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.

Imitation of Life

One thing an actor learns in Chicago is that it’s harder to get fired from 5 small gigs than one full time job. In this regard, our schedules are completely fucked from one day to the next. You might be required to start your day at 6am on Tuesday, 10:30pm on Friday, you don’t work Wednesday, but someone called you to fill in for six hours on Thursday which may or may not happen but they’ll let you know by 11 tomorrow morning. Waking up at the same hour on two consecutive days is rare.

This week I have the unprecedented situation of working the same gig – at the same location – 5 days in a row. It’s an earlier day and a longer commute than most things I do, but it’ll be a solid paycheck in a week or two. And the work is rewarding; that of a standardized patient, an acting-adjacent job which helps medical students practice their communication skills with the sick and injured. We portray the patient, memorizing a list of facts and doling them out when the right questions are asked.

The down side is that it’s a very repetitive job. Getting asked the same questions and giving out the same answers every few minutes reminds me of every cashier job I ever had. It can get a little monotonous, but keeping it fresh is vital to their education; a reminder which helps us to push through.

Each day we get interviewed by up to 10 students, 15 minutes at a time, portraying the same symptoms over and over. After a while we might take on some of the characteristics of the patient ourselves, so something like a persistent cough starts getting harder to control. The mind and body starts getting convinced it really is getting sick, and starts acting like it.

This week is harder than most. I’m portraying a patient who suffers from random attacks of his racing heart and rapid breath, each time afraid it’s going to kill him. Turns out to be panic disorder, though it doesn’t occur to him. If the students dig deep enough they make an connection to a major event one year ago in the patient’s life, the anniversary of which is the likely culprit for why I’m sitting in an emergency room now.

This case hits awfully close to home.

It was a year ago now that my depression started to peak in a way it hadn’t in years. It had been building, but it finally hit a point that I knew I needed professional help. Rarely have I been to a therapist and never had I been medicated before, but this time I started both. It took months to unfuck myself back to functionality.

But here I am again. Same time of year. Same sort of life situation. And now up to ten times a day I spend fifteen minutes describing a panic attack and facing my mortality, neither of which are unfamiliar to me. I really hope they’re getting something out of this, because this case needs more than a paycheck to put me back in order.

Just a few more days to get through.

Play Hurt

I have almost always been connected to music; not as an artist, but as a listener. “What a shit statement," you might say. "Everyone listens to music." And yeah, sure, of course that’s true. Where I draw the distinction is the place where needing music around me at all times becomes a compulsion. Without music, something feels off. Something’s wrong. Silence is a slight odor of smoke in my apartment when nothing should be burning. A humming sound from my car’s engine which only presents when I’m driving fast enough to know that a sudden issue would be catastrophic.

Silence is uncomfortable. Turn down the volume, and take away my security blanket.

A neurologist named Oliver Sacks researched a condition and called it Musicophilia. Usually it happens to people who have suffered some kind of brain injury, but I don’t remember one. Well – there was that one time a television landed on my forehead, but I think my compulsion started before then. Maybe? Whatever.

What I do remember is one of the first presents I got from my parents: headphones. There was a stereo in the dining room, and I would use it constantly because it had the best speakers in the house. From my earliest memories until I was through college the most common phrase I heard was “turn it down.” Yeah, it doesn’t just have to be on. It usually has to be loud. The headphones weren’t so much for me as they were to protect the rest of the family.

That’s a trend which continues to this day. Everywhere I go the music is playing, and it’s only gotten more convenient and more constant. My phone connects to a Bluetooth speaker when I’m getting ready to leave the house, to my headphones as I walk to the car, and to the car stereo as soon as I crank the engine. The song never breaks, and the playlist never ceases.

Music keeps me on track. Without it I stop moving, can’t complete a task. I operate at my best when I connect a particular album to a particular chore. American Idiot gets me through the grocery store. Turn the Radio Off folds laundry with me. The discography of Stone Temple Pilots up to 2008 cleans my apartment, and the Battlestar Galactica soundtrack holds my hand while I write something. Pavlov wasn’t wrong.

When I mention this, someone will point out that some people just can’t handle silence. This is usually accompanied by a superior tone fueled by a self-perceived strength of character. Their ability to sit quietly with nothing but their own thoughts must be some kind of superpower. Well you know what fucko, some people don’t have legs; no reason to get haughty just because your brain isn’t tied in knots and you have toenails to trim.

Okay sure, so I’m bitter about the fact that some people don’t need it. In addition to being easily distracted, I’m also regularly anxious or depressed. A quiet environment is a still one. The more still my body is, the faster my mind moves in useless swirls. Repeated fragments of half-developed sentences, ancient arguments with people I never talk to anymore, my obelisk of a to-do list, they’re all warring for my attention at the same time and all of them are winning.

Putting on music is like putting out the bumpers on a bowling alley. My thoughts can’t stray too far because music keeps them bordered, and my focus on a particular task remains until the task is complete. If I’m doing something simple like walking or driving, music fills in the dark places where uncomfortable thoughts would otherwise breed.

Somewhere in there is a lesson about my overall mental health. I guess it doesn’t really matter as long as I have a way to keep it under control.

Trained Movement Professional

Working twelve hour days for weeks on end is enough to stretch anyone’s limit. At this year’s National Stage Combat Workshop, there was plenty of opportunity to find my own. For safety’s sake one’s mind need be operating at peak efficiency at all times – if you tune out, you miss a bit of choreography and a sword gets thrust at the wrong bits. The physical demands are unique unless your day job requires slinging steel at your coworkers (if it does, please let me know if you’re hiring). As the brain fries and the muscles waver, it becomes more and more critical to put effort into making certain the choreography is solid, and you’d damn well better not grow too confident.

Test Day was the last day of the workshop. It involved four tests: Smallsword, Knife, Broadsword & Shield, and Quarterstaff. Each test is conducted by two partners performing a scene of no more than three minutes, containing a number of required moves on behalf of both students. A Basic Pass means having met the minimum standard of technical skill, and a Recommended Pass means having exceeded that standard in the eyes of the adjudicator.

In the eight years since I started learning stage combat I’ve never failed a Skills Proficiency Test or Renewal, nor have I seen it happen.

Safe to say I was most excited by the Sword & Shield test, as this was the only one of that day’s four weapons for which I have never been tested. Sometimes I really enjoy playing into my type. Also my partner and I picked the arena scene from Thor Ragnarok, so I got to be a big guy playing the Big Guy while doing Big Guy Things. Plus my Sword and Shield partner was a woman who’s actual name is Thor, named for the Marvel character, so the only way we could get nerdier is if we rolled a D20 before each strike.

The Sword & Shield test was the first one after lunch. I was battling the results of insomnia and overcoming the emotional aftermath of the Smallsword and Knife tests in the morning. Indigestion, coffee, and a nervous stomach had me bent over in the men’s room for a few minutes for the second time that day, and ibuprofen was keeping my injuries quiet for the moment.

Though the room was the same stage upon which we’d been practicing for weeks and the audience supportive and friendly, test day casts a layer of tension and formality which alters the tone. We may have spent 30 contact hours with this weapon, refining and perfecting our technique, but the only thing that matters is what happens within the next 3 minutes or less. It’s the kind of setup that seems fine when it works in your favor, but totally unfair should something go wrong for the first time during the test.

Working in my favor, Thor is an excellent combat partner. Chuck and Adam are phenomenal instructors. I’ve been at this discipline for years, been through the testing process several times, and had been working vigorously for months to prepare for this moment. In the end, something still went wrong.

Four moves into the fight, Thor punched me with her shield because that’s the choreography. I blocked with my own shield . . . ish. My arm was too close to my body and at the incorrect angle, so the edge of my own shield smacked me less than a finger’s width over my left eye. A two-inch gash started bleeding immediately, pumping harder from my adrenaline, freer for being thinned by caffeine and painkillers, but masked somewhat by the bandanna holding my hair out of the way.

I felt pain, and then numbed. My vision never blurred, I never blacked out or felt dizzy, so I didn’t stop the fight. Thor pressed the attack as designed, and I defended properly. I figured she would eventually call hold. Or maybe it would come from one of the Fight Masters judging the scene, or the instructors standing in the wings, or in the audience. No one did. We kept fighting.

I saw drops of crimson fall past my eye, the smell sharp and unfamiliar. I tried to let them fall onto my dark shirt so no one would notice. “If we don’t finish this now,” I thought, “we might not get another chance. Keep going until they force you to stop.” No one forced us to stop.

Less than a minute later the fight was over. By the time we took our bows and left the stage, the left side of my face was obviously marred. The staff EMT sat me down, cleaned me off, and patched me up with just enough time to pick up a quarterstaff and meet my partner, Michael, for our next test. We did a scene from Shrek (I was Shrek, and Michael was Donkey. Test day is awesome).

Then I got a ride to the emergency room, and was very excited to see an episode of Judge Judy while I waited for the nurse.

It wasn’t until a few days later that I got home and learned the test results online. Basic Pass for Smallsword and Knife. Recommended Pass for Quarterstaff. No mention of Sword & Shield, which I supposed to mean I had failed. It would be another day before it was updated with “Incomplete or Not Passed”.

Some of the proudest moments in my life have come from my work in this field. The praise is sweet, and the victories fulfilling. I always expected that failure, should it ever come, would devastate me. This one didn’t. Maybe because I saw it coming. Maybe because I have a long track record of successes to balance the scale. Maybe because it’s not like they kicked me out and stamped my ass with “DO NOT RETURN”.

In the end, I’m privileged to be able to live in a city so accessible to classes which will let me try again soon. This isn’t over for me, and my dream of rising through the ranks of the organization is still alive and well supported. Now, when I look in the mirror, I’ll always be able to see the scar to remind me that success is never a foregone conclusion.

A tattoo on my back reads, “Fall down seven times, stand up eight.” I guess I’m just living my truth.