Did I Lose My Fearlessness?

I smoked Marlboros or Parliaments; drank Manhattans, stout and burgundy wine. I took risks of all kinds with my friends — including auditioning for parts we thought were right for us. When they didn’t happen, we dealt with rejection and heartbreak, pulled ourselves up and started over. Romantic relationships were pretty crazy, too— but they taught me so much, they were worth it. When all this happened, I was twenty.

Looking back on those days now, where did my courage and confidence go?

It seems to have vanished, and I need it now, more than ever. There are days life gets to you, and you know you’ll rebound. Today, there is no rebound — just a lot of fear where courage used to be.

I lived in Boston four years as an Emerson College student and then stayed one extra year in an administrative job for what may have been a community college. (I could never figure out what it really was.) What would academics do without newly minted graduates who neaten up their bosses’ lives?

I lived as I imagined people should live, if those people were twenty. Once, I set out with my laundry and ran into two castmates from a play who invited me to a friend’s wedding. Scooting home, I dumped the laundry and changed into a dress that was bought at a thrift store. After eleven glasses of champagne at the wedding, I came home sailing on a pink cloud, making my roommate laugh.

It was a time of fearlessness and confidence. The belief that while I was an unholy mess and the world was an even worse mess, I was going to triumph, one way or another. I couldn’t have told you what that way would be, except it would involve either acting or writing.

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New Year, New Notebook? Motivating Resolution

My notebook is a mess. If I'm being honest, I've had five notebooks over the past few years and they've all been a mess. 

It hasn't always been that way. I used to have notebooks where you could just turn the pages and if it was chaotic, at least there was a title for every new thought - idea or asterisks or some way to just page though and see what I was thinking. 

Then, something happened and who knows what drove me down this stupid path? I was here, I was there, I was anywhere, but I didn't have my notebook with me because I got tired of lugging it. So instead of writing IN my notebook, I scribbled something on a piece of paper and shoved it into the notebook when I got home.

Now if I want to page through, I have to make sure dozens of little paper notes don't come flittering out of the main notebook. And the last third of my notebook still has all these blank pages, begging for me to write in them. (Only writers can hear a blank page when it begs, and it's not pretty, I promise you).

So what do I do? The only solution, as far as I can see, is to bring that notebook with me everywhere again--my rule for most of my life (which I also made my character Ruby do in The Beat on Ruby's Street and which I did myself when writing Crooked Lines: A Single Mom's Jewish Journey. But I'm just not doing right now,  so I can't make this a new year's resolution. 

Use the note feature on the phone? I do, and it's not a bad solution. I like paper, but at least I have my phone with me, most of the time. 

Meanwhile -- here's another resolution I might be able to keep, a more motivating one.

Be Not Afraid is the name of a book written by Jan Pawel, or Pope John Paul II (formerly Karol Wojtyla). I call him Jan Pawel because the Polish people do and after writing a play on the Solidarity union, I preferred the Polish title. Jan Pawel also wrote one of my favorite plays, The Jeweler's Shop.

I'm sharing this because whatever your religion (or non-religiion) might be, I'd still recommend a glance at these books -- for the writing alone. I'd also recommend them because they talk about courage and love--two things everyone needs more of. Which brings me to that resolution thing -- to be less afraid in 2023.

I think I had enough fear in the past three years for a lifetime--and there's more where that came from and lots more before that. So, my hard-line goal (because resolutions always break) is to get less afraid - a little less every day. How does that sound? Am I asking you? Not really. I'm telling me instead.

Little by little. Walking, driving, talking, writing. Little less fear every day, including fear of lugging around that notebook.

That's all she wrote this morning.

Happy New Year.