A Creative Mama’s Story

Last week we finished blocking Act I of The Laramie Project. I have to say I could not have done it without Dave Matthews. The latest, Stand Up, seems to fit the themes of the play (and my life). So I crank up my little E1 Rokr before the actors arrive to get my Matthews fix and that bit of inspiration I need to make it through two and a half hours of telling people where to go. I am thinking I am perhaps not cut out to be a director for the following reasons:

1) I hate telling people where to go.

2) I hate it more when I tell someone where to go and they ask my why.

That would mean I’m not cut out to a mom either. But, I am a mom so the point is mute.  (See how this all blends together into one senseless blur?)

Yesterday we had over 100 tornado warnings in the Midwest. The sirens telling us to take immediate cover went of at 4:45 pm and again at 10:00 pm - just after I had gotten a stressed out, hyper, over excited 6 year old to sleep. The first time at 4:45 my daughter didn’t want to go down to the basement without her toys. The second time at 10:00 she wanted to go down to the basement immediately and I didn’t because I was tired and it’s cold in the basement. We made a compromise and ended up sleeping on a twin matress in the hallway surrounded by stuffed animals. The hallway is internal. I closed the doors to all the rooms and we squished ourselves in between the coat closet and the linen closet. At 1:30 AM it was over and we got up and moved into my bedroom. I don’t like the whole tornado, hurricane, earthquake, mudslide, forest fire extravaganza that mother nature frequently throws our way. Where on this earth is the absolute safest place to be? I’m taking my child and moving there.Yeah right.

This week, we start in on the blocking of Act II and try to get the whole thing finished with a good solid stumble through on Thursday. It would probably be a good idea if I started thinking about where I want to tell people to go.

We had a fun rehearsal for The Laramie Project on Tuesday. We finsihed reading through Act III and then we went around the room and discussed characters. Each actor read a representative piece of dialogue from one of their characters and shared what impressions the dialogue gave them about who the character is and how they dress, walk, talk, feel, think, react, etc. It was fun because I love exploring that stuff.

Then it sort of turned into a discussion about how all of the characters in this play are real people. And the words the actors will be speaking onstage are all direct quotes from these real people. There is a wealth of information online about Laramie, WY and the Matthew Shepard case. Romaine Patterson who was a friend of Matthew’s became an activist because of her outspokenness reagarding the case and became famous for “standing toe to toe” with Fred Phelps. She has a great website for her new book, The Whole World was Watching. And her main website is called Eat Romaine.

I think this is the first time that I have ever been involved in a play in which the characters are 1) real people AND 2) still living. Yes, the irony of that last statement is a bit odd considering the whole thing deals with Matthew Shepard’s murder and he, of course, is not still living.

One of the actors brought up the HBO film. He wanted to know if it was okay for him to watch it. He was asking my opinion/permission. I have the DVD on loan from another actor in the play who has watched it - several times. And I have yet to put it in my DVD player to watch it myself. I just haven’t committed to it. Because I don’t know if I should or not. I need to do my homework and do my research, but does that include watching a movie based on the play, based on the actual events, based on …

I told him that was up to him. Of course, he can watch it if he wants to watch it. But, I stressed that I wanted him to portray his characters the way he, himself sees fit to portray them and not base his performance on what Steve Buscemi did. Because that would ruin his time onstage and the performance would not be authentically his. That’s what I think about watching the film myself. Some of my favorite actors and actresses are in that film. I have always wanted to watch it and have always intended to rent it until I was chosen to direct the play. Even the little snippets I have seen from previews and commercials have stuck in my brain and I find myself having to push them out of my head to think about what we can do with this script theatrically with the actors we have here and with the resources we have here. And film is a 100%different medium than theatre. It just is. There is absolutely no way to recreate a film onstage. You have to create a play onstage. Yeah, yeah, yeah - I’m not saying anything anyone else doesn’t know. I am trying to work my decision out in my head as I write this.

Should I watch it or should I not? There is no should or should not. I will not. I have decided I won’t. I will do other homework. I will read, re-read, and listen to the words in the script every day. I will research. I will look for photos and headlines and try to understand the nature and venom of a hate crime. I will take what I know about trauma and apply it to my director’s choices. And I will look at people and look at the actors onstage and do my best to help them BE who they are as they are BEING their characters. Decision made. To view or not to view? View not.

It’s almost there. I just moved my site from Big Step to Squarespace. Squarespace is so much nicer looking. And it is extremely easy to configure and edit. It’s very sleek actually and kind of fun. I know just enough xhtml to be dangerous, but not enough to code my own site and I know absolutley diddley about design, graphics, and all that . I’m also what one would call a bootstrapper (with very frayed shoelaces) so hiring someone to take over the design, editing , and maintenance for the Creative Mamas website is out of the question.

The upshot is the new site is looking fairly good. I like it so far. There are some things I wish I could change like the navigation font size, but I haven’t figured out how to get behind the scenes and do that quite yet. I also want a custom header with a cool and nifty logo, but that will require some small change so I will have to be patient. (Not one of my best skills.)

Check it out: www.creativemamas.squarespace.com. I am working on getting my web address released from Big Step and transferred to a new host so the site can lose the .squarespace and go back to www.creativemamas.com (this will probably link to the old site until they get around to taking it down).

All of this transferring, rewriting, configuring and fiddling with the xhtml (ONLY when required) has a very strong appeal to my inner geek wannabe. If only I had applied myself and majored in computer science. But “Noooooo”, I wanted to be an actress. The fun I am having with all this makes me think I may have missed my calling way back when I was deciding what I wanted to be when I grew up. But, since I haven’t grown up yet, there is still time - maybe not time for a computer science degree, or a web arts degree, but there is still time to cause significant trouble by writing some really twisted non-compliant code.

All in all, this enterprise has been quite a creative challenge for me. Finding the resources I need to get what I want has been a terrific research project. Finding free, cheap or inexpensive resources has almost turned into a hobby. I think the web, xhtml, and CSS are artistic and expressive mediums just like a stage or watercolors or musical notes. And it is lots of fun to figure out how to make it look the way I want it to look knowing as little as I do. I can’t even approach CSS, but I can dream. I frequently cruise the CSS Zen Garden site to ooh and ahh at all the pretty things. I am going to give myself permission to call programming in any language an art form. If that offends real life programmers who know what they are doing, please forgive me. I say it with the utmost respect for your talent and skills.

Now, if someone could explain to me what Tag Words are, they would be my hero.

Our first read through for The Laramie Project is scheduled for this Thursday. The cast and crew will be there and so will I, the fearless (yeah, right) director. I am excited to get this project going. Once it gets rolling it will create its own momentum and I won’t feel like I have to MAKE something happen.

I like the way the casting turned out. I had more men show up to audition than I actually needed - practically a miracle for a community theater. And most of the folks who showed up were brand new to Columbia Entertainment Company (CEC) which is an extra bonus. The company desperately needs some fresh perspective. That isn’t a comment on the people currently involved. But, it is a comment on creative growth. We need exposure to new ideas and perspectives to stay fresh.

I have been involved with the company for over a year now, but this is the first time I am directing for them. There are so many things I don’t know about simply because they don’t think to tell me. The same people have been doing the same things for so long, they assume everything is understood.

As for the casting, we are actually using more people than were used in the original production. It just turned out that way. If you haven’t read the play the original company had 8 actors who between them played approximately 69 characters. The original script is very different from the HBO production where they cast 1 actor to each role. Of course, HBO has a million gazillion dollars. I’ll be lucky to scrape up enough cash to build a 25 foot fence for the set. It’s a good thing I am a theater minimalist at heart.

Earth Scorcher now has a first line, a last line and 2/3rds of an outline. I had the outline in my purse with me last night. (Once I am involved in the flow of writing something, I have to carry it around with me everywhere I go.) I was at a CEC task force meeting last night and it was all I could do to keep myself from sneaking my outline out and working on it while pretending to pay attention. Of course, I was a good little meeting member, and didn’t do that. But, I’m telling you, it took restraint on my part.

My collaborator and I got together Saturday night and did what we hope turns out to be a final edit on AS. This would be draft # 10. I am getting close to that point where I throw my hands up in the air and say, “It has to be done because I can’t take it anymore!”

Things are jumping. This is always the case with me. Once one project starts heating up, others seem to follow. Creative energy begets creative energy and a creative vacuum – just sucks. (I know, you saw that coming from a mile away, but I couldn’t resist. Sorry.)

And, in the land of the mundane: I hope I don’t forget to take the garbage out this week. I forgot it last week because, frankly, more important things were firing through my synapses. But, now, it’s piling up in the garage and - well, it will be bad if I forget it again. Let’s just say I never got around to actually cooking those chicken breasts I defrosted last Wednesday.

I promised you this post days ago, but I have been resisting putting my butt in the chair and my fingers on the keyboard to actually write it. So with grit and determination to follow through on promises and live with creative integrity, here goes…

In my earlier post, People-Pleasing: The Curse, I confessed to a lifelong struggle with my compulsion to make everyone “like” me. This is my curse. Before I get to the flipside of the curse, however, I would like to share with you the words of a very wise woman (to whom I am eternally grateful and will always love). These words were the wake-up call that shook me from the people-pleasing trance:

This is the “Rule of Thirds”

Whenever you walk into a room of people,
1/3 will think you are fantastic,
1/3 will dislike you no matter what,
And the other third won’t even know you are there.

Attribution Unknown (If you know, let me know.)

Onwards with the flipside. It is important to note, if you are a chronic people-pleaser like me, that people-pleasing can only be a blessing if you are aware that it is part of your operating system. When you are aware of it, it can become a blessing in the following ways:

It alerts you to your fears:
If I can catch myself in the midst of a people-pleasing moment and reign it in, I have the opportunity to ask myself, “What am I afraid of?” My people-pleasing is almost always fear based. Remember, it is a survival instinct. Asking “What am I afraid of?” is a fear busting act. Once you can identify the underlying fear behind the “automatic” behavior of people-pleasing, you can face your fear objectively and be closer to attaining personal freedom.

It means you are observant and sensitive:
If you are a people-pleaser you are probably alert to non-verbal clues, shifts in tone and voice. You probably listen for the meaning behind the words of the person you are speaking with. You may not even be aware of these skills, but you most likely own them and use them daily. This is a good thing as long as you can engage in objective observation and not projection.

You know how to work it:
A really skilled people-pleaser can fit in almost anywhere. I’m a very WASPY middle aged mom who has successfully people-pleased her way through a biker party without engaging in any activity that would make me ashamed. This was actually a REAL Harley Riding Biker Party not a wannabe biker party. Tough guys and even tougher women! I was the only one there wearing pink! Now, tell me people-pleasing is not a valuable skill. (And don’t ask me how I got there. It’s a long story.)

I do have to add here that the biker lifestyle; the camaraderie, freedom, and nomadic adventurer thing – is intriguing. It would be cool to have another lifetime just to explore living like that. But, NOPE, I’m a WASPY middle aged mom – can’t go there.

There you have it: The three blessings of being a people-pleaser. And the bonus of some unwanted insight into my closet biker wannabe personality. Please keep in mind that these are merely my opinions based on personal observation. I have no research to back up my claims and I’m not a psychologist. I’m just a mom who likes to hear herself write.

It is such a surprising and uplifting moment to discover by accident someone beautiful. I found her this morning on my daily web-crawl. I was going through the usual round looking for writing resources, marketing resources, and ultimately distraction from staring headlong into the dull day of sitting behind my desk and pretending to be a “good” employee.

Then she took my breath away.

Why is she beautiful? Because she is passionate about writing and inspiring others who love writing to write. She is a poet, a reader, a writer and a teacher and she swirls all of this together with such simplicity and honesty. I spent a long time pouring through her website soaking up as much as I could. If you are a writer wrestling with daily life, hard pressed to find time for playing with pen and paper, it is my earnest recommendation that you visit Heather Sellers’ website immediately!

http://www.heathersellers.com/main.htm

I do not know her. I do not have any affiliate relationship or kickback arrangement with her. She doesn’t know I am writing this. I simply found someone beautiful this morning and was compelled to share.

In my last post I said, “Being a people pleaser can be both a blessing and a curse.” So let’s hash out, shall we, the ways in which it is a curse. I also want to answer this question: 

Does being responsible to/for someone else mean you have to please them? 

I’ll speak in the first person because I know this role so well. Being a chronic people pleaser often makes me feel as if everyone else is in charge of my behavior. It makes me feel that I have no control over my time. It makes me feel that I have very few choices. In reality - I KNOW I am the only one in charge of me. I KNOW I have numerous choices (sometimes limited by circumstances - but choices nonetheless) that only I can make for myself every moment of every day. I think art, theater, and writing remind me that I do have those choices and having these acts of creation in my life on a daily basis shakes me out of the people pleasing stupor. 

The desire to please others, the belief that I can please others and the perceptions I have about having pleased them well or having disappointed them are for the most part fictional. It is a story I make up in my head. Unchecked, this fictional narrative becomes my primary source of motivation. I hand over my free will and my personal creative power to my perception of another person’s perception of me. 

This feels yucky and powerless. So why do I do it? I think the first answer is survival. I think we learn it in the womb - okay maybe that’s going back a bit far, but I think you know what I mean. If we please the big people when we are little people, the big people reward us and protect us. The second answer is that I don’t want to grow up. I am not a little person anymore. I am responsible for my own rewards and my own self-care. Therefore I no longer need to please the big people in order to survive. But, instead of individuating (becoming the whole, self-governed individuals we are meant to be), I carry the little person’s operating system out into the big world with me and project big person status onto various people like my boss, my co-workers, my collaborators, some peers, teachers, doctors, police, the media … and my daughter. 

Wait a minute! Did I just say I project big person status onto my daughter and behave as if I am the little person who needs to please her in order to survive? Yes, I did. Now, that’s just backwards, isn’t it? So what would frontwards look like? I am me. My daughter is her own person. My boss is his own person. My mother is her own person. None of us has to please the other in order to survive. My mother may be disappointed in me, but those are her feelings based on her expectations. My daughter may be disappointed because I won’t let her have a second Popsicle. She may throw a fit because her expectation of a second Popsicle has been thwarted by mom - again. If she throws a fit, we will all survive. None of us has to please the other in order to live through a temper tantrum. And for the bigger picture - how do I raise my daughter to be a self-governed, powerful, creative human being. I know there is some magical parenting fairy dust out there somewhere that will allow me to set age appropriate limits for her without making her feel like a “little person”.

I think I just answered the question in paragraph 1.

There is so much more to talk about on this subject. In summary, people pleasing is a story we make up in our heads which unchecked can become our primary motivating force. When this happens we are giving our creative power and our daily choices away and acting as if we have none. It is funny, sometimes, when I catch myself people pleasing (sometimes I do it when I am ordering my dinner in a restaurant) and I think, “Wow, I just gave my free will to that poor fella over there and he has absolutely no idea what to do with it.” More to come. Next post: People Pleasing - The Blessing. 

Go out and enjoy your free will today - create something powerful for yourself! 

Many blessings,
Kirsten

An example of the mind chatter: 

My daughter who has the flu and who is spending a day at home just asked me to put Chitty Chitty Bang Bang on for the sixth time.  I love Dick Van Dyke, but give me a break. I am home - missing a third day of work in 3 weeks. I haven’t worked one full week in all of January. I had the flu, I shared the flu and … it’s a vicious cycle. Thankfully her temperature has come down to 99.2 from 102.1 - what a relief! So I am sitting at the computer thinking about all the projects that I want to be working on and wondering if I have the energy or if I can find enough silence to work on any of them.

Right now I am on the verge:

• Auditions for The Laramie Project are only a week away.
• My collaborator and I are almost done with AS- not quite jello yet, but should be done within the week.
• My WIP, Earthscorcher, is waiting impatiently for me to return.

What does all this mean? It means I am feeling a bit of overwhelm. Overwhelm is a state that can completely paralyze me. So what to do? I know! I’ll create a new blog! Actually “writing it out” always helps me pick a direction in which to run. I am thinking now about ways to add pressure to each project.

Laramie has built in pressure because actors are going to show up to audition next Monday and Tuesday and I need to know who I am looking for. It also has the pressure of a very public deadline. We’re performing April 27, 28, and 29 whether we are ready or not.

AS has built in pressure because I am writing with a collaborator and I HATE it when people are waiting for me and I really HATE it when people are disappointed in me. (Being a people pleaser can be both a blessing and a curse - this subject deserves its own post.)

Earthscorcher has absolutely no built in pressure. It is for me and by me and I’m working solo. It is easy for me to remain accountable to others and not so easy for me to be accountable to myself. Thus the difficulty of balancing my “writerly” dreams with being a mom, I mean a working mom, I mean a working single mom. (It just gets better, doesn’t it?) The only reason for me to return to Earthscorcher is because I enjoy it and want to write it. The characters are waiting somewhat impatiently for me to return. I wonder how much longer I can let the pressure of their voices build in my head before they give up on me completely.

So there you have it. A breakdown of the major projects.

Then there is life. My beautiful daughter, Emma, has the flu. It seems to be cycling every 6 hours or so. Her fever goes down after a dose of the medicine and she is bored, bored, bored being stuck at home with me. Her fever goes back up and she just wants to crawl into my lap and have me rub her back. There is no question about my priority in this situation. Everything else is dropped when it is back rubbing time.

Then there is the pseudo-guilt I feel about missing another day of work. I was sick two days last week. Then, of course and unfortunately, Emma came down with it on Saturday afternoon. The office manager said, “Don’t worry about us. We’ll muddle through.” Yikes! It is the conundrum of having no choice and too many choices at the same time.

Can anyone relate?