Fighting the Demons #1

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There may only be one in this series of posts. Which makes it not a series, I know. But I do know there is more than one demon battling for time and attention so there is the possibility of writing more than one piece with this title. So I might as well start with #1, right?

This is my way, today, of breaking through the barrier to writing. To write. Just do it. Though I'm not writing on the memoir at this moment, it is forward movement, words coming out through my hands. Writing.

Today the undertow is financial. A harder financial hit than I had originally projected due to a change at my part-time job. A hit from something which has no relationship to how well I do my job, to how much of a team player I am, to how much I follow the rules meet the statistics smile and say thank you or my excellent job performance reviews. It's not even a change in how many hours I work - though that threat is always there on the table and could happen without warning. As this did.

It was a small change and a frustrating process which led to it. And I have to say again that it had nothing to do with job performance and meeting standards and doing my part and more. (And it wasn't just me.)

This one little change has not been so little on the paychecks. Today the second significant reality of that change was realized and the cumulative effect is greater than expected.

But the demon is, again, money. Time and money because when you work part-time for yourself and you work part-time for someone else without benefits or guarantee of hours, time is money. I hate that phrase.

I really hate that phrase because time is also what I need to write. Time is what I need to sleep. To organize things in the house. To read. To go to a movie the theatre dance performance the park walk swim. To do nothing to write to edit revise to write.

The danger in this demon is that at times in the past I have filled my schedule with work to escape the finance demon and I won. But then the writing the doing nothing the sleeping the reading fell silent and my body screamed.

No - let me back up. The demon isn't money - that's the mask it's wearing today. The demon is feeling that I have to do more be more prove my worth. Today it was triggered by being devalued and brushed aside by a system over which I have no control and which does not consider the impact on the individuals only on the system as a whole.

No. I'm not going into more details on what happened. Really, that's irrelevant. It's a corporation thing. And the one I work for is no different. Those of us with a brain are always wary of that proverbial other shoe. This wasn't that.

And just now, as I was looking through my notes on the memoir project I found an earlier note to myself. A reminder I needed to see today: to "keep positivity on my radar" and to "let go of aggravation and despondency." And the phrase I was using in my daily practice at the time, "I am positive and realistic about my good financial situation." This is not an airy fairy lalaland ignore reality chant. Rather, it's a note to my self that it will work out. It has worked out in the near twenty years I've been an interpreter; this is no exception. It's not even a setback except in the moment and the moment will pass.

The demon of self-doubt in the mask of money. Ah, yes, familiar.

Not today.

I won't go into the black hole today. Besides, I'm meeting with my new writing group in half an hour.

See? The demon is, again, vanquished.
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Challenge : W is for Wonderful

W is for Wonderful? Wow. I didn't see that one coming before I typed it. WFT?! Oh, yes, there's another one.

But I'm going to go ahead with Wonderful. Because today I just wrapped (ooh, another W) up the inaugural session of my five months of theatrical preparation workshop, parts I and II. At noon today, the part II participants interpreted the project play, Clybourne Park, at Portland Center Stage.

They did a really good job and it was fun to be there with them and to debrief and celebrate afterwards. They were a great group, and along with the other two participants from part I, I couldn't have asked for a better first group for the workshop.

They were wonderful today. The process was wonderful. It even made giving up some weekends to spend with them, well, wonderful.

I will miss them and I will miss this workshop. (Ooh, another W.) Some of them will be back and I know I will work with some of them again in other capacities. Maybe in one of my next theatrical interpreting workshops. I have two in the works and will begin looking at when I can do this extensive, in-depth training again.

W is for Wonderful. And that's what I'm feeling right now.
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Challenge : V is for Visceral

V is for Visceral.

According to the Google search definition, Visceral means "Relating to deep inward feelings rather than to the intellect."

That's a good word for today.

See, that's what I'm working on. Most of my life I've been a "head" person - a thinker - a person who weighs the pros and cons and tries to figure out the best course of action, which may mean looking at the worst case scenario and the probable cases and going from there.

There's a phrase, "plan for the worst and expect the best."  Heard of it? I have. But the problem for me is that I do a pretty good job at planning for the worst case, and I think about the best case and my options. but I don't expect the best. In some ways that has, perhaps, led to less disappointment. But it's also led to less pleasure and less joy.

Because I live more in my head and doing the right thing. Rather than going from my inner knowing and feelings.

I've been working on this for a long time. Years. I've made a lot of progress, but once in a while something comes along and trips me up. Like an innocent encounter with a very nice person last week, whom I know had no ill intentions. Quite the opposite! But something in that interaction threw me out of my safe bubble and I've had bouncing feelings like a hyperactive hamster in a round cage. I talked with my therapist today and I'm back on track. But what a week.

Anyway - back to the word. Visceral. In the feeling body - deep and real; innate knowledge. Not living in the head and disconnected from the emotions flowing through the energy of the world. Sometimes being in one's head is a good thing, a safe thing, a smart thing. But being in touch with feelings at the same time - yes, it's better.

V is for Visceral. Feel it.

photo from Joanne Enslin and associates

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Being Open and Noticing

There are times of energy shift, more than most of us notice, I believe.

And there are times of energy shift when something is happening and we feel it, though we aren't sure what is happening.

Then there are times that the energy shifts and we know it. In the cells of our bones and our organs and processes, we feel the movements and the winds and we go with it. Or maybe resist.

So it is right now - a time of transition. As we walk toward spring and return to light. As we emerge from darkness and seeds start to sprout.

Recently I've been working on metabolizing anger and releasing it. Sometimes using Tonglen to move it through so it doesn't get stuck and come out in other ways. Sometimes using energy protocols with hand mudras - breathing, visualization. All to move forward and heal and walk my true path.

An added bonus to this work is being open. These last couple of weeks I have gathered pieces of conversations, from Starbucks and Sushi Hana and Poppa's Haven and outside the library while driving to work listening to an interview of an author on NPR. Bits of talk and observations and ideas coming to me and I send myself an email to my special folder where the ideas are saved. I now have over 200 of these bits of collected inspirations.

Approaching spring.

Thinking about my future.

Looking into options of what I want to do next.

And along come story ideas. Poetry ideas. A title. A character. A line.

Energy. Open. Light.

It's Comparable to the Week After the Play Closes

I have a lot of experience with the let down after a play I've been working on closes. Sometimes even when I'm interpreting plays, I go through that withdrawal. That "what do I do with my time."

No, that's not true any more - I no longer wonder what to do with my time. There is always something more to be done.

But on top of the "getting back to reality" without the memoir and without T:BA:11, there were a couple of family issues which were raised. Not my current family - but family of origin. And how funny - since they are included in the memoir. And childhood asthma seems to have resurfaced - which I hope is very temporary, though there were a few times when I was doing all the walking that it was slightly triggered - with speed and a big push, but not to this extent; it is getting better day by day and I hope it goes away soon.

The biggest thing, though, is that "which way do I go" feeling - like Bugs Bunny and the Road Runner. I've completed the big project - and there's another on waiting, and another NaNoWriMo on the horizon. And have the Lit Star Training assignments. And I lost touch with submissions other than working on the memoir for the past nearly three months.

So the question now is "what do I write?"  no worries - probably just need a little bit of "floating" time to let the stories percolate.

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UPDATE: I started this post three, no four, days ago. I stalled. I did get some writing done - including following Ariel's permission to "write the worst shit in America" for one of this week's quick write. Okay - no maybe not the worst, I've done worse, but it was bad. I did also manage to write something for last week's assignment, which turned out okay - but it was incomplete and I ran out of time.

But I wrote!

And here I am writing, again. Though.

No, not "though" but writing in spite of. I've been more inwardly focused this week.

The asthma symptoms have cleared almost completely - though not all.  I've been working it from different angles - or layers is more accurate. A holistic approach for a whole-is-me condition. Interesting.

Unraveling and re-raveling. Finding new layers to process and emotions to release. Meanings. Feelings.

Listening. To my life and my body.

Making notes and noting insights or inspirations or sparks. Images. Words. Phrases.

Creativity is still happening.

Words still tumbling into each other.

And after a big push tomorrow to complete another tedious task - totally uncreative (no, students, if you're reading this, it doesn't mean you - although I do owe you some information tomorrow and you will get it; this other thing is really really about as dry and tedious as it gets) - then, writing will happen.

Look! I wrote some more. And I will post before another week passes by.
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Life Transferred to the Page

As I focus my writing on the memoir I am carried to other times in my life. Other places. People left behind long ago or people who left me. People I don't want to see; people who I wonder what happened to; people who influenced me in ways I could not have predicted or whom I thought had no influence.

My life has had some pretty clean breaks from one time to another. New relationships. New towns. Jobs. College. It is all relative, I know. I know people who have moved more. Who have had far more relationships. Who have had lives more complicated and dangerous and survived unimaginable suffering. And some whose lives seemed way better. Easier. For whom life seemed to fall into place or who were handed whatever they wanted and they never questioned.

But I'm writing about my life. Or a piece of my life.

And people who were important at that time. In one way or another. And the realization sits with me over and again that I am who I am now because of them and those times. Good and bad. Right or wrong or it just was. But that is what has helped shape me.

And my anger. Or the black hole of despair at times. The wanting to work things out and the wondering when a trust is betrayed or confusion when I feel blindsided. The joy at getting on a bicycle after 30 years. The freedom of kayaking on the river. The smell of the ocean inspiring. Remembering falling in love with someone I shouldn't; and saying it.

Pieces of a life. My life. Being transferred to the page.

The writing is easier than the editing. And both are required. As is being present in my life now and traveling to my past.

I searched for images and videos and something to represent this process. This moment. By accident on my way toward something else online I came across a video of Holcombe Waller singing "Hardliners." The description of the video fits, too. And will lead to a prompt!

"Hardliners" follows singer-songwriter Holcombe Waller along a dream-like path from his bedroom to the stage and back. Three friends (featuring the performance and choreography of Miguel Gutierrez) support and shape his journey. The video muses on the relationship between performer, the audience, and all of the friends and family in between.

PROMPT: Watch the video. More than once if you'd like; I recommend it. One beauty of the internet is that you can pause the video if there is something that speaks to you - wait and watch for it.
Some thing that reminds you of a time when ....
or a person who ....
or that thing you had when you were ....

What is your relationship to your audience? Who are the friends and family or memories in between?




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