Just shy of the half-way point

The idea that one's focus on stage should always be external is a helpful/comforting one.  I've yet to figure out how to "pack" the moment to elicit and emotional response on cue (because the script or director requires it) without leaving the current circumstances to drum up some memory (emotional recall) or thought that will trigger the desired response.  I don't want to have to go into my head or body to get it at the cost of leaving the present circumstances going on, on stage, or set.  I've gotten there before by creating strong enough circumstances in the room itself, but I haven't done that enough to call it up on cue.

Anyway, in class tonight, it was more about how you are never the most important person on the stage (but whomever, or whatever, you are responding to, is.)  That focus/aim, direction, and distance, and your relationship to the things/people on stage are important.  That if those things are clear for you, they will be clear for the audience.  (And we've probably talked about this before, and I've probably written about it before, but I'd forgotten about it, and it's good to be reminded of it.)  That all of the forms that we do are toward the end of using them to be a better actor, because in the end, this is an acting intensive, even if it feels like stand-alone exercises; and it all helps to get out of one's head, and to pay attention to what is going on around you, what does the group need?  What does the room need?  Where and how are you sending your energy/focus?

In the breakout sessions, we worked on ways to come back if you've lost connection on stage: one point, relaxation, ki, and I can't remember what the other one is called, but it has to do with the underside of your arm/foot/leg, etc.  We also worked on connection with props. the way you sit with a connection to the chair, or the way you hold a cup, etc., and then we started the tightrope walking, both for focus, and for the idea of not playing the end, not worrying about getting across the rope to the end, but saying this speech, and working toward this objective with this tactic, and then the next one, etc, or taking one good step, and then another good step, until you get all the way across, and in a play, until you come to the end.  You know what your goal is, but you have to get there step by step.

Only 28 more hours of class.  And the performance piece is coming together.  And we get to fall for that one, so, I'll need to practice that more.

And I know what to expect, still, I remain in a state of being terrified and excited at the same time.  I want to be there, and I'm afraid of what is expected.  Not sure what consequence it is that I fear...no one's gonna hurt me if I mess something up, I'll just have to do it again.  It's not expected that I'll be perfect, there would be no point in being here if that were the case.  The training really is for the betterment of the room, and the practice.

Friday, and no break in sight

The crows have babies.  Was walking around the building at work, and a crow was cawing (aggressively) in a nearby tree.  Four students were walking just behind me, one commented that he wouldn't miss the black birds.  The crow became more ruffled and agitated.  He clarified to his friends that they swoop down at people.  I turned and said that it was because they had babies.  One of his friends paused a moment and replied, "I'd kinda' like it."  Another chimed in, "Me, too."  I haven't heard that before.  I like crows, but I don't particularly like getting dive bombed; perhaps they wanted any contact at all with a wild animal.

I took Wednesday off of work, so I could do some gardening, (weeding, planting, etc.) and wash laundry (I'm pulling 16 hour days right now).  The weeding and turning soil over went without incident.  I was watering with a watering can, and a chickadee landed on a poppy plant nearby.  Didn't think all that much of it.  Next thing I know, I have a bird land on my calf, and another smack me in the head, and then follow me over to the faucet.  Not sure what was up with that.  Was I near a nest (but I'd been near it for the previous hour)?  Did they want water?  Don't know.  Both intrigued and frightened me a little, only lasted for a few minutes and then they were gone.

Class is going alright.  Trying to remember everything, and if I focus on one part, something else gets dropped, i.e., I remember to breathe and I forget how to move my arms (or which arm is doing what), or I focus on my partner and then forget to sing.  And then I remember to move from my center and breathe and for a moment am more present and balanced, and then I forget.

I'm still really tired, but I feel good.

I need to start writing again, and reading text/monologues; I'm falling out of practice.

Begin again

Starting the theatre intensive again, tonight.  The nerves persist, even though I know what to expect, and I know I've been here before, and survived it (and actually enjoy it).  Still, they persist.  (In a nervous energy-how-can-I-fill-the-time-beforehand-business, kinda way.)

I'm less cocky than I was last year, half wanting to be in the regular group, and half wanting to be newbie group to relearn everything.  Wondering how they will split us up.

I just found this

A woman from a group called the "Camino Companions" that work out of the Pilgrim's office in Santiago, had offered me a cup of coffee and said if I needed to talk about my experience she was available.  I hadn't thought I needed that, but there was a lot going on in my head, not the least of which was saying out loud the pain and anxiety I'd been feeling for months, things not directed at me, but that I feel nonetheless because I give a damn about others, the not sleeping, the broken or breaking of something inside, and then all the experiences and insights I had while (willingly choosing to be) an outsider, an "other," a "them."  The not being "enough."  The things I didn't feel like I had the "right" to feel or express, and so didn't know what to do with them, because I did feel them.

Anyway, my housemate just asked about my trip (I didn't realize anyone knew I had been gone, I'd only told my landlord.)  And after trying to explain it, I came upstairs and found these poems/thoughts, etc., that the woman I'd spoken to had handed to me when I was getting ready to leave.  I'd meant to read and think about them on the trip home, but that's a whole other adventure, so that didn't happen.

This is one of them:

Trust in the Slow Work of God 

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something
unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability-
and that it may take a very long time.
And so I think it is with you;
your ideas mature gradually-let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don't try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances
acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete. 

 - Pierre Teilhard de Charding, SJ

Ennui

I'm bored.  Out-of-my-skull: bored.  And is it hyperbole to say, "I've never been this bored before?"  I probably have.  It's the now it's-always-Sunday-afternoon feeling.  It's that what's worked before, no longer is, and the next thing hasn't come in to fill the void, so, I'm in the void.  Ultimately, it's a good thing, a good place to be, but...I'm bored.

And I decided to go to the doctor last week, because I'd been having throat pain (for a while), and I sorta' figured it was the thing I'd had four years ago, but wanted to rule out something more serious.  At the last minute, she decided to have her assistant run a strep test, and it came back positive, surprisingly; I don't feel all that bad.  Anyway, just have three more days of antibiotics left, but I took the day after off of work, in the event I was contagious, and that's when I realized how bored I was, so I went back to work the next day.  But seriously, what did I do before to occupy myself?  I've been trying to cut back on using the internet, my computer, and that's part of it, how much that had been filling my waking hours.

On the sick day, I finally finished uploading my trip photos (almost 4,000 and a very slow process), well, all the ones off of the first card.  Went out for a walk to see if the headache was actually from caffeine withdrawal, since it was already afternoon.  Ended up at the lake, spotted the giant orange fish near the shore, and was reminded that it was carp-spawning season, though they were just cruising around at that point.  A thought about released goldfish crossed my mind, and then an older man walked up to me mentioning something about koi, and we got into a long conversation about local wildlife, and then, tropical biology, bats and birds and that sorta' thing.  His wife works at the zoo, and they've traveled a lot in Central and South America, into the jungles and the cloud forests.  Ended up walking the whole lake, even though I'd originally planned on turning around earlier: I don't often meet someone that is interested in that.  (I'd spent time in a cloud forest in college, studying natural history/rain-forest ecology.)

And then I did eight hours of gardening on Saturday, and consequently slept most of Sunday, because I'm still rather exhausted.  I was awake for almost 40 hours trying to get home (was planning on sleeping during the 9-hour bus ride, but had a creepy dude sit next to me, so that didn't happen), and then the first week I was back, I had a bunch of life stuff to catch up on: an overgrown garden, volunteer commitments, choir rehearsal for a performance, a bake sale, the actual performance, the other rehearsal (which has an upcoming performance, as well), plus jet lag, etc., etc., and I can fill the time, but in a way, it's noise, and underneath the noise, is a restlessness, and what feels like boredom.  I don't know what should be there.  And I feel incapable of paying attention, or making any major decisions.  It's not the right time.  Something happened, something changed in my mind, in my view of myself, while I was travelling, and I'm only starting to catch glimpses of that, to begin to comprehend it.

And I've been feeling a little anxious that I have nothing new going on this year...I mean the travel (a super-privileged thing to have been able to do), the singing at Folklife, the theatre-workshop are all a deepening of things I've already done, nothing wrong with that...but life is short, and I'm more than half-way through mine: what could I be doing?  What do I want to be doing?  Why is depth not enough?

So many people I spoke with while traveling talking about having a mid-life crisis, or preemptively avoiding one, ("I'll be turning 40 next week." "I'm 50.")  And I guess I'm feeling a late one, now that I've gotten back home into the demands of every day life...and I suppose that's how it should be.

When you no longer feel the need to please everyone else, follow someone else's rules, to quell someone else's fears of the world, what do you choose?

Home again

I'm in a half-space, half back in this reality, half back in the one I left, the one without an importance of status, or time, the one of openness to the other, the one that says, "Good morning," to every passing face (or tree or ant or whatever.)  I don't want to lose the latter, but it feels too exposed and unwelcome.  A place without a phone, and with the exception of a tv in a bar (usually on futbol, or a game show, or an emerging scandal), and foreign-language newspapers, no contact with the "outside" world.

My body still in another time zone, but I wake up with the light (2 hours earlier here) and get up rather than linger.  Yesterday, arrived at work almost an hour early, because I just got up and started walking, thinking something would be open for food, nothing but Starbucks, and I had no food in the house.  And letting things go, letting myself not be responsible for everyone else.  Not everything needs to happen right now.

I need to sleep, found ants crawling across my bed, which made me feel itchy, and I was too tired to figure out where they'd come from: we'd never had issues with them in the house before.

I can feel the pain in my hands returning slowly.  Had no real RA symptoms while I traveled.  Took for granted being able to use my hands.  Something to think about: was it the sun? the dryness? the lack of stress? the lack of technology? the constant movement? the food? the new germs to contend with? (I ate potatoes like they were going out of style, and I can't do that here.)  What made the difference?  Can I replicate it here?

So, much silence, I could hear the thoughts that race through my head and run my day...so many small anxieties, adding up to dysfunction.  Someone told me to just focus on one thing to change, and if I fail, to try again tomorrow...every day, until I get it right.

Less than a week

Because I haven't written in a while and it's Lent, and...

Things I am grateful for:

It's spring.
The glorious muted-orange, western sky, last night, with the sudden rain.
I really like my dentist.
The cherry trees look like they might actually bloom before I leave.
Made it through the monologue.  The show was fun.
Even if it is a bit of whack-a-mole, loose ends are being tied.
The privilege to travel.
Lent.
Co-worker gave me her Spanish phone, so I won't have to buy one.
D, for tying that shoe.
B, for you thoughtful acts of kindness, that you choose to remember.
R, for the invitations.
For all the people that drive me home from wherever (been a lot of them.)
Creativity (mine and everybody else's)
Kindness (mine and everybody else's)
Courage (mine and everybody else's)
Getting out of my comfort zone.

Cheers.

Friday

I feel the gentle sting of the tiniest of rain drops as I make my way into work.  The volume increases, and my jacket is wet by the time I enter the building.  I'll let go of my wish for snow and take the 50 degrees and breezes that the day brings.  Been a cold and gloomy stretch of it.

Daffodils, crocuses, skunk cabbage, and others have been in bloom for a couple of weeks.  The cherry trees are holding off for warmer weather.  The buds are there.  Definitely later than in the past couple of years.  We actually had a winter this year.  (Checked my garden recently; the cold killed off the artichokes, but the arugula survived through all the freezes, all the snowfall.  Impressive.)

Insomnia, as usual, should have just gotten up.  Fell back asleep, had another dream about walking through unlit hallways, this time at work, and I could see light around the edges of a door frame, but decided if the door was closed, they didn't want to be disturbed.  After trying numerous light switches, found one that turned on lights, and the light was so blinding, I couldn't see.  Is that progress?  Usually, I can't find light in the dreams, and I'm alone.  I know there were colleagues around in this one; someone answered when I called out.  The new is not completely unknown.

A new bird outside my window woke me up, got me to work on time.

Emptiness

Sunday.  Looking forward to an evening of writing.  A day of emptiness, desolation.  In Discovery Park, unofficial footpaths that cross lonely fields, I hear voices, see people in the distance, but rarely make contact.  Finally join the main trail only to get lost, I follow a Japanese couple, the woman has GPS, finally checks her phone when we feel hopelessly lost, I've never seen this place before, I didn't grab a map, I have no idea where we are, or which direction to follow.  We do eventually end up at the visitor's center, the arrows make no sense, there is safety in numbers.  A man followed behind me, so there were four of us on the wrong path.

Childhood.  I remember the streets being empty, hot, deserted.  My memory is wrong, we were not the only people walking the sidewalks, hopping through open doors to buy a grilled cheese.  That can't be right.  But there is a loneliness of childhood, of abandoned military bases, or ones that feel abandoned.  Perhaps it's that they are always near a bluff, winds blowing the grass flat, open water before me leading into the unknown world.  Fog rolling in.  Traffic-less streets.  They all feel the same to me; I want to bathe in the melancholy.  I had a hard time pulling myself away to walk on the real paths, the ones with people on them, just one more pass through an abandoned field.  Just one more.  The day dark.  Rain and wood smoke.

I have a blister on my heel.

All day, unsettled, desolate, miles through train yards, the trains re-positioning; further on, engines run, lights on, but no engineers on board.  They don't head out.  The clank of movement.  I keep walking.  Finally in a neighborhood, a woman approaches, she looks familiar.  In the desert of the day, I cross paths with a friend, we greet each other and then go our separate ways.  I feel the need to continue on the way.  To follow the road to the end.

I wish I'd had a camera, I didn't know I would be there.  I missed a movie, doors locked when I arrived.  Walked toward the sculpture park, but saw a path, and decided to follow it.  I don't want to walk it alone again.

On the beach, a small patch of exposed sand, other footprints, I pick up a piece of brown sea glass, polished smooth, scan the other rocks, then remember that there is raw sewage in the bay, and I probably shouldn't be near the water, and make my way back to the path.  Look for a sink to wash my hands.  Where the path turns toward Magnolia, a man is darting toward the water, filling up his hands, then backing away, repeatedly.  I walk as far away from him as I can, I don't want him to notice me, there is no one else around, though, he is engrossed in his own ritual.  There is a sign to stay out of the water, because of the sewage; he takes no notice.

A woman stops to tell me about the cargo ships.  Flocks of birds I do not recognize hold lines of territory in the water, in front of the idle ship: no cargo loading today.  A boy runs over while I am in the visitor's center to play all the bird songs for me.  His mother tries to call him back over to her, promises of reading a book about reptiles, but he stays with me until he has engaged all the bird sounds for me to hear, and then returns to hear stories about snakes.  I talk to the woman at the desk about Mountain Beavers, wondering if anyone has actually seen one, she tells me she found a sick one, they get sick from dog wastes.  Outside on the grounds people let their dogs run free, even though it asks for them to be leashed.  No one to enforce it.  I go out and walk in the woods, enjoying the silence, in spite of my sore feet.  I walk until I am lost.

Snowday

Woke up to a snowday (email telling me not to come to work.)  Choir rehearsal was cancelled, too.  Went out and walked about 20 kms and now I'm trying to motivate myself to go cook something.  That's not going well.  I'm not actually nuts, I'm in training for a long hike, and I wanted to give my shoes and outerwear a trial run.  Shoes kept my feet dry, though, do not have good grip on wet, smooth rock, nor on slush; jackets could be more waterproof.  I stayed warm enough, though.  No blisters.

Then found out someone had created a fake facebook account of me, so, dealt with that.  Ugh, even messaged my friends pretending to be me, it's creepy.

Here's a view of the snow.

Morning, February 6/L Herlevi 2017

Only When It Snows, February 6/L Herlevi 2017

Rosehips, February 6/L Herlevi 2017

Woodland Park, February 6/L Herlevi 2017