Cremating Demons

:

Art work by Bryan Villalva, lyrics by NF

The "check engine" doesn't bother me.  It doesn't beep, doesn't flash, just appears.  Like all the other little lights in my car that exist but don't necessarily demand my attention.  So I just keep driving.  I'll attend to my car tomorrow.

I got my first two payed acting jobs last summer, both of which were amazing experiences with wonderful human beings.  I received the acceptance calls within 3 hours of each other.  Like any proper lunatic, I said yes to both of them.  I made the calculations.  I could make this work, and because I don't have the bravery to say no, I'll also work full time at my food service job so as to make everyone happy.  My plan was perfect, like a puzzle, with about as much breathing room between pieces.                     

BRILLIANT PLAN:

My bear friend liked to visit me 
on my way to my tent.

If it took two hours to get to the Fair for my first acting job, and than an hour to get to the next Theater, I would have 5 minutes to wriggle out of my prehistoric costume, 30 minutes to shower the dirt and sweat off my body in the backstage sink, paint my face pretty, put on a fluffy pink dress and rush to curtain call, clean up and get home around 11:30 PM, then wake up at  3:00 AM to be ready for work by 4:00 AM and take the hour drive to work so I can open at 5:00 AM and I'll work late till about 4:30 PM 5 days a week so I can

Early mid-life crisis.
(not real bear).

still get to my night shows by 6:00 PM and than make the hour drive to my tent outside the Fair by 12:30 PM and than we repeat.  I am a wizard god.

I only face a few predicaments...I didn't schedule a full nights sleep.  And time to make meals.  Oh well.  That's why we have granola bars.  I sleep in my car on breaks.  Small sacrifices must be made for big plans. 

I forget to tell anyone about that check engine light.  Guess I'll do it tomorrow.  My AC ceases to perform it's duty and blows warm air.  Oh well.  I'll just roll down my windows and take off my shirt when no one's looking.  Small sacrifices must be made for a big life. 

Some good friends let me crash at their house for the night.  I wake up in a bright sunny guest room still gritty with sweat, makeup, blood, dirt, and tears, eating a full

When you wake in your tent
in the same position as 
your sloth.

breakfast of a granola bar and self-belittling thoughts about how much of an inconvenience I am.  

I arrive at work, running back and forth, dropping dishes left and right.
Workmate:  "You need to keep being vigorous...without the panic."
I'm not panicking.  I just 3 more coffees than usual to remember who I am in the mornings.

I'm sure my car can go one more day without me bothering about the check engine light.  It did before,it can do it again.  I sweat till my clothes stick to me.  I breathe a funny burning smell.  It's probably fine though.  I'll just pull the collar of my shirt over the lower half of my face.  It's not unbearable. (Acknowledge my bear pun). 

I feel as though I've developed narcolepsy. I fall asleep instantly.  Anywhere.  My trunk.  The dirt.  A booth.  Just never on the job.  
I wake up to someone tapping my shoulder.  I fell asleep against the porter potty in our back-stage tent.  "You good?"

"Yup!  I'm fine!"  I stand back up, straighten my costume and get back to work.
My food for the weekend gets eaten by the bear family that lives in the dumpster beside my tent.  RIP.  I survive the next few days on kindness.  I must be a burden and an inconvenience to my playmates.  Maybe they wish I wasn't here.  I'm stupid.

I spend so many hours in the car that I something I forget where I'm even going.  I drift into the comfort of the engine rumbling, the heat, the winding road beneath the cliff...

BANG!!
I don't know what broke first, me or the car.  My eyes snap back open, my

Rest in Peace ol' man.

steering wheal and I wrestling for control, rubber screeching, spinning, a dramatic impact on my right that sends us sideways for a spell, than one more metal-crunching impact as we land back ride side up. 
Silence.  What a weird thing.
I realize my arm is in the protective "mom seat-belt" position to protect my stuffed bear in the passenger seat.  My emotions shut down like any hope of life in my car.  "Well crap."

After driving my parents car to work, I ask a work mate to pass something from the top shelf.  My voice is gone.  I feel like a deflated balloon.  He puts his hand to his ear and keeps asking, "What?"  I want to puke.  I start to cry.  And for the first time, I ask if I can go home early.

By the end of this grand adventure, so perfectly well planned with only a few minor inconveniences, I find myself (after a rush of soby goodbyes to playmates, packing up my tent, head pounding with dehydration, road closures, a dead phone, and being hours late), I find myself unpacking my bags at a hotel conference building full of theologians, Christians, and probably a lot of homeschoolers.

I never felt so much like a burnt scrap of twisted, good-for-nothing shipwrecked wood.  Every sparkly, spunky, social trait that defined me was gone.  I attempted to revive my sick body from dehydration and the granola bar diet.  I would meet someone, and than begin to cry.  My self control was lost and I couldn't even stop myself from crying at the dinner table, and didn't even care who saw. I couldn't explain why.  Perhaps I had finally reached insanity. 

It finally came to me after the second week, as the band played praises and we listened from our seats in the conference room.  

I was faced with thoughts I couldn't handle because I did not give myself the time to handle them.  I didn't give myself time to think.  Like makeup over dirt, I slathered activities over the dirt collecting in soul.  And now, in the silence, my heart was naked and my thoughts were daunting.

Quiet. 

  I watched my dear friend perform in Matilda the Musical.  There's a scene where chaos is erupting around her, and suddenly everyone freezes, the music goes silent and she sings, "Quiet."

And the heat and the shouting

And my heart is pounding

And my eyes are burning

And suddenly everything is, 

everything is

Quiet

Like silence, but not really silent

Just that still sort of quiet

Like the sound of a page being turned in a book

Or a pause in a walk in the woods

Quiet

Like silence, but not really silent

Just that nice kind of quiet

Like the sound when you lie upside down in your bed

Just the sound of your heart in your head

And though the people around me

Their mouths are still moving

The words they are forming

Cannot reach me anymore

And it is quiet

And I am warm

Like I've sailed

Into the eye of the storm

I crash landed into the eye of the storm.  In one broken piece of neglected relationships, anxiety and

self-loathing.

And like the check engine light on my car, I had plenty of warning.  

Justin Witmel Early describes this in his book The Common Rule:

The worst depths of my emotional breakdown happened when I began to fear my own mind.

After getting counseling, I up and moved to New Mexico for a show Albuquerque.  What possessed
me to decide within a week to pack a bag a move to another state for a show I wasn't even payed for AND (unbeknownst to me), would shut down after a week of shows, I don't know. 
And somehow, I don't regret it in the slightest.  

In my separation from acting, scheduling get-togethers, and the general hustle, I was forced to flip-flop

my last years plan.  I was forced to think.  I read.  And read.  And read about rest.  And rest while reading.  And as if God himself was trying to tell me something, (as if he like, communicates or something) suddenly all of my readings and homework papers were about rest.

I asked God to take me deeper, what ever that meant.  I realized that "going deeper" did not mean "making it bigger" or "doing more."  On the contrary.  God answered by prayers by teaching me to rest.  To think.  To wait.  To say no more than I say yes.

The outcome of these practices lead to me longer, deeper conversations with God.  Writing.  Drawing.  Dancing.  Smiling.  Singing.  Going out with just me and Jesus.  Spending moments with him on the roof that were so magnificent I can't even being to describe them to you.  Spending time with friends and family out of love, not obligation or lonely compulsions.  Doing stupid things and filming it just to make people laugh.  And laughing.  I can laugh even when there's no one laughing with me.  I met a man who in many ways reminds me of Jesus.  I fell in love and jumped in mud and laid down in puddles and fell through ice and ran in the rain and cried and panicked and jumped in a hot air balloon and hiked and prayed and sang to God like there was no tomorrow.  It was just as much of an adventure as last year, only instead of resulting as a corpse I feel alive.  

And now I have returned.  Returned to the same ol' basement where I started the first sprouts of this

blog 4 years ago, and where I have since broken all myself-mandated blogging rules (Like consistency and length).  If you have made it all the way through this, I thank you, (now go get a life).  

Since moving back from my un-expected 6 month delay in Albuquerque, I dusted, cleaned, re-organized, and got rid of half of my nick-nacks minus the good memories.  I even took down the shelf I used to wallow under in self-hatred and depression.  Those demons are long slain, yet there's no sense in slaying the dragon and just leaving it's carcass beneath your bed to reek throughout the room.  Demons need to be cremated and buried too.

There's a check engine light.  It's quiet.  Subtle.  It doesn't demand your attention.  its just there.  Waiting for you to break when you least expect it.  Don't just consider the problem. 

Find it.  Open the hood.  Go deeper.  Take an early morning just to yourself.  Go someplace quiet, without your phone, without any distraction, and take 20 minutes to think.  And see what kind of check engine lights appear.

Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.  See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
-David (Psalms 139:23-24)

   

(Balloon photography by Bryan Villalva) 

Half-Done

Half-Done 

The rock that holds my frame, 

The same.

The paint on my canvas 

Is not stretched thin,

As the colors forge my beauty.

My sin.

The notes creating my song,

My wrong,

Comes to a break,

And the melody pause,

For a breath to take.

Conductor stands still,

But there's no mistake.

Just unfinished art.

I wait backstage 

Before my part.

A map with unknown seas to chart.

A palette with brand new colors to mix,

Create,

To fix,

Relate,

She picks up the pen

Because it's not too late.

Tap Out 

Singing songs about dry bones rattling,       

But I can't catch my breath,

I can't stop battling,

Calling,

I'm calling for help.

Not a way out.

Just someone to tell me 

What it's all about.

To never tap out.

To silence the voice

Who tells me I can't.

I can't.

Stop.

Fighting.

This anger igniting.

Then I break down.

I taste the salt 

Of my sweat on the ground 

I hear the count.

1.

No.

2.

Get up.

3. 

I can't.

4.

I can.

5.

I pant.

6.

The chant.

7.

I stand.

I shake.

I'm a breathing earth quake.

My heart's an eruption.

But don't take

Me out

Of this fight.

Just give me one more bullet to bite.

One more sunrise.

A beautiful sight.

One more smile.

A number to dial.

Another embrace.

A wind to chase,

Just to land back home

And find my place. 

But don't take 

Me out 

Of the fight. 

A Great Day To Die

Not going to lie.

Today seems like 

A pretty great day to die.

The end appears 

A little too far.

But maybe I'll die 

Today

In my car.

Or what ever way.

I wont complain.

Poison,

Or falling,

If I'm shot or slain.

I don't mind if it causes 

A lot of pain,

Just please don't let me

Die insane.

The day has started 

Rather nice,

I bought some coffee

At a decent price.

The whether is warm,

Said hi to a friend,

Today would make 

A perfect end.

If you took me home

I wouldn't mind.

Nothing I'd undue,

Nothing I'd rewind.

The world's been cruel,

But it's also been kind.

Could I pack up my bags,

A scarf and a coat,

And leave this world

On a happy note?

Could everything stop,
While everything's fine?
Before I fumble
And curse
And call for my line?

But I saw the earth 

Take another spin,

Watched the sun fade

And rise again,

With my heart still pumping 

Like, "Where ya been?"

When it'll stop,

I just don't know.

But I guess I give it 

Another go.

The Solution to All Your Problems

I have a suggestion for you.

The solution to all your problems.

Take your phone with you. 
Everywhere. 
To work.  To conversations.  To parties.  To the bathroom.  In the car.  To bed.  Put it in a zip lock bag and take it in the shower with you.  It's literally the solution to everything.  Here are just a few ways this will save your life:

This is the cure to your social awkwardness.

When you walk down the hall, put your head phones on.  That way you can blare your own music and no one will bother you with an awkward greeting or attempted small talk.  You can just glance at each other like two stiff chameleons devoid of personality, and keep walking, much too busy to interact.

And when you have to see a friend, you don't have to worry about awkward lulls in the conversation because you can just make a quick escape to facebook and find a funny meme you can both laugh at.  Don't worry if it relates to the conversation or not, you weren't listening any way.

This will cure your loneliness.

With your phone, you never have to be alone again.  When you feel that little prick of loneliness, just text "hey" to a few dozen friends.  Odds are several of them will reply with "Hey," supplying you with a sufficient amount of dopamine to your brain to survive the net ten minutes.  After ten minutes, when you start feeling lonely again, just text another round of friends.  When they don't reply and you begin to feel worthless, post something on social media.  Edit your profile picture to you at the gym.  BOOM!  Three comments already on how sexy you look.  Instant gratification.  Dopamine restored.  And in the next ten minutes when you are lonely again, just surf through memes.  Remember.  Humans can't relate to you.  Memes can.

It will stop your mind from wondering.

Meditating is one of the worst things you can do for yourself.  You might start thinking about things, like what you are actually feeling, and that could be dangerous.  You might even start having deep thoughts, like what the meaning of life is.  So in the mornings, before you let your mind fly off with thoughts, pick up your phone.  Watch YouTube.  View comments on your status.  Edit the acne from your favorite selfie.  This is why you need your phone on you at all times because you never know when you will be struck with the answer to world hunger, and inspiration leads to ideas, ideas lead to plans, and plans lead to responsibility and stress.  And stress is bad. 

You can be who you want to be.

On the internet, no one has to know the real you.  You don't have to show your bad sides.  Ever.  You can edit yourself flawless.  Just post pictures of you being active.  You being inspirational.  You volunteering.

Your relationships can be perfect.  You don't even have to talk to your girl friend to make the world think you're relationship is perfect.  Just post cute pictures of you too with the text, "Just love my babe!"  Artificial perfection is at your fingertips.

The "Don't" List:

Stay away from human connection.  Humans are gross.  They smell, they're awkward, they don't understand you, they're click-ish, and for goodness sake's stay away from children, old people, and dancing.

A few side affects that may occur:

You will have no friends.  No one to call for an emergency at 3:00 AM.  No one to confide in.  No one to listen.  Because you never took your head phones off to listen to them.

You'll never fly across the room with someone to the tune of an Irish jig because dancing requires excursion and sweating and closeness and an amazing amount of trust. 

You will never see anyone take off their mask and pour out their heart.  You will never look into someones eyes, and feel their hurt with them.  And no one will look into your eyes and hurt with you.

Life will be ugly.  You live in the media.  And media is ugly because that's what our attention is drawn to.
You wont see those sunsets, those electric clouds, those cities from the hill top at 5:00AM that look like they're on fire, all those things you see in pictures but never smell, touch, taste, breathe.  Because you'll be too busy looking down.

So stay inside.  If it's uncomfortable, don't do it.  If hand-sanitizer isn't provided, don't go.  If it requires trust, stay away from it.  And you will live a perfectly safe, comfortable, lonely life.  Starving and decaying in a life devoid of meaning.  Thank you.

I worry sometimes that humans are afraid of helping humans.  There's less risk associated with animals, less fear of failure, fear of getting too involved.

-Marina Keegan

Human relationships are rich, the're messy and demanding.  We have learned the habit of cleaning them up with technology.

Most of all, we need to remember in-between texts and emails and facebook posts to listen to one another, even to the boring bits, because it's often in the unedited moments, moments in which we hesitate and stutter and go silent, that we reveal ourselves to one another.  

-Sherry Turkle, New York Times 

  

Honestly Painful

A few days ago a customer comes to the counter and we recite the usual:
"How are you?"
"I'm good.  How was your weekend?"
"My weekend was good."  And its going pleasantly scripted when instead of saying, "I would like a BLT with potato chips and coffee in a green mug" he says, "Your weekend was good?  How so?"
And now I have to think. 
Shoot. 
I thoughtlessly stated that my weekend was good without thinking for one second about whether my weekend actually was good.  I can't even remember having a weekend.  Since waking up at 4:00 AM I could barely remember what day it was or what universe I lived in.

We're so good at replying with the right thing.  I guarantee if I go up to the woman at the counter in this coffee shop right now and ask her how she is doing, she will say that she is good.  Is she actually good?  I don't know.  My Dad likes to say,  "Don't try to come up with the right answer.  Tell me the honest answer."

Jesus:  "Simon son of John, do you truly love me more then these?"
Simon:  "Yes, Lord.  You know that I love you."
Jesus:  "Simon son of John, do you truly love me?"
Simon:  "Yes, Lord, you know that I love you."
Jesus:  "Simon son of John, do you love me?"
Simon:  "Lord, you know all things, you know that I love you."
(John 21:15-17)

I don't think Jesus wanted the right answer.  He wanted the honest answer.

Midway through a conversation with a friend, they asked, "I don't know how to word this...But, how are you doing?"  I wouldn't have actually paused to think about the question if it was flippantly tagged to the beginning of the conversation.   But he thought about the question.  Then asked it.  So I thought about the question.  Then answered it.  There's a contagious pattern to honesty. 
 
I'm the master of half-truths.  I love to exaggerate the truth to make a bigger laugh, a bigger gasp; I like to shape larger then life cartoons out seemingly insignificant situations.  I'm also the master of watering down serious situations, either out of laziness or fear of what others will think.

I opened up a gritty part of my heart to someone, and they asked me a simple question.  One that I've heard a million times before.
"Do you know that God loves you?"
"Yup." 
"Because he does."
I nod.
"He loves you."
"Okay."
"God loves you."
I'm crying now.  Why am I crying?  I know God loves me.  Because he loves everyone.  But he's got a lot of kids.  And just one that messes up quite a bit.  A mistake maker.
So maybe I have the knowledge that God loves me.  But do I believe it?  Could I have been apart of Gods family for five years and not believe God loves me?  That when he said "I forgive you" that it wasn't just an automatic "right" response?  Because I know I've said I forgive people who in my heart I haven't forgiven.
Jesus wasn't abused and hung by nails on two slabs of wood and slaughtered and brought back to life, scars and all, just to tell the world, "I mostly forgive you."  That was him saying, "I love you.  I'm not kidding."
And five years after adoption.  I stopped knowing God loved me.  I believed it.

It's one thing for a good man to die for his friend, it's a completely different thing for a perfect man to die for his enemy that he might live.

-Christopher Yuan 

Honesty sucks.  Full honesty, that is.  Not half truths.  It's this vulnerable, beautiful, fascinating, painful thing like surgery.  But a doctor doesn't cut you open because he wants you dead.  He cuts you open to heal you.  In the words of Sarah Sparks:

Every day I'm learning how to die.

In every way I'm crushed on every side.

It's God the surgeon

And he's come to save my life.

I'm finding mercy cuts like a sharpened knife.

I've been aching,

So personal is pain.

If I'm not mistaken,

You like to give and take.

I'm afflicted,

But still you give me joy.

These bones you're breaking,

These bones they will rejoice.

A Note To My Homies

Whickersham Bro's

A Note to My Homies 

Pep talks with Seb 

A note to my homies,

"Emily, can I get you a soda?"

You people who know me,

In what ever time and place.

Maybe you fed me when I was unable,

or waited with me at the dinner table,

As I finished my cold green beans.

Maybe I'm that kid from a play,

Who tried to make you feel okay.

I said the words when you couldn't pray,

Post-pun-face

Maybe you knew me a month.

A day.

Just to let you know that you're cool.

A note to my fam,

From wherever I am.

I think of you more then you know.

I'm sorry for putting you under my stress,

The world upside down 

For not finding a better way to express,

How much I really care.

Maybe you've been there from the start,

Seen every phase
As I play my part.

Maybe you dropped in for a day,

With a hug and a "Kid, you'll be okay."

Three steps into the incline.  Breathing break. 

Maybe we played ninjas and races,

Maybe you've even seen me in braces.

Or I'm just that kid that cries in the hall,

That I wouldn't remember you at all,

But I kept that note that you gave me.

A note to my homies,

How ever you know me,

I'd die for you in a heart beat.

Santa's Favorites 

If you think that you're just kinda nice,

I challenge you to think twice.

You changed my life without a price,

And you probably don't even know.

Hipsters 

(He's not that tall).

Mis hermanos

Time and Space

Fam

(I still don't know who's golf cart that was)

My X wife is cooler then your X wife.

Don't cry because it's over.
Smile because it happened.
-Dr. Seuss 

No entiendo

The Royal Swing...Or something...

Peace 

Thanks for the hugs