The Truth Will Out.

(A quick note before I run off to our full-day tech rehearsal. To Kill a Mockingbird opens this Friday!)

On the heels of the “Don’t forget your North Star” blog yesterday and contemplation this week, I went to have a voice lesson with a former castmate. We spoke afterwards about my job transition and how he’d realized what his North Star was years before, and sure, he had to jump through hoops to get there, but it was and is worth it. 

He was telling me we have to listen most of all to ourselves, not to others, and to not let their voices drown out our own. But I replied, Their not giving me their ideas, they’re asking “What do you want to do?” and I keep on answering, “I don’t know.”

But I sat with that for a moment, and I corrected myself: No, That’s not true. I do know: I want to perform; I just keep dismissing it.

That, performance, is my North Star.

I went last night to see a friend of mine perform at her CD release party. The talent was phenomenal, but beyond that was the brilliance of her pieces. Honed, practiced, cultivated brilliance. That’s beyond, “You’re talented.”

I sat in the audience, and during one of her songs, I was brought to tears with its beauty. With the privilege of being alive and able to listen and be moved by such art. She created an atmosphere and an experience that wouldn’t have existed if she didn’t.

I want to do that. 

And I think it’s possible. I just have a few hoops to jump through. And a lot of learning and honing to do.

It is very easy for me to dismiss what it is I want, because it sounds frivolous or flighty in the light of day. It sounds vague and too artsy and too uncertain. But I’ve fought with myself for years to cop to my desires, and each time I dismiss it, I pull myself back into the dance of "I don't know what I'm doing with my life."

I can dismiss performance for many reasons: believing I’m not good enough; that it’s too late; for financial reasons; for I-want-to-be-approvable reasons. I want the easy check-box on the form of life: What do you do for a living?

Or, more accurate, What does your soul want to do?

In talking with my voice teacher, he basically said it’s possible, and it’s worth it. I drove back from there to meet with two women to get some perspective on all this job transition stuff, and to firm up actions steps I can take in the maelstrom of “What the F* are you doing?” that invades my brain.

They said, too, it’s possible, and it takes work. Don’t give up. Do not go back to sleep.

Here are some steps to take, Yes you’ve taken some of them before, but here they’re being suggested again. Try again. Talk to my friend, my sister, this guy I know.

No, it won't look like being a self-supporting performer, but it will look like earning enough to support those endeavors.

The artists I’ve met and spoken to this week all have day jobs. But they do it in service of their dream. It’s not an either/or proposition: Art or Financial Stability. Dream or Devastation.

It’s hard for me to keep my eye on where I want to go, and that’s why I have you guys to help me. When I finally ask. And when I finally am open enough to listening. To you, and to myself. 

So, How’s the play?

Oh, you mean that surprise piece of happenstance that's underscored how unhappy I was at work by how happy I am in rehearsal and performance?

That sudden flurry of activity that challenges me to quiet my inner critic and do what I’ve written here I’ve always wanted to do: perform and sing?

This universe of actor grumbling and sweaty mic packs and not enough room at the backstage table and no air conditioning and that railing that was never put in right and voice cracking and line flubbing and lighting failures?

Well, it’s fantastic!!

The buoyant aura of hard work and camaraderie, laughter and support. Even when we’re elbowing for room at the table, or need to ask someone for the hundredth time to hold your wig while you comb the bejeezus out of it – you know you’re doing it in the service of something larger than you.

To be in performance is so much more fueling than in rehearsal – like when they described Sex and the City, they said “the City” was the 5th main character. In a live performance, the audience is also a character, a member of the staged community. “It’s a great audience tonight.” “They’re not really laughing.” “They’re so into it.” You measure your performance not necessarily by how much they laugh or applaud, but by what they give you and what you give them back. And sometimes what you get is bolstering, and sometimes it's not, but it's always present. Creating something that never was and will never be again.

Flubbed it tonight? Live theater! Try it again tomorrow. Got your ridiculously long wig stuck on a screw during an entrance? Have your co-actor unhook you and get on with it. Didn’t get a laugh on that line tonight? Do it again tomorrow anyway, because you think it’s funny. Try it differently. “Let’s get crazy,” to quote a line from the show.

In addition to all this, I’ve loved the backstage buzz. People are talking about auditions and other musicals, and arguing about their favorite. People are going over their next audition monologues and kibitzing about where they’ll audition next and who the casting director is and if you saw that one last play, and Boy Howdy what a success/disaster.

It’s thrilling to me! Someone so new to this world, it’s like drinking from an oasis. People are actually talking about theater, about acting, about what they’ll do next. And it’s inspiring me to continue trying.

I know it would be very easy for me to not do anything for a while, because of my upcoming job transition. But, this play is part of the reason why I’m changing career avenues. And much of the point of the changing avenue is to change my schedule to accommodate being in productions.

Hearing all the dressing room chatter about upcoming auditions, I find I want to do more. And, like I wrote yesterday, it could be easy for me to let this thread drop when it’s over – I know how to have a flurry of activity followed by inaction. But being in the belly of the action, hearing words fly back and forth and the encouragement and the excitement shared by the other actors… I’m demanding from myself that I make these outreach emails and audition calls now, before the play is through.

So, how’s the play? It’s changed and is changing my life.

It’s hard, and I feel inadequate, and I judge myself against more experienced singers. I dread these two lyrics in the whole show and challenge myself to not dread them, to be present and let it be what it’ll be because it’s not the all of who I am or what I’m giving.

The show is fun and takes effort and requires me to be present and accommodating and kind.

In short, the show requires me to live. And live bravely. Amen. 

Dream Girls

If we can pass others on the street and think to ourselves, “There, but for the grace of G-d, go I,” isn’t it possible that others can pass us and say the same thing?

I spent last evening at a Queen concert. It was balls-out amazing: the talent, the showmanship, the technique and the bravery to stand out there, bounce around a stage and invigorate a crowd of thousands.

I had a moment while watching Adam Lambert, who was filling Freddie Mercury’s shoes pretty darn well, when I realized that only the slightest differences existed between the two of us.

Go with me here. A plane takes off for New York, but the compass is one degree off. You end up at the Nyack mall instead of JFK. One degree. Completely different destination.

If there is just the “grace of god” between me and the person I see huddled under the freeway gathering up their belongings as the cop car pulls two wheels up on the sidewalk to shuffle them along to another temporary spot, isn’t there just the “grace of god” between me and Adam Lambert? Or that woman I saw perform at Yoshi’s a few years ago: She wasn’t perfect. Her pitch wasn’t always on, but she was a performer. She had the crowd completely, she enjoyed herself, she was proud, vivacious, and seen. And she wasn’t perfect.

I don’t even remember who she was, except she was the singer of a bluesy/jazzy band, and she was fierce. She was a large woman with a large smile. And as I watched her, I thought to myself that I wanted to do what she did; get up there and perform, without needing to be perfect – because if that were the case, I don’t think any of us would ever do anything, including Adam Lambert.

Over the last year, I have adjusted my compass to be bringing me closer to that point on the map. I am not so far away in the Canada hinterland, but perhaps flying somewhere over Buffalo by now. (Can you tell I grew up back east?)

Julia Cameron writes in The Artist’s Way that it isn’t talent that creates success; it’s tenacity. It’s being a dog’s fierce jaw chomped around a toy rope, refusing to let go.

The guitar player, Brian May, dazzled the crowd with a 10-minute long epic, cacophonous solo. It was like a safari inside of music itself: strange, elegant, mystic, and ancient. I said to my friend, That’s what happens when you spend 40 years doing only one thing.

That’s what happens when you decide that you love one thing, that you’re good (enough) at one thing, that you want others to know you do this thing: You become great.

Here’s to finding—or claiming, rather—my thing. 

Being There

See, there’s two things I’d forgotten in all the sturm&drang of rehearsals & work & sick & crossing bridges & lack of down time: I’m actually good at this acting thing. And I enjoy it. 

In the maelstrom of preparation, I forgot why I was doing this.

As I sat in our reserved cast seats in the front row of the audience, watching the other actors before my scene perform, I got a few minutes to gather myself, and reflect. Something the director said during the “let’s get PUMPED” speech before we got into costume helped to remind me: She said, This is for you. This isn’t for your friends, your parents, your partners: This is for you.

This is for me, I repeated to myself. I remembered that this isn’t for a resume, for a good story to tell when I’m older; this isn’t for accolades or for money. I am doing this acting thing, because I enjoy it. Because it’s FUN. Because, once I do get through rush hour traffic from Berkeley, once I do find parking in the Mission behind some dude drinking Steel Reserve and selling electronics out of his car, once I do get upstairs through the weird haunted building, I come to a black box theater.

In that theater, I’m there to have fun, to enjoy myself, and to share myself. I’m there to engage in something I thoroughly enjoy, just for the sake of it. How fucking novel.

It was and is nice to have been sought out during the wine&cheese reception after the show by a cute little gay boy and his girl friend, to have them sidle up during a conversation with a beamish grin, and tell me how great my performance was. That they got chills. To ask if I did that thing with my hands on purpose, and wow, you did? Wow. That was so great.

It’s gratifying to know that something that I actually enjoy doing is enjoyed and appreciated by others—that’s true, too. (We are only so spiritual!)

But then, isn’t that the point of theater, too—to affect another person. To affect an audience, to help them experience something? Sure, Mol, sure. Yes, you can enjoy the accolades, too. As long as they’re not what’s driving you.

In the chaos of rushing to work, to rehearsal, to home, to do it all over the next day, I began to feel weary. I began to feel like maybe I’m not cut out for this—that maybe this hustle is a younger person’s game. Maybe it’s too late for me to be high-tailing it all over creation in service of a pipe dream.

I really was beginning to wonder if I would audition again.

Part of my delay/hesitance recently, is that I knew I was in a production that was taking all my time & memorization space. Part of it is that I know I’m going out of town in April, and didn’t want to audition for anything new when I’ll be gone. (Cuz, it seems to me that working actors can’t really take vacation…)

And, part of it was/is just plain exhaustion and feeling grueled instead of fueled.

But, I am getting to see that perhaps this is just part of the process. Part of that “put in the hard work to enjoy the results” thing that I’m so loathe to do most of the time. HARD work? Meh.

But, perhaps that’s what’s required here, to get the feeling I had last night. Sure, I fucked up some lines, but people didn’t seem to notice. I still got to feel the sense of “right place.” In the chair, on the stage, in front of lights so bright you can only make out shapes in the audience; hearing the sound cues, the mounting tension of my scene, the mounting tension I bring to my scene. Getting to be there, getting to sit in that chair and show you what I’ve got – It was... well, enlivening.

There’s a phrase I’ve heard to name those times when you are so engaged that you feel out of time, out of the chaos of place, when you are so in something that “time just flies,” – it’s called being “in the flow.” When you are so engaged in what you are doing, when you are so enjoying what you are doing that you are somehow matching the heartpace of the Universe. When for moments or even hours, you just feel in it – your speed aligns with the speed of life, and you flow, you coast, you glide.

In it. To be IN IT. In life.

There was a moment, too, as I sat in the dark audience awaiting my scene that I remembered something I sometimes do: I survived cancer to be here, and I am HERE. Staking a claim. Making a name. Claiming my own.

The gratitude I felt to get to be in that PUMP YOU UP circle before the show: All chaos, time pressure, toll bridges are lost – and I’m just there. 

Wow. Wowie Wow Wow

(Christopher Walken on SNL; check it out if you don’t know; too funny)

You know when they (I) say “Both/And”? That life is both this, and that. It is inimitable and gripping, and sallow and challenging? That life is “everything all at once”?

That you are both excited for your new callback and getting dressed to get a possible melanoma removed?

Yeah. Both/And.

So, that’s happening right now. In a little while.

I went to the dermatologist about a month ago to get a strange new mole checked out on my back. She told me that that one was nothing to worry about; that, in fact, it’s the kind of mole you only see on fully adult homosapiens. So, I asked, then basically, this new mole is a Rite of Passage Mole? That I’m officially an adult human, now? Wow. Weird to have your skin tell you it!

You, Molly Louise, you are now officially an adult. Instead of a parade, statue, medal, or email from the Universe, you get this nifty little mole on your back. Holler!!! Luckily, I think it’s kind of awesome and funny, and I’m really not concerned about the aesthetics of it – it’s not gross or repulsive or anything. It doesn’t have a satellite moon orbiting it or have a hair growing from it. – although the Derm said that a hair is usually a good sign that a mole is not malignant.

(It’s this an awesome blog topic!)

"BUT," she said. …

"This other one…" and took out the little 6-inch ruler she kept in her white lab coat. "Well, this other one, …"

Yeah, that one’s kind of new too, in the last year for sure, I told her.

So, today I have it taken out. Which means, they have to dig all the way through ALL of the layers of skin into the fatty flesh below, and take out, like a dowel in the earth, a cylinder of my skin. Yum.

It’s a small thing, it’ll only leave a centimeter of a scar, but for a few days, until the stitched, sewn-together skin around it heals and seals together (our bodies are amazing), no heavy lifting or working out the same way.

Meh. C’est la vie. Small price to pay for solace of mind.

Although, when I told someone when I found this out those few weeks ago, that it was a possible skin cancer thing, they said, oh, no big deal, that’s simple, they gauge it out. Done. … Well, I felt like that was a tad insensitive. I mean, this was coming from another young cancer survivor!

I’m not “worrying twice,” and it is something you just take out (I think – I don’t know – I’m not Googling anything until the doc indicates I ought to). But, it’s still a (what’s “less than worrying”) – Ah, concerning, it’s still a concerning thing. So, I’m concerned. So I get it checked out.

I think my Rite-of-Passage Mole might be on to something.

And, further in the Wow category, this acting thing. Wowie wow wow, man.

It’s so fun. Sure, I talk about the isolation it offers when you’re practicing lines alone, auditioning alone, but, the camaraderie that it leads to, is the point. The opportunity to turn the light on in an audience, to share something with someone else, is the point. And this is the path to that.

I’m stoked.

I have no clue if this is beginner’s luck, if anything more will happen, if I’ll circle around the drain of “aspiring actor” for years. But, SO WHAT.

When I think back to what it felt like on Saturday to join into the lobby of a group of folks, stand around awkwardly in a room with other aspirers, to have my name called, and to walk down the dark aisle of the near-empty theater. To stand on a real stage under real lights, state my name and my piece, and perform it. To have the director say, “Very nice. Thank you.” To then walk back up that aisle less than two minutes later, and gather my purse and walk back out into the amazing Berkeley Spring day?

Well, I’ll tell you:

Wow. 

Give me some wool, and I’ll spin you a yarn.

I have another audition tomorrow, this one for the role of a mother in her early 40s. And I’ve been thinking about who I can believably "play," what my “place of life” would be as a woman in her early 30s? I feel too young to be the queen, to be the mother of adult children, but I feel too old to be the ingénue or the lover. But I suppose I fall more easily castable into the latter category. Lover, Romantic, Unwed.

So many actors have sordid pasts and upbringings, making it easy and understandable to want to lay on the skin of someone else, the idea that it’s easier (safer?) to be someone else than it is to be yourself. However, I think I’m realizing that to take on the skin of someone else means that I have to find that person within me, those feelings, and then face them, understand and inhabit them. And not all of those feeling are easy for me to have. Not all of those parts are natural for me to play.

And I think that’s why I love it and am challenged by this so much. (With all my scant experience!) I will have to find the romantic within me, the tyrant within me, the tortured within me. I’m going to have to let my internal flashlight illuminate corners I’d rather mark off-limits. Some of those corners I avoid because I’m afraid I’ll enjoy them too much—Who doesn’t want to dissolve into rage instead of pulling yourself up to decency? Who doesn’t want to allow the gnawing chatter to become a cacophony and play itself into Ophelia’s mad death? How easy it is to go mad; how very hard to stay sane.

And, surely, some of the corners of experience I may be asked to play, I don’t want to go into because I’ve spent so many years avoiding what they demand of me. To fully feel passion, desire, or even (don’t say it!) love?

It’s amusing to me that once I changed up my blog settings to list the subject tags in order of frequency, “love” became the first one. I think it makes sense if you put before it the words: “avoidance of,” “challenges with,” “attempts at,” “softening to,” “fear of.” But, just “love?” Hm. Yes, it makes me smile.

I also know that acting isn’t therapy, and can’t be primarily intended to process my own demons or fears through its use, but I can’t help but imagine there will be some side-effects like that. I imagine that I’ll get to see where my flashlight is happy to go, and where it isn’t. Where I’m naturally at ease, and where I’ll have to cull my acting chops.

But, isn’t that the thrill of anything new? Isn’t that the thrill of being alive? Being challenged to feel, do, and be that which you weren’t able to before, simply by the act of showing up with intention?

I have no idea how long or wide this acting path will be for me. But the caves it is already calling me to explore are worth the price of admission. 

Postcards from the Edge (of a Bookshelf)

Two nights ago I picked up a book that’s been on my shelf since July of last year. I brought it back with me from New Jersey, where I’d stayed with my brother and attended a good friend’s wedding. My brother was getting set to move from his (omg LUXURY) apartment (by SF standards) to Baltimore to live with his long-time girlfriend. (Seriously -- a huge one-bedroom for $950. Come ON!, she drooled.)

He was getting rid of nearly everything. And my brother is a keeper of books.

I didn’t know this about him. We haven’t lived in the same place since I was … 23 and he was 20, still living in our childhood home. So, for about ten years I haven’t been able to witness him living on his own, developing his own habits and patterns, becoming a real self-sufficient adult who buys his own eggs and toilet paper, and who apparently keeps books.

I am not a keeper of books. I am a library whore. I love them, escaped to the one in our neighborhood growing up, and mostly, I like to live light. But, as I’ve settled into my own adult-ness, and one place-ness, and probably not moving anytime soon-ness, I’ve begun to slowly add to these shelves.

And when Ben was about to throw out (or dear god, I hope donate!) almost all his books, I scoured his shelves for anything that wouldn’t weigh down my carry-on bag too much. I took a few “classic” novels, returned my copy of Catch-22 to myself, a few books on physics, and two on acting.

One is by Mamet, and is a little too mean for me (not as in base, but as in incompassionate and didactic). The other is called Auditioning by Joanna Merlin.

My brother had the great experience and success of doing the plays in high school and in college, and I even flew back once for his star performance in undergrad (the play of which I cannot recall), to attempt to make up for the years when I’d been absent from his life. He was a fun actor, an able one, and I still hope/wish that he takes it up again one day.

Confidentially, (if this place can be called that), acting was one place for him that his stutter completely disappears, and he is the confident man I know him to be.

The Auditioning book hadn’t a crease in its spine. Brand new. And Ben gladly passed it on to me.

I began reading it again because in class at Berkeley Rep on Monday, I opened the notebook I’d brought, which I use for theater stuff, apparently. In the notebook were some handwritten notes and quotes from Merlin’s book. I must have written them down when I was reading the book last summer, and then promptly put it back on the shelf.

The quotes were revelations, the extending of a hand down into the dark world of trying and hoping and trying some more in the course-less world of theater. I took the book back off the shelf the other night, and haven’t been able to put it down since.

There’s practical information about what happens at an audition, compassionate anecdotes about sitting in the waiting room for one, and tips and exercises for how to explore a scene or monologue. It’s a great book. I’m devouring it. And I know I’m at a place where it’s relevant now, where it wasn’t when I began it a year ago.

I have a frame of reference now; I have a better understanding of the challenges I’m putting in front of myself, and the ones that are inherent to the process.

If my best friend hadn’t gotten married, if I hadn't had the funds to go, if I hadn’t stayed with my brother, if he hadn’t been discharging all his books, if I hadn’t taken this class at Berkeley Rep, if I hadn’t picked up this very notebook, I wouldn’t have gotten this gift.

This tome is a welcome hug and nudge on a path I’ve never walked before – but someone else has. 

Brain Dump.

i could write about how beautiful winter is here

that right now the rain is dripping over the green and flowering
back garden and tree-hidden houses behind my building.

i could write about how i feel stuck on this writing/
self-inventory i’m supposed to be doing, and haven’t been able

to work on because we’re not doing it the way

it was designed, and i feel lost and unsupported

and conflicted about telling the person I’m working

with because i have before and things haven’t

changed, and I don’t know if it’s just me being

stubborn or avoidant or if this is really just

too precarious to attempt by myself, when

the work was designed to be done in person

with another person.

i could write about how i cancelled my audition

in san jose last night because a) i didn’t realize

how far san jose was, and b) i think i might get

the role I auditioned for on wednesday in Marin

and the plays run concurrently.

i could write about coming home last night, instead,

and “resting,” actually lying on the couch after cutting

up some beets and turnips and putting them in the oven

and putting a blanket over me and my heating pad and

shutting my eyes. and just letting myself and my eyes, especially,

rest while the vegetables roasted. how luxurious it felt

to simply do nothing – not nothing, aka watch netflix,

not nothing aka clean my house, just nothing, and not

nothing aka meditate, which could be similar but wasn’t

as my mind wandered and i let it, and i let it get a little fuzzy

and out of focus as my cat balled up in my lap to rest, too.

i could write about my friend texting me his friend’s dad is

about to die from cancer, and texting him my sympathy, but

that i wasn’t available to process around grief of that kind.

I could tell you, it’s because it’s too activating for me because

it reminds me that my cancer is only a year past, that last year

at this time i was preparing for my fifth and final round of chemo

and hearing about someone else’s cancer just reminds me how

close i am to mine.

                               but that’s not why i didn’t want to hear

about it. i don’t want to hear about your friend's cancer because i

don’t care. because i realized when i got his text that i am still

so viciously angry about what happened that i don’t have room

to be compassionate, really. because i only have room to think

about my own cancer, and to especially not think about it. to

not touch into the feelings I still have about it.

                                                                          and then we’re back

to the work that i’m not writing about right now that’s supposed to

exorcise and alchemize resentment and trauma and pain.

i could tell you that i don’t give a shit that other people have cancer

and you’re having feelings of finality and loss and grief, because

i sat in the sodden, rotten trench of it for a year, and i’m pretending

right now that i hadn’t. that i hadn’t had to think about mortality

every single day. that the finality of life wasn't consistently licking

at my ear, whispering about carpe diem and fatal rules about forgiveness 

as health. and boo-fucking-hoo that any of you now are called to
process such things with such naive surprise as if none of this existed
before it happened to someone you have a glancing acquaintance with. 

i could tell you i looked into the woman who’s profession is

helping others heal from trauma. and that my tax return might go

toward sessions with her, or someone she recommends in the east bay.

i could tell you that my eyes hurt from looking at computers all the time

and that i’m also grateful that my job doesn’t include working outside

in the rain or food service or pest removal or any other thing unpleasant.

i could write about any of these things. but
                                                                  i guess i just did.

Fortune cookie wisdom: Action is the key to success.

I didn’t actually set my alarm last night, so you get an abridged blog. I have an audition tonight in Marin, and I wanna make sure I shower!

I spent some time last night after I got home from rehearsal culling through the near 200 photos that the headshot photographer put in her gallery from our shoot a few days ago –they look AMAZING. Not “me” per se, though I don’t look half bad, but the style, the lighting, the cropping, the angles, everything, I am SO glad I paid for a professional shoot finally. As I’ve said, I love and appreciate how my friends helped me with some before, but this woman shot Rainn Wilson from “The Office,” and he got work… so…! Off to perfect my snarky, sarcasm then.

I can’t wait to write her a Yelp review, which is how I found her anyway. She used to work in LA, then was commuting to work here and in LA, and now is just here – to be close to her man, Aw…

Out of 200 photos, I get to chose two that I want her to “basic retouch,” and then I get all the rest by disc. Oh, the choices! But I’ve narrowed it down to half a dozen, with one being my stand-out – like, wow, Molly you look like someone who actually does this.

It’s again how I felt walking out of rehearsal at SF State last night – I said aloud in my car, “I’m so proud of you, Molly.” It’s such a nice feeling to have about yourself.

I also, last minute, a.k.a. Monday, signed up for an audition that’s being held this Thursday, and both tonight’s and tomorrow’s have very different needs for audition pieces.

Luckily, for tomorrow’s I’ve reached back into what I’d done when I was auditioning while I was a student at Mills, the piece I was using in the Winter of 2011/2012. I didn’t know if I’d still remember it, and I fell FLAT when I used it once then (“I’m sorry, can I start again; I’m so sorry, can I try it one more time”) – oh the poor auditors! I didn’t have it memorized.

But, as I went over it yesterday while driving to rehearsal, I realized, I do actually remember it mostly, and I can hope to get it by tomorrow evening (or just admit I don't, and use a notes) – Luckily, tonight’s is a cold-read audition, which means I don’t have to have anything memorized, I’ve just gone over the “sides” (the pieces of the play) that they want us to read from. It’s going to be a group audition, since all of the scenes have multiple characters in them. If I--- I was going to say, If I get this role…  but I won’t, not from fear of jinxing it, but simply because I want to remain true to my intention, which is to show up for myself to the best of my ability, and leave the results up to whatever they will be.

I’ll still be using my old headshot that I got a year ago, when I had like an inch of hair, but, I’m already in the door, the rest is up to the “me in person.”

Break a leg, Moll. Break a leg. (OH! And BREATHE!) 

For those of you playing along at home. . .

For those of you playing along at home, below are a few updates on things I have here written about:

• The caffeine-reduction experiment has been a near-fail since beginning the temp job, but continues to remind me to feel guilty.

• I realized this morning that the free bus I sometimes catch to BART can take me all the way to the city, instead of transferring to BART (thank you to my school’s student bus pass, making bus transit in the East Bay free).

• I put back up the series of my paintings that I’d taken down during Calling in the One, at which time I’d realized that women not looking at their lovers was something I wanted to move away from. I put them back up when the okJew was potentially going to come over, and I didn’t want a blank expanse of wall over my bed. I'm not sure if I'll take it back down. 

• I have not yet finished, but I have begun, the art project for my friend’s wedding. It sits on my desk, accusing me.

• I bought cat food.

• I graduated with a Master’s degree a month ago. And I was offered a weekend job at said pet food store. Generously offered (not the compensation), but no thank you. Not yet, at least.

• I have art that I need to make for the September art show my friend invited me to join. I’m not sure what I’ll do, but it’s been backstroking through my psyche for a month or so.

• I must follow-up with the boss at where I'm temping to ask her precisely what she meant when she said she would be happy to give me "a recommendation" for auction houses here and in the city (um, I meant NY city – I guess that habit still dies hard).

• My dad will be closing on the sale of my childhood NJ home in the next month or so, and is planning to move with his fiancé to their new Florida home toward the fall.

• I am eagerly awaiting June 20^th, when the results of the daily sweepstakes I’ve been entering for a trip for two to Italy will be announced. You may be the lucky winner.

• My writing style is influenced by who I’m reading currently.

• At the moment, I just finished Nora Ephron’s new book, and began a collection of essays by David Foster Wallace, whom I’ve never read, but seen the author’s name so many times on my BART rides that I thought to give him a whirl. I’m not sure I will continue.

• I will be art modeling this Sunday for the artist who I first worked for, and two of her friends. I’m not sure I will continue.

• I have 9 new voicemails I haven’t checked.

• I went on the walk I’d planned to take on Tuesday evening yesterday evening, and it was glorious. I ate what must have been a small, cherry-sized peach, unless it was of course, a cherry, from a nearby tree which I jumped to pluck from the low hanging branch. I’m not dead, so it was not poisonous.

• As soon as I get paid this cycle, I’m going to register for the summer acting classes at A.C.T., and I can’t f’ing wait. I looked up all manner of electronics yesterday that I could hypothetically use my more regular income of the next 6 weeks to purchase, and yet, I realized that what I really want are those lessons. And new shoes.

• I’m now working one-on-one with a woman who’s found recovery around negative patterns of behavior with sex and men, and I’m infinitely looking forward to freedom around some of this.

• I’m continuing to work with a woman one-on-one around financial recovery stuff, and am looking forward to being “placed in a position of neutrality” around money.

• I love Patsy.

• I haven’t yet played my bass with my friend with the drums up in Berkeley, and it too stares at me, not gently weeping, but with silent mewling.

• I realized that most of the writers I’m reading right now have written as freelance writers, and it occurs to me, that I might be able to do that, if I look into it.

• I haven’t applied to any jobs since last week.

• I used my 3 lb weights yesterday after my walk for about 3 minutes. And began to dread the 3 hour posing/drawing session on Sunday.

• Dr. Palm Reader’s office wrote to ask after me, and so I looked up my soon-to-end chiropractic benefits “in network,” so that I can get back to that kind of thing, without breaking my bank, or participating in a somewhat murky flirtatiousness.

• This is the end of my list. 

Pulling a Carmen: 2

When I began this blog-a-day back in November of last year, my first post was called “Pulling a Carmen,” as I'd been reading and was encouraged by her own blog-a-day postings. In the time since, sometimes I just find it hugely funny how parallel my path is to my fellow blogger and friend.

For recent example:

• I also just starting going back on to the internet dating scene. In fact, I have a coffee date today with someone I met on JDate

• I too have said fuck it, and asked out a dude yesterday. Unfortunately, turns out he’s married, but it felt really good to do so.

• Several of the books that are lining my desk and bedside table are travel books about Europe, underlining my intention to take a real freaking vacation some time this century.

• And, I also rented a camera and video camera from the school’s A/V department to begin taking pictures again. 

Sometimes I feel awkward about our exceedingly similar trajectories, as if I’m copying her, but the reality is that independently, we come to these things, and then come here to write about them. It’s really funny, and also somewhat comforting to know that there is someone who is traveling a similar path toward “To thine own self be true.”

On that note, I went to see my friend’s band play in the city last night, and then headed with my girlfriends to go out dancing in Oakland. Prior to both these… we went to the Dharma Punx meditation – nothing says spiritually fit like meditating for 40 minutes before downing coffee with an add-shot. ;)

But to relate it to the ‘self be true’ part – each of these are places where I want to feel more connection. I hadn’t been to see live music in MUCH too long. It’s on my current list of “Serenity Moths” on my refrigerator (a list of things that aren’t cataclysmic, but slowly and subterraneaously eat away at my serenity and foundation). Yes, “Absence of live music” is on there, and so should be “dancing.” I’m a white girl. I have no ambition or goal to be anything but a mildly flailing Elaine Benice, but … i love it. The absence of self, the absence of self criticism or posturing or need to be anywhere or anything else. Lost in the music.

The band brought something else up for me. Like the “dropping” of the whole acting bent at the beginning of this year, what I’ve dropped more often than anything is the “being in a band” idea.

As you may know, I have 2 guitars, a bass, and a small USB plug in keyboard. Each as dust-covered as the next. The bass amp sits as a monument to abandoned dreams in my apartment.

Last night, watching my friend’s band, I remembered that this is something I want to do. In fact, I’d emailed one of the guitarist’s wife about 6 or more months ago to talk to her about her own process of getting toward singing in a band - embracing her inner teenage rock chick. If I had my … well, if I had my own back, I guess, I’d play bass, and I’d sing. Talk about vulnerability.

This week, I stood practically naked in front of an audience and spoke my poem into a microphone in a moderately full theater. That isn’t nearly as frightening to me as standing in front of an audience, singing, or playing.

The truth is that for several years, I’ve been gathering information about the whole bass playing thing. But, no, I haven’t been playing. A few years ago, I asked a guy I knew for bass advice, and he sent me a long list of places to start (which I didn't pursue). About a year later, I contacted this other guy about bass lessons (which I didn't pursue). … And the guy I asked out yesterday is also a bass player. Apparently, I have a thing.

Every few years, I’ll troll craigslist, and I’ll answer a few ads for singers. I even recorded myself a little on my computer’s Garageband to send as a sample. I got a “not a good fit, but thanks anyway” from one, and no reply from another. And, hey, I don’t blame em. When I’m terrified, it comes through. I don’t know. I’ve written here about it kind of frequently – and dismissed it and been “embarrassed” by it just as often.

However, once again, the thing that occurred to me last night as I watched my friend’s band was another case of “I want to do that” … followed by “I can do that.” There is no one stopping me, obviously except for myself and my fears, and that critic that says “Not good enough” and chops me off at the knees before I start.

One thing I’m working on releasing at the moment, a pattern and belief and behavior that is just not fucking serving me anymore, is my need or habit to stay small.

When I was living in South Korea, my friend nicknamed me “Ballsy Mollsy.” I had the absolute chutzpah and hubris to ask anyone anything, go anywhere, and do pretty much whatever I felt like doing in the hedonistic way most drunks do.

However, there is a quality of that Ballsy woman who still I am, somewhere, and who I want to resurrect or reveal or uncover or let loose – or even just let into the light a little tiny bit.

I find it’s happening in some ways. And I know to have compassion for myself as I try to aim in this direction which has been a Siren song for me (uh, no pun intended) for … oh, 15 years.

But compassion for slow progress, and acceptance of stagnation are two different things. And I’d really like to move forward from here.

So, for your reading pleasure, here’s a poem composed about a year ago. Reading aloud is encouraged.  As is recalling the line "So let it be written, so let it be done." Cheers. m.

Band Practice

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"I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life"

When I was growing up, when my family went on long car rides, my dad had instituted a rule. My brother and I could only ask the question “Are we there yet?” three times, combined. Not three for him, three for me. Not phrased differently to bypass the rule. Three times. Are we there yet.

I’m sort of glad the Universe doesn’t have a rule like that, although I suppose it sort of does. For the number of times that I’ve asked what’s next, the answer remains as vague as the Magic 8 ball’s “Reply Hazy – Ask Again Later.” Apparently 3 seconds later is not later enough, and you get, “Cannot Predict Now.”

But, it’s sort of comforting in some ways I suppose. A friend said to me recently that we don’t know what’s next because it reminds us we’re not G-d. I also heard that G-d loves us just enough to not let us know what’ll happen next. The perpetual “SURPRISE!” type Higher Power. But, really, I think that if I ever knew really what was to happen next, I’d spend a lot of time manipulating to my way of thinking – if I’m meant to go in direction A, then I’ll start to pack for that direction, not knowing that perhaps I’m supposed to go to A, but with a byway in L, Q, and H in order to learn what I need by the time I get to A.

I was out with a group of us school poet folk last night at dinner after our performance poetry … performance. Which went highly well, I’d say. Pretty full theater, no technical problems, and, me, in my makeshift nudesuit – because really, when the else time would I have the opportunity to do that??

So, we’re out at dinner, and the women who are finishing their first year are asking about my experience there, if I took cross-courses at Berkeley, if I’ll stay in the Bay Area, and what’s next. And they’re just curious. I say that I really took school sort of as a walk – I looked into taking a GTU cross-course, but didn’t. But, I took painting, and singing, and acting. I mean, it is a liberal arts college (though you may not guess that from the highly funded business school it now hosts). I did take the school experience as a bit of a walk. It wasn’t academically rigorous. I think I took one class that had a lot of reading on theory and criticism. I took one that had moderate reading like that. And the rest, well, they were pretty much, write poetry, read poetry, discuss poetry. Period. It was sort of awesome.

I suppose I feel a little chagrined at not having taken more advantage of the opportunity, but then on the other hand, I think I also took great advantage in ways that weren’t as “rigorous.” I did just find out yesterday that you could rent the most awesome a/v tech equipment for up to two days – even lighting and high tech cameras and video cameras – so I’m a little bummed I didn’t take advantage of that – cuz it sounds AWESOME. I guess I do have a few days left! Maybe I’ll be a filmmaker for a few days, as I continue to send out tendrils into the work world.

I have one more class to complete. I have a class time on Thursday for Acting Fundamentals, and then our class performance next Wednesday. It’s just a scene, each of us students paired with someone and doing a scene assigned by the professor. But, I feel really comfortable there. I forget. I mean, after that flurry of activity in December and January around headshots and auditions and monologues, I let it all go to focus on school, which was appropriate, but now that I have a little more breathing room, I hear it. Like I hear the painting studio.

Stress and creativity aren’t quite compatible I suppose. But, in any case, being on stage last night (though I wish I’d reread my piece before I got onstage, as it was quite distracting to know I was/appeared naked!), and practicing my scene with my class partner, I mean, I just feel like I know this. There’s an incredible amount to learn, but I know about blocking, and staging. I helped the two of us create movement in the scene, to listen to the text and let it inform us. I also tried to not be bossy ;) as this was a joint effort. But I felt in my element.

I have an invitation to have coffee with an acting friend of mine – something that’s been pushed down the pages of the calendar like a shuffle board disc, and I intend to ask my acting teacher to coffee for an “informational interview” type conversation. But as I continue to look for work, to find out where and how I’m supposed to earn, and embody the question “what can I give” rather than “what can I get,” and let go of the Am I There Yet, I can also take FULL advantage of what I have in front of me – advocates, peers, and a wicked a/v department. 

Reframe.

In a stroke of inspiration, I have produced both disappointment and excitement. Disappointment, as I’m not sure I’ll wear a nude body suit for my Performance Poetry class final performance. Excitement, as I think I know what my piece will be about.

As I’d mentioned, I needed to see if the whole brazen nude body suit thing would be supported by the content of the work – why wear that if you’re going to tell lyrical poems about cherry blossoms? This morning, however, I believe I was struck with the inspiration paddle, and think I know what my piece will be about.

Originally, it was to likely be about a woman’s relationship with her body, how it waffles between ownership by self, and ownership by others, including mainstream media, etc. But, I feel that I’ve covered a lot of that for now in my thesis work, and although, sure, that’s an issue that’s present or “up” in my life, as I began fleshing some of the new idea out in my morning pages this morning, I think I’ve found something riper, funnier, more relatable, and interesting. I’ll keep you posted.

I’ve started using a different morning pages notebook, as I’d finished my last a few days ago. It’s thinner than the last, but much larger pages, which equals much longer writing in the morning. (It’s also made from post-recycled materials, so it’s not new growth trees being cut down so I can write, I wonder what the Harry Potter stars are up to now – which, yes, occurred this morning along with all the else.)

I was a bit intimidated to be writing these 3 long hand pages much longer – would I have enough to “fill” it? What more could I possibly have to say. But I actually think this new length is just right for me. It’s longer than the last, and is giving me the room to get further into stuff before I wrap it up or end. Which is partly why I think my new idea for my performance came about – there’s more room to work it out, and watch it stumble across my page.

On another note. My friend left yesterday, and my little space is my own again. Driving to the airport at 5am will a) make you appreciate a rental car, and b) cause the skipping of my morning blog yesterday, so please forgive. I was a bit pooped and outward energy depleted from the trip.

It was very good practice, though, I believe. To wake up and have a person there. To go to sleep and have a person there. Granted, on the pull out couch, but still. I’ve been a solitary bird here in my apartment for a long time, and having another human here … well, was interesting to notice how I act and react.

Part of me is enormously proud that I got in most of my morning practices, and I stayed within my spending plan for her trip, and brought lots of snacks and meals with me so I didn’t have to eat out very much at all. Part of me is very acutely aware of how other-centered I become in the presence of someone a) so close to me, and b) who's in my space almost 24/7.

But, the good news, is that I noticed it. And I began to do my best to reign back in my codependency. I don’t need to complete your sentence. I don’t need to add in my two cents about your story with my own. I don’t need to be thinking of how to respond or what I’ll say next to keep the conversation interesting and exciting.

It was hard, honestly, in the few times that I consciously thought, I can let this thread lie. I don’t need to pick it up. It wasn’t that I was being cold, or uncommunicative. But when there came moments when I certainly had my opinion, or an alternate opinion, I didn’t have to voice it. I could let my friend state her opinion or share her story without having to add in my own or contradict or augment what had already been said.

Some moments, it felt to me like there was a huge, blatant gap in the space when I was usually "supposed to" say something. And it felt awkward and uncomfortable for a moment – within me. Surely, she didn’t realize anything, and a new thread of conversation would be picked up immediately. But I noticed. I noticed, basically, that I was holding my tongue.

Which, I suppose, leads me back toward my own center. I don’t have to put out every idea or thought in my head. I can let myself rest in the calm of a conversation, or someone else’s story. This isn’t a very frequent habit of mine, usually. Although, I do tend toward the loquacious side, with my friend from New Jersey, we’ve spent so many years as the other’s half, it’s “natural” to want to just chitter chatter away. But, I realized it’s exhausting.

She, again, was not asking me to contribute in a way that was depleting. And it also comes back my former habit of accepting jobs I don’t want, when they’re not asking me to give from my dregs. If I take care of my center, notice that my focus is somewhere in between me and another person, me and a job, and can bring it back to myself, and sit, sometimes in the discomfort of not engaging in a behavior that leaves me feeling depleted, then I get the chance to give from my best, and also, to simply rest in the companionship of another person.

Of indeterminate weight

I met with my thesis advisor for my last meeting with her before I hand it in to the school library to be bound and put on a shelf with all the other theses that won’t be read ;) No, but really, I see the light at the end of the tunnel finally. It sort of looks like a disco ball, or headlights – in other words, it doesn’t look normal. But I suppose none of this is normal for me.

The general feedback I got from both my advisor and my faculty reader were both rather generic. One said, This is indeed a poetry thesis (great, it’s not an aardvark). The other said, It was actually interesting (great, glad you didn’t drool sleep spittle on it). But, really, I didn’t get much constructive feedback, which is a) a little relieving, and b) not very constructive.

For all the work and mental crises, a check mark, basically. But, c’est la vie. I have a few things that are room for improvement to edit/revise before she sees it again for the final sign-off before April 20^th. Also, I have it out to two poetic friends of mine for their eagle eyes on it – for, hopefully, some specific feedback.

But, for all it is now, it’s a bit anti-climactic. Which, is better than drama I suppose.

Drama will come both literally and figuratively in the two final performances I’ll have in May. The performance poetry piece I’ll write (….???) and the acting scene. I met with the poetry teacher yesterday to talk about performance persona vs. character. Theater vs. performance art. And it was helpful. If only to confirm that the “amped up version of self” that I consider performance art is actually what he also means. He clarified that it doesn’t mean to do as he does and dress as a chicano in drag with a sombrero and a dog collar. That’s his amplified version of self – for me to do something like that would be … well, who knows, maybe one day – but for today, something else.

I’m not sure what the work will be about. But I know how I’ll dress. If you remember from the Performance Persona blog, I said that the most authentic persona I could be right now was myself – well, I intend to wear a nude body suit, only.

I’d had this thought way earlier in the semester. Something about both the vulnerability and yet boldness of it appeals to me. With so much work that I’ve been doing to get comfortable with my body, present in it, a part of it – well, why not?

The only stipulations the school has, he told me, was no full frontal nudity. And he said he’d never tell me to pull it back. So, now I need material that will warrant that. Do I need to go that far? Is it sensationalism? Does it matter?

I wrote a few poems for performance yesterday, but they don’t have quite enough meat to support the visual. But like a great pair of shoes – sometimes you build the outfit around them instead of the other way around -- and so I will just have to build a performance around this visual, costume/non-costume.

I had the strangest dream that two friends insistently brought me over to do my laundry at my ex’s, and I was reluctant, as his new girlfriend might be there. She wasn’t there, but he was on the phone with her, and I felt all awkward, but everyone else seemed to think this was fine.

Random side-note. 

Performance Persona

The first week in May, a few things will happen. On the Tuesday, I will be performing some of my poetry with my creative writing class in an end-of-semester performance in the actual theater at school – for somewhere between 3-7 minutes. And on the Wednesday, I will be performing a scene with a partner for my acting class final performance, where people will be invited in to come see us.

This reflects back to me something I sort of already know about myself and my passions – I have a hankerin’ for perfomin.’ Some folks do; some don’t. – I do.

In my creative writing class, we’re supposed to, or invited to, work on a “performance persona.” I’ve been marinating on this, and not to use what’s apparently become my catch phrase – “Yeah, but…” – I have realized that so much of the work I’m doing and have been leading up to is to drop the persona.

Most of my life, I’ve walked with a persona on of some sort – the shy girl, the drunk wild girl, the promiscuous girl, the “nice” one. I’d like to come back to center for a moment. Or longer.

Basically, I think that my greatest performance persona will actually be my authentic self – that seems to me, for myself, for now, to be the bravest person I can show you on-stage. Now, of course, it is performance, so it’s a bit of an amplified version of self, but it’s not obscured, which I think is how I’d been before.

So, I love the intention, and think it’ll be simply fun to play with a persona, that’s, to me, what acting is about, not performance poetry. In acting, I am someone else, with a different history, mannerisms, inflection. I am shy or wild or promiscuous or nice, and I call on those parts of me that understand that experience, but it’s also acting.

An interesting distinction was made by my performance poetry teacher on Tuesday between the two – he said that he likes to use the microphone and the music stand still in his performances as opposed to without it, as without it he thinks indicates theater, and with it indicates the tradition of poetry and writing. I don’t know that I fully agree, but I understand his point, and it was interesting to then ask myself what do I consider the difference, if I’m using my own work?

What is performance poetry, and what is theater? Do I consider them different if I’m speaking my own work? I actually think I don’t. I think it’s, like I said, an amplified, perhaps more emphatic self, but I don’t think it’s removed from the writerly tradition to not use pages and a stand. When I’ve performed… there it is – I was intending to say “when I’ve performed my poetry in the past,” and that’s what I consider it. I don’t really consider it “reading,” unless, really, it’s reading.

Even when I stand with my papers in front of me, and a podium and a mircophone at a poetry reading, it’s still performance. This isn’t just “reading,” as I would read to you from the phone book, or a text book. It’s enhanced, it’s intensified, it’s amped up inflection and emphasis and meaning and pause. I want you to be moved to emotion. 

Seems like theater to me. 

Although, it’ll also be nice to let myself play with the extremities of a performance persona, just to try it on and have fun with it (who doesn't love a good wig) – I still maintain that my boldest persona is just me, micced. 

BART: BY ALLAH, RISE THESPIAN!

Hahahahaha! Hahaha! Sorry, that was the acronym that occurred to me when I was trying to figure out how to express "spiritual experience on a urine-smelling trans-bay public train." And, lol, I really like it – it makes me laugh!

In any case, I will start toward the middle, and work my way back to that.

I arrived at the audition for the musical theater company, attempting to still my breathing into something less hyperventilatey. I arrived, got the information sheet, and took a seat on a plastic chair in a long white hallway with other hopefuls. If you’ve ever sat with a group of aspiring musical theater folks, or watched Rachel on Glee, then you have some idea of the kind of energy that is spit balling, pin balling, manic speed balling against the very narrow walls.

Add to this the fact that at this particular audition, the walls were very VERY thin. i.e. we, hallway hopefuls, could hear every single note of the person auditioning as we sat on our “Next!” chairs.

So, while sitting, I decided it would probably be good to get my heart rate down from 76 Tromboning through my chest. You know that really high heart-rate feeling, where you’re pretty sure everyone else can see this thing pulsating through your clavicle? So, I began to meditate. Because it was the only thing I knew that might calm me down. I’d looked at my music again, but at this point, whatever was going to happen, would happen. I knew I didn’t know the lyrics as well as I’d like, and I knew I hadn’t rehearsed as much as I’d like, but, there was no more, really, I could do at this point. I even tried to read a little from a spiritual book I brought with me, but I wasn’t absorbing a thing. It was like water slipping off oil.

So, instead, I sat. And began to breathe. “Think of your breath as a bridge between your inner world and the outer world. Notice where your breath goes as it comes in and goes out. Don’t try to change it, just notice. Is it deep, shallow, cool, warm?”

And I continually came back to this line of meditation guideposts, because it would often be interrupted with comparisons. “That person sounds really good. Why didn't I choose a better song? Oh, they didn’t hit that note right. Eesh, are they really going to hold that note out.” And this, began my heart-thumping all over again. Back to the breath.

Because that’s what a lot of the hallway energy is – am I better or worse than you? Are you better or worse than me? How to I stack up? How do I compare? How will I do?

And, believe me, a constant chatter of comparison against anyone, “better” or “worse,” was enough to bring me out of any sense of acceptance of que cera cera, whatever will be will be.

To quote what I’ve heard many times, my job is only to do the work and show up, and leave the results to G-d (Higher Power, Universe, … or Invisible Sky Fairy, as my great friend likes to call the Power and Calm and Connectedness we all have within us). So, however I do in that room is really none of my fucking business. (It is my business to prepare more, but, c’est la vie. What’s done is done.)

There comes a moment when I’m meditating – vaguely aware of the people going in and out of the room, shuffling through their sheet music, someone’s mom nervously helicoptering around her – when suddenly, and surprisingly, it all goes numb. Suddenly, my heart rate has slowed to a lull, my breathing to a calm almost still stream, and I begin to experience the tingles that I’ve come to associate with my HP. Perhaps you’ve experienced them – I had them at that camp experience I told you about, and when I hear a particularly moving piece of music, or when I hear a story of divine intervention, and sometimes even at the end of one of those sappy rom-coms when everything swells (uh, pun intended?) and joy radiates from the screen and sops right into my core. – Those tingles.

Suddenly, sitting in this hallway, I am calm.

It’s hard to express the depth of that moment, but you will perhaps identify with it, and also with the near-immediate return to the more fervent breathing and heart-rate. But for a few seconds, my tromboning heart was still. I was moved, and grateful, and surprised, and most of all, reassured.

On my way into the city for the audition, I had to get copies of my acting resume printed, and was in the copy shop. I was ahead of a woman who offered me a stapler, and I said, Sure, as soon as I stop shaking! I said I was heading to an audition and I was really nervous. She said that when she was 16 (i.e. a long time ago), she was going on a clarinet audition, and her teacher said to her, Imagine you are 74 years old, and how insignificant this will seem to you then. And though there’s a part of me that feels that auditioning for a musical for the first time since I was 17 is actually quite a significant and really awesome thing, she’s also right. It’s one audition out of many I believe I’ll have. Whether it’s this, musicals, theater as theater, or none of the above, I don’t know. And I don’t much care.

What I do know is that sitting in that plastic chair, I knew, bottomlessly, that this was a part of my path. Showing up, doing this righteously scary thing, is beyond significant for me, and is helping to shape the entire rest of my life.

Which, then, brings me to the BART moment. For those uninitiated in Bay Area public transportation, BART actually stands for Bay Area Rapid Transit, and is a train which crosses under the bay, connecting SF to the East Bay. It is also a carpeted train system, which means it hangs onto every loogie, urine, spill, and foot traffic odor and stain that marks it. It’s not the place you want to bring a hot date. Nor, in fact, is it the place you’d imagine having a spiritual experience. But, to get back to the point.

Sitting on BART, on my way into the city with my headshots, and resumes, and sheet music, and palpating heart, I began to go inward here. Where I went is somewhere I know – it is an open field, surrounded by a forest. I discovered this place the first time I said it aloud to my therapist a few years ago, “I feel like if I step out into the light, there's a sniper waiting to take me out.” I have felt, for a very long time, that if I step out into the sunlight, the stream of life, my power, my gifts, my nudges, that I will be cut down, metaphorically gunned down by the sniper(s) who stalk those trees. That as soon as I step foot out of the shade and into the field, BAM!, dead.

Although we’ve, and I’ve, been doing much work to dismantle this fear, it’s always been on my radar of “Don’t step too far into your own life, Molly. Stay small, stay hidden, stay safe.” I am mostly clear on when and how these ideas formed, and indeed, it had been important for me for a long period of my life to stay small, hidden, silent, and therefore safe and lovable. I am only lovable if I am small. If I get too big or loud, I will be quashed down.

These beliefs are very old.

So, yesterday, on BART, I found myself in that forest and field. I stood in the middle of the field, flanked by all of my teachers, guides, and supporters. A troop, or a menagerie, or a coven, of strength. From this place, I invited all of the snipers to come out of the forest. I told them that their work was done, and they were no longer needed. That, as you can see, I have an entire community of entities to help protect and guide me now, and that their job is now obsolete.

I swept my mind’s eye through the forest to the right, and invited the soldier there to come out. He came forward, and I thanked him for his service, and let him know he could now leave. And he did, through a wooden hatch door that appeared in the grassy ground before me and my team. Down he went. I scanned through the woods from right to left, and invited all the troops out, watched as they lowered their guns and slung them over their backs, in a position of neutrality and peace. I thanked each one, and at one point it felt like there were dozens, and they just all flitted down through the hatch with my general blessing.

Finally, it seemed like there were no more snipers in the forest. But, I went to take a look to ensure I’ve created an entirely peaceful and unendingly safe place for myself. And, in fact, I found one last sniper. I walked into the forest, and a ways back, he was, lying on the ground, resting against a tree, maybe with his camo hat pulled forward over his eyes. And I approached him, and told him it was time to leave. He nudged up his hat, looked up at me, and said, “Are you sure?” Are you sure you don’t need me anymore? Are you sure it’s safe to go out into the fields? Are you sure that my work at protecting you is done?

Yes.  Yes, soldier, I am sure.

And so, we both walked out, tromping through the forest into the sunlight of the field, and I held onto his arm, like an old friend, because in essence, he was. And we feel kindly toward each other – even though yes, he’s attempted to kill me, that was his only way of ensuring my safety.

We walked up to the hatch, and I saluted him, and he saluted me, and in real life on the BART train, I got a little emotional at it, at this goodbye, and down he went, through the grassy hatch, which closed, and sprouted a flower, or perhaps flowers were laid upon it, like a memorial.

But. After this? You wanna know what I did? I went CARTWHEELING through that forest!! I began to run and jump and sing and yell and cartwheel all throughout that fucking forest. It was free. It was clear. This was a safe place for me again. Or perhaps for the first time.

I was free.

Sure, perhaps it will take some getting used to, this walking out into the sunshine, this taking the reins of my own life, this “owning voice” thing. But, clearing out my psyche and my heart of obsolete warriors feels like an incredible start. And after years of toeing the line, stepping up to it and back away, don’t get too close, Perhaps now. Perhaps NOW, I get to cross it, in cartwheels.

Amen.