On the inside and on the outside...

Monday I spent most of the workday hours immersed in the world I'm creating of my newest script. I wrote scenes about people who are emotional. They are also people who are flawed and scared and excited and happy and pissed off beyond belief. (My latest characters are mafia so that stands to reason.) And I wrote and I wrote and I wrote.

I wrote in the silence. I could hear birds and I could hear traffic through the window screens but mostly I could hear silence. Outside. Inside? I could hear the fights. The dying. The shots fired. The police cars. The music blaring. The world around my characters. The world of Detroit I am creating.

Then Monday night I got a work phone call. It was good news. Not even news. It was an update. A good update. A courtesy call about a project. It was fine. I was all business on the call, not expecting to hear anything about this project at this particular time as it's literally been eight months since I last heard about this project. I took some notes. And then the caller asked if this was a good time to talk, if I was good. I responded "yes" and "yes". And then I got off the call.

Afterwards, as I processed that call, I thought about what I had said. What he had said. Had I sounded mean? Rude? Angela, who heard my end as she was in the same room, said no. I sounded fine. Professional. Good.

But I still couldn't let it go. Should I have jumped for joy? Been more expressive? Even more conversational? Granted this really was just a business call but still. I second guessed myself all evening long.

And then yesterday morning I read the notes from a speech Jill Solloway, a wonderful writer and director, gave to new female filmmakers. And I sat with what I read for a long time. I often try to censor myself in this business. Be very professional and stoic and what I think an adult should act like. But in reality? I'm far from that. If you know me, you know I'm an intensely emotional person. I tear up at commercials on television. I cry over Facebook memes. I am my father's daughter. And I love that about myself. I feel things so much. I am conscious of others and their feelings and I feel all of that so deeply. In Solloway's speech she said this,

Toss out all the rules you’ve been told about “How to Make it.” Forget every rule you’ve ever heard. You know how they used to tell women IF YOU HAVE TO CRY, GO TO YOUR CAR. Or go to the bathroom? On my set, I say, IF YOU CAN’T CRY YOU’RE A LIABILITY. If you can’t cry, you can’t feel—and if you can’t feel, you’d better not be holding my camera.

I thought about this a lot yesterday. I thought about it in the context of my first job after grad school. I was the communications director for a grant-funded nonprofit (which has long been out of business). I was doing a job that was way out of my league. In fact, it was a job that a staff should have been doing. A well-trained staff. Instead it was me, in a tiny office, trying to do it all alone and I couldn't handle it. I literally did not have enough hours in the day to do everything required of me. And before they could fire me, I quit. I quit and I cried while I did it. And I was so ashamed that I cried. But I couldn't help myself. I was so emotionally involved in my job that it affected me that deeply.

Looking back on that day now, I think, yes, I needed to cry! Yes, I should have been crying! It was a horrible day. It was a horrible experience and that was my emotion on that day. I embrace that now. Because I don't want to lose that part of me. That part of me is me, it is what makes me the writer and the person I am.

I love that Solloway celebrates that. Being emotional. Feeling. Art, and life, should be emotional ventures. They have to be. If not, they aren't full, they aren't realized, they aren't real.

When I got off the phone Monday night I was full of emotion. I felt very excited but in that nervous, anxiety-riddled way. I thought I might throw up. (I didn't, it wasn't that kind of news really, not at all, I am being very dramatic for affect here.) What I did do was walk around full of energy for a couple of hours, spouting off things to Angela like, "I'm so nervous!" and "Argh!" So very helpful. So very expressive.

But I keep thinking about what if I had been more emotional on that phone call. If I had said more, acted differently. Not much would have probably changed, certainly not with the outcome of the call or the update. But I might have felt differently after. Instead of sharing all of my emotions with Angela, I might have included my advocate on the other end of the call. Told him that I really was good, and not so good. But alas, I did not. Something I'll conside for next time.

But the idea of emotions - of showing them, of experiencing them - is something that I'll keep working on. Especially in business. Especially in this business I'm in. I love television shows and movies that make me laugh and make me cry and make me angry all at once. I love when I get caught off guard and feel that surprise. I love when I feel anything. And I want that for my art. For my work. For my employment. For my life.

Just this weekend Angela and I were watching the E! show The Royals. It's a soap opera set in the British monarchy. It's DVR junk food. And I love it. And I don't. We were watching on Saturday and I kept making snide comments toward the television, I kept yelling and being sarcastic back to the characters and finally Angela asked if I wanted to quit watching. I yelled, "NO!" I was having too much fun, sharing my emotions during the viewing process. And I want to have more of that in this entertainment business. I want to make more of that. See more of that. Be more of that.

Solloway also said,

You CAN cry at work—in fact, you must cry at work. In fact, if you’re going to make a movie, do me a favor and think of it as “bring your tears to work day.” You can own the energy of the set by embodying the idea that everyone is safe; no one is going to get yelled at; that we’re lucky to be called upon to make art together.

I love that. I love the idea of that. I want to see more of that. Be more of that. Experience more of that. I want to be that change in not just my business but also in the world. But as Solloway says, "the only way things will change will be when we’re all wilder, louder, riskier, sillier, unexpectedly overflowing with surprise."

Here's to being all of those things and more, on the inside and on the outside. 

Hooray for today!

Twelve days ago I was pulling up to an apartment building in Santa Monica, mentally preparing myself to give a two-hour MacBook tutorial to a retired writer friend when Angela texted me these words:

I just totally took a weird fall down the stairs.

I sent a sad emoji and texted No!!!! and told her to keep me posted. She said she was just taking a moment to breathe and she'd be ok. Famous last words.

Just two hours later, as I made my way back to my car, I got another text.

I am finishing up something here and then I am going to the dr. I am ok. Just need to get an x-ray.

No biggie. Just an x-ray. Sure. Okay. Fine. No biggie, I was just in Santa Monica. A mere 11 miles away.

An hour and fifteen minutes later I pulled up to the front of the middle school and found Angela sitting outside. Oy, Los Angeles.

So off we went. First to get lunch. Because as we learned from our ER trip in January, it might be a long time before your next meal when you enter a health care facility. Then we headed to the first address on the Workman's Comp listing of approved urgent cares. (And even though Angela has an amazing team of doctors and insurance through Cedars-Sinai, we couldn't go to any of those places...sigh.) I got Angela in the building. I circled the five story parking garage twice. I complained to the parking attendant. I got her to move a cone so I could park and run in. And then found Angela coming back out. They wouldn't see her. Not Workman's Comp anymore. Ugh.

So, off we went, to the westside of Los Angeles. Miles and miles from the school and the best hospitals in the world. And we found the second urgent care. And this time? There was a parking space right out back and they saw her within thirty minutes. They did an x-ray, determined she had a sprain, and sent her home with a boot and crutches and instructions to rest, ice, compress, and elevate.

And so she did. For almost a week. Memorial Day weekend was spent in the house, watching baseball games, reading books, playing Pandemic (thank goodness for Amazon Prime and two-day delivery!), making good food and doing not much else.

Being a caregiver is hard work. I know this because I've seen so many of the people in my life do this work. My parents took care of their parents for years. Then they and Angela took care of me all winter. It takes time and energy and focus and determination. You are responsible for someone else. And I was for the last twelve days.

We managed just fine. There were no broken bones. There were no concussions (she hit her head on the fall, as well as jarred her wrist). Hers was not a life threatening injury. But it took work, and patience, on both of our parts. Being a patient is hard work. Letting others do for you is difficult for so many of us. We have to be vulnerable and be honest and be scared out loud. We have to let others get us things and do what we want to do for ourselves. The bed rest thing? Not so fun after two or three days.

But we survived. And thrived. Angela rested. Our acupuncturist said being on leave agreed with her body. I was reminded, again, that I really can work in any circumstance. Having a nice quite block of time is great when I'm behind the computer but I can also multitask and sneak in moments here and there. And this weekend, we managed to get to the Tigers' game in Anaheim we'd been so looking forward to. Instead of driving down and back, we stayed at a little hotel near the stadium. We took a Lyft to the main gates and a cab home. We propped Angela's leg up and drove home early Saturday morning after she'd rested. We tucked the crutches into the spot behind our seats on the first base line and thought nothing of them for hours. And we decided if Miguel Cabrera can play baseball on a broken ankle, we can probably survive all of this.

And today, Angela headed back to work. She has only three days left with her kiddos before school ends for the year. She could have stayed home another week, the doctor gave her the option. But that's not who Angela is. She's the Cabrera of teachers. She has been dying a little inside each time she gets reports of her children missing her or needing her and not being able to help. Yesterday, she read me a very sweet email from one of her boys. He asked if she was healing and hoped she'd be back soon. She was so happy to respond to him that yes, she would. And yes, she'd print his essay out for him.

So the saying goes, wanna make God laugh? Make plans. I had very different plans for the last twelve days. But today? None of that matters. What matters is today. Today we are on the other side. We are both stronger and more rested and ready to move forward. And hooray for that!