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Author, Historian, Storyteller

Playing Catch-Up

Change, Live and LearnOne comment so far

Over the past year I have fallen behind in several areas of my life. Now I realize that quite a bit of that is completely in my head. The fact that I haven’t been able to bust through a page long to-do list without breaking a sweat in quite a while simply makes me feel like I’m behind. However, I also realize that it isn’t all in my head, as evidenced by the piles of started/prepped/half-assed projects lying all over my house. Generally speaking, once I start a project, I finish the project. Which is why the sight of unfinished projects is currently driving me batty! It’s making me twitch.

So now that the mono haze has finally lifted, I have started the arduous task of playing catch-up. Holy crap does playing catch-up suck! I am now beginning to realize why I was that obnoxious person in school who got projects done ahead of time. It is really daunting, and quite frankly stressful, to see a mountain of things to do and know that they are all over-due. It’s giving me a headache. I’m pretty sure that right now I would trade my left leg for a couple of pairs of extra arms just so I could do more things at once! Although missing a leg would probably slow me down on things like “laundry” and “hang the new curtains,” so that trade would definitely be ill-advised. All I have to say is that it is a good thing that I don’t live near a cross-road, because one night in desperation I would have found myself out there summoning a cross-roads demon to help catch me up!

Leunig-catching-up

It wouldn’t have worked of course, because my entire demon-summoning knowledge has been gleaned from watching “Supernatural” and somehow I doubt that their writers were going for 100% accuracy. It being Hollywood and all. But again, it’s a good thing I don’t live near one because I would have wasted my time with Hollywood mumbo-jumbo, which would have put me even further behind schedule. That wouldn’t have gone over well. Seriously though, what I wouldn’t give for a little “Bewitched” nose wiggle action or Mary Poppin’s finger snapping abilities. I wouldn’t even need to keep them, I’d be content to just borrow the powers for a weekend.

That not being likely, AT ALL, I’m trying really hard to cut myself some slack and approach one project at a time. Step by step catching up to where I want to be. One thing at a time is not really how I operate, so this is also a good learning experience for me as well. So I’m learning, and growing, and relaxing (sort of) into this new way of doing things.  *deep calming breaths* We’ll see how it goes.

Thoughts on Racism

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I am a straight, Caucasian woman from a middle-class background. Trust me when I say that I realize the privileges that I have. I was born in Alaska, and we lived in an Eskimo bush village where my parents worked as teachers and fought every day against the culture to try to keep the girls in school. The only white people in this tiny village at the mouth of the Yukon River were the teachers and their kids – no we could not see Russia, but we were a hell of a lot closer than Palin. Because of this I was the only white girl in my pre-school class. Let’s just say that one of the little Eskimo boys, for whatever reason, did not like this. So he bullied me, constantly. The two Eskimo women who ran the pre-school would literally give him a slap on the wrist and then send him back into the play group. When I started coming home with bruises, and one day a cut from the broken glass of the little telephone booth that he knocked over while I was in it, my parents decided that enough was enough and they pulled me out of school. We moved to Colorado full time when the school year was over.

So it is with that background, and those experiences that I feel 100% confident in saying that I have absolutely no clue what it is like to live as the victim of racism. Let me say that I again, I have no clue what it is like. I have an idea and I can empathize, but I will never experience discrimination and racism in the same manner as a person of color. Yes, when I was kid I sustained physical injury because of the color of my skin. But all my parents had to do to remove me from that threat was to move and enroll me in a different school that was predominately – read 99.9% – white. The discrimination became a thing of the past. Black parents do not have that option available to them. Hispanic or Asian parents do not have that option available to them. No matter where they go, the color of their skin goes with them, and therefore, so does the discrimination.

As a child I was taught that police officers were my friend. That I could go to them for safety and that I could trust in them to help me if I needed help. To me this was the norm. I have several family members and have friends in law enforcement, and they are good people. For a long time I thought that everyone had this same viewpoint. However, a friend of mine, who is black, disabused me of this belief. As a child she was taught to be wary of police officers. That even if she wasn’t doing anything wrong, she was to speak with caution and not make any sudden movements. If they had not acknowledged her presence, she was to give them a wide berth, and under no circumstances was she to draw attention to herself. This is just one of a hundred different examples of why I will never truly understand the discrimination and hatred that exists simply because of the color of one’s skin. Even with all of the research that I have done into the Civil Rights movement and the slave culture of the South, I as a straight – white – middle class – woman, will never truly know the pain of racism. But seeing it sickens me and makes my heart ache.

I have no solution and, upon seeing the fall-out after Ferguson, I fear that a solution may not be forthcoming in my lifetime. I do however, hope that there may be great strides made in the right direction. I believe that the answer must come from love. I do not deny or mean to ignore or brush aside the anger that many blacks feel. In my opinion it is a righteous anger and they have more than enough cause to feel it. The love and the acceptance needs to come from the whites. White people need to step up and acknowledge that all lives matter, regardless of color of skin, economic status or geography, and then act accordingly. They need to acknowledge that whether we want to admit it or not, being white affords a certain privilege in this country and that is racist. Feeling guilty about it, doesn’t help a damn thing. Bemoaning that being accused of being a racist is just as bad as being the victim of racism, is bullshit.

CB Racism

I feel like I have a leg to stand on for that, as I have been accused of being a racist. You know what, at the time it really sucked, especially since the accusation was completely fallacious and eventually dropped because of lack of any evidence. Not to mention that it became abundantly clear that the reason the charge was levied against me, was because I was the only white person in the group that the charge could be levied against. Despite this, I had to go through a humiliating deposition where I had to answer questions like, “What white supremacy groups do you belong to?” At the time, it was awful and I seriously began to question my own motivations and feelings toward other people. By the end I knew it to be what it was. It was a second charge tacked onto a wrongful termination suit in the hopes of getting more money. It is now over and two years later, it’s become an inside joke with my friends and my life isn’t impacted by it in any way. That isn’t anywhere near the same thing. Just like when I was a child, I got to close that particular door, walk away and not let it affect me anymore. That is the privilege of being white in this country. So, no, I will never be able to fully understand what it is to have the cloud of racism perpetually at my shoulder.

I guess the only thing that I can say, is that we need to learn to not only accept, but embrace and celebrate each other’s differences. Our differences should make us stronger as a group, not weaker. In the meantime, to all of my friends of color – past, present and future – stay strong. You have allies. All of my love.

 

A couple of articles that I found worthwhile:

The Root – 12 Ways to Be a White Ally to Black People

Thought Catalog – 23 Quotes That Perfectly Explain Racism (To People Who Don’t “See Color”)

Peggy McIntosh – White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack

Life is a Cliché

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There comes a time in everybody’s life when you realize that you are going to have to finally face the music and either accept the life that you have, or start making some serious changes to become the person that you want to be. You can change your look, your location, your job, you can even buy all the latest toys with the coolest bells and whistles available, but until you start to change your own thought patterns and processes you’ll still be the same person. You’ll just look different and be surrounded by cool stuff. But what happens if you choose to make those changes?

I recently made that choice, specifically pertaining to my attitude toward my job, and let me tell you, it has been like a breath of fresh air. I get more done and I’m happier. You see, I am still in a sustenance day job. It isn’t anything that I specifically enjoy doing, but I also don’t hate what I’m doing. The problem lies in the fact that I know what I would rather be doing, but I haven’t gotten to the point that that pays the bills. So until then, sustenance job, and somehow I managed to find that needle in a haystack job that pays the bills, but doesn’t consume my life. It doesn’t stress me out, and when I leave, I leave it all on my desk. Work doesn’t come home with me.

Attitude

Despite this, for a good long while, I have hated my job. Because it wasn’t what I wanted to be doing and it took up precious time that I could have been devoting toward my writing. The game changer for me happened when I realized that by hating my job I WAS taking it home with me. I was creating more stress than necessary and allocating unnecessary head space to a sustenance job. How ridiculous is that? So I decided to stop. I decided to stop dreading coming in in the morning. I decided to stop counting the hours and the minutes until I got to go home. I felt a bit like a fish out of water for a while, but I’ve started to get used to this new attitude and getting out of bed in the morning is so much easier now. Not to mention that my days are much more pleasant!

Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not like every day has become a bed of roses for me. I still have my down days, and every now and then I find myself in bed like a petulant child telling my alarm clock that I don’t wanna get up! But things are better. The fact that I’m getting up earlier also means that I have time to make some coffee to drink on my way in to work, so I’m sure that that helps too. But really, it’s the attitude change that has really made the difference. This is a step. And quite frankly this step is probably the calm before the storm, because I’m a hop, skip and a jump away from being able to venture out on my own and I definitely feel like there won’t be very much calm then. Lots and lots of busy, but good busy so I’m looking forward to it. The trick will be to keep that attitude once I’m there! What attitudes can you change that will make your life better?

cliche2

*This blog brought to you by @SteveLeeHwd who challenged me to write a blog using all nine of the clichés listed in this article from HuffPo.

 

When Inspiration Strikes

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There’s something that happens when everything falls into place and finally makes sense. When the path clears before you and no leap of faith is necessary because you can see every step that you will take for the next few feet, few miles, few years. You finally know who you are and what you are supposed to be doing. And all of a sudden everything else feels superfluous. It doesn’t matter and you have no idea why you’ve spent so much time and energy and stress on something so . . . inconsequential. The clarity becomes a numbing certainty and you realize that deep down you knew, you’ve always known.

This has been a part of you since day one, you just needed someone to open your eyes. Open your soul, peer inside and extract the very essence that pulses through your veins. That thing that makes getting up in the morning not just bearable, but joyful. That makes your job your work. Your life’s work. Your legacy that you will leave behind to impress upon the minds of all those who are yet to come. All those who are just a glimmer in their parent’s eyes. All those who will come from the eyes that do not yet exist to hold a glimmer. That kind of work. That kind of clarity. That kind of purpose. The path is clear. Just place each foot in front of the other.

walking-a-clear-path

Standing on a Precipice

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I feel as if I’m standing on a precipice.  The great precipice of a deep canyon that falls precariously for miles and there are craggy rocks, and thorny brambles.  Stray branches to catch and tear at your clothes litter the way down.  Down.  Down through the mist and fog to the unnatural silence permeating the canyon floor where no living soul has survived to take a second breath.

At least that’s what I imagine it to be.  I wouldn’t know for sure, because I haven’t looked.  I haven’t looked because I have no fear that I will meet whatever lies below.  My focus is on the horizon.  The other side of the canyon.  The other side of the abyss.  I can’t see it, but I have no doubt that it is there.  I have faith.  Not faith in a higher power or a helping hand, but in myself.

Faith that no distance is too great if it is the path and direction that I have chosen for myself.  Today I stand upon a precipice at the end of the road that I have forged for myself.  I stand and I prepare to leap.  Not jump, leap.  Leap head first, arms wide and heart open to whatever may come, fully aware that my destination is unknown.  Inevitably it will be exactly where I am supposed to be.  Today I leap.

leap

Why do you always have to be so funny?

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I studied theatre in college – and no I don’t want to hear your stories about how you did theatre in high school.  Why do people always do that with the arts?  You tell anybody that your career aspirations are in an artistic field and they HAVE to tell you about how they once, or sometimes still, dabble in that too.  I swear I’m gonna start telling engineers about when I used to play with Lego’s and business men about my lemonade stand and how those experiences make me a kindred spirit in their chosen career path!

 

Any who . . . not the point I’m driving towards, so I’ll step down off of THAT soapbox.

 

I studied theatre; namely acting and directing.  In my first BFA acting studio we did a Sanford Meisner exercise where you stand about two feet apart from your acting partner, face to face.  Then you both repeat the same thing back and forth to each other until organically the words change into new words.  The idea is to let your brain disengage so that you can truly feel and communicate honestly with your partner.  Well after repeating back and forth absolute nonsense for lord knows how long, my conscious brain disengaged and before I knew it out popped, “Why do you always have to be so funny?”

Now mind you, this was a classmate that I had known for a couple of months at best.  This is not something that you say to someone that you hardly know, especially in front of a group of people!  Naturally, she was offended by my question, but following the rules of the game she had to repeat the same thing back.  She had to use the words that I had thrown at her to convey her emotions back to me.  So she was offended, which made me victorious because clearly I was succeeding in the game (and I do have a bit of a competitive streak, not gonna lie), which made her even more offended (rightfully so!), which made me realize that I was being an ass and so on and so forth.  We worked our way through an entire argument using words that had quickly become nonsensical, until finally all we could do was stand staring at each other and break out in giggles.

It was one of the most surreal, honest, genuine moments I have ever had in my life and definitely as an actress.  I am no longer an actress.  It is a skill that I possess, but not a career that I want.  I learned very quickly that I am not brave enough to be an actress.  I am not brave enough to stand face to face, every night, with a character and do them the honor and justice that they deserve by opening myself up and allowing them to answer through me why they’re so funny, or sad, or strong, or whatever.  I prefer to spill my soul on paper in the privacy of my own head.  I tend to be fairly introspective that way.

But, if I were able to go back in time, to when I was in college in that BFA studio, I wish that I could have stood in front of a mirror and turned that question in on myself.  Only slightly different, “Why do you always have to be so strong?”  That was my thing, my mantra.  I didn’t ask for help, I did everything by myself.  Because to need help was weakness and I was “too strong” for that!  Which I now see to be total and complete nonsense, and really wish that I could have figured that out much earlier in life!

I think it’s absolutely healthy to realize that you don’t have to be strong and put together and “perfect” every day.  Because putting that kind of pressure on your self is exhausting, and life is hard enough without adding all of that on top.  Some days are “eat the Nutella straight out of the jar” kind of days, and there is nothing wrong with that!  I think I could have been a lot happier if I had figured that out all those years before.  After all, truth be told, it takes a hell of a lot more strength to ask for help, than to suffer in silence.

Today was not an “eat the Nutella straight out of the jar” kind of day, just an introspective kind of day.  Although some Nutella does sound pretty good . . .

The Camel’s Back

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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the things that we put up with because we know the result at the end of the day makes it worth it.  Every single one of us does things, sometimes on a daily basis, that we don’t necessarily want to do, but we know it’s worth it.  I mean seriously, who genuinely likes using a stair stepper?  I can think of a hundred other things that are a lot more fun and a lot more fulfilling than that.  However, I like the way that my legs look when they’re toned and I know that cardio is good for my health.  So despite the fact that I basically hate, loath and despise my stupid little stair stepper, I still use it . . . occasionally . . . when I have new Netflix that I can watch while stepping.  But what happens when the end no longer justifies the means?

Maybe your priorities or goals change, or maybe, like in my instance, you decide that the crap just isn’t worth it, regardless of what the payoff might be.  It seems obvious to me, that at that point it is time for a change.  It is time to make changes and probably drastic ones.  But there is something so alluring and safe to the familiar.  Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.  After all, your new destination might be worse than where you are now.  So you put up with more crap.  You say that you’ll fix it tomorrow, you’ll make changes later, you’ll look for a new job next week.  In the mean time you carry on, business as usual, putting up with more and more crap until finally that proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back falls.

Have you ever noticed that there is always a straw, always a breaking point?  And it is rarely something big or noteworthy, it is generally something small.  I can’t think of a single time in my life when a feeling of disquiet, of discontentment, didn’t finally end in some straw falling that finally propelled me to action.  I’ve never sat back and said, “You know what, I don’t absolutely love my job, I’m going to actively fix that.”  I’ve always allowed myself to be just shy of content, just shy of happy because it could always be worse.  Or I think that I should be grateful for everything that I do have.  Trust me, I remember when I didn’t have a job at all!  So I stay where I am until that proverbial straw falls, pushing true happiness aside.  Which really leads me to question why happiness isn’t at the top of my priority list.  It should be.  It should be above everything else!

I would like to say that I didn’t have to wait for a straw to fall.  I would like to say that happiness is #1 on my list.  But this morning there was definitely a straw and I honestly question whether happiness even makes the top ten of my list right now.  So I’m going to make changes, the first of which is rearranging my priority
list.  I don’t know that happiness will be #1 – I’m going for realistic goals here – but this time around, it is going to at least make the top ten.  Along with using that stupid stair stepper more often . . .