Monday morning before Christmas

The morning of Christmas Eve.  The sun is making an appearance, sending golden light under the edges of the  grey lid of cloud, lighting the upper edges of the apartments closer to the lake.  A dry lull in the cycle of recent storms.

Woke up to a downpour yesterday, and when I turned on my phone, found a text from a friend saying she'd be late picking me up.  I'd thought she was out of town, so it was a welcome message.  Also, I'd woken up late.  We made it for the last part of the rehearsal, I got relegated to alto, hopefully, not an on-going thing: I can't sing that low on a regular basis.  Spent the afternoon running errands; last minute Christmas gifts, and looking for anything to shorten the length of this (now day 6) annual virus I've managed to catch.  Last night definitely the worst, horrific headache, and I kept waking myself up gasping for breath, and drenched in sweat.  I think it's just a bad cold.

I'd planned on making biscotti, but now have to wait until I'm better.  And using up leftovers to make hash (before going up to visit my family), but have so far only managed to make, and drink, a cup of tea, and brush my teeth.  I need to go pick up a car in an hour.  And do laundry.  And run a couple more errands, before an early rehearsal and service for Christmas Eve.  I just want to sleep.

The traffic is steady and loud, like a distant river, or wind through a wood.  I can hear one chirp of a bird a couple houses over, bright enough to break through the drone of tires on road.  The house is silent.  The street is silent.  I might feel better if I do something.

For fun

Here's a metal version of a Finnish Christmas song we are also singing (we don't sing the metal version.)

Tulkoon Joulu as performed by the Finnish band Raskasta Joulua.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2s_QgMCW9ks

Something and nothing

The sun's out.  (The heat's out at work, but at least it's bright.)  Three weeks until Christmas (so I keep hearing.)  The man across the aisle from me on the bus was loaded down with bags last night, looking at a store flier for sales.  I found something sweet about it.  I went to pay a bill before rehearsal, and kept thinking I was running late, but ended up being 20 minutes early; had the start time wrong in my head.  We have four gigs this week, though I'm only doing two: Nordic Choir Concert, and Finnish Independence Day Dinner/Dance.

Finding I had a free evening last Friday, decided to catch a bus down to Renton to check out "Ivar's Clam Lights" at Gene Coulon Park. Figured out the correct bus, though unclear on where proper stop was; missed it.  Walked back toward the lake, in the promised rain.  Followed a couple of people who looked like they knew where they were going, it got me in the general direction.  I found it in the end.  There was a choir singing, people eating clam chowder under the shelters, but no lights.  I walked out to the pier and wandered.  I have a vague memory of going to the park when I was in college in the late 80's, but only the one time, and haven't been back since.  Around 7 pm, someone made an announcement that they'd turn the lights on early (because of the rain?  Not sure, it was pouring.)  So that happened, and I wandered around for awhile looking at the lights, the way they reflected on the water, getting soaked.  Someone had lit a fire in one of the shelters, people huddled around the provided warmth, and cheeriness.  In the back of my mind I was wondering how the heck I was going to get back home (I had directions, but they didn't really make sense to me.  Perhaps if it was daylight and I could see the street signs, it would have been more clear.)

Walking out of the park, the thwack of windshield wipers of the idling cars waiting for their turn to exit keeping me company.  At the first bus stop, saw a bus heading toward the airport, jumped on it, recognizing nothing outside the windows, but knowing how to get home from there. The road outside was lightly traveled, we made good time.  Looking for food, (it was late, I hadn't really eaten) settled for a donut and a hot chocolate, the woman at the cart mistaking me for a boy.  The flavor in my mouth being of a dirty deep fat fryer.  The airport empty, save one line checking in for departures.  An announcement of a final boarding call to San Francisco.  The bustle and loneliness of travel, the suspension of time, the in-between worlds.  I walked on.

Back out in the cold and wet of the light rail station, wet footprints lead away from the platform, socks maybe, but no shoes.  Recent, but I didn't see the source.

On the train, the intercom announcing the stations had them backwards.  The young men across the aisle started to get up to leave, but we were 20 minutes from their destination, and hurtling along in between stops, at that.  Eventually, a live voice came on, announcing the actual stops, but the lateness of the hour, and the emptiness of the car, made it all disorienting.  It took two hours to get home.

Went to visit the reindeer at a garden shop on Saturday.  When the woman asked if anyone wanted to feed them, I jumped at it.  I suppose it was supposed to be for kids, but they weren't coming forward, it's not like I pushed them out of the way.  I fed it a raisin, it nosed at my hand.  Cute critters.

Spent the rest of the night baking a ham I'd originally bought for Thanksgiving, but then got invited to a friend's family dinner, so hadn't gotten around to doing anything with it.  Have never made one before; turned out well.  Made beans (from dried), and sauteed greens to eat along with it.  Felt very much like an adult; I rarely eat a fully balanced meal on a plate at home.

Sunday's rehearsal/tutorial went well.  I had earlier found an emotional substitution, but couldn't connect with it while we worked the scene.  We were both stronger on voice.  The feedback and blocking directions were helpful.  We just need to rehearse, and I need to do more character work.  Our last class/presentation is this week.

Rainy, and Free, Satuday

Most of life is mundane: laundry, errands, cleaning, work, etc.  I guess I've been waiting for inspiration, to have some eloquence of writing, but it doesn't arrive.  And maybe I'm not eloquent, anyway.

It's raining now.  Got a walk in earlier.  Bumper crop of Amanitas under the birch and cedar trees.  Crowds of parents and dogs and runners and friends; shouts and cheers in the distance, for some rowing event.  A little while later the wind kicked up, boats and birds and flotsam all bobbing on the water.

Had errands to do.  Started making a salad three hours ago, which led to a scouring of the fridge and cooking various items before they went bad (and lots of cleaning, and taking out the compost and garbage.)  I haven't been home much, my good intentions haven't panned out.  When I've been home, I've mostly just slept.

Anyway, made a curried apple salad (yogurt, celery needed to be used), and that turned out the best of everything; it's pretty tasty.  (Apples, raisins, walnuts, celery, scallion, sheep yogurt, lemon juice, and curry powder.)  Also, I decided to go off of sugar for a while, as of Halloween, so, the sweetness of the raisins was kinda' pleasant.  The only thing I'm really craving is an eggnog latte, but that was more power-of-suggestion, because I read a news story that mentioned it yesterday.

Sauteed kale and garlic (kale been around all week.)  And then made apple sauce because one of the apples I bought earlier today was unpleasantly mushy, which led to me finding more and more apples stowed here and there.  Anyway, there's a lot of it, and I'm waiting for it to cool down so I can go pay a bill and get out of the house.

I thought I had to work today, but found out I had the day wrong, and so had a day with no "shoulds" attached to it.

Working on three scenes for acting class, all from "Kramer vs. Kramer" (Joanna and Ted).  (Curiously, all of our scenes for the class are from movies, though one was a play first, "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf".)  I need to write out my script; I keep changing where Joanna's coming from, and my "wants" from last week are not necessarily relevant to where I'm at now.  The stakes are super high, she's not the kind of woman that takes leaving her child lightly.  In the first scene, I feel like the first half is like a check list you make for youself to check stuff off that you did, all the while knowing that even as it looks like you've accomplished something, you haven't done the ONE thing that you had to do.  In this case, she's telling Ted that she's not taking Billy (their son) with her when she goes.  And then when that comes out, she has to convince herself that he's better off without her.  Because that's the choice: herself or her son?  And she says that if she stays, she'll kill herself, so, her choice is to leave.  (If you believe that the words are true for the character when they say them.  And I do.)  This is week four or five?  I can't remember.  Psychologically, logically, I understand it.  Emotionally, I'm still trying to find how to get there.  How I get there.

Still haven't figured that out.

Transition

It was so dark this morning, I convinced myself my housemate had left earlier than normal and I didn't need to get up yet.  When I finally did check the clock, it was long past the time I should've gotten up.  Past the time to catch the bus to work.  And so, I guess I won't mind the impending time change and afternoon darkness quite so much.

Mid-autumn.  Scorpio season.  Halloween and All Saints' Day.  When people believed (believe?) the veil between this earthly life and whatever exists after death runs thin.  And we touch or glimpse the unknown, the things we fear the most.

I was watching a video on YouTube about how we have a light and shadow side, as does everything, and if we don't address the shadow, it expresses itself anyway, and if we are able to look it squarely in the face, we can learn from it and be inspired; or at least become aware of why we do the things we do, behave the way we do, respond as we do, without necessarily wanting to.  Understand more what has become ingrained behavior, and maybe decide it's not inevitable, we can change.

And the show from last weekend dealt with death.  I go back and forth in my mind whether or not the character had already died and the conversation was in a holding place after death, where one lets go; or if she was hallucinating it all at a point before death, and dies in the end.  Either way, there was a final transition of letting go at the very end.

Working on the show, and listening, experiencing what I could from the process and from backstage, didn't make me depressed.  It made me feel super alive, and happy, and in love with the world, especially all the people involved.  Someone said something about the going from two people to a crowd, and I can't remember what they said exactly, but there are two people, then the sensory deprivation, and beams of light that rise from the wings like sun (or a double sun, so that it washes away the darkness) and lights that twinkle like stars from the ceiling and a rising song, all before the HYPERCUT crowd (us) comes on stage...I don't know, the last couple of times I experienced that transition, the gentleness of it, like coming out of a long, dark tunnel, a long dark, night (out of the lonely dark, and into light and company) was so moving to me.  That someone designed that: it was perfect.  It made me cry.  (Of course, then I got disoriented on one of my very last exits, smacking hard into one of the main performers-I apologized later.  Hurt so bad, I missed my last entrance, standing in the wings in a daze. - Every transition happened in blackout.)

And what seemed like it had been longer than a week (barely a week), was suddenly over.

And it's on to the next thing.  (And autumn shows us how to let go, and move on.)  And I want that next thing.  I live for this.

Sore but Grateful

I woke up feeling, "Maybe I'm getting too old for this?"  Or at least feeling old in my body.  Probably got a decade on rest of performers.  Or, perhaps I'm just out of shape.

Get to be a part of this performance piece this week.  We've been in rehearsals all week.  When I applied, the qualification was being comfortable "running in the dark and hitting a mark on stage."  Which essentially is what we're doing, I suppose it's the daily six-to-eight hours of that that's hard.  On the upside, I'm sleeping like a rock.

I'm part of an ensemble in a section called "HYPERCUT" that is recruited locally for each city the show runs, and learns the choreography the week of the performance.

Still, super grateful to be working on this, with this group of people.

Our first show is tonight.

Andrew Schnieder's "AFTER" at On the Boards.  (Second piece of a trilogy.  They performed the first one, "YOUARENOWHERE" last weekend.)

How the days go

I've taken too much on.

In the morning the fog rises just enough to hover over the fields. And the sun sets the red hickory's golden leaves aflame, but no one seems to notice. Passing through stone-faced and looking at nothing in particular.  I've stopped pointing it out.  Two days later, already the top of the tree has turned to brown, and the all the leaves had darkened, soon they will fall to the ground.  People aren't ready for beauty.  I remember once, on a sight-seeing boat trip to a tulip festival, two eagles circled a giant eagle statue as we passed through the channel.  I pointed it out, but no one seemed interested, until it was announced over the intercom system. Once officially sanctioned, they flocked over to see it.  Have we become so programmed in our daily lives (because we have to, and should do, so many things) that we don't see, or hear, or taste, or sense anything without prior vetting?

Someone unexpectedly asked if I had seen the meteor shower, I had forgotten about it  He asked someone else, who also had not.  Maybe he was just trying to connect, but he reminded me of me.

So before I went to bed, I opened the blinds and cracked the window, in order to look for shooting stars.

A fragment of a thing

You're dirty. You smell.  21 days wearing the same clothes will do that to you. You're also hungry, so you head toward the only place open for blocks and blocks. It's fancy, but you forget about how you appear, and you have money.  You feel entitled to eat. 

You enter, the hostess comes over after you stand at the counter for an uncomfortably long pause, perhaps they were hoping you'd leave, but you don't. You order coffee and a pastry.  It's a fancy dessert.  After you pay, she suggests that you might want to sit outside. You look behind you at the room, mostly empty, saved a smartly dressed table having drinks, a business lunch. Late. You hoist your pack and walk back out through the doors to the nice, but separate patio. 

You muster up some dignity, as you sit alone and wait. Think to yourself, "You don't know what I'm like in my other life. I'm not like everyone else. We'd probably have things in common. Under better circumstances."  But you don't say it.

In another life you're a: Teacher. Doctor. Lawyer. Own your own business. Bartender. Waiter. Stay-at-home mom. Carpenter. Cook. Artist. Singer. Writer.  You run meetings.  You do volunteer work. You drive a car.  You walk your dog.  Go to concerts.  You remember people's birthdays.  But now you're the same as everyone else they see.  A vagabond, traveler, pilgrim, hiker, taker, entitled.  21 days out, wearing the same clothes, clothes that don't come all that clean in the infrequent washing in the sink.  Clothes and pack straps soaked in days of sweat and miles of dust.  Any sense of stratification has long ago been stripped away, it's easy bonding with fellow travelers.  But you're not with them now.

You sit outside and relish your dessert.  Are you being judged for how you spend your money? After all, you could've had a cheap beer and sandwich like everyone else, but you have the money, and you wanted to treat yourself. You wanted to remember who you used to be.  You want to be the exception, you're not like all the others!  But you are.  You're an exile.  An outsider.  No longer unique, and you have now been cast outside normalcy, outside the city walls.  

You have become the Other.

To be continued (not immediately)...

What I Did Read

In order of finishing, though not including all the books I started and got bogged down in, but didn't finish.

1)  Franny and Zooey - J. D. Salinger
2)  Things that Make White People Uncomfortable - Michael Bennett
3)  Not That Bad-Dispatches from Rape Culture - Roxane Gay (ed)
4)  Born a Crime - Trevor Noah
5)  Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - J.K. Rowling (The giant illustrated version which was fun to read.  And first time I'd read any of them, never really in my demographic.)
6) The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis (Read before, but I needed to read something hopeful.)
7)  Girls Like Us - Gail Giles (Young adult.)
8)  Big Little Lies - Liane Moriarty (Recommended by a friend, and also, lighter than most of what I'd been reading, so a nice break.)
9)  Navigating Early - Clare Vanderpool (Young adult.)
10) Bitch Planet Book Two, President Bitch - DeConnick, Kelly Sue (Graphic Novel.  Read while doing laundry at a friend's house because our dryer had been out for weeks.)
11) Secondhand Time - The Last of the Soviets - Svetlana Alexievich
12) New Poets of Native Nations - Heid E. Erdrich (ed) (Another book that was a joy to read. And second favorite thing I read this summer.)
13) Calypso - David Sedaris (My favorite of his.  I appreciate the honesty.)
14) Encounters with the Archdruid - John McPhee (A book I put on a hold list, and then realized I had for years, and hadn't ever gotten around to reading, so I did.)
15) Razor Girl - Carl Hiaasen (Mystery.  The category of which made me confused on if this was or not, and then I thought, "Well, every book you haven't read is essentially a mystery, or you'd never keep turning the pages to see what happens next.  And yes, the genre is something else.  But...)
16) Yes Please - Amy Poehler (Far and away my favorite thing I read all summer. Struck a chord.)

Turned in all the rest of the partially read, and picked up Carrie Fisher's Shockaholic and finished that...I think I would have enjoyed knowing her.

Summer Part II

And for Part II: Whidbey Island (Oak Harbor, Dugualla Bay, Deception Pass State Park.) Days of heavy smoke from all the surrounding wildfires.

Pier in Downtown Oak Harbor, August 15/L Herlevi 2018

Roadside Poppies, Dugualla Bay, August 14/L Herlevi 2018

Northbeach, Deception Pass, August 14/L Herlevi 2018

Nature Trail, Cranberry Lake, August 14/L Herlevi 2018

Where the Sea Meets the Sky, August 14/L Herlevi 2018

Nothingness, W Beach, August 14/L Herlevi 2018