PERFECT DAY IN HUNTINGDON, PA

I arrived by plane, on a cold morning, bundled up in my white, sheared Badger fur, with white, kid-leather, medium-heeled boots, white leather gloves and purse. The coat was a traffic-stopping cape, which I wore with a matching Cossack's fur hat. I looked like I'd stepped out of Dr. Zhivago's Russia.

I felt important. The booking was important. I was scheduled to dance in New York City's Town Hall two weeks later. The performance in Huntingdon was an out-of-town warm-up.

The college concert series was paying me well. They had a large audience. Their students and faculty, as well as students, faculty, and lovers of ballet from other colleges in the area had reservations.

After the show, there would be reception at Mrs. Clifford's home. I'd be sleeping in her guest room, which was walking distance from the auditorium. Mrs. C. was dean of students, head of the committee who arranged my rehearsal, clothes rack, hangers, pitcher of water, and the six student helpers for lights, curtain, props, costume ironing.

Yep -- Em, the Queen of one-night-stands (title I invented for myself), always sent a detailed stage preparation list, specifying the stage areas that needed to be lit, the booms (or side light), the blue, green, orange, lavender gels that I used for the booms, changing color for each section of my solo.

(The college's drama department did four plays each year. They had 120 spots on the bars above the stage and balcony rail (more than what I'd be getting at Town Hall).

Since I was going to be performing my 70 minute solo to Mahler's "Fifth Symphony," just one number on the program with taped music, I'd requested professional sound equipment and a technician to handle it. (See my 6/14 post "High Diving.")

It was peaches and cream -- everything top flight, done right, and more -- knowledgeable, peppy students and the head of the Drama department on the lights and main dimmer board. The rented sound equipment was excellent. And best of all the stage was large -- 50 feet across and 35 feet deep. The second movement of the Mahler, with its leaps, jumps, and running, needed space, and a wide, deep stage made the fifth movement extra thrilling.

The rehearsal finished at four. My set, props, costumes, my giant Chinese silk bird wings, a costume device that I donned that made the ending of the piece stunning, was arranged. The staff had prepared a cot in my dressing room, so I could rest before the show.

Was I tired? Traveling, arriving, setting up a show, and performing the same night is tiring, but after my nap and light bite (scrambled eggs brought in by one of the students), I was ready to do my best. Though I was very slender (like most dancers, I was hooked on looking like a Balanchine skinny ballerina), I'd taken a diuretic. During my onstage costume changes, I could be seen in my flesh-colored body-suit -- it showed every hill -- including the tummy one gets, slender or not, around that time of the month.

The hush as the curtain opened meant a large audience was expecting something special.

My five costumes were works of art -- my extraordinarily talented designer, and two seamstresses had taken over my living room for the month it took for the costumes to be made -- each representing different ages in a woman's life -- each garment exquisitely detailed -- hand-painted, be-ribboned, petaled, fringed, or be-jeweled.

The costume for the grown up woman -- (see the picture), was a transparent, shimmering, purple, floor-length gauze gown with a train, like on a wedding dress.

My dance movements (created by choreographer Norman Walker), ran the gamut -- modern, ballet, Spanish, Oriental -- 70 minutes of dancing needs a lot of invention -- fast foot work, adagio, sustained poses, sudden dramatic changes.

Did I judge myself while dancing? Sometimes, but the best performances, are when the dancer lives in the moment, and I lived in the moment till the fourth movement of the Mahler. After 55 minutes of strenuous dancing, as I stepped on my right foot, the calf muscle cramped.

When I typed "Huntingdon" on my list of blog ideas, I whizzed through a memory -- my sister JB saw the performance. A friend from Harrisburg, where she was living at that time, drove her to Huntingdon. ("Ouch,"I thought, remembering what my sister said after the show, "I won't write about THAT!")

Ouch -- my calf muscle hurt, felt stuck, twisted -- wouldn't untwist, let me step on the foot, and move forward, gliding smoothly ... each step in the fourth movement required that the rolled, weighted hem of my gown be subtly pushed forward by my foot, so that I wouldn't step on it.

Mustn't step on hem I thought as the pain increased. The next step, a pivot on the right foot was coming up ... a step left, step right ... relevé on it ... half-circle pivot ... a pause on the right foot, as I lifted the left leg into a high extension.

(My right foot is stronger than my left. My left leg is more limber and does higher extensions. I turn better to the left, standing on the right. I leap better pushing off the left foot, landing on the right.)

That was where my mind was at. I couldn't do a pivot. A leap was out of the question -- even a pose, a pause, standing on the right with the calf cramping was -- yow -- too painful.

I know pain. I know how to make another muscle do the work of the one that hurts . I know how to avoid pain -- work through it ... even so, I couldn't step on that foot.

... 15 more minutes ... 14 more minutes ... I tried to keep track of where I was, in the choreographic sequence, but each step I took was improvised -- done to get the purple train behind me, not twisted around me, not on the path -- the diagonal toward the center of the stage, where the fifth movement of the Mahler was supposed to start.

... 10 more minutes, then I had to move the movable set pieces, and with swift, lateral, broad steps, gather up the costumes that I'd scattered in a danced tantrum, end of the third movement -- swoop them up, gliding, traveling over and around things when I couldn't glide, or pivot or leap, when pivots, leaps, jumps, and turns were what I was rehearsed and ready to do.

If I'd been in a basket ball game, the coach, the umpire would have gotten me off the field. I thought about stopping, moving to the edge of the stage, telling the audience "I hurt my leg. I have to stop." But then, what? Re-schedule Huntingdon for when? What was wrong with the foot, the leg? Had I broken or torn something?

Thinking those things, and creating steps to avoid putting weight on my right foot, keeping the purple gauze train untangled, I got to the end -- upstage, kneeling in the center -- slipping each of my arms into the sleeves of the huge silk wings, grabbing the 15 foot bamboo poles that were hidden inside the sleeve, poles that were preset on the floor.

I felt no pain, had no thought but "Stand up Em ... lift the bamboo ... arch back ... lift, now swing back and circle your arms ..."

"Thar she blows!" I sang to myself as the Chinese silk billowed up, up, up to the light bars above my head and floated down -- closed around me as I crossed my arms on the last note of the Mahler.

Mrs. Clifford took care of everything after I whispered what happened to me. The reception was canceled. My sister said to me, "You look so beautiful -- so young, My friend Ellie wondered how old you were." (My sister turned to her.) "I explained to Ellie that you were in a terrible accident and they fixed your face -- you didn't have your face lifted, but it made you younger looking."

(When people come back stage and tell you they loved your costume, loved your hairdo, it means what it means -- that's what touched them, not your "art," but the way you look.)

I wanted to get out of my clothes and get ice for my calf, but there was more chatter about -- did I, should she, should her friend have a face lift?

Woowee!

At Mrs. Clifford's, in the guest room which had been her married daughter's room, we iced my calf, and made plans to get to the hospital early, and talk to the head of orthopedics.

In the morning, there was pain and swelling. Mrs. C opened a drawer, and gave me a pair of her daughter's knee-high socks -- I couldn't wear my white boots, so I wore the ballet slippers I'd worn during the performance.

The doctor said I'd torn the gastroc, a muscle in the back part of the calf. After I asked was it serious, what about my performance in two weeks, he shrugged. He said, "It's a relatively superficial muscle -- just.keep off your right leg for three weeks. Then, use it, get back in shape, modifying what exercises you do, and carefully, gradually use your right leg a little more each day."

The stage crew had packed up my things and arranged for my trunk to be shipped back to New York. In my Cossack's hat and fur, (boots in my overnight suitcase) in the daughter's knee-highs and ballet slippers, I boarded the plane for home, dozing and figuring what to say and do about canceling my Town Hall performance and re-scheduling it.

The gastroc healed, but there's scar tissue (from Huntingdon as well as two other times my muscles have cramped on stage). I massage it, every now and then, feeling lucky -- that my face was "sort of fixed," that the improv I'd done wasn't noticed by my sister and her friend, and therefore, probably others in the audience were admiring the look of me, not judging the dancing. I guess that's what happens when singers sing with a sore throat or bad cold. You do what you can do.

Yesterday, with medical revelations about football players' helmets not protecting them from brain damage, we've heard star players declare -- "It's worth it --even if it shortens my life by fifteen years."

I don't take diuretics now but I did before my performances at Lincoln Center. Nowadays, when muscle or bone hurts, I use ice, or massage it, and remember the knee-high socks which sit in a dresser drawer with my exercise clothes.

My darling JC took a picture -- yep, that's my leg in the knee-highs, on my desk, yep, I'm still slender, and limber -- you do what you can do -- I do what I can do to stay that way.

WHAT DO I WATCH ON TV?

Life and death in real emergency rooms, in an unimportant town somewhere — that I'll watch, if there isn't an old or new movie that sounds interesting. Or the cable "Forensics" show -- I'll watch it. Not "Scrubs" or "Grey's Anatomy," but I'll sit and take in an old "ER" -- I've met most of the cast -- JC played the father of Dr. Greene, the main doctor.

The news -- the repetitious selling of the terrorism scares, scandals, murders, political-congressional wars -- though I like Maddow, Brokaw whenever he appears, and Anderson now and then, lately, it's not what I want to watch at the end of the day.

Sitcoms? "No, no no!" I moan, grabbing the remote the moment I hear a laugh track, or see a NCIS or CSI in the title. I do not want to see manufactured crimes --NOT with what's going on in the real world these days!

The acronym titles are a meaningless jumble so I Googled them. (I prefer to complain with a modicum of accuracy.) NCIS = Naval Crime Investigative Service, CSI = Crime Scene Investigations. TV's got CSI Las Vegas, CSI Miami, CSI N.Y., NCIS, and NCIS Los Angeles.

Their brilliant successful wealthy creators loom in my mind as foes -- the indefatigable Don Bellarsario, and Jerry Bruckheimer (See my post, "Off with his Head" 8/12). I've seen Bruckheimer's name on too many violent shows and megahit films. And though I've dined at Bellarsario's home and met his kids, I'm bored and repelled by what he loves to dramatize.

Sometimes I watch Dick Wolf's "Law and Order, Special Victims." Maybe because JC's been a lawyer, and a judge on SVU, I feel Wolf's shows occasionally ring with truth and are based on issues, not just shocking events.

"Forensics" is easier to take. Fingerprinting, DNA, tests, techniques relating to the investigation of a crime -- the plainer, duller, the less dramatically enhanced, the better. I can chat and watch -- cook/snack and watch -- or watch while I clear the table, run the dishwasher, set out the vitamins and coffee for tomorrow.

The dry narration of who-what-when-how facts ... yes, they're repeated too many times but the salient plot points stay with me. Instead of watching actors act/react to manufactured horror -- bang bang visions of cruelty, pain and blood hitting me -- I'm seeing a story unfold, as told by a police person, or an ordinary looking relative, who explains what happened sadly (but not yucky emotionally).

The actual forensics -- colors, tubes, droppers, flagons, DNA imprints, patterns of fingerprints -- it reminds me of OP art, POP art of the sixties, but isn't boring -- it's a kaleidoscope in motion.

Alas ... last night, making popcorn watching "Forensics ID" a new version of last season's show, a purring sympathetic voiced female narrator kept making comments ...

Is she where they're heading? I've noticed that quite a few new network shows are trauma-dramas, and they keep flashing that word -- "interactive."

Oh God, will it be like "Idol," or "Next top Model," "Biggest Loser," "Dancing with the Stars"? Will we be voting on guilty, not guilty? Live or die?

Gee, I've never really be able to sit and stare at a cartoon show ... gee, do they have p.m. re-runs? Maybe I'll be popcorning, dishwashing watching the "Simpsons," or "Family Guy?"

THE LOST SPOON

I love my big serving spoons.

They don't belong to a set that was a wedding present. I don't "love" our other utensils, though I'm fond of our small steak knives (bought two dozen of them so we can use them practically all the time).

I don't have a silver tea set or "guest" silverware, china, or crystal anything, except six Baccarat beer mugs Alan Lerner gave us one Christmas. (We've never used them -- tried to grow carrot tops in them, but carrot tops are a bit of bore.)

" Oh where oh where has one-dear-big-spoon gone ... ?" I sang.

JC, peering under the new stove sang "Where or where can it be ...?"

Husband and wife dialogue while hunting the first day:
"I didn't throw it out? Did you?"
"Gee, I didn't think so, hon ..."
I looked in the trash basket -- "It's not here."
He looked in the garbage basket -- "It's not here."
I searched behind the electric radiator that's under the table.
He moved the orange cabinet, to make sure it wasn't there.

We missed them, serving the salad with two regular-sized tablespoons.

Husband and wife dialogue while checking again the second day:
"What am I going to use when I'm serving the sauce?"
(We were having spaghetti with my red sauce -- with finely cut chicken, onions, mushrooms, celery, plus raisins, tangerine segments, and peanuts.)
JC handed me our clumsy, large soup spoon, muttering "I didn't throw it out."
He looked through the trash in the hallway recycle bin.
While I set the table murmuring something about the impossibility of buying one new spoon to go with the other one, he actually looked through all the garbage in our hallway bin.

Third day, we looked for serving spoons at Pier One. One huge spoon (too large for our drawer), was a possibility. We looked for spoons at two other stores -- no right-size spoons were available. We repeated our mournful conversation about how could it have happened, where could the spoon be, and decided we'd make do with one spoon.

Every time I passed through the kitchen I found myself looking in all the same places again. Saying good night, JC whispered out loud to himself, "Can't believe I threw out that big spoon."

Fourth day, we didn't mention them. JC found a new fixture that could light his computer's black keyboard, bought it, and while he was testing it, I raced upstairs to get a small extension cord and a pair of pliers he might need.

Yay- wow - gee- whoopee!

Lo and behold -- the serving spoon -- it was lying on the back end of our grand piano with the pliers!

I called into the intercom.."Come quick! There's something wonderful I want you to see. "

Well of course we reconstructed the story -- when, how it got there -- I'd put the spoon down and forgotten about it when our new mail lady buzzed.

We told each other over -- it could have taken weeks till we noticed it. It could have taken months.

We clinked the two spoons before serving the salad that night, and again clinked them, serving the sauce I made to go with my cod fish and scallops stew.

"We found it ..." we sang at lunch today, giddily, delightedly, serving each other our fruit salad with our dearly beloved, darling twin spoons.

FINGER IN THE WIND

New month. My testing finger is up. How's the weather? Where am I heading as we head into the chilly, then cooler, then cold-cold days?

Any interesting, exciting, adventures, plans, or trips? Is fear in the air. Regret?

I regret that I haven't bought a new plant to replace the one that finally had to be dumped. I regret that cold days are coming, because it's cold in our 4th floor living quarters -- and what to wear, what my winter "uniform" is going to be is pending.

Fear? As usual, most of my fears have to do with NOT being able to dance as well today, as I danced yesterday, or two months ago, or last year.

What a convenient, unsolvable fear that is --it's a smallish sticky square like a post-it note. It reminds me every day to work on stretches more and avoid the left knee by using the left gluteus, a muscle under my buttock.

Yes, it's a convenient focus, because it's so unimportant. Thinking about muscles diverts me from more real concerns -- wife /Mom/citizen of New York, America -- fears about things over which I have very little control.

Ah ha! That's the issue -- what I can do, what I can control, improve, fix? What can Em, the writer do?

Hey, hurray -- last October I was tied in knots, dealing with my agents trying to sell, not selling my books! Now, I don't have to sell anything -- just keep my bucket of ideas filled, turn on the faucet and capture any/all little thoughts that trickle out of my mind like ... like what in the world was a I dreaming early this morning, that made me want to stay in bed longer than usual?

Wasn't it something about the guy breaking down the door? (I wrote about the Robber, 9/27.) What a dream -- all I remember was moving stuff into the hall, turning it into an obstacle course in case the robber came back, and then a congested series of old issues ... can't say what they were, but I thought, why am I thinking of all this stuff --I've been here before -- why don't I get up?

Ah ha! That's the thought! I have been here before -- been on a writing schedule that eats up all my work time, enjoying the commitment, aware that the commitment is what's GREAT about writing.

(Dictionary says "commitment -- a state of being dedicated to a cause, a pledge, an undertaking -- an engagement or obligation that restricts freedom of action.)

Yes !

Yes, that's what I want -- I don't want to think about what to wear, or obligations, bookkeeping, renovations, or what to buy for the office, for my home, or for my guys.

Renovations are done -- bought just about all the new stuff we've needed to get -- both my guys are back to work! And I got my license, did my doctor checkups, no "obligations" are pending -- I'm unencumbered, free.

What else is in the wind? Afghanistan, Health Care, unemployment, housing market, stock market -- all those things are in the air, but our man in the White House is a brilliant, energetic, fighter-doer -- I can read and write about any of those things, worry, wonder, pray ...

Well, okay ... I'm ready for the interesting exciting trips I can take in my work . My finger is down, and I've got my post-it note on my gluteus.

REBATE-REFUND-BONUS-DISCOUNT

When I'm shopping, if I see REBATE, I grit my teeth.

Okay, I read the fine print:
Money back, in six weeks, or twelve weeks or three months if I send my name, age, occupation, address, phone number, email and the sales receipt.

The form is complicated, not laid out in a simple, clear format. What's clear is the "Null & Void" warning, if anything is left blank.

The overly complicated rebate annoys me. The idea of buying something and getting a rebate festers.

Why?

Because Mr. Manufacturer can sell my name and address! Because once I get my money back, what I've actually paid for the product, is maybe twenty-five dollars less than Mr. M's competitors!

Because the rebate distracts me from the rest of the deal -- the warranty, and the charge for services that you'll need.

Six months ago, after researching Time Warner, Earthlink, Verizon, Sprint, and AT & T, I went with Earthlink -- the saleslady was nice, and I wasn't sure, am still am not sure, what the different deals were.

The prices for this, for that --("this" and "that" called by a different name, by each service provider), the warnings about terminating the services (how much I'd be charged) if I didn't like the service and canceled for any reason, and the monthly charge. What a dummy I am -- not noticing. I didn't notice that the monthly price is higher after the first two months.

Mr. Manufacturer's wicked weapon -- distraction, the inventively varied names for essential services -- make comparison headachy, confusing, impossible.

It's intolerable! (See my posts: "Ad Lies." 4/25, "Sex Ads" 5/10; "Doodler Complaint" 6/7; "Scary Movies" 7/16.) I want to know what I'm doing, what I'm buying.

Hey, don't forget the big, all important S & H

I can't remember life before S & H -- the offer -- the kindly, generous open hand -- a second one, whatever it is, FREE!
Just S & H.
Which is Shipping and Handling.
Which is Stiffing and Haggling.
Which is Gypping and hooking.

KIRK THE POSTMAN

I galloped downstairs whenever he buzzed. You don't want to leave a busy man standing outside, who's taking the trouble to hand-deliver your packages, rather than leave a note (which requires a phone call, or a pick-up at the post office).

And it wasn't just stuff for us, it was for the two other tenants.

We always had How are you. How's your family? conversations, often with Kirk's commentaries on the plays he and his wife had just seen. It took me a while to realize that he had strong, succinct comments, but he didn't impose them on me. (I appreciate that -- when acquaintances insist on praising, dissecting, raving on and on about a play, I retreat a bit, from the friendship.)

Kirk mentioned a wife and a young daughter. (I gave him tickets for the musical "Hpw the Grinch Stole Christmas" when JC was playing the narrator-dog, "Old Max.") A week later, there was a Hallmark thank you card in our mailbox, signed "Your postman."

Kirk didn't wear a uniform -- just ordinary, no-color clothes -- in winter, earmuffs with his jacket and cap, also workman's boots -- summer. a blue shirt, jeans, and sneakers. I'm not sure where he lives, but I know his last name from giving him a "Happy Holidays" check each year. Something he said makes me think that he wasn't worried about money -- his wife had a "good" job, editorial or executive secretary. I don't think of postman as a "good" job.

But I've evolved -- I used to think piano tuners were people who once played the piano, and wanted to be a concert pianist, or dreamed of playing with an orchestra, perhaps? (Probably, because when I was taking piano lessons I thought about being a famous pianist, and The owner of a music shop I talked to, said he had a similar failed dream.) I guess I should have asked Kirk -- how did you end up being a postman? I didn't because he seemed proud, pleased, comfortably ensconced in what I have always thought of as an unrewarding job. Not as low (on the good job totem pole) as street cleaner -- not as unpleasant as garbage man, who are higher, because they make "good" money.

(Mail carrier's starting salary: $7.70 an hour. Street clearner $7. Garbage man earns between $12 and 18 per hour.)

Okay, so why am I writing about Kirk?

Well ... he's a nice looking, stand-tall guy. I notice and like nice-looking stand-tall guys. Is it because he was a pleasant, helpful, undemanding "convenience?"

I don't like writing about him in the past-tense, even though in my life, he IS past-tense. Right now, he's probably traveling, seeing the Grand Canyon (which he mentioned wanting to see). He said that he was retiring, but this guy certainly wasn't in his sixties -- more likely early fifties.

I asked him (during our goodbye conversation), what are you going to be doing all day long? He smiled and said he'd probably be doing puzzles. He said he enjoyed crossword puzzles, and reading. (I had a feeling he was making stuff up in order to give me the answer that I was apparently looking for.) "That's all?" I asked. And he repeated -- "I like puzzles, I enjoy reading."

So I'm left with a memory of a postman, not an ex-actor, not a guy who had big dreams and settled into mediocrity -- nope -- but a very special, interesting, polished, skillful, reliable, faithful, industrious, mysterious man who brought the mail and made it into an occasion.

It isn't that anymore. I miss him.

I like the fact that it wasn't important to Kirk Robbins, to make an impression, to make an imprint on JC or me. But he did.

GO BACK AND DO IT AGAIN?

Do what? Live my life again? Could I do things better?

What age, which self would I want to be?

Be young again? Have the affair I contemplated having? See my mom one last time before she died? Find another place in Malibu to live? Produce my "Shattering Panes" play one more time?

So, what about the be young things?

Be a beginner dancer? Could I stretch more, make myself more limber -- despite my feet, learn to dance on pointes? Be a ballerina, even though some of the steps, some of the essential moves still look silly to me?

Be a teenager, and have to deal with making the highest marks in school, and what am I going to be when I grow up? And pimples? And fall in love with the quarterback Dave, the handsomest big man on campus in High School.

I changed myself -- makeup, clothes, dimmed down my brain, learned to talk sports, made friends with Dave's side-kick, a shrimpy twerp who ran Dave's errands -- I actually gave this shrimpy kid the clever, facetious do-you-like-me note I wrote (lavender linen stationery, purple ink, each word worked over and over) to hand-deliver to Dave ... Never, never would I want to be back in those days and feel how I felt when Dave never, never, never answered.

So what about love -- other possible life partners -- go back and be in a position to consider the possibilities again? NOW? Hmm ... I'm not geared up by my upbringing, my era, to picture myself operating, functioning successfully in the current scene.

And what would I wear? I gave my wardrobe away -- all those fantastic outfits I had that were innovative, created by me to catch the eye of discerning men and women (mostly the later). Could I create clothes like that again? Would I wear Victoria Secret bras that create cleavage? Get boob enhancement surgery? Oh dear ... I don't think so.

Even if I could turn back the clock, could I unlearn what I know and feel? Would I want to NOT marry my first husband? No, gee, we created a dance company!

What would I want to go back and do again? Some job I did, like mopping the studio floor last night? I could have done it more carefully -- why didn't I put "SlipNoMore" in the water -- it makes the floor less slippery and I'm slipping too much?

No, the quick, light, cold-water mopping removed the layer of dust -- the dust is why I'm slipping. Anyhow, I can go back and mop it again if it's still slippery.

At the top of this page, the doodle (seven ages of Em) -- that's a job I've gone back and redone at least six times --scanned it, pasted a new face on the 2nd smallest toddler. Click it -- you'll see how I fussed over it -- going back and doing it again definitely improved the doodle.

Okay! "If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again..." I can do that with writing, but would I? Do I want to go back and write another version of a "The Woman," a/k/a "Cordelia," a/k/a "Woman of the Century," a/k/a "Cordelia's Almanac," then "'Somebody"?

I, wore myself out -- wearing her clothes, living her life -- I grew up in her time, aged as she aged, even described her death so vividly I feel as if I've already described my own demise. No. I do not want to live through Cordelia's life again.

And "Shattering Panes" is a project that I'm finished with... (Shh ... I love the play -- wrote it for me to perform in with my husband and son, but where their careers are at, my revving it up, even doing another reading ... well it would be sweet for me, but a backward move for them -- fun maybe for JC but wrong for our son.)

Hey, a mother knows.

I keep thinking of the lioness patiently, sometimes impatiently boffing, pushing her cub out of the den so he'll learn to find food, avoid predators, and survive without her. What the cub knows, and what the cub does with what he's learned is HIS LIFE. (Even if Mom knows best, it has to be up to him.)

Ergo -- no play project for me.

Ergo, all that I've done, learned, yearned for, tried, avoided, regretted, loved, hated, mourned, and sought -- is me, moving ahead, sticking to what I am because that's me.

Hmm. I like that!