Tired

Spent a long time this morning slow-reading the Frankie monologue.  Still need to get the Emilia down, but it's interesting if I do it one word at a time, how much I actually remember, and how much time I have to think about why I'm saying what I'm saying.  It's an exercise you usually would do with a scene partner as you start working on a scene, you'd sit across a table, or just facing each other, and read each word at a time.  (It can be slightly uncomfortable to do, releasing a lot of nervousness, or maybe that's just because I've always worked on those in front of other people.)  I don't know how it'll affect the delivery tomorrow, but it helped today.  Still not solid on the driving action, not with either of them.

Had a memorial service to sing at, and then had meant to walk with the other monologue, but took a nap instead, and then it was dark out, so tried to read it sorta' quietly on the bus until someone sat next to me.

Rushed to a dance performance, David Rousève/REALITY "Stardust," at Meany.  All I knew about it beforehand was that he used a Twitter feed in the background, and that it was partially to be annoying, to make a statement about how much we check our phones and email and Facebook even when we are with someone else, because perhaps we fear we might miss something important, and because I had heard that, I wasn't reading them all initially and was trying to watch the dancers.  But...they were important.  The whole thing was the story of a teenage boy, African American, gay, who initially lived with his grandfather, and then went into foster care.  And all he wanted was to be loved.  (And that story was told in the Twitter feed.)

It destroyed me.  I had my hand clamped over my mouth by the end to keep myself from sobbing, and it's the first show in a while that I jumped up for a standing ovation for.  Just powerful.  I felt myself alternating between heartbreak and anger, that there's that spark of humanity in all of us, and that anyone would snuff that out of someone else.  What right do you have?  That you would never know that because you need to have power over someone else to feel good about yourself...what effing right do you have???  That this kid looked at Van Gogh and got it.  Heard Nat King Cole and found a kindred soul.  Thought of pigeons as ghetto angels...and then how someone could take advantage of him, kill his soul that was just starting to find itself.  (Was he a saint? No, but none of us are, we all deserve to find our way in the world, or reason for being, should such a thing exist.)  Sure...it's "fiction" for the stage, but it's happening somewhere for real right now.  Someone takes someone else's power away, or slaps a label on someone and decides they know all they need to know about them.  They know nothing, and the label builds a wall, prevents them from seeing a human being, or learning anything.

Even when you know someone well, there are secrets you never reach, what makes anyone think they can know a stranger on a snap judgment?  They don't.  We don't.  We make up stories to keep ourselves separate, to justify our actions, our discrimination, our fears.

The labels we choose to put on someone else tell more about our own prejudices than they do about whomever we choose to label.

There are too many bullies in the world.  Open your heart.  Become more human.

Sunday-One more class session

Documentation has it's place and there is a way to have a point of view in documentation, and personal projects are artistic statements, but...if you tend toward introversion, it's easy to become an observer of the world (which is fine) rather than a participant.  I want to be more of a participant now.

Sang at a memorial service (actually two) this morning.  Again, just really inspired by someone else's life, whom I knew so little of, and I wish I had known more.  A relative spoke to the fact that she had an "easy passing" that she was laughing and enjoying time with her family.  She was 97.  He said that at the end as the outside things closed in and were no longer possible, that she became love itself...and I think about that and all the striving to prove something (and in her life she did many things, knew many things) that really what matters in the end is our ability to love, and to be able to express that, and to have the ability to accept it as well.

Later.  Still processing, but tonight was freaking awesome across the board, there was life and passion.  The work was just transformative.  We were smack in the middle, and I was afraid I would be dead on stage, but I wasn't.  We all got stuff to do before we entered, and we all got to fight on stage (or tussle) which just brought everything to a whole different level.  It was really fun, if sometimes also scary.  And we got out an hour early.  Still haven't thought of a task, but I know something that I need remember on stage...subtext, subtext, subtext...would make the words infinitely more vital.

Oh, and one of my friends went to the show, so I got to talk about it with someone...and that makes me happy.

Maybe I can do this.

What I love

Well, got my viscera moved.  I like talking to the therapists, they are always very interesting, and they like to talk about diet and alternative healing practices and therapy. Took a sauna after, because even though it was hot out, it only costs $5 w/massage and I thought it might be good for me.

A year ago tomorrow, I left for Finland. And that was where I had my first sauna, in Eluvori maybe? I'll need to look up the name. Near Sastamala, a ski resort in the winter. I was nervous about getting naked with people I knew casually. I didn't know how saunas worked. As it turned out, one of my roommates had an extra swimsuit which she loaned me, and which fit, and we went separately by gender, so it was very crowded with the women. The older women kept dumping water on the fire, so it was super hot, and then we beat each other with birch branches (which, while it might get out aggression, doesn't actually hurt much when they are wet.) Ended up being a great bonding experience for all of us, I think. (This would be with the Finnish Choral Society, we were on a choir tour in S. Finland for a week.) I later went in a second sauna with my cousin and a friend the last night I was in Finland. While trying to stay as long as possible in there today, I thought with great affection of everyone that made that trip possible, everyone I spent time with, and everyone I encountered on that trip. It was pretty wonderful. Magical. Picture is from a day trip I took with my cousin to Estonia. (I had no expectations before I went, I didn't even know I was going until pretty close to the time to leave. I didn't think I could afford to go.  I had just gone to Portugal the previous autumn, which had used up any extra money I had.)

Tallinn, Estonia/L Herlevi 2012

This will be more gushy than articulate, but what I love about my country is that it is a great melting pot, and every wave of immigrants made our country greater than it was before.  I love the potential. The possibility of what we could be if we weren't so afraid, could embrace each other, learn, grow.

I love the Fourth of July. It's my favorite holiday. I love being in a crowd of people waiting to watch the fireworks, and looking around and seeing people from 20 or 30 different countries, just in my vicinity. Not tourists, but people who are building a life here. And we're all happy, and hanging out together and getting along. And while I know this doesn't happen all the time, the fact that it does, and that it can, and that we can share in one another's cultures is a beautiful thing. Feels my heart with joy.

Happy birthday America!

Back to zero

to an even keel, the place music I like takes me (always.) I've thrown the idea of "back to zero" around for a while, and tonight I decided it meant being present, so not worrying about anything, or thinking about anything except where I am right now.  And the Billy Bragg show was awesome.  He's funny, a great musician, and he gives a damn. And with both he and  the opening act, especially the opening act, who was a solo act, I thought about the need to sing. The drive to make music, the compulsion of having to sing. That it doesn't even matter what your voice sounds like (and his voice is fine) but more the need to communicate something in song. It's so beautiful. And the other reason I feel at zero, is that if I can love one person, I can also love someone else (I might not want to, but it can be done.) And now as it's late and I'm inexplicably super cold, I'm going to bed...no late night ramblings.

Back to it

After two weeks, with maybe too much free time on my hands, back into the craziness of school and work and everything else. And between the video we have to write a script for, film, edit, etc for Finnish and the outside rehearsals for the theatre class, I'll probably be busier than I was last quarter. And that's a good thing, I need to occupy my mind. My emotions are starting to overwhelm me, and though positive in general, still, too much.  My problem being that I'm an emotional non-eater, and it doesn't matter if they are "positive" or "negative" emotions, I can't eat. That would be the only time I can't eat.  The thing is, I woke up this morning happy and at peace with unrequited love, I don't know why. I suppose I can use it as fuel for writing or character development, why not?  I guess I like the feeling of that much love toward someone, even if it's not returned. I like that my heart is open enough for it.  When I look at him, I'm overwhelmed with it.  (It would be nice to feel that for someone who actually liked me back, but, it's a start I guess.)

Just received a wild email from a friend I now realize I haven't seen in a while, somewhere off the grid, in a car, not here, and all I can do is send her good thoughts and angels for protection. And if anyone reading this is the sorta' person that prays, please pray for her protection and hope, you don't need to know her name, just ask for help for my friend. Thanks.

Time for rehearsal. I realize I sound delusional, maybe it's the lack of sleep and calories. But there it is.