sea salt

Three years ago my extremely talented friends Andrew House and Jeremy Adams approached me with an idea for a project: could I write voice overs for some conceptual videos? They wanted to film beautiful, interesting things, and have powerful words behind them. I didn't know what they would film, but I started to write. I wrote eleven pieces, not knowing if they were poetry or prose, but the words came quickly and I simply did my best to keep up. We called the project "Barnacle," after an image in one of the pieces I wrote. Three of these pieces made it into films, and I'm extremely proud to have my name attached to such beautiful short films: "Victory" - http://vimeo.com/28037726 (Part 4, 5:23) "Truth" - http://vimeo.com/28037726 (Part 6, 7:57) "Pain" - http://vimeo.com/53699597 The other nine pieces are sitting safely in a folder at home, and when the time is right, they'll be paired with moving images of their own...

Auntie and me at my wedding in 2010 My Other Footprint    I don’t know whether the lawn was wet from dew or if it had been freshly watered. But somehow, our feet were wet when we stepped up the 3 cement stairs to my grandmother’s front door, and my aunt clutched my arm and said, “Look!” Our footprints were exactly the same. Six years earlier, while I was spending a semester in Italy, she sent me a cookie cake for Valentine’s Day, homemade and shipped in a pizza box. I was used to receiving packages in the mail from her - she sent all her nieces and nephews a care package at college for every holiday, filled with goofy toys and candy. But nobody else got a cookie cake in a pizza box in Florence. Five years earlier, she flew to North Carolina from Boston to attend my college graduation. After my parents, sisters, and grandparents had gone home, she stayed an extra night, helping me cram my ’96 Mazda Protégé with everything I owned. She waited in the car while ...

Next week I am going to make my own wedding cake. No, I've never made a wedding cake before. Yes, I am already married. On October 2, I'll be celebrating two years of marriage with my wonderful husband. We had the best wedding either of us has ever been to (that's the point, right?), and of course that included a delicious cake. Admittedly, we let our moms pick the flavors, as we let them decide on everything except flowers (I insisted on sunflowers) and music (we picked our own live band). Neither of us wanted a cake that was too fancy or fussy, so we asked the decorator to simply pipe on the design from our invitations, a simple orange outline of leaves on a vine, topped with two birds in wedding clothes. It was perfect. Per the custom, they sent us away with the top of the cake to freeze and eat on our first wedding anniversary. But not per the custom, we couldn't take the cake with us, as we were leaving the next day on a one-way flight to Nashville , wher...

I walked into our bedroom and the bags were packed. Suitcases bulging with t-shirts and socks covered the bed, and trash bags filled with old clothes lined the wall, waiting for their trip to Goodwill. I burst into tears. Heavy sobs and an intense panic took over my body: what will I do now? My husband is not leaving me. In fact, I knew that today, while I was at work, he was at home packing, preparing for our trip tomorrow from Nashville to Boston. His new job starts on Monday, and so he is going first, to settle back in, to find us an apartment, to prepare for my arrival a month later. We joked about how the time would fly, how we would Skype everyday as we did during our engagement, half of which we spent in different states. I know I will be fine, and I know this is the most practical way to move, and I know that in one month, when we are reunited, it will seem that no time has passed at all. But that didn't make the sight of packed suitcases any easier to bear. I t...

Yesterday I had lunch with my best friend in Nashville. We were at a tiny burger joint, and at 12:30pm on a Tuesday, it was filled with men. We managed to squeeze ourselves into a spot at the greasy counter, facing the grills and sharing elbow space with men all around. "I quit smoking," she said to me. I smiled, but didn't see the big deal, as she only smoked a few cigarettes a day to deal with the stress of her new business. "And I stopped eating white bread and sugar." "That's ... a lot to quit at once!" I said, wondering why she would bring up a new diet while we were eating burgers and fries. She smiled and looked directly at me.  "I'm having a baby." ______________ On Saturday my husband and I participated in A Novel Idea - Jumpstart , a one-day workshop for adults who want to write a novel. A staunch creative nonfiction writer, I was nervous, but ready for a new challenge: fiction. The untrue. The invented. The haven ...

In five months, we've made some good friends who have helped us out with everything from airport pick ups to recommending a good car mechanic.  We've appreciated these people all along the way, but didn't realize how much we needed them until this week - house week. It's been a little over 1 week since we moved into the new house, and in that week we added to this extremely important group of people...people to call in a crisis.* I. Moving In the city, moving is like going out to the movies - you know who to call, you know who will most likely be interested, and you know who has their own car.  Kevin and I each had our Boston regulars, people we always called to help us move apartments (usually in and out of 3rd floor walk-ups), for the small price of pizza after the move.  We had the friend with the truck, the friend who could lift a dresser by himself, the friend who was great at organizing boxes in the back of a car.  When we moved into our apartment in Nas...

I did it. After three months of getting up, saying goodbye to my husband in the morning and spending the day at home on my computer, I have finally gotten myself a job. I realize that a job shouldn't seem like such a big deal - after all, I've been earning enough money as a freelance writer, editor, and online instructor to pay my share of our monthly bills and student loans. But I spent a good part of each day wondering where my next "hello" would come from, counting on one hand the number of physical people I interacted with, and trying to control my excitement when my husband came home and I could engage in a real conversation. The people at the farmer's market, grocery store, and post office were excellent for a quick fix of person-to-person contact, and my good friend with a newborn baby was a reliable source of company (admittedly, we spent most of our time together in her living room, watching Ellen and Oprah while I worked on my computer). But all o...

Last week our marriage certificate finally arrived, which means that I could begin the process of legally changing my name.  To me, the issue of whether or not a woman takes her husband's name is far too interesting to far too many people, and I have found myself annoyed at the explanations, considerations, and opinions of people who feel very strongly one way or another. I honestly never cared much, but the final decision was to take my husband's name legally while continuing to write, submit and (hopefully) publish under my given name, the name I've been for 27 years, the name that I have spelled out infinite times because it is how the world recognizes me: Dianna Calareso.  On the way to the office I called my sister and complained.  I didn't want to fill out forms, didn't want to change my written identity as if I am no longer the same person, didn't want to wait in line at the mercy of federal employees.  Of course, I am thrilled to be married to a p...

I spoke with a woman who wants my help as she begins writing short stories. "I've never written a story before, never in my life!  I'm a songwriter, but I've never written anything else before." "Look," I said, "in order for anyone to do anything, you have to have never done it before." She didn't respond, so I took a different approach.  "Before you wrote your first song, you'd never written a song before, right?  At one time, Johnny Cash had never written a song before, and then he became Johnny Cash." "Yes, that makes sense..."  My limited knowledge of the language of music helped us get one step closer together.  I speak writing and she speaks music, but somehow we had to communicate if we were going to successfully work together to create something new.  I asked her what she had written so far. "I have the idea for the beginning and the end, but nothing in between.  I don't know what ya...

( Photo courtesy of lenayoga.com)  (published in Her Nashville) While I am in half moon pose, my DVD yoga instructor says, "Notice how even the slightest movement, even breath, affects the balance." I am balanced on my left leg, my left arm on the ground in front of me; my right leg and right arm are in the air. If I look up, my balance is shaky, and I must look down to steady myself. If I lean to the left and start to wobble, I pull my weight to the right to even things out. When I first began practicing yoga a month ago, I was convinced it was all about learning to achieve perfect balance - in my mind, you were either completely still, breathing calmly, or you were in a heap on the floor. Anyone who practices yoga knows this is not the case, and now I do, too. The goal of the poses is not only to learn balance, but to learn what balance is. True balance, in my experience, is not standing statue-still. It starts out a little shaky, a little tiring, and a little...

We arrived in Nashville a week ago. This time it was a one-way flight, a permanent move, a plan to stay. He has been living here, and now I live here, and so we will live here. Here is where we are. The list of things to do grows every day. I am used to changing my address (I had four addresses in the five years I lived in Massachusetts), but this is a new geographical identity. The first order of business is the car that brought me here. Beyond the obvious changes (Tennessee license plate, Tennessee license, local car insurance), there are the minor adjustments: remove at least one ice scraper from the trunk, store the shovel, snow brush, and insulated gloves, and peel off the parking stickers that have become a part of my peripheral vision while driving. Like all major cities, Boston and its surrounding neighborhoods have limited space for parking. People move to the cities faster than the cities can create more space, so the solution is to zone off streets for resident park...

This morning I kept repeating the dreams to myself so I wouldn't forget them: sharks and wedding, sharks and wedding, sharks and wedding... I wanted to remember the dreams so I could ask a friend at school what they meant. She is an amateur dream interpreter, a businesswoman, teacher, mother, and wife. I trust her opinion. It was a restless night, and I never slept for more than an hour at a time. Each time I fell back asleep, I re-entered the dream I'd been having, one of two vivid dreams that I'd never had before. Dream 1: We are in a boathouse at the end of a dock leading back to a house. The boathouse and dock are surrounded by choppy water rising up in angry waves around us and splashing the dock. We hold hands and run from the boathouse to the new house, but as we run along the dock we are attacked by sharks. The sharks are everywhere, and there seem to be millions of them - they jump up and snap at us, they land on the dock and thrash their bodies, they b...