Alchemy

Can I explain to you, can I try to put into words just how fun it can be to rehearse a play? I am turned-on down to my toes by the process of getting a show ready for its audience. From the table read, where we all bravely throw ourselves into the fray and "perform" the entire show, books and pencils in hand. Through the first rehearsals, where it all falls apart, descends into chaos, as we struggle to understand the words, the actions, to find ourselves in our characters and our characters in the stories. Through explorations, on and off text, impulses followed, direction given, attempts made, failures and successes embraced alike. Through the moment when we set the scripts down, and it all falls apart again as we reach for the words, struggle to put the words and the thoughts and the actions all together. To that final thrust when we leave the rehearsal hall and move to the stage and lights and sounds and set enter the equation, and it falls apart for the final time, coming back together, by hook and by crook and by super human effort into something gleaming and new and never seen before, a slice of all of our minds and souls and hearts combined into one fabulous journey.

I love my job.

Another Mars/Venus Moment

I'm on the Caltrain, heading into San Francisco for rehearsal. I'm looking over one of my scripts, Truffaldino Says No, a 17th century commedia del arte inspired piece, full of flowery language and melodrama. I am filled with the mood of it, and in a fit of passion, pick up my cell phone and text the following message to Bruno, who is away in Europe for the next two weeks:

"The depth of my love for you has no bottom!"

A few moments later, my cell phone buzzes, and I lovingly pick it up to see how my darling has responded. I read the following, from Bruno:

"I love your bottom!"

Yep. That'll do it.

Dropped down from the sky

A dream dropped down from the sky for me last week. A little bit of perfection, arriving in a phone call. That Darling Casting Director, who has literally been resuscitating my artistic soul, called to say she was putting together a cast for six week Equity Contract in San Francisco, and I was the missing piece of the puzzle: would I come join the work?

No audition, no hustle, no seeking or straining or muscling. The phone rings and the landscape of my life gracefully, gratefully changes. A little tiny dream come true.

And now my datebook is filled with rehearsals and my head is filled with lines and characters, and my world is filled with actors and directors and playwrights; designers and technicians; marketers and administrators and producers: new friends all.

The Darling Casting Director is the only one in this new world who knows what my past year has looked like. And so far I'm keeping it that way. It is a little odd, to sit with these new people, laughing and cracking jokes, and think, "You don't know about Pedro and Archer. How can I allow anyone to not know about Pedro and Archer? Am I betraying them, leaving them behind as I dance off in an artistic reverie?" But it feels oddly good, too. It is the first time since their birth that I am allowing myself to be defined as anything other than a woman struggling with loss or a woman struggling to start a family. I suspect it may be the beginning of that elusive goal: integration.

Just like that. Dropped down from the sky.

Still

I was talking on the phone the other day with a dear friend in the area. I apologized for failing to come to visit earlier that week: I had called to see if she were free, and she said she had another friend over, but I was welcome to come and join. I had declined. I confessed to her that I had been having one of those days when I just couldn't be with new people. She remarked, "I am so sorry to hear you are still having those days."

Yes, I am having those days. Still.

I know that it is impossible to know what this journey is unless you have had the misfortune to travel it. Hell, I'm in the middle of traveling it and I still don't know what it is. But it certainly isn't following the time-line I might have imagined. Well, not much has followed the time-line I imagined. I thought I'd meet my Prince Charming in my twenties, but I had to wait for my thirtieth year for my beloved Bruno to show up. I thought I'd be an actress on a Broadway stage before I left NYC, but it looks like that dream won't fulfill itself until maybe I reach my 40's or 50's or maybe my 60's even. That's OK. I practice yoga: I'll be here, ready and able when the time is right. I was sure that I'd have two children by now. Nope, not even one yet. Still...

I don't think I am still. Those days aren't the same days I had nine months ago. They aren't even the same days I had one month ago, or last week. I am not still: I am moving, I am evolving, I am battling over, under, around and through this grief which will not conform to the prescribed stages, which is neither orderly nor organized, which is impervious to reason, and has no eyes for calendars or clocks.

No, my loss will not stay still. And so neither do I.

A Dream

Standing outside the backdoor of a doctor's office building, holding an old wooden ladder. I'm waiting for my cousin to come meet me and give me support through the appointment. It occurs to me that maybe she has gone in the front entrance and is waiting for me at the doctor's door. I go in the backdoor and am struggling to make it up the stairs holding the ladder, when a woman ahead of me on the stairs grabs it and carries it up for me.

When I get to the second floor, it is a wreck, covered with painter's dropcloths, plastic coverings and old furniture. I abandon the ladder almost without noticing and begin to work my way through the chaos, climbing over and under, struggling through.

Finally, I make it to a clearing in the middle, where my cousin is waiting for me. She holds a bouquet of balloons and a basket of goodies. Next to her is a nurse, holding the same things. Together, they welcome me, congratulate me, and help me find my way to the doctor's office.

Here are some of my interpretations and thoughts: the ladder represents an old way of doing things, an old vision of how my life would go, or how I would reach the heights I hoped to attain. The woman ahead of me on the stairs, further along the journey than I, helped relieve my burden. The disastrous second floor represents the outrageous fortune we've experienced since the middle of last year, a chaos and pain I've covered up with cloths in this dream, protecting both it and myself. Faced with such chaos, I let go of past ideas almost without noticing; I leave previous burdens behind. Climbing over and under and through is my struggle to work my way through everything. And the clearing in the middle, with the congratulations and balloons and baskets: a pregnancy? a baby? a clearing of the space in my mind and soul to find a little peace? A friend looked up balloons in a dream book and found they mean "unrestrained joy". That brought tears to my eyes. And all through, the ghost of my twins: two entrances, the second floor, two sets of balloons and baskets. My secret wish.

Funny/Sick Seder Moments

1) Mom decided to hide the Plague Finger Puppet representing The Slaying of the First Born

2)Somebody actually decided it was a good idea to create and market Plague Finger Puppets

3) My mother decided it was a good idea to purchase them

3) Max attacked me with a hand full of plague-shaped felt, calling out, "You have Boils! You have Boils"

4) Sophia asked if I could bend down so she could give me Lice (another of the plagues, not actually lice)

3)Dad, as the leader of our seder, has the task to assign different people to read different sections. Halfway through, he says, "Lisa, can you tell us about the Maror" Maror is Hebrew for bitter herb. I responded, "Can I ever!"

Happy Holidays, everyone. :) -Lisa

Surfacing (written 4/1)

WARNING: I wrote this post last week, and delayed publishing because I was concerned that it might be too upsetting. Anyone not in the mood for a bit of a cry should please feel free to skip this one. I decided to go ahead and post it because, for better for worse, it is part of our journey. As always, thank you for reading and helping us along our path toward healing.

I don't know what it is about this 8 month marker, but all sorts of memories are surfacing. Last night, in the middle of the night, I lay awake in bed and remembered the beginning of the end. After three calm weeks in bed, I woke up one morning with a terrible pressure in my bowels. I banished Bruno from the room again and again as I used the bedside commode, all the while thinking I had just eaten too much kale the night before. No one told me that early labor feels like the need to move your bowels.

I kept asking for the doctor (GD doctor was on-call that day), complaining of an upset stomach; I was told he was in surgery and couldn't get to me right then. All day I felt crampy and in pain and it wasn't until I started vomiting while using the commode that GD doctor finally called in some instructions. They put the contraction monitor on me, and low and behold, my labor had begun again.

The doctor finally arrived, did a digital exam without making sure I was cleaned up (remember, this all ended with an infection in my uterus and this is one of the moments I play over and over again and wonder if that is how the infection got there. Everyone says no; infections come from the bacteria already present in your system, but the pull to name something specific you can blame is so strong). He started me on a magnesium drip and then went home for the night. I didn't see him again until the morning, hours after Pedro's water had broken.

Let me say in no uncertain terms that I basically hate this man and probably always will. It may be unwarranted, he may be a fine doctor who was taking care of his ability to help all his patients by ensuring he had enough sleep, but in my particular case he left me laboring and alone in my hour of need, and he seems like as good a candidate as any to be the mental recipient of much of my impotent rage.

On the other end of the scale, let me describe the angelic nurse who sat by my bedside and helped me through the intense beginning of the magnesium drip. This drip starts with an enormous dose to get the levels up to speed, and then tapers off to something more manageable. The initial dose is a shock to the system, and feels like instantly getting a terribly rotten flu. This woman sat by my bedside through the entire first dosing, holding my hand, talking me through it, letting me know each step of the way what I could expect to feel, making me feel utterly taken care off. At the end of our whole ordeal, this same nurse offered to let Bruno and I stay in her country home in Oregon and just take a rest together. While we didn't take her up on it, the memory of that offer and her kindness and care that night stay with me as something to be grateful for even now.

The magnesium drip didn't stop my contractions, and I spent the night grasping the metal guard rail of my bed, trying to breathe away the pain and the fear. Bruno was tormented on his windowseat bed, blanched and curled up, unable to do anything to stop any of it. GD doctor, home in his bed, was paged, and prescribed Indocine, another med to stop the contractions, but with the possible side effect of brain bleeds. It was a horrible option, but we had no choice: it was that, or it would all be over by the end of the night.

I took the meds, and the contractions stopped; we thought, in our innocence, that maybe things could be alright. Catching a wave of temporary relief, we both fell asleep. I awoke to the worst feeling I have ever felt in my life: water rushing out of me, along with all my hopes for a happy ending. Pedro's water had broken.

I choked out Bruno's name, and he got the nurse; I will never forget the mix of disappointment, resignation and deep sorrow in her voice as she confirmed that the fluid was amniotic fluid. The next morning, the doctor finally showed his face, and had nothing at all to add as we started the finally leg of our terrible journey.