Good Grief

We met.
We traveled the world together
We walked 780km across northern Spain together
He loved music and singing and played guitar and saxophone
He proposed twice in two different countries, the second time in front of my family with the ring we had designed together
Dreams of a house in the 'burbs
And a life of stability
Together.

And then one night
He called
And literally over the phone
Said it was over.
The end.
No explanation, no chance for discussion. Please collect your things,
Goodbye.

And by coincidence
Or fate or providence
Or sheer good fortune
Two days later I started a meditation course
In the introductions
I could barely even say my own name
Literally burst into tears
And sobbed out my story
Witness the breath
You are not your emotions
It is okay to cry
Every week
A new practise
A daily commitment
To just be
I went to sleep every night with the ipod he had given me under my pillow
With Sarah Edelman meditations
You are safe
And you are well

And in the year that followed
I cried more than I ever had in my life
But, every day
Meditation
And all my teachers
Jon Kabat-Zin, Louise L. Hay, Doreen Virtue, Anodea Judith, Eckart Tolle
Lorna and Judy and all the women and men in my class
Kept me sane
Breathe in, breathe out,
Be here, now
Without judgement
I started running again
Ran my first half-marathon
I decided to become an actor
And quit my day job
And within a couple of months
Had my first paid acting gig
And had been accepted to drama school in London
I got singing and dance lessons
I traveled on my own
I saw my idols performing
I moved overseas and dared to live the life I had always wanted
I learnt to stop hating myself (that in itself, the greatest milestone. Oh to look at younger me now and laugh at how she couldn't even look herself in the mirror, how she wished so much to be more, to be better, to be different, to be so not herself!)

It was harder than I ever could have imagined
I'm not kidding when I say I cried and hurt and raged with grief
But the meditation, the running, the eating well,
The following my path
Because it was my own
Was freeing and liberating and self-affirming

And now
Three years later
The grief is still there
Though far more manageable
Life has changed
I have a new love
New adventures to look forward to
And a completely different perspective

I just have to breathe
And be present
And
This too shall pass
And all is well. 

The end.

Inspiration v. Despair

I love messages that are inspiring and full of hope and leave me feeling positive
It's why I'm fascinated by A is For and Occupy and No More Page 3, and V-Day
And all the A-Z of organizations who in their own way
Are just trying to make it better, easier, nicer
For people.
Because that's what we all are in the end
Whether we're writers or artists or bankers or plumbers or dentists
We. Are. People.

It's why I love artists like Amy Krouse Rosenthal.
Not just artists
Writers and composers and historians and entrepreneurs and builders and all the souls just trying to make a difference.
People who say,
Let's make this better
Let's make this nicer, more beautiful, more inspiring
A less harsh place to live in.
Like Eve Ensler, like Martha Plimpton, like Anne Summers.

It's why I loved reading Obama's book.
He has the audacity to hope for something better
A time, a place, a now that doesn't tread on people
And why is it so audacious to want hope?
Shouldn't it be utterly audacious to only see the bottom line, to hurt, to lie, to steal, to see a world devoid of beauty?
Imagine a world where people were actually nice to each other.
Imagine such a thing
"Hippy" John Lennon.
If you believe in peace and love and nicety, you're a damn communist.

We are a rock revolting.
There is so much anger and hate and sadness,
But it can be different.
We must speak out.
We must appreciate each other.
We must not be afraid.

I've been afraid.
I am afraid
Of my own voice.
So afraid I haven't written, I haven't sung, I'm scared of dancing in public.
I'm scared of my own body.
Because the people who speak out
Are laughed at, trolled, vilified, shot.
People are miserable, living on the street, dying horrifically.
God, it can all seem so awful.

And I shift between total inspiration
And total despair.
What can I do?!
Breathe. Just breathe.
And trust that it all gets better. That change IS possible.
And get on with what I have to do.

The end.

Storm Time

from http://www.wfsb.com/ 

I love storms.

The smell,

The fizzle crackle in the air,

And the sound of rain.

But tonight I was nervous. 

Warnings of flash floods and tornadoes across the state,

And being a grown-up in a place of children,

I felt a responsibility. 

A couple of the campers I work with

Are afraid of storms,

And I came across one of my theatre babies

In the theatre,

Huddled over

Tense and barely breathing.

I sat with her,

Offered my hand

And she clasped it tight.

And every time the thunder roared

She held her breath and shivered.

We sat together,

And chatted through the storm.

I joked about singing My Favorite Things

It seemed appropriate. 

And we giggled at the thought of becoming the cliche. 

And to help her breathe

I told her breathing deeply would be like practicing diaphragm exercises. 

If she wanted to play Elphaba, she’d better get practicing. 

It made her laugh. She breathed, and trembled a little less with every thunder clap. 

The storm passed. 

I ended up sitting in the Music Shed with a couple of campers

And my friend with a beautiful wooden flute.

Occasional patters of rain danced across the roof.

My friend played his flute.

And I felt calm. 

And I felt that this is what being a grown-up must be like.

To be put your own fears aside

And help the smaller ones around you. 

The end. 

This Is

This is me breathing

This is me standing in space

This is me embracing all twenty-seven years of me 

This is me rejecting everything I know and starting again

But embracing everything I know and incorporating it into the starting again

Everything is important

Nothing is important 

Everything matters

Nothing matters

In the words of Alanis

I’m high but I’m grounded

I’m sane but I’m overwhelmed 

I’m delirious

I’m stable

I’m happy 

I’m emotional 

I’m floating on the energy of you

This is me kissing your face

Your hands your lips your ribs your thigh

This is me holding you

This is me crawling into bed to be tangled in you 

This is us lying in bed together

This is the sound of rain on leaves on trees on the world

This is us snuggled under the doona

This is us sharing who we have become today in this moment

There is no time no space

Only what we have constructed determined to be so

There is only this moment

How can we make promises beyond the moment when this moment this breathing this now this second this “this” is all we have all we can be

The power of memory

The power of now

Eckhart speaks to us and we smile and quote movies

Heath and Julia and Joseph and Alison Janney 

And it makes us smile 

It makes us laugh

Makes our energy sparkle radiate pulsate on the same frequency

You said that

We were on the same frequency

And it made me tingle with delight 

This is me falling in love with you

This is me feeling light and wonderful

This is me wanting to rush to rooftops 

And tell everyone about you

This is me smiling

This is me writing 

This is me not being able to find the words to express what I’m feeling

This is me laughing at myself for being like this 

This is me being incredulous that it is at all possible

This is me giving thanks to the universe

To the powers that be

To spirit

To the unnamable thing 

To you

To all the stuff of the last year and a half that has had to be lived 

To experience

To life, to life, lachaim! To Tevye saying why is it so? I don’t know. Because. It is. 

Because it must be so. Because the world is completely unknowable. And yet I know it. I can fathom it. Even if just a little bit. But that’s ok. It’s my little bit that I fathom. 

And here I am fathoming and living and breathing and being frustrated and being delighted and being here on this earth. And my god, it has taken me so long to be okay with the fact that I’m even here! But HERE I AM AND I’M OKAY WITH THAT. 

And then let go of that because that’s not important either. 

Soothsaying for the ego.

All of it is great. All of it is nothing. 

Love. Life. Joy. Bliss. Sadness. The world. 

Here we are.

Here you are.

This is me.

This is us. This is the world. This is everything and nothing. 

These are signifiers for the unnamable unquantifiable unimaginable energy of life of shifting of currents of time of space of the world of everything ever happening to be existence.

Once upon a time there was a big bang

And the world began

And the light was started

And a little while later you and I were lying on the grass (that had grown in the meantime)

And the lights from that beginning were shining down

The very glow of them

And in the moment I offered my thanks to the universe the spark the divine unnamable thing that is the energy of the world

I saw my first shooting star of the summer

And in a ring around the field where we were lying

Were dark clouds, even darker than the dark of the night

And they were flashing bright with lightning

Somehow that night

We were simultaneously star gazing and storm watching

And the air smelt sweet

And you tasted like peppermint 

And there was a fizzle a spark of chemistry an exchange of energy a thrill of joy rush delight 

And then we agreed to say goodbye

This is me breathing

This is me standing in space

This. Is. 

The end. 

Jason Robert Brown

And one day you find yourself in a theatre surrounded by a bunch of avid theatre nerds and you are all there because in time and space you have sat listening to the original cast recordings over and over and some of you have performed in amateur productions of his shows and the music is what gets you. And although it is not a large venue, it is entirely intimate and you can hear his breath and the plosive p’s and b’s and t’s and feel the pressure of his pinky hitting the top notes of the piano. And he excudes so much energy so much passion so much life as he plays and sings the songs you know so well but suddenly tonight they are new because the brain that wrote them is performing them in front of you and you wonder how he can possibly still be sitting with all that energy surely he must be floating surely the way he taps his foot so insistently that the whole auditorium can hear it feel its pulse surely he must need to stand but his back is straight and there he is sitting playing the piano and singing. And he is utterly marvellous. The way the music is driving and full of vigour but the lyrics are melancholy and funny all at once and the whole room is transported to intimate worlds far away in the land of America but still so familiar it could have been your own living room. You have had that conversation. You have had that heart break. You have felt that loneliness. You have shared that laugh. The magic of watching the craft come to life. Feeling like you are there as he writes the notes the chords the lyrics  the song is created in front of you before your eyes inside your very ears. And all there is is a piano a microphone and a man in a spotlight. And it is lovely. It is breath-taking. It is music. The end. 

Christmas Stocking

Christmas has passed and it’s now the season for taking stock of the year. Some of this year has been awful. But you breathe into the pain, and you just keep breathing, and suddenly you find that you are surrounded by an absolute plethora of amazing food, music, family, friends, and theatre. And you come to the end of the year with the ability to say that much of it has been utterly wonderful. In no particular order, the beautiful, inspiring, exciting, and lovely things in my life this year have been...

• The Eveleigh Farmer’s Markets with my bestie Len
• Starting dance, singing, and flute lessons again
• Starting Flusical with Flick
• Starting the Movie Musical Project
• Learning to cook pasta, ice cream, polvoron, bread, pastry, and cheese from scratch
• Quitting the security of a full-time job to pursue theatre and it being utterly wonderful 
• Getting paid to watch Jersey Boys several times a week
• Moving to Ashfield with beautiful housies 
• Developing my personal meditation practise, obtaining my Meditation Facilitator’s Certificate, running morning meditations in Glebe
• Performing in The Pajama Game and meeting all the beautiful wonderful people at Strathfield Musical Society
• Singing with the Bling Band
• Running my first City to Surf  
• Discovering MusicalTalk, Seth Rudetsky, Amy Krouse Rosenthal, and Superforest 
• Knowing that I am surrounded by the most beautiful, talented, wonderful, supportive friends
• Knowing that I have incredibly beautiful, talented, wonderful, supportive families 
• Working with amazing people 
• Seeing Shoshana Bean, Donna McKechnie, Stephen Schwartz, and Liz Callaway perform in Sydney and Brisbane 
• Being accepted into the London Central School of Speech and Drama Masters of Music Theatre program

Meditation

Four years ago I was not in a good place. A counsellor at uni asked if I would like to be part of a study at the Black Dog Institute on the benefits of mindfulness meditation in the treatment of depression. I went along to the study and for twelve weeks struggled with mindfulness meditation. I fell asleep in just about every session. I cursed myself for not even being able to sit for five minutes and still my mind. Then in the final week, something clicked. Meditation was not something I had to achieve. I could not fail at it. But neither could I succeed. I just had to be - without judgement. Just be in the present moment.

This year I am completing a Meditation Facilitator’s Certificate. I have learnt all sorts of techniques, from mindfulness to guided meditation, inner and outer focus meditations, meditation to music, chanting, chakra meditations and breath meditations. My own practise has deepened as a result of the course, and it has most definitely strengthened me as a person. I have learnt that meditation is simply paying attention. To your breath. To your body. To the present moment. It is wonderfully easy, yet it requires skill. It requires dedication and practise. 

The power of breath. The inward push down of the in-breath. The outward flow of the out-breath. The power of paying attention to the present moment. The power of being kind to yourself. The power of mindfulness. 

Tonight I have been working on an assignment for my course on meditation in schools. I am inspired in my own practise. I am excited about sharing my practise and passing on these skills to other people. I am immensely grateful for all that I have learnt since that first class four years ago. Life is sometimes hard. Life is sometimes joyous. But, in the words of Jon Kabat-Zinn, wherever you go, there you are. And to be here with yourself in this moment, and be ok with that, is wonderful.