community · finances · reality · self-care · travel

My Morning Jacket – er, Blog.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

My wireless was down this morning, so you get this near-afternoon session. How are you? Have you done something different with your
hair? You look great today! It’s so wonderful to see you. How did that thing
work out that you were telling me about? Is that leak all fixed from last week?
Wonderful! I’m so glad to hear.
It’s nice that you and I get to have these little chats
together. They’ve become something of a moment of calm and clarity – I hope you
get something from them too. For any period of time when we miss each other, I
think about you – do you think about me?
I was invited to go to Florence Italy yesterday, but I will
turn it down I believe. Why? Because I would have to pay to be an assistant for
a workshop that I’m only mildly interested in, and assist a woman for 3 weeks
who I’m not sure we’d get along in that capacity too well. Basically, I’m being
asked to be worse than an unpaid intern for a class I don’t want to take in a
country that I’d love to see on my own terms.
After I got off the phone with the woman yesterday, I told
my visiting friend what all that was about, and she said, point blank, and in a
way I hadn’t considered… “So, what do you get out of it again?” … Hmm. I
thought. I’d have to buy my own flight, pay for my own housing, pay for the course, and
work for free in a field of mild interest … I might as well just go to Italy myself, if that’s the case.
It really hadn’t occurred to me that I might not want to do
this – again, it was only a case of “could I.” That’s really my only question
when it comes to jobs – can I do it, not do I want to – and then I back out, if
I can, of those that I’ve taken on when I finally realize I don’t actually want
the job.
So, I’ll make some phone calls around this, confirm that this
isn’t at all a right thing for me, and also take note that the idea of going to
Europe is still very strong – whatever comes of it, I have no idea, but, I’d
like to go.
I’m also very glad that I’ll get the chance to do it sober,
so it’s not like some people I hear, in their 20s at least, who pretty much do a
pub crawl through the continent, and may as well be in any bar in the U.S. if
that’s the case.
However, I am pretty clear that I’d like a wingman/travel
buddy. I love to do solo driving trips, but something about real travel, or
camping, or vacations, I want to do with
someone. I really want to nudge you in the odd trinket store and show you the
trinket. I want you to say – omigod, look at that and point to some local
intrigue or view. I want to share those memories with you later on, and in the moment,
I want to have that camaraderie of joint experience.
I travel better with people. Without them, I tend to get a
little forlorn. It gets lonely to look at something so beautiful or
awe-inspiring and not have someone to share that with. Or something funny and
no one to really laugh with. There are some things that I don’t mind doing
alone, and most of them have to do with local things – going to the movies,
going to a restaurant, a gallery. That’s fine, because, it’s local, and it’s
intermittent, but a real trip, well, I’d like to do that together.
So, if you’d like to go to Europe with me, travel around
with someone who loves curio shops, and hiking, and tourist traps, and little
known gems, and walking the course of a city in a day, let me know, because
like I said, you look simply gorgeous today – and I think you’d look great in
our photos. 

family · growth · intimacy · love · school

The climb

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

A friend said recently that perhaps I’m on the part of the
ride where you’re going up the roller coaster. That all the work that we’re
both doing, as she’s too doing A LOT, that this is the cranking up of the ride.
That it’s hard because we are fighting
against gravity, and we are scared because you can’t see over the crest of the ride – but even though
it’s a mildly alarming metaphor, it’s nice to know that I’m at least on a track
of some sort.
My brother asked me recently what I was planning to do after
graduation. If I was planning on coming back to the East Coast now, or not. I told him a few sort
of vague deflective-y things, and then finally, in the end, I said, I have no
idea.
Likely, as graduation is in a month – holy lord, have
christy mercy. It literally is a month away…! May 12th … isn’t that
the Mayan Doomsday? Maybe I won’t have to worry about any of this then in the
end anyway!! HA! as in, please lord, let the universe not explode or implode on
that day – I have a roller coaster ride to attend to.
But, as that is only a month away, and I’m still in the
formative throes of trying to cobble together a sustainable living and habits
and patterns that support that living, likely not. Not immediately at least. My
brother said that others were asking him, which is normal – and I don’t have to
take on their pressure, as it’s not pressure, it’s curiosity, normal and kind.
But, not yet. When? I don’t know.
My brother’s girlfriend just got placed in a post-graduate
internship at Johns Hopkins in Delaware – and my brother said his company has
another branch he could easily transfer to in Baltimore, MD, so, they’ll
likely do that sometime not too
distant. (She’s wonderful, by the way – I hope and think it’s a long haul kind
of relationship) 🙂 Point being, Mom in Manhattan. Brother on the mid-seaboard.
Dad in Florida. Seems like if I want to be anywhere near my family, I’ll have
to go back to that coast at some point.
And the truth is, I want to. I don’t want to live with any of them(!), but, within 3 hours driving distance
is what I’ve labeled as close enough, but not too close. I’d especially like to
live nearby to my brother.
It took a long time for us to come to the place in our
evolving relationship that we are. There were the awful, physically and emotionally
violent toward each other years of our early childhood. Then there were the
let’s get messed up together years. Then there have been the reparation years
from the fallout of all of that as we’ve both gotten older and more sane by
degrees.
We’re somewhere on that part of our journey now, and the
truth is that we are closer now than ever, even though that just looks like a
phone call every month or so, and random texts to each other with quotes from Bill
& Ted or Back to the Future. This is our bonding. And I/we dig it.
So, I’d like to be able to be near to him, to continue
forming a relationship with the people who we are today. Trauma and addiction
don’t really allow for intimacy, and we’re just getting there, slowly, over
these few years. Reaching out, being honest. Laughing. I care more for him than
I’d ever let myself admit before, and the older we get, and the closer we are – even
though we’re not butt buddies, and I don’t know if or think we need to be –
well, I just get teary sometimes thinking about how much I love him. Which is
something I couldn’t have predicted, and am beyond grateful for.
It’s another way in which I’m shown that I have no idea
what’s over the rise of the ride. But the clinking and clunking sound as the
cart hoists itself up the hill is the sound of the work we’ve each done to get
to this place of commonality and connection.
So, not today, but soon perhaps, I’ll be in driving distance
of my brother, his wife, and their children. 

performance · poetry · progress · school

Of indeterminate weight

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

I met with my thesis advisor for my last meeting with her
before I hand it in to the school library to be bound and put on a shelf with
all the other theses that won’t be read 😉 No, but really, I see the light at
the end of the tunnel finally. It sort of looks like a disco ball, or
headlights – in other words, it doesn’t look normal. But I suppose none of this
is normal for me.
The general feedback I got from both my advisor and my
faculty reader were both rather generic. One said, This is indeed a poetry thesis
(great, it’s not an aardvark). The other said, It was actually interesting
(great, glad you didn’t drool sleep spittle on it). But, really, I didn’t get
much constructive feedback, which is a) a little relieving, and b) not very constructive.
For all the work and mental crises, a check mark, basically.
But, c’est la vie. I have a few things that are room for improvement to
edit/revise before she sees it again for the final sign-off before April 20th.
Also, I have it out to two poetic friends of mine for their eagle eyes on it –
for, hopefully, some specific feedback.
But, for all it is now, it’s a bit anti-climactic. Which, is
better than drama I suppose.
Drama will come both literally and figuratively in the two
final performances I’ll have in May. The performance poetry piece I’ll write
(….???) and the acting scene. I met with the poetry teacher yesterday to talk
about performance persona vs. character. Theater vs. performance art. And it
was helpful. If only to confirm that the “amped up version of self” that I
consider performance art is actually what he also means. He clarified that it
doesn’t mean to do as he does and dress as a chicano in drag with a sombrero
and a dog collar. That’s his amplified
version of self – for me to do something like that would be … well, who knows,
maybe one day – but for today, something else.
I’m not sure what the work will be about. But I know how
I’ll dress. If you remember from the Performance Persona blog, I said that the
most authentic persona I could be right now was myself – well, I intend to wear
a nude body suit, only.
I’d had this thought way earlier in the semester. Something
about both the vulnerability and yet boldness of it appeals to me. With so much
work that I’ve been doing to get comfortable with my body, present in it, a
part of it – well, why not?
The only stipulations the school has, he told me, was no
full frontal nudity. And he said he’d never tell me to pull it back. So, now I
need material that will warrant that. Do I need to go that far? Is it sensationalism? Does it matter?
I wrote a few poems for performance yesterday, but they
don’t have quite enough meat to support the visual. But like a great pair of shoes – sometimes you build the outfit around them instead of the other way around — and so I will just have to build a performance around this visual, costume/non-costume.
I had the strangest dream that two friends insistently brought me over
to do my laundry at my ex’s, and I was reluctant, as his new girlfriend
might be there. She wasn’t there, but he was on the phone with her, and I felt all
awkward, but everyone else seemed to think this was fine.
Random side-note. 
authenticity · healing · letting go · love · maturity · self-care

BFF

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

My best friend from the east coast is coming in tomorrow to
visit for 5 days. I’m excited and nervous – and I think I’ve written this
before! I tried to write a blog this morning about real and fancied fears (that
i’ll end up pushing a shopping cart: fancied; skin cancer: realish), but I
couldn’t get it going, so I dug around for what’s really on my mind.

So, that’s happening, and part of my nerves are that she and
I haven’t spent such significant time with one another in Years. We’d had a
pretty bad falling out at the end of both our college years, almost 10 years
ago, and didn’t talk for about the next 5 or so. We both had some growing and
changing to do, but as Fate would have it, about 3 years after I moved to
San Francisco, we began to reconnect.
Like any friendship, and especially a reconciliation, it’s
been by degrees. The warming up, getting to know you again phase. And
particularly with reconciliation, the “what’s it going to be like this time”
friendship fear. Will it be the same? Likely not; we’ve both changed our lives & ourselves dramatically. Will it be based on nostalgia? That, is something that a few
of my friendships from New Jersey have faded into, and have thence faded
completely. A friendship based on nostalgia doesn’t really work. It’s great to
reminisce, but that can’t be all there is – if there’s no current common
ground, no interest in pursuing something forward, then there’s really nothing
to bond over. The bond was made, but it’s … in the past. 
Luckily, with my
friend coming out this week, we’ve been able to learn that we have more in
common now and more to talk about and bond over than we had then. We have the
wonderful ability and common shared history to be able to talk about that
ridiculous party in the sand pit – the “pit party” – or the terrible yet funny
nicknames we used to have for people in high school (Money, Teeth, Banana –
because he looked like a monkey… go teenage girls…!). But we’re also finding
now that our lives, despite our separate courses and coasts, have miraculously
similar trajectories.
It’s been a blessing of the highest sort to have this
friendship come back together. There were a few years when I didn’t know if it
would, and I was viciously saddened by that, but it was not my business or my
plan as to whether someone wanted to be in contact with me again. So, when I
would hear a song on the radio that we’d played 10,000 times at the local
diner, I got sad, but wished her well. When that movie we’d loved as children
came on, I felt a twinge, but sent her the blessings for her life that I wanted
for myself. I hope she’s happy.
And then, as luck would have it, we came back together.
Slowly, for sure. We’re still in the slowly part. This visit is part of the
solidification, but also, I have to take my expectations out of it. I want to
make it a “great” time, so that we are friends again. I want it not to rain, so
the weather doesn’t reflect something about myself or my life. I want us to not be awkward or have tension
so that I don’t lose this again. But, none of that is anything within my
control.
All I can chose to do is to be myself. If this is a person
she wants to befriend, then she will. As with romantic relationships, if it’s
meant to be I can’t screw it up, and if it’s not meant to be, then I can’t fix
it.
I had a conversation several years ago with a girl friend of
mine about the power of female friendships. The “best” friend friendships. How,
really, in many ways they are – we said, then – more important and more
complicated than romantic relationships. I still think some of that is true.
However, part of the difference today with me is that I recognize that people
are human (duh), and cannot, simply cannot, fulfill all the things a person I
wish ought to. One person cannot be someone’s all. One person cannot be my only
friend, or my only social connection, my only vessel of personal relations.
Like seeds, you’ve got to spread it around. Part of this is
self-protection, but part of it is simply being realistic. And that is the protective part. If I am realistic about my
expectations of other people, then I won’t be hurt if they don’t live up to my
demands about them. It is simply unfair to anyone to expect them to fulfill my
needs. Firstly and foremostly, I need to ensure that I’m taking care of them
for myself to the best of my ability. Then, I can look outside myself to other
people, and form relationships where my needs are met. Where my realistic needs
are met.
Sorry for the tangent on what I think friendships and
relationships are, but this writing is also a reminder to myself of this as my friend comes to
visit. For someone who’d been labelled your best friend since the age of 3,
that carries a lot of weight – and I’ve recognized, unfair weight. Part of the
reason for the separation all those years ago was that we each had massive
expectations and need put upon one another – or, I’ll speak for myself, I did
that on her. That wasn’t fair, and the friendship burned down painfully.
So, coming to this visit in a spirit of open-mindedness. And
a loose set of expectations and desires will help us both to have a better
time. The weather isn’t a reflection of me. She’ll have a good time if she’s
meant to or wants to. And I can take care of myself, so that I don’t put the
onus on her.
However, those two hot chicks you’ll see blaring STP down the
interstate? Yeah, that’s us. 
community · faith · gratitude · humilty · love

6 x 6 and 5 x 5

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Six years ago this very morning, the Monday after Easter of
2006, I packed everything I could carry – i.e. a few suitcases and a pillow –
into my car, and headed West.
I drove from New Jersey in the rising light of a near-Spring
morning, muddy headed, giddy, nervous, and a little puffy eyed. I got on the
highway, and drove.
This was a planned trip – albeit, not very well. Having
arrived home after my 2nd completed teaching contract in South
Korea, and a few pitstops along the archepelago, I found myself to be 24,
living at home, with no thought of what to really do next. It was March.
I thought, and had the idea, that I would “break onto
Broadway.” It hadn’t really occurred to me that people often spend years of
their lives in training and working their way through auditions and classes and
various local troupes, and still don’t make that leap. I simply thought I could “make it work.”
So, I envisioned that I would get a roommate or two in
Manhattan, get a job as a waitress (cuz that’s what actresses do, right?), and
start my way up.
I did get a job as a waitress. At a lower Manhattan Italian
restaurant, and was told that I needed to wear all black as the uniform, and
start the next week. Great – perfect – falling into place.
I’m in H&M clothing store. I’m in the stall changing
room, and trying on black clothing for my new job, and I have a sudden thought
– New York will eat me alive.
I suddenly realized that I had no business being in
Manhattan the way that I was drinking and drugging. That I would die if I
stayed. I somehow knew it. I was setting myself up to fail, as I had no coping
mechanisms and almost no community or friends, having lost most of those prior to
leaving for Korea.
I walked out of H&M without buying anything. I left the
black clothing, the representation of this pipe dream, and walked outside. I
called the restaurant, and told them I wouldn’t be coming in to work … That I
was moving to California.
What made me think that? I don’t know. But I had a
friend/acquaintance who lived in San Francisco, who’d invited me to come visit.
And somehow, San Francisco – California Dreamin’ – was for me. How ’bout I come to stay?
I don’t know what sense of intuition it was that let me know
that NYC was too much for the addled and fragile sense of self I was, but I am
grateful for it. In Korea, there weren’t many drugs around – a few here and
there, spilling off the army base – but mainly, it was drinking. And for that,
I am grateful. But, in New York? It was a buffet of ways to murder myself
slowly. And I had zero capacity to turn anything down. I knew it was a ticket
to the bottom, and I really didn’t have that much further to go.
So, San Francisco. I coordinated with my friend out here.
Let the Cousin know I would come to visit him in Ohio before I hopped on to
Route 66 – the cool way to go – and got gone. I bought the Lonely Planet guide books for California, and Coastal California,
and Route 66, and simply followed that map the whole way down. I arrived in
Santa Monica on April 25th, 2006, stuck my feet in the Pacific Ocean
(on this side of it) for the first time, and headed up north to San Francisco.
I arrived that night in time to induct my friend into my
nighttime tornado as she showed me around via a few bars. Two weeks later, I
got sober.
I had no intention of this, mind you. It didn’t at all occur
to me that I was heading West to leave a life I’d known for many years in
exchange for one I knew nothing about. I didn’t know that I would eventually
fix my teeth, live alone, go to graduate school, actually audition and be in a
few plays.
I just knew that SF was better than NYC for me.
6 by 6. Six years ago. I don’t know why I chose “by 6,” not
sure what it’s “by,” – perhaps “2006” – but 5 x 5, I get.
Five by five is the catch phrase of TV’s Buffy the
Vampire Slayer’s character, Faith. Which I
suppose is an apt name here at the moment. When things are good, in answer to
how are you, when life is not filled with monsters and demons and chaos, Faith
replies that she’s “Five by Five.”
My life is no longer filled with monsters and demons and
chaos. There are bumps in the night, and scary creatures that lurk still, but 6
years have taught me how to deal with, talk about, and work through those fears
and scary patches.
Over this past weekend, I have run into, at complete
coincidence, people from communities as variant as school, Jew, and recovery.
On the street, in a taxi, on the bus, on BART. I am “a part of.” I am a member
of. I am not a lost little pigeon anymore – I have community, and several at
that. I have been surprised and humbled as I’ve realized this weekend how many
friends I now have – people I now know. I arrived knowing one woman marginally.
And I’m learning how to “break on to Broadway,” or whatever
my current vision equivalent is, with the grace, fortitude, and support that I
never would have dreamed I’d have. For a dork, lost, wild, alone, sad, chaotic,
pipe-dreamy me, well, five by five doesn’t even feel adequate. 

action · community · family · Jewish · joy

Jew: Part II

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Sorry for the brief interruption of the daily blog, folks.
It was part intentional, part not. I’m not sure if I’m going to declare
Saturdays a non-internet day – at least throughout the day, before night. It’s
partly as a result of having spent some time with Jews on Friday, who take
Saturday off from electronics, and partly, just because I have a hard time
moderating my internet use – I’m sure you can’t relate 😉
It was also unintentional in that I was up and out till late
on Friday night, with said Jews, and slept in till my Sat morn commitment and
was off and running – more like galumphing – for the day.
Friday night was the first night of the Jewish holiday of
Passover. The first night, Jews all over the world come together for a ritual
meal called a seder, at which we retell the story of the Jewish slaves’
liberation from Egypt. You may remember this from such movies as “The Ten
Commandments,” or Disney’s “The Prince of Egypt.” 😉
I have heard, and don’t quote me, that if you do nothing
else Jewish for the whole year, if you participate in nothing else, do a seder,
and all-ish is forgiven. Basically, it’s another way of saying that the most
important holiday and event of all, is the seder. The retelling of the escape
from slavery to liberation.
I was invited this year to a friend’s not-a-seder seder,
which was to focus on social justice themes related to items on the seder plate
– i.e. there’d be a stand with an egg, and then all kinds of social and food
justice issues that currently surround egg production. There would be a focus on how are we today slaves to things, and talk about liberation from them. Where are people in the world actually in conditions of slavery, and what could we do. Etc. The room would host the
elements of the seder, but there wouldn’t, in fact, be a seder – the telling of the story.
I was surprised to find myself telling my friend that,
actually, I sort of wanted to go to a seder.
There are very few ways in which I still feel connected to
the Jewish community. I had worked at a Jewish non-profit for a little while
before school; then I’d taught at a synagogue Sunday school last year. But this
year, save the one time I went with my friend Barb to a “Young Adult” Friday
night service, and then was invited to her house for Rosh Hashana (New Year’s)
dinner … well, I’ve been pretty a-religious.
I am not religious. Haven’t ever been religious, and don’t
have a hankering to be religious. What I
do have a hankering for is the community. The stories, the mishpucha – family.
On Friday night, at this table of probably 40 people, even
though the majority of us didn’t know one another, we were family. There was a
moment when a particular part of the story was recited by 5 “extra” languages
around the table – English and Hebrew, of course, then Yiddish, Russian,
Spanish, French, and Japanese. It was the melting pot of Jews. The family next
to me was in town on holiday from Argentina. This gorgeous couple and 3
gorgeous children, and we all sang the songs the same. We read the Hebrew the
same. We banged on the table along with the songs, the same. That’s a hard
thing to get in most circles of life — that feeling of connection, belonging, and connectedness to a shared history.
I recently registered for the online Jewish dating site,
JDate. I’d really rather drink piss than a) admit that, or b) do it. But about
2 weeks ago, following a few more conversations with friends of mine, I signed
up, and actually paid. I’d been registered on this site for about 2 years,
apparently as it told me when I logged in this time, but I’d never paid for it,
and so I could see when people had emailed me, but I couldn’t read the emails
or reply. I was very unwilling then.
Problem is, I’m still unwilling now. But, I think it’s
causing me to see the absurdity of registering and demanding that the person I
date be Jewish when I have such a tenuous and almost laughable connection with
my own Judaism and my own community. What does it matter if the dude is Jewish
if I’m not participating in Jewish stuff anyway? Who cares, then, if it doesn’t
actually impact or change my life in any way. You’re Jewish, great, so am I –
let’s go get a cheeseburger. …
Not to say that I have an intention to go kosher, but just
to notice that I’m looking for a Jewish mate, but not looking for a Jewish
community. This seems counterproductive, or somehow just doesn’t make sense to
me.
If I want Judaism in my life, personally and romantically, I
ought to get out there and go participate in Jewish things. There are fun
things to do – I know there are – I mean Jews are comedians – there’s gotta be something to that.
I am not sure what I’ll do with my JDate account for now –
it’s rather depressing and makes me feel like there’s scarcity in this world,
or that if I were wittier, I’d get more replies, or lied about my height, or
something. If I want to be my authentic self, then I ought to start with being
authentic to my desire to participate in a community that I love – and whatever
happens from that will happen.
For me, Judaism becomes something that when I’m there is part of my blood – And when I’m not, I forget how important it is to me. When I’m there, listening to the “long time ago, Rabbi so and so was talking to Rabbi other so
and so, and they were arguing about chickens.” I want to hear that. I want to hear that this thing here represents this about
the earth, but this about the spirit. I want to hear the ironic laughter and the punchlines of
moral tales passed down through ages. I want to learn and I want to be a part
of. I don’t and can’t do that online,
But I can make an effort to do it in person. 
acting · authenticity · discovery · performance · poetry

Performance Persona

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

The first week in May, a few things will happen. On the
Tuesday, I will be performing some of my poetry with my creative writing class in an end-of-semester performance in the actual theater at school – for somewhere
between 3-7 minutes. And on the Wednesday, I will be performing a scene with a
partner for my acting class final performance, where people will be invited in to
come see us.
This reflects back to me something I sort of already know about myself and my passions – I have a
hankerin’ for perfomin.’ Some folks do; some don’t. – I do.
In my creative writing class, we’re supposed to, or invited
to, work on a “performance persona.” I’ve been marinating on this, and not to
use what’s apparently become my catch phrase – “Yeah, but…” – I have realized
that so much of the work I’m doing and have been leading up to is to drop the
persona.
Most of my life, I’ve walked with a persona on of some sort
– the shy girl, the drunk wild girl, the promiscuous girl, the “nice” one. I’d
like to come back to center for a moment. Or longer.
Basically, I think that my greatest performance persona will
actually be my authentic self – that seems to me, for myself, for now, to be
the bravest person I can show you on-stage. Now, of course, it is performance, so it’s a bit of an amplified version
of self, but it’s not obscured, which I think is how I’d been before.
So, I love the intention, and think it’ll be simply fun to
play with a persona, that’s, to me, what acting is about, not performance
poetry. In acting, I am someone else,
with a different history, mannerisms, inflection. I am shy or wild or
promiscuous or nice, and I call on those parts of me that understand that
experience, but it’s also acting.
An interesting distinction was made by my performance poetry
teacher on Tuesday between the two – he said that he likes to use the
microphone and the music stand still in his performances as opposed to without
it, as without it he thinks indicates theater, and with it indicates the
tradition of poetry and writing. I don’t know that I fully agree, but I
understand his point, and it was interesting to then ask myself what do I
consider the difference, if I’m using my own work?
What is performance poetry, and what is theater? Do I
consider them different if I’m speaking my own work? I actually think I don’t.
I think it’s, like I said, an amplified, perhaps more emphatic self, but I
don’t think it’s removed from the writerly tradition to not use pages and a stand. When I’ve performed…
there it is – I was intending to say “when I’ve performed my poetry in the
past,” and that’s what I consider it. I don’t really consider it “reading,”
unless, really, it’s reading.
Even when I stand with my papers in front of me, and a
podium and a mircophone at a poetry reading,
it’s still performance. This isn’t just “reading,” as I would read to you from
the phone book, or a text book. It’s enhanced, it’s intensified, it’s amped up
inflection and emphasis and meaning and pause. I want you to be moved to emotion. 
Seems like theater to me. 
Although, it’ll also be nice to let myself play with the
extremities of a performance persona, just to try it on and have fun with it (who doesn’t love a good wig) –
I still maintain that my boldest persona is just me, micced. 
action · community · growth · love · maturity · self-care · work

R+D

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

The past two days, I’ve been functioning according to
my new time plan – or schedule. My friend who helped me on Tuesday morning suggested things I would never think of myself (or let myself) like
“walk,” and then insisted that I write down “piano” in capital letters.
I spend more time than I like (cough – resentment) traveling to and from school because of the
shuttle schedule (though I am grateful to have it at all). On Thursdays, for a 4pm class, I’m on campus at 2:30pm,
because the next shuttle doesn’t arrive until after 4. So, I have over an hour to “kill” on campus before class.
My friend knows that a spiritual nourishment of mine is
playing the piano in the school chapel, and suggested I use some of that time
at the piano. If it weren’t written down, I wouldn’t do it. Like, take a walk,
or… the “important” piece, R+D.
Research and Development. That’s what we’re calling actions
relating to job, career, income earning. I like it so much more than writing
down in my new little schedule, “Job hunt.” That just sucks. Makes me dread and
despise it before I begin. But “Research and Development” sounds like something
significant and helpful for me. Just research. Helping me develop. Not a whip
or a chastisement.
So, over the past two days, I’ve spent 4 hours in R+D. This
is huge. Usually, it’s looked like a few minutes glances at craigslist, a loud
harumph, a resentment, despair, and click the browser closed … and then go off
to some other mindless activity to get my mind off my despair!
So, R+D for an hour, I set my alarm clock, then I have
something in between before the next hour. Something nourishing. A reward
perhaps. Tuesday it was “art,” and I made two little acrylic painted postcards,
out of the blank postcard pad I’d bought last week. I sent one off that
afternoon. Yesterday, my nourishment was a walk. Although it also included
calling my mom and coordinating logistics for her and my brother’s visit in a
month. But, that’s alright. I got out of the house, up into the gorgeous hills
near me with houses so beautiful (and enviable).
Yesterday, I also began “development” of a newsletter to
send out to the masses, announcing my new workshop that I’ll be facilitating in SF in May (G-d willing).
Part of my “Go big and go home” movement is to really take ownership of this
workshop, and to really put it out there. I have great support around it, and
have been encouraged by numerous parties. Now, the action ball is in my court,
and with those structured moments of time, I’m picking up that ball.
So, yesterday I went into Constant Contact, that mass email newsletter site. I logged in, actually, although I couldn’t remember when had been the last
time I did – I knew that I had an account with them. Turns out, saved in the draft
section was a newsletter I was working on in November of 2010. It was a very
ambitious letter about starting an creative events company. It’s more than
overly ambitious, and I think very sweet, now that it’s two years later. But
what it tells me is that I’ve been working on stuff like this for a while. And
there’s no reason why it shouldn’t work.
I went to brown paper tickets to check out their policies,
and saw you can have free tickets too, so as to be a great way to manage RSVPs
… not via a “Yes” on Facebook. (I don’t know about you, but I tend to click yes
to all kinds of things I later have no intention of going to…!)
Then, through a girl friend, I saw her website for her
creative coaching company. And started some work on one of my own. Because really, I
know if I were going to attend a workshop, I’d want to see a website.
So, here we are. Taking action. Moving along as scheduled
(although yesterday, despite being “art” time, I took a much needed nap!). I will
allow for the changes I need as I come to know how I work best. I know 2 hours
of R+D in a row is overwhelming. Splitting it up is helpful. I know that 15
minutes on dishes and cleaning a day will save me time in the end, and also
help me to feel proud of my home I’m trying so hard to keep.
I have been building toward things like this for a long
time. I have co-run this workshop before; I have a teacher singly devoted to
helping me put on the free version later this month; and, as irony would have
it, I have a decade of administrative, secretarial experience – so I know how to organize an event.
I’m supported in my effort of self love. Which in the end is
what this is. 

change · growth · letting go · sacrifice · surrender

the sacrificial bull

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

I’d written some in the blog “The Hero’s Journey” in January, when
we’d been asked in a workshop what part of a particular mythological journey we
were on. It was the story of the Minotaur, but it begins years before with his father, or
maybe even grandfather? Can’t remember.
The part that I identified with in the story was when the
hero (one of them) asks to be crowned king by Poseidon, the sea god. The god
agrees to make him king, but only if he will sacrifice this gorgeous white bull
Poseidon gives to him. The hero, thinking, sure of course, anything, says No
problem. And he becomes king.
Problem is, he becomes attached to the white bull, perhaps
even falls in love with it, I can’t remember. But he refuses to sacrifice the
bull, and instead sacrifices 100 goats to appease the god.
The god is not appeased. And ruin falls on generations of
his family, including on the poor not of this world/not of that Minotaur.
I’d written then that I felt like I was at the point in the
journey when I’m being asked to sacrifice the bull, but instead have been
sacrificing a litany of goats. There were a few things I had in mind as being
“the bull,” something I wasn’t ready to give up, and instead would twist myself
into a mental and emotional pretzel to keep, thereby “sacrificing goats.” But
the gods have not been appeased, the bull remains, and I am plagued.
This morning, while writing my Morning Pages, I was struck
by an awful thought. A thought so harrowing, I gasped aloud, “No.” Not this.
I was talking with a friend last night after class, and she
is looking to move from her house with 7 roommates, to a more manageable house
with 4, perhaps. She told me how much she’s looking to spend, how much
she pays now, and that went in my mental hopper.
So, this morning, when writing, when the thought came to me
that perhaps I ought to get a room in a house with other people – I was struck
aghast. This cannot be my bull. My apartment, with afternoon sunlight, big enough,
where people come and say, It’s perfect for you. No, not this.
I was so terrified of the idea of giving this place up for
money, to sacrifice this small little studio for a room in a house with
roommates that I actually started to tear a little in desperation.
What this did, then, was show me that giving up this housing
situation would be another goat. It is not the housing I need to give up, it is
the staying small. It is my refusal to put myself out there. And perhaps, I
have hit a bottom when this option has become my best thinking’s best resort.
I began to write in the pages that I am willing – I am
willing to give up my hiding. To work, to earn, to share my gifts, to stop
staying small. I am willing to be big to save this apartment from my own hari
kari.
Whether that’s the lesson of this or not, I don’t know. But
I do know that I am not at all willing to give this apartment up at the moment.
For all I have to say about Oakland, etc., I live in a wonderful neighborhood,
close to my communities of choice, and as conveniently located as possible. My apartment
itself has become a part of my skin, taking on the tone and tenor of my inner
changes – dressed in the swag of my current expression. Not this.
Staying small, hiding, refusing to take the action that will
really help me move forward (i.e. really putting on the damned workshop I’ve
been working on for a year), not believing in myself and my abilities — these are my bull. The familiar but horrifically
painful and consequence-producing patterns of my contracted, constricted behavior is my bull.
The apartment is not. I still do leave it up to the Invisible
Sky Faerie, but faced with the option of giving up this seriously not that
expensive apartment, I’m becoming willing to sacrifice my bull. I am becoming willing to Go Big, and Go Home.
faith · honesty · integrity · surrender · time

The end is nigh

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

I just like that phrase. So gothic and epic … and Mayan.
Just kidding.
(p.s. Following yesterday’s blog and some other recent
ones, I start to wonder what is TMI or inappropriate for this forum. But,
although I may have walked up to the line, and even then, I may not have, I
don’t think I’ve crossed it. So – onward!)
My school inbox is being flooded with emails about
graduation regalia, thesis submission costs, thesis filing information,
invitations to the end of year event, etc. You’d think there were something a
brewin, eh?
May 12th I graduate. That’s about a month from
now, and I’m stoked and terrified. Not terrified, just unclear.
In an effort to get more clear, today I’m going to be taking up a
suggestion. A time map. You may call it a schedule. Part of my fear is based on
my inability to take action – or not an “inability” per se, but a fear, simply
of taking action. What if I try my best and fail? What if I turn down underpaying jobs and end up broke
anyway? Shel Silverstein was a wise man
when he wrote the poem “Whatif.”
So, to combat vagueness, and the three P’s (Perfectionism
-> Procrastination -> Paralyzation), I’m going to work today to create a
schedule for myself to include things like revenue generating time (i.e.
looking for work); creative time; and grocery shopping(!).
Because without any structure of a 9-5, I’m not doing much
of anything with my days. Sort of floating along, with class punctuating the
vagueness (and homework not). I don’t like it. I feel then stressed in the 11th
hour, and I don’t have to. So, I’ll work with someone today to create a plan
that includes play and self-care and work and effort and the scary things that
elicit the above questions.
In a stroke of unexpectedness, I got an email from a gallery
owner I know. I’d emailed her nearly 6 months ago to ask if she had any
part-time work available and had never heard back. She emailed me yesterday
with apologies. This, is something of a surprise, and I’m coming to notice
“surprises” as little “G-d shots” as it were. She said she’d love to chat in
person. Not sure that she has any work, but that’s not the point.
I mentioned to some folks last month that I would sweep the
floor in an art gallery. I would adjust spreadsheets. I would do whatever job
would get me into a world of art, artists, creativity. And, suddenly, here
appears my acquaintance. I will follow up with her. Little actions produce big
results. Is it a coincidence that I’m finally taking some action around work
and this email comes in? Maybe.
I’ve decided that I’m not going to the interview at the job
I have no interest in today. Mainly, it’s just f’ing dishonest. I’d be lying my
ass off to get a job I don’t want. I had the recent experience with the modeling guild
of lying and having it coming around to bite me – I think I’ve learned.
Furthermore, despite other people’s vocal fears to me which run along the lines
of “Just take it,” that is not my value. Not my personal value system, or the
monetary and energetic value that I have to exchange.
This surely produces fear (TAKE THE CRUMBS!!!), but fuck the
crumbs. I’ve been like Hansel and Gretel in the forest leading myself to the
fiery pit of someone else’s oven by following crumbs. I don’t need the crumbs. I need
the wiser idea of the stones on the path – the firmer, more appropriate, more
honest way of being.
I have help to lay these stones if I avail myself of them,
and so, I’m asking for help on the baby steps today. Feels a little silly to
ask someone to sit with me while I make a map of my time, but I haven’t been
able to do it on my own, and I need help. So, I’ll ask, I’ll receive, and I’ll
change. G-d willing.