I try to keep my social media presence happy. I focus mainly on dance, social awareness and education.  I want it to be a positive place where I can celebrate art and love and the good of people. I do post about politics on twitter but keep most of my darker emotions inside or save them for the occasional blog post, like this one here.  However, I will circle around and end with love and gratitude. I promise. 

This has been a fucking hard week. I have been sick; fever, coughing, no voice exhausted sick. (One of my little ones yesterday responded with a incredulous, "You are sick AGAIN Miss Nancy???" ) I am worried about a dear friend going through a hard time. I am a bit blue because the play that I directed closed. I never know when the next one will come, there is always a whispered fear that I will never work again. To add to the melancholy, my family did not make a single inquiry about it, from start to finish. I try to ignore that, but it is hard.  I am struggling to stay above water financially and every single time that I start to make inroads, something shitty happens. I have been without a car for 8 months now, and during that time have been navigating LA solely by bike, with the occasional metro boost. It is hard. I often ride 50 miles a day, and few days are less than 25 miles. I really try not to complain, even when the winds are 40 miles per hour or it rains. Motorists in LA do not like cyclists and occasionally there are people who intentionally try to run you off of the road or scare you with their horns.  So many more people do so carelessly by paying more attention to the illegal text that they are sending than to the path of their vehicle.  I have fallen and been injured four times. It is painful and embarrassing and terrifying but I just keep going, bruises and scars be damned.  A couple of dear friends help me out on the occasions when I absolutely need a car and I could not be more grateful for their generosity. Difficulties aside, I am actually pretty happy with this lifestyle and am in no hurry to buy a car.  And yet......

LA is the bike stealing capital of the universe. Yesterday I walked out of the school where I teach tiny ballerinas and found nothing but a hacked tree where my bike should have been. Broad daylight with a parent standing guard, and someone HAD TO CUT A TREE TO STEAL IT.  Amazing. This is the second bike that has been stolen from me in six months. My soul feels more than a bit bruised. It is more than a bike to me. It is my freedom, my sanity and my livelihood. I got angry. My anger does not go outward. It turns inward and is dangerous and destructive. My impulse as I rode the waves  of it yesterday was to hurt myself. It is MY fault that bad things keep happening to me. I deserve this. I don't do enough good in the world. I am dark and ugly and hateful. I was tempted by razor blades, by the allure of sharp knives, by my fingernails.  Someone was kind enough to help me along by posting on my Facebook page "what did you DO in a past life?" adding to the chorus of voices of my own internal blame. OF COURSE the act of some lowlife stealing my bike is my somehow my fault. After all, I was in a bad neighborhood (teaching small children, tutoring as a volunteer.....), I left it locked up outside rather than bringing it indoors where it would block the hall and create a hazard.  I am a bad person, a loser myself, dark, evil, repulsive.  Someone who should not exist at all. This is where my mind goes. But the sharp objects did not win out yesterday.  I fought them off. Then  there was one message, then another and then one more. Friends offering to help with a new bike.  No blame, just understanding and an offer to help.  I ignored them at first.  Help and kindness, especially when I am in a cycle of self recrimation, are hard for me to accept. I was busy internally, fighting my urges.  I didn't cut or rip at my skin or do anything other than walk. I walked it off. It took two and a half hours and many miles to do so, but those amazing offers made it ok and after initially pushing them away, because I don't deserve help because of all of that self hate, I relented just a little.  I said yes to one and may say yes to the others. That softening of the guard allowed the tears that I had been holding back to start to seep out. A text that I received this morning softened me some more. I am moving on. I ordered a new bike. I will figure out the finances. Things will move forward. And my next bike will be microchipped so that I can find the thief and use these cycling augmented ballerina legs to kick him to the curb.

Neighborhoods in large cities are like individual small towns, self contained with specific personalities. They are laid out in the same manner; There is the corner store that stays open late, a favorite coffee shop (or two or three), a resale shop, a sports store, a house with too many dogs or cats or kids and one that leaves Christmas lights up until July (often the same house...). When you live in a neighborhood you get to enjoy a familiarity with those who live around you, the people and their habits. Some people water their lawns every night, even in the midst of a drought. Others ignore gardening altogether, letting nature take it course; green when it rains, brown and dry most of the year. There is a couple that buys a new luxury car every year then suddenly stops, replacing shopping at Jons for Whole Foods as that last new car gets more and more beat up. Each day has a unique but predictable rhythm, punctuated by the garbage trucks, leaf blowers and kids who do or do not yet go to school.  An elderly and incredibly dapper gay couple walk their matching elderly lap dogs at the exact same time every day. Each neighborhood has a set population and among that population are  its eccentrics. Because you see them every day and you see the way that they act in these very specific circumstances, even if you never speak to them, you still get the sense that you know them. You get to decide which “crazy” person is ok and when someone should be feared, which homeless people are taken care of and which are ignored in the hope that they quickly move along…. There is the tiny toothless woman who hangs out in Starbucks all day but sleeps in doorways. People watch out for her. She always has plenty of food and blankets and builds forts that stay up through the night.  There is the guy on the corner, with the dog and the sign asking for random acts of kindness. He tends to read philosophy books.  There is the small quiet man reeking of desperation who prays all of the time. There is the one confusing person, a thin man who may be a rich man of leisure and may be homeless derelict and it is impossible to tell, without an actual conversation, which is the true story. What about the old lady who picks at a bowl of matzo ball soup at the Jewish deli every day? She appears to weigh about 70 pounds and walks the streets in gloves and a jacket even when it is ninety degrees out. What is her story?  Is she anorexic and alone and dealing with a life of sadness and self loathing or just old and happy in her routine; eating her lunch out every day surrounded by familiar faces? Is she someone to be pitied or to look up to?

I watch these people. We all do.  We go about our normal lives and watch (fear) those who we think live on the fringes. What we forget, or possibly ignore, is that we are also being watched. While I notice the psychiatrist who lives in the corner house with her perfect nuclear family of two kids, cute husband, dog and Prius parked outside and make judgments, positive or negative about her, she could be doing the same about me. This is also true of the toothless woman, the praying man, and the thin one, who asks occasionally if I am ok or need anything as I walk or run or bike by him yet again.

Am I ok? Do I need anything? Wait. What?!

Why is a homeless person asking me if I am ok? Shouldn’t he be asking me for money or food or something else? Why, instead of the expected “Hey baby, it can’t be all that bad, smile!” do I get genuine concern? What desperation am I putting out into the world that would prod him to ask me if I am ok. What judgements are you making about me?  And why are you noticing me at all?

I think that unlike those I watch every day, I am invisible. I want to be invisible. I need to be correct in my belief that I am going through this day to day anguish unseen.  I work very hard to be as small and as quiet as possible.  I try to take up very little space so that no one sees me, sees the inner world that takes up so much of my psyche.  I NEED this struggle to be invisible because if people are seeing it, are seeing me, then my shame is exposed and I do not know how to hold my head up anymore. Then there is this conundrum: If strangers are seeing my broken places and commenting, but those who are in my life are not, what does that say about the place that I occupy in theirs? Do they watch me like I watch the other sad broken souls, seeing but unsure of what to say or do or offer? It’s not as easy as buying a loaf of bread and jar of peanut butter, as I often do for the man with the dog. I am not sitting on a street corner, asking for help. What are they supposed to say if they do see me? What walls am I erecting that make it too hard to reach me?

I fear I am one of the neighborhood eccentrics. I look at the tiny woman sleeping in the doorway and can barely breathe. Is that my future, that common bag lady nightmare so many single women have? The likelihood of such a future is small, but the fear is visceral and my connection to the fringe more acute than than that of other single women that I know. Like the other eccentrics, I wander the streets at all hours, running when I wake at 4am, walking at midnight to disperse the inner demons. I haunt the stores during the day not to add to my material possessions but because often the walls of my house are closing in on me and spending one more moment alone might break me. Rather than sit with the fear of being alone forever, I escape and look through racks of used clothing or walk two miles to get a serving of sorbet or dried fruit. Because I also fear being physically present in the world, I walk fast,  hoping that the miles of walking will mitigate the calories and guilt that accompany eating anything extra. I wonder if the sales people notice how often I am around, if my guilt in making a purchase greater than my normal greens and almond milk is palpable. I wonder if they see the miles and miles that I pace and recognize me, or worse, have an identity for me like I have for the toothless woman or the sad praying man. Does anything set me apart from them? From you?

Every neighborhood has its eccentrics, its broken souls, its sad people trying to get through one more night alone. You see them, every single day. It is just that most do not carry a written sign telling you so and asking for help.

If This Is Anorexia, Sign Me Up

I want to talk about the character of Emma on the new CW teen drama, Red Band Society. Emma is hospitalized for anorexia. Ignore the fact that it makes no sense that an anorexic is in a general hospital pediatric ward instead of an eating disorders facility.  Most of the series makes no sense.  Look instead to the positive and appealing light with which anorexia is being portrayed in a show targeted to young female viewers. While none of the characters seem all that sick (aside from the missing leg....) I don't object to the other portrayals because one cannot be influenced into getting cancer or having a bad heart, no matter how cool it appears on television.  Anorexia is different.  It can be appealing if pictured as something sexy and desirable. Though most people won't have the mindset to find it so, many of the young girls who are the target audience for this drama will. You can play with anorexia, try it out. For some people it quickly becomes addictive, like alcohol or drugs. And like alcohol or drug addiction, anorexia is at worst deadly and at best, a life long struggle.

Emma is played by actress Ciara Bravo, who is quite tiny but appears very healthy.  Which is good.  I am NOT advocating hiring someone who actually suffers with anorexia.  However, make-up and costuming should be used.  Anorexia is neither pretty nor sexy.  Your hair falls out.  There are dark circles under your eyes.  You are always cold and often your muscles ache and cramp because they are eating themselves away.  Your skin is sallow and even if your face is round, your cheeks are hollow.  There is a scene in the second episode where the camera lingers over her abdomen, breasts and arms.  She looks hot.  Like a model.  There are no protruding bones or atrophied muscles, just a gorgeous young body.  Her hair is long, lustrous, and so very shiny.  Her eyes are bright and engaged and her cheeks are rosy. She has a great sense of style, even when dressed in a hospital gown. It is all very appealing, attractive and alluring.  If that is the face of anorexia, I am all in.

In interviews, the actress states that she has not suffered from an eating disorder (though she has been, in the perverse world of Hollywood, accused of having one).  To be perfectly clear, you do not need to have experienced something in order to inhabit a character.  Most actors are not murderers, rapists, or super heroes. What is required, especially if you are going to talk about it, is understanding. In a Celebuzz interview, she says  "something that I like about Emma is how she doesn't let that [living with an eating disorder] get her down too much. She's still incredibly driven and she's so smart and she's very witty..." What she doesn't understand is that anorexia takes up your entire being. It is eating away at you; when you are studying, at school, at a movie, out with friends, running your tenth mile though you have eaten only an apple and a one inch cube of cheese, and when you are trying to sleep but can't because your stomach acid is eating you alive, your mind is constantly torturing you and you cannot, no matter how many sweaters you pile on, get warm.  You feel all of the weight that you don't have, do one hundred sit-ups to counter calories consumed in the  extra skim milk you put into your coffee, you compare yourself to every person that you come across.  In an article on TheTVPage.com she says, " an eating disorder isn’t something that consumes your whole life.  You are still a person and you still have school to focus on and being a teen. I think Emma does a really good job of portraying that." Wrong. Dead wrong.  That is exactly what a eating disorder does.  It consumes your whole life, defining you. It destroys your body, mind and spirit.  

I think that the fault here only partially lies with Ms. Brava.  While she should be more careful with her talking points, and perhaps more complete in her research, she does say positive things about raising awareness and points out that Emma is getting help. She is a young actress who has been given a script, both on and off camera.  She doesn't have control over the show's styling or script. The producers, writers and directors are a different story.  I understand television.  Actors on the CW are by definition hot young things. That is the network's product and demographic. However, if part of the raison d’etre of the show is to raise awareness of the perils of anorexia, show a hot young thing whose body and soul is being destroyed by this obsessive and fatal disease. Show her hair falling out and her deadened eyes. Show her having a heart attack or seizure. The media is constantly under assault for setting unrealistic expectations for young girls by showcasing models. This is more insidious because though they are claiming she has the disease, none of the effects of it are visible. The final ridiculous element is the major plot point of the show: the romantic entanglements between Emma and the two lead cancer boys.  The likelihood of an anorexic being at the middle of a love triangle is almost non-existent.  Anorexia can be (though not always) about staving off sexuality and sexual relationships.

The CW can’t have this both ways.  If they want to raise awareness of anorexia, (while  raising ratings) they have a responsibility to do so honestly, by depicting what actually happens. Characters don’t smoke on television any more for this very reason. The target audience is too susceptible to suggestion.  Anorexia is not someone with a type A personality who won’t eat a cookie. It is the most fatal mental illness, by suicide or organ failure, there is. To portray anything else is reckless and stupid.

Running at Night

I roam at night. Usually it doesn't matter how tired I am or how many times I have worked out during the day.  Eleven PM or midnight hits and something, some thought or feeling or memory drives me from my house. I exit into the cold, almost hyperventilating in fear. Whatever it is; sadness or despair, guilt over a piece of bread or an extra handful of trail mix, an attempt to deflect the desire to once again inflict some sort of self harm, something pushes me out the door. Some nights I walk encumbered by extra weights, most nights I run, music pounding in my ears. The first few blocks are generally covered quickly, as if being pursued. I barely notice my surroundings. However fast I travel, it is always late and dark and unbelievably still.
 
The stillness of the night air evokes childhood memories.  I grew up in a time and place where children were given the freedom and responsibility to ride their bikes to school, to their friends' houses and to their after school commitments.  I often traveled home well after dark, pedaling down the dark suburban streets in the still cold air. I grew up near the San Francisco Bay and I hated riding my bike during the day. The afternoons were always blustery and it was hard work getting anywhere fighting a headwind while toting a heavy backpack. However after the sun went down, the wind also disappeared.  I would ride home in the silence, savoring my time alone. The streets seemed somehow fake and the world was suddenly something else; a movie set, something almost magical.  Late at night as I run alone, it still seems that way.

During my nighttime excursions, once I have momentarily escaped the demons and have settled into a rhythm, I start to look around.  I live in a particularly beautiful neighborhood with tree lined streets, lovely homes and well tended gardens. I usually head up into the hills.  The air in spring smells like jasmine and honeysuckle and rose. The walkways are illuminated and lights are always on in the windows. You can see into peoples' houses at night, differently than during the day. The light shines through, making an opaque world transparent.  I look into those windows as I run by and see bits and pieces of other (idealized) lives.  There is a baby's onesie hanging off the back of a chair, a half finished painting on an easel, the blue light of a television. Sometimes there is a cat sitting on the back of a chair or in a window sill, surveying the outside world.

I have been running at night for years now. I've run towards the ocean in the foggy Sunset district of San Francisco, along the quiet streets of Mill Valley and then back in San Francisco, up and down  the mansion lined hills of Pacific Heights.  It feels familiar, running the hills near Fryman Canyon.  Big unique houses that have the gorgeous patina of money and success.  I live in a monied neighborhood, hiding out in a small cottage behind a big mansion.  I sometimes imagine, while looking into the windows of houses that I will never be able to afford, what a life inside could be.  I know that will never happen.  The life I lead is not one of money and big houses, of a solid foundation built upon stability, a partner, commitment. I find my sadness often intensifies as I look through these windows, as I recognize my outsider status.  I wonder sometimes, could I just slip in unnoticed? Wipe down the kitchen counter, fold some stranger's laundry and slip into one of the over-sized beds?  Some sort of Goldilocks fantasy where I leave my own life and take on that of someone else.

There is something strangely intimate about looking into other peoples' houses uninvited and unseen. There are entire stories that spring up based upon just a tiny glimpse into a life.  The Harvey Edwards poster visible in a second story room transports me to my teenage room and my earlier ballet dreams. The shiny marble counter tops visible in a corner kitchen make me wonder if anyone ever cooks there.  The gorgeous roses everywhere remind me of my mom and her green thumb. Are these roses also tended to by a widow or are the ever present gardeners responsible for the stunning blooms? It gets more personal; will I ever have my own garden or a ballet obsessed teenager?  The answer is likely not. Yet, as I run the dark silent streets my mind can go there.  I can feel a hand on my back as I chop vegetables while standing at the shiny counter top.  I can feel the sun bake down on my head as I prune roses.  I can sigh at the teenager and remind her that an engineering or computer science career is easier on the toes and probably on the psyche.  I can peak into these softly illuminated rooms and imagine alternate lives, lives in which I am not alone or sad or barely scraping by. I have a husband and a child and a bright shiny house with a bright shiny car in the driveway and I don't need to run away from voices that taunt me at midnight, chasing me into the dark.

5th Position by Harvey Edwards

Resilience...

These things can exist at the same time: The desire to disappear, to die, to float, to fly, to become one with the air. Young ballet students making a huge beautiful leap forward followed by an unrelated soul crushing disappointment. A view so beautiful that it takes your breath away and tears spring to your eye and a remark so cutting that it has exactly the same effect...a swell of pride at a job well done and a wave of despair which erases all sense of accomplishment. A small child can just move from one to the next. As adults, our emotional state tends to be less fluid. We question and get overwhelmed. I am told that to weather this you must choose moment to moment which emotional state to let rule your world, that one is objectively no more powerful than the other. I am not sure that most adults see it that way, we give each experience a different value. Apparently, this is not the path to contentment.  If you are a happy (read as "good") person you will choose the happy experiences and if you are a sad (read as "bad") person you will look to the harder situations to frame your experience.  The key is that it is all within your control. That, at least, is the story told by all of the new age blogs and books and healers. Just decide to be happy and you will be. Follow the four or seven or ten rules of happy people. Sometimes that works. It does. Sometimes it doesn't. There is often another force at work. There is what lives inside, everything that has come before. Some of that prior life experience is clear and worked through and doesn't get confused with the present moment. But some of it isn't clear and hasn't been worked through. It slaps you when you least expect it.  These are experiences that remain fluid in your being, that reemerge unbidden as unformed images or intense sensations or whispers and bring up a host of emotional reactions.  Sometimes the reaction is fear that bubbles up and threatens to kill you. You know that you cannot actually choke on that fear, on the self hatred that rises in your throat, cutting off the air and making you see blurred shapes and hear the whisper of ghosts.  You know that all you have to do is ride it out. Feel the pain and move on. But, it is going to kill you. This feels certain but it won't. What it will kill is your ability to make that previously mentioned choice; the choice that happy people make, to focus on the positive. So you find yourself in a trap, reliving this fear over and over, unable to find or even recognize the positive choice. As a result you find yourself diminished, damaged, and could eventually disappear entirely.

Damaged people live in the grasp of memory. The world of theater and literature is filled with them.  A Street Car Named Desire, The Glass Menagerie, Merrily We Roll Along, and the more recent August Osage County spring to mind. The stories can be beautiful and can move an audience to both laughter and tears. You can learn about the human experience through these fragile and generally lost souls and be enriched in the process. In real life these people (and I count myself currently among them) are harder to accept and to keep in your life. They can be depressed, stuck, and are often angry in a self deprecating or destructive manner.  I believe that these memories are holes in the heart, black holes that suck energy. The memories can be specific and identifiable or unformed and vague. Either way they manifest as holes; God shaped holes or ex-husband shaped holes, dream shaped holes or parent shaped holes. Amorphous holes that take up space and don't allow for the retention of new experiences. People move in and out of your life. Normal people  possess the ability to refill the spaces that are left when a relationship ends or a dream dies. They move on and find a new boyfriend or lover or dream and start over. Those of us who don't know how to refill them just walk around with the holes in our souls, the memory of the person or the experience or the yearning for an explanation. It is the difference between the person who ends a bad marriage yet is happily dating six months or a year later and the person who is still alone years down the line, guarded and scared and smaller.  A person who sees a possible relationship as a risk that will simply rip them open further and create additional dark matter.

The question is then, how do you change? How do you become the person who can fill the empty space inside, accept the loss or the uncertainty. How do you learn to allow for the presence of ghosts and sad memories and accept the hurts of the past while still moving on? That is the challenge. It looks so simple on paper: fill the hole. Yet, we know how many people do that: alcohol, drugs, over-exercise, food.  Filling those holes with people or love is much harder.  From here, where I sit, it seems impossible. I watch other people move on from disappointment and heartbreak and I believe that I must be from a different planet. The air I breathe does not allow for such fluidity of spirit and soul.  I do not understand how they make it happen. I sit on the sidelines and watch. I watch marriages and kids and divorce and starting over.  I watch careers take off and flounder and resume with greater success than before. I watch. And I wish........

Photo credit: morningmeditations.com

Yearning for an imaginary friend....

I recently read Matthew Dicks' delightful, touching, incredibly creative and imaginative novel Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend. The book opened me up emotionally in unexpected ways and created quite a dialogue in my head.

My name is Budo.
I have been alive for five years.
Five years is a very long time for someone like me to be alive.
Max gave me my name.
Max is the only human person who can see me.
Max's parents call me an imaginary friend.
I love Max's teacher, Mrs. Gosk.
I do not like Max's other teacher, Mrs. Patterson.
I am not imaginary. 

There is a desire in everyone to be seen. To be substantial. To matter to those who surround you. To be able to trust your instincts and to have an awareness of that ability. I think. I think that these desires are true. The search for life's meaning is something that most sentient beings embark upon when we reach a point of stasis in our lives. I started the book with these detached intellectual questions and observations.  However, as I read it and lost myself in the world and quirky characters, an unexpected swell of feeling arose as the intellectual faded away. I started to feel a primal, visceral yearning for a friend like Budo; a friend who loves me unconditionally, one clever enough to rescue me, not from a real world danger, as Budo does Max, but from myself. I simultaneously identified with Budo. If someone could just see me, communicate with me, then I could save the other Nancy, the one is such dire straits. I could explain-in language clearer than is currently being employed-what is wrong and what she needs.  I started reading as if in school; Is Budo an extension of Max or an entirely different being? Why were certain words and phrases chosen?  What would I have written?  After a while that logical approach faded away and I just connected to it and let the story's emotions flow through me.

I often feel like two people; one watches my life and my (often questionable) choices and one makes them. One is hopeful that I will pull it together and one (currently in control) is bent on destruction. This is not a completely analogous comparison, as I think that an imaginary friend is something different than simply two sides of a self. Budo has a much broader world view than Max. He knows things that Max doesn't. Max however exists in the outside world, is the person seen by everyone else.  Of course I am being too literal, as this is a novel and BOTH Budo and Max are imagined beings. That said, what was ignited by this story is not imagined but a real, intense desire for two things: a friend like Max, who would fight for me, even when I can't or won't fight for myself and attached to that, the ephemeral desire, one that I am not even sure I admit to, of salvation; both by myself and from myself. 

Fighting depression is a daunting battle, not the least because you have to muster your will; your will to live, to engage in the world,  to nurture the physical. My will has left the building. I find that when left without the structure of work and responsibilities to others, I don't care. Working hard quiets my mind somewhat, and on long days with no breaks, I do better. Other days are tortured and endless. I don't want to talk to people, to eat, to leave my house. My mind circles around itself, in smaller and smaller spheres.  If I can break the cycle,  I do sometimes feel better. When I pull it together to have coffee with a friend or take a dance class; when I put on my mask of normal, I can follow the script for a while. Working out is the only thing that I find I do not need prompting for, which is probably due to a combination of the endorphins released and the anorexic side of my personality urging me to somehow whittle away yet few more pounds. On the positive side of that addiction,  I also feel, when running or cycling, that somehow the negative voices can't quite catch me. I stay just half a step ahead of them. In doing so, I think that I can almost hear my desire for creativity, for connection, for success and work coming through.  I can hear my desire for all of these things while running the streets both morning and night, a wanly voiced desire usually drowned out by the one clamoring for self destruction.

There is a question posed here;  What do I need to change this dynamic? This is an almost silly solution but perhaps the creation of an imaginary friend is an answer. In saying that, I do not dismiss the love and gratitude I have for my actual flesh and blood, quite wonderful friends.  I have a few dear people in my life who are begging me to take the help that is offered, who remind me that I matter. Friends with whom I can laugh and who let me cry (not that I let down my guard to do much of that....), friends who occasionally even let me care for them in return. But my need is so overwhelming that I believe that if I really let them in, the weight of it will crush them.  If I share, in the moment, how much I am struggling, how hard it is to get through each day, how incredibly heavy my heart is, they will disappear. I see the fear and pain in their eyes when they get even a glimpse. Most have already pulled away, not willing or in a more likely scenario, not able to witness or partake in this journey/struggle/insanity. To my horror, I have also found myself lashing out at those who stay. Their optimism, when everything feels so incredibly dark, feels like dismissal. When timidly asked if things are getting better or when someone says something complimentary,  I get angry and frustrated at my inability to answer positively, to absorb the praise, to let an attempt at care make me feel better on any level.

Who is this imaginary friend that I need to create? There are no boundaries on who he or she can be, look like, what powers he can possess, so mine changes at will. He is intensely masculine when I need to feel held by a partner.  She becomes soft, comforting, and envelopes me in warmth when I need to be cared for by a mother. Sometimes my imaginary friend is a cat, snuggling in just to remind me that there is sweetness in the world, sometimes a horse to help me run away. My imaginary friend is also able to help me be social and masks the unbearable shyness that often runs my interactions in public by waving a magic wand.  My imaginary friend doesn't get upset or angry at me for being broken, like real people do.  Self destruction threatens our sense of balance and world order and humans get angry at those perceived to be throwing their lives away.  Many take it as a personal affront. What gets lost in all of that concern manifesting as anger or rage is the inability of a depressed or suicidal person to control the fall.

So, you create an imaginary friend to guide you through the dark times and then what?  That is also explored in the novel.  In the story, when no longer needed, all of those loyal and loving companions fade and disappear.  The story seems to imply that their soul lives on, but I don't know.  I have a slightly different version in my head.  Assuming a positive outcome, which is a stretch in my current mindset, I think that when the need for an imaginary friend passes, it is because rather than disappearing, the imaginary friend is absorbed into the imaginer, almost like glue, mending all of the broken pieces of the soul, filling in the holes and creating strength to move forward and up, out of the dark.

Matthew Dicks' Website

Becoming transparent

I am trying to become transparent. Literally.  I have this belief, which is crazy I know, that if I just get thin enough I will be able to see deep inside my body and in doing so I will be rewarded. I will discover what it is that comes back in cycles and makes me so unhappy. The secret that is buried there, that makes my existence here on earth seem like a mistake even though the outward appearance of my life is fine, that secret will slowly be uncovered as each layer of flesh is removed, similar to the text revealed as the sand is brushed off of an ancient slab of stone .  Ever since the end of last year, when my internal world slipped once again off of it's axis, I've been whittling my body down. It wasn't intentional at first.  It started subtly, but then accelerated.  Five pounds, then ten, maybe close to twenty.  I don't generally weigh myself, so it's hard to be precise, but it's been significant and I'm a petite person to begin with.  It's not so much about imagining that I am fat, though it would be dishonest to ignore that those voices have returned as well.  It is instead an admittedly twisted need to be solely spirit, to acknowledge no need of the physical.  The answer to my heartache (a pathetic and imprecise word to be sure) is to ultimately disappear entirely.  The reality (absurdity) of this and of the fantasy are completely separate.  As my therapist stated, with a rather sad smile, an answer is not actually etched on my bones. I am not going to be able to see words written there. More concretely, the real world result of becoming so thin that one disappears is death. That is not a sane nor reasonable desire. In spite of that inevitable final destination (or perhaps in longing for.... which is a darker truth), in spite of weekly therapy and medication and frustrated friends and family, I'm holding onto this path of self destruction because a very loud part of my being believes it is the only way to be free of this recurring spiral of shame and loathing.   Maybe there is an answer in the DNA, in the depths of my experience, locked into the bones. Maybe that is why they ache at night, why I struggle to stay still, to spend time at rest.  There is a story trying to come out. And the part of me that lives in the combination of metaphor and body thinks that maybe I can help it by becoming air myself, even if that means I no longer exist.

Image via Tumbler

I am a dancer. I communicate through my body. It makes a sort of twisted sense to me that I would look to it to find answers to what is wrong.  Movement is the only language that I understand. Shaping and molding my body has defined my entire life. It feels, maybe this is simply an attempt to excuse it, as if I am exploring, using my body in a new way to work through this unnamed unidentified horror that has once again resurfaced. I separate into two people and can defend what I am doing yet I am not blind to the damage I am creating.  I am destroying my health, my relationships, my professional life and reputation. I am also not deaf to the other voice that says that my time here is up, that death and darkness will be preferable to this life that can turn from something manageable and within the realm of normal into an internal nightmare for no discernible reason. 

I am not at a place yet where I have a solution to this (obviously) untenable position that I have put myself in. I don't yet want to give up on the quest for an answer, though this is not a logical path. Logic has never been my forte. For now, I am dealing with the chaos in my mind by pretending that all is normal. I  just get through each day and try to be as honest as possible with myself and with those who are trying to work with me, while attempting to not let too much angst and pain into my relationships with those who are not paid to deal with such things.  It's a funky crazy balancing game, but one that I am (mistakenly?) telling myself that I can play. Like a teenager, I have a belief that I am actually indestructible.  I will work this all out, be thinner than a piece of paper and still go on with my career and life.  I can balance on my toe in a pink satin shoe. Surely that is training to balance between one plane of existence and another......

she asked.....

how is it possible...no.

rephrase.

is it possible for a heart to break, not once, but over and over.....

each night as the clouds gather and the dusk falls

and the temperature drops and the nicks and tiny slights of the day add up

is it possible that those miniscule little hurts could break something as strong as a heart

over and over and over and over and over again?

no one answered.

her throat closed and tears welled up

and it hurt for real

in her heart

and head

the tips of her fingers and down to the depths

of what?

her soul....

melodramatic are we not???

the wind whispered and the house echoed the silly question

the heart breaks each evening and over night it heals, cracked and battered

but sewn back up into one piece by morning

why?

laughter....soft and sweet.

so that it can be broken again. 

but of course.

what comes next.....

I wrote an upsetting and slightly hysterical post last week. Slightly removed from it, I am first of all mortified that I was so careless and let my shame spill out.  That I let people see, however clumsily and ineffectively,  how hard I struggle, most days, to just appear happy and stable. I am also deeply touched by some of the responses and grateful for all of the love that came my way.  I think, in re-reading it, that I made it all seem petty and silly and narrowed down to a lack of a partner or a secure job, to the same loneliness that bedevils most single women.  There is truth in those things.  I am lonely most of the time and my career is not anything like I dreamed it would be.  I haven't been on a date in years.  Literally years.  These very concrete holes in my life do exist, yet that is not the gnawing I feel ripping through my chest and into my fingers.  I feel myself spinning into a familiar yet uncontrollable place and it frightens me.  I don't know how or even if I have the will to fight my way back.  I don't know if all of the work on coping and the training that I have done over the last two, five, ten, the last twenty years is enough.  These are old battles, ones begun in the years before adolescence. I have once again made food an enemy.  I have an almost uncontrollable urge to rip off my skin.  I am exhausted during the day, yet can't sleep at night.  None of this stems from the day to day.  My daily life is, if I look at it objectively, better than it has been in a long time.  I had an amazing year in 2012 and have so many wonderful projects in the works for 2013 and beyond. Beyond that, I have gained knowledge and skill, especially over the last two years. I know how to move from this spiral of shame and hate.  I  know how. I wrote a post about a year ago to a friend's brother and said, life doesn't get better, you get better. You get stronger and smarter and you find what makes your heart sing.  I believed what I wrote then. I still want to believe what I wrote,  but there is this nagging voice. What if I was wrong?  What if I had it backwards? What if, even when life does gets better, I don't? I walk around with this false confidence that doesn't quite reach my eyes and an eternally broken heart which does.  I pretend that I am smart.  I pretend that I have healed, whatever the fuck that means.  I talk and talk and talk about eating disorders and cutting and depression and suicidal idealization, as though they are completely defanged; foes long dead and buried. I buy into the "act as if" school of thinking.  And I am lying. I know in my core that I am lying.  But, there is this; my core could be wrong.  I hang onto this one little thread of hope that says that core fear of not ever being okay is wrong and I will, once again, dig myself out of this spiral and get to a place where I can talk of wanting out as a long ago memory....of it being something I just felt once....as something from then and not from now.  I am just hanging onto that thin shiny strand and hoping, hoping that I am wrong.

I question the intelligence of writing this, in the throes of the spin. After this entry I won't continue to post about it.  Although there is a value in writing for an unseen audience, of attempting to clarify your thoughts enough for others to understand, possibly empathize a bit, and maybe, just maybe see themselves in your struggle, at this point I feel that this discussion needs to once again become private. It probably should never have left that realm. It is hard to put on your public mask when you know people are reading about your private shame and I need to be able to wear that mask, to smile and say I'm fine and have it end there.  So for now, I'm fine.  Thanks for asking.  We'll talk soon.  Love, Nancy

And here we are again.....

Night:
For a person with as many friends as my Facebook page or my phone tells me I have, I am shockingly alone when it gets dark.  This statement is not meant to denigrate my friends. My solitude is not their fault.  I create it myself.  I carry it almost as a badge of pride, yet I can, tonight when the future seems so unbearable, admit that it is killing me. When  I am alone  at night and the world closes in and I am literally unable to breathe, I do not have someone to hold on to. I am so so so so afraid of being held, yet in these moments I look that fear in the face and know that of which I am most afraid is the only thing that is going to save me.  This sounds ridiculously melodramatic, but isn't all psychic pain ridiculously melodramatic and incomprehensible to anyone not in the throes of it?  I have, on some level, admitted it and have even been taking action in my own messed up way;  by trying to fill that relationship place with spiritual or career guides, with mentors, with people who I think will be there because I pay them to be.  This is, once again, proving to be an absolutely terrible system.

I need to be held.  I need to mirror my self worth in someone's eyes, and not in a someone who is paid to mirror it back. I've been pretending to be done with therapy, while simply making someone who is trying to do a different job fill that space.  It has now blown up in my face.  I can so easily use this to fall back into a place where I am struggling to live.  I can feel that pull.  I want to end things tonight.  I am acutely suicidal and if I weren't so damn worried about everyone else and the unintended but absolutely predictable pain that (even) my suicide would cause, I would do it.  I'm exhausted by the fight.  I literally cannot see to tomorrow.  Which proves to me once again what an ungrateful and pathetic person I am.  Because this pitiful and self centered way of dealing is contrasted by what others are fighting.   A friend, who I care for deeply but with whom I have not been in touch, other than the occasional like or comment on Facebook, passed away suddenly, at least it was sudden to his friends.  He had kept his illness quiet. It is heartbreaking and I am heartbroken--for his loss and for the loss of his future.  He leaves a college age daughter and so many friends and colleagues dumbstruck.  He was still young enough for this unexpected death to be tragic. On a personal level, he was one of the first people to reach out to me in LA and to value me as an artist.  I will always hold him in my heart.  Yet, and I am not proud-- indeed I am disgusted to admit this--deep inside, where I am filled with shame and self hatred,  I am jealous.  Again jealous of someone who got out early.  That is reprehensible. I don't have an explanation. It's been a rough start to the new year. My commercial agent dropped me, and in trying to do so in a way that was kind, basically said that I am untouchable as an actress.  A job I was counting on to help get me out of debt is ending.  I don't have a theater gig.  My production company feels like a pipe dream.  These things are unrelated, and in no way on equal footing, yet my broken spirit feels them the same.  People die, people abandon you (even though I have learned through many years of therapy that you cannot be abandoned as an adult), careers don't happen, relationships evolve/dissipate/fall apart.  Failure exists over and over.  I know this. I know it as a successful person who has fought over and over again through depression and anorexia and cutting and has also experienced moments where I've been overcome with happiness and love and the joy of sharing the experience of life.  So where does that leave me tonight?  Alanis Morissette manages to make music out of these feelings.  I know that is what I should do....make art, elevate it to something worthy, but all I can feel right now is a primal urge for self destruction....

Morning:
After writing this, and a few restless hours of sleep, I'm actually at a new day. Choked down  2 pieces of toast and a cup of  coffee.  I am embarrassed to read the words above. There is nothing more self centered than someone circling their own emotional shit. Yet, I don't think I am able to retract it. I still feel the truth, no matter how sadly distorted to my own reality, in those words.  I wish I could say that I awoke to a new day where the sun is shining (it is in actuality raining) and I feel inspired to tackle the world in new ways.  I don't. I feel hungover, though I did not drink last night.  I feel completely defeated.  I want to crawl back into bed, though I awoke well before my 6:30am alarm. Instead, I will go out into the world.  I will go teach my classes and praise my students, and admonish them to always give me 100% of their energy, to breathe, to love what they are doing.  I will meet with my business partners and believe in my projects.  I will read a script and prepare for an audition. I hope that by engaging my students and friends in my battered dreams, a little inspiration will come back to me and I will once again climb out of this spiral of self loathing.   I'll go hug some puppies on my break and listen to music and maybe go into an empty studio and dance or sing.  Somehow I'll fight my way back. I always do. I will just keep telling myself that I always do.

Accomplishments

I am not one to sit down and assess what I've accomplished in a set amount of time. I go directly to ALL THAT NEEDS TO BE DONE right away.  While there is a certain amount of motivation in such an approach, there is also a lack of pretty much everything else.  How can you find satisfaction or success in your work, or really in your life,  when you never stop to actually see what it is that you have finished and how that finished project makes you feel?  So, in the spirit of a new year, and a new approach, I am going to list my accomplishments from 2012.  Because I have not had a complete mind/body transplant, I will also make a list of things I hope to accomplish is 2013 and beyond.

1. I directed my first full production, War Bride at SkyPilot Theatre. Not only did I survive, it was a commercial and critical success, garnering killer reviews and forming the basis for .....
2. The founding of my new production company, Weyward Sisters Productions, with my co-creators and dear friends from War Bride, Samantha Macher and Heidi-Marie Hostetler.
3. LOTS of choreography in almost every medium:
On stage: Working for the Production Company at The Lex Theater and The Snow Queen for Blame the Clown Productions at The Fremont Centre Stage
On the Web: Squad 85 Web Series
On Film: Surrender To The Mystery, produced by Weyward Sisters Productions.
4. Work as a performer on camera: Not as much as I would have liked, but a few cool projects: the web series hIMPERFECT, City Bus; a short for James Franco's film project at UCLA, as a dancer in my own film Surrender to the Mystery and in a wonderful anti-violence music video for UNICEF.
5. I had my first starring role on stage, in Richard Raskind's The Bridge Club at Deaf/West Theater and garnered some amazing reviews.
6. I grew as a teacher and have a wonderful group of students who are both serious and passionate about dance.
7. Outside validation: all of my work this year received wonderful reviews and even some awards.
8. I did my first Serial Killers at Sacred Fools and will be forever known there as the singing mouse. This is both immensely gratifying and slightly distressing.
9. I grew my outside businesses, jewelry design and styling, back up in a way that feels supportive of rather than destructive to my ultimate goals of creating and performing.  I feel inspired by both of these parts of my creativity once again. 
10.  I stepped out of my comfort zone and contacted complete strangers in my field who I admire and want to work with.  Two have become trusted mentors and even more importantly, friends.
11. I stuck with my personal work with Marcela, even when it has been hard and ugly and combative. I am making progress. There is so much to do, but I am putting this under accomplishment. I am a much stronger person than I was even one year ago.
12. I am on the road to some sort of financial stability. Like the above statement, there is much to do, but I am once again putting it under accomplishment. I am not there yet, but I am gaining ground and have a clearer understanding of what action needs to be taken.

On the books for the coming year:
1. More performing. Period. On the AEA stage. On film. On the small screen. On the web. And please, just one commercial would be really freaking awesome.
2. Health insurance.  Preferably through one of my performing unions.  See above.
3. I would like to direct and choreograph a fully produced musical.  I would like to direct more in general, but this is my specific goal.
4. Successful completion of the Weyward Sisters Agenda:
   -Nevada Line  (music video: as singer, choreographer, producer)
   -St. Mary's School For Girls (short film: director and producer)
   -The Matador (stage production of our future feature: Actor/dancer, co-choreographer, producer)
5. On a personal level: I am opening myself up to the possibility that I may not be completely dead inside and that a romantic relationship may be a lovely and enriching experience. Just open to the possibility.
6. I am growing my hair out.  I need to stick with it, through the ugly phase. This seems important, though I am pretty sure that it is not.
7. Increased political action.  On gun control, gay rights, education and arts accessibility.
8. To not take myself so freaking seriously all of the time.

Happy Holidays.  I wish everyone a wonderful and peaceful 2013.

I am stuck. I feel jealous and petty and ungrateful and small.  I see the success of others and rather than send love and admiration, I am seeing green.  It's making me angry. Angry at everyone.  Angry mostly at myself. I am too old to be jealous.  I am tired, as a clear eyed person observed recently (which also made me angry) of being stuck in misery.  I know that the anger is sourced somewhere.  It doesn't create itself.  It is created from disappointment, from inertia, from the feeling--however unjustified--of powerlessness.  And that is where it can turn. Because I am not powerless.  I am strong.  I am not young, but I am certainly not old  So, that green monster can become energy and I can put that energy towards what I want.  Just put all of that fucking energy into the WANT. And there I stop dead in my tracks.  Because in the middle of the night, when all of the demands and pressures of the day are distant and I ask myself what that deep desire that eats me up inside is, I come up empty. I have no idea. I see a black starless sky and it holds no answers.  I know what society says I want.  I know what my actions say I want.  I know what I am ostensibly working towards and that I should build upon the considerable success of the recent past.  I SHOULD want that but, what is it?  What is the actual thing or state of being or space that I yearn for....I cannot identify it. It remains this aching void that I keep trying to fill; with work, with movement, with the occasional purchase of a blouse or scarf or a fierce vegan leather jacket (an oxymoron if ever there was.....). And that makes me mad.  That constant attempt to fill enrages me. A circular rage that returns, because I don't deserve to be angry.  There is nothing to be angry at or about, which is infuriating.  The truth is that much of the time I do feel inspired in the moment of creation or while teaching or running or certainly while dancing. When I let that inspiration in, it feels great. It's later that there is that gnawing ache and vague sense that it is all worthless or hopeless and that sensation that pricks at my heart is accompanied by a whispering voice that says that I'm failing. That whatever it is that I am reaching for, it won't work. That no matter how fast I run, dance, teach, create....it will not be enough. That cannot be true. I must want something real.  There must be something or someone or someplace that I will get or meet or be and that THING will touch something deep inside my being and say yes.  Yes, this is it. That tiny whispering, taunting, insufferable voice cannot be the last word.  I am too angry for that.  I am determined to slow down and prove that fucker wrong.

This is not a flattering self portrait.  I understand that.  In rereading it I see pettiness and dissatisfaction, qualities that I might judge if I saw them in someone else, and certainly judge in seeing them here.  There is an honesty though in saying I don't know; I don't know what I want or who I am, but this, this person who runs so fast during the day and is sad and alone at night, this is not my core and I will change that. If anger is the source of that change, so be it.

My dear friend Jamie wrote a similarly themed, but much more eloquent piece on this subject which was published on one of my favorite blogs.  You can read it here: Like Mad

War Bride Director's Note...

 

Xenophobia: noun

an unreasonable fear or hatred of foreigners or strangers or of that which is foreign or strange.

I remember asking my mother the meaning of the word when I was maybe 8 or 9 years old. I found the definition shocking.  Why would you despise people just because they come from a different place or have a different skin color?  I grew up in an extremely integrated community and had friends of every race and color growing up. My parents were part of a group that hosted international visitors and we often had foreign guests in our home.  I didn't realize until I moved away how unique an upbringing that was.

War Bride takes place in Merced, California in the fall of 1945; right after the War in the Pacific has ended. People are still scared and unsure about what happens next.  Japanese American citizens remain interned at Manzanar and at other camps throughout the Western United States (The last camp did not close until March of 1946).  Our title character walks into a world in which she is automatically feared and hated. Japanese books, literature; really any study of the culture at all are considered contraband and the possession of such things can result in incarceration or worse.  She also has a secret and needs an ally. The journey that she needs to travel, both physically and metaphorically, is tremendous.  The journey that Catherine makes in trying to understand her is no less arduous. 

I was drawn to this project on numerous levels.  First and foremost is the story, which I shall not spoil for you by sharing, but I will tell you that it is original and told in a unique voice, something that is sadly lacking in theater today. Women are also missing in much of American Theater. We are a small minority of the directors, playwrights, choreographers, producers, and yes, of the actors on stage.  Any project that brings us together and focuses on the female experience is one that I am very interested in being a part of! 

Finally, the Asian American story is one that needs to be told. The Japanese experience, especially during and immediately after World War Two is an enormous facet of it.  Approximately 46, 000 Japanese war brides came to the United States following the War in The Pacific. Our treatment of Japanese American citizens during the war is one of the darkest hours of our recent collective history, yet is repeated, in different degrees, whenever we as a nation feel threatened. I feel that whenever we can examine ourselves, as a people, through art, we have the opportunity to evolve.  Authenticity is an enormous element of this and I am proud of the fact we have roles for Asian actors that we have cast with Asian actors. I fully support color-blind casting when race is not central to the story. When it is, I think that every effort should be made to find actors of the representative group and am so thrilled with our group of Asian and specifically Japanese actors. 

This play has been a wonderful collaborative experience and I am so thrilled to have been a part of it. I am especially grateful to Samantha Macher for writing it and to Heidi Hostetler for being my right hand.  

To buy tickets, click here.

 

Butoh

While doing the research for War Bride, I read quite a large number of articles and watched numerous videos on both the history of Butoh dance and the current practice of it.

Butoh emerged in Japan during the late 1950s and early 1960s as an alternative dance and culture movement. Though it drew upon the traditional Japanese and Western dance, especially the mincing movement that is required when walking in a kimono, that existed at the time, it was in essence a rebellion against it. 

In Butoh, the body speaks for itself, though unconscious and improvised movement. This primal movement is combined with other dance, martial arts, and theater movement into an art form that seems almost other worldly.  The two videos below both blew me away.  The first is an Israeli dancer who is also an astonishing painter.  The second is a hip-hop dancer who was inspired by the Butoh and took it yet another direction.  I hope you enjoy them both.

War Bride: The Trailer!

 

Written by Samantha Macher, Directed by me, Shot and Edited by Heidi Marie, Starring Sachiyo K

I am so excited to present the trailer for our play, War Bride. The process of creating this was a blast. My first idea was way too huge, and Heidi laughed and was like, no. We then whittled it down to the essence of the play and what we wanted people to know; what would entice them to come.  I am hooked on this form of story telling. To be able to take the most basic props and turn them into something beautiful, well, that is awesome. I also really enjoyed working with these women and it made me even more excited to jump into rehearsals, which we did the following day.  The play is huge; there are so many elements, the scale of the story is grand and the history behind it immense. Shooting this trailer reminded me what I need to remember as a director.  Whittle each scene to it's essence. Tell this story simply and make it beautiful. Therein lies success. The joy of collaboration that accompanies the process is the gift that makes this crazy artistic existence worthwhile.

War Bride

You will be devastated by what you discover.....photo by Heidi Hostetler

My next project is underway. I am both directing and choreographing a new play: War Bride by Samantha Macher. It feels a little bit like I would imagine standing on the wing of an airplane would, or perhaps leaning out over the Grand Canyon. There are so many opportunities for failure and a crash and burn and it could be terrifying BUT it is instead absolutely invigorating.  I can see this play in my head--the beauty and devastation of the characters, the pictures that they make on stage, the music in their voices and the way that their individual characters interact to make this tale come alive.  I love collaboration and have managed to assemble a group of wonderful actors that are jumping right into it with me. We had our first real rehearsal on Tuesday and while it was immensely productive, was also so much fun. We talked and explored and worked through tiny details of the characters, going back  and forth on the details that are in the script, and those that we feel should be; the playwright is still revising and is a vibrant part of the discussion and process. We answered some questions, left some open and all in all set the stage for some magic to happen.  We shot a teaser as well on Monday and even that made my heart sing.  I love to create and I think I'm finally open enough to let wonderful opportunities find me and to recognize them as such when they appear.

Many more posts to follow.  The show is being produced by SkyPilot Theater in association with The New Works Initiative at Hollins University.  It opens August 11, 2012 at TU Studios in North Hollywood, CA. 
Click on the link to check out the theater and the current production, Earthbound, An Electronica Musical
SkyPilot Theatre

Navigating the waters.....

There is a line that the other character says right at the beginning of  the play, "The monster is back." The character is referring to cancer, his personal demon. As rehearsals have intensified, leading into performance and I connect more and more to my character, I hear that line repeating in my head a lot, in reference to my demon.  A teasing voice saying "you fool...you took this part and you proceeded to dabble and play with fire and guess what, loser-- here I am!  The monster is back, what are you going to do now?"

Well, first of all, back off monster!  You are not "back."  I am not suicidal.  I have no intention of jumping off of a bridge or slicing my wrists or  swallowing an entire bottle full of pills.  I am excited by both the present and the future and am committed to staying here. This is a fucking play, not life and you are in no way "back." Yet, I am, and it troubles me to admit this, once again having difficulty facing the day to day.  When I wake in the morning,  generally after a restless night, my body aches, and not from working out too much.  My heart feels heavy and my eyes are teary.  The outside world seems ominous and I want to return to the cocoon of my bedroom. I'm constantly exhausted yet, even after an extremely long day, as soon as I'm in bed with the lights out, I'm wide awake, listening to every groan of the house and feeling the earth shift underneath me. For a person prone to deep depression, this is a very uncomfortable state of being.  The question becomes how to manage it and not let it sabotage the really wonderful things happening in my life.

The play opened this past weekend. It was both exhilarating and exhausting. We had four shows, some of which felt amazing, some felt a little less so, though they all went well.  We are waiting for reviews, hoping that they will be positive.  I also hope that my friends will show up for this show.  I'm navigating the disappointment of my mother not acknowledging opening at all, having not sent even a text. I keep telling myself that it's not a big deal, but of course it is.  What balances out the predictable disappointment there is the surprise of flowers from a friend in San Francisco and the good wishes from my sister and numerous other friends.  I am constantly reminded that I have a deep well of love and support from the family that I have created. 

I was asked, at the one talk-back I did, what the hardest part of the play was.  I answered "keeping Sue separate from me."  It's been really interesting how little of my own life I use onstage.  I don't feel like me. I stand differently and use my voice differently.  I thought, going into this project, that it would be hard keeping us separate on stage, that it would be too revealing. It's not. I don't feel my life on stage at all-I feel hers.  Offstage however, it's a different story. I do feel a bit of her sadness and desperation bleeding into my life.  Her loneliness mirrors mine.  I basically have today, a Monday, off. I am wandering my tiny house, a little lost and afraid.  I'm jumping from project to project, from the piano to making baby ballerina headpieces to writing, to cleaning and back again to the piano....I crave the touch of another person, yet fear that touch more than anything else I can think of.  This yearning for contact, yet abject fear of that same contact is where the two of us meet.  I am using this quiet somewhat rainy day to wander through the fear and let it exist without taking over. I am teaching myself to enjoy the success of being an actress who can touch the darker parts of our souls, both the personal and the collective and NOT be consumed by them.

A Guest Blogger! Actress Carrie Madsen on her styling experience!

I work on occasion, as a stylist.  I love bringing together all of the disparate parts of my experience as a performer, designer and even choreographer to make a picture or create a look for a person. I recently worked with actress, dancer, and newish LA transplant Carrie Madsen on creating a personal and professional look that would help her up her already considerable game!  This was her experience:

I'm a decent looking gal, used to get away with wearing 'whatever' and feeling pretty good about it.  Well, when it came time to up my game, that no longer worked.

In an industry that is based on image, and being a professional that wants to be viewed as such, my need to start appearing as my best-self, and also appropriate to the occasion and location, became apparent.

I tried to do it on my own.  I read magazines.  I looked at how others were dressed.  There were too many options. I struggled and then became frustrated.  I went out a few times in outfits I was horrified I had put together.  The things in my closet became confusing and hateful.  I needed help.

Enter Nancy Dobbs Owen.

She was recommended by a friend.

I was excited but also nervous. 

Could this really help and be the answer or was I just throwing more money at the problem?

Yes, yes and emphatic no!

First we met and talked about how I saw myself.  Hard question for me, that was my whole problem, but when asked who's style I admired - that I could answer: Diane Keaton, Julianne Moore, Julianna Margulies.....  She got my vibe and gave it a name - classic with a twist.  I found Nancy easy to talk to and collaborative - she created an ease and casualness that calmed my anxiety and intimidation.

We next went through my closet and I tried things on.  I couldn't believe how much stuff was really not flattering to me.  Some of it I was relieved to finally let go of, some of it I was surprised to learn was no good.  I trusted her eye and her reasoning and watched the reject pile grow.  We also set some things aside to be professionally altered so the fit was right for me.  Simple, but had I ever thought of it or gotten around to it? No.

As we did this we made a list of what staples I needed not only for specific work occasions but also for my everyday image.  It was the everyday image that actually was causing me the most confusion.  I know I shouldn't walk around in workout gear but knowing how to look hip and casual was a challenge.  She assured me we would fix this.

Our next meeting was to shop.  I was really nervous about this. I can have magical shopping days but more often than not, I find shopping tiring and pretty discouraging.  Also, I think that some of the things I found on my magical days, were things we got rid of, so I wasn't feeling too confident.  She kept telling me it would be fun. I was skeptical.

She was right.  She has the golden touch and a eagle eye.  She can shop discount or high end.  It's finding the finds at a discount that I think is a gift.  We found some really unique and cool stuff that I would never have given a second look to on my own.  I went home with amazing booty!  I was learning as we went along too.  I was starting to understand how I should be dressing myself and what things to put together.  What brands and styles to run away from.  I am relieved to think I will no longer be shopping for things I never wear or that I wear awkwardly and incorrectly.  

The next thing was to make sure I was secure with each of my looks and pieces by charting them. Lastly, she selected finishing touches with statement jewelry and accents.  (She designs amazing jewelry too).

I feel like I really honored myself by doing this and doing it well with Nancy's skills and expertise.  I can now go anywhere and know I look sharp, interesting and appropriate.  This gives me self-assurance that makes me more successful in everything I do.  I would like to believe it doesn't matter how I look but I see how people's confidence in me is raised because I look attractive and creative and like I have my act together.  Isn't that who everyone wants to do business with?   I am also more willing to be seen now. 

In case any of this sounds familiar, I wanted you to have access to what I found to be the answer to my cry for personal style help.  We are gorgeous talented individuals-- so let's look that way darn it!

Cool, right??  I'm looking to do more styling work.  I have worked for photographers, done live shows (a big one for Ford-the car company, not Tom Ford--though that could happen) and runway shows.  My favorite aspect of this business is personal styling, the same thing that Carrie and I did.  Contact me directly if this is something that you'd like to check out.  For a print portfolio, click here.

The Bridge Club

I've just started rehearsals for an amazing beautiful play, Richard Raskind's The Bridge Club. I am excited and scared and thrilled, just like I would be for any new project.  The challenge is huge and invigorating.  The team is wonderful and top notch, the other actors are stellar and it's at Deaf/West Theater, a fantastic venue.  It's both an artistic and career jump, something that is a rare gift here in LA.  With all of that however, I find that I have an extra flutter in my stomach, an additional layer of fear and trepidation.  The subject of this play is suicide and the setting is San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge. This is personal in a way  I never imagined my art and life combining.  I spent a cold night not that many years ago standing on the top of that very bridge, contemplating the waters below. I eventually made a phone call to my therapist and something in his voice helped me walk away, but it took a long time for the attraction of that long fall to freedom to fade.  I spent many years actively suicidal, destroying myself in various attempts to numb the pain, to escape, and in a twisted way, I'm learning to see, survive.  Now I have this wonderful opportunity to share what that particular hopelessness feels like, in a way that many other actresses might not have access to. It is an honor for sure, yet there is this little remnant of fear...what if in working on this play, what if accessing those feelings of hopelessness and worthlessness and lovelessness brings them back to the forefront of my psyche? I've done so much work on myself and on my place in this world. This is a test, in a way, to see if it holds. After a few rehearsals, I'm confident that it will.

I've questioned the value of writing about this.  I don't want to scare the director or producer! "We didn't hire an actress, we hired a nut case! Crap!!" Not true of, course. I am not my character. We share some characteristics to be sure, but we live in different places, in different times, in fantasy and in reality.  Our circumstances differ: her prospects are bleak and her life is empty, with little hope and no resources. I have friends and family. I have numerous people to call on for support, friendship and care.  Most importantly, I care about other people on a daily basis.  I have started to accept the fact that my existence matters to them.  I have students and responsibilities and dreams that I can finally say that I still believe in and continue to strive towards.  There is value in talking about that journey, traveling to a place of reaching for more.  When you are suicidal, you believe, with your whole being, that there is no one who can understand how much you are twisting inside, how much it hurts to wake up each morning and face the multiple indignities of the day.  In opening up dialogue, in talking about options and in making connections, you realize that there is a possible tomorrow that is not the same as the one you are slogging through today. And in accepting a role in a beautiful play, you get to play out the other side of it, and face the consequences of having done so.  I love this play and am so grateful that the work I have done, with so many wonderful and stubborn people, has finally led me to a place where I can play with those feelings, rather than be consumed by them.

One of the characters in the play is a bridge patrol officer.  Folk singer Meg Hutchinson wrote a beautiful song called "GateKeeper" that honors one such person.  It's so touching. This man starts each conversation with a few simple questions. "How are you feeling?  What are your plans for tomorrow?  Why don't we make some?"  Here is a live version of her performing it. I hope you enjoy it.  And come see the play.  We open April 20 at Deaf/West Theater in North Hollywood and run for 4 weeks.