before the scream.

i have an unbelievably slow reaction time.

i take time to process things. quite a bit of time. maybe too much time?

at one point in utah i came out of a friend's bathroom, rounded the corner, and found myself face-to-face with a very tall man. in the dark. he jumped in my path. i stood there. for a second. processed it (kind of). felt the adrenaline pulse through my body (you know that wave of heat that hits?) and proceeded to let out one of those screams that girls are known for: high, loud, and truly terrifying.

and then i laughed so hard i nearly wet my pants. because i knew the very tall man. i knew him as a friend. a friend trying to give me a fright. and i was aware of just how delayed my reaction was.

in fact he joked that before my departure he'd succeed in terrifying me and then making it out of the room in that bit of space before the scream.

the thing is, my reaction has always been slow. and yes, laughably so. i remember my brother jumping out at me when we were kids. he'd pop from behind a closet door. a bedroom door. a tree. the laundry hamper. and i would stand there. stare for a second. and then let loose a cry of such terror my parents would come running.

i'm slow to react. and i'm a late bloomer. and quite often the uptake takes me just a little-bit-longer than everyone else.

such is my cross. my burden to bear.

someone recently apologized to me. said they were sorry my time in utah wasn't everything i hoped it would be. and i thought, they must have known more about my expectations than even me.

because i didn't know what to expect. that was the beauty of it--i who attempts to control all things (again, my cross) relinquished, gave up, said let's try. what will be, will be (a very unusual moment of courage on my part).

and then another friend recently remarked that for something i dubbed "my adventure in utah" i certainly didn't have much to say about it. to which i replied, because it was precisely that: my adventure. my experience. and at the end of the day it was just for me.

so you want to know why i went? really, want to know?

because after almost five year of struggling to recover from an eating disorder that nearly destroyed me (and no i'm not employing hyperbole) i was happy. and healthy. and i thought, why, the hell not? to go to utah and play juliet and act for the first time in two years because someone sent me an email, because one person happened upon my blog one day and though i might be able to do it? it's too odd, to unusual a twist in my story to say no to.

and so i went.

and the eating disorder resurfaced.

it became clearer, came into focus a bit more, but steamrolled me nonetheless.

and so for the three months there, while yes i learned invaluable things, i floundered. and the eating disorder chipped away at me.

and my parents patiently told me i'd be fine. it was just a hiccup. i wasn't back at the beginning.

but it felt like the beginning.

you see, recovering from this ghastly addiction has been a marvelous progression--varying shades. but the addiction itself has always felt the same. the beginning is the middle is the end.

and so when i slip, it's like moving through a portal of time and space. and suddenly i'm nineteen and a first-year in school. and i'm twenty dealing with unbearable depression. and i'm twenty-one barely getting through the day and twenty-two finding out what it means to have the bottom fall out.

on normal days my body fogs over certain memories--protects me from myself. whole years fade away. but when in the grips of the eating disorder i am at the mercy of a memory all too potent and all too cutting. a memory that colors everything so clearly i can no longer distinguish between past and present. in fact, past becomes present as the preceding five years play out. all at once. inside a body struggling to know... well to know anything. just one thing. to know just one thing with certainty.

so for me, my adventure in utah proved more portal than anything else.

but the miraculous thing--the reason i wouldn't change any of it--the reason i'd do it all over agin--is: i rebounded. and quickly.

the rebound--the great gift of utah. the reason my gut pushed me to go.

my reaction time? hugely diminished. the space between the fright and the scream? nonexistent.

i've always been afraid of those moments of slipping--those moments where my partial recovery is more eating disorder than health. because i know that i tend to stay there for a while. it takes quite a bit of time to recover, to come out of the funk.

but this time. well this time i came out of it. and quickly.

and now i'm not so fearful of those hard days. because i have so much more information and knowledge and experience.

and the funny thing (the counter-intuitive thing) about experience is that, good or bad, it adds value to one's worth.

and suddenly my cross (crosses) don't seem so heavy.

utah

it was about three weeks in when my face puffed up. it was ever so slight. hardly discernible to others, i'm sure.

but for me. i knew. i knew it was the signaling of the slipping to the other side of the line. you know, that slippery line separating happiness from oh-er-not-quite.

i was twenty when i first slipped. when i first became sad. and i have spent the subsequent five years working my way back. fighting for both air and light.

i have made lists. reminding myself to get out of bed and brush my teeth. to lock the door behind me and bring a book for the subway ride. to turn on music and turn to those who love me despite my many failings (and flailings). to sing in the shower (or try. to try, at least).

and oh the progress i have made! and oh the work that has been put into it. the choices made day after day. conscious. with great effort. until they became habit. the constant movement of kicking legs under still water. effortless. (or something like it).

but three weeks into utah my face puffed up. and i slipped again. and i watched as the happiness that i had fought so desperately for--that happiness that took near five years--that happiness that was more often thought than experience--more hope than faith--slipped through my grasping fingers. and. it. was. agony.

i think it might be harder the second time. because you know the path. and you know just how terrifying that trail can be.

and the thing was, i was happy. before i left--just a mere three months ago--i was really happy.

something happened at the start of this year. my tangled string of thoughts began to organize itself. and the thoughts became manageable and efficient. and this base level of happiness rolled out before me. and i met a guy who made me feel beautiful as i hadn't in quite some time. and life rolled on. gloriously. because there was sense. and feeling beyond sense. transcendence. even in my directionless, haphazard life there existed a little bit of bliss. and when some version of what always happens happened, and the guy became not-the-right-guy, and my heart broke just a little, i was still okay. yes, there was sadness, but it was passing. of a different plane. and because i was still okay, i was buoyant, even as i cried myself to sleep at night.

and somewhere not long after all this i got a little message. asking me to come to utah. to give acting a whirl. and because it was the absence of happiness and its accompanying companion (the eating disorder) that had driven me from theatre, forced me to take time to focus on those aforementioned little things like getting out of bed (and making said bed) i thought, why not? of course. i am well now. i can do this. i can see if i'm ready. to go back. to resume my path.

and so i went. and so i watched. as that happiness--that hard-won, hard-fought happiness slipped and slid away.

and i wanted to die. i wanted to get down on the cool, wet, utah grass, under that heaven of a star-lit sky and disappear into the ground.

because i didn't think i had the fight left in me for a second-go-of it.

but here i am. i survived (or some version of that). and there's always a little more fight. right?

it's just gonna take some time.

i know there must be a reason for all of this. that it's just another turn on this tricky little path. it's a patch of mud--a little muck, that's all.

i'm sure that before i know i'll reach a clearing. and things will get easier. but until then... well, until then, i suppose i'll just keep making lists, and getting out of bed in the morning.

and maybe i'll be wrong. maybe this second time will be easier. and much more meaningful.

yes, more meaningful. let's go with that.

to drink or not to drink?

i didn't know before coming here that no one drinks coffee.

i do drink coffee.

yes, i am a coffee drinker.

it was nearly a year ago that i really fell in love with the stuff.

at a little cafe across from a little house in the little area of sydney known as alexandria.

mochas and lattes. froth and foam. the warm cup in a chilled hand. there was none of the american nonsense of black coffee--it just didn't exist. and each coffee shop was its own. a unique adventure unto itself. nothing streamlined.

and so it was love. and so it went. and so i-was-in-love. with the morning trek across the street and the afternoon respite--sunning in the cool winter air, coffee in one hand, a book in the other.

and then i got here.

and no one drinks coffee.

and i spent a lot of time wondering if perhaps i shouldn't drink coffee. and as all catholics do i thought on the thing waiting for an appropriate amount of guilt to arise and lead me to an answer. too much guilt? let it go. not too much? carry on. and then i realized there was no guilt to be seen or felt or had. coffee is not my vice but my choice.

and so i found a lovely little coffee shop here, finagled a bike from a friend, and each morning i wend and wind through the neighborhoods just off of center street as i slowly and surely make my way to my iced-coffee haven.

it's me and a gang of bikers (motorbikes, that is) and a gypsy of a family (i think) and a whole host of assorted characters. the funny thing is, i'm probably the one who looks out of place.

i knew coming here would be hard. it would be a challenge. but that little voice inside was so sure and so calm and so i allowed it to lead--that voice that promised oh-so-good-things.

but at this moment in time i'm wondering where the heck that voice got the nerve because i can't see those oh-so-good-things. i just see the return of ned. of old habits and older fears. the return of a bloated face and a too-tight-pair-of-jeans.

for a month now i've tried to no avail to climb from this little hole that i've dug.

but today i'm gonna get myself a coffee maker. at wal-mart. or some such. because much as i like the morning bike ride to the coffee shop and much as i'll keep doing it, i wanna wake to the smell of coffee brewing. i want a hold a warm mug. and give thanks over it. and i want that to be the very first thing i do all day. before i mount a bike. before i marvel at all the eclectic houses. before i join the misfits of utah county, i wanna break a few rules in my own little room.

because there is so much instability here. so much uncertainty. and ned really loves those things. and if all it takes is one cup of my own renegade mocha to center me a little, then i'm gonna take it. and thank God for the little lifeboat that it is.

(it should be noted that i have

the utmost respect for people

who choose not to drink

coffee for whatever reason,

religious or not.)

one iced latte, please.

the last time i spoke to tom i said, sometimes, i just don't want to feel so much.

and he said, congratulations, you've just defined what an eating disorder is in a nutshell--the not wanting to feel.

i've been going through this interminable, undeniable period of writer's block.

as soon as i got here: capow, it hit. and i wondered if it had something to do with energy--with the transference of energy.

because, you see, for me...writing has always been an act of energy. of feeling. of seeing feelingly. what i mean is, i don't think it through terribly well. i mean i think it through, but mostly at a level of half-awareness. on a simmer of sorts and when it begins to boil...well, then i write. it's a feeling thing. of taking what i'm feeling and putting it on the page. so that while the reader may not get what i'm saying exactly, it doesn't quite matter, because they've lived in a different place, for just a moment. felt something just a wee bit their own. or not their own. they've experienced some sort of shift. (i think. i hope).

feeling and energy.

this post alone should be case enough to send me back to a school where someone can teach me how to write correctly and articulately and well. and yet, that's not really of interest to me. i want to write in the cracks. in the fault lines. i want to walk away with dirty fingers from sorting through the glorious and renegade weeds of my own life.

and so here i am, suddenly trying to act, and i can't write. and if i can't write, well then...

i always assumed it would be possible to do both. but this acting thing and tapping into emotions disperses and displaces my energy in such a way that the water only simmers. constantly, yes. but no real bubbles. no explosions of air.

and the thing is i'm quite sure that writing saved my life. and so i can't give it up.

how did it save my life? a good and valid question. well, because, if writing is feeling, and an eating disorder is the avoidance of feeling, then writing (for me) is the enemy of ned*. writing is the sorcerer's stone. the silver bullet. the long, sought after spoonful of sugar.

funny, i always thought it would be love.

acting is a feeling thing too. i do it feelingly. and i'm quite good at it. or i was. once. and yet in some ways (and i realized this just tonight) it was only perpetuating my sickness. as actors we are desperate to feel. but we play people who feel so very much that they want all the feeling taken out of them, want to stand barren. as actors we play people who rail against--who laugh when they need to cry--who become silent when the cries of rage overpower.

i thought i stepped away from acting because i couldn't align my health with the realities of the industry. but now i realize it was more than that. it was that it wasn't healthy for me to play people who didn't want to feel. because that was the reality of my life. it was too close.

there are days when i feel the residuals of ned. and suddenly it's as though i can't breathe. i mistakingly step into a pocket of space and time that he has claimed as his own and i am swimming through air, helplessly. and yes, i smile for the camera. and yes, as i do so i feel like a fraud. a liar. and while people kindly remind me of how far i've come, it doesn't feel as though i've taken but two steps from the ground zero of my own invited destruction.

and then just as quickly i step out of that pocket. and i see the many thousands of miles i've traversed. and i see the many miles i've left to go. and it all seems possible.

i don't believe the people that say this will be something i struggle with for the rest of my life. i think they're wrong. i think they don't know. i think that's something that's been said so often and for so long that others repeat it as fact.

i think i will look back on all this in two, ten, twenty years and i will in fact be doing just that, looking back. it won't be a daily battle. and i say all this because even now there are days where i feel so completely, so gloriously, so perfectly... normal.

i started all this rambling by declaring this a period of undeniable writer's block. undeniable might be a misnomer. maybe it's not writer's block. maybe it's just that i've not taken the time to sit down and hash it all out. to force the boil. sometimes words come easily and i've been so very fortunate to experience that. often. and yet there is just as much value in the uphill trek through the muck, the searching for words when words themselves seem impossible.

because this--all of this will make me a better actor if and when i decide that that's a path i want to embark on. writing is not the enemy of acting. and acting is not the enemy of good health. and, well...there you have it.

and maybe love is the answer. love of words and theatre and afternoon bike rides. and coffee, coffee too.

you know, i sat down to write a post on the virtues of coffee and this is what i got.

go figure.

*ned is the name for my nasty little eating disorder.

to read more, go here.

beans in the elevator.

i'm not quite sure when i became so honest.

well, actually that's not true.

i think i've always been honest. but upon request only.

my truths were mine--they were private things.

i suppose the extent to which i have relinquished my privacy (by making these truths public) has everything to do with coping with a disease--the truth of which made manifest in my body each and every day.

much as i wanted to lie, much as i wanted to hide--my body exposed new secrets each day in fresh ways--the puffiness of my cheeks, the snugness of a favorite sweater.

it was ned who changed the game. he made the battle a public one. and my willingness to fight back with honesty is more response than anything else.

so yes. now i am forthcoming in hopes of staying a step ahead. of controlling the story, if you will.

and i rarely ever lie. (which is not necessarily a good thing. lying {like flirting} is a skill which can prove important and necessary at various times).

so when i do, i am out of practice. and i flail a bit.

there had been a stench coming from the kitchen for a while. more time than i'd care to admit, actually (omission). and i kept returning to the fridge. trying to suss it out (correct usage? oh, who cares.) where was it? what was emitting foul odor?

i threw pounds of stuff away. stuff that was not mine. frozen meat that had been there for years. (remember i moved into an apartment where girls had lived for many cycles of the moon). questionable milk. rotting vegetables.

and still the scent persisted.

and i despaired.

i took the trash out.

i lysoled. baking-soda-ed. scrubbed. put my nose right up to...everything.

i finally found the offender.

black beans. perfectly normal looking things. no visible mold or rotting. but one sniff (and after coming to) i knew.

so i pulled our a trash bag, dumped them in, and hopped in the elevator to get to the outside trash receptacles.

and just as the doors were closing, leaving me alone with the beans for a mere three floors, totally doable in light of the odorless freedom on the other side, a girl stuck her hand in the rapidly diminishing crack, halted the door and got on.

three floors with rotting beans, myself, and someone else in a small enclosed space? not doable, no matter the prize.

the stench was...horrific. and i was...mortified.

so i lied.

i lied like it was my job.

"flowers gone bad," i said. for indeed that's what it smelled like.

she smiled coyly. and honest to God, i don't even think she spoke english. a waste (play on spelling intended, thank you very much) of a lie.

so here's the thing. i'll tell the truth about anything. my feelings. my past. all those skeletons that bernard shaw recommends we teach to dance. but a rotting can of beans? nope, no way. it was the beans that brought me to my knees. forced me to lie. the truth of them was just too much to share.

i mean, my God, what 24 year-old let's a can of black beans go bad to the point of turning putrid (because indeed the beans were mine.)?

i told you, i'm really not skilled in the kitchen.

confused as to who ned is?

or want more info on him?

check my sidebar.