Cash and Carry

Over and over again, I am reminded how very NOT alone we are here on this vast earth. This life, despite the hundreds of thousands of buzzing bodies that seem to swarm around an uncertain center, can just feel so isolatory sometimes. And then the natural courses of our lives bring us to junctures, points of choice. Do I raise my hand? To say help me? Or do I go quietly to the darkest corners of the cave to lick my wounds?

Both choices are valid. Both are necessary. But there are certain wounds we cannot self-heal. There are certain wounds that take the tribe to attend to. Bringing on the medicines. The prayer. The passionate asking for relief and expression of true grief, should things not go as hoped.

I'm struck by the nature of the human heart that makes tragedy such a unifying force. It is hard-wired in us. Whether you see it as a little programming gift from God or the universe or just a happy accident of evolution: our natural network kicks in when the need becomes apparent and it carries us to a safer place.

I have been asked to emcee a fundraiser by a mother and father who lost their tiny son in the spring of last year to a genetic disease called spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). They're working to raise the funding for a small little pocket of trees and garden sitting area on the Children's Hospital campus -- a lack of which they noticed when they were searching for a quiet space to spend stolen moments with their baby son during his last weeks at the hospital.

To talk to them is to remember how helpless we are in determining what harm befalls our families, but how very in control we are about how we deal afterward. They are inspirational to say the least. Among the many life-seizing ways they've dealt with the loss of their son (Visit their blog to read more, but be prepared to stay a while. It's unbelievably moving.), these folks have also become regular attendees of Freak Train within the last year. It's their opinion that Freak Train is free therapy, where they can connect to a larger spirit of goofiness, human kindness, and entertainment. And that's where they stumbled on to the idea of asking me to help their special night along in January.

I am honored to have been asked to contribute to this event and, if you are in Denver, I hope you'll come out for it:

Cash's Garden Benefit Concert

featuring

The Railbenders

with

Long Road Home

The Oriental Theater
4335 West 44th Ave.

tickets $20

silent auction

All proceeds go toward Cash's Garden
at the The Children's Hospital

Multimedia Macbeth

I should've put this link up a while back, but I've been off my blogger. So, now that this is about ME, how appropo that I should remember to blog, yes? (Jeez.)

Denver Post critic John Moore conducted several interviews with the cast of Macbeth before it opened. A different one has launched weekly during the weeks just prior to and all during the run. I'm featured in this week's:

http://www.denverpost.com/theater

in an attempt to sleep...

It has been four weeks of a grueling schedule. Of very long hours that began at 5 and 6 am on weekday mornings and often did not end until after eleven -- or later, if I went to the Breakfast King to work on lines afterward. (Big shout out to all the waitresses there who were patient with me as I muttered to myself, drank a few cups of coffee and always ordered a fried egg sandwich with a to-go box so I wouldn't eat the whole thing.)

And every day of it, I felt like I was a part of something so big that I couldn't afford NOT to wake as early as I did, get to work, make sure I did what I needed to do there, ensuring I had a job to return to when my focus did. K, M, and G have assembled a family of designers, actors and crew who are each so devoted, one has been compelled to give all he or she has to offer.

And I did. And although I play each of my own scenes from Saturday over and over in my head, noticing the flubs, wincing at the gaps I left and the line I dropped (sorry, W!), I feel like I did all I could do. And I look forward to the next four weeks to do more. To continue to explore the edges of my performance, where I dive and play in waves of ego, risk, fear, consciousness, choice, impulse, instinct, and desire -- that devil that can quickly dissolve any actor's sandcastle. They all roll in, lapping at the shores of my abilities to be or not to be....

It's a crazy thing to be an actor. I noticed us, one night last week, as we all swarmed around our little hive backstage, each of us tracing through the patterns of movement, text, and emotions that make up our characters. Some stared in the mirrors, some read over director's notes, some dressed in clothes only recently made to look old and worn. I felt so understood. So of a mind.

We actors are something other than. We're a part of that tribe of artists who tell stories through their various media; but we are something other than even that, for we inhabit a story for the purposes of its telling. We are both paint and canvas. The human race needs its stories to remind us all what it means to live and die and love and conquer and lose and fade so it will not be quite so frightening or unfamiliar when these things happen in reality. And we actors try it on for size. We button ourselves up in joy and fear, devotion and treachery and walk out onstage to be with you in this incarnation. We believe it from the inside so you can experience it from the outside and be drawn in. So you can then walk out of our theater to live this life, having just been reminded it's yours to live.

Then we go have a drink.

I am so grateful for this vocation.

Rocktober.

Holy crap.

I'm not even going to pretend that I'm some diehard Rockies fan who's "earned" the right to cheer, but I've gone to my fair share of Rockies games. I've enjoyed the beer and the atmosphere. I love a good day at the ballpark.

Even if 80% of the time I went, they lost - no matter. Sunshine, peanuts, friends. Lee. All good.

But, BOOYAH.

Sweet miracle of baseball fairytales.

Hallelujah, Holliday and hooray, Helton!

Off you go to the big game.

hear that? that's the sound of me. sucking.

Oh, wow.
I really, really outdid myself tonight.
Like, I could not get a foothold to save my life.
Imprecise, scatterbrained, unmotivated, uncentered.

Awful.

So here I sit, with my pansy-ass pour of whiskey.

Sipping.
Sipping.

Hoping she will come back to me.

Banquo. Come back.

I'm sorry I started worrying about your belt and your vest and your stupid wineskin. And whether or not I looked cool holding your rifle. I'll stop that nonsense. And I'll make a place for you right here in my heart and I promise not to ever let you go again.

Just.
Come.
Back.

(NO, I'm not having an affair with some chick with a funny name. See here.)

I think I'll make a snappy new day. *snap-snap*

I woke up with the sound of Mr. Rogers singing to me. Not from the TV, mind you. In my head.

I don't mean that I woke up with a song in my head. I mean that I woke up with the distinct feeling that Mr. Rogers was singing to ME. Like, helping me get up. Encouraging me.


It's such a good feeling
To know you're alive
It's such a happy feeling
You're growing inside
And when you wake up, ready to say:
"I think I'll make a snappy new day!"
(Snap-Snap)


I can't tell you what that means in the grand scheme of things, that a long-dead man was serenading me this morning, but I can tell you how great it felt. I adore Mr. Rogers. He was my neighbor, you know.

And if he says today's gonna be a good day, if he's comfortable enough with me to dress down a bit, put on his zippy cardigan sweater and navy blue sneakers, if he's confident that I'm special, and if he's kind enough to reach out, beyond the grave, and sing to me to tell me so... well then I have no choice but to believe it, do I?

--RANT ALERT--

And to those of you who think Mr. Rogers did my generation a great "disservice" and turned us into entitlement junkies by telling us we were special: I'm 31, married, own a home, have a job with mucho responsibilities, juggle those with my passion for my art, have friendships and family that mean the world to me, enjoy a marriage that stuns me everyday with its hidden strengths and humor, AND manage a half-assed blog. Oh - AND, I wake up with dead men singing to me. So, there. How's that for special?

But seriously, academic slackers who get a shit grade and then try to negotiate for better are slackers because 1) we've insitutionalized -- in fact, standardized -- underachievement in our public schools. Students have learned how to suss out the least possible amount of work they have to do to get "passing" results, and 2) they've grown up exposed to the business world via the internet and credit cards and have learned early the art of of negotiation! Nothing's ever taken at face value. Bid for items on ebay. Shop for discounted books, shoes, electronics, services. Work with credit card companies to get a better APR, or take off a late fee, or raise your credit limit.

It's not Mr. Rogers' assertion that "You're special. Just by your being you," that's the problem. There's nothing wrong with identifying oneself as a uniquely special person. He never told me I was MORE special than someone else. In fact, he was rather interested in what was going on with everyone in his little world. If anything, he taught me that special people go around seeking out what's special in everyone else around them.

It's always easy to advise someone about a job I don't have, but teachers today have to realize that today's youth are just plain different. And if you want to reach them or teach them, you'd better ask yourself if you even understand what motivates them. They see grades almost as negotiable currency. That doesn't mean you have to lower your standards, it just means you have to make it clear to them that you're not the Capital One of grade-giving. You're American Express. And with you, the balance is due, in full, every month.

Period.

eggs in a basket

two pieces of bread,
two eggs,
a frying pan,
a knife,
and butter.

crispy fried
toasty love
broken yolks
spill yellow
spread joy.

conversation over coffee
with eggs in a basket.