Category: creativity

creativity · singing · wholeness

Dominoes.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

8.12.18.jpgMore moons ago than I can count, I wrote down this quote a friend had posted as her Facebook status update.  I wrote it down with the desperation of flailing for a life preserver, not believing it ever to be or come true for me, but with the understanding that someone, somewhere in the world found this preserver and found it to be stable and life-giving:

“That feeling when things fall perfectly into place, and any anxiety you had suddenly vanishes.”

What horseshit.  What hope.

So, I wrote it down on a post-it and affixed it to the inside of my medicine cabinet.  It’s been likely 8 years since it was written, and I read it still with that desperation and that hope that anything like that could ever feel true within me.

Spoiler:  It’s kind of how I’m feeling today.

Bananas as it may seem to me, I’m having a feeling of serendipitous coalescing.  Yesterday, I attended a school event that was entirely optional but I wanted to go.  I wanted to see my people, my friends, my coworkers.  I wanted to walk out onto the ballfield/gathering place and hug the tech director.  I wanted to sit with my boss/fellow English teacher and—even though I tried not to(!)—immediately fall into the loveliest, liveliest shop-talk, about a new book I’m excited teach, Sherman Alexie’s troublesome revelations, and executive functioning training!  I wanted to hug my head of school and admissions director and facilities manager.  I wanted to be there.  (“There’s no place like home.”)

And I wanted to leave.  To head into the city to meet up with likeminded folks for an evening of play and discovery and excitement.  And wouldn’t you know, today’s Oprah/Deepak meditation is about Divine Playfulness.

Yes.  Yes, and more yes.

I received an excited phone call yesterday morning from my girlfriend who came by on Friday to “look at” my art studio with me and consider the possibilities.  On the phone (just the next day) she breathes, “It’s set.  It’s done.”  The art show that had its conception seeds planted as we tacked up 12 years of my collages is now happening.

When?  “Sunday, October 7.”  Oh, you mean my 37th birthday?  Well, I’ll be damned.

We’re having a salon, all types of artists.  The space is set, would you believe, in the home of a friend whose birthday also happens to be October 7th.  What the hell?!  … or Heaven.

They’d constructed a theme—Birth—and I wasn’t feeling entirely stoked on the idea.  My visual work wasn’t really heading in that direction (unless you want a show the first, ahem, seeds of birth!), so I questioned perhaps some poetry, spoken word, or painted broadsides, but my oral/written work isn’t really doing that either right now.

And in meditation this morning it came:  I will sing.

(I’m embarrassed to write that here you know, staking my claim… owning my voice, as it were!)

But, one of my visions for quite some time has been to “be a lounge singer.”  To be that woman in a sleek, sequined dress behind a stand-microphone who allows her voice and words to float over others as they half-pay attention and half-not.  I don’t need or want a concert, I want to be a part of the ambiance.  I want to be the art.

A pianist friend/former band-mate and I had a brief-lived duet a bit ago.  So, today, I’ll reach out to him and see if it’s in for it.  And if he’s not, there are more options.

But the idea of being an artist, in a salon, doing something I’ve only dreamt of, with friends, on my birthday?

Well, I suppose that is the feeling of everything falling perfectly into place and any anxiety I had…suddenly vanishing.

art · creativity · level up

Gallery of Indeterminate Art.

Molly Daniels Hayes1 Comment

still life feb 2011In an effort to “not go back in the cave,” I’ve been (egregiously slowly) asking for and (less slowly) accepting help.  I’ve been tending to the idea of getting an “accountability buddy” for many months now, someone with whom to mutually check in about progress on our goals, but I haven’t gotten far in that realm.  There’s something so daunting about accountability—even when it’s in service of my own health!

So I’ve been skirting up to the line by asking for help around smaller, task-specific items, which seems like a nice middle-ground and huge progress nonetheless.  Yesterday, I texted an artist friend of mine to come by and help me “look at” my art studio space.  To help me talk out what it is I want to do with it or in there.  Because most of what is up there is of the “Someone could use this for something” variety, but that someone hasn’t been me.

Magazines for collages; baskets of fabric samples; all sizes of canvases, plywood, and thick paper.  I have finger paint, oil paint, acrylic paint, watercolor.  I have charcoal pencils, colored pencils, water-color pencils, and pencil pencils.  In my art studio, there are scissors, brushes, glitter, embossing tools, stamps, ink, turpentine, and gesso.  Rulers, compasses, sharpeners, and cleaners.

And what is a girl to do?

I have no idea.  I’m no painter (“yet,” she adds hopefully).  I took an oil class in grad school that produced all the paintings that are up there, 6 years ago.  I loved it—more specifically, I loved the accountability and deadlines.  I loved having to work toward a goal, with an assignment (interior, live painting, still life [seen above]), an end date, feedback, and completion.  I also loved being around other people creating, too.  Yet, in the absence of an end date and the presence of self-judgment, all my ideas spool out to the egg yolk on the horizon.

(Speaking of spools, I also have a sewing machine, bobbins, embroidery thread, and knitting!)

So, I’m hoping that my friend standing next to me today, looking into this candyland of undiscovered art, will help me discover:  What is next for my art studio?  What is clamoring in there to come to life but I can’t hear over the shaming voice that tells me I’m wasting it?

Perhaps it’s something I make, perhaps it’s a group I host with access to it all, or perhaps I tell her about the few pieces I’ve done that I know would make a series, but that I’m unsure I feel enthusiastic about anymore.

In order to create anything, I need people.  And in order to have people, I have to ask.

 

balance · boundaries · career · creativity · meditation · self-care

You Spin Me Right Roun’…

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Normal
0
0
1
531
3032
25
6
3723
11.1287

0

0
0

I’ve been looking up meditation retreats. There’s this one
I’ve heard about for years that’s a 10-day silent meditation retreat – I
remember a guy I knew once shared that his therapist advised him against going on a silent retreat! (He went anyway, and
reported great tidings.)
But, one thing I always seem to forget until after I’ve gone
on such a retreat or weekend away is that I can effect the same kind of stillness without going so far, and without paying so much.
I remember last year, I went north to Marin to participate
in a half-day meditation retreat. The meditation itself was lovely; the grounds
are nestled into the hillside near the ocean, and there’s an organic farm and
garden you can walk through during the walking meditation part. But… the zen
talk… eek.
This day’s particular teacher stuck in my craw the whole time, so before the second “dharma talk,” I left. I felt good about having gone, being
among the greenery and the eucalyptus. I even saw a chipmunk on my way back to
the parking lot. But, I didn’t need to stay and “practice listening” to someone
whose personality shone way larger than his teachings. It was way more about
him, than his teachings.
As I left, I noted that I could have found the same or a
similar degree of stillness, just by driving up into the nearby national park
in Berkeley. I didn’t have to sit in a “zen-do” or listen to teachings –
really, I just wanted to listen to the silence, and although I can do that in
my own home, I prefer to go somewhere nature-y when I really want to recharge. 
I’m reminded of this as I look up retreats this morning: a
day-long one at the same retreat center, the 10-day silent retreat place, even
a hot-spring zen-center-meets-spa related to a nearby center.
But really, what do I want to achieve or gain or experience?
Stillness.
I feel very harried at the moment, with a lot of irons in
the fire around creative endeavors, work endeavors, and even friend endeavors.
I’ve been wanting to strengthen my relationships with
friends, form new or stronger connections, and this weekend has been the
perfect exercise in that – it’s been chock
full of friend-related activities that have been truly wonderful. But, I’m tired.
Yesterday morning, spur-of-the-moment birthday plans were texted to
me: “Join me in Marin for dinner and a hike under the full moon.”
Um, Yes, please!
None of the 6 dinner attendees knew anyone except the
birthday boy, and we had a great time. The hike was fantastic. Epic, really.
The view over the Bay, the fog rolling in, the lights below, the reflection of
the “super moon” in the water. – That, my friends, was meditative.
But, it also wasn’t. Different personalities require
different levels of reverence, and for some people, silence isn’t really an
option. – I’d love to go back and experience it in the quiet. It was
awe-inspiring.
And, I wasn’t home til after midnight … which if you didn’t
know, is way past my bedtime. But, so
worth it!
However, I begin to feel a draw inward. I’m an “X” in the
“introvert/extrovert” Meyers-Briggs scale. Meaning, I am neither an “I:
Introvert” nor an “E: Extrovert” – I fall so perfectly between the two, needing
both in such equal amounts, that I am an “X: Right in the middle.”
So, with all of this external push (creative stuff, job
stuff, friend stuff), Anty needs a recharge. (Honey, I Shrunk the Kids reference, fyi.)
But, it is important for me to remember that I don’t need to
retreat from the whole world, put huge parameters around my life in order to do
this. It’s as simple as committing 2 hours, getting in my car, driving 20
minutes, and crunching through the soft-fallen eucalyptus leaves until I get to a spot
where I can sit – no incense required. 

awareness · band · creativity · fun · help · life · music · presence

10 minute blog:

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Normal
0
0
1
241
1375
11
2
1688
11.1539

0

0
0

(I know they say, Only speak if you can improve on the silence, but I felt I wanted to give you something this morning. Time is short due to doing my due diligence. And making up tongue twisters, apparently.)
Yesterday evening, I went to pluck one of the remaining
lemons from the tree in the backyard of our building. In it, I found a robin’s
nest with three sightless, flat and feathered chicks in it. Maws up and open.
I’ve been watching robins on the roof next door to me with
worms in their mouths for a few days now, as I sit here at this kitchen table, writing, typing, breathing. But I never imagined there was life happening right there! The ingenuity of the nest-making was astounding, leaves harvested
long ago, now time-reduced to a lattice outline.
It’s the noticing. The small moments when the chocolate
vegan mousse cake you doubted, actually tastes like gilded decadence. When you decide to send a “hugs”
text to your immediate family, just because it felt like a good idea this
morning. When you go back through old pocket calendars, and read all the quotes
and notes you’ve collected, including this rancorous gem from a rancorous man:
“I’ve gotten to the point where patience is a waste of time.” – or this one, “I
have a hard time taking my sanity temperature.”
For reasons hilarious and unknown to me, I seem to find
myself in my second band with folks who are at least 10 years older than me. I
love this. There’s little of the peacock chest puffing, and more of the genuine
delight in participating in something fun, something that maybe we all wish we
did when we were in high school, but didn’t. At least, I feel that way. And
grateful that I get to do it now, when I’m less likely to vomit vodka tonics on
myself.
Instead, I get to spend a sunny Sunday afternoon holding a
bass in a basement with friends, and come home and feel inspired to take out my
own guitar, and find out what I have to say anyway. 

creativity · fantasy · love · painting · reality · relationships

“If I were a painter…” ~ Norah Jones

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

The earliest I can remember is drawing with sidewalk chalk
on the dresser in my childhood bedroom. I was probably 14 or 15, beginning
to assert a level of artistry and self-expression, and I decided to draw a
chalk moon on one of the hutch doors above the dresser, and a sun on the other.
Senior year of college, much to my housemates’ chagrin, I
began drawing on the walls. In my rented room, there was a walled up doorframe,
which we’d left white when me, The Cousin, my best friend and her guy, A.,
painted two walls lavender and the opposite two a mint
green.
This white moulding begged to become a frame, and when I
was envisioning getting my first tattoo, I thought it reasonable to draw the
image on my wall, so that I could live with it for a few months on my wall
before permanently living with it on my body.
It was a sun again. Four feet of elaborate, vaporous rays that twisted,
and in the center of the sun, I drew the infinity symbol, but shaded it to be
three-dimensional, like a Mobius strip, looping infinitely. Eventually, I
decided that the black & white kohl drawing was not enough, and spent a
good deal of inebriated time coloring in the drawing with various nail
polishes.
Unfortunately, the place I decided to get this tattooed was
the inside of my left wrist, which is not a large canvas, and thus it lives, much
simplified, on my skin. I was otherwise engaged at the time of “move-out” from
that house, and so my father and brother had to clear out my room, and paint it
all back to white, and over this artwork. My father asked incredulously what I
must have drawn it with, since it took three coats to cover.
Living, later, in South Korea, in a rented studio apartment,
I got the itch again. In those studios (which we would call junior studios),
the refrigerator lives in the same room as your very small dining table and
your bed, and so from the vantage point of my bed, I stared at this beige-ing
plastic door, and decided it needed embellishment.
I used my acrylic paints to create huge designs, one in
color on the top freezer half, one in black on the bottom. It was just abstract
design, but it was playful, and certainly more interesting.
Eventually, my lover the painter came over one night, and
together, naked, we painted the stainless steel panel that housed the water
heater in my bathroom, which we could also see from the bed. Naked, inebriated,
painted.
To complete the effect of living in a colored, effusive,
manic wonderland, I painted the cabinets over my sink and small range stove.
Purple and green again, like in college.
I’m sure to their dismay, shock, and irritation, my landlord
discovered all this “improvement” to their apartment after I’d left the country
when my contract ended.
And finally, when I was living in San Francisco in Cole
Valley, the enormous expanse of my white kitchen cabinets called to my paint
brush again, and I embellished them with a few outsized spheres and swirls, using the same colors that adorned that refrigerator in Seoul.
When A., my college room painter, was passing through San Francisco and came to visit, he noted upon seeing the cabinets, “Now, this looks
like you.”
And yes, I owed a penny or two from my security deposit when
I left that apartment, having every intention of painting the cabinets back to
white, but just never getting around to it.
This morning, as I heated up my coffee and glanced around my
kitchen, my vase of paint brushes caught my eye. Specifically a set that I keep in its original plastic case: these are good
brushes, those. They were a gift from my Korean-years’ roommates during my
first contract year there. I wondered to myself this morning when I’d last used
them. Remarked that it’s been too long, much too long. Each of them, like pens,
or a piano, or a piece you want to choreograph to, is potential. Each of them
vibrates with the eventuality of what you can do with them, create with them,
manipulate from them into being. They are possibility incarnate.
There was a time when I was still in conversation with The
Cousin (not my cousin, fyi) when I remarked
to him that it would be so easy for me to fall into the painting of our life together.
Just fall into the frame, like something out of Mary Poppins, just tip over the
gilding and onto the lawn with the white picket fence, the blue, cloud-flecked
sky, and the ivy growing up the side of the house we live in together.
How easy it is to imagine that things are and were as easy
as just stepping into an alternate reality, the one we’ve created for ourselves
in our minds and mutual enchantment. A “reality” without mortgage payments or
property tax on that ivy-laced house; without paychecks to support it; without
the stymieing banality of pulling the garbage can to and from that picket fence.
Painting something doesn’t make it true. Imagining doesn’t
make it easy. And desire doesn’t make it destiny.
It’s been a while since I’ve painted on my walls, but
right now, the ones in my mind are devoutly Technicolor. 

action · change · creativity · direction · faith · healing · inspiration · spirituality · trust · work

Strange things are afoot at the Circle K.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Normal
0
0
1
470
2684
22
5
3296
11.1287

0

0
0

Call it Spring. Call it some planetary phase. Call it the
fact that I’ve been back at my job for one year in April. But the past few
days, I’ve begun to feel like things are about to shift. Change is afoot.
Could be wrong. Could be indigestion. Could report the same
old, same old here for the next sixty years. But, I don’t think so. I don’t
feel so.
It’s kind of a stupid thing to report, that you feel change is afoot, in a blog that is supposed to be
about updates and reflections and actions. To simply take a moment to let you
know that I feel like things are about to be different seems antithetical and
anticlimactic. But, nonetheless, I tell it as it happens.
There’s some sort of coagulation that has happened, that I’ve begun to recognize. Maybe it was sitting with that woman on Sunday and
reflecting on the change that’s occurred within me and my spending habits.
Maybe it’s noticing that it’s been a year at this job, which has provided a
foundation of stability and structure, and enabled me to heal. It’s also realizing that things are going to change soon at my work, the nature of things are going to be reorganized, and perhaps it’s just a time
to reassess what’s happening and going on.
It feels like a time to pull my head out of the sand a
little more. To reassert what it is that I want out of life, and address those
things that hinder me from heading there, or even dreaming them up. It’s what I
wrote yesterday in my morning pages: It’s time to dream again.
When you’re in a storm, all you have attention for and time to
do is to batten down hatches and lower the mainsail and hope to Jesus and Allah
and George that you get through the rough patch safely.
When the clouds do clear, you spend the time assessing
damage, swabbing the decks of all the debris you took on board during the
crisis, and getting a new roll-call of who’s still with you, who’s got a
broken arm.
Eventually, the water has evened out, the crew is back to
its old galley routines, and it’s time to point the ship toward the horizon
again.
I’ve been very clear this time, as I ask for direction and
guidance, to be open to what’s
said/heard/intimated. How do you want me to earn? How do you want me to live?
How do you want me to share the gifts I have?
I feel I’ve made an awful mess of hampering myself, like an
anchored ship attempting to get anywhere new. And I know that some of the
internal and external work I’m doing is to untether that stagnation,
resistance, and fear.
A friend once told me, years ago, that things wouldn’t work
out for me with theater until I addressed my trauma shit. Another friend told
me while I was battling chemo that I wouldn’t get out of this pattern of
self-immolation until I moved through my father shit.
Despite all the rowing, all the sails pointed in the right
direction, no movement can be made if you’re still anchored to pain. No
sustainable movement, at least.
So, I suppose this feeling, this sense that things are about
to change, is an indication that I’m hoisting anchor.
Where I go from here? I’ve got to take a deep breath of promise and divine creative unrest — and trust my compass.
(Thank you for indulging my ship metaphor! I hope you
enjoyed it as much as I did) 😉

change · creativity · dating · growth · self-love · self-support · truth

Look! SHINY!!

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

I downloaded the book yesterday, It’s Just a F***ing Date, by the same people who wrote He’s Just
Not That Into You and It’s Called
A Break-up Cuz It’s Broken.
One of the first things the introduction says is, you’re
obviously stuck in something you don’t like doing, or you wouldn’t have picked
up this book.
I love their books. I first picked up Not that into you when I was living in South Korea. It was a lark,
there weren’t that many books in the English-speaking section of the bookstore,
and I thought it would be more funny than anything to see the stupidity of
these women who didn’t get that these guys just weren’t into them; that these
women needed a book to spell it out for them in order to stop knocking on the
closed, booty-calling door.
And yet. Of course, I got to see that I was one of those
huddled women justifying all kinds of behavior (theirs and mine) in the hopes
of romance. 3 a.m. text = he’s just not that into you. Not able to hang out
sober = he’s just not that into you. Has a girlfriend? Sweetie, come on, where has your self-respect gone?
When I broke up with my last serious boyfriend in 2011, I
was wrecked. Walk into the house and stand inside the front door empty for several minutes wrecked. It felt like every day I was hit by a Mac
truck. And yes, I was the one who ended
it. But that didn’t mean that there wasn’t love there, that I didn’t care about
him, about us, it’s just, we weren’t meant to be an us.
My brilliant friend Katie once told me the following: The
thing about grief is that something is broken, but you’re not, and you’ve got
to keep going.
I had no idea how. So I picked up Cuz It’s Broken. It gave some practical advice, funny anecdotes, and
a great dose of compassion. And in time, it healed.
I love their books. So, having read an excerpt from their new It’s Just a F***ing Date book
a few weeks ago, prior to this new dating thing, I thought to look at it again yesterday, considering that my manic phone checking was probably not what the
gods of serenity have in mind.
And here’s some interesting intel I’ve gathered. One of
their questions is, When was the best period in your life, and What was going on
that made it great? My answer was surprising and heartening: the best period of
my life is happening now, the last few months of my life. What’s happening in
it? Playing in a band, signing up for acting classes, going on auditions,
planning a trip to the sea shore with my cousins, buying a new (to me) car,
upgrading my wardrobe, going on a meditation retreat, eating well, seeing live
entertainment, working the steps.
Also, I was using the Gratitude Journal app on my phone that
dinged twice daily to remind me to pause & write something in.
When did this change, it asks? When I was asked on a date by someone
I’m interested in. That’s when.
Suddenly, my center of focus has veered sharply toward
someone else, what they think of me, if I’m approved, if my life activities are
good enough, if my success is enough, if I’m prudent but sexy enough.
In short, what changed is that all the things that attracted
someone to me in the first place, all the things that were bringing me joy, and
self-esteem, and hope, have been tossed in favor of what you think of me.
This is a terrible
recipe for self-love!!
This is not the first time that my eyes have wandered off my
own music chart onto someone else’s in the orchestra of life and dating. I’d
explained to someone once that if life were an orchestra, the most important
thing is that we stay on our own page, with our own notes, listening to
what’s happening around us, but focusing actively on what’s in front of and important
to us. It would be a disaster if the oboe began to play the notes of the viola.
But, that’s what has happened for me before; I get worried, I get crazed.
Not attractive to me. Or to you.

So, what can I actively do to get back to that place, the
book asks next? Well, for starters, I can type some things into my daily
gratitude app. I can choose two photos from my portfolio to send to this
modeling agency that may be a dead-end, but I was stopped on the street for. I
can go back on Theater Bay Area and find another casting call, and I can find
another monologue and start on that.
There are PLENTY of things that I can do to get back to that
place, because in that place I was simply doing what fed me, was important
to me, was fun, and enlivening.
And one of the changes can be to remember, it’s just a
f*cking date and was never meant as the end
goal – the whole “meet you on the way to meeting me” DOESN’T WORK if I stop
trying to actively meet myself, you know.
It’s time for me to allow the mass rush of thinking about
this, the boy, etc., recede into just one part of the array of my life. I have so
much else I was doing that created now as the greatest period in my life—and, really, it is. 

authenticity · community · creativity · friendship · frustration · kindness · maturity · recovery · relationships · San Francisco · writing

Literati

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Yesterday was a day off from work, as they needed the room
I’ve been stationed in, the library, so I got to experience a lot of loll and
gag. Less gag, more loll.
I still did spend
time in a library, peeling myself from my couch to go sit in the local library
and email and submit applications for higher education jobs. Here, Southern
California, New York City … Northern Florida. Throwing out the seeds and seeing
what sprouts.
I also got another book out of the library, and began to
notice a trend of mine over the last few months. The latest books I’ve read
have been:
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson
I’ll Never Be French (No Matter What I Do) by Mark Greenside
Man Seeks God: My Flirtations with the Divine by Eric Weiner
Seriously, I’m Kidding…
by Ellen Degeneres
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed
and now
Bossypants by Tina
Fey
As I was checking Tina Fey’s book out, I was able to connect
a few dots through the above list. Firstly, there are the books that are
about redemption – about people searching, seeking, going insane, going sane.
Mark Greenside’s book is more of a bridge to the other category, not being a
redemption, but certainly a “coming of age” (at 40) kind of an adventure. The other
category, of course, being the comedienne’s books.
Something about this strikes the right balance with me.
That, yes, I want to read about your harrowing walks through dark nights of the
soul and wilderness and Vegas (see : Man Seeks God), but I also want to read the levity, candor, and
strength of women in showbiz who are being pioneers in a
different way.
I’d never been one for non-fiction, and all the above are.
They’re all “memoirs.” I was raised picking up the library copies of my mom’s
Stephen King novels, and for most of my junior high and high school years, I’d
sit on the couch in the downstairs living room, engrossed in the psychological
and physical mystery of King’s characters and plot. Everyone would eventually
go up to bed, but I was too page-turned, and soon, it was late. And I was by
myself, reading Stephen King in the middle of the night.
This, was not an altogether pleasant experience, so I’d read
further, because if I closed the book, I’d have to turn off all the downstairs
lights, and walk upstairs in the dark with visions of deranged clowns lurking
in my peripheries. So, I read on, and then it’d be 2 or 3 or 4 in the morning,
and my eyes scratchy from being open so long, and I’d finally give up, too
exhausted to care if there were a rabid dog perched somewhere in the stairwell.
I’d climb up to bed, and fall in, too tired to be awake enough to contemplate
the darkness.
There were the years when I didn’t read anything at all,
really. I call these college.
No, (!) just kidding. But after college, I read nothing much
at all, or nothing that stands out. And I don’t really remember what I picked
up next, but it wasn’t that many years ago.
I remember when I first got sober, within the first year, I
went to see a movie at an indie theater in San Francisco. I had befriended a
group of people who were wonderful and hilarious and lovely, but none of whom wanted to see anything like what I was seeing that day. I enjoyed
the movie immensely, and when I walked out, I began to panic.
I’ll never have the kind of friends who’ll want to see
anything like this with me. No one has the kind of taste I have. I’ll be
destined to watch things and do things that interest me alone forever.
Fatalism is not just a river in Egypt. Melodrama, the same.
I began to cry. Honestly.
I called the one woman I trusted, and sobbed to her on the
phone how alone I was, and that no one “got” me, and that I was too weird to
have friends.
She told me to come over to her house right then. I sobbed even
more that I didn’t know the San Francisco bus system, and I’d be stuck in Polk
Gulch forever.
So, she told me how to catch the Geary or the California
bus, and picked me up at a mutual spot, and fed me tea and calmed me down.
A few months later, I was outside my car with a group of
people. One of them I’d just met, and she looked into my backseat and saw a
book I had there (I honestly can’t remember what it was). She exclaimed with delight – she had been meaning to read
that book! How did I like it, what did I think? And I told her she could borrow
it when I was done.
It felt like a revelation, even though it was such a “small”
thing. I leant her the book. She leant me one. I began to form friendships with
people who had similar tastes and interests, and who would undoubtedly today
come with me to an indie movie theater.
It took time. It took
a lot of time. I have a friend now who is going through similar transitions and
longing for those kinds of connections, having been immersed in a relationship
involvement so that it’s been hard to make the kind of friends she wants. So, I
told her that story of the movie theater breakdown and the book-in-the-car new
friend.
At some point, I turned from the sci-fi, novel genre (though
The Illustrated Man sits on my shelf – moment of silence for Ray Bradbury, and his children’s room/lion story
that has never left my consciousness). Today, the books I read are not paths
into the mystery of the mind and the world, but out of them. (Though, someone once gave
me a copy of The Power of Now,
and each time I tried to read it, I a) threw up a little in my mouth, and b) twice —TWICE– simply threw the damn thing sputtering across the room – this
last time, just a few months ago. I’ve since given it away. Self-righteousness
in a “spiritual” teacher is an ugly characteristic.)
It’s just interesting to me to notice what I’ve been
attracted to lately. That it points to a change in course. I yoked a friend
of mine to driving up to Jeanette’s reading when she was in town a few months ago, and that
friend now has my copy – a friend of mine, wants to read something I’m
interested in too. A friend of mine is interested in the things I am too. And she’s not the only one. I’m
no longer bereft and alone on a street corner drowning in the electric whine of
MUNI wires and the stench of human misery.
Thank you, Brandie, for asking me about that book in my
car. 
courage · creativity · faith · fortitude · inspiration · responsibility · vulnerability · willingness

Movie Magic

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

In an effort to vary what’s become to me a rather one-note
blog lately, I’ve decided to lie.
I recently earned a decent wage from my spirituality &
creativity workshops, and am supplementing my income with sales of my art work.
Further, I am feeling so rejuvenated and supported by these avenues of income
and service, that I have enough energy and creativity left over to practice
with my new band – We play our first show this weekend.
There … did that work?
Well, in some circles, one might call that a “vision,” or
dream. A goal, per se. And in those circles, Visions are highly regarded as
lighthouses for us in the dark nights of the soul. So, I’ll take what I can
get. It may feel like pretend, like fantasy, as I cannot see how to get from A
to Z, but I don’t have to. Those are places that resonate with me to my core.
If we add in that I’m a member of a local theater company, and we just ended
our sold-out run, I think I’d hit nirvana.
I don’t believe I’ve mentioned this here, though I’ve used
this metaphor before.
It’s like in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Yep. That’s right. I’m going there.
When Indy, as we affectionately call him, is on his way through the cave to get to the Holy Grail, he comes to a ravine. There is no way
to cross this. As it appears, Indy stands on one side, clinging to a statue of
a Lion, and about 15 or 20 feet away, is the other side of the ravine, and the
path to the Grail.
There is no way. He cannot “jump” it, it’s egregiously deep
and sharp and craggy. And so, he recites the clue, as if the words somehow will
give him wings.
“A leap of faith from the lion’s mouth.” A leap of faith. This
is nuts. A leap of faith. But
there’s nothing down there. A leap of
faith. Fuck It.
He takes one step forward from the safety of the rock… and is held,
solid and firm. The camera pans out from his angle, and we see that hidden,
blended into the ravine walls, is a firm, stone bridge. Had he not stepped out
from where he was, he wouldn’t have the vision to see that he was firmly taken
care of the whole time. That there wasn’t a moment at which he was unsafe. He
just needed to take that first step out from perceived safety to perceived risk.
Metaphors like this keep me going.
I’m a visual person, and a child of the 80s, so throw in a “Goonies never say die,” and I’m ready to pack my rucksack, hitch up my courage, and step forward.
Despite my crawing about it here, it’s been suggested that I
let other people know about the state of my affairs, if only to take my
isolation out of it. Funnily, a woman whom I’m not fond of yesterday instructed
me to “Figure It Out.” I could have slapped her. (Funnier still, it’s already been strongly suggested that I choose another woman for these monthly meetings I have with my financial folks – which I haven’t done yet… point taken?)
But, it all reminds me of another phrase, “You can’t save
your face and your ass at the same time.”
I suppose belly-aching is different than sharing. Different
from being open. I’d like to submit that I’ve done a little of both, and what I
recognize is that I do have some blinders on. I do stand like Indy with a
limited view of things.
And if sharing with other folks my honest truth, without
being maudlin or Debbie Downer, can help me to take the next leap into the
unknown, then alright.
Camera Pans Right.
Lights up on microphone. 

action · art · creativity · fortitude · gratitude · inspiration · progress · school · trying

Through the Tunnel

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Well, I suppose I’m better than yesterday. A number of
contributing factors. Met up with friends in the morning, got asked to go see a
play this Sunday, got asked to go to that Dharma Punx meditation group tonight,
made plans with a friend for tomorrow afternoon, made plans with a friend for
Sunday afternoon, got my thesis paperwork signed by the folks I needed and it was
confirmed that the last signature I need can
be gotten on Monday without penalty, was congratulated (even without the
uploading) that I will now have an MFA degree and that that’s an accomplishment
even if I don’t feel it right now, ran into my professor who’s helping me with
next Saturday’s workshop and got some details worked out, got my locker
combination from the sports center and put on the sneakers I’d hidden in there
almost 8 months ago, took a REALLY long walk through the awesome grounds at
school, had a lovely little conversation with a lizard, walked through the
school’s herb and healing plant tour, got some good rehearsal in for acting
class, had some good convo’s with student friends of mine, came home and wrote
the performance piece for May 1st and really like how it turned out,
and then had a long convo with a great friend of mine.
So…. yes, things pass. I needed ALL of that to get through
the funk, and there’s still the lingering notes of Beethoven’s funeral march
playing in the back of my head, but I don’t feel quite nearly as pissy or whiny
as yesterday. This is good.
Plus, I’ll babysit for nearly all of today, and kids, even
though I’m always nervous to babysit for that long of periods (how the f can I
entertain kids that long!), they’ll help me get back into the more playful,
much less self-serious frame of mind.
There was an enormo orange cat perched on the garage
overhang as I was writing my morning pages this morning. I always try to get my
cat to notice these things, and tap vigorously out the window, but she rarely
seems to get it and thinks I’m just playing. D’ah, well.
Luckily, it feels, there’s really nothing more to report.
Getting through my emotional tornado was enough news for me. Oh, I also got a
few new books from the library before my scheduled phone call with this woman
who used to work at galleries, and now works for a law firm or something for
art and artists – i forget exactly what she does, but I wrote it down. I wrote a lot down.
We’ve been trying to schedule this call for nearly a year. I let the thread drop sometime in October, and finally picked it back up
this month. And we finally got to speak. She was really helpful and informative,
as I gather information about what jobs there are in the fine art world. She
asked why I was more interested in the art world than the writing world, and I
said, I guess I just feel so surrounded by writers, that I like the avenue of something
else. Plus, I told her that personally, I love painting because it gives my
brain an alternate route to process and develop things – she said to definitely
use that sentiment in interviews.
Plus, she gave me info on the other worlds of fine art. The
trifecta, apparently, is galleries, museums, and auction houses. She said that
my writing background shouldn’t deter me (as in my lack of fine art/art history
background), that as long as I “present well,” and do good work, there’s no
reason that this world should be prohibited from me. Which is great news.
So, now I have more info on jobs in that field, a website
for fine art jobs to check out, and a contact to run things by. She’s actually
a friend of my ex, and he’d put us in touch a million years ago, so, shout out
to him. I toyed with texting him my thanks, but figured the best thanks is to
just go forward with this work. He doesn’t really need to know. … As my ability
to let go of all outcome or response from him is limited, and it’s better that
I just leave it be. But I am hugely grateful.
A lot got done yesterday. My eyeballs are quite red and dry
from all the computer hours logged, so I’ll be glad to focus on kids today, the
most anti-computer screen-like things of all.
It’s just sloughing off the old, I suppose. Fear is normal,
but really, it’s just boogymen, and I have a massive flashlight powered by all
y’all. So, thanks.