So I dropped the ball on the blog-a-month-on-Fun idea.

I found out in July that I had to move and was all about that until I found a sweet place in a town (see Contact page) that has made my soul sing from my first visit here, nigh onto 20 years ago.  

Let’s keep going with that old-man language….

It’s been three years since my father died. I spoke his name out at a service last night, with others who have lost people at this time of year. This morning, making my tea, I scooped a bit of local honey out of a jar, and this piece of fun from my childhood came swooping back to me.

I can feel and picture myself – four years old, messy hair, fork in hand at the dinner table, head dropped back in joy as I crack up at the unsaid foolishness, and feeling my dad as a deliciously sharp humorist. (He had an irreverent joy inside him that often did not have its say.) Every time my father shared this little rhyme, I would laugh like mad and demand an encore.

So in honor of my father, and fathers everywhere…
In honor of my new digs, the memories arising as I unpack,
In honor of the Days of Awe,
In honor of Fun, I leave you with:

I eat my peas with honey

I’ve done it all my life

It makes the peas taste funny

But they don’t roll off my knife.

Laughing right now, Dad.

Two months ago I attended a four-hour memorial for a dearly beloved ex-boyfriend, who died too young of brain cancer. I went with the man I was seeing at the time. The day before the event, we looked at the invitation and both thought, “four hours?” It turned out, four hours… was barely enough, and ultimately, exactly what was needed.

The event was not held in a church, but in a beautiful public building designed by Julia Morgan. There was food, there was wine…but very little eating and drinking took place.

At the front of the high-ceilinged room, to the left of the podium, was an old-fashioned, home-movie screen, playing a stunning slideshow of photos, submitted by many of those in attendance and by those who could not attend. Faded childhood portraits with siblings, shirtless feats on rock faces, wedding joy, goofy poses in Halloween wigs, triumph on a roof in paint-covered overalls, hugging his kids… deep blue eyes staring out from each shot. Everyone was mesmerized by it. It was impossible not to watch over and over, as the fullness of his life unfolded – none had ever seen all of it before – we could not look away.

Besides the few scheduled speakers, anyone who wished to was invited to come up to the podium and say something, to sing, to laugh, to cry, to take too long, to stumble, to be gloriously eloquent, or deeply not, to claim extreme connection/importance and unique value in their relationship with him, to honor him, to share joys, difficulties, surprises.

There was no talk of God. My current boyfriend found that to be lacking. He is, admittedly, a man of the cloth. His comment got me thinking, though. This was not the ‘scarves and miracles’ set, I tried to tell him. The people attending were mountain climbers, Antarctic tour guides, carpenters, public defenders, independent artists, stoners and ex-stoners, rock climbers. It was a gathering, a roast, not a search for or naming of the holy. There was no illusion that we would find meaning in his leaving. Or ask the Universe for that meaning. And yet, the sacredness of this man’s life was more fully present than I have ever felt at a more religious memorial.

Person by person, some skillful, some unskillful – both were required to get the whole picture – the mosaic of the man came into view. Who he was to each, and therefore who he was to the world.

I have never attended such an effective memorial. When I say effective, I mean that afterward, I felt, “Yes. That man’s life mattered in the world. In all these myriad and specific ways, and in the way I knew him, too.” I felt I could both fully let him go and never forget who he was.

If the whole thing had been more “appropriate” – shorter, a clergyperson giving a sermon, we’d never have heard his dear friend and old roommate go on and on; keep telling another story and another, so that many of the listeners were ready to say, “okay there, buddy, that’s enough.” But it was not enough.

Because we sat through someone unable to stop telling, as if by standing up there for 20 minutes he could bring those moments back, bring his friend back – he’d never, after all, have a chance to rehash them with him, so he had to explain them, in detail, and fully, to us, so we’d Get It…. We did, Get it.

So that when the last speaker, a man used to giving summations to juries, left us with an unforgettable and familiar final image, we had all the prior sharings – the poorly planned and the mumbled, the stories of first meetings, the couples therapy gone awry, the song written just for him, the messy, the funny, the artful, the sweet…we had, collectively, delivered our beloved friend on to his next pathway through the Universe. With a kind of joyful nudge – of bewilderment, humor, and awe.

I left that day with a complete certainty that every person’s life really matters. This man was not famous; he was not rich; he was not about to break onto the scene with a new invention, song or product; he was simply and utterly himself. I am grateful to have known him as I did.

Thanks to that imperfect, beautifully planned, four-hour hangout, we did not need to ask God anything. We knew. Our individual and collective love, was God.

You know that moment when you’re holding your tea, your keys, your pencil…and you get up, just for a second, to answer a question, a phone call, or pick up some randomly misplaced item that’s been bugging you…and bam, you cannot find your keys, your pencil, your tea?  You stand there, feeling like an idiot, going “where could it have GONE?  I JUST had it in my hand!”  I’ve been aware of this a lot lately – non-mindfulness – or, what I like to call “throwing to first.”  (I literally call it that.  When this happens to me, instead of going completely nuts, I just breathe and say, “threw to first, there, Sweetie, didn’tcha?”)

If you’ve watched baseball more than once or twice you’ve probably seen it.  The shortstop – even a great shortstop, like, say, Brandon Crawford (though perhaps not Derek Jeter…) – goes to field a routine grounder, hoping to get the last out of the inning.  It’s a no-brainer.  He meets the ball, as always, puts his glove down, and because it’s so routine, the completion so expected, he doesn’t make sure the ball is in his glove before he tries to grab it and throw to first base for the out.  He finds it isn’t in his hand, it isn’t in his glove…what the…? He looks down, and alas, it’s through his legs, into left field. E-6 (Error – Shortstop); safe at first; inning not over.

…

I live in California and we’re trying to save water.  So I have a bucket in my shower, to collect the cold, non-yet-shower–worthy water as it runs when I first turn it on. Then I get in when it’s hot enough, and use the water in the bucket outside in my garden.  (Gold star for me! Unless…)  The other day, I turn on the shower, line up the stream with the bucket, come back in when the bucket is full and find the water is still cold. I look, and I’ve not turned the tap all the way to Hot.  I simply turned it on and let it run Cold.  No saving water today.  (I only have one bucket.) This incensed me, just the way it has when I’ve “lost” my teacup in the microwave, or my pencil in my shirt, my keys…on the bed, under the last shirt I tried on…just as if I’d blown the final out of the inning and risked a go-ahead run.

Then there was this. I cannot stand the pressure of recording an outgoing message on my cellphone.  So I’ve had the same message for 5 years – one that was rather well-liked.   Recently, I got to thinking, I’m a way different chick than I was when I recorded that, maybe I’d best create a new one.  Alas. Apparently now I sound despairing, which is not – according to me, anyway – how I’ve changed.  So the other day, I took the bull by the horns, and when I found myself in a particularly empowered, happy mood, I recorded a new one; played it back.  It was risky, fun, real and sounded like a person you’d like to leave a message for. YES!  Difficult, once-every-five-years task completed.  A day or so later, I thought, let me listen to that again…. “Hi, this is Julia…” came the quiet, despairing voice.  
Never hit “Save.” 

A friend shared this theory with me:

One part of your brain is engaged in the “must field this ball as I always do” task, and a whole different part of your brain kicks in when you invite the “if we get this last out, we’ll win!” sort of thought.
So in fact, according to your brain, you are no longer fielding the ball, heating the tea, lining the shower nozzle up with the bucket.  You are inside a grander strategy – and that’s when you lose your pencil. 

Another friend, smiling slightly, said, “Menopause…brain fog.” 

I personally think the increase in such moments has much to do with the constantly multi-tasking lives of beings who are NEVER only doing one thing at a time. Because even my teenaged, always-texting students complain of complete bewilderment at such lost items.

No matter what your theory, it’s no fun. And, it keeps you from actually saving water.  

So, these days, I’m practicing paying attention to one thing at a time…not throwing to first till I have the ball in my glove. 

Life gets stripped of its meaning, so often and so quickly.   Why does it always seem such a shock?

It’s so for all life forms.  A moth in my shower, a spider, my sink – he or she, it seems, is in a haven of moisture and light.  It stays as if it could not believe its good fortune, and is finally happy, feeling safe.  Then the water gets turned on.  By some huge being for whom his or her whole life and path full of choices is superfluous.  Shockingly, suddenly, death.

A man ignites my heart and body, and I am sure all is finally, as it is supposed to be, forever. But that was never his intent.  He was on some other journey, in which I was merely a tree he leaned against for a moment before continuing on his way.  Not co-creating a painting with me that would last, for others to see and be inspired by.  No.  Just a pit stop.  Shockingly, suddenly, gone.

A deep artist, inventing worlds of laughter and brilliance that make us, each and every one of us, understand our humanness more fully; make us adore ourselves and others just a little more than we ever did before he came.  Our love for him becomes more certain and true because he sometimes annoys us or is a little over-the-top.  His imperfections deepen our belief that he, and we, and this aliveness all mean something, something we all agree on and struggle with, together…and that is somehow, after all, good.  This man takes his own life.  Shockingly, suddenly, gone.

The shocking, the sudden, rips the fabric of time – of what seems to matter.

Is mattering, then, longevity?  Not being Cut Off?  Is sudden disappearance truly the worst thing we can think of?  Having a fantasy torn in two, stomped on, destroyed, suddenly – one looks up and hears or sees or feels, “oh, That.  That which fed and watered my Whole World is gone. Just now.  It was there, but it is….all of IT, is gone.” 

What, then, is this life? For surely that has happened enough for all people to see that that whole scenario is exactly what goes on here.

This morning, regardless, I feel like the spider who has realized that he’s not in some super cool shiny place he can now call home, he’s in a sink.  It belongs to a Huge One and it’s all gonna be over any second.

Time to enjoy the reflections of light coming off the porcelain. 

“Could I possibly get half a glass of wine?” 

This was me about a week ago at a Thai Berkeley eatery near a theatre where I was going to work that evening.

“Ohhh, No. We cannot do. You see I must punch the order into the computer….”

The waiter left the rest of the logic hanging, as obvious, if I thought about it. 

I did. 

 “Ahhh, and it only says ‘glass of wine’ on the computer. I see.”

Still, I waited, hoping he’d make it happen.  I mean, how hard could it be to bypass that, and simply charge me half the price and give me half a glass – the computer didn’t pour the wine, he did. 

I waited in vain.

“No.”  He shook his head and laughed lightly.  His laugh said that this was far too complicated a problem to throw his way – and that it was never gonna happen. He was perfectly lovely and light-hearted about it, but the answer was still, “no way.”

“Okay then, forget the wine.” I smiled. “That’s okay.”

I meant it.  I ate my Pad Thai with a large glass of water – healthy and responsible as hell, if a little less celebratory than desired.

No big deal…

This innocuous moment was only a little annoying, but it highlights something that is frightening me about the time we’re living in.  I’ll bet you even thought, “well, she can’t ask for that.  It’s not in the system.”  

Our day-to-day, human interactions are being dictated by digital systems, rather than analog ones. This isn’t, on a case-by-case basis, merely annoying, or sad or difficult.  It’s scary – cause it means we’re living our lives, not based on reality, but on digital versions of reality.

In all our affairs…

My father passed away recently.  My mother is now in the difficult position (all emotions aside here) of having to change the names on accounts that were in his name, to her own. Cable TV service, car ownership, and countless others.  She’s finding this a most daunting task – because all records are, naturally, computer records, and as such are “understood” by machine systems, not by people. 

These systems think when you change the name of an account, you are, say, opening a new account.  Or that you are doing something fishy…“that is not allowed.” 

So my mother has spent hours upon frustrating hours with large companies trying to get their systems to understand and accept the name change.  She has been charged large sums of money in error, and has been, daily during this difficult time, on the kind of annoying administrative phone call none of us wants to make in the best of times.   It’s a huge snafu.  (You know where that word comes from… it’s an acronym.)

Machines do not understand the complexity of the very simple situations we find ourselves in every day, moment by moment. Our emotional textures, our three- or four- or five-dimensional states of being are incomprehensible to the systems we turn to, and trust, to organize our lives and our societies.

Intimate listening – we need it…

To someone who focuses primarily on the human voice and all it can convey, this dissonance is a problem.  We live in a world whose systems are misrepresenting its inhabitants. 

Even a silent gesture delivers meaning to another being. Machines (which we are expecting to drive our cars for us in the near future) cannot grock mood, expressions of disgust or appreciation. Siri can respond, “You’re welcome, Julia.”  But not when she hears tears of gratitude in my voice, if I say “holy shit,” after a song is played.  Only if I say, and exactly, “Thank you, Siri.”

I want to say “holy shit!”

I want technology’s presence to advance our way of interacting with one another, not retract it – not make humanity fit into its smaller, less textured model.

Heard it before…?

I know this is no new idea. But I think it is an ever more important one – now.  Because the more we use digital systems, the more we expect to be misunderstood, expect to not connect truly and instantly on all levels, expect not to ask for or be in the complex truth of situations. We are at a point in this amazing time of advancement, when we gotta be careful not to let the inmates run the asylum. 

The more we stop being analog with each other, the more we miss – and are missed by – one another.   

The Whole Enchilada…

The easiest name change for my mom to make was with was her local heating oil company, a one-man, one-family business.  I’m sure he computerizes his records at the office. Here’s what that took: when he came by to deliver the next batch of oil, she said the account would now need to be in her name instead of her husband’s – Harriet, instead of Ozzie.  “Got it,” he said.  And he nodded unsaid condolences. Done.
Less time, more understanding. 

It’s what I teach my acting students: be alive onstage. Grock one another.  Be permeable; respond to the situation – as it is. A complex situation is made simple; its meaning valued, by willingness to be aware, be present, and listen to the entirety of the being before you or the moment you are in.  Then you get to respond, fully and  truthfully.  It’s way more fun, and way more interesting, than meeting expectations!

My wish for you in 2014: Don’t let any mechanistic system dictate your level of interaction and depth of response to the world.

Be Analog… be all here. 

…

That’ll be $4.50.   

Before posting another blog, a little note to those who have commented and asked, “Do I have a mailing list?”  Yes, I do, and you can sign up for it by scrolling allllllll the way to the bottom of the blog page.  That was my fault, not my designer’s, fyi.  He wanted to put it at the top of the page and I said no. So please do sign up.  I send out announcements very, very rarely.  Mostly re upcoming appearances or events.

Also, if you have questions about working with me, please email me directly. Here’s my address:

 julia@juliamcnealarts.com

(That address is on the “Contact” page of this site.  The link to it is at the bottom left of every page on the site.  Easiest to see on the Home page.)

If you want to contact Elijah Goldberg directly, you can find him at: elijahgoldberg.com

Thanks for all your questions and comments.  Check back here for a new post soon!

-Julia