by Analyn Revilla

“The Katrina Comedy Fest” is based on the true experiences of 5 separate lives who survived the hurricane of 2005.  I was given a nod to write about “The Katrina Comedy Fest” because it’s still a relevant story.  Natural disasters and catastrophes, like waves lapping on the beach, erase the tracks of lives imprinted on the sand.

I’ve visited New Orleans twice.  The first time was in in 1991 when I got married in a small town called Buras.  It’s about an hour south of the Big Easy.  On August 29, 2005, the eye of Hurricane Katrina made its first landfall in the Buras-Triumph district, and the area is still in the process of rebuilding.  On my second visit in 2010, I wanted to see the effects of the BP disaster upon the environment and the people.  It’s unbelievable to see the ant work it took to watch people and helicopters putting up barriers to keep the oil slick at bay.

I sought out the old fire hall station where I was married by the JP with his deputy as witness.  Like my marriage, the white-washed concrete building didn’t withstand the forces of wind and rain.  I sought out Camp’s, the restaurant that served big bowls heaped with rice and oyster gumbo.  That one had closed too, or the owners decided not to rebuild it after the storm.  My memories of Louisiana linger, like the waft of good soul food that beckons.  It was at Camp’s where I learned how to eat a crawfish properly as demonstrated by the happy waitress.  She took one mini-lobster from the heap on the newspaper and used her thumb and index to flick the head off, and she sucked out the ‘best part’, followed by forcing the meat from the body with the same fingers.  This technique ensures “less mess” and allows for continues eating, because there are plenty of hands going into that heap.

The story telling captures the sensitivity, nostalgia and steely guts of survivors in the face of a natural disaster and caught in the web of bureaucratic foibles.  The stories of five characters, from different walks of life, belie a spirit of humor and a soul of surrender.  New Orleans, historically, has always been at the mercy of nature because of its geography – it sits on the soft silt of the Mississippi River delta, and it opens up to the Gulf of Mexico.  This relationship has grown more tenuous with the industrial revolution.  The coast of Louisiana and Texas has been identified as dead zone, and is the largest hypoxic zone in the United States (source: Wikipedia.)  Last week two explosions erupted in two chemical plants on Thursday and Friday.  If the investigation comes up with any likeness to negligence that led to the BP disaster, then this reinforces some themes common woven into the lives of the people.

“The Katrina Comedy Fest”, refreshingly, does not focus on the politics.  The play brings the event to a tangible level that can be digested as a languorous 5 course meal, beginning with the rising waters and ending with sobering shot of reality.  It becomes a speculation game as to the strength of “this one” compared to the “last one” when the levees didn’t breach.

The stories are narrated through the voice of …

Raymond, a homeless, begins his story in the stadium.  He discovers his “air freshener” ineffective against the heavy stench of bodies locked down.  He’s prepared for anything being a homeless.

Antoinette is a savvy and bold owner of “Mother-in-Law Lounge”, and widow of R&B singer Ernie K-Doe.  She keeps both her 15 year old granddaughter and a shrine of her late husband afloat during the storm.  The statue donned with a sawed-off shotgun keeps away would-be intruders.

Rodney is a sweet southern gentleman shoulders the responsibility of keeping his aging parents plus new comers entertained and alive during the siege of rising waters.  He keeps well inebriated with whisky and at the close of the storm realizes he had spent more with his parents than he’s ever done in a long long time.

Judy is a sweet and naïve older woman who meets up with 5 young people.  She wanders out in the street of her neighborhood which had already been evacuated.  She receives texts from her son, “Get out now!”  She meets the pot-smoking youths who takes her with them to San Antonio in her son’s unreliable car.  It is a miraculous trip that opens the life of Judy to young attitudes and wider latitudes.

Sonny, a tourist guide, stays a while and ends up in Oklahoma with high-pitched voiced black woman who likes to scream.  His cool logic and street-wise experience keeps the situation moving until he is investigated by the FBI, because he’s carrying a big wad of cash in a plastic bag.  How else does a person whose business is cash-based supposed to flee the floods of New Orleans?

“The Katrina Comedy Fest” was written by playwright is Rob Florence and directed by Misty Carlisle.  It’s showing at The Lounge from Wednesday thru Sunday.

by Analyn Revilla

The Fringe Festival is in full swing.  I’ve seen three shows of different genres and flavors, all of which proved to be fresh, fitting and funny.  The Fringe is about all these and more, which are reasons for attending a performance and more to tickle your senses and blow your imagination.  A stage and players with powerful stories to share is a lever to enlighten our minds, elevate our spirits and encircle the range of humanity in our hearts.

In writing about the the Fringe plays I’ve seen.  The question in my mind is, “How is today unlike any other day?”

In Alyson Mead’s play, “The Other F Word”, today is unlike any other day for four women invited to a focus group about a pen designed for women, and it is PINK!  The women are racially, socially and economically different.  Carol is Asian and is married with children.  She is shy and demure.  Roxanne is black, a lawyer and single.  She exudes power in her Armani suit and accoutrements.  Daniella is of East Indies descent (it seemed to me), and she’s a man in transition to be a woman.  She’s thoughtful and sharp, but hides showing off these gifts. Lastly, there’s Evie, Caucasian, beautiful, educated and single.  She’s opinionated and outgoing.  The women attend the focus group with different motives – whether it is for the $100 compensation, curiosity, opportunity or to fit in, they are forever changed by the dialogue initiated by a pink pen.

Sitting in the Lounge Theater at 4pm last Saturday, I listened to the monologues expressing their inner thoughts and true feelings.  It wasn’t just verbally expressing to the moderator “Tammy” about the pen.  Firstly, what kind of a name is Tammy?  Is that even a real name? or is it a psychological setup for the bearer of the name to be a stripper.  The women bark their opinions about the others which is a microcosm of their day-to-day life.  It’s really not about the pen.  It’s about their own perception, opinion, belief and attitudes about themselves, other people and situations.  This is cleverly played out in the story by using the pen as the instrument – a great metaphor.  The power of the word birth from thought and emotion as carried out with the pen.

They receive their checks in the mail, and again a tool is used to reveal a meaning – what is money? Roxanne deposits the check immediately, because she was taught by her parents that time and opportunity is wasted by an un-deposited check, and she’s saving up for fertility treatment.  Daniella saves the money for her operation, a dream to realize her inner nature.

The journey that the women had embarked upon at the focus group, has conscious shifts and unconscious impacts on their views.  Some can accept the event as a blessing that moved them to another direction on their path.  For example, the shy and demure Carol grows.  She breaks out of her self-imposed beliefs of only being a mother and wife, and becomes a successful leader and organizer of a group in her community.  To another participant, Evie, she recognizes her pattern of dating losers, and breaks out by learning to spend time alone, by herself, to discover her inner beauty and to love herself.

In case you’re curious to know… the story of play evolved from a real-life event in 2012 when a company began to market the Bic Cristal “For Her” pen.  People posted cutting and sarcastic reviews on Amazon that lamb-basted the marketing features of the pen as … “elegant design – just for her!” and “a thin barrel to fit a woman’s hand”.

 “Finally! For years I’ve had to rely on pencils, or at worst, a twig and some drops of my feminine blood to write down recipes (the only thing a lady should be writing ever),” one reviewer wrote. “I had despaired of ever being able to write down said recipes in a permanent manner, though my men-folk assured me that I ‘shouldn’t worry yer pretty little head.’ But, AT LAST! Bic, the great liberator, has released a womanly pen that my gentle baby hands can use without fear of unlady-like callouses and bruises. Thank you, Bic!”

“Oh. My. God. I’ve been doing it all wrong. There was me thinking I didn’t need to worry about whether my writing implement sufficiently reflected my gender. Thank you so much Bic for showing me the error of my ways. Perhaps Bic will also bring out a new range of pink (or purple) feminine spanners, screwdrivers, electric drills and angle grinders so that I can carry out my job as a bicycle mechanic without further embarrassing myself? Luckily my male colleagues have managed to keep their disapproval of my use of their masculine tools to themselves. I’m so ashamed. And re-educated as to my place in society. Thanks again Bic!”

Dan Kaufman, a reviewer is quoted, “Men, don’t stand for this. Aren’t there enough products specific to women already? First it was tampons, now these pens? What other products will I have to suffer the indignity of being unable to purchase just because I’m a male person?”

The BIC spokeswoman, Linda Kwong, responded to a request for comment: “We appreciate hearing honest feedback from all of our consumers, whether it is regarding a promotion, advertising campaign, or product.  As a global consumer products company, BIC wants to hear these important comments.”

The pink pen has given the opportunity for women to speak out about being branded, and perhaps that is the other F word.

1. Aaron Swartz.  He was a social justice activist who lead in the defeat of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).  Had SOPA not been defeated, then the operation of the internet would have granted giant corporations boundless censorship powers.  He was the creator of RSS (Really Simple Syndication”) which changed how people get online content and allowed for accessing different sources of information.  As an example, RSS enables how millions of people get their podcasts.  He committed suicide in January  11th at the age of 26, under the extreme pressures of the prosecution of the government – charging him with 13 felony charges under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA).
2. Jacob Appelbaum – A computer security researcher who is a developer and advocate for the TOR project, a system that enables users to communicate anonymously on the internet.  He and two other individuals, has been the target of government in its investigation by secret efforts to gather private information for the purpose of its investigation into Wikileaks.  The federal appeals court had granted the government a warrant to subpoena and acquire the Twitter records of the subjects of their investigation.
3. Julian Assange (the recent recipient of  the Yoko Ono Lennon Courage Award for the Arts in absentia)

Yoko Ono: “This 2013 Courage Award for the Arts is presented to Julian Assange.  With your courage, the truth was revealed to us – thank you – and gave wisdom and power to heal the world.  On behalf of the suffering world, I thank you.  Yoko Ono Lennon.  Thank you.

“As people we have to realize that we’re all people, somebody is somebody’s son, somebody is somebody’s daugher.  And I try to picture it that way.  Would you want somebody doing that to your son?  Would you want somebody doing that to your daughter?  If not, why do it?  Through this whole experience I’ve learned that.”

Iris (not verbadim, but from what I remember from the play):  “I’ve been thinking about God.  Not God in the person sense, but God in how we are to each other.”

The view from my office window looks down on a house with a flag on the front lawn.  It’s a consulate’s house, and today there are two painters working on the French patio door.  They are brushing the cross bars in grey, carefully lining the paint on the wood.  Their heads tilt to the sway of the brush.  Watching them is a good break from the pop-up letters and numbers on my computer screen.  I can imagine their faces, like children, focused on the lines and texture of their brushes on the medium.  It must be rewarding work, I think, from the relaxed poses of their bodies.   The painters are beautifying and preserving something of value.  Their tools and material of paper sand, brushes, buckets, scrapers, spackling paste, tapes, rollers, drop cloths – are for the intent of construction and not destruction.

 I usually start my day with reading the news.  Yesterday marked the anniversary of the war on Iraq over their presumed Weapons of Mass Destruction.  I digest the short paragraph which is general.  It stirs an inexplicable emotion, except for a wish.  I wish I had the guts to express how I truly feel about war, and specifically about that war.  I feel inadequate and invalidated to be specific about my opinions and feelings about any big issue, because I know it is not as black and white as reported to me, who lives thousands of miles from the source of the news.  The big issues are those that affect everyone.  But we don’t all want to be affected.  For me I don’t want to be affected, because that war seems unreal and hard to accept.  Maybe that’s why I can’t be specific, and bold to express my feelings and thoughts about war.   I can only describe my feelings as grief over a loss.  I don’t know yet what that loss is.  Perhaps it is one of these or all:  loss of innocence, loss of humanity, loss of sanity. 

 One of the topics about the Iraq war recently is the mass displacement and epidemic birth defects and cancer found among the population, and the cause is suspected to be the “US military’s extensive use of depleted uranium and white phosphorus”.  That is specific.  What is more specific is to see a picture of a newly born baby with more than 2 sets of arms and 2 sets of legs, and its internal organs formed outside of its internal cavity.

I remember during one of the lessons in a writing class.  The teacher talked about specificity and he presented it like looking at the multitude of faces of a cut crystal.  One face is described as “Metaphor is a tool to bring an experience of universality to the specifics of our story.”  I sat quietly, working.  Then my mind wandered away from the intensity.  The eyes shifted from the page to the view.  I spotted the painters, and I’m reminded of the headlines I read.  My subconscious has been quietly knitting at the images and words to make sense of the juxtaposition of construction to destruction.

 The brush paints up and down and side to side of the wooden frames.  Straight, neat lines contrasts the spider baby with its medusa appendages sprawling out of its torso.

 “Working with metaphor allows us to say a lot with few words.  It is a way of helping the reader to understand the underlying themes.  It can also be a way of making challenging issues accessible.”                 –  Al Watt (LA Writer’s Tribe)

I’ve recently picked up my physical activities by going back to the YMCA.  I’ve been taking spinning classes alternating that with swimming and some workouts on my own.  I had a bad case of the flu in February, and I’d forgotten the feeling of good health during my sick time.  After a lengthy and tenuous recuperation period, I began to appreciate what it feels like to be healthy.

It’s so humbling to do the simple things that keep life going smoothly.  With me, I found that I have a strong resistance to doing the simple things.  To do the simple things means:

1. “showing up”
2. “having the intention to work”
3. “having the intention to push beyond my boundaries”
4. “having gratitude to be able to do it”

 My good friend puts it this way (regarding working out), he said, “It’s a privilege to be able to work out”.  It is what he reminds himself when he does not feel the motivation to exercise.  Health is a privilege.  Creativity is a privilege.  Life is a privilege.

 Privilege defined:

  “a right or immunity granted as an advantage or favor esp. to some and not others.”    The Merriam-Webster Dictionary

 “a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people”      Oxford Dictionary

 Without getting into a political debate or philosophical debate, I just want to explore the depth of having the privilege to health, creativity and life.  I think it is becoming more of a privilege to have these things than a right.  Most people in our affluent society are born with good health, creativity, and naturally being born is life itself.  There are circumstances that occur that deprive some of us of these basic things.  The immediate circumstance that comes to mind is having the  financial ability to afford education, nutritious food, clean and safe habitation.  When I consider the hazards of living in Afghanistan or Syria, or anywhere else where to make a living is a hard struggle, then it is indeed, a privilege to be healthful, to be creative and to live as I am only able to imagine and will myself to be. 

Last week I was driving to work from my “annual” physical and it was busy in Beverly Hills, and people were driving like lunatics.  But I was relaxed.  Being over 40, I am now belong tothe group of women that needs to have a mammogram as part of my physical.  I put “annual” in quotes because this is my conversation with my doctor:

 Doctor:  “Hi Miss Revilla.” (He shook my hand while his other hand held my chart.) “It’s been a long time.”

Me:  “Not really.  2 years?”

Doctor looks down on the chart.

Doctor:  “Your last physical was in 2006. You came in 2009 for a cough, but you haven’t been back.”

Me (feeling sheepish):  “Wow, how time flies.”

 I have insurance coverage from work, but I have not gone for my annual physical, because I am of two minds on this:  One is, I wonder if there’s an insurance scam about the process, two, I really don’t like getting bad news. 

 Doctor:  “You didn’t go for your follow up mammogram in 2007.”

Me:  “I think I was out of the country.”

Doctor:  “Promise to go this time.  Otherwise my office gets these yellow cards that remind us it’s my responsibility to ensure my patients go for their checkups.”

Okay.  I promised to do so.  

A few days later, I showed up for my appointment at the Beverly Tower Women’s Center.  After the examination with its tricky maneuvers, holding poses and breaths, and squeezing my mammary glands between two cold plates of plastic, I told the technician, “Now I know why I didn’t go for my follow up.”  She laughed.  She told me to wait in a private lounge while the radiologist reviews the x-ray images.

 The last time I sat in that room was in 2006.  I had to to come back for follow up tests after the initial screening.  They explained after their intense diagnostics that the density of the tissues in my breast made it hard for them to see if something is abnormal.  This time around I thought, I’m sure everything is okay like the last time.  The technician returned.  “Analyn, the doctor wants to do an ultrasound.  Can you wait here please?”

 Of course I smiled, and nodded yes, but I thought, “Do I have a choice?”  Then I began to worry.  It’s been 7 years since my last examination, and I wonder if that little thing they found has turned into something not so little anymore.  The next minutes turned into agonizing moments.  “What if it’s bad news?”  Now, I reflect back on my thought process then, and how my mind prioritized what’s important to me.  I confess, I asked for the chance to spend time with my fiancé so I can make him happy. 

 After the appointment, as I drove back to the office I felt a sense of freedom, hence my relaxed state when there were people driving with little courtesy for others.  But I didn’t mind if someone changes lanes without using their turn signals, or if someone blocks the intersection during a change of lights.  The ease (lack of “dis”-ease, came from the freedom of knowing what truly matters in life to me.

Another female mentor spoke it well, when I described to her my experience at the doctor’s office.  My mentor is a survivor of cancer.  She said to me, “You definitely learn to pick your battles.”

The battle for me is working on the simple things:

1. “showing up”
2. “having the intention to work”
3. “having the intention to push beyond my boundaries”
4. “having gratitude to be able to do it”

 My simple things are to maintain health, to write, to play guitar, ride the motorcycle and to serve with love.

 I recently finished the book, “Tuesdays With Morrie”, by Mitch Albom.  I want to share some good quotes from it:

 “The truth is, once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.” – Morrie Schwartz

 “So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they’re busy doing things they think are important. This is because they’re chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.” – Morrie Schwartz

Between 2006 and now I’ve changed in my attitude about the annual physical.  Even if I belived that the physical examination could be an insurance scam (and I don’t know the machinery behind all that), I choose not to mind being a tool for it, for the reason that my eyes were opened during those minutes in that waiting room to the gift of health, creativity and life.

After my last post, “The Company”, I had a conversation with Kevin about his experience making the movie.

How did you work out the problem with the fire marshall? You told me the building was on a fire watch, and would have to buy a $700 permit and pay some city worker$65/hour during the filming.

Kevin:   We had to shut down the production indefinitely. Even if I could have gotten the film permit over the phone, the fire marshall would not let us continue shooting without a full-time paid fire official on the set. I couldn’t afford that. What was most frustrating about the whole situation was that the manager of the warehouse had been calling the city for an entire year trying to get them to come in and do what they were required to do – inspect the sprinkler system. So it’s clear the city knew about the problem for an entire year. In lieu of sending in an inspector they just put the building on a fire watch until they could get around to it. In the end, the manager hired someone to come in and fix the problem, which turned out to be replacing one or two sprinkler heads. The fire marshall, who felt bad about what happened, then expedited an official inspection and the building passed. I got the film permit and 3 weeks later we started over. I say started over because I couldn’t use any footage from the day we had to abort. It wouldn’t match. Final cost of shutdown/delay: approximately $2,100 which included the permit and the cancellation fees for the cast and crew.

I know of 3 events that could’ve stopped you from continuing to the finish line:  a) an unscrupulous contractor b) the actor pulled out at the ’11th hours’ c) the fire watch… I know there were other events after these… can you list your most significant challenges (in addition to a negative balance on your bank account 🙂

Kevin:  Regarding a, b, and c, anyone who’s ever produced or directed a film will tell you that what I went though is nothing unusual. Every production has it’s horror stories. And mistakes are made. My hope is to make bigger and better mistakes next time, but to never make the same ones twice. 

As far my most significant challenge, it was wearing too many hats. As director my sole focus should have been on directing. But that is often not the reality for low budget independent film. It certainly wasn’t on this movie. And I think the final product suffered for it. Among the jobs I performed and could have taken credit for are: executive producer, producer, location scout, props, set decoration, casting director, script supervisor, production manager, production assistant, driver, post production supervisor, etc. This was a failure on my part in that I made the same mistake twice. The Company is my third film but I made this mistake on my second one, and I failed to learn from it. At the same time I realize that no one is going to care about The Company as much as I do, period. It’s my dream and I have the most at stake. When there was a job that needed to be done, and no one around to do it, I simply had no other choice…

I like that… “I simply had no other choice…”  Seems like there are situations when this is the “I must”.  In my acting studio at the ‘Imagined Life’, there is a big banner over one of the doors that reads “I must…”  It is a reminder of the philosophy that we are not acting out for appearance sake.  We are doing for the simple motive that I must save my child, I must tell him “I love you”, I must dream big!  You’ve got nothing to lose except missing out on the best ride of your life.

“Ever dream of starting your life over in another town, with another name, in another country? For a fee, an organization called The Company will provide all the documents necessary to create a brand new you in a brand new place.”

Sounds like an offer for a new you for the new year, but it is the slug line for the movie my friend, Kevin McDermott, directed and completed last year.  This blog is dedicated to Kevin, the man who persisted in the face of stumbling events, and an artist with a vision to touch and illuminate the humanity in his audience.

Last year, during the process of realizing the dream that had been gestating, Kevin faced a series of catastrophic events that would probably have dissuaded others from continuing.  Kevin stood up when the situation appeared hopeless, and walked on to finish the movie. 

 I wrote about my Kevin in my blog, “Sail On…” last year (https://lafpi.com/2012/07/off-the-cuff-how-do-you-do-it/).  At that time I called him “Dave” (I wasn’t sure at the time if he felt comfortable to reveal his real name.)  The blog started with, “How do artists face set backs?” 

Some comments from the readers were:

Robin Byrd:  Love this… Love Dave’s resolve to “do it”

Erica Lamkin:  What an inspiration Dave is!  I just know the film will be breathtaking.  I can’t wait to see it!

Last November, the screening for the “The Company” was held at Kimberley Browning of Hollywood Shorts.  I watched Kevin stand among other directors.  He’s a tall man, and he smiles without affectation.  He bowed and humbly he accepted the applause from the audience.

I see Kevin as an artist who quietly whittles at the medium of his art with his heart, body and soul.  He crafted his vision onto the screen with steady resolve and a courageous heart.  He never imposed his hardships except to talk briefly about it, as he seemed to already have a resolution to the problems in his subconscious.  It’s a quality of true character and probably innate in artist to simply see “well into” situations and people, and have the inner confidence to get through it. 

How do artists face set backs?  I know there were times when stayed in the sanctuary of his home to lick the wounds from unexpected events which seemed cruel.  But some of these events turned around to offer a better option than the first choice. 

1. An unscrupulous contractor who took money from Kevin without the intent of building the set.  Kevin swallowed the loss, and took out a loan to continue the work.  He found another contactor who built a great set for the film noire set in the late 50’s.  The new location was better, and Kevin paid less money for the set.
2. The lead actor pulled out the night before the first day of shooting.  After a few weeks delay and he found the actor, Al Bandiero, who was better suited to the role of the main character of Dan
3. At the first day of shooting the movie, a fire marshal shut down the location, because Kevin did not have a fire permit, and also learned that the building was on a “fire watch”.  The cost of the permit would be $700 and he would’ve had to pay $65 per hour to have a Fire Marshall on payroll during the filming. 
4. After the major hurdles there were the expected technical difficulties:  lights, sounds and editing.  The synergy of the people working to make a good movie overcame the smaller hiccups of production.  With imagination, creativity and resourcefulness the people got the show together.  It was a gathering of artists who were dedicated to their craft – costume/hair/makeup; sounds and special effects, music score, lights and props, editing.  Kevin was a master puppeteer, and he coordinated the people and the tasks with great heart and spirit.

What Kevin showed was the art of engaging and engineering people and resources to work together under very difficult circumstances.  I think this is a unique quality that good leaders need to be able to hold a ship together, and to weather bad storms to sail on to a bright horizon.

 The movie is fantastic.  Catch the trailer by going to this link: http://thecompanyshortfilm.com/trailer.html

 To learn more about the movie, go to this link:  http://thecompanyshortfilm.com/

The Company was also an official entry of at the Hollywood Reel Independent Film Festival.  If you missed that one (Dec. 5th, 2012), the movie was also submitted to the Sundance Film Festival.  I remember our conversation about the process of submitting Sundance.  Serendipitously, he discovered the office was in a building only one block away from his apartment building.  We both thought he would have to Fedex the CD to Utah.   On the last date of submitting the CD, I called him to remind him to get it to the submission office on time.    He had already dropped off the package bright and early by the time I called him.  His belief in his purpose is what made this film happen.  This was his “I must”. 

What’s yours for this year?  For me it’s to finish “Original Sin” (no matter how long it takes… I know I’m inching closer to the finish line.)

Three days into the new year, and I’m slowly transitioning from a place of wet marshes to an open space.  I’ve been having dreams with water.  One in particular was treading water with only my right arm which made me swim in circles in a vat.  I ducked my head below the surface to look for sharks.  What I found was a domestic scene:  a kitchen with tables and chairs, and people occupying the seats.  I felt afraid to look closer so I resurfaced, and found myself in a different room.  I sat with a small party of three women.  One woman, heavy and rotund was overbearing and directing the whole show.  I finally got tired of her ways.  I boldly lifted her buttocks off the ground to reveal her dirty underwear.  I left the house, but to get out I had to navigate my way through an entangled web of fishing lines that blocked the door.  When I got through by pushing aside the lines there was an open field beyond the door.  The weather was cool and wintry with the sun breaking through a mild layer of fog.

I think people like to talk about their dreams, and beyond that to understand the underlying message(s) they contain.  It is probably to spend less than third of our lives in a dreaming state (if we’re lucky enough to get the time to be in REM mode.)  Could dreams give us clues and possibly answers to fulfill our soul’s needs and desires?

In the book “Care of the Soul”, Thomas Moore speaks that “Care of the soul requires ‘work’ in the alchemical sense… Sometimes, soul work is exciting and inspiring, but often it is also challenging, requiring genuine courage.  Rarely easy, work with the soul is usually placed squarely in that place we would rather not visit, in that emotion we don’t want to feel, and in that understanding we would prefer to do without.”

Gee, I think that paragraph in the book describes the feeling of the dreamer – avoidance and running away.  Revealing a life beneath the surface of the water – the kitchen where we gather to store away food and staples, make our meals, clean the dishes and hang around as in a kitchen party because it is the modern figurative hearth –the fire of the soul.  Maybe, until I see what’s happening in the kitchen then I’ll continue go in circles around the heart of the matter, and never get it.  Now I can see why I’ve been obsessed with matters of the soul. 

 “A dream may survive a lifetime of neglect or an onslaught of interpretations and remain an icon and a fertile enigma for years of reflection.  The point in working with a dream is never to translate it into a final meaning, but always to give it honor and respect, drawing from it as much meaningfulness and imaginative meditation, not keep it in fixed and tired habits.”

“Care of the Soul” (chapter ‘Dreams:  A Royal Road to Soul)

 Dreams are images that encapsulate powerful doses of chemicals that motivate thoughts and feelings.  A certain color, smell or sound evokes memories.  I like it that I can still invoke a feeling of my mother’s closeness by the smell of her favourite perfume mingled with her natural oils.  Overtime, my ability to recreate that fragrance from my imagination fades.  Interestingly, I got her favourite scent as a Christmas gift for her this year.  I need to sneak a bit of that “1000” onto a handkerchief and ask her to tuck it into her bra.  This is how she use to stash away her hanky (or maybe her way of beefing up her bosoms.)

 While my mother visits for the holidays, I’ve been struggling with past emotions that I’ve hung onto so closely that my knuckles are white and my hand feels numb.  I recognize my need to let go.  New year is a time of renewal.  I wonder if it will ever be right between her and me, and it may never be right but only better and easier.  I like this imagery from an Indian myth about Krishna:

 His foster mother is told that her little boy is outside eating mud.  She goes out to clean the mud out of his mouth, and when he opens his mouth, he reveals to her all the heavens and hells and gods and demons in himself.  She is of course, stunned by this display, and her relationship to him would be pretty well damaged from then on if she remembered it, so he very kindly erases it from her memory.

– “A Joseph Campbell Companion:  Reflections on the Art of Living”

 There is another part to that story, but I’m only using what is needed here for now.  It is the kindness to erase the memory.  As I move further out into another year, I need to remember to be kinder, and erase traces of the past that do not add to happiness and fulfillment.

(I’ve decided to forgo the sequel of Soul Work Part 1, 2 and so on, because soul work will be ongoing till my last breath.  So I borrowed the title from a song by Todd Rundgren, “A Dream Goes On Forever”.)

Soul work is house work.  These words came to me at 4:30 this morning while scrubbing the kitchen floor with vinegar-water, and the dog soaked in the warm bath to wash away the stench of urine.  This is soul work, I thought.  I love her, but man… this is tough.  I miss the days when I can bounce out of bed and grab the leash while Chloe eagerly waited for me at the door, running to and fro in her excitement to play outside in the crisp cold morning and explore the canyon.  Now she’s fifteen years old.

Some mornings, like today, I’m happily relieved that she is aroused by the sound of my voice calling her name, “Chloe?”  It’s the last day of 2012, and I wonder if she’ll be with me next year.  I hate myself for asking this question.  To ask it, seems like a betrayal.  I swish the water around her back legs and kiss her nose.  She looks at me, perhaps wondering if she’s being a burden.  Or is it me projecting my thoughts and feelings on her?  I love you I tell her and kiss her again.  You’ve been a wonderful friend.  I don’t mind.

I’m thankful that I have clean water to do this work.  The water is the medium between the spirit and the soul.  There’s a line in the movie “The Company” that goes like this,  “My mother said that rain is the tears of God cleansing away the sins of the world.”  I feel guilty on the days (and some of the days are strung along like paper lamps that I long to come home to a clean home.  Then I remind myself to be patient and loving, because the dog can’t help her condition.  She’s incontinent.  I don’t know when the right time will come to let her go.  I’ve decided that she’ll decide and let me know.

This phase of my relationship with an old friend has been soul work.  What I mean by soul work is getting to the grit and dirt of my frustration, my sadness, my fatigue and everything else that I would label as unkind and ugly about my attitude to the situation.  I cannot shun the work, because the only way through it is to work through it.  Soul work is akin to housework.  Eventually, I or someone I pay to do it, will need to apply the elbow grease to clean up the mess.  But it is the act of applying myself to the work that will absolve me of my “guilt” for my unworthy feelings.

This past year has been my hunger year for anything “soul” related.  I hunted down the thrift store for psychology and self-help books on the soul.  I read “Soul Stories” by Gary Zukov, and also his other book, “Seat of the Soul”.  These were good.  I found a treasure in Thomas Moore’s “Care of The Soul:  A guide for cultivating depth and sacredness in everyday life.”  Thomas Moore uses mythology and archetypes to describe the reflections of the soul like the lights of a crystal spinning on an axis.  In his book, I found the reasoning to accept my feelings.

There are many events that I question, “Why?”.  Some things just do not make sense despite my best intentions.  The challenge is how I choose to think and react to the circumstances.  In the beginning I didn’t understand the change happening to the dog a couple of years ago.  Then, slowly I began to open my eyes that the happy, limber puppy was suddenly an old dog.  She was suddenly a dog with arthritis and a heart that still bore the spirit of a loyal and trusting friend.

My experience with Chloe is one of other soul stories I am sharing with you.  It has been a very challenging couple of years.  I know a few in our own circle that have had their share of soulful experiences.  What keeps us going is that spirit of aspiring to be a better person.  It is a matter of awareness and choice.  I don’t mean to seem dogmatic like I’ve got it figured out, because I feel I’m so far away from that.

But I really want to forgive myself for feeling unkind sometimes.  The body is a perfect machine.  The organs work synchronously to sustain life.  When we cut our finger the systems works as a team and sends chemicals to the injury so that the blood will clot, and the immune system is activated to kill germs and bacteria.The body perfectly designed to expire after some wear and tear, or when the timing was just right for the body to be at rest.

Our society is obsessed with prolonging life and capturing timeless beauty.  I begin to open my eyes to the perfect-imperfect design of life and death.

After I drain the bath water and hoist Chloe over the lip of the tub, I tease her, “How did you get so big?!  How did you do it?”  I coo the words to her in a tone of loving humor.  At 5 o’clock I take a reprieve from the task.  I know that in a few hours I will be doing the  same thing over again.

I found refuge in the handicap stall in the ladies’ restroom.  I chuckled  to myself as I crouched with my journal and pen to write about something.  “Something”  is trying to find my feelings that I had lost touch with, because I’ve been so busy keeping up with maintaining a life.

In the last few blogs during my round of blogging I hinted at being in “survival mode”.  Well I got deeper into it.  I’ve been slogging through hell.  (“When you’re going through hell, keep going.” – Winston Churchill.)

Then an awakening happened, and it was that I had become this mentality of being a victim of circumstance.  The awareness of this made me immediately stop on my tracks.  I stopped to consider what’s really important, then ask ‘Where am I going?’

Around this time, a friend from Vancouver, texted me.  He said he wanted to summit Golden Ears, and I was the only one he knew who was willing to do it.  That is true.  I’m crazy enough to do a ten to twelve hour hike into the woods without much training.  I had been living a semi-sedentary life of a desk job and imbibing on French cheese, baguette and wine, and minimal exercise.  I was ready.  I went for it and proceeded to book my flight, request for the time off, and asked a good man to take care of my dog.

I land in Richmond, home to Vancouver’s International Airport.  It was renovated prior to the 2010 Winter Olympics and its look and feel is about nature.  Passengers deplane and walk through a simulated rain forest (recording of streaming waters, bird calls, mild humidity from fake and real plants, wooden seagulls and stuffed animals) en route to the Immigration queue.  All this is familiar to me as I’ve gone home to Vancouver many times to renew my US visa since I decided to move to LA.  I miss home and yet I choose to live in LA.  It’s confusing.

It’s probably for this reason why I’ve allowed myself to seep into the mentality of being a victim.  I’m uncertain of what I want and allowed life to happen rather than making life happen.  It makes sense to me as I let the words spill onto this page without masking my feelings.

At the Budget rental office I’m rewarded with the luck of upgrading my rental car from an economy car to a convertible Mini Cooper for a reasonable cost.  I go for it.  I cruise into the jewel of the Pacific Northwest with the top down.  The cool wind and bright fall colors suffuse my senses…. Ahhhhh… I’m home.  My first stop is the Bikram Yoga studio on
Commercial Drive (the neighborhood I use to remember as artsy and bohemian that’s woven with modern urban amenities:  there’s a Starbucks and Waves tucked between the multitude of family owned stores and Italian and Portuguese cafes.  The yoga studio is across from the old standby “Joe’s Café” (the owner was a former bullfighter in Portugal, and he still serves the cappuccinos with a warm greeting and smile.)

After a good sweat, I’m ready to be a tourist in my hometown.  So much has changed, and yet there are still the familiar standbys like the Purdy’s Chocolate Factory.  That was my next stop.  Already, I’m shopping for goodies to take back to LA and also to give away to friends and family in Vancouver.  It’s the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend after all, and I was
feeling generous.  I spend the next two days between visiting friends and family and another yoga session.  The yoga was the only prep I had done for the hike.  At least, in my mind, I can sweat out the toxins and stretch my body.

The hike to Golden Ears was on Thanksgiving Day (the 1st Monday of October). It took almost 12 hours, and my friend and I got to his truck at 7:30 pm when the sky was already lit with stars.  We traversed through various terrains including wooded forests, alpine meadows and dry creek beds.  12 hours in the womb of nature is what I needed to recharge my battery and ground me to what’s important to me – to simply be happy.  A walk in the woods makes me very happy.  Spending time with an old friend makes me happy.  Watching 2 kids play street hockey in an empty recess ground makes me happy.  Chocolate makes me happy.  Multi-hued leaves on the trees and on the ground makes me happy.  Geese crossing the street makes me happy.

When the resistance is strongest; when I’m feeling up against the wall day in and day out, I really have to make the effort to consciously choose to be happy.  I think of the simplest joys I can make for myself and realize that that it does not take much to make me happy.

I land back in LAX the next evening.  I am waiting at the curbside for my boyfriend.  The whizzing and weaving airport traffic with the LA dry and cool evening weather makes the serenity of the last three days appear as an illusion.  A woman who was on the same flight waits for her ride too.  She turns to me and says, ‘Welcome to LA.’  I nod knowingly and we have a brief conversation about the contrasts of living in LA and Vancouver.  We agreed that we are here for a reason, though it’s not “home”.  Our rides arrive at the same time.  My boyfriend greets me so warmly my heart melts.  I’m home too.  It’s not a cliché.  Home is where the heart is.