You know what I used to love, and what now sucks? Taking the bus. For a number of reasons and not just the obvious.
Where I grew up in the Bay Area if you were a kid you actually COULD take the bus to the movies or to the mall or an audition or rehearsal as I used to. I doubt if that would be possible now. I don't know that I would let my own kids ride the bus, even in the relative safety of my current community. But it was a different time (and there hadn't been a 24 hour news cycle to make it seem like hundreds of thousands of children were being kidnapped each year) and so we felt it to be a bit of freedom to hop on the bus and take the nearly one hour ride+walk to our town's nearest movie theater or wherever. Inevitably we'd see two or three, get out of the theater after dark and someone would have to call a mom to come pick us up. Mom's couldn't be bothered to drive their kids places, even on weekends, when I grew up, when they could just as easily shove a couple bucks in your hand and tell you to take the bus.
But even beyond freedom it was a great learning ground. Since the Bay Area is a large and diverse population one could always count on great people watching. My friends and I engaged in something you might call people speculating. Convinced we can know a lot about a person by the way they look, human beings have always made lots of decisions about the value and interest of a person on that basis. We just did it out loud (not loud enough so they could hear of course) to each other on the back of the bus. Not satisfied with the realistic for long, our speculations soon diverged into the wild and implausible. Consequently, my childhood bus rides were populated with Russian spies, embezzlers on the lamb, and any manner of wealthy and/or mentally impaired eccentrics.
In my later teen and college years I too often reverted to "someday I'll have a car" thoughts to have much fun on those rides. But I always observed people. Everyone does the visual sweep upon stepping on the platform - see who's on, who to avoid, who to sit next to. In the Bay Area, generally people were too occupied talking to companions, or tired from work, or sleeping, to notice or care who came on. I would make mental commentary on who looked weary, or sad, or happy and wonder intensely what had just happened in their life to make them so.
In those years, particularly in college, I would even venture to take the bus (and BART) home late at night. A whole 'nother drunk and/or high, on for the night homeless, just going to or coming from an underpaying hard scrabble late shift would be on board. Occasionally there was a scuffle, some "what you lookin' at" would erupt but I had the young-with-my-whole-life-ahead-of-me-and-nothing-could-go-wrong bravado propping me up. I felt like one of them in a way and yet not. Always conscientious of being a white girl in a minority world, I didn't swish or flaunt or try to appear too affluent or happy - sometimes I would adopt a sad countenance to ward off potential advances of any sort if the compartment had just that right mood where it felt slightly dangerous. I rode with the confidence and air of someone who was not so different from everyone else deep down inside but sure that I was destined for greatness, to succeed, to make things happen.
Flash forward some 20 years and taking the bus is a whole different experience. When my husband lost his job in February we also lost our second car - a company car. We'd been juggling kid drop offs to school with my work and errands pretty successfully until gas prices started rising. I realized that the 10 mile drop off and pick up to my work was costing us nearly $10 to accomplish. We were filling up the tank twice a week - unheard of previously - and with prices over $4 and one less job in our pockets, it was painful. So it is not like I made the decision unwillingly.
But it is a whole different time, and place. After all, the me-me-me 80s and earn-earn-earn 90s and spend-spend-spend aughts have passed us by, leaving in their wake a recession, but also a general attitude about ourselves as a society that now no longer squares. "We're number one" does not resonate exactly the same way with the unemployed or underemployed as it used to. Economic factors do have an influence on attitude and on how we perceive ourselves and others. And in Southern California as well, there is a force of opinion that blasts "You don't have a car!!!" when one steps on the bus.
What is similar is that I am, generally, though the numbers are smaller, still one of the only white faces on the bus. What is new are cellphones and mobile devices, and the solitariness that comes with them. If no one looks up to see who is coming on the bus it is probably because of the despair of the long slog (our valley is geographically huge with few and far between bus routes which means lots of transfers, waiting, and walking in high heat and wind) but just as likely that they have their face stuck in their cellphone or are talking (way too loudly) on it. One tries not to seep to that place but I often find myself, face stuck in Kindle, just as bad. No more the long sweep to see who's conversation I might overhear - there are rarely people traveling together and when they are they are usually silent - nor do I search for a place in the back so I can watch people unperceived as I used to. Now I just quickly find the nearest place in the front, put my head down, enjoy the airconditioning because it will be soon time to get out and walk the 1/4 mile to work in the heat. There were always the people who couldn't afford a car, or the car in the shop people, on the bus in the Bay Area. But there were also the "I'm doing this for the environment" people too. But So Cal does not so readily cotton to idealism.
I am just like everyone else too, still. I am underemployed, struggling to get by, deeply debt leveraged (though mine is student loan debt primarily) with little chance of ever getting out. My prospects of better employment seem just as dire as my companions on public transportation even though I am highly educated. The difference 20 years has afforded me is experience. My experience of the feeling "this year things will happen for me" in my 20s not really being true then, or my 30s, and now half way through my 40s. Though I still remain hopeful, and believe in possibilities, and my own abilities, I am no longer under the misapprehension that that is enough for "things to happen". I now know that sometimes life, the world, the universe, for a reason you may never know, just doesn't notice you or your talents or potential or rewards you for it. That even when you know for sure and follow your passion, you still can be just another rider on the bus.
Showing posts with label living in the desert. Show all posts
Showing posts with label living in the desert. Show all posts
Monday, June 27, 2011
Monday, December 06, 2010
Life in Exile: Things Fall Apart
I was reminiscing about a moment in time a few years back when my life in exilehood did not seem so bad. Things… came together. I had been performing my solo-performance play at the gallery, and by all audience feedback, moving people. I had randomly answered ads for various services like writers and artists and such the like, and suddenly there came offers. I was a Teaching Artist at the McCallum Theatre Institute! I was a contributing writer to Dune Magazine! I was writing apace on my novel! It felt good. I was busy but I was happy. And in the way of such moments I got more done. Ironically my house was cleaner, I made it to the gym several times a week. My toddlers were relatively clean and well dressed, and supremely happy. I was happy damnit!
Then, as they do, things fell apart. My husband lost his job. The magazine folded. I got let go from the Teaching Artist position for reasons I am still not clear on (too emotional I suspect though I have no overt evidence. If they had wanted unemotional people they should have put a call out for Quaker Artists!) And, as these things have a way of infiltrating all nooks and crannies of life, my husband and I entered a protracted and supercilious period of battle… to be right… as all battles of marriage seem to be. Which of course led to child behavioral issues which led to, wait for it… iCarly permeating our house, what seems like 24/7.
As all parents know you have to make concessions sometimes to keep the peace. And if you don’t, well then you are a dictator, or a member of the Greatest Generation. It started as “just iCarly, nothing else”. Said concession stemmed from some serious and persistent fuss/misbehavior and downright stubbornness and refusal to change the channel, which stemmed from little sister’s intense neediness, which stemmed from the long battle which… well, as above. It has grown to Big Time Rush, Victorious, and various other teen laugh track comedies, and a venomous need to see every single special every single time it airs. The justification to which is “but it’s the Special!” Duh-uh!
It is impossible, for me at least, to separate achievements from how I feel about everything else about life, including my kids’ childhoods on which I am a contributing editor. One could distill it all down to enthusiasm I suppose, but you would lose the subtleties. As I was enthusiastically going about my creative life in that time before things fell apart and after the long, lonely-time in the beginning of my exile, I could WOW them with my passion, my enthusiasm for life and them. Who needed TV! We had activity instead. They were also a great deal younger, a great deal less jaded by the long battle, and we were all still in that period of hope – that point in time of very early familydom where there is still the possibility of more – maybe more children, a dog, maybe a move to a new and better (or old and better) place. Children themselves being still so incompletely formed, as toddlers, seem to embody possibility. We had not yet hit the grooves of family life. Those grooves which are children’s particular personalities and proclivities. The grooves of daily life. The grooves of holidays, celebrations, school. The grooves of how you treat each other. There still seemed time to enlarge our family (which I wanted but the husband decidedly DID NOT!) or change its rhythms to something slightly more coordinated and soft, not the hard jerky inconsistent syncopation groove we now live in.
And when that something that swooped underneath the knees of me and washed away all that hope, I grew more cynical (if that is possible), and tiresome, no doubt. And tired. So I caved. And now we are in some sort of horrible TV groove. As I was trying to imagine how we could get some iCarly out of our lives, and remembering fondly the relative calm of shows on Noggin, like Oobi and Franklin, Little Bear, even the craziness of The UpSideDown Show, I realized all that had led up to that moment of weakness.
I have a congenital inability to hold on to and recount for all within earshot my achievements. I don’t want to think about what I did once. I actually flush with embarrassment when I think about or talk about my various accomplishments. “Stuck up” comes to mind – obviously a song I heard so often in childhood it is permanently etched in my psyche and rears up on hind legs when even the thought of tooting my own horn emerges. I don’t want to rest on my laurels but new ones are so hard to grow out in this desert, my beautiful prison, though I keep trying. I want to do.
I wonder though, had I a little more reminisce and a little less angst to accomplish, if I might have been able to hold it all a little more together, not caved, not lost my enthusiasm for life, not gotten weary of the harrowingness of it all… maybe I would now live in a land less populated by teen idols… maybe.
Then, as they do, things fell apart. My husband lost his job. The magazine folded. I got let go from the Teaching Artist position for reasons I am still not clear on (too emotional I suspect though I have no overt evidence. If they had wanted unemotional people they should have put a call out for Quaker Artists!) And, as these things have a way of infiltrating all nooks and crannies of life, my husband and I entered a protracted and supercilious period of battle… to be right… as all battles of marriage seem to be. Which of course led to child behavioral issues which led to, wait for it… iCarly permeating our house, what seems like 24/7.
As all parents know you have to make concessions sometimes to keep the peace. And if you don’t, well then you are a dictator, or a member of the Greatest Generation. It started as “just iCarly, nothing else”. Said concession stemmed from some serious and persistent fuss/misbehavior and downright stubbornness and refusal to change the channel, which stemmed from little sister’s intense neediness, which stemmed from the long battle which… well, as above. It has grown to Big Time Rush, Victorious, and various other teen laugh track comedies, and a venomous need to see every single special every single time it airs. The justification to which is “but it’s the Special!” Duh-uh!
It is impossible, for me at least, to separate achievements from how I feel about everything else about life, including my kids’ childhoods on which I am a contributing editor. One could distill it all down to enthusiasm I suppose, but you would lose the subtleties. As I was enthusiastically going about my creative life in that time before things fell apart and after the long, lonely-time in the beginning of my exile, I could WOW them with my passion, my enthusiasm for life and them. Who needed TV! We had activity instead. They were also a great deal younger, a great deal less jaded by the long battle, and we were all still in that period of hope – that point in time of very early familydom where there is still the possibility of more – maybe more children, a dog, maybe a move to a new and better (or old and better) place. Children themselves being still so incompletely formed, as toddlers, seem to embody possibility. We had not yet hit the grooves of family life. Those grooves which are children’s particular personalities and proclivities. The grooves of daily life. The grooves of holidays, celebrations, school. The grooves of how you treat each other. There still seemed time to enlarge our family (which I wanted but the husband decidedly DID NOT!) or change its rhythms to something slightly more coordinated and soft, not the hard jerky inconsistent syncopation groove we now live in.
And when that something that swooped underneath the knees of me and washed away all that hope, I grew more cynical (if that is possible), and tiresome, no doubt. And tired. So I caved. And now we are in some sort of horrible TV groove. As I was trying to imagine how we could get some iCarly out of our lives, and remembering fondly the relative calm of shows on Noggin, like Oobi and Franklin, Little Bear, even the craziness of The UpSideDown Show, I realized all that had led up to that moment of weakness.
I have a congenital inability to hold on to and recount for all within earshot my achievements. I don’t want to think about what I did once. I actually flush with embarrassment when I think about or talk about my various accomplishments. “Stuck up” comes to mind – obviously a song I heard so often in childhood it is permanently etched in my psyche and rears up on hind legs when even the thought of tooting my own horn emerges. I don’t want to rest on my laurels but new ones are so hard to grow out in this desert, my beautiful prison, though I keep trying. I want to do.
I wonder though, had I a little more reminisce and a little less angst to accomplish, if I might have been able to hold it all a little more together, not caved, not lost my enthusiasm for life, not gotten weary of the harrowingness of it all… maybe I would now live in a land less populated by teen idols… maybe.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Life in Exile: Cloudy, With Absolutely Not A Goddamned Chance of Rain
Or, I was gonna call it, "Black Mood Faded Irrevocably Grey By The Sun"
My capacity to tolerate tedious work sanguinely is stretched today. Not because of the particular tedium of the task... just... sigh...
You know when you are doing something mindless because it just needs to be done? (I'm actually good at stuff like that - which goes to my favorite piece of wisdom imparted to me by my grandmother that I have never been able to follow - "Don't get good at anything you don't want to do for a living") But it ends up feeling like biding time. It's painful, that realization, of how much time you have actually bode. Despite all New Year's affirmations that "this year things will finally change" here we are in November, and nothing actually has. (Ironically, I have lost weight this year.)
Well, that is not strictly true. Change happens, although seemingly glacially (not in a global warming sense, in the building a glacier sense). There are the normal increments of child growth spurts, dog adoptions, relational truces, good grades easily won in school (mine and Angus') and slow, hard earned progress (Violet's and Matt's) in school and work... you know, like, normal stuff. But I so never wanted to be normal. That sounds really shitty doesn't it? Poor little middle class white woman complaining that her job is tedious and she doesn't have time to work on a new novel and that new play that's been floating around in her head for years aching to get out let alone clean the bathroom. And did I mention I just got a new car on Sunday.... ahhhhh... excuse my while I just go slap myself.
My capacity to tolerate tedious work sanguinely is stretched today. Not because of the particular tedium of the task... just... sigh...
You know when you are doing something mindless because it just needs to be done? (I'm actually good at stuff like that - which goes to my favorite piece of wisdom imparted to me by my grandmother that I have never been able to follow - "Don't get good at anything you don't want to do for a living") But it ends up feeling like biding time. It's painful, that realization, of how much time you have actually bode. Despite all New Year's affirmations that "this year things will finally change" here we are in November, and nothing actually has. (Ironically, I have lost weight this year.)
Well, that is not strictly true. Change happens, although seemingly glacially (not in a global warming sense, in the building a glacier sense). There are the normal increments of child growth spurts, dog adoptions, relational truces, good grades easily won in school (mine and Angus') and slow, hard earned progress (Violet's and Matt's) in school and work... you know, like, normal stuff. But I so never wanted to be normal. That sounds really shitty doesn't it? Poor little middle class white woman complaining that her job is tedious and she doesn't have time to work on a new novel and that new play that's been floating around in her head for years aching to get out let alone clean the bathroom. And did I mention I just got a new car on Sunday.... ahhhhh... excuse my while I just go slap myself.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Life In Exile: In Isolation
We just got a dog. I know, what does that have to do with anything. Besides cuteness you mean? Well, I tell ya, a dog is by nature a pack animal, yes? Likes the other dogs around, likes the other warm bodies and playful paws and camaraderie. And if a dog likes to be alone, or goes off alone, then something is definitely up.
So I've been thinking about isolating recently - even before the dog - and doing a little navel gazing 'bout it, and I realize that I have been doing this for years. And generally, when I do it, it is because something is wrong (not because I'm looking for a secret place to pee, I know that was what you were thinking!). That something is usually along the lines of 'things not working out they way I'd planned' or 'feeling ostracized/criticized/terrorized'-pretty much any of the cizes will do. And we humans, OK certainly at least me, are also pack animals. We like the warm paws too and if we isolate too long getting back into the swing is problematic.
Simple small, one on one or two interactions I'm fine with mostly. But when I have to go back to the cave and try to fit in, I get a little bile of panic. Ick. "So don't do it" says brain. Which is entirely unhelpful. The fear is, of course, not fitting in, not being liked, or worse invisible. People like to say that kids will take any attention, even if its negative, over no attention. But as adults we learn to skew all attention. It somehow just seems easier that way.
I know that I particularly feel like crawling under my bed (except there are too many candy wrappers under there from my sneaky kids!) when I've been accused or lambasted, particularly for something that either I didn't do or wasn't entirely my fault. (Sometimes I wish I too had the mighty high opinion of myself that I could control all under my purview.) And this just makes one jumpy, ready to be thwacked at any moment - skittish doggie. I get to the point, in that perfect circular storm of criticism, isolation, and awkwardness where it just seems natural, expected, that people (read: anyone other than me and a few close friends and my children) will look at my and react badly - "Wrong! Whatever you're doing, and I don't know what you're doing but I'm certain it's wrong". I'm way beyond "why me?", which is not good because beyond the Forrest of why me lies the desert of "of course" despair. I just don't expect good things to happen... to me, anyway... anymore... and that is bad.
I'm trying to teach my puppy (Buttercup) and my children (and husband by osmosis - because he hates when I try to teach him stuff directly) that good things still can happen - even though number one son might have a hard time believing that one. His fish died today. Remember that kind of 8 year old sad? That is a bummer and a quarter, because he's super sad right now and probably his whole day will be ruined. But hopefully not his attitude or his whole life... can't let him isolate - 'cause 'whole life' and 'nothing ever good' only comes of that.
Deep breath, stick out a paw. Ruff!
So I've been thinking about isolating recently - even before the dog - and doing a little navel gazing 'bout it, and I realize that I have been doing this for years. And generally, when I do it, it is because something is wrong (not because I'm looking for a secret place to pee, I know that was what you were thinking!). That something is usually along the lines of 'things not working out they way I'd planned' or 'feeling ostracized/criticized/terrorized'-pretty much any of the cizes will do. And we humans, OK certainly at least me, are also pack animals. We like the warm paws too and if we isolate too long getting back into the swing is problematic.
Simple small, one on one or two interactions I'm fine with mostly. But when I have to go back to the cave and try to fit in, I get a little bile of panic. Ick. "So don't do it" says brain. Which is entirely unhelpful. The fear is, of course, not fitting in, not being liked, or worse invisible. People like to say that kids will take any attention, even if its negative, over no attention. But as adults we learn to skew all attention. It somehow just seems easier that way.
I know that I particularly feel like crawling under my bed (except there are too many candy wrappers under there from my sneaky kids!) when I've been accused or lambasted, particularly for something that either I didn't do or wasn't entirely my fault. (Sometimes I wish I too had the mighty high opinion of myself that I could control all under my purview.) And this just makes one jumpy, ready to be thwacked at any moment - skittish doggie. I get to the point, in that perfect circular storm of criticism, isolation, and awkwardness where it just seems natural, expected, that people (read: anyone other than me and a few close friends and my children) will look at my and react badly - "Wrong! Whatever you're doing, and I don't know what you're doing but I'm certain it's wrong". I'm way beyond "why me?", which is not good because beyond the Forrest of why me lies the desert of "of course" despair. I just don't expect good things to happen... to me, anyway... anymore... and that is bad.
I'm trying to teach my puppy (Buttercup) and my children (and husband by osmosis - because he hates when I try to teach him stuff directly) that good things still can happen - even though number one son might have a hard time believing that one. His fish died today. Remember that kind of 8 year old sad? That is a bummer and a quarter, because he's super sad right now and probably his whole day will be ruined. But hopefully not his attitude or his whole life... can't let him isolate - 'cause 'whole life' and 'nothing ever good' only comes of that.
Deep breath, stick out a paw. Ruff!
Wednesday, September 08, 2010
Life in Exile: The Long Hot Summer of My Discontent
As the stores start putting out the down jackets and corduroy, we here in the desert look forward to dipping into the upper 90s. While you all out there are experiencing sweater weather we are still months away. And even in December we may get temperatures so mild that really a long sleeve shirt will do. No need to get all crazy and don pants people.
As summers here go this one was not too bad. We have birthday parties in May and June for our kids and usually by June it is just too hot to be outside, so by about 2 o'clock everyone migrates indoors. But this year we spent all day outside, adults under the covered patio, cool drinks in hand, kids on the slippy slide. And even during the true summer months it was still cool enough in the early mornings to sit on the patio.
See that is the thing that gets to you. In other parts it may get to high 80s or even 90s in the day but by nightfall it gets cool again. And one off-shore or northern breeze can sweep the whole thing away. But not here. Sure temps may dip by 20 or so degrees at night but if you're starting at 110, well...
I used to say 104 was my threshold, that after that point I was disgruntled and everyone might as well just stay away, leave me alone because I was going to grumble till October (yes, non-desert dwellers OUR summer is from roughly mid-May through the end of September, sometimes October so eat that June complainers!). OK, that last comment was grumbly, and I apologize, because what I was going to say is that my threshold seems to have risen. Either that or the mildness of this summer's temps have not thrust me over to the dark side.
Or maybe it could be that I have a plan. I'm not saying it's a good one. I don't know that I've ever made a good plan for my life, and at this point in my life I'm not gonna go getting all cocky about it. By normal weights and measures it may not actually turn out to be a good plan, but it is a plan nonetheless. I am getting a teaching credential so that I can teach to my degrees (see, I told you it was not necessarily a good plan). Where, you may ask, could I possibly teach something having to do with theatre and or film and television in the desert! (Don't you dare say, "You should move to LA" or I will roll my eyes so hard at you!)
Well, though this may not be the mecca of media innovation and creativity (although we have a Mecca in this valley, I just don't know what it is a mecca of... sand possibly, or trailer parks, boasting the largest welfare check rolls per capita... I know stop me now, and it's not even hot today! Only about 95!) there are a number of colleges and universities within shooting distance, well long-commuting distance. And though I have never really wanted to commute, or teach necessarily (I attribute that last comment to high school peer pressure, you remember, the old "those who can't do teach" saw that only makes sense to 16 year olds) I am thrilled at the prospect of thinking about and researching theatre, film, and television or any combination thereof.
Or maybe I am maturing. Or maybe it is my forays into raw food eating (and subsequent "oh my god I lost how much without even trying!" weight loss) and focusing on getting healthier. I am a relatively old mom afterall. I will need to be a fit bird if I want to live to see and pester my grandchildren. I also may be working well into my 70s since there is no pension waiting for me on the other side - I just better not get to the other side! (of working, not death, relax) So if I am to possibly be the oldest living waitress at Sherman's then I'd better get ready. Or maybe all those self help and new spirituality books finally kicked in.
Or maybe you can only be grumpy for so long, particularly if it is not in your nature, which I don't think it is in mine. Mine is circumstantial grumpy. Although to be honest I can hang on for long periods of time. And you know I did have 7 whole days off in a row, how you say, vuh... cau... vay... va-ca-shun? which I haven't had since 2006. And I did get to drive to LA-ish for my friend's babyshower and spend some time with her and another friend. That made me happy. I could still be riding those oh-you-mean-there-is-intelligent-life-somewhere wave.
Or most probably, my kids are 8 and 6 and that has an impact. No longer can I fool myself into thinking that I am not influencing who they hope to become with my mood. Especially my daughter. I see my kids trying on their parent's behavior for size quite often now and it is scary when it is your darker moods they are emulating. So, there you go, a slap in the face by your adorable children. Snap out of it Ryan! Fhhhhwack!
So life gives you lemons you make lemonade. Or if you drink too much lemonade - there are lots of lemon trees growing in the desert - the summer drink of choice, and since summer here JUST NEVER ENDS, maybe a nice meringue pie? Oh, or what about a lemon chiffon cake with lemon icing! Oh you know what would be good, shrimp sauteed in lots of butter and lemon juice... lemon curd on toasted brioche, yum....
As summers here go this one was not too bad. We have birthday parties in May and June for our kids and usually by June it is just too hot to be outside, so by about 2 o'clock everyone migrates indoors. But this year we spent all day outside, adults under the covered patio, cool drinks in hand, kids on the slippy slide. And even during the true summer months it was still cool enough in the early mornings to sit on the patio.
See that is the thing that gets to you. In other parts it may get to high 80s or even 90s in the day but by nightfall it gets cool again. And one off-shore or northern breeze can sweep the whole thing away. But not here. Sure temps may dip by 20 or so degrees at night but if you're starting at 110, well...
I used to say 104 was my threshold, that after that point I was disgruntled and everyone might as well just stay away, leave me alone because I was going to grumble till October (yes, non-desert dwellers OUR summer is from roughly mid-May through the end of September, sometimes October so eat that June complainers!). OK, that last comment was grumbly, and I apologize, because what I was going to say is that my threshold seems to have risen. Either that or the mildness of this summer's temps have not thrust me over to the dark side.
Or maybe it could be that I have a plan. I'm not saying it's a good one. I don't know that I've ever made a good plan for my life, and at this point in my life I'm not gonna go getting all cocky about it. By normal weights and measures it may not actually turn out to be a good plan, but it is a plan nonetheless. I am getting a teaching credential so that I can teach to my degrees (see, I told you it was not necessarily a good plan). Where, you may ask, could I possibly teach something having to do with theatre and or film and television in the desert! (Don't you dare say, "You should move to LA" or I will roll my eyes so hard at you!)
Well, though this may not be the mecca of media innovation and creativity (although we have a Mecca in this valley, I just don't know what it is a mecca of... sand possibly, or trailer parks, boasting the largest welfare check rolls per capita... I know stop me now, and it's not even hot today! Only about 95!) there are a number of colleges and universities within shooting distance, well long-commuting distance. And though I have never really wanted to commute, or teach necessarily (I attribute that last comment to high school peer pressure, you remember, the old "those who can't do teach" saw that only makes sense to 16 year olds) I am thrilled at the prospect of thinking about and researching theatre, film, and television or any combination thereof.
Or maybe I am maturing. Or maybe it is my forays into raw food eating (and subsequent "oh my god I lost how much without even trying!" weight loss) and focusing on getting healthier. I am a relatively old mom afterall. I will need to be a fit bird if I want to live to see and pester my grandchildren. I also may be working well into my 70s since there is no pension waiting for me on the other side - I just better not get to the other side! (of working, not death, relax) So if I am to possibly be the oldest living waitress at Sherman's then I'd better get ready. Or maybe all those self help and new spirituality books finally kicked in.
Or maybe you can only be grumpy for so long, particularly if it is not in your nature, which I don't think it is in mine. Mine is circumstantial grumpy. Although to be honest I can hang on for long periods of time. And you know I did have 7 whole days off in a row, how you say, vuh... cau... vay... va-ca-shun? which I haven't had since 2006. And I did get to drive to LA-ish for my friend's babyshower and spend some time with her and another friend. That made me happy. I could still be riding those oh-you-mean-there-is-intelligent-life-somewhere wave.
Or most probably, my kids are 8 and 6 and that has an impact. No longer can I fool myself into thinking that I am not influencing who they hope to become with my mood. Especially my daughter. I see my kids trying on their parent's behavior for size quite often now and it is scary when it is your darker moods they are emulating. So, there you go, a slap in the face by your adorable children. Snap out of it Ryan! Fhhhhwack!
So life gives you lemons you make lemonade. Or if you drink too much lemonade - there are lots of lemon trees growing in the desert - the summer drink of choice, and since summer here JUST NEVER ENDS, maybe a nice meringue pie? Oh, or what about a lemon chiffon cake with lemon icing! Oh you know what would be good, shrimp sauteed in lots of butter and lemon juice... lemon curd on toasted brioche, yum....
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Life in Exile: No Concept Left Behind
Part of what I left behind when we left LA was a concept I had of myself, one which worked there but does not work here. In fact, this concept I have carted around since I was, oh seven or so, has managed to serve me well, so long as I was striving for a career.
But in the desert there is no striving wagon to hop on. I’ve lived in the Bay Area, San Diego, Los Angeles and now the desert. In all those other areas there was an energy of building something; lives, careers, communities. But the desert is a retirement community, a second home community and a vacation community. Those of us who are left here to wrestle with the whole of the year and not just some pleasant three month sojourn work primarily in one of those leisure industries. What we moved out here for, in fact, was a job (my husband’s) in a hotel. So, life, by definition and execution, here is transient. People have either come out here to relax or retire. Basically one is either golfing or waiting to die.
Of course, if you follow life to it’s ultimate conclusion death is the result for everyone anywhere. Period. But we like to think, as free Americans, that how we occupy that time before death is up to us. My choice was to occupy my time as an actor, then when it was clear that was not going to happen (face for radio, voice for print) to the degree of success that would keep me… well, fed frankly, I looked around and thought to myself, if I can’t be in them, then I at least want to have a hand in making movies. This aim took me through the Bay Area and college, San Diego and grad school and finally LA and career. A career IN the industry of my dreams, mind you, if not exactly the dream job. My foot was firmly in door.
At the time we left LA my job had just ended. I had been working on a TV pilot and then I had our first child. Having a baby in an all consuming industry was going to be difficult, I knew that, but I was confident I would work it out. I had a friend who was pregnant with her first and just getting married, another who was soon to be married, another pregnant with her second. I had a friend and former boss who seemed to have the hotline to babysitters and child entertainments. I had a network that, as more babies of friends were added, would only grow stronger.
And then the move to the desert. Not only did I leave this burgeoning network and (I hoped) an equally swelling career but suddenly the concept I'd indulged all those years no longer worked! And it is not as if we had lived in LA for a while with a baby, tried it, found it too frustrating or frightening (before we left we could walk around with the baby in the Grove or to breakfast in Hollywood and literally be the only people with a baby we ran into all day – it is now baby haven as my last trips back have shown) and made a categorical decision to leave for more child friendly climes. Nor had I tried my hand at Hollywood, failed to get a foothold or achieve what I set out to and in disgust packed up and left as soon as the Fall leaves back home began to change. In Hollywood you can tell the seasons by the yard sales. About every three months, as the failures and disappointments would mount, Moms would call sons and daughters to extol the beauties of the Fall/Spring/Winter/Summer leaves/blooms/snow/gorgeous weather, and followed would be a lot of justifying with, no doubt, some swarthy swearing and impulsive packing of it in. This was helpful actually as Hollywood is fairly mild weatherwise. But I was not one of these casualties. I wanted to be nowhere else on earth at that moment in my life.
Sure I did have disappointments in my career and no doubt more were sure to follow. But I felt certain that I would find another job, act in another play, write another script, make another friend, work on another project... in effect, continue to strive. There were possibilities, you see - energy, movement, people were achieving things! And now, in the desert, I was not amongst them any longer. Worse still, I would tell people I met what I had done for a living or that I was a writer and, at best, the blank stares of incomprehension were monumental. You could hear the crickets in between blinks. At worst I would get the “You know you should move to LA for that” response. I felt pride at my great self-restraint in never yelling “That is where I just bloody said I had been living!” at anyone. Not even once.
So here I was, isolated, (I wasn’t working the first few months) not meeting many people and when I did… well, the above mentioned crickets. The energy as stagnant as a deaad of summer wind. And here is me, with this caaaawn-cept of myself which keeps landing flat and sliding off a cliff. I am Wiley Coyote and this concept is the Roadrunner. No one here it seems to me is striving for anything. I mean (at the time we moved) if you weren’t in real estate everyone else thought you were kind of a numskull for not. So it’s not like I had anywhere to fit in and wasn’t. There was no ‘in’. Not as a preexisting condition at least.
So this feeling, that I’m creative/special/driven/talented/stubborn/lucky enough to accomplish something – to make films! (which, no matter how little the film when you first make them that brand of 'special' is stupendous) fails me utterly. And then is run over by a steamroller that just happens to be passing by, in this hot hot, hot hot desert.
Meep meep!
But in the desert there is no striving wagon to hop on. I’ve lived in the Bay Area, San Diego, Los Angeles and now the desert. In all those other areas there was an energy of building something; lives, careers, communities. But the desert is a retirement community, a second home community and a vacation community. Those of us who are left here to wrestle with the whole of the year and not just some pleasant three month sojourn work primarily in one of those leisure industries. What we moved out here for, in fact, was a job (my husband’s) in a hotel. So, life, by definition and execution, here is transient. People have either come out here to relax or retire. Basically one is either golfing or waiting to die.
Of course, if you follow life to it’s ultimate conclusion death is the result for everyone anywhere. Period. But we like to think, as free Americans, that how we occupy that time before death is up to us. My choice was to occupy my time as an actor, then when it was clear that was not going to happen (face for radio, voice for print) to the degree of success that would keep me… well, fed frankly, I looked around and thought to myself, if I can’t be in them, then I at least want to have a hand in making movies. This aim took me through the Bay Area and college, San Diego and grad school and finally LA and career. A career IN the industry of my dreams, mind you, if not exactly the dream job. My foot was firmly in door.
At the time we left LA my job had just ended. I had been working on a TV pilot and then I had our first child. Having a baby in an all consuming industry was going to be difficult, I knew that, but I was confident I would work it out. I had a friend who was pregnant with her first and just getting married, another who was soon to be married, another pregnant with her second. I had a friend and former boss who seemed to have the hotline to babysitters and child entertainments. I had a network that, as more babies of friends were added, would only grow stronger.
And then the move to the desert. Not only did I leave this burgeoning network and (I hoped) an equally swelling career but suddenly the concept I'd indulged all those years no longer worked! And it is not as if we had lived in LA for a while with a baby, tried it, found it too frustrating or frightening (before we left we could walk around with the baby in the Grove or to breakfast in Hollywood and literally be the only people with a baby we ran into all day – it is now baby haven as my last trips back have shown) and made a categorical decision to leave for more child friendly climes. Nor had I tried my hand at Hollywood, failed to get a foothold or achieve what I set out to and in disgust packed up and left as soon as the Fall leaves back home began to change. In Hollywood you can tell the seasons by the yard sales. About every three months, as the failures and disappointments would mount, Moms would call sons and daughters to extol the beauties of the Fall/Spring/Winter/Summer leaves/blooms/snow/gorgeous weather, and followed would be a lot of justifying with, no doubt, some swarthy swearing and impulsive packing of it in. This was helpful actually as Hollywood is fairly mild weatherwise. But I was not one of these casualties. I wanted to be nowhere else on earth at that moment in my life.
Sure I did have disappointments in my career and no doubt more were sure to follow. But I felt certain that I would find another job, act in another play, write another script, make another friend, work on another project... in effect, continue to strive. There were possibilities, you see - energy, movement, people were achieving things! And now, in the desert, I was not amongst them any longer. Worse still, I would tell people I met what I had done for a living or that I was a writer and, at best, the blank stares of incomprehension were monumental. You could hear the crickets in between blinks. At worst I would get the “You know you should move to LA for that” response. I felt pride at my great self-restraint in never yelling “That is where I just bloody said I had been living!” at anyone. Not even once.
So here I was, isolated, (I wasn’t working the first few months) not meeting many people and when I did… well, the above mentioned crickets. The energy as stagnant as a deaad of summer wind. And here is me, with this caaaawn-cept of myself which keeps landing flat and sliding off a cliff. I am Wiley Coyote and this concept is the Roadrunner. No one here it seems to me is striving for anything. I mean (at the time we moved) if you weren’t in real estate everyone else thought you were kind of a numskull for not. So it’s not like I had anywhere to fit in and wasn’t. There was no ‘in’. Not as a preexisting condition at least.
So this feeling, that I’m creative/special/driven/talented/stubborn/lucky enough to accomplish something – to make films! (which, no matter how little the film when you first make them that brand of 'special' is stupendous) fails me utterly. And then is run over by a steamroller that just happens to be passing by, in this hot hot, hot hot desert.
Meep meep!
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
In The Making
Maybe there is something good about living here in the desert (at this time of year I am grumpy because I am hot and have to drive a car sans aircon to work, so I find it difficult to be grateful, oh between late June and early Sept., the time the rest of the country is frolicking and basking - plus I haven't had a vacation in about 3 years... that doesn't help). I mean, yes, it is pretty and most of the year is lovely weather and all that... but it is distinctly devoid of creative stimulation. I have been seeking and have found many people - but most of us seem to be on permanent seek mode here with little find.
In any case, this lack of stimulation leaves a lot of time on one's hands. Time, which, if I were in LA I probably would not be availing myself of. Because LA is so stimulating. Just going to the Coffee Bean down the street was full of interest and curiosity - enough that I did not get a lot of writing done. Short bursts of creativity sure, but volume-wise I have done more while living here.
Granted most of you have not read or may ever read any of my work... but something happens here that never happened to me in LA. I have just finished my first novel. I wrote and performed my first solo performance, I've written several short stories and articles for a local magazine (Dune Magazine - dunemag.net for those of you who are interested), several screenplays including one for the production company I work for and written a couple episodes of a web series I am working on with a partner. So I have been busy, and working, and productive... but now that all of these projects are completed and/or on summer hiatus and/or in holding pattern I have nothing to work on.
And with nothing to work on comes an odd sort of restlessness, sleeplessness, a creeping panic even. And when this happens no manner of creative desert community could help. The only thing I can do is write - something, anything... even writing a letter helps.
Now if I were in LA just driving around town I would be confronted with a thousand bits of stimulus that would suggest a story, a scene, some dramatic activity I could get involved in. I would be continuing acting class and auditioning, looking for a play to be in or a new job or working on a show with friends. I'd be supressing the panic with lots of things and people and projects. But here it is just me and my computer. There is not the same sense of urgency in creativity here too, that there is in LA, that urgency to create, which I suspect, drove many to LA. But here it is all about the beauty and the pleasantness and the 'lifestyle' (my new unfavorite word - worse than 'moist' way way worse) and the just being happy to live in such a beautiful place! Oooooooo pinch me!
It is that Bay Area dark side, the cynical, that was branded on me from birth by my extremely sardonic family (I didn't really even understand any other kind of humor for years) that creeps out and won't be shoved back - no matter how good the weather and no matter how many chapters of The Power of Now I have read. No, deep down I just don't buy it - that all is well in paradise - and it makes me just want to &(&#^*%*&#@ write something! That is how I show my ingratitude for living in such beauty and magnificence, I write something subversive... well, subversive for ME, which being a 'nice' girl is only so raw...
I've been thinking about this short story where two neighbors kill their spouses on the same night and then have to cover for each other... maybe that's next...
In any case, this lack of stimulation leaves a lot of time on one's hands. Time, which, if I were in LA I probably would not be availing myself of. Because LA is so stimulating. Just going to the Coffee Bean down the street was full of interest and curiosity - enough that I did not get a lot of writing done. Short bursts of creativity sure, but volume-wise I have done more while living here.
Granted most of you have not read or may ever read any of my work... but something happens here that never happened to me in LA. I have just finished my first novel. I wrote and performed my first solo performance, I've written several short stories and articles for a local magazine (Dune Magazine - dunemag.net for those of you who are interested), several screenplays including one for the production company I work for and written a couple episodes of a web series I am working on with a partner. So I have been busy, and working, and productive... but now that all of these projects are completed and/or on summer hiatus and/or in holding pattern I have nothing to work on.
And with nothing to work on comes an odd sort of restlessness, sleeplessness, a creeping panic even. And when this happens no manner of creative desert community could help. The only thing I can do is write - something, anything... even writing a letter helps.
Now if I were in LA just driving around town I would be confronted with a thousand bits of stimulus that would suggest a story, a scene, some dramatic activity I could get involved in. I would be continuing acting class and auditioning, looking for a play to be in or a new job or working on a show with friends. I'd be supressing the panic with lots of things and people and projects. But here it is just me and my computer. There is not the same sense of urgency in creativity here too, that there is in LA, that urgency to create, which I suspect, drove many to LA. But here it is all about the beauty and the pleasantness and the 'lifestyle' (my new unfavorite word - worse than 'moist' way way worse) and the just being happy to live in such a beautiful place! Oooooooo pinch me!
It is that Bay Area dark side, the cynical, that was branded on me from birth by my extremely sardonic family (I didn't really even understand any other kind of humor for years) that creeps out and won't be shoved back - no matter how good the weather and no matter how many chapters of The Power of Now I have read. No, deep down I just don't buy it - that all is well in paradise - and it makes me just want to &(&#^*%*&#@ write something! That is how I show my ingratitude for living in such beauty and magnificence, I write something subversive... well, subversive for ME, which being a 'nice' girl is only so raw...
I've been thinking about this short story where two neighbors kill their spouses on the same night and then have to cover for each other... maybe that's next...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)