1) The pink hydrangea growing under our bedroom window.
Yes, I know, blue hydrangeas are my thing, but I've never seen a plant like this: it is almost like it was rendered by the pointillism fellows. Each petal seems to be a different color, and the juxtaposed colors create brand new colors, mixtures of watery greeny pink and chalky pinky blue...stunning.
2) Eating in bed, while reading a book, especially on a sunny day.
OK, eating anywhere while reading a book gives me joy, but in bed and while the sun is shining brightly outside is the definition of decadence to me. The world is telling you you should be outside, and you are doing the precise opposite, doing exactly what you please, ignoring all outside promptings, cuddling into the cool sheets while placating your tastebuds and disappearing into another world, crumbs in the sheets be damned!
3) Adventuring with Bruno and then sleeping in the car on the way home.
I love the adventures Bruno and I take. I love our talks as we drive by beautiful scenery. I love hiking off into the hills or kayaking off into the seas. I love the things we find to eat and to drink, sometimes right off the trees themselves. And I particularly love when we are all talked out and walked out and wined and dined, to give in to the sleepy feeling that moving vehicles have always engendered in me (the reason they would never let me drive the van when we were on tour), and falling into delicious, drool spilling out the side of my mouth sleep, while my Prince Charming brings me safely home.
4) Rehearsing. Anything.
I love rehearsing so much. I think I love it more than performing. The art of creating, of fooling around, throwing around ideas, trying things out, failing in big ways when it doesn't count at all and then finding the perfect, fabulous, genius thing you never would have found if you hadn't tried and failed so many times before. LOVE IT.
5) Listening to my Ipod on Shuffle in the car.
It completely cracks me up when Janis Joplin rocking out is follow by some dire snippet from Les Miserables, which is then followed by a Brandenburg Concerto, after which Anything Goes comes brightly through the speakers. And I sing my lungs out to all of them. Even the Concerto.
6) The San Mateo Farmer's Market, Tues, Wed and Sat.
Oh my G-d, I love the farmer's market. I love feeling the seasons change by the new produce arriving on the stands. I love having a fridge full of kale and chard and English peas. I love the black pluots resting next to the yellow heirloom tomatoes in my fruit bowl. I love how sweet and juicy and fabulous even carrots taste out here. As I write, I am sitting here enjoying the incredible smell of the nectarines we bought this weekend.
7) Candlelit breakfast with Bruno on a weekday.
Because why the hell not. Life can be super crappy, so why not celebrate all the moments that don't happen to be.
8) Checking the mail, and the e-mail and the cellphone and the Facebook.
OK, I admit it. I'm a communication junkie and I just love hearing from people and writing back. I crave contact and attention and and it makes me so happy to get it.
9) All white cheddar flavored organic puff-like products, and especially "Tings"
I don't know why, but these "healthier for you" (ha ha) versions of Cheetos make me feel unbelievable amounts of happiness. Especially when I get the chance to eat them without Bruno censoring the quanity. He's right, and I always make myself sick when I eat them unchecked, but I don't care: that salty, cheesy, corn crunchy goodness with no end is sight is worth the tummy ache after.
10) Falling asleep to the sounds of some horrible, National Geographic, "River Monsters" show, while cuddled up into Bruno's chest.
Nothing better in the world.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Monday, June 8, 2009
Robustly Insane
That's how I feel today: robustly insane. I am currently working my way through an entire package of Trader Joe's Multigrain Savory Thins (hey, they're multigrain: that counts for something, right?), and I am just unable to get satisfied by anything. Nothing I do, nothing I eat, nothing I watch or log on to is doing it. I feel ravenously hungry, and achingly achingly lonely. Oh, I do hate being self-employed when Monday rolls around.
I've become addicted to connectivity lately. My friends finally forced me to join Facebook (yeah, yeah, friend me if I haven't gotten to you yet), and it is the compulsive nightmare I always imagined it would be for me. I can't stop logging on, checking everyone's status, updating my own. (OK, the Savory Thins are gone: what can I chew through next) I incessantly check my cellphone for voicemails and texts; I can't wait to run and check my e-mail when I've been away for as long as it takes to do the breakfast dishes. I am desperately waiting for the message, the news, that will fill the empty in me. It doesn't feel good. It is part and parcel of the train running inside my chest feeling.
I don't know what it is about.
And, ofcourse, I also know exactly what it is about.
We are unfinished, incomplete, and it is just so hard to keep going for so long in the in between. Sometimes, by mid-morning, I just can't wait to go to bed, so we can be through with another day in which we don't have children, and be that much closer to some day when we will. This isn't how I want to spend my days, but sometimes I just can't help it. Other days it is much easier to stay in the now.
And so I feel brightly, robustly insane. Not wanly stuck in my head, but out there, shouting to the world crazy. Writing it out, texting it out, calling it out. Looking to my circle for the satisfaction that, right now, I can't find in myself.
I've become addicted to connectivity lately. My friends finally forced me to join Facebook (yeah, yeah, friend me if I haven't gotten to you yet), and it is the compulsive nightmare I always imagined it would be for me. I can't stop logging on, checking everyone's status, updating my own. (OK, the Savory Thins are gone: what can I chew through next) I incessantly check my cellphone for voicemails and texts; I can't wait to run and check my e-mail when I've been away for as long as it takes to do the breakfast dishes. I am desperately waiting for the message, the news, that will fill the empty in me. It doesn't feel good. It is part and parcel of the train running inside my chest feeling.
I don't know what it is about.
And, ofcourse, I also know exactly what it is about.
We are unfinished, incomplete, and it is just so hard to keep going for so long in the in between. Sometimes, by mid-morning, I just can't wait to go to bed, so we can be through with another day in which we don't have children, and be that much closer to some day when we will. This isn't how I want to spend my days, but sometimes I just can't help it. Other days it is much easier to stay in the now.
And so I feel brightly, robustly insane. Not wanly stuck in my head, but out there, shouting to the world crazy. Writing it out, texting it out, calling it out. Looking to my circle for the satisfaction that, right now, I can't find in myself.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Luck
Today, in an attempt to get Murphy's Law working for us, I bought a Costco sized box of tampons. (It's a sleeper joke. Give it a second... There you go!)
Costco was one of many unnecessary items I put on today's to do list, in an attempt to keep myself from sitting by the phone and the computer, waiting for something to happen. It is very rough, this attention detox. I'm used to people applauding for me every night, used to sitting with friends in a very small dressing room cracking jokes and being goofy. Used to the energy rush of stepping on stage and playing four different characters, used to the stimulation of their four different worlds. Now it is just me and this big old house in the suburbs while my husband is at work. Yikes.
I'm doing an admirable job of keeping myself occupied, if I do say so myself. This morning I returned most of the e-mails I'd owed during the run of the show (sorry if I haven't gotten back to you yet: you are on tomorrow's to do list), then went to the gym and worked out like mad, and then swam in the rooftop pool in the California sun! Then the aforementioned Costco trip, back home to quickly unload and lunch, and then tutoring. And now Bruno is on his way home, so I've almost made it through a whole 'nother day without falling apart. One more or so, and the detox should be done.
And then, of course, there is the larger unfinished project, which I was able to so beautifully not worry about while rehearsing and performing: The family we started, but, as of yet, have failed to finish. The sensation in my chest of a train running has returned, and I'm sure this is what is causing it. I fought all day long to quell the feeling of panic. Come to think of it, I haven't meditated yet today.
Well, it is what it is. I'm learning to live with it, find coping methods, ways to compensate, while I take all the right steps and wait for our luck to turn. One of these days it has to come out alright, right?
Costco was one of many unnecessary items I put on today's to do list, in an attempt to keep myself from sitting by the phone and the computer, waiting for something to happen. It is very rough, this attention detox. I'm used to people applauding for me every night, used to sitting with friends in a very small dressing room cracking jokes and being goofy. Used to the energy rush of stepping on stage and playing four different characters, used to the stimulation of their four different worlds. Now it is just me and this big old house in the suburbs while my husband is at work. Yikes.
I'm doing an admirable job of keeping myself occupied, if I do say so myself. This morning I returned most of the e-mails I'd owed during the run of the show (sorry if I haven't gotten back to you yet: you are on tomorrow's to do list), then went to the gym and worked out like mad, and then swam in the rooftop pool in the California sun! Then the aforementioned Costco trip, back home to quickly unload and lunch, and then tutoring. And now Bruno is on his way home, so I've almost made it through a whole 'nother day without falling apart. One more or so, and the detox should be done.
And then, of course, there is the larger unfinished project, which I was able to so beautifully not worry about while rehearsing and performing: The family we started, but, as of yet, have failed to finish. The sensation in my chest of a train running has returned, and I'm sure this is what is causing it. I fought all day long to quell the feeling of panic. Come to think of it, I haven't meditated yet today.
Well, it is what it is. I'm learning to live with it, find coping methods, ways to compensate, while I take all the right steps and wait for our luck to turn. One of these days it has to come out alright, right?
Sunday, May 31, 2009
A comin'
Folks, I fear a crash is a comin'. Tonight is the final performance of our show, and tomorrow I have to wake up all the same and face my life again without the glorious protection of the theatre. Without the high of being paid to collaborate with a range of artists to create something utterly new. Without the rush of presenting yourself, your thoughts, your actions every night in front of a crowd of strangers and being applauded for it. Without the freedom and joy of feeling you are achieving one of your higher purposes in this world, especially when other ones seem so slippery and unattainable.
Oy.
I don't really have a plan for how to navigate this transition. I'm going to try to take a dance class tomorrow morning (if the cast party doesn't kick my ass too hard), and then I have an acupuncture appointment, but that only takes me until 1pm on Monday; after that, time stretches out in front of me. It's likely I'll get sick; that's my usual default distraction in cases like this. Or perhaps this time, I can find my way to a less destructive transition tool.
I know I've sorely neglected both my blog and my friends, so I will endeavor to pour myself into those areas. And once upon a time, I had a dream of a California garden, so perhaps I can use my freshly earned theatre paychecks to begin that project.
All of this, of course, is an attempt to keep myself from doing nothing but obsessing about my other, underlying, important above all else project, with its frustratingly elusive results and my complete lack of control over it.
We've got some big dates coming our way: Our 5 year wedding anniversary is June 13th, and then there is Father's Day, and finally, at the end of July looms the one year marker. I am really angry about that. I am not at all ready to be a year away from their birth and death: we just passed the 10 month marker and I really can't believe that much time has passed. When I think of how much we have accomplished, and how far we've come, it seems like a shockingly short amount of time. But when I think of how close I still feel to having been pregnant with them, to having held them in my belly and then in my arms, to having had to make that final, awful decision to let someone wheel them away, knowing we would never kiss them again, I feel completely offended that the world has had the audacity to have spun nearly 365 times since then. I want to scream with rage about that.
But one step at a time: July will come, but first I have to face tomorrow.
Oy.
I don't really have a plan for how to navigate this transition. I'm going to try to take a dance class tomorrow morning (if the cast party doesn't kick my ass too hard), and then I have an acupuncture appointment, but that only takes me until 1pm on Monday; after that, time stretches out in front of me. It's likely I'll get sick; that's my usual default distraction in cases like this. Or perhaps this time, I can find my way to a less destructive transition tool.
I know I've sorely neglected both my blog and my friends, so I will endeavor to pour myself into those areas. And once upon a time, I had a dream of a California garden, so perhaps I can use my freshly earned theatre paychecks to begin that project.
All of this, of course, is an attempt to keep myself from doing nothing but obsessing about my other, underlying, important above all else project, with its frustratingly elusive results and my complete lack of control over it.
We've got some big dates coming our way: Our 5 year wedding anniversary is June 13th, and then there is Father's Day, and finally, at the end of July looms the one year marker. I am really angry about that. I am not at all ready to be a year away from their birth and death: we just passed the 10 month marker and I really can't believe that much time has passed. When I think of how much we have accomplished, and how far we've come, it seems like a shockingly short amount of time. But when I think of how close I still feel to having been pregnant with them, to having held them in my belly and then in my arms, to having had to make that final, awful decision to let someone wheel them away, knowing we would never kiss them again, I feel completely offended that the world has had the audacity to have spun nearly 365 times since then. I want to scream with rage about that.
But one step at a time: July will come, but first I have to face tomorrow.
Chicken
Last night, at our second to last show, the Artistic Director of the festival came into the dressing room a few minutes before curtain, to ask us all a favor:
"Guys, tonight after the show we are doing a tribute to one of our playwrights, and I'd like to do some 30 second excerpts from his works over the years. I've got scripts here: would you guys be willing to perform them, impromptu?"
We all look up from the makeup mirrors, murmur our acceptance, and Jim begins to cast the excerpts. I return to my makeup and am not really listening, when I hear him say,
"And we need someone to play a woman who clucks like a chicken. Lisa?"
Thanks, Jim.
We do our show to a sold-out and incredibly receptive crowd, and then run back to the dressing room to scrape off our cartoon-like makeup from the final piece, throw on our street clothes, grab our 30 second scripts and return to the stage. The house lights are on, so we can see the audience now, Jim is chatting, and it is all very casual. We sit on the stage, on the raised step that runs across the back, and as Jim announces the various excerpts, we step up in groups or pairs and read our playlettes.
Jim announces our chicken play, and as I find my feet, my inner chicken takes over. My arms fold wing-like into my sides, and my head starts jutting forward, sharply angling from the chin. I open my mouth, and begin to squawk and cluck, as I peck and scratch and strut about.
The audience is laughing loudly.
My scene partner tries to get his lines out, as I continue to impersonate poultry, and now my fellow actors are laughing on the stage behind me. I let out a particularly loud and inspired squawk, and then, surrounded by all this energy, all this glee and silliness, I give over to the moment and I break: I crack myself up and I start laughing.
The audience now becomes hysterical, which makes me laugh all the harder. My fellow cast members are rolling around on the stage behind me, and my scene partner is holding on for dear life, managing thus far to keep his straight face. He's supposed to have me under hypnosis (hence the cluck like a chicken routine), so he takes two fingers and points them at my eyes and then at his own, trying to help me regain my composure. We are nose to nose when I produce another cluck which cracks us both up and I wind up spitting in his face as laughter and saliva spew out of me like a geyser.
The room is vibrating with laughter: we have all lost control and no one cares. We can't wait to see what will happen next. I consider trying to lay an egg, and decide I might actually lose continence if I take this any further. I settle down and listen to my scene partner, who has now reached the part of the script where he is bringing me out from under hypnosis. He counts 1, and I cluck in response. He counts two and I cluck twice, cracking us all up for a final time. He counts 3 and I snap out of hypnosis, and end what might rank as one of the most enjoyable 30 second intervals of my life.
"Guys, tonight after the show we are doing a tribute to one of our playwrights, and I'd like to do some 30 second excerpts from his works over the years. I've got scripts here: would you guys be willing to perform them, impromptu?"
We all look up from the makeup mirrors, murmur our acceptance, and Jim begins to cast the excerpts. I return to my makeup and am not really listening, when I hear him say,
"And we need someone to play a woman who clucks like a chicken. Lisa?"
Thanks, Jim.
We do our show to a sold-out and incredibly receptive crowd, and then run back to the dressing room to scrape off our cartoon-like makeup from the final piece, throw on our street clothes, grab our 30 second scripts and return to the stage. The house lights are on, so we can see the audience now, Jim is chatting, and it is all very casual. We sit on the stage, on the raised step that runs across the back, and as Jim announces the various excerpts, we step up in groups or pairs and read our playlettes.
Jim announces our chicken play, and as I find my feet, my inner chicken takes over. My arms fold wing-like into my sides, and my head starts jutting forward, sharply angling from the chin. I open my mouth, and begin to squawk and cluck, as I peck and scratch and strut about.
The audience is laughing loudly.
My scene partner tries to get his lines out, as I continue to impersonate poultry, and now my fellow actors are laughing on the stage behind me. I let out a particularly loud and inspired squawk, and then, surrounded by all this energy, all this glee and silliness, I give over to the moment and I break: I crack myself up and I start laughing.
The audience now becomes hysterical, which makes me laugh all the harder. My fellow cast members are rolling around on the stage behind me, and my scene partner is holding on for dear life, managing thus far to keep his straight face. He's supposed to have me under hypnosis (hence the cluck like a chicken routine), so he takes two fingers and points them at my eyes and then at his own, trying to help me regain my composure. We are nose to nose when I produce another cluck which cracks us both up and I wind up spitting in his face as laughter and saliva spew out of me like a geyser.
The room is vibrating with laughter: we have all lost control and no one cares. We can't wait to see what will happen next. I consider trying to lay an egg, and decide I might actually lose continence if I take this any further. I settle down and listen to my scene partner, who has now reached the part of the script where he is bringing me out from under hypnosis. He counts 1, and I cluck in response. He counts two and I cluck twice, cracking us all up for a final time. He counts 3 and I snap out of hypnosis, and end what might rank as one of the most enjoyable 30 second intervals of my life.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Dream
Early this morning, I had a dream that I was hiking up a steep steep climb. I was with two other people, a man and a woman. Got to a point where the climb became nearly vertical; there was actually a structure built into the rock, a little ladder like the one you use to climb out of a pool. I was having trouble climbing the rungs; it was almost as if I no longer had any strength in my legs. I got a glimpse of the top, and it was stunning, and frightening: gorgeous clear, unencumbered vistas of beautiful scenery, and a sheer drop below. I committed to getting to the top, to taking in the scenery despite the fear, and the man and the woman together helped me take the steps, find my strength (supplying their own where mine failed), keep my balance, and make it safely to the top.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Thank you, patient readers
Wow. Two Weeks since my last post! I am so sorry my patient readers and I will try not to go this long without a post again.
It has been a crazy wonderful two weeks, though. I've rehearsed, tech'd and opened in a show, acted in three student film projects, gotten my SAT students through their May test and my GMAT student ready to take his test, performed in a staged reading of a new play, hosted my dear dear friend Alyson from Dubai, and survived both Bruno's two week trip to Europe and Mother's Day. Phew!
Where to start? Well, the play has been bliss every step of the way. And I've felt a new kind of freedom during the rehearsal process that I'm sure is a direct gift from Pedro and Archer. It used to be that when I started working with a new group of people, I would be full of self doubt: Am I good enough to be here? Will the director doubt his/her choice as soon as I open my mouth? Do the other actors like me? Am I cool enough to fit in? This time around, there was no room for any of that noise. I feel like I have been burned clean by the events of this past year, and I am struggling so hard just to be wherever it is that I physically am, that there is no energy left for extraneous nonsense. And, without the burden of my own doubts, my rehearsing and performing have become unfettered: richer and fuller and more deeply free than they have ever been before.
And as it turns out, the other actors do like me, and I am cool enough. Nice.
I also have to mention the laughter. I am not sure I have ever laughed so much as I have during this rehearsal process. Again, I chalk this up to my sons, who have left me with a lack of self-consciousness that has allowed me to experience the sheer joy of a good joke and to crack one back with abandon. The particular collection of people I'm working with are a bunch of cut-ups; showing up for rehearsal sometimes feels like being in the middle of a Muppet Show episode. Good jokes, bad jokes, in-jokes, sex jokes: the energy just flies around the room, one actor topping the next until someone crowns it and we all burst into laughter and return to rehearsing. My face and ribs ache with laughing: after these past nine months I am sorely out of practice. It is so joyful, so appreciative of the moment at hand, and I am so filled with gratitude for the jokes, the joke crackers and the chance to be part of it all.
We had our first preview, our first time performing in front of an audience, this Thursday, and it was magical. As always, as we entered tech at the beginning of the week everything fell apart. We tripped over each other on and off stage, forgot lines, futzed with set pieces and props: the usual chaos. Thursday afternoon we were still getting new technical elements and it felt utterly hopeless that we could even stumble through an evening performance. And yet here came the evening, and there sat the audience, and on went the performers. And, magically, no lines were forgotten (well, not noticeably so...), and gaps tightened, performances bumped up a level, and train wrecks from the afternoon were steaming beautifully down their tracks. Something larger than all of us emerged from our collective creative energy and professional experience and carried both us and the audience through the night. A glorious thing.
And then came Press Night, and then came Opening, and then The Sunday After It All, the freebie performance when you've made it all the way from the start of tech through opening, the directors have all left, and the actors and stage manager now own the show. It is a strange feeling: a combination of abandonment and relaxation. And an excitement to see how things will grow and evolve, now that the fury of creation is done.
It has been a crazy wonderful two weeks, though. I've rehearsed, tech'd and opened in a show, acted in three student film projects, gotten my SAT students through their May test and my GMAT student ready to take his test, performed in a staged reading of a new play, hosted my dear dear friend Alyson from Dubai, and survived both Bruno's two week trip to Europe and Mother's Day. Phew!
Where to start? Well, the play has been bliss every step of the way. And I've felt a new kind of freedom during the rehearsal process that I'm sure is a direct gift from Pedro and Archer. It used to be that when I started working with a new group of people, I would be full of self doubt: Am I good enough to be here? Will the director doubt his/her choice as soon as I open my mouth? Do the other actors like me? Am I cool enough to fit in? This time around, there was no room for any of that noise. I feel like I have been burned clean by the events of this past year, and I am struggling so hard just to be wherever it is that I physically am, that there is no energy left for extraneous nonsense. And, without the burden of my own doubts, my rehearsing and performing have become unfettered: richer and fuller and more deeply free than they have ever been before.
And as it turns out, the other actors do like me, and I am cool enough. Nice.
I also have to mention the laughter. I am not sure I have ever laughed so much as I have during this rehearsal process. Again, I chalk this up to my sons, who have left me with a lack of self-consciousness that has allowed me to experience the sheer joy of a good joke and to crack one back with abandon. The particular collection of people I'm working with are a bunch of cut-ups; showing up for rehearsal sometimes feels like being in the middle of a Muppet Show episode. Good jokes, bad jokes, in-jokes, sex jokes: the energy just flies around the room, one actor topping the next until someone crowns it and we all burst into laughter and return to rehearsing. My face and ribs ache with laughing: after these past nine months I am sorely out of practice. It is so joyful, so appreciative of the moment at hand, and I am so filled with gratitude for the jokes, the joke crackers and the chance to be part of it all.
We had our first preview, our first time performing in front of an audience, this Thursday, and it was magical. As always, as we entered tech at the beginning of the week everything fell apart. We tripped over each other on and off stage, forgot lines, futzed with set pieces and props: the usual chaos. Thursday afternoon we were still getting new technical elements and it felt utterly hopeless that we could even stumble through an evening performance. And yet here came the evening, and there sat the audience, and on went the performers. And, magically, no lines were forgotten (well, not noticeably so...), and gaps tightened, performances bumped up a level, and train wrecks from the afternoon were steaming beautifully down their tracks. Something larger than all of us emerged from our collective creative energy and professional experience and carried both us and the audience through the night. A glorious thing.
And then came Press Night, and then came Opening, and then The Sunday After It All, the freebie performance when you've made it all the way from the start of tech through opening, the directors have all left, and the actors and stage manager now own the show. It is a strange feeling: a combination of abandonment and relaxation. And an excitement to see how things will grow and evolve, now that the fury of creation is done.
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