the Soft Places

Transitions are not quick things.

A decision is made, put into effect, and it can be weeks and months before the new paradigm begins to emerge. From the epicenter ripples are cast in all directions, washing over and altering the state of everything in their wake; established patterns, emotional connections, daily routines. Some are destroyed utterly and replaced. Others are stained with a patina imperceptible to anyone else.

Nothing’s the same anymore. And that’s okay.

My new life is beginning to settle into place. The walls of my home are decorated, sometimes with pictures I haven’t seen in years. There are enough blank walls left over for me to finally frame up some of the shots that were taken of my life when photos were more rarely taken and even more rarely shared. Reminders of who I used to be are popping up all over, and I’m relieved for my old habit of being too sentimental to throw things away.

I’m finally dedicating myself to learning to teach stage combat. There has for years existed an opportunity to assist a class which I’ve squandered all this time, and now I’m showing up twice a week to help two groups of people develop their skills. I’m one of a dozen, sometimes outnumbering the students, but I still have plenty of opportunity to practice. To teach a thing is to know a thing, and I look forward to constantly improving my own understanding of the discipline.

I seem to be losing weight despite making no special effort to do so. As my depression lessens and my anxiety abates, I can feel my body responding. I suppose I’m also being more mindful about what I bring home from the store, though I’m still not immune to snacking on pinches of shredded cheese straight from the bag.

I’m doing more reading and less playing inconsequential games on my phone. I’m socializing, going out to meet people and sometimes even having them over. I’m reinvesting time in the kitchen, digging out old recipes to practice and alter to perfection. I love cooking, but I’ve long since let the skill degrade, and that rediscovery makes me feel more like who I am when I’m happy.

The most important touchstone for me is re-reading Sandman. The first time I read that story I was 22, failing out of college, and ending my engagement to my first fiancé. For nearly fifteen years I would read the series annually. After that I would draw it off the shelf only when some major event happened in my life. I picked up the first book in December when I was still making my last big decision and cried all the way through it. Never did that before. This morning I started on the 7^th, and every time I close another volume, I understand myself a little better.

As children we have driven into us the lesson that we can become whatever we want. It is so ubiquitous that we don’t even hear it or absorb it anymore, and the lesson is often lost. Gaiman’s words have taught me, over and over again, the most important lesson I ever learned as an adult: you can stop being anything.

What I did was painful, but necessary. I’ll go to my grave without ever being certain that it was the only way, or if it was the best of all possible choices for everyone. I’m sure I haven’t lost my last night of sleep over it. The only road left to me is to make the best life I can from here forward. Do right by others, be honest and communicative with my heart’s desires, and remember to hydrate.

I suppose that’s true for all of us.

Swings

Professionally, this is shaping up to be a pretty good year.

Personally, it’s starting out rough, but it keeps proving to me it won’t stay that way.

Rehearsals started this week for Elektra at the Lyric Opera. The work is physically intense, but only lasts for a handful of seconds each time. Not including sitting on stage and watching the action, I don’t think I have more than one full minute of something to do. It’s my goal to make sure I sweat doing it. I told the director, “If I’m not going to work to my absolute limit, then what’s the point?”

Compliments keep hitting me out of nowhere. One stage manager told me how excited she was to have me back, particularly in this role. One person in the makeup shop told me how beloved I am to people in the company so much that she called them “fangirls. And by girls, I mean boys.” I pictured all the buff dudes my size going SQUEE and clapping their hands and I might have giggled.

The best part of my week was finally making it back to see The Paper Machete, a weekly live show presenting essays about news topics of the last seven days – it’s referred to as a “live magazine” in a cabaret style, complete with stand-up comics and musicians. I haven’t been there in years. Sitting at that bar felt so much like stepping backwards in time to when I was happier. By the time the first essay began I was crying, letting my hair down to hide my face while I stared at my cranberry juice and took in the crafted jokes and insights of some of Chicago’s funniest minds.

Setting up the apartment still moves slowly, but it’s my first priority when I’m home and awake for a few hours. It’s difficult enough just with keeping up household maintenance chores, but to do that AND figure out how the rest of the piles are going to get hung onto walls, stacked onto shelves, or shoved under the bed it sometimes more than I have energy for. Especially when I pick up some keepsake or another from my marriage, examine and turn it over for a moment before remembering into which corner I’m shoving all of that stuff so I can deal with it later.

I wonder how she’s doing. I hope she’s okay.

We email very occasionally to discuss any logistic issues, the most recent of which has to do with taxes. The last message she sent included that she’s hired a lawyer to draw up divorce papers and that she wants to change her surname. I’m not sure why I needed to know that second bit, but she decided to tell me and now I know.

Friends distract me, and when I can’t be distracted, one friend in particular reminds me – aggressively – that I Did the Right Thing. I keep thinking I’m stable, and for most of the day I am. But I’ve also started keeping a journal again, and when my feelings get too overwhelming, I’ll sit down and write whatever I’m thinking until I have some deeper emotional release. I haven’t done that in many years, either. Probably I should have started years ago.

The pendulum swings. People ask, “How are you?” and quickly wish they’d simply said Hello. If I’m out and about I’m doing okay in that moment; it’s how I managed to leave the house in the first place. A text or a DM could catch me in any particular state, which makes it pretty likely I’ll just ignore it.

In the end, I know that I’m healing, and I couldn’t do it without my friends who check in and invite me places and say nice things to me. Thank you all.

Wonderland

I have a lot of hang-ups about my physicality. My whole life I’ve been trying to prove that I’m worth more than I look like, and no matter how many times I get that validation, I’m always looking for more.

Thankfully I have the first full weekend in January every year to participate in the Winter Wonderland Workshop, Chicago’s own gathering of like-minded souls who have a need to fulfill whatever is missing from our lives whenever we aren’t swinging steel. It’s full of athletes and artists and pop culture nerds. It’s physically grinding and turns our brains to mush. It’s full of toys we don’t get to play with at our day jobs.

It’s rewarding beyond measure.

This year, after the first three days learning the martial techniques of the Spanish Rapier, my back was throbbing and my legs were turned to mush hardened with rebar. I got an hour break in the evening to drive to the Lyric Opera to fit myself into an audition for Elektra, a German opera about the Greek myth. I went in thinking I was up for the role of one of two palace guards: “The Soldiers/Palace Guards are very aggressive, sadistic, and threatening. Candidates should be 25-45 years old, masculine, physically fit, beefy, or muscular. Training and proficiency in stage combat is required. Look at the film Caligula as a reference to the stylized concept.”

I mean come on. I’ve never been a better fit for a character description in my life. The audition room was filled with a dozen or so similar types, and it was the most physically demanding ten minutes I’ve ever spent trying to get a job. Lots of crawling around on all fours, supplicating to the director as he walked around the room in place of Clytemnestra. My body refused to move as well as I know it could have, but I was stiff and sore and my knees were firing warning shots.

We got as many minutes to rest in the cafeteria with the herd of hopefuls while a second group went in, and then the casting director called four of us back into the room to offer us roles. I was surprised, but not displeased, when the director told me he wanted me for the court jester: “The Court Jester is extremely physical. He spends most of the opera rolling and crawling around the stage on all fours. He is masochistic, and desperate to entertain and please Clytemnestra. Candidates should be 20- 35 years old. The costume is very revealing and made to fit a large man. Look at the film Caligula as a reference to the stylized concept.”

Right. So that makes sense. But holy fuck.

There are a lot of wins wrapped up in this victory. A living wage and the prestige of working at this opera house are two of them. Having earned once again the faith of this director with whom I’d worked on a previous show as well as when he was my instructor in grad school. For my first two years in stage combat he taught me 90% of everything I knew (the test adjudicator taught me the other ten).

But the biggest get with this gig is the health insurance. It only comes per the length of a given contract; two months’ work, two months covered by Aetna. With my recent heart scare, I could use all I can get. My last job at the Lyric had me covered through the end of February; this settles me until the end of April.

A quick trip back to the Crowne Plaza Hotel and it was time to start my duties working as an intern for WWW. I got a shirt that says STAFF and everything. Much of interning is working to make sure the students and instructors have a smooth day of teaching, but from time to time we get to participate as students as well.

Two major victories came on Day Two. Each day consists of four 90-minute workshops, and my first one on Friday focused upon unarmed combat when the audience is at close proximity surrounding the stage on all sides. I got to pair up with a woman I’d worked with before, always at this same workshop. One of the techniques was a choke, and it quickly turned into a weight sharing exercise as we struggled to the ground.

When we finished I realized there was something missing from our work – fear. I’m so accustomed to being mistrusted by people who think I don’t have the control to be gentle. This time I saw none of that mistrust, none of that fear. I didn’t overstep and I didn’t hurt her, and she never once recoiled to protect herself from me. I thanked her for giving me that quality of trust, and she told me I was welcome and was surprised that I could have that idea in the first place.

The last class of the day was a Rapier/Dagger combo for more advanced students. Some choreography was given for us to work on, and once we had it, more intermediate moves were added to complicate things. The instructor pulled me over to work with one student specifically, and when it came time for the room to switch partners, he wouldn’t let us switch. I was instructed to stay with her for the duration of the class.

The student was struggling. A full day of any workshop turns thoughts into sludge, and she was working hard to keep up every time a new move was mixed into the established choreography. I realized then what measure of faith the instructor was demonstrating in me to take care of her, to see her through what she needed to make it to the end of class. I later told him that I recognized that he put me with her because of my skills and patience, and thanked him for showing me that quality of respect.

Later I would learn from her the nature of her struggle. She was a trained combatant and it showed, but her years of experience were with a completely different set of rules than we were being taught at the workshop. She wasn’t just learning, she was working against her well-honed instincts. Like a seasoned truck driver having to switch to a sports car. The basic principles of “don’t hit anyone” are the same, but all the tools are in different places. She was very surprised when I told her how much skill I saw in her movement, and that I wouldn’t have known she was struggling if she hadn’t told me out loud.

Interspersed from Monday to Sunday were a hundred different moments of confusion transmuting to clarity, of overcoming pain and fatigue to make art out of swordplay. Bonds are formed, trust is developed, and confidence grows. I’m so very fulfilled to have this in my life.

Now it’s Monday again, and the workshop is put to bed for another year. I believe next year I’ll apply to be a teaching assistant, now more confident that I have the skills it takes to start giving lessons instead of only taking them. In the meanwhile I have a life to get back to. I have boxes to unpack, pictures to hang, a new relationship dynamic to wrap my brain around, and a whole world of career goals and adjustments to make.

The world keeps moving. I have to move with it, or get rolled over by it.

Heart Update: Emotional Edition

It’s been two weeks since I left Nikki. I’m trying to avoid marking the anniversary. I did that a lot in years gone by, and it never really helped. Not sure why I did it in the first place but to annually punish myself for hurting others. This one is going to be easy to remember, though, as the Friday before Christmas. I’m trying not to think about it.

The following morning, I made the fastest decision I’ve ever made in my life about finding a place to live. There was only one location whose leasing office was open on a Saturday. When I told them why it was urgent, they expedited everything. About three hours after my first phone call I was approved to sign the lease, though being Christmas week, it would be another several days before I got the official paperwork signed and they keys were in my hand.

In the meanwhile, my parents had flown into town on Christmas day, so I shared their hotel room until I was able to get movers together. I wanted to socialize with them and enjoy their company, but I just didn’t have it in me. It was during their trip that I laid my motorcycle down and found out my uncle Nick had a heart attack that would be the end of him a few days later. The following week would present my brother’s release date from prison after 24 years, a series of tests with my cardiologist, one last pass through the old apartment to gather up the things I’d forgotten, and a Serbian tradition my uncle adhered to called a parastos which includes having a memorial for someone 40 days after they pass away. That makes it my mother’s birthday.

Mixed in there was getting to reprise one of my favorite roles I’ve ever played while staving off a chest cold bad enough to give it to four of the cast plus the stage manager.

Unpacking has been an unusual chore. Unboxing the hastily packed keepsakes and presents and saved bits of handwriting is like finding emotional land mines over and over again. Sometimes they hit me right away. Sometimes it takes a few hours, or even a day or three. This apartment is so tiny compared to any place I’ve lived alone. It’s nice enough, but it took five days just to figure out where all the furniture was probably going to go.

Messages of kindness and support from my friends are wonderful and helpful, though there’s a tincture of guilt and surprise that no one has stepped forward to call me a son of a bitch. Maybe that’s on its way.

I’ve also had tremendous financial support from my parents. At some point during their visit I realized that I make most of my income from various suburbs, and I no longer have access to a vehicle I can use in winter. One morning I said to my dad, “If I asked you to help me buy a car, what would be the next step?” Four hours later I was sitting in it. They also covered the movers and took the edge off the startup costs for a new place to live. I wish I could at least have repaid them by playing a good host while they were in town.

It’ll be okay, everything happens for a reason, it won’t hurt forever, I did the best I could. Sure.

Tomorrow morning begins seven consecutive days of one of the largest stage combat workshops in the country. I’m going spend the first few days learning techniques of the Spanish Rapier and trying very hard to leave the sword of Inigo Montoya at home. I’ll spend the rest of the workshop bolstering my career, visiting with friends I only see annually, and coming up with disarming answers to the question, “How are you?”

Still perpendicular to the ground. Still moving forward. The rest is variable.