My first Max Patch

Amazing, all the double triple checking to make sure everything worked right and still the technology showed me up: I was missing the cord to connect my computer to the projector. In an effort to transfer the files to another computer, the curtains movie was lost, so the patch never lived up to it's full potential, but I am still thrilled with having actually made it. And our presentation went off just fine without it - bless the instinct to put the technology last not first.

The Streams of Hamlet

My vision seems to be stronger and clearer since this morning. Maybe it is the beautiful Fall light. Danica's short Reiki session this morning is also contributing to the sense of clarity. In my eyes, that is - not quite so in regards to my day. Lorenzo has left for the mountains with only a short moment for goodbye. I hope he is safe and that he finds what he's looking for!

If Hamlet is no longer a viable play for our times, as Helen suggests, it is in part because the Ophelia's are no longer interested in committing suicide. Lorenzo is struggling with "to be or not to be" when from my perspective he simply is and frankly that's plenty for me. I love him so and hope he finds his way to a sense of his stature and greatness without too much fretting about who gets to be king. Meanwhile, I have my own path to clear, and though I am longing to drown myself in the stream of the shower head, the prospect of dampening my forward momentum is not one bit romantic.

We'll jump from one stream of Hamlet inspired thought to another. This next one was written in class on Monday night, as part of the assignment given us by the first group to present their Hamlet Machine piece. We were told to write everything we could remember about Hamlet. Later I was asked to speak a line of Ophelia's. I wrote this:

Everything you know about hamlet. Don’t start don’t start until after your line. Your video, dear Hamlet, your video calls to me from another dimension. Oh but it is flat, that dimension from wither it calleth me and I can not immerse myself within. This too too cruel world has imprisoned me on one side of a two dimensional screen and whether the further exists or not is not known.

Hamlet calleth from beyond – the within? The further? Or some other? She the other. She who spills her blood to stain the screen to see if it will seep in. Is there somewhere to seep into? Hit Hit Hit. Not yet further into the into. Prosperously delivered. Prosperously of. Silence. It pauses and continues from afar afar to the printer go. Hamlet is in jail. If so is she free to stand outside and observe? She must enter. Further along … you are as good as a chorus my lord.

Encouragement from the cosmos

I am growing by leaps and bounds. I am sure that my heightened awareness of what seems to be the inevitable impending collapse of this country I live in and perhaps of life as I have known it to be until now is to thank. These days have been greatly informed and inspired by Dimitri Orlov's Reinventing Collapse.

The larger part of today was marked by anxiety. Tears came from nowhere during my voice lesson with Andrea. It is the first time I really cried during a lesson - cried right through two rounds of "If I Should Lose You," but never stopped singing. See what I mean? I'm growing. And for the most part I have been calmer than ever before. It's easy, now that the world outside seems to be catching up to my own state of economic affairs and the myth of god-given upward mobility is dissolving - all I have to do is make just enough so I can keep plugging away at my art, without any pressure of success in the form of recognition or finances.

Finances are truly a bitch, and I am constantly dreaming up new ways to build the business up a little more. Today, post-tears and mid-anxiety, I updated my mailing list, sent an email to my regular students, designed a new flier, photocopied it onto brightly colored paper and cut it into shape. I filled the flier up with the beautiful quotes my students sent me. The excess print is unlike me, with my preference for clean designs, but I found the change exciting and relished the sense of rebellion it gave me: in place of fancy ads and glossy post cards I'm putting out crowded half-pieces of neon colored paper full of the gems of support and good energy my students have bestowed on me.

So I am not without recognition. In fact the recent wave of recognition from my colleagues has lifted me right out of the torrential waters of artistic dead ends and perched me on a little branch just above the roaring flood. Lorenzo is in a different place, perhaps not quite as open to the exhilaration of admiration from our fellow artists and not nearly as used to having his efforts ignored or outright denied. Ah, for once to see that I have benefited from being denied inclusion and awe! Because today I could give a rat's ass if so and so finds me worthy and worthwhile so long as I can keep doing my thing and occasionally feast on the enthusiasm of those colleagues about whose existence I am myself enthusiastic.

Since there doesn't seem to be anywhere big to go anyways, I might as well be clear and honest about where I am right now and not waste my time on trolls who wish to exercise their powerlessness on me. Let them frolic elsewhere, where the myth of "getting somewhere better bigger soon" still thrives and they can sell the shit they poop on you as your only hope for warmth during the long wait for the Gate to open. No, I have turned in my dreams of the land beyond the locked Gate for the infinitely more interesting and challenging task of dealing with the territory at hand. By very virtue of this choice I am having great success, surprising myself to no end at my ability to adjust, juggle and even shape the various struggles I encounter into pleasure and release.

Not all the releases are wonderful. There was a smelly one just today. A fight with my mother, a battle of the vocal cords and a cathartic climax sought out by an outdated program in our psychic systems. I could have just said, sorry I didn't call sooner, Mom. Instead I felt the need to tell the truth, which is that I'd really rather not hear her complaints and criticisms about my behavior, especially on the topic of being close and communicative. Unless of course her intention was to really communicate, but since she is caught up with her finances, the ones I'm not supposed to know or talk about, that was not actually an option. Anyways, that's one truth. Another is that we are both stressed out, swimming in the tension of the world around us, and practicing a stroke we know all too well: blame it all on HER behavior.

There is more, more! But it is already late, late. Max patches, group presentations, garden politics: I'm taking them on and knocking them out with my brazen insistence on doing it my way. Rob Brezsny inspired tonight's garden breakthrough with this advice "You will receive encouragement from the cosmos whenever you seek out and express facts that disprove prevailing biases and mistaken beliefs."

Conjuring

2:27, I've figured out what to do for my PIMA group meeting today. It is a dance throughout, between two worlds. One in Moroccan dress, her stride is limited, she whirls. The other in the moment, her body true to the storm inside.

2:32, I will return to conversations with Jeanne, Adam and Lorenzo. They are baking inspiration. 30 minutes or less to group time but I am already slipping into that world, it is conjuring me into the future.

I don't want to work best

Fingers sink into the keyboard. Looking for a way to start that is not an old recycled story I've been telling myself all day: I am this and that, such and such makes me feel like blah blah blah. No, I am a different person all together now that I have sunk into my fingers, digging on the keyboard in search of words. delete delete delete. I'm back. Just rolled right past 2 am and who would have thought I'd be awake.

The meeting with the PIMA group tomorrow is on my mind but hey why stress. Just have fun with it, who cares how it comes out. Pains on the right side of my body, neck as usual but also in the waist and kidney area. So I am under strain, it's true, but keeping my cool. Look, the business is growing after all, gigs are coming up, school is rolling along... I do wonder why it takes me being busy to get anything done at all. I work best on a full schedule, and then yearn for an empty one. Sometimes I don't want to work best. I told my PIMA group as much, now I'm recording it for myself. I tend to forget.

Studying, Seeking

Time is short - sleep is calling. Today was a day to myself, mostly. I wrote this morning, in Hebrew. Filled six little notebook pages up. And I organized the new tea leaves into clean jars, finally. I also danced and sang in the studio, gave a bodywork session, handed out the rest of my fliers in hopes of getting a few more students, taught a class, ran to Port Authority and back. And dreamt of at least as many other ways to fill my life.

Cassandra, my client, asked me about school. She knows me as Lorenzo's girlfriend, a rock climber, a dancer, pilates teacher and bodyworker. You do so many different things! she exclaims. Not really so. They are all the same, and increasingly coming together for me. I am studying the language of the human body, and seeking to express it.

Now I'll seek out those dishes that need washing and slide into bed. A soft bed with a warm blanket, not the sleeping bag that didn't make it to the mountains tonight.

first day of school

I noticed how scared I was at the group meeting this morning. I just wasn't falling for my usual defense tactics - steered clear of believing any of my instant judgments in an effort to make some space in that little head of mine to actually observe the situation as it was. And it was scary - myriad power struggles, large personalities, passive aggressive strikes and streams of nonsense to which I had to actively remind myself to smile or else be marked as an enemy. What in the world possessed me to think there would be space for me here? Dunno. Tried to get an ID card, but I hadn't paid a bill. Tried to pay a bill but I hadn't registered for a class. Tried to prove that I had registered online, but the Professor hadn't yet approved me, so there was nothing to prove.

For my existence on campus to be validated, I had to go to the prof's office, get some kind of slip that I would then bring to the registrar, she would enter it into the computer and give me a slip to give to the lady who takes my money, and theoretically she would open the gate to the lady who takes my picture and gives me an ID card. Had some kind of vision of spending my day at the library, immersed in the work of making my life go somewhere interesting, but without an ID card the task would be a little bit harder. So I walked down the hall to the cafeteria. In truth I was starving. From the seating area the cafeteria looked like it might have potential, but the reality was much simpler: same old shit. Shitty cold cuts on shitty bread, wilted salad bar mainly out of a can, greasy pasta with some kind of meat product... it all made the pizza look appealing. But I didn't dare. I packed a little bit of lettuce, tuna salad and tasteless beets into a small plastic box and headed for the grass.

A classmate was there, one that might be directing me this term. Well that was a bit of good fortune, a chance to investigate further. But we only got so far before she was interrupted by a very important phone conversation and though I thought to wait patiently I couldn't bear it any longer I had to go. Not to the professor's office, no, back home.

So an extra bike ride got thrown into my day, so what. No reason to let that tuna fish salad sit in my belly too long anyway.

All of a sudden I remember my first day of kindergarten. I remember how terrified I was, how I cried and didn't want to let go of my mother and I was not one to cling to my mother. All of a sudden I can see that I am still the same Ophra I was then, and maybe not quite the Ophra I like to believe I am. So what if it's taken me almost 32 years to get to know this side of myself: vulnerable, scared of people, threatened to no end by the prospect of needing to belong and be liked? So what because now I can see it and what a great time to see and bask in this little light now that I have tactics galore to deal with the fear and enough hindsight to suppose with a high likelihood that things will turn out just fine. Frequent reminders may be necessary.

I am not throwing all my pennies in this school basket. If it takes me nowhere or even sends me over the edge I'll do one of my famous flips and find some new ground to tread. Seems I've pressed that red PRESSURE button inside me and all brain functions are crowding at the starting line arguing about how to win the race and if it's even feasible. Deep breath. No rush, no race and if you don't enjoy it save your money and get out...

Now for some real food. Lorenzo is back, I've made something simple and tasty...