Extremes...

Wow. What a whirlwind of emotion the last week has been. With the loss of my dear friend Weiferd, my mother's 75th birthday celebration, teaching, rehearsals for my new play and the ongoing accolades for Skeleton Stories all accompanied by a nasty cold, I think that I have experienced everything that there is to experience in the last seven days.

Weiferd's funeral was so incredible. The chapel was filled with family and friends from his disparate worlds. The sermon was fiery and heartfelt and inspiring. I spoke, as did his best friend Shannon, several family members and a model and a body builder. Each aspect of his circle of friends brought together for the first time. It was amazing and tender and heartbreaking.

from our 2009 Golden Gate Bridge Shoot

I flew directly from Oakland to Las Vegas for my mom's 75th Birthday celebration and extravaganza...what a change in emotion and tone. Las Vegas is just unreal. The immense Americana of it--the excess, the cheap sexuality, the lights, the overwhelming noise and vulgarity. My niece looked up to me at one point and asked why everyone was wearing such short skirts. She had just witnessed one that barely covered what it should...

We had an incredibly overpriced but tasty meal, and saw Cirque De Soleil's Beatles Themed Show, Love. The whole trip was a surprise for my mom, and she was definitely surprised. I got to spend time with my favorite small person and even saw Mr. Obama's plane take off the next morning. Even though I would have liked to have spent more time in the Bay Area, I have to say that it was nice to move onto a celebration....

The Girls....

Adding to that the intense pressure of being in rehearsal and teaching 20 classes a week and I, for the first time since being a small child, went to bed at 8PM on Saturday night. All worn out....I love the show I'm in. I'm super proud of Skeleton Stories. Life is crazy and busy and full of extremes and I wouldn't want it any other way.

Another good bye...

My all time favorite shot

My dear friend Weiferd died this week. Weiferd has been photographing me since I was 17. He is, or was, an AMAZING dance photographer and one of the nicest people on the planet. A funny looking guy, who hung out at dance studios. It's hard to separate my personal loss from the community loss. We've worked together for my entire adult life, but he ended up shooting EVERYONE in the dance world. I could always count on Weiferd to make me laugh, to make me feel beautiful, strong, fearless. I would climb anything, freeze my butt off, hang off of anything to get a great shot for him. I will miss him so much. We last shot together just two weeks ago and when I was feeling low, I posted a pic just to remind myself that I am a strong woman with options. That is what he gave me and for that, I will be eternally grateful.

Here are a few of my favorite shots;

From our last shoot, on Santa Monica Beach

Dancing in the park....

From the famous shower series....

From the bridge shoot

and again...

There are so so so many more, but for now..

Just Because I Can

I thought I'd post a photo from a recent shoot on Santa Monica Beach. The picture makes me feel powerful and strong, something that I forget, as an actress in LA, that I am. I am a powerful person. I make things happen. I am in control of my life. And if it doesn't go the way that I want it to, I can go off and join the circus.

Tech Rehearsal

I'm sitting in the theater at the tech rehearsal for Skeleton Stories. I love this show. It is touching and lovely and ugly and heartbreaking and gross and beautiful. The cast is amazing and the design team astonishing. I'm terrified that my work in it is not up to snuff, even though everyone has said only nice things about it. Isn't that always the case though, that feeling that we all have of not belonging, of not being good enough. Of course this business in which I am completely immersed emphasizes it over and over. "We've decided to go a different way, you are not what we have in mind, you are nice looking but we want a knockout...." The list of rejection sentences is endless. I was just rejected by a manager with whom I really wanted to work. That was hard. Very. It feels much more personal when they meet you and then reject you, rather than just throwing your picture into the trash. To balance that disappointment, I was cast in a new play, The Limitations of Genetic Technology, which will also take place at Theatre of Note. David Watkins is the amazing director. I just saw his current play, Meditations, Eva Hesse, for which I also auditioned (not getting cast was another of those losses that landed) and it was gorgeous. I am really excited to work with him. The timing of this next play is so much better as well. So, for each loss there is a gain. What I need to learn is how to make the pluses mean more than the losses. It's an ongoing process. For today, I am concentrating on this amazing production and looking forward to opening night, Friday October 1.

Staying strong in the wind....

It's been a month, maybe a little more, since I set myself free from therapy. Freedom is a slightly double edged sword however. I find myself feeling both a little more adrift and simultaneously stronger. I have set a task of actively sending out only positive energy, listing 5 positive things every morning on my Facebook and Twitter updates. I had actually tried this earlier last year, but in my journal. It felt stupid and fake and insincere. I find that sending it out in a public forum is a completely different animal. It is more genuine and the positive energy is starting to return to me. People are commenting that they feel that I've shifted, or that they like reading them, or simply that it's nice to see. It makes me feel a little less alone, but also, if I'm being truly honest, feels a little less than fully honest because although the positive thoughts are real, they are only part of the story. I spend much of my time managing feeling like shit: alone and scared. I feel like calling Dr. L at least once a day, but I haven't. I am able to manage on my own. That, in and of itself, is progress. What is interesting is that as I have actively decided to focus on the positive, there is more of it to focus on: I love my teaching jobs, I've had more auditions, call-backs and jobs, and I'm meeting with a new manager today. It's a complete package deal. Good breeds good. And staying in the day, a quote from my dear friend Liz, helps too.

I was struck today by just how fragile one's sense of self can be. A careless comment from an unaware colleague and suddenly someone is reduced to helpless tears and a resurgence of long ago self hatred. I find that I too am teary and sad tonight, as I was unable to stop this hurt from happening on my watch. I need to learn how, as a teacher and choreographer--a leader really, to be empathetic without being triggered myself. (side note: the therapy speak of my writing is really another worrisome topic to be addressed in a different post!) I find it really hard. I just have to say, ignore the tears and listen to my words. The tears are mine and real, but are from a different time. My words are in the here and now and I am fully present to you. Hard though. It's hard to see the hurt that you know so well and so deeply in someone else's eyes, yet have no way to take it away.

Autonomy

The last few weeks have been life changing, in ways both big and small. Rob's death was immense. Feeling his loss through Gillian was heartbreaking. I in no way want to completely turn this to me, but any experience will have personal ripples and for my personal journey, his death was an eye opener to the imagined results of my own unfulfilled suicidal fantasies. I have spent the last 12 years in therapy, trying to find...wow...so many things: a reason for living, the reason(s) that I felt that I couldn't or shouldn't. I've looked for someone to blame, a catalyst for my pain and anguish and torture. I've cried, floated out of my body, shut down, written endless emails and journal entries dissecting my past, my parents and my mind. Along the way I made numerous discoveries. There are and were valid and heartbreaking reasons for my "craziness". Yet with the increasing knowledge, nothing really changed. I became less self destructive. I usually eat on a regular basis now. I have stopped crashing cars and taking sleeping pills and cutting and burning.....I've learned to handle myself in a way that will keep me on the planet. But internally, nothing was different. I was increasingly able, perhaps simply as a result of growing older, to cope, however nothing cured me of the desire to go until now. I stayed alive because I was supposed to. Looking into Jocelyn and Gillian's shocked and shattered eyes made me realize that with all of the release that I hoped to experience myself, I would have put that look into my sister's eyes. That single act would have been unforgivable. What is interesting is that I've two friends who committed suicide and neither of those tragedies (and they were absolutely tragedies) gave me this autonomy. It was this unexpected, accidental death that, along with many many other changes in my life, made me finally say, you know what? Living just might be ok. I don't need a therapist to remind me of that fact. I can find something every day to live for, to strive for and to be proud of. I have the ability to put those nasty voices in the corner. I've yet to shut them up, but I can let them chatter on while I do what needs to be done. That feels like freedom to me. It is a new and glorious opening. And for the first time in years, I'm going to do it alone.