It's been a long time - for me - since I've written, mostly due to the heat, being busy, a few surprises, and all the fanfare I shower myself with when I'm motivated enough to change my life yet again. I've actually written a lot - nothing blog-worthy - but on the eve of a new challenge, I feel the need to catch up and really seek out a moment of clarity and perspective about my life so far. Why now? Is what I'm about to do that important? Not really, it's just a writing class I'm starting tomorrow. What would inspire me to stop and look back now, other than the fact that most of my writing will be focused on the study of writing?
I've got a year to live.
Don't read that wrong. I'm not planning on dying, nor am I sick. I mean, I don't know when it'll happen, but if I go, I currently have everything I want. I have a few really good friends who are committed to life and our investment in it together. My family's doing great. I've had a whole life in theater stuffed into a decade and promise of bigger and better things. I've found a way to pay attention to what people are saying and doing, and I'm endlessly entertianed by the dance around me. I'm so thankful for what I have, but yes, all this can change, so I'm inspired to make better use of my time and get back to living a slightly larger life. That includes getting on my career, getting back to learning and seeking new places and people, and even new avenues of charity now that the one through work is caught up in the merger and the other one through theater has no home for the moment. I've sat in the cocoon of home recuperating from having left my actors and my stage, but I am currently in the midst of recreating and rising from what was.
I have a year to live. Really live. And then after that, I have another one. It allows me a chance to make plans beyond saying "I have a day to live". This is basically me saying that I'm optimistic about my future and not weighed down with regret. My mistakes from the past, especially the ones that invited recurring patterns, only lend to my experience and not to my character. My character is all about the things my friends recognize: I love, and love with my whole heart, and I take care of the people close to me. I'm opinionated but committed, eager to connect (sometimes to a fault), but at the same time - and most of the time - I choose to go my own way.
Here's what my experience dictates: Acting has taught me to not respond until I'm really provoked or inspired to react. I only recently learned this on a personal level. Also, you own your own perceptions and issues with the outside world. 90% of the time, people have more than enough on their own plate to accomodate worrying about your problems, so...this is what I tell myself...pull yourself together and keep moving. If you can do all this and choose happiness over anything that might slow you down or obscure your view from the answers you need on a daily basis, you can pretty much stay young and true to yourself. It's not easy, but sometimes the practice surprises you, and you find the spectacular in the simple moments of the day. Alternatively, you could be distracted by the unsolvable mysteries of situations that are completely out of your hands. It's your choice.
Yeah, you have to accept that there are things you can't help or change. You have to be okay with that. There are mysterious people in the margins of my life who play by their own rules and on rare occasions enter my world like strange lights in the sky, appearing and disappearing without explanation. I used to think that the exchange was somehow a reflection of me, both an attraction to who I was perceived to be and a repulsion to the realization of who I actually am. In reality, it has nothing to do with me, and I have to either let those moments go or fight the temptation to reach for them. It's usually both. I'm still practicing the balance of that.
What's the worst that would happen if you, in a mixed moment of courage, changed a response to something, or said exactly what was on your mind? What would happen if you suddenly chose to not do something expected of your character or decided to stop living a life that isn't working for you? You and I have that same year to look forward to, my friend. It can be whatever you want it to be. We do, after all, have a year to live, and in the end...if it really is the end...it would be such a crime to have wasted it.
We are still here. That means we have a choice. Isn't that all the power we need to begin?
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Tight
BEFORE I say anything else, I'm watching Dancing with the Stars and both Dolly Parton and Wayne Newton are scaring me. Scaring me! Wayne hasn't had his face pulled back as tight as Dolly has, but man. Wrinkles add character. Sinatra looked great as old blue eyes, Sophia Loren is still a hottie. Plastic surgery people, please save the money for something else. It's okay...no, shh shhhhhh, it's okay to age.
Wait - how many times have I written about turning 40? Also, am I not working out like it's a new fad? Okay, guilty. I'm still not ever going to pull my skin back over my face like a condom on an apple core. Yeah, I said it. How's that for a mental image?
We all want to be loved forever, and we sometimes want the ridiculous combination of our youthful bodies with our current wisdom and knowledge. I know I'm chasing it. I see it all over the place in the entertainment world. People want to be seen. They want to be noticed. Just like the craft we practice, the lives within tend to be an enhanced mirror of the lives outside of entertainment. That's why some films and shows tend to resonate so well with audiences. It's not a matter of finely crafting stories based on psychological study and behavioral equations. As one of my greatest acting teachers once said, "actors are very special broken people". The same holds true of any kind of artist.
In a rehearsal this past weekend with that very same teacher as a director, I watched really interesting behavior of people who were getting parts taken away and given to them, who had a chance to establish themselves in a pecking order that just doesn't exist. It happens every time he revisits the show. People want his approval. They want a chance to set themselves apart from others. It's not competition - there's nothing to win. It's manufactured self-esteem. There was one girl in particular who has always drawn attention to herself. She laughed the loudest, even when nothing was funny. When the whole cast would be addressed, she would either talk to someone else or rifle through her purse. She, like Britney, like Paris, like Lindsay, will not stand with others on the same level. She wasn't the only one at the rehearsal, either. There were others screaming for attention, for approval, even physically staying close to the strongest person in the room, the "alpha male" director. It's behavior that occurs in rehearsals and in performances, where the self-involved aren't self-aware. I kept looking around at other people, to see if they noticed the same things I was watching. Only a couple did.
Back in real life, the volume is turned down on the same attention-getting habits, but they're still there. I wonder where they come from, and often ask myself how they make the transition from an innocent cry for help to a destructive, self-serving path that really leads to endless dissatisfaction. So Dolly and Wayne have altered their looks, and I know a few surgically enhanced girls at the office. The girl I saw at rehearsal is really no different than the brat I worked with who never quite found out what it was to be accountable for her actions, even when she could clearly see the cause and effect of them. I've seen the most unbalanced people complain about the drama of others, and all of it, both the creative and real worlds I live in, begins to blur and I ask myself why people seem so disconnected, and at the same time want approval, want to redefine the world according to them.
What in our world ranks possessions over ideas? What makes it possible to believe that we're not okay the way we are? When this life seems to be made of all these irregular puzzle pieces, and we end up craving something real, what happens when we center ourselves and are once again able to manage the whole thing? Do the real things we needed get capped and put back in the medicine cabinet?
You have two options: 1) to tighten up because life moves fast and as you get older, sometimes your decisions illustrate the fact that you are alone with your own values and perceptions, or 2) to relax your hold on everything and see yourself in the ever changing context of the world, constantly getting better and never letting any outside influences take anything away from who you are.
So who are you? Who is the country star, the vegas performer, the obnoxious actress, the divorcee with fake breasts, or the writer blogging late at night? We're not so different, you and I. We cross paths, we fade away, we lose sight of each other, of ourselves, and here we are again. We all want to be loved forever. Shouldn't we first get that love from ourselves?
Wait - how many times have I written about turning 40? Also, am I not working out like it's a new fad? Okay, guilty. I'm still not ever going to pull my skin back over my face like a condom on an apple core. Yeah, I said it. How's that for a mental image?
We all want to be loved forever, and we sometimes want the ridiculous combination of our youthful bodies with our current wisdom and knowledge. I know I'm chasing it. I see it all over the place in the entertainment world. People want to be seen. They want to be noticed. Just like the craft we practice, the lives within tend to be an enhanced mirror of the lives outside of entertainment. That's why some films and shows tend to resonate so well with audiences. It's not a matter of finely crafting stories based on psychological study and behavioral equations. As one of my greatest acting teachers once said, "actors are very special broken people". The same holds true of any kind of artist.
In a rehearsal this past weekend with that very same teacher as a director, I watched really interesting behavior of people who were getting parts taken away and given to them, who had a chance to establish themselves in a pecking order that just doesn't exist. It happens every time he revisits the show. People want his approval. They want a chance to set themselves apart from others. It's not competition - there's nothing to win. It's manufactured self-esteem. There was one girl in particular who has always drawn attention to herself. She laughed the loudest, even when nothing was funny. When the whole cast would be addressed, she would either talk to someone else or rifle through her purse. She, like Britney, like Paris, like Lindsay, will not stand with others on the same level. She wasn't the only one at the rehearsal, either. There were others screaming for attention, for approval, even physically staying close to the strongest person in the room, the "alpha male" director. It's behavior that occurs in rehearsals and in performances, where the self-involved aren't self-aware. I kept looking around at other people, to see if they noticed the same things I was watching. Only a couple did.
Back in real life, the volume is turned down on the same attention-getting habits, but they're still there. I wonder where they come from, and often ask myself how they make the transition from an innocent cry for help to a destructive, self-serving path that really leads to endless dissatisfaction. So Dolly and Wayne have altered their looks, and I know a few surgically enhanced girls at the office. The girl I saw at rehearsal is really no different than the brat I worked with who never quite found out what it was to be accountable for her actions, even when she could clearly see the cause and effect of them. I've seen the most unbalanced people complain about the drama of others, and all of it, both the creative and real worlds I live in, begins to blur and I ask myself why people seem so disconnected, and at the same time want approval, want to redefine the world according to them.
What in our world ranks possessions over ideas? What makes it possible to believe that we're not okay the way we are? When this life seems to be made of all these irregular puzzle pieces, and we end up craving something real, what happens when we center ourselves and are once again able to manage the whole thing? Do the real things we needed get capped and put back in the medicine cabinet?
You have two options: 1) to tighten up because life moves fast and as you get older, sometimes your decisions illustrate the fact that you are alone with your own values and perceptions, or 2) to relax your hold on everything and see yourself in the ever changing context of the world, constantly getting better and never letting any outside influences take anything away from who you are.
So who are you? Who is the country star, the vegas performer, the obnoxious actress, the divorcee with fake breasts, or the writer blogging late at night? We're not so different, you and I. We cross paths, we fade away, we lose sight of each other, of ourselves, and here we are again. We all want to be loved forever. Shouldn't we first get that love from ourselves?
Thursday, August 09, 2007
Me, Myself, an Island
This year...really, this year more than any other leading up to it, has represented the social exercise of maintaining self-awareness with respect to others' feelings while at the same time not caring about what people think of me. It's important to note at this point that I'm saying this with a healthy amount of hindsight, that it's not a proclamation of independence or intent. It's not a discovery or resolution. It's just the result, I guess, of having reached a few limits, and rather than compromise myself to win the favor of others, I've finally thrown my hands up and accepted that, in the moment, I just can't behave the way people want me to, or worse yet, be the person people want me to be. I am so guilty of having tried this in the past - with a theater company, with people at work, with friends, with relationships - and in the end, I've found out that merely disguising the parts doesn't make them fit together any better. It is what it is.
Now, I won't sit here with this pickle in my left hand (it's lunchtime) and tell you that I absolutely don't care what everyone thinks about me. That would just be a flat out lie, and I suspect that anybody who tells you that they're completely apathetic to opinions about them isn't telling you the complete truth. Our reactions are different, but even a two second exchange with a stranger could make or break your day. That guy who honked his horn at you in the parking lot might be immediately forgotten, but later, that unresolved memory might be waiting on your pillow. "Wait...was he honking at me? Yeah, he was. What did I do?" I used to think that adapting to everyone who had a problem with me would solve the whole pillow issue, but it didn't. There's always a reconciliation with the day's deeds, at least in my mind.
What I'm beginning to learn is that people are entitled to their own anger, happiness, and yes, even a sadness you want to take away but sometimes can only be in the company of. The point really is, to be strong, to know yourself, and in my case, to keep asking questions so I can really be here, living in the present and always be ready to change direction and see things differently...
...because I can't, as much as I've tried in the past, make anyone feel anything that somehow fits in the world of my expectations. I only have the capacity to be the person I aspire to be, to constantly learn and pay attention, and hopefully stop wasting my time worrying about things that are out of my control. I've finally surrendered to that, and the get out of jail card I have in my back pocket is that for years, I've explored my life and the world around me mostly alone. I've had only a couple of people in my life who have been right there with me, but for the most part, walking away and doing my own thing has been a briar patch for me. Oh, I know people have complained about me, or even recently in my history, don't quite know how to maintain contact (which could easily make me feel like "tainted goods", but it doesn't), but as a friend once told me, that's not my problem. It's all in the reaction.
If I close my eyes, I can see myself surrounded by nothing familiar, an ocean of indifference and memories in the back of my mind. I've walked away from aging definitions of things I wanted to do and people I wanted to be around, and I wait here in silence. I do have this pickle, though.
Soon, it'll be time to rebuild.
Monday, August 06, 2007
Solo
Lately, I've been into words that mean one thing in one language, and with the same spelling, mean something different in another. Take "once". In English, it implies one time, a singular occurence In Spanish, it is the number eleven. The title of this entry is also in the singular, more often than not describing a person away from everyone else. In Spanish, while it implies one thing apart from other, it is also an expression of "only" or "just", as in "this and nothing more".
Commercial airplanes encounter air turbulence, its pilots never being able to predict where and when it'll happen because, of course, air is invisible and different currents at high altitudes are moving in different speeds and directions. They fly cautiously, holding on and trying to gently move with each bump and push on the fuselage of the plane. Suddenly, from one section of deceivingly clear sky to the next, the pockets of rogue wind fade and the plane slices through the air smoothly and effortlessly. The pilots and passengers who paid attention could look back at a rough patch and ask "what was that?"
That's kind of where I'm at now.
Sometimes I let people in because the timing feels right and for the moment, people are on their thoughtful best behavior. People forget themselves and "I" becomes "We" for - all too often - a short time. Once "We" becomes a fragmented collection of "Me", "You", and "Them", I start struggling with a comfortable place to be, and then suddenly...
...well, this time I've found myself alone in a deceivingly clear section of sky. I found myself in that turbulence, tried to either work against the push of other peoples actions and intentions or try to flow with them into pain and rejection, and then took a step back. I was invested. I was stuck on hope and optimism that things could go back to "we" in a few places, but it just wasn't meant to be. In the past, I held on for years - once for five years, once for eleven - because I valued time and commitment. Never one to say that it was time wasted, I did learn a lesson. With that recent step back, I also revoked investment. On one hand, that means that I'm back to going at some things alone, but on the other hand, I'm doing things on my own terms, and that makes me happy. With solitude comes an opportunity to be creative again and not just pass the time with company. I can keep looking for collaborators, people who are in the same place and time as I am. I can find people who believe in the "we", and the only thing outside ourselves is the thing we create together, be it a song, a story, a funny moment, or a great idea.
My lunches alone have become productive again, filled with writing and seeking, something like the days when I used to know Nons and started writing poetry on the way to creating the musical and huge movements in my creative world. It's kind of funny; In Spanish, if I describe you eating, I use the word "come". It comes from the word "comer". In English, if I want you to meet me here, and in this particular case, I'm talking about being here in this moment of understanding each other, of knowing what both you and I bring to this sentence, to this weird little self-indulgent page on the net, I use the same word. Come.
Commercial airplanes encounter air turbulence, its pilots never being able to predict where and when it'll happen because, of course, air is invisible and different currents at high altitudes are moving in different speeds and directions. They fly cautiously, holding on and trying to gently move with each bump and push on the fuselage of the plane. Suddenly, from one section of deceivingly clear sky to the next, the pockets of rogue wind fade and the plane slices through the air smoothly and effortlessly. The pilots and passengers who paid attention could look back at a rough patch and ask "what was that?"
That's kind of where I'm at now.
Sometimes I let people in because the timing feels right and for the moment, people are on their thoughtful best behavior. People forget themselves and "I" becomes "We" for - all too often - a short time. Once "We" becomes a fragmented collection of "Me", "You", and "Them", I start struggling with a comfortable place to be, and then suddenly...
...well, this time I've found myself alone in a deceivingly clear section of sky. I found myself in that turbulence, tried to either work against the push of other peoples actions and intentions or try to flow with them into pain and rejection, and then took a step back. I was invested. I was stuck on hope and optimism that things could go back to "we" in a few places, but it just wasn't meant to be. In the past, I held on for years - once for five years, once for eleven - because I valued time and commitment. Never one to say that it was time wasted, I did learn a lesson. With that recent step back, I also revoked investment. On one hand, that means that I'm back to going at some things alone, but on the other hand, I'm doing things on my own terms, and that makes me happy. With solitude comes an opportunity to be creative again and not just pass the time with company. I can keep looking for collaborators, people who are in the same place and time as I am. I can find people who believe in the "we", and the only thing outside ourselves is the thing we create together, be it a song, a story, a funny moment, or a great idea.
My lunches alone have become productive again, filled with writing and seeking, something like the days when I used to know Nons and started writing poetry on the way to creating the musical and huge movements in my creative world. It's kind of funny; In Spanish, if I describe you eating, I use the word "come". It comes from the word "comer". In English, if I want you to meet me here, and in this particular case, I'm talking about being here in this moment of understanding each other, of knowing what both you and I bring to this sentence, to this weird little self-indulgent page on the net, I use the same word. Come.
The Fool on the Hill
I've actually written a few blog entries that withered on the vine, attempts to recapture something unemotional but enlightening. Let's face it; It's better to leave enlightenment in words to another forum. As Mark Twain said, "It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt."
My search has become interesting over the past few weeks, travelling up to Ojai, Santa Barbara, and Solvang, meeting people along the way and discovering the completely unexpected. With completely open eyes, no fear of the road less traveled, and a camera in my backpack, I've seen a lot, sometimes asking myself "How did I get here?". Watching an oceanside wedding, being invited to watch a play in an outdoor theater modeled after the Globe, driving along a 150 year old stagecoach route, the list goes on.
As if that wasn't enough, there was a flashpoint of activity with my family that brought on a lot of new information yet to be digested. My family history back in Argentina is a total mystery, which makes my family here in the states my closest friends. Yes, I have that relationship with them as a group and with them as individuals. The momentary re-establishment of contact with Argentina just opened a dusty and nearly forgotten footlocker of history that includes a lot of finger pointing, power struggles, politics, a child born in a convent, and fifty years of silence between siblings. The escape of my family to the U.S. was exactly that: a flight to pursue freedom and a future in a Romeo and Juliet kind of way, and new fertile ground to plant new roots and raise a family. This is just the beginning of it.
Naturally, I needed to get out of the house to clear my mind. Then I got sick and had to go see a doctor. Prescription medicine is not cheap.
My mind, of course, hovered back to the recurring questions and debates over the people who have floated through my life. The interesting thing about being in the state I've been is that I've kept myself away from others, finally quarantining myself with medication and silence. At work, I stayed at my desk, did everything I could to guard myself and keep a steady schedule of remedies. Today's my first day out of the shell, a chance to stand on a peak and look above and across the path I've just come down, even the part that precedes me and is still shrouded in fog. From here I can see some simplicity in the whole thing, even if it escapes me to some extent.
A while ago, a girl wrote her phone number and email on a random blank page in my notebook, and I believed for months that something significant would happen when I arrived to that page. Although absolutely nothing happened and I was eventually rejected and dismissed by the girl, I was sitting on a warm patio in Ojai with a huge margarita in front of me and I flipped back to the page with the phone number and wrote this:
For posterity:
Something was supposed to happen upon arrival to this page. It was a miracle; The sun rose, it set. The moon quietly crossed the sky. Wind blew through leaves and children laughed in the distance. It was a good day.
Yes, getting sick was a blessing, so I could think about the weekend excursions and those other magical moments I've had this year. There are moments so fleeting, that stupid me, as I wait for something significant to come along, they come slowly and fade, hoping that I would notice and appreciate them. I see those moments and won't lose them:
...standing in front of that girl and basking in the glow from her smile...
...sitting in the Hollywood Bowl with a friend enjoying the perfect romantic atmosphere...
...driving along the rocky coast by Malibu feeling a lump of stress blow away...
...and now, sitting two tables away from a beautiful friend at work who is also eating alone. I think I'll have lunch with her tomorrow.
My search has become interesting over the past few weeks, travelling up to Ojai, Santa Barbara, and Solvang, meeting people along the way and discovering the completely unexpected. With completely open eyes, no fear of the road less traveled, and a camera in my backpack, I've seen a lot, sometimes asking myself "How did I get here?". Watching an oceanside wedding, being invited to watch a play in an outdoor theater modeled after the Globe, driving along a 150 year old stagecoach route, the list goes on.
As if that wasn't enough, there was a flashpoint of activity with my family that brought on a lot of new information yet to be digested. My family history back in Argentina is a total mystery, which makes my family here in the states my closest friends. Yes, I have that relationship with them as a group and with them as individuals. The momentary re-establishment of contact with Argentina just opened a dusty and nearly forgotten footlocker of history that includes a lot of finger pointing, power struggles, politics, a child born in a convent, and fifty years of silence between siblings. The escape of my family to the U.S. was exactly that: a flight to pursue freedom and a future in a Romeo and Juliet kind of way, and new fertile ground to plant new roots and raise a family. This is just the beginning of it.
Naturally, I needed to get out of the house to clear my mind. Then I got sick and had to go see a doctor. Prescription medicine is not cheap.
My mind, of course, hovered back to the recurring questions and debates over the people who have floated through my life. The interesting thing about being in the state I've been is that I've kept myself away from others, finally quarantining myself with medication and silence. At work, I stayed at my desk, did everything I could to guard myself and keep a steady schedule of remedies. Today's my first day out of the shell, a chance to stand on a peak and look above and across the path I've just come down, even the part that precedes me and is still shrouded in fog. From here I can see some simplicity in the whole thing, even if it escapes me to some extent.
A while ago, a girl wrote her phone number and email on a random blank page in my notebook, and I believed for months that something significant would happen when I arrived to that page. Although absolutely nothing happened and I was eventually rejected and dismissed by the girl, I was sitting on a warm patio in Ojai with a huge margarita in front of me and I flipped back to the page with the phone number and wrote this:
For posterity:
Something was supposed to happen upon arrival to this page. It was a miracle; The sun rose, it set. The moon quietly crossed the sky. Wind blew through leaves and children laughed in the distance. It was a good day.
Yes, getting sick was a blessing, so I could think about the weekend excursions and those other magical moments I've had this year. There are moments so fleeting, that stupid me, as I wait for something significant to come along, they come slowly and fade, hoping that I would notice and appreciate them. I see those moments and won't lose them:
...standing in front of that girl and basking in the glow from her smile...
...sitting in the Hollywood Bowl with a friend enjoying the perfect romantic atmosphere...
...driving along the rocky coast by Malibu feeling a lump of stress blow away...
...and now, sitting two tables away from a beautiful friend at work who is also eating alone. I think I'll have lunch with her tomorrow.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)