yeah, I know, but still

Posted November 29th, 2006 by Michelle

There is something about this season that throws everything into stark relief: the good fortune of friends & family & toys & warmth, as well as clarity around singularity. I always spend a lot of time back east this time of year, and I have what feels like a reasonably full life back there, because my family is so present and so huge to me. I’m having a difficult time, thinking about what exactly I want; or rather, I’m having a difficult time because, as always, I want so many things and I’m not sure how to focus or how ultimately I will choose.

I’m also feeling a great deal of frustration & anger about how crappy my education was, and I suppose it’s frustration I should have felt long ago but it’s only coming up now. Of course, in many ways, I’m incredibly grateful for everything that led up to this very moment, but there are deep, black, dark holes in my chest and I’ve realized it doesn’t do me any good to pretend they aren’t there or that they are comparatively unimportant. It’s only me, after all, it’s all I’ve got, and if I don’t take care of me I can’t do anything I want to do in this world.

Sean was talking the other evening about the story of the birth of Christ. You’ll never meet a non-religious person who loves that story as much as he does. He said it was the inherent possibility in every birth that gets him- that every child born could be a child who changes the world. I feel like, had I had anything resembling a decent education or, christ, I don’t know, a feeling any time I was young that I had *options*, I could have been that child. I don’t really care how this sounds. I want to change the world, I want to already *have changed* the world and as I’ve said a thousand times before, I want a life that takes my focus OFF of my own navel. But left to my own devices, it seems I buy expensive sweaters and turn on the television and forget, all too often, that I’m actually supposed to be doing something. Maybe it’s my determination to be alone these last many years that seems to be in vain. Like, I’ve sacrificed, but what for. I call it “career” because I can’t name what it is I really want to be doing.

But I feel this strange sense of miracle just around the corner. Nothing to do with me, but with something of which maybe I’ll get to be a part. It might be Barnaby, it might be something else, but I have this sense that something unexpected is brewing in the cold and that if I stay awake, I might get to see it, or experience it. I had this feeling about six years ago, and it was spot on, although it took years for me to truly recognize what it was.

Or maybe it’s just that I’m terribly jet-lagged and feel like I have feet in two different worlds right now. Maybe, though, maybe Sean’s right, and this time of year the cold air thins the barriers and something truly unexpected could happen.

new digs

Posted October 10th, 2006 by Michelle

So ya’ll are just going to have to bear with me on this blog, those of you who are not my far-off family, as I’ve had requests to show pics of our new office space. My organization just up and moved to a new home and I’m a little bit in love with the space, so I’m going to honor that request and bore the snot out of most of you. So here goes.

This is the view inside my wee office. This is where the magic happens. This is where I seal my deals, practice my presentations, calm the ruffled feathers of entitled artists, help creative folks new to the area find their community. This is where I close the door and try to find out the publish date of the next Harry Potter novel.

This is where the Program Manager has her desk. (She doesn’t always look quite this crazy.) She has about four times the space as I do but no walls. I love her desk(s) because they always look as though a child has been sitting there and playing with stuff- lots of colored paper and scissors and CDs and bits and pieces. She is an artist and it shows in everything she does. She’s a rock star.

This is the long view, facing away from the PM’s desk and toward my office (which is up on the left). Pictured: the admin assistant. Not pictured: multiple bags of coffee and about a thousand boxes of art supplies.

And, finally, the view from just outside my office in the hall. The former tenant, who has been gone lo these three years, was some kind of internatioal liabilities something or other. Until the new signage is installed, we will continue to offer limited liability for important body parts.

And that’s the tour. All are welcome to visit.

P.S. If you can’t see the images, it’s because Blogger blows.

thankful

Posted October 5th, 2006 by Michelle

I feel as though I’ve just come out from a haunted, dark, difficult maze, one that I’ve been mired in since mid-July, and I almost don’t trust the blue sky and fresh air. I’ve been coming home at night, and rather than feeling exhausted and desperate for escape, I’ve been feeling a sort of delicious restlessness, like I’m ready to expand my life. Like I’m ready to expand my life outside of work. Really, I should be feeling more stressed and more worried (and believe you me, oftentimes I do) but I get home and I’m not even tempted to check my work email. Weekends, I don’t even check it until late Sunday night, and then only to know what to expect Monday AM. It’s a strange freedom, and I’m so inspired to do good work, both at work, and then totally separately in the rest of my life. I guess it’s that I’ve not had a “rest of my life” for over two years, and suddenly, I’m giving myself permission to find it.

I had dinner with my dad and stepmom the other night, and after three hours of conversation and awesome seafood I got into my car and looked at my phone and a whole host of people I adore had called me, all essentially to say they adored me, too. And we got our first rainfall, and it washed Northern California clean. And my new work computer has a built-in iSight, which means I get to talk to my brother Sean face-to-face and also means I get to take pictures of Jordana’s belly.

Not that blogger will let me upload said pictures.

Regardless, I am grateful for many things.

turns of phrase

Posted September 26th, 2006 by Michelle

It’s been a rough few months. One of my coaches keeps reminding me that I’ll never have to slay that particular dragon again, but if so, why does the dragon still hold so much sway? I’m breathing easier, though, a little better every day, and sleeping just a little better every night. I wish I could say more about this; indeed, I think I should write at length about it, but I can’t here. But suffice to say that I had to do battle with dragon that was at one moment the friendly beast in that terrible movie with Sean Connery and Kurt Russell, and the next a balrog from where the dwarves dug too deep.

Anyhoodle, these last couple of weeks, when I’ve gotten home from work, I’ve taken to going on long walks around my neighborhood. Which means I have to leave work at a reasonable hour, since by 7:30 it is seriously considering being all the way dark. But these walks are just wonderful. It’s one of the few times during a work day that I listen to a lot of music, and there are still roses in bloom just about everywhere, and I live on the outskirts of a beautiful downtown historic district. Indeed, many of the homes boast plaques that tell the reader when it was built (by hand in 1886), by whom (John C. Coombs and John C. Delaney), and how many times it has flooded (too many to count). I can’t get enough. And this afternoon in particular, I swear a memo went out to every single neighborhood cat, because they were out in force, and in full repose. Every column, every stoop, every grand chair was graced by un gato, still as a statue and grand as a Sphinx, except for the lazy blinking of their eyes when I’d look at them. Fat cats, scrawny cats, mutts and Persians and everything in between. It’s almost as if they know the rains will come and they best soak up the day’s heat from the pavement while they have the chance.

So eventually I’m going to come to the point of this blog. I was walking through the neighborhood, unabashedly staring at the houses and the yards still filled with tomatoes and sunflowers and poppies and I was reminded of one of my favorite literary phrases: nodding flowers. I know it’s overused, but it’s just so apt, and I love it. Because I was breezing by and the flowers were nodding at me, agreeing with me that it was a lovely evening. I thought also of “kids sawing away on violins”, another overused phrase, but how perfect! If you’ve ever seen a young youth orchestra, that’s exactly what it looks like: little ones, frowning with determination, Charlie Brown-esque tounges poppped out the sides of their mouths, furiously sawing away at their poor little wooden instruments. I think it’s my sis-in-law Jordana who in band practice always found satisfaction if she got to the end of her music “first”. I just love it.

I know that there are horrid and banal over-used phrases in literature (“his eyes slid down her dress” comes to mind) but sometimes the genius of a phrase, or a turn of music, is undeniable, no matter how often it’s used. American Airlines can do their best to make me forget the magic of “Rhapsody in Blue” but as long as I hear it outside of the context of a commercial, it still moves me, and it always will.

A Fairy Tale

Posted September 13th, 2006 by Michelle

Once upon a time, in a land 3000 miles away, there was a bar wench. This bar wench aspired to being much more than a bar wench, and in time, a prince or two came by and tried to jam a slipper on a foot, or invited her to sleep on a bed stacked with a hundred mattresses, or some other strange thing, but none of it felt right. Then, one day, a cavalry came by and gave her the scepter to rule her very own kingdom. The kingdom was small and fraught with problems, but the former bar wench worked hard and soon there was running water and neighbors helping each other and almost enough for everyone to eat. But the bar wench knew there was still more- that she wanted to be more than master of this little kingdom, that she had other work to do in the world. She also had a terrible habit of taking on far too much work, in an attempt to help every single citizen of her land, whether or not she had the capacity to do so. So she worked far too hard, and far too many hours, to the point where if people showed up at her castle with even humble requests, say, for instance, a request for a special needs art teacher, sometimes she just didn’t have enough space in her heart to really try to help. She was too buried by all of the commitments she’d made to other tradespeople & craftspeople, or by the conflicts she’d chosen to resolve, or by easing tensions between rulers in other lands.

This one day, though, the humble citizen who showed up looking for special needs art teachers was sitting near the bar wench’s throne, looking through some of the printed publications that the bar wench had created to help her citizens. And the bar wench, because she hadn’t another minute to devote to this humble citizen, suggested that she use a passenger pidgeon to relay any further information. And it was at that time that the humble citizen, a grandmother dressed in curious, wicking garb, said, “That would be wonderful, but I am an INTERNATIONAL DISASTER RELIEF WORKER and I’ll be flying to Darfur in two weeks, so anything you could get me beforehand would be great.”

(“scratching of record” noise)

The end of the story has the bar wench not only shamefacedly helping the grandmother find the right art teachers, but also giving her the names and numbers of the rulers of the “health and human services” kingdoms, who the bar wench knows very well, so the grandmother could not only get the arts she needed, but also the support services due to her grandson, who is the one with special needs. The grandmother and the bar wench become fast friends and have tea together the very next day, during which the grandmother gives the bar wench names and numbers of rulers back in her own kingdom of disaster relief. At the end of their tea, the grandmother also extends an open invitation for the bar wench to join the grandmother in a new program she is starting in South America, so the bar wench can “get her feet wet in international relief”.

Moral of the story? The bar wench should NOT WORK SO DAMN HARD OR LONG. And she should be ready to accept with an open heart every last damn person who walks through the door and needs her help, no matter how “buried” she feels. And she should also be extremely grateful that the world is responding to her determination to change.

It’s as if you never left

Posted September 10th, 2006 by Michelle

I just watched part of “60 Minutes” tonight, where Katie Couric was interviewing rescue workers from 9/11 who are now getting sick in staggering numbers. Doctors on the show were saying that they are very concerned that the workers were going to develop cancer, considering the contaminants in their- or I should say our- bodies. I could only watch about fifteen minutes of the show, and I’ve been systematically avoiding all of the other 9/11 shows that have been on all day and will continue through tomorrow. I read that a CBS station was going to play all of their broadcast from 9/11, starting at 8:30 AM tomorrow morning and ending at midnight. I have to wonder who actually has the stomach to watch it. It’s not that I’m not moved by these shows- it’s not that I don’t think they are important or necessary. Nor do I think that we as a society shouldn’t continue to memorialize that day. We need to. But- and I’ve been trying to put this to words all day- I can’t watch. In the words of a song that only come within a stone’s throw to describing how I feel about this, “How am I supposed to remember you when you won’t let me forget?”

I don’t feel all precious about my particular pain surrounding those events. And I know how important it is, particularly for the vast majority of Americans who weren’t there, and even more so for people who lost loved ones on that day, to have organized remembrances and memorials and TV shows. I understand the “We Will Never Forget” banners and t-shirts. But I caught about four minutes of “Flight 93” on the tele by accident and it sent me into a tailspin. Five years and I still just can’t watch. “We Will Never Forget” belabors the obvious.

I know that terrible things happen to people all the time, that mothers and brothers and friends and lovers die in the most awful ways, every single day, all around the world. But what the people on those airplanes and in the WTC and Pentagon went through that day is still too much for me to process. And I wonder, does anyone else feel like I do? Does anyone else dread tomorrow? I’m sure they do, I know they do, but I don’t know how many of us are in northern California, and I feel terribly cut off from my home.

I’m lucky, in a way: my time at Ground Zero was limited. Weeks instead of months, and much of it at a warehouse that was probably far enough away that I wasn’t breathing the most poisonous air for very long. But I am part of the 9/11 health registry and I’m curious how the health of all of us will progress. I don’t have the energy to go on a rant about the lack of adequate government funding for illness treatment for 9/11 rescue workers. But it reminds me that I want to live the crap out of my life, not just because something as horrid as 9/11 could REALLY happen to me, but because sometime down the line, my life might be altered by what is trapped in my lungs.

I just wish that tomorrow I could be in New York, not to do anything special, but just to be there and go to work and work hard and come home to be with my family, both chosen and blood. Maybe one of the reasons I dread tomorrow is that it is a reminder of the time that has passed since I discovered what I wanted my life to look like. I know, in many ways, I’ve been working towards that goal, but it’s a reminder that I’ve got a lot more work to do to make it really happen.

test post

Posted September 8th, 2006 by Steve

this is a test

Posted August 31st, 2006 by Michelle

I’ve not had time to write about Air Guitar or the 24-Hour Plays I saw this past weekend, but it’s almost because I can’t stop thinking about them. It was amazing to see Sean in the same role, in Ian’s play, that I saw six years ago, the night I decided to move to New York. Ian wrote about that night being the beginning of his now-future; it was much the same for me, because I finally figured out where I was supposed to be. I was still living in Los Angeles, in the hellfires of Hollywood, but not three weeks later I’d moved to New York. No job, no home, but I moved. Six years later, I was back, and boy howdy, have things changed.

I’ve been on stage with Sean; I’ve taken passages from Ian’s books and used them as monologues; and many a night at the farmhouse finds me singing with one or both of them. But I can’t tell you what it’s like to hear Sean say Ian’s words, for me, because that is the hard wiring in me, too, and it’s simply wonderful to behold. It was so amazing to be in that audience.

But I’m totally haunted by Air Guitar. I was trying to describe it to my boss, who upon hearing the title, laughed and rolled his eyes, and I didn’t do a very good job of explaining to him what it meant to leave one’s art behind, one piece at a time. If you never were an artist of any kind, you don’t really get the loss. And the seriousness of the play was lost on him. But the brilliance of Gideon is the coming together of Sean, Jordi, and Mac, who do such an amazing job of blending their strengths. I’m a carny, not a rocker, so the music of Fleet Week spoke to me more than the music of Air Guitar; but then, I’m humming “Make Me Proud” all day at work. And two lines won’t leave me alone, if you’ll pardon what I’m sure is a terrible paraphrase:

“You could say he proved his worth years ago by choosing me.”

“How many accomplishment-free days do I get?”

The first, well. I hardly know what to say. So I best not.

But the second… I feel as though so many men have said this to me, but in a hundred different ways: “I”m just not as driven as you”, “I’m not as focused on my career as you”, “I’ll take care of it later”, “Is this another one of your hare-brained schemes?”, or the much subtler, cruel undermining of who I am and what I do, by not showing up on opening night, by not commenting on what I’ve published, by remaining silent when I really need them to speak. Or by showing up, months and years later, full of regret and apology and wistfulness. I have no time for that.

Christ. I don’t want or need someone as driven as me. I want and need someone who finds my drive a source of pride and loving amusement, as opposed to more fodder for ridicule or cruelty.

So I can’t quite yet speak to Air Guitar. All I can do is think about it, and be so fucking proud of my family of artists.

not bad

Posted August 30th, 2006 by Michelle

I’ve never really known where I was going to be in six months, or what I would be doing. I don’t find it necessary to think about a five-year plan or anything like that. The whole tongue-in-cheek “What do you want to be when you grow up” question that adults ask each other just doesn’t apply, because there is a good chance that it will be something so wholly other than my current experience. But two days ago I sat across from a CEO of a major relief organization and he asked me what job I wanted in this sector. And I looked at him, looked around his office at the pictures of him all over the world; I thought about all of the truly extraordinary accomplishments of his organization; and I thought to myself: yours.

I mean, ye gods, how incredible would that be? To guide an organization like that, to have the resources needed to make a massive difference in the world, and to have the ability to experience that difference first-hand. For that, finally, to be my charge. The thing I need to figure out now is just what I’m willing to do to get there. I’d already be in the running for a job in development in that organization, but the director was keen enough to see that I want to do so much more than that- I want to be in the field, want to have my sleeves rolled up, to be in the thick of it.

The CEO asked a great question: “What is the hardest part of your job?” And I didn’t know how to answer. None of it is hard in a bad way, not really, other than problematic personalities, and even that just feels like part of the deal. I wasn’t able to answer him. When I was waiting tables, the hardest part was to walk in the front door of the restaurant. But it’s not that it was hard, it was awful, horrible, terrible. Which made it hard to do the physical act of walking in. But none of it was hard on its own. I mistook his question for what was “bad”, not “hard”, and I had nothing to say. The hardest part, though, I can say now, is that it is so close to what I want to be doing, but not there, and I am acutely aware of what I will give up when I move on. That feels hard… but again, not bad, and certainly not impossible.

But, oh, the thought of it- the thought of that being my life, of living back in New York, of getting to be there as little Lucy and Estaban go through their earliest years, of being in the city without feeling isolated, of working with people who work as hard as I do on the things I care most about… it is the stuff of dreams. I have no illusions about how hard it would be. But hard- hard I can do.

in haste

Posted August 28th, 2006 by Michelle

I’m writing from New York City, although the only pictures I have to prove it are in my mind. When I’m here, it is so easy to imagine a different life, a whole other life almost waiting for me to show up here and live it. I remember very well just how hard it is to live here, but if I were to come back, everything would be different. If I were to come back, it would mean that I was finally- FINALLY- following my calling of so many years ago. Tomorrow I have meetings that just might make that possible, or at least, are the beginning of making that possible. I’m very, very excited about that, even though I know I have so much to accomplish right where I am. Everything in its own sweet time.