Don't Let the Sound of Your Own Wheels Drive You Crazy

This is one of those lyrics Tricia would quote on occasion. I've been thinking about her a lot today. Still feeling her energy with me. 

I just finished creating a camp that was shared with another nonprofit. We used their facility because ours is in transition right now. It was too much work and I am running on fumes from it still.

I think you know when everything is an uphill battle that you are in the wrong place. But, a lot of benefit came from it for young girls. So, that's good.

Coming right off of that I was texting with the new tenant next door. I was asking him to park on his portion of the property in the back and to move his vehicles off of mine. We will get back to work and there will be paint stripping, spray painting, and sanding, and all kinds of things going on behind the theatre.

From there he went on to call me a bully and then he unleashed a laundry list of all of the terrible things I had done to him. Keep in mind, I'd been off-site for a month and a half. 

These two experiences held so many commonalities. The primary one being the expectation that I would do all of the work and at the same time would have no right to any kind of reward that came from that work. And that, no matter what I did, it was wrong and not enough. Double binds to the left of me and to the right!

It's like when I stand up for myself or my company people are SHOCKED! The expectation is that I just take all kinds of abuse and accusation and hold down the bulk of the workload and after that, of course I reply with, "thank you sir, may I please have another". 

It's an absolutely unreasonable expectation.

It leveled me.

I plunged.

The thing about the space is Tricia was there with me. She was a part of our fundraisers. And her handwriting is still on the wall. So, I'm attached to the space. Plus, we have gotten money to upgrade the space and turn it into the theatre of my dreams. Extending the safe space out into the actual air that we would be breathing. Our new HVAC would mean 98% pure air.

The thing is my new neighbor is a misogynist and so it's impossible to build a safe space with that next door. 

Hence my sadness.

And hence me thinking to the point of complete sobbing about how much I miss Tricia. This Christmas will mark five years since she was raped and tied up in the back of her tiny car, murdered, then driven around DC like that until the 27th. 

I like feeling her with me in the locations we hung out in together. The theatre is most special. We talked about it a lot. I think remembering the good times keeps me going. It's like I'm living twice. Once for me and once for her. and then a few more times for others I have lost.

That's really beautiful but at the same time, I'm so tired of being blamed for other people's shit. I'm intolerant of misogyny now. 

It's like Cesar Milan when he does that shhhhT! thing and grabs the side of a dog to snap them out of their behavior. That's me. I am the Cesar Milan of dysfunctional people. 

When I was in college during a scene study class, I was using a doll from my childhood as a prop. Its head came off during the scene and all of these half toothpicks went flying everywhere. I was sobbing, "Chuckie!". I was trying to pick up all of the pieces and looking like an idiot.

That doll got me through the death of my best friend when I was five and he was four. That doll was my companion everywhere I went. I fed him toothpicks because I didn't want him to starve and it's the only thing that I could fit in that little hole in his mouth. 

There I was, 27 years old, sobbing all over Xerxes Mehta's advanced scene study class. Then he pulled a Cesar Milan. 

Except instead of that sound he bellowed, "Deborah!" in a really low boom. I immediately stopped and looked at him. Then he said something like, "We're not doing that, don't be ridiculous." And he moved on. He did not indulge me. He snapped me out of it. 

And that's what I've been doing all week. It's like a deep knowing voice inside of me that says to the other person, "I see you. I know you are lying to me and I will call you out." Then I watch them scramble to fix things.

Like how the dogs have to shake and tremble in a kind of foreign disbelief. Realizing slowly this is not their game. They are going to have to adjust. It's very uncomfortable.

And now my brain is scrambled. I'm angry that I have to go there at all. And I'm grateful that I can. I don't know if we will be able to stay in our space of 15 years and I'm stressed out about that because I put all of the pieces in place to advance us through Covid.

In theatrical terms, I've been stuck with really bad scripts. Thinking all the while I'm a good actor-director-producer, I can make anything work. Then knowing from 35 years of experience that's simply not true. Nothing can save a bad script. You have two choices with a bad script. You edit and rework the structure or you throw it away. That's it. And those are my only two options in my business dealings too.

And restructuring sounds like, "sssssshhhhT!"

There's a spot on the back wall in the theatre with Tricia's writing on it. She was using my actors as test dummies for her masters in herbology. And her writing is still on the wall. One of the last places I saw her alive was in my lobby. She was having issues with her phone. She's with me. She's been with me in that space.

It's a sacred space. It's so odd not knowing what will happen next.

I guess I just need to do some yoga and put on the Eagles Greatest Hits.