Butterflies are never afraid

So you get an AMAZING review. That is fantastic! How do you continue to make it real every time? How do you make sure that you don't get lazy? How do you make sure that you still give your absolute best?

There are a couple of ways that I make sure it happens: I stay nervous. Honestly, I let myself feel it, and I live there in that feeling of not knowing. In the place of uncertainty, in the place of NEED. I need the audience, especially in this piece. If I don't remember that it is always about them, the audience, then I have failed at the task of this piece--to give the people the information that there is hope, that there is beauty, that there is LIFE, even if there has been pain, and trauma.

I live in the butterflies, and find the wonder in the moment, find the newness of discovery, find the fear, and run headlong into it. As a general rule, the thing that I am afraid of, the place where I am scared to go as an actor, is the place, where I should be. The butterflies have no fear of living in my belly, so I welcome their fluttering wings.

So, hello butterflies, so nice to feel you again. Let's make this one real for the people. They need us as much as we need them.

Enter LIFE, stage left, part 2

So, where was I? Oh, yes Revival, we got to revival, and there are like 10,000 kids in children's ministry, well not 10,000, but it seems that way, especially to an inexperienced teacher. And they aren't kids who go to our church regularly, so they are testing boundaries. Great.

Me:
Minister Annette, I'm staying with you tonight to help out.

Min. Annette:
But, you're on the schedule for tomorrow, you don't have to do that Sister Nina. I'll see you tomorrow.

some kid tries to pick up his younger sibling and DDT him...we exchange looks. I smirk, and go to the side of the room with the toddlers and start singing the alphabet. They look at me as if to say, "Who is this magic woman?" and then I just start moving up and down and doing silly stuff, they do it with me, we transition to the cleanup song and start picking up the blocks.

Random Parent:
You are so anointed to do this.

Me:
Hahahahahaaaa! she looks confused Yes, thank you. continue to laugh at myself and Life. "Oh, I know you think you are winning Life, but I got something for you!!"


So, what happens next? Jonathan and I wind up being with children's ministry for most of revival...they needed us. Hey, I'm well rooted and grounded, plus, if you give your service, you get the CD, so no biggie. I brought my puppet, they laughed, I told stories, made a complete and total fool of myself; anything for the kids. And then, miracle of miracles, the car got fixed...for a day! Womp, womp.

Me:
Bring that thing back to Gino, tell him we don't want it anymore and we are not paying for it.

Hubby:
Well, we can't drive it over there...

Me:
Tow it there.

Hubby:
I don't want to pay for that--

Me:
So, you want to keep paying for the car--

Hubby:
You have a point.

Gino:
I'll take a month off, take it to my guy and we'll see if he can fix it.

Us:
Cool.

WRONG. Car still doesn't work. Fine, Life, you win, you can have the car, I don't even want the car. Please take the car. We'll get a new car. Oh, wait, we spent all the money we could have used to get a car trying to fix the car. Riiiiggghhht. Oh, but there's that other mon...nope, going to the FRINGE! Gotta pay for advertising, and there's this unmissable workshop with this Emmy Award Winning Casting Director, and a Major Audition coming up and and and and.....!!!!

AAARRRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!

Breathe. Its okay. I can do ALL THINGS through Christ...even this. There is something in here somewhere for me. I know there is. There's a lesson. Or some comedy. Or some humility.

I haven't written anything longer than a tweet in two weeks.
#EPIC FAIL.

These are my thoughts, as I walk home from the grocery store, all three kids, double stroller and groceries in tow on the Fourth of July, I will find some time. God, I need you to give me some time. Like Joshua, remember how you held the sun, so he could win the battle? This is quite as a big a deal, it won't save a nation. but, I just need time to slow down a bit and...pop. What was that?


You have got to be kidding me. How in the name of all that is holy did the wheel pop off of the stroller? I didn't even hit anything. And then people pass by me as I sit on the sidewalk, with my groceries, and my three kids, and my groceries, and NO ONE offers to help. They don't even say hello, "Oh, its the 'single mother' syndrome, you know, when people see a woman, with her kids, and they assume, because the man isn't attached to her hip, that she is a single mother and therefore treat her WORSE. That is the dumbest thing. It happens all the time, I have several friends who have experienced this. Black friends. Again, another post, for another day. I mean, why do you treat me WORSE because you think I'm a young single mother. You would think people would treat you BETTER, try to help you...I digress. 


Anyway, after trying to fix it for about 20 minutes, and people passing me, I see a group of teenage boys, about 4 of them, I call out. 


Me:
Hey, fellas! Can you help me? They cross the street, eager to assist. They seem to be thinking, "she's not scared of us?" They begin to try to fix it with vigor, nothing is working, we are all baffled. I thank them, release them, they go on their way. Standing a little taller, they did a good deed, sort of. 


I give all the kids a Popsicle, miraculously, they haven't melted. I take the boy out, he's four, he can walk. put the two year old in the front, hand the 10 year old a couple of bags and begin the trek home. It gets harder the closer we get, I almost have to carry the stroller so that I don't strip the pole. And eventually we make it. I'm tired. I'm worn. But I'm okay. And in the grand scheme of things, its okay. The kids are happy, we're all safe, so once again, hey its okay. And there is some kind of lesson about my transportation issues. And I'll understand it all by and by. Yeah, I'm southern. 

Oh, wait, wasn't the new scene supposed to show how I cope with every day life of being a mom and an artist, and a wife and a Christian and ...what did I write in that blog...hmmm

Process

One of the ways we were taught to decipher or translate Shakespearean text for ourselves in my graduate program was very simple. The method was one I was very familiar with, having been raised by an Ivy League English major, my father's response to almost every question was, "look it up."


Well, our professors taught us to look up the word, but they also taught us that in terms of the acting, we shouldn't only use the definition that seemed most obvious. But, we should also choose the definition that was most interesting to us. By doing this, we unlocked magic keys to opening the text. If it was interesting to us, it would be interesting to the audience; that was the main point. 


One of my major question when I started writing this play, was will anybody really care? My life is interesting to me, because, well, its my life. 


I mean, who am I kidding, it makes good theater: young black girl (ooo DOUBLE minority, there's something there), has a parent who commits suicide and she saw it (yikes! the horror!), father remarries, drama ensues through teenage years with stepparent (we love to watch peoples turmoil), secrets (ooo what are those???) but wait, now she's an actor? (that's exotic and exciting, and hear they're kind of wild, don't they all go on drunken binges and crash eventually?) Oh, but wait, she's married AND has three kids? (WOW! that's a lot of kids!) I hate when they say that, its not. NINE is a lot of kids. etc etc etc...


As I pondered and continue to ponder why its interesting, or should be to anyone besides me and my immediate family, the conclusion I've come to is this: its not the life itself, the events, and such, but the process of getting there that's interesting to me. 
proc·ess

[pros-es; especially Brit. proh-ses]   

–noun

1.

a systematic series of actions directed to some end: 

2.

a continuous action, operation, or series of changes taking place in a definite manner: 

3.

Law .

a.

the summons, mandate, or writ by which a defendant or thing is brought before court for litigation.

b.

the whole course of the proceedings  in an action at law.

6.    the action of going forward or on.

7.

the condition of being carried on.

How I got here, at this in the journey, in one piece, with a sound mind, is amazing even to me. But what I do know, is there is some purpose to it, it is continuous, the whole course of it, I must move forward, even if I'm carried. 

And that notion, that this process MUST happen, is very interesting to me. 

The Fire of forgiveness: purpose.

"And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you."
Luke 17:6 (KJV, emphasis added)


"Forgiveness says, 'I cannot afford to spend the energy it takes to stay angry at you. I cut the chord so that I can be free, and you can be crazy, if you want.' Forgiveness is a decision. If you cannot forgive, you have exalted your emotions over your decisions. If you have decided to follow Christ, then you have decided to live a lifestyle in which your faith is exalted above your emotions.  It (forgiveness) was so important, that Christ paused dying to do it..."
Bishop T.D. Jakes

"Father forgive them, for they know not what they do..."
Luke 23:34

Theater is therapeutic NOT therapy: we are often taught as actors and students of acting to keep this distinction clear. I fully agree with this distinction. I do not find it "cool" to go to the "deepest darkest places of my life" to "cry" in character. In fact I think that's dumb and dangerous. Why would I want to put myself through that show after show after show. Not wanting to do that is one of the reasons I enjoy the Meisner technique, it lets the actor work out their emotional instrument just like you can work out the body, but without going to the "deep dark place"

That said...what does one do when the "deep dark place" is what the play is about? Crap. This is the conundrum I find myself in...right after that preposition. Sorry, I grew up with two writers (sometimes I still don't consider myself one, though I write quite a bit).

Anyway, I actually did have to answer this question. There were days in rehearsal (the first go round) when I would be paralyzed by emotion and rehearsal would stop. For hours as we talked about things I mistakenly believed I had let go of long ago. The good thing about the stopping, is that my director, who also happens to be a dear friend, possesses the skill to know how far to let me go, how much to let me wallow, and when to push me. What we found in all of that talking was the story I actually needed to tell. We found it, about three weeks before the show was supposed to go up. I actually had, three or four versions of the script in rehearsal; and that's not so bad for a new work actually.

I really started writing this play thinking it was going to be this delightful, quirky comedy about my adorable kids...

hahahahahhahaaaa!

Yeah, that makes me laugh out loud. There are still quite a few humorous moments. And one of the missing scenes is turning out to be funny (I hope). But there was a day in particular when I realized that I was angry at my mother, biological, Thelisa, or rather that I had all of these unexplored, untouchable feelings, surrounding her and her death. It was the day that my sister sent me a link to this book:

It is available on amazon.com here:
Motherless Mother's by Hope Edelman

Yeah, I read the first couple of pages of the introduction and it messed me up for three days. In a good way.

I can be very analytical at times.  And I pulled several things from the six pages I read:

1. Hope interviewed over 1000 women for the book
2. Over 500,000 copies have been sold
3. All of the women in the book are experiencing/have experienced similar challenges regardless of the WAY their mother died or WHEN
4. The idea that we are having these singular experiences is a LIE.

Once I got over my own emotions enough to push forward, (with Cathy's help and guidance, thank God for her) I had and continue to have a drive to tell this story. Because people need to know that they are not alone. I made a decision that day to begin the process of forgiveness: of Thelisa (biological mom), of Betty (stepmom), of Greg (daddy,) of all sides of the family, and most of all of myself. With that decision I found a freedom that I had not experienced before. I knew that I was going into the fiery furnace like the three Hebrew boys but that I would come out without ash, or the smell of smoke. And that whatever pain I went through to get to the open door on the other side, was going to give others hope that there is life after death. Whether it be the death of a parent, the death of a child, the death of a part of their lives. There is hope.

Selah (pause and think about that).