When my world is shaking

Go back to the beginning.
Go back to the beginning, to your foundation, to the problem, to where it all feels right-then go from there.
As a child, this is what we are told to do if things begin to feel a little hazy. To not start over, but to go back to the start and work through whatever problems we're having.
Going back is a tricky thing-you've already gone through it, so sometimes it's easy to skip over the parts we don't want to do again-or the parts that we think we know how to do.
...that's the problem-we think we know how to go through the steps correctly.
The trick is to sensibly follow our instincts to where we feel we should stop-back to that foundation. To where it all feels right. Then, once we've reached this...it is time to observe. Observe both the good and the bad-the sweet and the sour. Do not dwell, do not indulge-just observe. Take in what you might have missed before that would make that moment more glorious for you that what you missed before. It's all there, every moment of every day has beautiful and endearing moments...but we move through life too quickly to really see them and embrace them because we think we know how to go through life. We don't. We really really don't. The old women tell us 'youngins' to slow down for a reason. They can't go back-we can't either, but if we recognize how beautiful the world is, it will be easier for us to experience what we're meant to. The glory of life.

A little list of home.

Being on stage has it's obstacles. Lines. Blocking. Costumes. Lights. True Meaning. Focus. Plus so much more. While on stage, as much as you want to live in the world in which you and others have tried so hard to create-really-the last thing you want is for something to invade that space and destroy it. The unexpected. An actors nightmare. Though this is so true, it's interesting to seem to really want real life to blend so easily from off the stage to on. Funny how that works huh? Tonight during a scene, something that happened sparked a core within me that I hadn't thought of in a long time. Home. I starting thinking about my house. Not just the structure-but the little things within in that warm my heart to drift there so often. My home home.

The way the light hits the wood floor in the summer evenings. The smell of fresh cut grass with the doors flung open. The way Lily sits by the back door with her head cocked ever so slightly making up her mind if she wants to go out or if she is content. How the curtains in my room sway with the breeze-only here do they dance the dance they do. The spice rack by the stove-little nick knacks around the house. Scratches in floors, on walls, in furniture and the stories of how they came to be. Great hide and seek places. Fall memories of leaf piles, Halloween candies, and spiced smells that seep into the walls that almost seem to last year round. Winter emotions with the crackling of our fireplace in the den-the twinkle of the lights in the dark late at night. Spring lilies sprouting up round the house-standing by the door watching mom tend to her garden day in day out. Summer rain pounding, beating, pleading to come in from the storm-the only comfort that surrounds those days is the binding of books that are shared. Evenings on the porch. Singing with dad. The simplicity of a family dinner. The simplicity of life. The necessity for love and compassion towards one another. The generosity of a neighbor. The fondness of normalcy-the habit of home.

Life happens and develops-it surrounds and influences everything it touches whether we as humans want it to or not. Tonight, it appeared both on and off the stage. The life prior to me stepping onto the stage was brought back to me like a drifting bottle, and only by a small word that was said in the world on stage that we had created: love. The whole show is about love, but it isn't until the end that we hear a listening-a game-a poem-of the little things in life that in a seasonal round about way, have meaning. These little things spark passion, memories, life cycles...love. The relationship between instances in life and a human being is well...astonishing to me...These little things are not so little-but monumental in the fact that they have rooted such meaning in the characters lives on stage that they have created who they are and the lives they live. It really makes you wonder what 'little' things have influenced your life and the way you live it-or more so, the 'little' things that you have influenced upon others lives that may have caused them to live a certain way or wonder a specific thought.

Still...what amazes me even more-is how the simple things in life have such meaning and steal such focus because of the fact that they are simple and beautiful and tangible. The things that are really meaningful in life have a magical way-a being almost in which they are able to reach out across boundaries as if on a brisk evening stroll from beyond the world of that fourth wall and into the minds and lives of the characters standing on that black stage. In my opinion, Truth in life, Truth in love, Simplicity of being alive and thankfully living, The honesty of it all-if honesty is really and truly happening-is such a gift. A gift that feels like the comfort and beauty...of the affectionately demure habits of home.

'hello! i'm here to dance-hello!!!!???!

one of my absolute favorites.
forever and always.

Against the Grain

There's something so special about looking at something old. A headboard made of wood, shined and cleaned to it's best at this date, holding the stories within its smudges and knots. So simple yet so complex with it's ridges bound tightly together. It's odd to think that the wood of this frame was grown for years upon years together, almost as a family, and now it's here. Stained and shiny, years of use holding stories upon stories as it has so warningly sat above the heads of dreamers.

'You need not to climb mountain tops, you need not to cross the sea. You need not to find a cure for everything that makes you weak. You need not to reach for the stars when life becomes so dark, and when the wind does blow against the grain, you must follow your heart'

I find it interesting that the deeper and more silently you sleep, the more vivid the dream. These are the dreams that are hard to shake. These are the nights it's harder to wake...then, we you finally do...everything seems a little different. As if you have already lived what you dreamed, real friends, real things, real life. It has shaped the world you now live in. Not tangible, just a little odd and fuzzy.

'When all your friends have come and gone and the sun no longer shines. And the happiness for which we long is washed away like an oceans tide. When all the hard times outweigh the good, and all your words are misunderstood, when the day seems lost from the start-you must follow your heart.'

The day goes about with images of that dream washing in and out of your mind much like the waves of an ocean, yet you can't wash them away. They are real to you. They happened. Still...the tangible life must continue.

'If you feel you've paid the price and the wounds just cease to heal and everything you love in life spins like a winding wheel. If you should wake to find you're abandon and the road you travel leads to a dead end and death creeps in to play it's part-you must follow your heart.'

But the long day will come to an end when the comfort of that knotted wooden headboard will offer a place for those dreamers. This, is home. This is where the dreams become tangible. The real, because, it is real to you, so it must be true-right? The stories will unfold into the folds and crevasses of the wood. They can climb mountain tops, they can cross the sea, find cures for everything that makes those weaker. Stars can be reached at all costs and when the wind does blow against the grain...the heart will be followed. The dreamers heart will be followed to what is true and what is real.

Cooooooooooooool New Blog-Maybe

There's this thought that's brewing around in my noggin...a new blog for just music posts/interesting videos. Maybe. This may happen. No one will look at it though "No one reads your blog Brian!". Thank you Second City Improv for promoting this fact that we all already secretly know but won't ever confess.

Also, best part of my day went like this:

'Ok dancers, today we're going to move on and learn how to do a cartwheel. Now this is what the steps are in slow motion...(shows the steps in slow motion) and this is what you will be able to do with lots of practice and when you go faster...(does a real cartwheel).
(The loudest five year old in the class, but this time at a whisper) "Cooooooooooooooooooooooool".

Yeap, that's right. I am Cooooooooooooooooooooooool.

a writer i will be

A pen that scratches...a pen that scratches. That is what I need. A pen that when put to paper scratches as words that bind together into a story come pouring out the tip and onto the soon to be filled paper. Then I could be a writer. A true writer. A true writer with a pen that scratches...maybe a feather could possibly be attached to it as well. :-) Then I would really be a writer. A real writer with no boundaries, no ceasing, only words words and more words. Words that flow as gently or harsh as waves of the sea. I will take a trip to the forest to write. There in the forest is where my pen will scratch away and create what it will.
Yep. That's what I need.

A pen that scratches, three pages a day, don't throw the paper away and fill my room with stories from sea to shore and even more...a writer I will be. LaDaDadada, LaDadadaaah Da da da, daa dum.



fun find.

um excuse me miss...

(Ladies restroom in a hip wine bar. Two stalls. Jazz music is heard overhead to 'You don't own me')

'You don't own me-la la lala la laa--No, You DON'T OWN ME!!!'
(Flush. Pause)

'Um, excuse me miss-your singing sounds really pretty'.





how. embarrassingly funny.
what a week i had.

one woman show

love love love love them.

A Homegrown Poem

It's winter in Kansas
And the gentle breezes blow
Seventy miles an hour
At thirty-five below.

Oh, how I love Kansas
the snow's up to your butt
You take a breath of winter
And your nose gets frozen shut.

Yes, the weather here is wonderful
So I guess I'll hang around
I could never leave Kansas
I'm frozen to the ground!

Nine.

wow red carpet.