.
And then Sound of Music. Betsy and Gabe stepped out of the shadows and turned in some serious performances. It was a pretty show, full of complex music and an incredibly beautiful set. Watching it on tape fills me with serenity, with love, with peace.
But Oliver! has been different. Oliver! is not young, not fun, not for anyone still growing up. Oliver! is up. And it’s not about love. It’s not about peace. It’s about pain, abandonment, manipulation, fear, and murder. The music is upbeat, but it’s not a comedy. And we didn’t play it that way. I was such a fool, sitting around wondering why we weren’t jovial and hilarious. It was because we knew the stakes. The cast is so mature now, they’re so old. They worked. Hard. And they audience rarely laughed because they knew a difficult show when they saw it. Oliver! is difficult, is dark. But it’s good.
We threw ourselves at Oliver! with feverish enthusiasm. We had to. Making it felt like an active war against the darkness. I think I wrung those kids dry.
But I love the beauty that has come out of it. It’s not happy, but it is hopeful.
It’s hopeful.

May.08.08
I won’t leave this town again without you

I forgot that people read this.
No, I mean, I literally forgot. My past few blogs have sucked so badly that I thought I would have lost you all by now. My insight is gone. My revelations are gone. Even my writing style and humor – poof! – out the window. So if you’re still reading, still hoping, still checking back every now and then to see if I’m still here…
Yes. I am still here.
And I can’t promise there will be a lot of entries from here on out, but there will be one tonight. Right now.
And here it is.
My granddad is dying. My Granddad (my Granddad.) is dying.
It seems surreal. I went into his room today, a room I’ve only been in a handful of times in my life, and there he was in bed. It was like a movie. He was so thin and old suddenly and so tired. We talked about the pink sand in Bermuda and how he should come to visit me in California soon when we both know that he never will. I held his hand and all the time just wondered how I’d come into this place, how I’d stepped into this scene. This scene where he cries and he makes me cry. He said, “I didn’t know when you were leaving on your trip and I wanted to spend some time with my sweetie.”
I told him about my dream with the hot air balloon and he started to drop to sleep in the middle of it. His eyes were closing so I asked him quick what it was like to ride in a hot air balloon and he said, “More adventurous than I can tell you.”
This isn’t me. This isn’t my life. This is a movie and the character dies, but the actor lives on. He’s going to breathe his last and some colossal voice will say, “cut!” and then he’ll open his eyes and jump, spry as he always has been, out of that bed. He’ll rub his hands together and get back to work. Back to taking care of my grandma, his wife, because after 21 years of taking care of her and 50 some odd years of marriage, it still brings him joy to help her in and out of that wheelchair and nobody can do it like he can. Back to stealing the checks from my parents when we go out to eat. Back to skiing the Rockies.
The problem is…I’m just a character too. And the characters…we don’t get to know. We don’t get to see the world with the lights and makeup people, those infernal people, making my Granddad look frail when I know it’s all a lie.
And when “cut” finally comes, I don’t get to see the actor climb off the bed and brush off the signs of cancer that were only a trick of the camera.
And, no, I can’t get there. I can’t be there. I can’t face that phone call day. Please, God, don’t make me face that phone call day. He needs to live forever. He just needs to. I know he’s tired, but he can’t stop fighting because I need him.
Please, God, don’t yell “cut” just yet.
Please.