in production

i have no words to spare at the moment, so i give you images.

11 weeks

in eleven weeks, to the day, i turn 30.

this decade shift has been a long time in coming, slowly sidling up to me these past few months, whispering promises in my ear. but even so, it will still be scary and it will still be significant, more than just a number. so here, tonight, i want to mark the beginning of the final stretch as i rush forward to meet something i have been eyeing for a while now, tasting the flavor that lingers each time i say this new number:

30.
thirty.

i still have so much time.
i still have so far to go.

but right now, i have a few ambitious goals for the next few months {almost three}:

1. this week, as i promised myself, i have started training for my second half marathon, this time giving myself the full 12 weeks of ramp up and training instead of just one. i have a fairly ambitious goal in mind which i set before i considered the practicality of choosing a race at a high altitude. oops. i hear bend, oregon is pretty so at least i'll have a great view as i'm wheezing down the course. i'll be running two days after my birthday and it feels like the timing so perfectly marks the last stretch of my 20's with the focus and drive of the training as well as sets a good precedence for my 30's with a race two days in.

2. earlier in october, i'm going to fly down to texas, drive with my dp {director of photography} to alabama, then proceed to document my homecoming to bayou la batre, my hometown i have not seen in 19 years. ever since i graduated from undergrad in 2005 i knew there was a project waiting for me down there and finally i go down to find it. i am excited. i am terrified. more on this later.

3. i want to shift my sleep schedule so i am getting a healthy amount at a healthy time. {i also want to meditate more, but one change at a time.}

4. my apartment is a bit disheveled under the luxury of so much space. i want to clean up my act. poke around in the corners. hang up my birds. finish settling into the springboard of this space that keeps telling me all that i can look forward to in our relationship together that is really just beginning. and i want to invite you all in a few weeks to come and celebrate the summer, celebrate the journey and celebrate my new space {all meanings of the word}. more on this later too.

wish me luck.

moving on

a salt lake city sky and a dallas sun.

stepping away for the wedding and then some work travel (in portland) for the next week of being away. away from life. away from thinking too much. away from routine and the grind.

so once again my nomad shoes are on and my heart is free to the horizon.

homeward bound

a preface to this piece. in august i took a solo performance intensive with the amazing marya sea kaminski who is one of my real life heroes. the class itself deserves its own entry, about how i hit up against failure, how it paralyzed me, how, once i pushed through to the end {blocking myself all along the way} and then let down my guard, ideas flew at me left and right that i could not manifest to save my self or show a mere week or two before.

despite the discomfort, it was a success. i wanted to learn more about constructing solo work, have tools to store in my back pocket {check}. i wanted to generate writing and start to sculpt thoughts around a show/idea/theme {check--see below}. i wanted to get my creative and performance juices flowing as i start ramping up for rehearsals of proof later this fall {check--and had a great moment of reminder about how vulnerable it can get on stage}.

nowhere in my goals starting out did i set out to make and complete a perfect piece, but somehow i tripped myself up trying to do so. but before failure snuck out of its locked box and tripped me up, i had a pretty awesome experience working through what anne lamont calls the shitty first draft. the below is version 1.8 of the shitty first draft of free writing and pretty much a piece on its own. it marks this amazing opportunity that is currently on hold while i put together a production this fall as well as {significantly} explore the theme of home and what it means to me now as an adult by living the life of a nomad. my current life is a lovely companion piece to the below. love how life works that way.

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

a week ago, a facebook friend messaged me late at night. and when i say friend, i mean he’s more of an acquaintance, the older brother of a classmate in college. a good guy, really, but no one i’ve ever spilled my guts to or gone out of my way to spend time with. no, more just someone i’ll laugh with when i travel to see his sister, a passing friend who’s “sunset a day” photo series i’ve been admiring from afar all year via said facebook.

we all have these kinds of friends, collecting them in mass quantities, shuffling through their updates about what boring thing they ate, what boring thing their dog or baby or friend’s friend did, whining about how boring it is yet doing it compulsively all the same. it’s inane, i know, but the only reason i subscribe to this use of technology is because of photographic works like this "friend", andrew, has been displaying all year, but even more so for the magical moments of connection like the one i’m going to tell you about. it was the kind of magic where a simple late night question “are you back in seattle yet?” lead, in less than 5 minutes, through a series of the twists and turns of meandering late night conversation, to the confession of a driving desire on my part to go down to alabama to create a piece about memory, family history, time and place.

and then, the critical moment happened when this man, this person i can count on one hand how many times i’ve hung out with, offers to come and document the project. and then, when i ask if he’ll help me make the short film i didn’t really realize i had been trying to figure out to make until just that moment, he even manages to get excited about it even more. giddy. the two of us typing away enthusiastically into the wee hours of the morning, andrew completely unaware of the emotional breakdown i had earlier that evening watching the last harry potter movie {sappy but true}, seeing the entire magical community mobilize behind one person, tears streaming down my face realizing that i want that experience of people believing in me so much they would die for me, then simultaneously realizing in the flash of an epiphany that i crave that belief from others because, dammit, I don’t believe in myself! and then fastforward back to the present moment, me at a keyboard, a mere hour or two later, being given the gift of this one person’s belief and commitment and oh-my-gosh-i-don’t-think-i-can-sleep kind of excitement in me and my project and my vision.

after waiting 18 years to return to my childhood home and 6 years to make a piece of artwork about it, everything is happening and happening with the ease that synchronicity brings {that’s not going to be a problem, nathania, i have all the equipment i need sitting 5 feet from my body}.

so here i stand, suddenly at the precipice, looking forward to this place i have been looking back to for so long. and let me tell you, it’s a scary precipice. because all that longing, all that patina of loving polish and care i have added to all the memories i have maintained over the years, all those things i cared for and have contemplated for many years that may no longer exist, or even worse, exist still but so changed as to feel defiled--all those things might be taken away, violated or not as i recall them to be.

and as the time and space between me and bayou la batre, alabama compresses, gets smaller, the anticipation is often overwhelming and i feel the pressure building, the hope and memory and excitement and inevitable disappointment already converging until all i can do is breathe. breathe. breathe.

breathe space and air and light and life into the memories i do have, take them out and look at them one by one before having them irrevocably changed by the reality of what these places look like now. because 18 years in geographic time has passed, where a town was built up by the tourism surrounding the placement of bubba gump shrimp company smack dab in the center of town {even though it wasn't actually filmed there}, bringing interest and wealth to a town that probably deserved neither, to the violence of katrina who ravaged more than just new orleans, and especially to the uncontrollable yet gentler forces of time and change.

and on top of all that there is 18 years of personal time, of me growing up, becoming an adult, seeing and feeling the world from 3 feet taller and decades older all the while hording the memories i had of this sleepy little town in the south that inhabited me more than i inhabited it as a 3^rd culture kid, never speaking the southern language of mooobeal {mobile} and the bi-youuu {bayou}, never eating the southern diet of everything fried in two inches of bacon fat and never really understanding the southern mentality of “traveling a ways” meaning going to the next zipcode.

but the south, it has always lived in me in ways i can’t fully understand even as an adult. maybe because it was the most reliable way of feeling beauty and connection from within a family with three older siblings who would really rather not have anything to do with their littlest sister, a mother too spaced out to mediate and a father too imbalanced, fighting the world, fighting his wife, fighting his children and most of all fighting himself, where i was perpetually submerged in that feeling of loneliness that was more of a chronic disease than a passing emotion. the kind of loneliness that comes from feeling so small and separate in such a big world. a feeling i find kind of ironic since as an adult woman i can’t seem to get over how big I am.

so where could i turn to but the south? the spanish moss laden trees passing by outside the open window of our car, the yellow wash of light soaking the faded fabric of our living room, the louvers of the windows that we would hastily close each night the bug sprayers would sweep through the area, the pungent yet sweet and horribly toxic smell they would leave behind that i would drink in to saturate my vivid childhood senses. the jeweled crimson of magnolia seeds. the gentle chime of the draw bridge being brought back up that i would strain to catch the first sign of each time--these images sink deeper into the spirit than i fully know how to go, pumped with life by the thready pulse of my memory that so lovingly crafts the experience each time i draw them up and back into me. and it worries me that i have instilled in myself a confidence in my memory, not for the methodic memorization of numbers and words, though i’m not all too shabby at that, but for that visual and sense memory, of knowing a place i have been to only once and years ago at that.

what if i go now and it is not how i remembered it not because it’s changed, but because my memory failed?

so i ask myself now: how do i let go of what i know or think i know? how do i come to this place open hearted and free? because whether or not i want to, i come burdened with an abundance of nostalgia. but not the sweet kind of nostalgia, cloying and untrue, no, this is not the saccharine variety but rather the sacrificial. the kind of nostalgia that churns up dark waters, where everything that has been lost or taken or forgotten washes up in its wake to be burned as an offering for all that is to come. because as much as i go down there for the past, for what was and what has been, to honor and name it, present it in vivid colors, i am here to discover what it holds for the future, to see how it lives on in my life as it is happening right now and how that will all grace what is to come.

tipping point

i understand the block.
i really do.
and i understand the fact that you don't want to limit a character's life to the scope of your own experience. but as an actor, as the instrument, you have to open up your humanity and expand it out to encompass the character.
the problem is, i've shoveled the key bits of myself that hester smit and i happen to share into carefully managed compartments. they have had their hayday in the past, allowed to parade about more vulnerably on the surface, and then are promptly ushered back again to resume a resemblance of control. and then they are reduced to informing the smaller moments in life: making cameos in disguise throughout random conversations, tiny upsets, and the occasional heated moment of frustration or anger. nothing serious. i'm generally a well integrated human being.

but that's not helpful here.

her story has to be meaningful to me. very meaningful. and not just in a general way. not just in that comfortable i'm seating in my armchair reading about hester smit's life sort of way. i need to live it. i need to feel it in my body all the way through me and out the other side.

and in order to feel her story, first i have to feel my own again. not that i'm going to tear open old wounds or start prodding at the bruises we all carry. but just find the places in me that know what it's like having not enough, that knows what it's like wearing second-hand clothes i'm ashamed of, know what it's like being made fun of as a kid, misunderstood, alienated in a family, emotionally abused and manipulated by my father. and wanting more. always always wanting more.

then, once i can get there. i give these things to her. give them to her circumstances. envision myself in her places, spaces and lives. make it real for me. but now i'm getting ahead of myself. again.

slow down, nathania. one thing at a time.

start with growing up poor.
it's the south.
alabama summers.
playing outside in the dirt. hands are dirty. elastic waistband on my trousers. class pictures. never looking as pretty or neat as the other girls. my hair always shaggy. cut by a parent. i remember when he cut the bangs in germany. off center. and they always cut it too short. i looked like a boy. not the cute bob haircuts and lacy dresses of the other girls. and i was too tall. i knew it then. in kindergarten when i was almost the height of the teacher in the class pictures. a good head and shoulders taller than the other kids. the smell of the library. the little shop set up in the library during christmas time. the excitement of having money to spend always followed by the disappointment of not having enough to buy the one thing i wanted to get. i'm remembering a plastic red watch. i don't know who i wanted it for, myself perhaps, and even though i knew it was cheap and that it wasn't worth what they were charging for it, i wanted it. i wanted to be grown-up and wear a watch. i wanted to wear a watch. but i didn't have enough. and i never got things new. ever. ever. ever. well, a few times, but those few times are remembered because i didn't take them for granted: i got a new set of sheets (princess of power, from maria herweigh, for christmas the year i went to germany with my dad) or a new dress (also from maria, who also always had the best toys, for a birthday that was in the 33 adam's street house 4 or 5 years old--it was blue with lace or ribbons on the bodice, i was so proud of that dress) these moments stand out crystal clear in my memory. because they were rare. because we were always scraping by. and money was always the tipping point for every explosion, argument, suicide threat. it was always money...




this is a start.

carnival

lane himself lit a cigarette as the train pulled in. then, like so
many people, who, perhaps, ought to be issued only a very
probational pass to meet trains, he tried to empty his face of all
expression that might quite simply, perhaps even beautifully,
reveal how he felt about the arriving person.
.

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

franny & zooey

~j.d. salinger

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

.

i was on the bus riding home today and experienced a visceral moment of recall while reading the above passage:

.

alabama.
bayou la batre.
late afternoon waning on towards evening.
the field behind st. margaret's school.
carnival rides suggesting that perhaps it is the yearly blessing of the fleet.
and i am on a ride that circles round
passing a parent rhythmically.
and each time as i come back toward them,
i steel my face so that none of my giddy pleasure is visible.

while i remember distinctly the jittery life of my simple joy
shut away but still vibrating inside my ribcage,
the figure itself switches fluidly between my father and mother
and the ride blurs between a kiddie ride where i am alone
and a ferris wheel crammed with siblings.

at first i found it mildly bothersome
that i couldn't conjure the exact details.
i worried that my mind is confused perhaps,
or uncertain.
{yes, even my stunning memory flails at times,
joining disparate fragments haphazardly
like a four year old's first collage.}

but i've settled that, truer yet, this moment took place more than once.
it evolved from the shyness/shame of riding {and yet still enjoying} the kiddie rides alone
while my siblings are off on the bigger kid rides
to being unable to show any enjoyment whether not i was by myself.
and now i have merely reconstructed/discovered

a centerpiece for this experience--
this need to hide how much fun i was having
because it would make me too vulnerable
even for a parent to see.

i recall considering the fact that they would enjoy my enjoyment
and that i could/should leak a smile or two for their sake,
but if i conceeded, i made sure they saw it was forced.
a lie on top of a lie.
somehow even the possibility of disappointing them
was not enough inducement to risk them seeing a real smile.

the feeling of aloneness in joy
as well as the feeling of holding in joy
i still remember very well:
the unbearable pressure of hiding an explosion inside my chest
while nonchalantly pretending that everything is no big deal.

and now i wonder:
when did i learn how to do this?
and why?

and now i understand:
the simple and transcendent pleasure i will never take for granted of a laugh that is so overpowering it escapes my body and sings loud and clear from my throat.

it amazes me every time.

hometown glory

was forwarded this song today. from eden. she always has a good nose for sniffing out new music. i found the song nicely aligned with the themes that are already playing out in my life right now.

hometown glory

i've been walking
in the same way as i did
missing out
the cracks in the pavement
and tutting my heel
and strutting my feet
"is there anything
i can do for you dear?
is there anyone i can call?"
"no and thank you, please madam
i ain't lost, just wandering"

round my hometown
memories are fresh
round my hometown
ooh, the people i've met

are the wonders of my world
are the wonders of my world
are the wonders of this world
are the wonders of my world

i like it in the city
when the air
is so thick and opaque
i love to see everybody
in short skirts
shorts and shades
i like it in the city
when two worlds collide
you get the people
and the government
everybody taking
different sides

shows that
we ain't gonna stand shit
shows that
we are united
shows that
we ain't gonna take it
shows that
we ain't gonna stand shit
shows that we are united

round my hometown
memories are fresh
round my hometown
ooh the people i've met

are the wonders of my world
are the wonders of my world
are the wonders of this world
are the wonders of my world

currently listening to: hometown glory - adele

empire of the sun - part one

several weeks ago i listened to this movie being viewed on the other side of a door and down a bit of hallway. despite the distractions of the moment and the distance and obstructions between myself and the film, i could recall a surprising number of images from this movie i haven't seen in over fifteen years. i won't even begin to list them all as they flashed through my mind, dredged up by the delicate netting of sounds and broken dialogue floating in from the other room, but they came. unbidden. concrete. full of life and color. almost impossibly vivid.

tomorrow i watch it for the very first time since crossing the line into adulthood and i find myself impatient to see it again. i can already tell it's going to be a dense and charged experience--just looking at the poster begins to stir something deep. on one hand i will be reliving the act of watching the movie, filling in the gaps of my child's interpretation of the story, fleshing out my memories and correcting the images that have strayed off course a bit (did he really touch his mother's lip that way? were her lips really that red?). and on the other hand, i will be reliving my life then, as a child growing up in a family of four and as daughter to a father who loved this movie very much.

i watched this movie throughout my childhood sometimes sitting down and focused, other times it played as a background to foreground events. i have no sense of how many times i watched this movie since the day my father bought the tape at a flea market. i remember knowing that some moments didn't fully make sense because i was missing some significance of the scene within the greater framework of the fabula. the weight and presence of the story was such that i knew nothing was extraneous or unconsidered, even if it's meaning was somehow deeper than i could consciously comprehend. but even with my partial understanding, this movie evoked a depth and sense of aloneness in me that left me in a quiet state of awe/terror.



and now, i am beginning to realize that so much has occurred within those simultaneously unfolding stories i don't know if i'll be able to fully hold onto their convergence tomorrow night.

to be continued...

less rest/restless

i am antsy. i need change.



i feel like sissi in the princess and the warrior (which you should see if you haven't). coming back from getting hit by a semi and almost dying beneath it, a friend observes that her biggest fear is not that she doesn't fit in her life any more, but that her life will continue on as before.



what is the point of all the work i've done these past 8 months -i have moved mountains inside myself- if there is nothing to show for it?















currently listening to: sea lion - sage francis.
photo credit - deep south - sally mann.

grey

i have always found it interesting that as a person and artist so moved and motivated by color, that my first memory is of the color grey. but it wasn't a flat grey, not a simple, solitary grey, but a barrel of greys. a curve. a monochromatic color scheme.

my first memory is of the inside of a wave that pulled me into the atlantic ocean.

it was the summer we traveled north to visit my aunt elisabeth in new york. i was one and a half. i don't remember who pulled me out, either my mom or my aunt, but my next memory is of sitting between the two of them high up on the beach watching my siblings by the water. i don't recall any emotional response on my part, just this awareness of how hugely relieved my mother was.

this was also the trip my brother remembers that the older siblings (himself included) started picking on me. the youngest of four, somehow the three year gap between the middle child and me was unspannable for decades. i find some feeling of synchronicity in the fact that my memory began at the same time the sibling antagonism did. my feelings of being both apart of this sibling entity as well as these sometimes violent boundaries within it are a constant texture to my childhood. unavoidable and highly influential, much like my relationship to color.



i feel like i want to take these thoughts further, but i can't seem to feel out where the next step is leading me. maybe i'm still catching up from only getting four hours of sleep before i left. and i have to wake up early tomorrow for a morning hike to emerald lake with my aunt and uncle. we're hoping to beat the weekend crowd on the trails. pictures coming.



currently listening to: the tic of the clock on my aunt's music stand and cars on the road, no wind tonight, sadly.

the south draws me home

and i really can't say it better than sally mann:


flannery o’conner said the south is christ-haunted, but i say it’s death-haunted. the pictures i took on those awestruck, heartbreaking trips down south were pegged to the familiar corner posts of my conscious being: memory, loss, time, and love. the repertoire of the southern artist has long included place, the past, family, death and dosages of romance that would be fatal to most contemporary artists.


i had never thought of myself as a southern artist until i read those words. i am a good one for remembering and i remember so much of my childhood. i live in those spaces of the past and what they mean for my present and future and that is why i will always be a southern artist. because these definitive moments happened in small town alabama and it doesn't matter how long it's been since i've visited my hometown in three dimensional space, i will always be living out the legacy of my childhood there.



currently listening to: my aunt on her viola and my uncle at the grand piano.