When I am here, in my parents' house, especially in the sunroom, with sheets of rain coming down, and the trees like some sort of painted landscape, I feel shielded from all kinds of change. Especially change that I am not a part of. The change of things moving on without me.

In The Sopranos, Chris gets angsty over his screenplay because he starts to internalize it, starts to wonder about his own story arc. "Where's my arc?" he asks himself. "Where's my inciting incident?" And he is so sad about it, so wrecked.

When I am here, it doesn't seem to matter that my life doesn't have an inciting incident. Or, I guess I should say, there have been many inciting incidents. And they've catapulted me into places and situations and people, but I still am not sure what all of that means. I am still sort of trapped in some weird version of waiting for godot. waiting to get on with it already.

I don't know what I am waiting for.

I just took a break and read this article:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/10/AR2009061003902.html?hpid=features1&hpv=national&sid=ST2009061101808

"Each of the characters in these movies shares one major trait: the insecure belief that they -- and possibly their friends -- are singularly incompetent and unprepared for life, more so than their parents or grandparents or any other humans in the history of adult preparedness."

Shit.

Maybe I should do a Chrysalis Workshop. Why not? I've already tried writing a novel, three screenplays, seen a Vedic astrologer, done several transcendental meditation seminars, attended the Landmark Forum and attempted seeing a therapist. I have to remember that I am not so termnially unique.

In Boston, the first day, I kind of had a meltdown at the bed and breakfast. Just walking around Cambridge took me back to freshman year in Boston and how it had been 12 years since then and how I had pretty much accomplished nothing since then. Like seriously, where had the past twelve years gone and what had I accomplished? How had I suddenly become Queen of Mediocrity when once upon a time, I actually felt like I had some sort of potential? Maybe it's like what Mary Oliver says, that I wasted time looking for an easier life, a better life. Maybe. maybe I spent too much time imagining. But I think that's the crux of what makes me a writer.

I feel oddly sedated in Greenwich. Like once upon a time, I had a script in this particular play. I had lines of dialogue to memorize, a costume. I had to know my stage directions. Coming back here now is like being an emeritus actress coming back to watch the play she once performed in. And at the end of the production, they'll point me out in the audience, and I'll stand and wave, but this time I'm just here to watch. I can mouth the words that the actress on stage is saying. I still know them. But that's not me anymore. I'm retired from this production. I just don't know what my next job is.