Fare well, old friend..

When I moved here, one of the first purchases I made was an inflatable mattress. I think it was around thirty dollars, and time proved the money to be well spent.
Since September, this mattress has been slept on, sat on, jumped on, and stood on by all of us(though most of the jumping/standing was carried out by a pair of mischievous preschoolers)... even the family dog has occasionally been caught trying to grab a nap with my electric blanket.
The bed never complained - to the contrary, it provided a consistently comfortable, stable(though a bit creaky) haven at each day's end..

So here I am, watching this faithful air-filled nest of coziness rapidly deflate. I don't know what happened to cause the massive leak whose source I cannot find..
It would be pointless to get upset - this mattress has done it's job, earned it's keep, surpassed reasonable life expectancy.
So I watch it sinking toward the floor....hm. I think I'll sleep on it anyway. I'm sure I'll wake up with the bamboo rug two inches from my face, and I may or may not be required to find another bed tomorrow..
But for tonight, sleep is more important than comfort. I'll just pretend I'm camping again.
:)

I can smell the cedar already

We all have places that form us. Places that run in our blood even when we're not there, that call us back more often than we can answer.

I am going to sleep on my favorite forest floor.

I will remember a thousand things at a time.
... place my hands on the tree we used to jump over (that is now as tall as a house)
... eat wintergreen berries.
..... probably more than once, panic at the presence of a spider on my jeans.


I'll look for remnants of the faerie houses we built..


I am more unique, more resiliant, more imaginative, because of this place and the days spent there.

It's where I leaned the forest is safe. It's where I learned that your heart stretches to hold love and pain. It's where I learned that not everyone reacts to poison ivy.

We were Queens wearing perfumed cedar, picked from the tree and crushed between the wrists. We were Amazon Women.

solidarity.

Late last night one of my favorite people and I sat talking over coffee. We both had rough days and didn't need to say much to make ourselves understood.
"Sh*tty.", she said from across the table.
"Sh*tty.", I said from behind my coffee cup.
Once we had that established, laughter and easier conversation followed.

Today, by the way, is starting out much better. An email from another treasured person challenging me to refocus and keep going..a phone call from yet another person I love, wading through rich conversation about God and family..
I'm grateful for the people dear to me today, even as I look around and see almost all of them struggling.

Please pray for my Grandpa, who is in the hospital again, and for my Grandma, who is exhausted.
She deserves so much, and has such an unbelievable story.. that can't begin to fit in this post.

yearning

I want my life to leave an imprint of hope and love and imagining on mankind. I want the effect to be bigger than my life itself, and to last until the Maker comes back to make all the broken things right.

I want to leverage life's possibilites to make humanity better. I want my daughters to exceed me in every way.

The(partial) plan: To move to LA and get into a two year acting program. When that's done, to study more. And more. To become a vibrant part of the Mosaic community. To get a hole-in-the-wall apartment and a car that runs. To find a fantastic school for my girls. To make enough money doing what I love to be able to take care of my daughters and keep doing what I love. To develop real friendships and genuine love for the city.

The bigger plan: To go as deeply into this one craft as a human can. To learn to maximize the moments I have left on this planet.
To live with absolute fullness.

The problem: I know exactly what I want to do with my life and have no practical means to get there. I am going through a divorce. I have no moolah. Don't do well with cars - they keep breaking until there are no more to break. Car-less. Zero funds.
The bigger problem: It would be much, much, much easier to give up. But I refuse to.

Has anybody seen my flute?

So, Monday night I had an audition in GR. Which is very good news. I love auditions.
The problem? I was sick..so sick. I barely made it through the morning with the girls. I sat very still for long periods of time between their requests or quarrels. I had chills, a cough, a headache, a fever. I could actually *hear* my blood. Is that normal?
After dropping Willow off at school, usually Ginger & I have some serious fun via the beach, hike, or ice cream stop. Not Monday.
"Where are we going?", she asked from the backseat with a voice full of anticipation.
I think I muttered something about home, or just thought it as I stared resolutely at the road in front of me. See, the sound of the blood in my head was kind of distracting and I was totally focused on getting to a place where I would not have to move. At all.
Ginger didn't like this 'home' plan. At all.

I didn't have much time after Willow got home before I needed to leave for the audition. I hadn't worked in months. I wasn't about to call in sick. So, I took some medicine to help me through the rest of the day. Very important to be alert at auditions.
I should have looked more closely at the label..again, the blood-noise distraction..it was generic NyQuil. The blah-blah-blah so you can SLEEP medicine.
!
You don't know what NyQuil does to me.
My mom made me a pot of coffee..I drank a lot of coffee..
I went, and as always, did my best.
I'd never driven in downtown GR before. Didn't know how to find the building on campus that I needed..
I parked my car and checked my face before I got out. I wanted to see if I looked as trashed as I felt. I was pretty normal looking, except for the lack of pupils. Pretty much no pupils. Hm...oh, well.
I found the place, and got off to a great start by walking straight past the registration table and into the room where they were auditioning someone else. (By the way,that's a good way to make a first impression, if you ever want to try auditioning for something.)
As I introduced myself, I felt someone grab my arm and lead me out to the place where all the other actors were waiting.
I had about two minutes to look at a couple of scenes for two different characters before being called in. I re-introduced myself and proceeded with the audition. Did I mention how important the voice is to a performance? Did I mention that my voice sounded like a forty year old male smoker?
I walked out a few minutes later, still in a total fog, and laughed at myself. I don't give excuses in auditions. If I suck, I suck. I'm not going to waste their time and mine with a story explaining why.
It's a learning experience no matter what. I walked out of there understanding my circumstances, and knowing I did the best I could with them. I wish I could see the tape of my scene - probably so funny!
After you leave an audition, if you don't want to go insane, you just forget. You let it go. If you were awful, you take the lesson and move on quickly.
I did not expect to hear from them, but tonight, I did.
I won't be playing the role I tried out for(a burnt-out social worker in a halfway house)...
I've been offered instead the role of 'Party Performer'. I am told I will be needed for one day..wearing a renaissance gown..playing the flute at a child's birthday party.
Of course I took it. Not only do I not give excuses at auditions, I also do not turn down perfectly bizarre student film flute playing opportunities. I have until the beginning of June to find my inner flutist. I think I remember leaving her somewhere in the mid 90's..

Depleted

Lately, I haven't been a very consistent blogger, and even writing this first sentence has been difficult. It's not that I don't have anything to say - it's that I have too much. As someone who has always found it easy to communicate what's going on inside, sometimes to the point of over-sharing, this self - imposed censorship feels unnatural and constrictive.

This has been the hardest year of my life, and I don't want to drone or complain or bore you. I don't want to hear myself talk about the painful details - I'm tired of having such a small, inwardly focused perspective.
I feel like I am sitting in a field of injured people, unable to help them because I am still sitting here after nine months with my hand pressed over my own wound. I'm healing, but not fast enough.

So when it's time to write, I am torn. The gaps between my posts are filled with the stories I don't feel like I can tell here. I want to write with honesty or not write at all. I love going to people's blogs and reading their unique perspectives, especially when they have responded to incredible pain with grace. I feel refreshed, and challenged, and hope - infused. What I'm afraid of is that if I write with transparency here, people will not leave feeling those things. I don't want people to walk away from an interaction with me(in person or through reading here) feeling depleted or discouraged.

I also feel strange writing a heavy, personal post one day, and an optimistic one the next. Without all the subtext that happens between, reading can be a jerky experience: Wait a minute? Wasn't she just desperate yesterday? How did she end up dancing in the sand today?

But that's my current reality. It's not comfortable to live in, and it's probably not comfortable to look at. See? Isn't frankness awkward?
In September, my six year marriage ended horrifically.
In September, I got my first real role in a feature film and made enough money to get us through for a few months.

The savings account is empty. I'm broke.

Car-less(except for the next couple of weeks - thanks to Carma for letting Matt go to Germany)

My mom has allowed my children and I to live with her for the past 8 months. This has been both wonderful and difficult. Wonderful because she's here, and we have a great relationship..I love seeing her every day, and watching the girls develop such an intensely close bond with her.
Difficult because it's impossibly tight quarters. Small, small house.
Difficult because I appreciate her generosity but don't want to exploit it. I also don't want to take over her home with our presence - to change the things that make it her haven any more than is inevitable, and that gets harder the longer we're here. Our stuff and habits and schedules are becoming more dominant because of the smallness of the space and the fact that we outnumber her.

I haven't been able to afford filing the divorce papers yet, and once I do, it will take at least six months before it's final. That timeline is daunting - I wish it were just over.

I haven't had any auditions or work since March when filming wrapped on Zorg & Andy, and I can't describe the hunger to learn that I have or the frustration I experience when I'm unable to do what I love.

I have so much to be grateful for, and although I take much of it for granted, I am learning to experience gratitude deeply. It's a side effect of loss, I think: the good things, the irreplaceable things, become dearer to you.

I'm just depleted today.

My Chosen Vocation

I saw this quote today on a blog that I frequent, and can't say it better. This one is dedicated to the friends and family who think I'm crazy:

"Vocation at its deepest level is not, 'Oh, boy, do I want to go to this strange place where I have to learn a new way to live and where no one, including me, understands what I'm doing.'

Vocation at its deepest level is, 'This is something I can't not do, for reasons I'm unable to explain to anyone else and don't fully understand myself but that are nonetheless compelling.'"

--Parker Palmer


**side note: while this quote may not prove that I'm 'not crazy'...it does prove something: I'm not the only one.
Signed, lovingly,
The Little Actress Who Couldn't Quit But Could Sure Use a Miracle.
:)

Welcome, Maya Grace!!!!!!!!!

Willow's song, heard from the other room where she has created a school and is giving promotional tours to prospective students(Ginger):

"Everyone should sing loud at the same time..
except for baby Maya...
Maya just got born last night(five year old concept of time..or artistic license?),
So she is a good Pristite(when she's in a pinch, she just makes up a word that rhymes. The song must go on..),
She's so small,
She's so healthy,
She's so good,
Baby Maya's here...
:)
Baby Maya just came out.
She's nice and so helpful,
and she's kind and true.
And she is gooooood!"


*****photos from Maya's blog and Uncle David's