A Generic Life

Somedays life seems like a romantic comedy. Or I really wish it did and try to make it fit. A comedies of error filled with self-conscious laughter. Wistful smiling glances over a shared repast. Nudges and meddling friends and miscommunications that get all cleaned up with a slow kiss. Meg Ryan cast as me, and John Cusack sweeping me off my two left feet into happily ever after. Only we never see the ever after, so how do we know it goes happily?

Other times it's a heart-rending romantic drama - all sweeping montages covering time and space, wistful soaring ballads, and people running in slow motion  - which, by the way, is WAY harder to do in real life! Decade long love affairs that never quite work out (have you ever dated a Heathcliffe? That mad woman in the attic is SO annoying!). Repudiations, and angry shouts, and slamming doors, and private longing and half-spoken half-truths. A slow fade to blech.

I even have musical days. Mostly when I'm around my mom, or have opened up my piano, and mom or I will say a word that suddenly becomes a lyric (I dare you to say 'accentuate' or 'summertime' around us). And the next thing you know the music swells and we're surrounded by a chorus line of quick-stepping, high-kickers in matching outfits and five-part harmony. Okay, that last part is a lie, but we do like to sing, and to demonstrate our vast knowledge of un-cool songs. And to harmonize. And if pressed I can imagine we would link arms and do a little step-kick-step-touch. Fun, but hard to sustain for more than a joyous interlude.

What I really imagine my life to be, though, is an epic adventure. Fabulous people in far-flung cities. Chance meetings. Serendipitous wrong turns. Momentous incidents and minuscule moments of beauty. "Out of Africa" without the cheating and syphilis. And no blazing guns either, please - I'm a pacifist, not just a dramatist. I'm Amelia Earhart (with better teeth and a black box) and Scarlett O'Hara and Molly Brown and pretty much any character Katherine Hepburn played. And I might want a man, but I sure don't need him. Or at least that's what I sometimes like to think.
 
I'm really excited about the adventure I'm in the middle of creating for myself. I just hope it doesn't turn into a talk show.

So, what's your genre?