Cord visit

Nothing is quite a fulfilling
as making my nephew laugh...

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Attitude of Gratitude

Gratitude is a theme that has been trying to creep into my world as of late. As much as I push it aside, it keeps coming back. I think it's a conspiracy, but that's probably just my own bloated sense of self importance getting in the way.
Anyhow, upon the fifth anniversary of September 11th, this seemed like an important idea to honor and try to come to terms with.
It started in yoga. I have been practicing for about 6 years now, and I'm always amazed at the transformative power that yoga has on a life. I'm not talking LA power yoga to make you a hot bod, and I'm not talking achieving a pose and waiting for the heavens to open and pour enlightenment down into your brain. (I have personally achieved some of these poses and waited for this to happen, and guess what? Nothing happens...nothing.)And it's not just yoga. So many times when we reach a goal in life it isn't everything we expected it to be. We are still the same people in the same skin, and it feels almost disappointing. Sometimes it is so much more about the idea rather than the reality. But that's a lesson in itself. Nothing. That there is no goal, no achievement. You come to the world and to the mat at any given moment already armed with everything you need. Its like the real value of art - the real value is what you go through while making it. Now I'm certainly not advocating complacency or a blase attitude towards life. There are a million things worth fighting for and we must stay actively engaged in our lives at all times, questioning, feeling, accepting, and resisting all in balance. Our bodies in class are just an outward reflection of our emotional state. Keeping the muscles engaged, sensing when we are tired and trying to achieve the balance of strength and vulnerability is all just a physical practice and training for the mental and spiritual state.
As I was in class the other day a phrase kept popping up in my mind:YOU HAVE TO ATTACH TO WHAT IS IN ORDER TO DETACH FROM WHAT ISN'T. Now, not too profound in it's own right, but when looked at under the microscope of gratitude it made some sense. Gratitude, yikes, there it is again. My teacher wants us to use it as our intention this week. And it feels so forced to me. I feel like Polyanna sunshine pretending to put on a happy face. But I try. And try. And try. And I really try in my work place as the long hours and multiple changes to the show I'm working on start to take their toll. I try my damndest to be grateful. I wanted this job more than anything. But the heavens certainly haven't opened.
And yet I don't want to give up on this idea because it keeps nagging at my psyche. And when things nag at me, they really nag. It's that little mosquito of my conscience. So I'm driving to work one day on my long commute into the city when a program on NPR is discussing the idea of gratitude as a practice. My ears of course perk right up. Gratitude is not something that necessarily comes naturally to us, especially not with our social programming in America. If anything, we are trained to do just the opposite. To want and want and want. This comes as a relief to me. The program goes on to discuss gratitude as a discipline, just like anything else. It is something to be practiced, and will feel phony at first. But what gratitude really is I realize is just a calling to the present moment. How simple. I always rejected the idea of saying grace because I thought it was too churchy. But it's not. Grace is everywhere. Grace is gratitude. And gratitude is slowing down and calling your attention to what is instead of what isn't. It is a way of living creatively. Our own personal creativity in how we examine our world. And it has to be practiced.

Tuned In

If you don't listen to NPR public radio, give it a try. Especially if you are in the Philly area and can tune into the programming on Saturday and Sunday at 90.9-FM. There are some remarkable shows, such as This American Life, Fresh Air, Prairie Home Companion, and You Bet your Garden. I owe my NPR junkie style to my folks who listened incessantly and donated every year. I always loved those mugs with the station logo... but I diverge. Anyhow we used to sit around the radio as a family in NC on Saturday nights from 6 to 8 and listen to Garrison kiellor's Prairie Home Companion show. (Now as a child in the 80's I did have a sneaking suspicion that this wasn't exactly the coolest thing to be doing on a Saturday night but the show was so damn good that it even over-rode my pubescent worries.)I also secretly took great comfort in sharing this radio experience with my parents and siblings. It made me feel old fashioned, safe, and secure. It was one of my earliest experiences of feeling that sensation of "Wow, somebody out there really gets me." I felt like I knew those people in that Minnesota town, that I got them and they got me. And I felt like this was my own private experience and it was a relief in my adolescent world to know that somebody out there in radio land understood me and was speaking directly to me. What I didn't get at the time was the power of good writing when it speaks to universal truths about the human condition. As a teen and adult waking up to great literature, I started to realize the profound effect of a good book. NPR coverage is not wham bam thank you mam style, it is well crafted, extensive and thoughtful-like a great book or article. And I still felt drawn to the sound of a voice on the radio to take me to places emotionally that go even beyond the visual, and make me empathetically tune in to the stories of our lives.

THE SUCK'S ESS STORY : After receiving the 20th Anniversary celebration box set of the Oprah show for Christmas, I have been watching quite a bit of that smashing 50 year old woman. I think she is a remarkable human being and an extremely talented and perceptive gal. Oprah has been one of my idols for a long time. In a day and age where people are famous because of some misrepresented idea of financial or social "royalty," she at least constitutes her own popularity.

There's just this one thing...While watching segment after segment on interviews with performing artists and movie stars, and hearing many accounts of Oprah's own life story and struggle to the top, I came across a reoccuring theme that the majority of these people have established as a mantra or reason for the events in their lives: Time after time it all came down to success being their destiny. There was a sense of entitlement or being a chosen one in almost all of these cases. Many even came with proof - old journal entries, messages from the higher power, struggle, gut feelings, undying belief and boom - dreams came true.

So I was pondering the idea of the success story as fate or fiction. Are these people in fact chosen by some higher power to do great things, win awards, and have opportunities in life that the masses only get to glimpse at through the eyes of the papparazzi? (At least we can always know what they are wearing while they are having these great experiences.) By accepting this idea of fate, where does that leave the millions who also did all the right things, met the right people, connected with their passion in life, worked their asses off and were left having to make practical decisions because there was just not room for everyone who wants that dream to have it?

Our generation of thirty somethings are fed alot of guru about following your bliss in life and grounding your professional status in something that brings you joy. Sure, take that risk, open that gallery, start that business, be that philanthropist, save that world, sing your heart out, write that novel, move to the city with just your single momma and live in a beat up station wagon and become that star. Because deep down, in the beginning, we ALLKNOW that we are the chosen ones, despite the odds. And yet destiny only seems to be linked to success. Rarely do you hear the guy with the MFA who had to go work at the grocery store because he went bust after trying to start a theatre company say, "Well, this is my destiny. I was chosen to be this grocery store clerk."

There is a great segment in the movie Waking Life where a couple is lying in bed discussing the meaning of life as couples often do when riding that estatic wave of getting-to-know-you profound conversation. The woman is laughing about people referencing their past lives, and how they were almost always something great or someone very significant. It's always Cleopatra, Socrates, or a great warrior or goddess of the sea. You never hear anybody saying, " I was Joe, your great grandmother's neighbor from Brooklyn," or, "I was that fire ant that lived in some dirt mound in Africa." Well, that's the American view of Hinduism for you. Entitlement, entitlement, even in our past lives. We are trained to think that we are deserving of every damn thing we get, and these stars are perpetuating the myth.

I think these famous starlits simply construe the events in their lives to make sense in their own heads. To justify why they are where they are. Would people really be ok with admitting that where we end up is often just chaotic and random? Could fame actually be the result of factors of time and place and preparation meeting opportunity? No, most of us want to know that we are deserving of our good fortune, that meeting that perfect partner is fated, and we are always where we are supposed to be, that everything happens for a reason.

If this where truly the case, why in the hell wouldn't that higher power choose more people like Oprah to be famous so the rest of us could stop wasting time looking at Paris Hilton's dog?

1/4/06

Is an actor an actor when he's not working? Question of the hour, week, lifetime of a performing artist. How do you define yourself when the gig is up? Does a body of work over the years that only exists in the given moment of the performances mean anything when you are currently collecting unemployment and suddenly the immediate question with everyone in your life is, "So what are you doing now?" Collecting unemployment, auditioning for the next prospect, writing, getting back to all those projects I put off while I was working, going to yoga, trying to be a nice unemployed person with some sense of identity and purpose, trying to stay afloat amidst rejection, trying to gear myself up just to go to that next audition where I will probably be rejected, oops, trying to think positively about that next audition.

A friend of mine is distraught by the cycle that she sees her husband go through each time he finishes another job. "We are all ok for about two days, then the sadness descends on the house. I come home and he's watching Music Man for the third time curled up on the floor. The happiest I see him is when there is some kind of consistency. I don't care if it's some dumb temp job for a corporation. He NEEDS structure. The in-between times are tough."

So is life for the performer about getting that next break? Or any break? Or the break between the breaks? We are supposed to be the people who are the most in touch with the present moment as a function of what we do, and yet you can feel the anxiety rush through the cast the last few weeks once the closing notice is posted. The conversation backstage is always about what comes next. I think it is a basic human need to have structure. Not necessarily knowing what will happen next, but at least to have an idea of the context of your life in which things happen.

Now of course we PUT ourselves intentionally into these situations. We are not victims here, by any means. (Why they are reviving A Chorus Line on Broadway this year, I have no idea.) The state of the stage in NYC is a much different place nowadays than it was 30 years ago. But it IS important to examine one's life and choices when a journey comes to a close. And after all those rehearsal hours, performance stamina, passion, energy, focus, fights, and friendships, it really is a journey. But do I look back fondly and say, "Oh I'm so lucky to spend my life this way?" No, not really. At least not this week. Sometimes. Just like any other profession I guess. And can you call it a profession for the 99% of the union that is UNemployed at any given time?

So back to the question of living in between those cracks. Of seeking value and refuge in ourselves and those people that surround us and listen to our stories and lift us up. It is our responsibility to remain positive, plugged in, financially responsible (depending on one's personal situation) and actively deeming yourself worthy. Yeah right. Easier said than done of course. So HOW DO YOU answer that inevitable dinner party question of, "So what are you doing now?" when technically and in the conventional sense of work you are doing nothing? How do you answer with pride or without looking down or fidgeting? What do you say that you do? Are you an actor? Or are you just in between?