THE PERPETUAL VISITOR: Sustainable Creative Living.
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  • Blog
  • About Me
  • Things I Teach
  • Things I Make
    • The Book: The Perpetual Visitor
    • Wild Unfolding: and other poems
    • New Bird
    • The Podcast
    • Theatre
    • Film
    • Poetry
  • Contact

Poem: Bright Wealth

3/25/2020

10 Comments

 
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I took a walk today,
and the outside felt so good,
like a fresh breeze blowing through
my worn out brain
or fragrant petals floating round
my bruised heart,
as the blue sky hung above,
speckled with stars I can’t see.
As I made my way towards the park,
I ate a clementine, picked and shipped
by loving family on the West Coast
and I swear,
I could taste the California light
in each bright, juicy bite.
I savored the curvy canyons
and craggy coastline
and the cold Pacific on my tongue.
Fingers sticky, I grasped the empty rind,
now bereft of its secret inside,
and felt the drops of rain
that started to dampen my hair,
threatening to soak my circle skirt
and saturate the swell of an ocean
churning in my chest.
Even as I ran home,
my leather boots beating the pavement
like a drum
and
the taste of faraway fruit lingering
on my cracked lips,
I knew.
This is all we have.
And oh, how rich we are.
10 Comments

Give it Time, Dear

3/22/2020

2 Comments

 
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Oh, Friends. How are you doing? So much has happened since I last wrote in this space, and the world feels upside down. I truly hope that you are healthy, safe, and taking good care of yourselves during this stressful time.

The past week knocked me over. I didn't see it coming, then feared it was barreling our way, hoped it would not hit us, and then felt the full force of having the spiritual wind knocked out of me when it finally did. Headlines looked like they were from a disaster movie and everywhere I turned, I felt completely awash in doom and gloom. Overwhelmed and overstimulated. Sad and anxious and angry. I still feel these things.

Everywhere I look, I see people mobilizing and organizing and planning virtual performances, storytimes, happy hours. Social media has been plastered with inspirational qutes about using this time to write, invent, paint, create all kinds of things, chase down those dreams you've always dreamed. These notions are so thoughtful and lovely and hopeful. 

And? These things, too, make me feel overwhelmed and overstimulated and frankly, exhausted. During the first few days of adjusting to working from home last week, I was struggling with what felt like the basics. I was having a hard time cooking a meal, getting used to Zoom work meetings, and on some mornings, I had to muster every ounce of energy I had to raise my head above the fog of depression that had descended over my being to simply get out of bed and start the day. Putting more pressure on myself to keep hustling and innovating and creating felt like trying to run a marathon with a broken leg. It still does.

Now, I'm not saying that if you are finally starting to write that screenplay you always dreamed about writing that you are doing anything wrong. If you feel like it, go with that flow. I'm simply saying that if, like me, you don't feel up to anything but simply adjusting to this new for now normal, you aren't alone and you aren't doing anything wrong. You are simply a human being who is wound up in a million different ways and you deserve compassion and patience and time to adjust. You don't need to hustle or monetize a quarantine routine or "take advantage" of this time for anything other than taking care of your precious self and not apologizing for it.

Up until now, I haven't been ready to get working on anything super social or creative. It's been a privilege to hunker down in my apartment and work from home, safe and warm, and I know that. I do. But as someone with anxiety, a history of depression, and ongoing OCD, it's been an incredible challenge in its own right. Staying to myself a lot this past week has felt selfish, AND it's what I've needed to do each day, faithfully, in order to get through the day. I've needed to stop putting pressure on myself to start a big social media movement or a new podcast or produce some kind of online theatre performance. I haven't been ready to do so. I've begun to limit news, checking only a handful of times per day, and largely stay away from social media, as I feel just as overwhelmed by the positive suggestions as I do the dark and gloomy commentary. It's all been too loud for me. Funny how an overload of hope can be just as noisy as fear mongering. Does anyone know what I mean?

As it turns out, today I did participate in something creative, an online performance of a new play, performed via Zoom, and to be perfectly honest, even up until the performance itself, I still didn't feel ready to do something that required that much energy. Once the performance began, the momentum of making something with other people washed over me and lifted my heart. I got to meet some wonderful artists from all around the country and act for the first time in over a year, and via a completely new-to-me medium nonetheless. I was able to muster enough energy to do a reading of a new play, but I also didn't have to write the play, produce it, or act as stage manager of sorts, which I'm not in the state of mind to do at the moment. All I needed to do was show up for a rehearsal and then almost immediately following, the performance, all from a script that didn't need to be memorized. Along with the reading, this blog post is all I have for today. I might not have anything sharable in me tomorrow or next week and that has to be ok. 

I'm so grateful for and have incredible respect for people who do have the energy for that kind of organizing and creative work right now, but I also am trying to respect the fact that I'm not there yet. For me, I'm just trying to get through the day, taking as good of care of my physical and mental health as I can. 

All this is to say that if you aren't yet feeling the peace or the joy or the freedom of this new normal yet, you aren't alone.

The shape of things is changing, and even if and when we get back to what we think of as "business as usual", this new routine is here for awhile and any new routine takes time to adjust to.

There's no right way to respond and there is no wrong way to feel.

We are all just figuring this out together for the first time.

If you're organizing a big project, I admire you.

If you are picking up a forgotten hobby after a long hiatus, I hope you find bits of joy in the uncertainly.

If you are unable to get dressed most days and are not showering and staving off one panic attack after another, please know that I respect you, too. We are all just doing the best we can. 

I'm trying to treat myself like my seven year old self this week and let her do what she needs to do to get through. Binging old episodes of Outlander and eating chocolate cake for dinner? Yes. Wearing the same outfit three days in a row? Go for it. Signing offline to purposefully turn down the noise of it all and walking outside to spy the new spring blooms? Do it. 

Take care during these days, and give yourself permission to feel whatever it is you feel. Let yourself not be ready yet.  Readiness cannot be rushed. 
2 Comments

Poem: Light a Candle

3/17/2020

2 Comments

 
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​Tonite I light a candle, 
for no one in particular.
Or maybe just for me. 
For each and everyone.
A vigil for the sustainability of our sanity,
that we can make it through 
this moment
before the moment (whatever that might be).
A prayer that we might breathe easy, 
body and soul,
and that we may not sink so deeply into 
the mud of our own mind 
that we’re unable to unfurl our own fumbling fingers
towards a friend or a stranger, 
who too, seeks a hand, however weathered,
to hold.

2 Comments

There's Always Time For Beauty

3/8/2020

1 Comment

 
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These last couple of weeks have been absolutely stuffed with BIG FEELINGS for so many, on both a personal level and global scale. Having gone down the wormhole of panic last week and having since emerged still very concerned but decidedly more clear minded, I find myself trying to feel my way through all of it and not forget to notice the beauty around me in the process.

What? You might ask. How in the world can you think about beauty at a time like this? What is WRONG with you?!

Before you judge me too harshly, give me a chance to explain.

It’s easy to think of beauty as something extra, something we should appreciate when things get tough. It's understandable to dismiss finding pleasure in something at a time like this; certainly that means you are either in denial or selfish, or both. But see, here's the thing, the truth: the possibility for beauty and joy exists in every moment. It doesn't always outshine or outweigh the dark, but it serves as a candle in the the vastness of the unknown, burning nonetheless. We can either turn our back on its light, or turn to face it and let it warm our hearts for a time, no matter how brief. The light and dark exist side by side. There is no way to separate the two. 

Beauty has so much joy to gift you, even when—especially when you are feeling low. The people and things that bring us wonder and joy are what give us life. Beauty and pleasure and delight are what we are fighting for, the qualities we are trying to get back to at any given difficult time. These things are nature to desire. We shouldn't have to justify our love of beauty because it makes us feel alive. If we feel the need to prove we deserve it at any given moment, we will find ourselves trying to justify why we deserve to be alive at all. 

In the midst of all the stress and preparation and necessary concern this week, I've picked up advance prescriptions at the pharmacy, bought extra food, and tried to run any errands I need to before hunkering down at home for goodness knows how long. I've tried to do my best to spy the glints of beauty.

Sometimes it's a family of singing birds in the branches outside my living room window. Other times it's watching a film and feeling really struck by a moment between two actors. And when I can't seem to find anything ready made to lift my spirits, I've been trying to make those moments myself. Some days, it's been walking around my neighborhood with my camera, trying to take photographs of the buds on the trees, waiting patiently for their debut. Other times, it's scribbling a short phrase or a few words that I think are particularly pleasing in my journal, for no other reason other than I like the way they sound when I say them aloud. 

My cat sleeping in a heap of blankets.

A clementine eaten in the sun.

Correspondence from a dear friend.

A book I can't put down.

This little scene is my dresser at night and its dim beauty struck me in the moment as something beuatiful. Gazing at this scene as I'm lying in bed getting ready for sleep makes me feel cozy and offers a bit of comfort in the midst of fear. There are some handmade / handpicked gifts from friends, a few photos of those I love, a thrifted thing or two, and special items I inherited of my grandparents. Oh, and flowers I gifted myself last week as a publishing day present! Each item is so singular and could never be replaced and though that idea can be frightening, it’s what makes these things precious. It also makes me so grateful to have such special one of a kind items in my care at the present time.


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Once you start to notice the beauty, you soon see it everywhere. It's not distracting me from the serious matters at hand, as I often fear. Quite the contrary. It's helping me to care for my nervous system in a way that in turn bolsters my immunity, makes me feel more energized, and allows me to avoid the tunnel vision of anxiety where it's all about ME, and lets me look around at the other human beings I share this planet with and start considering what I might do to bring someone else delight. Wonder. A helping hand. A listening ear.

​Noticing the beauty doesn't mean you've buried your head in the sand. It also doesn't mean overlooking the things that are jagged, rough, and painful. There is beauty woven into even those things. No, noticing and cherishing the beauty you find isn't evidence that you are naive or irresponsible or that you only want to see what's convenient. No. Seeing the beauty is proof that your eyes and heart are open, that you are noticing the world around you. And the power that comes from that kind of awareness is beyond measure. 


Here's a few more things I discovered this week that sparked some joy for me. I hope they might do the same for you. 

1. This brief video clip of Covid-19 quarantined Italians singing from their open windows and balconies. Is there anything more hopeful than people who refuse to let the darkness and fear keep them from raising their voices in song with their neighbors?

2. This gorgeous rendition of Swedish folk duo's original song, Emmylou. And they are sisters, which is so sweet.

3. If you need some visual beauty, head to www.unsplash.com. I love this website so much, as it has so many stunning images and makes me feel like a kid again, poring over ALL the pcitures. There's even a search function that lets you look for photos by subject or keyword, which is super fun.
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Photo by Alexander Andrews on Unsplash

This poem by Hafiz. And really, ANY poem by Hafiz. 
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Take care, everyone. Be on the watch. Beauty is out there, patiently waiting to be discovered, or maybe even made. 
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    Author

    My name is Melissa and I'm an actor, playwright, author, filmmaker, and teaching artist who wants to help you discover, cultivate, and care for your creativity. 
     
    What does being creative mean to you?

    How do you play every day?

    This is a space for taking a break, a breath,  and finding ways to flex our imagination and find the joy where we can. 

    ​No one is going to present us with a ready made creative life--we have  to step up and gift it to ourselves. I'm so glad you're here.

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