Checking In

The nomadic cycle has quickened in my life. After a month-long journey that included sojourns in New Orleans, Memphis, Holly Springs MS, Chicago (Park Forest), New Albany and Clarksville IN, and Louisville, I am back in the San Francisco Bay Area.

My residential base before the trip is not available, including its resident piano. Neither are previous sources of income available.

I am sitting in the public library on Telegraph. I am here because today is Change Location day but the key to the new location is not where I was told it would be and I can't get into the house. I'd driven there as soon as I woke up this morning; didn't even get dressed. Just slipped on shoes and got in the car. I discreetly changed from pj bottoms to shorts in the car. Parked outside the library I actually slipped a bra on beneath my pj top. I left text and VM at my host's cell #.

In the library, the internet connection was funky for 45 minutes...during which time I received two cell calls offering alternate lodging solutions -- one in Berkeley and the other in Santa Cruz.

I am facilitating a play-shop tomorrow from 4 to 6 at the Court of the Faithful Fools, after meeting at 2 with a potential "replacement" group leader. The players at the Court want to keep going. We have had a rich and marvelous time together since February. I will miss them and playing in the magical waters of our connection.

The script for the Santa Cruz Fringe Festival is still developing. It feels like I'm moving around too much to get any writing done but I don't believe that. I can't afford to believe it. I have to finish the script.

I believe it will come because "it" always comes. I have almost completely surrendered to the ever-changing rhythms of creativity and inspiration. Resistance is futile and needlessly stressful. Breathing, I detach from identification with the thoughts and feelings and emotions swirling and sparking in response to events in my life.

I am present. Awake. Knowing nothing....and breathing.

Holly Springs looms like a radiant, welcoming angel standing on a not-too-distant hill. Holly Springs is the next scheduled open-ended sojourn. I will carry house keys again and stop asking around for house-sit assignments. I'll plant a garden and probably teach piano.

I'll learn the way to Oxford, the nearest town of size to Holly Springs.  I'll keep a list on the refrigerator of things to pick up the next time I'm in "town."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I caught myself muttering "God damn!" under my breath earlier today and simultaneously noticed my posture:  shoulders tense and hunched, belly clenched, little bit of a frown on my face. 

Breathing, I detached from identifying with the frustration that produced the curse. Saw it, but not as my identity. Deep breath. Stretching.....standing all the way tall as I am. Eyes open. Breathing. Awake. Knowing nothing. Seeing what is.

My father is aging. His wife, my stepmother, is aging. We are all aging. My father is unhappy. His mind-belly is full of regret. He nurses old grudges. 

I see him as a beautiful spirit trapped in Hell. He does not know that if he released his bloody grip on the thorny bars of the cage, he would be free.

He opposed my use of the word "tragic" to describe our family saga.  For him, acceptance of that description would suggest his faith in God was lagging. "God is good.  God is good" he chants between recitations of decades-old injuries and conflicts. 

I see him as a beautiful spirit trapped in Hell.  It is tragic. I make no comment on how Daddy's story will unfold from now -- I believe healing, transformation and salvation are real and accessible for everyone.  And I see his current situation as tragic.

The next day:  Finally connected with my host and slept well in a king-sized bed beneath an open window.

I am grateful for everything:  the frustrations, the resolutions, the enduring questions, the surprises. My path wends through a varied landscape. This is a time of movement; later there will be seasons of rest.

Tip of the Iceberg

Today's cigarette insight:  My preferred writing situation is at night, in a room with open windows.  I like to drink coffee and smoke cigarettes while I write. Sometimes marijuana greases the wheels. Instrumental recorded music in background is good.  

(Some of) yesterday's most mind-bending revelations from talking to Daddy:

1.  They were pregnant with me before they married.
2. That house on Crystal that always looked familiar to me was where we lived when I learned to walk.
3. My grandmother's mother was not a preacher. My grandmother's grandfather was a preacher.
4. My father never met any of his father's family.

I have so much writing to do about this trip....

 

Day One: The Journey East

My engines are revved.  It's gonna be THAT kind of trip...

Missed my flight. I was thinking American and it was actually Frontier and so I got to the counter too late.

I was utterly befuddled and frustrated and frightened and....by the airport setup and many passengers grumbling and some woman who barely spoke English but was wearing a uniform was trying to tell me that I had to go to the end of the line I was in, the long line I was in, the third long line ...

I ignored her and moved on when I finally realized there would be no resolution to the language breakdown between us.

In retrospect, I wish I'd viewed the encounter as an angel message, alerting me that I was in the wrong line.

Anyway, when I reached the halfway mark in that queue -- in what I would soon discover was the "wrong" one -- I found myself adjacent to a beautiful, rosy-cheeked young man. When our eyes met, we both smiled and even chuckled a little for no reason at all. We started talking about his trip to Ecuador...which caught the ear of another woman, very sweet face, and she joined the conversation. We were three humans, conversing and smiling, in the midst of a sea of stressed, pissed-off humanity.

And, I swear, the world just got sooooo sweet and interrelated from that point on. I was smiling when I reached the counter and smiling as I learned I was in the wrong line and had 5 minutes to run to the next terminal....

Sure, I stomped my foot and cursed when another beautiful young man told me that the gate was closed and that, even though it was 20 minutes till the plane would take off, there was just no way for me to board.

But the guy who told me was a Jamaican, less than a week in his new job. And he was friendly and my heart loved hearing him talk. He issued me a boarding pass for tomorrow -- same time, same place -- and I set out to find the BART stop.

I thought I was going back to Berkeley to spend the day and then find a ride back to SFO in the morning.

The "stupid! stupid! stupid!" chant inside my head was loosing steam. I realized I was free, a freak:  yeah, I could feel stupid and angry about missing a flight.

But I didn't have to.

There was no station agent on duty when I reached BART and I needed a ticket. It took me about two minutes to step full into my freak/outlaw/free agent mind set and realize that I could simply open the gate and walk through.  I fully intended to purchase a ticket from the machine once inside....

but

neither of the two machines were functioning.  And I laughed out loud:  signs, signs, everywhere signs about not drinking and not smoking and not putting your feet on the seats and not leaving bags unattended and etc. All these rules -- and no one around to enforce them.

When the train arrived, I got on. Without a ticket.

At the Rockridge stop, according to the "system", I would have some explaining to do and owe the ticket price of $9.60.

but

The station agent on duty was a New Orleanian. When he heard I'd missed my flight and been unable to purchase a ticket at SFO, he laughed and I laughed and he charged me $2.

************

So on we go.

Just got off the phone with Oleg, my pick-up in New Orleans. I shared some of the story of The Adventure So Far and he said, "Leave it to you, Alex, to turn missing your flight into a fabulous day."

It's not that I'm special and the rules don't apply.  It's that we're all special and I'm one of the lucky ones who realizes the rules don't apply.

More later......

YES is a powerful Word

I love my kids at Y.E.S.  Picked up my sweatshirt today.  We worked and played hard together today.  People acted out and got called on it by me or one of the other kids. Almost every kid that acted out,  apologized to me before I left today. I got called out once, too, and apologized.

What a great day!

Tonight, I'm considering doing a lot more theater with drug abuse teenagers...

Privilege of Genius

Someone commented:  "Some people hold it against Steve Jobs that he was so hard to get along with and really mean at times but I say that isn't fair.  He was a genius and they aren't like the rest of us."

I'm thinking, Damn, I'm no genius but I could sure use one of those "get out of social prison free" cards...

Come Back, Come Back...Let's Begin

A new friend came for tea yesterday. She too is a performer so discussion of the upcoming Fringe Festival performance was lively and deeply pertinent. "What's your piece about?" she asked. "Not sure yet," I replied. "Really only now coming out of the panic zone and getting a first glimpse of possible themes."

She said she'd recently been asked to identify the theme of her life.  The enduring, recurrent, "hot" topic or topics of her life. Of course, I was immediately drawn to examine my own life through the same lens. What are my life themes?  What do I write and sing (and pray and cry) about over and over again? recognition and visibility; identity; family; art and being an "artist"; faith, spirituality, belief; the human condition, the human heart and psychology.

Does the new performance have something to do with any of these themes?  Which?  How do I start?

I am attempting to lure myself away from the brink of despair (where I have been perched for two or three days), into a sustained, exploratory, play-time as first steps of creating something for Fringe Festival.  I am trying to make Writing more appealing than staring or eating or playing computer Solitaire -- all of which have claimed the lion's share of my attention lately...out t/here at the previously mentioned brink. I am scared. I consider engaging in some therapeutic blogging.

OK.  Here goes...

Step 1:  Open Bookmarks menu and click on "Sojourner in the 21st Century".
Step 2:  Click on "New Post" link.
Step 3:  Stare at blank page and let mind roam...
Step 4:  Open new tab and Google Image search on "Easter".  Harvest the first image that piques my interest:  two little boys toting a load of kindling on a crude wheelbarrow.

What this image has to do with Easter eludes me; but I look at it and begin to cry. I can see myself in both children and my heart is touched. Why am I crying?

Pain-body is, mysteriously, triggered by the kindling and the wheelbarrow and the barefoot boys; it draws a connection between these and my raggedy socks.

There is a prevailing Consciousness that views ragged socks and barefoot children in barren landscapes as signs of destitution, hopelessness, and a terrifying vulnerability. This Consciousness pervades the World. I see myself in the World and of the World. I see myself  through the World's lens. I am a mess.

An hour later

Feeling free...

"I see myself in the World and of the World."  Writing those words unlocked the shackle. Situated me somewhere outside. Situated me in Awareness of the World and my thoughts about the World - rather than smack dab surrounded and overwhelmed by the thoughts about the World. 

Writing those words broke my identification with that on-the-brink-of-disaster entity.  Freedom and energy surged and I went downstairs for focused practice on Fugue #4 from Book II of WTC.

Writing those words released me, and opened a gateway to a different perspective

where kindling is used to start fires
and toes poke through wool, feet shed shoes for direct contact with air and sunlight and moisture and grass
and vulnerable = capable of being impacted, inspired, touched
and Easter is about resurrection, return from the brink

and this ability to see, to re-frame and re-imagine what I see, to see in new ways
is part of what defines me as an artist

and this is gonna be a great show.

Artistic Crisis....Again

I learned last week I've been selected to perform in the first Santa Cruz Fringe Festival. The Festival runs13 July through 22 July and my suffering has already begun:  insomnia, loss of appetite, panic attacks, ....

A crazy voice screams non-stop from a room in the attic of my mind "I can't! I can't!" Specifically, I can't write. I have nothing to say;  I've never had anything to say.  Yes, I've performed original work before but it was a fluke,....I don't know where it came from. I don't remember writing it. Did I write it?

Last night, I dreamed I was simultaneously driving a car and explaining to someone, as calmly as possible, why I must decline their invitation. I ran the car off the road in the process. It ended up nose down in a wide ditch. When I stepped into the ditch to survey the damage, I discovered there was another town under the road. With courage, I could get back in the car, put it in Reverse and safely reach the other town. I entered the car and put it in Reverse but my courage lagged and so the car wound up in a mechanics shop after hours. Now the challenge/task was a) to exit the car through a window, and b) to exit the after-hours shop through a window.



I am among three solo performers invited by a fourth to share a 90-minute slot on a TBA stage. Participants in the Festival will perform a minimum of 5 times over the 10 days of the Festival. Partly in response to my terror, I have thought perhaps I will improv for each of the 5 performances, in that way mostly bypassing the writing. But this choice is unsatisfactory. Today I realize the reason:  I am afraid AND I actually want to write a piece.

This is the illogical nature of fear.

The next day:
I slept like a baby last night and woke up three hours before the alarm with clear, detailed images in my mind of myself, on stage, calm. Moving and saying something. I feel the theme of the piece from the expressions on my face in the vision but I still don't know, in words, what the piece will be about.

The panic is gone. 

OK.  So eight days after learning of the gig, calm came.  I wonder if this is a pattern.