Social Skilz

I wish I had them.

I mean, I think I have some. I do have friends. I seem to participate in social events without making S. want to crawl under a rock. I appear to be capable of making a good impression on people.

But in some situations, the natural thing to do doesn't occur to me.

I just took the dog for a walk. We met an adorable little black pug. I have learned that when two dog walkers intersect, if they stop to let their dogs visit, only the dogs get introduced. It's a strange little phenomenon but it's just how it is.

We also met two people who were dogless. They were standing outside their houses, chatting. They introduced themselves, I introduced myself. And the dog. And then didn't really ask them any other questions. Half way down the block, after we'd left, I realized I should have inquired as to their jobs and lives, since they were obviously willing to chat with me and I felt that initial interested spark that indicates possible friendship. And since I'm trying to meet people right now since I haven't got many friends in Calgary, that would have been good to follow up on.

But I didn't. And now I may never see them again and have missed an opportunity to make new friends.

Sigh.

Maybe that wasn't an abnormal thing not to think of though.

Or maybe I've been spending too much time with the dog.

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.

Exchanges

I'm learning a lot right now, about myself, about my thought processes, about my perspectives and perceptions and assumptions.

I wouldn't have thought that Arbonne, a health and wellness company, would have spurred self-examination and growth; at least not so quickly. My sponsor told me Arbonne was a self-growth company disguised as a health and wellness company and it's proving true so far.

I signed up for several reasons. It's something that I think will keep me from being homeless while giving me the time control to pursue acting and writing; and I like the products. But I also was just tired of being unemployed, tired of waiting for someone else to give me a chance.

I went and listened to a talk by Keith Kochner - he's called the Gap Guy because he helps people identify the gaps between where they are and where they want to go and eliminate those gaps. It blew my mind apart. I wish I could have gone to the whole 2 day exchange, since a 15 minute talk had such an impact, but I didn't hear about it in time. Still. 15 minutes was enough to give me food for thought for a week.

He said in order to get where you want to go, you have to make exchanges. Obviously what I've been doing hasn't gotten me where I want to be. Why didn't I think of this on my own? I don't know.

And this will change my life. It'll help me to set and achieve goals in every aspect of my life.

Now all I have to do is implement it...

My Life This Past Month

I haven't posted anything here in almost a month.

It's not like I've been terribly busy this past month or anything.

This past month I've:

written
procrastinated
fought the darkness
fought the light
spent time with friends
isolated myself
cut my hair - bad, bad idea
been frustrated with and in love with puppy Z at the same time
gone and house/pug sat for my parents
become an Arbonne consultant

My life in a nutshell.

The last few days, since becoming a consultant, I've had an excuse for business. Huh. I meant to spell 'busyness' but I guess business works too. Steep learning curve but it's good for me. I'm already meeting some really cool people and getting out of my head - I had no idea how much I needed that until I started.

The last month for puppy Z has involved learning a few new tricks (she rolls over now, and we're starting her on a military routine - she sits, lays down, crawls a few paces and rolls over before sitting back up - you never know when you're going to need a puppy marine) and chewing on EVERYTHING. Hence the 'in love' and 'frustrated with'. She eats, literally eats, wood, whether that be baseboards or stair edges. And paint. And bits of the carpet. Argh. Just chew on your bully stick, you dumb animal. And then she sits there, all cuteness and little jowls, and how can I stay mad at that?

Lots of learning, on many levels and to many purposes. Life, I guess.

In a nutshell.

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.

Breathe

A week and a half later and I'm just breathing.

Man, what a rough weekend that was! On Friday I lost my temp job because they hired someone full time. It wasn't unexpected but I hate being unemployed. The days stretch on without an external force to govern them, no imposed schedule too often means no schedule at all for me.

But I had plans. I was going to focus all my time on the show. I was not only the playwright and an actor, but also Head of Marketing which was just about to kick into high gear.

And then it all got postponed indefinitely.

Now I have nothing to fill my days with. Nothing. NOTHING. Except to mull over and over what happened, what could I have done differently, what should I have said, what he said, what she did or didn't do...

Mulling can turn into brooding really easily.

Especially if you're a blue personality like I am.

I tried to shut it off, push it away and focus on other things, but every time I sat down to write that was all that came up. Anger. Frustration. Betrayal. Bitterness. Rage, and I was blocked, no words coming out except words of pain, my pain, not related to the work I was trying to do. I could journal until my fingers were numb but the second I turned to write something creative, whether it was something new or something I'd been working on for months and a giant rock settled itself in my brain and my soul and I was blocked entirely.

I'm working past it right now. Channeling all of my anger into angry stories. But it really felt like having one creative avenue shut down killed all of my desire to try again with something else.

Immature I know. But that's what it felt like.

So I put everything to the side, put my life on hold and ignored it all.

Until that didn't work anymore.

And then I began to sort, to think instead of brood, and I made myself sit my ass down in a chair and write even though I didn't feel like it. And what came out was angry, yes, but it was part of a story and I felt better afterwards. Like I had done something productive for the first time in days. Like I'd finally gotten out of bed and shown up for something instead of wallowing in self-pity and bitterness.

And I signed up for Script Frenzy, which may or may not have been an insane idea as I now have to write a 100 page script by April 30th but I suspect it'll force me to show up and move on every day, the external force I so desperately need right now.

We have an audition tomorrow. I hope it goes well - it could mean employment for the summer. Either way though, I will be imposing a schedule on myself. Waking up to an alarm. Going to bed on time. Eating when meals are supposed to happen and writing from this time to this time every day.

I think it's time I stopped drifting and made an island for myself instead of waiting to float into something. None of the things I've floated into this year have provided a lasting foundation.

It must be my job to create that for myself, with the help of God and the people in my life whom I trust to stick around and support me.

So here goes, and the whole while I'll just be here breathing.

We'll see what happens next.

We Strive And Strive And Then We Die

I was told the Eden story this morning. Twice, in fact. Once through LOLCats (which, if you haven’t heard of it, isn’t even English anymore but it’s own twisted subversion [and originally I meant sub – version but now I see the other word there as well and it works too] of it. An example. Genesis chapter one, verse one reads like this: Oh hai. In teh beginnin Ceiling Cat maded teh skiez An da Urfs, but he did not eated dem. 2 Da Urfs no had shapez An haded dark face, An Ceiling Cat rode invisible bike over teh waterz…and on it goes, until it hits my personal favorite of the first chapter, verse 13: An so the threeth day jazzhands.) On a bit of a side note here, since I got tangled up in parenthesis; I actually derive a great deal of pleasure from LOLCats. Now. When I first ran across the site I was horrified. I am now horrified when people use that kind of spelling in their daily lives, but a really clever LOLCats makes me laugh heartily. And reading the Bible in their language is a very entertaining experience, in short doses because after six chapters my eyes were crossing from the effort of it.

Back to my original point, and the other Eden story.

I was having brunch with one of my friends and her sister this morning when the sister told me the other Eden story, my first one of the day. We were talking about the divine feminine, and as often happens when the patriarchy of the church is brought up, the garden of Eden came into the conversation. I’ve often heard of the subjugation of women being justified because of Eve’s mistake, but the sister added a layer to that for me by telling me that serpents are ancient symbols of feminine wisdom (something I didn’t know) and she said she didn’t believe Eve was tempted by a literal apple but by wisdom, knowledge, and an increase to her natural birthright of intuition and feminine wisdom. She went on to say that she didn’t think Adam was tempted by either the apple or the wisdom inherent in it, but by woman herself…and what does that say about their relationship that he would choose Eve over God? My friend, who had been listening to this conversation silently while she ate her blueberry scone, pointed out that Adam had been lonely, had experienced loneliness – indeed, that was why Eve was there in the first place – but her sister said he also experienced daily, intimate communion with God.

The sister continued, saying that she thinks the reason men have pushed down women, denied the power of the feminine, ignored the references in the Bible to the divine feminine, is out of fear. Not a fear of a woman’s strengths. A fear that should a woman get herself into a position to make a man choose between her and God, that they wouldn’t be able to choose God any more than Adam did. A fear of their weakness.

It brought up some interesting mental fodder for me. How often our strengths become our weaknesses. The fatal flaw – the one thing that makes us a hero is the thing that will destroy us. A woman’s intuition causing a desire for more wisdom, for godhood; a man’s desire for companionship causing a turning away from God. This shows up in people all the time. I see it in manipulative women, in men who can’t settle down. Both seem opposing to the qualities of strength but they feel rooted there for me somehow.

I wonder if we seek to crush that in the other sex that makes us feel inadequate, that which shows our weaknesses and flaws; yet at the same time I think we choose mates that will trigger our insecurities and show us exactly what those flaws are, if we’re open to see them.

Do we seek a higher truth even in our subconscious? Do we seek whether we wish to or not?

As I thought about the imagery of God as female – apparently, according to my friend’s sister, Job refers to God as ‘the breasted one’, which is translated as ‘God of the Mountains’ or ‘Almighty God’ – it came to me that removing the feminine from God doesn’t remove that strength from women. It tries to remove it from God, which can’t be done. It vilifies it and makes it a sin for a woman to be a woman, to be fully feminine and powerful, it makes it wrong for a woman to not be more like a man.

We are very powerful creatures, us women.

My mom told me that when I was a girl.

At the time I didn’t really understand what was being told to me, but I had a vague idea that it had to do with our physical bodies and our ability to arouse. As I got a bit older I figured it meant that a woman’s power over men was entirely sexual, that we had something they wanted and our power came from whether we granted it or not.

Now I think it’s neither of those. Both of those. Bigger than those.

I’m still struggling to define what feminine power is, probably will be for a while as I sort through the lies and truth in my head and heart and soul; but what vague ideas I have so far tell me that yes, my body is a source of power in many ways. I can distract with it; I can give and receive pleasure; I can bear children and be the bringer of new life; but there is more. Not just my physical body has power. My internal body, my soul. My spirit and heart and mind. I am brilliant in so many ways. I feel deeply. I can heal and wound, I can speak my voice, I can move and dance and sense the power of the stars, of light over darkness, of darkness over light. I can choose. I can be a beacon of light and a harbinger of death. My body, my power, my strength, lies in far more than just sex and I am learning that slowly.

As I pondered, I wished that I had been shown this growing up, that I didn’t have to figure it out on my own, now, as an adult. I wished that being told about my feminine power hadn’t come shaded with overtones of sex, and the use of sex as power. I only got confused. Sex was bad, power was good, where did both land? Why tell me I was powerful in the only arena I wasn’t allowed to use? I wished I had been told of the aspects within me of Aphrodite and Athena, Artemis and Hera, the intuition of the Oracle, visions from the goddess, Gaia and Hestia. There are so many aspects to the powerful feminine, the divine feminine, and I am only learning about them now. I wish I had known before, instead of having to find them out on my own as I search for a vision of myself that is true and whole.

Although I might not get that whole look until I’m dead. What a fucked up faith Christianity is, huh? You strive and strive and strive and all the while you acknowledge that your striving is all in vain because you won’t achieve what you’re striving for until you die.

I don’t get it.

It sounds a bit like I’m disappointed in my mom. I’m not. I know now, in ways I could never have understood then, what her limitations were and that she did the best she could, she really did. And she is an example of the strength of woman, more so with every passing day. That strength and power was there all along – when I was growing up it was often hidden under walls of pain, pushed out in spasms of violent anger directed at her loved ones instead of at her enemies. In some ways my mother became a negative masculine force in my life through that misdirected anger and violence, because she refused to recognize the feminine in herself and she didn’t acknowledge that her voice had worth and needed – no, deserved – to be heard. I spent a chunk of the day mourning the childhood I should have had, the childhood she should have had, the lost little girls and the lost powerful young women we should have both been…the things we both should have learned the easy way, by seeing it lived, instead of the hard way of unlearning the lies and relearning the truth.

But that’s not the point. The point is that we both, my mom and I, are pushing past the lies that have been passed down to us and are finding our power, our birthright, and beginning to own it. We have finally acknowledged that our voices need to be heard, that we need to speak, that we are the reflection of the divine in all our selves, in all our femininity. And my mother is an example to me of strength – the strength it takes to heal, to grow and to forgive; to learn and relearn, and to not be afraid to teach; to ask for help and to ask for desires; to give and to receive. There is a lot there for me to gather up and claim as my own, my inheritance, and it has been hard won and I both respect it and revel in it, like the victors revel in the gory battlefield.

There is a lot of violent imagery there and I was going to say that wasn’t very feminine of me, but who the hell knows? Artemis was the goddess of both wisdom and war. Joan of Arc led thousands to victory before she was killed. There is a side to me that does revel in battle, particularly when there is a victory over an injustice, which is what I feel like my mom has fought a lot of in her life. I revel in her victory then.

Plus I’ve been playing a lot of Dragon Age and I just watched The Return of the King. Epic battles stir the blood, what can I say.

To continue. I know I already mentioned that we strive and strive and then we die, but I refuse to go along with this. I refuse to accept that I will strive for something I will never get to see. No. Fuck no. I will see my own power before I am dead. I believe that I can achieve this before the end of it all and I will see myself honest and naked and strong in all my glory.

I will.

And then I’ll probably die right away afterwards. There’s a bit of me that feels that to see that would be to see the face of God – which sounds like blasphemy, but before you haul out your lightening bolts let me explain why it feels that way to me. Because wouldn’t I then be perfectly reflecting His face? And isn’t that perfection?

So maybe I won’t arrive, but that’s not what I’m looking for. I’m simply looking to be able to live a life without fear, a life where I can accept who I am in all that I am. A life where I will no longer be afraid to succeed, where I will no longer play small.

And that, I believe, I can do.

Innocent and Ignorant Are Not the Same Thing

I'm sitting at home, making a roast chicken dinner. This should calm me, but instead I'm sitting here obsessing over the fact that I may have just made a huge fool of myself on this blog.

I've since edited the offending post, but originally in my "Emerging" post I mentioned some people by name, as well as some of my musings or observations of them. I wasn't meaning any of that to be rude or disrespectful, but it also never occurred to me that when I mention people by name, my blog is only a Google-click away.

I feel like such a fool. Nothing that I wrote was a particular secret - I chatted about all of what I wrote with my friends at one point or another, and I knew that most of them could read it anyway - but upon reflection I see how what I wrote could be seen as insulting or just plain rude.

That's the worst of it for me. I have just put myself out there (semi-anonymously) as this completely rude person when I really didn't mean it that way.

I feel like a toddler, too, just learning that my observations and thoughts on people that I genuinely liked when I met them have potential to hurt them and myself. I tell myself that I should have learned this when I was 3. Really, girl, think about what you say before you shake out your writing fingers next time, I scold.

Then I have to take a deep breath and remember to forgive myself and let go. And I realize that my knee-jerk impulse to just never show my face in the theatre scene again is probably a bit of an overreaction. I've done all I can to rectify the situation, there's nothing else I can do.

Let's just hope I've learned something from this and that it never, ever, EVER happens again.