freedom

A Turncoat Collaboration

Aside ~ ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ 6 Comments

“Traitorous cooperation with an enemy”

It’s what I entered into with you

But I didn’t know that at first.

At first, you were my soulmate, my joy, my everything

There was nothing that you could not make better

No feeling you did not temper, no event that you did not help me through.

After my first taste of you

I chose you, again and again.

Like a vampire needing the invitation to enter my doorway

You waited patiently for me to choose each time

Knowing that I would.

And one day, I found that

choice had become need; need, compulsion

I was a turncoat against my own life force.

In a battle with the dark side

I was sided with the enemy

inflicting sabotage against my own forces.

I surrendered and I survived, even thrive

Yet I see you there, ever waiting for an invite inside

That slight grin on your face, as if to say, you knew I’d be back.

I say no invitation today, old “friend.”

I am in cahoots with my life now.

 

Prompted by the Daily Word Prompt: collaboration

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Final Word

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It’s just this:

You shattered my essence

I know they say that the human soul can never be destroyed

But it can be damaged

And you did that.

But I gathered up the slivers

And the shards of Who I Really Am –

The me I was meant to be Before –

And I put my self together again.

Whole.

I did that.

So, guess what?

I win.
Inspired by The Daily Post daily word prompt: final

Free Fall

Aside ~ ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ 3 Comments

I’m in the middle of a massive shift.

The last time I felt such a massive shift in my life, there were all of these external changes happening.

In the space of three years, my mother died, I planned a wedding, my brother died, I got a mortgage, bought an apartment, my father died, I got married and moved from Manhattan to the Bronx.

By the time I was settled into our new apartment, I didn’t know which way was up. I literally did not recognize the outer landscape of my life.

With so much having changed on the outside, it made sense to me that my internal landscape would need to recalibrate. I was living in a new world. I needed to find a new true north.

This time though, there’ve been no circumstances creating the pressure that precipitates such movement. This time, the shift has come solely from within, a seismic shifting of the tectonic plates of my very soul.

It is terrifying and yet so right-feeling at the same time.

Everything in my life has come into question. A massive excavation. A massive exploration.

It’s as if I have been squeezed out of myself and am born anew, looking around. And the one thing I can see clearly is that my whole life I have been in pursuit of one thing or another. Popularity, academic excellence, talent, money, happiness, fame, career success, love, a thinner body, a better me, forgiveness, acceptance, self-love, a desire to live, a desire to stop wanting to die (they are different,) peace, direction…fame (I come back to that one because that is a huge one)…you name it.

I’ve been running around like a woman with my hair on fire for as long as I can remember, and I couldn’t stop even if I had ever wanted to, and I didn’t. There were times I wanted them to stop, for life to stop, for the pain to stop, for everything to stop, for me to stop being conscious. But I never wanted and could never imagine not being in pursuit.

Until now, that is. Now, I just want to…stop.

That is the seismic shift I am in right now. I am shifting from a life of pursuit to a life of, what? What is the opposite of pursuit? I don’t know.

Is it simply being? I don’t even know what the hell that is. Is that really OK? What will happen? What if I give up the pursuit of pursuit? What will I do with my life if I do not pursue something?

Who will I be? Will I fall I back into the chasm? Will I be falling into the obscurity I have so feared?

And if I fall into the chasm of my own soul, will it be a free fall that lasts forever, or will I land on soft ground at some point? This cannot be yet another pursuit. I have to let it be whatever it is. I cannot fall back wishing it to be one way or another at the other end.

I just have to fall back. And that is terrifying and yet so absolutely right-feeling at the same time.

I’ll either see you on the other side, or I won’t. Deep breath. Here I go.

 

 

Ceasefire

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I was clearing out papers and photos from my life –
An envelope my Dad had given me after my Mom died

She’d saved every note and card I’d ever written her

And the truth staring me in the face

As I read through them was this:

I have never been OK with myself

Always searching for answers – why me, why not, what if this, what if that

Working to improve my self – this dress, that diet, walk this way, talk that way

Every day a struggle, so hard to get through

The bitter pill of life I just could not swallow

It caught in my throat, choking my voice

And I grasped at the ever-dangling carrot of a better me

And wore myself down to nubbins and grace

Today I will Just breathe

I will live in the questions

Stop searching outside for the answers

I will wear life like a loose garment

Listen to the breezes blow

Seek comfort in my own heart

And choose to forget whatever it was I was fighting so hard to be

There are no more truths to swallow

It is time to simply be

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Essential Excavation

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I pulled down the walls myself

I was the one who built ’em

They were mine to demolish

I removed each stone, thanking it for its work

I excavated my own soul

I dug until I discovered the me I was before.

Anemic and shivering

I performed CPR on my self

I pinked up, began howling

Raw and primal, hungry

My natural beauty exposed

No renovations necessary.

#soulexcavation

 

 

 

 

 

 

Old Baggage

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When I was in junior high school, I begged my parents to go in on a purse that I was desperate to buy.

Not just any purse. It was a Gucci Speedy/Doctor bag. (We didn’t call it that then. I only know that’s its name from researching this…it is now considered vintage! Ouch!) It probably cost a couple of hundred dollars, which was a lot in those days (at least to my family) to pay for a purse, or anything, really.

Everybody had one, or so it seemed to me.

I went to a large public high school, so there was a mix of economic and racial backgrounds, kids from many different backgrounds.

On any given day you would see the many different lifestyles reflected in the fashion of the different groups. Sometimes what a kid was wearing reflected their socio-economic status, but not always.

There were “Stoners” (or “Partiers.”) The “Kickers” (this was Texas after all — so these kids were cowboy/farmer types.) It being the 80’s, there were the “Punkrocker” or “New Wavers.” ( I know, this is beginning to sound like the movie “Pretty in Pink.” That movie resonated for a reason, right?)

It was the height of the Preppy or Preppie craze, and though Houston, Texas was not NYC, we did get the fashion trends, albeit maybe a season or two behind. So the other main group was the “Preppies.”

The majority of kids in the Preppies definitely came from upper middle class to wealthy families. Looking back, for a public school, there were quite a few kids that came from great wealth.

I didn’t really fall into any one group. While my family was white-collar, sort of upper middle class, my father, having come from next to nothing, wanted to be sure that we were not spoiled. We never wanted for anything, but we lived fairly simply in comparison to some of the other kids in my school.

I was never one of the popular kids. I was an outcast until I lost a bunch of weight at 14, when suddenly I became of more interest to the “in” crowd. Though my outsides changed, my insides were the same. So though I was allowed around the in crowd now, I never felt a part of it.

There were others like me. We found each other and created our own group. We didn’t have a name, at least that I know of.

We were sort of mysterious: people knew we had fun going out to clubs and bars and hanging with older college kids. Though we had friends across all the groups, we would hang with just each other outside of school. We dressed in a mix of all of the fashions of the day.

But back to that bag. The bag that “everyone” was getting. I just had to have one. I had some money from babysitting, but not enough for THAT bag. So through the implementation of Chinese water torture on my dad, I promised over and over dramatically that “I would never need to buy another purse again for as long as I lived if I had that bag!”

Eventually, I wore my parents down. I got THE bag.

I have no recollection as to whether or not obtaining the bag actually brought me any pleasure whatsoever. I ‘m pretty sure that the amount of time I actually used it was very brief, much to my father’s chagrin.

Years later, after my Mom died, when we were sorting through some of her things, my Dad reminded me of that bag and that promise. We laughed about it, but I felt a cringe of guilt at how easily I had let go of that bag after having fought so hard to get it.

I think it’s because I really had no connection to the bag itself. Only to the way I wanted to be seen carrying it. The lifestyle to which I wanted to be associated. Which was not reflective of my own style at all, or even who I really was or even wanted to be.

But I wanted to feel like, or to be wanted by at least, (or to be seen by others as being wanted by or as one of “them,”) those popular girls, and so I got the bag. It didn’t make me feel any more a part of the “it” group than I ever had. I was an outsider and I always would be, bag or no bag.

It makes me sad that the girl I was then didn’t feel good enough in my own esteem to have seen that bag for what is was: a status symbol. It wasn’t the bag I really wanted. I wanted status. How I wish I could go back in time and tell that myself that being an outsider was actually pretty cool. Now I know the kind of status I needed would never be able to come from anything outside of my own heart. I wish I hadn’t sold myself so easily and so cheaply.

After my Dad died, I found that old Gucci purse in a box in the garage, where my Dad had kept it for me all these years. It was in mint condition, barely used.

Maybe you are hoping I’ll say I started to use it again. Or that I sold it at a profit on Ebay.

I gave it to the Salvation Army, where I hope it became a found treasure for someone who really wanted it for its beauty. I hope it is being put to good use in the world, as should all things.

Today I carry a very practical Lug Moped Day Pack bag as a purse. It costs about $35.


It’s light, leaves me hands free and has just the right ratio of open pockets, zippered pockets, divisions and space. (As it turns out, I am quite finicky about a handbag’s function, would love to design my own ideal bag, but this is as close to my ideal as I have found to buy.)

I have no interest in designer handbags. I may admire their beauty sometimes, and be amazed at and appreciative of the women who pay for them, love and carry them. But they were never my style and probably never will be.

I can live with that.

#purses #handbags #self-love #Iamnotmybag #theeighties

Inspired by The Daily Post word prompt: lifestyle

The Dance

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When I was a little girl, I took dance lessons. From the age of 4 or so, I took, tap, jazz and ballet. I have vague memories of doing some kind of moving across the floor and the teacher saying “Jeté, jeté!” as we stepped from foot to foot.

I loved those lessons. There was a big dance recital, where my mom made costumes for me: I played a bumblebee and a munchkin.

When we moved to Dallas when I was 5, for some reason, the dance lessons stopped. It was a hectic year, and the business venture that my Dad had moved us there for failed, so after the year, we moved back to Houston, to a different part of town and a different set of circumstances. Finances were tight, so extras like lessons were put to the side.

But. I did not stop dancing. I would put my parents’ albums on the record player and dance my little heart out. This was way before MTV or dance videos. The only references I had were old Hollywood musicals, which I adored. So my dances were my own versions of what I had grown up watching: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Doris Day, Audrey Hepburn moving dramatically across streets and fields in passionate, emotive and song-filled scenes.

I had plenty to be working out. In my young life I had already suffered a great deal. But my trauma had been locked away tight in a safe room of my psyche, so I wasn’t consciously trying to tell any particular story through these dances. My body-mind just needed to move and my soul just needed to express through that movement.

Favorite songs were Wings’ “Live and Let Die” and most of the album “Whipped Cream” by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass Band. But I would dance to just about anything.

The dancing stopped somewhere around age 11. By that time, I had discovered food and TV and they became a kind of narcotic, a way to numb out the confusing feelings and thoughts that made life difficult. They became my number one coping mechanism, and saw me through until the teen years when other substances became available and appealing to me.

Did I dance again? Sure. At dance clubs in the 80’s and 90’s, where alcohol and often drugs were a part of the mix. At weddings, always somewhat self-consciously. There were a few attempts to go back to dance lessons so that as an actor I could be more marketable for musical theatre. I’ve danced in musicals and loved every moment. But the kind of dancing that I did in that living room back when? Nope.

Through my 20’s and 30’s, I had pics of me from that recital in my costumes, beaming. I think I even still have a bumblebee wing. Over the years, I have often used those pictures as self-reference, proof that there had been a time when I had been confident, happy in my body and free-feeling. I looked to those pictures to try to find hope that perhaps one day, I could find those ways of being again. Through much healing over the years, I have made a lot of progress. I go deep in my work as an actor and singer, and work from a place of a great deal of freedom often. But it has always still seemed to me that the girl I had been – with her total lack of self-consciousness, innocence and creative freedom – was to be forever out of my reach no matter how hard I worked for it.

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Then. Last week, a young director reached out to me and asked me to do his film. He’d had me in mind for the Woman in the script, he said, and he really, really wanted me to play her.

In the script, during the character’s most private inner moment, she transports herself through fantasy from her home bathroom to a gorgeous copper bathtub in a tiled tunnel in Central Park by the Bethesda Fountain. She is wearing a beautiful dress and a sax player is playing music in the background as she has this very free, very private, very joyful moment.

From the moment I read the scene, I imagined the woman dancing around the fountain.

I asked the director had he imagined the Woman staying in the tub in her private moment. He said yes, but that it was my private moment, and he wanted me to have complete freedom. (What a wonderful gift he gave me, that freedom. So grateful for his desire to collaborate.) So I had imagined my moments in the tub and was excited and curious for how the shoot would go.

I had not seen the location, so did not know that the tiled tunnel was a beautifully lit space that had arches in the background and copper hues, and that the tub would be placed in it, not near the fountain.

So that morning, as we arrived on location, when I saw the actual scene – the brick tunnel and the beautiful space that was surrounding the copper tub – and then heard the song the saxaphone player was to play, I knew that I had to dance out of the tub and around that beautiful tunnel.

And so on the first take, as the camera began to film, I began my private moment, made my way out of the tub, and I began to dance.

It was one of the most magical experiences I have ever lived. In the moments of my improvised dance, with the sax player playing for me and with me, the sun beginning to come up behind the fountain in the distance, hearing only the music and the echo of my own laughter, I felt myself dancing simultaneously as the woman I am right now and the little girl I was then. The tunnel and that living room became one across space and time. The joy that bubbled up through my body was total and whole, and it was such an honor to be in those moments bringing the Woman of the film and the director/writer’s vision to life.

Afterwards, we did more takes, and they were each wonderful but different in their own ways. There was no way to repeat that first take, and that was perfect too.

But I walked away from that shoot forever changed.

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There are moments in life where you feel that you are in the exact right place at the exact right time doing exactly what you were meant to do. In those moments, you can see that every other moment of your life has been a part of the making of this one magical moment. Every thing you’ve lived, every person you’ve met — the good, the bad, the ugly — it all makes total sense in those moments.

Those moments are astonishing. They are when I know I am a wondrous creation, a part of the whole that is this incredible Universe. I know in those moments that my life has been intricately designed, just as a rose has, or a peacock, or snowflakes. That nothing in my life – from the worst trauma to the most brutal pain – has been for naught. That it has all led to this moment in time, to this me that I have become.

That dance is forever in my heart now. It lives inside me, and it is the beginning of a whole new level of personal and creative freedom. I do not know what will grow from it, but I know that I have re-awakened something important inside, and I am so very grateful for that role finding its way to me, for giving me back the Dance.

#actorslife #danceforever #theheartremembers #itsnevertoolate #TheDanceoftheHeart