things fall apart

and what can you do?

one step in front of the other.

i'll tell you about it more from the other side

once we all make it.

back to black

i dyed my own hair for the first time tonight. no watchful eyes behind me, making sure all the roots are covered, no gentle hands massaging my scalp for me while i sit backwards on the toilet. just me, six feet of pale skin and impossible soul by sufjan on repeat in the background.

i wanted to document my boldness staring back at me from the mirror, but somehow could only really manage the softness with any sort of accuracy.

then i went, and after one final set of second guesses, purchased a flight that will take me to europe for 35 days. i am filled with equal parts excitement and terror.

rosie

i have been remiss in posting photos of my niece. partly because, like the old adage says, the cobbler's children are always without shoes and the photographer's niece without photos. but do i get them here and there between bounces and cuddles and too infrequent visits and here she is today, nearly 4 months old.

a little tired, a little run down and in a darker space than i have been....well...since i moved out in july. not sure why exactly it's been rough {hello! massive amounts of stress at the moment?}, but it has, and so a little baby cuddles and smiles were perfect today. it doesn't get much better than staring down the pure blue eyes of a four month old having her look back with calm contentment and the occasional lopsided smile. silent confessions were met with an uncoordinated grasp for my cheek. she held my face for a while. baby therapy. a beautiful evening.

 

3am

i am afraid.
i am afraid of failure.
i am afraid of the next two shows, of not improving, of not taking the time to deepen the character as i know i can. as i know i should. the lines. go over them again. find a new softness. vulnerability. there are so many layers to this play that i see so clearly, but can't seem to create. i am a beginner but at least i've begun, right?
and i'm afraid of my eating habits – that they will stick here, regressed by a few years, maybe more. contemplating dark thoughts. worried that i'll loose all the progress i made this summer. size six is so close....
i don't know what the hell is going on. where is all the progress i've made since july?
i am afraid of having been caught red handed and shame-faced.
i am messy.
i am better than this.
i am tidier.
i am more relaxed.
i am stronger.
i am more together.

except i am not. at the moment at least.

so what's up, nathania? seriously.
my dear, my darling. where is your self-softness? where is your strength? 
you know it's quietly waiting, buried under all that criticism you're lashing about. 
a strength so tangible and expansive merely brushing up against it reduces you to tears. 
so what's wrong?

i am afraid. i am afraid. i am afraid.

but that's always how i know i'm on the right track. it's how i know i'm pushing the understood boundaries of myself. here be danger. uncharted territory. lack of sleep. pressure. decisions. important decisions. where to store my things for the next two and a half months, where to travel in europe. how long? can i afford it? is it good enough? am i good enough?


nathania. 

yes?

relax, please, and be grateful. grateful for the challenges of your existence. grateful you're not perfect. grateful you have a place to grow surrounded by people who will be gracious with your messiness. your imperfect words. your shame. your impatience. your inability to accurately articulate the things you are seeing. no, you are not blind. yes, you are right. but you still need to relax.


okay. inhale. yes. thank you. i am stepping back from the ledge, gripping the cool brick of the wall behind me. feet planted on the ground.
grateful.
grateful.
grateful.
i am so grateful for my fear. for the directions it makes me turn. for the fact that it pushes me.
i am grateful for my running gear, my long limber legs that will bring my body back to itself. i am grateful for the courage of those who love me best. i am grateful for my family and the lovely gathering we will have tomorrow. i am grateful for the job i get to do, that supports me better than i ever have been supported before with coworkers i enjoy. i am grateful for this holiday season of family photos. for the fall. for the new coat i haven't quite convinced myself i can afford, even though i know it's an amazing piece of textile and a long term investment in warmth and wardrobe {and i'm in love with it already}. i am grateful for hope, for patience, for these messy times when i am at the edge of myself.

i welcome grace. i welcome grace. i welcome peace. i welcome grace.


happy thanksgiving.

11.11.11 – my white birthday

symmetry in numbers has always been something i've noticed. patterns, repetition, progression – i love it all. so, to get the chance to celebrate my birthday {which is an unassuming 10.26.82} on 11.11.11 was something of a numerical gift of the universe. a tribute to the balance and stability i hope to step into as i enter the last year of my 20s and absorb the strength that saturn return has bestowed upon me.

last year my closest friends both locally and around the world came together to give me color and build me wings and what a year it has been. the theme of flight woven tightly through some of the most profound moments. it began with that amazing vision i had on my run this spring in sync with the lyrics and one day, i am gunna grow wings – revealing in my spirit a rare moment of acceptance of myself, struggles and all. and while the image of flight is literally represented in the song, it also lives in that rhythm i have spent hundreds of miles savoring as i cemented my love for running this year. 

and it was running that delivered the next experience of flight this year. even before the amazing release i experienced at mile 11 of my half marathon, i had a moment, at mile 8, when i pulled away from my little brother and told myself i am going to do this – i can come in sub-two hours. i can do this. i can do anything. and suddenly there was a rush of adrenaline and focus that filled me beyond full, rushing down my back and causing the muscles across my scapula to ripple in anticipation. and even while this is all going on and i was registering the emotional and physical events happening simultaneously, i spared a quick thought for humor's sake to acknowledge that if i had wings, they'd be coming out of the part of my back shuddering as though i was trying to take flight.

the third and most recent experience of flight was the breakthrough i had in singing not too long ago. at the time i even named the blog entry flying because that is what it felt most like in the moment – this clear sense of soaring effortlessly. it was like i imagine a bird to feel in that freewheeling space where any direction is not only possible, but easy, and connected to a deep internal strength of ligaments and muscles so perfectly designed to do exactly what is needed. that strength, that knowledge, that potential, i have had all along despite all the times i have told myself otherwise.

and the flying, the acknowledgement and acceptance of own strength, as i am learning, is so often accompanied by grief. a purge. a release. as they come at greater frequency, i hope for myself that i will hit the bottom of that well of self-doubt and find something new to channel.

in the spirit of that hope, for my birthday this year, i wanted to welcome a sense of lightness, freedom and purity into the equation, take the wings you all so colorfully presented me with last year and strip away everything to its purest elements: light, air, weightlessness, luminescence and flight. 

so i gathered to me some of the clearest voices in my life {those darlings that are local} and together we infused the next year of my life with these elements. a benediction of white and light and adventure and play and connection to those things rushing toward me from my future: the cumulation of my efforts on proof, of travel, of settling into a new home, seeing radiohead {in march} and of finally getting to go to my hometown. 

a fitting welcome for the new year.

  

nomad nights return {119-120 & 127-135}

in a lovely bit of symmetry, i find myself retracing my path and revisiting the first two places i spent my nomadic nights in, but in reverse. last weekend found me in the same spot i spent nights 7 to 9 and this next week i'm sleeping in the same bed i spent those first 6 nights.

i remember that last day in my apartment and first night completely cut free and alone....the anxiety around moving my heirloom bookcase with glass doors, the stress of day in general, that final load of all my lovely things, closing the door of #44 for the last time as mine, saying goodbye to my moving crew {of dear friends who put up so well with said stress} until it was just my mom and brother who lovingly witnessed me crying by the curb of the magnolia house that has so wonderfully stored these things since. the sloughing off. the irrevocable starting of a new phase.

and here i am, about to enter the final pages of my nomadic life and very gently being reminded by this symmetry to look back and mark my progress. it was lovely having lindsey jo here this weekend {for so many reasons but also} to reflect back the changes i have made since she last saw me this summer, in the weeks before the cleanse, before the move and before everything shifted. i think it can be summed up in one sentence she said: you're less type-a.


hallelujah! sweet progress.

this time has allowed me to relax about cleanliness, relax about needing a perfect space, perfect quiet, perfect boundaries. it has allowed me to go with the flow, save significant amounts of money {some to be spent on further nomadic adventures in europe!}, explore new neighborhoods to jog in {covington, discovery park, green lake, ravenna, hawaii} and generally learn to go with the flow. be more gracious toward myself and others.

and now i'm planning my ultimate nomadic experience: a month in europe traveling from country to country, adventuring, playing, letting go, letting free. spending a month not working nor searching for a job for the first time in years. and as much as i know it will be hard to come home again from that, there will also be the excitement of seeking out and finding my next home and that puttering joy around making it my own.

dear, home, my next one...you are close to me tonight. i feel a tenderness toward you and even find myself on craigslist looking for you knowing you won't be appearing just yet. not yet.

soon, but not yet.

nights 119 & 120 back in the sammamish highlands.

nights 127 to 135 back in magnolia...

this room has gone through some nice changes.

~nomad nate, writing from magnolia, seattle.

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and this is the blog's 800th post. happy 800! and thank you all for following along.

first two nights

it's strange how un-nervous i was. the anxiety and worry, the restlessness i would expect, they simply weren't there. a little bit of oh shit, we actually have to do this! and a thought or two about whether or not all the lines are memorized, those sorts of things eeking into my brainspace, but otherwise, a steady calm i didn't expect.

i wish i could bring you in more on this journey, to share and preserve what is happening. i wish i could tell more stories. i wish i could find feelings and words for these first few days – these first few shows – of such significance to me....but i can't. and while on some level, i would say i don't have the time or energy, i think on another level entirely, i am cut off from vulnerability of the bigger picture, engrossed instead in the daily tasks of putting up show, running it and then taking it down again each night and goinggoinggoing for seven days straight.

my story is drowning in details.

i will have time. i will find my way back into the bigger picture, the massive victory, the bold and beautiful move that this production is for me.

but tonight, all i can think of is sleep. sweet, sweet sleep. and an overwhelming gratitude for the people who have flocked around me, offering their enthusiastic support. my friends who have come to the show so far {yes, you, sea-oh, megan, eden, michael, spring, jp, justin, julie, lj, lj, lj! bob and michelle, jon, amanda, josh, chris...}, those from afar who have spanned the distance with emails, phone calls, texts, facebook messages, all with such simple and earnest support. and even before, all the people who came together for kickstarter, who have witnessed me work for months, spill over in frustration and exhaustion....you are mobilizing around me and giving me such care.

but there is one person in particular....i have to mention this one moment. opening night done, the crowd mostly scattered and one person steps forward to give me a familiar smile. i automatically smile back the smile reserved for a deardeardear friend. then my face fell and i practically shouted what the fuck are you doing here??? our gaze locked, the words spanning between us, a net to catch the tears that followed the rush of sound. my dear lindsey jo who was supposed to be in FARGO, NORTH DAKOTA and who had flown in 6 hours before in order to see my show opening night.

that was how big it is. this moment. this step for me. and to have her there, acknowledging it, sharing it, pouring into me all the love and support, the surrogate for all the faraway friends and family that couldn't come...

i am overwhelmed.

i am grateful.

lj and her sheepish smile that encompasses the joy and beauty of her being here.

a lullaby

a good night.

home sick

for the first time since july, i was seriously home sick. home sick for a bath i can stretch my whole length out into, homesick for the quiet welcome of my living room furniture, the beautiful assurances of my library, my birds, my bedroom flooded with light, the view from my window, my narrow kitchen, these spaces that are past tense. missing. missed. another peace. another piece.

i even went so far as to think about apartment hunting today — craigslist, a tempting click away — but i know too much now. i know an apartment will not quiet the restless worry, just keep it at bay. it will not solve problems {that aren't mine to solve anyway}, merely provide a distraction and illusion of control.

my to-do list is longer than my arm, but tonight, i left rehearsal, put away my actor hat, my producer hat, even my best friend hat and sat in a bath with some poetry.



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


two vignettes from tonight's bath time poetry session. i was reading from the collection behind my eyes by li-young lee


from become becoming


wait for the sky's last blue
(the color of your homesickness).
then you'll know the answer




from secret life


and when it's time, the dove


calls from its hiding place
and leaves the morning greener


and the one who hears the dove more alone.

two weeks

please tell me we'll get there. that everything will work out. that the backdrop will be made, that the setting will be elegant. that the lines will come. the honesty, live. please tell me i am not waiting in vain. that i'm not a fool for trusting. again. i am done with high and dry. i want to be juicy and ripe. pick me from the tree and savor the dusty patina of summer sunshine still clinging to my skin. please.

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

in two weeks we'll be on the other side of opening night's show. how did we get this far? how will we get the rest of the way there? put one foot in front of the other, floss, drink water, and hope and pray and sleep. try to remember that i am stronger than i have ever given myself credit for. i don't need you. i don't need anything. i am here, restless at 2am, listening to how it ends to remind myself this is just a crisis of breathing. calmly, now. in and out. expand. contract. the bellows of my diaphragm. the kind of breathing that gives me more than just oxygen. that's it. simple. sweet. this is how it ends. this is how it begins.

#3

a week after driving around in the car with music friends #12 & #13, it felt right to be following some of the exact same roads touring one of my first music friends through my city. kerry park. alki beach. golden gardens...

chris, #3, whom i first met traveling from los angeles to santa barbara to see radiohead finish off the american leg of their '08 tour. at the time i refrained from telling my mom i was getting into a car with two strange men and later driving back to los angeles with a third until after i was home safely, but obviously my gut speaks true, and here we are, three years later, meeting up again in another city {for the second time} and planning the east coast leg of radiohead's next tour.

it was a good night. played through kid a live, singing along quietly {despite my recent voice lesson break throughs, very few people actually hear me sing in person, particularly to a thom yorke song}, listening in silence, stopping and freezing our butts off for photos, and meandering through stories more personal than we have shared in the past.

it was a good night. one of the last bits of carefree time between now and the opening of the show.


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pale blue eyes played while we were at lunch together at elysian brewery. i often forget i have blue eyes, or that they affect others.