With a Little Help From My Friends: Part II

As a result of reaching out to my circle, I found myself with the chance to pick the brain of the Director of New Works of a theatre I am very interested in here in the Bay Area. I was grateful for the chance, and before the day of the interview, I thought through all the questions I wanted to ask about the theatre scene here.

As the day arrived, and Bruno sailed off to work, I started imagining how the interview might go. I imagined trying to find each other in the Starbucks, some awkward laughter. I imagined buying him a coffee and settling into a table. And then I imagined him welcoming me to the Bay Area and saying, "Tell me a little bit about yourself"

And then the vision went to the static screen that comes on the TV when it runs out of programming.

Yikes. How the hell do I answer that question right now. There is only one thing flashing in my mind by way of an answer, and I'm certainly not going to lob that his way. How the hell did Bruno do his job interviews? How did he answer these kinds of questions while our grief was still throbbing just under the skin. I feel a new level of respect for my husband who did what he needed to to keep his family going when his partner was unable to shoulder her part of the load. And I feel a fresh wave of terror at the prospect of fielding this question this afternoon.

As the tears began to swell, I lunged for the phone, dialed my dear, brilliant friend Rachel, and nearly fell to the floor with relief when she answered the call.

"Who am I," I managed to croak out.

"I'm sorry?" queried Rach

"I have an interview this afternoon and the guy might ask 'Tell me about yourself', or, 'What have you been up to lately' and I can't remember who I am. Who am I?"

And then this dear, lovely friend, began to thoughtfully remind me of who I am.

"As an artist", she began, "You have always been a study in contrasts. You began your theatre work with a real interest in authentic emotional experience, Method Acting, Uta Hagen. You enjoy being a lightening rod for emotions and taking your audience on a journey that way. But as you continued pursuing theatre, you began to find real enjoyment and skill in more physical ways of expressing: clown work, choreography. And you find you are at your strongest when you can bring those two things together. You also really enjoy being part of someone else's visions, being a team player and collaborator, and yet you also find times when you are compelled to make your own work, and you seem to organically weave those two opposite pursuits together."

"As a person, " she continued, "you have always enjoyed having a wide range. You act and sing and dance, and you love math, and you love education; you are a homebody and are now discovering the joys of travel. You got married and lived in three different places all in the last four years. And you arrived in the Bay Area in the middle of a personal tragedy, did a lot of hard work to start healing, and are now ready to start rejoining the theatre world."

As I listened to her tell me who I am, I thought: Everyone should do this! Everyone should call a dear friend who knows them to their core, and ask to be told who they are. The elements she pulled together for me, leaving aside all my complaints about myself, my worries and neurosis, and distilling the best parts of me, left me feeling so confident and so proud that I couldn't wait to get to the interview.

As it turns out, the questions I feared never got asked. But I'm sure that the boost Rachel gave me by letting me see myself through her mirror was what allowed me to be so relaxed and happy throughout the interview, and for several days afterward.

With a Little Help From My Friends: Part I

As 2009 dawns, I find I am beginning to reenter life. And I am thus beginning to find out just how socially lobotomized this whole experience has left me. At our Hanukkah party, I mostly played with the kids: that's about the conversation level I can handle.

A few weeks ago at an audition, I met another actress from NYC: I thrust my business card at her and asked if I could take her to coffee and pick her brain about transitioning to the Bay Area. To my delight and terror, she contacted me, and invited me to go to the theatre. In Berkeley. Oh G-d: a social date and a car trip. But I'm going balls to the walls this year, and so I said yes, struggled to squeeze my still heavy body into clothes that weren't sweat pants, gamely typed the address into my dashboard friend, and was off.

I had a triumphant beginning: I made it to Berkeley only hearing one snide "recalculating", and I parallel parked! Nothing can stop me now! I arrived at the theatre early, walked in, and found myself face to face with the one casting director in the area I know from previous work in California. She recognized me, gave me a huge hug, and told me of work she already had in mind for me. And I stuttered and stammered, and thanked her, I think (G-d, I hope). And then continued to talk to her, trying to prove I was in fact a human being instead of the rutabega I had managed so far, and it was only a few minutes later that I realized we were standing in front of a large group of people all wearing black and white and now staring at me; she had been conducting a meeting with that evening's volunteer ushers, and here I was completely oblivious and yammering away like an idiot. Oy Vey. Can I go home now?

But there, through the glass front door, is my new friend, waving and looking bubbly. She comes in and rescues me, grabs us wine and talks non-stop. I stop beating myself up for the opening fiasco, and melt into the torrent of her energy. She knows everyone in the room. She waves to person after person, walks over and introduces me. People look at me expectantly, and I can't think of a thing to say.

I used to be able to do this. I could walk through a room of strangers, introduce myself, ask them about their work and tell them about mine. Exchange cards. Now, I'm starring dumbly at all these nice people thinking: "I just experienced tragedy and I'm struggling to survive. That is my current work." But ofcourse you can't say things like that in a theatre lobby. Well, I suppose you can, but even I am not that bold.

But G-d bless my new friend, she bulldozes right over my silence and proceeds to tell all her friends how I am this fabulous actress just arrived from NYC, and that they are all going to want to work with me (mind you, this friend has yet to see my work). She holds me by the elbow, and her chatter and her warmth bubble over me, and I stop worrying and take a back seat and listen. I listen to her talk, and ask and listen. I watch and I relearn how to converse, how to chit chat.

The show is starting; the schmoozing is done. I relax into my seat in the darkness: this part I can handle. We see six new plays that evening, and I am delighted, revitalized, by the power of fresh new work, new ideas, raw, just hatched. I am in love, again, with theatre, it's collaborative nature, the honest helpless passion of it's participants. I think I could step back into this. I think I could let this continue my healing.

I walk out of the theatre with tears in my eyes. I am grateful for the whole evening: for the writers, the actors, for the bubbly new friend by my elbow guiding me back into life. Grateful for my boys, my little angels who are causing me to rebirth myself as well.

She's a Maniac (maniac on the floor...)

Today I'm under the influence of some kind of hormonal storm front. At least that's the story I'm sticking with. It's a real shame too, because it is such a beautiful day outside. We even went out in it, climbed a mini mountain near our house. You'd think that would have done the trick, snapped me out of this funkadelic gully. And I think it might have had a shot of working. But then my husband made a fatal mistake. He decided, post hike, with my adrenaline high and my blood sugar low and no clear read on the status of the emotional storm front, that this would be a good moment to teach me to drive a stick shift.

Bad idea. Very very baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad idea.

He had tried to warm me up to this idea on the hike, and you'd think from the chilly reception his brainchild had received that he would have pressed the abort button by now. But no, not my ever ambitious husband, who believes that through the sheer force of his will he can get people to enjoy the things that he enjoys, whether that be skiing very quickly down a mountain, or enjoying the supposed extra control of the vehicle that driving stick shift affords. I'll also take this moment to remind you that I resent very strongly no longer having the NYC subway system available to me, and I do not, generally, enjoy having what little control I do currently have over my vehicle.

Danger, Danger Will Robinson. Abort. Abort.

I get in the driver's seat of his car, a cute little pearly white Subaru Impreza. That is all I can tell you about the car: it's color and it's name. Oh, and it has some ugly little fin thing on the hood that I think is necessary because of something called Turbo. I asked if we could get the car without the fin thing and was summarily told: No.

I adjust the seat until my knees are up my nose, allowing me to fully depress the surprising third petal, the almighty CLUTCH. Bruno asks me to put my right foot on the brake, and I promptly get disoriented by the involvement now of my left foot in the process, and touch my right foot to the gas. The car makes an unpleasant revving noise. Bruno starts hollering, "Gas and Brake haven't changed! It's the same as in your car!"

I am not off to a good start.

At this point, I seriously can't remember which petal is the gas and which is the brake, which as far as I'm concerned disqualifies me from ever driving stick shift again, but my ever optimistic husband has set his sights on success and insists we continue. I take a deep breath, try to visualize being in my car (will I have time to do this while barreling down the highway?), and press the break. Under Bruno's instruction, I move the stick into neutral.

Clutch still depressed, I now am told to press lightly on the gas, until the little needle thingy is between 2 and 3. OK, mission accomplished. Are we done now? Nope, now I've got to keep my gas foot just where it is, move the car into gear #1, and slowly, gently release the clutch.

Seriously, people do all these different things at once while moving at great speeds? See, this is why they INVENTED AUTOMATIC.

OK, I manage to do all these things, and the car actually starts moving forward without any more of those revving or chugging or choking noises. OK.

And then the people appear.

What had been an empty street at the end of a mountain has now rolled into a little residential street with people. And dogs. And little kids.

I ask Bruno how to stop, and he tells me I'm doing fine. I repeat my request, through gritted teeth with a shrillness in my voice exposing the state of complete panic I am now in, and am once again told that I am doing fine.

EEERRRCCCHHH! <---- That's my best approximation of the sound the car now made as I stepped on clutch and brake simultaneously and immediately, tossed the stick back into neutral, wrenched up the emergency break, and hopped out of the pearly white devil car.

I marched around to the passenger seat, passing Bruno on his march toward the driver's. He looked about as angry as I felt.

He starts up the car, drives us in silence away from the residents, dogs and kids, and then we both start to shout at once:

"Why do you have to panic all the time!?" "Why wouldn't you tell me how to stop!" "Why can't you just trust me, you were fine!" "I was in a moving vehicle and I didn't know how to stop it, I wasn't fine!" "What do you mean you didn't know how to stop it: you just stopped it" "I took a guess: I didn't know what the hell I was doing! And who are you to decide what I do and don't need to know?!" "YOU WERE FINE!"

Needless to say, all of this excitement pretty much eliminated the idea that our hike would put me in a better mood. I've been an emotional maniac all afternoon. Although I must say, writing this posting (aka: tattling on my husband) has made me feel much, much better.

My Circle

Today, at my husband's urging, I reached out for help generating a new artistic life here on the left coast. I contacted many people who have been fans from the past: actors, directors, producers, artists, educators, writers, friends, -and asked for help. I called it my "Phoenix from the Ashes" campaign. The response was overwhelming.

Most of these people don't know the story of Pedro and Archer, and I wasn't sure whether to burden them with it. But the idea of sending a sunny, "Hi, how are you? Things are great out here in California" email made me feel hollow. I decided that there was no way to move forward without embracing my whole story, and so I wrote each person a brief summary of recent events (and pointed them toward this blog if they wanted more details: hello there!) Again, the response surprised and moved me to no end.

People wrote back expressing their sympathies, telling me their similar stories, offering names of contacts and friends, sending e-mails on my behalf, naming months for West Coast visits. People I haven't seen in years offered empathy, sympathy, love, prayers and well wishes. I feel so surrounded and protected by a circle of artists and educators and friends. I feel so lucky.

Thank you, to everyone I am lucky enough to know. Like a phoenix from the ashes, I will rebuild myself, to honor my sons, my husband, my family and my circle.

A Gift

I bought myself a gift today: a set of 81 glittery gel pens. I got it at Costco for $16.95. I am super excited about it.

They come in a stand; the marketers called it a "stadium stand". And truthfully, that's what it looks like: 81 jewel-like caps topping 81 crystaline tubes housing 81 shimmering colors of icecream-smooth ink, standing in tiered rows, looking like a circus audience.

My stadium of creative sentinels stands at attention on my desk, next to my computer. All day, I've been making lists just to see the fresh inks glide onto the page. And then I've been completing the things on my list, just for the pleasure of scratching a line of one color through words of another.

It's funny the bribes we give ourselves, to get the jobs done, to get through the day. Today was especially productive, as my page of scarlet and sapphire will attest.

Glass in the Bed

Last night I dreamt there was glass in our bed. And that my mother had been in the bed and had somehow escaped without getting cut by the glass, but now we were in the bed and I was very worried, because I knew the glass was in here with us, and I was just waiting for it to cut us.

We made the decision around Hanukkah time to buy a beautiful double frame, put a picture of Archer and a picture of Pedro in it, and place in on the dresser in our bedroom. It has been a mixed blessing. The whole pregnancy was beginning to seem like a dream, like something that must not have really happened, and so seeing their beautiful selves, their sweet little faces, has brought it back home to us that they are real, that we really did have two sons.

But every time I walk through the bedroom and pass their pictures, from the moment I wake up until the moment we turn out the lights, I utter two phrases as I pass:

"I love you"

and, "I'm so sorry".

Seeing them makes me feel oh so strongly what we've lost. All the potential these two little lads had in them, with their long limbs and their big, perfect feet. Bruno's swarthiness reflected in Pedro's dark crown, and Archer's pale and worried brow: my side of the family.

We're not sure whether the pictures can stay. Each of us has gotten lost, gotten stuck just standing in front of the frame, staring at the two little bodies. It's hard to forgive ourselves, forgive the Universe, to just keep moving. And we're both afraid of the moment when we become used to the picture, when we walk by without noticing, without acknowledging.

We're waiting for the right moment to put it away. A moment of pause, when both of us feel ready, to gently put the picture away, for now, knowing we can take them out when we want to, when we need to. We haven't found that moment yet, so for now I keep chanting, I love you; I'm so sorry.

And apparently my dream self has figured out that no matter when I put the double frame away, I will always be aware of the glass in the bed.

Breath of Fresh Air From the Past

My Mom, my lovely Mom, forwarded this to me today, to remind me of happier moments from the past. For me, it was a breath of fresh air, a reminder of less heavy times, a glimpse of who I was, the breathless, excitable girl who is still in there somewhere. Thought you all could maybe use a breath too in this journey, so here it is:

"June 6th, 2003:

Well,

Bruno asked me to marry him this weekend, and I said yes!!

Couldn't have been more romantic: B&B at Lake Tahoe, a bike ride through the woods, wine in an outdoor hot tub, a fancy dinner out, then back to our little cottage for a second hot tub dip, this time in our room, lit by fireplace and candlelight. He went to get "wine" out of the ice bucket, and as I looked at the shadow he cast on the wall in front of me, I noticed the shape his hand was holding didn't look like a wine bottle. Instead, in front of my eyes, was a beautiful green box containing an even more beautiful green sapphire in an antique white gold ring setting.

I started saying "OHMYG-D" and couldn't stop for like a minute solid. When I finally shut up, Bruno asked, "Will you marry me?" And I said yes, and we cried and hugged.

Then, I pulled back and, ham that I am, I said, "Do it again!"

And this lovely man I'm marrying asked me again, and I said yes again, and isn't life fun sometimes?!"

And for those of you really paying attention, yes, the second hot tub was a private one in our room, so, yes, this was a naked proposal.

Isn't life fun sometimes?