Fool's Report 2013

Dear Family and Friends,

Every year on January 6 I issue the following report. I do this on the 6th because it is Twelfth Night, which has a special place in my heart. Traditionally, the Feast of Fools would be held today and the gifts of the Magi would be exchanged. These are ideas that I like and I prefer them over traditional Christmas. It also gives me a great excuses to not write Christmas letters in the middle of crazy-ah!-time, which is what Christmas has become.

Me at the Hotel Del

Fool’s Report 2013

The house remodel was completed in April, which now feels like a million years ago, allowing me to go back to my lifelong preoccupation with not knowing what to do with myself. At the end of August my mother’s side of the family gathered in New Mexico for a week of familiness. Unfortunately I was unwell most of the time, I think it was stress related, and didn’t enjoy myself very well.

I worked on three shows this year. Mixtape , which had been running since August of 2010 on extensions, (for those of you who don’t know, pretty much everyone hired on a show is on contract. My original contract began July 29, 2010 and has been extended 2 or 3 months at a time. This makes it hard to gauge when to start looking for the next gig.) Any way, after two and a half years of mixtape I was ready to do something different. In October I got the opportunity to do the puppetry for Mistakes Were Made at Cygnet, a local theater. I enjoyed getting to participate more in the story telling aspect of theater and I got some lovely feedback. Then it was back to the tape.

In December mixtape took a brake allowing me to do props and set dressing for An American Christmas, Lamb’s Players show at the Hotel Del Coronado. Following that I was on vacation were I learned about an intriguing opportunity that I’m not going to talk about because that story belongs in next year’s report.

I’ve been thinking hard about what my next project should be and how to fill the time when I’m not doing theater work. I’ve thought for a long time that having a second job or side business would probably be the best thing for me. Maybe I will actually launch something like that this year.

Because I know some of you care about such things, I’ve made some good friends over the past couple of years but remain contentedly single. I don’t foresee a change in this arrangement.

God has blessed me richly in the midst of my struggle and I have struggled much this year. I hope to enjoy some rest in 2013.

There you go, annual newsletter thing done.

Love you all,

Christmas

It's that holiday. You know the one with all the productions. I'm exhausted.

I've made it a tradition with myself to reflect on the year that was during the two weeks after Christmas and writing a little news article of sorts. I'm gearing up for that now. What I'd like to say to you at this point is this, God has shown me many things this year. Things I don't necessarily like.

It looks like the year to come will see some major transitions. I don't think I'm ready.

Overwhelmed

Overwhelmed. That feeling has dominated recently. Just way too much to decide and not enough rest.

I didn't expect to have to struggle as much as I have. I wonder why that is? I'm not really special. I wasn't born into privilege really. Well privilege is a comparative thing. So, yeah, compared to people in, say, Guatemala, I'm living the life. But what is it in us that makes us think we are owed a certain standard of living?

Sweet stability, why does it look so easy? From the outside a story is neatly packaged and all figured out but the inside, the living of it, is pain, struggle and sometimes absurd.

Read Psalm 73
Nothing is new yet all is change.

"I can't afford this any more" she said, and it was true she couldn't. That's all.

Thanksgiving

Thankfulness is in the air, this is the seed, the heart of worship.

When I was younger I held on to every pain I looked inward I couldn’t see anything but my own misery this was selfish and got me no relief. I was a shell with a little rock rattling around in it. I became envious of those who had the opposite problem the one where they twist all focus to themselves. I thought why do they get what they want and I’m neglected? Why do I refuse to bend to the norms that would have me speak only of myself and seek only my own pleasure? This unyielding was pride. The overreaching was pride. There was no wining.

There was a day, a point when I noticed that I complained a lot. I mean a lot. Every day, every time I talked to myself, it was in every prayer I prayed everywhere, complaining. I didn’t want to be a complainer. They’re all so negative. So I began to write thanks. Because writing is permanent and if I could be in the habit of writing thanks and thanking more people and things I wouldn’t complain as much.

I am surrounded by complainers. It makes practicing thanksgiving harder. Because complaining sets off a chain reaction. I find myself saying; well you think you have it hard I have it worse. Most of the time I can stop myself from actually saying it out loud but the fact is I’ve thought it. Obviously I still complain. It’s kind of the only way to let people know you’re bothered by something but I hope I don’t feed it. I mean isn’t it lame to listen to the same five complaints over and over from the same person constantly? I hope I’m not that person.

So what’s the difference between complaining and expressing genuine desires/needs? Uhm, I don’t know yet.

Thanksgiving, and I don’t mean the American holiday but the discipline of giving thanks, has definitely changed me, before I was an anxious mess. It was bad. I remember spending many, many evenings alone feeding the anger of being alone and complaining to myself. What was I doing? There was no way anyone could help me because no one knew and they didn’t know because my pride told me they should care enough to find out. That’s what you’re up against with depression that grew from anxiety. Now, though it has been very hard for me, I’m opening up and this gives others an opportunity to help.

I still have a long, long way to go. I still don’t open up as freely as I want.

How do I cheat failure?

This has been a very frustrating week. I know I’m tiered. This should remind me to temper my decisions. Tomorrow after breakfast all will be different. I will be hopeful again, I think. Honestly, I don’t love theater this is not a good fit in a lot of ways but I feel stuck. What options do I have?

The closing on the 15^th was a good catalyst it was to propel me though the veil of the unknown. I was going to walk into the mystery. I was scared but excited and a lot of other things, but to have it reopen, to prolong this thing? I’m angry.

There are lots of reasons for my anger. I don’t know where to begin or if I should even fully express it.

How much more crap will I have to endure?

Why worry about it? This is the morning talking and though I expected to feel better I should’ve known that the hard long work would leave me depleted even after the nights rest. What is out there, what am I missing? This thought follows me everywhere. The risk is what?

From the outside a life, someone else’s story, looks so neat put together. I’ve been told that I had “it” together that my life was a success. Oh, the struggle they can’t or won’t see! All the hard painful things no one knows about! I am undone.

I don’t really believe in success any more than I believe in perfection. I don’t think we know what either is. If I’m flawed and I know that how could I hope to understand perfection and if I know I fail that makes me a failure and no expert on success. AHHHHHHH! It will freeze me if I let it. So, how do I rob failure of its power?

Isn’t that what everyone wants to know? How do I cheat failure? You can’t. It’s actually a neutral thing. Failure is meaningless. Perspective. We look at circumstances and label them failure but what we mean is we don’t see or, more often, feel the success. It’s in what you choose to look for. But without new eyes what could I see in new light?

Strangely the longer I’ve lived the more positive and negative emotions begin to blur together into a ball of mixed pains, sweet and terrible pains that roll in the cup of my soul. It’s hard for me to value these marbles of pain. Are they good or bad? I don’t know, but they make me human.

I don’t like the idea of living in frustration and bitterness. I don’t know anyone who does.

Sorry, there is no closure.

I will hope again. I always do but you need to see this too. You need to know I struggle.

Into the Void

So, the last time I did this, walk into a black hole, I had nothing to lose. This time there is some potential loss. I'm afraid of fading away.

And now if I name this fear and acknowledge the potential loss can I begin to recover before the blow is struck? That's not possible, or rather, logical. Come what may not saying anything will just put me back to the beginning, sort of.

It's hard to be both bold and humble.

Though I may never be able to name what I really want I see now that I must try. So much good can come from my failure.

Don't forget me
Don't leave me out
please remember me, find me

The void calls. I must pass through. Lord, remember my request grant me my desired friend.

The Wanting/Asking Exercise

How am I doing today? Honestly, I’m tired and conflicted. Tired because I’m working a lot, conflicted because it’s just time to be conflicted? I’m facing the unknown again and I don’t like deciding what I want from the unknown. 

Among the thoughts that war in me; I ought to find another job now however this current project is so demanding that I physically can’t do much outside of it. I don’t like living on reserve energy, it’s unsustainable. So, I think to myself marriage to a rich man would solve a lot of problems because there wouldn’t be pressure for me to work for money it would be about working for fulfillment or something like that. However marrying a rich man is a fairy tale solution that I have no hope of engineering; one, because I’m not a mercenary, two, because like I said above I don’t like deciding what I want, and three, I don’t know how much money anyone makes. 

The deciding to want something quirk is the one that really trips me up because if I can’t tell you what I want when you ask I will always be frustrated and you won’t be able to help me. So what can be done?

It sounds weird to me but I might have to practice consciously wanting things. Then practice asking for them. It seems like this comes naturally to most people so I find myself asking, why am I different? Why do I have a reluctance to name what it is that I want from a situation or person? Instead of fixating on that maybe I should just try the wanting/asking exercise. Perhaps in coming to express the want I will understand the fear that blocks the communication. I’m sure it’s a fear.