...for a beautiful commercial shoot for ThedaCare up in Neenah, Wisconsin, is how I spent my Valentine's Day. We got really lucky with the sun that day before clouds started rolling in. The sun was just coming up over Lake Winnebago and it was stunning. And a very beautiful and peaceful way to begin what turned out to be a fun shoot. I had my doubts about shooting a commercial outdoors on a lake in Wisconsin in the middle of winter! But happily, it wasn't windy and it was in the 30s (could have been negative numbers, dontcha know!) and we were nicely bundled. The other two women who were in the commercial were so lovely and fun. My shot with them was to turn from camera and meet up with them and stroll down a small pier towards a lighthouse. I honestly can't remember a lovelier location for a shoot. I think the beautiful day and setting had us all in high spirits and we laughed and talked a lot. The director was awesome - so great to work with, so supportive and complimentary, full of great ideas and worked off of what I brought to the table. He gave me a huge hug when I wrapped, which is not usual. Later, the producer said that he was impressed with me - that I got all kinds of direction and did everything the director asked, which, I'm not gonna lie, made me feel so incredibly good. You don't always get that kind of feedback on a shoot, so it really made my day. All in all, a totally fabulous day. Feeling very fortunate and grateful this morning....for my life, for continuing to work, for....everything :-)
I hope your day is full of wonderful.
0 Comments
...that scares you. You've heard that before, yes? Well, yesterday I did a self-tape audition that may have fallen into that category. Or maybe the embarrassment category. Still pondering. The audition wanted us to "dance at home as if no one is watching," which, in fact, I do all the time. I love to put on music and dance all around the cottage. I don't think about what I look like, I just move however I want to with the music. And sing pretty loudly because why not? It's a great workout and it's just great fun because no one is judging me, least of all me, and I can get all of my yayas out. It's especially fulfilling on a day like today where it's only 11 degrees outside but feels colder and I can't take my regular walk. SO, anyway, back to yesterday. "Dance at home as if no one is watching...." Well, if "no one" includes my fabulous partner who was helping me film (he totally never judges when I dance around the cottage when he's here - I think it also gives him a certain amount of joy) and the camera and the number of people who will be watching this tape, that instruction is kind of absurd. Because once you know someone is watching you do something, no matter what it is, you do it differently. Not better, necessarily; not worse, necessarily....just differently. I chose a song that I knew I could just get into without thinking about it and let it rip....and gosh darn it, I was totally self-conscious! It took more takes than I would have thought, and I'm not gonna lie, it was an exercise in humility to have to watch myself while editing my audition to send in. Gee, do I REALLY dance like that?! We are our own worst critics, aren't we? In the end, after going back and forth on should I submit this, I hit "send" and said what the heck? Be careful what you ask for!
I hope you dance while no one - or everyone! - is watching and have a blast doing it! ...on this 25th day of the new year. And a big fat welcome to the world to the first grandchild of one of my BFFs, a baby girl, who I hope will have a fabulous, healthy life and be a kind and loving soul and make the world a better place. I don't pine for "the old days" and wish I were back in the time before computers and cell phones and Netflix and 24-hour news, but I am very grateful for growing up in the decades I did. People call that a simpler time. I think of it as a time where when we were bored, Mom made us pick up a book or go outside and play. We didn't have computer games or phones plastered to our faces. We did have a beautiful creek in the back where we would go hang out, wade in it, build dams, swim, walk north or south as far as we could go, look for crawdads, and we had a big back and front yard, and in the very rural place where I grew up (not so rural now), lots of nature to explore and lots of bike riding to do. I'm not so rose-colored glasses that I don't remember being a little peeved at Mom that those were pretty much our choices, but looking back, I read a whole bunch of great books and spent a whole lot of time outside. And no regrets about either of those things :-)
I hope your world is rosy and beautiful and that your day is full of fantastical things. ...January 24th! Doesn't it seem like it was just New Year's....1984? I write a lot about my fascination with how time goes so fast or so slow, depending on your mood, where you are in life, what's happening in your soul, your mind, with your family, friends, work, the country, the world, and on and on. My partner always smiles when I say to him (which is actually pretty frequently, come to think about it!), "Oh, my gosh, it's Wednesday already?!" He's charmed (I hope) and really gets a kick out of my amazement at how quickly time is going for both of us. And thank goodness! Because I know at least for me, when I'm unhappy, sick, sad, bereft, angry, at sea, frustrated, hurt, afraid, time slows down. Isn't that ironic? You want time to be slow when you're happy, not all of those other things I listed in the slow column. And yet what is it that makes it just the opposite? Perception? Because time doesn't change. We do. Is it possible to change the perception on unhappy = s-l-o-w? Or maybe I don't change my perception. I change the situation. Hmmmm....I like that! And honestly, it's what I try to do, but sometimes I guess I need to write it down. So..."Gee, it's already January 24th!" A very happy day here in the cottage - yay!
I hope time is whizzing by for you in only the best of ways. ....today, after what feels like an eternity!!! Wow, I can feel the difference in every part of my psyche! Took a long, glorious walk despite the cold and just reveled in the feeling of the sun on my face, the icy wind in my hair, and the feeling that everything is RIGHT because there was sun today! Now, don't get me wrong, though I love the sun, if it was sunny every day, I wouldn't like that either. Being from the Midwest, I'm used to the grey days of winter, but as I've mentioned in previous posts, there's something different about this particular January and the oppressive greyness. Not today!! Today, the sun glistened on the small amounts of snow we got yesterday, and in my opinion, it was the perfect winter day. Yay!!! And I had a callback for a commercial, so all in all, a red-letter day :-) Oh!!! And I got these toasty, fab slippers for my always freezing cold feet, so it was a win-win-win kinda day!
I hope your day was a red-letter (or purple or yellow or burnt umber, whichever color of the rainbow appeals to you) kinda day too. ...getting to spend some quality time with some old friends and meeting some new ones at a lovely reading of a provocative new play by a sweet, funny playwright who I've known forever. The best part and the reason why I was there at all reading stage directions, something I really enjoy doing, is because my very BFF, a marvelous, sensitive, smart, creative director asked me to :-) I always try to be available if she's got something she's directing. I love watching her work with actors. She has so much respect for people and living things (though admittedly, I think she could do without snakes - I think they're fascinating!) that to watch her in action is a joy. She takes every question seriously, she really listens to what you have to say, and she makes the room a fun and exciting, open, safe, and collaborative place to create. She's incredibly positive and supportive and has a keen ear and eye. And she wants everyone to succeed and lets them know it in overt and subtle ways. Who could ask for anything more? Isn't it amazing how people can make the world a better place simply by being kind, supportive, positive, and interested in our fellow people? Isn't it great when people like that fill your own personal world? How lucky I am to know this generous, loving, kind, shiny soul.
I hope you have at least one person in your life who makes you feel loved and accepted just for who you are. ...on a Thursday close to noon! Decadent and luxurious for me! I have a rare weekday off and am still pondering my possibilities on yet another cold, grey January day. A visit to my fave antique mall? Read a book and a play? Work on monologues? Take a cold, damp walk? Paint the mask I'm making for my sister (shhh!)? Go shopping for __________ (insert here things I don't really need but that would constitute retail therapy)? Go to a museum? Do yoga? Gee, I just don't know! And here I sit, squandering my rare day off thinking about what I should do on a rare day off! Humans. We're so weird.
Whatever you're doing today, I hope it's bringing you great joy. Just a note on these very phallic mushrooms we saw on one of our forest walks. Aren't they awesome?! So yellow! So phallic! :-) ...get a song stuck in your head and it plays over and over and over and OVER? And sometimes it's only a fragment of the song, not the whole thing? Man, I don't know how to get rid of it! And that phenomenon, whatever it's called, makes me not want to listen to the song, which may be one I love, for a long, long time for fear that it'll get stuck again once I unstick it. Today's continuous play? Gentle On My Mind. One of my favorite songs! But now all I can think about is one line that keeps repeating -- "I still might run in silence, tears of joy might stain my face, and the summer sun might burn me till I'm blind, but not to where I cannot see you walking on the back roads by the rivers flowing gentle on my mind." Okay, so is it stuck in your head now too? I'm sorry! I know that song as sung by Glen Campbell and didn't hear John Hartford, who wrote it, sing it until years later when I saw him in a tiny concert at a bar in Chicago. A strange, marvelous evening of him singing and telling tales. Glen Campbell and John Hartford, both gone now, but their music lives on...in a continuous loop in my head!
I hope you're having a glorious day full of music and laughter. ...gloomy Monday. Wow, this January has defied all other Januaries that I can remember, simply by virtue of only trace amounts of snow and warm (considering it's the Midwest) weather. Looking out my window right now, the sky is grey and heavy and getting ready to let go water, and with the bare trees, it looks downright depressing. A good day to be inside doing stuff, for sure. Here are my yearly spritz cookies to hopefully brighten your day and make you think of sweet things :-) The press I've been using is tricky, and though it's the one I grew up with, I think maybe a more modern one might be in store for me next year. The cookie blobs on the outskirts of the tray came about because I just couldn't deal with the press's idiosyncrasies anymore at the end of my cookie making. The decoration is pretty, though, dontcha think? And they were deeeelicious!
...really have impacted me in a healthy and beautiful way lately -- connecting with friends and family and reconnecting with friends that I haven't seen in quite some time. What the reconnections make me realize is that there's no statute of limitations preventing us from reaching out to people from our past who we hold dear in our hearts but for whatever reason - time, usually, or distance - has made us move on down our road with fond memories but perhaps leaving behind some folks that fall by the wayside, not out of malice, but out of the sheer fact that there are only so many hours in a day. In fact, an e-mail (yep, I love e-mail. You can say so much more than in a text) from a long-ago friend to catch up, to say, hey, I'm going to be in town next week - can we get together? makes me feel like the connection we had originally is still there and all it takes is a little reconnecting to connect yet again. I don't know if I'm making any sense. But over the past couple of weeks, some friends that I have always loved and who I've been out of touch with have reached out to me and it's been pure joy to reconnect. Life is so flippin' short. Hurray for not being afraid to say, hey, I miss you, I want to see you, you mean something to me even though I haven't seen you in ages.
I hope this spurs you to pick up the phone and text or call or e-mail someone who you've been thinking of but who you may be sheepish to contact because it's been a while. Believe me, it'll be totally worth it. |
|