Monday, December 30, 2013

Reconsidering 2013

I guess this a letter to or about 2013, or my life in 2013.
 
It's December 30, and the snow is lightly falling on a grey day, and as is always the case, watching it relaxes me and puts me in a thoughtful frame of mind.
 
2012 was one of my best years for adventures and love and friends and for taking creative risks.
 
It seems I was in some sort of recovery mode for most of 2013.
 
Recovery is an important step in healing and getting stronger. It seems strange to think that I would need a year of recovery after having an excellent year of the aforementioned travel and creative adventures, but I guess it's like resting after running a marathon. You put your body through tremendous stress in the process of achieving and excelling, and you need to nurture yourself before you can run your next marathon
 
Part of that recovery included taking a year off writing so that I could rest, recharge, enjoy some freedom, and reconsider if writing and producing plays was something I wanted to pursue. Somewhere along the line in 2012, doubt crept in about my abilities as a playwright, and in 2013 cynicism about the local market and local acting community took root in my heart. I think was trying to figure out where I belonged and if I fit in.  There were a few instances when I felt like I sometimes did as a high school-er, feeling insecure and sometimes wishing for inclusion with a group of people with whom I actually had no meaningful connection. 
 
I think the whole point of the cynicism and time space from creating theater was to learn that I do not need to try to fit in or belong. I learned this by noting how many other adults in this community are so desperate to fit in--not just fit in but to be the most popular, to name drop, to climb the social ladders, and watching other adults scramble for popularity made me laugh. I saw in them what can only be described as desperation, and I know that's not what I want for myself.
 
I've come to the conclusion that I need to write for different reasons now; namely, that I have something to say. I don't need to scramble. I don't need to compete. I don't need my name on posters. I simply need to share anything worth saying, and that is the hard part. How will I know if what I have to say matters at all?
 
I'm giving it another shot in 2014. I've got at least one more thing to say. I've got at least one more marathon in me.
 
2013 was also a long recovery phase from an overextended social calendar, and the year was marked not by interactions with extended groups of friends, but of a voyage of self discovery, which necessary included running solo most of the time. Several years of constant socializing, engagements, and party hosting took its toll on me. I often wonder if the constant socializing of 2006-2012 were my attempt to overcompensate for all the years I was married and sitting home alone on weekends and holidays, wondering if something was wrong with me because I didn't have friendships like the ones I saw in movies, on TV, and read about in books. Again, here is a glimpse of my most insecure self--it seems to come down to popularity--or does it? Is it really about connection?
 
If so, then it makes sense that some of those friendships did not last. I remember in the early days so desperately trying to force those connections and ultimately losing part of myself along the way. I spent part of 2013 in recovery mode from the loss of friendships, and at least one second too long dwelling on people who did not care to see our relationship through some ups and downs. I am positive that at the end of 2012, I swore I would get over those hurts, but I did not recover completely, and that is because I kept peeking under the band aid and picking at the scabs. In 2014, I will really need to not just let go of those memories, but to do so with so gratitude and sweetness, however small the dosage.
 
When one door closes in your heart, another opens. I determined to spend the year getting to the essence, my essence, my life's essence in 2013, and I made tremendous progress. Family. Need I say more? It's the greatest source of connection I have and the most meaningful. It is at once the most difficult and easiest relationships, too. It's difficult because we're so different and have such different views of the world. It's easy because they understand the world that created who I am more than anyone else. Family is the first and last line of defense. Sometime in 2013 it really hit me just how important my nieces and nephews are to me, and I'm so grateful that it hit me. If I hadn't lost some other relationships, I seriously wonder if I would have fully explored the other relationships that were already awaiting me with open arms.
 
I've had other doors shut, open, and slam in my face this year, namely my career. I didn't see any of that coming, but I know that in time I will see that those slamming door led me to knock on others that would open up new worlds to me.
 
One of the worlds that opened to me was claiming stake, literally, and right where I was. I talk of Journey in Place, but this year I also learned how to Live in Place. When I was offered a new career in June, it suddenly occurred to me how tentatively I had been living my life and how unbeknownst to me it caused me constant low-grade anxiety. I approached my life here as temporary, not because I necessarily wanted to move somewhere else, but because I didn't really feel I had a place here that couldn't be taken away at a moment's notice. Although the job that offered me this opportunity to literally and metaphorically set down roots did not work out, the result was the same: I changed the way I see my life here, and I claimed this space.
 
My space, my Place, became very important to me in 2013, and I treat it now as constant work in progress. I absolutely love my house and what I've done with it--from hosting concerts to opening the artists hostel b&b to my new home gym to my home office to hosting dinner parties to transforming my back yard into a shabby chic urban prairie. Feeling home in my home is a very important step for me in my journey, and more than anywhere else, home is where I love to be. I love what I've created here and what I overcame to call it my own. I really hope, wish, pray, that 2014 will bring with it a new job that will let me continue to discover my home.
 
A few weeks before Christmas, Primo got really sick. I thought he had a series of strokes. He kept running into things, falling down, and vomiting. He had no appetite and became skin and bones in a matter of days. I spent two days wailing in pain at the thought of losing him. I felt a deep pain I haven't felt in many years, and was surprised that I could still feel such intense pain. I felt like I would never be happy again without Primo and that nothing mattered to me. I took him to the vet expecting the worst but instead found out that he had a common ailment that is rarely fatal and easily remedied. He had Idiopathic Vestibular Syndrome aka Old Dog Syndrome. It's basically severe vertigo. Their eyes constantly roll around because they are dizzy and are trying to get their bearings, and that causes nausea, which causes them to vomit, which causes them not to eat. Their head tilts constantly to the right or left, they walk in circles, and sometimes can't walk at all. Dr. Dave gave him a shot for the vomiting and prescribed the human drug Meclizine, which is used to treat vertigo. It took a couple of weeks, but he's back to normal weight and he's walking in straight lines and gets dizzy only after sleeping for hours. On Christmas Day, I had the joy of seeing him run around the clean white snow, and I felt so happy.
 
As for adventures, we had one major adventure and a few smaller ones: an impromptu camping trip to Clifty Falls, three weeks hiking, trekking, and cruising Washington, Alaska, and Canada; a week in Michigan over Independence Day; a staycation in Indy before I started my new job; and several day trips to state parks after I got laid off a second time.
 
It' hard to describe this exactly, but one of my favorite things in life are the unexpected moments or days or evenings of simple joy. I had one that summer night when I drank Mateus next to a stream in a wooded area of neighborhood while reciting Shakespeare, and I had another on Christmas night. Primo and I took a walk just before midnight, and the snow started to fall, straight down and heavy. The air was pure and invigorating and everything was silent and perfect. I didn't feel cold, even though we were getting covered in snow. I knew that I was having a moment, and it was the best Christmas gift I could receive.
 
 
As we do every New Year's Eve, my partner and I will be recounting our Top Three--the three best things of the year. I'll start with all the good things then attempt to narrow it down to only three.
 
Leaving the Port in Vancouver
Reconnecting with old friend, Erwin Dela Pena
Final Friday at IMA
Two plays at IRT--"Jackie & Me" and "The Whipping Man"
Being cast in "Extremities"
Being cast in "Something Wicked This Way Comes"
Sled dogs in Alaska
Olympic National Park
Camping Clifty Falls
Randy and Haylee's wedding
Going to the symphony and Eagle's Nest
My mom's birthday
Tibb's Drive-In
Fourth of July vacation in Michigan with Larry
Staycation in Indy
Shades State Park
Thanksgiving slumber party
Taking Grace to get her ears pierced
Working in my yard
Dottie and David's wedding
Getting two book deals with Cavendish Square, an imprint of Encyclopedia Britannica
(Yesterday at Larry's playing air hockey and going hiking in the snow at Ft. Ben was pretty fun, too!)
 
 
Alaska/Washington
Staycation
How I felt when I got the new job (even though it didn't work out, I'll never forget how I excited I was, so I've decided it was one of the best things of 2013)
Primo
 
I broke the rules. I added a fourth.


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Monday, December 23, 2013

Merry Christmas ME-eve

It's Christmas Eve-Eve, but this year I'm calling it Christmas Me-eve. Tomorrow I'll be with family, last night I was with my partner, but tonight it's just me, and I'm celebrating.
 
I've spent a lot of this year being sad and worried about the future. I've had some good times too, but this year has been different. Or, maybe I just measure things differently now.
 
You know what I'd like for Christmas? I'd like my eyes to light up like a Christmas tree when I see someone I love, meet someone new, or happen upon some little happy surprise in life. I'd like more little happy surprises, the kind that are just waiting for me wherever they are and wherever I go.
 
I think my eyes have lit up like this in the past. I see it in pictures when I was with friends or family. And I want more times like that. But I also want them to light up all on their own, and I want the source to come from inside, not outside. This is what I call renewable energy.
 
It's the last week of the year. Tomorrow I'll be with my family, and I'll get to have Christmas the way a kid has Christmas because I'll have four of my nieces and nephews around. I'll get to see their smiles as they rip open presents. Even better, I'll see them the night before, when, even better than a smile, their eyes will be alight just thinking about ripping open presents.
 
But I'll know it's more than that, because it was more than that for me when I was their age, forty years ago. I'll know that it's also about snow and magic and twinkling lights and bright stars and cousins and playing in my Aunt Jeanette's attic and cookies and carols and black and white movies on television and feeling more love on that day than any other and knowing that it's all so much bigger than I am, with a tail as big as a kite, and I'll reach for it and never quite touch it, which makes me reach all the higher year after year..
 
I'll see them in church when the lights go down, and each candle is lit, and their thoughts turn to a world way outside of their own, and they'll see the magic and know that it's not just the presents but the love.
 
I'll see me as their eyes sparkle, me as a little girl, in 1973, in church on Christmas Eve, singing "Away in a Manger," at the Christmas service. And then I'll see my sister with her long brunette hair dressed like an angel, standing in the balcony over all the church, her arms stretched to heaven, and my heart will swell up and I'll whisper to all around, "That's my sister."
 
I grew up and took Christmas with me to England, Saudi Arabia, South Carolina, Utah, Tennessee, and Indiana. I spent many years with someone who hated this time of year. I let that person ruin it for me for many years. I purposely froze my heart, not allowing it back in, out of fear of being thought I was stupid for loving it. Then that person left. And I became even colder, cold with resentment. For years, I would flee the country on Christmas in an attempt to avoid its notice. Yet it kept finding me. One year, it even found me in a barrio in Chile.
 
And then a few years ago, it found me in my own home. It caught me unawares, it knocked on my door, and having no other guests darken my door step, I welcome it in, offering it a meager hospitality. It lit a little fire in me that started to grow again. And my heart thawed and it found a safe place in me again.
 
 
 
What kind of presents will I rip open in 2014? I think it all depends on how good I will have been and how generous I will have been with myself.
 
I guess I've made my wish.
 
I wish for me to be more generous with me in 2014, which means I better be good.



****
I wonder if anyone else grew up on this album, Sunshine and Snowflakes?

It's out of print, but what a magical time 1973 was. And 2013 for that matter.


Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Photo365 Fall '13: Gold, Purple, and Blue

 
Labor Day Weekend...not quite fall, no longer summer. Shots of my parents' backyard as dusk approaches. This is one of my favorite places in the world.



 
One Sunday afternoon in October, we went to Crown Hill Cemetary


 
This is the gravesite of the children's poet, James Whitcomb Riley

 Here's a view of Indianapolis from the highest point in Indianapolis
 
 

Gravesite of JWR


School kids come and leave pennies, flowers, and wreaths. Thank you, Indiana! Thank you JWR!


 
Gothic chapel




I'm always saddened to see gravestones like these. I wonder who this little girl was.
 
 
I love this tree at Intech Park. I always loved my twice daily walks on the trails. I'd give myself pep talks to make it through the afternoon.


 
I love Holliday Park! Here is White River in September
 





 
This is my favorite picture. It looks like an eye.







Coney Island Beer!



Don't you love the early fall purples and yellows?


See why I loved working at Intech Park? No one in my  office ever walked here. They don't know about life.
 


Milkweed opening its seed for fall plantings


My begonias in October. I had pansies through the snow!

I planted trees this summer. I named this one for Jascha, and look, he bloomed before the snow came. I can't wait for spring when he'll beckon hummingbirds. Jascha Tree.
 

There were hardly any sunny days in October. We spent this one at McCormick's Creek State Park






Spaghetti squash buck shot. Thank you, Indiana!



This tree is....

Raccoon Lake on a sunny Monday
 


We ventured out into Amish country on dirt roads and found this old covered bridge. I got out to take a picture. Larry locked the car doors. ????
 

We went to Mounds State Park. Indian burial ground.
 






I made comfort food for a cold day. Pan fried chicken, mac and cheese, green beans


We went to Turkey Run on a rainy day.
 






 
I love Turkey Run!







Beehive honey

 
Indiana Sundown

 
I had some dreams there were clouds in my creek


Sunsets over an empty baseball field
 


 Crescent Moon
 

 
Flat12 Bierworks. One day we did a little urban adventure to breweries and antique shops.

Throne made out of a shopping cart.

Thank goodness this diner is Sanitary.

Midland Arts and Antiques

Last Roses of 2013. Brilliant Pink.


 
Cataract Fall State Park
 



Someone wrote a pukey poem on a state landmark, and someone else told them, "This Blows." Someone Else knows best.

We have a fun hobby. Pack cooler. Jump in car. See where land. Drink beer.


Beavers

Snow came early this year


My "roomie" was the keyboardist for Wicked

We had orchestra seats!

My roomie sang "Once in Love with Amy" in my parlor for my guests

Thanksgiving Eve with Grace and Lauren playing Pictionary

Grace tells us about the violin bow, made of horse hair

This was the first time my dad has ever played a game with us. I had to take a picture.

Lauren is the dog whisperer

I love bringing out their artistic side

Lauren loves Primo

Lauren and I did our nails

I had a perfect day. I worked on my book all day and all night, then got take-out Chinese. I grew up in small town, and we didn't have take-out Chinese. I'd see these boxes on TV and think, "I'm going to get take out Chinese someday!"  And I did!

First Frost

Larry's Sugar Maple

Mounds State Park

 


Running trails in Larry's neighborhood





Grey Steel
 
North Lake, Thanksgiving




 
Grand Mere, Thanksgiving













 
My mom and dad


Earl, Lori, and kids: Luke, Grace, Daniel, and Lauren

Zippity!