Lunacy Me, Now You Don't

Picture yourself as a kid, and you’ve experienced a really great weekend, like a family reunion, or something? All your cousins were there, everyone running around, laughing, and eating food off the grill. Maybe you were the family that hosted it that year, and finally the time comes for everyone to pack into their cars and drive back to their respective homes. Maybe it’s only a short drive away, but the last car pulls out of the drive and you get a feeling like a gut punch. You don’t understand the waves of emotion rolling over your tiny mind. You were just in heaven not three hours ago! Is it melancholy? Is it loneliness? Is it the first realization that all good things must come to an end? Maybe you cry, hug your mom, and wonder when the feeling of sadness will go away (give it 30 minutes and a VHS tape). You were surrounded not too long ago, and now the dust is settling and it’s just you and your immediate family again. Everything is quiet and you are left. You.  I...

My first sip of coffee each morning is done looking through the window over the sink in the kitchen. It doesn’t matter which house, because most homes I’ve lived in, save for one, have had a window directly over or next to the kitchen sink. I did this while living in our rented farmhouse last year surrounded by fields and cows. There was a trailer park next door, where we got to know the most wonderful dog named Jericho, and his owner. One of the RV’s constantly called an ambulance, like every two weeks, but the workers seemed calm, as if it were a time-honored tradition (against their will). Another trailer housed two black labradors and an owner who warned other dogs not to get too close, even when crossing through your yard (property’s a construct anyway). The trailer behind that had a wooden fence that echoed the sounds of premature teenage fits from a 9-year-old boy, directed at his mother in regards to playing or retiring for the evening.  This morning tradition of taki...

Vacation is leaving something one previously occupied. The act of vacating is used as a refresher and a means to get away from work and responsibilities. Mental chores, on the other hand, cannot be left at the kennel or stored at the post office for two weeks time. You can’t run away from your mind, at least not for long. Our “things” come traipsing right along with us, with vacating merely allowing us to stand beyond spitting distance with heightened clarity to assess. What clarity have I found, you ask? Well, pretty clear skin, some clear ocean water, and a clear need for connection. #needy While traveling with my mom, I’ve been working on a math problem, long-form answer. Who are we as people separate from what we do? Work, relationships, hobbies. See, as an artist, I find this difficult to answer. As an actor, you’re often seen as who you play onstage, the way your voice sounds, and the shapes your body cuts when you dance. A romantic notion, but when you come home at nigh...

What a 12 hours it has been. Quick second--I need more coffee. There we go. Now, let’s see if I can blend this coffee mixture without it exploding over the kitchen for the second time. It’s been a hell of a 12 hours. The kind that you just want to laugh at because it’s ridiculousness wages a war on your senses and you can’t figure out which way is up and which way is down. I’ve always been a procrastinator. I’d say it’s a superpower of mine. I’d wait until midnight to start studying for that day’s math test and then throw a fit over the mad dash and pressure as if time was a new concept and I was the Universe’s guinea pig. I still wait until the last possible second to leave the house in order to get someplace on time, and have a talent at figuring out how to find just enough activities each morning that I don’t quite give myself enough time to get dressed and properly groomed. I’m usually eating while I drive, especially heading to evening performances. I’ve heard it ...

I’ve had a good deal of coffee, a chunk of peanut brittle, and I’ve already cleaned up dog vomit, so I’m raring and ready to go with words. Bear with me.  I’ve been stressing over what to write, and how to say it. What is going to be my big “thing”, my catch, if you will, creatively this year? What can I create that no one else is doing? Pragmatism at its finest. That’s the way our generation has been taught, nay, programmed, to think. We’re always being shoved full of delightfully sleek designs and lettering, told to hustle or we’ll fall short of our potential. For the overthinkers and overachievers of this world, the games we have to play become a maze of doubt and self-flagellation. I’ve spent the better part of my 20’s trying to figure out how to corale myself into working efficiently while still allowing organic creativity to flow and without jumping off a building in the process. I used to work myself into the fetal position on the floor, crying until my own mothe...