All The Things I Thought I'd Figured Out...

My dear, darling, friend Elizabeth thinks I need to teach.   

Yes...Me

Yes...Teach

And not just teach anything (although she'd be very happy with that)...but specifically acting (although Shakespeare WAS mentioned as well).   

There is a problem with this...the problem being I want to BE acting not TEACH acting. 

 "Well...why not coach then?"   

Um....hmmm...

"You could coach people in memorization...and cold readings....and auditions"

Um...well...

OKAY........ the thing is..... I could DO that! 
 I could totally see myself doing something like that.  
But how in the hell do you actually get STARTED???   How do you ADVERTIZE something like this and what the heck do you CHARGE?????   

I know how I memorize...I know how to help most people memorize...I know the tricks and the follow-through to anylizing a script.   
I know how to cold-read.   I am (if I do say so myself)  really good at cold readings (ask my directors).    I know how I got that way, and while some of it is finding that magic moment...a LOT of it is technique.    It's learning how to read a scene and make instant choices...learning how to make the lines on a page come alive and about not being afraid to be bold.
I know how to prep an audition piece.   I can help someone narrow choices down to one or 2 good contrasting monologues...help them memorize them...help them prep them for performance.  

These are things I enjoy doing....for myself and for others.  

Now....NOW comes the rub...how do I market something I love?

Don't Stop Believing...

I sit here, having just entered the final year of my 30's, and I wonder.

I wonder where I'm going...and where the time went.
I wonder how I got here...and why I'm not where I thought I'd be
Where did the dreams go?   and the ambition?  
and the me I always thought I'd be
Where is she?

The journey has been a rough one at times...and I think a lot of that is my own doing.    The beginning of my new year seems like the proper time to make the changes happen.   To put into place the things that will help me become the person I expect of myself.

Instead of being unhappy with the changes time creates in what I see...I need to take action to create the changes I WANT to see.    I'm exercising again...and enlisting my daughter as personal terrier...she gets to badger me (one of her strengths) about doing one of my numerous workout DVD's daily.    I'm also walking more...which helps a lot too.  

Instead of feeling like I'm falling behind and failing myself...I need to create a system to stay on track and on top of things.    The next available cash we have goes into getting me a calendar and a financial planning book.   

At least I'm back rehearsing for shows...that part feels right.  

Now to get the rest of me tuned up and in gear...to hold on to that feeling of LIVING rather than marking time...and to keep on believing...in me.

Home Again Home Again Jiggety Jog

Sometimes home is a place you need to go back to to remind yourself of why you left in the first place.

Had a bit of that this past weekend.   We travelled back to Philly for a surprise party for Mark's aunt.   WE got to be the surprise. :)   The party was wonderful...the way peoples faces lit up when they saw Mark again and FINALLY got to meet Arietta and Rowan (yes we HAVE been gone *that* long.)  was priceless.   The food wasn't the healthiest but hey...it's a party...for a large Italian Family...you kinda expect that.

Then Sunday was brilliant.   Went to see Mary Ellen again...one of my dearest friends and ex-sister-in-law.   Was just like we had never been apart.    Mark's sister came with us and his Mom and Stan joined us.   Stan even played with the kids (croquet of all things) and they had a blast.   Then Mommy-Lynn and Stan took us all to Friendly's for Ice Cream/Dinner and then home to watch a Movie.  

I kept thinking to myself that I wouldn't mind moving back towards Philly to be back with all this again.

Then MONDAY...again brilliant.   Hung out with old friends of Mark who are new friends of mine...Jewels in the morning and Jon in the afternoon and their respective children.   AND we got to have an old friend of both of ours Rommy hang out in the afternoon too.   Was just wonderful.

The we were off to dinner at Bibi's...

...
...
... and then it hit me.

The gender-role stereotyping at dinner (women-folk feed their children while the men sit and talk)  

The lack of food diversity (meat, potato, gravy, stuffing,   and one salad with *a* cucumber, *a* tomato, *a* cut carrot and iceberg lettuce)   I think MY children devoured 9/10ths of the cucumber, tomato and carrot too.     The laizze-faire discipline at dinner...let's have the TV ON in the other room while the kids refuse to eat or stay sitting and then reward them with ice cream (mind you I was VERY proud of my 3 who STAYED AT THE TABLE and ATE while this was going on...even the 4 yr old)  

All of this I could handle though...it's not like we would LIVE there and I know Mark will be attentive and not allow them to subtly shunt him into a gender-biased role.

But then it hit me square across the face....out of the mouth of one of the older male relatives came something that made my jaw hit the floor and my brain sieze up.     I was literally floored.    I had thought that racist derogatory terms for someone whose skin happens to have a different hue were a thing of the past (or of isolated pockets of KKK-ville)   But no...apparently people still use language like that to describe (his words)  "those people"

Well let me tell you something Uncle-Racist.   I won't have *MY* children around THOSE People...and by that I mean YOU.     I will not condone such appalling bigotry by remaining in the same house or allowing my children to do so. 

PEOPLE are PEOPLE regardless of hue
But I won't have my children round people like YOU
People who judge by the color of skin
are not people whose company I choose to be in

A very sharp reminder for Mark and I that living a ten hour drive from family might not be such a bad idea after-all.

The Play's the Thing...

     and apparently it's my "thing" again.  

I'm finding my "home" again.   Behind the footlights.   Trying on someone elses skin to see how it fits and feels and how well I can create their reality so that you, the audience, feel it too.    I'm making myself at home here in Cincy.  

Went to audition for the 2010/11 season at the Westwood Community Theatre (The Drama Workshop) for 2 of the 3 plays.   On Golden Pond and Enchanted April.   My goal was to make them remember me...I don't expect to get cast right off the bat but dammit I KNOW I can cold-read with the best of them and I expect to make an impression.   Well...I apparently did.   I've been cast.   In both.   AND the director of Enchanted April asked if I would like to audition for a play she is directing for the Footlighters (another group) Blithe Spirit.  

Um...wow.   Apparently I made one HECK of an impression.

It's good to be back.

Cincinnati WKRP

"But maybe think of me once in a while"

     Growing up I never thought I would live in the land of  "WKRP in Cincinnati".    (and yes I realize I may be dating myself by remembering that show.)

     But we are here...safely ensconced in the eastern portion of the central mid-western U-nited States of America.
Home of the Reds and the Bengals and some pretty damn good music.  

Honestly we gave Kauai a pretty good run.   I wouldn't trade our time there for anything.   I was talking today with some close friends from our time on the 'Island'.   My friend Julian asked how I was enjoying driving without leaning to the right or left (for those not in the know...the road on Kauai is one big U (you can't even drive in circles.)    It kinda left me thinking about how Kauai is like a mobius strip...no matter where you go, there you are, staring deeply into your own eyes.    There is only so long that you can stare into your soul before you become neurotic.    I speak from experience.   

When you come to the island things are wonderful at first...you get 6-9 months to acclimate before everything you ever avoided in life comes barreling at you head first.   And on an island the size of a postage stamp with the energy impact of a large vortex...you escape NOTHING!!!    Turn from the problem and you turn to face it.   Turn again and it's right in front of you.   It stares deeply into your eyes as you feel its breath on the back of your neck.   You either face your demons or they consume you.

After a while though, you do finally come to a space of peace...and that is the point where the island either keeps you or tells you it's time to move on.   Basically...if Kauai is a paradise and you can afford to enjoy all she has to offer...stay.   Otherwise GO!!!! NOW!!!   because if you don't leave then you spend a bit of time in hell.

Don't believe me?   Let me elaborate.   Think of the paradise of Hawaii...the sun, the sand, the beauty...
Now think of being unable to afford to drive your car DOWN the hill to the beach on a hot day because it's a choice between gassing the car up and feeding your child.     Believe me I've lived that and it is hell.  

I've found that it's time to tear my eyes away from inward contemplation and begin to see again the things that exist on the horizon.   To scan out potential  and future and life.    To LIVE again instead of examining the minutia of my soul.

It's all worthy work...but sometimes...

you need to know when to fold them.

....please stand by

I feel a bit like I've been in a holding pattern during the move...and so focused on getting OUT of Hawaii and INTO Ohio that I kinda lost the thread of my writing.

I think I need to jump back in.

I may be stuttery for a bit...and stumble over some words and thoughts...but I'll get back here.

It's a new day dawning afterall.

A little Epiphany

I love reading things that make me ponder.  

It feels good to churn ideas over and over in my brain...debating the different aspects with myself, thinking it through from different angles...different perspectives.   That's right.   Make me WORK for it.     Which is exactly what my friend Melanie did for me in her blog the other day.    She brought up some points about balancing the unconditionality of Love while staying true to oneself.    Made me think.   So...I probably have her to thank for my little epiphany the other day.

See we were talking...Mark and I about moving to Kauai 10 years ago.  And about what we'd do differently if we ever move back.  There have been a lot of regrets associated with that.   A lot of things we gave up...compromised...felt we should have done differently.   A lot of blame and resentment kind of burbling below the surface...waiting.

A friend of mine, Elinor, from my parenting board just moved to Ohio from Hawaii a year ago.   We were talking some and she likened living in Hawaii to being in an abusive relationship...you know...you love it/him/her soooo much....it just HAS to work....if I just do THIS it will work...I know it didn't work before but NOW...NOW it WILL.   Until you are so beaten down that you finally admit that it just can't work...and then getting out...is almost as much of a struggle as staying. 

As all of this was churning in the miasma of my thoughts a realization suddenly surfaced out of the murk and confusion.   One of those moments where you just....Stop...and breathe....and say..."Ah yes.   Now I understand."   

I came to the realization that during our move to Kauai...even though we moved because we love her so...we compromised who we are...in essence...to come here.   We did not come here on ethically sound terms...and that does something on a karmic or soul level that  destabilizes the whole foundation.   

It was in that moment that I saw it.   I understood the truth that had been pecking at my mind every since I had read Melanie's blog.  That you can love someone or something unconditionally...but real love doesn't mean compromising what makes you WHO YOU ARE....the limits and boundaries that create YOU.  You can go through changes...what you LOVE can change...and you will still love it   BUT  you don't sacrifice what makes you uniquely YOU for love.
  
Real love does not diminish...real love does not subtract.   It does not ask you to take away from yourself.   It doesn't ask you not to be loving to yourself.   The Love can be unconditional and unchanging but the act of loving needs to be performed in a way that does not take away from who you are.  


Now that doesn't mean you don't sacrifice for love.   People would give up their lives for their children and that in no way contradicts this...your life is not your essence...there is a part of you that should be inviolable and when you compromise THAT....that's when the love no longer serves you.


This is true for a move...a job...and the love of your life.


True Love...Always...Adds.

At a Loss for Words

It's not often that you'll find me without a suitable retort.

After all my years of Improv and Playback I'm pretty quick on the verbal draw...so to speak.  So it definitely bears noting when I get left at a loss for words...not once...but TWICE.  

In One Day

And both times involved my role in the Vagina Monologues. 

(a little background for those not in the know:  my Monologue is called "The Woman Who Liked To Make Vaginas Happy"   and my character is a sex worker...a Dominatrix...who specializes in doing sex work with Women)

So this afternoon, after I finish working some blocking, my daughter (she's almost 8) looks at me and asks:
"So...what's YOUR part Mommy?"   "Who do YOU play?"  

(pause) ...um...(pause)...well...(pause)...Mark you wanna help me out here?

{{How do you explain a Dominatrix to an 8 year old?}}

  I...um...am a woman who helps other women find power through their sexuality.  

{{DUDE!!! that was quite the challenge}}

Ok so then I'm at rehearsal.  Our newest cast member is 17 (she'll turn 18 opening night) and she is there with her mother (who is in the Ensemble) and her younger sister.    Soooo.....  I get up to get things set up for my piece.   I'm wearing a black silk camisole top edged with lace and 3 inch heel black Fuck-Me pumps and carrying my prop.   A black leather split tip riding crop.

The girl looks at me and in the sweetest most innocent voice asks:  "Is that a fly-swatter?"

um...

blink

uh...No.....

Mom mentions that her daughter is very innocent.  

I was like..."um...not after THIS piece she won't be"  

TWICE in ONE DAY!   Who woulda thunk it?

And the Exodus begins...

The wheels are starting to turn and things are being set in motion.  

We have 2 checks to start a *moving expenses*  bank account.   My kitchen dinette set has been passed on to the same person who gave us the 2nd car.   My massage chair has been sold.    My friends are probably going to buy our outdoor table/chair set. 

Things are starting to leave...starting to move on.   The exodus is beginning...and I'm ok with it.

I sat down the other week and changed my thinking...instead of saying we *have* to leave Kauai...I have made it a choice.   We CHOOSE to leave...because we do not choose to stay under these circumstances.    I can't always control events but I AM in charge of how I react to them.  

There is a lot more inner peace that way.  

I am the captain of my destiny.

Roll the Bones.

My control demon must be having a field day with me....it's like everything that can possibly be left to chance is being thrown into the air like a pair of dice in a craps game.  

Roll the bones babe...

And the kicker?   I don't CARE about it being all up in the air except for the kids sake.   I'd like to have some idea of where we land so they aren't tossed about like dice on a casino table.  

If it was just Mark and I ...heck...roll it baby and lets see what comes up.   Ride into the sunset and let each day bring what it will bring.   I don't want to do that to them thought.   the move is hard enough. 

Had to tell them we are looking to rehome the cats the other day.   Julian took it very hard.   Georgie is his twin...they are the same age and they have been together as long as he can remember.   Man that ripped out my heart.   Jude asks for so little in life...I want to give him his kitty.  

We're looking to sell the payroll company though so maybe that will come through.   If we can get enough from that to cover moving expenses then life is golden.   It's amazing how calm I am in the midst of having no clue what comes next.   That's a good thing....I think.

Roll dem bones bay-bee....

Valentine's Day 2009

My heart lies sheltered
in the cradle of your soul

I can be more than I dreamed
through the gift of your love

Entwined with you I touch eternity
and soar.

Entwined with you I am whole
completed
one.

Swimming in a Sea of Molassas

I don't feel like I'm completely buried in Limbo anymore, but I do keep running into mini-limbos.   We've applied for food assistance and of course that can't start until we have Mark's paystubs for Jan.   Now that SHOULDN'T be a problem, right?  He had the one from last week arrive in the mail.   Then he went in today (Friday) to pick up his other stub.   The plan was to head over to the state office from his old work and drop that off and then the money should be available so we could shop this weekend.  

Well....scratch that.   The office is closed today b/c of the "furloughs"...the same furloughs that have my kids home from school today creating chaos in my house.   They are also closed on Monday for the holiday so it looks like we won't see that until Tuesday at the earliest.  

We're waiting on finalization on where we are going to land.  I completely understand and approve of the delay but I'm kinda in limbo (not really HERE but not really THERE) until that goes through.    We should also know that next week.

I have a buyer for my massage chair (maybe) but that's not til monday.

It's forward motion...but it feels like I'm swimming through molasses.  

Be careful what you wish for...

...because the reality might not look anything like what you expected.  

We wanted to set down some roots and be able to own a house.    We wanted to invite in abundance but not abuse it.   To live within boundaries financially.   To give the kids experiences rather than money/things.   We wanted to travel and be able to visit everyone.

Well...moving is sure as heck going to give the kids experiences...especially since we want to take some time to travel with them...see the country and our friends on the way to our new space.

be very careful about what you ask.

I've got two possibilities open to me right now...well I actually have way more than two but I have two definite places with a landing spot at the other end that will give us breathing room.    Now I need to look at the practical aspects of those...

Are there jobs there...can we make our goals a reality?   What's going to be the best space for the kids.

I've also got to figure out how to do any of this with the animals.   Doing the research, it's going to cost more to ship THEM than to fly US!?!   Unreal.   Just unreal.    I may have to face leaving some of them behind and I'm not sure how to handle that.  

The Limbo is over...the beach is swept clean...and it's time to walk the path and see what we'll find over the mountains...and across the sea.

...all tumbling down...

...and the castles built in stone reveal themselves as merely sand
and crumble to the touch
...and the dream we had we thought were gold
tarnish now and rust

...and the hopes we placed in plans we made
have withered on the vine
...and we stand alone and watch the waves
wash clean our foolish pride.

When it stops serving you it's time to let it all go.

That's the place I'm sitting in right now. Did a lot of railing against fate and life and stuff earlier...but you can only sit in despair for so long before it starts getting boring. Really...

I mean I'm sure I'll be doing that a lot more over the next bit of time ...but for now...I sit.

Mark is no longer selling timeshare...not that he sold one...which was the problem. sigh. Of course only getting 15 total tours didn't help the odds any. So now that leaves us...well...kind of in a difficult space. Right now it's feeling like Kauai no longer wants us here...we've worked hard the past 10 years and haven't gotten anywhere stable out here...and I don't need concrete stability...but a balance on the surfboard would be nice. Just one breaker after another keeps rolling us under though.

It's time to fold...time to cut bowstrings...

Unless something real comes to us in the next week or so we make plans to move...

{{it hurts my heart to say that}}

we pack up all our cares and woes and Bye Bye Blackbird man. But I can't do this anymore. I can't put my kids through this anymore. I can live frugal but I can't live on nothing.

Part of me is going to be left behind on this rock if we have to leave though...she holds my heart so.

Right now we are pulling in...regrouping...trying to find our center. But still...I look around the house and try to find the things I can't..no... won't live without. There is very little I need really.

I'm still in a sort of a shock. This is my HOME dammit. and I can't understand why life just doesn't seem to want to work.

Rip out my heart why dontcha...it might hurt less.

The ties that bind...

I seem to be stuck in a limbo right...and not a cool Jamaican beach party with plenty of fruity rum drinks and Bob Marley and pupu's that make your mouth water. No this is the point where the party has run too long and the rum ran out...and the fruit is going rancid...the shrimp are starting to head back to sea...and if I hear "Limbo Rock" one more time I'm going to throw my slippah at the speakers.

Now I've been doing all the things I can think of to shift my future. Visualizing the future as now. Living like it's already happened. Keeping a Positive Energy flowing into Abundance. Asking my friends to help form a collective positive thrust by sending prayers and good vibes etc etc. I've done meditation and Reiki and Sage'd the house....lit incense and charged crystals and done intention statements. We've put positive changes in place and taken steps to move into a place where abundance can flow.

....And as I do this I watch things get tighter...and tighter. And I try harder...and harder...

I begin to wonder if I've been missing the lesson this whole time. It seems like we get the closest to change when I actively give up hope...so maybe that's it.

Maybe I'm trying to control abundance. EVOKE abundance.

Maybe my lesson right now isn't in positive manifestation but in really letting go of the reins and giving up the driver's seat.

This one isn't about me...

I free the strings....what will happen will happen. Things turn at their own pace and in their own time...

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Pretty soon you're gonna get a little older
Time may change me
But I can't trace time
I said that time may change me
But I can't trace time

I can't trace time...or rein it in. The change will do it's own will when it will and not at my command.