Showtime

Inspiration becomes a solid, smoldering idea.  The idea becomes a need.  The need becomes a collaboration.  The collaboration becomes a pursuit.  Consultation.  Pitching.

Fundraising.  Crowds of supporters come out of the woodwork, from sometimes surprising and always humbling and amazing places.  Concept building.  Casting.  Booking space.  Finding a theater.  Weeks of rehearsal.  More collaboration.  Evolution.  Hiring support.  Volunteers.  Building a website.  Finalizing the script.  Organizing tickets.  Trying on costumes.  Buying snacks.  Tech week.  Light cues.  Dress rehearsal.  Speed through.

What's different about this opening day?  What's special about this particular showtime, for me?

That first inspiration, that little idea that became a need - it was my need, my idea.  It met a partner, Larissa Dzegar, and evolved to something better when our ideas and needs mixed.  Our ideas together became a pursuit that both of us just HAD to see brought to life.  We made this show out of the raw materials of our own selves and what we could reach in the world around us, joined by other artists, supported by an astounding number and caliber of people who believed in us and our project.  Today, when the audience walks into Space on White, it will be because Larissa and I wanted it to happen, because the universe supported our venture.  And because, of course, God is good.

The Body Stories is a dream come true for me.  Thank you, thank you, thank you, for letting me tell this story, for putting this show on the stage, for acting, for showtime.  Now I can say, "I am Jeanne Joe Perrone - an actress, a writer, a producer, an art maker, and a director.  I am a creator of The Body Stories.  My dreams come to life."

Home

Treehuggers: me and my mom

"Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do... but how much love we put in that action." - Mother Teresa (from Brainy Quote)

As an actor and self professed gypsy, I have often made cavalier statements like: "I have no hometown," and "Home is wherever you hang your hat."  Whenever I say stuff like that, I obviously try to be standing mysteriously under a streetlight or smoking a cigarette or be backlit by the city skyline with sirens blaring eerily in the distance or something equally cinematic, epic, and devastatingly worldy.  Of course, I don't smoke, so I never look as noir in actuality as I do in my imagination.  And I am sure I never sound as cool when I say that stuff as I think I do.  Probably I just sound silly.  But I can dream.  I can pretend to be that hard-boiled femme fatale with no past and probably no future, with undisclosed secrets and seemingly invulnerable armor - a la Lauren Bacall.  I can tell everyone and myself that home is whatever I make it, but really, that's not entirely true.  All it takes is a Christmas back at my mom's house, and my tough outer shell crumbles like Santa's cookies in milk. 

As an actor, it's really most important for me to be honest with myself.  After 7-going-on-8 years in New York City, I finally am experiencing my first homesickness.  Took me long enough right?  I guess it's some consolation to me that this proves, once and for all, that I do actually have a heart.  Yes, I doubted it once.

Over Christmas, I was hit with powerful waves of sea-salt tinged nostalgia as I drove up the California coast north of San Francisco with my bestie from high school in a rented Fiat (!!) and caught up about our lives.  Over dinner with my mom, it hit me just how precious and rare our time together is.  In my teenage bedroom, whose walls have been re-plastered and painted past recognition, I fell asleep in luxurious 1,000 count cotton sheets with the recurring thought: "This is so great.  This is so wonderful.  I would love to live here again.  I want to stay home.  Life is so much easier and pleasanter and better here. How nuts do I have to be to leave all this behind for cockroaches, subways, and a rat to human ratio of 4:1?"

Like many actors (and, let's face it, most adults of any kind), the city I live and work in is far away from my family.  I see my crew usually once a year for the holidays, if I'm able to go back home - or if my mom is able to come visit me.  This year was special because due to my brother's wedding, my own reckless stubbornness in forcing vacation time into my schedule, and my mom's acquisition of a traveling buddy, I got to see everyone two or three times.  Maine, New York, Texas, Southern and Northern California - no point on the map was safe from my obsession with being physically present with my loved ones for a change.  I even made two trips to Texas to see my Dad.  Texas.  

Perhaps it's the extra face time that's got me all homesick and mushy and showed me the cracks in my femme fatale facade.  Honestly, those cracks were probably painfully visible to everyone else all along, but I liked to think I was cool and aloof and, you know, worldly.  Worldy above all things!  But it was really good to see everyone.  I mean really really good.  There's no one like family - good or bad, crazy dysfunctional or sweet and loving.  Being around them, whether for a quick weekend engagement party or a extended Christmas sit-in, gave me a much-needed reminder of who I am and what makes me strong.  And there's no place like home.  No friends like childhood friends.  Yada yada yada.  I've been thinking today that this longing I have for family, for home, for an identity that is interdependent with others who know me intimately and is based on where I come from, is a great reminder of what it's like to be a human sojourning in this world.  

This world doesn't really feel like home a lot of the time - I am sure that must be true for other people in fields other than acting, too.  The world can be competitive, cold, difficult, unfair, all those things.  It can be, well, worldly.  It can make one feel small and disposable and overwhelmed.  Yet, this world can also be beautiful and lovely, so much so that there are moments and experience that make me absolutely ache with their beauty.  But for some reason, it seems to me that the times I see this world at it's most lovely are the times I feel the most homesick for another world, a perfect world, a heaven.  Perhaps human nature is a little bit like the nature of pursuing an acting career: we are far from home, and we're sojourning in a harsh and often dark city - but who we are, and what makes us tick, is still secreted away in a place that's full of love.  

We have to find a way to keep in touch with it somehow, in the absence of home.  We have to take our home with us, and recognize that there's more to this world and to ourselves than meets the eye.

This evening I attended Trinity Grace Church in Chelsea with a friend, and the main thing that struck me in the talk was when the preacher said, "Once you find that focal point of love, the impossible becomes possible."  It almost seemed impossible, this Christmas, to come back to New York.  It was quite tempting follow the path of least resistance and stay somewhere warm, safe, comfortable, and loving. But hold on, I can't give up.  I can't.  I love this too much.  And love is a big aspect of what makes a home.  Love makes acting my home away from home.  What can seem impossible in my pursuit of acting will be made possible by my love for it, and the love I receive from the people in my life that make my life possible.  That is the home that I can take with me wherever I go.  Love is what makes home home.  If I can put my love of acting into each audition, every cold read, every mailing and rehearsal and performance, I will have really achieved something.  I will have achieved a homecoming.

Be Jolly

Today I wake up in south Texas, basically Mexico, to the sound of Fox News blaring on the other side of the wall my bedroom shares with my Dad's flatscreen TV.  It has been a whirlwind week of all-nighters, packing, working, and wrapping things up in New York in preparation for the holidays.  I've been to see three movies and multiple friends and survived a night of the worst bar pick-up lines ever ("Have you ever solved a Rubicks cube?").  I've worn 4-inch heels to LaGuardia airport at 3:30am to catch my flight.  I've lucked out and used my empty row on the airplane to stretch out horizontally for the entire trip.  And I've just started to relax.  Shuffling groggily into the living room, I have just enough time to put on the tea kettle and yawn at the Republican debate recap on the tube when my Dad says, "I thought this morning we could talk about what you can do to fix your auditions so that you start getting what you want out of them."

Ah, Dad.  No one else can quite pull off the confront-you-with-heavy-business-before-you've-even-brushed-your-teeth-in-the-morning conversations like you.  No one can reheat bean soup for breakfast with a shot of ketchup because George Burns said it's good like you.  No one can hone in on what I'm trying to avoid but shouldn't the way you do.  No one can actually comprehend and talk about show business without being in it like you.  I love you, Dad.

As they say in The Godfather, "This is the business we have chosen."  It's not that I want to un-choose my path in life.  It's that every year right around Christmas I like to slow down, step back, reassess, and rethink my business.  I like to step away for a week or two, drink a lot of eggnog, and watch westerns.  I like to pretend that there's no work to do or music to face.  I like to recap my year, pat myself on the back, and not think about it.  But my Dad never really lets me stop, and for that I am very grateful because, ultimately, I don't want to stop.  My Dad has a gift for helping me combine my rest and recuperation with reinforcement, whether I like it or not.  "What can you do to book your auditions?" he asks, relentless, over our breakfast of ketchup soup.  George Burns was right.  Reheated soup is great with a shot of ketchup.  Who knew?

There are several things we come up with.  Have vision and clarity.  Know who you are.  Do your own thing.  Have a point of view.  Do something dazzling.  Make a big choice.  Walk in the room with positive energy.  Be genuine.  But my favorite thing we come to is simple.  It's something my Dad has been telling me since day 1 of my life: "Just be Jeanne Joe."  And have fun!

The truth is in life, in art, in acting, in business, the most valuable resource a person has is their own self.  It's what makes great performers amazing: they are who they are, and they work from there, and no one else can do what they do.  This is so simple, and sometimes so hard to remember in the midst of trudging up the mountain of your goals.  It's so easy to get derailed, discouraged, diverted into thinking patterns or behaviors that diminish and dilute your chutzpah.  It's so easy for me to forget to enjoy myself as I go about this crazy adventure of being an actress.  But that's what matters most!  AND it's what will make it all work, in the end.  These two words are the key...  

enjoy yourself.

Last night we're watching The Aviator and Dad turns to me and says, "Do you think you can do what Cate Blanchett does?" It's funny that he picks her as the measure to hold myself up against, as she is one of my all-time acting heroes.  When she performed Streetcar Named Desire at BAM a couple years ago, I shelled out almost an entire week's income for tickets to the special benefit show with a cast/member mixer gala.  After trying on, tearing off, accessorizing, and re-imagining multiple outfits, I took a day off work and wore my Gucci shoes (yes, I have a pair of Gucci shoes, don't ask how I got them - no one was hurt and that's what's important).  At the gala over the intoxicating post-show buzz and live New Orleans jazz, my date Shirin Tinati dared me to go talk to Ms. Blanchett.  Yes, it's true, Cate Blanchett was only ten feet away from us surrounded by bodyguards and BAM big-wigs, glowing with a super-human radiance that defies description.  All I had to do was put one Gucci heel in front of the other, look her in the eye, and form words.

Ahh!  I couldn't do it!  That's how in love with her I am.  Even her skin seems more expressive than ordinary skin.  Do I think I can do what she does?  How could Dad know to ask me that?  It's a moment of truth.  It's a soul-searching look in the mirror of my mind.  I think for a minute and reply, "I don't know if I can do what she does, but I can do what I do."

Dad smacked his hands together.  "Great answer."

The best way to refresh and revitalize my career and my self over this break is to remember this simple truth: I can do what I do.  Enjoy.  Myself.  Be me.  Have fun.  This is the business I have chosen, and I am thankful for a full and fun year.  When the going gets tough, I am thankful I have my Dad and my own inner voice to remind me of the simple truths.  Why focus on what I haven't done yet?  I get to do plenty of cool things, like this video I'll post below by Kings in the Back Row.

So, gentle reader, I share all of this with you today because I was in need of a pep talk and perhaps this will encourage you as well.  Whether your dream is to act, write, work, parent, love, farm, or drive a truck, your greatest asset (and sometimes your only one) is yourself.   What can I do to book my auditions?  Be myself.  What can I do to achieve my goals?  Be myself.  What can I do to enjoy my life?  Be myself.  It's that simple.  Yay for Christmas!  Yay for Dads!  Yay for reminders of what I knew all along.  Yay for us, gentle reader, as we take the time this holiday season (and beyond) to enjoy ourselves.  Let's get out there and get jolly!


Departures - KBR LAB from Kings in the Back Row on Vimeo.

Adventureland

My big brother is a cool dude.  Like many little sisters, I've always looked to him as being sort of a superhero.  He's helped me through tough times like breakups, going as far as to send me flowers once a week for a month during one real doozy.  Once he used up his annual vacation time from work to fly up to my mother's house in the woods to help her after a big surgery.  But you'd never really know he was such a serious do-gooder, as he's always quite nonchalant.  He's more likely to be caught introducing Star Wars to people who didn't even know they needed it in their lives.  He got me hooked on Avenged Sevenfold, and for years has lied through his teeth about where he got the giant scar on his shoulder (I was there when it happened, and I KNOW that it wasn't an epic shark battle).  He's funny and sweet and even through the significant distance of our twelve year age gap and different zip codes, I've always counted him among my best friends.

And last week, I got to be there as he got married.  As a starving artist, I've often had to trade off certain life events.  Weddings, birthdays, funerals - sometimes it's just impossible to make it work when you're in New York and lots of your besties are on the west coast.  This one, though, I could not miss.  I returned to my childhood land of Orange County, California for a week, and then on National Metal Day (yep) my brother got married.  I cried, he cried, Grandpa cried.  As Captain Jack Sparrow once said, "I love weddings!  Drinks all around!"

One of my favorite memories of our wedding celebration was a trip we took to Disneyland on the eve of the wedding day.  Insane planning?  Meh.  If you know me, you know I'm a terrible planner and spend most of my life shooting from the hip and scrambling busily from crisis to crisis.  Imagine a whole family of these people, and you'll have an accurate picture of the troop that decided on Wednesday to go to Disneyland Thursday before the wedding on Friday.  Goodness.  And the first place we hit up was Adventureland.  They pump something into the air to make it smell epically exotic (magic?!), and I swear you can hear bongo music in the background (magic?!), and they light torches and have a shop that sells overpriced Indiana Jones hats and it's easy to pretend I'm in Casablanca.  Going there with my new step-nephew was great because he is 7 and everything is an adventure to him.  Before we left for the day, he drew symbols on napkins for each of us and handed them out, saying, "Here, this is your superpower."  Totally awesome.

But anyway, I bring up Adventureland because I think it is a serviceable metaphor.  I think Adventureland is a good word for my brother's new marriage, and what their life will be like, and what mine is like as I get to experience and observe and share my life with others.  Flying out for this wedding was an adventure, as was stopping in Chicago on the way back (but that's another story).  The wedding was an adventure, but the marriage itself will be a totally different adventure.  My brother and his new wife have already been hit with some traumas; a death in the family, a chronic illness diagnosis in the family, a layoff in the family, and a week-long visit from me and my mom.  Not a fairy tale, exactly.  But ultimately it's better than a fairy tale - because it's real.  It's better than a fairy tale because they're sticking with each other in the absence of the fairy tale.  It's an adventure.

He doesn't know he's gonna make it

Sometimes I forget what an adventure looks like from the perspective of the person IN the action - I mean, I know Indiana Jones isn't going to get killed because he's the main character and the movie is NAMED after him, but HE doesn't know that!  All he knows is Nazis are trying to kill him again, and they probably will have snakes.  I know the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland doesn't actually take me into an ancient tomb with fire-pits and skeletons shooting invisible poisonous blow-darts at me, but a child might not know that.  My new step-nephew was definitely surprised by the blow-darts.  We never really know what we're in for.

Being there for my brother's huge life event is so fun for me largely because I know the main character.  Like watching Indiana Jones, I just know my brother is going to be the winner in his story.  Being involved even peripherally is terrific not only because I love a good love story (who doesn't?!?) - but because it's exciting to watch the adventure unfold.  It's not formulaic or predictable.  My brother and his bride are grown-ups.  They're real.  They're dealing with stuff, and yet they're willing to step in the ring themselves.  They're champs. 

Disney's Adventureland has a map and a layout and the rides are on tracks, but real Adventureland is unpredictable.  Sometimes it's good and other times, holy moley batman, it sucks.  I'm not meaning to imply that marriage sucks.  What I mean is, marriage is for life, and life is tricky.  That's why watching people like my brother and his wife love each other well is so awesome.  It's like watching Indiana Jones beat up the bad guys again and again, surprising even himself with his success.  But he keeps doing it.  Why?  Because he's freaking Indiana Jones, that's why.

They don't know they're gonna make it

I often talk big about adventure and glory and fun and positivity in life, and other mumbo jumbo meant to encourage myself as much as other people - but the reality is life gets difficult and scary real fast.  I've missed things I didn't want to miss, and stuck around places where I didn't want to be, because I told myself that was the price I had to pay to pursue my dreams.  Adventure, when you're in the thick of it, is always teetering on the edge of disaster.  That's what our lives do, and our character and choices are sometimes our only compass.  Watching someone like my brother dive in has been pretty inspiring.

After all, Indiana Jones wouldn't give up.  My brother won't.  And neither can I.  No giving up! Adventureland, homicidal blowdart-shooting skeletons, starving artist-ness and all.  I know, I know - it's kind of a hokey metaphor and I am sure that if my brother reads this he will roll his eyes and ask me why I didn't use a better metaphor like football or something...but there it is.

Forks in the Road and Alternate Lives

Last week, in a quiet and unscheduled moment, I logged into facebook and spied on my friends' lives.  Don't know how this goes for you, but generally for me this is a pleasant time.  You know?  I mean, I browse some music or comedy videos, see what my San Francisco people are doing, notice whether someone has a purple cow in some weird farm thing people seem to like...all in good fun and suspended internet reality.

Well normally it's all fun and games, but once in a while I'll see something on facebook that grabs me in the gut and lurches me out of my virtual opiate.  Something personal.  Something real.  Recently, that thing was a good high school friend's album of engagement photos.

I am of the age where close friends of mine are now settling down, buying houses, making families, planting roots - but I am still at the starving artist stage where I'm living paycheck to paycheck, sharing a bunkbed, and mucking up the romantic waters like it's my job.  Actually, if that is a job and you know of someone who would pay me for that and let it be my job, that would be great...

This particular friend and her fiance have stuck through high school, college, and adulthood together.  They've put each other through various vocational training programs and personal milestones, and been too stubborn to leave each other alone for roughly 8 years, 2 months, and 1 week.  How do I know this stalker-ish piece of information, you might ask?  I know because they got together about the same time my ex and I got together.

Our anniversaries were the same month, same year.  We went to the same proms together as couples (seperate make-out cars though, of course).  We worked at the same swimming pool, all of us.  We took classes at the same community college.  The boys were surfing buddies.  We even played apples and oranges together in the same college dorm when I was visiting over my spring break.

Subconsciously over time my relationship kind of tracked itself in tandem with theirs - even when I moved to New York.  When they moved in together, my ex started talking about moving in together, and I started to realize that I didn't much care for the idea.  Then when my relationship exploded in flames before folding itself to a heavy, tiny, universe-swallowing silence that I carry in my heart at all times, I watched in a daze as they sidestepped calamity and kept being together.  They just didn't stop being together!  Why not?!?!  I mean, we stopped being together.  Didn't that mean that the rest of the world had to derail too?  Didn't that mean that everything had to crash and burn? 

Often, I am ashamed to admit, I felt bitterly jealous of them throughout my post-breakup depression.  Why did they make it?  Why were they still together when we clearly loved each other more than they did?  (I mean, who thinks something like that?)  Why did they get a lifetime when I got only 5 years?  Why did they get to win?  (As if this was a competition!!)  Little twisted, right?  Probably a definite sign that I needed to be taken out of the "race"...goodness gracious. 

This is all somewhat funny to me today, as I click through their beautiful engagement photos and smile to myself at the computer (a non-creepy, non-stalker smile, by the way).  I smile seeing the contentment and comfort in their faces, and I smile recognizing the familiar natural backdrops of my hometown's gorgous outdoors in their photoshoot.  They are together and in love in the same redwoods and beaches that were there for me 8 years, 2 months, and 1 week ago.  They are hand in hand, looking forward at life from a shared vantage point.  I smile, seeing the life that I decided against.  I smile, knowing I could never do what they are doing.  I smile, wishing them all the best.

Yet, my emotions can't help reacting and noticing that I am not where my friends are.  In fact, my emotions are throwing a very unladylike hissy fit.  I've even been walking through the rain today humming U2's "With or Without You" to myself angstily.  "Look what could have been," my feelings say.  "I want that!!  Look what you gave up, you big dope."  (Feelings can be kinda rude.  I always hesitate to invite them to dinner parties.)

So, ok, yeah Feelings, whatever.  You have a point, I lost that - maybe.  Assuming we could have made a happy couple.  Which is doubtful.  Sometimes two plus two just equals orange.  And the TRUTH is, I lost that life because I chose a different life.  I chose to say goodbye, and walked away.  If my heart clenches a little bit and my eyes sting, and if a part of my brain is wishing uselessly for impossible things, what can be done?  Feelings, feelings, feelings... 

Feelings are only one part of me.  It's true that sometimes they seem to overwhelm and take over every other part, but that's a perception and not reality.  I can acknowledge feelings, note them, feel them: but I don't have to be their slave.  I can look around at my current vantage point, my current life, and give thanks.  Here's what I see; no redwoods, but the Chrysler building is to my left and the statue of Liberty at my feet.  No rugged beaches and salt stinging sunsets, but I'm surfing a new matrix of experiences and opportunities and living the dream as an actress in New York City.  No high school sweetheart, but I do have the love of my life (Jesus) and my home is filled with lovely people who build beauty and truth into my world.  My family is behind me and offering their love and support, enjoying the fact that one of their own gets to pursue her dreams.  City lights mesmerize me at night, and the grace of God spreads itself like a safety net under my harrowing existence.  

I have a lot to be thankful for.  And if my life is not what I imagined 8 years, 2 months, and 1 week ago, that's probably because life is a surprise.  My imagination is still growing.  My heart is still growing. 

When we say goodbye to someone or something we love, it's easy to see only the overwhelming "ouch," and we survive that ouch only to have to feel it time and again as we move on and stumble over little reminders of what we left behind.  When I look over the last 3 years since my life took this unexpected turn, sure, I see some pain and loss that I didn't want.  But there is a lot of good stuff that probably wouldn't have happened otherwise.  I had to learn to live with myself and my choices, and figure out how to still be a person after the "impossible" happened.  I had to learn to let go and forgive - and also to forgive myself for doing things I never thought I would do.  And now there are film festivals, faith builders, MFA degrees, plays, travels, new loves, and a hard-earned but precious new honesty about myself.  There are late nights in jazz clubs, holidays in Texas, agents and new business bank accounts for a theater piece that I am co-creating and co-producing.  

I see these things as a direct result of the Unexpected, the Unwelcomed change in my life plan.  These things are all core curriculum requirements of learning compassion.  And these things, weighed on the scales, balance to a positive gain.  So I say once again, because every time I think of it I probably need to do it again; goodbye, alternative life.  Goodbye.  I love you...but, the road and I are going this way...

It's the gypsy life for me.  As the chihuahua says in Oliver and Company, "If this is torture, chain me to the wall!!"

"The Body Stories"

Today I am honored to tell you about my upcoming theater project The Body Stories - an original production I am creating together with fellow Actors Studio Drama School MFA alum and fearless truth-teller Larissa Dzegar.  While together at school, Larissa, myself, and a gaggle of bold performing artists discovered a uniting passion for physical storytelling that has developed into this collaboration.  We're taking our secret obsession public in a performance on January 22, 2012 in New York City and we couldn't be more excited to share our work with you! 

We all have complicated relationships with our bodies - I myself am no exception, and that is my inspiration for creating The Body Stories.  Here's a bit of my story: bodies always confused me.  Puberty hit me way too early.  I was wearing a D-cup bra by age 10 and routinely experiencing the humiliation of sexual harassment.  Much of my time was spent being embarrassed and uncomfortable and ashamed of my body.  My habits, posture, and clothes were designed to hide my body.  I didn't know how to handle the attention I was getting, or how to connect my body with my personality and the world around me.  It all got even more complicated when I couldn't figure out how to reconcile my religious culture with the realities of my physical life and desires.  I wore an abstinence pledge ring but spent the night at my boyfriend's house.  I advocated healthiness but starved myself down 30 pounds.  My body often felt like the enemy.  Why was it was so hard to live in my body?  What did my body wanted from me, or I from it?   These questions haunted me throughout my teens and early twenties.  My person was torn in two, afraid to let one part of me know what another part was doing. 

It's only over my years working as a professional artist in New York City that I've re-thought my body and yearned to explore these questions about bodies as a theater piece.  I am emboldened by the discovery that I am not alone in my struggles.  My body's journey is culminating in this project, where my body - along with the bodies of a team of incredibly brave and talented performers - gets a taste of freedom, connection, and liberation.  My body, finally, gets to tell its side of the story!

The Body Stories is a blessing and a triumph for me, and I firmly believe that this project can inspire hope, acceptance, compassion, and healthy body awareness in others.  I have never felt this strongly about a theater piece before, and know that this will be a life-changing production for me - and not just for me.  We all have bodies.  That's why The Body Stories is truly for everyone.

Myself, Larissa, and our team are willing to work for no pay but I'm sure you can imagine that even an efficient production in New York City requires funds for rehearsal and performance space.   Our goal is to raise $1500 by November 1st, 2011.  We are now requesting the contribution of our friends and families in making this project possible. Your support will breathe life and possibility into our show, and any monetary amount that you can invest is a lifeline for us.

Please visit our indigogo fundraiser website to make a donation and learn more about The Body Stories.
http://www.indiegogo.com/The-Body-Stories

You are our catalysts.  Any contribution you can give will fuel our endless gratitude and make possible the production of what is the most important show I have ever been a part of.  Your generous support makes our work possible.

To learn more about The Body Stories, or to find out other ways you can get involved, please contact us!  Your body also has a story...if you'd like to share it with us, don't hesitate to reach out!  We are open and curious to learn and grow, confident that this is simply one rendition of an ongoing project.  We welcome any of your questions or comments.

Thank you very much for your attention and consideration.  And thank you for being a part of our story.

Mountains and Molehills

Happy October everyone!  Looking forward to a month of breakthroughs, wind-swept change, shifting colors and deeper textures. 

This post will be a bit more personal and, well, spiritual than my usual fare. Over lunch with my adopted life-sister and friend Lillivette this week, she posed a question that I have been somewhat afraid to ask myself: "Do you feel sometimes like you're two different people - the church you and the real-life you?  Depending on who you're with - church or non-church friends?"

Dammit, Lillivette!  This has literally been irking me for several years.  It's not that I feel like I'm living a double life, I'm just dreadfully inconsistent.  I don't like to bring up God and what he's done for me with people who don't share my experience because a) it probably would sound crazy to them, b) they probably don't give a flying rat's you know what and c) how do I know I'm not crazy anyway?

Sometimes I don't go to church for months at a time, substituting it with late Saturday night martinis and hangovers.  Sometimes I feel like my church-me is just some psychosematic astral projection that I made up in a fitful sleep because I was supposed to.  Sometimes I feel like my spiritual life must be a dirty secret, really, since I am so hesitant to talk about it.  Sometimes I feel like it's all made up anyway.  SHEESH.  As a hot mess myself, how can I dare to be my church self and non-church self at the same time? 

When I take a second to listen to this torrent of dizzy foggy thoughts, I see it for what it is: monkey-brain, that incoherent and useless ramble of prehistoric nonsense.  Of course I'm going to be imperfect, torn, scared, and sometimes downright cowardly about important things.  Especially about important things.  In choosing to align my life with a belief system not centered on myself and what I want at any given moment, of course I am setting myself up to fail in some ways.  The point is not to be an ideal representative of God, but to be truthful and human enough to try to share Him and love him back.

The real problem I face is not that I am two different people depending on who I am with; it's that I am the same person.  If with my church friends I struggle to join in belief, I am the one who has to live with that and deal with my character.  If with my non-church friends I struggle to remember and live up to my beliefs, I am the one who has to deal with my character.  And my character always will effect the other people in my life.  I always take myself with me, whatever the situation.  My Dad always says, "You are the common denominator."

Believing in God is hard for me sometimes.  I think about it a lot, and question it a lot, and need it a lot, and I'm always wondering what it means.  So, I share these thoughts with all of you simply because I think (and hope) that perhaps I am not the only one who struggles to be open or who struggles with forging a character in line with their values.  I share, too, because I think I am probably not the only one I know who believes in God but also struggles to believe.  I just think it's time to stop making it so complicated for myself, to simplify, to stand up, and share.  (Even as I write this I'm thinking, oh my god, am I really going to publish this?  Oh my god.) 

"God, I believe: help my unbelief."