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The next step, the next step, the next step. That's all I know how to do these days. It's the most I can do. It's the least I can do. And. It's the best I can do.
Sometimes I get caught up in the question, "What am I supposed to do with the rest of my life?" One is supposed to have a mission in life, right? A great commitment. A vision. At the very least a powerful goal. Even when that is there, it can only be accomplished one step at a time. Stephen King was asked how he could write so many books. "One word at a time," was his reply.
When I don't have clear goals and commitments-when I seem to be improvising my life-I still can only take one step at a time--following the stream of energy that attracts me. The streams of energy that call are infinite in possibilities: a bath, a phone call, a meal, cleaning out a drawer, buying a car, polishing a candlestick, turning on the computer, reading a book, clipping toenails, weeding the garden, getting present with grief, taking a nap, writing the next word of the next newsletter, whatever. (The word "whatever" has come into our modern lexicon to handle our fatigue at so many possibilities.)
I look back on my life and see that just taking the next step is the way it was created. Sometimes, I had no idea why I was going in a certain direction or doing a thing. Sometimes, it may have even looked as if I was going in the wrong direction, only to find out later that I needed to go there to learn some skill or get some gift that helped me fulfill my deepest heart's desires. Sometimes, I thought what I was doing as a bit crazy, but it all is creating a life tapestry one thread at a time that is cohesive and beautiful.
As I follow my own streams of energy, I see that my greatest heart's desires are spiritual: to be fully alive, to love God, life, and myself. What else would matter without these things? In the past, I wanted to be "successful" in the world, so that I could be admired-so that I could be loved. Not having a clue about real love, I reached for illusion thinking that would make me happy. So out of touch with my heart and my body, all my desires were ego desires--or a new category that threatens us all: cultural desires, (desires particular to our culture: being an undersized woman, an oversized man, a billionaire, a movie star.)
I remember a startling moment when my dear friend Anna, who shared my desire for success, "got it". We were in the dressing room back stage at a theater in Huntington, L.I. where we were both performing in my play, Juno's Swans. The audience had loved it, loved her and gave her a standing ovation. She turned to me while taking off her make up. "Well," she said, "How many is it going to take? That was five hundred. Will it take five thousand? Five million? Five billion?" And we looked at one another and sighed, realizing the futility of trying to satisfy the ego-fill it up enough to feel satisfied and loved. Then, we started to laugh-and laughed for a long, long time.
I saw the insanity, but still continued to fall into the trap of thinking that fame, being admired by lots of people I didn't know, looking good would somehow convince some part of me that I was loveable.
It's such a yummy drug, having people come up to me and tell me how much they "loved" my performance, how much it moved them, affected them. I like it a lot, but I've learned not expect this experience to supply me with self-love. No awards, great reviews, or adulation ever did anything to cure my self-hatred. Only by learning compassion for myself, perhaps through giving it to others, have I begun to hear a voice inside that says, "I'm here. I'm right here. It's all right." Ego gratification does not create self-love. Wealth and acquisitions do not create trust and security.
Which would you rather do: live a happy, rather ordinary life, or live a personally tortured life but you've written a great American Novel? Because I knew nothing about self-love, in the past I would have opted to be admired by total strangers for writing a good play or book. Illusions don't die easily.
Over and over again we read about a person whose "boat has come in" only to find that it doesn't stay afloat once they get on board and set out to sea. Patrick Dennis, who wrote Auntie Mame among 15 other published novels was pretty much clinging to his capsized boat after he achieved a great deal of fame. He tried to commit suicide, became an alcoholic, spent all his money, and ended up the last three years of his life as a butler for Kroc (the man who founded McDonald's), who had no idea that the man serving him was once a very famous and rich author. Ironically, Dennis seems to have enjoyed being a butler though he could not "make any sense of it" himself.
Dennis had written Mame for fun. He wrote it in 90 days. It was a lark, he said. He wrote it because he wanted to write it-not because he was setting out to write a New York Times best seller. It was when he started trying to write a New York Times best seller that he lost it. Perhaps being a butler relieved the inner pressure he had put upon himself.
Probably the greatest discovery I am making in this life is how happy I can be without all the things that I thought I needed to do or have in order to be happy: a fantasy husband, a thin, gorgeous body, a career as an actress in which I am in great demand, and lots and lots of money. I have none of those things-none of my illusions have been fulfilled.
On the other hand, I'm also living in a way that I thought would make me miserable: I am living as an ordinary person-a human, god forbid. Yet I find myself living in more and more peace and bliss and fun and excitement and freedom and aliveness and gratitude. These are things I had not wanted because I had not known them. They were not in my experience.
How nice to find out that "ordinary" people can be happy and blissful-that one does not have to be rich or famous or beautiful or talented to be happy. Seems silly right there in print, doesn't it? Wouldn't it be a horribly cruel world if no one but the people on the covers of Vanity Fair could be happy? It's taken me a long time to dissolve my illusions. I'm not done yet, God knows.
So, I keep taking the next step. Sometimes, it's a step into darkness. I have learned that it is the trips into and through the darkness that make me stronger and more courageous and more at peace.
After my mother's death was one of those times. My grieving period went on much longer than I had expected. I had expected that because I had come to such peace about my relationship to my Mother, that my grieving period would be much shorter. It was one of those "hidden" expectations that I only discover in hindsight. I had assumed that my last, very long newsletter would somehow complete my grieving process. That was just me trying to control life once again. It was not to be.
In the following months I dipped down again and again into profound sadness. It was as if I had to go through my entire childhood and feel all the pain and losses that I had not fully felt before.
God conspired to help me do this. My life was fairly empty. And kept emptying out, it seemed. Camilla, my much-beloved Cadillac, was on her last legs. I had to shop for and get a new car. My computer also died a slow death (the AC connector worked sporadically), which discouraged me from writing. No jobs. No inspiration. I functioned. I took what steps I had to-like shopping for a new car. I even made certain I got out and had fun-like singing in the good News Gospel choir, which was great fun and uplifting. I continued, thank God, to teach. My classes were my support, my mainstay. But, almost every day, it seemed, a wave of grief would hit me and I could do nothing but sit down and have a good cry.
I realized things I had not known before: how abandoned I had felt by my mother after my daddy died. Mother died for me then as well. She turned me over to my grandmother and went back to school-shutting herself up in her room day after day. I know it was her way of protecting herself from the full force of her own grief. Perhaps even looking at me was too painful and a reminder of her own loss. Something in our relationship died then never to be repaired. I grieved that loss and many more.
Julie was an enormous help in getting me to accept the depth of the grief that I was experiencing. I read in a comforting brochure that the loss of the mother, no matter how old we are or how difficult the relationship was, is a profound event. I kept expecting it to be over---like the seemingly never-ending days of rain we had recently. Every time the grief came up, I was surprised. But, there it was. I was reminded of the Dalai Lama's process when his dear brother passed on. "I was sad for a long, long time and gradually, I was not so sad."
The emptiness was so great that I felt as if my own life was over. I was not inspired to do anything. So, I "chopped wood and carried water" like the Buddhists say and stopped now and then to weep copious, wild tears.
Finally, I was inspired to redo my bathroom and bedroom. It was the only thing I really wanted to do. I decided that instead of fearing or resisting the emptiness, I would participate with the Universe in creating even more. So, I started cleaning and throwing out things in the medicine chest and under the sink and in the closet. I painted the bathroom. It was more difficult than I anticipated: it took three coats. I washed the rugs in the bedroom, made duvet covers, polished the candlesticks, washed the walls, and did a myriad of detail work. It took a couple of weeks or more. Nesting. Heavy nesting. Julie said I must be preparing for something. I didn't know what.
One day it was finished. I sat on my deck writing in my journal during a spell of weeping. I felt at the end of my ability to sit in so much sadness. "OK, God," I wrote. "It's up to you! I can't do any more!" I threw down my journal, walked into the house. The phone rang. It was a job offer to do the lead in a staged reading production of a new Eve Ansler play called Necessary Targets at the Film and Stage Festival at Vassar. It was a true God Send-a working vacation. The character is a psychiatrist who goes to Bosnia to help women war refugees. The experience is shocking for her, and by the end of the play, her life is completely uprooted. In the last monologue, she talks about the emptiness that she is facing. My mouth dropped open as I read the final monologue. Tailor-made for me, it seemed.
I felt blessed by the whole experience. Not only did I work on a wonderful project myself, but I had the opportunity to see new and exciting theater with wonderful actors. Our director, Michael Wilson, who is the artistic director at Hartford Stage, is so nurturing and intelligent. Eve Ansler is a loving, funny, brave woman and writer. The actors in the piece were all wonderful. The darkness of human experience that the play ventures into required such bravery on everyone's part. To me, art connects me more to God than any religion ever has. Venturing into such darkness with truth and compassion brings me to greater and greater light.
It was not easy. I read Peter Maas' hair-raising but well-written book about Bosnia called Love Thy Neighbor. I could only read bits at a time. What happened there seems incomprehensible--a nightmare that cannot be real.
The first time we performed the play, I went into a state of shock. I sat in the dressing room afterwards literally gripping the dressing room table. I could not speak. My mind was going wild. I thought I had done a terrible job, of course. I promised myself I would never act again. I panicked thinking that I couldn't even teach acting again. What would I do? Was I too old to get a job at the post office? All these thoughts whipped through my mind loudly and at lightning speed. After ten minutes or so, I knew that I could not stay there gripping the table. I would have to walk through the theater and get out of there. I started walking-feeling like I was floating. I began to realize that I was in a state of shock. Michael, the director, was the first person I encountered. "Wonderful show!" he said as if he actually meant it.
"Oh, Michael." I said in a whisper. "I'm in trouble. I'm in trouble. I'm really upset."
When asking that question recently regarding a situation, she found, to her astonishment, that the most committed response to it was "No." We talked about it. How important NO is! Knowing what you don’t want and backing yourself up is a hugely commmitted thing to do. "Don’t do anything you don’t want to do!" Mother called out to me one night when I visited recently. "It’s the key to life!" she added emphatically as I kissed her good night. Indeed. There is simply no way to do what you want to do until you can clearly say no to what you don’t want to do.
"What?" he said with concern and put his arms around me. His compassion unleashed me. I started boo hooing all over his shirt. The unleashing of my emotions woke me up to the fact that I had landed smack dab in the middle of my character. "This is exactly how J.S. feels when she comes back from Bosnia!" I was experiencing it in a real, visceral way. I really began to understand the last monologue in which she says that her life is "completely stopped" and that she has "no country, no profession, no purpose, no reason and no direction." It takes a pretty startling event to do that to someone who has a well-worked out, successful life. Shock is what does that. Once I got the depth of the shock and the truth of it, I never had to experience it that way again in the following performances-but it was there, informing every performance.
In the following performances I found a moment in which I could feel and express all the pain that caused the shock. It was brief, wild but allowed me to feel fully expressed.
"How you land is not how you did," I have said over and over again in class. That's a hard one, but it's true. How we land is just information about the character that we did not know before. But we take all those thoughts and feelings and make them about us-about how we did or who we are. We make all kinds of decisions and judgments about ourselves that really belong to the character. It's one of the greatest dangers in acting: to take on the character's feelings and thoughts and make them about ourselves.
On the other hand, the synchronicity that happens with a character is sometimes astonishing and is there to help us grow (not judge ourselves). My character's coming face to face with a kind of cosmic emptiness, the opening of her heart by the women in the refugee camp reverberated in my life.. How her heart was opened by the courage, and honesty and support of those women. On Saturday 12 people from class rented a van and came up to see the play. It was such an act of love and support! "Who are all those people who came to see you?!" one of the actors marveled. "They seem so loving and warm!"
"My refugee camp." I answered half joking. Like my character, J.S., I feel so grateful and transformed by my classes.
Doing the play was one of those peak experiences--like bungee jumping off Mt. Everest. Vassar is gorgeous. One day I took a walk in the rain through the gardens and around Sunset Lake with no thought but "Thank you. Thank you!" The rain was warm. I felt baptized and cleansed by it.
Acting feels great when you can give it all to the character, fully express everything and land feeling clear and complete. It's a clean feeling. Wouldn't it be interesting if it were the same way when we "land" after passing through this life? Suppose we're given a role to play-say an E Katherine Kerr role (substitute your own name there)-when you die, if there was anything that was not expressed during your lifetime, you will start feeling those things then. Feelings must be felt. It all comes rushing up and you could make terrible judgments about yourself and how you did, when, really, it was just where you landed---in what was not expressed. It sounds very logical to me. If it happens, don't take it on, give it all to the role you played and remember to express it the next time.
Personally, I'm going for getting everything out and expressed before I pass on (ergo The Newsletter).
The next step after I returned home was just like the book title says, After the Ecstasy, the Laundry.
I did the laundry. I went through many steps to buy a computer and a video camera. I'm following the energy currents of desire and interest. I'm really excited about a class that I'm going to take at the Film and Video Association in New York to learn non-linear editing with Adobe Premier. It's a step in my desire to video tape my classes and be able to edit them.
And so, it goes, like Kurt Vonnegut said. Where are you, my loved ones, in the dance of steps? The laundry? The Ecstasy? The Dark? The Challenge? Emptiness? Searching? Is your next step Inner or Outward? Perhaps you dance all these steps every day. If what faces you looks like a mountain, remember you don't take long strides up a mountain. Shorten your stride--take tiny steps, get on all fours. Crawl up a mountain. Take a moment and love yourselves for where you are and the steps you have taken.
