Once you woke up and saw you had everything you needed.
Surrounding was the idea of enough. The truth is, everything is alright under this white blanket. One day I woke up and had everything I needed. I drank a cup of English Breakfast, then two, used the same bag for extra steeping. I had a notebook to write in and coverings over my feet. A sweater kept me cozy. I was becoming myself. I could look in the mirror and see me, unapologetically me, stripping away armor me, in daily stillness in the neighborhood of meditation, of nothing, active nothing, the art of nothing, the art of doing less me. Looking into the mirror there, eyes open, I saw myself, I saw through the universe. With all the stuff and nonsense I put on top in attempt to prove my worth, I am already worthy by reason of being born, being here. I am already enough without having to do anything. To see that, to give myself that amount of love and care allows me to return that to others. Others like the one I’ve loved since we met. Look back and, how many years ago was that? Enough. A worthy number.
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As I find myself at a pausing point in the play I'm working on after this glorious summer of writing, developing, researching, exploring and rewriting rewriting rewriting, I think back to my last solo-written full-length play How to Hide Your Monster and what I was thinking about around this time in 2015. At the end of that summer, I similarly found myself unsure of my next steps, knowing I'd gotten as far as I could go before getting outside feedback. I think about crystalizing my voice. I think about cracking the earth, opening it with care. I think about the job of an actor. How much it teaches me as a writer to watch what a person can do onstage, fully present in each moment. I fall down watching. Writing used to be what I did to get the desperation out. I had to put my story into words. Now the next step: getting that story out to the world. I've done it step by step, getting the fiction out in pieces through plays, stories, essays and poems. Now with this play I'm trying to get up the courage to speak with more specificity and openness about who I am and where I've been in person, onstage, outside the veil of fiction. Fiction can tell the truth in magical ways. More powerful is its ability to get me to accept where I've been and to name it out loud. To learn from my mistakes and to see my failures. Enduring humiliation and failure is important for everyone. What we do with that is important. If we didn't accept our failures and successes, we wouldn't learn. Terrible mistakes get made and they should be acknowledged. There is a big difference between "I failed" and "I am a failure." Celebrate those failures. Those are my teachers. They are for me. Successes are for the audience. Deep ocean bottoms, the blues, the blacks, rising up.
Find your swallowing. We are liquid. Wade in. Water rises, taking over shores, bleeding inward. This country rich. This me spoiled. I can drink water. I can dump it out. Water you tear at me. Your salt, your kiss. In this desert can't get enough fluid. My organs cook inside. Water is scarce. Is everywhere. Wish for a bridge, for us all to have enough. I watch my breath, my frame. I think worldwide of people hungry in the mud faces in cages heartbeats dead families capsizing in escape. When I was young, hearing my first tragic events, my response was massive guilt and shame. I had it okay while lives cracked apart across the world, in my neighborhood. And then I hurt myself. And got addicted to hurting myself. Now, here, globally, in this country, cruelty happens daily. I am healthy. I have enough. More than enough. I want to help. Instead of saying, they suffer so I must suffer, I want to say I am at peace, how can they be at peace? Instead of my limbs paralyzed, instead of acting against myself, I can reach out and take care of me and thereby reach out stronger. I don't have a lot. I have enough. I can be here for you. I can sit in the same room as you. I can listen to your story. Open up the world for you. Help you tell your story. Get people to listen. Or try. Bring communities together. Try. I sometimes feel so young. I doubled my gray hair the last ten weeks. Still breathe, still be. And reach. Open. Continue to open. I wrote myself out of abuse,
out of disorder, out of homelessness, out of numbness. find vitality Meaning exists in every moment because we say so. We create meaning by collecting observations. strip down do less show less That's where I find beauty, elegance. Simplicity is my way to wholeness. I am already whole. I feel my back pulse. neurons can rewire brain chemistry can shift A diagnosis said I was hardwired to need antipsychotics forever, that I would never be stable not really. I learn daily my neurons' plasticity. All thanks to repetition. Yes I get tempted to work longer to stay deeper in screens but that doesn't help me. I'm learning to stop sooner. pace stay healthy shift take time to breathe the blue the bicycles a ringing bell resist the urge to control hear the music of stillness I'm captured by cremated energy. keep it small your day will thank you I know you're addicted let go your body/brain will thank you Dark alleyway, piss smell.
Graffiti. Dumpsters. Shadow places for hiding. For trapping. A hole. No space to breathe. Screaming whistle. I sneak on people and don't mean to. They jump. Blamed for my quiet feet. "You scared me." I don't blame them for not being present, Not noticing their surroundings. Something behind me. I turn and there's nothing. Except on my back, on my neck. Like a grizzly bear's hot breath. I taste metal. Nails. I was going somewhere important but now I forget who I am. Now that someone's following, I want to give up, turn around. See who it-- inside the nothing, an orchestra
hear your heart beat, organs pump insides tire for your rise and falling do you ever thank them? thank you, stomach thank you, liver kidneys, bladder not everyone has them gratitude for intestines comes when the beeps bops bleeps subside that terrain of blank canvas the ant there takes his friend back home his friend now food blind ants - what do they hear? morning breeze
soft rain the sky that robin's egg blue a small strip of fog a porch sit the scrambled noise gone instead is this sweater this antique wood rocker my hands chilled study the horizon find palms to warm them take in mountain faces pine green cardigans roll eyes back I belong in the mountains like I belong in the sea like I belong in a city high rise like I'm learning to belong in my skin sometimes you love a person with energy that takes you through the rest of forever Have you ever considered going into prostitution to get the next buck?
What it would be like to sell your body? Have you ever held a sign? Thought about writing sharpie on cardboard? Have you ever thought with envy at the dancing sign holders outside cell phone stores and tax commissions-- at least they have work? I think as I walk past the homeless, how quick to cross over that line. How I've been there. Not as long or as hard, but I know that side. Climbing out of that nothing, first I shielded myself walking past. I can't afford empathy for you right now. I've been there but I'm not there right now. I can't give you a thing. The man I was with when I was like you used to give away anything we earned. So we didn't eat. So the bankers the calls the angry voices after us as he's making hand outs. So no, I won't look at you, acknowledge you. I'm getting further from that point. Never forget how close. How close STDs, pregnancy scares, cancer, health collapse, car wreck. Don't forget everything's possible. Don't live on guard. Be careful and grateful, be mindful aware, be generous, know how little you make how very little, be willing to fight to earn more. Don't be dumb. Avoid thinking about money. Try to stop. Why do you do what you do? From 2015...still relevant, and I'm still evolving...
I do what I do to find firm footing. I need art like air to survive and I know others do too. I seek groundedness. I write my story so I can speak it. I share it so others can do the same. I act with courage, write and speak with courage so I can stop my constant shame cycle and change that narrative. I share so others may do the same. I expose my vulnerable bits to connect with others. I experiment with empathy so we can find mutual connections between everyone in a room together seeking how our lives aren't so different. I'm skilled at bravery. Go deeper into that. Be bolder. I write to connect my fractured parts. To put my story into characters' bodies. And physicalize them. Make them seen. To feel how everybody hurts sometimes and to find strength to move on. I write to show stories of the silenced, the before-me and others, to reveal the humanity of people we believe to be unlovable, impossible to connect with, a character who fits our definition of un-relatable,. Can we connect with humans we shut out as the other, as unnecessary, a number? The homeless on the street, the schizophrenic in the hospital, the jailed in prison, the sociopath with a cause, the kid who has a hard time in the holiday months. Love them not by showing only the good they do despite themselves, but by seeing with exactitude all their parts, the brutal and the beautiful. |
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$1, $10, $100, whatevs :) Heidi KraayProcess notes on a work in progress (me). This mostly contains raw rough content pulled out of practice notebooks. Occasional posts also invite you into the way I work, with intermittent notes on the hows and whys on the whats I make. Less often you may also find prompts and processes I've brought to workshops, as well as surveys that help me gather material for projects. Similar earlier posts from years ago can be found on: Archives
April 2024
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