He couldn’t believe he had just asked this woman out.  He couldn’t shake the feeling of knowing her somewhere, somehow at some point in time before and he didn’t want to leave even if his completed box of assorted chocolates had to.

Was it the strong smell of vanilla mingling with cocoa?  Could it be the low volume of symphonic melodies piping in? Maybe it was the Tiffany light blue almost aqua walls with warm sable brown trim, moldings and accents.  Perhaps, it was the well lit polished glass case, cold to the touch with a high stainless counter top. The clean lines of well-appointed café tables and chairs to the sides of the store balanced and refined the space. It wasn’t any of these things in particular and yet it was all of these things at once, tempting and delighting the senses with its combined allure and comfort.

There were two state of the art matching scales at either end of the high counter above the display case.  The register was directly behind the display on a lower counter.  Aqua bluish cardboard boxes of all sizes and widths lay flat, stacked on a wall behind the spare space between the display and wall.  Broad and narrow satin chocolate brown ribbons hung next to the parcels, ready to be pulled from their spools and cut.  A price list decorated with milk chocolate brown paisley swirls and pastel blue backdrop adorned the top half of the wall.  To the right, from the customers’ view, was a slim walkway leading to the back of the shop where all the melting, molding, decorating and office operations took place, or so one imagined.

Dani tilted her head to the right, squinting her big coffee colored eyes looking at Nicholas with a question mark.  After careful consideration and a silent, awkward pause, she answered. “ I could perhaps, but it would have to be early, before I open the shop.  Before ten a.m. either day.”

“Great! Why don’t we get some breakfast at Saturn’s, then, tomorrow? At eight a.m.?”

Over dinner tonight, I asked the kids, “What would be a good quote for my blog?”

“Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat.” – Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

I agree.

They tell me I’m behind the times and I should be vlogging.

“Really? What’s that?”

“It’s video logging onto the web.  NO one has time to read anymore.” said in a tired and oh so ho-hum way.  Rolling of the eyes included.

“But, I just got the hang of uploading pictures!!”

And then just to show them, I tried to upload a 5 second movie I took.  But it exceeded the maximum something or other and I will be sticking to text and the occasional photo, thank you very much.

I like a real live book.  I like the smell of the pages. I like the heft of it.

I like to read my kindle in the dark.  I like to text.  I like to write daily on this website.

We live in both worlds.  We are on the cusp.

“We must not throw away what is useful about the past, and move forward with caution; for He who laughs about the old days, may rue the coming of the future.” – Cecilia

Sometimes when you are a little hard on yourself or not so in love with yourself, other kind, loving people in your life remind you how loved you really are.  For this, I am grateful today.

I had a disappointment today, a humbling of sorts.  I was eager to give up and not face another blow, ever again.  Everyone I know and opened up to, rescued me from my own demise.  Some shared their own experiences, revealing their own vulnerabilities.  Some encouraged.  Some sought solutions.  Everyone showered me with human kindness.

Sometimes you fall in order to witness there are many lovely people willing to support you and lift you up.  My failures have always been my biggest eye-openers.  Today, I personally experienced the giving nature of many fine human beings.  Thanks, guys.  To my family, friends and group members.

On Saturday we went to the movies to see Quartet.  It is a film directed and produced by one my favorite actors, Dustin Hoffman.  Maggie Smith and Billy Connelly starred.  It is a quaint story centered on an upscale retirement home for retired musicians and opera singers.

Last night, we went to the Maverick Theatre in Fullerton to see Amadeus. Again classical music and musicians was the backdrop for the tale.  This production is a must see.  There’s only room for fifty people or so in the audience in this very small albeit well designed Art Deco space.  It is only running until March 23^rd  Friday – Sunday nights only, so get your tickets soon!  I enjoyed listening to the dialog and exquisite writing by Award winning Peter Shaffer.  It was a sparse and small cast and stage and yet that was the appeal.  I was able to focus on the soul of the story as it unraveled in almost a confessional way.  “And there you have it!” – a line I stole from the play.

Bar and Decor at Maverick Theatre

I have to be honest.  I’m keeping it rather light and airy here lately because my memoir writing assignments are heavy-duty introspection.  Sometimes the words that pour out of me are even dark and just plain too personal for public viewing just yet.  Even if I am not actually writing down sentences, the task at hand scratches and pulls up scabs.  The wounds re-bleed and open up new areas of raw emotion so you can write about it as if you were back in that moment of pain, remorse or sadness.  It’s all an exercise in exorcism.  At least, that’s what the course is doing for me.  It stirs up trouble, conflict and unresolved issues that I could have sworn I had forgiven, forgotten or had moved on from.  Without having physically written a line.

But mostly, it bubbles up a sense of loss, nostalgia and it creates a mental environment infused with flashbacks.  It’s bittersweet when you remember something funny, tender or heart warming.  It can feel exposed, fresh and new again in a new way. Sometimes what pops up is something I would have rather had still hidden, covered under a fluffy, comfy blanket of amnesia.  Or as simple as saying under my breath, “let’s just gloss over this.”  What you discover as you write memoir is not always the picture of a well-balanced family in good mental health.  And no family is immune to this.  The jewels are the comical or humorous passages that allude to a survivor’s story, in hindsight.  The hero/heroine is yourself.

This writing class is designed to ask yourself- unasked questions about your past.  You gotta dig deep.  It makes you ponder and teaches you how to describe an event, a scene or a moment in your life.  You get to re-live it so you can get it down on the page.  It can be hellacious.  It can be cathartic.  But it will always feel like an extraordinary journey.

So, if you are reading my posts lately and wondering why I’m inserting a lot of photographs (which I kinda…um really like) or if you sense I am writing on escapist subjects in a daydream kind of way or seemingly trite, it’s because I need to empty my brain out after pouring my heart into my memoir writing class.

Plus, I have less time to dedicate.

Let’s hope for some decent storytelling.  Wish me luck.