On Being Messy

Oh my god. How is this woman seeing into my head and writing my personal mantras on a daily basis?

First there was this which I wrote about over on the H2M blog.

Then today I read this: real life is messy.

Exactly what I have been mulling over in my head the last two days. I know some people manage to combine wild creativity with spotless order but for me it's heads creativity, tails messy house. (Like Heads Carolina, Tails California but without the dude wearing overalls and no shirt. Unfortunately.)

On good days I tell myself that messy = fun = active life = spontaneous = free = strong woman etc. But some days it can get kind of overwhelming and starts to feel more like messy = disorganized = scattered = lazy = bum = get your shit together = ewwwww.

Isn't it funny how something so simple as your living space can have such wildly divergent associations?

And the truth is actually somewhere between those two trains of thought. Which is why it's awesome to hear someone else articulate the reality of being a living breathing human being who occupies space, that it "waxes and wanes… gets messy then neat…out-of-control then serene and collected, and back again. Real life and making and doing is a wild business: work…. in…. progress…."

HELL YES, sister.

I Ching: the creative.

In what I hope will be a new regular feature, I'd like to share with you the I Ching reading I got the other day.

For those of you who don’t know, the I Ching is the Book of Changes, an ancient system of Chinese divination that offers various subtle descriptions of situations one might encounter in life and how best to handle them.


My Mom has always been really into the I Ching, and when I was a bratty 16-year-old I would grudgingly go along with her readings. Then one time in college I borrowed her book and the reading it gave me was so eerily, exactly appropriate to my situation that it gave me pause. Since then I’ve taken it pretty seriously. And lately I’ve started adding this to my morning routine (since I’m currently unemployed I have the luxury of crafting a morning routine that isn’t ‘jump in the shower and grab a bagel on your way out the door.’)

Critics might argue that the answer is not found in the book at all, but in yourself –- and to this I say: BINGO. The book is a tool for sorting through your perceptions and getting some perspective and figuring out what to do. Something you can’t always figure out for yourself.

Anyway. All of this is to give you some context for this bit of wisdom I received the other day. I got the hexagram “the creative” which is the very first one in the book of changes. (The second one is “the receptive.”) It told me this:

The course of the creative alters and shapes beings
until each attains its true, specific nature.

RIGHT ON, I Ching. This mantra has been sticking in my head. It makes me think of the things I’ve learned through creative projects –- things that taught me about performance, sure, but more importantly made me who I am. (And of course, the I Ching isn’t talking about the creative in terms of art but in terms of the most basic life-giving principles.)

Specifically, I immediately thought about these three creative experiences in the last five years, and what they taught me:

BLUE on tour in Poland, 2004 & 2005:

• How to sing and be heard outside. How to hold attention and throw focus.

• How to push past limitations. How to keep going when you are exhausted and the situation is fucked. (Like: there isn’t enough power for lights so we’re going to have people turn their car headlights on. Or, a dog has wandered onstage and is peeing on the set. Or, the set is on fire. I could go on and on.)

• Taking the sheen off the idea that skills can be transferred to you magically upon contact with a “master”. The real training, what makes you strong and reliant, is in doing difficult things.

• How to teach when you can’t rely on language. How to adapt exercises to meet my own needs and the needs of the group.

• How to be a good host. How to make soup in 15 minutes.

Undine (2008-2010) (this makes it seem like Undine is a short-lived friend of mine) (which maybe she is):

• How to withstand pure terror. How to withstand a panic attack. How to do something when you really, truly think you can’t do it.

• How my voice works, how to make it strong without pushing too hard.

• The curative properties of BEET BLAST.

• How to make decisions. Lots of them.

• Why sometimes the best thing you can do is be brutally honest with someone about what you think, and sometimes the worst thing you can do is be “nice” and gloss over the fact that you are not in agreement.

Repeat After Me (2007-present) (now it’s like I’m writing a resume):

• The strength of impure sources, impure training: the strength of a mutt.

• How to be super physical & vocal without hurting myself. (Of course this was only learned after a prolonged period of being super physical & vocal and hurting myself).

• The thrill of doing the thing you fear the most –- the liberation that results from doing it. That’s how you become fearless.

• The liberation in getting a truly bad review. The liberation didn't come right away, of course -- first there was the jaw dropping and the stomach churning. But later there was the sick pride that comes from being loathed for your work.

In general, the thread I see running through these three experiences is:

• Working with your body & voice, with strength and purpose, without pushing too hard

• Withstanding fear, panic, exhaustion and failure, and how this makes you stronger.

• Relying on yourself and trusting your gut when it comes to learning, teaching and growing.

• Learning how to do something by first learning how NOT to do it.

And that’s pretty interesting.

THANKS, I CHING!

Variations on Causa a la Chiclayana

Alright, well since nobody cares about my sensitive business plan, I’m going to start writing about food. Not to say that this is a “food” blog. It is still a “sensitive person with crazy impossible business ventures” blog. But damn it, food is something I love to prepare and eat and think about. And in fact the more seriously I take the rest of my creative pursuits, the more I recognize that cooking is just another creative outlet. Plus it satisfies the other need of mine, to be of use to people.

So I’m going to start writing down some of my cooking experiences. And I’m not going to take photos yet because I have a camera phobia.

I fall in the improvisational camp when it comes to cooking. I love to read cookbooks and food blogs (my favorites right now are The Pioneer Woman and Bitten -- though Mark Bittman has now been absorbed into the Diner's Journal so we'll see if my love continues). I consult recipes for reference but I can’t bear to cook something exactly the same way twice so I usually start to tinker with them right away.

For instance: I found this 1950s Latin American cookbook which is fascinating (it translates Salsa Cruda as “uncooked spiced tomato sauce”) and actually has a wealth of recipes I’d never encountered before. I found a recipe for Causa a la Chiclayana (seasoned mashed potatoes with fish and vegetables) that intrigued me, because instead of mashing potatoes with milk and butter and serving them with gravy, you mix them with lemon juice, chopped onions and olive oil. I made this meal and was blown away by how simple and mindblowingly delicious the potatoes were – still potatoes, still comforting and starchy and filling, but also light and spicy and piquant.

Now I make them at least once a week, and can’t go back to the regular kind of mashed potatoes. I also can’t help but add in variations. Here’s the recipe from the cookbook, and then some variations:

Causa a la Chiclayana:



And now for the variations:

Variation #1: I like to let the onions sit in lemon juice & salt for a while before adding the olive oil, making them essentially into lightly pickled onions.

Variation #2: I started using dried chipotles instead of fresh chiles. You know what, you should go find dried chipotles and start using them in everything. You can chop them up and cook them in butter for fried eggs, or add them to chili or any beans you’re cooking… anyway I won’t go on and on about it, just understand that they are divine.

Variation #3: I started adding in fresh parsley from our garden, which is the only thing that keeps on growing through the winter.

Variation #4: I realized if you didn’t mash the potatoes and instead roughly chopped them you’d have an incredible potato salad. I am waiting for the right summer party to appear so I can bring this. I bet it would be awesome with hard boiled eggs too, and maybe even chopped pickles.

Variation #5: This week I was boiling the potatoes and had made the lemon onion mixture, and I decided to also make a kale salad my friend Judy showed me how to make (using raw kale, but you massage it with your hands so it breaks down almost like it’s been steamed). While I was massaging the kale I had a flash – I should mix it in with the potatoes! So I did! And it was awesome. Kind of like colcannon but less hearty & creamy, and sprightlier because of the lemon and chiles.

Variation #6: my favorite variation: you can fry up the leftover potatoes (if there are any) in the morning for breakfast.

Look at all those variations! Basically that one recipe opened my eyes up to a huge revelation: that mashed potatoes are incredibly versatile. My favorite thing to serve with these potatoes is a big pot of beans, with fresh tomatoes chopped up and spooned on top (when they’re in season). Imagine that! Before I encountered this cookbook I would have thought lemony mashed potatoes topped with fresh tomatoes was the wierdest dish ever.

Anyway. So that’s my cooking lesson for today. A very sensitive cooking lesson. Let me know if you end up cooking this and come up with variations of your own!

Inspirations

I know I talked recently about being inspired by bad art, but that doesn’t mean I’m not inspired by good art too.

I want to mention some awesome things that have been inspiring me. BLOGGY STYLE.

Jenny the Bloggess and her funny ass descriptions of social panic and confidence wigs. Oh my god, I love her so much I want to show you her picture:


And speaking of social panic, I love this post over at Mommy Melee about freaking out at BlogHer. I love it when people are honest about their struggles with high pressure social situations. It’s always a surprise when you hear it from someone else.

You’re like, “what? But you have your shit together and you’re so articulate!” And they’re like, “what are you talking about, I’m having a panic attack right now!” And you’re like, “wow, that’s the classiest panic attack I’ve ever seen!”

I think that’s a beautiful thing for us neurotic introverts to aspire to: classy panic attacks. It worked for Greta Garbo.


Other inspiring things:

Shiva Nata, this crazy kind of yoga I heard about through Havi Brooks over at Fluent Self. I’ve been practicing it most mornings for the last five months (give or take a few weeks where I got frustrated and dropped it altogether) and though it is many times bewildering and seemingly pointless, I totally credit it with getting my mind out of a dark place post-NYC in August, and changing some of my habits without me even thinking about it. Of course I still have a lot of bad habits I’d like to get rid of, so that I can be a gleaming golden ice bodied icon of perfection. But my brain probably realizes that would actually be horrible. And honestly: the number one habit that trips me up lately is Perfectionism. Oh perfectionism, you cold-eyed, diabolical taskmistress. That is a topic for another day.

But let’s move on and talk about a lovely taskmistress: Dooce! This was the first blog I ever got hooked on. Whenever I check in on Dooce, I feel like I’m catching up with my cousin or something. And more often than not there is something that makes me laugh out loud, and then my husband looks over and I say, “Dooce poured bacon fat into a plastic bowl and melted it!” and he gets that concerned/horrified look on his face that means he thinks I’m spending too much time on the internet (he does not believe in using the internet for anything except finding artist residencies in Berlin. I think he thinks Dooce is my imaginary friend. Which... wouldn’t be all that far off, I guess, since we certainly aren’t real life friends). Anyway, I just love Dooce.

Jeff Hylton Simmons’ internet radio station. I just met this dude a few months ago and of course because this is Portland it turns out he knows every third person I know. He’s got broadcasts from people all over the world. Big dreams, big ideas. It's awesome.

And one more thing before I say goodnight, dear internet: the ultimate inspiration. I can remember my brother sitting rapt, 4 years old, in front of the TV watching this performance of Michael Jackson on the Grammys in 1988. I DON'T CARE, I CAN'T GET CYNICAL ABOUT MICHAEL JACKSON! I just can't.

On Being Inspired by Bad Art

Most of the time people talk about being inspired by good art, and being bored and turned off by bad art. But what about bad art that inspires you to make good art?

Maybe it sounds facetious but I’m serious. I’ve been thinking about this a lot. It’s true of any genre. Some of my best ideas have come to me when I was sitting through an endless monotonous play, or listening to a one note, cheesy singer-songwriter, or walking through a lame gallery with timid paintings and no guts on display.

In fact, one of the breakthroughs that allowed me to have more confidence as a songwriter was when I suddenly realized how many bad, boring, tuneless songs exist. I mean if you listen to hot country on the radio (which I love by the way) -- most songs aren’t even complete sentences or an actual melody. It’s a dude in a low voice speak-singing phrases that are shorthand for American country pride.

Like this:



Oh, and you have to listen to International Harvester. Actually I think this song is kind of good:



Oh god or this one. Trace Adkins is such a douche. They won’t let me embed the video but I highly suggest you go watch it so you can enjoy a totally racist and sexist video. Oh man I’m watching it now. The Asian dude strikes out, the pitcher does a karate kid move to make fun of him, then Trace gets up to bat and hits a home run and beckons to the slutty lady they’ve all been trying to impress. Then she tries to hit a few balls and can’t even hold up the bat. Wow. CLASSY, Trace.

Okay I’m getting off track. Point is, does that even count as a song? The answer is YES IT DOES. And once I realized that I didn’t feel like such a fake trying to write my own.

But since my field is theater and performance, I have to say that the bulk of my bad art inspirations come when I’m watching a horrifically boring play. Usually one that’s three hours and I can’t leave at intermission so I know I’m stuck there. Something about this distressing state of lockdown makes my mind go to a different plane. Solutions that had previously eluded me appear before me whole, something that wasn’t quite a song gels, an image of how whatever I’m working on could begin is suddenly clear. And little dancing chipmunks bring me cocoa and pie.

Now, this also happens when I’m on a long hike (the inspirations, not the dancing chipmunks). And I’d rather be on a long hike than sitting through bad art. But it is useful when I find myself trapped there with no escape.

Random Manifesto # 2: Dare to be a piece of crap

[NOTE: this manifesto is part of my ever-evolving list of random things I stand for.]

I believe that life is too short to perfect things.

Lots of people say this but actually believe that you should get the right training before attempting to do it yourself. Training is great – but there are so many things that I will never learn if I wait around until I can do it right. So when in doubt, I’m in favor of just doing it.

Take piano. Yes, it would be easier and better to learn if I found a good piano teacher. But it’s cheaper and easier to buy a book of gospel piano chords and dig out the stupid moldy keyboard from the basement and tinker with it while I’m waiting for water to boil.

The point is: it doesn’t matter how you learn, as long as you learn. The point is: why are you learning? So you can DO something with it, right?

I mean, take cooking. You could say, “I won’t cook until I’ve spent a year training with a master chef or with my mythical indigenous grandmother.” Or you could check some cookbooks out from the library and start cooking. I believe it’s better to just start cooking.

Ten years ago when I was first learning about physical theater I came across a lot of people who felt strongly that you needed the right training. An MFA was okay but what you really wanted was to have spent time abroad, preferably learning from a master. And there was a pecking order: oh, you spent a week training with The Royal Shakespeare Company? That’s cool. I just spent six months as Jerzy Grotowski’s personal assistant before he died. Really? Because I spent three months learning bunraku puppetry from monastic ninjas. That kind of thing.

Americans especially love to believe in this idealized master-student relationship, like in kung fu movies. Nobody I met in Europe or Mexico idealized training with Piezn Kozla or Gardzienice or Diego Piñon this way. They knew you’d learn a lot, they knew it was hard and crazy and intense. But it was mainly Americans who seemed to think that mystical certainty would be passed down to you if you spent enough time with the right art star superbeing.

It took me a long time to realize that these people were full of shit. That they were more interested in playing status games than making art or taking a leap or growing as a human being.

I mean, it certainly helps to have a teacher. I’m not saying that if you have a chance to learn from a wise teacher you should pass it up – by all means, sign up, seek it out, travel to the desert to sit at the feet of the master if that’s what your heart is crying out for.

But what bothers me is the fetishizing of teachers and the waiting around for the perfect circumstances for pure, unsullied learning. Here’s the thing: you can spend a year training with an amazing teacher and still be a crappy artist. No matter how, where, with whom you’ve trained, you still have to do the work yourself. What matters is WHAT you learn, and what you DO with it.

Anyway...

At times like this I look to Neil Young for inspiration.

Neil Young has a beautiful voice and he takes risks and his voice wavers, and I love him. He plays with Crazy Horse who is not the most proficient band in the world, but I love their raw clunky power. I love all of his songs even though some of them are duds. If he didn’t take risks and make some duds, then we wouldn’t have some of the most delicate, heartbreaking songs in the world like “Harvest Moon” and “After the Gold Rush."

In fact, one of my favorite albums is Sleeps with Angels and I love it because every other song is beautiful (like "My Heart"), and every other song goes on too long or is too monotone or is just plain crappy. Like, “Piece of Crap." He puts it all out there. He doesn’t polish it or fix it up – and some songs would be better if they’d been edited, but some would have lost their crazy shambolic glory.

So, that’s my manifesto. Especially applicable to recovering perfectionists like myself. Don’t wait until it’s perfect. Don’t wait until you’re ready. Don’t let people talk you out of what fascinates you. Just do it and see what happens. Life is too short to wait for mastery.

Dare to be a piece of crap.

Palm Reading

While I was in NYC, I performed an impromptu palm reading session that surprised me because, though I was mostly bullshitting, (a) I found myself taking it seriously as I was talking, and (b) others found it satisfying, even though they knew I was mostly bullshitting.

Bear in mind, all I know about palm reading I learned from some book that was sitting around my house when I was fifteen. Probably this one.

But I do kind of believe in palm reading. I notice the lines of my own hand changing as I grow – and it’s hard not to think this means something. Right?

On the other hand… it’s silly. Once I paid a lady $10 to read my palm and she told me I would be a teacher and a doctor. And I am neither a teacher nor a doctor. (Unless you count “theater artist” as teacher and “palm reader” as doctor).

Today I did some serious (really really serious) research about palm reading on the internet. And it struck me as silly.



And yet, I am drawn to the idea of being a palm reader! Which is not really that surprising as I am drawn to sudden drunken insights and random fits of inspiration. I am an American after all and we basically invented the idea of satori – sudden blinding enlightenment. So I roll my eyes at this desire of mine, to stumble upon insight with no effort whatsoever.

On the other hand… many good things in my life – the big steps & AHA moments – have come about this way. So there is a reason I take it seriously.

Two examples:

+ As I’ve mentioned before, I moved out to Oregon on a whim with my best friend, Aryn. We both had a strong, gut instinct to get in the car and drive, and maybe settle down somewhere along the way from Michigan to Oregon. All I knew about Oregon was that it had a climate like Ireland’s, that my Aunt Diane lived there, and that Portland was a cool town. Ten years later I’m still here.

+ I joined Hand2Mouth on accident after I met some guy at a party who said he was going to a meeting about teaching in schools. I was so eager to meet people that I found out where the meeting was taking place and drove there on a dark rainy Tuesday night. Nobody else was there yet, except for this guy with intense blue eyes named Jonathan. The dude I’d met at the party never showed up, and in fact the meeting was not about teaching in schools – these people had been invited by Jonathan to discuss starting a theater company. I immediately knew that this was the group for me, even though they were all badasses and the only theater training I had was doing community theater in Lansing, Michigan. Ten years later, everyone who was at that meeting (except Jonathan) has gone on to other things but other people have joined and it’s become an even stronger group than I could have imagined, one I still feel so lucky to be working with. And somewhere in there I fell in love with Jonathan and we got married. Who would have seen that coming?

So... I don’t know if this means I should go into palm reading.

But if anyone out there knows someone in the Portland area who is a respectable palm reader, introduce me. I’m curious.

The Importance of Shoes

I have never considered myself a style conscious person. Which is to say, I like to pretend I live in a realm outside such petty concerns as clothing and status and how one presents oneself, though I’ve come to realize that no such realm exists and that when I say I “don’t care about how I look” I am carefully choosing to align myself with a certain segment of bohemian society that rejects consumerism, but actually cares WAY MORE than your average soccer mom in middle America about how they present themselves, so it’s all bullshit.

Which is all a longwinded way of saying… hello, my name is Faith Helma, and I have a sense of style. It may be a style that is one part goodwill jeans, one part monochrome t-shirt, and one part unraveling sweater – but it is a style. And lately I’ve been realizing that most important component of one’s style is: shoes. I know this is not news to anyone but me. But it’s been a big insight: if you have a pair of shoes that make you feel awesome, it has an effect on every other aspect of your life.

Kick ass shoes = kick ass life. That’s my new philosophy.

I will give three examples to prove my point.

The sandals I had the summer I was seventeen. I remember so clearly being with my mom at a shoe store, and that these sandals were expensive. I even remember how much they cost which reveals a lot about my warped sense of morality/frugality (aka morgality*): $35. She insisted on buying them for me even though I stubbornly maintained that I was fine wearing clogs made out of old bathmats. And thank god she did because those sandals and that summer are fused in my mind. In fact I don’t even remember much about what exactly happened that summer – I just remember that it was fun, and that I loved those freaking sandals and wore them every single day and kept wearing them for years until I wore out the leather. They were beautiful and delicate and strong, and they made me feel that way which, let me tell you, was a sensation that was sorely lacking at that point.

The hiking boots I wore when my dear friend Aryn & I road tripped across America. I felt so strong when I was wearing them. They embodied the kind of tough woman I wanted to be. They made me feel sexy even though I was greasy and smelly – they made me feel sexy BECAUSE I was greasy and smelly. I was still wearing them up until last winter when the soles literally fell off. And whenever I wore them I remembered: oh yeah, I can kick some ass in these boots. As I’ve said before – you can’t kick ass in flip flops. Or in spindly high heels (unless they’re those gladiator ones and if you can kick ass in those, more power to you).

The sneakers I bought the day before I flew to New York a few weeks ago. My old sneakers were fine, but they were slightly too small and I was always happy to take them off (a sure sign you are not wearing the right shoes – if they’re the right shoes, you’ll want to sleep in them). Anyway, I was at my secret-favorite store, Ross Dress for Less, and chanced across some sneakers for sale. And bought them even though it seemed frivolous, and morgality* still burns within my breast. Well, I’m glad I did, because I can’t believe how much better I feel AS A PERSON when wearing them. They are my style. They make me walk with more confidence. I feel light on my feet, but also savvy. I don’t know why. But that’s why people wear what they wear, right? So they can present themselves as they’d like to be to the world. I didn’t even realize it until I bought these new shoes, but the old shoes were making me feel pinched and knock-kneed and kind of frumpy. Now I feel like a superhero! All because of my new sneakers!

Thanks, America.

* oh, and you’re welcome for coining a new word.

NYC, Take Two

So you know what’s really weird?

Last time I traveled to New York City, I felt totally overwhelmed and freaked out. I just wanted to get away from the noise and the people and find some green space.

This time I had the opposite experience. I didn’t find the mass of people overwhelming at all. In fact it felt like less people were there somehow – even though that can’t be true. And it felt quieter! Maybe because it was winter? I have no idea but I was not bothered ONCE by the noisiness of New York.

I went in prepared for the worst – I even brought my I Ching for emergency consultation, and wrote a list of “things that make me feel good and less freaked out,” a list I did not have to consult once. I’m just blown away by how easy it was this time. I didn’t have to try to have a good time – I got up every morning excited and walked out into the street and gained energy and momentum with each step. And this despite going to bed every night at 4 a.m!

And the weirdest part is: somewhere during this trip I got my desire back for working on Undine. A desire I kind of lost after performing in August (which is weird in and of itself, because the performances went well and I loved working with the people at the Ontological and sharing space with Helsinki Syndrome – so I’m not sure why it was so hard exactly). Anyway, I woke up yesterday morning, my first day back in Portland, and immediately dived into work on Undine and didn’t even have to make myself do this – I wanted to.

I am honestly baffled by all this. And thankful. I am chalking up my different experience this time around to:

+ Being there with the whole H2M crew. It was so much easier to be able to share the pressure and burden of performing with my fellow artists. And it’s just more fun to be on tour with H2M. It’s like going out dancing with your best friends versus going dancing by yourself. Even sharing a small living space (and one bathroom) with 7 people wasn’t too bad. There were lots of chances to talk over what was happening, to process and vent and give support and make each other laugh.

+ Wintertime. I think I just like NYC better in the winter. It’s sunny and bracing, the kind of weather that makes you want to go to museums and drink coffee and educate yourself. Even when it was super cold I enjoyed it. Maybe because I got to wear sweaters and scarves and cowboy boots, which served as armor to insulate me from the noise. And in general, boots make me feel more capable. You can’t kick someone’s ass in flip flops (though I’m not sure if I could kick someone’s ass regardless, but I’d be more likely to if I was wearing boots).

+ Knowing the city better – and going in ready to be proactive about figuring out which subway lines to use. I still got lost, but I wasn’t as anxious when I did because I could ask people how to get where I wanted to go, and understand the directions they gave me. This sounds so blithe and breezy but it is a new thing for me.

Other things that struck me as awesome on this trip:

+ Goddamn it, the food! Korean, Polish, Japanese. The soup options alone are dazzling. And you know how I feel about soup. And so many things you can eat late at night. And bagels. And things to eat with bagels like pickled tomatoes. Offered up by the two sweetest men on earth, Larry Krone and Jim Andralis. Larry's bathroom was an inspiration, filled with books by such luminaries as Rue McClanahan, and I’m pretty sure a Dolly Parton action figure.

+ Halfway through I took a day to just putter around the apartment and make borscht (I mean BEET BLAST) and read my lowbrow books. You know what I’m really coming to realize? This is not a searing insight but lowbrow books are fun to read. Especially on the subway or when you’re trying to fall asleep at 3:30 a.m. after a night of shouting about theater over bar noise. I love smart, fierce, complicated books – of course – but when you’re trying to relax, nothing beats The Shelters of Stone.

+ Oh man – I got to see a lot of shows, from companies I admire, like Banana Bag & Bodice, Wax Factory, 31 Down, The Debate Society and Vivarium Studio. Highlights for me included BBB’s Beowulf (they had me at the trombone section and backup singers) and the little booklets that Vivarium Studios were handing out – gems of subtle, gentle absurdity that expressed the nature of the company’s work as much as their show, L’Effet de Serge, did.

+ Oh yeah, and our show. We had a great time performing it. We got pretty solid crowds and good feedback from everyone who came, and we will likely be back next year having learned a lot more about how to prepare for a run in NYC. Unfortunately, no reviews (we were, after all, competing against every other theater performance in the entire known world). But I did get an email today from someone who came and saw the show, who said:

I just wanted to tell you that I thought your show was beautiful. Really so beautiful. I rarely feel as touched or delighted by theater, and I rarely laugh that hard out loud. So I just wanted to say thank you, because watching the wonderful work of theater you created makes me want try to create wonderful things as well.

And really, that’s all you can ask for.

So thank you, New York! And I’m sorry I blamed you for my nervous breakdown back in August.

Beet Blast!

The time has come, to give the world my recipe for BARSZCZ. That’s Polish for borscht (you can read about the variations on barszcz/borscht elsewhere).

Some background on my Borscht obsession.

People of non-Polish or Jewish descent never get excited when I talk about my fabulous borscht recipe, so I call it beetroot soup. But that doesn’t really get people excited either. So now I’m thinking about calling it BEET BLAST.

I’ve seriously been considering starting a company where I bottle up my special BEET BLAST and sell it as a miracle cure for colds and hangovers*.

Because, no joke, that is what it is. In the last year I have made up a big pot of BEET BLAST at least once a month, and I’ve only gotten sick once – and that was over in a day.

I originally tasted this soup when I was in Poland, land of endless tasty soups (including pickle soup). Just about every restaurant and bar mleczny offered the delicious red barszcz (pronounced badly by me as BAR-shuh-chuh). At train stations you could pay like a dollar and get a styrofoam cup filled with steaming red broth.

I loved it but didn’t even think about making it myself because I assumed there was some complicated soaking/extracting/fermenting process involved, and anyway I’d never eaten a beet before or held one in my hands so I had no inkling of how to cook with one.

Flash forward a couple years, and our beautiful, mad Polish director friend Luba is staying with us while she directs a play. I learned a lot from her but the most profound, simple thing I picked up was her approach to cooking. We would come home after a long, grueling night of rehearsal and whereas I might throw a frozen pizza in the oven, she would pull out lentils and carrots and celery and onions and toss things in a pot with water and before I’d even taken my shoes off she’d have a delicious, thick lentil stew bubbling on the stove ready to eat.

One day we had a party. I think we were barbecue-ing, and everyone came bearing six packs of beer and hot dogs. While we sat around the kitchen table gossiping and drinking beers, Luba calmly filled a gigantic stock pot with water and threw in carrots, celery, onion and freshly scrubbed beets. At the end of the night she cut lemons in half, squeezed them into the pot and announced that the barszcz was done. Now, I don’t remember how it tasted that night – but I do remember the next morning when we all woke up and stumbled into the kitchen. Luba ladled rich ruby red broth into mugs and passed them around, saying, “Here. Polish cure for hangover.” OH MY GOD. It restored order to the world.

So, flash forward some more. It is a week before my solo show opens and my throat is sore and I can feel sickness coming on. I need my voice for the show. I panic. I am pacing the aisles of the grocery store late at night throwing garlic and oranges and cough drops into my basket when I wander past some beets in the produce section. The memory of Luba’s delicious soup comes floating back to me, and so I buy them and take them home and boil them up in a big pot of water. I squeeze in some lemon, and then I drink the broth.

People, I have tried the various “cures” for colds – popping vitamin c, gulping cayenne, lemon and honey in hot water, chicken soup with ten cloves of garlic. I’ve always gotten a cold anyway. But after I drank down this elixir, the oncoming cold was GONE. And this despite a punishing schedule of tech rehearsals and neverending singing!

So, I am a believer. I am a proselytizer, even though I know that preaching about something is the surest way to turn people away from it. I can’t help it. I WANT THE WORLD TO KNOW ABOUT BEET BLAST.

Here is my simple, lazy, very untraditional** recipe for…

DELICIOUS MAGICAL BEET BLAST

+ Fill up a big old pot with water and set it to boiling on the stove.

+ Take 2-3 beets. Scrub them clean, and if they’re especially gnarly, peel them. Cut them into quarters and toss them into the pot. The water will immediately turn dark pink or red… if it’s more pink than red I might add another beet.

+ If the beets have greens attached, wash those and toss them in as well.

+ Chop up onion, carrot and celery. One each is good, but if you have less it’s ok. I just use whatever I have on hand. And don’t chop them pretty – you won’t be eating the vegetables themselves.

+ If you have parsley, throw in a generous handful. And throw in a clove or two of garlic.

Honestly, that’s about it. If you’ve got other bits of vegetables around you want to throw in – potatoes, turnips, mushrooms – anything you’d add to a regular vegetable stock will taste great.

+ Let it simmer on the stove for at least an hour. The house will smell so healthy and delicious. Then take a lemon, cut it in half and squeeze both halves into the broth. You can use lime in a pinch, though I don’t think the flavors mesh quite as well. Taste it – you may need to add more lemon.

+ Add salt and pepper. And then you can either drain out the mushy used up vegetables (saving the broth, of course!) or just let them sit in the bottom of the pot while you ladle out the broth. Luba said if you leave them there the flavor will get more intense each day. But some people get kind of grossed out seeing the vegetable parts floating around in there.

What I do nowadays is make a big old pot of this stuff, freeze half the broth and drink the rest over the next 2-3 days. Then you’ve got some on hand if you get sick and can’t get out of bed.

* This will fit in nicely with my kindergarten classroom/karaoke lounge/therapeutic dance party business.

** Supposedly the traditional Polish way to make this is to let the soup naturally ferment and sour (as opposed to adding the lemon). I’m not badass enough to try that yet, though.

Criticism & Negative Reviews

This topic is always on my mind, since (a) I have a hard time being criticized, and (b) I am a performer, and part of being grown up and professional and classy means being able to take it in the chin. [correction: ON the chin. Not sure what taking it IN the chin entails but it doesn't sound very classy to me.]

In August when I went to New York with my one-woman show I knew it was going to be a struggle. We would be lucky to get any reviews at all, so I had to be ready for negative reviews, and I had to be ready for them to get personal.

HOW DID YOU DEAL WITH IT, FAITH?

Well, let me tell you. I handled it the one foolproof way I know: by not reading them. Which was good, because I got five reviews in all – two were mostly positive, two were mostly negative, and one was vaguely snarky. I know this because I did have to read them eventually.

There’s a weird thrill that comes from reading a bad review about your work. Maybe it’s the thrill of someone finally punching you in the face after long-simmering tension. There’s catharsis in that: finally, someone told me the truth, that I suck. The danger is that you will take it too much to heart. “Sophomoric and angsty” = IT’S TRUE, I AM SOPHOMORIC AND ANGSTY, what is wrong with me, why am I so immature, why do I suck so much, I should just give this up and be a schoolteacher except I probably suck at that too, etc. etc. etc.

I think it is possible to reach a point where you take the punch but it doesn’t stop you. Where you say, ok, maybe my work is sophomoric and angsty. WHAT ELSE YOU GOT? Or better yet, you take that criticism and use it as promotion. COME SEE FAITH HELMA “DOG PADDLING IN CABARET.” (That is advanced level badassery though, and a topic we will tackle another day: how to reclaim negative criticism and use it for self-promotion).

And you know what, praise is actually trickier to deal with, because if someone says “she is doing the best work of her life,” what do you do? Sit back and say, yes, I am doing the best work of my life? In that case the only thing I’ve figured out (though no one has said I’m doing the best work of my life – so I haven’t had to work too hard) is to allow the praise its brief moment to happy dance with my ego, then tell it to pack up its things and play with someone else.

Maybe that’s something you could do with the negative too: let it flourish and drip inky doubt into your psyche, then push it out the door and say, it’s time to go home now.

So, that’s my method for dealing with reviews. But what about the rest of life, when your criticism doesn’t come in the form of published articles that you can easily avoid or hold at arm's length? AHHHH. Yes. That is much more difficult.

WHAT DO I DO ABOUT BAD REVIEWS OF MY LIFE?

I don't have a clue. But Sarah over at Make Great Stuff talks about taking in feedback as a visual artist, which is fascinating to me – I spend a lot of time thinking about how hard it is to be a performer and how easy it must be to be a visual artist – but of course we’re all putting our hearts and beliefs and risks out there for everyone to see, and that is haaaaaard hard hard.

And over at Fluent Self, Havi talks about the concept of sovereignty a lot – not letting someone else’s shoe-throwing (aka, criticism that comes out of nowhere) throw you off balance, learning how to step back and say, that is your deal, this is my deal, I am going to listen to what you’re saying but not fall into a weeping puddle of self doubt and recrimination.

Well – I have to say I’m not quite that sovereign yet – I am still liable to get tearful if someone calls me out directly. Or if I manage to not show it on the outside, I’m feeling it in the form of a raging hole inside. But it is a helpful image and word to keep in mind. Sovereignty.

And I always love Penelope Trunk. She lays the events of her life out with spare, unrelenting honesty, and if someone tries to tear her down, she ups the ante. An example: family members of the man she was dating were doing searches to find her most salacious posts, and forwarding them to other family members. She mentions this, and then says,

“Wait. You are wondering, right? What they’re finding? Here. Here’s a list of some links.”

And links to the three most salacious things she’s written. Which means she is in control of her story, and not letting other people get hold of it. She’s not hiding – she’s putting it out there even more. I admire this. I think it’s smart, and fucking hard to do.

IT ALL COMES BACK TO BARACK

This may be a weird comparison, but I am reminded of Barack Obama. When a scandal comes out, instead of denying and denying and running and hiding, he uses that opportunity to lay his cards down and speak directly and honestly. When the Reverend Wright scandal first broke, he responded with a beautiful, difficult speech about race. This week, accepting the Nobel Peace Prize (a perfect example of positive praise sometimes being worse than negative praise*), he directly addressed the awkwardness of accepting a peace prize just as he’s going deeper into war:

But perhaps the most profound issue surrounding my receipt of this prize is the fact that I am the Commander-in-Chief of the military of a nation in the midst of two wars. One of these wars is winding down. The other is a conflict that America did not seek; one in which we are joined by 42 other countries -- including Norway -- in an effort to defend ourselves and all nations from further attacks.

Still, we are at war, and I'm responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land. Some will kill, and some will be killed. And so I come here with an acute sense of the costs of armed conflict -- filled with difficult questions about the relationship between war and peace, and our effort to replace one with the other.

(Read the entire speech here).

Most politicians these days (maybe always) avoid being honest about difficult topics. But you know what they risk by not talking about the difficult things? They risk the story getting away from them, and I think Barack Obama is incredibly smart to take hold of the story at the beginning, to put his cards on the table and articulate the issue in his own words. To do otherwise is to let secrets take hold, to let the gossip whispered behind backs gain power. You need to be in control of your story, warts and all.

So, that is what I am mulling over today and trying to learn. How to talk about my life and my art and all the mistakes and confusions and slings and arrows, without shame or fear.

* wait, I just realized I may have coined a term: negative praise. Is that when someone praises you for what you're not, like, "oh she'll be fine, she's no dummy" or "he's never been late a day in his life"?

I drew a picture of my business plan and it looks like a kindergarten classroom

Hm. I guess the title kind of says it all there, doesn’t it.

So I read about this exercise, where you draw a picture of what your business plan looks like. Here is my problem. My business isn’t really a business. It’s a weird combination of artist haven / social service agency. It looks like a kindergarten classroom, if kindergarteners had an amp/mic/delay pedal station. And a waterless shower where they get to sing their favorite songs and shout imagined rants / visionary speeches.

Problem: it didn’t really answer my basic question, which is: WHAT AM I SELLING?

I am selling dreams and rainbows and story time and a place to talk about your fears and practice becoming the badass you already are but don’t know it.

Yeah. Um… is that something I can sell? What would make me qualified to provide that? Can I just say I want to do that, and it’s cool? Will anyone buy it? Am I wacky enough to pull something like that off?

Two years ago I went to this women-in-theatre conference in Denmark that blew my mind. Not in the ways I expected. There were a lot of women doing solo work there and I came away thinking, “the last thing I want to do is make a solo show” which apparently subconsciously translated into “I will immediately start making a solo show” because that’s what I did. But that is a topic for another day (I’m going to keep mentioning my solo show but always say it’s a topic for another day and then never get around to discussing it straight on. FYI.)

Anyway, conference: the thing that blew my mind was having conversations with women of all ages, backgrounds and nationalities – all of whom were making crazy, groundbreaking theater nd all of whom were having the same struggles, triumphs and failures I was having. I bonded with women from Sweden, India, Egypt, England, Peru, Spain – women in their fifties, thirties, twenties – with or without babies, with or without careers, with or without money. Amazing.

One of the workshops I did was with this Australian artist, Margaret Cameron. At first she was so woo woo that I had to stop myself from rolling my eyes. But halfway through she won me over. She had these great mantras – she would have us walk around and hug each other and say, “what if where I am right now is exactly where I need to be?” Then she’d say, “I know it isn’t… but what if it was?”

She kept asking over and over and it finally sunk in: what if I stopped doubting myself for ten minutes? What if I believed that I was on the right track? What if everything in my life has prepared me for this exact instant?

Maybe this sounds trite – but the thing is, as a woman (maybe for men too, I don’t know) I struggle with these doubts and fears EVERY DAY. It seems radical to think of going even one day without them.

And I would love to get to where I can embrace my own wacky, woo woo, stumbling dreams. That is what I want: to believe in myself enough to go there, to lead people in wacky, crazy workshops where they spend half the time thinking it’s total bullshit and then have a breakthrough. To have a space where I can work on my stuff and other people can too. Where they can show up and I’ll make them a cup of tea and we’ll sit on a big old rug in the middle of the room and I’ll pull out a book and read from it and we’ll put some music on and dance out the stress. I mean, if a space like that existed and I could pay $10 and spend an hour there, I’d go. But maybe I’m alone in that. And maybe that’s a silly way to approach business.

Well, we'll see. I need someone to take me from the kindergarten classroom drawing on posterboard to the part where it's an actual business. Maybe I can partner with a therapist who already has a practice and would like someone to be out in the lobby sitting on a rug singing songs and making tea and stuff.

ARE YOU A THERAPIST WHO NEEDS A WACKED OUT ATTENDANT? If so, call me.

P-town

I am originally from Lansing, Michigan but for the last ten years I have lived in Portland, Oregon.

Things I love about Portland: the neighborhoods, the fresh air and natural beauty, the mix of can-do optimism and wide-eyed inspiration, people I meet who are working on crazy creative projects and know more than I do about gardening or zoning laws or trippy bands or how to make a car out of used tires.

Things that drive me crazy about Portland: how alike we are in age and clothing and background, how small and predictable and incestuous the “arts scene” can be (though I know this is not unique to Portland), how freaking nice everyone and everything is. I find myself craving some grit and noise and grease and waste. I deal with these cravings by traveling a lot and making secret late night trips to Taco Bell. Please do not tell my friends.

My "mission statement"

Actually I have this thing where as soon as I write a "mission statement" I divebomb it. It just feels so self help-y and/or corporate and/or self aggrandizing. But I feel like I should communicate with clarity and focus, and so a "mission statement" (I can't even write it without quotes!) it is.

+ I am and always have been a Very Sensitive Person. There are good and bad things that come with being a Very Sensitive Person. Good things: I can get on other people's wavelength easily, I can tell pretty quickly when someone is bad news, I live in a wondrous fairyland of imagination and possibility. Bad things: I cry every other day, and if someone criticizes my hairstyle I take it to heart, wondering if there is something wrong with my sense of style and my character and my humanity. So. I'll be talking a lot about holding onto balance and perspective as a SENSITIVE PERSON IN A COLD HARD WORLD. And I'll try to do this without being too earnest and annoying and self-obsessed.

+ I am interested in contradictions. I want to dig them up, spread them out on a blanket and see what they’re made of. And then maybe place them gently back into the earth to see what grows. And hope that what grows is not a 600-pound turnip/gorilla cause maaaaan I do not want to mess with a turnip/gorilla, I learned that the hard way.

+ I am a performance artist which provides a particular challenge for the sensitive person -- I clearly crave connection with others in the heightened world of live performance, and yet this world provides heightened blows and knockdowns. So I'll be exploring that as well.

+ I'll also throw out random manifestoes, rants and inspirations as I see fit.