Things I’ve discovered while being on a media diet the past week:

1. I really like to discover neighborhoods and get places on foot.
   
   

So, since I wouldn’t allow myself to just mindlessly turn on the tv last week, I instead went walking every day, either to get somewhere or just for the hell of it. Twice I went on walks specifically to take photographs. Besides just killing time, I achieved: getting exercise, soaking up much-needed vitamin D, using less gas, and finding lots of interesting and beautiful things to photograph. I also made friends with a few cats along the way.

1. Facebook kinda makes me feel bad.
   
   

I only allowed myself to hop on once a day, during the fast, just to check private messages. Today, I woke up at around 4:30 and couldn’t get back to sleep…so I broke the media diet by checking into my news feed. It wasn’t three or four status updates before I started to feel bad about myself. While I love FB for being able to keep abreast of the goings-on of nears and dears that are far away, and it is definitely a necessary evil for project promotion, I can also count on it to feel like I’m not good enough: not doing enough, or that people don’t like me, or that I am being excluded from this or that. I didn’t feel that way all last week, and that is telling.

1. I need to start reading novels again.
   
   

I’ve gotten into this habit of spending my pre-falling asleep time, which used to be reserved for reading books going on Pinterest and pinning stuff. While I have no intention of giving up Pinterest (see #5), I need to read books again. So, as of tonight, I’m reinstituting the reading novels before bed thing.

1. I love going to the movies.
   
   

Movies were exempt from the media diet, and I went to two of them the past week, which is more than I think I’ve been to ALL YEAR thus far. I love going with people and I love going alone. I miss going more often, and I’ll have to figure out how to build it back in without breaking the bank (Crest Cinema Center, HERE I COME!).

1. I love taking photographs.
   
   

I spent 2013 taking a photo a day for a year, joined Instagram and have really enjoyed photography. I took a bit of a break after I finished the yearlong project, but my recent trip to Portland as well as the media diet refreshed my love for the medium, and so easy to do since I bring my iPhone everywhere. Things are interesting. Life is interesting, and visually capturing it is fun, creative and doesn’t cost anything anymore, is a great creative outlet that doesn’t have to be MY LIFE – can just be an outlet. I used to love taking photos of people – now I love taking photos of inanimate objects and plants.

1. I don’t mind not being up to the minute on current events.
   
   

While it was a bit disconcerting to abruptly find out about Maya Angelou’s death in passing from an acquaintance who assumed it was common knowledge, it was kinda nice to be blissfully unaware of what was going on in the world for a week. I don’t want to be completely ignorant of what’s going on in the world, but I wonder if there is a happy medium between that and the constant infostream.

1. I still love Pinterest.
   
   

I replaced it with photoediting on Instagram, but I missed it. Can’t wait to get back to it. I would give up all social media for Pinterest. It actually makes me feel good when I’m on, and creating image banks and having a recipe bank is productive without being stressful. I just need to figure out how to give equal time to reading fiction again.

1. I still love TV.
   
   

I cut back to only an hour per day, and I missed it. A LOT. BUT, I don’t need to watch as much mindless tv as I have in the past, and certainly don’t need to have the tv on for background noise. Most of the shows I follow are scripted, and I feel like they actually enhance my life and are a good way to wind down…but the mindless, plop down in front of the tv because I’m procrastinating or feeling lazy doesn’t need to happen anymore.

1. I love hanging out with friends. For FUN.
   
   

I feel like most of the time now, I do artistic projects with friends instead of just having non-project fun. I stopped by a friend’s house on the way back from a project meeting last Friday and we just chatted about this and that for a couple hours. It was nice to catch up and even nicer to realize, I can actually hang out with my Seattle-based friends, rather than just looking at their social media feeds to see what they’re up to.

All in all, though it was challenging, it was a positive and somewhat enlightening week for me…what it comes down to is, do I want to be a constant consumer of other people’s images/words/ideas, or do I want to be primarily a producer of my own?

So, I have been doing an Artist's Way course facilitated by my friend and sometime colleague, Kate Gavigan. More info about these courses HERE.

Now let me explain. I have a little bit of history with The Artist's Way and my feelings about it.

Take One: I first heard about it sometime around fall 1998 when a classmate of mine was going through her reading deprivation week...then shortly thereafter, I was on a day trip to Bainbridge Island and found the actual book while browsing a local bookstore. Since I felt I was in the midst of some kind of creative awakening anyway, I purchased it, then read a little of it while I was on a trip to visit my parents in Brazil. I read some of it, did some of the exercises. I didn't really attempt morning pages, but I did revamp my journal, and since I was going through an awakening anyway, continued to allow that to unfold organically, from Spring 1998 through Summer 1999, realized I wanted to get back into theatre again after a 6-year hiatus, went about implementing that to see what it was about, and ultimately decided, after an *amazing* and life-altering Shakespeare Intensive at Freehold Theatre, that I needed to jump in with both feet.

Take Two: Summer 2001, after spending two years taking classes, and finishing my first production outside Freehold, I had a little time on my hands and decided to try doing Artist's Way again. This time, I got a little more serious, not only started to read the first few chapters, but also started doing morning pages every day...which pretty immediately became a dream journal. Artist's Dates are and have been something I've done since before I ever heard of the book, though I didn't necessarily call them that, so that was nothing new. A month after starting this process, I began taking a non-fiction writing course, and a few days after that, some terrorists flew some planes into some buildings in New York, which was kind of a big deal. About a month after that, I looked back over some of these morning-pages-turned-dream-journal, and discovered I had had a dream on September 8th where I was in New York  and looked out the window just in time to see one of the WTC towers collapse. By this time, I had abandoned the book again, and just spent time analyzing and recording my dreams.

Take Three: Fast Forward to late Spring 2014. I have proudly called myself an artist without wavering for at least 13 years now, though sometimes it is hard to carve an authentic path for myself in the face of everyone and their opinions: peers, colleagues, instructors, extended family members, often popular culture and the magnetic pull of society at large. But yes. I am a Theatre, Literary and Visual Artist, have actually made a few bucks at all three at this point, even managed to support myself at times as an artist. I am also a Master of Fine Arts in Theatre now. I have written plays, poetry, pr materials, press releases, short stories and essays. I have acted in comedies, tragedies, classical and modern plays. I have devised and collaborated. Yet still, I feel like I am less than. I feel like I am not accepted in "the scene", feel like people think I SUCK, but I continue to make art anyway, because I am compelled to. So, though I don't feel like I'm necessarily fully blocked, like I have been at times, I feel like there is some blockage there, and knowing Kate to be an open and inclusive person, decided to take her class and finally complete the book once and for all.

That said, I must say I take some issue with a few things Julia talks about in her book...perhaps she has another one I am not aware of, where she discusses being in different parts of the process...but the whole "recovery" angle feels a little ooky to me. Though I suppose it is an addiction and an obsession if you choose to look at it that way, I've never received anything but positive feelings while immersing myself in making art, and the idea of being "in recovery" feels victim-y to me. I have a tendency to go into victim archetype anyway, so I certainly don't need any help with this. Ultimately, I am responsible for all my own choices...so yeah, even though I had a dick uncle who made fun of my writing when I was 14, I'm the one who ultimately decides if I'm going to allow that to stop me or keep writing anyway. Easier said than done, of course, and perhaps this comes out more in later chapters of the book, but these are some of the reasons why I had trouble continuing it in the past.

I'm not crazy about the "God" stuff either...but that I can at least replace with "Universe" and find it works for me. The other thing she does which, as someone who is not at the beginning of the spiral is a little troublesome is that she says, more than once, about people who call themselves artists that they may not be very talented and are just audacious. I realize this is probably meant to make the person "in recovery" feel better, but someone like me is going to see that as "Oh. I don't have any problems admitting I'm an artist. I've been making art for decades, despite what other people say about my work. Maybe this means I don't have any talent and am just audacious?" Because my inner critic is sneaky and crafty and will say whatever he needs to to beat me down. And since he doesn't have all that many opportunities to do that anymore, whenever he gets an in, he hits HARD.

At any rate, I am trying it again. We are in week 4. So far, I am noticing multidisciplinary ideas starting to come to me unsolicited again, which I love. Also, my dreams appear to be coming back, and I'm actually sleeping a little better which is amazing. I have made at least TWO fairly large discoveries/epiphanies during my morning pages, and it is kind of marvelous to be doing this while I am juggling several artistic projects of various disciplines and in various stages along of development. I have an instant "canvas" on which to work in some of these new ideas and some of these new habits. And I definitely can't stubbornly poo-poo any of that. So I am hoping I will make it all the way through this time.

Queen of Knives

 
Mother has been weeping for three days. Each time I go outside to
pick blackberries for supper, or even to take a dip in the pond, she looks at me as though she’s seeing me for the last time. She thinks I don’t notice – just tells me not to catch cold – but I see her wiping her eyes. I hear her at night. She always turns her back.

Mother, why are you crying?

I’m not crying my love, I have something in my eye. Allergies.
(laughs, brushing it off)

(shivering)It’s cold in here. Why is it so cold?

Autumn must be coming.

What is Autumn? 

(sighs deeply) You don’t remember, do you?

Remember what?

It is like this every time. Always like it was the first time.


The first time?

You’re going back to your husband, my love.

Husband? I don’t have…

But then something stops me, because I remember…something…someone. I remember being afraid and I remember dark kisses and promises…I remember dead people and six pomegranate seeds laid out carefully
before me. I remember a choice…

She turns around to look at me and in her eyes I can see the memories that flood back are not simply dreams but the truth.

Your duties my dear. As a queen.

Queen? But I’m just…

More memories…darkness. It’s dark there, but not without its majesty. Rooms…caverns? Tunnels, and…ghosts. Parades and parades of ghosts, and I, next to my dark paramour on my throne…

He wants me back, doesn’t he?

He always does. As I’ve said, you and I, we have our duties.
 
We…?

You have your throne.

And you?

Autumn. Go dress yourself in something warm. The messenger will
be here soon.

___

It’s only while I’m in transit that I remember everything, and the memories build. When I reach either destination, I have no memory of the other place. I get there and it’s like I’ve never left…and my memories of the other place become cloudy and disappear and my time int hat place is untainted…until I’m travelling again and everything comes flooding back, is put into context.


Every six months, I do this. Follow the messenger up, or follow the messenger down. I am a rope, a sinewy, knotted rope, growing frayed with age as millennia pass. A rope in an ancient tug-of-war between stubborn and unyielding siblings. My mother. My husband. Six months here; six months there.
Neither of them has every asked me what I prefer.

___

He’s formidable, my husband, and the air perceptibly changes as I spiral closer and closer to where he is. Each time I see him, it’s like the first time, and he takes my breath away – why anyone would ever want to be blond and hale when dark and gaunt has such a profound sway – 

My husband.

My love. (breathing)

And my life up there starts to disappear again. There’s something so intoxicating and present about being here, being with him that it makes everything up there seem like a dream as I deal with the ever-present reality of the state of things here: The truth of the matter is, the dead pester me with their attentions. As though I could do something for them.

Queen! They call me, as they prostrate themselves at my feet. Mistress!

And it all comes flooding back to me, all the many names they have called me for millennia and my little life with my mother in our cottage by the pond is laughable, trivial and so very innocent!

Mistress of the Damned! Snow Queen. Spirit of Winter. Lady Ice. I slip my mantle on and the ice, like a thousand tiny knives settles back inside me as I hold court for the legions of ghosts who are my subjects with my dark lord by my side…and the tug-of-war begins again.

***

It is possible that I am in a constant state of being too busy. Highly possible. Because, as I am coming down off feeling really incredibly stressed out and being able to cross a couple things off my list, I realize my plate is still pretty full.

First you add the perpetual stuff: day job, boyfriend, cat, house upkeep.

Then sprinkle in extracurriculars, which at the moment include: a class at Freehold, volunteer PR Coordinator for eSe Teatro, rehearsals for Studio Series Project, Slash Artists Collective prep/planning/workshops, yoga classes, going to the gym, remembering to take daily photographs for my 365 photography/writing project, and  of course, filming/rehearsing season one of Causality. Oh, and keeping up with the ridiculous number of television programs on my agenda.

Now add a good dash of actual stuff coming down the pipes as well as theoretical stuff to prepare for: applying for Bumbershoot and possibly more than one Fringe Festival. Upcoming readings of Don Quixote. Graphic design work for eSe and other clients. Trip to Mexico! eSe Taller workshop with Myra Platt. Developing/rehearsing another long-term theatre project with one of my good friends.

And of course, I must continue to nurture my family and friendships, because they have always been my lifeline, via email/social media or preferably in person. I hate the phone.

Somehow, I manage it all, though not necessarly always well. Things slip. I used to keep it all in my head, but now have to put it into a calendar, and thank goodness for that! I guess I will sleep when I'm dead.