I've been sick with - well, with something, for four days. I never know what to call these things. I'm pretty sure anything with aches and fever is a flu, but I rarely get sick to my stomach. Probably because I just lose my appetite altogether. Anyway. It's settled down to a chest cough so hopefully that means it's on it's way out.
It did mean that I had to miss a friend's show. That made me sad. I love the play she was in, and I've never gotten to see it up on its feet. A coughing audience member, particularly a contagious one, isn't well loved however, so I chose to miss out and hope that I'll get another chance to see it someday.
The dog has been a little angel through all of the aches and lethargy and coughing. S. went to his hometown for his brother's bachelor party (which was an epic weekend, from the stories I've been getting) so I've been home alone with the pooch. Which has been fine. I haven't had the energy to do anything, and she's been most accommodating instead of turning into an under-exercized demon. Right now she's sleeping on the floor, sucking in air like it's going out of style - she has nursing dreams that seem quite intense. She'll be a farting machine later.
So I've watched a lot of television and I've done a lot of sleeping. I finished reading a book and I've checked up on a lot of blogs.
Not much of anything else. I tried to write but my brain hasn't been cooperating. I tried to memorize a monologue for an audition coming up - also not much success, but at least I've got some of it down. I hope I have a singing voice by then since I need to sing for it too. I also tried to do some Arbonne stuff but when every sentence is punctuated by a wracking cough it's a little hard to speak. Plus people are too worried about your health to believe that you can improve theirs.
A friend came over yesterday which was nice. No, it was great. I haven't seen her all summer and I've missed her. We had such a great conversation. We're kind of in a similar place, with our semi-jobless states and both dating non-religious men; it was nice to chat about our lives. I'm glad to have at least a few friends in the city.
S. and I have talked about the disconnect we feel sometimes living in the city when a lot of our friends live in a small town nearby. Nearby meaning about 90 minutes away by car. We try to make an effort to go out and see people. A few of those friends make an effort to come in and see us. A lot of them don't. It's tough for me not to internalize that and assume that they don't actually want to be my friends anymore - I have to remind myself that life in a small town - and that small town in particular - gets insular and it's almost impossible to avoid it and see beyond the valley walls.
Almost impossible, a small voice says. Because some people manage just fine. And those are the people I get to see more often.
Ah well. That's life, they say in France.
It's not that different from my life the last few days, after all. I've been living in a self-imposed insular state for half a week. If my friend hadn't made an effort to come over I wouldn't have seen another human being in that entire time. And those outside my walls wouldn't necessarily know why.
So I guess there might be other aspects to the lives of others that I don't see either.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to try to walk the dog. That is, if I don't cough up a lung first.
Showing posts with label Realization. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Realization. Show all posts
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Wednesday, September 01, 2010
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.
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.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Balance
This has been a summer of learning.
I have never had a summer where I haven't been surrounded by people. Whether it was in a theatre, at a restaurant, or in a museum, I have never had a shortage of humanity to immerse myself in.
I am not an extrovert. I find excessive amounts of people exhausting. I get 'peopled out' and need to retreat to solitude to retain my sanity.
But this summer, I have learned that there is such a thing as too much 'solo time'.
This is the first summer in years that I have felt loneliness. This is the first summer that I have had to go out of my way to find a social outlet - the first summer I've felt a need for a social outlet in the first place. Usually I get enough human contact during the day, at work.
But now I don't get that. I spend my days with a puppy. I see S. and almost no-one else. I occasionally talk on the phone with people, and that's it.
That's not enough.
So I'm learning how to create a social life. I've never had to do that before, and it's a strange new experience for me.
In the process I'm also learning that I'm not very good at incorporating all aspects of my life into a blended whole. I tend to focus exclusively on one thing at a time, to the detriment to all else. I am writing and the house falls to pieces around me. I am cleaning and I abandon my artistic side. I start doing Arbonne and I ignore upcoming auditions until the last minute. I decide I need a social life and I cease to be productive on any other level.
It's a problem but at least I'm learning now instead of when I'm old and wrinkled and unable to change.
I've been reading Dooce, a blog my mom introduced me to. Being the kind of person I am, I've actually gone back and am working my way through every single post she's ever written. I wish I'd done that before I started writing my blog. I've learned a lot - this post particularly has riveted itself to my brain. I don't always think about the possible fallout my online work might have on offline work, or life. There are things I've written here that I wish I would have taken more time to think out, or perhaps not written here at all and kept them in my private journals, or in my brain, unwritten. Not that I've experience huge fallout from what I've written, but I know I've inadvertently affected people negatively and that, I can't help but think, has changed relationships for me.
It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with balance; but perhaps it does. A balance between writing the truth in my life and my head and being aware of how that truth will affect the people around me.
So it's been a summer of learning. And I don't see it stopping any time soon...and that's okay.
I have never had a summer where I haven't been surrounded by people. Whether it was in a theatre, at a restaurant, or in a museum, I have never had a shortage of humanity to immerse myself in.
I am not an extrovert. I find excessive amounts of people exhausting. I get 'peopled out' and need to retreat to solitude to retain my sanity.
But this summer, I have learned that there is such a thing as too much 'solo time'.
This is the first summer in years that I have felt loneliness. This is the first summer that I have had to go out of my way to find a social outlet - the first summer I've felt a need for a social outlet in the first place. Usually I get enough human contact during the day, at work.
But now I don't get that. I spend my days with a puppy. I see S. and almost no-one else. I occasionally talk on the phone with people, and that's it.
That's not enough.
So I'm learning how to create a social life. I've never had to do that before, and it's a strange new experience for me.
In the process I'm also learning that I'm not very good at incorporating all aspects of my life into a blended whole. I tend to focus exclusively on one thing at a time, to the detriment to all else. I am writing and the house falls to pieces around me. I am cleaning and I abandon my artistic side. I start doing Arbonne and I ignore upcoming auditions until the last minute. I decide I need a social life and I cease to be productive on any other level.
It's a problem but at least I'm learning now instead of when I'm old and wrinkled and unable to change.
I've been reading Dooce, a blog my mom introduced me to. Being the kind of person I am, I've actually gone back and am working my way through every single post she's ever written. I wish I'd done that before I started writing my blog. I've learned a lot - this post particularly has riveted itself to my brain. I don't always think about the possible fallout my online work might have on offline work, or life. There are things I've written here that I wish I would have taken more time to think out, or perhaps not written here at all and kept them in my private journals, or in my brain, unwritten. Not that I've experience huge fallout from what I've written, but I know I've inadvertently affected people negatively and that, I can't help but think, has changed relationships for me.
It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with balance; but perhaps it does. A balance between writing the truth in my life and my head and being aware of how that truth will affect the people around me.
So it's been a summer of learning. And I don't see it stopping any time soon...and that's okay.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
The People Whisperer, or How My Dog is Teaching Me To Breathe
I took four years of training to become an actor. A self-aware, emotionally intelligent, physically in-tune person. I know it's a journey, I'm not 'there' yet, etc., etc.
But I certainly thought I had an edge on everyone else.
Apparently I am not immune to arrogance. And apparently it took an 8 week old puppy to show me that.
Yes, we recently got a puppy. Zoey, the adorable Boston Terrier. She's smart. She's stubborn and feisty and a bit of a suck. It's a lethal combination. We've had her a week and she's already housebroken (for the most part). She knows if she whines in the direction of the door she can go out to do her business (she's very concerned about her stock portfolio). Looking downstairs gets her to her food. Pitiful whining at the bottom of the staircase (that she can actually climb on her own) gets her carried up to the living room for playtime.
We're training her using Cesar Millan's Dog Whisperer techniques. It's surprisingly effective. We 'claimed' the kitchen and bathrooms and she stays out of those rooms. We reward calm behaviour and correct un-asked for excitement. We maintain calm, assertive energy and she recognizes us as pack leaders.
Oh, alright. S. maintains calm, assertive energy and she recognizes him as a pack leader. When I'm calm and assertive, she responds to me that way. Most of the time though? I think I rank somewhere as a littermate.
Why? I get frustrated with her puppy behaviours. I get upset when she doesn't listen to me instantly. I kind of forgot how puppies were. The last time I had one was 10 years ago. She's like a toddler, and I am not the patient person I thought I was.
Prided myself on being.
Cesar says you don't get the dog you want. You get the dog you need.
I thought, watching his show "The Dog Whisperer" before Zoey arrived, that I would nail this whole calm assertive energy thing. Oh, I'm a professional actor, I'm trained, emotions are my friend, blah blah blah. I've had animals my whole life, I know how to deal with them, I'm so patient, this will be a breeze and we'll have the calmest dog in the city. No. The world.
Pride cometh before a fall.
And boy, what a fall! Instead of being patient, I get frustrated. Instead of calmly correcting, I get angry when she bites in play and punctures the skin (she has razor sharp puppy teeth). Instead of living in a calm, assertive state, I constantly have to stop and reevaluate my energy, breathe, and bring myself back from a tense, aggressive, stressful place to a calm and breathing one. Calm and assertive. Calm and assertive. Stop fixating. Relax. Let her be a dog, a baby, and teach her to obey. Calmly. Be. Just be the authority figure, the pack leader.
It's exhausting. Not to be calm, but to constantly bring myself back from stress.
Upon reflection I'm not sure why my behaviour, my state of mind, is so surprising to me. I worked at a day-care for a month and I got frustrated with the kids there. Granted, they were deliberately pushing buttons (seven year olds rarely call you a bitch otherwise); but they were also babies. Little kids. Not adults.
The difference with Zoey is that I can see her reading and reflecting my energy. It's uncanny. Right away, right there. I get angry, she gets insecure and excited. I get frustrated, she gets persistent and excited. I calm down and breathe and stop taking it all so personally, and she sits down and looks to me for direction. Like she's supposed to.
I'm sure kids read and reflect too. Looking back I can see that. But I see it so much clearer with Zoey. Maybe because I grew up with animals, surrounded by them, and my experience with kids is much more limited. Or maybe it's just because I'm more focused on my puppy than I am on someone else's kid. After all, I can look forward to 10 - 15 years of life with Zoey. The kids I got to leave behind every night.
I am forced to be more aware of myself in every aspect of my life in order to present authority to my dog.
I didn't expect that.
I didn't expect Zoey to show me that I have a short fuse. I am selfish and want to get my own way, instantly. I have high, unreasonable expectations of the other life forms I interact with. When I am upset I want the world to stop until my tantrum is over and I'm ready to continue.
(I knew that last one already. I realized that a few weeks ago when I was driving along a busy road in the city and Scott and I got into a fight. What did I want to do? Slam on the brakes until we'd had it out and he'd seen things my way. I think that would have gotten us in an accident, injured for sure and possibly killed, but damn, I almost did it before I realized the consequences. That scared me into non-rage in a hurry. And the same process happened again yesterday, although I thought I'd learned better. I guess I'm not super human in my learning curve after all. Fuck.)
So I can't stop the world as long as there are others in it. I should have figured that one out, sharing my world with people like I do, but for some reason it didn't click until the potential accident and the introduction of a puppy who is watching my every move, my every wave of energy and emotion and physicalization for cues on how to behave. On what's allowed. On where she can go and what she can do.
Somewhat like having a baby, I guess. Only I think it's less pressure. Dear God, what would I be like with a toddler of my own?
Well. I think Zoey will have taught me much more about myself before that happens.
And the funniest thing about all of this? I think I'll be a better actor, not just a better person, for it.
But I certainly thought I had an edge on everyone else.
Apparently I am not immune to arrogance. And apparently it took an 8 week old puppy to show me that.
Yes, we recently got a puppy. Zoey, the adorable Boston Terrier. She's smart. She's stubborn and feisty and a bit of a suck. It's a lethal combination. We've had her a week and she's already housebroken (for the most part). She knows if she whines in the direction of the door she can go out to do her business (she's very concerned about her stock portfolio). Looking downstairs gets her to her food. Pitiful whining at the bottom of the staircase (that she can actually climb on her own) gets her carried up to the living room for playtime.
We're training her using Cesar Millan's Dog Whisperer techniques. It's surprisingly effective. We 'claimed' the kitchen and bathrooms and she stays out of those rooms. We reward calm behaviour and correct un-asked for excitement. We maintain calm, assertive energy and she recognizes us as pack leaders.
Oh, alright. S. maintains calm, assertive energy and she recognizes him as a pack leader. When I'm calm and assertive, she responds to me that way. Most of the time though? I think I rank somewhere as a littermate.
Why? I get frustrated with her puppy behaviours. I get upset when she doesn't listen to me instantly. I kind of forgot how puppies were. The last time I had one was 10 years ago. She's like a toddler, and I am not the patient person I thought I was.
Prided myself on being.
Cesar says you don't get the dog you want. You get the dog you need.
I thought, watching his show "The Dog Whisperer" before Zoey arrived, that I would nail this whole calm assertive energy thing. Oh, I'm a professional actor, I'm trained, emotions are my friend, blah blah blah. I've had animals my whole life, I know how to deal with them, I'm so patient, this will be a breeze and we'll have the calmest dog in the city. No. The world.
Pride cometh before a fall.
And boy, what a fall! Instead of being patient, I get frustrated. Instead of calmly correcting, I get angry when she bites in play and punctures the skin (she has razor sharp puppy teeth). Instead of living in a calm, assertive state, I constantly have to stop and reevaluate my energy, breathe, and bring myself back from a tense, aggressive, stressful place to a calm and breathing one. Calm and assertive. Calm and assertive. Stop fixating. Relax. Let her be a dog, a baby, and teach her to obey. Calmly. Be. Just be the authority figure, the pack leader.
It's exhausting. Not to be calm, but to constantly bring myself back from stress.
Upon reflection I'm not sure why my behaviour, my state of mind, is so surprising to me. I worked at a day-care for a month and I got frustrated with the kids there. Granted, they were deliberately pushing buttons (seven year olds rarely call you a bitch otherwise); but they were also babies. Little kids. Not adults.
The difference with Zoey is that I can see her reading and reflecting my energy. It's uncanny. Right away, right there. I get angry, she gets insecure and excited. I get frustrated, she gets persistent and excited. I calm down and breathe and stop taking it all so personally, and she sits down and looks to me for direction. Like she's supposed to.
I'm sure kids read and reflect too. Looking back I can see that. But I see it so much clearer with Zoey. Maybe because I grew up with animals, surrounded by them, and my experience with kids is much more limited. Or maybe it's just because I'm more focused on my puppy than I am on someone else's kid. After all, I can look forward to 10 - 15 years of life with Zoey. The kids I got to leave behind every night.
I am forced to be more aware of myself in every aspect of my life in order to present authority to my dog.
I didn't expect that.
I didn't expect Zoey to show me that I have a short fuse. I am selfish and want to get my own way, instantly. I have high, unreasonable expectations of the other life forms I interact with. When I am upset I want the world to stop until my tantrum is over and I'm ready to continue.
(I knew that last one already. I realized that a few weeks ago when I was driving along a busy road in the city and Scott and I got into a fight. What did I want to do? Slam on the brakes until we'd had it out and he'd seen things my way. I think that would have gotten us in an accident, injured for sure and possibly killed, but damn, I almost did it before I realized the consequences. That scared me into non-rage in a hurry. And the same process happened again yesterday, although I thought I'd learned better. I guess I'm not super human in my learning curve after all. Fuck.)
So I can't stop the world as long as there are others in it. I should have figured that one out, sharing my world with people like I do, but for some reason it didn't click until the potential accident and the introduction of a puppy who is watching my every move, my every wave of energy and emotion and physicalization for cues on how to behave. On what's allowed. On where she can go and what she can do.
Somewhat like having a baby, I guess. Only I think it's less pressure. Dear God, what would I be like with a toddler of my own?
Well. I think Zoey will have taught me much more about myself before that happens.
And the funniest thing about all of this? I think I'll be a better actor, not just a better person, for it.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
This Resonates
I deeply admire Stephen King.
I have not read anywhere near enough of his books to consider myself a true fan. Let me correct myself. I do think of myself as a fan, an erstwhile, ill educated fan. Other people probably wouldn't consider me a fan because I haven't read enough of his stuff, but I'm getting there. Slowly and in a haphazard manner.
I just finished his book, Mist. This passage is one of the reasons I have a strong artist crush on the man.
“You know what talent is? The curse of expectation. As a kid you have to deal with that, beat it somehow. If you can write, you think God put you on earth to blow Shakespeare away. Or if you can paint, maybe you think - I did - that God put you on earth to blow your father away....since (realizing that he was a good commercial artist) that voice of disappointed expectation - that cheated child’s voice that can never be satisfied with such a mild superlative as good - has fallen pretty much silent. And except for a few rumbles - like the sounds of those unseen creatures somewhere out in the foggy night - it has been pretty much silent ever since. Maybe you can tell me - why should the silencing of that childish, demanding voice seem so much like dying?”
This is said by the main character, David, an artist.
In the middle of a book about human behaviour when faced with deep fear, he has this additional nugget of truth that resonated with me so much I had to write it down and keep it forever.
On a bit of a side note, in the opening credits of Alan Wake (that game I wrote about the other day), Alan attributes this quote to Stephen King. "Explanation is the antithesis to fear." Love, explanation - heart and mind - logic and emotion. Both are tools we were given to deal with the world around us, two sides of one coin. Too bad we humans tend to pick one side over the other instead of finding the balance between the two!
Sunday, May 23, 2010
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.
***
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.
Thursday, May 06, 2010
Infected With Rage: Or How Zombies Showed Me The Light
I am furious right now. So furious I can't type properly. Furious like the zombies in 28 Days Later, but with a just cause.
There is a certain woman that keeps sending me chain emails full of hatred. I think I've mentioned her on here before. At first the emails made me shake my head. One made me weep. Several, including this latest one, have filled me with rage.
I don't understand how anyone who calls themselves a Christian can stand behind words of such hatred. The emails she sends out talk about how we should just kill all the Muslims by bombing the hell out of Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan - kill their women and children because 'they've done it to us'. They celebrate a professor at Michigan State because he told all the Muslim students to go home. They justify bigotry and racism because 'we are in a war'. (A war that was made up for political gain in my opinion, a war that hasn't fixed anything, a war against an act of terrorism that happened almost ten years ago and hasn't been repeated...but that's all irrelevant to the email campaign of hatred and fear, dressed up in patriotism and the love of God).
Even if it was an active war and people were being killed in America every day by terrorist bombs (I realize it happens more often overseas, but since it kills 'them' the emails ignore it), even then I couldn't advocate racism as an appropriate response. How does painting every Muslim with the same fanatical brush help anything? How does judging someone on their skin colour or ethnic heritage keep us, or anyone, safe?
I notice that she never sends out emails condemning all of Christianity because of the fanatical actions of certain sects of the faith.
She never sends out harsh words towards those who bomb abortion clinics, or beat homosexuals to death. Oh, right. Those people deserve to die because they're sinners. Unlike us.
Why can she judge Islam by the actions of a fundamentalist few and keep such a blind eye to the sins of her own professed faith?
Next she'll be saying we should round up the Jews for killing Christ.
I could let this ruin my day.
Or I could let it inform the actions I make in my own life. I could take a look at myself and see where I am blind, where I am a bigot, where I judge harshly without reason.
Maybe after I calm down I will. As much as I would rather just keep pointing a finger of righteous anger at her because it's easier, that doesn't help the world become a better place either.
This is the truth that I want to live by: "The ultimate sense of security will be when we come to recognize that we are all part of one human race. Our primary allegiance is to the human race and not to one particular color or border." Mohamed ElBaradei, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said that. An Egyptian by birth, named for the Muslim prophet, he may be Jewish but I don't know if that matters or not when a person is filled with hatred towards everyone who isn't perfectly Aryan.
And one could argue that our primary allegiance is to God - but I think this quote falls under "Love thy neighbour as thyself".
I'll settle for the world learning the second half of the commandment. It's a bitch to do. I certainly wouldn't risk my life to save this particular woman from zombies. (You'll know who really loves you when the zombies attack. True friends don't trip you when they're running away.)
Shoot. All my anger is deflated now that I realize I'm not living the commandment myself. Well, fuck.
True to form, it took a zombie reference to point out the truth of my own life to me. So now I'm going to go away and swear a whole lot and finally accept the fact that this woman, despite herself, has given me an opportunity to grow further into the Light.
Fuck.
There is a certain woman that keeps sending me chain emails full of hatred. I think I've mentioned her on here before. At first the emails made me shake my head. One made me weep. Several, including this latest one, have filled me with rage.
I don't understand how anyone who calls themselves a Christian can stand behind words of such hatred. The emails she sends out talk about how we should just kill all the Muslims by bombing the hell out of Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan - kill their women and children because 'they've done it to us'. They celebrate a professor at Michigan State because he told all the Muslim students to go home. They justify bigotry and racism because 'we are in a war'. (A war that was made up for political gain in my opinion, a war that hasn't fixed anything, a war against an act of terrorism that happened almost ten years ago and hasn't been repeated...but that's all irrelevant to the email campaign of hatred and fear, dressed up in patriotism and the love of God).
Even if it was an active war and people were being killed in America every day by terrorist bombs (I realize it happens more often overseas, but since it kills 'them' the emails ignore it), even then I couldn't advocate racism as an appropriate response. How does painting every Muslim with the same fanatical brush help anything? How does judging someone on their skin colour or ethnic heritage keep us, or anyone, safe?
I notice that she never sends out emails condemning all of Christianity because of the fanatical actions of certain sects of the faith.
She never sends out harsh words towards those who bomb abortion clinics, or beat homosexuals to death. Oh, right. Those people deserve to die because they're sinners. Unlike us.
Why can she judge Islam by the actions of a fundamentalist few and keep such a blind eye to the sins of her own professed faith?
Next she'll be saying we should round up the Jews for killing Christ.
I could let this ruin my day.
Or I could let it inform the actions I make in my own life. I could take a look at myself and see where I am blind, where I am a bigot, where I judge harshly without reason.
Maybe after I calm down I will. As much as I would rather just keep pointing a finger of righteous anger at her because it's easier, that doesn't help the world become a better place either.
This is the truth that I want to live by: "The ultimate sense of security will be when we come to recognize that we are all part of one human race. Our primary allegiance is to the human race and not to one particular color or border." Mohamed ElBaradei, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said that. An Egyptian by birth, named for the Muslim prophet, he may be Jewish but I don't know if that matters or not when a person is filled with hatred towards everyone who isn't perfectly Aryan.
And one could argue that our primary allegiance is to God - but I think this quote falls under "Love thy neighbour as thyself".
I'll settle for the world learning the second half of the commandment. It's a bitch to do. I certainly wouldn't risk my life to save this particular woman from zombies. (You'll know who really loves you when the zombies attack. True friends don't trip you when they're running away.)
Shoot. All my anger is deflated now that I realize I'm not living the commandment myself. Well, fuck.
True to form, it took a zombie reference to point out the truth of my own life to me. So now I'm going to go away and swear a whole lot and finally accept the fact that this woman, despite herself, has given me an opportunity to grow further into the Light.
Fuck.
Friday, April 30, 2010
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.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
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.
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.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Thoughts I Repressed Today
"Telling me the title over and over will not help me find the book, so SHUT UP ALREADY."
"If this computer says we don't have it, the other computer won't give us a different answer!"
"Why are you here?"
"Why didn't you follow me - do you think the book will just hover over to you?"
"How am I supposed to find a book based on, 'it's got a silver cover'?"
"Are you buying this book or not? And if so, will you please come back to the till, you moron?"
"Did you not hear what I just asked you?"
(That last one I think almost every day with more and more irritation. Why? Because I am developing a new pet peeve. I'll ask a customer, "Can I help you?" and they'll say, "Yes, I'm fine," and walk away as fast as they can. Did they not hear what I asked? Do they think I'll pressure them into buying Twilight? God Almighty, it makes me want to punch them in the face. It's not like they don't speak English. The ones that don't speak English usually just smile and nod, or say, "Browsing!" like it's a magic word that will protect them from pushy sales clerks. But I don't get a commission from selling books. All it does is give me something to do.)
On a side note, today I actually chased a woman away from the store. All it took was a "Are you finding everything okay?" and she nodded and barely had time to say, "I'm fine thank you" before she was out the door and gone.
I don't understand.
Maybe on my last day I'll say what I'm thinking - but I say that about every job and I never do it. Too polite and professional I guess. Too used to repressing my real thoughts and showing a happy smiling face to a world that doesn't bother to look beneath the surface.
I'm not sure why my thoughts are so dark. I started out the day happily enough. I had way more happy customers than unhappy ones. I had a fairly uneventful benign day at work. And yet I'm just frustrated and fed up with not living the life I want. Not paying my bills with my writing. Not getting paid to tell stories in one form or another.
I enjoy working with books all day.
But I really don't want to do this forever, and every job I get that isn't what I want for my life wears on me quicker and quicker.
Maybe that was the one thought I should have repressed today - just for the sake of my short term happiness.
And maybe it's the one thought I should be most aware of.
"If this computer says we don't have it, the other computer won't give us a different answer!"
"Why are you here?"
"Why didn't you follow me - do you think the book will just hover over to you?"
"How am I supposed to find a book based on, 'it's got a silver cover'?"
"Are you buying this book or not? And if so, will you please come back to the till, you moron?"
"Did you not hear what I just asked you?"
(That last one I think almost every day with more and more irritation. Why? Because I am developing a new pet peeve. I'll ask a customer, "Can I help you?" and they'll say, "Yes, I'm fine," and walk away as fast as they can. Did they not hear what I asked? Do they think I'll pressure them into buying Twilight? God Almighty, it makes me want to punch them in the face. It's not like they don't speak English. The ones that don't speak English usually just smile and nod, or say, "Browsing!" like it's a magic word that will protect them from pushy sales clerks. But I don't get a commission from selling books. All it does is give me something to do.)
On a side note, today I actually chased a woman away from the store. All it took was a "Are you finding everything okay?" and she nodded and barely had time to say, "I'm fine thank you" before she was out the door and gone.
I don't understand.
Maybe on my last day I'll say what I'm thinking - but I say that about every job and I never do it. Too polite and professional I guess. Too used to repressing my real thoughts and showing a happy smiling face to a world that doesn't bother to look beneath the surface.
I'm not sure why my thoughts are so dark. I started out the day happily enough. I had way more happy customers than unhappy ones. I had a fairly uneventful benign day at work. And yet I'm just frustrated and fed up with not living the life I want. Not paying my bills with my writing. Not getting paid to tell stories in one form or another.
I enjoy working with books all day.
But I really don't want to do this forever, and every job I get that isn't what I want for my life wears on me quicker and quicker.
Maybe that was the one thought I should have repressed today - just for the sake of my short term happiness.
And maybe it's the one thought I should be most aware of.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Advice on the Radio
I wake up in the morning to CBC Radio. A good way to get a clue about the outside world, a bad way to remember dreams - they fade in the blur of murders and the many varied tragedies that are deemed important for me to know about.
This morning, although I don't remember what happened on the news (except for a school shooting in Germany), I did lay in bed and listen to half an hour of Q. They were going to interview some Monty Python people but couldn't get ahold of them, so instead they aired an interview they had already done with David Sedaris.
Working in a book store (which I may not be for much longer but that's another story) I see books and authors all around me every day that I was previously unaware of. David Sedaris is one of those authors. He's in the humour section. Guys are the ones who pick up his books so I had relegated him to a pile in my mind labled, not interesting.
What a mistake that was. The interview was fascinating. He's a morbid guy. Morbid and funny and all he does is observe the world around him. And when he writes about his friends and family, which he does a lot, he always clears it by them first. Gets them to read it and tell him if there's anything they want him to change. Why? Because he values his relationships over his writing. What he's going to share with the world, he clears with the ones he loves first.
That level of respect impressed me greatly.
I don't think I've done a very good job of doing that. So now I'm going to start.
It doesn't cramp my creativity. I write what I want and no-one stops me. But if I'm going to share that writing with the world? There is a fall out from that, and it had better be one that I, and those who are important to me, can live with.
Thank you, David Sedaris. You will probably never read this (unless you have that Google thing that lets you know anytime someone writes your name online) but thank you anyway.
This morning, although I don't remember what happened on the news (except for a school shooting in Germany), I did lay in bed and listen to half an hour of Q. They were going to interview some Monty Python people but couldn't get ahold of them, so instead they aired an interview they had already done with David Sedaris.
Working in a book store (which I may not be for much longer but that's another story) I see books and authors all around me every day that I was previously unaware of. David Sedaris is one of those authors. He's in the humour section. Guys are the ones who pick up his books so I had relegated him to a pile in my mind labled, not interesting.
What a mistake that was. The interview was fascinating. He's a morbid guy. Morbid and funny and all he does is observe the world around him. And when he writes about his friends and family, which he does a lot, he always clears it by them first. Gets them to read it and tell him if there's anything they want him to change. Why? Because he values his relationships over his writing. What he's going to share with the world, he clears with the ones he loves first.
That level of respect impressed me greatly.
I don't think I've done a very good job of doing that. So now I'm going to start.
It doesn't cramp my creativity. I write what I want and no-one stops me. But if I'm going to share that writing with the world? There is a fall out from that, and it had better be one that I, and those who are important to me, can live with.
Thank you, David Sedaris. You will probably never read this (unless you have that Google thing that lets you know anytime someone writes your name online) but thank you anyway.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Laughing
In the previous post I wrote that God was laughing at me.
I think I might be laughing along with now. Sheepishly, but laughing.
As Hope mentioned in her comment - free will and choice, not either/or. It's true. It's annoying sometimes but it's true.
And maybe that's what sparks the laughter. Realizing that I'm basically throwning a tantrum. I'm 25 now - I thought tantrums were supposed to be in my distant past?
Apparently not. So I'll go from banging my heels and screeching to ROTFL instead.
I think I might be laughing along with now. Sheepishly, but laughing.
As Hope mentioned in her comment - free will and choice, not either/or. It's true. It's annoying sometimes but it's true.
And maybe that's what sparks the laughter. Realizing that I'm basically throwning a tantrum. I'm 25 now - I thought tantrums were supposed to be in my distant past?
Apparently not. So I'll go from banging my heels and screeching to ROTFL instead.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
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.
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.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
I think there may be light coming...
So, I am posting a bunch of depressing stuff I wrote in the last week below, but today I woke up feeling lighter than I have for a while. My acting coach told me that freedom comes with responsibility, and that thought is percolating in my soul - also that God doesn't give us freedom but he gives us chances to grab it for ourselves. So I am realizing that I have to get up off my butt and reach for what I want even when it scares me shitless.
Anyway - the depressing stuff. Here it is.
I’m not sure I believe in God’s love anymore.
I believe He exists. That He is who He says He is. The whole dying for sins thing too, being the saviour of the world.
But my saviour?
It is so hard. To trust. To have faith. To believe that He cares for me, that He cares what happens to me, that in the outcome of my life He has any interest.
In chapel today we read a psalm aloud. “In Him does my heart trust.” Trust came out as a whisper.
I don’t trust God right now and I think that maybe if I did I wouldn’t feel so full of pain and despair but the feelings aren’t going away and I don’t feel His presence any closer so it’s hard to start trusting Him now.
God, I hate this.
I don’t know why it started and I don’t see any ending.
It goes away for a day here and there which just makes it that much worse when it comes back.
And I keep running into blocks in my acting that are connected to specific things that happened in my life that are connected to how I feel now, and I can’t make any headway and I am despairing in everything.
I know I need to get help but I am reluctant. Afraid.
Pray for me. I ask this with the awareness of the irony therein. Pray for me, that my faith might come back and my joy might return.
I have to learn to trust myself. I have to learn to listen to myself. I have to stop being so hard on myself.
It isn’t that I don’t believe in God. I still do. I believe he exists. I just don’t believe so much that he cares about me. And I’m wondering just why I should care about him.
My faith has never been super strong. My brother said it well – I’m more sure that I won’t let my 6 year old watch LoTR than I am that I will be a Christian when I have said 6 year old. God know this, or He should. So why is He testing me this way? He knows I’m not strong in this area. He knows better. He is gambling and He might lose. I don’t understand why He would do this.
I am not strong enough to be Job and yet that is who I am being forced to be.
Anyway - the depressing stuff. Here it is.
****
I believe He exists. That He is who He says He is. The whole dying for sins thing too, being the saviour of the world.
But my saviour?
It is so hard. To trust. To have faith. To believe that He cares for me, that He cares what happens to me, that in the outcome of my life He has any interest.
In chapel today we read a psalm aloud. “In Him does my heart trust.” Trust came out as a whisper.
I don’t trust God right now and I think that maybe if I did I wouldn’t feel so full of pain and despair but the feelings aren’t going away and I don’t feel His presence any closer so it’s hard to start trusting Him now.
God, I hate this.
I don’t know why it started and I don’t see any ending.
It goes away for a day here and there which just makes it that much worse when it comes back.
And I keep running into blocks in my acting that are connected to specific things that happened in my life that are connected to how I feel now, and I can’t make any headway and I am despairing in everything.
I know I need to get help but I am reluctant. Afraid.
Pray for me. I ask this with the awareness of the irony therein. Pray for me, that my faith might come back and my joy might return.
I have to learn to trust myself. I have to learn to listen to myself. I have to stop being so hard on myself.
It isn’t that I don’t believe in God. I still do. I believe he exists. I just don’t believe so much that he cares about me. And I’m wondering just why I should care about him.
My faith has never been super strong. My brother said it well – I’m more sure that I won’t let my 6 year old watch LoTR than I am that I will be a Christian when I have said 6 year old. God know this, or He should. So why is He testing me this way? He knows I’m not strong in this area. He knows better. He is gambling and He might lose. I don’t understand why He would do this.
I am not strong enough to be Job and yet that is who I am being forced to be.
****
Stream of Consciousness Murky and Dark
How can I act now? I am missing my soul.
How can I make art? My tool is an empty shell without heart or warm blood.
How can I create when I am dead?
My soul is trapped so deep within me
it screams and all that comes out is a smile
on an empty vacuous face
How are you?
Fine, fine
and my spirit is dying but no one can see it
and I have no fire left within me
the Ecthroi have won
and they chew on my bones
In all seriousness I do not know how I can go on being an artist when I feel so dead. I cannot access anything and I feel that all my acting is a mask behind which is so much anger and pain that it overwhelms me so I shy away from it.
I am sick. I am tired of being full of pain and anger.
I want to be happy from the depths of my toes to the lightness of my head.
I want to be free in every way – I want my body to be everything, my voice to be unleashed, my soul to fly and swirl and my eyes to see something other than blackness.
My eyes to be something other than empty.
Why does my spirit only flash and spark sometimes?
It isn’t gone, it teases me with moments of fullness and life and then hides away in some deep mark of my psyche that is hidden, so hidden that I can barely feel the pulse to let me know I am still even alive.
Not so gone that people worry about me.
Not there enough for me to be truly alive.
Not gone enough for me to abandon all hope.
Not present enough for me to believe that it will come back.
Am I going to be like this forever.
Am I going crazy? Have I lost my mind?
Am I imbalanced somewhere?
I feel like a living lie.
I am crashing and burning and I do not know how to be honest.
I don’t know how to tell anyone so I hint and I pull away and wait for someone to see and reach out to catch me or cushion my fall. Or at least say look, someone is on fire.
All my soul is on the outside of my body burning me alive
and it doesn’t hurt
because my soul is outside watching
and I wouldn’t be on fire
if my soul could feel the burning
It doesn’t care enough to come back inside
It is tired of being trapped
so it has gone on vacation
and is waiting, somewhere, for my body to catch up to it.
Maybe I’m just tired.
Maybe I just need a break.
Maybe I’m depressed.
It certainly took long enough coming.
I don’t want to die though.
That’s a good thing. I think.
I just want to sleep until it all feels better.
Or until it feels like something.
Other than pain.
Because I don’t want to deal with it and I’m sick of being weak.
That is what pain is to me – tears and weakness that I should control better.
I thought I had dealt with this but apparently I haven’t.
And I write this and I know people will think this is my every waking moment but it isn’t
I just feel like this a lot
not all the time.
I still laugh from a real place
watching cats jump into walls on YouTube
I still smile from a real place when Scott leans his head against me
I still feel love from a real place
just not a God place
because God has abandoned me
and left me to fend for myself
like I always do.
Like I always have to do.
I know he’s the one who’s footprints I’ll see later
but I think that’s a crock of shit.
I’m drifting away from him
but he isn’t stopping me
or even trying to answer me when
I pray
God.
Why have you forsaken me again?
Again again again again again
Always forsaken in the end
He would rather watch me self-destruct
than come down and meddle with his fucked up creation
Fuck you, God.
Why can’t I just leave you and try to find a way out alone?
Why do I always pray and cry out for help that doesn’t come, help that you so sporadically ladle out that I have some hope that maybe you do care after all and you are leaving me like this to grow in some way?
I hate growing
you should know that by now
I want the growing part to be over
I want to be an adult already
I am sick of adolescence. But that is where I’m stuck
forever.
How can I act now? I am missing my soul.
How can I make art? My tool is an empty shell without heart or warm blood.
How can I create when I am dead?
My soul is trapped so deep within me
it screams and all that comes out is a smile
on an empty vacuous face
How are you?
Fine, fine
and my spirit is dying but no one can see it
and I have no fire left within me
the Ecthroi have won
and they chew on my bones
In all seriousness I do not know how I can go on being an artist when I feel so dead. I cannot access anything and I feel that all my acting is a mask behind which is so much anger and pain that it overwhelms me so I shy away from it.
I am sick. I am tired of being full of pain and anger.
I want to be happy from the depths of my toes to the lightness of my head.
I want to be free in every way – I want my body to be everything, my voice to be unleashed, my soul to fly and swirl and my eyes to see something other than blackness.
My eyes to be something other than empty.
Why does my spirit only flash and spark sometimes?
It isn’t gone, it teases me with moments of fullness and life and then hides away in some deep mark of my psyche that is hidden, so hidden that I can barely feel the pulse to let me know I am still even alive.
Not so gone that people worry about me.
Not there enough for me to be truly alive.
Not gone enough for me to abandon all hope.
Not present enough for me to believe that it will come back.
Am I going to be like this forever.
Am I going crazy? Have I lost my mind?
Am I imbalanced somewhere?
I feel like a living lie.
I am crashing and burning and I do not know how to be honest.
I don’t know how to tell anyone so I hint and I pull away and wait for someone to see and reach out to catch me or cushion my fall. Or at least say look, someone is on fire.
All my soul is on the outside of my body burning me alive
and it doesn’t hurt
because my soul is outside watching
and I wouldn’t be on fire
if my soul could feel the burning
It doesn’t care enough to come back inside
It is tired of being trapped
so it has gone on vacation
and is waiting, somewhere, for my body to catch up to it.
Maybe I’m just tired.
Maybe I just need a break.
Maybe I’m depressed.
It certainly took long enough coming.
I don’t want to die though.
That’s a good thing. I think.
I just want to sleep until it all feels better.
Or until it feels like something.
Other than pain.
Because I don’t want to deal with it and I’m sick of being weak.
That is what pain is to me – tears and weakness that I should control better.
I thought I had dealt with this but apparently I haven’t.
And I write this and I know people will think this is my every waking moment but it isn’t
I just feel like this a lot
not all the time.
I still laugh from a real place
watching cats jump into walls on YouTube
I still smile from a real place when Scott leans his head against me
I still feel love from a real place
just not a God place
because God has abandoned me
and left me to fend for myself
like I always do.
Like I always have to do.
I know he’s the one who’s footprints I’ll see later
but I think that’s a crock of shit.
I’m drifting away from him
but he isn’t stopping me
or even trying to answer me when
I pray
God.
Why have you forsaken me again?
Again again again again again
Always forsaken in the end
He would rather watch me self-destruct
than come down and meddle with his fucked up creation
Fuck you, God.
Why can’t I just leave you and try to find a way out alone?
Why do I always pray and cry out for help that doesn’t come, help that you so sporadically ladle out that I have some hope that maybe you do care after all and you are leaving me like this to grow in some way?
I hate growing
you should know that by now
I want the growing part to be over
I want to be an adult already
I am sick of adolescence. But that is where I’m stuck
forever.
****
So there you have it. Two statements of where I've been at for what seems like forever.
Although I think I may be done throwing the tantrum now.
We'll see...
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Small Mercies
It seems that God will only grant me small mercies these days. No voice, no consolation from Him, just dreams that flicker in and out of my waking mind and words from the people around me that bring the light back.
Today I had two unexpected conversations that helped me, conversations about trust and letting go of fear and control.
I don’t do either very well. Maybe if I could learn to let go and let God I’d be happier.
One of my classmates told me that he is letting God steer his life. He saw through the show he just finished that if he trusted his scene partner instead of trying to control the scene, then the magic happened. He somehow gained the wisdom to apply that to his life – God as the ultimate scene partner – and he is finding so much peace right now.
I am very envious but at the same time I suddenly saw that I only trust God with reservations, which isn’t really trust at all.
That is how I trust. With reservations.
That conversation showed me that my lack of trust is really my own insecurity that in some way I won’t measure up – I will be lacking. I am not interesting enough, smart enough, experienced enough…I don’t have the beauty or knowledge to be worth spending time on. I am not worth loving. I am not worth caring for. I don’t have the faith for God to want to help me and because of that, I feel that I’ll be tested over and over until I learn to trust. Written down I see that doesn’t make any sense. How can I learn to trust if He doesn’t show me He can be trusted? But that is still what I seem to believe.
I am not alone in this either. Every weakness, every folly, people have been perfecting since the dawn of time.
People around me accept me and value me even when I think I have lost everything that makes me worthwhile. I don’t understand. I don’t understand.
To be shown such great mercy when I feel that I deserve nothing is more than I ever expected.
For some reason I have been blinded but God is still all around me. Why is it so hard to trust that to be true? Why do I feel so alone in this?
I know that I need to trust and I cannot.
He gives me small mercies anyway.
Date of Origin: November 12th 2007
Today I had two unexpected conversations that helped me, conversations about trust and letting go of fear and control.
I don’t do either very well. Maybe if I could learn to let go and let God I’d be happier.
One of my classmates told me that he is letting God steer his life. He saw through the show he just finished that if he trusted his scene partner instead of trying to control the scene, then the magic happened. He somehow gained the wisdom to apply that to his life – God as the ultimate scene partner – and he is finding so much peace right now.
I am very envious but at the same time I suddenly saw that I only trust God with reservations, which isn’t really trust at all.
That is how I trust. With reservations.
That conversation showed me that my lack of trust is really my own insecurity that in some way I won’t measure up – I will be lacking. I am not interesting enough, smart enough, experienced enough…I don’t have the beauty or knowledge to be worth spending time on. I am not worth loving. I am not worth caring for. I don’t have the faith for God to want to help me and because of that, I feel that I’ll be tested over and over until I learn to trust. Written down I see that doesn’t make any sense. How can I learn to trust if He doesn’t show me He can be trusted? But that is still what I seem to believe.
I am not alone in this either. Every weakness, every folly, people have been perfecting since the dawn of time.
People around me accept me and value me even when I think I have lost everything that makes me worthwhile. I don’t understand. I don’t understand.
To be shown such great mercy when I feel that I deserve nothing is more than I ever expected.
For some reason I have been blinded but God is still all around me. Why is it so hard to trust that to be true? Why do I feel so alone in this?
I know that I need to trust and I cannot.
He gives me small mercies anyway.
Date of Origin: November 12th 2007
I Had A Dream
I had a dream.
In my dream I had a giant moth for a companion. It’s name started with a G and had a lot of vowels in it; it was at least nine letters long. I remember seeing it written down and saying it, feeling it in my mouth. It was gone as soon as I woke up.
The moth was my guardian, protector and guide.
I was riding on its back when an Ecthroi who looked like Mr. Jenkins popped up in front of us, floating in the air, completely out of place in the world of northern trees and familiarity, completely unfazed by the surrounding, intent only on one thing.
Me.
And more than that, the tiny ball of light deep within me.
Its stare hurt me, scared me. I closed my eyes to keep the light inside so it couldn’t be stolen away. Its gaze kept going through me, I had to curl up to keep the light safe, eyes closed hands clinging to the fur covering G--------‘s body.
And then something made me stop. I stopped shaking. I let go of the fear.
I opened my eyes and uncurled my body and looked the Ecthroi in the eyes and let the light out.
Instead of going away it grew bigger until my whole self was alight, light was pouring from me and filling the world, and the Ecthroi screamed and was vanquished, vanishing into nothingness before me and the un-defeat-able light that lived within me.
We had won. I had past the test. The light that had endangered me had saved me; what has brought the attention of the Ecthroi had defeated it.
This is my life.
I am surrounded by Ecthroi, and I can’t see my moth-guardian and I feel very alone. I feel that I am the Farandoli being seduced, promised an easier way if only I stop the dance, stop the song, let the light go away and then they’ll leave me alone.
They don’t tell me what will happen if I stop, if I surrender. I will be left alone, ‘in peace’ but they don’t tell me what their peace is.
I am so tired, their call is beginning to sound reasonable. Sensible. Easier at least.
The thing is…I know what will happen if I stop dancing and I just can’t let the light die.
It hurts so badly. It’s so damn hard. I am so afraid. And I feel so alone.
I so easily forget the dreams.
They seem to be the only way that God will speak to me any more and they are so often gone when I open my eyes.
The light isn’t getting any bigger. It isn’t chasing away my enemies. They aren’t afraid, they aren’t screaming and vanishing; they’re whispering, comforting, telling me gently that my light isn’t really there, there isn’t anything to let die in the first place …there is no sun, there is only the lamp that I have changed with my childish imagination, isn’t that a silly thing to do! I feel like I am surrounded by fairy book characters – Ecthroi, the Green Lady – but I have no fairy tale saviours. There is no Aslan to save me.
Yet I know that this battle is important. That my light matters, that someday I will see the fruits of this struggle but right now I can’t see anything.
Hope is very far away.
Faith is dying.
Fear is everywhere.
The light isn’t getting any bigger. It isn’t getting any smaller although the scope of the darkness seems to be expanding. I’m being shown all the darkness and I don’t get to see any of the light except the small share that dwells within me. It seems pitiful and shabby, and defeat seems inevitable. There is no hope in the vision I am being bombarded with every day.
Why is God silent now?
Why does He only speak to me in dreams that fragment and vanish?
I despair, and the Ecthroi gather around me like vultures waiting to feast on my death. But I don’t die and the light keeps flickering.
For now.
Date of Origin: November 11th 2007
In my dream I had a giant moth for a companion. It’s name started with a G and had a lot of vowels in it; it was at least nine letters long. I remember seeing it written down and saying it, feeling it in my mouth. It was gone as soon as I woke up.
The moth was my guardian, protector and guide.
I was riding on its back when an Ecthroi who looked like Mr. Jenkins popped up in front of us, floating in the air, completely out of place in the world of northern trees and familiarity, completely unfazed by the surrounding, intent only on one thing.
Me.
And more than that, the tiny ball of light deep within me.
Its stare hurt me, scared me. I closed my eyes to keep the light inside so it couldn’t be stolen away. Its gaze kept going through me, I had to curl up to keep the light safe, eyes closed hands clinging to the fur covering G--------‘s body.
And then something made me stop. I stopped shaking. I let go of the fear.
I opened my eyes and uncurled my body and looked the Ecthroi in the eyes and let the light out.
Instead of going away it grew bigger until my whole self was alight, light was pouring from me and filling the world, and the Ecthroi screamed and was vanquished, vanishing into nothingness before me and the un-defeat-able light that lived within me.
We had won. I had past the test. The light that had endangered me had saved me; what has brought the attention of the Ecthroi had defeated it.
This is my life.
I am surrounded by Ecthroi, and I can’t see my moth-guardian and I feel very alone. I feel that I am the Farandoli being seduced, promised an easier way if only I stop the dance, stop the song, let the light go away and then they’ll leave me alone.
They don’t tell me what will happen if I stop, if I surrender. I will be left alone, ‘in peace’ but they don’t tell me what their peace is.
I am so tired, their call is beginning to sound reasonable. Sensible. Easier at least.
The thing is…I know what will happen if I stop dancing and I just can’t let the light die.
It hurts so badly. It’s so damn hard. I am so afraid. And I feel so alone.
I so easily forget the dreams.
They seem to be the only way that God will speak to me any more and they are so often gone when I open my eyes.
The light isn’t getting any bigger. It isn’t chasing away my enemies. They aren’t afraid, they aren’t screaming and vanishing; they’re whispering, comforting, telling me gently that my light isn’t really there, there isn’t anything to let die in the first place …there is no sun, there is only the lamp that I have changed with my childish imagination, isn’t that a silly thing to do! I feel like I am surrounded by fairy book characters – Ecthroi, the Green Lady – but I have no fairy tale saviours. There is no Aslan to save me.
Yet I know that this battle is important. That my light matters, that someday I will see the fruits of this struggle but right now I can’t see anything.
Hope is very far away.
Faith is dying.
Fear is everywhere.
The light isn’t getting any bigger. It isn’t getting any smaller although the scope of the darkness seems to be expanding. I’m being shown all the darkness and I don’t get to see any of the light except the small share that dwells within me. It seems pitiful and shabby, and defeat seems inevitable. There is no hope in the vision I am being bombarded with every day.
Why is God silent now?
Why does He only speak to me in dreams that fragment and vanish?
I despair, and the Ecthroi gather around me like vultures waiting to feast on my death. But I don’t die and the light keeps flickering.
For now.
Date of Origin: November 11th 2007
Monday, October 29, 2007
Facebook.
All summer long I listened backstage to my friend and cast-mate talk about it, listened as he shared news about common friends who were members, resisted his encouragements to join. In September I even went so far as to join a ‘I Will Not Join Facebook’ club; members, 3. It is a very elite club.
Its membership is down to 2 these days. I have succumbed.
I have good reasons. My entire immediate family is on there, and while my youngest brother won’t check his email he does check his Facebook network, meaning I can now keep up with his life a little better. Almost everyone I know from this town is on there too, although since I see them every day it seems a moot point. I have extended family on there, as well as people I haven’t seen in ages, since childhood, since leaving home…and I’ll admit that I’ve liked catching up with people I otherwise probably would never have spoken to again.
I’ll also admit to enjoying the applications. Hatching Eggs is a lot of fun. So is 10-Second Interview; I love reading other people’s answers. Being able to electronically fight people, play Scrabble, or cast magical spells on people before zombie-biting their necks is also entertaining. I find sharing my favourite books and music to be a pleasant way to express myself. I can even share my mood, complete with a little emoticon to visually convey my inner self.
My moods, on Facebook, have been remarkably stable. I’ve been ‘loved’, ‘in love’, ‘content’. I have felt those things in the last couple weeks, so the happy little yellow ball with a kiss on it’s cheek hasn’t been lying. Exactly.
But then I realized that I was telling my brother that I was ‘fine’ when in fact I was feeling like shit.
For the majority of my time in these last few weeks I have not felt happy, positive emotions. Words like ‘lost’, ‘confused’, ‘extremely uncertain’ have been more accurate. Not that it shows much. It’s not just on Facebook that I present a happier front, although it’s easier to be cheery when you’re writing on walls and sending electronic messages. People can’t see the physical truth then; the jaw that hasn’t been able to relax since the beginning of October, the tension in my face, the hair-trigger emotions. Although even when they can see it people tend to be too wrapped up in their own world to notice, so I get away with my isolation coping mechanism.
I might have still been in denial about my emotional falseness if it hadn’t been for that note to my brother. If I can’t tell my brother what I really feel, then who can I tell? So I deleted my dishonest, chipper words and wrote something else. I don’t remember what, but it was truthful.
It still took me a while to be more honest with my Facebook page…but I am now a little, lonely looking blue hover-ball who is ‘confused because my life is just that way right now’.
Yesterday when someone asked me how I was I told them that I was having a dark tea-time of the soul.
I don’t know why, but being honest about that with people makes it seem more bearable.
Date of Origin: October 25th, 2007.
All summer long I listened backstage to my friend and cast-mate talk about it, listened as he shared news about common friends who were members, resisted his encouragements to join. In September I even went so far as to join a ‘I Will Not Join Facebook’ club; members, 3. It is a very elite club.
Its membership is down to 2 these days. I have succumbed.
I have good reasons. My entire immediate family is on there, and while my youngest brother won’t check his email he does check his Facebook network, meaning I can now keep up with his life a little better. Almost everyone I know from this town is on there too, although since I see them every day it seems a moot point. I have extended family on there, as well as people I haven’t seen in ages, since childhood, since leaving home…and I’ll admit that I’ve liked catching up with people I otherwise probably would never have spoken to again.
I’ll also admit to enjoying the applications. Hatching Eggs is a lot of fun. So is 10-Second Interview; I love reading other people’s answers. Being able to electronically fight people, play Scrabble, or cast magical spells on people before zombie-biting their necks is also entertaining. I find sharing my favourite books and music to be a pleasant way to express myself. I can even share my mood, complete with a little emoticon to visually convey my inner self.
My moods, on Facebook, have been remarkably stable. I’ve been ‘loved’, ‘in love’, ‘content’. I have felt those things in the last couple weeks, so the happy little yellow ball with a kiss on it’s cheek hasn’t been lying. Exactly.
But then I realized that I was telling my brother that I was ‘fine’ when in fact I was feeling like shit.
For the majority of my time in these last few weeks I have not felt happy, positive emotions. Words like ‘lost’, ‘confused’, ‘extremely uncertain’ have been more accurate. Not that it shows much. It’s not just on Facebook that I present a happier front, although it’s easier to be cheery when you’re writing on walls and sending electronic messages. People can’t see the physical truth then; the jaw that hasn’t been able to relax since the beginning of October, the tension in my face, the hair-trigger emotions. Although even when they can see it people tend to be too wrapped up in their own world to notice, so I get away with my isolation coping mechanism.
I might have still been in denial about my emotional falseness if it hadn’t been for that note to my brother. If I can’t tell my brother what I really feel, then who can I tell? So I deleted my dishonest, chipper words and wrote something else. I don’t remember what, but it was truthful.
It still took me a while to be more honest with my Facebook page…but I am now a little, lonely looking blue hover-ball who is ‘confused because my life is just that way right now’.
Yesterday when someone asked me how I was I told them that I was having a dark tea-time of the soul.
I don’t know why, but being honest about that with people makes it seem more bearable.
Date of Origin: October 25th, 2007.
Friday, October 19, 2007
The Little Woman (in my head)
I have always had a distinct mental image of myself. It’s literally a little version of me who stands in the centre of the blackness of my mind, suspended in the empty space behind my eyes, reflecting my impression of my physical and metaphysical self.
This image has changed throughout my life. The first memory of my mental self comes from my childhood. I was innocent in outlook and physicality, looking out into the world with wide open eyes, a shy yet curious gaze through a fringe of unruly hair. Unaware of any judgement that might come from my physical appearance. I think this is from my preteen years, when I was 10 or 11.
In my next image I’m older, 16, shy and gangly and awkward. In my mind I’m awkwardly tall and hunching over to hide that height, my face hidden behind unattractive glasses, my hair plain, too long, held back simply in a low ponytail. I’m wearing a t-shirt that hides my figure, high-waisted jeans practical for chores and outside work that reveal nothing of my femininity. Shy, with no confidence, wanting to make friends but too uncertain to leave the edges of the social settings I find myself in. At home only with animals and the outdoors, a girl who experiences nothing but confusion when it comes to her own species. A dreamer who reads and creates marvellous adventures in her head but can’t interact with the reality around her.
The teenage awkwardness abated as I grew used to my body, and my mental image changed. My inner height changed to match my physical height and I no longer saw myself too tall and hunched over. I saw my figure begin to assert itself in my head, although my clothes still hid most of my femininity away under the guise of modesty. My eyes reappeared in my face. I was still perplexed when it came to interacting with people my own age, but now was of an age where the adults above me began to treat me like a peer, listening and being friendly with me. Because most of that change happened at work, my adult self wore my work uniform, and my at home self was blurry and extremely confusing.
The change to what I see now was a gradual and painful one. Figuring out who I am and who I want to be; learning that I am an adult and not a child, and what that looks like in real life; figuring out how to interact with a peer set made up of people my own age…change is always chaotic but with something so integral to my mental image of my self the chaos seemed more integral to my life as well. I slipped between different mental images, particularly with my family, and it was confusing to both myself and them. It caused fights and outbursts of anger as I jumped between mental images ranging from mature independent adult to toddler in the span of five minutes. Last Christmas in particular was a time of flux that resulted in some nasty interactions with my mother, painful inflictions that thankfully haven’t left permanent damage.
And who do I see now?
A woman. Standing straight and emanating confidence as I look at the world around me. Beautiful, attractive and secure in that knowledge, feminine and strong. Capable and talented, with a strong passion for life. Alone or with people, growing comfortable with my emotions and what I want. Whatever I’m wearing, however my hair is, whether I’m wearing makeup or not, I look beautiful to myself. My appearance doesn’t depend on my externals anymore. I am a powerful, sensual, feminine adult and I know it.
Even when I am full of uncertainty my inner image doesn’t revert to the images from my uncertain times of life. I may look like a woman who doesn’t know where she’s going or why, and I may be sitting down, head in my hands, drooping or kicking and screaming and throwing a tantrum, but I am still a woman.
Yeah. I am content. Confident. Secure. Adult. Feminine. Powerful. Unthreatened.
Wonderful.
Date of Origin - October 16th 2007
This image has changed throughout my life. The first memory of my mental self comes from my childhood. I was innocent in outlook and physicality, looking out into the world with wide open eyes, a shy yet curious gaze through a fringe of unruly hair. Unaware of any judgement that might come from my physical appearance. I think this is from my preteen years, when I was 10 or 11.
In my next image I’m older, 16, shy and gangly and awkward. In my mind I’m awkwardly tall and hunching over to hide that height, my face hidden behind unattractive glasses, my hair plain, too long, held back simply in a low ponytail. I’m wearing a t-shirt that hides my figure, high-waisted jeans practical for chores and outside work that reveal nothing of my femininity. Shy, with no confidence, wanting to make friends but too uncertain to leave the edges of the social settings I find myself in. At home only with animals and the outdoors, a girl who experiences nothing but confusion when it comes to her own species. A dreamer who reads and creates marvellous adventures in her head but can’t interact with the reality around her.
The teenage awkwardness abated as I grew used to my body, and my mental image changed. My inner height changed to match my physical height and I no longer saw myself too tall and hunched over. I saw my figure begin to assert itself in my head, although my clothes still hid most of my femininity away under the guise of modesty. My eyes reappeared in my face. I was still perplexed when it came to interacting with people my own age, but now was of an age where the adults above me began to treat me like a peer, listening and being friendly with me. Because most of that change happened at work, my adult self wore my work uniform, and my at home self was blurry and extremely confusing.
The change to what I see now was a gradual and painful one. Figuring out who I am and who I want to be; learning that I am an adult and not a child, and what that looks like in real life; figuring out how to interact with a peer set made up of people my own age…change is always chaotic but with something so integral to my mental image of my self the chaos seemed more integral to my life as well. I slipped between different mental images, particularly with my family, and it was confusing to both myself and them. It caused fights and outbursts of anger as I jumped between mental images ranging from mature independent adult to toddler in the span of five minutes. Last Christmas in particular was a time of flux that resulted in some nasty interactions with my mother, painful inflictions that thankfully haven’t left permanent damage.
And who do I see now?
A woman. Standing straight and emanating confidence as I look at the world around me. Beautiful, attractive and secure in that knowledge, feminine and strong. Capable and talented, with a strong passion for life. Alone or with people, growing comfortable with my emotions and what I want. Whatever I’m wearing, however my hair is, whether I’m wearing makeup or not, I look beautiful to myself. My appearance doesn’t depend on my externals anymore. I am a powerful, sensual, feminine adult and I know it.
Even when I am full of uncertainty my inner image doesn’t revert to the images from my uncertain times of life. I may look like a woman who doesn’t know where she’s going or why, and I may be sitting down, head in my hands, drooping or kicking and screaming and throwing a tantrum, but I am still a woman.
Yeah. I am content. Confident. Secure. Adult. Feminine. Powerful. Unthreatened.
Wonderful.
Date of Origin - October 16th 2007
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Like Mother, Like Daughter
My mother is a writer.
All of my life she has called herself a writer. I must admit that during most of my growing up she only wrote in her journal. Before she began her blog I actually didn’t see much concrete evidence of her writer status. However, she has always been a writer and I never doubted that.
I didn’t have a title until I went to acting school. After a few years I felt comfortable calling myself an actor. Well, actress – I don’t like the whole politically correct thing of everyone being actors now. I had my own title, I had my own life, things were good.
Then about a year ago I took a playwriting class.
God forbid I ever call myself a writer. I have always written, but it was more of a hobby. An interest, nothing more. I kept a diary from the age of 6, on and off, wrote several skits with my brothers, wrote a children’s novel in my teens that I never did anything with and I have at least half a dozen unfinished stories in my head and in my filing cabinet, but I was not a writer. It was an interest, an acceptable interest for an actress. Supplemental income and all that rot. So I took the class.
Within two months I began to wrestle with my titles. My teacher was calling me a writer. My classmates were calling me a writer. The other instructors in the school were calling me a writer.
I refused to accept it. Even though I was writing and nothing had ever felt so perfectly natural to me, I rejected the title with all the strength and stubborn willpower in my body.
I struggled and procrastinated like I had never done before in my entire life. The things I would do instead of writing! I suddenly found a passion for my annotated bibliography, the most pointless course I take here; I don’t think my room has ever been so clean and orderly. I vacuumed. I hate vacuuming. I washed other people’s dishes. Anything so that I could avoid writing my play.
I put an astounding amount of energy into avoiding writing. My ideas would come, my spirit would whisper to my muse, and I would evade eye contact. “If I can’t see you, then you aren’t reeeallll,” right?
I can only live in denial for so long, but it took a lot of wrestling before I broke down and called myself a writer. It did break me, even though I was alone that first time.
I go for walks when my thoughts get too jumbled up to the cemetery up on the hill, an old cemetery full of old graves of long forgotten people. I walked around the dead, watching my feet swish through the grass, scaring the grasshoppers into their rain-pattering flight. I was railing against God. Against my play. My idea, the only one I’d been given, was too big. Too dangerous. Too painful. It wasn’t fair, and I told God so.
I crumpled to the ground and with tears falling down my face I looked up to the sky and said, “I’m a fucking writer. Okay? I’m a writer. And I hate it.”
I uttered the phrase with a mouth full of resentment and bitterness. It wasn’t fair, I was an actress, I was not my mother, I refused to become my mother, and I knew this was the first step down a long and impossible backslidden slope.
Months later I finally said the words to someone else. I think my passion for writing equals my passion to act. It was strange to hear those words coming out of my mouth. The strangest part was that my resentment had disappeared. It was suddenly okay for me to admit that I could, perhaps, be a writer.
I’ve spent way too much time trying to figure out why I had such a strong negative reaction to being called a writer. I’m no closer to an answer, and no closer to knowing why it became okay. But I can call myself a writer now.
It scares me, but there is a peace in the fear along with an excitement as I explore this newly forgiven aspect of myself. The world seems like an open book, my oyster chock-full of pearls just waiting for me to come along and pick them up.
Like mother. Like daughter.
I’m okay with that now.
All of my life she has called herself a writer. I must admit that during most of my growing up she only wrote in her journal. Before she began her blog I actually didn’t see much concrete evidence of her writer status. However, she has always been a writer and I never doubted that.
I didn’t have a title until I went to acting school. After a few years I felt comfortable calling myself an actor. Well, actress – I don’t like the whole politically correct thing of everyone being actors now. I had my own title, I had my own life, things were good.
Then about a year ago I took a playwriting class.
God forbid I ever call myself a writer. I have always written, but it was more of a hobby. An interest, nothing more. I kept a diary from the age of 6, on and off, wrote several skits with my brothers, wrote a children’s novel in my teens that I never did anything with and I have at least half a dozen unfinished stories in my head and in my filing cabinet, but I was not a writer. It was an interest, an acceptable interest for an actress. Supplemental income and all that rot. So I took the class.
Within two months I began to wrestle with my titles. My teacher was calling me a writer. My classmates were calling me a writer. The other instructors in the school were calling me a writer.
I refused to accept it. Even though I was writing and nothing had ever felt so perfectly natural to me, I rejected the title with all the strength and stubborn willpower in my body.
I struggled and procrastinated like I had never done before in my entire life. The things I would do instead of writing! I suddenly found a passion for my annotated bibliography, the most pointless course I take here; I don’t think my room has ever been so clean and orderly. I vacuumed. I hate vacuuming. I washed other people’s dishes. Anything so that I could avoid writing my play.
I put an astounding amount of energy into avoiding writing. My ideas would come, my spirit would whisper to my muse, and I would evade eye contact. “If I can’t see you, then you aren’t reeeallll,” right?
I can only live in denial for so long, but it took a lot of wrestling before I broke down and called myself a writer. It did break me, even though I was alone that first time.
I go for walks when my thoughts get too jumbled up to the cemetery up on the hill, an old cemetery full of old graves of long forgotten people. I walked around the dead, watching my feet swish through the grass, scaring the grasshoppers into their rain-pattering flight. I was railing against God. Against my play. My idea, the only one I’d been given, was too big. Too dangerous. Too painful. It wasn’t fair, and I told God so.
I crumpled to the ground and with tears falling down my face I looked up to the sky and said, “I’m a fucking writer. Okay? I’m a writer. And I hate it.”
I uttered the phrase with a mouth full of resentment and bitterness. It wasn’t fair, I was an actress, I was not my mother, I refused to become my mother, and I knew this was the first step down a long and impossible backslidden slope.
Months later I finally said the words to someone else. I think my passion for writing equals my passion to act. It was strange to hear those words coming out of my mouth. The strangest part was that my resentment had disappeared. It was suddenly okay for me to admit that I could, perhaps, be a writer.
I’ve spent way too much time trying to figure out why I had such a strong negative reaction to being called a writer. I’m no closer to an answer, and no closer to knowing why it became okay. But I can call myself a writer now.
It scares me, but there is a peace in the fear along with an excitement as I explore this newly forgiven aspect of myself. The world seems like an open book, my oyster chock-full of pearls just waiting for me to come along and pick them up.
Like mother. Like daughter.
I’m okay with that now.
Saturday, October 06, 2007
Easier
It’s easier to be sceptical than successful.
It’s easier to question than to conquer.
It’s easier to rationalize your disappointments than to realize your dreams.
I don’t want the easy life anymore.
It’s easier to question than to conquer.
It’s easier to rationalize your disappointments than to realize your dreams.
I don’t want the easy life anymore.
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