TRY TRY AGAIN

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

What age, which self would I want to be?

Be young again? See Mom one last time before she died? Find another place in Malibu to live? Produce my "Shattering Panes" play one more time?

Be a beginner dancer again? Could I stretch more, make myself more limber and, despite my feet, be a ballerina, even though some of essential ballet steps always looked silly to me? They still look silly to me.

Be a teenager, and 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 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. Did I really gave the shrimp my facetious do-you-like-me love letter 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 -- go back -- go on dates? I'm not geared up by my upbringing, my era, to picture myself functioning successfully in the current scene. And what would I wear? Would I wear Victoria's Secret bras that create super cleavage? Oh dear, I don't think so -- the man I've got is my pal, my family, my very best friend.

What would I want to go back and do again? Perform on a world tour? I've done that! I don't want to see the sights I've seen before.

Write another novel? Do another version of a "The Woman," a/k/a "Cordelia," a/k/a "Woman of the Century," a/k/a "'Somebody?" What about producing my play "Shattering Panes?" I did produce it, but I could improve it. Why not try try again?

Not again! Haven't I learned/yearned for a hit play? Revised it, loved, hated, mourned, sought -- that's me -- sticking to what I was, what I am now because that's me!

Hey, look beyond -- wave your magic wand!
Don't you see -- you're free to be or not to be --
Like "Hamlet" sad, or "Cinderella" glad!
Just don your glass-slipper sneaker and be stronger not weaker,
And write, write, write -- delight in your blog-site!