Too much information.....

Too much information…well, maybe.....but it's your choice to keep on reading....

This is called “Survivor’s Journal” and I’m a survivor. However, along the journey there are bumps, big ole pot holes, and blow-outs. This is my journey and since I’m sharing it with you all in this form I’ll share not only the triumphs but also challenges.

These days I’m working hard to keep smiling and to think positively. I’ve been really sad for the last several weeks. We just passed the two year anniversary of my Daddy’s death, in that same week I turned 45, my Mom is not doing well, and it seems that everything I touch breaks.  

I miss my Daddy so much. With all that is going on in my life I so wish that Daddy was here to talk with me on the phone everyday. I also wish I could visit him and take a walk with him in the forest all the while listening to a funny story he had to tell.  Being around my Daddy was very calming. I wish he was here for my Mom.  I miss him.

I talk to my Mom almost every day.  Everyday she complains of being lonely. She’s sad because I can’t just jump in the car and drive to Fort Payne during the week to see her. She’s sad because she knows that she is losing her memory.  I feel helpless…

I know that I have a great life.  I have the wonderful opportunity to work at something I love.  I have a wonderful family. I have a sweet, happy daughter who loves me as much as I love her. I’ve done so much and I’m proud of the art that I’ve made,  the relationships that I have built, and the lives I’ve touch through university teaching.  But at 45 years old I struggle financially because I chose a profession that I love but that is not lucrative. It makes me sad.

In the last several months it has become apparent that I’m going to have to buy a car, probably a vacuum cleaner, a laptop, and a dishwasher. Kate’s mini-DVD player is also not working. I feel as if everything I touch breaks. I feel overwhelmed…

But as I wallow in my negativity I cannot shake off the positive energy that in essence I created. I sat Kate down last weekend. I wanted to explain why I have been in such a bad mood; why I had shed so many tears. I told Kate that I missed her Paw, that I was sad because I had turned 45 years old, and that we were going to have to buy a car so we would have to only buy the things we really needed.  We needed to save money.

Kate sat there for a moment and then she reached over and wiped my tears away with her tiny fingertips. She smiled as she looked me straight in the eyes and said, “Mommy, well you know what you need to do? You need to stop buying me so many presents.”

I said, “But I like to buy you things Kate.”  Her eyes got wide and bright as she had this idea and said, “Mommy, I know what I need to do! I’ll sell lemonade and juice. I can make some money, Mommy!” I said, “Would you want to donate it to your school or Shelby Emergency?” Kate said, “No Mommy. It would be for you. For your new car.”

So…my journey may have bumps, holes, and flats but it also has so much positive energy, love, unconditional love, that I cannot stay sad, overwhelmed, and helpless for long!

Friday, Friday, Friday…..

The last couple of Fridays have been days of enlightenment for me.  I was enlightened, awakened to the fact that I was being really hard on myself about my work, performance in the fall. The fall semester was very difficult for me for many reasons.  

Artistically it was very fulfilling; I directed an incredibly rewarding production of THE HEIDI CHRONICLES.  I couldn’t have been more proud of the cast, crew, and production team. There were definitely glitches here and there but everyone supported the process and kept working to make the show beautiful, entertaining, enlightening, and empowering. I loved almost every moment of rehearsal and performance.

As the show went into technical rehearsals I started feeling more and more pain in my right side. The pain became almost unbearable as we opened the show. The day after opening Kate came down with a stomach virus.  I thought that I had given it to her and that it was the cause of all the pain I was having. As she got better my pain remained. I felt sicker and sicker. In addition to the pain in my side I was so nauseated that I found speaking almost impossible. I would feel as if I was going to vomit at least once during each class. Finally after the show closed I went to the doctor. I was given prescriptions as we waited for results from blood tests. The next week the test results were still not in and I was in so much pain that I was climbing the walls.  I called the doctor’s office for the third time since the original visit.  Finally, an appointment was made for me to have a CT Scan.  A couple of days later I received a call from the doctor; I had a massive ruptured cyst in my right ovary and now in my uterus. There was infection. I was given a prescription. Later that prescription of antibiotic would cause the lining of my stomach to become enflamed.  I also had a series of mammograms because of cysts that were found in my breast as well as an Upper Gastro endoscopy.  

As you can imagine the illness made teaching difficult. However I never missed class when I was sick. I missed several times to have procedures done. So overall I didn’t feel great about my work in the classroom or as a professor during the fall.  It’s hard when you are passionate about something and that passion isn’t enough.  When your performance is lack luster because you are ill.  I guess I thought the students would understand that I had to take care of myself. I shared as much as I could with them. And most of them were understanding and concerned but there were a few who got offended or hurt or angry when I wasn’t as available as I normally am.

As a professor I work to educate the whole person; not just the artist not just the actor but the whole person. Sometimes it takes and there are instances when it doesn’t. This was another moment of enlightenment on a Friday a couple of weeks ago. I will never give up my dream to share what I know about living as an artist but do have a better understanding that not everyone will be open to this concept or this kind of learning. And that’s okay.  And those are the selfish, self-center ones who will not understand when they can’t be the focus for a minute.

There was a time in my life when it was important to me to have my name in every program. It’s a self-centered desire. One time my name was left out of a program in grad school and I was bitter until one of my professors asked, “What do you want? A balloon?”  Immediately I realized how ridiculous my bitterness was.  There were years when I left my name out of the program after program.  I was practicing putting the process above my own glory or whatever. Today, I don’t care about programs and I joke about hearing my name at the Tony Awards or Oscars but the biggest goal is not to be in a program or to hear my name in an acceptance speech-- it’s to raise an empowered woman, make art, educate artists, and to make enough money to survive and perhaps travel a little.

And perhaps most importantly….Last Friday I became aware that because of the sickness and bitterness of students last semester and because I miss my Daddy when things like this happen…I haven’t been happy.

So for now my goals are to be happy, raise an empowered woman, make art, educate artists, make enough money to survive, travel, and not to let the bastards get me down…..

I thought we were all in this together.....

So I just finished directing a wonderful production of a wonderful play, THE HEIDI CHRONICLES. This play means a lot to me not only because of what the play says about women, as well as humanity but also because I'm a Heidi. I'm very much like the title character; I'm a career woman, a single mom, I believe in women, I believe in equality for all people, and I believe in love.

There have been times in my life when I was told that what I was doing to help the world was a drop in the bucket. I would reply with something like, "enough drops will fill the bucket." And there were times when I got down and I couldn't see the fruits of my labor. I've even doubted that all the work, trials, pushing was worth it. So like Heidi in the play, "I'm just not happy, I haven't been happy in some time."

I have goals. I have goals for my life, career, relationships, and I also have goals for the world. There are changes that I would love to see occur and to achieve these goals I work from within my classes at our little university to encourage change in the world. I teach understanding, tolerance, the celebration of diversity, and may other concepts that probably scare the crap out of college that I once taught at. I teach the whole person, not just the artist. And I see change. I see change in my students. I see most of them going into the world with the goal of making it a little bit better. I believe in them too. They are more than a drop in a bucket.

However this wouldn't be my blog if I didn't mention Kate. I believe strongly in her. She's smart, funny, energetic, but most of all she's compassionate. Kate is much  more compassionate than I am. If anything I have given to this world will make it a better more loving place Kate will. Kate loves big.

A few weeks ago Kate and I went to a friend's birthday party at the local skating rink. Kate was having an allergy attack that morning but regardless of how she felt she begged to go to the party so we went. She got there and immediately felt better because she saw her friend, the birthday girl, and off they went to the rink. At the rink there was a little girl and her Mom who I didn't know. The little girl was a friend of the birthday girl and had been invited to the party too. She sat there on a bench next to the rink with her Mom and she sobbed. She was a little shy and according to her Mom had had a difficult morning.

Kate walked up to the sobbing little girl and put her arms around her. She told her that it would be okay. She went on to tell the little girl that she would skate with her. And within a minute Kate had the little girl by the hand and they were out on the ice. Neither of the two of them had ever skated before but they both did very well. They depended on one another; if one fell the other waited and helped. They laughed and had a lovely time.

When it got time for cake Kate sat by the birthday girl but when her special friend came in Kate offered half of her chair to the little girl. They sat together in the same chair and ate cake to celebrate.

Most of us wouldn't stop to ask someone crying if they were okay much less put an arm around them. Most of us wouldn't spend time at a party with someone we didn't know. Most of us wouldn't offer half our chair to someone who had no place to sit. But wouldn't the world be a little better if we did?

My favorite line from THE HEIDI CHRONICLES is from Act II, scene 4:

I don't blame any of the us (for how I'm feeling). We're all concerned, intelligent, good women. It's just that I feel stranded. And I thought the whole point was that we wouldn't feel stranded. I thought the point was we were all in this together.

So can we stop judging, hating, overlooking one another for a minute and just love each other because aren't we all in this together?

The hard stuff....

Yep, it's birthday month for Kate again. She turned the big "6". It's been a great year. She loved her time at the CSC; she learned a lot, made lots of friends, and undoubtedly ran and screamed for hundreds of miles. We had a fantastic summer; we saw plays, we saw movies, we spent a week in Baton Rouge, and spent a week with our favorite people at the beach. Kate did all of this without a father. July 31 marked the one year anniversary of Kate's last visit with him.

The first couple of months she spent without him were the hardest for her. After her birthday last year I think she sort of got over not seeing him. I don't think I did a very good job of explaining where he was; I was unsure of exactly how much I could say or should say to a five year old. So I simply told her that he wasn't well, that he was sick, and that he loved her. She was okay with that explanation and went on living her happy little life. The year was spattered with phone calls from him. He was frustrated with me because I refused to be in charge of his relationship with her. The last thing that I was going to do was to act as his secretary and set up phone calls with her. If he wanted to talk to her he had to call her which he did occasionally. The last phone call was at the end of April.

The year was also spattered with court dates to "change the custody" agreement. I believe there were five hearings that I went to with my attorney which he missed. Finally the judge allowed us to change the custody agreement without him present. I was awarded full custody. Period. Finally.

After the above agreement was signed by the judge he got an attorney who filed a request to dismiss the agreement. Boom. He doesn't show. He doesn't care enough to come to court. When it's changed he will pretend to be interested. Pretend to be interested after missing two birthday (no presents, no cards, no calls), a Christmas (no presents, no card, no nothing), valentine's day, Easter, first loose tooth, first day of kindergarten, and many other occasions.

So after over a year I saw him in court last week. The agreement was indeed dismissed by the judge. We will have to recreate an agreement. We will have to do a lot of expensive "discovery" since we don't know where he lives or who he lives with. We will have to schedule a number of court appearances which I will inevitably have to pay for. Me, the Mommy who is there for her child. I feel okay with this, I have a great attorney. She assures me that we will not agree to anything that would put Kate at risk. More than likely he will get supervised visitation but this might not happen until sometime next year. The courts are slow. But in all of this I felt the need to do a better job of communicating to my sweetness.

Today after church I took Kate to lunch. She wanted to go to Olive Garden; her favorite restaurant because of the mints that you get with the check. She wasn't feeling well. She has been having an allergy attack since Friday evening. I said to her as we sat waiting on the bread sticks, another reason she loves the place, "I need to talk to you when we get home." I think she thought she was in trouble because she replied a little sheepishly, "Go ahead Mommy, tell me now." So I mustered as much tact as I could and I said, "Kate I love you more than anything in the world and I will always take care of you. I take really good care of you. You will live with me as long as you need to. If you ever, ever need anything I want you to ask me. I'm here for you." She said with a little grin, "I know Mommy." And then I told her the hard stuff, "Kate, your father left because he was sick. He can't take care of you. He loves you and someday you will be able to visit with him again but he will never be able to take care of you the way Mommy does." Again Kate looked at me and said, "I know Mommy, I know."  And then she put her forehead on my shoulder with her face toward my arm and there she sat for the longest two minutes of my life.

Parenting is full of joy, full of trials, full of teaching, and most definitely full of the hard stuff.

Random Acts of...

About two weeks ago I was driving myself and Kate to school. It was an average day; we were on time, the weather was good, we were listening to the radio, and enjoying a little serenity in the car.

We were driving on Highway 31 going South when I noticed a black Chevy Camaro about 100 yards ahead of us driving erratically. This car was moving in and out of the right hand lane, weaving onto the right shoulder of the road as well as into the left hand lane.

I think I said out loud: "What's going on?!" This random statement got Kate's attention. She said, "What Mommy? What?" I told her not to panic and that I didn't have any idea what was happening. My goal was to move past the car quickly.

As I approached the car I could fully view the situation. There was a young man on a bike pedaling as fast as he could on the shoulder of the highway as the driver of the Camaro was trying to hit him. The windows of the Camaro were down and the driver was shouting at the young man. I couldn't understand what was being said. The poor kid on the bike just kept pedaling; pedaling as fast as he could for his life's sake.

I called the police. I reported what I saw.

All the time Kate kept saying, "Why Mommy? Why would someone try to hurt someone else like that?" I said, "I don't know Kate. I don't know." And then I realized what I needed to tell her, "Kate there are bad people, no evil people, in the world. These people don't care about life." Kate fired back with, "Why Mommy?" And I answered as best I could, "I'm not sure, I guess they are full of anger which probably grew out of intense fear."

Then I thought a moment and  I told her, "Don't let your fear make your angry, Kate. Let courage and strength grow from there. I know you can do it; it's already started."

I want my Mommy!

How many times during the day do I hear the phrase, "I want my Mommy!"? I can not begin to give a realistic figure. One hundred times? Probably, at least. I love it that my child loves me so much but, wow, that phrase is a little over used. My favorite time that she screams, "I want my Mommy!" is when we are in the car and I'm driving and she is bolted into the backseat in her chair.

No matter how many times she says, "I want my Mommy!" everyday I respond in the same way. I say, "You've got me Kate!" And I mean that; she has me emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. However, it's true she may not have me that moment physically.

I'm always with her emotionally even when I'm teaching class and she is at her school I'm constantly having loving thoughts of my sweet child. I often during the day remember sweet little things that she says to me or does for me. I love her so much.

She is always in my mind. A funny fact: when Kate was in daycare and potty training the daycare owner would text me when Kate had a successful BM. No lie! Even when I was teaching class. It became so funny to me that I'd announce it to my class. The students even waited for me to get the daily text.

She and I are spiritually connected not only by the fact that she is of me, a part of me, and I carried her for 8 months, but that we lift one another up. Sounds odd maybe, but I pray for her and send white light throughout the day, and she always prays for me every night. We support each other.

Our relationship is very different from the relationship I had with my Mom. Actually I guest the relationship I have with Kate is much more like the relationship I had with Daddy. Mom and I were at odds from my birth. She was in labor for 72 hours and almost died when I was born. I've thought that perhaps we never "bonded" after my birth. Almost immediate after my birth she became pregnant with my bro. She and bro had/have a very good relationship.

As a small child I remember being jealous of my Mom's relationships with my bro and my younger cousins. I watched her brush my cousins' hair and I even remember asking her to brush my hair and her saying no. Our relationship became adversarial. I don't know why. I don't know what I did for her not to love me but I remember doing everything in my power not to be yelled at by her. I remember hiding and I remember telling her whatever I thought she wanted to hear in order to not be screamed at.

Daddy was my rock. He listened to me and encouraged me as much as he knew how. He forced me to go away to college and Thank GOD he did. He always knew my heart and he was a great motivator. There was never a moment in my life that I doubted that Daddy loved me.

After college my relationship with Mom changed. Daddy had open heart surgery and she became his rock. She was wonderful with him and for him. She really became an encouraging force. He felt like he owed his life to Mom and rightfully so. She cooked the right foods, she nagged him not to eat bad, she helped keep him on an exercise regiment, she was with him every step of his recovery, she was his soul mate.

As she became closer to Daddy she also became closer to me. I think she understood me a little better. I certainly understood her better and felt indebted to her for keeping my Daddy alive. I've always loved my Mom but I really felt like she loved me during this time period.

In my twenties and thirties I became a friend to my Mom. She finally really talked to me about what was going on with her and with Daddy. If I was upset I called her and talked to her and then asked to talk to Daddy. If something wonderful happened I called her. I sent her articles, programs, poster, pictures of every show I did. She and Daddy have boxes of video tapes of old shows.

Now, I'm the Mom to a wonderful five year old and in some ways I'm a Mom to my Mom. My Mom has dementia. She has good days and bad.  It really hurt Daddy to watch her memory diminish over the past couple of years. In October 2010 Daddy confided in me about the emotions he was having watching Mom lose her memory. He told me that he found it frightening that someone who had been so strong a personality and so independent in life could be so weak and needy. He was overwhelmed. I tried to call and talk to him about it but she hovered around him and the phone. He would never say anything that might hurt her feelings. Now with Daddy gone, bro and I feel those emotions as well as the grief over the loss of Daddy.

So I go and visit Mom and lose her in Wal-Mart. No joke. That happened last week. She went to the bathroom while I was checking out. After I paid for the groceries Kate and I started looking for Mom. We went to the bathroom and she wasn't there. We waited there thinking she might come back but she didn't. Kate was very, very upset and fearful that someone had "taken Meme". After several minutes Mom had us paged. She was in the bakery. She hadn't remembered where we were when she left us but she knew enough to have me paged. Thank GOD! So now it's as if I have two five year olds. That's the way I think of it--if I wouldn't let Kate do it by herself I can't let Mom do it either.

So there are times that I think "I want my Mommy!" just like Kate. And I really do. Sometimes my Mommy is there when I look at her or talk to her, and other times it's not my Mommy. I want my Daddy too.

So these days rather than being down or sad I try to remember to be very happy when my Mom is there and most of all to remember to be there for Kate when she really "wants her Mommy".

Do you believe in me?

A little over a week ago Kate bopped into the kitchen and looked me in eye then fired this question at me, "Do you believe in me Mommy?"


Wow! For a moment it was as if my breath had been sucked into my toes. I couldn't swallow. My body was a vacuum. How to answer this question of a five year old. Hum....


I took a moment with a mindful smile on my face. As long as I smile Kate is at ease; this is part of the magical knowledge of Mommies. How do I answer this question? I mustered, "Of course I believe in you. I believe in you with every thread of my being. I believe in you from the bottom of my heart. I believe in you." Kate responded with a smile and, "Great! I believe in you too Mommy."


The smile on my face was 'real' now. Ah, she believes in me. Great! What does all this mean?


On Sunday, July 1st the minister at our church preached a patriotic message. With the title "My name is America." I listened intently as I always do at church waiting to learn, be enlightened, be moved, emotionally connect, something! I WANT something when I'm in church. I don't turn off or become distracted; I'm an active participant. I don't always get something but it's okay, I'm sure I will eventually have an "ah-ha!" experience down the road when I'm SUPPOSED to get something.


On that Sunday I got something when the minister asked, "Do you believe in me?" He was asking this question for our country not for himself. And in that moment all those emotions that I had experienced a few days before when Kate had asked the exact same question with the exact same intonation rushed into my body, into my mind.  Wow! Of course I believe in America...from the bottom of my heart!


I believe in my country--I'm a radically patriotic person. I love being an American. I become very angry when folks put down our great country. I think folks think if you're a 'liberal' that you don't believe in our country; that's not true!  Now, I'm not defending politicians or stupid people or ignorance or evil. But that's everywhere. I'm talking about the good people who reside all over our beautiful country. I've worked and lived in many places and I love and respect folks from the far Northwest to New England to the Southeast as well as the West. Each part of the country I've lived in had folks with quirky culture and traditions AND how wonderful is that!?! I love tradition and culture.  I LOVE QUIRKY....I love America...


And I believe in our country as I believe in my daughter. She's amazing. And so is our country.

One night on the way home from Montevallo Kate said, "Oh look, that's beautiful!" I said, "What are you looking at?" Kate's reply, "An American Flag, Mommy, it's just beautiful."

I thought to myself, "It's beautiful that you think so Kate:)"