Traveling with speckles of thought.

I'm sitting here, half comatos from a night with the Oscars, sipping on decaf coffee so that I may enjoy Dunkin's Full Tilt later on my two and a half hour drive to work, with a wet head, bare toes, one blood-shot eye consequence of my wearing contacts for my evening, and thinking about all those who were up there winning Oscars last night and I thought, "Wow. They must have gone a curcumtuitis route." Yeah, I made up that word, but I was trying for something like it. Meaning, these people all probably were not handed the easy relaxation of knowing, hey, all I have to do is follow this path so that I can stand at the Oscars and celebrate my love for say, costume design (did you know I once fantasized about being a costume designer?) Or watching an interview with Sandra Bullock who mentioned how venamently her mother didn't want her kids to be normal. (I tried to spell that word right but spell check says, "No Guesses Found".

Anyways, all of this has struck me again as food for thought. Here I am post-depression (wouldn't it have been nice if I was speaking economically) teetering between my former belief system of if you tackle and drive forward without distraction and without listening to the "practical side" of your head, you can in fact pursue dreams of say, participating in the field of children's literature, be it as a writer, illustrator, museum curator (at a picture book facility, librarian etc. or that you should really just wish among all wishes to just be normal and pick SOMETHING that is steady, sturdy and pays the bills that you wouldn't mind doing so that you can have fun with all your other "hobbies" on the side.

Normal.

I'm reading this book called, "Traveling with Pomagrantes" by Sue Monk Kidd and Ann Monk Kidd (author of The Secret Life of Bees) and since I have so much good quality time to think and listen to books on my ride to work, I found this book sparks a level of thought and reflection unlike some of my former books. I presently have listened to only four disks and love this book. I have already concluded that I am buying it for my bookshelf, in hardcover, because I can tell it is an important novel in the course of my life playing out. In part, I like this book because I can relate to the character of Ann. Ann seems to be in many ways a reflection of myself last year, her pondering over how a certain sequence of events, or letters from colleges, are causing her to become depressed and yet she is not familiar with this sense at all nor knows in some ways how to assist in preventing it from occurring or getting back to the place where she was her confident self. I smile as I feel I could give her a checklist as to what will happen to her emotionally. "And then this will happen..." I say to my car, piled with lunch sacks, mismatched clothes, and Dunkin donut coffee cups. And sure enough, it does for Ann, and I feel so sympathetic towards her, yet wait for her to hopefully emerge where I am and maybe give me some hints of the discoveries she has made on her journey that I am still working to discover for myself.

So where does this all tie in with the Oscars?

Simple, all of these pieces, the outstanding recognition for artistic talent in a touch-and-go field, the sense of bramblie path making that I feel at present as I know I cannot continue driving as far as I am without going nuts, (thus need a new career), and Ann's story, a girl who while slightly younger than myself seems to be in my same shoes of trying to sort out her twenties, a period that some people forget to explain is not that easy when you are in fact, not normal (or typical might be a better word).

That's it.

So now I need to blow dry my hair, put my coffee cup away, grab my socks and shoes and saunter out to my home-away-from-home, the Nissan, and continue thinking, wondering, pondering, musing, and well, listening to Traveling with Pomegranates to see who can reach the solution to life first.