Shake It Out

Shake It Out
I knew from the start November was gonna be a good month. First of all, it started on my favorite day of the week—Tuesday—with a bowl of fruit loops, an iced latte, world news, and the new Florence + The Machine album “Ceremonials” (which I HIGHLY recommend). And it ended with a great night in rehearsal and a late night glass of champagne (because you really gotta toast to a new month). And these last few days have just been filled with so many highs and some scary lows—but all the great stuff that reminds me that I’m alive… that I’m a human (and we all know how I feel my only “job” is to be a human). So it’s been great. I’ve been letting go of A LOT, and feeling so liberated because of it! Like literally shaking the sound out of myself… the thoughts out of myself… the words out of myself. And this is where this blog is coming from. Word vomit. I’m just shaking it all out. I owe it to myself. And y’all have been complaining that I don’t post enough ;)




Beauty in the Breakdown
Ok… what it is, right? It goes like this. The other night in rehearsal I kind of had a little breakdown. A good breakdown. A much-needed breakdown. Finally realizing how much I’ve been censoring my thoughts/feelings lately—even to myself—and realizing that I need to let myself fall apart so that I can put myself back together again. So now it’s time to vent. Time to shake it out.

Shit that’s frustrating/pissing me off:

1.I WANT TO DO IT ALL. Or, in the words of John Locke, “Don’t tell me what I can’t do!” I had a friend tell me the other day, “you should just transfer to another school and be a directing major because it’s obvious that that’s what you really wanna be doing”. No. Don’t tell me what I want to do. If I wanted to be a directing major right now, I would be. But that’s not what’s calling me right now. Sorry.

2.The show I’m ADing right now is literally the most fantastic experience. Really, though. Those 4 hours every night are the highlight of my day. It’s the thing I most look forward to, and the thing that’s hardest to leave behind. But it’s making me really see all the bullshit everywhere else in my life--and most specifically in musical theatre . And that's actually the scariest thing for me to admit. It's to the point where I don't believe a majority of musical theatre. I’m not buying it. I’ve seen life changing musical theatre, I know what it is… and it’s sad and scary that is is just SO rare. And I think this is where my desire to write/direct comes from… my search for truth in the theatre. And while this is all incredibly frustrating, it’s also invigorating… it drives me. It gives me purpose. I am an artist. I want to create art.

3.Semantics. I don’t know why this offended me, but someone asked my friend recently why she does theatre. My friend responded, “Because I love to pretend”. I hate the word pretend. It’s synonymous with words like “fake” and “false”. And I don’t want to go to the theatre and see someone faking it. I don’t want someone to lie to me; I want to see the truth of their circumstances. And I know this is probably what my friend meant, but come on… word choice.

4. A general lack of accountability. This is just a problem with humanity. “It’s not my fault because….” –And who the hell am I trying to kid? Of course I do this too. We all do. But I want to take it upon myself to be accountable for my actions. Yes, it’s my fault. End of story. I think it’s the same sense of embracing failure we have in acting that I want to pursue in real life. Like, sure… I did this thing wrong, and it is entirely my fault.

5. Not being honest with myself. Smiling, apologizing, laughing, and brushing things off that actually hurt me. All my training (specifically Meisner) is teaching me NOT to do this, so now I'm a little mad realizing how often I do this in my day-to-day life.

6. The simple fact that I’m constantly surrounded by people who are questioning what they do. It can sometimes be a little much… because everyone else is second-guessing themselves I feel almost GUILTY if I don’t second guess myself. But eff that. There are a lot of things I want to do. And there are a lot of things I’m good at. I trust the universe will let me do all of things… I just need to be patient because I can’t do everything at once.

7. The fact that I CAN’T do everything at once. I mean, because in the end I’m only one person with one body haha. But the way I look at it: I have a lifetime of excellent work ahead of me. I’m calling this chapter “Fierce MT Training” or “#BFAproblems”. And it’s scary and thrilling that I don’t know what the next chapter might be. Maybe “Pounding Pavement” or “Directing for Dummies” or “I want to be a Serious Actor, You want to be a Serious Actor? I want to be a Serious Actor.” or maybe “Drinking and Writing”. I don’t know. We’ll see what calls to me in 2 and a half years. But for now, I’m seriously digging where I’m at. Because at least I’m in a place that’s making me think. Breaking me. Inspiring me. Helping me shape and define the artist I want to be, and the work I want to do—the fun I want to have.

And here I am right now. These thoughts have been swimming around all week, and finally tonight I talked to someone who gets it—someone who knows how it goes. Someone who assured me I’m not crazy. And I got this great sense of community that I hadn’t found in Boston until tonight… people to help me put the pieces back together. And that’s entirely it… we can’t put ourselves together if we don’t let ourselves fall apart first. The most reassuring thing I got out of this particular conversation was the idea that this breakdown feeling it right—if our training isn’t breaking us it’s not working. And I’m so grateful for that. For the people and experiences life is throwing at me right now. I seriously must have done something friggen excellent in a past life to deserve all this.


Figuring Out What You Really Want in Life
I went out with Bailey last weekend for a roommate shopping/fancy dinner date, and the latter part of dinner was spent on a thought I’m sure many of us daydream about: what would we do if we won the lotto? This for me has always been very telling in what I really want in life. If I didn’t have to worry about my student loan payments and rent and food and phone bills and Starbucks what would I do? Well here it is… If I won the lotto RIGHT NOW:
1. Go shopping. I mean, duh. We all need to get that huge shopping spree out of our system. And obviously I’m taking my mom and sister with me.
2. Pay for school.
3. Put some money away. Save some for a rainy day, ya know?
4. Pay for my sibling’s school.
5. Pay off my parents mortgage/debt/cars/whatever.
6. Buy my dad a mountain with a house (or lodge) on it. Maybe Montana. (This has been a long standing agreement on what I owe him if I ever made it big)
7. Set my family up. I owe them everything, so it seems fitting.
8. Buy property. New York. Boston. Chicago. Miami. LA.
9. Majorly renovate a brownstone near school.
10. Recreate The Drama Bookshop in my brownstone.
11. Have a theatre space in my brownstone.
12. Start a theatre company (employ my friends).
13. Do fulfilling work with my theatre company. Act/Direct/Write. Everything. Shifting roles. Stretching my boundaries. Keeping things fresh and new and exciting.

Don’t underestimate the power of your daydreams. It’s nice to think about this every once in a while, see how this list changes. How some things rise in importance while others lose all meaning.


Angels
I’ve been thinking a lot about Ginny lately. I was skimming through some of Jose Rivera’s plays looking for new material to work on, when at the exact moment I read “a million million angels died” (Marisol) Ginny’s picture half fell off the bookcase it’s taped to. I mean there’s gotta be something to that. There’s just gotta. And for literally 10 minutes I was completely frozen because I FELT that. That was a real thing. And I felt HER. My entire body was tingling. Like a small electrical storm. Or stars shifting. And I was so warm. So full of light.