Appreciation

What’s the one thing you have come to appreciate most in the past year? How do you express gratitude for it?

I appreciate S. More than I think he knows. He's been there for me this summer when I know I was extremely hard to live with. Sudden spurts of anger and rage mixed with long periods of what felt like numbness and withdrawal from life.

So he deserves a medal. Or something. Just for loving me through all of that.

I didn't express much gratitude this summer. I wasn't capable of expressing much. At least that's how it felt.

After going to Saskatoon last month, my outlook on life changed. Not overnight, it's an ongoing thing, an awareness of perspective and the important things in life. It has made me easier to live with I think. I hope. And it has made me more aware of expressing gratitude and love towards people I value. I hope it has actually taken action. I know I'm not as stressed. I'm calmer.

I don't think I've actually thanked S. for his wonderfulness this summer though. I think I'm going to do that. Right now.

It's Nothing New

S. believes in me. The depth of his belief blows me away.

I wonder if I believe in myself as strongly. I don't know. If I did, wouldn't I have done something with the talent he sees in me by now?

The fact that he thinks I'm talented enough to make it provides more impetus than I expected.

He sometimes tries to spur action in me by nagging me. That doesn't work very well.

But the simple act of telling me he thinks I'm talented, that he believes in my gifts, makes me want to do something with those gifts. How strange.

S. loves me. The strength of his love takes my breath away.

It's nothing new, but it seems new to me every time I realize it.

I am one of the fortunate ones.

Bits and Pieces From My Mind

"Just give it to a thrift shop, they don't care if their water tastes like burnt."

I know he doesn't mean anything by it but my hackles rise a little anyway. But I don't know him that well so I say nothing.

I don't think he's ever had to face a reality of poverty. Where everything he owns comes from a thrift shop. A charity. Where if it wasn't for someone giving him something he'd have nothing.

If he has, he's sure as hell forgotten it already.

I can speak from experience - if I don't like the taste of burnt water, nobody else will either.

No matter how poor they are.

***

But we don't live by our emotions, do we?

This is still bothering me, weeks after reading it on an acquaintance's Facebook page. This acquaintance said she felt like her world was crashing down around her and she had nothing to hold onto. So what does one of her adult Christian friends - I'm assuming she's some kind of mentor - say to her? We don't live by our emotions. What you feel is invalid. Push it away, and hang onto God.

Why does this bother me?

I stop myself from commenting on this post over and over because I don't know what to say.

The assumption that we shouldn't take our emotions seriously - that we shouldn't listen to them - that we shouldn't live our lives by what we feel - it makes me feel uneasy.

Something I should ignore according to Christian Mentor there. Just stuff it away. God will take care of you. If you feel negatively, you just don't have enough faith. Trust God! God, God, God!

Look at all that projection. She didn't actively say any of that. Obviously I have some issues of my own to deal with.

But I would like to know why Christians think that emotions are so...so unnecessary. Why are we told that we shouldn't live by them? And what the fuck should we live by then? Our minds?

(Spoken as a true Blue.)

But I would like an answer. I don't think living solely by our minds is any better. I don't know about everyone else out there, but God doesn't usually use my brain to communicate with me, not right off the bat. First He grabs my attention by tweaking my heart in one way or another - through my emotions.

Because I listen to them.

Maybe it's just because I'm an actor and I have a bit more, oh I don't know what to call it. Emotional training? Positive experience with heightened emotional states? It's closer to training, how to open yourself up to that overwhelming experience, and then how to get yourself down without breaking or destroying yourself...maybe that, combined with my personality, makes emotions less scary for me than they are for the average person. Because emotions are scary, but that is a fear to be embraced. They serve a purpose. They are there to serve you as much as your brain is, your heart, your intelligence. It's all there because God put it there, and it pisses me off to see something so close to myself written off as an unnecessary appendix to life.

Because there needs to be a balance, and I think as Christians we all too often lose sight of that, and instead we push away the frightening aspect in favour of the one that makes more sense. The one that can't be manipulated by the Devil, after all, it's in the Bible. It's there in black and red.

As if knowledge is immune to the twisting of Darkness.

All of this just because I want to tell this acquaintance, this girl, that how she feels is okay. It's something to accept, to learn from, and to grow because of.

Ignoring emotions isn't going to build anything up except walls, and walls don't help any relationship. Not with people. Not with yourself. Not with God.

***

It just occurred to me that if I were to ask one of these two people what we were supposed to live by, they might say Faith.

Complete trust or confidence. Strong belief.

Those evoke emotional responses in me but maybe that's not how it is for everyone.

I don't really know what it means to live by faith. I have a bipolar faith - I either trust God completely or I don't trust Him at all.

I know when I'm struggling to trust when I get an anxious spring, a tightening in my chest that tells me everything is going to shit and no-one will be there to catch me.

I understand I should trust when I look back at the path behind me and see that I haven't been homeless or behind in any payments - even if I've been broke - and that I have been provided for. With friends, money, shelter, love...needs and desires.

And when I feel the trust there I am afraid of nothing. Perfect love casts out all fear.

***

It's telling to me that in Harry Potter, the Avada Kadavra spell, death by pure terror, isn't shattered by peace. It's broken by love.

It hits us on the most primitive level. Where everything is survival and instinct and reaction time. Love opposes fear, not hatred. Although I think a lot of hatred has fear at it's root.

I feel like a very fearful person sometimes, although I don't think I really am. I'm not afraid of bugs, or dead things or rodents; I have my fair share of rational fears but nothing that overwhelms me and keeps me from living a normal life. I'd hate to find an intruder in my home, for example, but the fear of it doesn't make me sneak around my home with a butcher knife.

My one irrational fear is a fear of the dark. It's something I've worked against since I was a kid. I learned quick that if you have a flashlight outside at night it just makes the darkness darker and inhibits your ability to see outside your little sphere, which I think makes you vulnerable to attack from all the crazies waiting in the shadows. I'd go out to check the animals at night and leave the light off until I needed to see details. Of course, when I slept I'd tuck the edges of the blankets underneath me so the dark creepy things couldn't sneak underneath the blankies with me. Even now I fight the impulse to jump from the light switch to the bed, so that I can prove to myself that nothing is lying in wait underneath my bed. And then I lay in bed and see shadows gathering in the corners and they appear to get thicker and darker and I tremble and shut my eyes and pray for the fear to be gone. Or I snuggle into S. because he's warm and alive and he'll protect me even when he's sleeping.

Love. It's pretty powerful.

I had a lot of dreams last night where I needed a flashlight to survive. Lots of battling the darkness with what little lights I had. It's probably just the combination of a few books I read - Brother Odd and Forever Odd by Dean Koontz - and the latest XBox game to grace our console, Alan Wake. Alan Wake has to fight Darkness personified with any light source he can get his hands on in order to save his wife. It's a pretty cool concept, actually. I haven't played it yet because just watching S. play makes me jump off the couch.

But these were just dreams, because I didn't wake up, skin crawling, sweaty, heart pounding with fear.

***

I finally figured out why two of my pots of sweet peas are dying. The cold at night is only bothering them, and it confused me no end until I realized they were the only two pots in front of the sliding patio door. The glass doesn't hold enough heat to keep them through the night. I moved them the day before yesterday, after they almost had it, and I think they're coming back already. Hurrah! Except now the middle of the balcony will be naked.

Rest In This, Daughter, And Know You Are Loved

This last week has been a time of thought and contemplation for me.

It seems like so many things are tying themselves together from past conversations into a present learning experience, which is both incredibly cool and extremely difficult to accept at the same time.

Months ago I had a conversation with one of my best girlfriends about the human relationship with God. She had just come back from a retreat where she was surrounded by artists who wanted to figure out how their faith fit into their art, and what she had to share with me blew my mind, to the point where I don't think it's really been able to absorb the heart-knowledge until now, and even now it's only just starting.

What she said was this: that we relate to God as either slaves or orphans, or on a good day, as sons (or daughters).

Slaves feel that they need to earn their keep, their love, their place in God's eyes. It's all about work. The work will save you. Orphans have no sense of what family is. They feel that God is transient and they need to steal their way into His heart. They need to please him in order to belong; and even then there is the constant fear that He will abandon them just as everyone else has.

On the other hand, Sons don't do anything. They can't. You cannot earn or steal the title of Son. You have that title before you are born, before you exist. It isn't something you earn, or accept, or steal. It's what you are. Nobody can give it to you and nobody can take it away.

All you can do, as a Son, is rest in your place.

That still makes me tear up.

It clicks, doesn't it.

So why is it so hard for me to accept?

I don't know.

I haven't had a steady, permanent job yet this year. Over and over I've felt, in my heart of hearts, that this is where I am supposed to be, that this time is gift meant for me to practice my craft of writing and auditioning. That this is my time to create and to rest.

I haven't accepted this. Instead I've fought it tooth and nail, looking frantically for work, feeling like I'm mooching off the system by being on EI. I've conveniently ignored the fact that I've paid into that system my entire working life and so it's not mooching. Even when that's been pointed out to me by my parents and by S, I've rejected it. I've ignored the creativity within me, pushing it aside to write my resume and pursue jobs that kill me just thinking about them.

Simply put, I've done everything but rest.

I have trust issues, have I mentioned that before? I'm very much like a toddler, believing that how things are now are how they will be forever. In my head, I will never find another job, so I'd better take the first thing that is offered to me no matter what it does to my soul. I struggle on a daily basis - no, hourly...rather, by the minute and the second - with believing that God will provide for me. I ignore all the evidence to the contrary - that I am clothed, fed and housed, that I am not yet broke - and take counsel with fear. I consider selling my soul, my actual eternal soul, to the powers of Darkness in exchange for financial security.

And then I wonder why my dreams are dark.

God is very patient. That's all I can say.

And I am very confused, most of the time.

I've been reading The Chronicles of Narnia and it amazes me how those stories also bring me to tears, over and over, by their power and simplicity. To see Aslan taking such joy in those He loves - it makes me cry to write that down - alongside His incredible patience and sorrow when they fail, or turn aside, or put pettiness above following the nobility within them. How He cries with Caspian dies, an old man...He really does share our sorrows with us, even when He knows better than anyone how short lived that sorrow will be, and that brings me to tears that He would care enough to partake in that with us, so that we won't be alone. And that He cares enough to share our most transient joys, even if it's nothing more than the pleasure of a romp in fresh air in the springtime.

For some reason it is easier for me to see clearly when I am in Narnia with Aslan, than it is when I am here and now, with God.

I think - I hope - He's okay with that. After all, as He says to Edmund and Lucy at the end of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (coming to film sometime this year, hurrah!), "...There I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there."

It's an uphill journey and I fear I am much more like Jill Pole than like Lucy Pevensie. But I try. And I put down my burdens, and I pick them back up, and I put them back down, and I start again.

For now, that will have to be enough. See? See how even then, I take the perspective of a slave, that my struggle is the work I must do to be fit for love? See how I turn to God as an orphan and cry out that I'm trying, please don't turn aside, I will be better, I will, I will.

I would never have thought that resting would be so much work - and I know it only is because I keep making it that way.

Goddamn this fight, this struggle to accept that I am loved, end of sentence.

I hope I'll get it eventually. I hope that someday I'll even just see His shadow as He leads me. That I'll feel His warm Lion's breath on my forehead and know, just know, that I am enough. Until then I am blind, with tears and with humanity, overwhelmed with sorrow at my own frailties, with the disbelief at the gift I am being given, day after day after day, offered to me every second as I doubt and fight and struggle with myself.

And for now, that will have to be enough.

Not for Him; for me.

Until I learn how to open my arms, my heart, and accept.

End of sentence.

Keeping The Faith

When I was a kid, I used to have recurring themes in my dreams. Usually the theme was pretty broad - violence was a common one, with either me killing other people or them killing me. Violent dreams never bothered me, not then and not now. Apparently I'm a bit of a freak that way.

For a while it was shapeshifting, only nobody could see me becoming the other, and my sheer belief wasn't enough to keep it real even for me most of the time. I can't begin to describe how frustrating those ones were...and still are.

And there was the phase of the chasing dreams, where I was being hunted down and only my belief in my invisibility would save me. These ones almost always worked, but that's because by the time these ones came along I had learned to lucid dream (by accident and desperation, mostly, so don't ask me how to do it because I really have no idea) and could control certain aspects of the dream to keep myself safe.

Recently - and by recently I mean the last year or two - I've had a lot of dreams where Darkness is out to get me. Now, I have a confession to make. I am afraid of the dark. Not terrified, but afraid, like a spooked and skittish lamb who's too curious to leave well enough alone in spite of the fear. I always have been afraid of the dark, and I've always refused to cater to that fear by using night-lights or leaving a hall light on or by doing anything to alleviate the fear except by ignoring it and telling myself that the dark is not there to hurt me. I used to go check on my full-to-bursting pregnant ewes at night and not use my flashlight until I had to actually see if their bodies were still round or not, as a sheer test of my nerve. Of course, I had my dog with me. That always helped.

But this Darkness, the Darkness in my dream, it is there to hurt me. It wants me and I don't know why. It is not just darkness - it's Darkness. Ecthroi, nothingness, all-consuming Darkness and it's evil and it wants me and I don't know why and it does more than scare me. It fucking terrifies me.

Most of the time I have a guardian in my dreams. A giant butterfly, a bird, a candle. An angel. Faith. Hope and a source of light within myself. Usually all I have to do is face the darkness and it recoils from the light it sees within me.

But last night - none of that was there.

I was alone, alone in the dark, with lost spirits grasping for me, sad and confused girls reaching from the walls, the dark a deep greeny-blue-grey dusk and there was no way out and there were no doors or windows. I couldn't see and no matter how hard I prayed or squeezed my eyes shut I had no light inside, no light outside, no guardian beside me to protect me or inspire me to find my own protection. Nothing.

It was the most frustrating, terrifying experience I can recall ever having. And I've seen an actual evil spirit.

And then light burst through but within seconds - not even seconds - I knew it was fake, it was a facade put up by the Darkness to fool me into letting down my guard and do you know how exhausting it was to keep that up? Fuck.

I felt myself fighting my way through the layers of dreams I was trapped in and finally was able to reach over and feel S. there beside me and in that I knew I was safe, he was real, he wasn't evil and he wouldn't let them get me, and with that the true light burst through the facade, the Darkness recoiled and I was left in my sleep in peace.

And then instead of falling into peaceful dreams, I turned back and prayed to God and apologized for finding safety in S. instead of in Him, and couldn't focus enough on the true light to finish my prayer before I was sucked away into another dream and gone entirely into the land of sleep once more.

At least it wasn't another terrifying dream. It was something mundane and normal enough I don't remember it at all and it didn't stick with me in any way.

Upon true waking, I find it interesting that I felt guilt for finally finding peace somewhere.

And I find it absolutely terrifying that I couldn't find the light inside myself this time.

What if it's gone? What if I can never find the light again?

What if the light is love and I can't find it in God anymore?

Then at least thank God I can find it in S. I can find the light somewhere. Maybe I shouldn't try to analyze this so hard. If I couldn't find the light at all I'd be screwed. I'd never sleep again.

And I should probably blame at least a little bit of this terror on the fact that I've been sick for 4 and a half days now and my mind is probably exhausted and fuelling my dreams with fever and confusion; but that's precious little comfort when the feeling of the dream is still stuck on my skin and in my mind like a mist from a fog that won't quite brush off me. Like spider webs I can't find but I can feel.

So I look up and see the face of the man who I can touch who I know loves me; and I take what I can from that and try to remember that God loves me so much more that I can't even comprehend it (which is the problem, isn't it? If I could comprehend it maybe I'd remember it better...) and try to keep the faith.

Whatever that means.

I'm a Mapple Person!

I have joined the ranks of Mac users.

S. bought me a MacBook for my birthday, which blew my mind a little.

It's so easy to use! So sleek and user friendly and quick! The programs make sense, it prints like a dream (my PC was starting to take up to half an hour to communicate with the printer before anything resembling a document would come out), the keyboard short cuts are so convenient - it's easy to uninstall things, and easy to install them. It takes files of all kinds and just translates them without any effort on my part.

I'm obviously a little in love with it right now.

I was also going to say I'd never had anyone drop that kind of money on a gift for me - but then I remembered that my dad bought my other laptop for me as a gift too.

I've never had to buy a computer. Huh.

All I can say is that I'm one hell of a lucky girl!

Happy Anniversary

It's my parent's 28th wedding anniversary today.

Last week I got really confused and thought this year was their 24th...I was thinking of what I should do for their 25th, but it's come and gone and now I remember that between school and being in a show I wasn't able to do anything for the momentous year.

But 30 is coming up now, isn't it?

Anyway, congratulations to you, Mom and Dad, for 28 years of matrimony - peaceful and otherwise - and for showing the world, and more importantly us kids, that it can be done and it can be done well.

Snapshot

I look over and see him lean over and kiss her on top of her head. It's such a tender moment I feel like I'm spying but it makes me smile and warms my heart.

I like moments like that. Especially at work.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Love

we fight
we bicker and squabble and pull and twist
for control
of ourselves and each other

control

isn't what love is about
is it?

i can't let go
not without a fight

but i don't want control
i'm just afraid
afraid of what will happen when i let go
let go
no control
falling
headfirst
into

what?

it's all new.

we learn
we live

we let go

those moments sustain
keep me hoping
hopeful
knowing that the struggle for freedom
is worth it
in the end.

Unwanted Empathy

Today I understand, at least a little, what my mom must have felt all those years Dad was driving truck in the snow and sleet and icy cold.

At least I know my love is stranded in a hotel while the storm rages outside.

Even if he isn't in the city he was supposed to be in right now.

But I'll take stranded far from home over never coming home any day.

Friday the 13th

I've had such a day today.

It's been a good day. It's been a lot of fun. Wonderful. Kind of beyond descriptors.

I convinced a homeschooling mother to read Twilight so her 12 year old has a chance to read it too. She then offered me a job. She had me write my name and number in the back of the book she hadn't yet purchased so she could give me a call and set up a meeting. I'm intrigued; that's why I actually wrote down my info.

I watched my boss get flowers from her significant other. It was sweet, and cute, and so endearing. Especially since I didn't know she had anyone, and she seemed so blushingly shy and thrilled about it all.

I saw a little girl in a plaid pleated skirt, with really cute boots and a tam o'shanter on. I suddenly wanted a little girl that I could dress up in cute outfits. I've never felt a maternal urge before. It's strong. Later I saw a little girl with such red hair, and it happened again. Hmm.

I saw an old man flirt with my manager and he was so smooth and wonderful at it, younger men should take lessons. Although I think it maybe takes a lifetime to learn. He also had a French-Canadian accent, and was talking about a large house, with an ocean front, and a huge library - things that appeal to women who work in bookstores.

I heard a brogue today that made me want to melt.

I slept in and still made it to work on time. It makes me wonder what I do for 45 minutes every morning - I could be sleeping.

I got to see my love again after almost four days apart. He walked in the door and my heart leapt.

I made chocolate chip cookies and ate the dough.

I told S. of my inexplicable maternal urges and he didn't respond. He was busy figuring out tax stuff - I've figured out when to spring things on him from now on.

I had a smoothie from Jugo Juice. It was good.

Ahh. If I had any worries about Fridays mixing with 13's, they ought to be gone by now.

27 Years

Typing that title reminded me of 27 Dresses, a movie that my mom would probably enjoy watching with me, although she'd have a hard time getting anyone who currently lives in the house with her to watch it with her. I don't get to see my family enough and I miss them - something I realized sharply today as I read letters from my sponsored child. Her letters are written by her grandparents, her father, her uncle - whomever she happens to be with that day. She gets to see them all, all the time. I told her she was lucky to have her family so close to her. She's probably too young to understand but that's okay.

It's fitting that I miss my family today, I suppose. Today, 27 years ago, my parents got married in the living room of the local Justice of the Peace. Rumour has it they had a fit of the giggles; that my mother took my father as her awfully wedded husband; that they forgot they needed more than one witness and had to get the daughter of the JP to sign the papers for them. Not what most would call an auspicious start to a marriage.

But hey. They must have done something right. 27 years of marriage is not a common achievement anymore. Probably because it takes a hell of a lot of work. Work that my parents have not always done with the gusto and enthusiasm that they have for it today. There were times when I was small that I was so afraid they'd get divorced and I'd never see my dad again. Or worse, I'd have to choose one of them to live with, and how does any child make that decision? It weighed on my young mind.

I am so grateful to them that I never had to make that choice. That they did do the work, and they did stick it out, and that they are still together today. And happy. They are happy, and that is something too because not all couples who have made 27 years are happy about it. Not every long-lasting marriage is as healthy as my parent's. Not every long-lasting marriage has two partners in it.

That's what my parents are. They are partners, and it makes my eyes tear up - why? Pride? Love? Joy? Probably a bit of all of those. Relief too. It is such a relief to see that in two people. I take a lot of hope from seeing my parents in their lives and their relationship. Nothing, or nearly nothing, is insurmountable in love if you are committed to making it work.

I see them together, knowing each other. My dad looks for something and without asking what he's looking for my mom will tell him where to find it. And she's right, and she just knew what he was after, without being told. I see my dad, loving my mom, and the joy and playfulness that is there makes the world an alright place to be.

It makes me have hope for myself. As a person. As a lover. As someone in a relationship. Possibly as a parent someday.

It gives me hope for the world.

So today - raise a glass with me to my parents, to their 27 years of growing together. May your joys increase. Your love always fill you up past overflowing. And may you share at least another 27 years together. I love you very much.

Moving On Into the New Year

I sit in my new apartment and look around. I live in Calgary now. It's a dramatic way to start the new year, moving from a town of less than 100 people to a big city but although I'm an actor that's not why I did it. It's surreal but I like it. The apartment, anyway. I haven't been here long enough to know if I like the city yet. The apartment is looking like home as we spread out our junk, finding hidey-holes for all of it somehow.

We. S. and I are living together now. It's something that four years ago I wouldn't have thought I'd do but I am really enjoying this now. I'm not sure what changed. Well, I did, I guess, but I'm not sure why. I just know I'm happy I made this decision and that is all I can go by.

It's going to be a vast learning experience though. I know that already. We are so different in some ways and too similar in others. I notice this keenly as we unpack. I am slow and relaxed, finding, in an almost zen fashion, where things want to live. He is all go-go-go, wanting to get it all unpacked before bedtime.
However, I am very particular with the kitchen and where things go - I've moved enough times to know the feng shui of kitchens and how dishes and food need to be oriented to the stove, fridge and sink - and so is he, but in a different way, and we have our first fight in our new place. It's short lived. We compromise. I put things that are important to him on lower shelves so he can reach them easily and the rest goes where I want it to.

My interlude is over and the unpacking must continue. I'm going to Banff tomorrow for the day so I'll get my rest and relaxation then - but now I'll go. Happy New Year, everyone!

Christmas Times A'comin'...

To write this post I realized I don't know how to spell a'comin'. Are there two apostraphes? I don't know. Fortunately it's a side point.
The main point is that the holiday season will be upon us, full fledged, in two short days. So short, in fact, that I spelled it shrt. I'm having a fun time with my letters today, folks.
I started my new job, working at a local inn. I spent most of the day up to my eyeballs in garland and twinkly lights and feather duvets. It was nicer than I expected because I get to work with my friends there, and hopefully I'll make a new friend in my boss. I know her husband pretty well and I've always wanted to get to know her better - perhaps now will be my chance to make good on that desire. She's such a fascinating person to me.
This year will be my first Christmas not with my family. I'm going to spend the holidays with S. and his family. I'm both excited and a little nervous because I don't know what their traditions are or how Christmas works at their house. I was a lot nervous to tell my mom, because I figured she'd have a hard time adjusting to not having that extra female in the house over Christmas dinner. Turns out I was nervous for nothing since my youngest brother told her before I had a chance to. Of course, my mom brought it up at my grad dinner instead, when she was sitting right beside S.'s mom. Oh well. No one ever accused my mom of having tact, and S. has a really easy-going family so no-one got ruffled feathers, except me (thanks, youngest brother...he must have inherited his tact from Mom).
I can understand why it isn't easy for parents to adjust to their kids being gone at Christmas. It's a change of traditions on all sides: it's not just me building new relationships with Christmas, it's them shifting a relationship they've had for 20+ years. That can't be easy but I guess it is a part of life.
I think it must be easier for kids to make those changes than for parents. After all, isn't a child's whole life geared towards leaving their parents and creating a new seperate life for themselves? From the time we leave the womb, learn to walk, get a job, go to school, fall in love? It's an exciting adventure for me. Of course, it's a return to adventure for my parents as well as they find a new phase in their life - a phase I'll probably someday have to go through myself.
All because one child left a womb a long time ago in a cold stable and had to go and change the world and all relationship as we humans knew it. I'm sure it wasn't as pretty as the tree I wrapped with ribbon or the lights I twisted around the banister - but the manger might have been as itchy as the garland needles that fell off into my shoes and worked their way into my clothes.
Oh well. It's all in the name of Christmas Spirit folks.

Now, is spirit capitalized or not?

A Little Freaked Out

Why?

Because I've been informed of 3 - count it, people, 3 - engagements in the last 10 days.

All among my peers.

I am joining the generation of people coupling up and settling down. I didn't think I was that old yet! I don't feel that old yet. Or mature. How - when - did this happen?

But it is spring, so I guess love is in the air. And with love, comes a lot of wedding bells.

Even if it does freak me out a little.

My Recent Thoughts

People confuse and intrigue me. They are mysterious and predictable. I sometimes think I should understand them better since I am a people too but I don’t.

One of my friends was getting close with her ex again, to the point where I wondered if they had secretly gotten back together. If they were, that sure ended fast. The girl who caused them the most trouble swooped back into the picture and now the ex is off with her, dropping my friend like so much hot dog shit. Why did this happen? I don’t know. I don’t see any love between the ‘home-wrecker’ and the ex. I know my friend loves him but I don’t think he loves her back. And I wonder at these people’s ability to love themselves.

It seems that people who can’t love themselves also can’t be alone, and that’s what this feels like to me. It’s horrible and painful and difficult to witness, and I wish I could be there for my friend – but she flew to Vancouver to get away from this. I hope that’s a good thing for her but it feels like she’s just running away from the pain instead of dealing with it.

It makes me so, so thankful that I let S. love me and that he lets me love him. I am so grateful that we share a love together.

****

I just had a good talk with my roommate J. We talked about people, relationships, pain and how people hurt each other over and over and over. How it’s so hard to witness people hurting each other but that that is all you can do most of the time.

As we talked, he mentioned that his brother-in-law is so awkward at their family events. We talked about how people sometimes assume that their future mates should just mesh into their families of origin. It happens for some people. My friend L. who just got married, they both fit into the other’s family like water into more water. But does that mean that if it doesn’t work out that way that the relationship is doomed or bad or with the wrong person?

I don’t think so.

I think the fear is that if the significant other doesn’t fit in, that the child will then choose the mate over the family and it will cause a schism. That happens, I’m sure. But if the mate doesn't fit, it doesn't mean there will be an unhealthy separation of the child from the family.

I feel like my parents are afraid because S. doesn’t fit into our family like he was born there. I wish they wouldn’t be. There isn’t anything to be afraid of. He knows my family is important to me. He just can’t handle any expectation that he’ll get all chummy with these people who created me. He doesn’t do well with expectation from anyone, even those he trusts, and he takes time to trust people.

I wish that didn’t scare my parents so.

****

I wish that people would learn, once and for all – you can’t steal something that you can’t own.

In other words, people.

Loves cannot be stolen. If A leaves B for C, it’s because A didn’t want to be with B, not because C stole A somehow.

There are a few people in this town that I would like to slap, to explain this to, but most of them are in the midst of believing that they’ve been stolen from so I doubt this would go over well.

Besides, another truth is that you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink. I can talk until I’m blue in the face but no-one has to listen or accept what I say as truth. They have to all figure it out for themselves, the hard way it looks like.

****

I wonder why people blame this place for their troubles and their pain. I have heard so many people say that they have to leave this town, to get away from it all.

There is pain here, crap here, politics – good lord, are there politics in this town – but it isn’t any different ‘out there’.

The only difference I can see is that out there you don’t usually live in the midst of the people you share intimacy with. When you don’t interact with people on the level we live on here, of course you don’t get hurt.

You don’t experience the love, support and blessings either though. Not on the same scale. Pain and love live at the same depth. When you are the most open to love, you are the most open to pain, and it seems to me to work the other way round too.

I don’t understand why people think they can run from their pain. Pain comes from inside you and that goes with you wherever you go.

I feel like I can’t live in Rosebud forever, but not because I’m being smothered here or damaged here. I have to leave to get another perspective of the world. I went from my parent’s house to this town of intimacy and I wonder what it is like to live in a ‘normal’ place. I feel a need to prove to myself that I can live and be okay 'out there', that I can make friends in a world where they aren’t made for you. I also need to live in my own house, without roommates (someday), and that won’t happen here simply because this is a town centered around a school – the houses are centered around dorms so there is nowhere to live unless I have roommates.

It isn’t that Rosebud is smothering me though. I love the people here, I love the people I live with. They are like people I have seen everywhere else...beautiful, damaged, blessed, open, closed. People are people wherever you go. Life is a blessed thing, wherever you are given the chance to live it out.

One is the Lonliest Number...

...and I should know, since I have mono.

Which means '1' as S. so gleefully told me.

He wasn't so gleeful when he found out that I can't kiss him for two months.

Lonely indeed.

Can’t Buy This

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.

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?

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.

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.