Waiting for Godot …

Is to wait in vain …

To hold the thought that someone is coming … that something is about to happen and you must remain steadfast.

Look down the road. Is the bus to take you away from where you are frozen in place coming yet?

Stand on the train platform. How long must you wait to hear the train whistle, its mournful cry filling the air, its steam trailing above the cars as it roars into your station?

Do you sit for hours peering through a small circle in a frosted window pane waiting for someone to walk up the porch steps to find you?

Wait. As the two Russian misfits in Beckett’s play wait for Godot to appear … millions around the globe wait to live … wait to do what they want … wait for Mr. Right.

So often Mr. Right is disguised as a butcher, a baker, a candle stick maker. He does not ride down the road on his trusted white steed. He drives a truck or teaches children to sing.

Dreams cannot find you standing in place. They are fluid and are meant to keep moving.

Once upon a time …

I was a street kid in Brooklyn. I was a blushing bride. I was a single mother and a twenty-nine-year-old freshman in college.

A few moons later I was a street vendor in Washington Heights.

I did many things, worked and learned many skills.

Seven years ago I thought it might be a good idea to write a book.

The craft of writing has given me a new respect for patience. My parents must be rolling in the clouds, laughing at the fact that I have finally learned the one thing I refused to learn before.

 Patience …

is not the same as waiting.

Patience is learning and doing something over and over again. Like a musician who must practice cords endlessly to play an instrument … like a singer must exercise their voice every day to hit the right notes … I am the kid who could not sit still who has finally learned …

Sit your ass down and get the job done.

“Listen to me, young lady. You’re going to sit there until you learn or you’ll get what-for.”

  Don't quit

 

For a long time I was impatient, anxious, stretching my compulsive nerve ends until they snapped.

But the universe had other plans and it has sent me a message … either I work patiently on this writing gig or I might rush ahead and miss the mark.

To give myself a modicum of discipline, I come here once a week to create a story … something to entertain or enlighten.

In the entertainment community there is a well-known fact about over-night successes. It takes years of work and rejection, cattle calls and doors slamming in your face to become an over-night success.

Writing is no different.

Now in my sixth year, my blog has evolved since the first post in November, 2009. I experimented with short posts, funny cartoons with my own captions, and worked through six or seven of the categories on my side-bar.

This is a writer’s blog … a combination of truth and fiction. This is my way of learning.

Well … this and a half-dozen books in four genres, some thirty odd short stories and a few dozen of my pitiful attempts at poetry.

Each year, I remove all Christmas and Holiday posts. If you were to scroll through the archives of each year, you will not find much for any December.

Also, I have deleted over one-hundred other blog posts because I didn’t like them anymore.

I am a slow learner.

Because of my hyper-active-impossible brain, I had to read and reread and redo all my lessons. I was the average student who got A’s … except in conduct. My conduct was not that of a young lady, but more like a wild cat.

I found out early that I got A’s, not because I am smart, but because I am a stubborn, willful pain in the ass.

About my books, I am a writer in waiting. My family and some of my friends have asked me the same question for the last four years … “What are you waiting for?”

My stock answser, “To be good enough.”

I am a late bloomer.

 

In 2014 I became an official old fart with more to look back on than forward to. A crusty old broad who might any minute kick the bucket … cash it in … buy a ticket to the farm and fall off the mortal coil.

Or not.

What comes next …

I could wait for market trends to change … wait for someone to notice my amazing talents and sweep my off my feet.

My own history has taught me that Prince Charming didn’t sweep me off my feet … that son-of-a biscuit knocked me off my feet. And after I dusted myself off, I smacked him silly and took to the road with the kids.

I throw down the gauntlet in pubic and in print. Even knowing I can delete this and change my mind whenever the mood strikes.

Since I haven’t died yet, I opt to live my way. I opt to keep writing my books.

And the blog-of-it-all?

I’m debating whether to return to one sentence prompts or my city-scapes.

I could write a love story or a murder … I could put someone in peril along the Brooklyn beaches. Maybe a Russian mob story in Brighton Beach or a comic tryst that is a bit of both.

I could tell you about a little known part of my city … introduce you to the Brooklyn of my childhood while some of it still exists.

I would ask your opinion, but being a feisty crab, I have decided to become a committee of one and do whatever the hell I feel like.

Stay tuned and you might find something to delight … something to tickle your fancy. Or not.

Tell me my lovelies …
Do you wait for Godot
or do you get on the next bus that comes down the road?

fOIS In The City

 

 Maxine on getting old