For those of you playing along at home. . .

June 14, 2012 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

For those of you playing along at home, below are a few
updates on things I have here written about:

The
caffeine-reduction experiment has been a near-fail since beginning the
temp job, but continues to remind me to feel guilty.

I realized this morning that the free bus I sometimes catch to BART can take me all the
way to the city, instead of transferring to BART (thank you to my school’s
student bus pass, making bus transit in the East Bay free).

I put
back up the series of my paintings that I’d taken down during Calling in
the One, at which time I’d realized that women
not looking at their lovers was something I wanted to move away from. I
put them back up when the okJew was potentially going to come over, and I
didn’t want a blank expanse of wall over my bed. I’m not sure if I’ll take it back down.

I have
not yet finished, but I have begun, the art project for my friend’s
wedding. It sits on my desk, accusing me.

I
bought cat food.

I graduated with a Master’s degree a month ago. And I was offered a weekend job at said pet food store. Generously offered (not the compensation), but no thank you. Not yet, at least.

I have
art that I need to make for the September art show my friend invited me to
join. I’m not sure what I’ll do, but it’s been backstroking through my
psyche for a month or so.

I must
follow-up with the boss at where I’m temping to ask her precisely what she
meant when she said she would be happy to give me “a recommendation” for
auction houses here and in the city (um, I meant NY city – I guess that habit still dies hard).

My dad
will be closing on the sale of my childhood NJ home in the next month or
so, and is planning to move with his fiancé to their new Florida home
toward the fall.

I am
eagerly awaiting June 20^th, when the results of the daily
sweepstakes I’ve been entering for a trip for two to Italy will be
announced. You may be the lucky winner.

My
writing style is influenced by who I’m reading currently.

At the
moment, I just finished Nora Ephron’s new book, and began a collection of
essays by David Foster Wallace, whom I’ve never read, but seen the
author’s name so many times on my BART rides that I thought to give him a
whirl. I’m not sure I will continue.

I will
be art modeling this Sunday for the artist who I first worked for, and two
of her friends. I’m not sure I will continue.

I have
9 new voicemails I haven’t checked.

I went
on the walk I’d planned to take on Tuesday evening yesterday evening, and
it was glorious. I ate what must have been a small, cherry-sized peach,
unless it was of course, a cherry, from a nearby tree which I jumped to
pluck from the low hanging branch. I’m not dead, so it was not poisonous.

As
soon as I get paid this cycle, I’m going to register for the summer acting
classes at A.C.T., and I can’t f’ing wait. I looked up all manner of
electronics yesterday that I could hypothetically use my more regular
income of the next 6 weeks to purchase, and yet, I realized that what I
really want are those lessons. And new shoes.

I’m
now working one-on-one with a woman who’s found recovery around negative
patterns of behavior with sex and men, and I’m infinitely looking forward
to freedom around some of this.

I’m
continuing to work with a woman one-on-one around financial recovery
stuff, and am looking forward to being “placed in a position of
neutrality” around money.

I love
Patsy.

I haven’t
yet played my bass with my friend with the drums up in Berkeley, and it
too stares at me, not gently weeping, but with silent mewling.

I
realized that most of the writers I’m reading right now have written as freelance
writers, and it occurs to me, that I might be able to do that, if I look
into it.

I
haven’t applied to any jobs since last week.

I used
my 3 lb weights yesterday after my walk for about 3 minutes. And began to dread the 3 hour posing/drawing session on Sunday.

Dr.
Palm Reader’s office wrote to ask after me, and so I looked up my
soon-to-end chiropractic benefits “in network,” so that I can get back to
that kind of thing, without breaking my bank, or participating in a
somewhat murky flirtatiousness.

This
is the end of my list.

acting · adulthood · crazy · family · forgiveness · humilty · love · money · persistence · receiving · self-support · the middle way · work

Day Jobs.

June 8, 2012 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Yikes. Unintendedly, I apparently freaked my mom out. I
guess “What goes around comes around” is a less than spiritual comment here.

When I was camping this weekend, one of the women said she’d
used this 23andme site that did genetic mapping and testing. She said she found
it to accurately confirm things she knew she had and “labeled” her cousin as
her own on the site, so she felt it was reliable when it came to the things she wanted
clarity on or might not know. So, on a whim, I looked it up yesterday. Part of
it is my own rampant curiosity about my dad’s father’s side of the family, about whom
we know nothing (very hush hush, gramma got pregnant at 15 in an Irish Catholic
family under-the-rug), so I’d like to know about that fourth of who I am.

Secondly, and importantly for me, my mom’s mother died from
Alzheimer’s and I want to know if I have the gene or not. You can get it
without the gene, and you can not get it
with the gene. But, I’m curious. And a little excited. If I don’t have the
gene, I can (and would) worry less; and if I do have the gene, they’re coming
up with all kinds of new things people can do these days to stave it off or
minimize the effects – and I’d look for more information on stuff like that.

So, in an effort to “share the good news,” I emailed my mom
and brother yesterday to let them know about it (though women are more likely
than men to get Alz). I got an email back this morning from my mom saying that
no matter what to never [BOLD FACE] EVER tell her the results of it.

Yikes. Granted, my mom is a class-A worrier,
anxiety-disordered woman on medication, but… yeesh. That obviously wasn’t my
intention, to freak her out – I guess I imagined she’d react as I did – “Cool,
what can I learn, so that information can be useful in how I lead my life?” …
Best laid plans, I suppose.

It’s Friday, so it’s a little rough to go into what I
remember of my mom’s parents’ deaths, and what I consider to be and have been
“wrong” ways of grieving. And so I won’t do that today. It’s NOMB – None Of My
Business.

So, I’ll undeftly switch topics, as I’m uncomfortable. 😉

Yesterday, in reading Tina Fey’s book, I had a sort of
realization about “day jobs.” Fey worked at a YMCA for $5/hr in Chicago when
she left undergrad. She wanted to take improv classes, so she angled for a job
“upstairs” in the office of the YMCA. When she was asked on the interview why
she wanted the job, she replied unabashedly, So I can afford improv classes.
She got the job, took improv classes, and quit the job less than a year later
when she got work with the improv group.

I had my informational interview with my former acting
teacher last Friday, and she said nice things like I have “great instincts,”
and that “it’s obvious [I] really enjoy it.” She didn’t really give me the
“constructive criticism” I was looking to get – areas that I could improve in,
and as I was recounting this to my friend last weekend, she said it sounded
like I wanted to hear places I could just do X, Y, and Z, so that I could “fix”
it, and suddenly everything would fall into place. Yes, give me a set of
movable problems, let me fix them, and then let me be free of problems forever.
That sounds about right.

So, I didn’t get that. I got what felt like nearly reluctant
suggestions. Again, I guess I had expectations. But, I heard that acting
classes would be a good idea to continue with. So, yesterday, I looked up the
classes at A.C.T. Studio, and their summer program. It’s not very expensive,
but surely more than I have now.

And I remembered what Tina Fey had said: she took a job so
she could afford to do what she really wanted to do. For SO long I’ve been
agonizing over what is my “ideal” job, or what will feed me spiritually,
intellectually, and creatively – what one
thing would fit all my needs. I don’t feel this way about people, why would I
feel this way about work? I don’t expect one person to fulfill all my needs –
that’s ridiculous, unfair, and leads to disappointment. So, why should I feel that a job
would or ought to do the same.

There’s something in this. It takes a shit ton of the
pressure out of whatever job comes to me next. That it is a means to an end. And further, I’m honing in more
closely on what I’d want those “ends” to be – what I want my job to afford me
to be able to do. Lessons, classes, (acting & music, for now). I’m not sure what
this realization will bring me – except that I already feel less internal
pressure about “What I’m going to do next.” Chances are (G-d willing!!!!!!)
that the job that I get next can
afford me the disposable income to take classes like that. Or, rather, the
chances don’t have to be there, I can just start angling the satellite dish of
my focus in a slightly different direction, picking up on things that I’d
dismissed, as they wouldn’t “fill me spiritually.”

Like a person, it’s not a job’s … job to fill me spiritually. That’s up to me. That’s up
to me to take the kinds of actions that will allow me the freedom from financial
worry to do things that do feed
me spiritually and creatively. I have a phone call date with another acting
friend next week, having been inspired by the new angle of my satellite to be
able to continue having these conversations with people.

What comes of it? Who knows. But I feel more open to things,
and I’ve noticed that makes a world of difference.

(Sorry, Mom – didn’t mean to freak you out. LU, m.)

acting · community · direction · friendship · performance · poetry · school · self-support · theater · work

"I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life"

May 2, 2012 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

When I was growing up, when my family went on long car
rides, my dad had
instituted a rule. My brother and I could only ask the question “Are we there
yet?” three times, combined. Not three for him, three for me. Not phrased
differently to bypass the rule. Three times. Are we there yet.

I’m sort of glad the Universe doesn’t have a rule like that,
although I suppose it sort of does. For the number of times that I’ve asked
what’s next, the answer remains as vague as the Magic 8 ball’s “Reply Hazy –
Ask Again Later.” Apparently 3 seconds later is not later enough, and you get,
“Cannot Predict Now.”

But, it’s sort of comforting in some ways I suppose. A friend
said to me recently that we don’t know what’s next because it reminds us we’re
not G-d. I also heard that G-d loves us just enough to not let us know what’ll happen next. The perpetual
“SURPRISE!” type Higher Power. But, really, I think that if I ever knew really
what was to happen next, I’d spend a lot of time manipulating to my way of
thinking – if I’m meant to go in direction A, then I’ll start to pack for that
direction, not knowing that perhaps I’m supposed to go to A, but with a byway
in L, Q, and H in order to learn what I need by the time I get to A.

I was out with a group of us school poet folk last night at
dinner after our performance poetry … performance. Which went highly well, I’d
say. Pretty full theater, no technical problems, and, me, in my makeshift
nudesuit – because really, when the else time would I have the opportunity to
do that??

So, we’re out at dinner, and the women who are finishing
their first year are asking about my experience there, if I took cross-courses
at Berkeley, if I’ll stay in the Bay Area, and what’s next. And they’re
just curious. I say that I really took school sort of as a walk – I looked into
taking a GTU cross-course, but didn’t. But, I took painting, and singing, and acting.
I mean, it is a liberal arts college
(though you may not guess that from the highly funded business school it now
hosts). I did take the school
experience as a bit of a walk. It wasn’t academically rigorous. I think I took
one class that had a lot of reading on theory and criticism. I took one that
had moderate reading like that. And the rest, well, they were pretty much,
write poetry, read poetry, discuss poetry. Period. It was sort of awesome.

I suppose I feel a little chagrined at not having taken more
advantage of the opportunity, but then on the other hand, I think I also took great
advantage in ways that weren’t as “rigorous.” I did just find out yesterday
that you could rent the most awesome a/v tech equipment for up to two days –
even lighting and high tech cameras and video cameras – so I’m a
little bummed I didn’t take advantage of that – cuz it sounds AWESOME. I guess
I do have a few days left! Maybe I’ll be a filmmaker for a few days, as I
continue to send out tendrils into the work world.

I have one more class to complete. I have a class time on
Thursday for Acting Fundamentals, and then our class performance next
Wednesday. It’s just a scene, each of us students paired with someone and doing
a scene assigned by the professor. But, I feel really comfortable there. I
forget. I mean, after that flurry of activity in December and January around
headshots and auditions and monologues, I let it all go to focus on school,
which was appropriate, but now that I have a little more breathing room, I hear
it. Like I hear the painting studio.

Stress and creativity aren’t quite compatible I suppose.
But, in any case, being on stage last night (though I wish I’d reread my piece
before I got onstage, as it was quite distracting to know I was/appeared
naked!), and practicing my scene with my class partner, I mean, I just feel like
I know this. There’s an incredible
amount to learn, but I know about blocking, and staging. I helped the two of us
create movement in the scene, to listen to the text and let it inform us. I
also tried to not be bossy 😉 as this was a joint effort. But I felt in my
element.

I have an invitation to have coffee with an acting friend of
mine – something that’s been pushed down the pages of the calendar like a
shuffle board disc, and I intend to ask my acting teacher to coffee for an
“informational interview” type conversation. But as I continue to look for
work, to find out where and how I’m supposed to earn, and embody the question “what can I give”
rather than “what can I get,” and let go
of the Am I There Yet, I can also take FULL advantage of what I have in front
of me – advocates, peers, and a wicked a/v department.

acting · authenticity · discovery · performance · poetry

Performance Persona

April 6, 2012 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

The first week in May, a few things will happen. On the
Tuesday, I will be performing some of my poetry with my creative writing class in an end-of-semester performance in the actual theater at school – for somewhere
between 3-7 minutes. And on the Wednesday, I will be performing a scene with a
partner for my acting class final performance, where people will be invited in to
come see us.

This reflects back to me something I sort of already know about myself and my passions – I have a
hankerin’ for perfomin.’ Some folks do; some don’t. – I do.

In my creative writing class, we’re supposed to, or invited
to, work on a “performance persona.” I’ve been marinating on this, and not to
use what’s apparently become my catch phrase – “Yeah, but…” – I have realized
that so much of the work I’m doing and have been leading up to is to drop the
persona.

Most of my life, I’ve walked with a persona on of some sort
– the shy girl, the drunk wild girl, the promiscuous girl, the “nice” one. I’d
like to come back to center for a moment. Or longer.

Basically, I think that my greatest performance persona will
actually be my authentic self – that seems to me, for myself, for now, to be
the bravest person I can show you on-stage. Now, of course, it is performance, so it’s a bit of an amplified version
of self, but it’s not obscured, which I think is how I’d been before.

So, I love the intention, and think it’ll be simply fun to
play with a persona, that’s, to me, what acting is about, not performance
poetry. In acting, I am someone else,
with a different history, mannerisms, inflection. I am shy or wild or
promiscuous or nice, and I call on those parts of me that understand that
experience, but it’s also acting.

An interesting distinction was made by my performance poetry
teacher on Tuesday between the two – he said that he likes to use the
microphone and the music stand still in his performances as opposed to without
it, as without it he thinks indicates theater, and with it indicates the
tradition of poetry and writing. I don’t know that I fully agree, but I
understand his point, and it was interesting to then ask myself what do I
consider the difference, if I’m using my own work?

What is performance poetry, and what is theater? Do I
consider them different if I’m speaking my own work? I actually think I don’t.
I think it’s, like I said, an amplified, perhaps more emphatic self, but I
don’t think it’s removed from the writerly tradition to not use pages and a stand. When I’ve performed…
there it is – I was intending to say “when I’ve performed my poetry in the
past,” and that’s what I consider it. I don’t really consider it “reading,”
unless, really, it’s reading.

Even when I stand with my papers in front of me, and a
podium and a mircophone at a poetry reading,
it’s still performance. This isn’t just “reading,” as I would read to you from
the phone book, or a text book. It’s enhanced, it’s intensified, it’s amped up
inflection and emphasis and meaning and pause. I want you to be moved to emotion.

Seems like theater to me.

Although, it’ll also be nice to let myself play with the
extremities of a performance persona, just to try it on and have fun with it (who doesn’t love a good wig) –
I still maintain that my boldest persona is just me, micced.

acting · courage · intimacy · letting go · maturity · modeling · poetry · sex

The Hero’s Journey

January 23, 2012 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

See, perhaps it’s not that San Francisco is actually cold.
Perhaps it is the proliferation of single-paned windows and inadequate heating.
The wonderful high ceilings don’t do much to trap in the heat either. So,
solution? Munchkin houses. Winterized. lol. See, there’s even a word,
“Winterized.” I’m not sure that the Bay Area has much acquaintance with this
notion, as we all sort of seem to believe that it doesn’t actually get that
cold, or that we’re more like Southern California. Perhaps this is what they
meant when they said “California Dreamin’.”

In any case, drafty as my home is. Grateful for it.
Especially on what are Bay Area winter days.

There is a big part of me that wants to write an addendum to
yesterday’s blog. To somehow mitigate and soften the “I haven’t had a great sex
life” theme. Most of that is because I want you to see me “better,” some of
that is that I don’t want to insult anyone I’ve slept with who might be reading
this and tell them of course there are occasions when it’s been marvelous.
But, that’s only wanting them to like me too, another way of “seeing me
better.” So, I will leave the truth as the half-truth it is, because, for
certain, there are the good experiences, and there is the truth that it’s less
about them, and more about my inability to ask for what I need (in most areas
of my life).

And, I will hold the truth that, still, I feel naïve and
unexperienced or uneducated in this way, and am holding that with compassion,
and an intention to head in that direction. There’s a fair amount on one of my
collages that’s the phrase, The Joy of Kissing, and I wonder if perhaps part of
that is a call to start again at the beginning, you know? To start with one of
the most tender places, and just meditate there, pause there, let myself savor
it, and not skip to the main course.

Also, I want to soften the “this is not an invitation” line,
because although it’s not a plea for you, reader, to initiate me into the
softened world of pleasure, I actually DO
want to offer an invitation into the world/Universe. This IS an invitation from
me to the machinations of the world to head there, to gentleness, and intimacy,
and … well, whatever else I feel I’ve been missing in this area. So, Universe,
this is an invitation, written in velvet, in loopy script, and something less
intimidating than red for experiences of physical intimacy on a softer plane.

Speaking of physicality, I had my orientation for the art
modeling guild yesterday, and 12 year old girl that I still am, it was hard to
not giggle when the facilitator said, “And men? No Erections! Ever.” Lol. “Any
man who tells you he can’t control it is lying. And if he really can’t, then he
shouldn’t be a model.” It’s nice the systems of protection and comfort that
they have set up, which is why I’m really glad to be doing it this way, rather
than freelance, which can be ICKY (see
former blog about older man with vagina skulls).

After the orientation, I went directly to my audition for a
Shakespeare company, and guess what? Not that bad. 🙂 THIS TIME, I didn’t blank out in the middle of the monologue.
I futzed a few things, but, if you didn’t have a script in front of you, you’d
never know. Point being, I actually did better than my last spoken word
audition, and really, “Better than last time” is all I’m lookin’ for. I also,
miraculously, ran into a girl I have just been beginning to see around lately
over here in Oakland with some of the financial healing folks. She’s been doing
this circuit for a long time, it seems, and knew nearly everyone who walked in
and out of the building, and chatted with another girl about, “Are you working
with David? No, with Bobby.” and other such insider speak that I am totally
novice of. But… now, we both have an ally. Someone showing up and letting go of
the results, and also some who’s willing to sit with me and initiate me in some
of these lingos, and people, and classes, and companies. She even suggested a
company she thought I’d do well with. 🙂 Go G-d.

Finally, for today’s blog. I had a very vivid dream last night about an older friend of mine
who I found out – in the dream – had killed herself suddenly. I was shocked and
devastated, and went out from where I was directly into her funeral. It was
packed. And yet, even her husband, who was shocked was actually not as shaken
as you’d expect.

Part of Saturday’s spirituality workshop included a story about Minos
and the Minotaur, using the myth as a frame for us to see perhaps what part of
the story, what part of our own hero’s journey we are in. Minos made a deal
with Poseiden. Poseiden said that Minos would become king if he sacrificed this
gorgeous white bull. Minos said sure. Became king. … And then decided the bull
was too special and meant too much to him, and so he sacrificed 50 goats
instead. (This did not go well in the end.)

I said that I feel like this is the part of the journey I’m on. In order to ascend to the next
level, the next stage, the next iteration of myself and my life, I have to
sacrifice my attachment to what it had been, aka my bull (dying we awaken to a
new life, kind of stuff). Instead, I’ve been hemming and hawing, and saying,
well, what if I give you this
instead, what if I sort of dance around the issue, and lop off my foot in the
process – won’t that give me the result that I ultimately need?

No dice.

I also said, that I also felt like the part of the story
when they kill the Minotaur, when this beast that cannot be a part of society,
but it’s really not his fault, is killed. With this spirit of sadness and also
with relief do I … intend? to kill my bull.

I think that part of my dream was about that, the death of
these attachments to my past. I put up a whole host of new (to the blog) poems,
and as I was editing what work I had, I felt like all the family stuff, all the
blamey stuff and most of the trauma stuff didn’t need to be up anymore.

Which leads me to wonder: if what I wanted my thesis to be was an excavation of old stuff, a laying to rest of it, haven’t I already done
that? In the very writing of it, and even in the sharing of it with my
professors and classmates, haven’t I given voice to this? Is this actually what
I need to say anymore? Is this anymore where the charge is for me?

I’m not sure. Well, no. Actually, the answer is no. But I’m
not sure what that will mean for this specific piece of writing I have to hand
in.

But, I also said in the workshop on Saturday that despite my
reluctancy to sacrifice the bull, my reluctancy to grieve for what was lost and
misplaced in my youth, the fact is, I’m already in it. It’s no use saying, I don’t
want to. Or I won’t. Or I can’t. Because, baby, I already am.

acting · friendship · love · persistence · self-care · synchronicity

In All Its Forms

January 21, 2012 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Yesterday, I got to cross a few more “Serenity Moths” off my
list, including letting my apartment get messy (kitchen, another story); no
fuzzy socks (my clothing allowance this month will now be worn on my very
toasty happy feet); and not using my art and craftyness.

Today is the birthday of the woman who I have known longest
in my life, second only to my family. We met when we were both three-years old
in a story both our mothers love to tell.

Soon after my brother was born, my family moved from Brooklyn to northern New Jersey. Maybe that same or maybe next day, our new door bell rang.
The story goes, that the little blond girl who lived just next-door stood on the door-step, looked up at
my mom, and asked, “Does a little girl live here?” I peeked my head out
from behind my mom’s legs and we have been friends for nearly 30 years. (wow, I’d initially wrote 20!, but no, it’s 30!!)

Like most friendships, it’s seen its fair share of trials,
but through a fair share of miracles, we have found ourselves to be strong friends again,
across the sands of time and Minnesota.

So, yesterday, I made a crafty little gift for her. I took
out my tools I laid down since my Christmas card puttering-out, and infused as
much love as I could into it.

I also put up a handwritten sign in my apartment, just below
the very tall almost 12 foot ceiling: “Love, as much as you can.” And put little
hearts around it. ;P This was the edict, the command, and the hope, from the
workshop I did a month or more ago when we meditated to ourselves as really old people, and asked ourselves what lessons we needed to learn. Today is the final of the 4 in the
series of workshops on relationships. Spiritual Contracts and Inner Archetypes.

On the note of that type of work, I did get an email back
from the Sacred Stream meditation school, and they do have a scholarship, but
it’s itty bitty, and I can’t afford the course right now – particularly after I
pay the security deposit to the Bay Area Modeling Guild, which I found out last
night that I got in to 🙂 But,
that’s alright, I feel like I’ve got enough spiritual shenanigans happening
around and in me at the moment, that I’m not quite sure
now is the right time to blow the top off myself anyway. Sometimes, I just need
to regroup. Ground myself again.

So, doing these sort of “of the earth” type activities has
been nice, cleaning my apartment, making art, finally in-putting my numbers on
what I spent in December. (which, I was probably right to fear! oh holiday
spirit…) 😉

On another note completely, so, I’d been praying for an
acting coach. That was the suggestion I got from my acting friend in SF, and
although I’d been half-heartedly looking, I’d also been dragging my feet
feeling that I didn’t have the money to really afford a coach.

Then, I went to my Thursday afternoon class. Acting
Fundamentals. I had completely forgotten that I’d signed up for this course.
But I had. So, maybe I don’t have an individual acting coach, but I now have an
acting teacher. Included in the price of all that I’m already paying for school.
She’s the casting director for Berkeley Rep, and has been teaching acting
forever, and has acted forever, and although at the moment she seemed a little sharp at the
edges, I think this is just what I’ve been asking for.

After class, she said that it seemed I had more experience
than the other girls, and I said, I’m open to any help she can give, and she
said she tries to challenge and meet people where they’re at. I also found it
rather hilarious that I’m more experienced than anyone in my theater experience, as I feel like such a
novice I can’t even tie my shoes straight!

But, it’s not about comparison. It’s about what I can learn,
and how I can inhabit my body and my emotions more fully. It’s about WAAAAYYY
tuning down the cacophony of my heartbeat in my eardrums when I stand in front
of a panel at an audition. I think the audition is the hardest part – for me at
least. Good thing I have two more over the next two days. 😉

So, here’s to Love, which finds it’s way back to us, over 30
years of friendship, in the form of a needed teacher, and in the self-care
which buys me these awesome fuzzy socks.

acting · dating · fun · recovery · self-care

Restraint of Thumb and Send

January 4, 2012 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

So, it’s official. I am still sick and am going to pick up
an Rx from Kaiser shortly. I called out of work, which felt so lame considering
I’d just had a week off, but my brain also feels as though it’s been gelled
into a jell-O mold. Perhaps bunt cake shaped, next to candied lemon slices.
Hence the delay of this morning’s blog.

The first time I got sick in sobriety, I was very confused.
I suppose that having a near-chronic strep throat from smoking til I couldn’t
swallow anymore made something as mild as a cold very unique and novel. Also, I
think that when your blood is half alcohol, it fends off most infections.

I’d woken up that time a little off, not really feeling much
gumption, and decided to go shopping. I bought a large cup of coffee and
wandered the stacks of shoes in DSW shoe store for about an hour, and left with
a purchase in hand and an empty coffee cup…and yet I didn’t feel any better. I
was very confused. Shouldn’t this have worked? Coffee and shopping? They make
everything better, right? They always cured the melancholia I assumed I was
having. But, nope. Still felt off. What could be wrong?

I swear, I really didn’t get it. Finally, I realized as if
inventing the light-bulb, OH! I must be sick! It was a moment of brilliance.
Luckily, I have gotten to know myself and my body better since then, and am
willing to take care of myself in ways that don’t involve retail therapy –
which, FYI, doesn’t cure a sinus infection.

As to the title of this blog. With my brain in the wonky
suspended state it’s currently in, well, it’s had a lot of time to latch upon
obsessing about the guy I went out with on Monday, and pro-ing and con-ing and
measuring the distance between here and where he lives. My brain likes to
satellite around it, like your tongue going to a sore spot in your mouth, drawn
there unintentionally.

So, if there’s “Restraint of Tongue and Pen,” I heard once
that in these modern marvel text-addicted days, there’s also “Restrain
of Thumb and Send.” I have composed lots of them already in my busy, befogged
brain. But haven’t yet sent any. I sort of feel like it’s the same advice as,
Don’t make any phone calls or major decisions after 10pm. So, don’t contact a
dude when your eyeballs feel like there’s marching band drum practice behind
them.

But. I might. 😉

What else is on my mind is the women’s retreat I’m going to
this weekend, which I’ve gone on for the last 4 years or more, and I’m glad I’m
taking care of this cold&sinus thing before then, as it’s also really hard
to meditate with said marching band practice. I began reading Shakespeare’s Henry
V last night, as I got a confirmation email
for my audition slot in two weeks(!!), and that’s one of the plays the company is
doing this year. From the introduction in my book to that play, however, the
consensus was it’s not the best play, but I’ve never read it, and perhaps a
commentary on an inflated political figure is a good parallel for our times.

Lastly, on my mind is fluidity. I met with a girlfriend on Monday
for coffee, and she’s an expressive arts therapist. She asked me what was up
with me lately, and I was again reiterating my non-desire to be a teacher when
school is done. That there’s a sense in me lately that I don’t want to be tied
to a geographical region. There’s some kind of impending knowledge that I want
more fluidity than that, than being tied to a region, besides my other
non-desires to teach at the moment.

So, my friend asked if she could do a little “work” with me
then. Sure, why not. She asked me to close my eyes and imagine that fluidity,
which I’d also called joy, and to create and act a movement to it. So, I closed
my eyes, and I wiggled and waved my arms and body, gently and arms open. We
both laughed, and then she asked me then to think about teaching, and to create
a movement to that. My arms immediately contracted in, and sort of harrumphed in a Rodin’s
“Thinker” pose, continuing to sigh and constrict in this closed pose.

It was very telling. She said there was more we could do
with it, but I had to leave for said date. This wasn’t “new” knowledge, but it
was certainly another underlining of the knowledge I have, and a kinesthetic
expression of where I want to go. Follow the joy. Follow the fun. Follow the
fluidity.

What that means in practical terms, I don’t yet have any
idea. But to commit to a teaching job at this juncture, to actively pursue one,
would be equivalent to dipping my soul in cement, and I want to be much lighter
than that. And, I believe I’m worth more consideration than that.

acting · action · courage · direction · faith · intuition · letting go · maturity · performance · poetry

Just Row, Darling, Just Row.

December 15, 2011 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

So, I’m feeling both immensely relieved, and a bit of an
emotional hangover from all of the worry and intense “gotta get it done”ness of
the school semester. I finally finished
my paper for my Shakespeare class, and emailed it to the teacher last night at 9pm.
Granted, it was only six pages,
but this whole working plus school thing really walloped what I was able to
give to school, and squished everything else into weekends that wasn’t school
and school sort of got shunted along every day, moving down my calendar like a
shuffle board disc – I can do it tomorrow, I can do it tomorrow. Like Scarlet
O’Hara – After all tomorrow is another day.

Which may be true, but tomorrow has been another day of
intense activity, and not in any way better than the day before it.

So, the paper is done. My third out of 4 semesters of my MFA
degree is done. And again, relief but… a big dose of “uhhhhhh….???” aka now
what. I’m familiar enough with situations like these to not have to worry too
much about the “now what”, but rather to just show up for what’s next, even if
that’s do the dishes (which, duh, I do have to do), and also, as I’ve been
doing more of lately, follow my little internal nudges, cuz they seem to have a
better idea than I do about wtf is going to happen or is meant to happen, or
which way I should row.

It’s funny. I had mini-epiphany a while back which went
something like the following: I only need to row. I don’t need to know which
way the boat is headed, I’m not steering, I’m not making the waves do their
thing – I only need to row, and I’ll get there.

But that didn’t quite
sit right with me. Sure, I agree, do the next indicated action – which for me
at the moment is to wash up and get ready for work (I’ve decided – for now – to
do my blogs in the morning – I procrastinate them at night, and then end up
past my bedtime – plus one thing I really did learn from all this paper-writing
pushing was that I really do write better in the morning. I’m a morning person
– sort of. I’ve already had one cup of coffee! – I’m more of a “mid-morning”
person – catch me at 10:30 or 11, and I’ll be ON IT… perhaps that’s also cuz
the other two cups of coffee will finally have kicked in…).

In any case, rowing is great – I can row, and sit backwards
and still question where the hell are we going. But I also do believe that it
is sort of my responsibility to have some vague idea of which ocean we’re in –
to extend the metaphor beyond its bounds! Maybe that’s still just me wanting to
have some control, some idea of control if I know where I am, where I’m
heading, and more about what I need to do to get there. Maybe that it doesn’t
sit comfortably is just all part of the action and practice of this thing – to
sit in the discomfort of not knowing, but to do the work anyway.

I don’t know what will happen at auditions. What will happen
after school. What will happen tonight, even! I want to know – especially the
“after school” part. Somehow I’m way more willing to let the audition stuff be
how it will be – I’m way more que cera cera about it. Because I really know that I can’t control the outcome, I can only
control how I show up and prepare for it – how I do or do not do research, take
action, practice, and look for an acting coach, like my acting friend suggested
to me. Somehow, letting go of the results of this is easy. Partly because, to
me, it also feels fun. It feels like an adventure. Like trying a new ice cream
every time. Like, I wonder what this flavor tastes like. So, of course it’s
easy to show up more lightly to those. (But I will say, I’m sure I wouldn’t
have always felt that way – which is why it’s taken me so long to even get here
to stage zeropointone or wherever I am.)

But, “after school,” the looming deadline of “you ought to
know.” More lies. I don’t know. I know that school has been the best thing I’ve
done for myself in a while. Not cuz I get to study and write poetry – that’s
cool, but it’s not where my passion is – but cuz I get to have this time to
discover all this new stuff about myself. I said when I arrived that I wanted
the two years of school to offer me time to “solidify my foundation within
myself.” And I think I’ve been doing that. Concretizing who I am, how I want to
be in this world – to have the time to become someone who can show up to
auditions with a sense of fun.

I am uncomfortable not knowing. I am uncomfortable feeling
like I’m not taking the “right” actions (not writing a sample syllabus, not looking at
teaching jobs, not knowing where I will live or want to live). But, I also don’t
want to teach. … So, that’s leaves me with a WIDE field, and too many options
feels a little like none at all in my fear-brain.

So, before I talk myself out of the awesomeness that is my
ability to show up and let go of the results, out of the awesomeness that is I
FINISHED my semester, I’ll go get my second cup of coffee from my microwave and
pray that all this rowing is better for me than I can possibly see.

acting · action · courage · creativity · fear · laughter · letting go · performance · self-care

Must Be Present to Win

December 5, 2011 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

There’s a parable that goes something like this: A man in
Italy goes every day to a statue of Jesus, and prays every day, “Jesus, please
let me win the lottery, please let me win the lottery.” This man, every day
goes to the statue with the same prayer. “Please let me win the lottery.” One
day, the statue comes to life and says back, “Then buy a ticket.”

So, today I bought a ticket. Metaphorically. I threw my hat
in the ring. … Also metaphorically, I really like my hat.

If my audition back in April or so was a belly flop with my
eyes open (OUCH), then this was a belly flop with my eyes closed. So, it means,
I’ve learned 😉

On my way out, I texted several friends to say I sort of
blew it – my 2^nd monologue went better than my 1^st, the
first being too much of a Shakespearean tongue twister I just couldn’t get
memorized. But, that I did it.

A friend then called me and told me her story of her first
audition and not even knowing what they meant when they asked what she’d
“prepared.” And so, we learn. I learn. Sure there’s a twinge of disappointment,
but more than that twinge I feel like I now know several things: first off, I know how long it takes me to memorize something – and it’s more than 12 hours!!
Yep, I really only started to memorize today, although I chose the
monologues…yesterday? Friday? So, yeah, good to know. and then also good
information to not beat myself up. I gave it a really good go. But it was also,
as I’ve said, a week of insanity with school and work, and so, good enough is
good enough here.

I give myself an “A” for effort. And next time, perhaps I
can prepare longer in advance.

The other things I’ve learned are, a) I can show up (Hurrah!
good for me!) 🙂 b) where to get headshots done; c) I have allies.

More than any of my other times of leaping off a cliff, this
time I asked for more help, followed through on those suggestions, and
reached back out to people – this is a
newish thing for me – as I sometimes feel that if I’ve asked you for help once,
that’s it, my lifetime supply of asking that one person that one favor or for
one bout of help is used up. No more, well dry, try someone else.

That’s.Not.True. Sure, some people aren’t the giving type,
but for the most part, the people in my life are invariably giving, kind,
supportive, and generous. So, I asked for help a second time, and my acting
friend showed up for me. And you know what? She’ll probably even take my call
next time too 😉

So, that’s the end of this one round (at least I believe so – callbacks are
tomorrow, so I’ll know soon enough whether I am or not). But it’s one round,
not the match, or game, or series.

I’m also more willing this time to “fail,” which I’ve heard
is the key to any success. Being willing to stumble is the only way to learn to
walk, right? Persistence. Patience.

And maybe my next belly flop will be a cannonball instead.
(Whether that’s a “better” thing or not, I have no idea) 😉 (thank you friends, for your support)!!

acting · action · courage · faith · gratitude · joy · performance · persistence · poetry · recovery · school · spirituality · synchronicity · time

Alright Sports Fans

November 29, 2011 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

You know those montage-y frenetic moments in movies or,
well, Looney Tunes, where they play “Flight of the Bumble Bee” and everything
starts moving insanely quickly?

Well, it’s sorta like that. I feel like saying, Drivers!
Start Your Engines!

This morning, Monday of the beginning two weeks of
school/work insanity, I emailed my boss at my temp gig and asked her if I could
have Wednesday off. I also asked her to get a little more clear with me on when
this assignment ends, as it’s really vague, and I don’t like my income hanging
on “really vague.” So she said, Yes to Wednesday off, and that she’d love to
keep me into January, so let her get back to me on Thursday. So, Okay.

PHEW on Wednesday off – my crazy long day with evening
class, and now I can meet with my professor to talk about my final project –
due next Thursday. I emailed him this morning too and suggested what I think I
might do for my project – it might be a script involving the two heckler muppet
dudes. Yep. He wanted creative! I’m thinking of having them, as images of the
upper class, watch several scenes from the Shakespeare plays we’ve read this
semester – scenes where Shakespeare seems to be calling out the upper class.
He’s got a lot of commentary on
classism, and I found myself drawn to those pieces in all the works. So, we’ll
see. That does not seem like an “easy” thing to do. But, it could be fun – they
get all ruffled and heckle-y, and then maybe that bald eagle guy comes in at
the end (You can tell I’ve been influenced by the Muppet Movie advertisement at
bus stops…)

After I emailed him, I packed up my shit and went to school.
I knew that hanging out here would only mean distraction – facebook, cat, tea,
nibbling, general procrastinating. Luckily, both the girls I was supposed to
meet with this morning cancelled – which was totally HP doing for me what I
couldn’t do for myself, as I really didn’t have the time to meet with them, and
would likely have been distracted.

So, I went to school, and plunked down in the English
Department with my tea, my laptop, and my homework. I got pretty far. (Poem for
evening class, two singing critiques for Friday, printed thesis draft.) There’s
still a lot to do, but I am feeling better about it.

I have to do a teaching demo on Friday of the workshop I’m
piloting in the Spring – “Creativity and Spirituality”. I co-facilitated this
workshop last semester with the Director of Spiritual and Religious Life at
school, and it went pretty well. So on Friday, I have to demo a portion of the workshop
to my professor and my classmates. I’m not too worried about it – but I do need
to get my own script down a little more. Leading people through spiritual
processes – well, you have to have a degree of confidence in yourself and the
work, to come from a calm position, or else people who may already be nervous
about WTF is going to happen – am I going to speak in tongues? is there going
to be “G-d” stuff? – feel like they are being led by a knowledgeable guide.

Luckily for me, this is all work that I’ve done. Some of the
pieces for the full workshop next semester (3 times, 3 hours, for 3 different
groups of women) I haven’t done, I’ve created from my own imagination, but I
believe in them. The whole workshop is about helping the participants to see that
they can access creativity in a variety of modes, and to call that pathway by
which they access it “spirituality.” To begin (or continue) to understand that
we always have something to say, to give, to create, to invent, because we have
the un-tap-out-able well of creativity inside us already – we don’t have to
“hunt” for it, “work” for it, we just need to access it.

And sure, it sounds “woo woo” hippie shit, but, I believe
it. I don’t always remember it – and try to create from a place of desperation
or scarcity – but the real juice is always there.

So, that’s my workshop. I also have 4 reading responses and
a final paper to do for this class. … And a final paper and an end of semester
portfolio for my poetry workshop.

BUT, on top, next to, in spite of all this – the Universe
works without me – often.

I get an email this afternoon while writing with frenzied
fingers that a slot opened up in the auditions…and I can get in Sunday at
8:30pm, if I want it.

I want it.

Of course, this week of ALL weeks (cue “Bumble Bee”), I now
have to memorize 2 one minute monologues, get my headshots printed, and read up
on this Strindberg fellow. But … it’s general auditions for a bonafide theater
company in SF for their upcoming season in a bonafide theater – and *I’m*
auditioning. Holy Crow.

The very next email I get? From another theater company (no
lie) I emailed in my diligent action moment of a few weeks ago. They can’t fit
me in this time, but will keep my info on file. Fabulous.

Just when I was beginning to feel like I was watching myself
retract from the whole acting thing again, the Universe throws me a bone. I was
watching myself follow the pattern of “flurry of action, then nothing, flurry
of action, then nothing” – but, this time, with my small little actions, these
self care little moments of listening to myself, this comes along. It is just an audition, I have to keep reminding myself, because I get easily scared the f
out.

To counter the crazy “I have no idea what I’m doing,” I
called in help. I called Lorraine, my acting friend I called a few weeks ago.
We just spoke, and she gave me some good tips on the monologues I’m choosing, a
classic and a contemporary: Gertrude from Hamlet cuz I just read it– and The Flood from Vagina Monologues cuz I know it, as I’m cast in it at school in the
Spring! Plus she gave me head’s up on a place to get my headshots printed in
the city, precisely where I will be on Thursday at noon.

So, yeah, I’m alright. A little dazed. But, I did a lot of
work today (and some action a few weeks ago) and some unexpected bounty
happened. Fancy that.