Near – Far. Near – Far.

Anyone else remember those segments on Sesame Street?

Well, I recall it this morning around desire. Around the idea that if we’re not happy with what we have right now, why would we expect something more would make us happy later? If we’re not content in the “near,” how can we expect to be happy in the “far””

That said, I don’t know that I completely agree with this concept. I do “get” that it is important to recognize the gifts around us. Especially at this time of year, it’s easier to get that reminder to “give thanks.” It’s what I’m teaching my 4th graders lately, about gratitude, being happy with what’s around us, noticing what we have, and how lucky we are. By nature of our birth, we’ve landed in a circumstance where we’re healthy, educated, and pretty well off. In many ways, we’ve hit the lottery in comparison to the 8 million other souls on this planet.

I can count my blessings, though they are innumerable.

And yet.

What about the phrase, “It helps to envision our spiritual objective before we try to move toward it”? Isn’t that implicitly saying that we can want more, and we have to clarify what that is so we can get there? Isn’t there an inherent longing or dissatisfaction? A seeking?

So, today, I sit with the duality of … reality (sorry!): I am content with my life, and I want more for it.

A friend once said to me when I was in a lot of pain around a previous job, “Just stand at the copy machine and be grateful you are.” Included in that idea is being grateful for: being alive, healthy, employed.

And yes, of fucking course I am and was. But does that mean, Don’t dream beyond that?

Does that mean the longings of a soul are symptoms of being ungrateful? Hmm….

Happiness breeds happiness. Contentment seems to attract more of itself. I am a “law of attraction” kind of believer. I comprehend that living in where I am with adulation and appreciation and awe is crucial.

But. …

How do you truly sit with that frisson?

In the immediate present, in the “near,” I am going tonight to perform in a community theater production. A good community theater, at that. For years, I’d been dabbling at acting, and only at the start of the year did I make a conscious commitment toward it.

I am adamantly grateful, and also, this was all borne of restless desire and dissatisfaction.

I don’t know. I don’t think I can “figure it out,” and maybe I don’t have to. But, I will always find it difficult to “sit” in gratitude for things that make me feel I’m wasting my life. I have too much respect for the time we’re given to simply “be” in where I’m at when that feels deadening.

And maybe that perspective is “wrong,” and it perpetuates my dissatisfaction. Maybe this longing and seeking keep me from feeling fulfilled, but for today at least – however off-balance it may make me – I do have one foot in the near, and one firmly planted in the far.

Because, sorry Ekhart Tolle: I believe in the Power of Then. 

master of none.

There is enough time, he said.

B- B- But, my mind sputtered. What about ...

science?

what about math

you know my father is an engineer, my brother a physicist, that i scored higher on all standardized math tests, despite an advanced degree in english

what about the books on einstein, by feynman, hawking that line my shelf, half read, each, without someone to guide me through. 

what about advanced placement calculus?

what about the people who question where quarks go and think the slingshot of apollo 13 was beatific.

i can and could and might toil in the exile and ecstasy of "art,"

b- but,

what about...

everything else?

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow...

Why aren’t you writing for a living?

Because it’s just a hobby, an escape.

Why aren’t you writing for a living?

Because it’s too hard and I’m not good enough.

Why aren’t you writing for a living?

Because I don’t know how to show up consistently.

Any of these types of questions ever cross your mind? Any of these questions and immediate quashings?

This morning, that question came to me. I always dismiss my writing becoming a means or an ends. I don’t make the time; I haven’t touched the essay my aunt said I should submit to the New York Times’ Modern Love section. I haven’t crafted anything for the The Sun, a magazine at least 3 people have suggested I submit my work to.

It’s just me being me. How is that worthy or interesting or enough?

Because I saw someone else had clicked on it, I just re-read a blog I wrote in January, Remember What the Redwoods Told You, about being “told” by the trees that I was going to live through my cancer. And as I read through the end of it, about being given the chance to be in my life, to make this time worthy, I think about all the procrastination and fear I still let grab hold of my ankles.

This is not a self-flagellation blog; as you can read in italics above, I already have plenty of those thoughts. But, they are just thoughts, not facts. And thoughts can be changed. Through action.

“Act your way into right thinking,” the phrase goes.

I’ve “thought” for a while about waking up earlier (yes, even earlier) to do some “real” writing. It hasn’t happened yet, and that’s okay, but I know that I work better in the morning, when my brain cells still have some anima.

And as I was finding this question arise in my meditation this morning, goading me to find a legitimate reason for postponing my good, I thought of a perfect resource friend I can reach out to about this, and actually get something into action. And maybe deadline.

Because, as my acting friend told me earlier this week when I asked her how she “makes” herself learn monologues, she answered, Deadlines. She sets up deadlines by signing up for auditions, and makes sure she has a back pocket filled with current monologues.

To paraphrase, Our growth can come as much from our actively seeking it, as it can from being forced.

But, it helps to be pushed a little.

That’s what registering for these auditions is for me, a push to get back into it, to not let another month and another month slide off the calendar. To make this year “worthwhile,” to me means to actually do those things that I think are for other people, people with talent or time or resources. Bull.

The only difference between them and me is action. Nothing more.

A rallying, warrior cry sounds every day for me. It is my choice to heed its call or to roll over and hit Snooze.

And yet, it is also my choice to condemn myself or not on the days I do hit Snooze. As I wrote yesterday, there’s no use in beating myself up for not being where I want to be – that doesn’t actually get me there quicker.

What helps with all of this is accountability, which a deadline is, but also what friends can be. I’ve been toying with the idea (thinking, again!) recently of getting an “Action Buddy,” or “Accountability Partner” whatever you want to call it.

I know this is a system that works for many people, and I believe it could work for me. So, with all irony, I’m going to add “Get an Accountability Buddy” to my list of personal actions… and see if I can hold myself accountable to that!

Because there is no reason I’m not writing that is valid. I know there’s grist here; I know there’s “enough” talent. I would love to take actions that reflect that knowledge. Because, if you haven’t noticed, I seem to think that Time is our most precious natural resource of all.

Fulcrum

(No, sorry, this has nothing to with the group of evil spies on the t.v. show Chuck.)

Ever since I listened to this podcast on the development of energy efficiency, I've been thinking about developing a process to create more while expending less.

In "olden times," the podcast said, a day's work could earn you an hour, maybe, of candlelight. Imagine having to work an entire day, just to get one hour of power to your iPhone, let alone your refrigerator or car.

In contrast, through scientific achievement we now, through a day's work, earn a whole lot more power through our effort.

... I can't remember how many days it reported precisely, but to give perspective to it: I pay on average $12 a month for my PG&E bill. (Granted I have most of my stuff attached to power strips I turn off before I leave, and never leave things plugged in that I don't have to.) But, if I earn more than that per hour of my work, I've earned myself over a month of power in 60 minutes.

The point is, science has created a system whereby we work less to produce more. Our efforts are magnified through efficiency -- we don't have to work as much or as hard to get what we need. Science created a fulcrum, a point on which we can pivot our efforts to enhance them exponentially.

In my life, I am in a process and a pattern where I work a lot, like most of us, and what I earn from that pay supports a life that is getting by. I'm not saving much. I'm not spending much. I'm pretty much working to get by.

And I've decided I'd like a fulcrum.

To be specific, I'd like to work less and earn more. (Wouldn't we all? But yes, isn't that the point -- perhaps we can.)

I did some calculating this weekend, and I can earn what I'd like to be earning (more than a "getting by" amount) by working half the time, 20 hours a week, if I triple my hourly wage. Sounds far fetched perhaps. But stranger things have happened. And the rate I'd need to earn isn't outrageous. It's actually pretty attainable for a skilled service.

The question now is, what will the service, my fulcrum, be?

At various times, I've teased the idea of throwing caution and (my own) morality to the wind and thought of prostitution. I'm sure I could earn there, but at what other cost? Result: rejected.

Other thoughts:
Consulting -- in what?
Counseling -- perhaps -- more schooling then?
Coaching -- maybe -- more schooling, too.

But, we're back to the point of the fulcrum -- I can expend energy now in creating my fulcrum. It'll likely take time and effort, but boy howdy! The results!

I don't know yet what the outcome of this line of thinking will produce, but I like that I'm thinking this way, out of the box of where I usually look. Instead of looking again at the job sites I always look at to get a higher paying job but work the same number of hours, I'm realizing I need a different way.

Because I need to be available to the projects that ignite me, and I have to give myself the time and space to do that. ... Without being a starving artist -- I simply refuse to struggle more than I have to. It's not fair to me anymore, when I know there can be another way.

So, if I can find a kind of steady-ish, scheduled-ish vocation that allows me to produce more while expending less, ... well, as Archimedes said when demonstrating the lever:

"Give me the place to stand, and I shall move the earth."

In case you weren’t sure, I was the one dancing.

Last night, I got an email reply to my inquiry about volunteering for a day-long community social action project in the Fall. The call was for artists of all types, and if I’m anything, I am an artist of all types!

The email came back: YES! We’d love to have you; here are some painting projects: Create a mural; touch-up-paint a building; paint a wall; help kids decorate bags for food that will be donated.

If you read my blog, Men at Work, about circumstances that have come to fruition since being put in my “G-d box,” you may remember (as I do, since it’s now tacked to my fridge) that in that box was a list of things I wanted to do, accomplish, or participate in. The second on the list, just after "being in a band," is painting a mural.

At the time I was writing my blog about it, the mural didn’t seem so important anymore. In fact, I reflected, "Sure that’d still be totally rad!" but that doing a mural doesn’t feel as prioritized as some of the other items on the list, like finding a creative job I enjoy, or being in a musical.

And yet. Here’s an opportunity I would never have thought would come to be an opportunity!

The email said the mural would be in collaboration, and there’s more info that I’d gather from the committee members, so I wouldn’t be doing this in isolation at all.

However, I notice, too, that my typical/habitual reaction is to say, "I’m not an artist on that scale or level, so I’ll take the job of helping the kids decorate lunch bags."

I know that’s my automatic response. I know that’s my fear response. But, I also know that there’s validity in saying, I’ve never done this before, and I would love to help, but I’d also need help.

And, so, that’s likely what I’ll say. I’ll be honest with where my talents are, but also where my aspiration is. I mean, if I never, ever step out of what my comfort zone is, how will I ever know what I am capable of, hm?

That doesn’t mean taking risks at the detriment of a community project just to say, “Of course I can do it.” It's detrimental to me (and to them) if I take steps that are developmentally inappropriate out of fear or pride. That doesn’t mean not to stretch out of my comfort zone (which, FYI participating a mural at all is!!), but it does mean that I start with a 5 mile hike, not 10.

This all feels very parallel to the job of the lead role in the play I was offered. I know it’s a stretch of my talents. I know I’ve never done it before, but unlike the play, the mural is something I’d really love to do. I appreciate the organization, their mission, and think it would be a lot of fun.

More will be revealed. I will let them know my truth, and be willing to say, "I don’t know if I can take the lead on this project, but I would love to be 'second in command' or co-chair of it -- truly involved in its creation and completion."

Instead of playing it safe with the colored bags (something I know I can land easily, have fun with but not be learning much), I think the way to “dare greatly” here is to offer to help out on the mural however I can, and learn a whole lot on the way. Then maybe next time, I can confidently say Yes to taking the lead.

Here’s to being willing to cross more items off that list! (And here's to my "daring greatly" in the first place by writing to them that I wanted to be involved at all.) 

Yeah, But…*

Here’s something nobody knows about me: When I access something very truth-y in my morning journaling, my handwriting becomes miniscule.

Written like those boardwalk booths that used to write your name on a grain of rice, I find myself getting really tiny with my words – and that’s when I know I’ve struck something important. Shh, don't say it too loud or it might whisk off the page.

Let’s back up a little though.

Yesterday, I got to see my therapist (the Rosen Method therapist I’m still seeing. Despite my doubts before every time I go, I always leave laughing that I doubted). We hadn’t seen one another for about a month due to schedules, so I had a lot to catch her up on.

Last time we spoke, I told her I felt like I didn’t have any options available to me in dating land. Like Goldilocks, I’d experienced the too hot, the too cold, but have yet to find the “just right.” I mentioned this yesterday because I was talking about my job search. I told her that as I was driving over last night, I realized that it’s not that I don’t have any options available to me in job land – it’s that I refuse to commit to one path.

She challenged me on this a little, and asked if it was “refused” or something else. And, surely, it is fear and paralyzation.

Because here is the secret, sacred truth: I do know what I want to do.

I told her that I see my job options like a scene from Sliding Doors. If you haven’t seen the movie, the premise is based on Gwenyth Paltrow in one version of her life catching a subway train before the doors shut; in another version, she misses that train. At that point in the movie, we follow both these lives and their divergent challenges and successes (and haircuts). 

I told her I see three options of my job life for myself:

One: Be a Jewish professional, or a community professional, a leader, an organizer, a bringer-together-er.

Two: Do something counsel-y and social work-y, working directly one-on-one with the populations I want to serve, particularly youth.

And three.

And this is where I began to cry.

Be an artist.

I laughed through the tears, and said, “Well if tears are any indication of truth, then the third one’s the charm.”

The third one is also the hardest. Requires the most work, the most vulnerability, the most action, the most fortitude, and… the most uncertainty.

I told her I’m not willing to be a starving artist. But perhaps there’s another way.

As a note, by “artist,” I mean in all disciplines, starting with performance, starting with that Yoshi’s singer I mentioned yesterday. Starting with that dream.

I think I’ve mentioned here before that I’ve been told I don’t let myself dream. It came up a few times yesterday when I had to correct my “Yeah, But”s to “Yes, AND”s.

Every time I even begin to think about following this path, I get buried under a mountain of “Yeah, But”s. I don’t think I need to list them for you, since I’m sure you have your own bevy that attack your own dreams.

So, we/I were careful to reframe them. I told her at the end of the session that I feel like my whole life has been an exercise in “Yeah, But.” And she told me that that is changing; that I am changing it.

And it was in my morning pages today that I recorded something I thought of after I came home yesterday that actually knocked the wind out of me. What I wrote in the miniscule, micro-truth script:

When we are in alignment with our highest good, the Universe will rearrange itself to help us.

I don’t have to know how to do this. Because I don’t. What struck me so suddenly and viscerally were the words I’ve heard repeated for years: When we take one step toward (G-d / Fate / the Universe / our Highest Good), it takes a thousand toward us.

I will be carried. I will be helped. I won’t have to do this alone, because, “When the student is ready, the teacher appears.”

I was floored by this revelation. I was floored that I actually heard and felt and believed it. It was a moment of belief.

I take care of the What and G-d takes care of the How. I’ve heard this for years.

What I have needed to do is admit and commit to the What.

I have “Yeah, But”s coming up as I write this. About money, and too late, and this is for other people and other lives, and what are you thinking of me right now as you read this and are you doubting me and rolling your eyes, and how, and how and how.

Yes, I have doubts and fears. AND. I only have to hold onto the “What.” I only have to hold on to my dream. That’s my only job right now – to not go back to sleep, to not abandon my dream, again. To not continue to break promises to myself. To not drown myself in those fears and doubts. Because I am trying to live my truth. And all this wisdom says that’s all I need to do.

(You know, along with reaching out, asking for help, seeking people in these professions, gathering intel, honing my vision, practicing and learning the fuck out of it AND remembering that the pain of avoiding all this is SO MUCH GREATER than the pain of trying to do it.)

Molly, you want to be a singer in a band? You want to perform onstage in dive bars? And at Yoshi’s? And be a lounge singer? You want to feel proud and full and felt and heard?

All you have to do is say, “Yes.”

*(Thanks, Joel Landmine, for the title grab. See: Yeah, Well...)

I think I might be...healthy.

It’s been surprising to notice how nice I’ve been to myself this week as I crawl out of the hopeless, “what am I doing with my life,” place.

Without real conscious intention about it, while I’ve been wading through the mire of job postings and life meaning, I also allowed myself to buy a silly book, read it in the sun, and then go see a funny movie. I went to a community party, even though I still don’t feel “cool” enough to be a member of that community. Surprise! I know people who were there, so I guess I must be. I mean, I knew several people, wasn’t lonely, had many conversations, so I guess I belonged, right?

I made another nice meal for myself after therapy last night. I painted my nails for my job interview, and I’m awake again early to go to the gym to feel strong and proud and accomplished. 

I participated in a staged reading Tuesday night, my first. And I had the insight and perspective, as I sat in that empty stagehouse, to notice that I was doing what I told myself I wanted to do while going through my chemo. I could realize I was accomplishing my dreams. Following them. They sure don’t feel accomplishy (yet) in the dim lighting of a poor cast and poor audience. But, it’s a case of feelings aren’t facts.

I’ve had several long phone calls with good girl friends. Went out to coffee with a co-worker and sat in the community garden nearby, plucking a strawberry off its vine. I stood on a dock swaying in the Berkeley marina one day after work.

I showered.

Despite going through what feels like a dark time, a lost time, I realize that I have an impulse toward self-care I didn’t know I had.

Two friends texted me yesterday to reach out for support in their own journeys. To ask me to remind them that life is abundant and fear is an asshole. Which I gladly did. And it reminds me to remind myself of these things too, but moreso, it reminds me that those are core pieces of myself, pieces that friends see in me, and reach out to me for: I’m an uplifter. Not always, I’m not Pollyanna or inhuman. But, I am someone who more often than not is there to remind my friends that what we’re doing is not impotent. That life is worth living.

I’ve been prefacing my sentences this week with, “Despite the fact that the planet is dying…”! Despite the fact that the planet is dying, I want to leave an imprint in it; I want my life to count; I want to move the needle of human progress forward. Despite the fact that the planet is dying, we continue to bring children into this world because every generation has had its reasons not to. Despite the fact that the planet is dying, I will go to the gym today; meet with a former theater collaborator to who reached out to me about a book she wants to write; I will go to the farmer’s market and eat a plum off a tiny toothpick.

My habit toward self-care, toward health, has become something so natural in me that it’s unnatural. And if such things as this can make seismic shifts, I guess I can remember that life is abundant and fear is an asshole. 

Once More unto the Breach, Sorta Kinda.

Despite having gotten the “message” or “more information” about where I think my career path is supposed to, or rather, for the first time, where I want it to go… the hard(er) part is taking action to actually go there.

Although I’ve submitted my own promotion to my job, and would love to do this work there, it is unclear whether they’re in a place to support that work. And so, it’s up to me to put more eggs in more baskets.

I spent some time on Saturday updating my resume and cover letter. I had to go visit a baby(!!) so I still have some final work to do before I submit this particular one. And that’s where the stall-out happens. Any of you know this one? Heard this one before?

I’ve got this pretty particular set of things to do, in an order, in order to go where I think I want to go, in order to get what I think I want to get. … buuuuut. Well, there’s only 3 more episodes of this show I’m watching on Netflix (on my phone, I should add), so I’ll do it… later.

Gift and curse of cancer or any other mortality insisting event, or simply the past experience of soul-crushing procrastination, is you know that "later" may not be there when you are.

I’m reminded of a meditation I did once. It was probably around another time when I was demanding from fate and god and the universe that I get answers about what the f' I’m supposed to do with my life. But, I thought about this turtle that I sometimes meet in my meditations. And I thought about him walking to get toward this grass to get a bite to eat.

He is a turtle. He walks as a turtle walks, slowly, thoughtfully, without haste. When the f' was he gonna get there?? And I realized my fear was that the grass wouldn’t be there when he/I got there. If I move at a pace that is consistent, thoughtful, persistent, what if the grass simply isn’t there by the time I get there??

What the turtle had that I didn’t is faith. A true belief in knowing that the grass will be there when he gets there. That as long as he keeps on in the direction he thinks is best, care-fully and consistently, whatever he needs will be provided along the way.

Wise turtle.

I don’t know that I have, or had, the same faith.

I can’t tell you, truthfully, that watching more t.v. is a way of simply agreeing that abundance in the universe exists and I can lolligag all I want because of it. I can tell you that I have fear of where my efforts take me; that I have a streak of entitlement; that I want the outcome known before I walk anywhere at any pace.

But, I do want an outcome. As I’ve been writing, I’m tired of standing at the crossroad of my life, waiting for a lift that will never come.

There’s a phrase I hear around now: There is no ship.

If we’re all waiting for our ship to come in… sorry, bub, no ship.

That could be horrifyingly depressing. WHAT AM I DOING THIS FOR, THEN? If there’s no ship?? But, as I’m beginning to understand it, this phrase simply means that there is no skipping over the work, there is no lottery that dumps in your lap; that, like the turtle, you have to keep moving forward, and then maybe you build your own ship.

The idea is that there’s no white knight. That fantasy time is over. That we are our own white knight, if we are so brave and also disillusioned to be one.

So, unto the breach I go. Haltingly, uncertain of what I’ll find when I get there. But, if I have been given (finally, gladly, luckily, FINALLY, again) more intel on where it is I think I want to arrive, then I must get up and walk in that direction.

I must submit resumes, continue to clear the gunk from my soul, and write to you of how uncomfortable it feels to endeavor on my own behalf. 

Risky Business

There’s a funny little book I picked up a few years ago entitled, Steal Like An Artist. One of the tips in the book is, If you find yourself to be the smartest person in the room, go to another room.

I’ve been considering this sentiment as applied to satisfaction, success, self-love, financial security. At the risk of sounding like a self-aggrandizing schmuck, I think I’ve been heading to another room for a good little while.

But, I’m hesitant. I’m hesitant to leave those who I’ve met in this room, and all the rooms before it. I’m hesitant to let those friendships go, when I notice that how I’ve been ordering and focusing my life is not really aligned with how they are anymore. I don’t want to leave, but I kinda already have, simply by the efforts I’ve been making in the past few years.

It sounds like an asshole thing to say. It “sounds” judgey and materialistic and conceited. But, I don’t think it is. I think it’s one of the most honest things I’ve said about where and who I am in my life now.

To find a parallel that is perhaps less alienating, let’s look at alcohol. In two weeks, it’ll be 8 years since my last drink. Since that time, the folks who are in my life tend to also be people who don’t drink, or simply people who don’t drink alcoholically. I began to hang out with people who behaved in ways I did or I wanted to, and in the process, those who I used to spend time with began to fade. This wasn’t a judgment on them; it was simply an acknowledgment of what we now had or didn’t have in common. I’d simply moved to another room.

If you can hang with the non-judgment of that move, nearly 3 years ago, I began to spend time with people who didn’t accrue unsecured debt, who tracked their income and expenses, who were attempting to live a full life without bouncing along the disheartening bottom of “paycheck to paycheck,” “I can’t hang out because I’m broke,” “I eat popcorn for dinner,” and “I have holes in my socks.” (Each something I'd said...repeatedly, for years.)

As with alcohol, I had simply come to the end of my rope by how small and anxious and exhausting my life was. And, since then, I’ve been endeavoring to live differently.

In that difference, I’ve begun to notice that many of the folks whose room I’ve shared are still, in some manner, living a pinching, struggling life. And I’ve begun to notice that we don’t talk as much, that I have less to share about, that I don’t really relate or want to relate anymore. Just like I don’t really have much to say if you share about your drunken escapades, I don’t really have much to say about how you don’t know how you’ll pay rent next month.

All I really do have to say about that is, I GET IT. I have completely been there. I have, many times in my “adulthood,” had less than $3 in my bank account, and NO JOB. I KNOW what it feels like to have a life so small because you can’t afford the bus to see friends, or the $8 for the movie they're seeing, or just the $2 coffee chat. I know what it’s like to despair that you’ll never get out of the hole. What it’s like to assume that you’ll eek out a living … and then die. I know what it’s like to think about killing yourself because you can’t see any other end to the horrible cycle of constriction.

I know what it’s like to live small and afraid. And I know, now, what it’s like to find a way out.

I can talk to you about that. I can tell you I’ve found a way that works for me, and I can help or hope you find it, too. But, ultimately, that’s all that I can do.

And in that knowledge and acceptance of where and who I’ve become, a non-drinker who is attempting to live a larger life, it should only make sense that I would want to be among others who are living the same. Simply so I can learn. So I can hear, model, get hope, get help for myself. Because I am that person who was begging for help before, and now I want to be around those who can help me. Who have moved into a different room and found help themselves.

It feels so fucking lonely, right now. It feels judgmental and abandoning and selfish and crass. It feels like I’m waving a hand over a community that has loved me, and I’m declaring that world, “Not enough.”

But, in truth, it isn’t. For me.

I want to live larger, freer, more boldly. In the end, it's not actually about money at all. I simply want financial stability because it allows me to dream bigger, or dream at all, since I’m not agonizing over how I’ll feed my cat this month. Stability leads me to ease, and ease leads me to dream.

Today’s sentiments may sour in the mouths of someone reading this. I may have backs turned to me. There is a loneliness that happens when you’re transitioning to a new phase of yourself. But, perhaps in my acknowledgment that I want to be in that next room, I can help myself to get there. Perhaps in simply stating I love you and I have to leave you, I am offering more love than I had. I don’t want to be lonely; it’s part of why I do all this work, man. I don’t want to leave you, but our conversation has flagged. And it is/I am worth the risk of saying, Thank you, and maybe I'll see you over there.

"With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility." ~ Stan Lee or Voltaire?

I recently had this text exchange with a friend of mine:

You know, whenever you in particular “like” something I’ve written, it makes me think that I have something worthy to say and a good way of saying it. – This scares the crap out of me. – Knock it off.

“Both those things are true! And isn’t that kind of fear thrilling?”

*thrilling*

I hoped the sarcasm carried through text.

Last night, I spoke to a group of gathered women, sharing with them my experience, strength, and hope for a little while.

Afterward, the feedback included sentiments like, “That was beautiful, eloquent, articulate. It was like a short story. You speak like a writer. That was like a TED Talk.”

Little do they, or you, know, that a tiny little shoot of a dream tucked inside my ambitious heart is to be a TED talk person – on what, ver vaist, but I suppose that’s not my business yet.

This Sunday, I’m scheduled to attend a small writer’s group that’s just beginning, friends and friends of friends. It’s supposed to be supportive, just evoking some words onto a page, doesn’t have to be Faulkner. But one suggestion is to bring some writing we’re working on.

And, my brain says, I don’t write.

Here’s what I say when people ask me if I’m writing: Well, I do this blog, but other than that, I’m focusing on theater right now.

I don’t really write.

I know this blog is something. And I know that it’s worthy of being written for me and for those of you that enjoy it. I (sometimes) know it’s not a “brush-away” thing, but it’s private, still, sort of. It’s not a public venue, really; it’s not something to read at a writer’s circle, or submit to a magazine or journal. And I feel really unclear about what kind of venue this, my, kind of writing belongs in.

I do also know that I am focusing on theater right now. To use the metaphor again of my internal round table (well, it’s rectangular, but you catch my drift), all of them/us want to act right now, and only half-heartedly do they/we want to write, in a professional capacity.

I know one of the detractors is fear. And that’s alright, I don’t have to tackle all my demons or desires at once.

A friend once told me this: The only difference between fear and excitement is breathing.

That kind of fear, the fear that I might have something worthwhile to say and share and give. Something people want to read and be touched and changed by. Something that gets underneath the armor of separation, and helps us all to feel a little more vulnerable, aware, to smile & laugh & relate. Yeah, the fear of that kind of power, and responsibility, is pretty big.

So, I guess I’ll just keep breathing. 

Voice of Dreams Past

When I left South Korea in February 2004, my neighbor and Canadian co-worker gave me a journal as a parting gift. I didn’t realize til later on the plane back to America that he’d written inside, “Good Luck on Broadway.”

I just searched my blog to see if I’d written about this segment of my life earlier, and I have, but it’s worth revisiting today.

When I left my ESL teaching post in Korea, my first “real” job post-undergrad, I had the idea I would come back to the States and “break onto Broadway,” that I would work my way through the underworld of New York, the clichéd waitress by day, actor by night.

As I was applying for jobs, I went to get my nails done—because surely that’s a priority to someone looking for food service work…? I was in the salon, and began to chat with the woman next to me. I told her about where I’d been, where I thought I’d be going, and she said something that infiltrated. To paraphrase: You know you have to start in community theater, right? It takes years to do anything worthy of note. You don’t just start at the top.

Her words, combined with a moment of clarity about my ability to cope with life on life’s terms, led me to abandon my dream, drive west, and set up a new life in California. You can read about that story here.

But.

Last night, I went to my first rehearsal for the new play I’m in. It’s a staged mock-trial about the Rape of Nanking by the Japanese during World War II. It’s not a Sam Shepard, or Shakespeare, or Kushner. It’s not something I’ll actually advertise to my friends to come see, because I believe there will be more plays, with better scripts and an actual plot that I will want to encourage you to see me in. But, it’s a start. And, as I wrote earlier, I’m happy to be in your bad plays. And really, I am.

But, this thing happened while I was waiting for my table-reading rehearsal to begin: I heard voices.

Specifically, I heard a woman, probably a young woman, as the rehearsals are at SF State, singing operatically, and there was a chorus behind her. When I heard it, I stopped short, and followed the sound.

I stood on one side of a wall, the theater on the other. It must have been the scenery shop, with spray-painted borders on the walls and floors, immense pieces of mirror and wood. The sort of haphazard array of items you think of in any work-shop. I stood there, and I listened to them sing. To the accompanying pianist, the voice of the director, telling them something I couldn’t quite hear. She lit up the whole place, this disembodied voice.

And I remembered that part of this whole thing for me. That part of the motivation, that part of the dream.

Because, as you may have (or maybe I should have) gathered by now, this theater thing and this singing thing are related.

I do know enough to know that what that woman in the nail shop said was correct. That it does take years. But what my 24-year old self wasn’t able or willing or balanced enough to say was, So what? Yeah, And? That’s what I’m doing here, lady—I’m beginning.

I could look around the room at the director and my fellow actors and report that they’re all 10 years younger than me.

I could stand in that hallway listening to the voice of my own aspiration and wail I should have studied theater in undergrad.

I could comb through my neglected childhood, and poke a finger into the wound of not being encouraged to pursue my talent and my dreams.

But, Julia Cameron wrote something very significant to her naysayers (internal and external) in The Artist’s Way when she began learning to play the piano in her 50s.

“Do you know how old you’ll be by the time you actually get proficient at this thing?”

Yes, the same age I’d be if I didn’t.

I saw my friend Matt onstage last week. He’s been working in the theater industry since his 20s, went to school for it. He’s 50 now. He's not famous. It's his first SF play. But he’s working. Always working. And he loves it.

And isn’t that the damned point.