Thursday, December 31, 2009
Sickly Talented 23 year old!
Lately I've been working more on my drawing and painting. Just found this fantastic site for this sickly talented 23 year old. Check it out! http://mbetteker.blogspot.com Perhaps I'll post some of my own work in the next few weeks. Who knows!
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Time Flies
I've been moving away from the Internet lately and closer to my writing. Seems unbelievable, but true. Twitter has helped. I could do 148 characters for a while. Still, eventually even that seemed like too much cognitive function. Better to just read twitters by others...
I've also been on this long and dark journey called cancer with my Mom. (Well, she's in the dark water, I'm just on the shore helplessly looking on.) A friend of mine from college wrote diligently every day when his wife was struggling with cancer, to the point where if I hadn't begun to read his blog before she passed, I wouldn't have known when/where her funeral was. He's currently working through a memoir about her/their experience. I can see how his writing kept him sane and strong during the process.
For me, it has been the opposite. Me, the girl who started to read in the womb, the girl who was writing and binding her own books when she was eleven, the girl who said in 5th grade, "I'm going to become a writer when I grow up, Mom."
It's as if words are a molten stone on my tongue. They sear the moment out of my mind if I try to capture them, wipe away the deep swirl of emotion, the fast ticking of the clock inside my mother's body. Sometime during the last four months, my mind drifted from words until - for once in my life - that noisy voice in my head fell silent. Perhaps that is my own form of therapy. I've been saying for years I'm going to learn to meditate, to keep my anxious mind in line. Now it's been forced on me. For several weeks, I've only been able to read poetry, and then only sporadically. Anything longer could not hold my attention. Nature holds my attention now. I sit on my porch at midnight and watch the full moon whisper through the tree branches and past my besom (Witch's broom). I drive to Burlington and watch clouds caress the mountains - clouds shaped like angels and doves sometimes, or dark fingered spectres. The hills are so green it burns my eyes, the sunset so orange I can feel the heat of the sun in my chest.
The worst time I've had was the last three days before we admitted my mother to the Fletcher Allen because I could no longer take care of her. The crushing moment of having to let her care go into someone else's hands, coupled with the moment of realizing something was wrong with her cognitive abilities as she tried to speak to us that day, finding only a slur of words and a distant stare, told me that this was the last bend in the river. She was heading into the last leg of her journey. An hour after I had her admitted, because she couldn't use her right leg, and I could no longer carry her from bed to chair, she had a seizure. It was the most frightening moment in my life, mostly because it was so frightening for her. She is all about control in her life. Her strength and ability to be in control helped her raise three children alone, after all.
Tomorrow, she goes to the Williston Respite House, where she will have her own room, be a resident and not a patient, and be able to get some strength back for this final leg of the journey. My one wish for her is that she can just 'go home and feel normal again and play with Daniel' (her youngest grandchild) at some point over the next few weeks. It's not much to ask is it? A night in her own bed, an afternoon with the grandchildren?
Life used to seem so difficult. This journey has given me the blessing of so much quality time with my mother, and some not so quality time. It's allowed me to see how deep the roots of strength grow inside of me. Now, as I release my burden, and move into a time where I can simply visit with her, the words are blossoming again. Again, a gift from my mother. Always, she is giving to me, even during her own struggles.
I've also been on this long and dark journey called cancer with my Mom. (Well, she's in the dark water, I'm just on the shore helplessly looking on.) A friend of mine from college wrote diligently every day when his wife was struggling with cancer, to the point where if I hadn't begun to read his blog before she passed, I wouldn't have known when/where her funeral was. He's currently working through a memoir about her/their experience. I can see how his writing kept him sane and strong during the process.
For me, it has been the opposite. Me, the girl who started to read in the womb, the girl who was writing and binding her own books when she was eleven, the girl who said in 5th grade, "I'm going to become a writer when I grow up, Mom."
It's as if words are a molten stone on my tongue. They sear the moment out of my mind if I try to capture them, wipe away the deep swirl of emotion, the fast ticking of the clock inside my mother's body. Sometime during the last four months, my mind drifted from words until - for once in my life - that noisy voice in my head fell silent. Perhaps that is my own form of therapy. I've been saying for years I'm going to learn to meditate, to keep my anxious mind in line. Now it's been forced on me. For several weeks, I've only been able to read poetry, and then only sporadically. Anything longer could not hold my attention. Nature holds my attention now. I sit on my porch at midnight and watch the full moon whisper through the tree branches and past my besom (Witch's broom). I drive to Burlington and watch clouds caress the mountains - clouds shaped like angels and doves sometimes, or dark fingered spectres. The hills are so green it burns my eyes, the sunset so orange I can feel the heat of the sun in my chest.
The worst time I've had was the last three days before we admitted my mother to the Fletcher Allen because I could no longer take care of her. The crushing moment of having to let her care go into someone else's hands, coupled with the moment of realizing something was wrong with her cognitive abilities as she tried to speak to us that day, finding only a slur of words and a distant stare, told me that this was the last bend in the river. She was heading into the last leg of her journey. An hour after I had her admitted, because she couldn't use her right leg, and I could no longer carry her from bed to chair, she had a seizure. It was the most frightening moment in my life, mostly because it was so frightening for her. She is all about control in her life. Her strength and ability to be in control helped her raise three children alone, after all.
Tomorrow, she goes to the Williston Respite House, where she will have her own room, be a resident and not a patient, and be able to get some strength back for this final leg of the journey. My one wish for her is that she can just 'go home and feel normal again and play with Daniel' (her youngest grandchild) at some point over the next few weeks. It's not much to ask is it? A night in her own bed, an afternoon with the grandchildren?
Life used to seem so difficult. This journey has given me the blessing of so much quality time with my mother, and some not so quality time. It's allowed me to see how deep the roots of strength grow inside of me. Now, as I release my burden, and move into a time where I can simply visit with her, the words are blossoming again. Again, a gift from my mother. Always, she is giving to me, even during her own struggles.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Spring at last, Spring at last!
So wow. So much for updating more regularly. Some of you may have noticed I'm now hooked into twitter.com. You can follow me there! Of course I 've got like, the best record for having NO ONE following me! A couple of retailers have tagged my butt for following, but I have brushed them off my list. I am, of course, following The Nature Conservancy, Ten Downing Street (the office of the English Prime Minister), and David Hewlett (@dhewlett) as he is one of my favorite actors. I'm also following his sister, Kate Hewlett, which sounds like a great stalker line, doesn't it? But following other performing artists makes me feel more connected to the 'biz.'
My mom got her first catscan this week after about 9 weeks of chemotherapy. The tumor is shrinking! Whoo! Of course, it becomes a double edged sword. I couldn't get her on the phone last night as I'm sure she was talking to many folks, but I can't help but think she was probably like "GREAT!... uh... great, more chemo..." But I'm happy to hear this news and I'm sure she is too.
Spring is here. I can't wait to actually see the little buds begin to sprout and that fabulous light green, new-leaf color on the trees! But for now I am content to have the sunshine. I feel like a person thrown down a dark hole for six years right now. I am sure I was a cat in a former life, as I spend all of my free time basking in the sun, in windows at the library, in the pizza parlor, and on the street against the brick walls. (No, I swear I am not a prostitute, sir, just leaning here to get the sun!)
Here's to spring... May it reign for many more weeks.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Fearful? or Fearless?
I couldn't sleep last night. Who let me have 3 large caffeinated beverages yesterday? So I got up to read a bit after I'd been in bed about an hour last night. The book I am reading is called “Broken Open: how difficult times can help us grow” by Elizabeth Lesser. There were repeatedly notes and comments that aligned so perfectly with the work I’ve been doing the last 5 years, it was amazing.
You see, I've been working with a local counselor who does dreamwork. I've been patiently, methodically trying to pry open the heavy cellar door to my subconscious, my essence, my soul. In between, I've also found "Lexipro." You bet! I took Lexipro for the first time three years ago. After three days, I turned to Terri while we were standing in the living room and I said, "Wow. So this is how normal people feel isn't it?" Tears welled up in my eyes a moment because I felt so tender, so in awe of the moment. You could say I"m a bit of an anxious person and always have been. So now it's the work and the medicine. That moment of calm inside the storm that the medicine has created for me, allows me to do the work or "The Work" as those of us in-process call it. Eventually, I'll be off of the Lexipro.
So in this book I was reading, there was this quote from Chogyam Trungpa (Who first taught Tibetan Buddhism in the US).
“When we slow down, when we relax with our fear, we find sadness, which is calm and gentle. Sadness hits you in your heart... this is the first sign of real warriorship...Discovering fearlessness comes from working with the softness of the human heart."
My human heart has been feeling quite soft and vulnerable lately. It’s not a bad thing, it's something delicate I am balancing inside of, like the feeling of being fresh white linen hung on the line in a hurricane. I can feel the wind, feel the ‘phwup’ of material billowing, and feel most of all the tenuous, rough line I am hung on. On either side, the tight, splintered clothespins. Will the wind ever stop? Sometimes it does, and when it does it brings a fresh air like none other.
Remember spring mornings when you were a child, or the way the field outside your house smelled at dawn, when the dew was accompanied by the thick downy blanket of a fallen white thundercloud in the valley below, and the sound of the black crows, that moved incessantly back and forth across the empty baseball field, cawing out, first one, then another, calmly, methodically pecking at carcasses and dried grass seeds and bugs. They picked the land clean for their meal with such a calm you had to wonder, if you could live like a crow, feel the calm swell of death as it came slinking off of the surface of the earth, its cool dark shadow expanding silently, would you be fearful? Or fearless?
You see, I've been working with a local counselor who does dreamwork. I've been patiently, methodically trying to pry open the heavy cellar door to my subconscious, my essence, my soul. In between, I've also found "Lexipro." You bet! I took Lexipro for the first time three years ago. After three days, I turned to Terri while we were standing in the living room and I said, "Wow. So this is how normal people feel isn't it?" Tears welled up in my eyes a moment because I felt so tender, so in awe of the moment. You could say I"m a bit of an anxious person and always have been. So now it's the work and the medicine. That moment of calm inside the storm that the medicine has created for me, allows me to do the work or "The Work" as those of us in-process call it. Eventually, I'll be off of the Lexipro.
So in this book I was reading, there was this quote from Chogyam Trungpa (Who first taught Tibetan Buddhism in the US).
“When we slow down, when we relax with our fear, we find sadness, which is calm and gentle. Sadness hits you in your heart... this is the first sign of real warriorship...Discovering fearlessness comes from working with the softness of the human heart."
My human heart has been feeling quite soft and vulnerable lately. It’s not a bad thing, it's something delicate I am balancing inside of, like the feeling of being fresh white linen hung on the line in a hurricane. I can feel the wind, feel the ‘phwup’ of material billowing, and feel most of all the tenuous, rough line I am hung on. On either side, the tight, splintered clothespins. Will the wind ever stop? Sometimes it does, and when it does it brings a fresh air like none other.
Remember spring mornings when you were a child, or the way the field outside your house smelled at dawn, when the dew was accompanied by the thick downy blanket of a fallen white thundercloud in the valley below, and the sound of the black crows, that moved incessantly back and forth across the empty baseball field, cawing out, first one, then another, calmly, methodically pecking at carcasses and dried grass seeds and bugs. They picked the land clean for their meal with such a calm you had to wonder, if you could live like a crow, feel the calm swell of death as it came slinking off of the surface of the earth, its cool dark shadow expanding silently, would you be fearful? Or fearless?
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Its been too long...
What is it about this blog that has made me feel a bit like I'm creating 'porno for the soul,' [as my friend Elizabeth Wilcox calls poetry] and showing it to everyone? Does anyone else feel this way? I haven't posted in a long time because I just started to feel weird about it all, like my underwear were drying on the line for all to see...I mean, I know it will sound daffy to those who know me well, because I've been keeping journals and telling lo-o-o-ong stories since I can remember, but this is different. My journals, I might have thought sometimes, might be found when I died and published by some descendant or relative (What author hasn't thought of that?), but this! I think it and it can be put out there. Poof! And I began to limit myself too much I think. Kim, artist, thinker, ponderer of artistic truths and ideas... blah, blah...
Let's get back to basics. Life. That's got to be the subject of any blog. Period. Anything else I could come up with is too restrictive.
So what have I been up to since my revelation on June 14 that I CAN'T play the young ingénue any more? Briefly - and in reverse order...
Let's get back to basics. Life. That's got to be the subject of any blog. Period. Anything else I could come up with is too restrictive.
So what have I been up to since my revelation on June 14 that I CAN'T play the young ingénue any more? Briefly - and in reverse order...
- Had the week of Christmas off so hung with family through the holidays. Terri and I stayed three days at my moms watching Lifetime networks "Fa la la la lifetime" movies and visiting, etc. (etc., including working on that afghan which is almost done already in only 6 weeks.) We then went to the hospital with her for a biopsy as she has a cyst on her adrenal gland and a mass in her lung. Shit. Perhaps more on that later, perhaps not...My youngest nephew, Daniel, is tooling around like a walking maniac, making up his own sentences in that foreign language, baby-talk, and he's a joy and a charmer! My older nephews are soon to be 22 and 17! Holy Crap when did that happen! They, too are charmers. My two nieces are both about 18 now also - no, wait 17...? Eash! And both working hard at discovering how to navigate the world. Family is good, really. Can't beat it.
- Spent two different evenings celebrating Yule this year. One as a spontaneous chance to get together with two fabulous friends who Terri and I never get to see, Denise and Linda, just four women in a room chatting, taking in life, the universe and everything and supporting each other. The other at my friend Margie's with a few friends - of course the Full Moon Sister's Lodge was there, and Mae, Pam's daughter. Then there were Walter and Robin, two of my favorite people in the world! And Margie's brother, Mike. We had a nice night. We sent out some good vibes to the Universe and asked for the light to come back as we are all ready for that.
- Played the stage manager/Foley artist in the radio show/stage version of "It's a Wonderful Life" at Lost Nation Theater in December (while working madly to finish a new afghan I'd begun crocheting in November.
- Ran the lights/sound for Translations by Brian Friel at Fairfax Community Theatre Company in November (While starting that little granny-square afghan.)
- Decided to really take on producing "Love Letters Made Easy" by fellow VT Playwrights Circle member, Jeanne Beckwith at Winterfest this year (at Lost Nation Theater.) I will be directing with some support from Kathleen Keenan, co-artistic producer at LNT. (Hang on tight folks!!) I think it will be great.
- Finished my play "Sanctuary, or the Forensics of Sacrifice" in late October and gathered 11 actors to read the play in my tiny living room on November 6th...(?) It was fantastic to hear it aloud and now I know what to cut, where to move, what to create. I just have to sit down and do it!
- Decided in late August that in October that I would 'do nothing' meaning I would not schedule any meetings, volunteer to usher or stage manage, or help anyone out with any projects. I DID IT!!! And it was very refreshing. The result? See November/December above for the backlash. ;-) A girl's got to work hard to break old habits. We'll be trying this again, perhaps in March, as Love Letters goes up on Feb 12th.
- Labor Day weekend, the Vermont Playwrights Circle produced a Ten-Fest at the Valley Player's Theater space. My what fun! I stepped in to stage manage just for the run and of course co-produced it. It was a rousing success! We had more and more folks in the audience every night and I got to play the Foley artist for a short play that we changed into a radio play, thus spawning my opportunity to reprise the Foley artist role in LNT's holiday production (see above for "It's a Wonderful Life.") The audience loved it and everyone who worked on the show really enjoyed the experience. It was our first money maker ever.
- July is a blur. I think that's due to our Annual Members Meeting at work at The Nature Conservancy...
- In June, I was killing myself co-producing the Vermont Contemporary Playwrights Forum/Vermont Playwrights Circle's two weeks of play readings.
- Through all of this, and for several years, I've been seeing a dream counselor. He does great work. This is a guy who doesn't keep you in your pathology but helps you to navigate the waters of self-awareness. Don't know if anyone has noticed a change, but I have. Of course, the Lexipro I take for my anxiety helps, but it's about nature & nurture here. There are a few things a gal's got to do to make the process work and grow and learn about herself. trying to do that as I go. It's made a great difference for me. More on that in later posts...
Saturday, June 14, 2008
"What do you mean I can't play a 17 year old girl anymore?"
So I haven't posted in some time. For the past month, I've definitely been in what we in theater call "production mode." For the past several years The Vermont Playwrights Circle (VPC) has been running a summer reading series. Once a month, whether the moon be full or nay, (for my WICCAN friends) we gather and read a new script by a local playwright. The public is invited, Lost Nation Theater opens their doors to us when the theater is 'dark' (i.e. no main stage show is running) and we come in, set up, read, talk-back, have cookies and punch and go home. Reading complete.
Sometimes the play is something one of our core members has written, sometimes it's a play by someone brand new to us, something submitted into the ether after VPC has posted a call for scripts. We are lucky enough to receive dozens of scripts each year, which we comb through with loving care, while the author holds their breath hoping for a 'yes.' Either way, what has usually happened between our posting a call for scripts and the actual night of the reading is a mayhem and flurry of phone calls from me asking folks to help us, either by reading, posting fliers, bringing brownies for intermission or handing out programs.
That's when run the series once a month.
Last year, one of our member's lovely wives, Caroline, suggested we put all our efforts into something more concentrated, say a week or two, and ride along on the coat tails of some other festival or event. This seemed a great idea, and I think it was, however, in retrospect, it's like that saying parents have about children. One is a lot of work, two is three times the work, three is five times the work... etc. To be running 8 plays in two weeks is a bit crazy! But we've been doing it, and having a blast, and I hope the audiences only continue to grow. (The core audience for a reading of a new work usually consists of the friends & relatives of the author and the actors.) We'll see.
Meanwhile, as I've scrambled around, culling names and numbers of readers from tiny scraps of paper, old cast lists, my yahoo address book, suggestions from friends and really just people on the street that I know, (We asked some girls who work at Subway and a friend who works at the toy store to read.) I've come to realize that at the age of 42, I am no longer a viable stand-in for the part of "Lizzie, the 17 year old girlfriend to Joe" in "My Son, My Son," which we'll be performing tonight.
WHAT?! When could that possibly have happened?!!
When did I go from being 17, 125 lbs (I just changed that on my licence this year... ahem.) to being 179 lbs, 42, a bit 'long in the tooth' to play the teenage girlfriend? Ugh. (And yet... it was thanks to my age I got to play Abigail Adams in 1776 a few years back too, so the perks sometimes balance out the weight of the years (pun intended).)
So yes, I've been pretty busy. Yes, I have done nothing but eat, sleep, dream, eat, drink theater for the past several days while I have been 'on vacation' from work, and yes, after this week, my summer seems to open up in my mind like a wide vista of swimming, sunbathing, sipping tea and perhaps even going out with friends at night. Still, Terri and I have made it a point NOT to skip an early drive to rehearsal for a baby creamie at the local stand. I've made a point to sit outside in the glorious sun and eat my dinner before going into the darkened theater, and I've tried to just relax on the porch with breakfast each morning. These are the things that keep you going.
As far as I can tell, my family and friends still have no idea why I do it. Why do all of this theater when I'm not even on Broadway or getting a salary from it? Heck, I have no idea, some days, as I am slogging through the work end of it all. Until the answer appears on the faces of the audience (remember; friends & family of the playwright) and of the playwright when the lights come up, and they are wiping their eyes, nodding, saying under their breath "uh huh. Yes." THAT is why I do it. That, and the moment when you hear and see the story take off on its own.
As Grace and Joan lay back in an imaginary parking garage at the Miss United States Pageant, talking about the silence, bonding, wondering if their heifer will win the contest in "The Heifer Pageant" by Eddie Gale of Johnson and as Rosalee and her mentor talk for the last time in the classroom in "Rosalee was Here" by Maura Campbell of Burlington, or as I myself am onstage playing the character of Jennifer who is at her friend Katie's party, and I look around and see six amazing women and 4wonderful men acting out this zany moment when Katie is trying - via Power Point show, to decide who the right man is to marry in "The Wedding Party" by Maureen Hennigan - I know, without a doubt, that if there were nothing else in my life but theater, I would be content.
This is why we do this, and this is why I hope someday to be able to entice others who don't always think of a night at the theater as a way to spend the evening - or who go to the theater but are worried to take a chance on something brand new and unpolished - to take a chance on new works. I hope to convince people that the adventure of stepping into the darkened theater knowing the playwright sits in the audience chewing their nails, that the characters they are about to watch, and the story that is about to unfold are new, just born, just stumbling to their toddler legs, is one of the wonderful adventures worth experiencing.
www.vermontplaywrightscircle.org/SummerSeries.html
Sometimes the play is something one of our core members has written, sometimes it's a play by someone brand new to us, something submitted into the ether after VPC has posted a call for scripts. We are lucky enough to receive dozens of scripts each year, which we comb through with loving care, while the author holds their breath hoping for a 'yes.' Either way, what has usually happened between our posting a call for scripts and the actual night of the reading is a mayhem and flurry of phone calls from me asking folks to help us, either by reading, posting fliers, bringing brownies for intermission or handing out programs.
That's when run the series once a month.
Last year, one of our member's lovely wives, Caroline, suggested we put all our efforts into something more concentrated, say a week or two, and ride along on the coat tails of some other festival or event. This seemed a great idea, and I think it was, however, in retrospect, it's like that saying parents have about children. One is a lot of work, two is three times the work, three is five times the work... etc. To be running 8 plays in two weeks is a bit crazy! But we've been doing it, and having a blast, and I hope the audiences only continue to grow. (The core audience for a reading of a new work usually consists of the friends & relatives of the author and the actors.) We'll see.
Meanwhile, as I've scrambled around, culling names and numbers of readers from tiny scraps of paper, old cast lists, my yahoo address book, suggestions from friends and really just people on the street that I know, (We asked some girls who work at Subway and a friend who works at the toy store to read.) I've come to realize that at the age of 42, I am no longer a viable stand-in for the part of "Lizzie, the 17 year old girlfriend to Joe" in "My Son, My Son," which we'll be performing tonight.
WHAT?! When could that possibly have happened?!!
When did I go from being 17, 125 lbs (I just changed that on my licence this year... ahem.) to being 179 lbs, 42, a bit 'long in the tooth' to play the teenage girlfriend? Ugh. (And yet... it was thanks to my age I got to play Abigail Adams in 1776 a few years back too, so the perks sometimes balance out the weight of the years (pun intended).)
So yes, I've been pretty busy. Yes, I have done nothing but eat, sleep, dream, eat, drink theater for the past several days while I have been 'on vacation' from work, and yes, after this week, my summer seems to open up in my mind like a wide vista of swimming, sunbathing, sipping tea and perhaps even going out with friends at night. Still, Terri and I have made it a point NOT to skip an early drive to rehearsal for a baby creamie at the local stand. I've made a point to sit outside in the glorious sun and eat my dinner before going into the darkened theater, and I've tried to just relax on the porch with breakfast each morning. These are the things that keep you going.
As far as I can tell, my family and friends still have no idea why I do it. Why do all of this theater when I'm not even on Broadway or getting a salary from it? Heck, I have no idea, some days, as I am slogging through the work end of it all. Until the answer appears on the faces of the audience (remember; friends & family of the playwright) and of the playwright when the lights come up, and they are wiping their eyes, nodding, saying under their breath "uh huh. Yes." THAT is why I do it. That, and the moment when you hear and see the story take off on its own.
As Grace and Joan lay back in an imaginary parking garage at the Miss United States Pageant, talking about the silence, bonding, wondering if their heifer will win the contest in "The Heifer Pageant" by Eddie Gale of Johnson and as Rosalee and her mentor talk for the last time in the classroom in "Rosalee was Here" by Maura Campbell of Burlington, or as I myself am onstage playing the character of Jennifer who is at her friend Katie's party, and I look around and see six amazing women and 4wonderful men acting out this zany moment when Katie is trying - via Power Point show, to decide who the right man is to marry in "The Wedding Party" by Maureen Hennigan - I know, without a doubt, that if there were nothing else in my life but theater, I would be content.
This is why we do this, and this is why I hope someday to be able to entice others who don't always think of a night at the theater as a way to spend the evening - or who go to the theater but are worried to take a chance on something brand new and unpolished - to take a chance on new works. I hope to convince people that the adventure of stepping into the darkened theater knowing the playwright sits in the audience chewing their nails, that the characters they are about to watch, and the story that is about to unfold are new, just born, just stumbling to their toddler legs, is one of the wonderful adventures worth experiencing.
www.vermontplaywrightscircle.org/SummerSeries.html
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