This Is How You Set Yourself Free (Blog #437)

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I spent today at Crystal Bridges, the famed museum in the middle of Nowhere (Bentonville), Arkansas, for day two of the Arkansas New Play Festival put on by Theater Squared in Fayetteville. Three plays were on the schedule today, but I skipped the first one (which will be repeated next weekend) in favor of sleeping an additional three hours. Last night I really thought about pushing myself, getting up earlier, giving into FOMO (fear of missing out). But then I thought, Screw that. I’m taking care of me and my body.

Good choice, Marcus, good choice.

The first play I saw this afternoon was Among the Western Dinka by Russell Leigh Sharman, a tale of redemption about a college professor who loves jazz music and is losing his job due to his poor choices. (He was passing certain students so they could keep their scholarships). At one point he told his daughter (or maybe it was her new boyfriend), “I know you don’t know what you’re doing–nobody does.” This became a thing later in the play. Another character asked the professor, “What ARE you going to do?” Making an obvious reference to jazz music, the professor said, “I don’t know–I’ll improvise.”

I think this is a good reminder, that no one really knows what they’re up to down here. Like, we can plan all we want, act as if we’re in control, but–as the homos say–Bitch, please. At some point, someone calls with bad news, we get stuck in traffic, or we eat something that upsets our stomach. In other words, nothing goes according to script because there is no script. Getting back to music, life isn’t a predetermined symphony, at least not from where we stand. Rather, like the professor alluded, life is an improvisation, something we make up as we go along.

Life changes, we change. We change, life changes. It’s this constant back and forth. You know, jazz.

The second play I saw this afternoon was Staging The Daffy Dame by Anne García-Romero and was about several actors getting ready for, or staging, a play called (you guessed it) The Daffy Dame. At this point in the day, I was having trouble focusing on the larger plot, but I did get hung up on a particular exchange early in the show. A nervous actress said, “Insecurity is ugly.” A friend responded, “Insecurity–is human.” I guess we all forget this. We think we have to be constantly confident and strong, brave every minute. And yet isn’t it normal, isn’t it human, to be one moment filled with inner fortitude, the next teeming with trepidation?

You can’t stuff down the truth–it always comes up.

All day I’ve been listening to “The Leader of the Band” by Dan Fogelberg. It’s a beautiful tribute by a son to his father, and there’s a line that tears me apart every time I hear it. Referring to his father, the son says, “His heart was known to none.” Think about it–devastating. I can only imagine someone who keeps their heart closed is someone who is afraid, someone who thinks they have to know what they’re doing all the time, someone who hides their emotions because “insecurity is ugly.” I used to be someone like this. It’s no way to live. I’d read self-help and religious books that told me how I should act or feel and would stuff down anything that didn’t match up, even those things that were true for me. But here’s the thing–you can’t stuff down the truth–it always comes up. So now I think, What’s my honest experience as a human being? And if the answer is that I feel lost, insecure, worried, or frightened, then that’s what I say (and I probably say it on the internet). In my experience, this is how you make your heart known–stating the simple truth. This is how you set yourself free.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

"There are a lot of benefits to being right here, right now."

All of Life’s Messes (Blog #436)

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Last night I slept six hours, then was up this morning (at ten) to do last-day-house-sitting chores before heading to Northwest Arkansas to see a play. The play was called Until Just Moistened. I could have sworn it was going to be about something sexual, but it was actually about cornbread. That being said, cornbread and many other carbohydrates have served as substitutes for my sex life more than once, so maybe it’s all the same. Regardless, the play was by Crescent Dragonwagon and was part of the Arkansas New Play Festival, put on by Theater Squared. The festival is this weekend and next, and since I have an all-access pass, I’m sure I’ll be talking about it off and on for the next week.

After the play, I killed some time in a new-to-me bookstore, then met my friend Sydnie to teach dance at a wedding reception. (Dancers get asked to do all sorts of things. When there’s food and an open bar involved, we often say yes.) Y’all, as a former wedding photographer (assistant), I’ve been to A LOT of weddings. But this one was in an old airport hangar. And whereas it was hotter than Satan’s front yard on an August afternoon, the atmosphere was killer and the food (Brazilian) was delicious. Granted, getting people to dance felt like pulling teeth, but those that participated did a wonderful job, and it all goes with the territory.

Fresh off last week’s house sitting and cat wrangling gig, tonight I picked up a friend’s dog to watch for the week. I normally don’t bring animals home, but I LOVE this dog. A standard poodle, she’s a total sweetheart, and not only do we get along famously, but we also have the same name (CoCo). Well get this. As soon as I got CoCo to Mom and Dad’s, she quickly ate our dog Ella’s food–the dry and the wet–then promptly defecated all over the carpet. (I had actually just let her outside, but she waited until she was inside to go.) Y’all, it looked like a dinosaur with diarrhea had been through the living room.

And smelled like it too.

A friend I was texting suggested it was just nerves, which I guess makes sense. It’s a new environment. Plus she did eat some foreign food, so it’s not like I can blame her. Still, it was no fun dealing with the mess, which took an entire roll of paper towels and a half a bottle of Resolve to–well–resolve. But now it’s done, and CoCo is in her kennel, resting.

Personally, I can’t wait to go to my kennel.

When I finished dealing with CoCo’s mess earlier, my mom said, “You’re really good at cleaning up shit, Marcus.” This isn’t the type of compliment one goes around looking for, but I guess it’s a compliment nonetheless. Marcus Coker, good shit cleaner-upper. What can I say? I’ve had a lot of practice. Last night while looking behind a couch, I found two cat-vomit spots several days old. They were absolutely hard as a rock, concretized to the floor. Seriously y’all, they should use that stuff to repair interstates. But I digress. I suppose this is life, full of messes and clean-up jobs. Sometimes it’s your mess you’re cleaning up, sometimes it’s somebody else’s. I’m talking about emotional messes, the damage another human can cause. Often in therapy I’ve thought, I didn’t create this problem–my parents did–my ex did–whatever–why should I have to clean it up? But of course, we all cause damage we don’t mean to. And what are you gonna do, leave shit on your carpet?

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Transformation doesn’t have a drive thru window. It takes time to be born again.

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On Creativity, Writing, and Demons (Blog #87)

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Today I watched another play in Fayetteville, ate seventy-five percent of a large chicken and pineapple pizza all by myself, walked for two hours while listening to a book about narcissists and a lecture about consciousness, and read a third of a book called Blessed Are the Weird: A Manifesto for Creatives. So it was a pretty busy day, but–you know–no one proposed. And even though a lot happened, including the fact that the waxing crescent moon, which I like to call God’s Fingernail, appeared out of nowhere in the sky, I’m currently thinking that I have NOTHING to write about.

So–for now–let’s talk about my hair. (I’m currently picturing my therapist throwing her hands up like an Italian grandmother and saying, “Just admit it. You. Are. Vain.” Fine. I’m vain.) Anyway, I took the above picture a few minutes ago. Currently I’m propped up in bed, which is where I usually blog, and I’m loving that swoopy-do thing my hair is doing. Although if it gets any longer, I’m going to look like Peg, that somewhat-trashy-but-probably-fun-at-parties dog played by Peggy Lee in Lady and the Tramp.

The play I saw this afternoon was Visible from Four States, written by Barbara Hammond. It told the story of a man whose hilltop land is coveted by both a cellphone company (for a tower) and a local pastor (for a giant cross). The man’s best friend is a prison warden who’s befriended a young inmate on death row for committing murder. So in addition to covering whether or not God is real, the play also covered the death penalty, forgiveness, and redemption. You know, light-hearted stuff like that.

Having attended several plays over the last two weekends, I’ve been thinking a lot about the process of writing–why some stories are better than others, what works and what doesn’t. My conclusion has been that if the audience is laughing or crying or gets all caught up in the story, that doesn’t happen by accident. Somewhere, I’m sure an author has blood on his keyboard. But I trust that even the stories that don’t work so well were written by authors who were also trying, also bleeding.

Based on my experience with this blog, writing (or any creative endeavor) is partly a crapshoot. You sit down every damn day, almost always thinking there’s nothing to talk about, but there usually is, even if it’s way down there at the bottom of the creative well. You just have to bring it up, which is often done by pulling your hair out, banging your head against a wall, or saying, “Fuck, fuck, shit, fuck, fuck.” Sometimes, like a miracle, what comes out of the well is pretty fantastic. But plenty of times it sucks.

The more I think about it, I guess good writing is a lot like a good hair day–it’s something you can hope for, something you can work on, but it’s never a guarantee. (I hate that.) Some days the creative well is simply–dry.

But back to my hair. I really think the secret to the swoopy-do is the fact that I wore a sock cap for a few hours, which straightened out most of my curls, except the ones that were sticking out in the front. (Warning–we’ve re-entered the stream-of-consciousness section of the blog. Grab your inner tube and enjoy the ride. This is also part of the creative process. Don’t you feel–uh–involved?)

Earlier today I read a Buddhist slogan (on the toilet, if I’m being honest) that said, “Don’t make gods into demons.” In other words, don’t take something that’s meant to be a good thing and make it a bad thing. I guess I’ve been thinking about it most of the day because I have a tendency to do just that. Often in the name of overachieving, I’ll start a diet or exercise program and be so hardcore about it for two months that I’ll burn myself out. Then I’ll spend the next six months using the lack of diet or exercise as a reason to beat myself up. I’ve done this same thing with more than one type of meditation. As we speak, I have a book on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) that my therapist gave me three years ago that I haven’t finished and feel bad about. (My therapist says I have a hangup on completion. Maybe one day I should end a blog mid-sentence.) Anyway, it’s just a book, but I’ve essentially turned it into a demon, something to taunt myself with.

I know that if I let it, this blog could become a demon too. Having set a goal of writing every day (for a year, it’s been suggested), it’s already its own kind of monster. Since I hold myself to a pretty high standard of perfection, nights like tonight–when it doesn’t seem like I’m getting any water out of the well–are difficult for me. There was line in the play today that basically said you’re not the worst or even the best thing you did. Of course, it was talking about murder, but I think it could also be talking about writing. So I’m telling myself, “I am not my worst writing. I am not my best writing. I am not my hair.”

Sometimes you really do have to bang your head against the wall and wait for an idea to come.

Because the moon has been new (dark) for the last few days, when I saw God’s fingernail in the sky tonight, it seemed to have come out of nowhere. And I guess if I didn’t know about the phases of the moon, looking at it each night would seem like a crapshoot. But obviously the heavens have a process. As for writing, I’m finding it has a process too. If I want something to come OUT of the creative well, I have to put something IN it first, which is part of the reason I’ve been going to plays, reading books, and eating pizza. (Okay, the pizza was about carbohydrates, not creativity.) But just because you’re well has water in it, doesn’t mean it’s easy to bring the water up. Sometimes you really do have to bang your head against the wall and wait for an idea to come, just like sometimes you have to put a sock cap on your hair and wait–and wait–for the swoopy-do.

I have to remind myself that hair is just hair. Some days it’s glorious, some days it ain’t. In the same manner, a blog is just a blog. But the point for me is to write, to be honest, to bleed on the keyboard–to dip into the well and see what comes out. (Today, this is it–you’re lookin’ at it.) As long as I’m doing that, this is a god–this is a good thing. As soon as I start demanding perfection or judging myself for not meeting a certain standard every damn day, it’s become a demon, and ain’t nobody got time for demons.

As it turns out, I did have something to write about–writing–although I suppose the thoughts about creativity and not being the worst or best thing you’ve ever done could apply to many other subjects as well. (In the comments below, I invite you to complete this sentence: “I am not my worst/best __________.” For example: “I am not my worst outfit or boyfriend. I am not my best test score.”)

And as for that part about being hung up on completion,

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Just because your face is nice to look at doesn’t mean you don’t have a heart that’s capable of being broken. These things happen to humans, and there isn’t a one of us who isn’t human.

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On Rewriting Your Own Story (Blog #86)

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Four years ago I completed my first and only triathlon. At the time I was working out pretty hardcore with my friend Jim, who’s pretty hardcore himself. I mean, the man’s retired, has competed in dozens and dozens of marathons and triathlons, and even today could probably benchpress in pounds the number of calories I drank in beer today. All this he does with one lung (he’s beat cancer three times), so he’s not exactly the person you want to call when you feel like whining or skipping a workout. Anyway, when the above photo was taken, Jim and I were exercising–lifting, swimming, biking, running–probably six or seven days a week. I don’t think I’ve ever sweat so much in all my life. It’s a wonder I didn’t die of evaporation.

I think I ran two 5Ks that spring. They both started around six or seven in the morning, so there’s actual, documented proof that I was awake and functioning before noon. So there. Since the mornings were cool, I decided “my thing” would be wearing knee-high colored tube socks. Looking back, I might as well have just worn a fanny pack that said “virgin” in pink sequins.

Here’s a picture from my first 5k, taken right before the finish line. I’m especially proud that I was able to turn up the heat at the last minute and smoke those little toddlers’ butts. I like to think they ran straight for their mothers and started sobbing.

Maybe sometime between the first and second race, I started having a funny sensation in my right hip. Not knowing what it was, I pushed through–kept up all the workouts. Before summer hit, I was in more pain than I’d been in before or have been since. I’m not exactly sure how to describe it, but tying my shoes made me want to cry. Getting in and out of the car did too. It felt like a knife shoved into my hip, knee, and ankle, all at the same time, and it went on for months. Now I know that it was sciatic pain, a pinched nerve due to the structure of my body and inflammation in my hip. But then, even though I talked to several professionals, it remained a mystery.

So I quit swimming. Quit biking. Quit running. Quit working out my lower body.

Eventually the pain got better, manageable. Then I found a chiropractor who made it disappear within a couple of weeks. It was like a miracle (that you have to pay for). So I started swimming and biking again, but I couldn’t run because anytime I tried, the pain came back. That means that for the last four years, I’ve had to be really be careful when it’s come to that hip. It also means that I’ve also eaten a lot of carrot cake–you know–as a way of apologizing to my body for all that exercise I put it through.

I joke about stuff like this, but I can’t tell you have fucking frustrating my right hip issue has been. Even before the sciatic part, things were out of whack. Some days it just kept me from doing things I enjoyed, like racing against five-year-olds. Other days it straight-up hurt like a sonofabitch.

Cut out what’s not working, add in something that is.

Today, like last weekend, I spent the afternoon and evening at the Arkansas New Play Festival in Fayetteville. Having had a long week, I’d planned to skip the final play, Comet Town, since I saw it last Saturday. HOWEVER, I spoke with the playwright this afternoon, Rick Ehrstin, and he told me that they’d changed the play a lot since last week, cleaned it up quite a bit. (This is part of the point, I’m learning, of the festival, since it features plays that are in “the works.”) So I decided to stay, a choice that had mostly to do with Rick’s play and a little to do with the free beer being served.

Of course, the main points in the play stayed the same. An alcoholic man hires a woman to take care of his father, who has dementia and thinks planes flying over his home are comets and sounds from his basement are his dead wife. But so many little things changed. Last week there was a part in which the alcoholic complained about a previous caretaker who’d stolen from the family. This week it was gone. The effect for me was that the character instantly softened up a little, became more likable.

The author said that in one form or another, he’s been working on the play for years. As a writer, I know it’s easy to get stuck in or married to certain ideas, so I love that he’s been able to be flexible, cut out what’s not working (kill your darlings, it’s called), add in something that is. So this evening I’ve been stuck on this idea of rewriting a story, taking an idea that’s maybe been the same for years and effectively going back to the drawing board with it.

A few weeks ago I started running again, gingerly. Mostly, I’ve been walking, but running some, adding in a little more distance each week. Tonight after I got home from the play, I ran the farthest, nonstop, that I have since Jim’s Summer of Exercise Heaven and Hell.

Five and a half miles.

(Take all the time you need to stop clapping and sit back down.)

We can rewrite our stories if we want to.

Really, I don’t know whether that’s a big deal or not, but I do know that it’s a big deal for me, and it’s a big damn deal for my hip. I mean, it’s tight. I can feel that. But in the last four years, I’ve learned enough about what’s going on that I think I can work with it. And whereas I’m happy–thrilled–about being able to run again, it occurred to me tonight that before I could even run to the end of the block, I had to rewrite the story I was telling myself about my hip first. What I mean is that for quite a while, I’ve been saying that I couldn’t run, that I was done running forever because my hip couldn’t get better. Thankfully, somehow, I’ve changed my mind about that. Now I believe it can get better. It may not be where I want it to be yet, but it’s already better than it was.

I guess we all tell ourselves stories about what we can and can’t do. Obviously, sometimes there are actual limits. I’m not saying pain isn’t real. When my dad was a kid, he thought he could fly like Superman, but found out he couldn’t when he jumped off the carport. So there’s that. But so many times the limits are in our heads. I can’t be successful. Good things happen to other people. I’ll never meet the right person.

The good news, I think, is that those are just stories we tell ourselves, and we can rewrite our stories if we want to. Cut out what’s not working, add in something that is. Maybe that doesn’t mean you’re out running a marathon tomorrow, but maybe it means that you start changing your ideas about what’s possible, considering a different ending than the one you had in mind. I’m quitting my job. I’m leaving this town. No more knee-high tube socks! Or maybe instead of being so hard on yourself, you simply look in the mirror and say, “I’m doing the best I can.” Just like that, your story’s main character softened up a little, became more likable. Even if nothing else changed, surely that one rewrite would have you feeling like you’d just crossed a finish line, arms lifted in celebration, two crying children somewhere in the distance.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Help is always on the way.

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Every Little Thing Is Gonna Be All Right (Blog #80)

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A few days ago my sister, Dee-Anne, posted pictures of my nephews dressed up like Peter Pan and Captain Hook, and I still can’t get over how freaking adorable they are. I guess they did some Peter Pan things on their recent trip to Disneyland (this uncle is totally jealous), came home and watched the cartoon, and decided they needed to do some make-believing. The younger one apparently did some serious make-believing because he jumped off the fireplace, tried to fly, and gave himself a black eye. My comment was–next time use pixie dust.

Just look how cute. Ugh. This is one proud uncle. This is also one guilty uncle because I didn’t send either of them gifts for their recent birthdays. However, I’m sure adding them to my blog will more than make up for it. Isn’t being on your uncle’s blog about mental health every child’s dream?

This afternoon was my second day at the Arkansas New Play Festival. After watching two short readings and a production by a group of local high school and college students, I used the break time to grab some food at a place called Deluxe. I’d never been there before, and I rarely break out of the familiar when it comes to restaurants, but I thought, Live a little. Well, I made the right decision. Check out this green chile and avocado burger on two slices of carbohydrate heaven.

I ate every bit of that delicious bun, but notice I had a salad instead of fries. (Something must be working. I’m down five pounds since Nashville’s Put Your Stretch Pants to the Test Tour.) Before I left the restaurant, I took a picture of this sign, which I kind of took as the universe sending me a friendly reminder.

Of course that reminder would be–use good grammar, since it should technically be “all right.” I blame my high school English teacher for the fact that I’m so anal about shit like this. She used to correct our grammar WHILE WE PRAYED. Also, I know that she would prefer me to say that she’s the reason I’m so anal about “shoot” or–even better–“stuff” like this, but not every lesson sunk in.

The last play today was (I)sland Tra(p), which was written and acted by Austin Ashford. It was a modern retelling of the story of Odysseus and was simply stunning. Throughout the play, Austin rapped, played a ukulele and sang, and even had the audience coo like birds because part of his quest included finding a magical bird. There were some beautiful lines, and I kept opening a notebook I brought along and writing some of them down. One of my favorites was, “Run away to a place where you know your worth.”

You may start out alone, but you don’t end up alone.

Not to give it away, but there was a scene at the end of the play in which Austin was about to die. Once again, he asked the audience to coo like birds, which they did, and it restored his life. As the room filled with cooing, I couldn’t help but think of the part in Peter Pan when the audience is asked to clap to bring Tinkerbell back to life. Austin made mention later that we all need each other, and I think that’s what the cooing-clapping imagery is all about. When you “run away to a place where you know your worth,” you may start out alone, but you don’t end up alone, and there will always be help along the way.

This evening as part of a Father’s Day that’s going to take me a while to celebrate, I spent the evening with my friend CJ because she deep-fried a turkey and gave it to me to give my dad. I hadn’t seen CJ in a while, and she kept asking if I wanted any turkey and potatoes, any homemade bread with honey, any apple pie moonshine.

Well, I wasn’t about to be rude and turn any of that down. I was raised better.

After dinner CJ took me outside to show me her bee boxes. (The honey came from her farm.) She said, “You don’t want to come back in your next life as a drone bee,” and then explained that drone bees have one purpose and one purpose only–to screw the queen and get that bitch pregnant. (These are my words, not CJ’s.) Anyway, she said that if a drone bee does get some of dat royal booty, he immediately dies. (Danger, Will Robinson, Danger.) And if the line of suitors is just too long and he doesn’t end up having sex with the queen, he is literally escorted out of the hive when winter comes, and the Secret Service bees block the door so he can’t get back in. So he freezes to death.

Well, I guess I have Peter Pan on the brain because that made me think of the pirates who were made to walk the plank. (Hope you can swim!) But really, talk about a raw deal. Screw the queen–drop dead. Don’t screw the queen–die anyway. The next time you have a bad day–maybe because you haven’t gotten laid in a while–think about drone bees and see if your mood doesn’t improve. In the meantime, check out this sweet honey. It’s sort of like the silver lining to the sad story about the drone bees. At least it was for me.

CJ also told me that if the queen bee gets sick or dies, the other bees–like wizards–make another one. I guess there’s this stuff called royal jelly, and they feed it to a few of the ugly duckling bees and–Voila!–they turn into beautiful swans (queen bees). Of course, “there can only be one,” so the strongest becomes the queen. And because bees are real hard asses, the lesser queens have to die. (Rules are rules.) Anyway, the part about royal jelly just goes to show that the right diet is everything, especially if you want to be a queen.

Tonight I ran for four and a half miles. That’s the longest I’ve gone since “getting back into it.” Pretty much the whole time, I kept thinking about those bees. CJ said that bees stay warm in the winter because they form a big ball (a bee ball–get it?) around the queen and vibrate their wings to keep each other warm. She said it stays 92 degrees in those boxes! Talk about teamwork.

I still feel sorry for those drone bees though, totally objectified, one-trick ponies really, valued only for their bee sperm. Part of me wishes I could tell them that they deserve better, tell them to find a good therapist, like, why do you put up with that crap?

Yes, CJ was right. You have it better as a human. You don’t die after sex (unless it gets REALLY kinky). You get second chances. Maybe sometimes you get kicked out by one person, one group, and it feels like a death. But guaranteed there’s another person, another group waiting for you somewhere, willing to let you know that every little thing is gonna be all right. If you haven’t found them, keep looking–go on an adventure–because they’re waiting for you–already cooing, clapping their hands, beating their wings to help bring you back to life.

[Thanks, Austin, for your inspiration and beautiful words. Thanks, CJ, for a wonderful evening. It felt like home.]

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Even if you can't be anything you want to be, you can absolutely be who you were meant to be. Don't let anyone else tell you differently.

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Put Your Best Left Foot Forward (Blog #79)

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Okay, I’m running on three hours of sleep here. Well, all right, fine. I’m also running on four blueberry pancakes and thee glasses of Glenlivet. But the pancakes and the scotch are just making me even more tired that I already was, so I don’t think they should even be figured into the equation. No, I’m sure they shouldn’t. Regardless, I’m seriously considering using duct tape to keep my eyes open, maybe taking a cold shower and substituting the bar of soap with a nine-volt battery. Hello!

I got up early today in order to attend the Arkansas New Play Festival, which is a two-weekend–uh–thing involving–damn it, brain–plays. (I’m gonna try this again.) It’s a multiple-day event where new plays, or plays that are still in production, are read in front of live audiences, after which the writers and directors get feedback about what works, what doesn’t work.  It’s like a trial-run for theater shows. At least that’s my scotch and pancakes understanding of it.

Today the festival was at Crystal Bridges in Bentonville. (Tomorrow it’s at Theater Squared in Fayetteville.) Y’all, I have never seen so many people in all my life. It was like the population of Queens descended on the lobby of Crystal Bridges. I guess everyone was there to see the Chihuly exhibit, which I thought had something to do with hot sauce, but actually has to do with blown glass. Here’s a picture of the only exhibit I could see for free. I don’t know what the official title is, but I’m either calling it Pretty Glass Balls in Ugly Water, or simply, Jesus Left His Toys Behind. (As my friend Mary recently said, “Marcus, I wonder about you.”)

But back to the festival. Today’s schedule included two plays with a break in between. I thought both plays were extremely well-acted, and I especially enjoyed the writing of the second play, which was called Comet Town and was written by Rick Erhstin. I’m not doing so great with descriptions tonight, so I’ll just say it was about a fucked-up family with a grandfather with dementia who thought the planes flying over his home were comets and the sounds coming from the pipes in the basement were his dead wife. The dialogue and acting were so compelling that for probably thirty minutes I had a steady stream of tears running down my face. If things had gotten any sadder, I would have needed my bathing suit.

Thank God I sat in the back row.

When the play was over, the lady next to me–who was one of the actors from the first play–struck up a conversation. For a few minutes we talked about the festival and then progressed to–Where are you from?–Where are YOU from?–What do you do?–What do YOU do? (You know how it goes.) Anyway, she was the nicest lady you’d ever want to meet, and when I told her that I was a dance teacher and a writer, she asked if I taught a class on Friday nights. Well, we’d been talking about theater, so I thought she was talking about theater classes, so I said, “Oh no, that’s someone else.” But then she said she meant dancing classes, since she’d heard of a dancer/writer who taught swing dance classes in the area. Well, I have a friend who does that, so I said, “No, that’s someone else. He’s Asian.” And then–AND THEN–she said, “No, this guy is white. He writes a blog about his therapist.”

That’s funny, I thought, I write a blog about MY therapist.

Wait a minute.

Oh. My. God.

(She’s talking about me.)

Seriously, my head got so big that I thought I was going to lose my balance and fall out of my chair.

I told the lady–whose name is Rebecca and has a sister who’s danced with me a couple of times and recommended the blog–that she was the first person I’d met “in real life” who’d read the blog that I didn’t already know. So I asked her if she’d take a selfie with me (I think she said yes) and told her I planned on putting it on the blog because that’s not weird. (Right? That’s not weird?)

Okay, I really feel like we can stop there. Period. The end. What else is important after your day has been made? But fine, I’ll keep going. And don’t worry, my head will return to normal size by this time tomorrow.

Leaving Crystal Bridges, I headed for my friend Betty’s house to spend the night and save myself a lot of time on the road tonight and tomorrow. When I got to Betty’s, she’d just started a yoga workout, so I said I wanted to join. Well, I haven’t done yoga in over six months, so for thirty minutes I stretched, moaned, and discovered aches and pains in muscles I didn’t even know I had. When the video ended, I lay in a pile of sweat and regret and decided to turn my life over to Jesus and repent of my sinful eating habits. I thought, chocolate cake is evil–carbohydrates are for heathens–fried chicken is the devil’s workshop.

And then Betty asked if I wanted pancakes for dinner, and I said, “Hell yes” because–life is ironic.

So the coolest thing. Sometime shortly after 2005 when I opened my former dance studio, I designed the studio’s one and only t-shirt. I think we sold like twenty-five of them. Well, Betty was one of my first students in those days, and she bought one of the shirts and still has it (and wore it tonight for yoga). The front says, “Put your best left foot forward” because I can’t tell you the number of times someone has told me, “I have two left feet,” as if that’s a legitimate excuse for not dancing or not being willing to learn. I mean, THAT’S WHAT LESSONS ARE FOR. Anyway, check out the shirt.

I just remembered that the phrase “put your best left foot forward” came from the guy I was dating at the time. I thought it was so clever–and still do–that I put it on the shirts and planned to use it for fliers, coffee mugs, and maybe a personal tramp stamp. But alas, best laid plans. But even now, I think it’s a great encouragement. So many nights–most of them–I sit down to write this blog, and it feels like I have two left feet. I don’t know where I’m going or how I’m going to get there. More often than not, I think, Just quit–stay where you are. (This happens in life too.)

Standing still is no longer good enough.

However, I’ve promised myself I’m going to write. Of course, I want every word to be glorious. (Is that too much to ask?) I want people to laugh and I want them to cry. I don’t like it when it my words stumble along anymore than anyone else does. But the fact is that sometimes we move with grace and sometimes we move with struggle. This afternoon when I watched the plays, it was evident that things were still in progress. I mean, there were some glorious moments (I laughed–I cried), but there were also moments that fell flat. And whereas I’m often critical of such things, I’ve reminded myself this evening that we all have a right to put our best left foot forward. In fact, it takes buckets of courage and vulnerability for someone to do that.

Maybe I’ve never said this before, but when it comes to dancing and dieting and writing and living–I don’t have it all figured out. (There, I admit it.) I’m sure I never will. But rather than giving up, I’m willing to give it a try, willing to stumble along, willing to put one left foot in front of the other, since standing still is no longer good enough.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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If life can create a problem, it can also provide an answer.

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