Today was just beautiful.
I went for a walk through GH along the channel to the pier, which was coated in glowing ice; then along the beach where I explored the different textures of sand and all the serpentine patterns formed where the winter wind had shifted rocks, glass, and shells around.
It was sunny, and still, and cold. I sat on a half-buried log looking at the ice formations lining the shore for a long time...the sunshine streamed across the sand with brilliance, and I turned my face toward it's blinding brightness with my eyes closed, and felt some things that I can't articulate here....there was some letting go, and some holding on, and in the quiet fight inside me, there was a reassurance that the stuff that hurts the most is going to heal.
I kept walking, because I could.

I just realized that I haven't written in days - this has been a busy week. I have been immersed in the script for the film I'm doing in March, and trying to make preparations for the girls while I'm gone. This site will probably be silent for much of the time between March 4th and 16th, since I'll be staying in Indiana with limited Internet access...but I'll be back with a lot to say!

I feel so happy about getting the chance to work again, doing what I love. It's been a couple of months, and getting this film was a gift. Acting is good for me because it's scary(beforehand during the preparation more than during the actual performance), and challenges the areas of my insecurities and inhibitions..it feels good to practice being scared of something and still seeing it through to completion. I am so inexperienced, I'm bound to make a fool of myself sometimes...but that's o.k. with me.

I'll just never quit. Acting, telling stories, living out empathy, is the thing I will never quit. I know I'm not that great at it yet, and I'm not choosing an easy road, but I know it's right. It's what I will do. And I have everything inside of me that every great actor has ever had. I'll spend the rest of my life learning to use it. Besides following Christ and being a mother, nothing stirs greater passion in me.

What's the thing you'll never quit?

:) miracles..however small..I'll take 'em:

Today I got a phone call from an agency in GR, wanting to interview me for their talent pool..

Today I got a call from one of the 437 places I've applied recently, and I will be interviewing there on Sunday afternoon..

big ones are good, too:

Tonight I am alive. You are, too. Which means we still have time to face our mistakes, learn from people who are not like us, and get current with the people we love and the One who lets us be here. It means we're still becoming.

I know this, and I am grateful for the generosity of God, which transcends our circumstances...but I am finite, and can't seem to turn off the confusion and fear, the over-analyzing and posturing and exhaustion..

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The freakishly stressful run-on sentence in my head, set to 'repeat':

I need a car in order to get a job to get money to pay for the car to get a job so I can get money to pay for a place to live near my job that I don't have but need so I can save money and feed my kids and meet their needs and gain some measure of independence so I can see more clearly what I want and need and must choose for myself and my children who need security which requires staying in school which requires a car which I need in order to...........

tired yet?
me too.

I need several miracles quickly.
The past six months have tired me out, and I don't know where to place my foot when I try to take a step.
Being a single mother is scary.


God, help.

One of the scariest moments of my life so far..................When she was three, Willow started talking about what she wanted to be when she grows up. Like every child, she has a potpourri of ideas, including the standards: ballerina, princess, bus driver, mom, business mogul, etc.. but the thing she has consistently repeated for the past two years is the one that makes me get sweaty palms.
Pilot. She wants to fly..not helicopters; airplanes. I don't remember where she first got the idea..but it has evolved into a plan that, if she puts her mind to it someday, could fill a niche in the airline industry that is completely overlooked presently. Seriously - she could pay for our retirements if she could make it work..yours and mine..the idea is so good that I won't tell it here..
I really *really* would rather she chose a profession that is less terrifying. But the thing is, I believe she can do anything. She can do *anything*. As a mom, I want her to live a long, safe, SAFE life...but more than that, I want her to live in the center of what she was created to do. And since I can't know what that is..I will let her find it, and risk for it, and live it. Actually, if I knew what she is destined to do, I might gladly prefer that she would stick to flying airplanes! The thing that captures her heart might be far more dangerous..... maybe she's headed for life as a police officer, or human's rights worker, or shark dentist.
The point is, I want her to have the chance to explore anything that she's interested in. If she goes through a phase when she wants to be an astronaut, I'll get her a telescope and take her to the planetarium......if she says she wants to be a pilot, I'll take her to the AirZoo.
Or, she'll end up in preschool with a friend named Emily whose mom is a pilot. And Emily's mom will find out that Willow likes planes, and she'll offer to take Willow and Emily for an after-school ride...
And I'll have to decide if I really *believe* all this "let them explore and experience" crap, if I will really let her do something that I would be (shhhhhh) scared to do myself.
And as I smiled at the generous and fascinating Pilot Mom, nodding my head when she asked if three o' clock would be o.k., I actually said out loud in my head:
Oh, shit.
...........................................
I knew I needed to let her go. I knew that Emily's Mom and Grandpa(a family of pilots) were highly skilled and experienced, and they would take care of her. But as I stood with my feet on the ground and watched the plane hop and buck the way small aircraft do...when I saw my daughter and her little friend bundled up snugly in the back seat of the plane, small blonde heads with lopsided earphones and smiles.....I could hardly stop myself from attacking that plane; hurling myself onto the wing and digging my heels into the pavement till they sparked as it pulled away.
I waved instead, and smiled, and once she was too far away to see, cried a little. I watched it lift off the ground gracefully and circle away from me into the hazy sky...and it really felt like some string was pulling from the center of me toward that dot in the sky..and it became very important to see that dot for as long as possible.
I sat there thinking " What kind of parent does this? What kind of crazy person lets their child go for a ride in the SKY inside a piece of metal with a whirlybird on the front! What if they crash - what if this is one of those Moments Before a Tragedy? What if she doesn't like it, what if she wants to come back down?
I sat in the car with Ginger, who peacefully dozed in the backseat, oblivious to my panic. I tried to listen to the radio. I noticed the dust on the dashboard and looked for something to clean it off, finally resorting to a wet wipe(Works, by the way). With the wet wipe I began detailing every part of my car within arm's reach of where I was sitting. I turned the radio off. I got out of the car...got back in. I finally shut my brain off altogether and stared blankly out the window. After an eternity, somewhere around twenty minutes, the plane pulled up and I got my hands on my child. I tried not to squeeze her too hard. She was so happy, and I was so proud of her..
I'll post pictures soon....

I still haven't found what I'm looking for......

I have always hated church-shopping...visiting different places looking for somewhere that fits whatever criteria you're looking for..usually style of music, dress, service times, whether you get 'fed'...

I'm just looking for a place where I can breathe. I don't care about what they can offer me, or how long the service is, or what style of ministry..denominations don't matter to me, and really - I'm not even that concerned with the articles of faith right now. No matter where I go right now, my mind is alert to falsehood from up front..I'm not likely to blindly embrace anything. The only criteria I have are hard to articulate. I know there needs to be unconditional acceptance of all types of people. I know I need to be surrounded by visual beauty..I would be thrilled to find someplace that felt like being at Lake Michigan; sunlight streaming through windows, shadows bouncing off walls open my senses for worship and contemplation. And the hardest thing to explain is..the way a place feels when I am there:

Can I breathe?

I'm sure that sometime, soon maybe, the things I'm looking for on Sunday morning will change. As I change. But at present, this is what I am trying to find. Most of the time, when the weather's nice, I've just been alone outside, near water. When the weather's adverse, I've visited different churches each week, usually four or five in a morning, usually not getting past the parking lot or foyer before feeling too..squeezed.


Someone is playing 'fur elise' on the coffee shop's piano, and it took minutes for me to become aware of it..when we were young, that piece filled our house at all hours, spilling from the determined fingertips of my sister..the notes are woven into me like a tapestry as a result..so when I hear it somewhere, I often don't notice at first. It just evokes a feeling of peace and remembrance, followed by a fond thought of my sister, followed by the realization that the song is being played.

What music does that to you?

Still here

I haven't fallen off the planet, but I have been very busy trying to make enough money to make sure my kids and I survive on it.
So far, the elusive survival job continues to evade me...and the LA relocation account is almost dry....Interviewers don't like resumes from women who chose to stay home with their children while they were babies, and made all their meager money acting for the past 2 yrs, and now are single mothers looking for a way to support those beautiful daughters..they see "stay - at - home mom" and think, "weak." They see "actress", and think "flake".
Those stereotypes do not represent who I am, or the way I live. But so far, they are stopping me from getting in the door Anywhere.
Some things have been really encouraging, though: I am talking with people right now about a possible film project in March that would be a great opportunity, and I got to attend a workshop yesterday that may have helped me get another role for a short shooting later this summer..
So, one foot in front of the other...it's just been a long winter.