Tags: Published On: Thursday, May 17th, 2018 Comments: 1
RIGHT PLACE, RIGHT TIME…
What about me? When is my time?
Have you ever asked yourself these questions? I’ll return to this.
In the past three weeks, I tried to write a new essay, but it was seemingly never the right time; I never seemed to be in the right place, or in the right state of mind. “Why is it taking me so long?” I asked myself between a Tracy Anderson Master Class and nursing Catherine, between some obsessive online window shopping and making supper. “Is it because I’m tired?” Catherine hasn’t been sleeping well, and she is constantly hungry. I have been depressed and frustrated because of the obstacles breastfeeding, and I have been feeling overwhelmed by the new life as a mother.
I always tend to point the finger at multiple outside causes first, but I often realize that the answer is within, and that I have known it all along: it took me so long to sit down and write the new blog because what I had decided to talk about wasn’t the right topic, or perhaps, it wasn’t the right time for it.
I’ll return to this.
“The point of my keeping a notebook has never been, nor is it now, to have an accurate factual record of what I have been doing or thinking. That would be a different impulse entirely, an instinct for reality which I sometimes envy but do not possess.” Joan Didion writes.
Where are my notes? Where is my notebook? I have started so many notebooks over the years that I don’t even remember where I’ve put them, much less what I wrote on their pages.
Why am I not taking notes?
It took me two days of beating myself up for not being a “good” writer like Joan Didion to realize that I do take notes, I share them here with you. This is my notebook.
So what about me? When is my time? Have you ever asked yourself these questions?
I have. These days much less frequently than I used to, but I still do. In search for the answer, I used to live run by jealousy and comparison, judgment and resentment. It was an ugly way of living, and I would never go back to that place, but from time to time those questions do come up still: when will finally be my time?
I used to look at Ben’s career: he is gifted, of course, special, brilliant, but hadn’t he been in the right place at the right time he would not have met Tom [Petty], and formed with him and Mike [Campbell] Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers.
I looked at Stevie [Nicks], too: she is without a doubt one of the greatest of our time, but would she have joined Fleetwood Mac hadn’t she been with Lindsay [Buckingham] in that studio?
Today, however, I also look at some of my friends that never seemed to have been in the right place at the right time, whether personally or professionally. Should they keep waiting for their room on top of the world? Is there such thing as a room on top of the world?
What about me? When is my time? Are these the questions I should ask? I want to say yes, but the answer is no.
What is the right time? And right according to whom?
Two dear friends of mine had wanted kids their entire life; they tried for years, when the “right time” had come. But nothing happened. They both got pregnant in their 40s, respectively five and seven years after their idea of right time; today they are happy mothers of twins.
Upon such considerations, do I still “know” what is right? I want to say yes, but the answer is no.
8 years ago, I was in the wrong place, a horrible place. I was addicted to cocaine and Xanax, I drank, I cut myself, and I was bulimic. I was in an emotionally toxic relationship with another alcoholic, and I hurt profoundly those who loved me. I had a college degree, a job as a freelance translator that barely got me by, I lived with my parents (in my bedroom, I should say), and I wanted to die.
I don’t remember exactly how it happened, but one day I was offered an interpreting job in Los Angeles for three days. I had nothing to lose, flew to California, did my job, and happened to fall in love with a man who somewhat kept me here, and who genuinely believed in me as a writer. The relationship didn’t work, but thanks to him I kept writing, met Leonard Cohen, got a visa, got sober, and met my husband and father of my child, Ben.
Was I really in the wrong place with a blade on my wrists at my parents’ house?
I am starting to think that what I often look for isn’t really the right place, but rather the place I want to be in. And this isn’t the first time I reach this conclusion; it is by taking notes, these notes that are different from Joan Didion’s, that I keep learning.
Today, during my therapy session with Cei and Dr. W., among other things, I talked about the duality of my feelings as a new mother, the need for freedom but also the need to be needed by my daughter. Cei drew a Venn diagram for me: in one circle she wrote freedom, in the other she wrote breastfeeding, and in the middle she wrote AND. This isn’t the first time two sides of me collide. “The center,” Cei said, “doesn’t have to be OR; you don’t have to choose. The dual uniqueness you have since childhood doesn’t have to be in a state of conflict.”
I thought about it; for years, in fact, I tried different costumes, tried to fit the missing piece of a puzzle that didn’t belong to my picture, emulated voices – looked for wholeness, for the union of what has always been dual.
When I hung up the phone, Skype, something that happened yesterday all of a sudden made sense: “You have always been double, since you were a teenager,” my high school friend A. wrote me in a message. She wrote in Italian, of course, and I know the word “double” may not carry the same meaning in English — it denotes duality.
I had not talked to her in over ten years. We had been following each other on Instagram for a while, but never really connected other than for a few sporadic comment or “Likes”.
“Most people I care about are,” she continued, “they have a dark depth from which they run away, but also where they can find refuge.”
Do you believe in happenstances, or are they the sign that we are in the right place at the right time?
“There are signs. People find them in the ordinary and in the extraordinary. They are open to argument and refutation, but their impact on the ones who receive them can only be welcomed.” Brennan Manning writes in Abba’s Child (read the page to the left and above).
Upon such considerations, do I still “know” what is right? I would love to say yes, but the answer is no.
Subscribe to my newsletter for new episodes, recipes, and updates, straight to your inbox.
*By signing up, you agree to this website's Terms & Conditions and Privacy & Cookies Policy
Good job!