The eyebrow raised, the narrowing of the eyes, and a skeptical smile spreads across their face as I answer their questions...
Interviewer: "why did you move to Seattle"
Me: "oh, you know, I was curious. Always have wondered what Seattle was like"
Interviewer: "And you're an actress?"
Me: "Yes. I act... sometimes. but yes I am an actor."
Interviewer: "And how long do you see yourself in Seattle?"
Me: wheels turning in my head, do i lie, do i lie, yes, you must lie or you will not get a job... and therefore be broke, and you will have spent every dime you have saved so you could do something responsible, like make a deposit on an apartment in NYC with your husband... Not so you could randomly follow the small voice inside your heart saying, go to Seattle... Seattle. Seattle... and see what you can find...
"At least till the end of the year... next year. not this year in 2009.. ending. but like a school year? um. I'm renting... I'll be here... for... not sure.. but long enough... to... make it worth your while..."
just smile... smile really big and really long, and maybe he will believe me.
It's raining, and i don't have a raincoat on. The sun has set and the lights from the city are smeared white, red and yellow in the rain that covers its glow. The smoke billows out of the factory pipes around the edges of the highways trafficking people into the heart of downtown Seattle. But I am up on my hill, my west Seattle hill removed from the chaotic flow of headlights reflecting off the slick roadways. My socks are wet. I am clutching onto a paper bag, journeying home from the grocery store with some rice and red wine. Even though it is raining, I choose to take the long way home...even though i have never felt so alone, i turn down the darkest streets. I don't worry about the sketchy hooligans that might be out, because I am one of them tonight. with my hood up, my clothes sopping wet, my gaze turned down, and my steps heavy with unpredictability. I am left to wander, to wonder, to think up and create a solution. Fitting money, time and necessities to the beat of vision, desires, goals, intuition, guidance, teachers... it's a rhythm I have yet to choreograph a dance to.
So in my contemplative mood, still no day job, still no tangible sense as to where I am heading, I sit in a coffee shop... yes it's the deliciously brewed organic, sipped in a real mug, we don't won't to create more waste, drip coffee,(americanos are for people with jobs), type of Seattle coffee shop you would imagine... so many individuals being expressive and unique that they accidentally start becoming exactly alike, that the individual is going to have to turn back around and become the one who goes to Starbucks and wears clothes from Old Navy or the Gap to be unique. OR maybe just maybe, it will turn into something more beautiful, past the clothes we wear or the newspaper we read or the name of the grocery store we shop at or the co-op we belong to or what activist group we are apart of, and we start concentrating on the real issue at hand, the real reason for protest and radical change. I am an individual, who is sick of individuals who think they are individuals when they are just following the fad of being an individual. or maybe I've just lived in cities for too long where the option for self expression is taken for granted.. i don't know.
Anyhow, I told the director of Hot Babes this evening that I am unable to continue rehearsals as Serendip. For several reasons, for reasons that I am sleeping on a couch in a living room, for reasons I eat rice for dinner, for reasons that I have the ghosts of Eleanora Duse and Stella Adler visiting me at night questioning me about art and feminism, and truth and justice. And having just listened to a song by Nick Drake I feel there is no need to explain why I said no... I don't feel the need to rationalize my decision any further, however i do feel the need to talk about how I ended up in the exact Coffee house that my cast had spoken about two days earlier, saying it was a good place to do a table read, and that the director fully agreed, as they didn't have the theatre for the next two days and would need to find another location... I look at my watch... it's 6:50pm. Rehearsals start at 7pm... shit... F***.... shit... damn it. Did I really need to come to the ONE coffee shop In ALL of Seattle, the Town of the MOSt coffee shops ever... where I might run into the cast, the director that I rejected less than 24 hours ago... and put everyone involved in an uncomfortable situation. Yes... yes i did. Because it was down the street from the Film Forum where I was going to see Beeswax, a film, part of the mumble core movement, which is what I really want to be doing with my art, not prancing around the stage talking about how amazing my tits are, which is fine, I like tits... they are a necessary and a very fun aspect of life.... anyway... I really really don't like confrontation, and I don't like making other people embarrassed because it embarrasses me that they are embarrassed... and you know, i know i need to get over that, and I am working on it, but right now, that moment in the coffee shop... I was dying. I quickly scope the scene... decide to stay downstairs because if they come in they will go upstairs where the music and crowds will be less noisy, and the opening and closing of the door won't be a distraction. Okay, so downstairs, in a corner... no corner available... okay so a chair closest to the wall... facing away from the door... but what if they see me and approach me from behind? I will be completely caught off guard and that would be even worse!... okay SO facing the door, so I can See them approaching... I will undoubtedly see them first, and have time to hide... or at least time to think up a good excuse as to why I am here.... like, Oh i know I am not in the play anymore but, i thought i would come and say goodbye properly... or provide...some...sort... of morale encouragement...? So i position myself facing the door and window area... I try to relax, and enjoy my drip coffee and free newspaper... just then a couple clears out and a table to the back, not exactly a corner, but closer to the corner of the store with a fairly decent view of the floor and window area opens up... I gather my things and surreptitiously move to settle down again, pick up my newspaper and begin to spy at not only the door but every patron in the area, they could have slipped in without me noticing and be sitting right next to me... While I am mostly gazing the scene and not reading my newspaper at all, I see the table I have been waiting for... yes... they are leaving... It's in a corner, the corner of all corners in the store, it's own little cubby hole practically... where you can see everything going on, but be almost invisible if you try hard enough. SO i again scramble together my coat, and bag, and newspaper and my coffee, and phone and wallet... and like a cat pounce on the corner table... I pull my beanie further over my forehead and tuck my hair up inside it, I might look like a boy now even... perfect. The evening moves on, and I finally settle down... my interests don't lie in reading tonight however, i remain intrigued by the door, and the people, and the small interchanges between the strangers that pass one another sharing this evening coffee drinking ritual.
I'm not going to lie, I feel a bit stoned as this tribal dance song captures my imagination. All of a sudden I am a spectator to this two gentlemen in a coffee shop dance. One has a very long mustache, as if he glued it onto his upper lip just for the occasion. he is hunched over his newspaper, nose two inches off the page, while his partner in dance is placed one table in front of him. sitting erect. bringing his coffee up all the way to his lips without as much as a bend in the spine. one is in black the other in white. they face the same direction, on the same line. their movements are completely in tune with the music, yet are as different as night and day. Then suddenly another man runs outside past the window with his brightly colored dog eared hat on and turns his head in slow motion towards me... and smiles from ear to ear as he swings his arms, pumping his knees in a jog while the sides of his hat are flapping against his face. The song fades, and I come back down to the coffee shop, and I thank god for that little display of life.
It's time to leave Seattle. I have no job, and no more money. So the winds have shifted and my time here is over.
It has been 6 months. 6 months, 4 states, 3 jobs, journeys on planes, shuttles, cars, trains, and foot... to get to where I am. Penniless and Happy. Alone, yet so full of love. Blessed with friends who are family... and friends who are strangers who took me in... I have had good food, and warm beds. I do not know much... I know that. But I do know that Love and stories, and fire and food, and laughter, and life is why we are here. to share these things with one another. I feel so full. So blessed. So broke! Yet again. Ah tis the story of my life.
I have taken the long way home. I... Take... The... Long... way... Home.... dot dot dot... and fill in the blanks as I go along.
Interviewer: "why did you move to Seattle"
Me: "oh, you know, I was curious. Always have wondered what Seattle was like"
Interviewer: "And you're an actress?"
Me: "Yes. I act... sometimes. but yes I am an actor."
Interviewer: "And how long do you see yourself in Seattle?"
Me: wheels turning in my head, do i lie, do i lie, yes, you must lie or you will not get a job... and therefore be broke, and you will have spent every dime you have saved so you could do something responsible, like make a deposit on an apartment in NYC with your husband... Not so you could randomly follow the small voice inside your heart saying, go to Seattle... Seattle. Seattle... and see what you can find...
"At least till the end of the year... next year. not this year in 2009.. ending. but like a school year? um. I'm renting... I'll be here... for... not sure.. but long enough... to... make it worth your while..."
just smile... smile really big and really long, and maybe he will believe me.
It's raining, and i don't have a raincoat on. The sun has set and the lights from the city are smeared white, red and yellow in the rain that covers its glow. The smoke billows out of the factory pipes around the edges of the highways trafficking people into the heart of downtown Seattle. But I am up on my hill, my west Seattle hill removed from the chaotic flow of headlights reflecting off the slick roadways. My socks are wet. I am clutching onto a paper bag, journeying home from the grocery store with some rice and red wine. Even though it is raining, I choose to take the long way home...even though i have never felt so alone, i turn down the darkest streets. I don't worry about the sketchy hooligans that might be out, because I am one of them tonight. with my hood up, my clothes sopping wet, my gaze turned down, and my steps heavy with unpredictability. I am left to wander, to wonder, to think up and create a solution. Fitting money, time and necessities to the beat of vision, desires, goals, intuition, guidance, teachers... it's a rhythm I have yet to choreograph a dance to.
So in my contemplative mood, still no day job, still no tangible sense as to where I am heading, I sit in a coffee shop... yes it's the deliciously brewed organic, sipped in a real mug, we don't won't to create more waste, drip coffee,(americanos are for people with jobs), type of Seattle coffee shop you would imagine... so many individuals being expressive and unique that they accidentally start becoming exactly alike, that the individual is going to have to turn back around and become the one who goes to Starbucks and wears clothes from Old Navy or the Gap to be unique. OR maybe just maybe, it will turn into something more beautiful, past the clothes we wear or the newspaper we read or the name of the grocery store we shop at or the co-op we belong to or what activist group we are apart of, and we start concentrating on the real issue at hand, the real reason for protest and radical change. I am an individual, who is sick of individuals who think they are individuals when they are just following the fad of being an individual. or maybe I've just lived in cities for too long where the option for self expression is taken for granted.. i don't know.
Anyhow, I told the director of Hot Babes this evening that I am unable to continue rehearsals as Serendip. For several reasons, for reasons that I am sleeping on a couch in a living room, for reasons I eat rice for dinner, for reasons that I have the ghosts of Eleanora Duse and Stella Adler visiting me at night questioning me about art and feminism, and truth and justice. And having just listened to a song by Nick Drake I feel there is no need to explain why I said no... I don't feel the need to rationalize my decision any further, however i do feel the need to talk about how I ended up in the exact Coffee house that my cast had spoken about two days earlier, saying it was a good place to do a table read, and that the director fully agreed, as they didn't have the theatre for the next two days and would need to find another location... I look at my watch... it's 6:50pm. Rehearsals start at 7pm... shit... F***.... shit... damn it. Did I really need to come to the ONE coffee shop In ALL of Seattle, the Town of the MOSt coffee shops ever... where I might run into the cast, the director that I rejected less than 24 hours ago... and put everyone involved in an uncomfortable situation. Yes... yes i did. Because it was down the street from the Film Forum where I was going to see Beeswax, a film, part of the mumble core movement, which is what I really want to be doing with my art, not prancing around the stage talking about how amazing my tits are, which is fine, I like tits... they are a necessary and a very fun aspect of life.... anyway... I really really don't like confrontation, and I don't like making other people embarrassed because it embarrasses me that they are embarrassed... and you know, i know i need to get over that, and I am working on it, but right now, that moment in the coffee shop... I was dying. I quickly scope the scene... decide to stay downstairs because if they come in they will go upstairs where the music and crowds will be less noisy, and the opening and closing of the door won't be a distraction. Okay, so downstairs, in a corner... no corner available... okay so a chair closest to the wall... facing away from the door... but what if they see me and approach me from behind? I will be completely caught off guard and that would be even worse!... okay SO facing the door, so I can See them approaching... I will undoubtedly see them first, and have time to hide... or at least time to think up a good excuse as to why I am here.... like, Oh i know I am not in the play anymore but, i thought i would come and say goodbye properly... or provide...some...sort... of morale encouragement...? So i position myself facing the door and window area... I try to relax, and enjoy my drip coffee and free newspaper... just then a couple clears out and a table to the back, not exactly a corner, but closer to the corner of the store with a fairly decent view of the floor and window area opens up... I gather my things and surreptitiously move to settle down again, pick up my newspaper and begin to spy at not only the door but every patron in the area, they could have slipped in without me noticing and be sitting right next to me... While I am mostly gazing the scene and not reading my newspaper at all, I see the table I have been waiting for... yes... they are leaving... It's in a corner, the corner of all corners in the store, it's own little cubby hole practically... where you can see everything going on, but be almost invisible if you try hard enough. SO i again scramble together my coat, and bag, and newspaper and my coffee, and phone and wallet... and like a cat pounce on the corner table... I pull my beanie further over my forehead and tuck my hair up inside it, I might look like a boy now even... perfect. The evening moves on, and I finally settle down... my interests don't lie in reading tonight however, i remain intrigued by the door, and the people, and the small interchanges between the strangers that pass one another sharing this evening coffee drinking ritual.
I'm not going to lie, I feel a bit stoned as this tribal dance song captures my imagination. All of a sudden I am a spectator to this two gentlemen in a coffee shop dance. One has a very long mustache, as if he glued it onto his upper lip just for the occasion. he is hunched over his newspaper, nose two inches off the page, while his partner in dance is placed one table in front of him. sitting erect. bringing his coffee up all the way to his lips without as much as a bend in the spine. one is in black the other in white. they face the same direction, on the same line. their movements are completely in tune with the music, yet are as different as night and day. Then suddenly another man runs outside past the window with his brightly colored dog eared hat on and turns his head in slow motion towards me... and smiles from ear to ear as he swings his arms, pumping his knees in a jog while the sides of his hat are flapping against his face. The song fades, and I come back down to the coffee shop, and I thank god for that little display of life.
It's time to leave Seattle. I have no job, and no more money. So the winds have shifted and my time here is over.
It has been 6 months. 6 months, 4 states, 3 jobs, journeys on planes, shuttles, cars, trains, and foot... to get to where I am. Penniless and Happy. Alone, yet so full of love. Blessed with friends who are family... and friends who are strangers who took me in... I have had good food, and warm beds. I do not know much... I know that. But I do know that Love and stories, and fire and food, and laughter, and life is why we are here. to share these things with one another. I feel so full. So blessed. So broke! Yet again. Ah tis the story of my life.
I have taken the long way home. I... Take... The... Long... way... Home.... dot dot dot... and fill in the blanks as I go along.
Another great read Em; I'm quite curious to see where this is all going, as I'm sure you are as well.
ReplyDeleteyou have been and still are one of my favorite people of all time. love hearing your head. love reading your heart. miss you.
ReplyDelete