3.28.2010

retrieval

tonight is the night
and tuesday is the day

and for what you'll just have to wait
because i've owed you an explanation for a long time.

3.25.2010

2008 tour. finally.

before i start writing too much about the thom yorke show's i am going to see april 5th and 6th in new york city, i want to take a moment to finally Finally FINALLY air out a piece i wrote in september of 2008. i brushed off the dust and polished it a bit tonight since it's been sitting in blog purgatory for over a year as a draft. and despite being written over a year ago and a half ago, it still holds very relevant in light of all the personal history and mythology i'll be staring down when i go to see him perform again in a little over a week.

so, without further ado, here it is.

...................................


this is a story of resonance and convergence.
and this is the biggest story i have in me right now.
it's a story i have spent the last month in a state of constant battle to avoid going through it all. i've resisted re-finding the selves that lived the story while also fighting being weighed down by the burden of what i want to say--it's so much and so steeped and i'm not sure i can do it justice.

at the end of august this year {2008} i had the privilege of seeing radiohead play three times in a week and a half stretch. but it wasn't the experience i would have thought it to be. the time was marked by loss. adventure. boldness. hiding. and grief. but somehow, inspite of all disappointments, it was still absolutely amazing.

but to give it context, let's start at the beginning:
i began listening to radiohead roughly ten years ago and their music has been a constant presence in my collection since. their music tapps into a very raw and alive part of myself and it has always managed to create movement in still places.

but i think the first time i fully understood them was on june 23rd, 2001. the gorge amphitheater. that was the day i first saw them play live and over seven years later, it's still one of the epic moments of my life.

the person i went with flatly declared he wouldn't enter the pit of people standing in front of the stage, so i ventured in alone to try and find some friends from high school. i never did connect with them, and that didn't even matter as soon as the band took the stage just as the sun was setting. it was a rowdy crowd that calmed down after the third song, exit song (for a film), and as the waves of people pushed back and forth i was able to inch forward step by step until i ended up about seven people from the stage.

and i don't think my eyes left thom yorke almost the entire time.

there was something so massive working through him that i couldn't even begin to articulate what was happening beyond the electrified feeling coursing through me. watching him. his movements. gestures. dancing. i was taken away on the journey he was living both in himself and through the music and i was filled up beyond my ability to comprehend. and i know i was experiencing one of the greatest gifts in that i was able to reach out beyond what i thought was my capacity in response. the people around me were alive to each other and even the awkward self i lived out in those days shone out to the beautiful boy who danced my way. i was radiant in my presence, mirroring thom in how pure and condensed i was able to live myself simply through the act of receiving what he gave.

the night could not have possibly lasted long enough to satisfy me, and after the end of the encore, when the last chord of motion picture soundtrack was held out indefinitely signifying the end, i was still disappointed despite the generous line-up of songs. the natural high lingered and the drive home was almost surreal. i was alone in a car driving through the mountain roads while my friend slept though kid a was blasting on the stereo. i was bouncing in my seats i couldn't contain. i felt so awake. so alive.

later i wrote: his presence on the stage extended beyond comprehension--beyond life almost. seeing the energy pour out from him and emanating from every word, syllable, movement made me realize he is a conduit for the world that extends beyond the five senses...he sings of a world that surpasses even his own conscious understanding in order to give us the gift of a fleeting glance...i couldn't stop moving to his music.

and there. that one word: conduit. thom yorke is a conduit of the divine passions of humanity. lowercase d divine. a divine that is inclusive, not exclusive, and it reaches out and sweeps you in to the most beautiful highs and heartbreaking lows before you even know it. radiohead's music opens spaces in me. stimulates movement. and above all, it creates resonance.

in acting we call the one thing you want most in this world your super objective. in my life this is resonance. the first thing i did when i was born was to find everyone's eyes in the room and hold them. the doctor's. the nurse's. my grandmother. both my parents, including my mother. for her i needed the assistance of the doctor to tilt me back so that i wouldn't slip out of his hands while i arched my back and stared at my mother upside-down. the doctor was astounded. newborns shouldn't be able to see that far. shouldn't be able to find, register and connect to people beyond their scope of vision. but i did. i was already searching.

so, starting from birth, literally, i have been looking out at the world and asking it to reflect back the truth of its self, share in the joy of the discoveries, and surprise me with different names for familiar colors. forever a tuning fork searching out for things to strike against me so i can sit alive in the vibrations.

and radiohead is by far the most constant and significant of all forms of resonance i have in my life. the depth this resonance creates guarantees that i will never tire of their music allowing me to listen to one of their songs on repeat for days and for entire albums to carry me through years. and each time i come back to and revisit a song or album, i only add new layers of resonance. a slowly forming patina cradling each song.

i can recall where i was when each of their albums were released and many of their songs are an earmark for specific moments or time periods in my life. in light of the fact that both my memory and the things i tether it to are prominent themes in my art work, it's also significant that their music functions much like a scrap book of such a large portion of my past.

pablo honey--sorry, love. you don't really have a spot
beyond what creep carries on its own. never really liked you.
the bends & ok computer--high school. enough said.
kid a--freshman year of college. birthday gift from kate & lissa.
amnesiac--sophmore year. australia. pyramid song.
hail to the thief--at the tail end of my year off between sophmore & junior year of college.
purchased it while traveling through scotland at the time. inverness. traveling.
in rainbows--2008. the year of the finding and the losing. what a beautiful heart-aching year.
{listing individual songs would take too long.}


and yet, the above is just one layer of how i experience the music of both radiohead and thom yorke. so much of how the resonance is created relates to this rich and colorful emotional landscape that their music creates--the focal point being thom yorke and his voice. it simultaneously expands my heart beyond the boundaries of my ribcage and shatters it into a million little pieces. he channels so much into the soaring and raw life of his voice and its presence is the centerpiece of each song. he commits so fully of himself that listening to him feels like an intimate experience. but not of him, though i guess in some ways it's inseparable from the artist, but really an intimate experience of the universal self. this mirror he holds back to the world so that we can look into hard to see places and in the end know ourselves better.

any time i am caught unawares by their songs being played outside the safety of my car or my home, i feel raw and exposed. the communion that happens naturally when i hear their music is not something casual, not something public, but rather a private and vulnerable experience of thesw parts of myself that come alive through their music.

a couple of months ago i had my ipod on shuffle at work and i {still, in 2010} so clearly remember the moment of transition between one song {of insignificant title and artist} to a thom yorke song. i actually experienced a visceral reaction through my whole body like i had stuck my finger in a socket and the jolt when right to my heart.

i put it into words right away in this instant message conversation i had been having with eden {my best friend} right after it happened:

‎‎nathania:
thom yorke. thom. thom. thom. i can't describe it, but that man has a special place for me. i have always known it, but something just happened and i'm not sure how to describe it.
i have my music on shuffle.
and one of his songs came up in the queue.
from his solo album, the eraser.
and the transition from a non-thom yorke song to his song was tangible.
it was like coming home.
but coming home in a sense of returning home to a place that is no longer your home but was your home for so
long it has the history/memories/steeped quality, but you are still a stranger there. a bittersweet quality of aching and
longing felt in the body.


so now, fast forward to 2008. {i saw them once more in saint louis in the 2003 tour and vowed never to see them from the lawn again. i couldn't see thom's movements, see his eyes, see him as a vehicle for this life beyond life that is the most beautiful thing any performer, artist, or piece of artwork has given me}. i got to see them in vancouver in august of 2008, but somehow the magic isn't there. i figure it's because i was still too far away and/or i was with someone who i squelch myself around {when will i ever get to be myself around attractive men?}.

but i have these doubts. it shouldn't have been the external circumstances. i still should have found a familiar rush and excitement no matter how far away they were.

and when i crashed at john's place that night, the first words i said when i walked into his room at 3 am were: am i broken?

i wondered for so long and hard that night: what's different? is it my tuning fork that's no longer working? why can't i just get carried away with open heart and oscillating spirit? and i couldn't come up with an answer.

so i see them again the next night, but this time i'm four people from the front and i'm with eden and i have no excuses for not being myself. and still, the magic isn't there. i can't find the place where my heart is racing the whole time and i'm alive in a whole new way and place and space. and i don't get it. i did have an amazing time. i know this. and the concert was brilliant. thom messed up twice on faust arp and the banter on stage as he and jonny unsuccessfully play a neil young song while phil (the drummer) runs out to applaud them and give them a dollar as though they were street performers was brilliant. and colin comes out for the next song and immediately hugs thom. smiles all around. vibrant. intimate as they welcomed us in to their family on stage. and it was a great crowd. the opposite of last night's mosh pitting, crowd surfing drunkards {fact: the canadians aren't always polite}.

somehow i couldn't resonate. my heart was still despite all my efforts of trying to force the high. but it

just

wasn't

there.


and i know it wasn't a failure of the band's or thom's part. i watched his movements and my mind could get excited because i could see the pieces playing out in front of me, but somehow they couldn't make their way into my heart.

a few days later i related the experience with a mentor of mine. he's a musician. he gets the resonance factor. and we talked through this curious absence of resonance for these shows and suddenly i am in tears because of the loss and the fact that i am broken.
i am broken.
i realized in talking through it that i had put a glass ceiling to keep myself from going to the highest highs while i've been in recovery mode all spring and summer. the loss of a relationship. then the loss of my grandfather. all these moments of severance both tearing/ugly and clear/clean and i've reined myself in and put a seal over what i am willing to let myself feel. and somehow, the highest highs are as dangerous as the lowest lows. they ask too much of me and in some ways i didn't want thom, such a precious idol on my artistic alter, to even have the chance to disappoint me so i just kept it from even being a possibility. rather than risking finding him faulty, i made it so that i would be the faulty one.

coming away from this conversation i realized i needed to see them once more. give myself one more chance to see them live this tour. the only option left and one i didn't even know existed until the fan standing next to me the night before at the auburn show mentioned he was seeing them in santa barbara next week.
so here we go.
and my little brother gave me my early birthday present {of a highly scalped pit ticket} and i bought the plane ticket that night. i was going and it was going to be an adventure.

and adventure it was.

i carpooled with two people {men} i met on a message board online. one from the seattle area, the other hailing from dallas. i woke up at 4:30am and was in los angeles by 10am and in line by 12:30. i was the first up the hill to the santa barbara bowl (they don't let you run up the hill and i've got the longest stride on a normal day and longer when i want something bad). and i went immediately to just a hair right of center stage. the mic stood right in front. i was going to let myself live into this show. finally.

but it still wasn't there.

i had traveled all this way and it was still.
not.
there.

but even so, even in the face of that loss, it still was an adventure. one of stepping into my power a little here and there. of being bold enough to look a tall, beautiful man in the eye and call him on his attraction. of being at the after party where the band made their appearances. of watching thom. thom. five foot and not much thom walk right by me and me being completely, frustratingly speechless.

so, i got my adventure, one that is {still, in 2010} precious in my own personal mythology and personal history, but it was not the experience of unleashing myself and running free in the music that i had hoped. so while i will never call the trip a failure, the victory was in a realm i didn't quite expect and certainly not the one i went south looking for.

so i continued on and i couldn't listen to their music at all for a few days. and even after i could put on some songs here or there, i couldn't play something like videotape or the reckoner, something that was too potent. even now i have a hard time watching footage of their live performances. it makes my heart hurt. and the ache comes from the fact that in safety, in my aloneness, i am able to let myself resonate in their music where i wouldn't let myself resonate faced with them in person.

in the end, it comes down to three things: 1. the parts of me that are alive in their music are the things that i cling to as indicators of my most passionate, unique, alive, saturated self; and 2. i tether a whole heap of hopes to these vibrant pieces of me and 3. i see these parts of me as indicators that i will move forward in the direction i want. and by forward, i mean forward in a big way. and if i had actually given permission to this part of me to be alive to the music, and then somehow discovered it didn't work, it would be the loss of the only thing remaining after this year of loss: hope and the truest, purest part of myself. and i don't know how i would survive the loss of those two cornerstones of myself. now or any time.

meet me in wonderland

waiting for alice in wonderland to start
and while recently i've successfully avoided movies with gorgeous
young actresses (like anne hathaway and the blonde belle who plays
alice)
i'm still looking forward to the wild burtonian ride with a handful of
depp thrown in.

catch you on the other side.

3.24.2010

a different perspective

in order to chase down a sun/sky photo for my sun/sky friends (the
count is currently 4, including me), i walked up a set of stairs
leading up to a rather charming building on my street (i daydream
about living in it each time i pass). the extra five feet of stair
elevation put me back in the sun's view and also let me see what a
cute building this squat piece of dilapidated housing across the
street can be. even if only in silhouette.

abundance

[uh-buhn-duhns}
-noun

1. an extremely plentiful or oversufficient quantity or supply: an abundance of grain.
2. overflowing fullness: abundance of the heart.
3. affluence; wealth: the enjoyment of abundance.


i keep on having dreams of abundance.
the first, right around the time i took the course on manifesting intentions, was one that evoked pure amazement and joy in the dream. it was a strange one to recount since it involved me using a breast pump, which is a sign that my job surrounded by breast feeding and pumping women is finally sinking in to the psyche. anyway, in the dream, i was pumping but it wasn't the watery, pale substance i know is what makes up a human mother's milk, but this rich, pure white milk {think half and half like qualities} that was not only filling up but overfilling the containers i was using to collect the milk in.

the second and third, both of which are from the last month or so {and the second from this past weekend}, featured me finding money. lots of it. wads and piles of it. and it was as much surprising and joyful as the experience of seeing the radiant whiteness of my milk pour out from me and so generously and easily. the second of the two dreams also included a moment's glimpse of my current wallet {dearly beloved with yellow leather, also but in dire need of some minor repairs and major cleaning or flat our replacing} in the trash. it was a very clear and final glimpse and i'm still rather inclined not to try for the repair/clean option but just keep my eye out for its replacement.

as for the theme of abundance in my waking life, well, that's been a little harder for me to manifest as effortlessly. after starting off on this surge of energy coming from the intentions workshop i completed, most days i feel like i'm lugging a huge dead weight up hill.

but i slug on. one heavy step after another. and in the meantime trying to trust the clear evidence that i'm only doing better and better in life and only moving getting to where i want to go
.

3.22.2010

the weekend wasn't long enough, sadly, but here's something i snapped
as it begun.

3.19.2010

to my blog

oh my darling blog how i miss you. you've disappeared from my life
like my other friends 'personal time' and 'yoga practice.'
unfortunately you're behind 'bill paying' and 'house cleaning' but you
are right after them in the queue.

sunday is only a partial workday and monday a full nothing yet booked
on it day so hopefully you will return to my life soon. a few pictures
from my jaunt to vancouver are dying to make their debut as well a
vignette or two from that trip. and of course a more serious post or
two is also waiting a little restlessly in the eaves.

but for now, much overdue sleep.

3.15.2010

night time prayers

dear heavenly father*,

i'm scared
disappointed
and having resltess nightmare every night.

yet i still feelhopepray
that things are moving forward
and despite adding on a few pounds these past two months**
i still move through my days with a solid sense of wellbeing.

so please don't lolligag too much on manifesting the evidence of my
progress.

pretty please?

amen.

*a relic phrase from growing up religious
**the reason for which is a topic of an overdue post. and no, i am not
pregnant.

3.07.2010

my favorite photo of the day

though unattractive, the laughter of frames 5 & 6 was wonderfully
genuine after i caught sheree making the goofy face in the background
of frame 2.

i love traveling.

3.06.2010

overdue.

sorry, love, i meant to send this sooner in the day in response to
your last text. yes, it's sunny here today and i hope it's as lovely
for you today, too.

sorry, too, that you won't be in nyc and i'm hoping it works next time.

sorry, three, that a real thanks and email to you for your package are
long over due, but i know you understand.

in the meantime, enjoy my suns for you.

notes from bc

in vancouver for the weekend with one of my favorite people.
staying in a hostel for the first time since 2004?
brisbane, australia.
{the one on the corner where i met you after a couple of years. how
many more until we meet again? you'll probably have kids by then.}
prone on a rickety twin bed under outdated covers and the lights are
off.
my body is restless as i listen to lonely-making music {kaki king -
can anyone who hears this really be a bad person & montreal} and
daydream about the next two days of play and explore.

and, a mere month away will find me in new york city for a few days of
more explore and more play. and art. blessed intense living and
breathing art.

and, i feel good about life.

so thanks.

and yes.

Pardon the brevity of words, but this was sent from my iPhone.

soooo....

it's 7:12am.
i just spent the last 12 minutes nervously working two browswers as i purchased tickets for the 5th on one and the 6th on the other

{safari, i neglect you for your sassier sister, firefox, except when on my iphone where i have no chioce, but i was grateful for your presence today}

since i recently got new debit cards, there was a hiccup in one of the searches and when my card didn't work {i forgot the card number had changed about a year ago when i left it in an atm and got entirely new cards} i lost my ticket altogether. a subsequent search couldn't find ANY tickets on the 6th and i realized how much i wanted this trip and both shows to boot, when it appeared the 6th wasn't available.

stubborn me kept searching and searching and on the 3rd or 4th try i came up with seats again {while still juggling the different pages on the other web page--you only have so much time to complete each section of ticketmaster's pages}. whew.

the nice thing is that thom is finally doing something about scalping. this is a paperless ticket tour so you don't get a ticket. you have to show up at the boxoffice and show your ID and the credit card and that's the only way you'll get in. and even then, they don't give you a ticket you can then turn around and sell, that's just how you get in. :)

so yipee.
i'm going to nyc.
and thanks dagob, john, az, holly and liz for the nudges.
i needed them.

and here's to living life in pursuit of seeing and MAKING great art.

3.05.2010

to go or not to go....

i have to decide whether or not i'm going to NYC in april to see thom yorke kick off his solo tour.
the tipping point is that the plane tickets just went from $300 to $400 and yikes! that feels like a lot for two shows. not to mention the two extra days off i'd have to take from work.

sigh.

but look at this man. i'd get to see him, the distant mentor of my artistic life, front and center two nights in a row in one of my favorite cities.




should i do it?