New Year, New Journey

Okay – here’s the deal.  I’ve had a blast the last couple years dragging my happy ass to various different TV and film sets and collecting halfway decent union paychecks for my trouble.  And let’s not forget to mention the FOOD!!!

Me on set - Every. Single. Day. Source: http://gph.is/XJxIL3

But as cool as it was to be Union Core Background on a handful of shows, and get pulled for stand-in work on an increasingly regular basis, the hard truth is that I had long ago already been there, done that and handed the T-shirt down to Goodwill.  Or maybe it’s just in storage somewhere – I forget…

Sure – being SAG/AFTRA put a new shine on an old penny, but it still wasn’t my endgame.  It ISN’T my endgame.

Then again – what is an endgame to someone who fancies herself immortal?  (But that’s another blog for another day!)

Fun Fact: All these men are probably fully "spread" Source: http://gph.is/1Jgw4Ka

 

One evening, not too long ago, after putting in an appearance at an unbelievably awkward birthday party for a friend of a friend, I had a supremely Zen subway ride home.  I was actually little-m meditating on the train.  It was supernaturally quiet and I had a big-E Epiphany!  In spite of all the steps I was taking every day to “follow my dreams,” I was no longer climbing any closer to my goals.  It wasn’t your typical plateau, because I was still an object in motion.  The problem was the stairs I had been climbing to reach that next level had somehow, rather stealthily, turned into a stair-master.  This allowed me to continue to go through the exact same motions day after day without getting any closer to my objective.

Mind = BLOWN!

So what was a consciously awakened girl to do?

Honestly, I wasn’t sure. But I acknowledged verbally and publicly that it was time to shift my paradigm.  I just didn’t have the first clue how to make that happen.  And, behold, the Universe intervened. 

Very suddenly, and seemingly from nowhere, I’ve been offered a new job as a nanny to an adorable three-year old child.  It is a Monday – Thursday 9-5 gig.

Let’s not kid ourselves.  The child is THREE.  I get to essentially play 8-hour one-on-one improv engagements four days a week. 

And then I get to have the rest of my nights and weekends free. Just like that. 

If I want to submit for set work on the weekends, I can. If I want to babysit for another family, I can.  If I want to sit on a subway platform accosting commuters with my ukulele renditions of Sublime songs… Oh YEAH, baby!

FB Live footage of me on Uke circa 2014 Source: http://gph.is/1q6V916

But more importantly, I have time to be creative again!  I have time to write, and sing, and uke, and go to open mics, and YIKES – I suppose I even have time to start, um, dating!!!  

All this, because I’m meeting another one of my basic yearnings – caring for a child.

I never expected to make it this far in my life without – well, expecting and then delivering a child or two of my own.  But my journey has taken some pretty wild turns.  I don’t have regrets.  (They’re pointless when you’re an immortal…) But I do LOVE young people and young minds.  I love watching them work.  I love watching them figure out the world around them.  And I love being a part of their journey.

I’m not sure just how long this engagement is for.  It certainly is a new course heading, but I feel like I’m about to start picking up speed again to my next destination.  You know that feeling – when you’re on the tarmac and the plane engines rev harder and louder and you feel your seat vibrating and you know lift-off is finally eminent?

Back in myyy day, this is how we went to space! Source: http://gph.is/2946efu

It won’t be long now until I’m soaring high above everything else, hurtling faster into the stratosphere where I’ve set my sights for SO. Damn. Long!  So that only leaves one question, dear friends.

In this brand new year of 2017, who is coming with me???

We Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Blog...

My “brand” is not Christian, or Activist, or even Ally.  Sure, I try to live these models to the best of my ability – but when it comes to my art and my “persona” I try to be as non-political as possible.  I’m an entertainer, writer, musician who identifies most closely with comedy, and based on my irreverent sense of humor, I’m pretty sure I have the soul of a perpetually 13-year-old boy.

But then there’s this…

This aching I’ve felt so acutely since the massacre at Pulse in Orlando.  This heavy, heavy weight in my soul compounded daily by the pain and suffering of people I know and people I don’t – people I’ll never have the chance to meet, because their lives were ended just because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time when another person – another human being acted out in a violent way.

I cried – really cried – yesterday when I found out about all the families who lost their lives in Bagdad.  And today I’m crying because I know that specifically my black friends – all of them – are mourning the senseless death of Alton Sterling.

And I hate this because I feel so f-ing helpless!!!  So here it is. All I can do.  I can pray.

It’s okay if you don’t believe in a “guy in the sky.”  But even scientific studies validate the positive effects of prayer, meditation, goal setting and focused thought/intention.  So if you are so inclined – if you also ache for the countless victims of violent acts perpetuated by other human beings, if you can humble yourself for just a minute to look inside at the state of your own heart – this seems as good a place to start as any. 

Dear God (or insert Deity of choice,)

Please take Alton Sterling into your loving embrace.  Please bless his friends, family and members of his community with an outpouring of love, understanding and healing.

Please pour out your grace on all our communities and the law enforcement officers that serve them across this nation.  Help those in positions of greater power meet their responsibilities with greater temperance, greater equity and increased civility. 

Help us to look at our own hearts with honesty and cast out all fear, bigotry and hatred. Please shower us all with more love for our brothers and sisters in every walk of life.  Teach us to celebrate our diversity together, and so create a greater sense of unity across all man-made divides.

I know, Father, that as no respecter of persons, you do not esteem one person, one gender, one culture, one race above another.  For we all are your creation and you love us all as one.  Teach us that same love, across cultures, across, faiths, across ethnicities.

We know that we are broken.  Please take our broken hearts, and make them whole in your love, that we may love each other more perfectly – that we stand united as one people against fear, against hate, and against oppression.

Let us start today by mourning with those that mourn – the family of Alton Sterling, the countless people maimed and killed in Bagdad, the victims at the airport in Turkey, the innocents at Pulse night club – and the thousands of victims daily across the globe whose lives are cut short in acts of violence, hate and apathy.

Help us all to bear the mantle of responsibility to make this beautiful world you gave us a home of peace, tolerance and love.  Help us remember that, here, on this little tiny spec of the vast expanse of the universe, we truly are one.

Help us to be slow to anger, quick to forgive, patient in our actions and thoughtful in our words.  Help us to help each other fulfill our greatest potentials as individuals and communities. Help us to see in each human we encounter on our great journey, the pieces of us that they share.

Please, God, I do my best to do my part every day, and yet when my friends are aching because of injustice, because of violence, because of death and destruction, I know that somehow I have not done enough.

If words are all I have, then please help me to use mine to lift others up, show others hope and light, and to inspire change in those whose hearts are most in need.

I beg for your blessing.

Amen.