Category: authenticity

acting · authenticity · commitment · dating · falsehoods · fear · insecurity · pride · self-abandonment · self-worth · truth

Note: In this evening’s performance, the role of Pride will be replaced by Truth.

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She held up her fingers:
“One: Is it a theater company or director you really want to work with?” No, not really.
“Two: Are they paying you really well?” No, zilch.
“Three: Is it a play you are excited about and really want to do?” No,
not at all. It’s awful.
“Then don’t do
it,” she concluded.
But I auditioned for him three times.
“So, what? Say that something else came up and you’re really
sorry. The thing is, that’s a huge commitment for somewhere you don’t want to
be. You’d be wasting time that you could use honing your craft, going on other
auditions, taking classes, and finding something you really
want to do.”
But it’d be my first lead
role.
“Yeah, in a play where the actors outnumber the audience for a play you don’t want to be in. That sucks; take it from me.”
* * *
This was the conversation I had last night with my friend
who’s a semi-professional actress when I told her I was having doubts about the play in which I’m cast. She said these were the 3 golden questions
her acting teacher said the actor had to answer for himself. The instructor,
being at a higher level, said that for him, he has to answer Yes to all three
of those questions. For my friend, mid-tier, she was told, No more crap jobs:
She has to answer Yes to at least two of those questions.
And for me, beginner, I have to answer Yes to at least one of those questions.
Otherwise, what the hell am I doing with my time? What am I
saying my time means to me?
I am very much associating all this with my job/career
search. If a guy continues to get promoted up through the ranks at a company he
doesn’t enjoy, doing work he hates, but is paid really well, is that enough? I can’t say.
If we’re not getting
paid well, doing work we love or working with people we enjoy… well, what are
we doing?
If we can’t answer Yes to any of these questions in regards
to career, why are we there? Why are we wasting any days of this short life?
I don’t yet know if I’m going to bow out of the play in
which I’ve been cast. When I told her again that I auditioned for him 3 times — meaning, I feel that he’s already put such time and effort into me and my performance I’d feel guilty dropping out — she
replied, “Take care of yourself, not them.” … Oh… right.
Because the reality is that I will be in rehearsals for 3
hours nearly every day of the week for two months… for a really awful play. It’s really awful, folks. Not like, passable,
manageable, I’m just being picky — It’s really awful. It’s terribly written. I’d walk out, if I were an audience member.
Because it wouldn’t have been worth my time.
No matter how great I am or am not in the play, my heart
wouldn’t be in it – and if it’s not, then that’ll show up, too. I roll my eyes
every time I read the script. I say aloud to my cat, “This is a really awful
play,” each time I start to rehearse it.
I don’t know yet. It’s a hard judgment call, you know? I
asked my friend, What about having to work your way up the ladder, and take
shitty jobs at first? She pointed me back to those three questions. Where are my values?
Is my hesitation to drop out about my having a lead role, so I can feel pride? Pride over a notation on my resume? Pride
over something that I’m not proud of? Is it about status? Is it about feeling this proves that I’m worthy; that I’m good?
How can you feel worthy about something you’re not proud of?
That doesn’t compute.
I’m meeting with another actor friend of mine tomorrow to
run lines for this play. I’m hoping to get insight in conversation with him –
if it’s really as awful as I think it is.
But, I already know it is.
What my friend told me was that I should audition for
everything, but don’t go to callbacks if it’s a terrible play!
I’m reminded, once again, of the dating/job interview
corollary: It’s great to say Yes to the first date or interview. But after
that, you’ve garnered enough information to know if you want to try it out again
or not. I don’t have to show up a second time, if I’m really sure this is not a fit.
So, yes, it would be really great to say that I’m the Queen
of the Amazons. It makes me feel worthy and proud and like I’m not making a huge mistake in going after this dream. But isn’t the mistake not respecting what really want, and settling for (way) less, just so I can say I have a lead? Isn’t the mistake I’ve been loathe to make in relationships settling for less than I want, just so I can say I have a partner? 
Wouldn’t I rather be somewhere where I’m excited and learning
something, instead of just clocking time? 

adulthood · aging · authenticity · confidence · femininity · joy · life · self-acceptance · self-love · vulnerability

"Only Her Hairdresser Knows For Sure!"

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I am likely not the only woman to tear up at the sighting of
a gray hair on her head. But I may be one of the few who wells up with tears of
gratitude.
Yesterday, during my morning primping, I noticed a gray
hair. I usually don’t pull them out; this isn’t the first I’ve noticed. But
this one, I decided to.
About 5 inches of silver, shiny, light-catching hair. 5 inches
that have grown back since it all fell out from chemo in late 2012.
Call me crazy, but I’ve never been scared of going gray. I
had none at all before cancer, and several now. But, even before then, I always
thought of it as a rite of passage. As a crowning achievement, really. You’ve
made it. You are alive to go gray at all. You are passing into the stage of life that
is for richness, boldness, satisfaction, self-esteem and a greater degree of self-assurance.
If there’s anything I’ve learned from reading about aging
generations, it’s that so much of our self-questioning begins to fall away once
we reach “a certain age.” We begin to think less about how others see us, and
more to question what we want to leave as a legacy. And this brings with it so
much reflection and truth-finding.
Who wouldn’t want to
age into that category?
Surely, you don’t have to turn 50 to begin to assess your
values and your desires for the remainder of your years. Like me, and surely
others, you can do that at most any age. But it helps to have some experience
behind you to make those choices from a place of peace, not fear.
The first memoir I ever looked at, I didn’t read.
I saw it on a shelf in Borders (when it still existed) about
7 or 8 years ago. I noted the title, looked at the flap, and went on with my day.
But I never forgot about it, and last year finally picked it up to read.
The title? Going Gray:
What I Learned about Beauty, Sex, Work, Motherhood, Authenticity, and
Everything Else That Really Matters. A
woman’s exploration of what that means to “go gray” in our culture and society.
A lifelong hair dyer, she made the decision to give up the illusion, and embrace
whatever lay under the chemicals, for better or worse.
Author Anne Kreamer looks at the history of dying our hair;
goes “undercover” as a woman trying to reinvent herself to re-enter the
workforce to see if image consultants will tell her to dye her now growing-out
grays (none do); and comes to discover that with her new look comes a new clothing
color scheme, and a new confidence.
She also doesn’t purport the superiority of letting her hair
grow out. She talks with successful women who do and don’t dye, and let’s them
have their experience. All she can speak to is her own.
Surely, it helps that she goes gray in a “nice” way, with
silvery and dark chrome strands. Which is much the way I anticipate I will.
With my dark coloring, I imagine that I will go silver,
instead of stale gray, or as my mom describes her (dyed) fading blond: dirty
dishwater.
So, that “beauty in the beast” helps my acceptance, I’m sure.
But what brought me to tears yesterday as I stood there,
admiring this newly-found strand, now plucked and held like a precious object
in my hand, was the reality and giddy reminder I feel every time I find one: I made it. I am alive to have gray hair.
I’m alive to see what will happen with it: if they’ll turn out
all spidery texture and I’ll lament I ever praised finding them. If I’ll
consider dying it after all. Or if I’ll love every single thread of life these gray hairs represent.
I tear up when thinking about this, because it’s true.
Because, like someone admiring a sunset, or their sleeping child, or the taste
of a food never eaten, it means I’m alive.
Which itself means I have a chance and a choice to make my life whatever I want
it to be.
My gray hair represents possibility, transformation, and
authenticity.
Who wouldn’t rejoice? 

authenticity · career · community · dating · deprivation · family · fear · love · self-care · self-worth · support · truth

Phone a Friend.

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I was invited back for a second interview. And I politely
declined.
If there’s anything I learned from my awkward dating experience recently, it’s that saying yes to something you’re sure you don’t
want is lying and wasting both people’s time.
Therefore, when I was passed up for the job I’d applied for in this organization and my resume got handed from one branch to another, I did my due diligence: I showed up,
made a good impression, and knew that this newly offered position was not a
fit. But I got the callback anyway.
So on Wednesday, when I got the “want to see you again” email, I called my mom. Not always the paragon of rational decisions, but someone who here I felt could be, I told my mom about the parallel metaphor between my career and my lackluster first date. And it’s strange and
uncomfortable follow-up.
A friend earlier that morning suggested I just go to the
second interview. “You never know.” But, see, I think you do. When you’ve given a fair and first chance at
something a worthy go, I think at that point you get to say whether you’re
interested to go further.
As a mentor once told me, A first date is just an interview
for the second.
We do get the chance to say no at some point, yes?
I felt so, and I just needed a little corroboration. Not
always a co-signer of my machinations, either, mom was the right call. She
listened, and then she asked what advantages this job could have over my
current one. They were few.
One, I told her, was suggested by my friend earlier that
morning: You could meet a nice Jewish guy.
After
hearing this very short list, she replied, “First of all, you are [insert some
really nice and positive characteristics, like, smart, beautiful, brave and
wonderful] and you don’t need to take a job you don’t want to meet a
hypothetical guy.”
Or something like that.
It was really the only enticing reason of the bunch I gave to her. If the job I’d actually applied for in the first place was still
available, I’d still be interested in that, and I do know it’s still open. But
this offered job would be a lateral move, adding a 3 hour commute for what I imagine is
similar pay and responsibilities that don’t really align with my values or my
career goals.
So… she said it sounded like I already knew what I wanted to
do. But what I could do was be honest about my goals, tell them that I was still interested in the first job, be very
flattering and kind about their
organization and say if other opportunities came up there, I’d be interested to
have that conversation.
Unfortunately, in the dating world, it’s not as easy or
accepted to say, “Hey, I’m not interested in you, but if you have any friends
you think’d be good for me, let me know!”
But, Romance and Finance don’t always overlap.
In the end, that’s what I did. Called the woman who’d
interviewed me for the second position, got her voicemail, and told her exactly
what my mom coached me in saying.
What my mom really did was help me to feel comfortable owning
my truth.
This is not always easy. And sometimes I need someone
outside of my own limiting self-beliefs and self-sabotage to coax me and just
sort of shuffle me along on the path I know I want to follow.
In the pre-school in the building where I work, some of the
students have a cute ritual when their parents drop them off in the morning:
Push on the Tush.
It is exactly how it sounds. Having been deposited in their
classroom, feeling safe in their surroundings, the child is ready for their
parent to leave, and wants to have a ritual for that separation. So, the parent
stands in the doorway, and the kid gives him a push on the tush. And out the
parent goes.
For me, that’s what my mom did. Having come to a conclusion,
but needing a little encouragement, I reached out to a person I knew could hold
and support me, and then give me a little push. 

authenticity · awareness · career · dating · deprivation · faith · fear · integrity · internet dating · jobs · perseverance · self-abandonment · self-esteem

Broken Algorithms

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Stop me if you’ve heard this one: Someone asks you out.
You’re pretty sure it’s not a match, but “you never know” and you have nothing better to do, so you
say sure. The date is uneventful, confirms that you’re not a match, and ends
with a nice awkward hug, and one of those vague promises to meet up again soon.
Perhaps there are follow-up texts, that you politely reply
to, but are vague and friendly. Perhaps there are then more follow-up texts
that you begin to ignore in an attempt to give a hint as to your lack of
interest and intention. And, finally, perhaps there’s the passive-aggressive
texts you begin to receive that a) reconfirm this wasn’t a match, and b) lead you
to hide them from your newsfeed!
What’s wrong with this picture? – as the back of the Highlights magazine asked you to spot.
Well, first and foremost is the fact that you abandoned your
own good judgment, values, and integrity by agreeing to go out in the first
place. “Pretty sure it’s not a match” is usually good enough. Enough of these
situations have proved that your gut is usually correct.
This self-abandonment is the seed of the whole problem.
It’s not the dude; it’s not his persistence; it’s not his disappointment masked
as passive-aggression. – It’s you.
I’ve finished reading the history of online dating/how-to
memoir entitled Data, A Love Story: How I Cracked the Online Dating Code to
Meet My Match. In it, the author describes
that the problem with online dating is not the sites; it’s us. It’s us answering questions as our aspirational
self, instead of as we are. It’s us, chatting with people we only have vague
interest in. It’s us, abandoning our integrity in order to have crappy
connections with people.
I’ve been thinking about this process in relation to my job
search. I’ve realized that I do the same thing in dating that I do in job
searching: I lie. I let jobs that hold little to no interest for me get a bulk
of my attention, and then when I get the interview, I find that,
indeed, I’m not interested, but in order to be “nice” or liked or wanted or
hired, I will feign that interest. I will more often than not land that job,
and then I will become resentful that I have it. This suitor that I didn’t
want, I’m now trying to delete from my Facebook, or in this case, my LinkedIn.
Again, what’s broken here is not these jobs – it’s my
willingness to abandon my values. It’s my willingness to say to myself,
Something is better than nothing; what else have you got to do? It’s my
willingness to waste my time and theirs, so that I can put off and deny what it
is I really want.
My willingness to waste my own time … my threshold for the pain that causes is astronomically high.
But because I have a belief that this is easier than the
pain of making truer statements, of sticking close to my integrity, my
intentions, my values, and my wants, I choose the rockier path every time.
Because the alternative is to stick with myself. To be the
friend I want to be to myself. To be my
own cheerleader and ally, and to let myself know that I’m here to support
myself on the unknown path of self-esteem.
I said on the phone to a friend two weeks ago: “I’m having
trouble mustering the low self-esteem required to apply for jobs I don’t want.” Ha!
I think we call that progress; insight; growth. (Although, I am still finding myself browsing those job descriptions.)
I have to muster a whole silo filled with negative beliefs
in order to go toward jobs I don’t want. These include: I don’t know what I
want, so I don’t deserve anything better. I will only abandon myself
eventually, so I may as well do it now. There’re no happy endings in this world,
so what makes you think you deserve one.
To name a few.
And I have to bombard and drown myself in these beliefs
(false beliefs) in order to “muster the low self-esteem” necessary to undersell
myself.
The same, I’m sure, is true for me in the dating world.
So, again, what is the solution, here?
I know that it’s to not abandon myself, to continue working
on my self-esteem, to wipe away the corroded mirror I use to judge myself so
that I can get a clearer view, one that reflects esteem, joy, confidence, and
courage. One that reflects someone fun, engaged, lively, warm, and worthy. I
know that the work is to trust that if I walk away from that silo of low
self-esteem, I will be led toward a healthier source of sustenance.
And that trust… That is the hard part. That tiny sapling of
faith that I will have to hold onto as the storm of negativity swirls around
me, raging only harder the longer I resist. I will have to hold on to that sapling,
until it becomes a redwood, until the storm recedes into memory. I will have to
have faith that if I hold on long enough to my self-worth and my self-esteem,
the clouds will give way to the sun. 
Here’s hoping. 

authenticity · children · deprivation · friends · fun · laughter · self-love

Dive In

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I never actually go in
the pool. For years, 6 of them, my friend and her family and our friends’
families go out to the east East Bay for Memorial Day weekend and Labor Day
weekend. 

There is a pool there. I attend by the side. Perhaps I’ve gone in the
hottub, but I can’t even remember doing that. I lay on my towel or a pool
chair, slathering in sunblock, catching up, chatting, sharing with these women
I see only occasionally, and it’s wonderful, this catching up chatting and sharing, but I never go in the
pool.
On Saturday, before I left for the weekend, I made a
commitment to a friend that I would actually go in the pool. I made a
commitment to let myself have fun. To enjoy what was being presented to me, to
not literally be on the sidelines of my own life.
It’s hard – or it has
been – to let myself take part. I’ve been so reserved, analytical, watching,
the consummate wall-flower, when in fact I feel anything but.
And so, at some point soon after the sun had soaked far
enough into my skin to want relief, I walked into the water.
I’m a slow pool-acclimator, as I am a slow band-aid puller.
Later that night, the women-folk stayed up to play a board game, and my
strategy was to move slowly but eventually around the board. I admitted, laughingly,
that it’s the same way I play chess with my brother: I move pawn after pawn.
One little square at a time.
After my first timid entrance into the water, and a few laps
across the pool, my heart rate up, the water refreshing, my second entré was
different. I was inspired by my friend’s daughter, who lay over an inner
tube, head back, dousing her hair in the water. Only nine, I watched her
luxuriate in the tactile and sensory pleasure, the instinctual joy of just
letting the water carry her hair out into the water. Of soaking the top of her
head, running her fingers into her scalp to get each follicle up and satisfied,
eyes closed, in the moment, in the sensation, in the freedom of doing what felt
wonderful just for its own sake.
My second time in, all the others were under the shade by
the house, and I waded in. About half-way wet, I just dove in. I let my body be
strong and carry me to the bottom. I borrowed some goggles, and played the same
game of fetch I’d watched the kids play, throwing plastic sharks to the bottom,
and diving down to retrieve them. Seeing under water, holding my breath in that
suspended moment, moving quickly and gauging the time I had left before I had
to surface. Running my hands along the bottom, and pushing against it with my feet to
shoot up through the clear water. I laughed.
It was invigorating. It was fun. It was entertaining and
special and out of my ordinary. And on my way out of the water, I lay back into
it, soaked the top of my head, however briefly, and luxuriated too. 

authenticity · community · growth · hope · singing · theater · vulnerability

LiveStrong.

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Yesterday, I was given the cosmic and delightful (sarcasm)
opportunity to put that day’s blog message into action: I was asked if I was
coming out to spend time with folks. … But I really had to go home and watch Netflix, you know. Not that
I have anything I’m particularly watching at the moment, not that you can put
that on my tombstone (“Excellent t.v. watcher, Achiever of many
episodes”). But the alternative was to spend an hour with people. Blech.
But, health won out. (Damned health.) I went, I smiled, I listened, I shared, I had conversations with people. Netflix won’t really converse with me. It’s selfish
that way.
I got the chance to hear what was going on with a
friend and offer some suggestions, and she got to hear me share what’s going
on with me and offered me some help, too.
Again, Netflix is really loathe to help me out. The bastard.
I also got to notice that I’ve gained a few readers in the
past week who’ve gotten to read things about me that some of my closest friends
don’t know about, and that … well, that’s okay. It’s what this, the blog, is
here for. Not to “connect” with people in a complete way, but to offer
something. To offer a catharsis, a container, a mirror into their own
experience. To hear someone say – or read someone write – about what have been issues
or concerns or triumphs in your own life is to get to feel you’re/we’re
not alone. Our experience as humans is not isolated; we’re not as different as
we think we are when trapped alone in our heads.
I’m grateful for that, for this opportunity. And I know it can be intense. For anyone who’s joined us
this week, it’s not always so dark. But, it is likely always as honest. Don’t
worry, I don’t tell you everything. You don’t in fact get the all of me by
reading me, and we both know that. But it’s a good thread between us. And I get
to feel cathartized, too. Not that this is therapy or anything, but that I’m
putting my voice out there in a way that feels relatively safe, but also authentic.
On voice, I emailed an old voice teacher yesterday to ask if
she still gives private lessons. I was in her voice class when I was at Mills, and
earlier in the week, I got the message from Theater Bay Area that applications
for the General Auditions for the South Bay are open. And, you have to note on the application if
you think you might sing. You don’t have
to sing if you check that box, but you have to indicate if you might so they can group you with the other
singers in that day.
I applied to the Generals last year, and didn’t get in. But
I have real headshots this time, and two more credits, and possibly a third
that I can add before I send off my resume. I certainly have enough gumption and
the substance to try this time, especially if I had even less to my name last
year!
I was talking yesterday with a friend about singing. About
how I know the voice is there, but I hide it all the time. Even when I was in the band, I hid it. I didn’t
sing to the best and fullest of my ability, and I also don’t even know what the
limits of my ability are. I want to sing. I’ve always said it. Or thought it,
so most of you didn’t know anyway.
It’s secret. Private. It’s tender, is what it is. It’s the
most tender dream I have, honestly. And I think that’s what makes it the most
protected and least acknowledged one. For me, singing has no place to hide, and
it’s an outpouring of your soul – or it can be. As I know well, it can not be that very easily, and no one would know the
difference but me. They’ll just think that’s what I’ve got.
It’s like when I work at 80% most of the time at my job. They don’t know. They just think that’s what I have to
offer, but the reality is that I hold back, in that case because I’m resentful,
entitled and begrudging. But I digress!
Or I don’t. It’s the same side of the coin of not participating
in life fully, of not offering myself fully. They’re different angles toward
that, but they’re both about self-protection and -preservation.
Tender shoots of hope always need a little more room and
space and care. For me, they’ve needed to be hidden so as not to be trampled by
the onslaught of life. But by keeping this thing small, myself small, by
harboring it and mentally reinforcing it as a tender and sensitive and fragile
thing, it will always remain that way.
A redwood starts out the same way, you know. As tender as a
sprig. But if you take the cage off of the plant, allow it air and sunshine and
nourishment. Soon it won’t be a small and tender, fragile thing anymore. Soon
it will be able to weather the strokes of life. By letting what I’ve carried as
a secret and a calling out of its confinement … I can allow it to become what
it’s always needed to be: Strong. 

authenticity · clarity · confidence · despair · self-love

WWWD?

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This morning, I imagined myself going into my interview for
the “Gold/Coal” job tomorrow morning. Going in as I felt at the moment I was
reflecting, hunch-shouldered, weary. Why do you want this job, they’d ask? For
the money, I’d bite into a lie that would instead say something about
supporting the education of children, though I would have zero direct influence
in that education.
I imagined the gray, and lonely march, with the exterior
painted for display.
Somewhere in my reflections this morning, I remembered what I
always seem to forget: I am a witch. 
I am a shaman warrior goddess. And like many of the women I
know who are, I do not fold into a box of forget-me-yes’s.
Raise your brows if you like, but I forget, with apparent
force, that I don’t have to do this. I don’t have to subsume my person. I don’t
have to abandon myself.
What would a witch do? She would see opportunities. She
would create them.
I don’t know in this instant what that is, but I have remembered that I am a healer, and that I love helping others to heal.
When I was sick, and was tired of others bringing me things
and taking care of me like I had nothing to give them in this world, I hosted my workshop. My
workshop called, Creativity and Spirituality. I sat for an afternoon with 5 women,
and helped them find something in themselves they’d lost or thought they had to
abandon. I am a witch. I am a healer.
I am six feet fucking tall. I don’t have to hunch my
shoulders, and roll over dead for anyone, including for the spite and ire and bile
in my brain sometimes.
It’s shorter, these lapses in memory. And today, I finished
my journaling and meditation with a smile of confidence I haven’t had in a bit. The smile itself may wane, but I hope that the centering thought does
not.
And here’s where the real miracle is: The thought hasn’t
waned. For years now, I’ve eventually come back to that centering truth that I am not powerless and I am not worthless. Sometimes it takes longer than
others. But after seriously considering this morning whether I should go on meds, something else happened. The bottom dropped out of my
short-sightedness, and I remembered that I am not as narrow or narrowly defined
as a drone, the drone I’m trying to prove to someone else they want to hire me
to be.
Who knows. Is that more school in some kind of healing art,
is it running my workshop again just to get some spiritual juice flowing, is it
looking back into working with kids in a direct way, revisiting my idea for an
after-school program for them?
I don’t know. But I remember.
And I’ll show up tomorrow, and I’ll place on my lie. I’ll do
it because that stability could finance further education. I’ll do it because I
show up to things and never know how they’ll turn out.
But, unlike when I took the job I have, and cried
mercilessly after work while waiting for the unfailingly 45-minute late bus,
after earning a master’s degree through words and performance that I created,
after accepting what I thought I had to at the moment (and perhaps did) – and one
month later developed cancer … Unlike then, I seem to be remembering that I
have power. That I don’t need to accept a life sentence of menial work, or define myself under such disparagement.
I’ve been depressed because I have thought that to be what’s
happening again. Once again applying to things I don’t want because I want to afford healthy food and visit my mom in New York. Once again, I’m poking around the internet half-heartedly saying, yeah, sure, I can answer your phone and type up your emails. I can hack away my power so you can look good. …
And if it weren’t for cancer, this time might indeed be that away again. But because I am hyper aware and viscerally afraid that subsuming my
light in pursuit of “stability” can cause repercussions of atomic scale, it is
top of mind to not allow myself to shrink into that dull, flatlined human
who trudged her death march to Muni every morning.
What would a witch do? Firstly. She would remember she’s a
witch. Then she would put on high heels. 

authenticity · fun · laughter · life · self-love · self-support · trying

Chief Happiness Officer

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

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Not kidding. This is actually a job. In Brooklyn. “Community
Manager and Chief Happiness Officer.” God, I love this generation. For all its
foibles and failings and impending earth-dying doom, I don’t know if there was
ever a time in history (maybe the 60s) where this could be listed in
semi-earnest.
Yesterday as I was driving home from my chiro in SF, I had
my windows down. It was hot, but not too hot, and it was curious to see who had
their car hermetically sealed with A/C and who enjoyed the breeze. At first, of
course, my elbow is resting on the window ledge, half committed to experiencing
the flow of air. Then, as we begin to move faster onto the Bay bridge, I place
my palm into the air, and let the wind carry it, make it dance, still tethered to the anchor of my resting elbow.
Finally, I decide or am pulled to go for it: My arm floats
up off the ledge, we’re whizzing over the bridge now, and my arm, elbow, hand
are carried up into the wind.
My arm pumps into the air, high up, almost straight up. People can see me, I see
them driving past looking back at me, smiling, and I’m smiling. In fact by the
time I get over the bridge, I’m laughing gleefully and giddily. This is so FUN! I see people in cars ahead and behind me tentatively
reach their hand out the window too, still elbow-anchored, but it’s a start.
I am my own Chief Happiness Officer, and I’m spreading it
one car at a time. It was brilliant. To be unself-conscious, to let myself be
silly, be seen, to laugh at myself, to experience the world. The air.
My belly full of laughter at myself and the sensation and
playfulness, thoughts pop in as I exit the highway past a Kaiser
building. It wasn’t long ago that I was hermetically sealed myself in one of
those buildings. Absent of fresh air, unable to touch this freedom.
It’s why it’s sometimes easier for me to take risks like
this, to take the risk of having fun, for its own sake, with no stakes except
silencing my internal critic. I did it because I can, because I saw a little girl earlier in the day
hanging her whole head out the back window on the slow Berkeley streets, and
she looked happy.
I looked happy then, too, in the grins and gawks of passing cars, my hand only beginning to chill as I pull to the stoplight toward home. I forget what silliness feels like, what glee
is, how freeing it all is — and how simple. I forget what it’s like to laugh infectiously and
appreciatively at my own antics. Until I see you hanging your arm out a window, and I remember.

authenticity · balance · community · connection · family · happiness · joy · laughter · love

Yo’ Mama.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Apologies, reader, for the rain delay (lack of blog)
yesterday. It was this wonderful Spring rain in the morning, and instead of
sitting at my stoic kitchen table, and peering out the window while writing
morning pages, meditating, and composing a blog, I took my mug of
coffee into my studio’s bedroom/living room, tucked myself into the corner of my couch
against the window, and sat next to my cat on the arm of the couch watching the rain make everything greener.
It was warm and cozy, and I just couldn’t bring myself to
break the calm of the spell. The sound of the rain, the steam from the mug,
watching my cat’s chest expand and contract with each breath. Oh, calm! How I
miss you! Oh, rest, you ineffable minx!
I let my thoughts roam over the landscape, and thought how I
missed my mom, when she was here last, and sat on this very couch with this
very cat. And so, I called her. – Strange and funny thing to do, eh? Think of
someone, and actually call them? Not
text or poke or email – but make a phone call – God, it’s luxury and connection
incarnate.
I knew she’d just returned from her annual trip with her
beau to some Caribbean island (Back, Envy, BACK!), and even with only a half hour (barely enough
time for us to scratch the surface of a conversation), I called to find out how
it went.
I love talking to her. Sure, there are times when it’s
grating, and I have to remind myself she’s human with flaws and working on
them. But, on the whole, especially these past several years, talking with her
is more refueling than it is draining – which is a gift.
She’s just hilarious. Our conversations meander, and
side-track, and disambiguate, and non-sequiter, yet always find their way back,
like six degrees of separation. It’s these things that I know I’ll miss most
when she’s gone. And why I’m trying to get what I can now, to call, and make
plans to visit, and email when I can.
Call it morbid, call it realistic. I just want to store it
all. Engage in it all.
Coincidentally, one of the anecdotes from her trip was about
interacting with the armed guard at the airport, the process of going through
customs and homeland security, and the stark seriousness of it all. And, so, as
she is wont to do, she planted a funny sentence into the bleak and rote
exchange with the check-point guard.
He cracked a smile and then cracked wise. Suddenly, it was
an exchange between people instead of
objects.
I told her how synchronistic it was that just this very week
I wrote a blog about learning from her to talk with strangers, to make our interactions
with one another just that much more engaged and alive.
I shared with her my own story about being in Port Authority
around the Bush Iraq invasion, and bantering briefly with a guard walking
through the orange-tiled halls about exchanging his gun for some flowers.
I love that she does this, and that I do it, as I wrote the
other day. It’s part of what makes this life worth living and engaging in, part
of the surprise of being alive. When you engage, you don’t know what will
happen, you’re rolling the ball onto the Roulette wheel. Maybe the person won’t
want to play, maybe they’ll look at you with a “look, I just want to clock out,
please stop talking to me” impatience. But, perhaps, both of your days will be
lightened just that little bit. Maybe, in fact, it’s the only time you talk to
someone all day, as can happen in our disconnected world of modern
conveniences.
I asked my “intuitive” once what she thought about my moving
back to New York-ish to be closer to her, since sometimes it really is painful
to live so far away, to not get to pick up the phone and say, hey that movie’s
playing on 72nd tonight, wanna go? Or, I just saw this exhibit is opening at
the FIT Fashion Museum, meet up this week? Or, can you come with me to Sephora,
I need to find a new blush?
Honestly, it pains my heart to not get to do that with her.
But, my intuitive, whenever this was, a year or so ago, had
a pretty logical answer: If you go, you’ll be her caretaker, and that will not
be good for you.
It’s true. There’s a fine line from being involved to
being too involved, and there’s a
pattern of being her caretaker that I don’t want to repeat from my childhood.
And it’s a role I know I can easily fall into, without strong enough
boundaries: Love as Caretaking, instead of Love as Equanimity.
The jury has been out indefinitely on my move back to the
East coast. It doesn’t have to be New
York. It doesn’t have to look
like moving into caretaking distance. It can look like, “I’m coming down or up
for the weekend, let’s do stuff,” which is easier than “I’m taking a
cross-country flight.”
Luckily, I am not in charge of my destination, I’m only in
charge of doing the work. Perhaps my boundaries become stronger, perhaps I am
better able to stay out of the grooved rut of caretaker. And perhaps they
don’t, and I allow myself to say, That’s okay, Mol.
But, on a rainy Saturday morning, I can still give her a
call, and we can laugh, meander, and enhance one of the cherished relationships I will ever have.

abundance · acting · authenticity · grace · gratitude · happiness · joy · life · performance · spirituality · theater

Being There

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

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See, there’s two things I’d forgotten in all the sturm&drang of rehearsals & work & sick & crossing bridges
& lack of down time: I’m actually good at this acting thing. And I enjoy it. 
In the maelstrom of preparation, I forgot why I was doing this.
As I sat in our reserved cast seats in the front row of the
audience, watching the other actors before my scene perform, I got a
few minutes to gather myself, and reflect. Something the director said during
the “let’s get PUMPED” speech before we got into costume helped to remind me:
She said, This is for you. This isn’t
for your friends, your parents, your partners: This is for you.
This is for me, I
repeated to myself. I remembered that this isn’t for a resume, for a good story
to tell when I’m older; this isn’t for accolades or for money. I am doing this
acting thing, because I enjoy it.
Because it’s FUN. Because, once I do get through rush hour traffic from Berkeley, once I do find parking in the Mission behind some dude drinking Steel Reserve and
selling electronics out of his car, once I do get upstairs through the weird
haunted building, I come to a black box theater.
In that theater, I’m there to have fun, to enjoy myself, and
to share myself. I’m there to engage in something I thoroughly enjoy, just
for the sake of it. How fucking novel.
It was and is nice to have been sought out during the
wine&cheese reception after the show by a cute little gay boy and his girl
friend, to have them sidle up during a conversation with a beamish grin, and
tell me how great my performance was. That they got chills. To ask if I did
that thing with my hands on purpose, and wow, you did? Wow. That was so great.
It’s gratifying to know that something that I actually enjoy
doing is enjoyed and appreciated by others—that’s true, too. (We are only so spiritual!)
But then, isn’t that the point of theater, too—to affect
another person. To affect an audience, to help them experience something? Sure, Mol, sure. Yes, you can enjoy the
accolades, too. As long as they’re not what’s driving you.
In the chaos of rushing to work, to rehearsal, to home, to do it all over the next day, I began to feel weary. I began to feel like
maybe I’m not cut out for this—that
maybe this hustle is a younger person’s game. Maybe it’s too late for me to be
high-tailing it all over creation in service of a pipe dream.
I really was beginning to wonder if I would audition again.
Part of my delay/hesitance recently, is that I knew I was in
a production that was taking all my time & memorization space. Part of it is that I
know I’m going out of town in April, and didn’t want to audition for anything
new when I’ll be gone. (Cuz, it seems to me that working actors can’t
really take vacation…)
And, part of it was/is just plain exhaustion and feeling
grueled instead of fueled.
But, I am getting to see that perhaps this is just part of the
process. Part of that “put in the hard work to enjoy the results” thing that I’m so
loathe to do most of the time. HARD
work? Meh.
But, perhaps that’s what’s required here, to get the feeling
I had last night. Sure, I fucked up some lines, but people didn’t seem to
notice. I still got to feel the sense of “right place.” In the chair, on
the stage, in front of lights so bright you can only make out shapes in the
audience; hearing the sound cues, the mounting tension of my scene, the
mounting tension I bring to my scene.
Getting to be there, getting to sit in that chair and show you what I’ve got –
It was… well, enlivening.
There’s a phrase I’ve heard to name those times when you
are so engaged that you feel out of time, out of the chaos of place, when you are so in something that
“time just flies,” – it’s called being “in the flow.” When you are so engaged
in what you are doing, when you are so enjoying what you are doing that you are somehow matching the heartpace of the Universe. When for moments or even hours, you just feel in it – your speed
aligns with the speed of life, and you flow, you coast, you glide.
In it. To be IN IT. In life.
There was a moment, too, as I sat in the dark audience
awaiting my scene that I remembered something I sometimes do: I survived cancer to be here, and I am HERE. Staking a claim. Making a name. Claiming my own.
The gratitude I felt to get to be in that PUMP YOU UP circle before the show: All chaos, time
pressure, toll bridges are lost – and I’m just there.