The sun was shining, illuminating occasional puffy white clouds and a big, blue Prairie sky. One arm tingled, refreshed and chilled from the AC, while one leg of my jeans was almost too hot from the sun shining in the window of S.’s ‘cranberry-purple’ car. The grey asphalt curved away, disappearing into the ditch as we drove along on our way to go grocery shopping. It’s nothing earth shattering, but it makes me happy.
We’ve gone shopping together before – it makes sense to carpool when you live out of town on a limited budget and to be perfectly honest, I’ll go with S. when I don’t need anything just to spend time with him. I love sitting in the passenger seat without a care in the world, knowing that the man I love is sitting so close to me.
We are quite different shoppers. He’s a ‘get in and get what you need and get out as fast as you can’ kind of guy, and not only because he’s so efficient in his daily life. He hates shopping, even for groceries. I don’t mind shopping. I don’t like buying so much, but I like to take my time, meandering from aisle to aisle and perusing the merchandise laid out on the shelves. Even when I’m focused and in a hurry I only go at his most relaxed pace. So far we’ve laughed about it – even if it’s sometimes only to dispel tension – avoiding any real squabbles. He bugs me that I’m going to get hit by the cart as I gaze star-struck at the shelves around me, I tease him about his scurvy-inducing phobia of the produce section.
We are also quite different when it comes to how we deal with our groceries. We were sharing a cart and as I wandered along he came up and casually put his ground beef in the cart. On top of some grapes.
“You can’t do that!” I almost shrieked.
He picked up his meat very quickly, startled. “Why not?”
“The meat juices could leak out…that’s how you get E-Coli. You can die,” I said. It seems I’ve heard that somewhere although upon reflection I don’t know if it’s true.
“It won’t leak,” he said, scoffing. “It’s sealed.” But nevertheless he put his meat on the very bottom of the cart.
I leaned towards him, instantly embarrassed for freaking out. “I’m sorry,” I said.
“It’s okay,” he said, returning my kiss.
When we got to the teller, he started handing me things to put on the check-out counter. “Could you hand me the heavier stuff first?” I asked.
At his quizzical expression I explained, “It makes it easier for the person bagging the groceries if they’re in order of weight.”
“You do realize that they don’t pack them in your special order,” he said.
“Yes, but it makes it less likely that the bread will end up under the cans,” I said. I thought everyone knew this, but apparently not.
As we drove out of the valley, he shook his head.
“What?” I asked.
“You are really particular when it comes to food,” he said. “Sometimes I feel like I’m irritating you by not following your system.”
I thought for a moment. “I just forget that there’s more than one way to do things,” I said. I still felt bad for freaking out about the meat. “It surprises me and sometimes that probably sounds like I’m irritated, but I’m not. I’m not irritated with you.” I looked out at the hazy blue horizon. “I’ll try to remember that there’s more than one way to do things.”
“It’s okay,” he said.
I looked over at him, the familiar lines of his face and his blue eyes revealing themselves to me as if I’d never seen him before. “I really appreciate how you just take me in stride,” I said.
He glanced at me with a little smile in his eyes before looking back at the road. “You have to take me in stride too,” he said.
“I guess.” I was silent as I thought. “You just accept my idiosyncrasies. I appreciate it.”
He shrugged. “Why not? They’re not going to change.”
And just like that I discovered another level of love to fall into.
He accepts me right now, how I am now, and doesn’t need me to change for him to love me.
It surprised me. It still does – I guess I didn’t think I’d find someone who would, or could, accept me like that.
I had that goofy Bridget Jones smile on my face the rest of the way home. When he asked me why I had no answer except “I’m happy”. I finally understood the magic of those words – “He loves me just the way I am”. There is no phrase as perfect in the English language.
Or as priceless.
Monday, July 02, 2007
Evaluated (June 10, 2007)
Although I wrote this one several weeks ago, it's still extremely relevant to me and I don't know why. I had a meeting about my evaluations and those same feelings all came up again. Just what exactly is this voice trying to tell me? I'd like to know now, please...
I got my evaluations yesterday.
They were all good, as in the criticisms were constructive.
My teachers picked up on new things that I need to learn, which means they’ve either given up on my old bad habits or I’ve outgrown them.
My playwriting teacher had the longest, and most thought-provoking, evaluation.
I’m still processing, but so far I’ve already learned one thing.
I think I’m explaining.
Everyone else hears excuses.
I’m confused but I guess I’ll stop explaining things when they go wrong and just…
…accept the consequences.
Which for some reason I am reluctant to do.
Recalcitrant. Resistant. Rebellious.
I don’t understand but I think it’s true.
I don’t like it.
Rebel – renounce, or take up arms against, authority; revolt. L. re-again, bellum-war.
Recalcitrant – show resistance; refractory. L. re-back, calcitro-kick.
Refractory – unruly, obstinate. Unmanageable, perverse.
Reluctant – unwilling, disinclined. L. re-against, luctor-struggle.
Resistant – make opposition to, strive against. L. re-against, sisto-stand.
I got my evaluations yesterday.
They were all good, as in the criticisms were constructive.
My teachers picked up on new things that I need to learn, which means they’ve either given up on my old bad habits or I’ve outgrown them.
My playwriting teacher had the longest, and most thought-provoking, evaluation.
I’m still processing, but so far I’ve already learned one thing.
I think I’m explaining.
Everyone else hears excuses.
I’m confused but I guess I’ll stop explaining things when they go wrong and just…
…accept the consequences.
Which for some reason I am reluctant to do.
Recalcitrant. Resistant. Rebellious.
I don’t understand but I think it’s true.
I don’t like it.
Rebel – renounce, or take up arms against, authority; revolt. L. re-again, bellum-war.
Recalcitrant – show resistance; refractory. L. re-back, calcitro-kick.
Refractory – unruly, obstinate. Unmanageable, perverse.
Reluctant – unwilling, disinclined. L. re-against, luctor-struggle.
Resistant – make opposition to, strive against. L. re-against, sisto-stand.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Observer (written June 2nd, 2007)
I accidentally posted the unfinished version of this post but since I deleted that, here's the (more) finished product...
All my life, I have been an observer. It is my nature to sit on the sidelines and watch the lives and actions of the people around me. My watching used to be a substitute for living my own life, but as I am now living my life (and pretty fully, I think) I have found that I still watch those around me. These people are my teachers…my friends and family, my neighbours and peers, mentors and heroes. Some I know intimately, some are complete strangers to me.
Last night we opened a show. Weeks of rehearsal finally came to a conclusion and afterwards everyone, cast, crew and audience, gathered outside to celebrate. I found myself, like usual, on the edges watching the main group happily chatting and interacting with each other. I am quite happy to be on the edge watching – it’s less overwhelming for me – but sometimes I wonder if I’m missing out on something. Every party, every social gathering, I skirt the main event and watch the other people. I watch the event instead of being a part of the event.
I’ve tried to be in the centre. I just can’t manage it. The mere thought fills me with a panic, a sense of being overwhelmed and overpowered, of losing my self, and what if I never find me again? It’s taking me long enough as it is. It sounds unreasonable, but being that surrounded by noise and breath and other heartbeats scares me.
I know I’m not alone. At one party several years ago, I met another person on the sidelines who nodded in understanding when I confided my fear of the centre. A whirlwind trip in and then back to the calm – that was how he navigated the chaos too.
I’m not afraid of the people, I try to explain. I just don’t understand the appeal of surrounding myself with them. I don’t want to. It’s uncomfortable to me. I sometimes wonder what it’s like to be at home in the middle of the craziness. I see friends laughing, alive in the element that spells death to me, and I wonder what it would be like to be there and not drowning in the noise.
But I don’t wonder enough to fight my nature and be one of the observed.
In the worlds of both science and mystery they say that the mere act of observing has a tangible effect on the observed. Watching something or someone, even if they don’t know it, has measurable consequences.
So I’ll play my part and watch.
And who knows? Maybe someday I’ll see the results of my observation.
All my life, I have been an observer. It is my nature to sit on the sidelines and watch the lives and actions of the people around me. My watching used to be a substitute for living my own life, but as I am now living my life (and pretty fully, I think) I have found that I still watch those around me. These people are my teachers…my friends and family, my neighbours and peers, mentors and heroes. Some I know intimately, some are complete strangers to me.
Last night we opened a show. Weeks of rehearsal finally came to a conclusion and afterwards everyone, cast, crew and audience, gathered outside to celebrate. I found myself, like usual, on the edges watching the main group happily chatting and interacting with each other. I am quite happy to be on the edge watching – it’s less overwhelming for me – but sometimes I wonder if I’m missing out on something. Every party, every social gathering, I skirt the main event and watch the other people. I watch the event instead of being a part of the event.
I’ve tried to be in the centre. I just can’t manage it. The mere thought fills me with a panic, a sense of being overwhelmed and overpowered, of losing my self, and what if I never find me again? It’s taking me long enough as it is. It sounds unreasonable, but being that surrounded by noise and breath and other heartbeats scares me.
I know I’m not alone. At one party several years ago, I met another person on the sidelines who nodded in understanding when I confided my fear of the centre. A whirlwind trip in and then back to the calm – that was how he navigated the chaos too.
I’m not afraid of the people, I try to explain. I just don’t understand the appeal of surrounding myself with them. I don’t want to. It’s uncomfortable to me. I sometimes wonder what it’s like to be at home in the middle of the craziness. I see friends laughing, alive in the element that spells death to me, and I wonder what it would be like to be there and not drowning in the noise.
But I don’t wonder enough to fight my nature and be one of the observed.
In the worlds of both science and mystery they say that the mere act of observing has a tangible effect on the observed. Watching something or someone, even if they don’t know it, has measurable consequences.
So I’ll play my part and watch.
And who knows? Maybe someday I’ll see the results of my observation.
Monday, June 18, 2007
Inheritance (written the week of May 21st, 2007)
Another of the posts I wrote during my absence...
I sat down to write some lame explanation for why I haven’t written here for a while. It’s not even that I haven’t been writing because I have been. I just haven’t been posting what I’ve written. Getting to the office (where the internet is) while it’s open was challenging (well, damn near impossible) because I was in full-time rehearsals for four weeks. I enjoyed myself. After a hiatus from acting, the passion burned brightly again. I learned so much, and I have so much more to learn – but instead of being overwhelming that thought simply makes me smile with anticipation.
But back to the lame explanation. As I sat down to write it I saw my new desktop. I like using photos for my desktop. My last two desktops were headshots of myself, which prompted my mother to say that only an actor could be egotistical enough to have their own face on their computer desktop. I am one of the few women who thinks she is beautiful, and both of those photos showed that wonderfully – they were beautiful pictures of a beautiful woman. However, when I decided to change my desktop yesterday my mother’s words whispered in my head. It helped that I was bored with my own image, so I turned away from the headshots and instead chose one of myself and my brothers, taken by one of my parents last Christmas. It is also a beautiful photo. My two much taller brothers are holding me so that it appears that we are all the same height, although in reality I am sitting on a cradle made out of their hands.
Anyone looking at the photo would see two young men and a young woman, all with the same blue eyes and soft pink gentle lips, all with the same definition to their cheekbones and jaw-lines. The two men have the same nose, the girl’s nose is similar but feminine, with one nostril slightly collapsed on itself. Their hair is different – a red-head and two brunettes, one in mid-tones and one dark, but even in that darkness the German ancestors leave their fair mark.
You don’t see how their personalities mesh and differentiate, as all sibling personalities do. You can’t see how they all have a creative bent. You can’t see how they all have completely different ways of showing that. Things like that aren’t really visible, but that’s okay. That’s why people get to know each other, after all.
Looking at this picture was the first time I saw that I do share facial features with my brothers. We’ve been told all our lives that we look like my father’s people. That is a definite fact – at the last family gathering I went to I saw our lips and bone structures on every side – although our faces hold evidence from my mother’s input too. I’ve never really seen a similarity between my brothers and myself until I chose that photo for my desktop.
It somehow roots me to see that my brothers and I look like our family. It reminds me that there is life outside of learning lines and blocking and finding the lights.
Which is a good thing to be reminded of, I think.
I sat down to write some lame explanation for why I haven’t written here for a while. It’s not even that I haven’t been writing because I have been. I just haven’t been posting what I’ve written. Getting to the office (where the internet is) while it’s open was challenging (well, damn near impossible) because I was in full-time rehearsals for four weeks. I enjoyed myself. After a hiatus from acting, the passion burned brightly again. I learned so much, and I have so much more to learn – but instead of being overwhelming that thought simply makes me smile with anticipation.
But back to the lame explanation. As I sat down to write it I saw my new desktop. I like using photos for my desktop. My last two desktops were headshots of myself, which prompted my mother to say that only an actor could be egotistical enough to have their own face on their computer desktop. I am one of the few women who thinks she is beautiful, and both of those photos showed that wonderfully – they were beautiful pictures of a beautiful woman. However, when I decided to change my desktop yesterday my mother’s words whispered in my head. It helped that I was bored with my own image, so I turned away from the headshots and instead chose one of myself and my brothers, taken by one of my parents last Christmas. It is also a beautiful photo. My two much taller brothers are holding me so that it appears that we are all the same height, although in reality I am sitting on a cradle made out of their hands.
Anyone looking at the photo would see two young men and a young woman, all with the same blue eyes and soft pink gentle lips, all with the same definition to their cheekbones and jaw-lines. The two men have the same nose, the girl’s nose is similar but feminine, with one nostril slightly collapsed on itself. Their hair is different – a red-head and two brunettes, one in mid-tones and one dark, but even in that darkness the German ancestors leave their fair mark.
You don’t see how their personalities mesh and differentiate, as all sibling personalities do. You can’t see how they all have a creative bent. You can’t see how they all have completely different ways of showing that. Things like that aren’t really visible, but that’s okay. That’s why people get to know each other, after all.
Looking at this picture was the first time I saw that I do share facial features with my brothers. We’ve been told all our lives that we look like my father’s people. That is a definite fact – at the last family gathering I went to I saw our lips and bone structures on every side – although our faces hold evidence from my mother’s input too. I’ve never really seen a similarity between my brothers and myself until I chose that photo for my desktop.
It somehow roots me to see that my brothers and I look like our family. It reminds me that there is life outside of learning lines and blocking and finding the lights.
Which is a good thing to be reminded of, I think.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
To Love An Artist (written the week of May 7th, 2007)
I've been writing and now I have time to post...so here is one of the three posts I wrote in the past month...
When I was at home in May my mother asked me if I thought it was easier or more difficult to be in a relationship with a fellow artist.
I gave her a very long answer, with the phrase ‘it has different challenges’ in it somewhere.
I had just helped a fellow student with a show called “The Last Five Years”, a story of two artists who try to join their lives and passions only to see their union unravel into chaos and heartbreak. This is a story I see told over and over again, in many mediums and with many variations. Artists faced with a choice between love and relationship or their art and what makes them feel alive. Sometimes they choose love. Sometimes they choose their art. Sometimes they strive for both.
Some succeed. Most seem to fail.
I watch the people around me and I realize that in real life things aren’t laid out so clearly. In real life the choice isn’t posed so gracefully. In reality there are so many reasons behind why one relationship fails and another goes the distance. A relationship doesn’t die solely because one person is jealous of a stage kiss. The stress of auditioning over and over isn’t enough to tear two people apart without other, more invisible problems underneath. In real life, you aren’t just two artists. You’re two people like everyone else.
I’ve seen a lot of relationships go down in flames here – fledgling loves that never got out of the nest as well as established relationships that have flown for years. I’ve heard stories of bigger train wrecks that happened before I got to this town. I know there are heartbreaks that I don’t know about.
I’ve seen relationships last too. There is one couple here who both work in the theatre. He is a stage manager and actor. She is a lighting designer and stage manager. I have babysat their three beautiful children, and they have another on the way. They somehow make it work.
There is another couple here that I don’t know as well. They both act, write, and direct. They also have two small children. They also somehow make it work.
I go through the families in this town and it seems that every single one is involved with the theatre on some level. Increasingly it seems that everyone I know is an artist in some way. And yes, one couple is in the midst of a divorce. But so many more of them seem to be fighting through to keep their love alive and kicking.
My friend, roommate, and fellow actress L. is getting married to an actor, K. I hope they are one of the couples who last. I’ve seen L. go through a long, blurry relationship that ended painfully. I’ve seen K. do the same thing. I hope that doesn’t happen this time.
And as I watch I realize that my answer to my mother was not completely accurate.
I wonder if the search for authenticity in art conflict with the search for everlasting love. The journey that acting requires – demands – is difficult and painful. Even a relationship with a non-actor can crash and burn when the constant auditioning, rejection and frustration wears on an actors soul. With two people going through that, it could bring you together or tear you apart. If one of you finds success, the other could be there to support and share in the joy – but the seeds of bitterness could root; and if both of you find the spotlight you could end up being busy and drifting apart into the arms of (seemingly) understanding cast mates.
But can’t those things happen to anyone? I know that other people don’t deal with some of the externals, but can’t anyone get too busy to be in love? Can’t anyone get jealous of their love’s success? Can’t anyone get turned off by their partner’s burnout? I can’t shut up the stubborn voice of hope, that voice that tells me that just because it could go sour doesn’t mean it will. All people risk in love. That is what love is.
And that is what art is too.
Most people don’t have to face life as honestly as an actor is encouraged to. Most people don’t use their emotions intentionally on a daily basis, much less as a part of their job. But perhaps, if you go in knowing that, it can end up being a good thing for both people.
I watch. I ponder. And I cling to hope.
And I think I would now tell my mother that relationship is relationship. In a strange way it doesn’t matter what you do…what matters is who you are, and how honest and true you can be to yourself.
And isn’t that what life, love and art are really all about?
When I was at home in May my mother asked me if I thought it was easier or more difficult to be in a relationship with a fellow artist.
I gave her a very long answer, with the phrase ‘it has different challenges’ in it somewhere.
I had just helped a fellow student with a show called “The Last Five Years”, a story of two artists who try to join their lives and passions only to see their union unravel into chaos and heartbreak. This is a story I see told over and over again, in many mediums and with many variations. Artists faced with a choice between love and relationship or their art and what makes them feel alive. Sometimes they choose love. Sometimes they choose their art. Sometimes they strive for both.
Some succeed. Most seem to fail.
I watch the people around me and I realize that in real life things aren’t laid out so clearly. In real life the choice isn’t posed so gracefully. In reality there are so many reasons behind why one relationship fails and another goes the distance. A relationship doesn’t die solely because one person is jealous of a stage kiss. The stress of auditioning over and over isn’t enough to tear two people apart without other, more invisible problems underneath. In real life, you aren’t just two artists. You’re two people like everyone else.
I’ve seen a lot of relationships go down in flames here – fledgling loves that never got out of the nest as well as established relationships that have flown for years. I’ve heard stories of bigger train wrecks that happened before I got to this town. I know there are heartbreaks that I don’t know about.
I’ve seen relationships last too. There is one couple here who both work in the theatre. He is a stage manager and actor. She is a lighting designer and stage manager. I have babysat their three beautiful children, and they have another on the way. They somehow make it work.
There is another couple here that I don’t know as well. They both act, write, and direct. They also have two small children. They also somehow make it work.
I go through the families in this town and it seems that every single one is involved with the theatre on some level. Increasingly it seems that everyone I know is an artist in some way. And yes, one couple is in the midst of a divorce. But so many more of them seem to be fighting through to keep their love alive and kicking.
My friend, roommate, and fellow actress L. is getting married to an actor, K. I hope they are one of the couples who last. I’ve seen L. go through a long, blurry relationship that ended painfully. I’ve seen K. do the same thing. I hope that doesn’t happen this time.
And as I watch I realize that my answer to my mother was not completely accurate.
I wonder if the search for authenticity in art conflict with the search for everlasting love. The journey that acting requires – demands – is difficult and painful. Even a relationship with a non-actor can crash and burn when the constant auditioning, rejection and frustration wears on an actors soul. With two people going through that, it could bring you together or tear you apart. If one of you finds success, the other could be there to support and share in the joy – but the seeds of bitterness could root; and if both of you find the spotlight you could end up being busy and drifting apart into the arms of (seemingly) understanding cast mates.
But can’t those things happen to anyone? I know that other people don’t deal with some of the externals, but can’t anyone get too busy to be in love? Can’t anyone get jealous of their love’s success? Can’t anyone get turned off by their partner’s burnout? I can’t shut up the stubborn voice of hope, that voice that tells me that just because it could go sour doesn’t mean it will. All people risk in love. That is what love is.
And that is what art is too.
Most people don’t have to face life as honestly as an actor is encouraged to. Most people don’t use their emotions intentionally on a daily basis, much less as a part of their job. But perhaps, if you go in knowing that, it can end up being a good thing for both people.
I watch. I ponder. And I cling to hope.
And I think I would now tell my mother that relationship is relationship. In a strange way it doesn’t matter what you do…what matters is who you are, and how honest and true you can be to yourself.
And isn’t that what life, love and art are really all about?
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
I'm Still Alive...
...just in full time rehearsals. I'll post something at some point, I know I will...
Thursday, May 10, 2007
I look around my room...
I look around my room. It’s not the largest of rooms but I fit into it – just barely some days, when my clothing spills from the closet and my books pile onto the floor – but I fit. It is never sparkling clean but I am learning that I am not that person. As a young adult my mother would always tell me how tidy I was (and I suppose my natural inclination is cleaner than hers) and thus I gained the reputation of being a tidy person. For a long time, whenever my room was a mess I felt enormous guilt for not being ‘true to myself’, but I have learnt that there are many variations of tidy. My version lies in the range of what I call a comfortable clean.
Right now my room is on the messier side of comfortable. My clothes are all in their place, except the pile in front of my closet where I left the latest culls from the depths. My desk has only one pile of paper on it, left-overs from the school year. My bed isn’t made and has a pair of jeans at the foot, jeans I need to alter before I wear. Above my head are shelves that need dusting. They are dressed with about a third of my book collection. I miss all of the books that are lying dormant and unused in my parent’s tool shed. I want to bring them all here with me where they belong, being used and loved and read.
There are pictures scattered about my room, both in frames and stuck on my wall with sticky tack. The faces of my friends and family look down at me, while my man looks out from the many photos I’ve collected of him in the past eleven months, surrounded by pieces of paper with hand written quotes on them. Quotes from people like Leo Tolstoy and Frederich Buechner are side by side with fridge magnet poems I needed to immortalize and phone numbers for my brothers, the fortune cookie fortune I got one night that read, “Character is what you know you are, not what others think you have” (to which I added ‘in bed’ because that’s what you add to the end of fortune cookie fortunes). I have opening night cards, notes of encouragement and old theatre tickets, a reception invitation and comic strips that make me laugh. There’s a note from my love, a simple note – “Hope you had a nice day!, Love S.” – that showed up in my room for no reason one day, accompanied by a box of chocolate.
My sunscreen sits on my dresser beside my makeup, looking a little out of place since I only brought it out two days ago. A few stray hair pins make the dresser look cluttered, and a pencil that looks like it was carved out of a tree lays beside a candle holder, which for some reason makes me think of campfires.
In a vase there is a dried white rose that S. gave me almost a year ago, beside the box that the chocolate arrived in before I ate it all and a bottle cap from one of his beers that I picked up months ago and stuck into my backpack where it sat forgotten before I cleaned it out in a strange fit of detailed cleanliness two days ago. I look up and see the covers of the CDs he has bought me and I listen to the music that I have on my computer because he let me rip his music onto my computer, music I would never have heard of if he hadn’t come into my life.
My room is a reflection of myself, perhaps more deeply than I realize. Not perfect, like my thirteen-year old self so desired to be, with such a strong desire that I spent hours crying, wishing I was dead so that my search for perfection, my struggle for that unachievable goal could be over. Not clean, like my teenage self believed I needed to be, living up to a reputation that didn’t belong to me, a reflection of someone else that I was nevertheless striving to match. It is private, only opened up to a select invited few. Only a few people can enter at their whim and even then they knock.
It is filled with things that tell you who I am – what I fill my closet with shows how I see my body, a beautiful, sensual entity, filled with an overwhelming desire that I am discovering anew every day, and yet comfortable and able to move without restriction, elegant, young and full of life. What I read reveals my vivid imagination, my childlike love of fairy tales and my belief in the magic of the world, my desire to find hope and light in a world that often only offers darkness and despair. What I listen to informs my flexible changing emotional life, with music to feed my secret rage, my unconscious energies, my happiness and my melancholies. The trinkets I hang on to tell a story of a sentimental girl and a sacramental woman, relics of moments that I keep forever engraved in my memory.
It is filled with things that show you what is important to me – pictures of the people that I love, the people who I have risked with and opened myself up to. Words that inform what I believe and how I try to live. Images that have stuck with me for reasons even I cannot articulate. People who I admire, poetry that resonates in my soul, icons that feed spirit beside tools that keep my body tended to.
I sit, surrounded, and write and wonder how my room has shown my nature throughout my life. If I had a snapshot of my bedroom in every year of my life, would they show the change that accompanies growing up? Can a room capture the innocence of childhood, the confusion of adolescence, the settling of adulthood? What would change and what would stay the same? As I came into my own would my room mirror my journey into authenticity? Would there always be some hint of the real Rebecca even in the years where I was trying so hard to be someone else?
My room has always been there, a solid tangible place that I could retreat to, a place of safety where I could rest and find myself again in the confusion of growing up.
Sometimes having a place where I can go to simply breathe is all that keeps me, the deepest rooted part of who I am, alive. I am suddenly filled with a deep gratitude for this room that feels alive with so much of my soul, like a part of me, like a reservoir for who I am. I once explained my journals as a bowl into which I pour my memories so that I don’t have to hang onto them in my head anymore, an image I picked up from a world of magic I entered in one of my many books. Now I see my room as another bowl, into which I put the parts of myself that I cannot carry with me, the parts that I need to spread out so I can see them, name them and understand them clearly.
Maybe I’m crazy. For now I simply breathe and feel grateful for my craziness and the calm it brings me.
Right now my room is on the messier side of comfortable. My clothes are all in their place, except the pile in front of my closet where I left the latest culls from the depths. My desk has only one pile of paper on it, left-overs from the school year. My bed isn’t made and has a pair of jeans at the foot, jeans I need to alter before I wear. Above my head are shelves that need dusting. They are dressed with about a third of my book collection. I miss all of the books that are lying dormant and unused in my parent’s tool shed. I want to bring them all here with me where they belong, being used and loved and read.
There are pictures scattered about my room, both in frames and stuck on my wall with sticky tack. The faces of my friends and family look down at me, while my man looks out from the many photos I’ve collected of him in the past eleven months, surrounded by pieces of paper with hand written quotes on them. Quotes from people like Leo Tolstoy and Frederich Buechner are side by side with fridge magnet poems I needed to immortalize and phone numbers for my brothers, the fortune cookie fortune I got one night that read, “Character is what you know you are, not what others think you have” (to which I added ‘in bed’ because that’s what you add to the end of fortune cookie fortunes). I have opening night cards, notes of encouragement and old theatre tickets, a reception invitation and comic strips that make me laugh. There’s a note from my love, a simple note – “Hope you had a nice day!, Love S.” – that showed up in my room for no reason one day, accompanied by a box of chocolate.
My sunscreen sits on my dresser beside my makeup, looking a little out of place since I only brought it out two days ago. A few stray hair pins make the dresser look cluttered, and a pencil that looks like it was carved out of a tree lays beside a candle holder, which for some reason makes me think of campfires.
In a vase there is a dried white rose that S. gave me almost a year ago, beside the box that the chocolate arrived in before I ate it all and a bottle cap from one of his beers that I picked up months ago and stuck into my backpack where it sat forgotten before I cleaned it out in a strange fit of detailed cleanliness two days ago. I look up and see the covers of the CDs he has bought me and I listen to the music that I have on my computer because he let me rip his music onto my computer, music I would never have heard of if he hadn’t come into my life.
My room is a reflection of myself, perhaps more deeply than I realize. Not perfect, like my thirteen-year old self so desired to be, with such a strong desire that I spent hours crying, wishing I was dead so that my search for perfection, my struggle for that unachievable goal could be over. Not clean, like my teenage self believed I needed to be, living up to a reputation that didn’t belong to me, a reflection of someone else that I was nevertheless striving to match. It is private, only opened up to a select invited few. Only a few people can enter at their whim and even then they knock.
It is filled with things that tell you who I am – what I fill my closet with shows how I see my body, a beautiful, sensual entity, filled with an overwhelming desire that I am discovering anew every day, and yet comfortable and able to move without restriction, elegant, young and full of life. What I read reveals my vivid imagination, my childlike love of fairy tales and my belief in the magic of the world, my desire to find hope and light in a world that often only offers darkness and despair. What I listen to informs my flexible changing emotional life, with music to feed my secret rage, my unconscious energies, my happiness and my melancholies. The trinkets I hang on to tell a story of a sentimental girl and a sacramental woman, relics of moments that I keep forever engraved in my memory.
It is filled with things that show you what is important to me – pictures of the people that I love, the people who I have risked with and opened myself up to. Words that inform what I believe and how I try to live. Images that have stuck with me for reasons even I cannot articulate. People who I admire, poetry that resonates in my soul, icons that feed spirit beside tools that keep my body tended to.
I sit, surrounded, and write and wonder how my room has shown my nature throughout my life. If I had a snapshot of my bedroom in every year of my life, would they show the change that accompanies growing up? Can a room capture the innocence of childhood, the confusion of adolescence, the settling of adulthood? What would change and what would stay the same? As I came into my own would my room mirror my journey into authenticity? Would there always be some hint of the real Rebecca even in the years where I was trying so hard to be someone else?
My room has always been there, a solid tangible place that I could retreat to, a place of safety where I could rest and find myself again in the confusion of growing up.
Sometimes having a place where I can go to simply breathe is all that keeps me, the deepest rooted part of who I am, alive. I am suddenly filled with a deep gratitude for this room that feels alive with so much of my soul, like a part of me, like a reservoir for who I am. I once explained my journals as a bowl into which I pour my memories so that I don’t have to hang onto them in my head anymore, an image I picked up from a world of magic I entered in one of my many books. Now I see my room as another bowl, into which I put the parts of myself that I cannot carry with me, the parts that I need to spread out so I can see them, name them and understand them clearly.
Maybe I’m crazy. For now I simply breathe and feel grateful for my craziness and the calm it brings me.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Love Will Keep Us Alive
That's the name of a song by the Eagles, a song that my dinner music group sings when a couple in the Mercantile is celebrating an anniversary. It's a lovely song, if a little out of my range, and couples seem to like it, gazing at each other over their plates of dessert while we croon.
Today we were called back to a room to sing for a couple and so we naturally assumed that's what the occasion was. We began the song, and the couple smiled at us. By the second verse, the gentleman's eyes were misting over and by the bridge they were both sniffling into their napkins. I wasn't sure what to do. Sometimes crying is a good thing but they both seemed so sad. I locked eyes with my dinner music partner and we sang the duet as if we were in love. When I looked back I noticed that the couple were holding hands over the table, tears slowly trickling down their faces. I choked up and could barely finish the song.
They came up to us later. The gentleman told us that they were crying because they are madly in love but the lady is being called back to Quebec by God and so they will be separated for a while. Her story was actually amazing - as a child she saw the Virgin Mary in a vision that saved her life, and now she is moving to an apartment on the same street that she had the vision on. It was a very touching story and I can't capture it here, but to know that they are in love and yet must be separated put me into a bit of a blue funk.
Today we were called back to a room to sing for a couple and so we naturally assumed that's what the occasion was. We began the song, and the couple smiled at us. By the second verse, the gentleman's eyes were misting over and by the bridge they were both sniffling into their napkins. I wasn't sure what to do. Sometimes crying is a good thing but they both seemed so sad. I locked eyes with my dinner music partner and we sang the duet as if we were in love. When I looked back I noticed that the couple were holding hands over the table, tears slowly trickling down their faces. I choked up and could barely finish the song.
They came up to us later. The gentleman told us that they were crying because they are madly in love but the lady is being called back to Quebec by God and so they will be separated for a while. Her story was actually amazing - as a child she saw the Virgin Mary in a vision that saved her life, and now she is moving to an apartment on the same street that she had the vision on. It was a very touching story and I can't capture it here, but to know that they are in love and yet must be separated put me into a bit of a blue funk.
Seeing people in love usually puts me in an introspective mood anyway. I end up watching all these elderly couples and wondering.
Will love really keep us alive?
My romantic nature hopes so.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Procrastination
I am supposed to be working on my Faith and Art final exam right now, but I don’t feel like writing short essays on subjects like ‘Creativity’, ‘the Artist as Servant’, or how I plan on living ‘an integrated life as an artist’.
I’ve been procrastinating all day – this afternoon I dithered about checking my email and then I spent time with S. before his show. When I came home I played Diablo II for an hour. I actually feel a bit sick from being at a computer so much today, so playing games is out now. I feel like having a nap.
I keep telling myself I have the weekend. Three whole days until the exam is due…then I remember that I haven’t done any of the journals for this term either and perhaps I should do them…and I have rehearsal for a final project that I’m stage managing on Sunday and Monday. A groan escapes my lips and I sigh and try to turn to the exam.
No luck. I can’t focus my thoughts, and everything I remember from the entire year of discussion in class escapes with the lyrics of the next song to play from the collection of music that is randomly singing out from my laptop. It routinely amazes me how well I remember music I’ve only heard a few times, but I am able to sing along to Chris Rice as he sings “Everything’s Okay” and I gamely buy into the message. I look up from my computer as I sing and notice the book of stamps behind the Coke can on my desk, which reminds me that I haven’t sent away my student loan form yet, so I pick it up and finish filling in the information, which means I have to fish out the Quick Tips form from my garbage so I can calculate how much they should give me (although they won’t because for some reason I’m only eligible for 60% of what I need, which is why I’m so grateful I got approved for that line of credit, which reminds me, I need to phone Dad and ask him what his card says and see if they issued him a card for my line of credit in which case he shouldn’t use the card or I won’t be able to pay my tuition)…and the final exam is successfully erased from my mind.
Until the form is in the envelope, licked and sealed and I realize that one of my roommates is on the phone. Then guilt creeps into the mix. I told S. I’d be doing homework tonight, and for some reason that makes me feel like I should. It’s not like I don’t have enough of it, too. My marketing portfolio was due a month ago, and I have a huge annotated bibliography that needs to be started, which means a lot of reading...but then an Iron & Wine song starts and I get distracted again.
I really like that song – about a Mexican boy named Jesus.
When I turn back to the exam, I focus on inane details. What does this bonus question mean? ‘How many surrealists does it take to screw in a light bulb?’ I don’t remember talking about surrealists in class! Perhaps if I look up surrealists and answer the question as a surrealist would, I’ll get the extra credit. Of course, if I put that time into the actual exam, I will probably get the same mark, if not a higher one.
I feel like I felt every time I knew I was supposed to be working on my play. So easily distracted but not sociable, restless but with no desire to do anything. It’s a horrible affliction and I morosely muse on how I am the only one who ever experiences this sensation. Such is the life of a writer, I drone in my mind, melodramatically, like one of my friends, a musician and musical theatre actor who has come to Rosebud to have his ‘schmacting’ broken out of him. He is the moodiest person I know – the stereotypical artist, feelings easily hurt and ego easily bruised, and everything is always about him. In spite of that, I like him quite a bit. He’s got some growing up to do, but don’t we all?
I mean, I started an exam 45 minutes ago and all I’ve written is REL 321: Faith and Art at the top of the page. Not exactly mature responsible adult behaviour.
Oh, a John Denver song that I haven’t heard in ages! I think I’ll sing along…
I’ve been procrastinating all day – this afternoon I dithered about checking my email and then I spent time with S. before his show. When I came home I played Diablo II for an hour. I actually feel a bit sick from being at a computer so much today, so playing games is out now. I feel like having a nap.
I keep telling myself I have the weekend. Three whole days until the exam is due…then I remember that I haven’t done any of the journals for this term either and perhaps I should do them…and I have rehearsal for a final project that I’m stage managing on Sunday and Monday. A groan escapes my lips and I sigh and try to turn to the exam.
No luck. I can’t focus my thoughts, and everything I remember from the entire year of discussion in class escapes with the lyrics of the next song to play from the collection of music that is randomly singing out from my laptop. It routinely amazes me how well I remember music I’ve only heard a few times, but I am able to sing along to Chris Rice as he sings “Everything’s Okay” and I gamely buy into the message. I look up from my computer as I sing and notice the book of stamps behind the Coke can on my desk, which reminds me that I haven’t sent away my student loan form yet, so I pick it up and finish filling in the information, which means I have to fish out the Quick Tips form from my garbage so I can calculate how much they should give me (although they won’t because for some reason I’m only eligible for 60% of what I need, which is why I’m so grateful I got approved for that line of credit, which reminds me, I need to phone Dad and ask him what his card says and see if they issued him a card for my line of credit in which case he shouldn’t use the card or I won’t be able to pay my tuition)…and the final exam is successfully erased from my mind.
Until the form is in the envelope, licked and sealed and I realize that one of my roommates is on the phone. Then guilt creeps into the mix. I told S. I’d be doing homework tonight, and for some reason that makes me feel like I should. It’s not like I don’t have enough of it, too. My marketing portfolio was due a month ago, and I have a huge annotated bibliography that needs to be started, which means a lot of reading...but then an Iron & Wine song starts and I get distracted again.
I really like that song – about a Mexican boy named Jesus.
When I turn back to the exam, I focus on inane details. What does this bonus question mean? ‘How many surrealists does it take to screw in a light bulb?’ I don’t remember talking about surrealists in class! Perhaps if I look up surrealists and answer the question as a surrealist would, I’ll get the extra credit. Of course, if I put that time into the actual exam, I will probably get the same mark, if not a higher one.
I feel like I felt every time I knew I was supposed to be working on my play. So easily distracted but not sociable, restless but with no desire to do anything. It’s a horrible affliction and I morosely muse on how I am the only one who ever experiences this sensation. Such is the life of a writer, I drone in my mind, melodramatically, like one of my friends, a musician and musical theatre actor who has come to Rosebud to have his ‘schmacting’ broken out of him. He is the moodiest person I know – the stereotypical artist, feelings easily hurt and ego easily bruised, and everything is always about him. In spite of that, I like him quite a bit. He’s got some growing up to do, but don’t we all?
I mean, I started an exam 45 minutes ago and all I’ve written is REL 321: Faith and Art at the top of the page. Not exactly mature responsible adult behaviour.
Oh, a John Denver song that I haven’t heard in ages! I think I’ll sing along…
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Hunger
I was sitting on a deck, letting the sun soak into my face and feeling the Chinook wind blow around my legs, listening to the dripping of icicles and the screaming of gophers. Among so much beauty, I was trying to figure out why bad things happen to good people. I was in the midst of telling God what is wrong with his world when someone walked by and asked me what I was doing.
I’m telling God what is wrong with the world, I said.
Things shouldn’t happen to people to make them jaded and cynical.
He stopped and pointed at me. That is so true, he said.
We shared a moment of silence.
Some people don’t ever get cynical, he said. My mother was one of them.
Then he went on his way, leaving me with that tiny bit of extra hope in a world that was screaming hope and life at me anyway.
Something disappointing happened to S. last weekend. He lost a role that he had earned fair and square because the director changed his mind about casting at the last minute. It’s rough – it’s hard enough to lose a role fairly, but to have it given to you and then taken away is just not fair. It happens here sometimes, although I’ve been told (and I agree) that it’s pretty unprofessional.
I’ve never had this happen before. I’ve discovered that it is unexpectedly difficult to feel the disappointment of someone I love, and to be saddened for them, and to know that there isn’t anything I can say or do that will make it better.
I hate feeling helpless in the face of injustice.
So I spent half an hour outside in the beauty and straightforwardness of God’s creation, talking to him about what isn’t working down here. Sometimes free will is a bitch, particularly when it’s someone else’s free will but you have to deal with the consequences.
At the end of my ponderings and talking, I realized that I am very naïve. So many people have broken themselves down from the pedestals I placed them on – I keep being disappointed when people I respect make choices and treat people in ways that contradict the person I thought they were. I suppose I should learn to stop putting people on pedestals. A part of my soul cries at the reality that in this fallen world I will find no one who will not let me down. Is that naivety, or is it hope, or is it what is left of Eve before she ate the apple?
I can see why it seems intelligent to become hardened and cynical. It protects people from being disappointed by life, by other people, by this big, old, awful sick mess of a world.
I don’t want to be hardened though. I spent too many years as the cynic. It takes so much negative energy to live in that world. As risky as it is to choose the softness of a snail without a shell, I want to hold on to hope. I want to keep believing that there is good out there, that there are people out there who do choose to live according to what is right.
Madeleine L’Engle is one of my favourite authors. Her stories are full of the knowledge that the world is bent and broken, full of hurt and wrong and injustice. Her characters are aware that the world is not how it should be, and they have a passion to see the world whole and healed again – but they all come to a point in their journeys where they have to choose to fight for what they instinctively know is right. It is never an easy choice. They are overwhelmed by the darkness sometimes. They are filled with despair that the world can ever be whole again. And they choose hope, they choose to fight for that little, tiny, almost invisible spark of light, against impossible odds. They fight even though they know they will lose. They fight even though there is no possible way that the world can be saved. They fight because they have to.
Sometimes I feel like my purpose in life is to keep fighting for that miniscule speck of light and hope, like I am here in this life just to keep that tiny light alive, and if all I can do in my life is keep that light from going out, even if I can’t make it any bigger, even if I can’t win the fight, even if after all I do the light goes out – as long as I’ve done all I can to fight for it, that is all that matters.
It hurts. Sometimes it feels like I’m losing, like I’m losing my will to fight because it seems so impossible. I know there is no way that I can win. The dark, the brokenness is too big and too overwhelming and there is nothing I can do to make things better. But the pain of losing that light is so much greater than the despair of never winning that I just can’t give up, even when everything is telling me I should cut my losses and just join the dark winning team already.
I just can’t do that. I just can’t lose that hunger for the light. I hope I never do. It’s the most irrational thing I’ve ever done, but it’s the only thing I can do. It’s the only thing that feels right.
I can’t bear to lose that wild, fierce hunger.
All I can do is hope that I never do.
I’m telling God what is wrong with the world, I said.
Things shouldn’t happen to people to make them jaded and cynical.
He stopped and pointed at me. That is so true, he said.
We shared a moment of silence.
Some people don’t ever get cynical, he said. My mother was one of them.
Then he went on his way, leaving me with that tiny bit of extra hope in a world that was screaming hope and life at me anyway.
Something disappointing happened to S. last weekend. He lost a role that he had earned fair and square because the director changed his mind about casting at the last minute. It’s rough – it’s hard enough to lose a role fairly, but to have it given to you and then taken away is just not fair. It happens here sometimes, although I’ve been told (and I agree) that it’s pretty unprofessional.
I’ve never had this happen before. I’ve discovered that it is unexpectedly difficult to feel the disappointment of someone I love, and to be saddened for them, and to know that there isn’t anything I can say or do that will make it better.
I hate feeling helpless in the face of injustice.
So I spent half an hour outside in the beauty and straightforwardness of God’s creation, talking to him about what isn’t working down here. Sometimes free will is a bitch, particularly when it’s someone else’s free will but you have to deal with the consequences.
At the end of my ponderings and talking, I realized that I am very naïve. So many people have broken themselves down from the pedestals I placed them on – I keep being disappointed when people I respect make choices and treat people in ways that contradict the person I thought they were. I suppose I should learn to stop putting people on pedestals. A part of my soul cries at the reality that in this fallen world I will find no one who will not let me down. Is that naivety, or is it hope, or is it what is left of Eve before she ate the apple?
I can see why it seems intelligent to become hardened and cynical. It protects people from being disappointed by life, by other people, by this big, old, awful sick mess of a world.
I don’t want to be hardened though. I spent too many years as the cynic. It takes so much negative energy to live in that world. As risky as it is to choose the softness of a snail without a shell, I want to hold on to hope. I want to keep believing that there is good out there, that there are people out there who do choose to live according to what is right.
Madeleine L’Engle is one of my favourite authors. Her stories are full of the knowledge that the world is bent and broken, full of hurt and wrong and injustice. Her characters are aware that the world is not how it should be, and they have a passion to see the world whole and healed again – but they all come to a point in their journeys where they have to choose to fight for what they instinctively know is right. It is never an easy choice. They are overwhelmed by the darkness sometimes. They are filled with despair that the world can ever be whole again. And they choose hope, they choose to fight for that little, tiny, almost invisible spark of light, against impossible odds. They fight even though they know they will lose. They fight even though there is no possible way that the world can be saved. They fight because they have to.
Sometimes I feel like my purpose in life is to keep fighting for that miniscule speck of light and hope, like I am here in this life just to keep that tiny light alive, and if all I can do in my life is keep that light from going out, even if I can’t make it any bigger, even if I can’t win the fight, even if after all I do the light goes out – as long as I’ve done all I can to fight for it, that is all that matters.
It hurts. Sometimes it feels like I’m losing, like I’m losing my will to fight because it seems so impossible. I know there is no way that I can win. The dark, the brokenness is too big and too overwhelming and there is nothing I can do to make things better. But the pain of losing that light is so much greater than the despair of never winning that I just can’t give up, even when everything is telling me I should cut my losses and just join the dark winning team already.
I just can’t do that. I just can’t lose that hunger for the light. I hope I never do. It’s the most irrational thing I’ve ever done, but it’s the only thing I can do. It’s the only thing that feels right.
I can’t bear to lose that wild, fierce hunger.
All I can do is hope that I never do.
Thursday, April 05, 2007
Hurtin' Unit
My youngest brother came to visit me this weekend.
He is on an extended leave of absence from work following a mental break-down. At least that gave him the freedom to catch a ride with a friend and spend two and a half days just hanging out with me at my home.
He has a lot of pain and it isn’t hiding very well behind his shields of cynicism and bitterness. The chip on his shoulder is so big I wonder how there is any shoulder left. I can see the roots, deep inside his broken heart but I don’t think everyone can. The perks of being a sister I guess.
We had some good talks, about our brother getting married and how happy we are for him. How good D1’s girl is to him, and how we think they’ll make it. How we wished we had been better siblings to him and how we hope we’ll be able to continue to repair those cracks we made.
We talked about relationships. He hung out with S. for a few hours and said he seemed like a good guy, that he trusted my ability to choose a man. He said it must be nice to have a relationship that our mom didn’t have a problem with, where I didn’t have to fight with her to have my adult choices respected.
He spoke of his girl, of their life, of where they might go. I asked him if he thought they’d be together forever and he said they might be. We have problems, but who doesn’t? he asked. She loves me the best she knows how, and she’s learning how to be better. I wanted to ask him if that’s all he deserves, and if he loves her as best as he knows how or if he thinks he needs to learn to be better too, but I didn’t. Instead I listened as he talked to me.
I don’t know if I remember a lot of the words he spoke to me. I do remember how much pain there was in his whole being. He’s like a dog that’s been whipped, L. said. In his whole body, in his attitude, everything about him looks like he’s been broken and hasn’t been put back together yet. I nodded and held my own pain inside.
We went for walks and talked about life, me walking upwind so that the smoke from his cigarette would blow away from me. Watching him smoke was hard for me. It made him seem hardened somehow, like the thug he played as a child had come real. Like he didn’t give a damn, like his pain was all there was and he had no hope that it would ever change.
We spoke of how confusing it is when peace comes from a source that we were taught was wrong. How confusing it is when we learn that something we were told was out of bounds is completely within our grasp. We talked about how things can be right for one person and wrong for another. About how God is bigger than the mistakes of our parents and the church. I learned how cynical he is towards church and pastors.
We talked one evening about our mother. He used some of the exact phrasing that I had used in counselling three days before. It was a comfort to us both that we have the same problems with the same woman. It helped us to see that it isn’t in our heads. That the problems are real and solid because someone else felt them too.
It was a comfort to me to see that counselling has actually helped me to grow and learn to deal with my anger, pain and frustration. It filled me with calm to see that I used to be where D2 is now, full of pain and anger that I didn’t know what to do with, but I’m not anymore. It filled me hope to see that a person can learn to keep acknowledging the feelings, to put the responsibility for them on the right people, and to let it go and move on.
I told D2 that he should seriously think about going to counselling. He agreed with me. I hope he does it.
I have a lot of hopes for him. I hope that his choice to move back in with my parents is a good one. I hope that he can get what he needs from them, especially my mother. I hope that all of his pieces get put back where they belong and that he won’t always look so beaten down.
I hope.
Maybe with enough hopes behind him, his pain will become easier to bear.
He is on an extended leave of absence from work following a mental break-down. At least that gave him the freedom to catch a ride with a friend and spend two and a half days just hanging out with me at my home.
He has a lot of pain and it isn’t hiding very well behind his shields of cynicism and bitterness. The chip on his shoulder is so big I wonder how there is any shoulder left. I can see the roots, deep inside his broken heart but I don’t think everyone can. The perks of being a sister I guess.
We had some good talks, about our brother getting married and how happy we are for him. How good D1’s girl is to him, and how we think they’ll make it. How we wished we had been better siblings to him and how we hope we’ll be able to continue to repair those cracks we made.
We talked about relationships. He hung out with S. for a few hours and said he seemed like a good guy, that he trusted my ability to choose a man. He said it must be nice to have a relationship that our mom didn’t have a problem with, where I didn’t have to fight with her to have my adult choices respected.
He spoke of his girl, of their life, of where they might go. I asked him if he thought they’d be together forever and he said they might be. We have problems, but who doesn’t? he asked. She loves me the best she knows how, and she’s learning how to be better. I wanted to ask him if that’s all he deserves, and if he loves her as best as he knows how or if he thinks he needs to learn to be better too, but I didn’t. Instead I listened as he talked to me.
I don’t know if I remember a lot of the words he spoke to me. I do remember how much pain there was in his whole being. He’s like a dog that’s been whipped, L. said. In his whole body, in his attitude, everything about him looks like he’s been broken and hasn’t been put back together yet. I nodded and held my own pain inside.
We went for walks and talked about life, me walking upwind so that the smoke from his cigarette would blow away from me. Watching him smoke was hard for me. It made him seem hardened somehow, like the thug he played as a child had come real. Like he didn’t give a damn, like his pain was all there was and he had no hope that it would ever change.
We spoke of how confusing it is when peace comes from a source that we were taught was wrong. How confusing it is when we learn that something we were told was out of bounds is completely within our grasp. We talked about how things can be right for one person and wrong for another. About how God is bigger than the mistakes of our parents and the church. I learned how cynical he is towards church and pastors.
We talked one evening about our mother. He used some of the exact phrasing that I had used in counselling three days before. It was a comfort to us both that we have the same problems with the same woman. It helped us to see that it isn’t in our heads. That the problems are real and solid because someone else felt them too.
It was a comfort to me to see that counselling has actually helped me to grow and learn to deal with my anger, pain and frustration. It filled me with calm to see that I used to be where D2 is now, full of pain and anger that I didn’t know what to do with, but I’m not anymore. It filled me hope to see that a person can learn to keep acknowledging the feelings, to put the responsibility for them on the right people, and to let it go and move on.
I told D2 that he should seriously think about going to counselling. He agreed with me. I hope he does it.
I have a lot of hopes for him. I hope that his choice to move back in with my parents is a good one. I hope that he can get what he needs from them, especially my mother. I hope that all of his pieces get put back where they belong and that he won’t always look so beaten down.
I hope.
Maybe with enough hopes behind him, his pain will become easier to bear.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Themes
I just realized that the last few posts (excluding the happy one about my brother) have been rather negative.
Maybe I'm going through a phase. Huh.
It bears some thinking about, that perhaps it isn't all the people around me, and maybe it's me.
Although I'd rather it wasn't.
Maybe I'm going through a phase. Huh.
It bears some thinking about, that perhaps it isn't all the people around me, and maybe it's me.
Although I'd rather it wasn't.
Frustration
I am so frustrated with school right now. Not with the work – that feels quite manageable for once. No. I'm frustrated with the institution itself and the people who are running it.
It feels like the Educational Directors are on a warpath and I don’t know why. It’s sudden, too. One day I’m going along my life, making my own decisions and organizing things my way, and the next day the phrase ‘mandatory’ gets thrown in my face and I have to abide by a new set of rules. Rules that I haven’t been aware of for three months now, but that apparently have to be added to my life for this last month of school or the world will come to an end.
The thing I really don’t understand is that the class they are raising Cain about is dance, which is a fucking audit for me. I’m not getting any credits or being marked or evaluated in any way. I didn’t get the option of choosing this class – if I had I would have turned it down. It’s exactly the same class that I took last year and since I passed, I don’t see why I have to take it again. But suddenly I have to attend and catch up on what I’ve missed so that I can participate in the presentation that is happening in three weeks.
They say they want me to stay in practice with dance and I can understand that. But the majority of the class time is spent warming up and stretching. I do that on my own every morning. I lead a deliberately active lifestyle. I keep my tools ready to work. As far as the idea of keeping dance moves fresh in my mind…the way I see it, if I ever go out for a dance audition I’ll be doing it cold. Taking dance classes outside of school doesn’t interest me. I know that I learn basic choreography at an average speed. I’m not a dancer, but I can learn choreography. If this class taught me how to pick up choreography quickly I’d be there in a heartbeat, but instead we spend 85% of the class time warming up to spend 15 minutes going over and over the same dance moves – dance moves that I’ve never seen used in musical theatre anyway. It’s a waste of my time.
The whole ‘mandatory audit’ thing is really just the tip of the iceberg. Recently the Student Life Advisor sent an email to all of the students who are living in student housing, reminding us all that a) we aren’t allowed to have alcohol in our houses and b) boys aren’t allowed to be in our rooms past midnight. I know these rules – well, I knew the alcohol one. I knew that technically we weren’t allowed to have boys in our rooms unless the doors were open but that rule has never been enforced so I didn’t think it was a big deal, and I certainly didn’t remember that they had to be out of our house by midnight. When S.’s schedule means that he isn’t free to come visit me until 11 o’clock at night it seems ridiculous that he would have to leave after an hour, particularly if neither of us has anything the next morning, but fine. We’ll hang out at his house if it’s really that big of a problem. It pisses me off that I can’t live my own life in my own house.
I’ll admit I was breaking the letter of the law on the alcohol thing. I had a bottle of wine in my closet. I had no intention of drinking it in the dorm – I am waiting to open it until R. and I move into our new not-student-housing suite. I didn’t think having a bottle of wine in my closet would be a problem but after I got the email I moved it to S.’s house. He lives in a private residence and is allowed to make the adult decision to drink or not to drink. I can’t wait until I live in a house where my landlord will actually assume that I can act my age (23) and where I can make my own life choices – where all I have to take into consideration is whether or not I’m being respectful to my roommates and whether I’m taking good care of my house. That is what an adult, living on their own, should have to think about. I shouldn’t have to worry about whether my lifestyle is meshing with someone else’s moral structure, but thanks to the nature of student housing that is my reality. I hate it.
It’s made me realize that I have control issues when it comes to my room. The email stated that members of the Educational Team would be conducting random house checks, looking for alcohol and asking whether guys were staying over. The idea of having someone go through my stuff in my room, looking for non-existent alcohol, asking me about aspects of my life that shouldn’t be their business in the first place, makes me instantly angry. Unreasonably angry, in fact. I thought about it a lot and I realized that my bedroom has always been the only area of my life that I have had complete control over. I have always controlled my room completely and implicitly. I have been anal-retentive about who comes in and when, the contents and where they go. I rule my room and no one else has any authority therein. It has always been that way, and I just can’t let that go. I’ll let them in my room if they must check it, but only if I’m there. I’d prefer it if they could just take my word for it that there’s no alcohol in there. They have to take my word for it that S. isn’t sleeping over, after all.
Another big part of my frustration with the school comes from scheduling conflicts. This year has been the worst year for students being double-booked into things that anyone I’ve spoken to has ever seen. Students have been expected to be in two or three places at once, and when they choose which one of those places they are going to go, they are informed that they have to make up the other classes on their own time. It’s bullshit! I understand that the schedulers are human. I’m not asking for perfection. It would just be nice if when the problems are brought to their attention they would try to rectify them instead of shoving them off on the student.
Right now I’m stage managing a classmates’ final project. Part of this requires me to try to make the schedules of the various team members match up. It is not an easy job. I thought that the school would be helpful with this whole process. The Educational Team approved this project, after all.
I’ve since realized that that was a little too optimistic of me. There have been several ‘mandatory’ classes added to our schedule that are in direct conflict with rehearsals. I don’t understand it. They approved the fucking rehearsal schedule. They should know it, and if they foresaw problems with it they should have said something back then. Instead they approved it and are now kicking up a fuss about the classes that I won’t be attending.
I feel really angry about all of these things, and what makes it worse is that I feel like I’m not being heard.
I know I’m not the only student feeling this way. There are important things that the Educational Team isn’t hearing when we say them, and what can we do about it?
Nothing.
It pisses me off half the time and fills me with a horrible old feeling of resignation the other half. It makes me feel like closing up every time one of them talks to me. Why should I listen to you if you aren’t going to listen to me, I want to ask. But instead I sigh inside and try to be receptive.
How can I expect them to listen to me if I won’t even try to listen to them, after all?
I keep listening.
They keep ignoring the problems they are creating.
And so I am frustrated.
It feels like the Educational Directors are on a warpath and I don’t know why. It’s sudden, too. One day I’m going along my life, making my own decisions and organizing things my way, and the next day the phrase ‘mandatory’ gets thrown in my face and I have to abide by a new set of rules. Rules that I haven’t been aware of for three months now, but that apparently have to be added to my life for this last month of school or the world will come to an end.
The thing I really don’t understand is that the class they are raising Cain about is dance, which is a fucking audit for me. I’m not getting any credits or being marked or evaluated in any way. I didn’t get the option of choosing this class – if I had I would have turned it down. It’s exactly the same class that I took last year and since I passed, I don’t see why I have to take it again. But suddenly I have to attend and catch up on what I’ve missed so that I can participate in the presentation that is happening in three weeks.
They say they want me to stay in practice with dance and I can understand that. But the majority of the class time is spent warming up and stretching. I do that on my own every morning. I lead a deliberately active lifestyle. I keep my tools ready to work. As far as the idea of keeping dance moves fresh in my mind…the way I see it, if I ever go out for a dance audition I’ll be doing it cold. Taking dance classes outside of school doesn’t interest me. I know that I learn basic choreography at an average speed. I’m not a dancer, but I can learn choreography. If this class taught me how to pick up choreography quickly I’d be there in a heartbeat, but instead we spend 85% of the class time warming up to spend 15 minutes going over and over the same dance moves – dance moves that I’ve never seen used in musical theatre anyway. It’s a waste of my time.
The whole ‘mandatory audit’ thing is really just the tip of the iceberg. Recently the Student Life Advisor sent an email to all of the students who are living in student housing, reminding us all that a) we aren’t allowed to have alcohol in our houses and b) boys aren’t allowed to be in our rooms past midnight. I know these rules – well, I knew the alcohol one. I knew that technically we weren’t allowed to have boys in our rooms unless the doors were open but that rule has never been enforced so I didn’t think it was a big deal, and I certainly didn’t remember that they had to be out of our house by midnight. When S.’s schedule means that he isn’t free to come visit me until 11 o’clock at night it seems ridiculous that he would have to leave after an hour, particularly if neither of us has anything the next morning, but fine. We’ll hang out at his house if it’s really that big of a problem. It pisses me off that I can’t live my own life in my own house.
I’ll admit I was breaking the letter of the law on the alcohol thing. I had a bottle of wine in my closet. I had no intention of drinking it in the dorm – I am waiting to open it until R. and I move into our new not-student-housing suite. I didn’t think having a bottle of wine in my closet would be a problem but after I got the email I moved it to S.’s house. He lives in a private residence and is allowed to make the adult decision to drink or not to drink. I can’t wait until I live in a house where my landlord will actually assume that I can act my age (23) and where I can make my own life choices – where all I have to take into consideration is whether or not I’m being respectful to my roommates and whether I’m taking good care of my house. That is what an adult, living on their own, should have to think about. I shouldn’t have to worry about whether my lifestyle is meshing with someone else’s moral structure, but thanks to the nature of student housing that is my reality. I hate it.
It’s made me realize that I have control issues when it comes to my room. The email stated that members of the Educational Team would be conducting random house checks, looking for alcohol and asking whether guys were staying over. The idea of having someone go through my stuff in my room, looking for non-existent alcohol, asking me about aspects of my life that shouldn’t be their business in the first place, makes me instantly angry. Unreasonably angry, in fact. I thought about it a lot and I realized that my bedroom has always been the only area of my life that I have had complete control over. I have always controlled my room completely and implicitly. I have been anal-retentive about who comes in and when, the contents and where they go. I rule my room and no one else has any authority therein. It has always been that way, and I just can’t let that go. I’ll let them in my room if they must check it, but only if I’m there. I’d prefer it if they could just take my word for it that there’s no alcohol in there. They have to take my word for it that S. isn’t sleeping over, after all.
Another big part of my frustration with the school comes from scheduling conflicts. This year has been the worst year for students being double-booked into things that anyone I’ve spoken to has ever seen. Students have been expected to be in two or three places at once, and when they choose which one of those places they are going to go, they are informed that they have to make up the other classes on their own time. It’s bullshit! I understand that the schedulers are human. I’m not asking for perfection. It would just be nice if when the problems are brought to their attention they would try to rectify them instead of shoving them off on the student.
Right now I’m stage managing a classmates’ final project. Part of this requires me to try to make the schedules of the various team members match up. It is not an easy job. I thought that the school would be helpful with this whole process. The Educational Team approved this project, after all.
I’ve since realized that that was a little too optimistic of me. There have been several ‘mandatory’ classes added to our schedule that are in direct conflict with rehearsals. I don’t understand it. They approved the fucking rehearsal schedule. They should know it, and if they foresaw problems with it they should have said something back then. Instead they approved it and are now kicking up a fuss about the classes that I won’t be attending.
I feel really angry about all of these things, and what makes it worse is that I feel like I’m not being heard.
I know I’m not the only student feeling this way. There are important things that the Educational Team isn’t hearing when we say them, and what can we do about it?
Nothing.
It pisses me off half the time and fills me with a horrible old feeling of resignation the other half. It makes me feel like closing up every time one of them talks to me. Why should I listen to you if you aren’t going to listen to me, I want to ask. But instead I sigh inside and try to be receptive.
How can I expect them to listen to me if I won’t even try to listen to them, after all?
I keep listening.
They keep ignoring the problems they are creating.
And so I am frustrated.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Congratulations!
That is to my middle brother, who asked his girlfriend to marry him.
She said yes. Otherwise this would be a sad little post, instead of a happy one.
I am really excited for them, and can hardly wait to welcome her into our family!
Congratulations, you two. Lots of love and best wishes your way.
She said yes. Otherwise this would be a sad little post, instead of a happy one.
I am really excited for them, and can hardly wait to welcome her into our family!
Congratulations, you two. Lots of love and best wishes your way.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Resentment
Our household harmony is vanishing. Fast.
It started with the breakdown of the System. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly little resentments will pop up when the dishes aren’t being done. As soon as the dishes remained piled on the counter with loud declarations of “they aren’t mine and I won’t do other people’s dishes” everything else went to pot.
Secret resentment number one: I would put dishes here, but I’m not sure that dishes count as a ‘secret’ resentment since the entire household has articulated this one multiple times. And in reality, if M. would just do her damn dishes, this post would be over already.
Secret resentment number two: It is tech week for the Opera House show, which means that L. (who is the ASM) is under stress. To help her out, L.’s fiancé, K., has been here cooking for her so that she doesn’t have to worry about preparing meals during her short breaks. It’s awfully nice of him, but it does add another person to an already crowded kitchen. But hey – he washes the dishes he uses. I have been feeling a little overwhelmed by the extra person in our kitchen but I’ve been dealing with it. I have S. over often enough, after all. M., however, is tired of having ‘the boyfriends’ over here all the time.
She doesn’t go speak to L. about this though. No. She talks to me, like I’m going to fix it for her.
Secret resentment number two: M. has been watching seasons one and two of Grey’s Anatomy. Not a problem until you realize that she has watched the entire two seasons over four days. While she watches film after film and episode after episode, she uses the upstairs bathroom – the bathroom that C. and I supply with toilet paper. Our supplies are vanishing almost as fast as the household harmony.
M. has always spent every spare moment of her life sitting in the living-room watching movies at high decibel levels, and while it has been getting on everyone’s nerves for a long time, it has reached a snapping point. It is understandable that we can only handle so much noise in the only common area in the house, and when you combine that with watching her sit there while her dishes pile up in negligent sloth, you get a fairly volatile situation.
C. decided that taking the RCA cables away would solve the problem. It didn’t. It just made things worse. When M. came home and discovered that the television didn’t work, she felt like she was being punished (which she was) and accused C. of mothering her. To her face, which I must admit I was quite shocked to learn.
That brings us to secret resentment number three: M. treating me like I’m her personal intercessor. After raising her voice to L. when it was pointed out that she needed to do her dishes, and then yelling at C. for mothering her, she stalked up to my room and proceeded to fill me in on the entire afternoon in a highly controlled and angry voice.
In my bedroom. My private retreat from the entire house, the only private place I have in the entire town.
I had removed myself for a reason. Apparently that was lost on M. While she spouted off about how the entire house was treating her like a child, all I could do was stare at the top of my dresser and wonder why the hell I let her do this to me and wonder why she can’t seem to learn that her actions affect the people around her. She is very much like a child.
I felt like I couldn’t even tell her what I wanted to because I had to stop her from going and having it all out with L. right then and there. In the middle of tech week. This is the worst week in any show, particularly for L. M. has no sense of timing.
I wanted to tell her that none of us wanted the full-time job that mothering her would be. That we aren’t trying to mother her – we are only behaving like roommates behave when someone in the house isn’t pulling their weight. That pulling your weight means not only cleaning up after yourself (which she isn’t doing) but also pitching in to pick up the slack that is left when six people live together. That if she had a problem with somebody in the house she should go talk to them instead of dragging me into every fight she has. That she can’t come into my room. For any reason. Ever.
It irritates me that M. can’t recognize her dishes; that she doesn’t speak to the people that are angering her; that she can’t seem to realize that her problems aren’t my problems or my business; that she also has no sense of timing; that she can’t remember to be considerate of the people living around her; that she can’t see past what she wants and what she feels to the desires, needs and feelings of the people she has lived with for six months.
I am getting very tired of living with her. I know I said I could suck it up for another month and a half…but I think I was lying. A little part of me harbours a secret resentment against our student life advisor for placing her here in the first place. If she didn’t live here, my life would be so much easier.
And while the household harmony vanishes into the ether, I cling to the hope that somehow in all of this I have become a better person.
Because otherwise this was all a significant waste of my time.
It started with the breakdown of the System. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly little resentments will pop up when the dishes aren’t being done. As soon as the dishes remained piled on the counter with loud declarations of “they aren’t mine and I won’t do other people’s dishes” everything else went to pot.
Secret resentment number one: I would put dishes here, but I’m not sure that dishes count as a ‘secret’ resentment since the entire household has articulated this one multiple times. And in reality, if M. would just do her damn dishes, this post would be over already.
Secret resentment number two: It is tech week for the Opera House show, which means that L. (who is the ASM) is under stress. To help her out, L.’s fiancé, K., has been here cooking for her so that she doesn’t have to worry about preparing meals during her short breaks. It’s awfully nice of him, but it does add another person to an already crowded kitchen. But hey – he washes the dishes he uses. I have been feeling a little overwhelmed by the extra person in our kitchen but I’ve been dealing with it. I have S. over often enough, after all. M., however, is tired of having ‘the boyfriends’ over here all the time.
She doesn’t go speak to L. about this though. No. She talks to me, like I’m going to fix it for her.
Secret resentment number two: M. has been watching seasons one and two of Grey’s Anatomy. Not a problem until you realize that she has watched the entire two seasons over four days. While she watches film after film and episode after episode, she uses the upstairs bathroom – the bathroom that C. and I supply with toilet paper. Our supplies are vanishing almost as fast as the household harmony.
M. has always spent every spare moment of her life sitting in the living-room watching movies at high decibel levels, and while it has been getting on everyone’s nerves for a long time, it has reached a snapping point. It is understandable that we can only handle so much noise in the only common area in the house, and when you combine that with watching her sit there while her dishes pile up in negligent sloth, you get a fairly volatile situation.
C. decided that taking the RCA cables away would solve the problem. It didn’t. It just made things worse. When M. came home and discovered that the television didn’t work, she felt like she was being punished (which she was) and accused C. of mothering her. To her face, which I must admit I was quite shocked to learn.
That brings us to secret resentment number three: M. treating me like I’m her personal intercessor. After raising her voice to L. when it was pointed out that she needed to do her dishes, and then yelling at C. for mothering her, she stalked up to my room and proceeded to fill me in on the entire afternoon in a highly controlled and angry voice.
In my bedroom. My private retreat from the entire house, the only private place I have in the entire town.
I had removed myself for a reason. Apparently that was lost on M. While she spouted off about how the entire house was treating her like a child, all I could do was stare at the top of my dresser and wonder why the hell I let her do this to me and wonder why she can’t seem to learn that her actions affect the people around her. She is very much like a child.
I felt like I couldn’t even tell her what I wanted to because I had to stop her from going and having it all out with L. right then and there. In the middle of tech week. This is the worst week in any show, particularly for L. M. has no sense of timing.
I wanted to tell her that none of us wanted the full-time job that mothering her would be. That we aren’t trying to mother her – we are only behaving like roommates behave when someone in the house isn’t pulling their weight. That pulling your weight means not only cleaning up after yourself (which she isn’t doing) but also pitching in to pick up the slack that is left when six people live together. That if she had a problem with somebody in the house she should go talk to them instead of dragging me into every fight she has. That she can’t come into my room. For any reason. Ever.
It irritates me that M. can’t recognize her dishes; that she doesn’t speak to the people that are angering her; that she can’t seem to realize that her problems aren’t my problems or my business; that she also has no sense of timing; that she can’t remember to be considerate of the people living around her; that she can’t see past what she wants and what she feels to the desires, needs and feelings of the people she has lived with for six months.
I am getting very tired of living with her. I know I said I could suck it up for another month and a half…but I think I was lying. A little part of me harbours a secret resentment against our student life advisor for placing her here in the first place. If she didn’t live here, my life would be so much easier.
And while the household harmony vanishes into the ether, I cling to the hope that somehow in all of this I have become a better person.
Because otherwise this was all a significant waste of my time.
Saturday, March 10, 2007
The System: or, Flex Before Somebody Snaps
In our house we have a System when it comes to dishes. It’s quite simple. You do your own.
The System works pretty well. It’s the only way we’ve been able to keep the peace with six women using dishes in the house. It isn’t perfect though. It breaks down when someone doesn’t do their dishes for a week or when people forget which dishes are theirs. Confusion over ownership wreaks the most havoc on the System, and unfortunately the dishes are the ones who suffer, sitting unclaimed on the counter wallowing in their filth until someone breaks down and does them.
It wouldn’t be such a problem – or a topic for my blog – if this house wasn’t filled with such stubborn women. Let me introduce them to you –
First, we have L. L. refuses to do dishes that aren’t hers because she is of the firm belief that the dishes piling up belong to M., who she doesn’t really like and with whom any excuse to like her less is a viable reason to make life difficult for everyone around. She doesn’t see that aspect of it, but it’s true non-the-less.
Then we have the infamous M., of whom I’ve written before. M. is tired of all the extra dishes being blamed on her and likewise refuses to do any extra dishes – although she does tend to forget what she has actually used and blame her work on others, particularly L. and C.
C., the first one of us to live here and who thus lays claim (subconsciously or not) to the title of Alpha Bitch, has a good memory as to what she has and has not used for dishes. She rarely is a culprit when it comes to over-flowing counters. She usually has to play the role of dish-Nazi (the one who makes others do their dishes).
J. doesn’t do her dishes upstairs, and so has excluded herself from the System – although when a dish disappears for a month it’s usually because it has been wallowing in her sink downstairs.
R. adheres to the System. She does her dishes with OCD-like attention to detail, and thus avoids the perennial conflict when it comes to arguments of ownership.
I occasionally leave dishes and have been known to forget which ones are mine. However the System is so ingrained in me that when I was home for Christmas I used a plate and then washed it immediately, ignoring the pile of dishes from the previous meal (much to my mother’s irritation. She doesn’t understand the overwhelming influence of the System). I also will wash other people’s dishes if someone else will put them away – I hate putting dishes away but washing them doesn’t bother me. Much.
In this latest uprising of plates and cups half of the house was absent, leaving L. and M. to battle out the ownership issue. I had been observing the dishes and knowing their eating habits, I was pretty sure that they were the result of an even split between the two of them, but neither of them were willing to budge an inch to do any more than what they believed was their responsibility. Fuck, I hate legalism.
I finally got sick of the whole mess and took out my frustration at the breakdown of the System in the most passive-aggressive yet positive way I could. I did all of the fucking dishes and then cleaned the kitchen to boot.
I did receive gratitude in the form of lip-service, but that evening again I witnessed the strict adherence to the System to the exclusion of mercy or grace.
I think I hate the System too.
The problem is that I know that the System works. It isn’t the System that is broken. It’s the understanding of the System. There needs to be a bit of flex room, a place of grace where each member of the house will accept doing a few extra dishes now and then to help out a friend (or to stop an argument that will overflow onto friends – or the floor). There needs to be an understanding that no System works without flexibility to work outside the rules.
I discussed this with R. when she returned from her study break. I got quite worked up about it (the swearing in this post isn’t gratuitous; it accurately reflects my feelings on the subject). R. sensed my pent-up rage and asked me if we needed to have a house meeting. I said I thought it would be okay. I am the queen of taking deep breaths and taking things in stride. I can hold out until the end of term, when M. is leaving and L. will suddenly remember what it means to help out the people around her instead of doing her own fair share and letting everyone else take up the slack.
If this situation rises again before the end of March, though, I’m going to fucking flip out and it won’t be a pretty sight.
I just wish we could all just remember to have some flexibility within our Systems. Maybe then our lives would run a little more smoothly.
At least I’d have to find something else to snap about.
The System works pretty well. It’s the only way we’ve been able to keep the peace with six women using dishes in the house. It isn’t perfect though. It breaks down when someone doesn’t do their dishes for a week or when people forget which dishes are theirs. Confusion over ownership wreaks the most havoc on the System, and unfortunately the dishes are the ones who suffer, sitting unclaimed on the counter wallowing in their filth until someone breaks down and does them.
It wouldn’t be such a problem – or a topic for my blog – if this house wasn’t filled with such stubborn women. Let me introduce them to you –
First, we have L. L. refuses to do dishes that aren’t hers because she is of the firm belief that the dishes piling up belong to M., who she doesn’t really like and with whom any excuse to like her less is a viable reason to make life difficult for everyone around. She doesn’t see that aspect of it, but it’s true non-the-less.
Then we have the infamous M., of whom I’ve written before. M. is tired of all the extra dishes being blamed on her and likewise refuses to do any extra dishes – although she does tend to forget what she has actually used and blame her work on others, particularly L. and C.
C., the first one of us to live here and who thus lays claim (subconsciously or not) to the title of Alpha Bitch, has a good memory as to what she has and has not used for dishes. She rarely is a culprit when it comes to over-flowing counters. She usually has to play the role of dish-Nazi (the one who makes others do their dishes).
J. doesn’t do her dishes upstairs, and so has excluded herself from the System – although when a dish disappears for a month it’s usually because it has been wallowing in her sink downstairs.
R. adheres to the System. She does her dishes with OCD-like attention to detail, and thus avoids the perennial conflict when it comes to arguments of ownership.
I occasionally leave dishes and have been known to forget which ones are mine. However the System is so ingrained in me that when I was home for Christmas I used a plate and then washed it immediately, ignoring the pile of dishes from the previous meal (much to my mother’s irritation. She doesn’t understand the overwhelming influence of the System). I also will wash other people’s dishes if someone else will put them away – I hate putting dishes away but washing them doesn’t bother me. Much.
In this latest uprising of plates and cups half of the house was absent, leaving L. and M. to battle out the ownership issue. I had been observing the dishes and knowing their eating habits, I was pretty sure that they were the result of an even split between the two of them, but neither of them were willing to budge an inch to do any more than what they believed was their responsibility. Fuck, I hate legalism.
I finally got sick of the whole mess and took out my frustration at the breakdown of the System in the most passive-aggressive yet positive way I could. I did all of the fucking dishes and then cleaned the kitchen to boot.
I did receive gratitude in the form of lip-service, but that evening again I witnessed the strict adherence to the System to the exclusion of mercy or grace.
I think I hate the System too.
The problem is that I know that the System works. It isn’t the System that is broken. It’s the understanding of the System. There needs to be a bit of flex room, a place of grace where each member of the house will accept doing a few extra dishes now and then to help out a friend (or to stop an argument that will overflow onto friends – or the floor). There needs to be an understanding that no System works without flexibility to work outside the rules.
I discussed this with R. when she returned from her study break. I got quite worked up about it (the swearing in this post isn’t gratuitous; it accurately reflects my feelings on the subject). R. sensed my pent-up rage and asked me if we needed to have a house meeting. I said I thought it would be okay. I am the queen of taking deep breaths and taking things in stride. I can hold out until the end of term, when M. is leaving and L. will suddenly remember what it means to help out the people around her instead of doing her own fair share and letting everyone else take up the slack.
If this situation rises again before the end of March, though, I’m going to fucking flip out and it won’t be a pretty sight.
I just wish we could all just remember to have some flexibility within our Systems. Maybe then our lives would run a little more smoothly.
At least I’d have to find something else to snap about.
Saturday, March 03, 2007
22 - The Year of the Firsts
I had my birthday this week. I turned 23.
23 feels a lot older than 22. Someone told me it’s because 23 is closer to 25 than to 20. Perhaps that’s why.
I think the reason I feel older is because I am definitely an adult now. There is no way that a 23 year old is not an adult. I have no excuses now for any of my childish behaviour.
Maybe that should make me sad, but instead it makes me stand straighter, smile and look to the future.
After all, you can’t stop getting older. I think you might as well embrace it.
That said I’m not negating the difficulty people have in aging. I am sure that in spite of my best intentions I’ll find some years hard. Which ones I’m not sure of yet. After all, I wouldn’t have thought that turning 20 would be hard but it kind of was.
But whatever. I’ll accept the difficulty and still never lie about my age, no matter how hard I find it to be old. When I am, I mean. I’m still young, so it’s easy to have this ideal, but I am determined to keep it. Not everyone gets to be old, even as old as I am now, and I will not belittle the gift of life by denying how many years I have had it.
This last year has been one full of life, too. I experienced quite a few firsts – first leading role, first degree, first time ASMing, first boyfriend, first kiss, first time falling in love, first time making out, first time getting paid to sing in public, getting my first role in the main season, first close friend getting engaged, first time really fighting with the student loan people, first time getting drunk, first hangover, first laptop (thanks Dad and Mom!), first time acting in a final project, first time traveling overseas, first time seeing London, England and Wales, first time being sniffed down by a drug dog and being randomly checked by airport security people, first time being really, really late with the rent (and tuition…sigh), first play written and read publicly…not all in that order necessarily, but all this year.
I can’t help but be excited about next years firsts…along with continuations of this years discoveries, 23 should be a pretty good year.
23 feels a lot older than 22. Someone told me it’s because 23 is closer to 25 than to 20. Perhaps that’s why.
I think the reason I feel older is because I am definitely an adult now. There is no way that a 23 year old is not an adult. I have no excuses now for any of my childish behaviour.
Maybe that should make me sad, but instead it makes me stand straighter, smile and look to the future.
After all, you can’t stop getting older. I think you might as well embrace it.
That said I’m not negating the difficulty people have in aging. I am sure that in spite of my best intentions I’ll find some years hard. Which ones I’m not sure of yet. After all, I wouldn’t have thought that turning 20 would be hard but it kind of was.
But whatever. I’ll accept the difficulty and still never lie about my age, no matter how hard I find it to be old. When I am, I mean. I’m still young, so it’s easy to have this ideal, but I am determined to keep it. Not everyone gets to be old, even as old as I am now, and I will not belittle the gift of life by denying how many years I have had it.
This last year has been one full of life, too. I experienced quite a few firsts – first leading role, first degree, first time ASMing, first boyfriend, first kiss, first time falling in love, first time making out, first time getting paid to sing in public, getting my first role in the main season, first close friend getting engaged, first time really fighting with the student loan people, first time getting drunk, first hangover, first laptop (thanks Dad and Mom!), first time acting in a final project, first time traveling overseas, first time seeing London, England and Wales, first time being sniffed down by a drug dog and being randomly checked by airport security people, first time being really, really late with the rent (and tuition…sigh), first play written and read publicly…not all in that order necessarily, but all this year.
I can’t help but be excited about next years firsts…along with continuations of this years discoveries, 23 should be a pretty good year.
Friday, February 23, 2007
Five Things You Might Not Know About Me
1. On the side of my Outlook Express account, there is a list of tasks that I make for myself. They range from the dull (Homework) to the bizarre (Be the Broccoli...don't ask) to the sublime (Kiss S.) Upon completion of this post I can tick off the "Meme - Five Things" task that has been there for months, annoying me.
2. I despise honey. I cannot abide the taste, smell, texture or sight of it...ugh. Even thinking about honey can make my stomach turn. I have no reason for this detestation, but it is sincere. S. was quite smug with himself when I ate a meal he had cooked that had a minute amount of honey in it - but I'll get him back someday. He has a bizarre dislike of cinnamon, after all...
3. All of my close friends live in this hamlet. I have no close friends from my childhood unless you count family members. This is something I don't tell people. I am ashamed of this, although it really wasn't my fault...I was a pretty isolated child. Still. It makes me feel like a bizarre aberration of nature.
4. Sunday will be the first day that anything I've written, and finished, will be shared with people that I cannot choose. It scares me and thrills me. It strikes me as strange, thinking about it now, that I have been writing for most of my life and yet haven't shared my writing with more than a handful of people - because I'm afraid, of course. Perhaps that isn't so bizarre after all.
5. A movie has to be really, really terrible for me not to get sucked into the story. Even a terrible movie will keep me enthralled - it's like the screen has a bizarre ability to hypnotize me within thirty seconds. This annoys me, because if a television is turned on I have a very difficult time focusing on the people around me. I would rather put my attention on the people, really - but it is very hard for me to do, and I'm not sure why.
6. I know this is supposed to be five, but yes - I did intentionally use the word bizarre in each one of those points. Ha ha!
2. I despise honey. I cannot abide the taste, smell, texture or sight of it...ugh. Even thinking about honey can make my stomach turn. I have no reason for this detestation, but it is sincere. S. was quite smug with himself when I ate a meal he had cooked that had a minute amount of honey in it - but I'll get him back someday. He has a bizarre dislike of cinnamon, after all...
3. All of my close friends live in this hamlet. I have no close friends from my childhood unless you count family members. This is something I don't tell people. I am ashamed of this, although it really wasn't my fault...I was a pretty isolated child. Still. It makes me feel like a bizarre aberration of nature.
4. Sunday will be the first day that anything I've written, and finished, will be shared with people that I cannot choose. It scares me and thrills me. It strikes me as strange, thinking about it now, that I have been writing for most of my life and yet haven't shared my writing with more than a handful of people - because I'm afraid, of course. Perhaps that isn't so bizarre after all.
5. A movie has to be really, really terrible for me not to get sucked into the story. Even a terrible movie will keep me enthralled - it's like the screen has a bizarre ability to hypnotize me within thirty seconds. This annoys me, because if a television is turned on I have a very difficult time focusing on the people around me. I would rather put my attention on the people, really - but it is very hard for me to do, and I'm not sure why.
6. I know this is supposed to be five, but yes - I did intentionally use the word bizarre in each one of those points. Ha ha!
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Out of the Dust
Years ago, one of my aunts gave me a book called "Out of the Dust" by Karen Hesse. It is a story told in poetry and it is beautiful. I remembered that I loved it but I had forgotten how heartbreaking and perfect it was.
...and didn't notice how lonely she was
until she met Daddy and fell into the
big hurt of his eyes.
This sentence leaped out at me and almost made me cry.
Story really is a vital part of our human experience. I sometimes forget this.
I'm glad there are stories out there to remind me.
...and didn't notice how lonely she was
until she met Daddy and fell into the
big hurt of his eyes.
This sentence leaped out at me and almost made me cry.
Story really is a vital part of our human experience. I sometimes forget this.
I'm glad there are stories out there to remind me.
Saturday, February 17, 2007
I'm back...
...and extremely jet-lagged.
But London was fun - if filled with smog that turned your nostrils grey after a day of sight-seeing (although that could have been all of the second-hand smoke...almost everyone there smoked but that could have been to protect themselves from the smog...it's a vicious circle).
I'll write all about it when I get my brain back from whatever magical land brains go to when they travel across time-zones.
But I would like to say that making me change to Beta when I'm so incoherent is extremely unjust.
At least I think that it is.
But London was fun - if filled with smog that turned your nostrils grey after a day of sight-seeing (although that could have been all of the second-hand smoke...almost everyone there smoked but that could have been to protect themselves from the smog...it's a vicious circle).
I'll write all about it when I get my brain back from whatever magical land brains go to when they travel across time-zones.
But I would like to say that making me change to Beta when I'm so incoherent is extremely unjust.
At least I think that it is.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
An Observation
People are incapable of stability.
Waiting for them to achieve stability is an exercise in futility.
Waiting for them to achieve stability is an exercise in futility.
Up, up and away!
This time Saturday I'll be flying to London.
I probably won't post much (if anything at all) while I'm over there...but I'll be back - and jet-lagged - on the 17th, so you'll hear from me for sure by the 21st (which is when I imagine my brain will be functioning again).
Pray for safety for me and my classmates. This is a school trip. Almost everyone who is important to me (outside of my family) is going to be along, which is cool.
I suppose along with a prayer for safety for me, you could add a prayer for peace of mind for my mother.
I probably won't post much (if anything at all) while I'm over there...but I'll be back - and jet-lagged - on the 17th, so you'll hear from me for sure by the 21st (which is when I imagine my brain will be functioning again).
Pray for safety for me and my classmates. This is a school trip. Almost everyone who is important to me (outside of my family) is going to be along, which is cool.
I suppose along with a prayer for safety for me, you could add a prayer for peace of mind for my mother.
Monday, January 22, 2007
I am here...
Life feels like a big question. I’d like to know where the answers are but I suspect they lie at the end of the journey. I’m not ready to be at the end, so I guess I’ll find them like every other mortal – by living my life and making my mistakes – but that seems so hard right now.
I find myself writing "Rebecca was here [insert date here] and she was [insert emotional state here]" on walls, on floors, on pieces of set around the town. I don't know why, but it helps somehow.
S. shaved his head last night. I like it a lot…he’s even more distracting than he was before. I love it when you rub someone’s head and it feels like it’s covered in velvet. Plus it looks really good. Mmmm…
I’m listening to music on an iPod, which is a new experience. I’ve been instructed in the use of the little thing, which is a wonder to me. Five buttons and a little dial and that’s all you need to listen to hundreds and hundreds of songs. Weird. It’s S.’s iPod so it’s all his music. It is both educational and interesting to listen to and see where our tastes meld and where they take sharp departures.
I should be working right now – but I thought I should also put something on here to let myself know that I’m still alive and capable of creating something independent of school work, even if it’s small.
That feels like an answer. An answer I needed.
Rebecca was here January 22nd 2007, and she was comforted.
That's enough for now.
I find myself writing "Rebecca was here [insert date here] and she was [insert emotional state here]" on walls, on floors, on pieces of set around the town. I don't know why, but it helps somehow.
S. shaved his head last night. I like it a lot…he’s even more distracting than he was before. I love it when you rub someone’s head and it feels like it’s covered in velvet. Plus it looks really good. Mmmm…
I’m listening to music on an iPod, which is a new experience. I’ve been instructed in the use of the little thing, which is a wonder to me. Five buttons and a little dial and that’s all you need to listen to hundreds and hundreds of songs. Weird. It’s S.’s iPod so it’s all his music. It is both educational and interesting to listen to and see where our tastes meld and where they take sharp departures.
I should be working right now – but I thought I should also put something on here to let myself know that I’m still alive and capable of creating something independent of school work, even if it’s small.
That feels like an answer. An answer I needed.
Rebecca was here January 22nd 2007, and she was comforted.
That's enough for now.
Friday, January 19, 2007
Brighter days
I'm not feeling quite so overwhelmed now. I still don't have time to write more than a paragraph, but at least my soul doesn't feel like it wants to escape my body anymore...and I don't feel as stressed out...
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Ashes
I feel like I am holding a monster at bay with a crucifix that I have only just realized is made of popsicle sticks.
Eventually the monster will realize I have no real power backing me up...
Eventually the monster will realize I have no real power backing me up...
Monday, January 15, 2007
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Random Thoughts for the New Year
My youngest brother broke up with his girlfriend last night.
This time I think it might stick.
This is a first for our family, which continues youngest brother’s fine tradition of being the first one of us to do anything. It’s a little embarrassing as the oldest to have him constantly beat me to the finish with things, but then again there are some things I’m perfectly happy to watch someone else do them first so I can learn from their mistakes, or, even better, simply avoid doing completely.
I saw them together a few times over the holidays and they seemed okay but I knew from talking to him that things were pretty rocky. I’m not surprised they broke up, although I’m a little surprised that he did the breaking.
xxxx
My holidays have been pretty eventful, I suppose. I didn’t do a lot. I stayed at home for the most part, used the computer, burned myself some CD’s…did a bit of shopping and spent some time with family members…went to two family gatherings…went for a very long walk by myself…talked to S. on the phone…wrote…memorized lines…realized that I haven’t done any of my Faith and Art homework (sorry, Steve)…and I learned a lot about myself. Things I can honestly say I didn’t learn willingly. I’m egocentric and arrogant. I’m wilful and territorial. I also have a healthy dose of aggression.
I also came to the conclusion that two adult women who are related should never share a house for more than a week, and that if anyone uses the phrase ‘co-dependant’ around me again I may very well unleash some of my aggression on them. But both my mother and I are still alive so I would say the holidays were a success.
I think I can safely say that I have never been such a pain in the ass as I’ve been these holidays. I’ve been argumentative and in such weird moods. Even I don’t know why. I think it is a good thing that I’m going back to my own little village tomorrow – as much as my mother might miss me, she’ll be glad to have a break from me for a while.
xxxx
I bought a laptop in December. It was supposed to be here by now but Purolator lost it somewhere, so now Dell is looking for it. If they can’t find it (and I’m not sure how they will if the Purolator people can’t) then they are going to build me another one. I’m very impressed with Dell – not very impressed with Purolator. At least I’m still getting the computer, even if it will arrive two weeks later than it was supposed to.
xxxx
My cat has vanished again. When it gets cold he goes to his second family for better treatment, which I understand but it does mean that I don’t see him for months on end. He hasn’t shown his whiskery face the entire time I’ve been home. Instead, Mack (an orange stray) has been sunning himself on the deck. Emma, my dog, has been here and happy to see me. S. sincerely prefers cats to dogs – he thinks that dogs are useless – but Emma was here when Felix abandoned me for creature comforts.
I’ve been considering getting a kitten, and now I won’t feel like I’m betraying Felix quite so badly.
This time I think it might stick.
This is a first for our family, which continues youngest brother’s fine tradition of being the first one of us to do anything. It’s a little embarrassing as the oldest to have him constantly beat me to the finish with things, but then again there are some things I’m perfectly happy to watch someone else do them first so I can learn from their mistakes, or, even better, simply avoid doing completely.
I saw them together a few times over the holidays and they seemed okay but I knew from talking to him that things were pretty rocky. I’m not surprised they broke up, although I’m a little surprised that he did the breaking.
xxxx
My holidays have been pretty eventful, I suppose. I didn’t do a lot. I stayed at home for the most part, used the computer, burned myself some CD’s…did a bit of shopping and spent some time with family members…went to two family gatherings…went for a very long walk by myself…talked to S. on the phone…wrote…memorized lines…realized that I haven’t done any of my Faith and Art homework (sorry, Steve)…and I learned a lot about myself. Things I can honestly say I didn’t learn willingly. I’m egocentric and arrogant. I’m wilful and territorial. I also have a healthy dose of aggression.
I also came to the conclusion that two adult women who are related should never share a house for more than a week, and that if anyone uses the phrase ‘co-dependant’ around me again I may very well unleash some of my aggression on them. But both my mother and I are still alive so I would say the holidays were a success.
I think I can safely say that I have never been such a pain in the ass as I’ve been these holidays. I’ve been argumentative and in such weird moods. Even I don’t know why. I think it is a good thing that I’m going back to my own little village tomorrow – as much as my mother might miss me, she’ll be glad to have a break from me for a while.
xxxx
I bought a laptop in December. It was supposed to be here by now but Purolator lost it somewhere, so now Dell is looking for it. If they can’t find it (and I’m not sure how they will if the Purolator people can’t) then they are going to build me another one. I’m very impressed with Dell – not very impressed with Purolator. At least I’m still getting the computer, even if it will arrive two weeks later than it was supposed to.
xxxx
My cat has vanished again. When it gets cold he goes to his second family for better treatment, which I understand but it does mean that I don’t see him for months on end. He hasn’t shown his whiskery face the entire time I’ve been home. Instead, Mack (an orange stray) has been sunning himself on the deck. Emma, my dog, has been here and happy to see me. S. sincerely prefers cats to dogs – he thinks that dogs are useless – but Emma was here when Felix abandoned me for creature comforts.
I’ve been considering getting a kitten, and now I won’t feel like I’m betraying Felix quite so badly.
Monday, January 01, 2007
Interesting, for a non-morning person...
"You are Sunrise"
You enjoy living a slow, fulfilling life. You enjoy living every moment, no matter how ordinary.You are a person of reflection and meditation. You start and end every day by looking inward. Caring and giving, you enjoy making people happy. You're often cooking for friends or buying them gifts.All in all, you know how to love life for what it is - not for how it should be.
http://blogthings.com/whattimeofdayareyouquiz/ is where I got this particular quiz. Thanks, troll.
You enjoy living a slow, fulfilling life. You enjoy living every moment, no matter how ordinary.You are a person of reflection and meditation. You start and end every day by looking inward. Caring and giving, you enjoy making people happy. You're often cooking for friends or buying them gifts.All in all, you know how to love life for what it is - not for how it should be.
http://blogthings.com/whattimeofdayareyouquiz/ is where I got this particular quiz. Thanks, troll.
Sunday, December 31, 2006
My New Year's Resolution
Spoiler Alert
I just read a book called "The Pact". I found it to be a very upsetting book and I'm not sure why. I mean, there is a lot to be upset about. The girl, Emily, is molested when she's nine, that taints her experience of her sexuality when she's older because she never told anyone and she never dealt with it...and she is pushed into a life she didn't choose, pushed like many children are pushed by their parents’ blind unspoken assumptions – and this life includes a romantic relationship with a boy, Chris, who loves her to death (literally) but whom she sees more as a brother. But because she can’t be honest with him or anyone else, she enters into a sexual relationship with him and she gets pregnant. Her whole life is built on these lies so she doesn’t tell anyone this big thing either and decides the only way to solve these problems is to kill herself, and because Chris is young and stupid and in love, he helps her, which is where the title comes from – the appearance of a suicide pact.
None of that was necessary. The whole story could have been avoided if she had told the truth. I know that if that was the case, the book wouldn’t have been written. I know that drama is made of these sorts of situations. But a part of my soul still cries out that she could have told the truth and avoided so much pain for so many people. She could have told someone what happened when she was nine, and gotten therapy. Or she could have been honest with Chris and told him she didn’t love him that way. Or she could have told him she really wasn’t comfortable with having sex. Or, she could have been honest and told people, especially him, that she was pregnant. And then she could have been honest and said she didn’t want to marry him. Dammit! But because she let her fear rule her, she lied and lied and lied and then, to escape the lies, she killed herself and put two families through a lot of shit that quite honestly was more difficult to deal with than the truth would have been.
Maybe it upsets me so much because I know that I’ve lied to people I love because I’m afraid that I’ll lose them or scare them away or that they’ll be angry with me. Perhaps I find it so upsetting because I don’t know where I learned that. I spent the vast majority of my life believing that I was an honest person and that my family was an honest family with no unspoken secrets and no unspoken lies, but if that is all true then why did I decide that if I soften the truth, my life isn’t as scary? Somewhere I learned to lie to keep myself safe, and I don’t really know why.
I hate that about myself.
I hate that I soften the truth as a natural way of dealing with people. I can count on one hand the people I don’t think I’ve ever lied to in any way…r., T., and J. I think that’s it. Three people in the whole world that I have never softened the truth for. Three people that I believe will see through my façade, three people that will be honest with me, even brutally so, three people that I trust will stay anyway, so I’ve never even bothered trying to lie to them.
But everyone else in my life? I’ve altered the truth to everyone else at least once. And I hate it.
Thank God I can see that I want to change, and that I am getting better – even if it seems to be taking place on a geological timeline. It is so hard to learn to trust people, especially the ones that I think I should trust already. Especially the ones I think I should trust already.
It is so much easier to focus on the fact that I ‘should’ be trusting this person or I ‘shouldn’t’ have a problem being honest with that person than to focus on the simple truth, which is that I don’t trust, and deal with that.
T. laughed once when I went to him in tears about living with M. He said he thought it was kind of funny that a girl with trust issues and a boy who hates being betrayed would end up dating each other. At the time I just laughed, albeit shakily. I didn’t see the extent of my trust issues then. I have the sinking feeling that I am only touching on the tip of them now.
But I guess there is a silver lining. My life isn’t built out of lies. I am trying to be honest with the people I love (don’t ask about the ones I don’t. One thing at a time, people, one thing at a time). I have cleared the air the last three times I hedged around the truth, even though it was very, very difficult to do, and I found out it isn’t such a horrible thing – it’s actually quite a relief. It’s been almost a year since I consciously decided to stop making excuses to shield myself from my own bad choices, which for me was a huge way that I was dishonest with people. And I don’t have a suicide pact with S.
I guess if I was going to make a huge discovery about a ‘bad habit’, now is the time to do it, huh? Just in time for New Years, the time we make pacts with ourselves.
So here I go.
This year, I vow to tell the truth, however scary that might be.
And, hey...at least I know I can live by this promise.
I just read a book called "The Pact". I found it to be a very upsetting book and I'm not sure why. I mean, there is a lot to be upset about. The girl, Emily, is molested when she's nine, that taints her experience of her sexuality when she's older because she never told anyone and she never dealt with it...and she is pushed into a life she didn't choose, pushed like many children are pushed by their parents’ blind unspoken assumptions – and this life includes a romantic relationship with a boy, Chris, who loves her to death (literally) but whom she sees more as a brother. But because she can’t be honest with him or anyone else, she enters into a sexual relationship with him and she gets pregnant. Her whole life is built on these lies so she doesn’t tell anyone this big thing either and decides the only way to solve these problems is to kill herself, and because Chris is young and stupid and in love, he helps her, which is where the title comes from – the appearance of a suicide pact.
None of that was necessary. The whole story could have been avoided if she had told the truth. I know that if that was the case, the book wouldn’t have been written. I know that drama is made of these sorts of situations. But a part of my soul still cries out that she could have told the truth and avoided so much pain for so many people. She could have told someone what happened when she was nine, and gotten therapy. Or she could have been honest with Chris and told him she didn’t love him that way. Or she could have told him she really wasn’t comfortable with having sex. Or, she could have been honest and told people, especially him, that she was pregnant. And then she could have been honest and said she didn’t want to marry him. Dammit! But because she let her fear rule her, she lied and lied and lied and then, to escape the lies, she killed herself and put two families through a lot of shit that quite honestly was more difficult to deal with than the truth would have been.
Maybe it upsets me so much because I know that I’ve lied to people I love because I’m afraid that I’ll lose them or scare them away or that they’ll be angry with me. Perhaps I find it so upsetting because I don’t know where I learned that. I spent the vast majority of my life believing that I was an honest person and that my family was an honest family with no unspoken secrets and no unspoken lies, but if that is all true then why did I decide that if I soften the truth, my life isn’t as scary? Somewhere I learned to lie to keep myself safe, and I don’t really know why.
I hate that about myself.
I hate that I soften the truth as a natural way of dealing with people. I can count on one hand the people I don’t think I’ve ever lied to in any way…r., T., and J. I think that’s it. Three people in the whole world that I have never softened the truth for. Three people that I believe will see through my façade, three people that will be honest with me, even brutally so, three people that I trust will stay anyway, so I’ve never even bothered trying to lie to them.
But everyone else in my life? I’ve altered the truth to everyone else at least once. And I hate it.
Thank God I can see that I want to change, and that I am getting better – even if it seems to be taking place on a geological timeline. It is so hard to learn to trust people, especially the ones that I think I should trust already. Especially the ones I think I should trust already.
It is so much easier to focus on the fact that I ‘should’ be trusting this person or I ‘shouldn’t’ have a problem being honest with that person than to focus on the simple truth, which is that I don’t trust, and deal with that.
T. laughed once when I went to him in tears about living with M. He said he thought it was kind of funny that a girl with trust issues and a boy who hates being betrayed would end up dating each other. At the time I just laughed, albeit shakily. I didn’t see the extent of my trust issues then. I have the sinking feeling that I am only touching on the tip of them now.
But I guess there is a silver lining. My life isn’t built out of lies. I am trying to be honest with the people I love (don’t ask about the ones I don’t. One thing at a time, people, one thing at a time). I have cleared the air the last three times I hedged around the truth, even though it was very, very difficult to do, and I found out it isn’t such a horrible thing – it’s actually quite a relief. It’s been almost a year since I consciously decided to stop making excuses to shield myself from my own bad choices, which for me was a huge way that I was dishonest with people. And I don’t have a suicide pact with S.
I guess if I was going to make a huge discovery about a ‘bad habit’, now is the time to do it, huh? Just in time for New Years, the time we make pacts with ourselves.
So here I go.
This year, I vow to tell the truth, however scary that might be.
And, hey...at least I know I can live by this promise.
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
10 Things I Love About S
Okay, so that is a little misleading. This isn't actually all about S., the person. It is a list of 10 things that I love that begin with the letter S. Antony at www.tothequiet.blogspot.com started this one - well, I guess he didn't start it exactly, but since he's the one who gave me a letter I'll give him the credit.
(I think the letter S is a most appropriate one for me.)
1. S. Of course. Although it scares me sometimes.
2. Snuggling. There is something so comforting and relaxing about being all cuddled up to someone (and by someone I mean S.), all warm and cozy. I love being held, and I count myself lucky that S. likes to snuggle while we watch t.v. or talk or listen to music, or just hang out.
3. My senses. Being able to see colours and shapes, like the ones that filled the art show that the first year students put on before school ended for the year or the ones that God fills the sky with every morning and evening. Smelling food or the first wild rose of the year, so sweet and delicate, and the smell of S. when I hug him. The taste of autumn air, filled with fallen leaves, and the taste of homemade iced tea, which brings me instantly to my grandparent's house. Hearing the spaces in between the notes of music, or a finely tuned choir singing in polyphonic majesty, or birds chattering while my friends walk down a sidewalk with trees whispering above. The feel of snow melting in my hands, of chocolate on my tongue, of lips on my neck... the senses are pretty fantastic.
4. Snow. Call me crazy, but I really enjoy snow. It was cold in my little village for quite a while before it snowed, and I complained with the best of them about the weather - but as soon as the ground was white, the temperature ceased to bother me. If there is snow, then I like the feeling of my nostrils freezing shut as I breathe, my eyelashes turning white with Canadian Mascara as my breath condenses to them, my glasses fogging up until I can't see a thing but frost. Snow crunching and squeaking underfoot, snow covering every mar in the landscape, snow that reveals the midnight dances of mice and small birds - I think it is beautiful.
5. Stories. I hold story in such high regard. My whole life is a story, and I mean that in a good way, not a 'I'm living a lie' sort of way. I really resent that the word story was ever used to describe lying, because stories are such a key way for us to communicate truth to each other. I have learned more important things from stories than from any other thing (except actual life experience, I suppose...but it is probably a much closer race than I even realize). The stories of Madeleine L'Engle, C.S. Lewis, Terry Pratchett, Orson Scott Card...there are too many people to list here. God's story. My story. Stories are so important. Perhaps that is why I want to devote my life to telling them in one way or another.
6. Which leads me to the stage. I do love the stage, although it scares me sometimes too. There is life there, like the life I find in stories, because it is where the stories come to life. An empty stage is potential incarnate.
7. Spirituality. I am glad there is more to this world than what I can experience with my senses, as much as I love them. The mystery that cannot be explained by anything, but that the spirit understands. The fear, the peace, the love, the wonder and trembling awe.
8. Secrets and surprises. I have, to my surprise, become a keeper of secrets for a handful of people that I would never have expected to become a secret holder for. It makes me wonder. I don't think I mind, but it can be tiring sometimes. Other times it makes me so happy because some secrets are wonderful - and those are the ones I love. And really good surprises, like the one I managed to pull off for S. (I wrote about it in an earlier post)...those are wonderful too.
9. Second chances. I don't know that I love them, but I am extremely grateful for them.
10. Singing. I didn't know how much I love to sing until this year, when I really started to use my voice properly and with confidence. Voice lessons have been a wonderful thing for me, and performing music in front of hundreds of people has helped my confidence immensely. I am so glad that I was given the gift of a beautiful voice. I love the feeling of my voice soaring out free and clear and bigger than I ever thought it could be. Music is beautiful. I'm glad God invented it.
And that brings me to 10. I didn't even touch on a sense of humour, or sunshine, stars, sweetness, salt and spices, savouring experiences, or sexuality. When I started, I wasn't sure I'd be able to find 10 things that began with s. It turned out to be surprisingly easy.
And now for another s-word I love - sleep. Too bad I have no one to snuggle with tonight...
(I think the letter S is a most appropriate one for me.)
1. S. Of course. Although it scares me sometimes.
2. Snuggling. There is something so comforting and relaxing about being all cuddled up to someone (and by someone I mean S.), all warm and cozy. I love being held, and I count myself lucky that S. likes to snuggle while we watch t.v. or talk or listen to music, or just hang out.
3. My senses. Being able to see colours and shapes, like the ones that filled the art show that the first year students put on before school ended for the year or the ones that God fills the sky with every morning and evening. Smelling food or the first wild rose of the year, so sweet and delicate, and the smell of S. when I hug him. The taste of autumn air, filled with fallen leaves, and the taste of homemade iced tea, which brings me instantly to my grandparent's house. Hearing the spaces in between the notes of music, or a finely tuned choir singing in polyphonic majesty, or birds chattering while my friends walk down a sidewalk with trees whispering above. The feel of snow melting in my hands, of chocolate on my tongue, of lips on my neck... the senses are pretty fantastic.
4. Snow. Call me crazy, but I really enjoy snow. It was cold in my little village for quite a while before it snowed, and I complained with the best of them about the weather - but as soon as the ground was white, the temperature ceased to bother me. If there is snow, then I like the feeling of my nostrils freezing shut as I breathe, my eyelashes turning white with Canadian Mascara as my breath condenses to them, my glasses fogging up until I can't see a thing but frost. Snow crunching and squeaking underfoot, snow covering every mar in the landscape, snow that reveals the midnight dances of mice and small birds - I think it is beautiful.
5. Stories. I hold story in such high regard. My whole life is a story, and I mean that in a good way, not a 'I'm living a lie' sort of way. I really resent that the word story was ever used to describe lying, because stories are such a key way for us to communicate truth to each other. I have learned more important things from stories than from any other thing (except actual life experience, I suppose...but it is probably a much closer race than I even realize). The stories of Madeleine L'Engle, C.S. Lewis, Terry Pratchett, Orson Scott Card...there are too many people to list here. God's story. My story. Stories are so important. Perhaps that is why I want to devote my life to telling them in one way or another.
6. Which leads me to the stage. I do love the stage, although it scares me sometimes too. There is life there, like the life I find in stories, because it is where the stories come to life. An empty stage is potential incarnate.
7. Spirituality. I am glad there is more to this world than what I can experience with my senses, as much as I love them. The mystery that cannot be explained by anything, but that the spirit understands. The fear, the peace, the love, the wonder and trembling awe.
8. Secrets and surprises. I have, to my surprise, become a keeper of secrets for a handful of people that I would never have expected to become a secret holder for. It makes me wonder. I don't think I mind, but it can be tiring sometimes. Other times it makes me so happy because some secrets are wonderful - and those are the ones I love. And really good surprises, like the one I managed to pull off for S. (I wrote about it in an earlier post)...those are wonderful too.
9. Second chances. I don't know that I love them, but I am extremely grateful for them.
10. Singing. I didn't know how much I love to sing until this year, when I really started to use my voice properly and with confidence. Voice lessons have been a wonderful thing for me, and performing music in front of hundreds of people has helped my confidence immensely. I am so glad that I was given the gift of a beautiful voice. I love the feeling of my voice soaring out free and clear and bigger than I ever thought it could be. Music is beautiful. I'm glad God invented it.
And that brings me to 10. I didn't even touch on a sense of humour, or sunshine, stars, sweetness, salt and spices, savouring experiences, or sexuality. When I started, I wasn't sure I'd be able to find 10 things that began with s. It turned out to be surprisingly easy.
And now for another s-word I love - sleep. Too bad I have no one to snuggle with tonight...
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Surprise Me
“So, what did you get me for Christmas?”
This question has hit my ears many, many times this December. In the middle of a conversation, while cuddling, in the midst of kisses, while we are making supper – any time S. thinks my guard is down, he asks me what I got him. Every time, I say, “I’m not telling you!”. I’ve got years of experience in resisting curiosity. I have my mother to thank for that – if you can surprise her, you can surprise anyone.
S. and I have different mentalities when it comes to gifts. S. doesn’t care about being surprised as long as he knows he likes what he’s getting, and that he isn’t going to get multiple copies of the same thing. It’s a practical, pragmatic approach to gifts that is almost completely foreign to me.
I like being surprised. Of course I like getting things that I like, but if someone has gotten me something that I didn’t expressly tell them to get me but they thought I would like it, that matters more to me than what the gift is. The fact that they put thought into what to get me is what matters to me – and if they know me well enough to risk like that and get me something I like too, then, well…then you’re golden.
S. is golden. He didn’t even ask for a list. He just went out and risked, and his risk paid off. He got me a gloriously soft and fluffy and big bathrobe and a Sam Roberts CD, both things that I mentioned in passing, brief comments that he made mental notes of. I am very pleased and touched that he remembers things like that. I mean, I knew he listened to me when I talked, but it is always nice to see that proven.
Although S. liked surprising me, he didn’t want me to surprise him. But I stuck to my guns – no matter how many times he asked, no matter how distracted I was when he asked, I refused to tell him what I got him. I did a lot of scheming and I wasn’t about to crack.
However, I do need to spill the beans here or the rest of the story doesn’t make sense. Let me take you back to the end of August, 2006. S. and I were going to go and watch a movie for his birthday. He was eagerly anticipating going to see Lady in the Water. We phoned the local movie theatre. It wasn’t playing but we weren’t surprised. It’s a small theatre. We phoned theatres in Calgary. Every single one of them had the same thing to say. Lady in the Water wasn’t playing there anymore. It was very disappointing and irritating.
Within days I had a brilliant thought. What if I got him Lady in the Water for Christmas? That might not seem so brilliant until you know that every New Years the technical people in this theatre town set up a projector and a huge white cyc (which is a screen, basically) and watch movies. It’s like being at a movie theatre. What if I got the projector set up earlier so we could watch it on a big screen? It would be like I brought the movie, and the theatre, to S. Brilliance indeed.
So I did my research. I discovered that Lady in the Water was about to be released on December 19th. I talked to the tech people and got the projector set up. I phoned S.’s family and told them what I was getting him, and swore them to secrecy. Then, when the release date arrived, my friend R. and I made up an excuse to go to town by ourselves, and I bought the movie. I secreted it away in my underwear drawer and kept on misleading S. into thinking that not only had I had his gift for weeks, but that it was hidden somewhere he’d never find it. And I told him I wanted to watch a movie on the projector – so what did he want to watch?
He went and borrowed some movies that he thought would look good on a big screen – King Kong, Monster House and X-III. “I wish Lady in the Water was out,” he said with a sigh. “That would look good on a big screen.”
“Yes, it would,” I said with my best actor face.
After supper, R., L., S. and I went to the Studio Stage where the projector was set up. I had the movie in my backpack, hidden under a blanket and cans of pop. R. and L. were in on the plan – but apparently the technical people were not, for when we arrived we found the cyc, but not the projector.
“I thought B.G.G. had set this all up,” I said.
“Maybe he just meant the screen was up,” S. said. “It doesn’t matter, we can just watch a movie in Lola’s.” Lola’s is the student lounge. It has a nice television at least – but I was somewhat disappointed. Whatever. Plan B, phase 2.
I went to the washroom and extracted the film from the case, hiding the case in my backpack again and holding the disc carefully by my side. I walked back to the lounge, where R. and L. were serenading S. on the piano while he organized the couch and wiped down the tv screen. R. looked up when I entered. S. had his back to me, so I frantically mouthed, “Distract him! Distract him!” and showed her the disc.
R. is one smart cookie. “Hey, S., are the lights still on in the set shop?”
“I think so,” he said.
“Where are the switches?” R. knows exactly where the switches are.
S. looked at her with a puzzled expression as he explained their location.
“Okay.” R. and L. walked down the hallway to turn off the lights – and S. turned towards the movies. Great.
Then L’s voice came down the hall. “S., we can’t find them!”
S. shook his head. “Frick!” he said and he got up and walked down to help the clueless women. I quickly opened the DVD player and inserted the disc. Where the hell’s the remote? I thought. Do I just push play and hope for the best? I could hear them coming back. I pushed play and stood up.
The screen turned black just as S. entered the room. “What are we watching?” he asked. “A movie,” I replied.
“You can’t just pick a movie for all of us,” he said, going over to the stack of full DVD cases. Dammit!
“Well, I just did,” I said, as he began to open the cases to see what we were watching. I grabbed the only one he hadn’t opened yet.
“X-III? Okay, fine…” he said. He went over and picked up the remote from its hiding place on the shelf. The sound of water came over the speakers, and the image from the trailers, of Paul Giamatti looking down into the pool, came onto the screen. “This is what I want to watch,” S. said.
As the words left his mouth, the image arranged itself to be the DVD menu. S.’s brow furrowed and his mouth opened. “What…?”
“Merry Christmas,” I said with a very smug grin.
He blinked and gave his head a little shake. He looked at me and back at the screen.
I laughed. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look so confused or surprised in the two years I’ve known him. “Come sit down,” I said. “Let’s watch the movie.”
He smiled and shook his head. “Thank you, sweetie,” he said, and he gave me a kiss. “You got me. It’s hard to get me.”
I giggled and kissed him back.
I’m glad I kept the secret. I think my way of doing presents is much more fun.
And I think maybe now he’d agree.
This question has hit my ears many, many times this December. In the middle of a conversation, while cuddling, in the midst of kisses, while we are making supper – any time S. thinks my guard is down, he asks me what I got him. Every time, I say, “I’m not telling you!”. I’ve got years of experience in resisting curiosity. I have my mother to thank for that – if you can surprise her, you can surprise anyone.
S. and I have different mentalities when it comes to gifts. S. doesn’t care about being surprised as long as he knows he likes what he’s getting, and that he isn’t going to get multiple copies of the same thing. It’s a practical, pragmatic approach to gifts that is almost completely foreign to me.
I like being surprised. Of course I like getting things that I like, but if someone has gotten me something that I didn’t expressly tell them to get me but they thought I would like it, that matters more to me than what the gift is. The fact that they put thought into what to get me is what matters to me – and if they know me well enough to risk like that and get me something I like too, then, well…then you’re golden.
S. is golden. He didn’t even ask for a list. He just went out and risked, and his risk paid off. He got me a gloriously soft and fluffy and big bathrobe and a Sam Roberts CD, both things that I mentioned in passing, brief comments that he made mental notes of. I am very pleased and touched that he remembers things like that. I mean, I knew he listened to me when I talked, but it is always nice to see that proven.
Although S. liked surprising me, he didn’t want me to surprise him. But I stuck to my guns – no matter how many times he asked, no matter how distracted I was when he asked, I refused to tell him what I got him. I did a lot of scheming and I wasn’t about to crack.
However, I do need to spill the beans here or the rest of the story doesn’t make sense. Let me take you back to the end of August, 2006. S. and I were going to go and watch a movie for his birthday. He was eagerly anticipating going to see Lady in the Water. We phoned the local movie theatre. It wasn’t playing but we weren’t surprised. It’s a small theatre. We phoned theatres in Calgary. Every single one of them had the same thing to say. Lady in the Water wasn’t playing there anymore. It was very disappointing and irritating.
Within days I had a brilliant thought. What if I got him Lady in the Water for Christmas? That might not seem so brilliant until you know that every New Years the technical people in this theatre town set up a projector and a huge white cyc (which is a screen, basically) and watch movies. It’s like being at a movie theatre. What if I got the projector set up earlier so we could watch it on a big screen? It would be like I brought the movie, and the theatre, to S. Brilliance indeed.
So I did my research. I discovered that Lady in the Water was about to be released on December 19th. I talked to the tech people and got the projector set up. I phoned S.’s family and told them what I was getting him, and swore them to secrecy. Then, when the release date arrived, my friend R. and I made up an excuse to go to town by ourselves, and I bought the movie. I secreted it away in my underwear drawer and kept on misleading S. into thinking that not only had I had his gift for weeks, but that it was hidden somewhere he’d never find it. And I told him I wanted to watch a movie on the projector – so what did he want to watch?
He went and borrowed some movies that he thought would look good on a big screen – King Kong, Monster House and X-III. “I wish Lady in the Water was out,” he said with a sigh. “That would look good on a big screen.”
“Yes, it would,” I said with my best actor face.
After supper, R., L., S. and I went to the Studio Stage where the projector was set up. I had the movie in my backpack, hidden under a blanket and cans of pop. R. and L. were in on the plan – but apparently the technical people were not, for when we arrived we found the cyc, but not the projector.
“I thought B.G.G. had set this all up,” I said.
“Maybe he just meant the screen was up,” S. said. “It doesn’t matter, we can just watch a movie in Lola’s.” Lola’s is the student lounge. It has a nice television at least – but I was somewhat disappointed. Whatever. Plan B, phase 2.
I went to the washroom and extracted the film from the case, hiding the case in my backpack again and holding the disc carefully by my side. I walked back to the lounge, where R. and L. were serenading S. on the piano while he organized the couch and wiped down the tv screen. R. looked up when I entered. S. had his back to me, so I frantically mouthed, “Distract him! Distract him!” and showed her the disc.
R. is one smart cookie. “Hey, S., are the lights still on in the set shop?”
“I think so,” he said.
“Where are the switches?” R. knows exactly where the switches are.
S. looked at her with a puzzled expression as he explained their location.
“Okay.” R. and L. walked down the hallway to turn off the lights – and S. turned towards the movies. Great.
Then L’s voice came down the hall. “S., we can’t find them!”
S. shook his head. “Frick!” he said and he got up and walked down to help the clueless women. I quickly opened the DVD player and inserted the disc. Where the hell’s the remote? I thought. Do I just push play and hope for the best? I could hear them coming back. I pushed play and stood up.
The screen turned black just as S. entered the room. “What are we watching?” he asked. “A movie,” I replied.
“You can’t just pick a movie for all of us,” he said, going over to the stack of full DVD cases. Dammit!
“Well, I just did,” I said, as he began to open the cases to see what we were watching. I grabbed the only one he hadn’t opened yet.
“X-III? Okay, fine…” he said. He went over and picked up the remote from its hiding place on the shelf. The sound of water came over the speakers, and the image from the trailers, of Paul Giamatti looking down into the pool, came onto the screen. “This is what I want to watch,” S. said.
As the words left his mouth, the image arranged itself to be the DVD menu. S.’s brow furrowed and his mouth opened. “What…?”
“Merry Christmas,” I said with a very smug grin.
He blinked and gave his head a little shake. He looked at me and back at the screen.
I laughed. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look so confused or surprised in the two years I’ve known him. “Come sit down,” I said. “Let’s watch the movie.”
He smiled and shook his head. “Thank you, sweetie,” he said, and he gave me a kiss. “You got me. It’s hard to get me.”
I giggled and kissed him back.
I’m glad I kept the secret. I think my way of doing presents is much more fun.
And I think maybe now he’d agree.
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Break time!
Well, school is over for the year and I am enjoying a well deserved break. I have finished my show, finished my homework (except that damn character biography for Juliet that really doesn't interest me but that I should probably complete to build my own character...rrrr), have found a way to get out of student housing (yeay!) and I've almost finished my Christmas shopping. I am spending a great deal of time doing whatever I feel like doing, which amounts to hanging out with friends, making out with S., eating Russel Stover French Mint chocolates, and spending time alone. It has been marvelous, and it's only been two days.
Of course, next term I'll be busy again. I get back just in time to begin the intense workshops referred to as Intercession (perhaps because we need the saints to intercede on our behalf in order to survive them), and to begin another rehearsal process. One of my roommates is in the midst of producing her final project and I got cast in it. I was thrilled. I've wanted to be involved from the moment I heard she was doing it. And then I'll have classes and a trip to London. It will be a busy year, like every year here in this valley town.
And the most exciting news of all - this summer, I'll be in my first Opera House show! I was cast in "The Good Doctor". I found out about both this role and the other one on the same day. It was a very good day for me...it isn't often in an actor's life that they get two roles in one day.
The only note of sobriety was that some of the competition for those two roles are my friends. It is very hard to be happy for oneself and sad for ones friends about the same event. There are aspects of this career that suck, and fighting for work with people you love is one of those sucky things.
I'll be using some of my alone time to write so hopefully this blog will have more new material than it has for a while. I had every intention of writing something profound and meaningful (or at least brilliant) but I've used all of my creative steam finishing some homework and journalling assignments so the brilliant post will have to happen later in the week.
But never fear - it will arrive. Sooner or later.
After I've had another little chocolate break.
Of course, next term I'll be busy again. I get back just in time to begin the intense workshops referred to as Intercession (perhaps because we need the saints to intercede on our behalf in order to survive them), and to begin another rehearsal process. One of my roommates is in the midst of producing her final project and I got cast in it. I was thrilled. I've wanted to be involved from the moment I heard she was doing it. And then I'll have classes and a trip to London. It will be a busy year, like every year here in this valley town.
And the most exciting news of all - this summer, I'll be in my first Opera House show! I was cast in "The Good Doctor". I found out about both this role and the other one on the same day. It was a very good day for me...it isn't often in an actor's life that they get two roles in one day.
The only note of sobriety was that some of the competition for those two roles are my friends. It is very hard to be happy for oneself and sad for ones friends about the same event. There are aspects of this career that suck, and fighting for work with people you love is one of those sucky things.
I'll be using some of my alone time to write so hopefully this blog will have more new material than it has for a while. I had every intention of writing something profound and meaningful (or at least brilliant) but I've used all of my creative steam finishing some homework and journalling assignments so the brilliant post will have to happen later in the week.
But never fear - it will arrive. Sooner or later.
After I've had another little chocolate break.
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Etymology
S. must think I'm a very strange person sometimes. I can get so passionate about things that he has no interest in.
Case in point - yesterday we were talking about Christmas, and he asked me what sort of things I liked. I started where I always start - books. He took a deep breath, so I got specific. I somehow ended up waxing eloquent on the amazing qualities of etymological dictionaries. I would love to have an etymological dictionary - one of those hefty tomes that seemingly has every word, where it came from, and every meaning it has ever had. In close second comes the huge set of Oxford English Dictionaries...a set of dictionaries! They need more than one book to give you the whole alphabet, with meanings, a small etymology, and a pronounciation guide! Did you know that some dictionaries don't even have phonetical pronounciation guides anymore? It's pathetic. But I would hope the etymological dictionary doesn't make that mistake. Oh no. It is lovely and thick, and practically perfect in every way. And very, very expensive. I probably went on for 10 or 15 minutes about dictionaries, with S. just watching me in wonder. Finally he broke in with, "You would like a dictionary?"
"Oh, yes! They're amazing!"
"Why?"
"Because...all the words!" I was almost drooling at this point.
"But you can't read a dictionary."
"Oh, yes you can. You don't read it from cover to cover, but you'll be looking up a word and you see a word you haven't seen before so you read the definition, and then the word under that catches your eye, and then you realize that you were looking for something specific, so you look that up and then the word across the page from that calls out to you and before you know it you've randomly read 20 definitions and you're late for your next class."
S. raised his eyebrows.
"Okay, you don't. I do. I love randomly reading the dictionary, if it's a good dictionary." At this point I realized how crazy I must sound. I suddenly felt shy about it. "Just in case you were thinking I was normal or something," I said, looking at him through my hair.
He smiled. "I love you."
Just out of the blue, just like that. No dictionary required.
Three simple words - I don't think hearing them will ever get old.
Case in point - yesterday we were talking about Christmas, and he asked me what sort of things I liked. I started where I always start - books. He took a deep breath, so I got specific. I somehow ended up waxing eloquent on the amazing qualities of etymological dictionaries. I would love to have an etymological dictionary - one of those hefty tomes that seemingly has every word, where it came from, and every meaning it has ever had. In close second comes the huge set of Oxford English Dictionaries...a set of dictionaries! They need more than one book to give you the whole alphabet, with meanings, a small etymology, and a pronounciation guide! Did you know that some dictionaries don't even have phonetical pronounciation guides anymore? It's pathetic. But I would hope the etymological dictionary doesn't make that mistake. Oh no. It is lovely and thick, and practically perfect in every way. And very, very expensive. I probably went on for 10 or 15 minutes about dictionaries, with S. just watching me in wonder. Finally he broke in with, "You would like a dictionary?"
"Oh, yes! They're amazing!"
"Why?"
"Because...all the words!" I was almost drooling at this point.
"But you can't read a dictionary."
"Oh, yes you can. You don't read it from cover to cover, but you'll be looking up a word and you see a word you haven't seen before so you read the definition, and then the word under that catches your eye, and then you realize that you were looking for something specific, so you look that up and then the word across the page from that calls out to you and before you know it you've randomly read 20 definitions and you're late for your next class."
S. raised his eyebrows.
"Okay, you don't. I do. I love randomly reading the dictionary, if it's a good dictionary." At this point I realized how crazy I must sound. I suddenly felt shy about it. "Just in case you were thinking I was normal or something," I said, looking at him through my hair.
He smiled. "I love you."
Just out of the blue, just like that. No dictionary required.
Three simple words - I don't think hearing them will ever get old.
Friday, December 01, 2006
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Tech Week with Benefits
Nothing quite makes the tech week experience complete like getting your period, getting an almost migraine, and getting the flu. Combine that with half of the female cast and crew also getting their periods and the emotional tension of tech week being upped significantly by that and then the fact that I’ve spread the flu around as an early Christmas present, and you have the recipe for a smash success on your hands.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, tech week for “The Way of the Wolf” is in full swing, which for this particular show means that we have one more two-hour rehearsal, another run of the show with a preview audience and a notes session and then we open. It’s actually not that bad except for the added bonuses mentioned above. This show is a lot of firsts for me – my first student show without production elements (yeay!), my first show with idiotically fast costume changes (gah), my first time singing solo in a show (which I like), the first time doing rehearsal with the flu (which I didn’t like), my first experience doing fight work (cool), and my first time of getting my period at intermission during a rehearsal run (not so cool). Also, I’ve never played a raccoon or a nighthawk before. It does seem like every show I’m in my character has either a near-death or full-death experience, so the fact that the raccoon dies isn’t that new to me…but getting shot and falling off the mezzanine is a new, cool thing I’ve never done before.
I’m probably so chipper about the whole thing because I’m actually pretty much over the flu, and getting my period doesn’t really phase me that much – and the almost migraine is a thing of the past. I’ve opened shows before, and I’m not worried about this one. We’re ready. Whether everyone else in the cast feels that way is open to question, but I know that we are and if there are some opening week hiccups, I’ve had those too. They come, they go and the show goes on.
Having the flu was actually not that bad of an experience this time. I never did throw up, and being achy and feverish wasn’t so bad with S. there to make me tea and watch movies with me, and shower me with concern and tenderness. My mother will be happy – every time I get sick she wants to come and baby me until I’m better, so the fact that somebody else did will be music to her ears. All the TLC may have actually gotten S. sick, in which case I intend to reciprocate the attention and make him tea and tend to his every need – where my schedule allows. I got sick on a weekend, so that made things a little easier. I suppose I could always get my mom to come down and take care of him.
There is an old superstition that bad things come in threes. I just realized that I got all of my opening night bad luck out of my system already. If that isn’t a good omen, I don’t know what is.
Benefits, indeed.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, tech week for “The Way of the Wolf” is in full swing, which for this particular show means that we have one more two-hour rehearsal, another run of the show with a preview audience and a notes session and then we open. It’s actually not that bad except for the added bonuses mentioned above. This show is a lot of firsts for me – my first student show without production elements (yeay!), my first show with idiotically fast costume changes (gah), my first time singing solo in a show (which I like), the first time doing rehearsal with the flu (which I didn’t like), my first experience doing fight work (cool), and my first time of getting my period at intermission during a rehearsal run (not so cool). Also, I’ve never played a raccoon or a nighthawk before. It does seem like every show I’m in my character has either a near-death or full-death experience, so the fact that the raccoon dies isn’t that new to me…but getting shot and falling off the mezzanine is a new, cool thing I’ve never done before.
I’m probably so chipper about the whole thing because I’m actually pretty much over the flu, and getting my period doesn’t really phase me that much – and the almost migraine is a thing of the past. I’ve opened shows before, and I’m not worried about this one. We’re ready. Whether everyone else in the cast feels that way is open to question, but I know that we are and if there are some opening week hiccups, I’ve had those too. They come, they go and the show goes on.
Having the flu was actually not that bad of an experience this time. I never did throw up, and being achy and feverish wasn’t so bad with S. there to make me tea and watch movies with me, and shower me with concern and tenderness. My mother will be happy – every time I get sick she wants to come and baby me until I’m better, so the fact that somebody else did will be music to her ears. All the TLC may have actually gotten S. sick, in which case I intend to reciprocate the attention and make him tea and tend to his every need – where my schedule allows. I got sick on a weekend, so that made things a little easier. I suppose I could always get my mom to come down and take care of him.
There is an old superstition that bad things come in threes. I just realized that I got all of my opening night bad luck out of my system already. If that isn’t a good omen, I don’t know what is.
Benefits, indeed.
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Learning
It has happened.
My boyfriend and his ex have been paired up in class to perform a scene together.
I'm glad I thought about this possibility before I agreed to date him - but even with that, it has presented challenges that I don't know what to do with.
The scene? It's from "The Taming of the Shrew", with S. playing Petruchio and M. playing Kate. Petruchio is wooing Kate to be his wife, and Kate is resisting his every move. It's a pretty physical scene - at one point S. sits M. down on a chair and straddles her.
The strange thing is, watching them perform doesn't bother me. Knowing that they are rehearsing doesn't bother me. No. What bothers me is seeing the slight hesitation in M.'s body, the tension she obviously feels when they touch. It bothers me that as soon as they finish the scene, M. looks to me to see if I'm okay, if I still like her, if I'm having a hard time watching her be physical with my boyfriend. She is so insecure in this work that it is rubbing off on me and I hate that.
I just wish she could relax and be professional about it. S. is being professional. That tension doesn't read in his body. As soon as the pairings were announced, we talked about it and we both recognize that we have to be professional about it. There isn't any other option in our minds. But M. is having such a hard time doing that, and it both irritates me and makes me mistrust her around S. A part of me wonders if she is having such a hard time letting work be work because she still wants to be with him.
And because she talks to me about everything, I know that she still has feelings for him. She told me when we started dating that she didn't, but since then I've learned that was a lie. She is still going through the whole grieving, ending a relationship process and dammit, as much as I want to trust her, it is very hard.
It's a very good thing that I trust S. or this would all be so much worse. I know that nothing will happen - I'm not feeling jealousy - but there is this horrible unease that I don't know what to do with. And the thing is, I know the unease is valid. It's grounded in her insecurity and the fact that she hasn't found closure yet - and at the same time, I know that S. has. So what am I supposed to do with this? I trust him, I don't completely trust her. I know nothing will happen, and I'm uneasy. I am trying my best to be professional about this, and she keeps looking to me for reassurance - and it pisses me off and I don't know how to respond.
I guess it's just another glorious learning experience. I'm getting tired of learning. It takes a lot of work and sometimes I just don't want to have to deal with another new thing, figuring out how to be healthy and whole in a new situation. And I am not content to be stagnant, so my own will pushes me to take these learning experiences and use them.
Dammit anyways.
My boyfriend and his ex have been paired up in class to perform a scene together.
I'm glad I thought about this possibility before I agreed to date him - but even with that, it has presented challenges that I don't know what to do with.
The scene? It's from "The Taming of the Shrew", with S. playing Petruchio and M. playing Kate. Petruchio is wooing Kate to be his wife, and Kate is resisting his every move. It's a pretty physical scene - at one point S. sits M. down on a chair and straddles her.
The strange thing is, watching them perform doesn't bother me. Knowing that they are rehearsing doesn't bother me. No. What bothers me is seeing the slight hesitation in M.'s body, the tension she obviously feels when they touch. It bothers me that as soon as they finish the scene, M. looks to me to see if I'm okay, if I still like her, if I'm having a hard time watching her be physical with my boyfriend. She is so insecure in this work that it is rubbing off on me and I hate that.
I just wish she could relax and be professional about it. S. is being professional. That tension doesn't read in his body. As soon as the pairings were announced, we talked about it and we both recognize that we have to be professional about it. There isn't any other option in our minds. But M. is having such a hard time doing that, and it both irritates me and makes me mistrust her around S. A part of me wonders if she is having such a hard time letting work be work because she still wants to be with him.
And because she talks to me about everything, I know that she still has feelings for him. She told me when we started dating that she didn't, but since then I've learned that was a lie. She is still going through the whole grieving, ending a relationship process and dammit, as much as I want to trust her, it is very hard.
It's a very good thing that I trust S. or this would all be so much worse. I know that nothing will happen - I'm not feeling jealousy - but there is this horrible unease that I don't know what to do with. And the thing is, I know the unease is valid. It's grounded in her insecurity and the fact that she hasn't found closure yet - and at the same time, I know that S. has. So what am I supposed to do with this? I trust him, I don't completely trust her. I know nothing will happen, and I'm uneasy. I am trying my best to be professional about this, and she keeps looking to me for reassurance - and it pisses me off and I don't know how to respond.
I guess it's just another glorious learning experience. I'm getting tired of learning. It takes a lot of work and sometimes I just don't want to have to deal with another new thing, figuring out how to be healthy and whole in a new situation. And I am not content to be stagnant, so my own will pushes me to take these learning experiences and use them.
Dammit anyways.
Saturday, November 18, 2006
Hair, hair, look at that hair
All I can say is that it is a good thing I'm not Sampson.
Before I go further, I need to say that my hair is very long. It reaches half-way down my back in waves of a reddish-brown. In fact, it is too long. I can no longer really do anything with it. If I put it up it gives me headaches, and if I leave it down it gets everywhere - in my mouth, my eyes, tangled in my glasses or my buttons on my shirts. However, it has always been long and that is how I am used to interacting with it.
Well, as of next Thursday, it will be short. It is getting cut for a show - being in theatre means I can no longer control my hair. This is something that I have mentally prepared myself for ever since I decided to follow this crazy passion of mine. However, it will be short! The longest parts will be at the top of my shoulders, and the shortest bits will be by the tops of my ears, I think. I haven't had short hair for a very long time. In fact, I don't know what to do with short hair. I am going to have to spend a day learning how to do my hair all over again.
I'm a little uncertain as to what I think about this. I am tired of how long it is. I think the new cut will look cute, and I think I'll like it. But so much hair is going! It will be an adjustment, and every so often I freak out a little inside about it.
But, as my mother says, hair grows. It will grow back if I absolutely hate it. It will grow back if I absolutely love it - either way, this is not a permanent state.
Just a very new one.
I just have to remind myself that I won't lose all my strength when my hair lands on the floor.
Before I go further, I need to say that my hair is very long. It reaches half-way down my back in waves of a reddish-brown. In fact, it is too long. I can no longer really do anything with it. If I put it up it gives me headaches, and if I leave it down it gets everywhere - in my mouth, my eyes, tangled in my glasses or my buttons on my shirts. However, it has always been long and that is how I am used to interacting with it.
Well, as of next Thursday, it will be short. It is getting cut for a show - being in theatre means I can no longer control my hair. This is something that I have mentally prepared myself for ever since I decided to follow this crazy passion of mine. However, it will be short! The longest parts will be at the top of my shoulders, and the shortest bits will be by the tops of my ears, I think. I haven't had short hair for a very long time. In fact, I don't know what to do with short hair. I am going to have to spend a day learning how to do my hair all over again.
I'm a little uncertain as to what I think about this. I am tired of how long it is. I think the new cut will look cute, and I think I'll like it. But so much hair is going! It will be an adjustment, and every so often I freak out a little inside about it.
But, as my mother says, hair grows. It will grow back if I absolutely hate it. It will grow back if I absolutely love it - either way, this is not a permanent state.
Just a very new one.
I just have to remind myself that I won't lose all my strength when my hair lands on the floor.
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Jericho
"How can a person go from liking a person to not wanting to have anything to do with them in less than three hours?" I asked one of my friends the other day. He shrugged. I wonder what his response would be to my new question - how can I explain going from not liking M. to being able to say that I love her in less than three hours?
I don't know that something like that can be explained in any other way than to say "It's a God thing." That's all it is - I certainly didn't find some hidden store of love that I chose to shower upon M. It was like God reached down and gave me a bunch of extra love and that spilled over onto her and it's sticking like toffee to carpet, only in a much better way than that.
And all because I didn't let up on her about her dishes, and then one of my housemates told her that she was only in the house on a probationary measure, and so she snapped and her walls came down. It amazes me how being able to see someone in their vulnerability and weakness makes them so much more human, lovable, understandable...I am able to see her as a person now, and I can extend grace and mercy towards her in a way that I strove for before but failed at miserably.
I learned a lot last night - about M., about me, about living together with my boyfriend's ex and what that means for both M. and myself...and about the attitudes my housemates and I have been carrying in our auras, for lack of a better way to describe it. We really have been unmerciful and judgemental, and M. has been picking up on that so clearly, so much more clearly than I realized.
It is so hard. It is so bizarre - all I can do is shake my head and laugh. God has such a strange sense of humour sometimes. I am her ex's new girlfriend, and somehow I've ended up one of her closest friends right now. I am the one in our house with the most reasons to hate her, and I am the one in our house who has suddenly found myself in a place (God given, granted) to love her the most. And I have the most reason to close myself off to her, and I have had my eyes opened to see the negative attitudes of the rest of my housemates. And I don't know what to do about that.
I don't want to take up M.'s cause against my friends, and at the same time I see that they really aren't giving her much of a chance - and that is their prerogative.
So what do I do? I have prayed to be able to love M., and now I have been given that ability and I want to share it with the rest of my housemates but I can't, and it isn't my place to anyway. It's something that God can show them - if they want to be shown.
And I want them to want that so badly, and there isn't a single thing I can do about it.
Unless I march around them for a week, blowing on a ram's horn...that worked for Joshua.
It could be worth a try, at least.
I don't know that something like that can be explained in any other way than to say "It's a God thing." That's all it is - I certainly didn't find some hidden store of love that I chose to shower upon M. It was like God reached down and gave me a bunch of extra love and that spilled over onto her and it's sticking like toffee to carpet, only in a much better way than that.
And all because I didn't let up on her about her dishes, and then one of my housemates told her that she was only in the house on a probationary measure, and so she snapped and her walls came down. It amazes me how being able to see someone in their vulnerability and weakness makes them so much more human, lovable, understandable...I am able to see her as a person now, and I can extend grace and mercy towards her in a way that I strove for before but failed at miserably.
I learned a lot last night - about M., about me, about living together with my boyfriend's ex and what that means for both M. and myself...and about the attitudes my housemates and I have been carrying in our auras, for lack of a better way to describe it. We really have been unmerciful and judgemental, and M. has been picking up on that so clearly, so much more clearly than I realized.
It is so hard. It is so bizarre - all I can do is shake my head and laugh. God has such a strange sense of humour sometimes. I am her ex's new girlfriend, and somehow I've ended up one of her closest friends right now. I am the one in our house with the most reasons to hate her, and I am the one in our house who has suddenly found myself in a place (God given, granted) to love her the most. And I have the most reason to close myself off to her, and I have had my eyes opened to see the negative attitudes of the rest of my housemates. And I don't know what to do about that.
I don't want to take up M.'s cause against my friends, and at the same time I see that they really aren't giving her much of a chance - and that is their prerogative.
So what do I do? I have prayed to be able to love M., and now I have been given that ability and I want to share it with the rest of my housemates but I can't, and it isn't my place to anyway. It's something that God can show them - if they want to be shown.
And I want them to want that so badly, and there isn't a single thing I can do about it.
Unless I march around them for a week, blowing on a ram's horn...that worked for Joshua.
It could be worth a try, at least.
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