Indulge in the felicity of unbounded domesticity

I had a giant post about Advent planned.

However, life happened, my set has ALREADY exploded in my face and we haven't even started load-in yet, and thus I present for your pleasure, another pointless picture post of what has happened to me over Thanksgiving break. I call it:

The Domestication of Colleen

I have never been one for cooking. I haven't been particularly opposed to it, I make a mean vegetable soup, but it's never really been my thing. (Unless I'm dorkily trying to replicate recipes from fantasy novels.) I've worn that as a bit of a badge of non-feminine pride, my way of refusing to be just an ordinary housewife and mother. (Just like all you housewives and mothers out there.) Luckily for me, cooking IS my roommate's thing and I am often treated to shepherd's pie, chicken parmigiana, and the best spaghetti ever. (I do realize I'm the luckiest roommate in the world.) Gillian is leaving me next semester to go to London, and when people have asked what I'm going to do without her, I very sincerely reply, "Starve." And she has been worried about my ability to feed myself. I took this Thanksgiving break as a bit of a trial run on that. Could I actually survive, or would I just eat a lot of ramen and tuna?

First of all, I started my break right with cinnamon rolls. Nothing special, except that I'd never actually popped one of those tube-thingies before. It was thrilling. Second, I brewed up a batch of Ritchie mulled cider. Fabulous. Now, determined to keep that smell around, I got crafty and made an orange-and-clove pomander to help spread the smell.

I dismissed this as simply a sensory exercise of trying to catch the tides of Advent in my lowly dorm room. But the truth is: when you start making pomanders, it's all domestically downhill from there.

At this point in the break, I became completely obsessed with cinnamon. The scent of it, the taste of it. So I did the natural thing: I made snickerdoodles. I searched long and hard to find a recipe that doesn't use cream of tartar, because who has that? (I found out later when Gillian came home that we actually have some. Right.) Now I consider myself rather proficient in cookie-making, but these snickerdoodles turned out much better than I even expected. They're pretty much the perfect cookie. Chewy, cinnamony, sugary... wonderful texture... they're God. In cookie form. As luck would have it, my cast stopped by my dorm that night to pick up the rehearsal props so they could meet and rehearse before our rehearsal the next day (have I said lately that I love them? BECAUSE I DO.) My Percussionist came up while my Speaker waited downstairs, and I gave him a couple cookies along with the props. "ARE THOSE SNICKERDOODLES?!" he exclaimed. Apparently, they're his favorite cookie and he ate the bigger one before getting downstairs and sharing the other cookie. The first thing my Speaker said to me upon arriving at rehearsal today was, "Your cookie was so good!"

Success.

Also that night I made myself a full meal. This involved baking my first potato. I had no idea baking a potato was such an inexact science, but thanks to www.howtobakeapotato.com, I managed a nice, tender, baked potato. I cooked up some chicken breast in oil and garlic, which I've done before. To be honest, this is the only way I know how to cook chicken. Or any kind of meat, for that matter. I made a meatloaf once, but I think I was scared away from meatloafs upon discovering it had oatmeal in it. Anyway. Chicken, potato, and green beans with ham seasoning and you've got a meal that even my mother would approve of nutritionally. I think. I sent this picture to Gillian to let her know I wouldn't die next semester.

This morning, Gillian arrived back from Thanksgiving as I was cooking up breakfast potatoes in a skillet. Not what she expected, I'm sure. I didn't know what I was doing, but I had sliced potatoes, a diced onion, minced garlic, Italian Seasoning, and Bacon Salt. (Yes. Bacon Salt. RAWR.) It worked pretty well.

Then, my set exploded in my face and I knew that desperate measures were called for. Thus I decided to go for the home run:

Muffins.

I, Colleen, just spent multiple hours making muffins.

Not only did I make muffins, but I made muffins with the "Pop" genre of my iPod on shuffle. This includes the complete discography of the Jonas Brothers.

Oh! Wait! What was that I saw? ...oh never mind, just my reputation and integrity flying out the window.

I had a lot of questions about muffins (are muffin cups really necessary if you have muffin tins? are paper or tinfoil better? how high do you fill them with batter?), so I did the natural thing and called my mother. It sounded something like this, "Hi, I'm really stressed, I've spent most of the day crying, most of my set is somewhere between New Jersey and here and I don't know how we're going to focus lights tomorrow, so let's talk about muffins." I went to rehearsal where my cast made me feel better by having gotten 10 times better over Thanksgiving break (and they were already fabulous), then came home, turned on the pop, and went at it.

I made two different kinds of muffins. Yes, that's how desperate I was.

The first batch is my favorite and turned out the best. They're cinnamon muffins, nothing too special in the dough but a little nutmeg. The secret is the cinnamon sugar topping, made by dipping the muffin tops in butter and rolling it in cinnamon sugar. DIVINE.

The second batch was chocolate chip, and I realized while cooking that we ran out of vanilla long ago. Oops. Turned out well nonetheless, though I think the vanilla will help, as would a bit more salt.

I am now considering baking all my Christmas gifts. Perhaps if you're particularly special, you get homemade pimento cheese. These muffins are going to load-in tomorrow morning, because I can't control whether that essential part of my set arrives (::shakes her fist at UPS::), but I can at least ensure homemade muffins at load-in. If I have any left, I may take them to my front desk shift on Monday, we'll see.

My day off!

The apartment is SPARKLING. (Don't tell Gillian - I even cleaned the burners. She's gonna flip when she comes back.) Why? How? I am officially on Thanksgiving break, which means I have time to do normally frivolous things such as cleaning, showering, laundry, eating, and sleeping.

(okay, okay, I do normally eat, sleep, and even shower. My grades suffer for it, but I do it.)

I am not returning to VA for Thanksgiving. I've never gone back for Thanksgiving, as it's a long/expensive journey for such a short amount of time. I actually have no Thanksgiving plans as of yet, except sleeping in, making the Ritchie family cider, and ... wait, actually, that's all my plans. My voice and speech teacher suggested giving myself a day where I have nothing to do, which I think is wise. Thanksgiving break is coming at a perfect time in regards to my show - I load-in on Sunday. I had rehearsal last night, and I have my final rehearsal before tech on Saturday. This gives me and my actors a nice break to get some perspective and rest before everything goes crazy during tech week. I've been inundated with Tongues lately, as is expected. I've started thinking in Tongues lines, sleeping and dreaming of budgets and tech week. It's not that I'm overly anxious about the show - we're in a really great place. I've gone through some rough spots lately (my personal life went up in spectacular flames), but throughout it all, Tongues has been going really well. The play, which is hugely abstract, is becoming very clear to me, my cast, and my designers, which is necessary for the audience to be able to begin to step into this world. Our first run, which was rough because it was a first run, was 42 minutes long. My "time limit" is 45 minutes, but Tongues should run much shorter just with the nature of the play. Our second run was 44 minutes, which freaked the actors out with how long it ran. (That run, to be fair, also started at 11pm.) Our third run ran 33 minutes. We cut off ELEVEN MINUTES, without cutting any text or really changing anything except for cutting the space out of things. Tech-wise, we're even more prepared for load-in than most shows - as all of my designers are going home for Thanksgiving, they've wanted to get things figured out before they left. We've got all our props, and the only missing set piece will be arriving at my dorm on 3pm on Friday.

Woo!

Now, in terms of celebrating the holiday, I did most of my Thanksgiving celebration today. Thanksgiving is a time to be with family, and this morning I did just that. I got to spend some quality time with my PHTS family at Hidden Talents Day. A "talent show" at a theater school makes very little sense, as talent shows tend to showcase talents that people at theater school generally possess. Hidden Talents Day is about the talents we didn't know you have. A teacher of mine once made a journal during Hidden Talents Day. Like... sewed the paper and all of that. We've had lasso-ing, kung-fu, the ability to make farting noises with every part of the body... lots of fun things. It's ridiculously fun. This year, I wrote a sonnet confessing my love for our resident drag queen and read it for her, accompanied by my friend on the ukulele. There was soundpainting, juggling, rapping to the words "cantaloupe", "topiary" and "phlebotomy", waltzing, and a Thanksgiving pageant performed by our teachers. Also, delicious apple sauce made by the director of our studio. What more could you ask for? It was a lovely morning filled with laughter. And bread shaped like a turkey.

In the tradition of the holiday (and not far from the tradition of this blog), I'll use this space to note a few of the many things and people I am thankful for.

• The cast of Tongues. They are some of the most creative people I have ever worked with, and work harder than anyone else. Ever. I walked into the common room half an hour before rehearsal to wait until we could get into the space... and they were there, going over things before rehearsal. After one recent rehearsal, we were all (the cast, myself, and my stage manager) walking in the same direction towards our respective dorms. Lindsay, my SM, and I were talking, until she veered off onto 10th St. Then I realized that my cast had been talking with each other this whole walk about the show, and things to try with different voices, and then my Speaker turns to me and says, "I'm still a bit confused on Josh." (As a director, I try to respect their time and not constantly bombard them with thoughts. I once tried to give them a note on a break in rehearsal, then I stopped myself and said, "No, you're on break, I'm shutting up." But as this time, she was the one bringing it up... we talked about Josh until we parted on 14th.) The two of them are spending Thanksgiving together, and I've heard them chat about what they're planning to do to work on the play over the break. They say, "Yeah, this feels a lot better. We'll work on it over break and show you some more choices inside of it." I say, "Awesome. The first thing we're going to do on Saturday is a run so we can see where we are." They say, "Great! We'll bring in a lot of new things for you." Also, last night, when I had to end rehearsal slightly early because (I think) I had food poisoning and needed to go home and vomit, they cleaned up the space for me. They're simply the best people.
• The designers of Tongues. It is so, SO nice not to have to worry about everything (unlike 1st and 2nd year directing scenes, where you are not only directing a scene, but designing everything about it). My designers are enormously responsible people who do so much for me. There are so many logistics to work out when you're mounting a production, and knowing that I can trust my designers to do their work, make my ideas infinitely better, and keep me in the loop is beautiful. I ask them a lot of silly, curious questions and they indulge me sweetly. ("What's the difference between raw silk and silk?") They're also a really fun group that I'm excited to be spending so much time with during tech. I've learned a lot from them and hope to be half as good to the people I design for as they've been to me.
  
• My stage manager, Lindsay. Again, it's incredible to be able to go into tech knowing that i don't have to worry about things getting done, because Lindsay will be worried about that for me. She knows I become a logistical vegetable during tech, so I feel absolutely free just to have to worry about the artistic side.
• The people at Rosebrand fabrics. My set designer was on the phone with them all day today, they're getting things to us fast and with a huge discount and apparently are just the nicest people ever. (Our set is largely fabric, and while we've worked with the kind of fabric we want, the fabric we're actually going to use needs to be flame retardant, so we're ordering to save time, money, and sanity. Also, if anyone needs 28 yards of 60-inch, mostly white, flame retardant chiffon that's cut into 4 pieces of approximately 7 yards each after December 5th, let me know.) Also, again, about my designers taking care of things/me.
• My teachers. I talk about them a lot, but only because they deserve it. Right now, a lot of my classes involve critiquing the shows that have already gone up, and the amount of care and observation from all of these teachers who are seeing six shows a week is huge. Also, all the critique is phrased hugely constructively, and even people who I know tend to have a negative self-image and think everyone hates their work are coming out of post-mortem critiques with their heads held high while looking at their work extremely objectively. It's phenomenal. I had a conference with one of my teachers last week that was a joyous time largely spent talking about things I'm horrible at doing, to help me work through them. (Also, I walked out of that conference feeling talented? That's very strange, as I don't really believe in talent.) The teachers' enthusiasm is infectious and refreshing.
  
• This program. I'm starting to see how much it WORKS. I hear a difference in how we talk about work. I see a difference in our presentations. I feel a difference, myself. I was part of a proposal meeting last week - basically, the creative team presenting to a board to try to get our show produced at a certain space at NYU next semester. (I'm dramaturging this piece.) This was one of the first times I presented and did not feel extremely nervous, but instead felt like I knew what I was doing. It's not like we've had classes in presentation technique, we've just had to present all the time and have gotten feedback and felt what works and what doesn't. I still have a ways to go, but when I think back to last year's disastrous presentations, I'm floored at the difference. This is also one of those things that is so universal. Sure, being able to draw a groundplan and make a modelbox might be a more specifically theatrical skill set (though a groundplan and modelbox is making its way to Bon Air right now to help with planning for the new Sunday R&R service)... but being able to present ideas articulately and compellingly is helpful in everything. I think that's been the biggest lesson and improvement this semester - how to get your ideas across. That's directing a play. That's giving a presentation. They're actually very much the same thing, just with different languages.
• Everyone who has come up to me excited about my work, even work they haven't seen yet. I've had several people tell me how excited they are for Tongues, and that's inspiring. I could choose to be intimidated by that and worry that I'm not going to "live up to their expectations" or something foolish like that, but I've learned that if people come in already excited about something, it's easier to bring them along with you and they're more likely to chose to like it.
• The Facebook game "Food Friendzy". It's the best Facebook application ever, because you play to win coupons. I got lucky one day and won an $8 coupon, so my meal tonight that would have cost about $10 cost me less than $2. THAT is effective procrastination, folks!
• Assistants! 2nd years at PHTS are required to assistant design, and they make life so much easier. I costume designed a show, which is funny because I know very little about clothing. I did it by having an assistant who knows a lot about clothes, so I was able to talk about the overarching ideas of shape, function, color, etc., and she was able to list out more logistical options than I would have thought of myself. And then she wandered the city for hours investigating getting them when I was in tech for other things. And then she sewed lace. The set assistant for Tongues has also been vital to the process. The hilarious thing is that I forget that having assistants sounds like a big deal. I had something on my facebook status about my sewing kit, and when Russ from this summer commented about how I was becoming a costumer and I said, "Not really, it's for my assistant who actually knows how to sew," another one of our co-workers commented with a confused/awed, "YOU HAVE AN ASSISTANT?!"
• The fact that my coccyx injury is healing quickly. (Yup, I injured my coccyx. How, you ask? By sitting down. Well, technically, by sitting down and missing most of the chair. I'm just that talented. It reminds me of the time I strained my shoulder last year doing a normal, every day, "just woke up" stretch.)
  
• Certainly not least, the always-forgiving grace of God. I forget a lot, I slip into old habits, I have to work really hard to remind myself of what I learned this summer and why I do this. And throughout all my stumbling, throughout all the times I am focused selfishly instead of outwardly, He is always forgiving.
• You. No, really.
  

Montreat Summer Staff 2010 applications were posted today. Check out the picture! (It is only right that the 4-tier pyramid made the website. It was epic.) Speaking of the AV/Aud Olympics, I think I dreamed of the cord wrap last night. I'm definitely reapplying. Even if something else comes up, it'd be foolish of me not to get that application out there. (Besides, I'm about 97% sure I want to go back next summer.)

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Perhaps I'll find a meal to crash tomorrow... or perhaps I'll stay in and read Proust. Who knows?

I Miss The Mountains

Tonight, I made rotini with marinara sauce. If I'd've added some chicken breast cooked in olive oil and garlic, it would have been just like one of my randomly nice Montreat lunches after a morning shift.

This past weekend I saw a show and in one moment, one of the actors pulled out a guitar and started sitting and playing and I wanted, more than anything, to be back on a porch with half of summer staff crowded around people playing guitar.

I don't even know what was the trigger in church on Sunday, but I wanted to throw a pot so badly. (On the wheel, that is.)

The invitations for the Montreat Summer Staff Reunion are out, and I cannot go. It starts two days after I get my wisdom teeth removed, so I will be on medication that makes me even more unsafe behind the wheel. And possibly miserable. It breaks my heart that I won't be there.

It's not that I'm unhappy here or anything. I had a wonderful rehearsal that at times had me rolling on the floor in hysterical laughter tonight. It's that when you fall so deeply in love with places and the people in them, there's always a part of you that misses them. I missed PHTS at Montreat and I miss Montreat at PHTS.

What joy it is to have places worth missing!

I am desperately working to hold on to what I learned this summer. We get so caught up in our own little worlds here. I'm keeping my spiritual life up, which was one of my challenges coming into this year... but my personal life has slipped aside. I've never been known for having a lot of a personal life to begin with, especially being as introverted as I am, but I had one this summer, even if I was significantly less social than most. (social life =/= personal life) Just the act of making myself food tonight instead of grabbing something on the go was renewing, and there is such value to not working all the time (and I think for me specifically there are significant health benefits). I'll see what I can do about that for the rest of this semester, and make more adjustments for next semester. It's always about learning how to balance.

Through all of this God's voice is clearer than it ever has been, both internally in my heart and mind and externally from the lips of others. There are too many coincidences for them not to be miracles. There is such a joy in listening. I am waiting with baited breath for what I will hear tomorrow.

I feel like I'm being very abstract right now. More will become clear later, after Tongues is over and is in the post-mortem stage, when the semester is more behind me. It's hard to figure out all I need to figure out to formulate a solid post as I'm still within it. A lot is working. A lot if shifting. All of it is moving forward.

This is ridiculous, what am I doing here? I'm in the wrong story!

I went to church this morning, and now I don't have anything scheduled until my design meeting at 9pm.

WHAAAAAAAAAT?!

Plenty to do, of course. But since I've been in tech for the past three weeks, usually for multiple shows in the same week, this is basically unheard of. I've loved working on these other projects, but it's really nice that they're all ending and I get to pour so much more energy into my own show. I've reached a really fun point in the process, too. A huge part of "the first directing piece" is getting the beginning feelings of how you work as a director through the entirety of a process (preproduction, casting, rehearsals, design work, tech, performance). I consistently feel like the least creative person in the room, and that's NOT me being self-deprecating. I tend to have huge ideas and sweeping Philosophies About Life and How To Live, which I bring to my collaborators to make them excited. And I have an overarching idea of how to say what I want to say. I'll throw some of impulses at them. Then, if I've gathered the right people and inspired them enough, hopefully they'll start impulsing back at me, and I spend a good amount of time gathering their impulses because beyond these overall ideas, which are usually very abstract, I have very little idea of specifics. Then I'll start to take their impulses and my impulses and knit them together, edit them, specify them. This the phase I've just started. I thiiiink this phase is my strength, both from how it's going so far and my own personality. We'll see how it works in performance. I'm having a lot of fun. It's all choice making. Whee!

It's funny and oddly appropriate that my process as a designer (so far) is enormously detail-oriented, whereas it's hard for me to get to that point as a director. I think it's because my job as a designer is ultimately very specific. Even though I must always keep an eye on the bigger picture, I'm the one responsible for one specific element within the big picture. As a sound designer, I go into tech knowing exactly how everything is going to be hooked up and able to problem solve that with barely any extra preparation on my part, because that's my job ("Okay, I need two powerstrips, each on extension cords to reach the sound cart on one side of the booth, and my violin amp and pedal on the other. We'll daisy-chain the grid speakers and run them into the right main, and we'll put the floor speaker under the booth as the left main. We'll run a quarter inch speaker cable from the floor speaker, connected to a quarter inch to Speakon adapter using a female quarter inch coupler. The wireless transmitter will be plugged into the sound cart and run to channel one with a quarter inch cable. The mic will be in a holster underneath the windowsill. I'll need 4 9V batteries.") In tech as a director? I'm USELESS with details. How does that prop get offstage again? I don't know, it magically disappears? If someone asks me a question like that, I'll have to just problem solve it again ("Where does it start? Who has it? Where does it need to go?" and then figure out how it has to happen). And the next day of tech, I'll have no idea the answer I gave the day before.

I think what happens is I become so fascinated so easily that when I'm in charge of the big picture, it's far too much. One of the most accurate descriptions of me I've ever heard was a comment from my design teacher towards the end of my first year. After telling him I was obsessed with my final design project, he said, "Well, that's not hard. I could have you do this," and he stuck a pushpin into a bulletin board, "and you'd be obsessed with it for a week." What makes this extraordinarily dead on is that, immediately after he said that, my mind's eye zoomed in on a slow-motion, extremely magnified view of what it must be like for a pushpin to stick into a bulletin board. It must wreak absolute destruction! Havoc! Chaos! The boulders of cork that once seemed so solid tumbling away by a fierce sharp metal spear! The landscape of that section of bulletin board would never be the same!

...yup. That's actually where my mind went.

I work much better under restriction. Deadlines. I use religion to strictly order my life because I need it. There's nothing more paralyzing than limitless possibility, at least for me. I think that's why I specifically have a lot of trouble asking questions in class particularly when it's an open question session. It's not that I'm not curious... it's (usually) that I'm so curious the state of being curious overwhelms me until my mind is blank and I don't have a question. As I'm preparing for this design meeting, I have a TON of questions, which is a really good sign that shows we're getting into specifics.

So excited for this design meeting. So excited for my final class presentation on the piece because I think I'll actually have my collaborative team with me. So excited for this show.

So excited also to do more work on this show, do work for Dead Sea Scrolls, shower, do laundry, and take a break to experience the entirety of TSO's new CD with the lyric booklet in these hours I have unscheduled before the design meeting tonight. Hurrah!

This week's patrons could very easily be next week's entertainment. All that's missing is the colesium!

There is a particular point in every director's process. It's called the "there's so much to do and so little time I don't know why I ever thought this was a good idea I want to spend the rest of the money in my bank account to buy a plane ticket to as far away as I can afford and never talk to anyone who has ever known me ever again and become a bum and die alone on the street" point. I reached that point tonight, and had a breakdown in the lobby of the PHTS third floor that involved me filling the pages of my Tongues notebook with frustrated capital letters, charts of what has/needs to happen ("Voices in Various Stages of Completion, aka: The Panic Chart"), lists (including "Ideas for When I Inevitably Run Out of Inspiration"), angst, angst in Latin, commands to myself, storyboard drawings, attempts at storyboard drawings crossed out with things like "mist, glitter, fog" written next to them, diagrams, written explanations of journey, and whinings about how I just want to go back to Black Mountain.

Then, I went to rehearsal (which I haven't had in far too long). And when I said, "Okay, let's look at the Voice from the Dead," my Speaker said, "Oh, great! I worked on this yesterday!"

LOVE. Pure LOVE.

Remember that whole thing about taking care of people? Even in my breakdown, I wrote, "...You have a wonderful cast who loves you and will work really hard and are enormously forgiving. They will take care of you." And the people who came up to me and nonchalantly asked how I was doing without expecting the response they got (poor unfortunate souls) mentioned, "But you've got a phenomenal cast," and I was able to say, unfailingly, "YES." Casting has always been a strength of mine. Cast well and 90% of your battle is fought. This cast is a dream. (They WANT to rehearse over Thanksgiving break. I LOVE THEM I LOVE THEM I LOVE THEM!)

Especially with this being my first upper-level directing project, it is incredible to feel so well taken care of by my cast. I know a lot of actors who fear directors, are intimidated by directors, or feel otherwise distanced because of the "theatrical hierarchy" that tends to place directors above actors, but it's good to keep in mind that any collaboration involves caring for each other. You care for your co-workers... you can also care for your boss.

Tongues opens in three weeks.

I have my production meeting and final class presentation in a week.

We load-in on November 29th.

Bring it.

It cradles them all, for they all are its children

Surprise! I'm alive!

I'm enormously busy. Closed two shows on Saturday. Opening two shows on Thursday. Executed the most technically complex sound design I've done to date. Costume designing, and I'm humbled by how much I learned on the first day of tech about how to work with and interact with people. Mindboggling. Dramaturging. Trying desperately to rehearse for my own show throughout all of this. Overwhelmed. Overworked. Underfed. Anatevka. Here's what I've been thinking:

We label ourselves by our professions. At least here in America, we are caught up on the idea of a career and the idea that we are what we do. I've been horribly guilty of this, particularly in high school and early college where I screamed, "I'm a director I'm a director I'm a director!" What this does a lot is shuts me off to other things that can help me with what I'm interested in expressing. I remember writing after my first year of college that the only label I would accept was "artist".

I feel like a lot of us are grappling with these labels again this year. One of my classes was specifically about how to take up the title of director. And there is something to be said for the validity of labels... used less as labels and more as titles. It's about accepting and embracing the responsibility that comes along with it. This point in this semester, for me, is the point where I desperately run and hide from all "professional" labels. It's generally because I start to think all my work is crap and it's very hard for me to face bad work with a label that assumes some kind of expertise and quality. (In truth, my work ISN'T all bad, and somewhere I know this, but it's just how my artistic brain panics.)

In my current bout of running away, I have considered what title to run towards. Because there is a way that titles can help you order your life into what you want it to be.

I'm at that transitional point in life where more and more responsibility for my well-being is being transferred to myself. Beyond the basic level of being at college and away from parents who take care of you when you're sick, I'm at the point where the focus is starting to turn towards what I'll be doing after college. My roommate and I just started the "...should we move into a real apartment?" conversation. It's beginning the last laps of having the educational support system... which means I truly need to start building my own support system for when I don't have access to, say, NYU's Student Health Center anymore. There are far fewer people checking in with me physically and emotionally than when I was younger, and there will be even fewer in May 2011. I say this, but I'm fully aware that I'm in a program that offers a LOT of support to its students. Several of my classes are devoted to giving us a place to voice problems and receive support. I'm enormously spoiled. But even within this system, it is up to us to actually bring up those issues. We could stay silent and not receive the help we need, so it's starting to encourage us to knit together our support system.

In a conversation with one of my teachers lately, actually about my health, we briefly discussed a major relationship change in my life. This shift happened in May, actually, and I think I mentioned it briefly on this blog this summer. Seems a long ways away, but for how huge the shift was, it's actually not at all. And one of the things he mentioned that has stuck with me in the past few days was about how there's a kind of nurturing that once was there that's not anymore and that actually has a major effect that we often don't want to acknowledge, but need to. It got me thinking a lot about what it is to care for a person. To actually be a care-giver for another person. I think we need that a lot more than we like to acknowledge. At least for me, naturally introverted, proud, attempting to be iron-skinned and independent for as long as I can remember. Some of us (me) work painstakingly to hide it, some wear it on their sleeves, but I think somewhere in everyone there is the part that needs someone to care for them. It goes back even to the Trinity. To the idea that we are created to be in relationship with each other. We cannot live fully without the care of others. And similarly, I believe we are at our best when we are caring for others.

I've been having health problems. All semester, really, but they've come to a pretty horrible point in the past couple of weeks, and I've had to truly start to face them and come to terms with what they are. It's going to be a process to figure out because it involves some major lifestyle changes. Without going into the details, it involves overstimulation and my brain/body's response. (So if you know anything about neurology, endocrinology, nutrition, sensory overload, meditation, Alexander Technique, or artists who've had strange aliments and how they've coped with them, we should have a conversation.) This is something that would take a highly specialized doctor that I do not have the money for if medical help would even make sense to seek, which I'm not sure it does (it's not something that's been highly studied, which makes me wary).

What kept me from panicking in the process of coming to terms with why I've been so ill this semester was the fact that I knew several people I could contact immediately who would be willing to talk with me about this and would have smart thoughts about things I could do. I am blessed to be dealing with this now, while I'm here with these people. I'm currently in conversation with four of my teachers about these issues, all of whom have not only offered their time and thoughts, but their continued, active support. I met with one of my teachers on Friday, then ran into him on Monday and we chatted briefly about theater (as we tend to do), and the conversation turned to these health issues and he said, "I've been thinking a lot about our conversation and I think that what's happening is..." There are people emailing around for me. I have MULTIPLE places to try that offer free guided meditation. I'm getting tea tomorrow with one of my teachers to discuss things more in-depth.

Having been here for a while now, and having established relationships with these people (one of these teachers I've met for the first time this semester, but this is my third semester with two of them, and my fifth semester with another), I know that I can very easily set up meetings or email correspondence with them, that they're beautiful people who are more than willing to take the time out of their busy schedules to meet with me. What is not surprising, but is still unexpected, is their continued commitment to helping me work through this. Hearing, "Would you let me know if it gets any worse?" "Keep me updated," and "I'll keep thinking," floors me. I can logically see why people would offer this support, but it's still somehow surprising to me. But the surprise is a joyous surprise, not a surprise coming from low self-esteem or self-deprecation. I've had people suggest that being surprised or confused is not worth my time or energy as an emotion, but I disagree. Being surprised, confused, baffled, as long as it's not coming from a place of huge fear and low self-worth, can actually keep life rather exciting and full of discovery, gratefulness, and joy.

And honestly, it is easier for me to start to tackle reconfiguring my life as I need to do for this because I know there are these people who are behind me. While none of them are acting as "primary caregiver"/doctor or anything like that, just getting rid of the isolation factor does good things for me. (And a lot of their advice has worked to eliminate that feeling of isolation even more.) I know it is also nice for me (and my parents) to know that should anything truly horrendous happen, something that would require hospitalization, there are people in the city who have some idea of what's going on. (I seriously doubt I'll be hospitalized. I'm taking steps to ensure that doesn't happen. But with what's going on, it's not out of the picture.)

Outside of the realm of health, I feel very well taken care of by my set designer. My brain doesn't think in sets at all and I've been having a lot of trouble with the visual world of Tongues, and I feel lost and jumbled until I meet with her and she works some magic where she translates what I'm saying into something in the space and suddenly everything's tangible and I can actually articulate something again. Then there's a huge load of stress taken off of me.

The act of caregiving is something enormously necessary, which I've learned as I've started to accept the care that others have offered me. And filling that need in someone is beautiful. I try to do that when I'm in tech... because tensions are running high and everyone feels like their artistic lives are on the line. I made the conscious choice my first year when I had my crew assignment that I was going to be happy during tech week, because that fresh air was something I could offer. I've worked to make that a priority during every tech week since. (And I think I'm in my... 12th or 13th since then?) I work to have the energy that will care for everyone involved, and it makes it a great time for me.

It even works in indirect communication. Trans-Siberian Orchestra just came out with a new album, Night Castle, and there are some songs on there that I can release and breathe into, and I feel like those songs actually take care of me.

I'm not sure God calls people to professions. Because then it becomes all about the professions. I don't feel called to be a "director" or a "designer". What God calls us to is deeper. The titles God gives are things like, "servant", "disciple", and "caregiver". I can be a servant through directing. I can be a caregiver through design. While, yes, I think God shapes how we rise to our titles in the gifts He has given us and the places He has placed us, I don't think God calls us to externals, but rather to the direct essence of what we are to do, and how we are to approach the world.

This is Halloween!

You don't know Halloween until you've experienced it in the Village.

I was Magritte's painting Son of Man. Got lots of good comments walking down the streets of New York. Getting compliments from New Yorkers on Halloween is impressive. Also, yesterday was my official 8 year Sweeneyversary.

However, it is now November, which means blog posts are likely to become scarce because I have a novel to write.

Yes. I am barking mad.