Category: action

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

Must Be Present to Win

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 2nd monologue went better than my 1st, 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)!!

abundance · action · courage · direction · faith · fear · finances · Jewish · joy · letting go · life · responsibility · synchronicity

Effective but Wordless Chant

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

So I did look at one SF apartment ad today. It was through
my old employer, a property management company, which is how I got my sweet
deals on my SF and Oakland apartments. Granted, it wasn’t a handout-out, I
worked well there – maybe not that hard, but it wasn’t that challenging or enticing, and
eventually I found myself overcome by the Ugly Cries (maya’s accurate term) in my car at lunch one Friday on the phone
with a friend having another job existential crisis.
That day I gave my two weeks notice, that night I threw my 1st pre-Valentine’s party, the following day, I went blonde. This was almost 3 years
ago now. My boss wasn’t pleased, but he knew I wasn’t happy –
that I wanted to do something creative, anything.
So that began several months – two, to be exact – of
job hunting. I remember I didn’t even tell my parents I’d quit my job and was
looking for work cuz I just couldn’t face their “Are you kidding me, in this economy??” spiel. It was hard then – I had notes all
over my SF apartment – “This is a world of grace and abundance and I am letting
go.”
A friend afterward told me to change to wording to “–and I
allow myself to receive” – more “open.”
Two years before that, I’d been “downsized” from a corporate
real estate firm, my first long term gig in SF, and was on unemployment for the
full 6 months. The first month? Awesome – yay paid vacation. By the end of six months? I was desperate. I began to
answer every ad. The very week my unemployment was going to run out, I had two job interviews one day, and I’m driving to one of
them, out somewhere near Bayview, and I’m in my car and I have this
mini-epiphany: I had every single thing I needed at that moment. I had eaten
breakfast, I had coffee in me, I had gas in my car – I didn’t need anything
else at that moment – no money in my hand, nothing. For that moment, I was
completely taken care of.
I forget what it was now, but I even began this little chant
while I was on my way to that interview. Something about being content and
caffeinated, or something? That afternoon, I had my other interview – at the
property management firm. And I got that job. The woman I was replacing
happened to be out sick that day (she was going on maternity leave), and so I
interviewed with the owner of the company – and we got along fabulously. (A big part of me feels that had I met the woman instead, I wouldn’t have made it through the door.) The
mug that I’m drinking out of now, he gave to me because he got tired of me
using the one that had a photo of his kids printed on it for my coffee (it was
the biggest mug!, What?). The one he bought has sort of colorful swirls on it,
and he said it reminded him of the tattoo on my wrist.
So, yeah, he wasn’t pleased when I left my job with them,
but, obviously still liked me enough to let me have parties in my SF apartment,
and to move here into the Oakland one on a slight deal.  – actually, it’s a really good deal, i
should be (and am!) really grateful – the rent isn’t that much cheaper, but I didn’t
have to pay security deposit, or pet deposit, so that’s quite generous.
Reminds me the theme of today’s CITO is generosity …
But, back to grace and abundance, and letting go – or
“receiving” rather.
I quit that job with the property management, and spent two
months looking for creative work, again. And finally what happened was I woke
up one morning and asked myself, still groggy from sleep and receptive to the universe, What else
am I interested in?
The reply came, Well, I like being Jewish.  … So I typed “Jewish San Francisco” into
Google, and applied to every position there was.
I got one of those positions. (Actually I applied to one I didn’t get, but my resume got passed along to someone else in this Jewish
education non-profit, and I got that job
– for which I was surely more well suited.) … 

Then, on a not so whimish been-looking-at-the-college’s-website-for-three-years whim, I apply to the MFA program, and get in. (Note, there: I actually intended to apply to the Master’s in Literature Program, but didn’t have a current academic paper, and am pretty sure none of my professors from college remember me … but the admissions coordinator for the English Department told me that the MFA program, I just needed 15-20 recent poems. How many did I happen to have recently? 16.) Nudgey McNudgerson, you sly Universe, you.
I dunno. I guess I’m feeling reflective about all of this –
about all of my “being taken care of” and steered into a more … “Molly” direction — because I have no clue what’s going to
happen when school is over in May. I quite imagine that it will work out well –
and I also imagine I’ll freak out a bit anyway.
But, if any of the above isn’t evidence that I’m being
gently but firmly guided, I don’t know what is.
So, Universe, Let me be receptive to the strange and unusual
nudges you have to give me. I sit here, in a heated apartment, with food in my
belly, electricity running, December rent paid, and I’m chanting the tune to
that chant whose words I no longer remember. Amen.

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

Alright Sports Fans

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. 

action · balance · coffee · finances · persistence · poetry · responsibility · school

Hunkering Down & No Drastic Movements

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

These were two things Patsy said to me this morning – to
hunker down in school work mode – which I have actually diligently done today –
you can check out the most recent installation of my poetry thesis on the MVD
page (it’s 9 poems, laid out to sort of make sense as a mini-collection). I
have to meet with my thesis advisor tomorrow for our second meeting.
At our first, she said, “over produce and cut back.” So, I
got paralyzed by that(!), and blundered along writing my poem-a-week for my
workshop class, and that’s pretty much what I’ve got. But, today, I did sit in
a café with ALL the comments from my peers and professor, and sifted through
it all. I copied the comments I liked onto my master copy, making my own
new edits, with fresh eyes and some space from having written them.
Just now, I put them all into one document and edited the
hell out of them. And in very much likelihood, they still need or want work –
it’s like a painting, or a recipe – sometimes you’re not sure there’s something
missing till you add salt, and suddenly it comes alive – poetry is like that –
there can be one thing somehow off by a degree. But also, people’s barometers
are calibrated differently 😛
But, it’s done, for tomorrow’s purposes at least, so that’s
one huge thing off my mind/plate.
As to “No Drastic Movements”, Patsy suggested that perhaps
this week of all weeks (the 2nd to last one of school when I am so
aggrievedly badly procrastinatorily overworkedly behind), perhaps I shouldn’t:
break the 6 months silence with my mom; look at ads on craigslist for SF
apartments; look at ads for hybrid cars; flagellate myself for going over my monthly spending plan; or do
any other such thing as would be drastic.
This week at least 😉
Despite the fact that I am over my spending plan for this
month (an interminable month, if you’re
looking at it through my financial numbers; though staggering to realize it’s
nearly December!), I am in need of groceries. So, today on my way out of the
city, I bought myself a pound of coffee. I still need to get to the real
grocery store over here and stock up, but it felt like, SO THE FUCK WHAT – YOU
NEED TO EAT – GO BUY SOMETHING silly girl, for christ’s sake. Martyrdom is way overrated. And I’m really f’ing sure that not having
any groceries is not what this whole “financially solvent” thing is about.
Yes – I bought clothing that wasn’t in my
plan (work appropriate! Though I did turn away from the oh so
sinfully supple black leather jacket at Bloomingdales) – and I also bought
myself a facial yesterday, because I’m exhausted and needed the recharge. I
knew these weren’t in the plan – but I earned more than I anticipated this
month …
However, I know that
pattern of my behavior – it looks like, Eh, a little more won’t hurt – it’s self care,
or it’s my friend’s favorite color,
or so what, my dvd from the library is two weeks overdue. …
And then finally, it once again looks like an empty fridge
without the finances to refill it. It always looks like that in the end. I know
that place.
So, here I am, seeing it early – “Awareness, Acceptance,
Action,” right? But, I am also self-flagellating ;P
I’m a little punch-drunk from staring at my poetry and
reading the rest of The Tempest today,
so I’m signing off.
Lastly though, I did all
of my dishes this morning. And, really, that counts for something.

action · courage · fear · growth · relationships

Exile.

Molly Daniels Hayes1 Comment

So, it’s finally happened – i’ve admitted that being in
Oakland is really lonely, and I’m
willing to do something about it. So, I called/texted 6 East Bay friends
tonight to see if they wanted to go to the Saturday night “cool kids” meet up
place, and I got 6 denies. It’s okay. I had to read for school and had a pretty
awesome day of out&about self-care (the trees are finally turning colors –
they look incredible), but I actually took action around it, which was a long
awaited step.
I have a few, mainly school, friends here, but most of the
friends I consider my closest live in San Francisco – yes, only across a
bridge, but that’s an immense distance if you’re on either side of it (It’s
like Brooklyn to Manhattan: you likely ain’t gonna make it) – I remember back
to times when in SF, venturing to Oakland seemed like crossing Egypt. Which
means, if I’m not willing to cross Egypt to hang out with people I know and
love, I better get willing to reach out to people on this side of the Nile …
Sorry, extended metaphor collapse!
I didn’t really realize it until last weekend at that
meditation workshop I went to – which was about relationships with others. I
said it out loud in my “hey I’m Molly, this is why I’m here,” and that was one
of the things that came out. Being so busy with everything is a good
distraction from making friends, and making effort to make friends.
Cuz, that’s what it really boils down to – there are plenty
of people out on this side of the Bay – I just have felt petulant to make any
new friends, and I have 5 years’ worth of friendships built up in SF, and
friendships take work. To form, to grow,
to create trust and intimacy, and I just haven’t been available for it since I
moved over here – it was just too exhausting to think about “starting over.”
In the beginning, last year, when I still had my car, I made
effort to get to the “cool” meet ups, but I didn’t feel any connections (or
make effort to go much beyond a few cursory hey how are yas). Then, I
had no car, and it was much easier to stay cocooned.
It’s pretty funny, cuz the first thought that I had in the
workshop last week which I shared with a friend (as there were two girl friends I hadn’t seen in ages, and just seeing them brought such relief – here
are people who know me, who’ve
seen me grow and change, as I’ve seen them – it was seeing these friends,
feeling that relief, ironically, which made me realize how starved I was for
them, and how non-friend-having I’d been over here). So, I say to one of them,
that my brain immediately goes, Maybe I should move back to San Francisco.
Of course, the simplest of all answers, Molly! That makes
perfect sense! It doesn’t. School is over here, which it’s why I’m over here,
“exiled” in the first place. – Just like the “simplest” answer to my
punctuality/time problem is to get a car, of course…
The simplest answer is to make friends over here. To admit
that it takes effort, and it’s scary, and I still think I come off as terribly
uncool around new people. But, it’s that, or me and my cat on Saturday night,
and I’m at least cooler than that. Well,
not this week, maybe – but I made the effort!
Next Saturday I’ll be in the city modeling in my friend’s
fashion show for her non-profit (that’s cool, right?) ;P but the following
Saturday, I now have plans with a girl I sort of know to go hang out with the
cool people. … in Oakland. 

action · growth · joy · painting · persistence · recovery

I love Mondays. & A Return to Art.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

It’s my least busy day of the week, and I get to see some of
my favorite people. My friend came by this morning and saw my holiday cards
pinned up on a string of ribbon and said, you painted those? or maybe it was you painted those? 😉 in any case, yes. it’s strange, i
still get pretty thrilled when my paintings turn out well – it’s something I’ve
had to cozy up to, work at, come back to.

a few years ago, I’d stopped drawing completely. i had too
long associated doing art with drinking a 40oz – well, whatever the Korean measuring equivalent was (they had 3 types of beer: piss, pisser, and pissest, but, they
worked). It’s funny cuz art was really the one thing my roommates there knew
about me, about my hobbies – besides the drinking – and so each gave me some
kind of drawing or painting set for Christmas.
I lived with two guys, one a Canadian, one a Texan, that
first contract year. Their contracts run February to February because of the
whole Chinese New Year thing; it was October when I got there in 04, and
February of 06 when I left. But that first 4 months, I spent in this smaller
more agricultural town – there was a pig slaughterhouse not far, and the lunch
lady at the school would go into the hills/mountains to get some sprouts and
things for the lunch … the always popular hot dog soup.
My Canadian roommate was the adventurous type, he found the
well of fresh mountain water where you could stand with your jug and some
ancient Korean woman. He also once reported a troop of Korean soldiers passing
by him in the pitch dark one night when he was up the mountains alone.
In any case, when I stopped drinking, I stopped drawing. I
used to sit with my 40 and draw or paint (infrequently) until I couldn’t really
see the lines so clearly anymore, then stop – drawing that is. So I didn’t
know, for a while, how to draw sober.
When I finally did take my things out (the end of my sketch
book is pretty hilarious, lots of fucked up looking women – i’ve always drawn
women, bodies, faces, i don’t know why – maybe cuz it’s what I see most often,
or because there were fashion magazines around when I was little –
but also, women are beautiful. just beautiful, i love drawing them, still). So,
i took my things out about a year and a half after I’d gotten sober and tried to
sketch one of these magazine women. – Utter Fail.
Well, at least, I thought it was at the time. I spent the
longest time trying to get the lines just right, and got so frustrated over and over till i just quit the whole thing
and shoved the sketch pad and pencils back into some drawer. Done.
Then, I started to host parties.
Somehow hosting became the thing that brought out my
creativity again. The first party was a holiday one (Star of David Christmas
Cookie party), and I didn’t do any “actual” art, but I rearranged everything
(moved my bed onto it’s end up against the wall!) and I went to the party
supply store and got some fancy looking sheets of scrap-booking paper and
arranged them on my bedroom wall in a diamond like pattern, and I took all my variously
received holiday cards and taped them in a pattern on the living room wall.
Come to think of it – when I moved into that one bedroom
apartment from the room I was renting in some (very nice) lady’s house in the
outer Sunset is when it all started again. I had all sorts of creative ideas
for the apartment – i got to choose the paint colors, the flooring, and I had a
semi-disaster when I decided to paint half my bedroom a crimson, bordello red,
and left the other half white, as I intended to do a stencil of a damask
pattern in black and white all over the other side … this never came to
fruition, and finally my house painter friend came and painted the rest of the
room red!
The next party was a “Pre-Val Hearts&Stars” and I
created a whole tableau of mushy words in a crossword pattern and cut out each
letter and pasted them on my wall (among sex, lust, and other words, “conceive”
got a few eye-brow raises) ;P But still no painting.
HollerWeen! 2009, I painted. Well, I started with oil
pastels. I did a version of Munch’s Scream
with a jack-o-lantern head instead, and I was thrilled with it. I loved to get
my fingers dirty again, smushing the colors around, messing up, going over, and
just getting in there. It was
wonderful. I did a few other riffs on some famous paintings (“Cece n’est pas
une pumpkin”, and Warhol’s Marilyn with jack-o faces instead. And one in the
kitchen I wasn’t sure was “okay” of Jesus on the cross with a jack-o head…!)
I loved it – and so I intended to do Valentine’s again the following
Spring and I wanted to do something big – really big. I began these enormous
sexy lips with a white flower in between them in oil pastels and colored
pencil. It was daunting, I was frustrated, but I had a party to finish it for.
This was why I had been doing all this
art – I had a party to throw – my party was my muse. And it worked. I didn’t
feel satisfied with that one for some time, it didn’t feel “done” till I got
some good suggestions on it (drawing a flower on a 5 foot piece of paper is
really hard!). But finally, I signed my name on that paper, and it was done
too.
So, then, here I am now (this blog is getting long, and
maybe you don’t care), but it’s wonderful for me to remember how tentative I
was, how frustrated and upset and worried that I’d never be able to draw again.
And now? Over my bed hang 7 sexy paintings of people, body parts, attached to a
garden trellis like a headboard – and like I said, it’s not perfect, there are
things I see that I know others don’t. But I love it. It makes me happy, and
it’s hot.
And now here are my holiday cards, beginning to line my
wall, and they’re silly and fun, and somewhat impressive even to me.
That’s what I love about this work – I continue to amaze
myself especially when I come with a spirit of fun. Creating paintings for a
purpose (a head board, a holiday card, a party) gives me the juice, the north
on my creative compass – and even though, sure, I’m in school for writing, and
I’ve been trying to get in to acting, watching one branch of my creative tree flower
is actually pretty encouraging.
Though, now I drink tea, not Hite.

oil pastel on posterboard 2009
acceptance · acting · action · adulthood · family · love · school

Quiet on the Western Front

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

This morning, I called out from meeting with Patsy, in order
to sleep more – and not trudge through the rain and several modes of public
transportation (AC transit, BART, Muni) to get there and just turn around. This
is something I’ve been doing weekly since my car was stolen a year ago, and today, with
all I’ve been thinking about rest, restorative rest, rather, I asked her if we
could talk on the phone instead. And she said no problem. Just like my boss had
said.
I still haven’t contacted my Shakespeare teacher to fess up
to not being there on Wednesday, which obviously, he knows, but I have to talk
to him about this final project too. It’s the end of semester push when everything
you’ve been procrastinating about for the last few months suddenly comes due.
So this morning, after sleeping in several more hours, and having the weirdest dream about two people in my life, weird, I got up, had breakfast, wrote my morning pages,
and started my homework. Poetry workshop homework, which consists of reading
and writing comments on my classmates’ work, work which has piled up over the
last month or so, so that I have about 4 weeks of each person’s work. It’s
cool, I like writing the comments. Like I said earlier, there are ways to
comment on someone’s work, even in a suggestive manner, that aren’t soul
crushing – so I try to write like that – but really, for the most part, people
are going to be true to themselves, no matter the feedback, although certainly
there is a little wiggle room, which I need to remember too – the whole “being
teachable” thing. It’s still icky for me to read comments about my work, but I did read the
comments I said I’ve been reluctant to read, and they were what I expected – a few,
no i have no intention of following your suggestion that is completely off key with what my purpose is here, thanks for reading; a few, hm, that is
something to think about; and mostly, lots of encouragement and support.
Then I went out into the world to see some folks for a few
hours, laugh at ourselves, get some camaraderie, and came home, made dinner, and started a new
holiday card (#4).
That’s about it. I did update my acting resume and sent it to the 4th audition I’d highlighted – I think I’m going to have to do a lot of these – I still feel like these are such awkward I have no idea what I’m doing baby steps, but I’ll call my actress friend again tomorrow to check in, and ask a few more pointed questions about these particular auditions and my resume. 
I also did write that letter about renegotiating
agreements with my mom this morning before I called Patsy. And I read it to
her, and we talked about being emotionally vulnerable without feeling
threatened – without having to run away or be consumed. After our phone call,
I did one of the CITO exercises, which
was an “individuation” meditation. It was sad and powerful; the recognition
that we are each not what the other has wanted us to be, and that we can’t be; but
by letting us both go from these desires, we both get to be freer. “Separate and
whole” is the phrase that keeps repeating.
Patsy asked how I felt about the letter, and I said I felt
scared that I couldn’t keep up my end – and she prompted sagely, worried that I
couldn’t do it perfectly? yeah, that’d be it. So, I’ll do it haltingly. I don’t
know yet when we’ll talk, but I know the work I did today, and this weekend,
and for the last several years is heading me to a place where I can hold myself
in openness and safety. I heard someone say today that we can be emotionally
vulnerable, and raw, and blessed, and I’d like to enter that belief too.
So, there you are. I’m glad I slept in this morning, and I have
more to do. I think all this spiritual gutting is contributing to my fatigue,
and so I’ll let myself sleep and recharge, and that’s all she wrote. 

acting · action · joy · laughter · performance · responsibility

Let the sunshine in.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

I do a work/trade at the Dailey Method workout studio on
Friday mornings – it’s pretty harmless, except for the occasional bout of
entitlement from clientele or having to cover childcare with a usually wailing baby who knows his mom is in the next room and if he only
screams long enough, she’ll come. But, this morning, childcare lady came, there
weren’t any payment traffic jams in the 5-minute turn around between the morning classes,
and I had my Theater Bay Area magazine with
me. Highlighted.
The other night, I set my alarm clock for ten minutes, and
sat with a highlighter and the magazine. And opened it. I knew that if I had
too long, I’d feel overwhelmed, and 10 minutes felt like a good beginning. It
was actually easier than I’d thought, just reading through the descriptions of casting calls –
some were obviously not right for me – male, far away, or another ethnicity.
But a few were. 4, in fact. One was a reach, but I highlighted it any way: Lead
frontman in a The Who’s Tommy production
company. – But hey, I’m just highlighting, no need to rule any thing out. And
then my alarm went off, magazine closed.
So this morning, *thumpthump* *thumpthump* I took the
magazine out at my desk shift while class was going on, and… I sent 3 emails. (I
want to research the playwright for the 4th, as they were specific
about it, and I don’t know the name). I sent my small little actor’s resume and
my headshot a friend took for me in January, and a blurb about why I’m
interested, and can’t wait to meet you, yadda yadda.
I’ve done this. I’ve sent out at least a thousand resumes in
my working day. I know how to fashion a cover letter. So, I did. And I send the
Roger Daltrey one too. – That one, I got a response to right away – he said
they’d filled that slot, but were still looking for an Acid Queen and/or
backup. I said, count me in. Who knows, he said they have someone interested in
managing their group who needs to see the new Daltrey, and probably won’t start
going until mid-December, more yadda yadda, so, no high hopes. But I did it – I made baby
steps.
Actually, I think proposing that I’d be a great frontman to
your production is a major leap, and perhaps I need to learn to mitigate
better, so I can stay realistic, hopeful, but realistic, and not stamp out my
own dream by taking too-large, developmentally inappropriate steps – but that
said, I was glad I replied to the ad, because it might lead to something else.
Like anything, this is a game of persistence. And so, great, I sent out 3
emails – one bounced back! – but I have one more to send, and other work to do
as assigned/suggested by my actress friend.
However… tonight, me and two of my girl friends went to see
HAIR in SF, and at the end of the play, you can go up on stage to dance with
the band and all the other audience and cast members – and so as me and my two
friends jiggled around to the finale song, laughing and loving it, I told myself to get used to the
heat of those lights. 

action · adulthood · faith · joy · letting go

Compensation

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

A friend once told me that the Universe gives us
compensations. This was after I’d just spent an emotionally, mentally,
physically, and spiritually bankrupting week at my family home in NJ last month – I was
there to clean out my childhood room as my dad and his fiancé have purchased a
new construction home in Florida and plan to move there in April, so he is
clearing out the house to get it ready for sale.
He was going to yoke my brother into the task of clearing
out my room – and somehow, not really being sure if I’d cleared out all the sex
toys, drugs, or writings about such things – and in addition wanting the
experience and process of the ritual of “leaving my childhood home” – I made a
snap decision to buy a flight home in October. My dad’s not really a
sentimental kind of guy, and wasn’t really getting that it was an emotional
thing that the house I grew up in – that we shared a family life & history
in – was about to be sold.
That same friend also told me that her parents had sold her
childhood home without her packing up her things, and that if my dad wanted to
clear it out, then whatever he found was his own fault/problem, and that
although it sort of sucked that she didn’t get to do it herself, it happened,
and it was what it was. But, luckily, I knew I had the money, and there was a
cheap deal on a flight, and off I went… to a whirlwind of entirely fucked up.
In describing the state of the house to friends once I
returned to SF, two people asked word for word “Was anyone living there??” And
my answer was yes – yes, two adult men, my dad and my brother, were there,
living in a home that had dead flies on all the window sills, dead bugs caught
in the scum of the oven hood, beyond the forever unmowed, uninviting lawn. You
remember when I said we never had people over growing up? Yeah, my house was
not the entertainment house. It has gotten significantly worse since my mom
moved out ten years ago after my parents’ divorce, and to be fair, my dad has
been splitting his time between his own home (he kept the house – my mom is a
city dweller by very nature) and his fiance’s home, and keeping up the
maintenance of a barely used home is a trial. Plus, my brother had been away at
graduate school until last year, so … The house reflects the loneliness and neglect.
I did a lot of work before I went home on untying my
identification with the house – if it only had more attention, love,
consideration of its assets, it could be beautiful, exciting, a success. I was
livid that the 200-year-old oak tree in the front lawn was now rotting, and
will have to come down before the house is sold – its roots had died; I felt
personally affronted by this.
So, I went home – to pack, but also to make peace with all of that. With the deep depression, the anger, the
resentment, the despair that house witnessed. To make peace with the shattered
door frame to my bedroom as it was once attempted to be kicked down. And also,
to thank it. To honor what was, what it sheltered, what it witnessed, and then
to let it go.
I did sort of well – no, I did as absolutely as massively
well as I possibly could in the situation. When on a streaming tears emergency
phone call to an SF friend, she asked me what more I could be doing at that
moment (We’d just come back from visiting my dad’s parents in Queens – and
their home is, without any exaggeration, a fertile candidate for an episode of
“Hoarders”, … and some very strong meds). I thought about what more I could be
doing at that moment, and the answer was nothing; I was doing absolutely everything
I knew to do in moments of distress – Once we’d gotten home from Queens, I went
out for a long walk, I called my spiritual teacher lady (who said we all have a
Grey Gardens branch of the family tree)
😉 and I made plans to go to dinner with a girl friend who knew my situation.
So, I told my friend on the phone, I was literally doing all that I could be
doing – and I knew then, that that had to be enough. I was fucking
uncomfortable – I was sad, anguished at the
state of my family’s homes, of their comfort with or ambivalence toward or
simply paralyzing despair in the face of such obvious … sickness. Yes, I was
uncomfortable, but I also was doing the very best I could – that had to be
enough.
So, I went to dinner with a girl friend; I cleared out my
childhood room (there was only one book of porn and no drugs!); and I saged the
damn place – because I don’t want no bad jujus hangin’ out there in NJ while
I’m all the way back here in CA.
And I came home.
In the tiny window of my layover in Detroit, I get a phone call
from the temp agency in SF asking me if I want to work at the interior design
firm again – I could start the very next day. … Having cleared out the old, I made way for the new.
And so my wise, wonderful, now-Brooklynite friend told me
upon hearing this story: “The Universe gives us compensations.”
The reason I wrote today’s blog on this? This afternoon I
found the most perfectly ‘couldn’t be more perfect’ purple wool coat that I’ve
been actively envisioning, believing in, and hunting down for the last month –
on sale. And after the blind date disappointment, I remember her words, and
smile joyfully at my plum compensation. 😉
abundance · action · coffee · finances · love · self-care

Asian Hipster Abundance

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

This morning as I was trudging up from the dungeon of Montgomery Street BART, there was an asian hipster dude a few paces in front of me,
and he’s bobbin to his music, and then he’s really swaggering it, and then he
begins to bark out some phrases, and then he begins to clap with wide arm
gestures. With every increasing jaunt of his, my smile begins to get wider, and
I follow him for about a block or so, smiling to myself as a few short stints
of sunlight shine through the buildings onto my face. And I ask myself to
remember this feeling – at least for a little while.
I’m now working 3 days a week in SF as a temp at an interior
design firm. And sometimes it’s sort of cool, and I’m looking at massive design
books of ridiculously fancy homes and touching pretty fabrics from a new line –
but mostly, it’s the same admin work any admin anywhere does – cataloguing,
entering, organizing … mind-numbing, I think my eyes are bleeding work.
That said, I’m tremendously grateful to have this job.
Firstly, the people are quite excellent – at a former temp job, I had a very
“that’s my stapler” cubicle tenant adjacent to mine, and it was always a fine
line between being immensely entertained and alarmed – particularly when the
continuous murmuring monologue included sudden bouts of loud expletives.
Secondly, I’m a graduate student, living off student loans with absolutely zero
savings, and much like unemployment, student loans pay you almost enough, but really not enough. Well, not enough for
a studio apartment in the Bay Area at least – which, yes, was a conscious
choice I made rather than have roommates.
And so, when this temp job was offered to me, despite also
being a full-time student, it was like manna from heaven. I worked with this
company over the summer – it was like manna then too – and they asked for me
back. So, I’m back. I’m also babysitting, catering, and … well, yeah, that’s
it for now (although artist’s model auditions come up in January again – I
missed them last time. I auditioned with a different company once before and it
wasn’t as weird as it was simply difficult to remain super still for 20
minutes!)
So, suffice it to say that today, after a few mind numbing
hours in front of a computer screen, it was hard for me to maintain the jaunty
optimism of the asian hipster, but I’m glad to remember him and his yellow
backpack right now.
I’ve been tracking my income and expenses much more closely,
but with purpose, since August. Prior to that, about a year or more ago, I
started to track my expenses, but just got pissed at myself that I was spending
so much money on coffee. And thinking self-flagellation was not a mile-marker
on the road to serenity, and not really having any idea what to do with that
information, I stopped keeping track. But, then it was August, and I’m
contemplating ramen, canned tuna, and an empty fridge – again – it was time to address
this – again. So, I reached out to people who do this sort of thing (this
frighteningly adult sort of thing) called “having clarity around finances”, and
started to keep my numbers again. ~ and I was amused to note that in August, I
spent $8.00 on coffee. Not the omigoditmustbelike$100 paranoid number I’d
imagined!
After tracking my expenses, I work with these folks to create a spending plan. It was
surprising to learn from my friends that I was “underspending” aka depriving
myself in all sorts of categories like food, clothing, and personal items
(apparently $1.34 a month-for a toothbrush-is not an act of self care!). And
so, I’ve begun spending within my newly clarified means – confirming abundance, and also confirming the
fact that I actually *do* have this money. I just haven’t known where it is, or
where it goes, hence my whole “binge and purge” financial routine.
The advanced part of this exercise is the income plan. This means that yes, YAY! I get to buy
the fancy shampoo that is kind to my chemically straightened hair (bad idea), but
that I have to earn the appropriate income to support a habit of self-care. And
I like this new habit of
self-care – this month I actually added in a category, modest though it is, for
flowers. And there they are, right here on my desk. 🙂
So, yes, I work in a job that is more exhausting by how sedentary it is, and yes,  I
woke up this morning at 6am to write a paper and went directly from work to
class until 9:30pm tonight, but a) it won’t always be like this, b) I’m grooving
patterns of responsibility and evenness (not the mania of “how am I going to
pay my rent???”), and c) … well, I really like coffee.