Three Years: Are we home yet?

Z and I just celebrated our third anniversary. Three years ago August we gathered almost all of our favorite people and made them stand around in 101 degree temperatures while we committed this and committed that. Then two months later, Zach and I packed my 101 pounds of craft materials into boxes and moved them up north to Portland.

And every time we drive down to the mid-valley I feel a twinge of homesickness. And every time we drive back over that Marquam I ask myself, "Does this feel like home yet?"

This is one of the questions I ask people who aren't from the area. How long did it take to feel like home?

During childhood, Albany was home. No questions. It's where everyone I knew lived. And when I was an exchange student, Albany was home because I knew Nitra was a temporary exchange student town. (And in some ways Albany became a heightened sense of home because in Nitra I was so terribly homesick.) And when I was in college, Albany was home because Eugene was the temporary college town. Even when I lived in Portland the first time, Albany still seemed like home because I kept thinking Portland would be a stop before LA or NY. Aaaand then I moved back to Albany.

So my experience for the first 28 years of my life has been consciously making the current location temporary because it isn't and can't be, the completely permanent idea of home.

How do we relocate the idea of home from the mythical place of our upbringing to the place we've planted our new IKEA bookshelves?

I'm not sure. And today we will drive back through those Albany fields and tomorrow we will cross back over that Marquam bridge and I will look at the skyline and wonder yet again.

Side noe:
I've realized recently that when I get homesick now it's the feeling I had for place but really it's for person. My homesick feeling often means I'm away from Zach. Which is sort of lovely I think.

What were you saying? No wait, what was I saying.*

I went to the park during the last serious sun break a few days ago to take in some quiet and some light. Armed with a journal and a book, I bought coffee and found a spot at a wooden table amid bark dust and grass.

Within 5 minutes of my being there I could sense out of the corner of my eye an old man approach. I did not look up or make eye contact. His opening line, "I'm the park pervert." It was suppose to be a joke. And I said, not laughing and not looking up from my task, "Grrrreat." I was not hiding my disdain. "I try to be funny," he said. I did not answer.

But my rudeness didn't matter, and he asked me if I was in school or if I had gone to college. He didn't really care what my answer was. It was a set up so that he could tell this joke about being just a few credits away from a math degree. He asked me what I studied, and again, it didn't matter, it was just a segue so that he could sing a fight song he'd made up with clever lyrics. He asked me a few more questions and again, none of them really mattered, they were all just vehicles for him to say the next thing in his stand up routine.

2011

A new year. Get ready set go. Z and I spent the New Year at the beach, and on the lovely drive we began talking resolutions. I do most of mine on my birthday, but New Years is still a good excuse to add one or two and reflect on the ones I've already got cooking. I listed off all of mine and then when I asked Z for his he gave me two. "And that's what I think I can do," he said, and he was finished. This is a wonderful example of how we operate differently. I throw a net out and see what I catch. He focuses his spear on one fish, eyes it, calculates and throws.

Adultness

A high school friend's sister-in-law just died. She had a rare liver cancer. She and her husband had been married for 11 and a half years. They had 3 daughters together. She was 30. I knew both of them (the husband and wife) vaguely through high school choir. They were so committed to each other. So incredibly young.

And yet they had already had such an adult life together. They were adults. Young in that adulthood but still adults. They had traveled together. Raised children together. Changed jobs together. It makes me think about my adulthood and makes me realize that while Zach and I are only a year younger than them, I feel like we are a decade their junior.

Not Ominous, But Something to Consider

Fashion designer Alexander McQueen died. This isn't new news. It was this last February. When it happened it didn't even blip on my radar. I don't follow fashion like I follow other celebritiesm. It's not a world I know.

But something struck me about an article that popped up two days ago in my gmail. It said he committed suicide. And again, maybe this isn't new news but he, at the top of his professional game, felt alone. He died the night of his mother's funeral and obviously he was severely depressed.

Food

Last night I attended the Portland Food Cart Festival with Z and a few friends. I'm capitalizing the letters as if that was its name. I have no idea.  Zach and I talked a lot about the event on our drive home and we were both made uneasy by it for slightly different reasons. I thought I'd be overwhelmed by the crowds but I somehow managed to turn off that part of my brain. (I wish I could remember HOW I did that but that's a work in progress I suppose.)  I even sustained a 15 minute conversation with a super friendly drunk guy behind us in the ice cream line.

Old Letters

Occasionally I find letters from when I was a teenager. I'm never quite sure how to respond to them because on the one hand, they are kind of precious. On the other hand..well, sometimes I forget that I had a few years of being really painfully awkward. They help me, however, to realize how far I've come. None of us are happy all the time. Most of us fight the ups and downs of our chemistry and of life. But oh God. We are all so much better than when we were 16. I sometimes look at 16 year olds and wish I could go back and change some things. Then I find a letter from when I really was 16, 18, etc and oh God. I would give up none of what I have now for that. That was nothing but heartbreak and discomfort. I may tell myself to wear more sunscreen and get off soda, but you know. Mostly I'd just give that girl a hug and let her fight the fights she'd have to take on alone.  And then I'd go back to the life I have now. The self understanding I have now. The guy who cooks me pizza. The friends who help me dream. That girl will get here. And until then I will put her letters some place safe so that I can happen upon them another night of cleaning.

Sun

At some point last night the fog lifted. I don't know if it was when Z and I stepped in front of a friend's FCP class at the local college or later walking out of Taco Bell with comfort food. I don't know, but the thick anxiety that has been making house in my brain finally left for greener pastures. It threatened to return for a moment this morning but for the most part I have been free to battle the complexities of preparation w/o also having to battle myself.

A new kind of goal list

So here I am, standing before my 29th year. Twenty. Nine. Holy mother of wow.

I'll get to an assessment of 28 here in a few days but first I wanted to put in some thought on this next year's goals. Twenty-eight seemed like a year of trying to get shit done. Cooking. Video projects. Music. Cards. All were activities. I kept weight off the list, and I kept most internal working off of it too. Twenty-nine may be a different tune.

Piles of You Know What

We had impromptu guests (in addition to a non-impromptu guest) on Saturday. It was a rare and delightful occurrence. We all discussed Z and my moving to Portland and then the ones who hadn't yet seen our apartment got the tour. (It takes about 5 seconds.) As they were passing my studio, one looked in and said in disbelief, "Wow. How are you going to move all of this stuff?!" I was a few rooms away, heard the remark and felt the associated embarrassment. Nerve struck. Even though the entire evening had been beyond pleasant, I still wondered if our guests thought poorly of me seeing the one space in the apartment that is fully under my care.

On the Topics of Knights in Shining Armour

Z and I spent 4 days down at the Southern Oregon coast with some close friends. The topic of romantic notions came up and we basically distilled it down to this:

Women (in general) grow up with the romantic daydreams of a man riding up on a white horse and saving them. But more than saving them, choosing them. Picking them out from all the other women in distress and saying, "You."

We wondered if men had an equivalent of this female notion of romance and the guys said that they thought it was being the knight. They wanted to be this strong man that could fight and win for a woman. But then they also said that they wanted to be able to fight and lose and still have the woman see their value and choose them.

It was comforting somehow to think that the white knight wasn't just our (female) story alone. That maybe the story isn't created just for little girls but for little boys as well. Little boys who dream of being that for the woman they love. To be, in the end like the woman, picked out of a crowd. "You."

(Also cleeeeearly we were working off reeeeally strong generalities here.)

Rules

Last night I got shit done. Today I'm walking into walls. I think lack of sleep may be the common denominator.

A New Sort of Monday

I'm having trouble finding closure to String of Pearls. Maybe it's b/c I don't need any. It very well might be that. Normally I find closure through junk food (check) and a well of sentimentality for the past x amount of time and the people I spent it with. That latter is the one I'm having trouble crossing off. We didn't have a cast party, which just mirrors the whole process for us as actors. We were never really given the opportunities to bond. (And I think we would have been an even tighter group given the chance.) I get the sense that the director has done this so long at this point she doesn't really care about that outside stuff. (Or maybe she just didn't feel it with this particular group of people.)

I also know that I'm a mind jumper. I jump from project to project. It took a lot of self control to not emotionally invest in the next thing before this thing was over. And now that it is, my brain is already strategizing how to get shit done.

But that's why I need the closure. Generally with closure I have the sadness, but I also have this lifting sensation. This lightness that swells and I feel I can accomplish anything. I don't have that this time. I don't have the relief. And maybe that's b/c after the Saturday show my parents told me my paternal Grandmother might be dying, and I'm now taking care of their pets while they head south. Maybe that's why I don't have the lightness. When I really analyze it, it feels unconnected somehow, but maybe I'm not *that* self aware.

I don't know. But I do know that before I completely cross it off, before I completely move on to the next thing, I need to assess the experience in its entirety, and make notes of what I learned for next time. (May there be a next time :)

Holy. F*cking. Hell.

I. Am. Finished.

Onto the next thing. And there are many next things. All the best kind.

Christmas

It's strange to me that we're two days from Christmas. I have been completely removed from the whole thing. This is in largest part due to the fact I'm in a show, and the show is kind of my waking and sleeping (with work, exercise and caffeine thrown in the middle). When I'm not thinking about the show (or washing my hands in order to try and stay healthy for the show), I'm thinking about the next film project or that mammoth in the sky, the wedding. Christmas doesn't even squeak in on the radar. Mostly that's been really good. It's meant that I've had exactly zero stress when it comes to this particular holiday. However, now that we're getting closer the creep is setting in, and I'm having to force back the guilt (not getting presents for people) and the regret (not taking part in any celebratory things...like decorating.) It's just laziness that lets these emotions happen. Our family isn't doing presents officially and I've not turned down one holiday party yet. Funny how something like negativity (in its many forms) can be a habit we acquire and then spend a lifetime trying to un-acquire. Like binge eating. Or picking at bad skin.

And on that note, off to finish the work day.

TV Wonderland

I'm watching a lot of Fringe right now due to some bad habits with internet TV. I've noticed in this show, and I'm sure it's true for a lot of television and movies, that on the phone people often have the following change:

Person 1: Hello.
Person 2. Peter?
Person 1: What's wrong.
Person 2: I just think that you should come back [to the lab].

You can take this conversation and translate it across many situations. I understand that it's for suspension. I get its point. It's one of those devices that we totally accept onscreen as a viewer, but would never accept in real life. Here's how it'd go if it was me on the phone.

more not really important

I am toootally messing up my sleep hours. (Note time.) At least I have to be up and ready to go by 11am tomorrow. Maybe 10am so I can find the apt floor before my Mom gets here.

Also I'm now addicted to Fringe. This is what happens when Hulu doesn't update the shows I really want, I get hooked on new shows. Evil internet. Evil!

And then the rains came

Everyone in San Francisco is talking about the weather. Not b/c they are pretending to be in some polite company but b/c tomorrow it is suppose to rain. No, not just rain, pour. No, not just pour but torrential down pour with flash flooding. And while I've heard people on the bus bandying about 6 inches, other sources say more like 3". Three inches. Of rain. In one day.

Sounds like the type of weather to stay the hell in doors and edit. So perhaps tomorrow I will get some work done...and also finish our Save the Dates. (The non-envelope part b/c ladies and gentlemen, I am suuuuper close :)

Questions for the Day

I'm going to go wander around SanFran while Zach works. I'm working on these questions in my mind:

1. What are the physical traits and personal histories of three of the five women I'll be playing starting in October rehearsals.
Amy- heart surgeon and researcher
Abby- something in finances
Stephanie- Was an architect but now a stay at home Mom.

I have preliminary physical descriptions for two of them. It's the first part of a rough draft. Thank you Richard Avedon exhibit and bus ride home. You were tremendously helpful.

2. What would I wear if I wasn't worried about body size and/or money?

3. General thoughts about a character I'm trying to flesh out for some writing. All I know is her ex husband is named Aaron. Her ex's best friend is named Brian. I still don't have her name or her best friend's name...nor the main character's traits.

Today is like shopping around for personalities in the crowds. I don't get this chance in Corvallis b/c there aren't crowds. What a cool opportunity here in SanFran.

Have a good day ya'll!

Three Things Shower Water Sounds Like

I'm always trying to figure out tastes, but rarely am I trying to figure out sounds. Shower water against my skin sounded like:

1. A faster version of the standard car alarm off in the distance. Or maybe a siren but on fast forward just a wee bit.
2. Steaming milk for a latte.
3. Large group of water birds chirping at take off. I picture one of those National Geographic pictures of a big lagoon where a thousand birds take off and there is a frenzy of sound.

I think there must have been a squeak as the water pushed through the shower head. That's the only way I can reason 1 and 3.