through st. james

sunsets are earlier these days.

facelift

hello my lovely readers. i just wanted to take a moment to inform you that in the past month or so i've realized that there are far more of you than i thought. somehow it's taken me a while to sink in that it's not just my mom and five of my friends {on a good day, and on a bad day just my mom} keeping tabs on what i write. so, with that in mind, as i head toward my 600th post, i am starting to take myself a little more seriously and give the site a long overdue face lift {suggestions from my design friends are more than welcome!}.

the current title image is temporary, but moving in the right direction, and i've also added a note to you all {yes, you} along the side. let me repeat here that i do, in fact, welcome your voice here whether it's just "hi, i'm stopping in" or "that reminds me of..." or "you know, i really don't have much to say to that, but {insert one or two words here...they can be expletives}." i know that these all post on facebook, which is a nice reminder to pop over and read, but if you could remember to leave comments here rather than on facebook, it keeps things a little more centralized {though don't let that get in the way of commenting at all}.

i am honored and grateful to know that so many folks from my past and present {all of whom i admire for their intelligence and discernment} choose to come back and read more. perhaps only in hopes that maybe it won't be about that band or that funny spelling thom man, but hey, i am still grateful no matter what the cause.

so thanks. again and again, thanks.

a sun on loan from summer

all is full of love

the shuffle setting on my ipod* often gives me not so random gifts. today it was a björk song {-- click there to watch it} i haven't heard in years but probably need a daily remember of the concept:


you'll be given love
you'll be taken care of
you'll be given love
you have to trust it

maybe not from the sources
you have poured yours
maybe not from the directions
you are staring at

trust your head around
it's all around you
all is full of love
all around you

all is full of love
you just aint receiving
all is full of love
your phone is off the hook
all is full of love
your doors are all shut
all is full of love!

all is full of love
all is full of love
all is full of love
all is full of love
all is full of love




*my cute red ipod nano is called my little pony after spending a week saying "when i get to the end of my rope there had better be a pony on it"** and then sure enough, it appeared as a wonderful and spontaneous gift from the squirrel. he's amazing.

**i wish i could take credit for such a clever saying, but i must give that credit where it's due, which is with my fellow acting classing mate and hopefully soon to be collaborator, rebecca goldberg.

recovering a sense of safety - pt 3

as i wrap up the first week's exercises, i just want to finish up with one last activity. in slogging through all the ghosts of my past, i also want to acknowledge and honor all the amazing, life and art affirming influences i have experienced. thank you. thank you. thank you. and thank you again:

lindy--fiona's mom. she was the first person who took me, a 5 or 6 year old, seriously growing up and would call me nathania, instead of the hacked-up nick name i abhorred {and, you should note, still do}, tania.

mrs. tolsin--5th grade teacher who was the first person to encourage my writing. she selected my essay about laura ingles wilder to go to the region-wide writing competition and that was the only time i beat out anand periyadeth in anything that year.

mrs. landoni--6th grade teacher. she adored my drawings and even asked to keep my robin hood project which i saw on display years later when i went to visit her class.

mr. fram--8th grade advanced english teacher. he's here mostly for that look he would give me when i was on to something insightful. i could barely speak up in class at first, but his look...it just sparkled when i would bring up an idea from far left. we spent days on just two-pages of borges and there were only two or three of us even able to follow the ideas of the discussion. i was one of them. and i had recently skipped up from 7th grade. when did i stop being so insightful, or do i just hang out with more intelligent people now?

mr. jenes--10th grade english teacher. pretty much all the same things i just said about mr. fram, but even more so because now we were analyzing james joyce instead of borges and i was the only one speaking in class. he would talk to other teachers about me and in a good way. and, to be noted, in a simple class exercise he also helped me realize how much beauty is important to me. one of my top 3 things in life. he also strongly encouraged both my creative and analytical writing

mr. olson--the art troll. a fantastic fantastic art teacher. i had him for a few years in a row i think.

mrs. matthews--she was the first person who put a camera in my hands. she was subbing for the 7th grade science class and for some reason she picked me to take photos of clouds for the day's lesson. stratus. cumulus. they were my first photographs.

becky--she was a grad student teacher at wash u and i had her for my photo 1 and 2 classes. art school was tough freshman year but her classes most likely saved me from dropping out. they were easy in a way that the work just eased out of me. it was natural and fun. probably the reason i ended up majoring in photography.

greg--the modern lit teacher ellie and i took a class with in australia. he loved our writing, as different as it was.

my writing for film teacher--the way he never gave out compliments except the day he passed back my dialogue-less script. he mentioned how it didn't have any dialogue and i said "well, i don't know dialogue but i do know visual art and he replied "well this {and he tapped my script to his hand twice}, this is visual art..."

melody--my very first acting teacher who assumed i had acted before because i had such a presence.

nandi--for her golden, vibrant presence that believes in me from afar and i know always has and always will.

georgia--the dean of students at washington university art school. she was the sole reason i returned to wash u after a year abroad and a year off. i had so many ghosts of failure to face from that first year and she was the only reason i could could consider going back. she speaks truth so wisely and with the utmost care to the humanity of others.

richard--even though i didn't realize it at the time, he's the reason i needed to come back to wash u. he is one of my most influential mentors of all time. my photography professor even though at the time that title wasn't official. i can't begin to say enough here, but he gave us all so much. gave me so much in that gentle, quirky way of his. he changed the way i think about and make art.

jenn--his teaching side kick. another neglected rock star of the art school.

david--my dancing professor who radiates beauty. and i don't just mean he was attractive, though he was that too. it just emanates from his every movement. and he loved and encouraged how wacky i was in class. i cut loose in a way very few people get to see.

j--for thinking i was sexy and becoming a good friend, too. {<---and no, this isn't he "j" of my big ex j}.

caroline f--an acting friend from australia. she took me seriously when others didn't.

robert--an official art mentor and someone who has stood up for me more than most any other two people in my life combined. even if he did it silently. i have a debt to you i still want to repay.

mom--for always being there. always. always. always. as best and as lovingly as you are able.

ede--there are no words for how much you have given me.

oh my goodness and let me not forget robin lynn smith--my meisner acting teacher who's greatest compliment was a direct look in the eye and one single nod, and yet her love and support and encouragement for us was so present. so huge.

and george lewis--my first real acting teacher. what a character. what a force. i want to come back and be in a piece you direct. i have grown so much and i want to share that. thanks for that smile after closing night.

recovering a sense of saftely - pt 2

i want to preface this post by saying how much i love my mother. i know so many other amazing mothers and i can't think of one that i would rather have. i wouldn't trade you in for anything, mom {all of my posts automatically are emailed to her}. so, okay, i'll stop writing to her and start writing my piece.

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

my piece. it's about recovering a sense of safety in another part of my life. and this topic is one i have been meaning to write more about. to reclaim it from the quietude of shame, which, looking back, has always been an symptom of my lack of safety.

it's late and i've just scratched all i've written because i am getting too caught up in telling a story and perfecting the words. here are the simple facts:

i have carried my mother's shame about her own sexuality for too long. i see now, how for so long i blamed it on my religious upbringing, having close family and community members being molested, a natural maternal protectiveness, etc. i have had many excuses, but now, i see how much i have inherited my mother's skittishness. internalized it. incubated it. and now i'm forced to face it down and own myself. whether on stage or in real life, i have a history of physically flinching away at the mere thought of being seen as a sexual being, or being witnessed as having the audacity to believe myself attractive {even in the humorous play, the man who came to dinner}.

shame. how much it burns. mom, how you have burned me with your own shame.

i could go into more detail, draw out all the symptoms and their parental causes, but i'm going to keep it simple, get to bed early and move on: mom, i give you back your shame. keep it. do something constructive with it, ideally move on from it yourself, but i've learned all i need to learn from it and it's time for me to be able to explore the full range of myself as an actor and a human being who is sexual in nature.

{eek...i still inwardly cringe from writing it here...what if someone reads this!?!?! which shouldn't discourage you from doing so :}.

so i affirm: it is safe for me to consider myself as a sexual being and it is safe for me to be witnessed doing so and to share that sexuality, deliberately and safely with another.

the artist's way {wk 1: recovering a sense of safety}

so, i'm on a mission to revive myself as an artist and to transition into the artistic space i have been pursuing for a long time: a space where my whole life is about my own art {not just commercial work in the service of others} and where i make this art from a grounded, productive place. i am going to accomplish this mission, or at least give it a good start, by participating in a facilitated artist's way course led by kate and carol, here.

i have done this course before, but not fully committed to it, and already in reading the intro and first chapter i came across many things i disregarded previously because my dear friend, my ego, loudly claimed that i already knew this thing or that thing so i didn't have to pay too much attention to them. now i've got enough self-perspective to see the difference between knowing something and actually living it so i see clearly how those things i skimmed over last time might be exactly what i need to hear and do. repeatedly.

i could spend a lot more time writing about all the bits in the introduction that stood out at me this reading, but it's late, well past my bedtime and one of the things i promised to do during these twelve weeks is to get enough sleep. sleep is needed for one of the cornerstones of this practice, the morning pages: three pages of free writing {don't-stop-moving-your-pen-spelling-doesn't-matter-you-can-change-a-thought-mid-word-if-you-want sort of writing}. you have to do them first thing in the morning, which is tough on days i have to skitter off to work after hitting snooze a couple of times too many.

but i did want to steal a few more minutes away from "a good night's rest" to acknowledge the first chapter's focus on recovering a sense of safety. as someone that has a set of parents that have always supported my interests in the arts, previously doing this work i disregarded the necessity i have of recovering a sense of safety. no one major has ever mocked my art that i can remember, yet all those memories from the past that hold a little {or a lot} of sting have the same effect of making my seem world less safe and me more cautious within it. i am less secure because of them, so i have to reclaim my safety as a human being before i can move forward as a the confident artist i envision for myself.

one of the exercises for the first week asks me to list three old enemies of my artistic self-worth. this has always been an easy list with the same cast of characters. but this time, i openly acknowledged the fact that there are more names i could add that didn't overtly attack my art, but somehow reinforced my sense of failure as an artist or person. that list is:

---john sabraw {my freshman year drawing teacher. the one most directly related to my art...more below}
---zach {my manager at the restaurant i worked at in nyc who openly mocked me in front of others then tried to be a fake buddy buddy each time he realized he had crossed a line. he was also really short and stood on tiptoes as he talked to people whether or not they were as tall as me}
---the mean kids in my 8th grade art class {can't remember names, but they teased me about my basketball playing rather than my art}
---my cafe manager in australia {druggie who didn't do her job, trained me poorly then threw me in with more than i could handle. to her benefit, she did try to later protect me, but she was too much of a mess to really make amends. oh, and she was taking out taxes but not reporting it. i think that was kind of dodgy}

and the list could go on. i have a good memory.

the next assignment asks us to select one incident from the above and write it out. so here it is, ten years later, something that still haunts me:

i slept in on the morning of a big art critique for my drawing class. i had stayed up almost all night finishing a drawing that i was sure {and still am sure} sucked, that wasn't nearly good enough for the astronomically high standards of sabraw {the above teacher} and i all of that topped off with waking up late. i couldn't believe it. panic doesn't even begin to cover it. and one of the bravest things i have ever done was walk into the classroom an hour and a half late.

the class was all lined up facing a drawing and in the middle of talking about someone's work. my eyes met my teacher's as he flicked a dismissive glance in my direction, and then returned to what was at hand. that exchange of eye contact, the angle of his glance, the way he didn't even bother turning his face much toward me and the way he sliced me with the breaking of his gaze...i won't ever forget that.

for a while nothing was said on the subject, which i think was worse; silence can be more threatening than words. so i don't know how i got the guts to comment on any of the work that was being shown but i assume i did because non-participation would have landed me only further in the doghouse. as things were winding down he asked how many people were left to go. i raised my hand and he said something to the effect of "you were late, you don't get to go." and that was that.

after the class filed out he and i did a one on one crit and i think i was crying two thirds of the way through it. i specifically remember how during the process he had cautioned me against putting kitschy little glows around the lights that were in the drawing, yet sure enough, somehow they got there. i didn't do it deliberately but i think he felt bad enough by the end because he threw me a bone and commented on the halos as though they were a good thing. somehow that made the humiliation worse. he had lowered his standards for me.

i finished off the year with him rather than transferring at the end of the semester, but i have always told myself and anyone that would listen that i couldn't draw realistically after that.

------------

the next task is to write a letter to the editor in your defense of the situation, or any of the above situations, but i think i can most directly reclaim myself by writing a letter directly to my teacher. i have often thought about it, but i wasn't one of the students he told "don't be a stranger" to or asked to be in contact with and i am certain he wouldn't remember me. but here, for myself, with no need to hope for an answer i can write him a letter.

sabraw,

i remember the bar-b-que they held for freshman at the art school. it was before classes had started and those of us slated to be in your class were whispering nervously amongst ourselves, proud to be included in the select club of sabraw's students but also a little scared. you made an appearance and stood and talked with several of us as we fanned around you and hung on your every word while trying to appear cool.

supplies were purchased and classes began.

i remember on the first day, to prove how little we observed of the world, you pointed out how none of us considered what color hair a fellow student had beneath the bleached and dyed layers of blond and kool-aid red. i was too intimidated to speak up and say that i actually had specifically wondered that very thing. her hair colors were just like one of my best friend's in high school and i had immediately considered whether the original was at all close to my friend's. so this was the perfect foreshadow at the start of our relationship where you had all the power, proving to us our shortcomings by what we didn't do while i stayed silent and unremarkable, possessing more answers than i allowed myself credit for.

i think it made it harder that you are a genius in your art. yes, a genius. there is no other way to describe it and i'm sure you are already aware of the fact. you are a genius in the way you think and create, and particularly your ability to recreate the world, with such specificity and luminosity and not one visible brush stroke. it's genius and so full of wonder, that rare magical wonder you have as a kid where everything is extra alive, extra colorful, extra real.

but you are not a genius teacher. far, far from it. there is a cuttingness to you and your feedback, sharp edges that wound as they instruct. what good does it do to make me better at drawing if i am too hurt to use the tools even years later? and, under slightly gentler care, could i have learned more? gone farther? i don't know, but i do know that i would have lived the next decade of my life a little easier if you had. for years after, i could track the seasons by my end-of-semester nightmares about forgetting to start my project for your class whether or not i was enrolled in school.

but i think i'm done now. done carrying all guilt of failure. i was young, and so literal minded {my ideas for the final self-portrait project still make me cringe, and trust me, i remember them all} and spread so thin across not enough sleep and too much going on, but you failed me as a teacher. you failed to give what i needed: deliver both the praise and constructive criticism in a way that valued me as a human being. because i know you saw us clearly. i know you saw how green and raw we were. we were more naked before you than all the nude models we had second semester. i saw you take care of others, so i knew you were capable of it and i even saw you stoop down to take care of me, all snotty and teary eyed, ashamed of being late, ashamed of the work in front of me, ashamed of not being a genius like you or of even being good enough to have your respect. but that care was too little, too late.

so i ask: what good did it really do me that now that i'm older, an oil painter with ideas of greater elegance and sophistication than i could have imagined for myself back then, but still too scared to paint my nude self portrait you might actually deem interesting?

sabraw, i lay this burden down at my feet, and i lay it down at yours. now, a decade later. this hefty, ugly mess of memories of drawings i couldn't wait to throw away. but even so the sad thing remains in how forgettable to you i was while you've been completely unforgettable to me.

and with this act of putting down this burden, i find that i am free to thank you for all you taught me. it was a lot, as painful as much of the best of it was. i forgive you for your shortcomings and please forgive me for mine, both as a literal minded, procrastinating-on-starting-work-on-your-projects artist and as a person unable to ask for what i needed.

so, all the best to you, and as soon as i can afford one of your paintings, i will buy one. {my current favorite is gossamer}.

~nathania.
freshman drawing class 2000-2001
washington unversity in st. louis

p.s. and the final piece, a nagging bit of irony, is how much you resemble one of the gods of my art world, another unreachable, un-impressable genius, thom yorke. even down to your own eye-quirk and spiky sandy hair. the resemblance is eerie.

gossamer and twilight

images copyright john sabraw, painter extraordinaire.

7 day forecast

at least there is sun, 90 degree temps and a pool waiting for me in vegas. yay for another business trip and vitamin d.

the jumper

i feel like i should take a moment to warn the reader the below is of a different kind of content then i have ever had or ever hope to have again in the future. i witnessed an accident on september 1st that was very graphic and i wouldn't want to surprise the reader with that. maybe it just feels disturbing to me because i have a visual aid to accompany the words, but please, be warned and read with caution.

........….....................................

my voice teacher explained to us that when the body wants to resist an experience it's having, it stops breathing. like in moments before a car accident, the one or two seconds of time before impact that stretches out to infinity become silent and breathless. refusing air, the body is rejecting the act of taking the experience into itself.

but i learned something new last wednesday while driving to the hospital to visit az in the icu. i learned that there are the times when denying the body breath simply isn't enough protection from the outside world that is forcing itself upon the spirit and one has to purge oneself of the experience, expel it out as quickly as possible.

that said, i never thought i would be a screamer. does anyone, really? people scream in movies and it almost always feels contrived and useless. but after sensing something strange happening with traffic up ahead, on this particular wednesday, i made a poor choice and switched lanes to my left instead of my right.

a mere moments later traffic opened up and revealed a stopped car in the middle of the freeway with a man walking behind it to place the first flare. and as i came parallel to the car an obstruction in the road directly in front of the car appeared and my mind speculated for a brief, innocent, second on how creepy it was that the debris faintly resembled a torso. that innocence was fleeting as the dark line in the rubble became a belt and the grey and red objects that used to mean something to this body became blood and grey matter.

and that's when all the panic and horror tore out of my body shredding themselves on my vocal chords along the way.

i screamed for long moments, city blocks, full breaths in and out, tears running down my face, yet it still took me a quarter of a mile before the voice in my ears identified itself as my own. that was when my brain switched back on as i struggled to pull myself together knowing i couldn't pull over anywhere near the site and witness any more. a hazy body lying parallel on the pavement, the crowds of watchers that were sure to come. even the emergency vehicles approaching would be too much. there was no such thing as a safe distance.

so my body continued on autopilot as i steered the car while my mind roved through the circumstances: the body's proximity to the car that was too close for having flown from it, the overpass above, all the people i was driving passed each moment that had no idea of the accident just out of sight and all the while still screaming through my hand clasped tightly over my mouth. my hand was my final, paltry attempt to keep whatever i was expelling out from reentering back the way it came. hold myself in. keep everything else out and away. far far away.

and here i was, on the way to seeing someone tied up in tubes and oxygen and IVs up the arm like full sleeve tattoos with no where to put the horror. all this i considered, my body voicing itself quietly, with shorter breaths and smaller, sadder sounds until eventually i could reach out, call e and leave a long, broken voice mail, text ross, the only one i know who knows even more about body splattered on car and pavement.

........….....................................

my throat hurt for days and the first night i couldn't turn the lights out in my room at night. have i ever been that afraid of the dark?

........….....................................

the next night i decided to spend the night in the icu with az. he was officially out of the icu, just hanging out there until a bed became open elsewhere in the hospital. we watched toystory. he got some sleep. and the thin mattress and squeaky frame was a welcome respite from the lonely, creepy sleep i had gotten the previous night with the pillow over my head and the lights on in my bedroom.

i had two dreams this night, each seconds long, back to back, summing up all the extremes of the previous few days. the first dream was golden in color. warm and safe. i was in the icu with az, but the room was filled with his brother, sister-in-law and mother, all who were there standing vigil with me. there was a lot of love for him in that space and it was comforting to me as much as it was there for him too. this dream was abruptly snatched away and replaced with another. the colors were dark, blue/grey as az and i were in my car in a full spin right through the scene where the man jumped and killed himself. as we passed the scene where it happened, time slowed down so we could get a full, elongated view of the space where he took his life.

and then the lights came on as the nurses came in to say we were being transferred to a new floor. amen.

alone

this came to me by way of my dear friend, s, who left seattle right about the time i moved into my new place. she was heading home and through her own transition, and here we are, states apart, moved by this lovely piece about loneliness.






you can also see it by clicking here.

daily prayer

i just want time.
time that isn't for work or bills or unpacking.
time for fun that isn't escapism
and time for thinking that isn't just worried about being alone.

sun after some grey skies today

matching my mood. hope the skies clear, at least internally.

az is getting out of the ICU tonight!!!

another day

i had to sleep with the lights on last night. haven't been that afraid of the dark in years.

morning and all i can do is lay in bed getting later for work by 9 minute snooze increments while rubbing my feet against each other. a soft thing to feel. i can handle that.

what a weird two days. hopefully the close up view of life's fragility is done.*

-----

*az is still fine and on the mend, by the way.

into the foreground

this song has been on repeat since last night when it came up on my ipod's shuffle. e had initially sent it to me, but i guess it was just needing the right moment to be officially integrated into my music collection, and that time is now. winter winds are blowing away our summer. the flavor in the air, moving the trees and invading my house through open windows was almost creepy last night. az in the hospital. california reduced in size to memories. the slow motion turning of a 180 spin on the freeway. life has just been a little weird in the past thirty six hours.





take on another shift
palms in the middle, hands in the middle
work out another rift
something is muffled, another juggle

this is a foreground
it is a foreground

a cross country miss
take direction, can’t connect it
i’m afraid this is
ten detected, nine in a wreck and…
a little jetty fight
pattern evolving, motion insolvent
something about this might
take all evening,
i’ll just be cleaning

this is a foreground
it is a foreground

p.s. mom, you can watch it here.