air·borne

airborne
(âr'bōrn')
adj.

1. carried by or through the air.
2. transported in aircraft.
3. in flight; flying.

the best and worst dreams of the week happened on the same night.
tuesday night {or more accurately, sometime in the wee hours of wednesday morning}.
the first dream i had, which was of the latter category, was of losing the three back teeth from the right side of my top row.
they all came out at once leaving these bloody, textured holes that my tongue kept discovering squishy, tangy bits in the empty sockets.
the dream only lasted for a few vivid moments, but i still can feel the spongy texture of the flecks of flesh and i can still taste the tang of blood and horror at the discovery.

this dream hits a little too close to home for me since the middle of the three teeth featured actually has been causing me no end of problems since the last day of my job {and the end of my dental insurance}. literally, the very last day. it started out as an ache caused by the cold i had for two and a half weeks but it's just kept going.

but i'd really rather not dwell on this since there isn't much i can do about it now.

so on to the next dream.






i'm encountering resistance to writing it down.
maybe i can't do it justice.
maybe laying here in my bed,
so far from the feeling of freedom the dream space contain,
i hesitate to revisit something i long so much for.

{particularly right now}

it was a flying dream.


and one of the best.




the mechanics of it are fuzzy.
there were particular movements that needed to happen to fly. a certain step, maybe. a run?
but they aren't important since they won't get me off the ground in this reality.

i do know that a massive white cotton sheet was involved.
a sail of sorts that caught the wind and took me up and along with it.


and i remember the feeling of soaring
coasting along effortlessly
with all this verdant space stretching away in every direction
and an innate understanding of the contrast/connection/relationship
between the clean, white cloth, the saturated emerald fields below,
and me.

and despite having had many nightmares about heights
based off of my own mild phobia
this was not one of them

because the distance between the ground and my sail·borne body
wasn't empty at all.
i could feel the space reaching up to deliver me to the sky
and it was as tangible and visceral an experience
as what my back understands when i fold over my legs to stretch my hamstrings.
one works while the other releases.
and there was this sense of reaching
stretching
thrusting
heart turned upward
and my whole being suspended in this moment of arrest
as i soar.
open and reaching.
it was so easy.
and beautiful beyond words or images or silence.





and finally tonight. sitting on my friend's porch swing in the dark. mostly not talking while my heart drags its feet on the ground from a long day of thinking about rent and imprudent marriages and money and joblessness, und so weiter...till i looked up from my perch of tucked-in-legs-burrowed-under-down-comforters and saw an airplane curving towards sea-tac. lights flickering. completely silent at it effortlessly arched across the sky. i felt the distance between the plane and but this time the space is suffocating me. pushing me down further. mocking me. and i want to get out. be up there. flying. moving. going. away. somewhere.

now.

and my grief stepped forward with mocking encouragement from hopelessness. and i've spent the rest of the night trying to keep them both at bay wielding my dreams of flight.

two red heads plus one hello

toward the end of my week and a half unintentional sabbatical from this blog, i received an email from a faraway friend, checking in since she hadn't seen a whisper of an entry in so long. she included these images from katherine fiedler that i keep on going back and visiting in my swamped email inbox.

the calm and quiet of the white starkness + the colors + and a gentle hello from a friend checking in and ensuring i have an active source of beauty in my life right now = more than i can say.

monday

monday was a good night.
i had a whole artichoke all to myself.
the windows were open.
light stretching itself in
through the dome outside my window
past the ivy hemmed courtyard
and into my studio.

and i burned the midnight oil
accompanied by my sewing machine
and a pot of passion tea.

the walk i took to the store to get veganaise for my artichoke:

the sign says ATTENTION! you are loved!
they have little cut out tabs saying you are loved
so you can take the phrase away with you
as though it was the contact info for a community board ad.

they started showing up a few days/a week ago and they kind of fascinate me.
slowly the tabs are disappearing.
as people pass and take a snippet of the idea away with them.

currently listening to: noble beast - andrew bird's new album

yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes.

i pulled out my journal tonight to write about a lot of things coming up from my human being story.
old hurts.
new ones.
the usual.

but i pulled out a purple pen
and start writing a long line of
why not me? why not me? why not me? why not me?

i followed it by a line of yes
then two pages of affirmations.
the things that i want to say yes to.
welcome in.

after a long list of specifics
i polished the entry off with a 1/4 page of yes.

yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes.
yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes.
yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes.
yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes.
yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes.
yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes.

and then i turned the page and just kept on going.

yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes.
yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes.
yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes.
yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes.
yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes.
yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes.
yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes.
yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes.
yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes.
yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes.
yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes.
yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes.
yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes.
yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes.
yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes.
yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes.
yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes.
yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes.
yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes.

roughly 19 rows by 12 columns.

and i know every one counts.
for something.
for everything.

yes.

little miss magic

a good friend sent me a care package this week and the centerpiece is the book little miss magic. when i saw it my heart expanded about two sizes in my chest and i suddenly heard an ex's voice in my head saying magic baybay. that was his funny way of acknowledging the way that i make things happen exactly the way i envision them; sometimes so perfectly and effortlessly that his only word for it was magic.

it's times like these when i need the most reminders.
and what a lovely thing to get a reminder from left field.
a reminder to envision exactly what i want.
ask for it.
and then make it happen.

like magic.

franny & zooey

i have an odd relationship to this book. a push/pull between feeling ambivalent toward the characters and the style of the narrative while simultaneously being drawn through the story by some intangible force.

my investment in a book's characters is usually the primary force that propels me through a piece and its style of prose, the secondary consideration, but this work had neither really. i mean, j.d. salinger certainly has a singular style, and a prolix vocabulary not to mention a list of literary and religious allusions he refers to left and right.

the description given by the narrator of the medicine cabinet in the bathroom where a substantial portion of the book takes place:

she went over to the medicine cabinet. it was stationed above the washbowl, against the wall. she opened its mirror-faced door and surveyed the congested shelves with the eye--or, rather, the masterly squint--of a dedicated medicine-cabinet gardener. before her in overly luxuriant rows, was a host, so to speak, of golden pharmaceuticals, plus a few technically less indigenous whatnots.

okay so far, right?

but then he continues on to list 42+ items actually inside the medicine cabinet:

the shelves bore iodine, mercurochrome, vitamin capsules, dental floss, aspirin, anacin, bufferin, argyrol, musterole, ex-lax, milk of magnesia, sal hepatica, aspergum, two gillette raors, on schick injecctor razor, two tubes of shaving cream, a bent and somewhat torn snapshot of a fat black-and-white cat asleep on a porch railing, three combs, two hair brushes, a bottle of wildroot hair ointment, a bottle of fitch dandruff remover...

you get the point.

but it's not that i find this completely off-putting or i find salinger a bad writer, it's just that it is not emotionally compelling and never at any point did i feel myself truly connected or even empathetic towards the characters. i wouldn't recognize them on the street if i passed them. i wouldn't call them friends. i wouldn't presume to know what's going on in their heads.

but.

despite this lack {and i say lack here only because this is often the source of the most enjoyment} i found myself unable to put the book down. even at eyelid-drooping 1am after a long day i would tell myself just finish the page and then suddenly catch myself halfway through the next. and the next and then the next. and this didn't just happen once, but repeatedly.

and there were some gems like the passage i wrote about a few weeks {?} ago and:

i'm sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody.

and finally the last three pages which i won't quote here and spoil for everyone. but they suddenly gave value to all i had just slugged my way through and drew me in enough to make me want to go back and read it all again. in a new light. with the gentleness i find myself infused with. and finally i really cared about the characters too.

so, after all that, well done j.d.

siff....here i cooooome!!!

on the 11th of april, ross, a friend and i went to circus contraption {the images}. the venue camps out at theo chocolates here in fremont which means that the only option for toilets are a plastic blue port-a-potty. on the 11th, i was feeling pretty shoddy. my nose was running like mad, my body ached and there was no way i was going to subject myself to squatting over a dark stinky pit of other people's excrement. enough is enough.

so.

i walked the two blocks east to pcc {one of my favorite organic grocery stores} and used their superior restroom accomodations.

as i was exiting the restroom, my eyes were snagged by one of the fliers that was literally dead center from the doorway of the women's restroom. the flier announced a volunteer meeting next week for the seattle international film festival at the egyptian theater {~3 blocks from my apt}. i figured i would go since i could do a few volunteer shifts and see a few movies for free which i could otherwise not really afford right now.

a week passes. i wake up early from housesitting on the sammamish plateau and skitter across the water to shower and feel presentable and i head out.

and almost turn around on the walk over
suddenly
{inexplicably}
wanting someone to be coming with me.

i win the silent battle with my inner scardy cat {mainly because i tell myself if i can't go to a faceless volunteer meeting, how will i ever get to and through an audition} and i walk into the jam packed egyptian.

i stole a seat tucked onto one far side of the theater and watch the presentations and slowly realize there are bigger opportunities here for internships {unpaid, unfortunately}. various groups pitch their need but i remain ambivalent until the very end when the guest relations group presents. suddenly i'm sitting up straighter inside my head and i know this is why i'm here. this is the group that works directly with the 200 guests of the festival {including mr francis ford coppolla & spike lee} to help bring them in, ferry them around, make sure they are happy at the w hotel, etc.

so we disperse to sign up with individual groups and i bee-line it as much as possible to the guest relations table in the slowly moving throng of people heading out. and lucky me: it turns out my seat was strategically placed to get me to the tables sooner so i don't have to wait all that long to speak with one of the guest relations workers.

we chat a little.
i get excited.
i mention i'm unemployed and she stars my name on the list i just signed and offers me an opportunity for an internship.
their group tends to be really popular so it wasn't announced or else all 800 people would be swarming to their table.
i get more excited and agree to send her my resume.
i linger a bit longer, and on my way out make a point waiting around to get in contact with the head of the guest relations department. just so she'd have a face. so she would know i was that interested.

and now it's thursday and i go in for an interview and not only am i offered one of the few coveted internships, but i am offered to be the head of the department's right hand throughout the festival. each of the guest relations staff have their own particular intern as well as a few general dept interns, but deborah, the head of the dept still hadn't found anyone to assist her. so, i will be the intern that helps her out at the all galas and functions, and helps organize and coordinate each guest dinner, etc. and i'm so stoked.

and part of me is worried.
worried about devoting so much time to something that doesn't help keep me in my apartment, doesn't help with bills, potentially may take away from my time to pour into the last quarter of my acting class.
and then, a louder, calmer voice steps in and says: don't be ridiculous, nathania, film is something you are intensely passionate about and this is your way of getting involved with the industry directly. have a little faith. take a little risk.

and so i'm going to listen. and say yes.
yes, i have enough time for this.
yes, this is the direction i want to go.
yes, i will be able to stay in my apartment and leave on my own terms.
yes, i will have enough money.
yes, this is the right thing.
yes, your inner compass is still working.
yes, this is what i want.

this is me on the way to the interview yesterday.

currently listening to: explosions in the sky - the earth is not a cold dead place

\LAY-byl\

this was the word of the day on my last day of work {4.14.09}.
and it gave/gives me hope.

labile \LAY-byl\, adjective:

1. open to change; apt or likely to change; adaptable.
2. constantly or readily undergoing chemical, physical, or biological change or breakdown.

and this was the weather in the morning when i came into work.

and this was the weather as i drove home again at the end of the day.

dreams of late

the viscous dremas started about a week ago with a dream about thom yorke.
somehow i found his cell number on the internet and stored it in my phone.
a security blanket.
a souvenir of sorts.
and then i accidentally called it.
he picked up and asked
who is this?
i could only be silent.
did you know this is the lead singer of radiohead {as in: why are you bothering me}
in my silence i thought: don't you realize i would recognize your voice anywhere???
calmly and politely: well, don't use this number.
or something to that effect.
after we hung up, i was considering calling back and politely telling him the number could be found on the internet and shouldn't he deal with that...
and that's where the dream ended.

two nights later i dreamt of the whole band.
they were touring.
it was crazy and hectic and skattered
and i don't remember much now that can be reconstructed except that i was traveling with them.

sunday, monday, tuesday and wednesday nights
have provided lots of nightmares.
dreams that stench and stick to me long after i wake up.
wars, futile searches, chases, awkward situations
and in one my books were being burned as part of the enemy offensive.

two nights ago i had one of the most vivid dreams i've ever had
my bed was situated by a sliding door leading out to a walk way.
there were plastic blinds clinking gently in the wind
and a shadow passed in front of the blinds and stopped at my door.
then the door slowly opened.
i waited to see who was entering
preparing a fierce scream if it was someone breaking in.
and sure enough, a man with a maniac smile and mid-length greasy hair entered.
so i opened my throat to scream but it was so tight with fear nothing came out
except an ineffectual little squeak
that only served to point his gaze, his creepy smile and a gun in my direction.
and i lay there frozen in terror for several long moments before i woke up.

that one was by far the worst i've had in a long time.
i had to stay awake for a few minutes
browsing email on my phone, staring at the ceiling, etc,
just to clear my brain palate.
because one a night is not enough and they keep coming.
usual several times a night.
these dreams of being chased down.

and i'm sleeping lots but fighting my way out of dreamland.
so each morning i wake up not so rested despite the long hours.

11 days

that's how long it's been since i've posted.

and i feel like i've lost a lot of moments.









and the weight of what's passed by unwritten
unpreserved
grows daily.
making the effort of writing that much harder.

a chinese finger trap of sorts.

so, a few high{lo}lights:

the last days of work.
and those two lonely car rides
across 90 to a job no longer mine
starting as a cloudy and pessimistic day
ending, finally, with a stretch of sun.

and two goodbyes too hard to say.

sigur ros brought me home.
at last.
quietly.

hopefully?

a lot of being sick.
under the weather.
a little brother in town.
a little brother back out again.
and in again but not around.

and a whole lot of back and forth.
up and down.
in and out.

i haven't seen an unemployment check
or, more worrisome,
the percentage i relied on
that won't be there any more.
and i still don't know what is going to happen
with my housing situation come june 1st.

oh, my darling apartment, how i pray to keep you.

but opportunities i wouldn't have been open to me before
are suddenly there.
staring back at me from a flier on pcc's community board:
"seattle international film festival needs volunteers."

now an interview on thursday.
not paid.
but i'll be volunteering at a film festival.
staff pass.
free entry to all the films (i can make it to)
and the galas.
perhaps a glimpse of francis ford coppolla.

perhaps...

so wish me luck.

and thanks for waiting {and asking where i might be}.
it feels good to be back.

i guess my heart has been a little heavier of late.
harder to pick itself up and speak.
but, it's there.
we're here.
and we're back.

bully

i don't think it matters if a person is 6, 16, or 36.
if someone is steamrolling over them i don't have to stand back and watch.
and, in this case, i didn't want to.
maybe i got in the way.
and maybe i got into something that wasn't my business.
but i kept my cool
and i did what was right by me.

the circus of the damned

it's late.
my nose has been running constantly since the car ride to work this morning.
the start of the final quarter of meisner was tonight.
and my little brother, fresh from iraq arrives in seattle tomorrow to spend the weekend with me.

but i can't let last night go without writing something down while it's fresh.

i woke up before my alarm this morning still buzzing.
my mind was rolling before my body was awake.
questions.
answers.
images.
an alive stirring that isn't even restlessness but a burning desire to linger in one of those rare moments of a heightened state of being.
i went to a prison last night for the first time ever
and i watched thirteen women put on an original piece of work.
the circus of the damned.
one they created from scratch.
from their writings.
their improvisations.
from their stories.
and the images that linger around a full day later:

the web one never can exit
a white translucent cloth drawn taut
by bodies pressed up against it.
the audience can make out the contorted limbs and the dead faces through the cloth
and it was this ominous back drop for an entire scene
silent only in volume

then the black monster
an actor straddled two ladders
draped in shiny black all the way to the floor
ten feel of darkness crowned with a black, faceless mask
wielding two insectlike arms
that opened and closed in an attempt to swallow one of the main characters

and the humor:
the wiccan actor who played jesus disputing with the christian actor who played the devil
they both pull out contracts for a third character's soul
then decide they cancel each other out
directing the character to spiritual bankruptcy

but my favorite part: the talking at the end.
the questions and answers like:
did any of you consider yourself an artist before starting this production?
many shake their heads.
only one had been a musician before being incarcerated.
a strong word that tastes like institution and razor wire.
did any of you discover a tool or a process that you intend to continue with even after the program is done?
yes.
the writing.
and writing of the write whatever comes to mind and don't stop moving the pen for x number of minutes variety.
the things that came out that we didn't even know was there.
several nod their head in agreement.

and then faces.
the beautiful girls. the women. the grandmothers.
the tears.
so many tears.
they spoke of hope
this is my first and only time in prison and in four months time i will be knocking on your door freehold.
they spoke of ownership.
for the first time i feel responsibility for what i have done and i don't want to let that go.
they spoke of community
out there {nod in the direction of the outside prison area} we aren't allowed to be who we are, but in here, you don't care what our past is and you just let us be. and we're a family now.
they spoke of success
when the other prisoners saw our work last night, we were like celebrities.
and victory
and they see our stories and how we tell it and they respect us for it.
and forgiveness.
i used to tell myself i wasn't cut out to be a mother. that i wasn't mother material. but i realize so many things now and i can forgive myself for the choices i made.


i was in tears. several times. with them. for them. because of them.

and robin.
the driving force behind it all just named prison volunteer of the year.
teary voiced. throat closed up and struggling to speak praises and appreciation of these ordinary heroes doing this kind of work: each and every woman in front of us.
and how that is where the magic is.
there.
in each of them.

it was a brilliant night.
and just a beginning.
for them
and for me.
kismet in the form of a random email paired me with my carpool buddy who has done similar work in a maximum security prison on the east coast.
she's starting her next project now working with vets.
and i want in.

(ûr'jən-sē)

ur·gen·cy - (ûr'jən-sē)
noun

1. the state of being urgent; an earnest and insistent necessity
2. pressing importance requiring speedy action
3. an urgent situation calling for prompt action
4. the all consuming force behind my infernal restlessness, my compulsive-list-making, & my accomplishment-driven mentality. i've even taken a closer look at this part of me several times and have never been able to see past the image of the hamster on the wheel that is running {and running and running} exhaustively and getting absolutely no where.

but in the past few days {since finding out the news} the loud rattle and squeak of a wheel in constant motion has stopped. and while the silence is simultaneously deafening and rejuvenating, all the sharp, pressing edges have softened to warm and welcoming lines.

welcome back to yourself, they say. and welcome back to the feeling of having enough time.

little miracles

when i first got the news, my manager left to grab kleenex, and my sister at my request.
so i was alone in this little office for about 45 seconds when i realized
i was rocking gently back and forth repeating one word.
god. god. god. god. god. god. god. god. god. god.
over and over again.
and it wasn't an expletive,
it was an invocation
and i have seen their presence everywhere i turn
as the little miracles keep pouring in:
by the grace of the ymca, i don't have to worry about membership for the first few months
and by the generosity of freehold theater, i have internships to cover the entire cost of my final, rather expensive, quarter of meisner.
and person after person has offered to help.

the only thing that truly saddens me at this point is the possibility {that's highly likely from where i stand now} that i'll have to give up my darling apartment.

plays

we have to pick our final scene partner and the material we will present for the last class of meisner. we're supposed to start reading plays and find material that makes us excited.

now, i haven't read that many plays, but the ones i've read recently haven't gotten me jazzed.
i was worried i was broken.
worried i wouldn't find anything.
but i just finished the 2nd play in less than 12 hours that has made my butt do a little wiggle dance from being so excited. i finished fugard's hello and goodbye last night despite being so tired i could barely keep my eyes open, but i just couldn't stop. and this morning found me neglecting breakfast an hour past when i wanted it because i couldn't put down david auburn's proof. and even when i began heating a pan and cooking eggs and toasting bread, i still had the book glued to the space about six inches from my nose.
they're both great.

and i have a lot more time after the 14th to read as many plays as i would like. bonus.

they only visit at night.

i had a dream last night that radiohead was in town. not just in town, but at another musical performance. they were all jamming in the front row by where i was sitting, and we were all joshing around and talking like good friends. even jonny greenwood, the shy one, was warm and friendly with me, and ed was a goofball. they were in town because jonny was apart of some performance at the emp and they were all there to support him.

not sure what it means. not really trying to figure it out, but there you have it. at least the gods of my art world are able to give me comforting dreams right now.

last night was a tougher night than the first.

but, as a friend has said the first night, people are coming out of the woodwork to help me.
and that's true.
very true.

silver lining

there must be one, right?

immediate thoughts:
i get to get enough sleep each day
i get to work out each day
i get to focus on my acting
i get to make art work, do projects and paint
i get to pick up the piano {via a keyboard i'm borrowing} again
i get to write
i get to build my website
i get to spend copious amounts of time with my little brother when he's in town next week
i get to spend copious amounts of time with my mom when she comes into town this summer
i get to.......

storm cloud i'm trying not to think about:
the fact that my darling apartment will have to be given up.