hard to explain

but there is a great deal to be said for just living, instead of analyzing. when you just start living and stop observing from the outside-in, things start to fall into place. when you spend too much time cogitating about it, nothing ever happens. it's like this... the more times I tell my kids 'it's time for bed' the less chance there is they will put down the magazine and go to bed. when I give up standing there and start busying myself with something else, that's when they're ready for me to tuck them in.

maybe it's some kind of zen Buddhist thing. maybe. maybe there is just no such thing as a direct route in this life. the whole point of it, whatever it is, is that there is no 'A' to 'B'. there is only a universe to traverse from point 'A' to point 'B.' and you can map it out and check your mileage and stop and get gas and refresh your water jug as long as you like, but there is no guarantee that you won't end up in Kentucky when you thought you were just driving to dairy queen for a heath bar blizzard. so why spend much of your waking life trying to force this waking life to bend to your will? i'm not pushing for a 'go with a flow' attitude 100% all of the time either.  but the point is when the supreme moments come along that demand your intervention, you will know and until then... just relax. and stop trying to control the world from your perch on the pirate ship of this feisty, unstoppable world.

and in my own roundabout, random, confusing, unanticipated, unfathomable, god only knows why I am talking about this way, this I believe is the point of what we do. we thespians. to remind ourselves and maybe a few odd people out there that there is no plan B. there is just plan A. right now and you can either live it or not.

student 'C'

I have a student. let's call him C. it's amazing how people come to you when you least expect it. I am driving down the highway, doing my thing, in the meditation zone as I drive to work and then this person comes to mind. this student whose has the uncanny ability to just be, neutral, neither high nor low, neither detached nor clingy, just be. the perfect example of just 'being.' I couldn't 'be' anymore than 'he.' he just 'is.' now this may sound corny, and I am good at sounding corny, or it might sound like I am about to break into a campfire rendition of 'let it be' but i'm not. this person is very unique. he may sound too blah. he may sound too passionless, but he's not. at a moment's notice, if something really does enthrall him, he jumps in head over heels. but until then, he is like a frog resting on the shore. not particularly expressive of what is happening inside. perhaps because nothing is really happening inside, which is fine with him really. he likes it that way. although he also likes to get excited, but there's got to be a good reason to be excited and then he will get excited.
I admire that. I wish I could do that. most of the time I am pretty genuine but sometimes I do ham it up in order to encourage people. maybe that comes with being a teacher, but I think most people need it. we all need encouragement but for once, I would like to be the kind of person who has no need to encourage people. who is just content to 'let it be' unless something really provocative, really captivating, really exhilarating comes along to make me open up my mouth and snatch that juicy fly for din din.

an ode to 'juan de fuca'

This weekend I went to the Juan de Fuca festival and it was fabulous.


I saw friends, I saw students, I saw fellow faculty members and I felt strong.

Strong to know that I am part of a community that prizes the arts.

Strong to know that we as a group of people enjoy being around each other, enjoy partaking of events together, enjoy watching grannies shaking their booties by belly dancing, enjoy weird foods and expensive ice cream cones, enjoy watching children do backbends and chase each other around trees. We are a people who enjoy being around other people.

It’s true: how can you not be happy walking through a bizarre unless you are half dead? How can you not enjoy dazzling your eye with new sights and stimulating your ear with new sounds and tantalizing your palate with new tastes? How can you not be happy seeing people laughing together, teasing each other, spotting each other from across the esplanade and smiling, waving, gesticulating, and gesturing that this is it! this is the place to be! What other place can you be on this fine weekend on the Olympic peninsula?

I tell you, my friends, it’s good to get out. it’s good to change your perspective. It’s good to see new visions of a world outside this world. Living on the peninsula you can get a bit cutoff. You can drive up and down the main highway from sequim to port angeles so many times that your eye doesn’t even see anything new. Everything looks the same. The people look the same. Your eye spots the same ‘traylor’s restaurant’ one too many times. you glance over at the balding auto insurance salesman one too many times and pretty soon you are convinced there is no way out. there is nothing new in this world. This is it. this is the end.



But it’s not the end, my friend. It is just the beginning. And it is high time that you start stretch yourself. maybe you do stay up too late and spend too much money at a festival like the juan de fuca but in the end what you have to take with you is more than caramel kettle corn and an overpriced ecuadorean sweater. You have memories, my friend. My memories as well as something show off to your friends the next time you see them! So, go out! be free! Enjoy the world! Stop getting in that holding pattern that you’ve been in and DO SOMETHING NEW!

i finally figured it out...

yup, I finally did. it all made sense. the whole world suddenly made sense to me as I walked back and forth, to and fro in the grass and my kids played with their friend on the swings and I ruminated with myself and ruminated some more about anything and everything that oliver burkeman writes from this amazing book called Help. it's amazing. utterly, udderly amazing. numero uno) push yourself. if you are pushing yourself to try something new and do something sometimes precisely because you know you will not get approval from the rest of the world, then do it. it builds character. like this lovely photo of a school for strippers. why not? why the hell not? who would have ever thought there were schools for such talents. but there are. and they should be memorialized. a tribute to ab-normality. why the hell not.
so yeah, it all made sense to me as I rattled on to myself and tried to figure out the world and what I came back to again and again was the most simple and obvious of truths but much different when you know it on a gut level, versus an intellectual level and that is...you have to be true to yourself. ok, Shakespeare already said it but it's only now making sense to me. you have to 1) know yourself in order to be true to yourself and then 2) be true to yourself, and then 3) stick to your guns and be true to yourself no matter what kind of opposition comes your way.
if you are truly true to yourself, then the rest of the world falls into place. you are then fair to yourself and when you are fair to yourself then you are fairer to others, and kinder to others and so on and so forth but you have to start somewhere and usually it's best to start with yourself. take care of your own happiness. if you are not happy, nobody else around you will be either. so figure out what makes you happy and go for it and quit trying to be whatever is somebody else's conception of happiness. be true to what makes you happy and life will fall into place.
if going out a lot and never sitting still makes your happy, then do it. if being a homebody makes you happy, then do it. there is no right or wrong. just figure out what you need and get it. and don't let everybody else's demands come first. it's important to take them into consideration but there is no need for martyrs in this world anymore. the roman catholic church is dying its own slow death and the age of self and societal imposed guilt will soon be over, my friends. at least that's my hope. ok, well maybe a little guilt can stay. a little guilt to just keep you on course now and then, but really. for the most part guilt is totally out of vogue. some rational thinking, perspective and a dose of awareness with a hint of good eating, sleep, social time, and exercise is all you need for a life in balance. ok, add red wine, chocolate, something warm and fuzzy to snuggle, and someone to laugh with, and call it good.
so remember this: know who you are. take time to know who you are. sit still long enough with yourself, alone, to know who you are and when you're listening really hard and really paying attention, then remember to write it down and never forget it because this is your ticket to peace, freedom, and a happy roller coaster ride through life.

happiness - i love reading about happiness

I used to read a lot of books about Buddhism. now I read a lot of books on happiness. kinda the same thing. I figure, the more you read about it, the more you have it. I figure the more you write about it, same thing. I think people are endlessly fascinating. like a moliere play, we are all sizing each other up and trying to figure each other out most of the time and most of the time nobody is getting it right. and yet we are, we just don't realize it. I know a few people - we all do, right? - but I know a few people who, just knowing them, makes me happy. so not only do I read about it, write about it, I figured I would try to recreate the people I know who make me happy just so I can get even more happy. that's my one woman show idea in a nutshell (and now I won't write about writing anymore again, for a long time).
let's begin with person S. person S is a writer (ok no more about writing). and the reason this person makes me happy is... he just doesn't care. he passes zero judgment on anyone or anything and, to top it off, he is actually excited about the little things that I think nobody would even notice or care about. he takes his time. he takes his time to answer a question. he takes his time to let you talk. he is the kind of person who will absolutely let you finish your thought before he interjects his. not because he's slow or dim witted but because he is not only polite but interested in every last word you have to say. that's classy. and that inspires me because most of the time I am one of those people who thrive on the thoughts that zing through my mind as I listen to somebody else talk and often (not always) but often I jump in on the river rapids of the  conversation because I like the hustle and bustle of a busy conversation. I like the noise. but it is so refreshing to see that there are other ways to give someone a platform. to just be who they are. to revel in who they are. to let them stand alone and strong on the mountain top of their monologue. no need to interrupt. the stream of thoughts pouring forth from the loins of my mind is fascinating enough apparently (hence, the BLOG, ok no more about writing!!!) to stand on its own. that is an amazing gift that he gives. and I try to emulate that. I try. but the funny thing about trying that on other people is that they often think you're crazy (you can see the look in their eye) but actually they eventually like it, too. they feel listened to. no need to toss in my opinion. I just listen and listen and this person actually grows in stature and strength as I just give them the platform to speak and maybe, eventually, they stop going on their monologue rant of whatever is bothering or exciting them at the time and they finally stop and say, 'so, what do you think about ___________?' they finally really want to know instead of feeling like they have to vie for enough time at the mic of life.
ok, so there is one. the essence of S. let me show you another. let's call her A. person A is amazing. she is the kind of person who looks at you, even after not having seen you for a long time, as if she has known you in a thousand past lives. for a long time I didn't know what to make of this look. I thought to myself, she doesn't know me. how would she know me? she barely knows me and yet with every conversation I have ever had with her, we connect on the most microscopic level. whatever it is I happen to like/be excited about/noticed in the world, she has noticed too. from the outside, it might sound kinda creepy, but it's not because she really really has. like this, if I were to say to her, hey A. I feel very grounded today. I know it sounds strange but I feel like if I work on feeling grounded, like actually feeling my feet sink into the earth and not let go, if I just plant my feet no matter how silly I look and just stand still, if I literally focus on the feel of the ground under my feet and making sure I am not lifting the heel of my foot and making myself teeter totter in any shape or form, if I do that physically, then I feel like it helps me mentally. and I think it really does. nothing can faze me. nothing can shift my mood. nobody can say something that gets under my skin and eats at me. I can handle whatever nonsense my kids bring on. I will have the perfectly chiseled comeback for any comment hurled at me. and she would say, 'yes! YES! I know EXACTLY what you mean. (and she does put a lot of emphasis on certain words). YES! I know. and I am SO glad you said that because that's how I feel sometimes. I feel like, if I just slow down enough and notice things, and pay attention to what i'm feeling and slow it down enough that I can get grounded that way, too, and then YEAH! it doesn't matter what happens because I have this. I have my feet stuck to the earth and nobody can budge me. and then I can be there for people. truly there for people because none of their bulls%$t can affect me and when their bullsH&T isn't affecting me then I am helping the world, right, because I am not passing on the negative energy that is out there. that affects us all.' and i'm like YEAH, and she's like YEAH! and it is good.
and I could go on like this forever. see? it works. recreating whatever makes you happy, can make you even happier. that's why people paint. that's why people sing their favorite cover songs. that's why we do anything, really. we repeat what we love until we make it part of us.
one more. my friend from high school. my friend M. again, I will begin with 'she is amazing.' I have never met a person and I don't think I will ever meet a person who is more enthusiastic about life, about food, about whatever i'm excited about, about sitting still in a car for hours after we actually get somewhere just so we can talk some more, about the littlest things, about the biggest things. there is no one who can make a conversation last longer than her. we used to never be able to get off the phone, we would joke about making the other person be the person who had to get off the phone first because we could always find something else to talk about. and often about the most mundane of things but we could keep going and going and going and going and life became endlessly fascinating and revelatory and amazingly precious because of it. I noticed everything because of her. she opened my eyes to the world in all of its messy, beautiful, particular, spotty,  quirky glory because no stone was ever left unturned. I can never just get on the phone for a quick call to her. it will never be quick but i'm glad for that. she could take any subject. I don't care if was about a reese's mini cup and we could dissect and analyze and strategize about its size and the calorie content and the way the ratio of chocolate to peanut butter flavors was different than in a regular reese's cup and how that was uniquely satisfying in its own way. she could take anything. any subject no matter how boring or banal and make it interesting. we could be talking about shoe sizes and she or I would start going off on how 'isn't it weird how your shoe size fluctuates? and why do they have half sizes sometimes and not other times? and who decided what these numbers are? do they correspond to actually length in inches? and why is it that some shoes make your feet stink and others don't. and why can't we all just walk around barefoot and yes it would hurt but eventually you'd get calluses and why is it that people judge your if you're not wearing shoes. like those stores that say 'no shirt no shoes no service.' why is it that people look down on you if you're not wearing shoes? what is it about feet that is so low class? we don't go around covering up our hands? why do feet disgust people so much? is it because they're smelly? well, they wouldn't be smelly if they weren't covered up in shoes all the time, right?' and on and on and on and on and on and on and on. and we didn't never ever care what the real answers were to any of these questions. we just liked asking questions and pondering multiple possible answers and then seeing where that train of thought went and then that train of thought went and pretty soon we had traveled the globe with our minds together and that, to me, are some of the most supreme memories of my life. when a person is willing to go with you on the meandering path of your thought process together? that is a supreme joy that you so rarely rarely see anyone willing to make. we all have to get back on our busy schedules of life. we all have somewhere to go, something more important to do than let our minds time travel and thought travel. but I say, no. I say you have no place better to go than where your mind will take you. well, a beautiful sagey mountain top on a cool crisp morning with piney scent in the air is a close second but your mind is a beautiful place, too.

hugs

i have a theory about hugs. a hug is a like a handshake. you get to know somebody's personality very quickly via a hug or a handshake but perhaps more so with a hug because handshakes are pretty much always the same but a hug gives you a lot more information about a person's current mental state. for instance, I hugged a student today. let's just call her...student. and I never would have pictured somebody like her to hug the way she did but she did. it was a long, sustained hug. a hug that a mom would give a daughter or maybe even a grandmother give a granddaughter. it was a steady hug. a strong hug. a hug that said, 'I am here. you can rest awhile. it's all going to be fine.' it wasn't a loud hug - not that those are bad. and it wasn't a quiet hug - not that those are bad either. it was just steady, sure of itself, and there. and for a moment, I thought, wow! I never knew she had it in her. I never knew she was that strong. sometimes you never know about people, until you give/get a hug.

what am i

supposed to do right now? that is the eternal burning question. what, in this moment, is my destiny? should I... grade speeches? watch a movie? get some exercise? call a friend in need or just call a friend to laugh? you never quite know is the truth really. you can wait and wait and wait until the moment strikes you down like a bolt of lightning and you realize in a deep and profound way exactly what you are supposed to do precisely in that moment in time or... you can do what I do most of the time and just guess. keep on guessing and hope that I picked the right answer on the bubble test of life.
for some reason, the truth and whatever 'the truth' means fascinates me. everyone has their greatest strength which, at other times, can potentially be their greatest weakness and that is mine: I philosophize... A LOT. in my head, all the time, analyzing and dissecting, microscoping and chemically saturating the zips and starts fits and farts that I observe throughout the day. for instance, today, a sweet young girl said to my sweet young daughter, "i am really bored. and actually, i'm having a lot of fun being bored, too." who ever - in their most perfect adult mind - could ever dream up such gems? but it's true. sometimes, when you get so bored that you can't even stand the sight of yourself, THAT is when life just starts to get interesting again. when you're at the bottom of the barrel, the end of your rope, fresh out of ideas, that's when your mind finally clicks on. your noggin. and it starts to think for itself all over again.
like this thing, this thing I am doing. I have started and given up and started and given up on writing a one woman show I don't know how many times. and now I have just started it again. here. in a blog. this is going to be it. I decided. the crap I pour out of myself on this page is going to be the chef d'oeuvre at the end, the piece de resistance. it's going to be shizzizit, baby!
what better place to write a one woman show besides here? not that I ever approve of writers writing about writing. I think that is just about the cheapest date you could ever go on. so I will stop soon, but let me just share my opinion on this a little bit more. writers who write about writing are equivalent (sorry fellow writers and friends or, soon to be, former friends who write about writing) to masturbators who masturbate to videos of themselves masturbating. so i'm going to stop right now while i'm ahead of myself.
other things I've thought about, learned about, figured out today? that's all you've really got to go on isn't there? today? sure, you can think about the long ago past or the far away future, but really... what better place to start than the right here and right now.
so... today? I figured out that being an adult is a lot like being a kid. when I was a kid, I used to tally up score each evening before I went to sleep. I recounted in my mind all of the highlights of the day. reliving my day. until I fell asleep. being an adult is not so different. much of our time is spent relishing our victories or strategizing our triumphs. I think it's a good thing. but I also think it's an amazing thing if adults can do what kids do which is... forget about time. lose track of time. clear their mind. just clean the slate and just be. sometimes, when I truly forget myself, that's when i'm at my best. when I stop remembering that I am a 44 year old woman teaching a class of 18 to 30 year olds and i'm just me up there chatting away with friends. when I truly forget that i'm supposed to be responsible and be concerned about whether my kids are doing their homework or watching too much TV and I just let myself play awhile with friends, working on a play, playing dress up in class, zoning out, not realizing that I'm yawning as somebody else rambles on, when I just stop worrying what everyone thinks because, as augusten burroughs also pointed out, it's when you stop dressing up to impress people and you are just yourself out there in the real world that your true friends will come to the surface because they will love you for who you really are, not the spiffed and polished up you but the real you that you are the rest of the 90% of the time that you are alive and just living it. just being alive. getting by. doing your best but just you, the you that doesn't take quite enough showers, the you that wore that pair of jeans one too many times, the you that doesn't quite care if the coffee breath still lingers. that's you. ok, well maybe a breath mint wouldn't hurt once in a while, but still...

i can't believe

anybody reads this stuff. I mean, who am I? I am a person like any other person. what is so important about what I am to say? nothing really and yet I write and I write and I write some more. why not? why the hell not? well, I figure if somebody out there wants to read it, I guess I owe them something to read. so here it goes...

this is what I learned today, in a nutshell. 1) you better learn something every day or you are liable to get old on the inside and out very fast, 2) you better listen to your heart and let it weep if it's going to weep so that later you can also tell yourself 10 reasons why you are the most awesome person in the world but you can't do that until you've at least let your heart and soul wallow as it will. as augusten burroughs has already written so well (and I will paraphrase him poorly), 'if you're trying to get to California but you refuse to acknowledge where you are at, then you will probably not be able to find your way to California on a roadmap.' it's the same with life - in order to know how to get to where you want to go, you also have to know where you are right now in all of its honesty, brutality, rawness, and rudeness and even lewdness. 3) sometimes it's important to sleep, but sometimes it's also important to know where you are at. 4) kids (or generally anyone younger than yourself) tend to have this ability to keep you youngish because they refuse to let you cling to any one thing for too long. 5) coffee is really important when your head is cloudy. 6) being grounded may get boring but sometimes that's more important than coffee. 7) weird random acts of kindness and creativity like this man taking a photo of our house back around Halloween time and then bumping into me in our alley the other day and promising me a copy of the revamped digitized photoshopped image was supercool and the only thing cooler was seeing the photo today which looks something akin to a perfect little toy model home in mr. roger's neighborhood... realizing that the universe sometimes plops this wyrd gifts in your lap for free is mind boggling to me. 8) changing what place you get your coffee at is important once in a while. 9) changing your routine in any sort of way is important all of the time. 10) a little writing goes a long way towards sanity.

somehow i feel better

knowing that i can blather on here than on facebook because nobody HAS to come here, nobody is FORCED to read my ramblings, i can just ramble on and on and nobody has to give a rat's hiney because sometimes that's all a person needs is a place to dump. we all need dumping grounds that eventually may turn into a nice healthy compost heap but for now it's just a dumping ground maybe one day a stomping ground but right now a dumping ground and that's what i'm doing in the natalie goldberg kind of way like back in the day when people actually went to churches and had priests to listen to their jibber jabber but even then i bet the priests would get tired of listening to people ramble on so that's why they had the little lacy wall in between them and the confessor because if they wanted to fall asleep while the person rambled then they could and i think that's good we should all be allowed to fall asleep at the wheel once in a while not in real life of course but in our imagination we should be allowed to fall asleep at the wheel of our imagination and that's what i'm doing right now because if you can never get unplugged if you can never just turn off the 'to-do' list of your life and your mind and your body and just be in one place sitting still and letting your mind fly high then what is the point i tell you what is the point of this life if you can't let your mind take you someplace new someplace different so that the big fat dreams that you dream may one day become realities or maybe not realities but either way at least you have some kind of compass pointing you in some kind of direction instead of just treading water and barely keeping up with what is around you barely keeping up and making do barely keeping up and just maintaining and it's no good to just maintain you've got to think big you've got to think even bigger than you thought you were thinking when you thought you were thinking big. amen sistuhs and bruthuhmans

this is a shoutitout to the people the people, the people the people who are going to make it into my one woman extravaganza tribute to all of the people and peeps that I have known in my lifetime who have made a difference who have changed me changed the path that I was on diverted the mud on the beach into a beautiful new river that empties into the sea the people who have touched or cajoled or moved or guffawed with me who showed me by their weird and thoughtful strange and witty, odd and unique, rhythms and rhymes and funky dimes and nickels and sense how to be free to be me and you and them and not look back at last week when I may not have been so up or down but there's no point no point no point in looking back unless you are looking back to revel in the fact that you are still alive and your neurons are working well enough to recount anything anyway no need to belabor or beat a dead donkey about it just live it and breathe it and remember it and see it and try to hold on and savor it and slow it down and slow slow down because there is no point in hurling forward when you can just slow down enough to a kids' pace a snail's pace and let your fingers get dirty in the dirt and slow down enough to forget what time it is and be outside and stop checking your gadgets and just be be be be be be because it's good to get no sleep once in a while and it's good to get drunk too and it's good to dance and it's good to have coffee and it's good to feel sore and tired and it's good to laugh a lot and it's good to have lots of good comebacks so you can rest up and ease up in between the onslaught of nonsense that will inevitably come your way so slow down, ease up on that horsie and enjoy the long, slow ride up that twilight hill towards the blackberries and the thrills of your imagination gone wild along with the girls on spring break who take no prisoners in their wake but they set a new standard for what women will take for their own pleasure and namesake and that's what is at stake after all.... a chocolate ganache coconut on your eyelash cake.