Caution: Lifeguard on Duty

April 21, 2014 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Normal
0
0
1
620
3537
29
7
4343
11.1287

0
0

Today, I think of Death as the figure of the Grim Reaper
lounging by a public pool, a lifeguard. Watching, waiting for the people to
tire, and when they do, reaching in his scythe, and hoisting them out of the
water.

Over the last week, I spent my time with several people I adore who are all in their 30s and 40s and in phases of change in their lives. I
got to witness how they’re handling, adjusting, chafing, and, sometimes, enjoying their lives. And if
I’m honest, I got to witness a good deal of loneliness. (“If you spot it, you got it,” the saying goes.)

Because this isn’t only my story, I will be courteous to allow others their story and their privacy, but it inspired in me a great deal of reflection
over the week about my own life, my own story.

Early in the week, I heard a woman, a stranger, say, “At some
point, we have to give up all hope of our past being different.” There’s a lot
of standing in two worlds–past & present, present & future–that I got to witness this week, and see reflected in
myself. I had a line from Fiona Apple repeating to me on the plane home yesterday:
The child is gone.

I got to see that there is a pivot point in life; that adulthood is more than an age, or bank account, or relationship. It’s a
marrow-deep understanding that the time that was is over. We’re no longer looking toward the top of the mountain and how to get there: it’s now a horizon we are looking toward. There is a plateau in the middle of the ‘natural’
course of life between the climax of our lives to come (if we
get to it), and its decline.

Maybe it was all the True Detective we watched this week!

I don’t mean to be grim, I just mean to be realistic
with where I am standing in my own life. I simply saw the story arc. I heard
the restlessness, the ambition toward something not yet attained, and I
believed for the first time, despite all cancer-awareness and mortality-facing,
that the long life we have is shorter than I’ve known, that the center of that life is closer than I’ve known.

Mostly, I thought about my own ambition toward family and
career. Toward relationship and being “settled” and the timing of all that.
I’ve written before that being in a metropolitan area, I feel less inclined to
think “TICK TOCK” than some of my suburban friends. But, on the heels
of the new job proposal I handed into my work last week for myself, and the
idea that if I spend 7 or 8 years in that job, I’ll be 40, and then be poised
for a more senior management position. Seeing my professional future suddenly chopped up into finite chunks, seeing that I actually do want that kind of trajectory, having the ladder open up to me suddenly, and fucking taking a step onto it
– well… everything else seems to now be broken up into those same finite chunks.

I’ve never had a “five year plan” or a “ten year plan.” I’ve
never known enough about what I want to do to have any path whatsoever seem
like it makes sense to pursue in any certain direction.

There may be “many roads to the mountaintop” and “All roads
lead to Rome,” but I’ve been so stilted in knowing where the fuck Rome is, that
I’ve sat at the base of the mountain, stared at the nailed signpost with its
array of choices, and drawn figures in the dirt with a stick, waiting for one
of them to illuminate or something.

Well, honestly, one of them has, career-wise, and I see the
opening, and I feel myself– well, no, I actually did take a step in that direction at work. And in seeing
that there is suddenly a path that I’m actually on and actually taking, I see
that there are all these other 5 and 10 year plans that I kind of have to be aware of now… and I see what implication that has for life. For
romance, for family, for place.

I see that I’ve sat at that intersection for much too long,
or, simply for as long as I needed to, but now I feel like I have to race to
catch up to the toll of the clock.

I feel like the sense of timelessness in life has
disappeared. That, “eventually” and “some day” are not allowed anymore. And not
really that they’re “not allowed” or “not permitted,” but that there’s just no
room for them. The dreaming must be directionalized now.

This terrifies and goads me. I feel pushed in a way I haven’t.
I feel more certain of what I want in my life, and a bit of a manic thrall
toward doing it. – Sure, All things in time, and All things in balance, but: I have
begun to think that this might be what ambition is; and what it is for.

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

Being There

March 28, 2014 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Normal
0
0
1
640
3652
30
7
4484
11.1287

0
0

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.

community · direction · doubt · faith · inspiration · leadership · life · purpose · spirituality

“What’s the use in clapping if Tinkerbell’s just gonna die anyway?”

March 26, 2014 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Normal
0
0
1
580
3309
27
6
4063
11.1287

0
0

Yesterday at rehearsal, I was changing into my costume in
the women’s stall and overheard two of the other actors reciting lines from
their monologue class last semester. This was the line.

It sounded so maudlin, purple, dramatic – and hilarious.

It’s nice when these kinds of pessimistic, nihilistic
phrases sound like humor to me instead of like truth. Depending on the day, it
could go either way.

But for right now, it sounds funny to me.

Because it’s a question I pique to. It’s a question I (and
we) have to answer for ourselves every single day. What is the use in trying,
living, loving, exploring, creating, learning, sharing, expressing, including,
communicating, if it’s all gonna turn to rat turds anyway?

I think it’s a question we are also privileged to be able to
ask ourselves. In many economic circumstances, in many not so small corners and
countries of the world, there isn’t the option to see the breadth of life and
question why we engage in it—there’s only “do what’s in front of you to keep on
living;” there’s only survive.

Therefore, it is a gift (and a curse) to have the opportunity to ask ourselves why we
should keep on keepin’ on. And we can choose to take the opportunity, or not.

If we forget the finality of mortality, we are (I am) apt to
waste time. To plod along, to not question, and not look up to see what
direction we’re going. Which is what yesterday’s blog was about.

I won’t repeat what I wrote around Cancer Time, about the
crazy-making imperative clock that then
can begin to sound when you start noting the temporality of things, which makes
you question if you’re allowed to sit on the couch and watch Netflix – or if because of the finite nature of things, you’re only allowed to participate in activities that move the
needle of your life and humanity forward.

That kind of extremity can lead to paralyzation. We all need
a mind break.

But, what when that mind break goes on too long? When again
you begin to feel what Martha Graham called, “a queer divine dissatisfaction, a
blessed unrest”?

I have that divine dissatisfaction; it’s part of what keeps
most artists (and mathematicians and inventors) tinkering at their “finished” work – there’s always something to
do, to improve, to make divine itself. But there is a quagmire when that divine
dissatisfaction is coupled with absence of direction or intention or
consistency.

Then it is only failure. And you’re back to paralyzation
again.

My dear aunt wrote me in response to my blog about courage
the other day. She was galled. She asked, in essence, if I, Molly, am not
courageous, if I am not a warrior goddess, than what on earth am I?

I agree with her (sometimes), that I am a warrior goddess.
Not that I’m unique or special in that; many of us are. But, I wrote a blog while sick that was
called, “What’s
the use of being a Shaman Warrior if you don’t get paid for it?”

I asked myself in the car yesterday, driving to rehearsal,
what a warrior goddess does for a living? I thought about Gandhi and Mother
Theresa (if I may be so bold as to compare). And I answered, She teaches others
how to be warrior goddesses, too.

What that will look like, I wish I had more ideas. But, I
will continue to clap for Tinkerbell – because the “use anyway” is that I (and we
all) have been given the chance to touch and enhance the world around us and
within us. The use is that every time that we exchange a
moment of compassion and joy and true connection we illuminate the world. The use
is that every one of us is a beacon for everyone else, if we’re bold enough to
shine.

As you can see, I have the blessed unrest – if I could only
have the blessed roadmap, we’d be in business.

abundance · beauty · fun · joy · life · self-care

Thirsty

March 19, 2014 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Normal
0
0
1
507
2893
24
5
3552
11.1287

0
0

Home sick again today, I began to clean up my apartment
which has become a bit of a wreck lately. Weeknights spent in rehearsals,
weekends spent at auditions, mornings a cluster of Morning Pages, meditation
and blogging. I’m up at 6:15 every morning, and am still late to work.

So, I began with the bedsheets, the laundry that was washed
last week but still remained in the hamper, the clothes strewn on the closet
floor, the dross of everyday living.

Back and forth across my apartment, each time, I passed the
black silhouette case by the entry way. The case the singer of the band bought
for me so I wouldn’t have to carry my bass my its neck anymore.

My bass has sat in that visible corner, tucked in its sheath,
for nearly two months, since I quit the band to focus on acting. My acoustic
guitar collects dust. My keyboard, shoved in a closet to avoid visual clutter
when the 25 y.o. was over.

I went to a music show last Friday night. It’s this fun band
my friend introduced me to, and we bought tickets for their SF show nearly the
day after I heard them. I hadn’t been to a music show I wasn’t ushering….
well, since I was in the band, I guess. That was one of the fun things about being in the band, was that I got to hear a lot more
music. “Lack of music shows” is on my list of “Serenity Moths” I have tacked to
my fridge. The list was written at least 2 years ago, and though many are now
crossed off, some remain. (Serenity Moths, to me, being things that just eat
tiny holes in my well-being; e.g. lack of music shows, no light over my desk,
chipped nailpolish.)

It was REFUELING to go to a music show where I could enjoy and focus on the
music. I smiled and watched the bassist voraciously, was flattened by the vocalist and shimmied my little tush
in my little section. I admitted to my friends who were with me that I missed music. So much. I think I actually had a dream about
it last night, come to think of it. But where do you find time for it?

I am still such a newbie at bass, I have so much to learn,
dexterity to gain, simple basslines to master. I just miss the endeavor, the
trying.

So, you can guess what happened this morning as I cleaned up
my apartment between sips of turmeric tea: I slowly unzipped the black case, and said
aloud, Hello again.

I tuned it, it was still pretty in tune, actually. And I
know how long it’s been since I’ve played, since my nails are all so long
again. I pulled out the keyboard from the closet, and laid it on my bed—where
Stella climbed up to watch as I tuned the acoustic too, the one that was my
high school graduation present that still has the strap from O. Dibella Music
in New Jersey.

My nails still so long the chords were hard to make, I
played. I played until the skin on my strumming finger got raw. I made up
some new words and played my old songs. And felt the vibration of the wood against
my coughing, constricted chest.

Sometimes I live without music so long, I forget its
blessing. Honestly, I horrifically have sometimes gone months without turning
on my iPod, and when I finally do, it’s like an oasis. Like lavishing in a
Caribbean waterfall. It opens something, releases something, allows something
to enter. I hate that I forget that it does this—and in some kind of
masochistic pattern, I deprive myself of its joy.

When will I play? I don’t know. What will come of it again?
I don’t know. But for a few minutes, I opened back up to the
aching light of it, and I’m sure something was healed.

acting · authenticity · letting go · life · receiving · safety

I Came In Here For An Argument

March 12, 2014 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Normal
0
0
1
646
3685
30
7
4525
11.1287

0
0

I’ve been recalling the above-referenced Monty Python
sketch. In the first moments, a customer walks into a room and the man behind
the desk there begins to berate him. The customer stops him, and exclaims, I came
in here for an argument! – At which point, the man behind the desk apologizes
and says, Oh, this is Abuse. Argument is down the hall. (It’s a very funny
sketch, and I do it no justice here – please make liberal use of Youtube.)

I’ve been thinking about what kind of lesson I think I’ve
been signed up for. What ideas I have about what I’m supposed to be learning in
this life, at this time, in this moment. And how maybe the room I’ve thought
I’ve walked into isn’t that room at all. That although I have some ideas and
hopes/generalities about the parts of myself I’m supposed to be working on
right now – the fact is, that I’m not actually the one choosing my courses.

I’ve had enough experience to learn that I have to let go of
what I think this lifetime’s lessons are for other people (that they should learn self-esteem,
compassion, ease, or forgiveness), and I’ve had mild success at that –
understanding that what I would have this person learn this time around may not
be what the Fates or Universe or Gods would have them learn. That although I
very much and fully think that this person ought to learn how to be softer or
to be more resolved, they’re apparently not here on my course schedule, and so
I have to let go, or else be in the pain of trying to manipulate my will into theirs.

However, it hasn’t yet ever occurred to me that I need to
let go of what my ideas are for my
lifetime. But it is now.

Because some of these lessons I’m learning aren’t ones I
would’ve consciously signed up for.

Last night, at my callback for this play, I was asked to
read a scene as the mother to a teenage girl who stood on stage with me. We
read the scene, and the director said it was good, but to slow it down, and
really find the emotional connection in it. We ran it again, and I was pretty sure
I didn’t do that.

I see this morning that I didn’t really trust that I could
convey that kind of emotion, and so I barreled through it again. I didn’t trust
that I could be good enough, or believable enough, or hold the emotion of love,
care, and concern enough to portray it.

So the lesson becomes “trust,” instead of “follow my dreams.” Trusting that if I
slow down, I’ll be okay. That if I allow myself to be seen (a lesson that’s
been on my syllabus for a while), I’ll be okay. Trusting oneself is not an easy
lesson to learn. Trusting in the safety of being oneself is not an easy lesson
to learn.

There’s a phrase I’ve been mulling on this morning: There
comes a point in your recovery when you stop backing away from alcohol, and you
turn around and start walking toward G-d.

Whatever your thoughts are about “god,” the idea, to me, is
that eventually, we move beyond being motivated by fear, and must begin to be
motivated by love.

The idea that I know what room I walked into, what lesson
I’m supposed to learn, is a manipulation based on the fear that I can’t be
myself, that I’m not okay with whatever “is.” To accept the fact that I don’t have the syllabus for my life and that
the Fates will steer me toward whatever lesson they deem necessary for the goodness of all, means I have
to be willing to let go of my expectations for my life and myself. For all my
aspirations and intentions, in many ways.

To let go, doesn’t mean to abandon. It means to release
control, or perceived control. To let go doesn’t mean to not audition, pursue,
or practice what is in front of me. It doesn’t mean to reject or eject
anything, in fact.

For me, this morning, “to let go” means “to allow what is.”
To allow what is in me, in you, in the cards, in our hearts to BE.

I’ve never had the greatest relationship with the phrase,
“Let go.” It feels like falling. But “To allow what is” feels like releasing
and accepting in a warm way.

So, I will walk today into the classroom of life, and I will
allow what is here to mold and shape me, and I will allow that I am cared for
and need not brace for it, and I will allow that I am safe in the care of these
lessons, and I will allow myself to shed one millimeter of armor between us.

I will allow the idea, just the idea!, that I am actually
totally and completely held, and therefore be able to turn my attention from
clenching and bracing to opening, giving, and receiving.

Bonus quote: “G-d steers the boat; all you have to do is row.”

encouragement · joy · life · theater

Reading Tea Leaves

March 1, 2014 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Normal
0
0
1
549
3132
26
6
3846
11.1287

0
0

“If one advances confidently in the
direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he
will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things
behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws
will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be
expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will
live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he
simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and
solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness.

If you have built castles in the
air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the
foundations under them.”

~ Henry David Thoreau

This passage is torn off the side of a Celestial Seasonings
box of tea. They used to have a ton of quotes and passages, but in the last 10
years or so, changed their packaging.

In fact, I wrote to them once, when I noticed that the once-inspirational packaging was gone, to state my preference for the old, and also
to make a case for the flavor Cranberry Cove, which had dropped out of
production. I even searched Amazon and eBay for boxes people might have hoarded.

Growing up, I only drank Cranberry Cove tea when I was home
sick. I would hold a mug bigger than my hands under my face, inhaling the steam
and scent. My mom would stir in some honey, and it was comfort incarnate. When
I went home to NJ to pack up my childhood home in 2011 when my dad was selling
the house, I scoured the tea cabinet for any straggling remains of the boxes that had likely been there since the 90s. I found a much-bedraggled box about a third full, and
brought it back to Oakland with me. I have 3 bags left now, and I only drink that
tea under special circumstances, when I need my version of ultimate comfort.

I have in my kitchen cabinet a collection of passages torn
off tea boxes, and a few fortune cookie messages. I found them again about a
month or more ago, and going through them, I found the Thoreau one.

This was about the time that I was making my decision to
focus entirely on acting and theater as my artistic and impassioned outlet (and
source). I pinned the cardboard quote to my fridge with the San Antonio magnet
I bought in 2010 when I attended a conference, and in fact, performed in a play
with my friends.

I have a very specific style of the magnets I buy from
airports. They’re these 3-dimensional, near-cartoonish representations of the
city where I am. I don’t know why, but I love these best. There’s Singapore
pinning up my “time plan” for the week. There’s New Orleans, pinning up a page
from a magazine, a photo of a home with the word “yes” dotted all around it,
on everything in sight. YES. There’s Sydney, holding up a small note to myself
about how I want to manifest my gifts in the world, probably as a result of
some “What Color is your Parachute” exercise: create, organize, implement, get
messy, entice/encourage/invite.

There’s Maui and New York, and a magnet made of petrified
wood that I bought at the Petrified Forest in Arizona while driving/moving
cross-country in 2006.

Finally, there’s a magnet of the Serenity Prayer, and one
with a Hebrew prayer that was a gift, and I don’t know what it means, but it’s
pretty, and “spiritual.”

Under that magnet are cut-out words from the back of an
Ashby Stage program: “Oh my dear; Who’s ever ready?”

Who is ever ready to endeavor in the direction of their
dreams? Who is ever sure and confident that now is the time to begin? There is
no starting pistol or cosmic alarm signal to tell me, Yes, Molly, Now is the time.

There are only these small messages, these scraps of
encouragement and camaraderie culled from the pages of life.

change · faith · letting go · life · surrender

And now for something completely different!

February 14, 2014 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

in the eventuality of time, there is a sacrifice that must
be made.

we are never sure what we must give up in order to move
forward,

but we come to a bridge with a toll and are demanded a pound
of

flesh in exchange for passage to the new place.

it is never clear if this new place is where we intend or

want to go but our anima will impel us forward along

the continuity of movement.

how many bridges we already traversed

does not factor into how many we must pass again.

we may have already sacrificed pride

love

pain

fear

desire

isolation. and this bridge requires from us another token.

perhaps you feel like the knight in a monty python sketch,

quartered from limb and limb and limb, a torso now, you are

asked to divest even more from what you carry. perhaps though,

you are a lancelot, fueled and lifted, freed by all you’ve

been asked to dispense with, grateful for the chance to

expel another pebble from your shoe.

in the eventuality of time, we will all offer this sacrifice.

we must, because we are alive

and so, we do.

abundance · life · order · priorities · vision

The Good News

February 2, 2014 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

The good news is that I’m alive, so I can accomplish all the
things I’d like to. In order, and in “the Universe’s” time.

Here is a list of creative projects and endeavors I’m
involved in at the moment:

Playing
Bass in a band in SF
Memorizing
and practicing audition pieces
Looking
up and applying to new casting calls
Sourcing
a photographer for a new headshot
Submitting
myself to modeling agencies
Writing
new songs
Forming
a new band in the East Bay
Practicing
jazz and blues standards with the keyboardist from the first band, in
order to busk in BART stations (ostensibly eventually in actual lounges)
Sourcing
a voice teacher
Taking
an acting class
Writing
my blog

Here is a list of creative projects and endeavors that I
have on back burners:

Actually practicing the bass
Learning the piano
Writing
and developing my musical about race
Painting! (and sourcing an art studio — don’t do oils in your kitchen, kids)
Developing
a “home organizing” on-the-side business
Gardening
(learning to)
Learning
to sew
Re-developing
my creativity workshop
Reorganizing
my closet (yes, that’s creative!)
Fixing the brakes on my bike and learning to ride again.

Not to mention the commitments I have outside of my regular
work hours, including some personal inventory writing that I’ve been stuck on
for months. Plus the daily things we all need to do, like eat, shower, grocery
shop, cook food, spend time with my neglected cat. Let’s throw in “dating,” just to
make it a maelstrom.

So… I’m tired.

And I sometimes try to counter this fatigue by watching several
hours of Netflix when I come home, which means that all of the above things get
pushed back and I feel even more crunched and overwhelmed.

So, today, I’m meeting with two friends to talk about my
priorities. I know I wrote about this earlier this week or last, and now I’m
putting action to it. I have no idea how to juggle it all, and so balls get
dropped, and things important to me get shuffled down the calendar like a
shuffle-board puck. Clean cups move down no room at the inn tomorrow and
tomorrow and tomorrow.

Veysmer.

Because SOME of these things are meant to be focused on NOW.
And some are allowed to be worked on later.

Someone once told me I can’t do everything, and I nearly
lost it. She clarified and said, “You can’t do everything all at once.” Phew, okay.

I WANT to do it all. But, am I meant to? Who knows. I do
know that I’m not meant to do it all at once.

It’s like shoving a spoonful of every part of your meal into
your mouth at once. It doesn’t work, and you end up choking on a chocolate chip with gravy on your shirt.

BUT, if I take a bite in order and with precision, focus,
and priority, then I have a chance of not only enjoying the meal of life,
savoring what’s happening, and appreciating the company I keep, but this order and
priority will allow me to digest it all slowly enough to create room for
dessert. And by dessert, I mean sex.

anger · change · laughter · life

What’s My Age Again?

January 11, 2014 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

I stopped by the optometry office on my way out of the
medical lab. It was the last week of December and I thought it would be a good day to
get my labs drawn, test my blood, get some confirming news for the new year,
good or bad, at least it’s truth.

At the eye sales desk, he told me that my glasses order was last filled in 2011, that I’d had the glasses I’m wearing for nearly 3 years.
That people usually reorder every year or two.

And it reminds me that I lost a year.

I was diagnosed with leukemia a week before my 31st
birthday. I don’t
remember it much, who was there, if we sang — I think we did — except that in my threadbare
hospital gown, I opined, Next year, instead of cancer, can we get brunch
instead? – And we did.

But in many ways, I feel like I didn’t actually live my 31st
year (or 32nd if you’re being technical). Suddenly I find myself reminding
myself, Yes, I’m 32 now. 31 sort of did and didn’t happen.

I
know that a few years from now, these missing months won’t seem as missing, won’t feel as
real, except sometimes it strikes me that I spent half a year in a hospital. That when I
consider, “last year at this time,” I was bald and packing for my 4th round of chemo.
And now it’s done. And it’s weird.

When I try to express this weirdness in a way that might make
sense to other people, I say that it’s like my life took this enormous detour, but
now I’m suddenly back to where I parted with the road, and that side road doesn’t
even exist.

How do you go back to “normal” after that? It’s not to give the event credence it doesn’t deserve, or to use my cancer as a talisman of pain
or suffering, or even of validation – it’s just to say, Yes, it actually
happened, and yet, so what?

So what. It’s a hard thing to say about cancer, without
sounding callous. But, really, what does it mean now?

What has it meant this past year? That’s easy to answer –
everything. Everything I do is in response to it, even though “nothing has
changed.” That’s the weirdness of it. I work at the same job. I sleep in the
same apartment. I watch the same t.v. shows.

Many things I’ve done differently, many things I’ve started,
tried, done, seen, been. But, when does its relevance fade – does its relevance
fade? If everything I do, which I assure you I measure against my cancer stick,
is in response to it, when do I stop mentioning it, when does it stop being a
significant part of who I express myself to be. When I stop mentioning it out loud,
which sometimes I note I do, and sometimes I pointedly don’t, … what does that
mean, if anything?

I text a cute guy, after actually asking aloud, “if today was my last day on Earth…” I drink a badly mis-measured version of turmeric tea, because it’s listed in
Kicking Cancer in the Kitchen. I’m
stewing marrow bones in a crock pot right now because I’ve read they have immune
boosting properties.

I flew a plane, got into a band, went to Hawaii, because I
had cancer.

I bought a car, had sex with that cute guy, built my
first bedframe because I had cancer.

I saw Book of Mormon because I had cancer, and stopped
talking to my dad because of it, too.

I measure how much time I waste or spend on Netflix against
cancer. I measure how much sleep I get against cancer. I won’t read bad books, but
I’ll read damnyouautocorrect until it hurts to laugh any more.

What does it mean, though? Is it relevant? To you. To you,
man on the street, do you care what makes me laugh a little freer? Do you care
why I eat organic eggs, or buy gold boots, or notice the moon? Does it matter to you that everything has changed and nothing is different?

Probably not.

So, what about the missing year – if it wrought all of these
changes, it wasn’t missing, right? That’s the point, right?

Sure. Maybe.

Still, I wish I could have gotten new glasses,
and gone without the eviscerating fear.

Thanks.

acting · action · change · commitment · confidence · kindness · laughter · life · performance · persistence · progress · recovery · relationships · self-support · sobriety · time

For those of you playing along at home. . .

June 14, 2012 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

I
bought cat food.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I have
9 new voicemails I haven’t checked.

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

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

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

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

I love
Patsy.

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

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

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

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

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

This
is the end of my list.