Through My Jade Specs.

jad·ed [jey-did] (adj.): 1. worn out or wearied, as by overwork or overuse. 2. a constant state of being for most CCM students, esp during the run or tech week of a production. 3. a state of being which requires one to don black clothes and a pair of jade specs (see specs).

sp·ec·s [sp·ek·s] (noun): the slang word for a fierce pair of eyeglasses.

I’ve been writing at my desk for the past three days. Dana says that I sit at my desk when I am lonely or when something is bothering me. It’s kind of funny because it is true but also because the location of my desk would suggest the entirely opposite motivation. My desk is the first thing you see when you open my door, whereas my bed is cleverly hidden behind my closet so that no one can find me. Normally coated in mounds of paperwork and books, I shift the usual desk crap only once in a while to reveal a small section of the wooden surface. So here I sit, wedged between my papers from today, my tissue box from last quarter, my three hole punch and my poetry book that is a staple on this messy array.

Yesterday, my desk meant a space to work. It meant me separating myself from dorm society to finish my project of the moment: a self-help book called Through My Jade Specs. Hours of tracing and writing and typing and doodling compiled itself in this short pamphlet designed to make people smile. When I was finished, I ran down the hall showing off my accomplishment. And, God, did that make me happy. I loved seeing people happy about my work and listening, excitedly, to my words.

The project started because I was sitting at Starbucks free-writing about how dead I felt inside and how much I needed some inspiration to give me a bit of purpose. Yes, I admit, that entire free-write was a bit overdramatic (I compared myself to an exploding soda bottle and said that the only vibrant thing in my life was my new hot pink cover for my eReader. It hit a whole new level of pathetic.), but it did lead me to the idea for my pamphlet. Designed as a part workbook/journal/doodle pad, I wanted to share simple tips and wise words to make people smile. The book includes quotes, to-do lists, love lists, text messages and a few pieces of advice. I have no idea what I am going to with it but it made me happy to make it.

I just want people to be happy because I want to be happy. I want them to be happy and I want that happiness to make me happy. Writing is such a selfish art. It wants its audience and it wants to be the only coherent voice in the room. It wants to be the center of attention and the reason people smile or cry.

One writes to make a home for oneself, on paper, in time and in others' minds. - Alfred Kazin

How to Return Home.

Your bare feet sliding on the old wooden floorboards,

Home just as you left it but still you’re shaken,

Like walking into a museum somehow out of time.

It’s all the same except the girl in the hallway,

Where she’s been and who she will ripen into,

Your childhood’s on the other side of a sprawling divide… too wide

- How to Return Home, Tales from the Bad Years

You’d all laugh if you knew where I was at this hour of night so I won’t humor you with the details. Instead, I’ll leave this my own little inside joke that I can laugh at whenever I look back on these entries.

Yesterday, I walked into the office of my drama department at my high school. There was Ms. Furlan, the conductor/music teacher who is still struggling to call me the right name, poking furiously at a new texting phone. With every button whack came a new explicative. I laughed, both silently to myself and loud enough to draw Ms. Furlan’s attention. She laughed right back and started running through her list of possible names for me as she gave me a warm hug. Mrs. Potter, my director, walked in only moments later and I poked fun at her for still not being able to text.

This scene has played itself out hundreds of times since I started working in the theater department. It was so routine and wonderful. I easily entered conversation with Mrs. Potter about school, theater, shows and the drama festival this weekend. It was effortless and comforting. I felt like I was putting on my favorite old sweatshirt. It’s warm and wonderful and clings just right. I am always so happy wearing it until I reach the arms up and realize that I outgrew the damn thing. It’s still my comfort item but there is no way to make the fabric grow and stretch the new me.

I guess you never expect the change. You know that you are going to grow and mature and become something new but you never expect that the things you loved so much at one specific point in your life could change just as radically as you yourself have.

I left my five little girls this summer. Five freshmen girls I met when I was a junior. Five little women that I will always refer to as freshmen. Five little girls who I will always remember as they once were: gawky, with braces, with eyes as big as stars and dreams as big as their hearts. And when I left, I assumed they’d change…get boyfriends, new haircuts, decide that they like math. But I never really thought they’d grow up in the time I’d be without them.

I came home and had coffee with five beautiful women who have changed their minds, dreams and goals and found out that love is what your heart feels. Women who are taking the weight of the world on their shoulders and excelling under the pressure. Women who believe in themselves. Women who are so mature that I wonder what one more year of high school and college itself will bring for them. Women who I consider to be some of the most beautiful human beings I have ever met in my life.

I look at them and how far they come with a certain reverence. I haven’t been able to objectively look at myself like I have them. But I hope that my growth and change as a person from the time I got to CCM until now, six months later, reflects itself like it does in these women.

Love, AA, AP, CG, HC, KE

40 Moves.

Today, winter finally left Cincinnati. I woke up this morning to a hundred chirpping birds outside of Alice's window. After the annoyance of the sound subsided, I accepted the cacophony as spring announcing its official arrival.

It's been a long winter. Winter break ended immediately and suddenly we were thrust into this hell hole of time sucking activities that buried our emotions under two feet of snow and stress. And now it all seems like a blur. I vaguely remember the events, faintly coloring in details that reflect my current mentality and obscuring those that remind me of past hurt. It feels like whatever happened was just a nightmare and as haunting as it was at the time, I can do nothing about it but live with the consequences. Perhaps the memories are less like nightmares and more like hazy drunk stupors. In the moment, the whole situation felt surreal and wonderful but, in the morning, as more recollections come back to you, the only prevalent thought is: "I did what?"

As spring dawns, I can only hope that everything that happened has happened for a reason and a purpose. The rebirth of spring can only call me to make less mistakes then I did in the static landscape of winter. I can only be expected not to repeat my blunders.

I challenge you all to revisit the hazy details of the past three months. Maybe even make a list of all of the significant events (for all of you who took Script this quarter with Burnham: your own personal 40 moves) that took place over this quarter. Everything good, everything bad, everything that you pray will never happen again. Take a moment to look at those events as you are now, through your current lenses. Then decide what you'll learn from each one of those moments. See the lesson in the absurdity.

To Do List for Everyday in Spring Quarter:

1. Make someone smile.

2. Make someone laugh.

3. Make someone cry...from too much laughter.

4. Tell someone "I love you."

5. Find a flower and let it know how beautiful it is.

6. Look a friend in the eye and tell him or her: "Thank you for being a part of my life."

7. Think of something to write for #7.

8. Be awesome.

Turning around on a one way street.

Winter's occupation seems to have conquered, overrun and destroyed everything, so that now there is no longer any resistance movement left in nature. - John Knowles, A Separate Peace

The recent beauty of sunshine and blue skies has brought me from my Puritanistic response to winter: hide until it's over. Suddenly Winter Quarter seems just like a nightmare, so real and alive in the moment but only a distant memory by the time you wake up. Suddenly I am looking at the same sun I spent my summer idolizing and enjoying.

It was sunny one afternoon on Cape Cod this summer. Katy and I were cruising around town in my dad's car, relishing the fact that we weren't driving my 'jank mobile' through the quiet summer town of Falmouth, Mass. The music was blaring, as per usual with us, the windows were down and we were running out of gas. I pulled over, whacked at the GPS and decided that since I had never been to a BP station (and one was listed only a half mile away) that that was where we were going to go to get gas.

Katy and I arrived at a deserted gas station that had one pump that hadn't worked in any recent decade. There was a driveway off to the side of the station and I decided to pull up it to make my car turn around easier. Thank God, I was a youthful driver who couldn't do tricky turn around and really wanted to go to a BP for gas because up that driveway was the College Light Opera Company.

"9 weeks. 9 shows. Best summer of your life," Katy explained to me, being the more theatrically aware person in our friendship. Later that night we saw a show there and I decided that that's where I wanted to work. I talked to people about it and the dream seemed out of my reach being that I am only a freshman. But I knew that eventually that was where I was going to work.

Thanks to Katy, BP, GPS and my driving ability, I will be the stage manager at the College Light Opera Company this summer in Falmouth, Mass. I am beyond ecstatic for the opportunity to work with such talented performers and musicians and to live on the beach for 9 weeks doing what I love. I await the challenge of being the head stage manager and I cannot wait to remind myself why I am doing this.

CCM and Winter Quarter, you haven't defeated this kid yet.

How to Save a Life.

For the most part, we start our infatuation with the theater and this art form as young child. Dazzled by the beautiful costumes, astounded by the glamor of our predecessors, in awe of everything you could become on stage, we began to blindly stumble into a world so appealing to our innocent imaginations. I've worked with hundreds of kids at this point in their theatrical career and I can honestly say that the look on those kids faces when the curtain goes up is worth every penny I have to my name. It's not even just that opening moment that has me hooked to working with kids. They have this wide eyed, wonderment that turns quickly into a work ethic and a sheer love for what they are doing. If I didn't have that experience with theater as a kid, that fascination that turned into a passion, I would never be where I am right now.

And then I see the cast of the CCM Prep musical: 70 children who are under a militant regime, producing a musical that will only be seen by their parents and siblings. Looking at those kids, forced to remain quiet at all times, yelled at for any minor misstepping, treated like they are older than they are, I saw the aspects of theater that make me hate it sometimes. Those kids were whipped. I saw them being put through exactly the same regiment that CCM puts its college students through that kills their love for what they are doing. Suddenly theater is no longer that glamourous dazzling wonderful place where kids experience and play on their passion for the craft. It becomes this fight to put on the most professional production a cast of 8 to 14 year olds can put on. I tried making faces at them to make them crack a smile and I got were blank stares and shh's. All I could think about was: "If this is what theater had been for me as a child or a high school student, I would be a math major."...and I hate math.

I can put up with a lot of things and I can take a lot of things as I am dealt them but children being whipped and those innocent spirits being crushed before they even get to experience the passion for what they are doing is not something I can turn a blind eye to. So my goal is to make this the best theater experience they've had here at CCM. I am going to make them laugh by making horribly silly faces and by telling them silly jokes and if their laughter is heard offstage then I am doing a heck of a job. I've learned all 70 names because every kid deserves the chance to be called "Jenna Susan Marie." I want these kids to love what they are doing now because if these children are the future of theater their spirits will already be crushed before college institutions like CCM get the chance to try and squelsh them forever.

I want the things that I had before.

CCM is all about self-esteem and a belief that you are good at what you do. That's the only way to succeed here because you are in the presence of artists who have mastered your same craft and nurtured their talents for just as long as you have. The only thing that can set you apart is your belief in yourself and your skills. Its a confidence, not a cockiness that you must exude.

Flashback to senior year. I've stage managed most every show my high school did. I stage managed at a community theater for adults and children. I stage managed in Boston at an opera company. I stage managed in New York at a small theater company in the East Village and got hired back. And I'm thinking: "I got this stage management thing down. My paperwork still needs a lot of TLC and I could use to be a little more proactive and professional. Sure, I have stuff to work on and that's what CCM will help with. I just need more experience."

Cut to now. Welcome to CCM, where we are all stripped down to bare essentials. Where prior experiences mean everything to you but nothing to anyone else. Where the only way to prove yourself is by being set up to fail and not doing that. I've accepted that we're in college and no one is going to tell you that you are doing well or to keep your chin up but I didn't expect to be faced with a program that just assumed you aren't talented. Where the only belief in your skills is the one you possess and take ownership for. It took a combination of PAing, crew assignments and lab hours to break me. I can't pin point exactly when it happened or exactly why but I lost faith in myself. The prospect of internships and job opportunities has started to instill fear in me. Was I capable of stage managing still? Would I fail horribly and forget everything I had learned over the past five years? Can I still do this? I've gone from being the girl who took a train to New York City to stage manage with a company of professional adults on a whim to the girl who won't accept her job back at her old community theater because she doesn't think she can handle the production.

I need to start believing myself again before I can convince people here to believe in me.

I just don't understand how
You can smile with all those tears in your eyes
Tell me everything is wonderful now
Please don't tell me everything is wonderful now

- Wonderful, Everclear

Up In The Flyloft.

Make no mistake your relationships are the heaviest components in your life. All those negotiations and arguments and secrets, the compromises. - Ryan Bingham, Up In The Air

Today, I finally had that end of the quarter breakdown. The one that seems to be looming just like the tear that needs to be shed or the words that have to be choked down. You feel it coming until the impending feeling becomes a part of you. It took the question: How heavy is water? for me to lose it. But this meltdown didn't come in the form of tears or resistance, it was just laughter escaping me for no seemingly logical reason. I laughed and I laughed and I giggled and I cracked jokes until I sought refuge in my room and sank into my bed. I turned on the movie Up In The Air and I vegetated.

The movie opens as I expected it would. The main character shows us how efficient and uncomplicated his life is without any human connections. Everything is routine and everything is peaceful. But, of course, it's all too good to be true and two women enter into his life. One, 'himself with a vagina' and one, a young girl wavering between the main character's life of sterility and seeking love.

The world of theater has always held this same mystique to me and I've always wondered what it means to truly give up hope on having a family, falling in love, having friends and what all that would feel like. The main character, Ryan, had it all until he met Alex and understood love and felt wanted and discovered what he'd been missing.

And to some degree, I think that's what has happened to me here at CCM. I'm not saying that I don't have friends at home or that the people I met prior to this place never meant a thing to me. That time in my life was just too raw for me. The window into what is reality was so obscured with crap that I couldn't fathom anything beyond it. So I relied on stage management and let that blind me to everything. I had 'people' that needed me and that I needed and that was enough for me. The bond was so surface but it was all I knew and all I understood and when everyone left at the end of a production it seemed timely and inevitable. This sounds so miserable and so saptastic and that I will sum up my experiences since being here at CCM as 'eye opening'. My best memories from this year all involve people...friends, coworkers.

So the question is: where do I find that middle ground between my career and the people I love? Where do I create those extra hours in a day to go to rehearsal and hang out with friends? When do I decide that I need to stay up with a crying friend rather than sleep? Will CCM manage to squelsh both goals and both unattainables? Will I strive to be the best stage manager and leave people behind? Will anyone care?

So really, there were a lot of questions and all of them will have to remain unanswered. Until then...

The stars will wheel forth from their daytime hiding places; and one of those lights, slightly brighter than the rest, will be my wingtip passing over.

We expected something, something better than before.

Last night, a friend of mine responded to my blog post. He told me a story of how ultimate frisbee helped him survive freshman year here. Then he told me to find my frisbee.

Senior year of high school, you are sitting at your computer with the collegeboard up. An immense amount of colleges and universities sit in a never ending drop down list, just a mouse click away and you are thinking: "What on God's green earth do I want to do with the rest of my life?" And then you cogitate on what you love to do and what you are good at you and you have to seriously consider making something you love into a job.

Senior year of high school, stage management was my passion and my job. I knew nothing else that brought me that amount of joy and accomplishment. And now I am here at CCM "doing what I love" and I wonder if this is what stage management was destined to become, just my career and no longer the fire within me.

Freshman year of college, I am "living the dream" and looking for what brings me joy and reignites me and teaches me about myself. So I return to these things that has always been with me: my words. These are my medium and my first love. I've decided that I need to make sure that I don't let this part of me die. I need to just write it out sometimes and share with everyone.

Freshman year of college and I am going to start writing the first 'serious' play I've started since junior year of high school. I want it to scream for me and tell everyone what I want them to hear right now. And I want to perform it here because I want CCM to know that this kid is about making her own way and leaving her own unique mark wherever she goes. And I am going to do it.

Writing is my frisbee.

This is more than I bargained for...

I am officially jaded. And its the kind of jaded that you can feel in your head, in your heart, in your sore feet, in your exhausted eye lids and, worst of all, in your smile (or lack there of). It's a secret kind of jaded that I'd prefer to keep hidden behind a giggly facade of wonderment that gets me so far in this business. It's kind of a eagerness, almost, that is really just compensation for how hollowed out I feel inside.

I am the jaded jack-o-lantern. When the little candle is on inside of me, I shine and look full, even happy. But when it is daytime and I am all but exposed, I am just a hollow orange shell with a creepy smile.

I am over CCM, in the best possible way. I don't want to be here. I know that that sentiment is just winter term and the exhaustion of living through heaps of shows, homework and snow but I still feel like a little, rational part of me feels that way too. This place is running us ragged just to run us ragged. I feel like it doesn't have a point, aside from making money off of the productions. I feel like we are all just hampsters running on wheels creating the electric current that makes this place run. And then what? We get jobs and we leave and we are just hampsters running from wheel to wheel because that's all we know to be good and holy. Is that it? Is that what this school was meant to do? Because it obviously wasn't intended to help foster connections between people. There is too much competition, too many divisions, too many expectations, too much gossip for that to actually happen. While we are here we create fake bonds to tide us over and keep us from trying to jump off that wheel to make life easier. It's like the military man who is still in love with his high school sweetheart just because he needs someone to occupy his mind in the strenuous world of war.

I am jaded because I know what I want to do but I don't want to be ruined and destroyed and beaten to a crisp in order to do what I want. This is not what I bargained for...