6/30/12

Here I sit in front of my computer screen without one substantial rendering of thought to write about today. I should be writing the next chapter of my next book, or figuring out some twisted timeline for my life, but alas, I stare at the computer screen in complete nothingness. I am an early riser, light sleeper, and through a compiled backward history, I have begun to carve out my future. My sneakers are still wet from the sweat of an earlier morning run. My throat still thirsty from my own salt, as I pour myself a glass of much needed water. My yoga mat still lies in temperament on the living room floor. My life, entirely made of glass, as I look through to see my future, which by the way, is entirely too slow in coming. The day has overtly turned to a scorching heated June day, forcing my brain cells into an overheated exhaustion.  Writing is always about what I know and what I see, then navigating that dark area in-between the two is what brings forth for me, the clarity. For today though, I cannot understand one ounce of what my brain is telling me. The sex and the sin, the rhythm and the verse, the philosophical, the unseen, the real, the imagined, the me, the you, the afflicted lover, the past, the future, the creative, the reserved, the fiction, the non – fiction, all are not happening today, as the heat has melted down even my ability to hit my keyboard in proper word formation.

Naked is to be oneself, nude is to be seen by others. Naked is always the self – portrait!

6/29/12

The sex still fresh, yet so are her fears and doubts that this sudden approach to seduction is even attainable. Advancing now, even faster than her heart can understand, allowing the destitute of change to somehow shrink her, as her skin absorbs, then drinks away, the last of any forgotten inhibition. Managing to stay serenely aloft he steers her through this same inhibition, as his hands and fingers navigate her flesh. Expertly slicing through her own self, into this blinding space where she is now orbiting the sun.  Her tongue still lingers, after all he climbed six flights up the airless narrow stairwell just to get to her. His blood vessels expand, as a howl of alarm now pierces from him, as her tongue glides and rides uncontrollably.Remembering all the while that a man’s standards drop quite a bit when he is horny. Still, she allows the seductiveness of her tongue to linger, approaching and subduing the howls that still escape from him, before ending with a final kiss on his cheek. The end, she knows all too well, is much more abrupt than all the beginnings combined, the intensity of it all makes her blush.

Days later, he will write her a letter. Without saying good-bye, without a singular word, she will have it returned to him “address unknown.”

6/28/12

 It has become both a comfort and an irritant that so many people along the travels in my life, as it turns out, had been right. Reflecting for perhaps the umpteenth time just how peaceful it feels to be doing what I want, to being where I belong, at some point vowing to myself, to this time getting it right. Staying in the city the other night, taking a furtive look out my window, yes, this is where I belong, curtains billowing out, reaching for the heat of summer in the street, and the not so distant sound of repetitive couples along the sidewalk. Perhaps one of the gentlemen I had noticed from earlier, perhaps we had spoken briefly at the Shakespearean Play in Central Park. Perhaps it was during wine at Belvedere Castle. Perhaps my thought now dances in his head; I can hardly remember when I have felt this flush. My long summer dress covering the dance of my own nipples, splashing cold water up upon my face, chances are, I will never recognize this stranger ever again. The hydrangeas have taken on a blue, and the roses have now opened to shades of pink. The windowsill of this tiny apartment is as if I have drifted into Paris. The decision and the suddenness of it all now are all so deeply pleasing to me. Above me now, the sky is dark, the stars plentiful, the joyful sounds of the engaging couples whispering endearments to each other in French. I drink the last of my wine, closing my eyes, envisioning when it will be mine for more than just a day. The writing succumbs to all passions, as the passion itself, succumbs to the writing. I fall deeply asleep nestled amongst the promise of it all. 

6/26/12

Last

night was dinner and wine with old friends in the city. Tonight, is Shakespeare in Central Park, hope the weather holds out. Tomorrow night is Writer's Circle at Revival on E 15th Street. I walked 52 city blocks yesterday, and now agree to pay homage to any woman walking in heels on a daily basis in NYC. I, for one, will be wearing flats today and everyday after that, or throw a pair of flip-flops into my bag to change into.

*******

For a split second, riding the train, I forgot that he was even ever here. Transporting myself back in time, collapsing yesterday's past into today's present, lingering, while other passengers now walk ahead of me. My mouth is dry, as I take a sip of water, savoring thought of the wine and love still on my lips from yesterday's past. I could see the night playing out all over again, playing scenes over and over again in my mind, like a slow motion play-by-play feedback. Already construing argument as to why I should never see him again, absolving myself from the responsibility of love. This time, I had been blindsided by the smell, the taste, and the feel, of unexpected new sex.  I can't stop the sensation from coming, nor deny the fact, that his dark eyes left the feeling of warm sun moving up my back, as I became trapped in his fire, as I burned in his flame. Shaking myself out of this trance, heading east out the 42nd street exit, the breeze now blowing against the curve of my face, as I breathe deeply each lungful breath energizes, further revitalizing me. I pull down my sunglasses over my eyes, in intent of knowing, that not everything that exists can now be seen along the border of my face. I feel it all falling into place, the smell, the taste, the feel, of new sex, the responsibility of love right around the corner...

6/25/12

Their collective quiet is pulled taut, as two unknown lovers strain under the weight of some great sexual driven passion, right beneath my apartment window. They kiss in a maddened fulfillment as their invisible bond promises never to be broken. They look happily, savagely, into each other’s eyes, into what lies next. Under the streetlamp, lit with desire, as the river runs along the west side, and the sun sets on the east, quite the contradiction, as conflict now rises from the gold of his wedding band. He twists it, often and frantic, twirling it around his finger, as if not knowing what to do with it. He pulls it off, fastens it to a safety pin inside the fold of his briefcase, and in the darkness of the case the ring knows nothing. The ring sees not the forbidden embrace, the fruit of another, the tongues probing, forbidden fruit of the lover, as body parts, hug, touch and cling to one another. The pounding of his heart is for the lover, as the ring sits secure in complete epic darkness. The ring, never knows, and never tells. The love affair, it stands on the corner of 77th and Lexington, beneath the street lamp, covered in heat, blushing from  fulfillment. The taste of yet, still another.

6/24/12

My lace night shift hangs on the back of the parlor chair; bottles of perfume are erected in a straight line on my antique bureau. The window is slightly ajar, allowing the smells and sounds of the street to filter through. Scented bath salts seduce me, as I float on my back in the bathtub, watching the nightfall in darkness. He soon walks in, reaching for me the way he does. He climbs into the tub and uses his fingers and soap bubbles to make intricate circles upon my abdomen, making way for infinite possibilities. Taking another sip of wine, I relax back into him, as the light of an only candle flickers in the darkness, neither one of us wanting to fall in love just yet. The sex keeps it simple, illuminating us as we kiss, in between mouthfuls of hunger, he reads to me, as my hands disappear for a few moments, and his reading is plausibly interrupted, we both succumb to one another. Wet and clean, I slip into my lace night shift. He slips out the door into the night’s darkness. Heading to the metro, he turns and looks back, as I lean back further into the remaining bath bubbles. He stops at an underground bar for a martini; I blow out the candle, and finish my glass of wine in the quiet darkness of my apartment. In the morning, he calls, I let it go into voice-mail...we both enjoy the game.

6/23/12

Further provoking desire, lips barely brushing skin, as gently I lean down, my cinnamon lipstick leading a certain marked trail along his thigh. Instead of a hapless lover, a goddess of erotica frees herself from inside of me, and in insurmountable contradiction leads me to the wanting more of him. I have not touched him yet, as he expertly navigates his way down my torso, at first drawing nothing but breath, but then pressing so hard into me, leaving me in a hypnotic trance that cements to memory.

In the morning, he will leave one final abstract kiss painted on my breast, and I will slip a door key into his pant's pocket as he takes a shower. He will head to the metro, and I will smile, both of us will become predictable. Feeling a bit light headed still from the wine and the heat, and the consideration of what is still, yet to come. Leaning out my window, I let the rain fall on my face...

6/22/12

The faded fabric of my couch, a few pots of geraniums, I start to open a bottle of wine, but the cork is stuck, and I look at him, a dream I can never quite put into words, as I reach for him as if entering into another life. Several afternoons a week, the bed frame clanks against the wall, without hesitation in one swift gesture, each having reached completion, as we now lie in one another’s arms. The curtains billow, I wrap myself within them, as my smell of lavender stays saturated on his skin, and the taste of him, stays forever upon my lips.

6/21/12

From downstairs, the noise appears again. I listen for the footsteps leading on the stairs to my sixth floor walk up. Seeing the doorknob turn ever so slightly, will he assume I am sleeping, and let himself in?   I am too well heeled to get up and let him in, so I close my eyes, and wait for the turning of the doorknob. The door begins to open, and conversely I once again, replay scenes in my head, of the wine, the bar, the sex, the meeting in Paris where we established both the familiar and the unfamiliar of one another. I ordered the fish cooked in garlic, he ate from my fork. Already I had decided then, to go beyond the first page with him. Now here I am, in my sixth floor walk up, waiting for the doorknob to open, for the turning of yet another page in our story. It will begin with wine, and end in sweat, and his fingers will trace the outline of my face. A portrait in time.  In the morning, I will sigh, and he will leave to catch the metro. I will drink coffee, running my hands down along my body, covered in vibrations of seated emotion, and he will smile politely at everyone he passes along the street. Eventually, we will make promises.

6/20/12

My bed is pressed up against the wall, doubling as my couch, a slight throbbing in my head holds me to the wine last night, my new apt, my new life, and the wine I drank in my dreams, as I departed the bar with the man whose breath still feels slight against my shoulders. I lie in bed just a bit longer, enjoying the feeling of well – being, still perched in my dreams. Starring at the wine bottle now laid on my floor, the man reappears, his tongue probing long and hard, as I try to catch my breath. Tasting the red wine on his lips, his shadow walks back into the wall, like some riddle I am suppose to get. As I turn the page of the book I am reading, a breeze causes the curtains of my hot apartment to billow out, I stand up wrapping them around the folds of my naked body, last night feels unreal, and the dream vanished. Drugged by the morning sun, as a bead of sweat settles in my navel, and once again, I think about the sex. I discard the curtain, the sarong, and replay last night over and over again in my head. The suffocating heat has me lying back on the mattress, as the shadow of his face resurfaces from my walls, separated only by the billowing of the curtain. Giving myself more room to linger in the after effects of sex, trusting that somewhere again his image will soon appear. My nudity is now on display for all to see, as I crane my head further out the window to the street below. A man looks up, and smiles at me.

6/19/12

a shortened piece...

 

My new life needs to be in an old fashioned apartment, quaint, with shutters, like one you would find in Paris, or inside an etched building in NYC. Where my shoes will lay abandoned near the front door, street noise will filter about the walls, and my apartment will be so hot, that the backless sundress I am wearing makes suggestion of the curve of my silhouette, as the sweat has all but the halter tie at my neck clinging to my flesh. How it will then start, over dinner, at a secluded hole in the wall restaurant, where the brick and mortar stairway leads one down to a basement garden bar. The noise of the street above, hydrangeas dancing near the windows. The chef, the waiters, the diners, all speaking in and out across the tables, across me, as I drink another glass of wine, before setting my eyes at the view at the opposite end of the bar. The smell of garlic fused with herbs and white wine reach my nostrils, as wine travels the length of my lips. Watching him, his legs no longer able to set properly, as he shifts his weight, bearing slightly off balance as he makes his way along the length of mahogany wood. My fingernails rattle on the edge of my glass, as I feel the warmth of his breath behind me. The interlude has begun, introductions exchanged, as presumption overtakes the both of us. Part of me knows for certain that this night will never end. Yes, that is how it will start, on a hot and humid night, over garlic smells and wine, and then he'll leave in the morning and take the metro to work. We will pick up where we last left off, a few varied times a week. Yes, that is how it will start, groping in the dark that leads to my new life, my new apartment, I will be barefoot drinking Spanish wine until I can't remember.

6/18/12

I lie naked on my back, my thoughts perched on my stomach, curtains tied back, windows bare, as moonlight streams in across the flesh of my abdomen, my pearls still loosely draped around my neck. The queen chair in the corner of my bedroom dressed in the scarf and skirt I had previously tossed there. In the morning I will make phone calls, write e-mails, make arrangements for the funeral, sign the death certificate, wipe the tears from beneath my black veil, and put my old life in the coffin just before they lower it into the ground, never wanting it to be rewarded with an eternal life. 

     In between mouthfuls of air, for now I'll sip wine, and take note of the now unrecognizable mangled corpse of what once was. I hear the bantering slightly irritated note in the bird's voice outside my window, as he watches yet another drama production of life pass in front of him.

6/15/12

Against all good and reasonable judgment, life happens, to all of us. I just wish I had been in the bathroom when it came this time around, toiled blood, sweat and tears, and here I am, ready for round two of whatever life has to offer up. It is Friday, so round two just might end with a Martini in hand. The funny thing is, I only discovered Martinis a few years back. How I had gone through almost a half a century without them still stupidities me. Fridays are for Sea Salt and Chili Dark Chocolate and Dirty Martinis; it helps to soften the blow from round two.

“ If I closed my eyes long enough, I could feel the soft compassion of his hands on places they shouldn’t be, in movement that not ought to be, in a sin that now was what was to be, as I willfully surrendered to all that could be.... an unforgettable moment in time, as a hush of rush fell over me”

LJ

6/13/12

.

..and now that I have let certain things out, I can let them go. Reminded of the courage, which lies in each of us, even when we do not realize it in ourselves. I 'm not sure what courage looks like, if it is a vivid spray paint across my face, but I do know now exactly what it feels like. I remember what I was wearing the day I grew courage, the day I thought about all the things I can now do in this world with my newfound courage. I was wearing black and pink, a perfect contrast to the two sides of my life. Today, I am wearing yellow and black, but the black is different now, it is sexy and sleek...it is the courage seeping through that gives off the feel.

6/12/11

Do not write a book if you think you will become an overnight success, as, let us face facts here; things do not quite work that way, for people like us. However, DO write a book, if, you want to someday become a success, and continually write more books. I am of the latter group myself, and I am okay with that. Success is coming in small dosage, and public speaking and reading has been a very huge challenge to overcome for me, so if I had been a great success the second my books hit the internet and stores, I would have have been too stunned to garble out even one smart word in the direction of anyone that was listening at the time. I am not by character a speaker, that is of course, the reason I write. Writers do not have to speak, until, they have to sell themselves and their books, and that, is my newest learning curve.

Heading to a meeting, hopefully with a man whom will smell wonderful, as I am hoping he is bathed in something delicious and seductive, so that I become so entranced with him he does not see how nervous I actually am to be talking book deals with him. Independent bookstores offer an intimate one on one with customer and bookstore owner. A nice little niche'.

Question of the day:

Men execute their manhood in other neighborhoods, can woman do the same thing, or are we prone to just acceptance? Do you ever just think about the man on the train next to you? The total stranger whom you know nothing about, and vice verse? If I am beginning to sound like a John Collins book here, it is because I am staring at exactly a man of which I speak. He looks perfect!

6/11/12

Looking back, it's funny the things you notice just before your life is about to change.

Just before you shed your skin, in acknowledgment that it is not you whom is crazy and tilted, but in fact, it is the rest of the world. Just before you down that bar of dark chocolate, drink that bottle of red wine (by yourself), and watch Bethany Frankel on the television, and think, yes, by god, the woman is a creative marketing genius. She went from zero ($0.00) to zillions in a matter of a few years, expressing herself like it is no one else's business. Just before you begin to think, I can do that, it's funny the things in life you now take notice of. Just before you come into your own, and begin to live. Just when you first realize that because you were still sucking in air each day, make no mistake, doesn't mean you are, or ever where, living.........it just means you were never on a ventilator, or that someone had ever reached over and pulled the plug. Looking back, it all seems so funny now, so much clearer.

Note to self: need to be more like Bethany Frankel, a marketing genius!

“EXPRESS YOURSELF”

looking for  interested woman readers for giveaways

 email me(lillianjade1019@gmail.com)

facebook me (lillianjade), 

or twitter me (lillianajde62) please. I will need your mailing address, or can PDF it to you.

6/10/12

 

Taking a break from the writing to enjoy my roses, the lazy hazy sunshine, and a glass of Earl Grey honey iced tea sitting in the outdoor little oasis I created on my patio. Facing my past and finding my passion in the writing of my endearingly unguarded memoir about myself, has only lead to more fingers in the road for me.  My next book is about all the things that keep me up at night, and the fear of my own mortality. I could not have a more different view of life today,than the one I started with years ago. I never realized early on how much I stifled my own ambition, how much I had withdrawn from my own courage, until  I began to write the first book of my Naked Series (Are you there GOD, it's me), published May 28, 2012. Emotional holes are hard to fill. A piece here, a thread there, every piece in my colorful collage is an ensemble of the
 bigger story of my life.

6/09/12

 

How does hell become so close to our bones, that heaven is not seen in our eyes? How do we move past what harms us, in order to hold the things we never want to forget? 

Sometimes the heart belongs in a body bag, and other times, the sandbags are meant to save us.

LJ

6/8/12

As all roads eventually lead to somewhere, I keep putting one foot of front of the other, very determined to finally arrive, at the place I was always meant to be. It has taken me an arduous amount of time to finally get all of this, but that is okay, the final arrival of me was worth the travel. It was the matter of terminating and relinquishing my "no" place for my "yes" place that has brought to me new life. The beauty of loosing, and then finding myself, I think is what happens after you have traveled to the dark side of the moon

    This morning I went for an early run, and I tasted the wind as it blew, I heard something in the silence, no longer scared by it, or in being alone with it, I held onto the stillness in me. The sculpture of me was always there, it was the chiseling away of the rock to get to the sculpture that took time to reveal it, as my life is now, a completed sentence. I think the biggest decision of my life, was finally allowing me to be me. What an incredibly awesome idea that was of mine, which only took me half a lifetime to come up with. Wow, talk about a work in progress!

Book Expo America was an eye-popping experience, as I have come to the realization now that there are actually more than a zillion authors in this world from every walk of life. It was very educating, and my shoulders grew stronger from carrying my shoulder briefcase and laptop, and then added green bags full of book giveaways. I grew taller from pressing shoulder to shoulder amongst the interlude of other authors, my legs grew stronger too yesterday, as I walked from the Jacob Javets Center to Grand Central Station at the end of the day...stopped at a favorite watering hole to quench my thirst, then treaded onward....yup, you go girl!!

6/6/12

Last night went for a much needed Extra Dirty Kettle One Martini with four olives after the Book Expo in NYC. The hardest part was deciding where to go for that drink.

Booze and Books, both are to be consumed, and how wonderful is that?

The White Horse Tavern, 567 Hudson St.
...
Opened in 1880 in Greenwich Village, originally as a gathering place for longshoremen. It wasn't until the early 1950's when poet Dylan Thomas became a regular that it became a haven for NY's literary set.
...
Old Town Bar

Old Town Bar in the Flatiron district is old enough to have celebrated its 100 year anniversary of the urinals in the men’s bathroom in 2010. Old Town Bar can also boast about literary customers which include Frank McCourt and Seamus Heaney.

yes, yes, we all know about McSorleys...
...
Half King in Chelsea is actually owned by a group of writers, and sprouts weekly readings by today's foremost authors. Will revisit that a few times this summer, for sure.

Yup, books and booze make great companions. Trying to make another educated choice for tomorrow night. 

Considering using Half King as my writers hangout to get my next book finished, well that, and the corner of the New York City Library where I feel as though I am in another world all in itself.  I have a few months, which could either mean a lot of booze, or a lot of library books surrounding me. Either way it will work for me !  Short story collections will be pumped out in between my next book for ample reading material. The Book Expo is exhausting, but very eye opening as well for a newbie such as myself. I have traveled that escalator a million times already in search of something I can not find......so it is, the story of my life !

6/5/12

he told us, " in books you can find comfort in the world"

Book Expo America today at Javits Center in New York City

6/4/12

I wish I was the postcard you mailed around the world, so I could have traveled with you, so that when the wind blew, it would have landed me on a branch, close to you. You would have licked a stamp, and when you placed it on my corner, your kiss would have stayed with me forever. I would have been faded, but still, I would have been with you.

*****

See you all at BEA tomorrow

6/3/12

I drew a line for you, for you to follow me back to. I ran the light, so I could catch up to you. I made sure the moon shined through your window, but still, you never knew. You never saw, you never knew, I was always running after you. You never knew I came, stood on your garden and watched you, no, you never saw. Never saw the line I drew, the street I crossed, the wind that blew open the door, so you could walk on through. No, you never knew, never saw, all that I was waiting for, all that washed away my seashells from the shore. The line in the sand I drew, the castle of hope I built, the bridge constructed just so I could  get to you. No, you never saw, that night, the rope I hung myself from, on the bridge I had built for you. No, you never saw, how your curse, became, my final straw. No, you never knew..

LJ

how out of darkness, came beautiful light, as the hope of unfilled dreams became ever bright, carrying a torch to a brand new life.

6/1/12

Truth always has this little habit of whispering back to me from the grave I put it in. Truth is, of all the things I could have been, the author/writer is the one that I am destined for.

The poet, the painter, the sculptured, the philosopher, the lover, the crier, the wounded, the healer, the loner, the forgiver, the runner, the yogist, the singer, the dancer, the ranter, the optimistic, the pessimist, the holy veil and the undertaker, the thinker, the creator, the eccentric, writing allows me to be all these things without ever having to leave the comfort zone of my keyboard. Fiction becomes non - fiction, non - fiction becomes, well, my genre of real life, and the poems become the beauty of the platform of my books, as I carve out my next life.

I like my martini extra dirty, at the end of the week, after all the writing has taken place, and my idea for the next novel is set into place. That is when I like to kick back, relax, and ponder, with four olives hanging off a toothpick on the edge of my glass.

**P>S>

Really hoping the deluge of rain we are expecting cancels out itself, as I am headed right for it. Heading down to Maryland tonight for my soon to be daughter - in law's bridal shower. Looking so forward to the shower, but not driving in the rain !