Making a Wish

When I make a wish I close my eyes and see a huge theatre with a big stage. I walk onto the stage and look out into the audience, who is in the dark. I am the only one lit. There, in the place where I do what I am meant to do, I make my wish.

And then I think of the people I have known in my life who would want that wish to come true for me. Family members come to mind first, then current friends. Then past friends, old friends, distant friends. Teachers, mentors, students, and co-workers. Lovers, boyfriends, crushes, the heart breakers and the heartbroken. People I've known all my life and people I've known for instants.

I think of them, one by one, and see their faces. Whether they know it or not, they want my wish to come true. Even if they have hurt me in some way, or if I have hurt them, they are part of my storyline, and so they are part of what leads me to the knowledge of what will help me grow.

And then, the lights in the theatre come up, and I can see the audience. All those people I thought of are there. A full house; hundreds of smiling faces. They live in my safe place, in my sacred temple, in my heart's home, and they want my wish to come true. They all want me to be happy, successful, in love, fulfilled, clear, and at peace. They all want to see me realize my full potential.

I thank them for being there. And they applaud me, because they know that is my favorite sound in the world.

I open my eyes, and I am the strongest version of myself. I am filled with courage and love. I have made my wish, not upon a star or into a fountain, but in the heart of every single person who has made me who I am today. I am unstoppable, I am alive, and I have touched the miraculous.

The Mystery of Happiness

"How lucky we are, when we're spared what we think we want!"  - Lionel Shriver

I read that quote in Shriver's brilliant novel We Need to Talk About Kevin (the film is great as well, but the book is filled with gems), and it resonated with me so much that I wrote it down everywhere-- on notebooks, bathroom stalls, other people's phones, soles of shoes, and all social media platforms.

It put into words a powerful realization I had made about myself and my life but didn't know how to describe. I seem to have less and less certainty of what makes me happy, and I think that's a very good thing to come to terms with.

There were many things I thought would make me happy. 

I thought being thin would make me happy. I thought having small, perkier breasts would make me happy. I thought expensive bags would make me happy. I thought being a movie star would make me happy. I thought having a tall handsome boyfriend who would one day become my husband would make me happy. I thought being financially independent would make me happy. I thought having clear skin would make me happy. I thought not having stretch-marks or cellulite would make me happy. I thought being blonde would make me happy.

As I look at that list now, I see all those things I thought would make me happy were just that: ideas. Moreover, they were not tied to any real understanding of happiness, but rather to a deep need to belong. I would look around, see what made other people fit in and be cool, and label it as a recipe for happiness. If I have that, if I look like that, if I do that, if I own that, then I'll be happy.

I did get a lot of the things on that list. Others I gave up on. Either way, happiness didn't come automatically with the package. Yes, there was a great deal of satisfaction in losing weight and in being seen next to tall handsome boyfriends, but I wasn't happy. I placed my happiness outside of myself, not only in these external "achievements," but in other people seeing me as good enough to have them.

It's comfortable to do what is believed to make us happy. Everyone is relieved when I'm thin, clear-skinned, financially independent, and next to a tall handsome man. Those are the things I'm supposed to want and, for long enough, they were exactly what I wanted. But it takes effort to maintain the illusion. One day you eat a cupcake, you get a pimple, you lose your job, your boyfriend bores you, and you wonder if it's possible that happiness lives in things that are inherently transitory.

In realizing this, I have felt both confused and clear. I look at myself, my life, my goals, and my dreams with new eyes. Is this really what I want, or is it what I think I want? Do I ever know what I want, or do I only ever get to know for certain what I don't want after I've had it? 
 
I always had clear pictures of my ideal future: married (to a tall handsome man), with children of my own, and traveling the world starring in movies and acting in plays. Now, those pictures are blurry. I don't want these things "in general" anymore. I still want them, but only if it feels like it's right for me when it happens, and not because they fit into this pretty picture that makes me, and everyone else, more comfortable.

Maybe I'll fall in love with a short chubby hairy man. Maybe I'll be a teacher and act in plays for free for a long time and it'll be okay. Maybe I'll live in a suburb. Maybe I'll have straw handbags. Maybe my boobs will sag and it won't be so bad. Maybe I'll gain five pounds instead of losing the always-goal ten. Maybe I'll stop getting pimples and start getting wrinkles and I'll miss my pimples. Maybe I'll adopt four Vietnamese girls and fall desperately in love with them. Maybe I'll be a single mom. Maybe I'll have three marriages. Maybe I'll make a big movie and miss acting in little plays. Maybe I'll shave my head. Maybe I'll be single for years. Who knows.

Whatever it is that I don't know I want, I am now open to it more than ever before, and I am so excited to live.

Image from here.

Have you been spared what you thought you wanted and now see how lucky you were?

What Could Have Been

I see you there, standing on the front porch of our house- a house we painted ourselves-  with our baby in your arms and our toddler hanging on your legs. The smell of the breakfast we cooked together still hangs in the air around the house. I put my hand on the small of your back, our bellies touch, I kiss you on the lips, and you wish me luck on my audition. Our hands touch for a few moments; the insides of our palms say I love you to each other. I walk past our peonies and get into our car, and I look at you again, standing there with our kids, in front of our home. You look perfect; you are and always have been perfect. 

This is exactly what we always wanted. The comfortable relief of having it is palpable.

This is the world I escape to when I’m in line at the post office, when the dairy products in the grocery store all look the same to me, when I’m in the subway and the world surrounding me has too many details for me to take in, and when I’m alone in my bed at night, staring out into the darkness trying desperately not to ever forget what his chest felt like next to my cheek.

It is the world of What Could Have Been. It is make-believe and fantasy; it does not exist.

I know I must let it go. I do not want to—I want to hold on to this world forever, I want to return to it many more times, but I know I cannot.

So, I am walking away today. I do not know how long it will take before it is out of sight, or if it ever will be, but I am starting my journey now. I am leaving it behind. I am leaving him behind, along with all my dreams of what could have been. It is a difficult and slow walk. I often look back and see him there, standing tall and handsome, and I want to run back, fling my arms around him, kiss his perfect face, and bury my head into his chest. I want to say, Let me stay! Let me live here a little longer! Don’t let me go just yet!

I know I have to go now, though. 

Saying good-bye to him and to the life I had created for us in my head is really difficult and painful. I am leaving because I have to, not because I want to. We cannot be, and what I dreamed up for us will not come true; I must accept that and I must move on. 

It’s not going to be us this time around; it’s not going to be you and me. It’ll be you and someone else; me and someone else. We will live separate lives, love other people, and become the people we are meant to be, without each other.

For a while, it was a path that corresponded with reality. I saw our lives running their course, together, for the rest of our time here. I am walking away today, but a part of me walked down that path with him and will always live there, in that pretty house with a front yard, where our kids grew up in a home made of love. It is beautiful, because dreams are beautiful. 

I let it be beautiful for now. I know that one day we’ll look back and this dream will have faded; we'll be lost in the past, upstaged by other stories, and our paths will seem to have just barely touched. 

It is sad, because reality is sad. 

Saturday Silence

image from here

How comforting it is, a morning free of my alarm clock, of my upstairs neighbor's heels, of rushing, of make-up, of nice clothes, of to-do lists, of everything that is every other day.

Saturday mornings are silent. They are full of relief and simplicity.

The day does not impose itself on me, but rather patiently waits for me outside. When I am ready, I can go out into it. And it'll be warm, home-like, and youthful in its promises of lasting happiness.

On Saturdays, I dream of a pretty little house on a field, a waterfall nearby, and a love story to go with it. I am poetic on Saturdays. I am young and romantic.

I am simpler than I am on other days. I need less.

A cup of coffee and the newspaper are enough. Productivity is measured in how little is done.


Saturdays are the recess hour of adulthood, the freedom made sacred by its scarcity.


Shall we go out and play?

image from here.

Loneliness, Pain, and Art

I'm lonely. I have friends, I have a wonderful family, I have a therapist, and I have many, many people I can talk to. I have loved deeply, I have been loved, and I know, in my heart of hearts, that I will love again. I even have guys who are interested in me now. I'm not poor, I'm not hungry, I'm educated, I live in New York City, I have a passion, I'm not fat, I'm not ugly, and I have faith in a higher being. I'm grateful for many things, I'm blessed in many ways, I'm able to grow and learn most of the time. But I'm lonely. I'm lonely in a way that phone calls from dear ones doesn't fix, that sex and the city marathons don't mask, that yoga can't transform, that ice-cream doesn't make better.

I smile easily, I laugh easily, I'm social, and I attract people. But, deep down, at my core, I am lonely. When all the lights are out and silence settles, I am with myself, and I feel hollow. It's funny how such emptiness can feel so oppressively heavy. It's like a vast space in my chest that causes a feeling of claustrophobia and weighs me down. It grows inside me, pushing at my edges, but it feels like a big void.

This feeling is not caused, though it may be magnified, by certain circumstances. I've always known it. I was aware of it even as a child; what was labeled shyness, I believe, was actually a feeling of deep disconnect. As I became a teenager, the feeling deepened, and I constantly felt misunderstood, but it was seen as normal adolescent angst. It's never been anything that demanded serious attention, for I have always been perfectly functional, and I am happy. But happy, functioning people can also be lonely.

There's nothing to do about it, but I have learned I can do something with it. I can create my art. Because all human beings know loneliness, all characters know loneliness, and so that is my starting point in creating- either in acting, writing, or directing- characters that people can relate to. Investigating lonely behavior, therefore, makes me an active part of it and less a victim to it. Let it move, let it shift, let it birth art. Often, this provides me with great relief, as well as a sense of purpose.

Perhaps it is because of this that I sometimes say my life started when I was 10 years old. I was in the fifth grade, I was considered a shy child- practically invisible, actually- and we were given an assignment to impersonate a historical figure. I was given Nathanial Greene. Some other kids thought he was boring, but I figured him out really fast. He was a revolutionary war general, he was watching people die every day, his men were depending on his leadership with their lives and their hope, and so he was probably very lonely. From those conclusions, I created my Nathanial, and I stepped in front of the class and let him live through me. I shouted at my men, I lead an imaginary field of soldiers into battle, and I told the story of my life. My classmates and my teacher were stunned into silence; they did not recognize me. The shy girl who barely spoke had come to life, had stepped in front of other people- arguably one of the scariest things to do in the world- and had become, without an ounce of nervousness or hesitation, Nathanial Greene. No one was as surprised as I was. I got a standing ovation, was asked to do it again and again, and went home that day with a laser-sharp certainty that has not left me since: I was going to be an actress.

I understand the feelings I had then better now: I couldn't express my loneliness- it's too difficult to really convey our own loneliness- but I could do it behind the mask of that character. I could do it on stage, where people are willing to suspend their disbelief. I could tell the stories of the people who could not, or would not, tell it themselves and, in doing so, I would be telling my story too. My pain would not remain clogged inside me, it had found a way to move and- perhaps this is the greatest gift a human being can be given- it was a way for me to give something to others.

Characters need our pain in order to live, they need our loneliness, they need our dreams. Without it, they're just words on a page. And every time a character is brought to life with truth and honesty, there is a chance someone in the audience is given some relief. In this way, the cycle is beautiful. My loneliness is the gift I give my characters as well as the audience, and in providing me with an outlet for it, it is the gift they give me in return. They give me peace.

The Ideal Me

I see a beach with very white sand and a very clear, blue ocean. Someone labeled this paradise, and I believed it. So that is where I live. The Ideal Me, that is.

And you know what's funny? The Ideal Me doesn't have the perfect yogi body, flat abs, perfect shiny hair, flawless skin. Actually, she has wild beach hair and a soft tummy. She wears a long skirt and a braless shirt. Her nails aren't done, her legs aren't waxed. She is neither old nor young, and she is most certainly not a young-looking older woman. She is timeless. She has no make-up on, not even the liquid Benetint blush I swear I can't live without. She is barefoot and her feet are not graceful and elegant. Her breasts are not unnaturally perky and her butt is not hard as stone. She is kind of messy, and she seems almost careless.

But this Ideal Me that is so imperfect on the surface is so unquestionably, contagiously, boundlessly happy. She is at peace. She glows from within. She is always smiling. She rolls around in the sand, she splashes about in the ocean, she floats with the calm waters, she skips along the shore, she dances in the rain, and she laughs and laughs and laughs. There is nothing in the way. There is nothing she is waiting for.

She is also alone. This paradise does not include a love interest, family, or friends. It is just her. But she is not lonely. She is not afraid of dying alone, of getting old alone, of not having children, of not being loved enough in this lifetime. She doesn't see a time-line for her life, filled with marks of when things should happen by. She doesn't have a map or a compass, she lives freely and she has an unshakable certainty that everything is just as it should be.

This image comes to me effortlessly, I have no control over it. Sometimes it visits me when I feel very anxious, sometimes it shows up when I am very happy. Sometimes I open the refrigerator without knowing what I want, hoping that in that cold white box full of food there will be an answer to my mind's noisy questions, and all I hear suddenly is her laughter. She lives inside me, but she is present outside of me as well. She's just there; a stranger I know so well, a part of me I had no part in making.

It surprises me that The Ideal Me is not some glamorous Hollywood actress with a perfect body and a hot husband who's madly in love with her. She resembles more of a tree-hugging unshowered hippie, actually. She can't even be described as confident and self-assured. She just is. She just knows the things I hope to know, with all of her being.

She exists because I need her to exist. She has no message for me. She is just a presence, a part of myself that is able to live only under the umbrella of the "Ideal Me". She is a guardian, keeping my essence safe from the masks and armor reality has me wearing. And she leaves me with a stillness that roots me. She allows me to be.

Somehow, I do not find myself seeking to become her. I have not made her a goal. I keep her in this "ideal" place because somehow I know I can not be her. I have to be this version of myself, who worries, clings, dreams, and always wants more. She exists in some parallel universe, and the best I can do is honor that. I pay attention to the image, I let it affect me, and I welcome it, but I can not strive to make it a reality. She lives on that paradise beach, and I live in New York City. She doesn't need a career, and I have to act. She isn't waiting for love, and I am. She is happy with herself, and I am still working on my relationship with myself every day.

That is The Ideal Me. A vital part of me, capable of breathing life into my deadest pores, but not me. That is all she can be: an image. The human being part, that whole living life thing, that can only be done by this me.

Perhaps she looks at me from her world and envies that I get to have all my humanity, all my flaws, all my short-comings, all my insecurities, all my wishes. Maybe she thinks I have it easy, I get to fuck up as much as I want, because this is all a learning experience for me. Hah. That makes me laugh.

That's just how it is this time around: she gets the Ideal world and I get the Real world, but we get to see each other from afar and keep things in perspective. We keep each other safe. And that's a nice comfort, I'd say.

The Year of Healing and Blogging

I am back to the place where, a year ago, I began this blog. I came to Brazil at the end of last year to recover and heal. My heart had been broken, twice over, in that past year, and I was in pieces. I had just gone through my first semester out of school, ever, and it had been traumatically difficult to adjust. I had not acted in months, I did not have a job, and I did not see any future for my acting career. My soul was famished. I was sick of New York, sick of winter, sick of myself, and sick of pain. I came home to my parent's house in Sao Paulo and did not know if I would return to New York.

On the day that I arrived, I started going to an acting workshop. Even though the class was nothing extraordinary, I was thrilled to be among actors, and I felt life moving through me again. I was at my parent's home, eating fresh food and being taken care of. My mind, cluttered with negativity and sadness, had the space to calm down.

Being at home in such a vulnerable state led to an overflow of memories and nostalgia, which in turn gave me an appreciation for what I've been through, what I've survived, and who I am now. In an effort to work through the jumble of past joys and traumas, I started this blog. It seemed like a small thing to do, sharing some personal things in a public forum, but it provided me with an analytical narrative of my own life, which otherwise existed only in the pages of countless diaries. Sitting in my childhood room was a nest of inspiration and the blog posts seemed to happen involuntarily, almost effortlessly. I saw the time-line of my life, I wrote about it, and I started to heal.

Some people wrote to me to tell me they were reading my blog, and that they really appreciated it, which fueled me to keep it going. I made friends and reconnected with long lost friends because of the blog. I suddenly had pen-pals and a new connection to fellow bloggers. My world was growing.

Two months later, with a strengthened soul, body, and heart, I returned to New York. It greeted me with its brutal February winter and stubborn sameness. There was no acting career waiting for me when I walked into my apartment. The men who had hurt me still had the power to affect me. My surroundings were no different than I had left them, but I was changed. Things were not suddenly easier, but I carried with me the invaluable realization that I was not easily defeated.

This past year hasn't been easy either, but I have to acknowledge my achievements and growth. I acted in four plays. Although I hungered for more, those were all undeniably fulfilling experiences in their own way. One of them was my very own production, a first of its kind, and it was a big success. I discovered that in addition to acting, I also love directing and producing. I found a job where I got to write, and even though I was mostly miserable in it, I learned a lot about myself. My heart recovered, I started dating again, and I met someone really special. He has filled me with warmth, and I'm smiling again.

Here I am now, at the end of another year, and I am still recovering and healing. There are still reasons to doubt that dreams can come true and that love is always worth the risk. My body is still complaining, my heart hesitant, and my soul searching for its life force.

But that, I have started to accept, is life. Dreaming, wanting, hoping, falling, breaking, healing, standing, fighting, believing, doubting, knowing, searching, and, when I get chance, just being. That's the muck that makes the masterpiece.

I look at this blog, a year later, and I see it for what it is:

This is my life. These are my stories, and I am lucky to have them.

Thank you to all who follow, and happy holidays, from a grateful Little Larissa.

Adulthood's Ugly Face

One day I woke up and watched myself shower, put on responsible-looking clothes, paint my face into a grown-up woman's complexion, drink my coffee, eat my poached egg on toast, pack my laptop into my bag, head off to work, sit in front of a computer all day, do tasks that neither interest nor fulfill me, watch the clock, wait for the day to end, come home too tired to socialize or blog or work out or return calls or respond to emails, eat something, and finally go back to sleep which was only comforting because it was not like the day it followed. And so I realized that I had finally met someone I'd observed from afar all my life, someone many people around me had known for a long time. That someone was called Adulthood.

Adulthood has taken over me for the past month or so, and I have slowly been introduced to responsibility, compromise, and a desire for independence. Perhaps for most people all this seems normal, or like "it's about time"- I'm 25 after all, but for me it has been completely jarring and, in many ways, really difficult and sad.

I've always had one goal. I've always known who I was. I've always made every decision based on how it would best serve the one thing I knew I was meant to do. For as long as I can remember, I have only ever lived to be an actress. Since my parents always had enough money and since I wasn't raised in a culture that encouraged financial independence at age 18, I figured I wouldn't ever have to compromise what I wanted to do, what I was meant to do, for the sake of a paycheck or stability. But I also thought I'd have it figured out by the time I was 25. That I'd have a path drawn out, that I'd be closer to success and recognition, that I'd be able to make a living with acting, or that I'd be able to make a living somehow and still act.

As it turns out, I'm 25 and I have a master's degree in what I love doing but I don't know how to do it for a living. I'm tired of being dependent, and the acting industry has completely burnt me out. Auditions make me feel like a puppet, rejections make me feel unworthy, and playing roles that don't mean anything to me leave me unfulfilled and wanting more. So I sought a more regular lifestyle, found it, and have slowly gravitated towards letting it take over my life. The less I think about acting and how little of it I'm doing, the less it can hurt me. And if I'm the one who shuts down my dream, then at least no one else can crush it.

But the result is that my heart is breaking every day, as though I'd just buried my Self and am in mourning. Going through the motions of adulthood exhaust me, pretending I can do it permanently nearly kills me. Not to mention how mad Little Larissa is at me. My 7-year-old self is scolding me, shaking her finger at me, "You can't just give up! How can you give up?? These are our dreams! We've wished them into fountains all our lives!" And I don't really know what to tell her. It's just time, I want to say, I have to do something else now, for a while, I have to figure out my life, I have to be responsible. But she wouldn't understand it. I hardly understand it myself.

Who I am is an actress, I know that like I know my name. But how long can a dream be sustained for when it exists only as something we wish upon a star? At some point it has to either materialize or be discarded, it seems. And I've been lost. I've been terrified of going through another year of the same bullshit auditions for unpaid projects that aren't even that good. I'm tired and I'm not happy. The idea of giving up on acting brings me even further down, but I can't keep doing it and not making a living either.

So here I am, staring at Adulthood but still clinging on to my dreams and idealizations of life, not quite ready to let go yet. Getting scolded by my inner child, but looking at my life as it is and knowing that something has to change.

I'm looking for signs, I'm waiting for clarity, I'm hoping for solutions.

I'm staring at myself and, for the first time in my whole life, I'm wondering who I am.

Dreams

I ran into someone from college today, a fellow actress, at an audition, and was stunned into sadness. This young woman, who had once been full of life and excitement about her prospective acting career, sat before me today looking like a zombie- jaded, angry, and unhappy. It's been four years since we graduated from college, she reminded me, and clearly she wasn't where she'd thought she would be by now. I see so many actors like her, who once had dreams and passions, but who have been beaten down by the industry, who are borderline crazy because of how limited they feel. She was still physically alive, of course. Her heart is still beating and all. But her dreams, what made her a beautiful human being, were almost gone. She was sitting at that audition for an unpaid part in a short film because after a while, after a lifetime of this, you just don't know what else to do.

As I looked at her picking the decoration off her phone as she waited her turn, I started thinking, since this business kills them, can we have a graveyard for our dreams? Every time we are treated like cattle, can we have an address, a physical place, where we can mourn them? Along with objectifying us and then coldly rejecting us, can we get the certainty, in the form of a legal document, that our dreams are dead now?

I have always known acting is a lonely battle against a soul-devouring business that seeks to profit from my dreams. I just always thought my passion was stronger than anything and anyone, and my need to do this would outweigh the disappointments. And it can be that way, but it requires a lot of work. Work that doesn't feel like work and that has no value to the outside world- such as decompressing after an audition by going for a walk, or writing about it, or crying about it, or listening to lots of good songs on your ipod, or eating some sweet potato fries, or all of the above, until you can get it all out of your system. It's a full-time job, staying strong enough to handle this business. I have to make time, every day, to nurture my creativity in some way. I have to force myself to have positive thoughts about myself as an actress. I have to protect myself from the often desperate energy at audition waiting rooms, and then from the often dismissive energy at the auditions themselves. I have to eat right and exercise, keep my body and mind working together so that they know I want them to be healthy for me. I have to keep my heart open and willing. I have to love deeply and daily. I have to create my own projects since the ones I audition for are rarely compatible with my interests as an artist. I have to look like the best version of myself, every day. And on top of all that, I have to find a way to support myself financially and emotionally while not being able to devote myself to a full-time day job and usually not being able to afford myself the time to fully prepare for or fully recover from the day-to-day life in this business.

It's a lot of what I call "invisible work". It's the work I have to do in order to still be a sensitive vessel for creativity and inspiration, and it's what I have to do to stay sane and not end up like the young woman I ran into today.

There are days when I wake up and I'm all about it, I'm ready to keep going, I'm in love with my life, I can't wait to start another day of submitting-auditioning-creating-preparing-nurturing-hoping-wanting-waiting-wishing-loving-needing. Then there are days when I don't want to get out of bed. When I consider going on craigslist and trying to find a regular 9-5 job that numbs my mind. That way, at least I'd be the one burying my dreams, rather than the industry.

And, to be honest, I do give in to the latter days every once in a while. I stay in bed till noon and when I do get up, it's just to eat something, mope, and then go on craigslist and look for a job as a secretary.

Luckily though, my heart will usually end up screaming, Don't give up yet, you can't. Don't go be someone's secretary. You have a masters degree. You're capable of doing what you dream of. Let's go!

It's a battle, really. It takes courage to stay in it, and it takes courage to get out of it. It's not easy to bury a dream, and it's not easy to keep it alive either.

I read something the other day that inspired me, and I've been trying to remember it on days like today. It went something like, "If you have a gift, it means you were chosen, and you are best living by expressing your gift."

I liked it. It made me feel like I actually have an obligation to keep trying and working, living and dreaming, because I didn't choose this, it chose me. Sometimes it's hard to be grateful about that, but I have to remember that that's what dreams are: precious gifts for me to unwrap daily, with love and care.

So then I start thinking, Never mind. I don't want a graveyard for my dreams. I'll hold on to them a little longer. Thank you, Universe.

And my dreams smile, relieved that they get to live a little longer.

Are you still dreaming?

Auditioning

I've been working on a theatre piece that is about auditioning, and have thus been going to auditions as kind of a detective, noticing everything that I feel and see during each experience. Today I had a major audition, the kind people prepare for intensely, and I myself had been preparing with my scene partner for several months. Here's what important auditions look like:

We, the actors, arrive extremely early. We've probably been up since before the sun came up that morning.

All around you, you see actors stretching out their tongues, expanding their rib cages, rolling down their spines, talking to imaginary people, listening to their ipods, etc. We are nervous, we are excited, we are scared, we are experiencing strange bowel movements.

There are uncomfortable chairs everywhere. Some sit, some stand. No one talks. If they do, it is in a whisper. There is an unspoken rule about respecting other people's space.

If any regular non-actor people walk in, everyone knows, because those people are never sensitive to what is going on around them and usually say something really loud and inappropriate. They are quickly escorted out. The actors are relieved, we do not want to remember that an outside world exists right now.

In most auditions, there are always the actors who don't care, or who pretend not to care, and are supposedly not nervous. They sit around reading novels or answering emails on their iphones. I didn't see any of those today. What we were doing was important, on some level, to everyone. The building itself demanded respect, and we complied.

In the twenty minutes before the audition, the pair about to go up gets some space alone. It is hard to talk about anything. Some prayers are said. Intellectually we could probably talk ourselves out of our nerves. We know this is not exactly a life-and-death situation. But only an actor knows what the minutes before an audition are like. Rational thought gets buried somewhere out in Kentucky and we are alone with our emotions. Even if we don't want what we're auditioning for that bad, we know one thing for sure: We do not want to fail. No actor is okay with sucking. No matter who or what it's for, we want to do well. We want to honor our character, our talent, our dream.

Someone comes in and tells us it's time. We are escorted to the room, which in today's case was a real theatre. Our hearts are pounding so hard we are certain everyone can hear it. We feel our stomachs wanting to run to the bathroom and get us out of there.

We walk on the stage, which is brightly lit. The "people in charge" are hidden in the darkness of the audience. We see only their silhouettes. They do not speak, they do not make a single noise. We wonder if they're real people out there.

And we begin, usually before we're actually ready to begin, because we don't think we'll ever be ready to begin, and we know we might throw up if we wait another second.

We do it. We either sink or fly, it's hard to tell. An audition is rarely our shining moment. We just accept whatever happens, we hope we didn't suck, we hope our talent came across, we hope we touched the people in the dark safe seats of the audience.

And then, as we exit, there is a sudden sense of loss. Months of work and preparation, hours of nerves and excitement, and it's all over in five minutes. We leave our darling characters, our precious work, our loud nerves, all behind. We are empty.

Maybe we go out for coffee after and talk about it. Maybe we just each go our separate ways. The rest of the day is a daze.

And then, we wait. Who knows for how long. We wait to know if we got it or not. It won't mean as much as the audition itself, usually. Sometimes though, it can feel like our lives depend on getting it.

There is nothing quite comparable to auditioning. As I write this I know that anyone who is not an actor can not understand it, and I search for a parallel, but can not find one. Maybe you can imagine wanting something really badly, and then being taken to court to prove how much you want it, and having to then stand in front of people you can't see and don't know who will judge whether you are worthy of it. And you only have five minutes. When the clock accuses 4:59 minutes, you can prepare yourself to hear a curt, "Thank you." And then you have to walk away, and wait for a letter to tell you if you met those people's expectations or not. I'm sure you're thinking "Only a crazy person would voluntarily choose this life!" Yes, well. We think that too.

I hate it when people tell me I have to develop a thick skin when it comes to auditioning. I have to detach myself from wanting it. I have to see how insignificant those five minutes are in comparison to what my whole career will look like in the end. Do they think I don't know that? It makes me want to laugh. As if I could flip a switch in my heart that makes me not care. As if it were possible to love this a little less.

As my friend Deema described it, after a day like today we feel like we've been hit by a truck. And, I added, peed on afterwards. How to cope? Well, I ate a tiramisu the size of my butt. Went to yoga. Took a long hot shower. Blogged about it. And now I'll go to bed.

And tomorrow I'll wake up feeling somewhat distant from the whole experience, have some coffee, and go about my day.

And when I'm ready, when I feel strong, or perhaps desperate, again, I'll submit myself for more auditions. It's what I do, after all.

And we wonder why actors are all crazy.

Ten Years Ago, or Laly meets Larissa

Since my last post was about my vision of myself in 10 years, it has me thinking of who I was ten years ago as well, and what that version of me wanted me to become, and what she'd say to me now. I decided 14-year-old Larissa and 24-year-old Larissa should meet and have a talk, so I wrote it out, and I used my left hand to write out my younger self's dialogue, since writing with my left hand gets me out of my head and lets that younger me really express herself, and then I replied as myself now, with my right hand. I hope this isn't too confusing. Here it is. I'm calling 14-year-old me by Laly because that was my nickname then, and an appropriate description of who I was as well.

Larissa: Hi, Laly.

Laly: This is kind of odd, I have to say, Larissa.

Larissa: You must think I'm old.

Laly: No, I'm relieved that you don't have pimples and that you're so pretty!

Larissa: You're beautiful. You don't know it yet, but you are.

Laly: People say that all the time. I still wish I was blonde. What happened to your nose? And your boobs?

Larissa: Plastic surgery.

Laly: Oh. Wow. It looks great.

Larissa: It'll hurt.

Laly: I'm afraid of pain.

Larissa: That is still the case.

Laly: Are you an actress?

Larissa: Yes. I am.

Laly: I'm so happy to hear that!

Larissa: You've just played Ophelia, right?

Laly: Yes! Oh my god. I loved it!

Larissa: I know. I still love that memory. You will do a loooot of Shakespeare, honey.

Laly: That's so exciting. So, like, what else have you done?

Larissa: Well, you know that TV show that you're completely obsessed with, Inside The Actor's Studio?

Laly: Yes!

Larissa: Well, I'm just gonna say this: you're going to get a lot closer to it than just watching it on TV!

Laly: Oh my god. Ok. That's amazing. What else? Are you married?

Larissa: (laughs) No, darling. I'm not married. I forgot- you're not a feminist yet. Oh, you're in for a ride. But don't worry, you will love so deeply, and you will be loved just as deeply, and it'll be wonderful. And I'm only 24!

Laly: I think I'm in love now. With two guys.

Larissa: I know. You're going to break both of their hearts. It's ok. Enough people will break your heart later on to make up for it.

Laly: That sounds painful too.

Larissa: It's delicious pain. And it's gonna make you a much better actress.

Laly: Ok. I can live with that. It's really cool seeing you. You seem totally awesome.

Larissa: Hah. Yeah. It's really cool seeing you too. I had forgotten how in love with life you are, how eager you are. How in love with life I am, how eager I am, I should say.

Laly: Well, I'm here to remind you. Always. And can you come by more often to remind me that I'm gonna have clear skin one day and nice boobs and pretty hair?

Larissa: Of course. You won't listen. But I'll try my best. And you should eat more. Your metabolism is really good, eat as much as you want. Diet later in life.

Laly: I'll try to remember that. Oh, and remember that there's nothing more important than integrity in acting. Please don't give in to social pressures, ever.

Larissa: Ok. Thank you for saying that. It's hard, being unemployed most of the time, and wanting people to like you.

Laly: I bet. But we're gonna be ok. I think we're doing really well so far!

Larissa: We are.

Laly: Ok, I gotta go call one of my friends and tell them about this because it's like totally awesome.

Larissa: Go for it! I'm totally posting this on my blog, I think it's amazing to talk to you. Bye for now, darling.

Laly: Bye. Hey, by the way, I'm your biggest fan.

Larissa: I know. And I'm yours.

me at 14 with shahar

me now.

In ten years...

I have been challenged by fellow blogger http://copasetica.blogspot.com to write here about how I see my life ten years from now.

In ten years...

I'm 34, five months away from 35. I love it. I plan a beach trip for my 35th birthday.

I am acting, a lot, in films and plays that I love and that touch people in some way. I am getting paid to act in these beautiful films and plays. I am making a living as an actress and I am loving it. I am playing characters such as Becca in Rabbit Hole, Lizzie in The Respectful Prostitute, Billie in Women of Manhattan, Kat in Dylan, Joyce in Top Girls, Jessie in Night Mother, and many, many more. I am saying something with every project, I am happy with my career. I have worked hard and I am working harder every day, because there's always a new story to tell, and a new set of ears that needs to hear it.

I am involved in some kind of women's movement. Maybe a magazine, or a foundation, or a home, or a theatre company, or a film company, or all of the above! Basically, I am working with women and for women. I will also have either gotten my Ph.D in Women's Studies or am on my way to doing so!

I am still here, blogging, and loving it. Hopefully with more followers, but if not, it's ok. I rather really touch a handful of people than have a thousand readers who retain nothing. I have either published something already or I am in the process of writing something that will get published sometime soon.

I am still in love with cooking, and possibly have done something about it. Say, started some kind of delivery of home-made goodies business, or just planned a regular dinner every thursday night for people I love to eat the food I love making.

I have traveled a lot, I have seen at least ten places I had never seen before, like Iceland, Vietnam, Morocco, South Africa, Russia, Japan, Ireland, and India. I am planning even more trips. I have learned at least one new language really well. Hopefully two.

I have found ways to thank my family, especially my parents, for their love and support through out the years.

I look great. I mean- whoa. I look really great! It's fantastic to be in my 30's! All the yoga and face creams and organic food looks really damn good now. I look beautiful, yes, but because I feel healthy and happy. I am at peace, and it feels amazing.

I am in love. Madly in love and in a committed relationship with a man I have a real, truthful connection with. Someone I can rub my feet on when they get really cold in the middle of the night and he won't question why I don't just put on some socks. Someone I cook for with such joy the food I make seems to smile at us. Someone who wants to go to feminist meetings with me (ok, I know, I'm pushing it... but hey, a girl can dream...) Mainly, someone who holds me but also lets me fly, with love and care.

I think I may have a kid by now, but I actually don't want to predict that, or to predict wanting that. If I am meant to be guiding a precious little soul through this world by now, then I will happily embrace it. If not, then I will embrace whatever other callings life has given me for now.

The essence of all of this is, I am happy, and I am living my dreams and making new ones every day. I feel peaceful, free, successful, and powerful. Life is exciting, and I can't wait to watch the next ten years unfold and continue to reveal to me who I am.

****

If your name is written below, I challenge you to write a blog post about your vision of yourself in ten years as well.

Gugs

Maria

Gabi S.

Deema

Ma N.

Love is Everything

While crying with a broken heart, I think, "I'd take a root canal while getting a brazilian wax on a cold day and then maybe even give birth with no drugs and fall inside a frozen pond naked- over this pain. I would take anything over this pain." And then my next thought, bumping in right behind that one, practically crashing with it, is, "No, no I wouldn't. This pain means I have a working loving open heart. This pain means I'm alive. The magnitude of this pain equals the magnitude of the love I lived. I'll take this over the alternative of never having lived through so much love." And I cry even harder.

And every time it's worse (or better?). Every time the love is greater, and the crashing pain of loss greater still. And what hurts, exactly? Pablo Neruda, that eternal romantic, wrote,

"We, we who were, we are the same no longer. ...

Love is so short and oblivion so long."

How many times have I gone through this? Apparently not enough times, because my heart is still perfectly willing to love, it is yearning to love again, it is ready to fall in love with the guy with long hair and a guitar in the subway. It is hoping to look at someone and see in their face all of humanity's perfections and all of humanity's imperfections and love them so much, so deeply, so entirely, so tremendously, that there is nothing to do but kiss them as passionately as possible, forever.

I'm bottomlessly romantic, boundlessly sensitive, overly poetic, and a tad bit dramatic, I know. But I can't help it! I love loving! And love loves finding me, it always has. No matter how much it hurts me, it seems love and I and have a life-long date this time around. Bring it on Cupid, this heart ain't done lovin' yet.

I remember when I was in the 9th grade, I was with a group of people chatting about what love is, and one girl said, "Romantic love is completely unnecessary and we can be perfectly fine without it." I responded immediately and viscerally- it's possible that I even jumped up to standing- I said, "How can you say that? How can you possibly say that? It's the whole point! There's nothing better! There's nothing greater! Love is everything!" I think she rolled her eyes at me, I don't really remember. But you see my point- even at 14, in the hell of high school, I already had the suspicion that love is life. And now, ten years later, with a desperate broken heart that has been mended over and over again, that is full of a kind of pain that is capable of taking over my whole being and paralyzing me for days, I believe that still.

But (ugly icky stubborn but), something has changed.

I know now that, in the same space that passionate crazy beautiful pure love inhabits, also lives the possibility of a deadly painful merciless end. In that first kiss where love plants its seeds it also plants the possibility that those two people may hurt each other brutally and irreparably. The greater the love, the greater the possibility of that pain. (I should say probability rather than possibility, because I have not yet lived a great love that was not accompanied by a hurricane of pain, but who knows- maybe it's out there.)

And because I know this, I understand something I absolutely rejected and ran away from for a long time. I understand now why people settle. I don't mean settle down, I mean settle for something that is less than what they wanted, settle for an adult life of "should's" and "at least's" and "good enough's". I understand choosing stability and companionship over passion and mind-blowing love. I understand choosing a life that minimizes the possibility of suffering a great loss.

I understand it so much that today I even said, "I could do it. I could settle." And I meant it. I started to think I could be ok with having just the certainty that the person I'm with will be there the next day over explosive, soul-connected, blinding love where no such certainty exists. Flames, by definition, burn out or fade away. So enough flames, I've been thinking, I'm done with flames. Let flames go to hell where they belong. Give me luke-warm. Give me boring. Give me less than I have always wanted.

Alas, says the romantic day-dreamer, such thoughts are real but fleeting. I no sooner have them than I am ready to fall madly in love again.

But, as a dear friend said to me today, I don't have to decide or choose anything right now, maybe even for a while. I can decide to not decide. It's every empowering, actually. I don't have to narrow down what I want right away- or ever. How great that I know love and love's pains, how great that I understand the sentiment behind settling, how great that I have no idea what will suit my life! I am ever-changing, ever-growing, and ever-learning. That is wonderful and I better get used to it because I can not control it. It just so happens that I can't click a switch in my heart and go, Ok, I'm done falling in love, now just give me something safe.

It is comforting to know that I am in pain, but I am not done loving yet.

As my 14-year-old self would say, I better not be done with love yet, because then really, what would be the point? Love is everything.

And isn't it?