As a playwright and writer across disciplines, I study the distance between us, seeking connection across differences.
 
Writing teaches me to trust my brain and get present in my body, two things I once thought impossible. I mine monsters that plagued me through child-and-early-adulthood (and still chase me down), amplifying them to mythic metaphors in locations loaded with personal history, so I can grapple with my mind as a human who lives in an absurd world, just like you. By revealing my most vulnerable secrets, I hope we can see each other more clearly.
 
In my work, tactile language, playful contradictions, kinetic imagery and haunted landscapes bridge spaces between words, between universes, between you and me. I uncover how my disorders, scars, terrors, regrets, curiosities, heartbeats, delights and wonders link with yours, the earth’s and the cosmos’. I cook our rawest parts together in hot lava stew.
 
By physicalizing my most difficult moments and mashing them with yours, along with surprising bursts of dazzling beauty and mystical forces, I hope laughter and meet-cute swoons can bubble alongside the brutality of reality. I want us to take more time to pay attention with intention, to see that the shadows inside us we can’t bear to acknowledge also overwhelm the stranger next to us, those too far away to comprehend, nonhuman persons and unrecognizable entities – and that we share intoxicating joys, dreams, desires, too.
 
Without shame, we can unveil, heal and embrace our weightiest, wildest places for love of interdependence between everything.

As a playwright and writer across disciplines, I examine the gaps dividing genres, people, perspectives and my own disjointed fragments. Studying the distance between us, I seek connection across differences. I write what terrifies me, juxtaposing the rough and the funny, the silken and sharp, the gorgeous and grotesque to catch a glimpse at what it means to exist on this planet.
 
Writing teaches me to trust my brain and get present in my body, two things I once thought impossible for me. Swimming through memories I can't believe happened, I mine monsters that plagued me through child-and-early-adulthood (and still chase me down), amplifying them to mythic metaphors in locations loaded with personal history, so I can grapple with my mind as a human who lives in an absurd world, just like you. By revealing my most vulnerable secrets, I hope we can see each other more clearly.
 
Sensory details spark mirror neurons that unite nervous systems. In my work, tactile language, playful contradictions, kinetic imagery and haunted landscapes bridge spaces between words, between universes, between you and me. As I exorcise my past, my peripheral vision widens. Disparate pathways coalesce. Through searching research, conversations, surveys and letters shared with me, I uncover how my disorders, scars, terrors, regrets, curiosities, heartbeats, delights and wonders link with yours, the earth’s and the cosmos’. I pour together collected stories, observations and devised collaborations in hot lava stew, cooking our rawest parts together. Cathartic release brings breath.
 
My play see in the dark: a new myth churns a recurring nightmare from my adolescence with our fears of the other and climate disaster. In a future Juneau, Alaska when all the glaciers have melted, the ice fields have vanished and nothing is recognizable, an isolated community of mutant outsiders must decide what to do with a newcomer: the young girl with a great power that threatens to destroy their village and everyone in it. This play collides environmental collapse, collectivism, poetry, a genocidal shadow beast, radical love and the value of compassion over suspicion.
 
By physicalizing my most difficult moments and mashing them with yours, along with surprising bursts of dazzling beauty flooding with waterfalls, oceans and mystical forces, I hope laughter and meet-cute swoons can bubble alongside the heartbreaking brutality of reality. It's hard being alive today. I want us to take more time to pay attention with intention, to see that the things inside us we can’t bear to acknowledge also overwhelm the stranger next to us, those too far away to comprehend, nonhuman persons and unrecognizable entities – and that we share intoxicating joys, dreams, desires, too. I want us to take stock of our hidden monstrosities. Without shame, we can unveil, heal and embrace our weightiest, wildest places for love of interdependence between everything. What if we held unconditional friendliness toward all citizens of the multiverse, ourselves included? I want to hold out a hand and sit with you through your struggle.
 
Together we can get through this thing called life.

Recently I enjoyed listening to this podcast episode "Lost Proof" by Dr. Cindy Shearer, my former professor and advisor in my MFA days, when I studied Creative Inquiry, Interdisciplinary Arts at California Institute of Integral Studies.

In response to Cindy's invitation at the end of the episode, I went on my own little trip and made a postcard out of the experience. I feel so-so about the results, but found the process awakening, so wanted to share her invitation with you:

I took a walk in the foothills near my neighborhood as I often do. What most struck me was the number of demolition sites in my path. A row of low-income rentals gone for future condos. An old building (perhaps related to the military site that used to be there) torn down in the dusty hills on my route, resulting in new fenced-off locations and detours. I was able to find a different way to my favorite spot -- a pond leading to a little marshy-land in the midst of high-desert surroundings -- but the circuitous directions kept me thinking about how much is continuously disappearing in our cities and natural landscapes. 

I think if I spent more time making the postcard, I might enjoy that element more, but going through this short process was a playful way to reenter a larger project I'm returning to this month. I forgot to look up etymologies, synonyms and definitions of words -- definitely something I'll do if I revisit this with another walk and text/image piece in the future. Maybe I will, down the road, or on a break/detour from my current project.

If you go on a journey and make a postcard, I'd love to hear about it. So would Cindy -- you can connect with her via Instagram as she invites at the end of the podcast.

A few images from my trip:

i see you hiding
stuck
in your busyness
anxiety zaps
your lightning bolt
brain
release sparks
or get comfortable
clear
the confused
moments
wavering that hula hoop
spinning plates
no competition
break out
smash boxes
burst light pools
poor or not
you're fire
magnifying polarities
no barriers
i am here
the saga a high road
conscious opening
thirsty
skin
shatter empty smoke
to collect
the kindling
again
find breathing room
little turtle
wake from chaos
dance in ocean currents
glow star-fused



spacious



all is
in your color
stop trying so hard

the grey a mist
a cloud this city lives in
fire season
we got swallowed
by a volcano
through wide, tall panes
fragments of cyan
between white/rust/brown
but a ghost blue
less of itself
summer days
i squint my eyes
peering at bright
but an overcast lid
traps muggy dry
the sleepy light
ducking back in bed sight
a bronze tongue that makes me
fold in on my ribs
just so
air punishes lungs
days like this
might as well stay inside
watch the months go by

dig the garden
push into heat
shovel, water
feed blossoms
thin greens
tick tick tick at keys
pull sprouts
one idea, another
rake past garbage
writing is composting
churning one thought, another
getting lost
pluck sucker-shoots
spidery grasses, tough weeds
sew hope, prune sentences, enrich soil
that patience
all the waiting
slow grow
daily in the dirt
vigils on chair, by seedlings
fight critics, aphids, slugs
distractions
sometimes the sun
sometimes a frost
and everything wastes
50 pages pumped
thrown away
file deleted
note forgotten
but the harvest
after mind numbing stuck
wandering
pacing
slogging
to make something of this land
is it even fertile?
the chance of leaves, blooms, a whole tomato
a feast, a draft
a completed work
something to dream on
to return for
tick tick tick

Crunch up foothills
Swelter sweat, dust

Birch leaves rattle

Brief moments of clouds, paralyzed in blue
Squint

Feet ache, my poor bunion toe

Ration water
Heart starts to slow

To-dos crumble

Thighs sting, the climb
The path by the pond

A sign sticks out

Warning
ice isn't safe

the water
the ripples
wet grass
fog grows over the bay
campers crowd around coleman
for coffee and tea water
in the warm of right now
i take off my sweatshirt
watch the waves
listen to humans plan their day
i don't think about my syllabus
be here
pay attention to my bloated belly
the black needle beaked birds
and finch-like flappers
fall away from the business around the table
this green tea
my heart of whole damp love
and squishiness
this view of blue
away from phone service
sun warms my neck

with thanks to Nick Jaina for the prompt

I want writers who listen
who understand vast silences
and shine light in shadowlands
I want writers who comb
deep caverns of sea
who fall in romance
with the planet around them
and ask fellow beings
to seek palaces of kindness
writers who deconstruct their realities
for each other
willing to fly free
past small lives
to find something scared
writers with courage
who magnify the depths
who complicate air
and make sense of the noise
I want writers who challenge the everyday
who create imaginary universes
out of a bunch of blankets
laid over chairs
for a kid's fort
who erupt volcanoes
and paint figures ready to jump
but crawl back home
and rip out large sections of biblical text
to make a new reality
writers who make peace
stumbling on sanctuary
humming wavelengths
I want writers who sing lullabies
to their readers
but the kind that wake us up
writers who make
kaleidoscopic dances
on the page
that acrobat off
and up
and tumble into our hearts
thighs
throats
writers who crack
me down the middle
with a sledgehammer
and then offer a handkerchief
I want to be a writer
who takes wandering walks
through old growth forests
and has soft conversations
with trees
moss
leaflets
who drinks in autumn
and pours out spring
I want writers who map
the stars
in reshaped constellations
and invent myths
that erupt with the same grandiose heat
as the ancients
but have awakening energy
that stirs something deep
from our seats
something primal
guttural
familiar
in a tribal way
in the way of us
that is forgotten memory
beyond the bottoms of our feet
yet glimmering starlight too
guiding us to sublime faraways
I want writers who don't reinvent circles
but split apart the old contraption
and reassemble the parts
until they disrupt
my breath
until I stop recognizing the
form
only to unveil the
fresh beginning
I want to be a writer
with the racing spririt
of that seven year old
who ran in from the front door
to meet his parents
at the welcome desk
a writer with curious eyes
who puts ear to the door
throws it wide
discovers the secret place
and smashes a violin case
on the ground
but only for good
a writer who traces back
to finds hope in history
and future too
I want writers who travel
to the ends of the multiverse
who can pull back the moon
and release the sun
who empty their ribs
and continue to open
I want to float
in a hot blimp
to survey the whole topography
below me
and uncover
blanketed mysteries

In the middle of this world
She is falling open
She ignores the wind-scarred fantasies behind
Sails into new outside over there
Her ship made of wings
Glowing worms at her feet enjoy marsh pools
Water,
Water,
Water
And they fall
And she belongs
In her skin, her boat, her seascape
Everything ocean here
Everything made of hands of paint
Smells like sawdust, soil, salt
Giant earthworms at the bottom of everything
Churn this planet
Revolve it
Into the somnambulant falls
Gulls cry
Not weep
Just loud, louder, loudest
Crumbling fevers
No sickness anymore
Now quiet
Living in my stomach
She doesn't have the nerve twitch
Breathes easy, eyes fierce, a hunter
But no blood here, no meat
All vegetation, growth and shine
The tremble of kill not here
Breeze slight, rain drops from singing stars
And silver moon
Shine on
The cracks, waves lapping
Always small clouds beyond, beyond, beyond
A lot to say
She writes in captain's log
Where does she go, this traveling sailor on windswept water?
Where is she leaving and what makes the giant seem small?