Saturday, September 2, 2017

Book of Fife 1:3 - Take Time to Appreciate Art

A few years ago at the Utah State Fair, I came across a booth called Uinta Rock that sold items made of rock called honey onyx. There was a lamp on one of their shelves in the corner that drew me in and I purchased it. Each lamp is unique because each rock is unique, as one of my friends put it, it's like each one has a soul. I loved the lamp so much that I purchased 2 more last year at the fair and gave them as gifts. I spent a good chunk of time chatting with one of the owners named Joe. He was passionate about the products he made and we had a beautiful talk about the lamps and different types of rock. He told me to shoot him an email anytime if I wanted more lamps.

Last week, I shot Joe an email to ask him if he had a certain kind of lamp available, but he never responded. As I was going to be driving close to Tabiona, UT where they are made, I decided to call the number on the website to see if I could stop by the shop and browse their inventory. When I got to the shop and was talking to a guy named Jim, I asked him about Joe and he told me that Joe passed away from cancer earlier this year. It hit me like a ton of bricks. It suddenly made sense why he never responded to my email and I felt a crushing sadness realizing he was gone as well as a deep sense of appreciation for the art he had created with the rock.

Visiting the shop in rural Tabiona was a beautiful experience as I came to realize that artisans like this are becoming a thing of the past. Jim spent a good hour showing me all the lamps my heart could desire, cutting one of them down for me and explaining the process of making the lamps. Sure, making income from their products is important for these artists, but they have a passion that is a labor of love beyond money. I made some purchases that I'm sure I will most likely give as gifts at some point in time, but visiting the shop was an experience that I will remember and cherish and it brings a significance to these beautiful rocks that I can appreciate every time I use them.

If you find yourself at the Utah State Fair this year, visit the Uinta Rock booth and meet Jim and see if anything speaks to you. No, they didn't sponsor me to write this or anything, I just wanted to share because it brought me joy.










Sunday, June 25, 2017

Book of Fife 1:2 - Change is Required. Like, really.



I’m feeling particularly vulnerable lately, so I decided to write out my thoughts at this moment. I’ve spent a good deal of time alone the past year and a half, and by that I mean, I’ve literally spent a lot of time just being by myself, with myself, alone with my thoughts. It used to make me really uncomfortable to be alone, I would get lonely and feel like I needed to be doing something with someone or I wasn’t valuable as a human. I don’t know where that came from, probably insecurities stemming from low self-esteem as a child and adult, but being alone wasn’t my thing until recently. I’ve always been an introvert, but now rather than being embarrassed by it, I value that time alone, I need it, I learn from it. And at the same time, sometimes I do feel true loneliness.

I took my first solo camping trip last week. It was lovely, and beautiful, and I truly enjoyed it, but there were moments when I thought, “I really wish so-and-so were here”, or “this reminds me of this person, man, I wish they were here to experience this with me” and so on. I decided a few years ago that I wasn’t going to allow myself to miss out on doing things I wanted to do because people couldn’t go with me, and it has been empowering to live that decision, but my soul still longs for company, even if just to have another human around, not even saying anything. I was having lunch with a dear friend last week and she mentioned how she was sometimes envious of my adventures, but she realized that “the grass is always greener” as well, and we talked about it. As my time to bear children diminishes each year, I am acutely aware of my lack of family, always thinking that someday I would have one. Realizing that “someday” may never come has been something I have been silently mourning. Sometimes, I wonder if I seek adventures and experiences because it’s an escape from that mourning. I try not to think about it often, but it is difficult to avoid when 95% of my friends have children and families and post about them all of the time.

Does this post even have a point? I’m not sure, I just thought I would write. Upon returning home from my camping trip, and from nearly 9 months of constant travel with a few intermittent weeks at home, my reality is hitting me hard. I see recent pictures of myself and look in the mirror and see someone I don’t recognize: someone who is suddenly much older, overweight, and exhausted; who has ideas and goals and ambitions but is too anxious, distracted, frightened, and overwhelmed to accomplish them; someone who wants to truly live, in concept, but in reality she is simply trying to survive; someone who promotes loving yourself as you are, but who thinks she is too old, fat, and washed up for anyone to love in her current state. I watched the Tony Awards on TV and thought, “I could be up on that stage if I had fully committed myself, but I didn’t, I’m a failure, and now it’s too late”.

I recently cleared out my storage unit and discarded a lot of things, and brought the remaining boxes to my residence and stacked them in my room. Pretty much everything I own is stacked all around me. It intimidates me because I want to discard it, but I also don’t want to get rid of all of my CDs, but then, how often do I ever use a physical CD anymore? The process of doing this for everything I own wrinkles my brain, yet, I know that having less stuff makes me feel better. On top of it all, I get interested in a lot of hobbies, I want to paint, and learn to play the guitar, learn to rock climb, and start performing again, but I have to do my taxes and pay the rent. And on top of it all, I want to be social and make new friends and find love at some point. But how do I do that when everything else seems so daunting? So, I sit here writing this, having listened to a dozen motivational/self help audiobooks and I know exactly what to do, but don’t do it. And instead, I’ll probably just binge watch an entire season of Better Call Saul and eat chocolate. 

This is the current state of my life. While I suppose it sounds bleak, it’s not as though there haven’t been moments of true joy, happiness, adventure, strength, friendship, and meaning . . . there definitely have been wonderful moments, but, I want more than moments. I want the feelings of overwhelming anxiety, doubt, unworthiness, and inaction to be the “moments”, not the reality. I want those other positive moments to become the reality. I know they can. But can I make it happen? Do or do not, there is no try. Right on, Yoda. I think I can. That’s what I’m gonna go with. That’s what I have to give right now. And that’s okay.

Thursday, October 27, 2016

The Book of Fife 1:1 – Learn to see the beauty in the potential.


“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you’ll be swept off to.” J.R.R. Tolkien

This is a pretty accurate description of my life, for better or for worse, but unlike Frodo, I don’t have a door. 

Right now, my life is a giant mess . . . and by giant mess, I mean, a giant mess of apocalyptic proportions.  I left NYC for several reasons, and while I feel mostly at peace about it, there’s a part of me that feels like an epic failure.

To sum up, I’m currently homeless (storage unit, hotel, and good ole fashioned bumming off of parents) and I only have part-time contract work that is totally unrelated to my college education. I am severely out of shape and I weigh more than I ever have. I have a mountain of debt in student and auto loans. I feel like an awkward teenager with my new braces, except that I’m even more awkward because I’m over 30 and I have wrinkles and a muffin top. I’m dealing with some residual issues from NYC that are literally plaguing me every day. My music/theatre career is at a complete standstill and I don’t remember the last time I actually sang (besides karaoke a month ago with my friends Liz and Lucas, which was EPIC!). I have no romance to speak of in my life. I haven’t had an actual relationship for years and I begin to lose hope that romance is in the cards for me.

These circumstances have brought me to a place where I can’t help but look at my life and wonder if there are any fruits, whether my life has any meaning. I don’t say that in a depressing way, but more out of reflection. I don’t have the idyllic life with a career I love, a family, or a house with a white picket fence. By most definitions of success, I’m a complete failure . . . but lest you think this is the pity party of the century, make no mistake, all of this is absolutely my fault. I recognize that and take full responsibility for it.

And it's all about to change.

Let me be clear, while life is a complete disaster right now, I’m sure as hell not going to let it dictate my future. I may be failing at a lot of things I “should” be, but I feel more whole as a person than I ever have in my life. I’m slowly but surely becoming more comfortable with discovering my authentic self, whatever that is shaping up to be, rather than trying to be what I’ve been told I should be. I feel an extraordinary fragility along with an overwhelming sense of inspired freedom. So, even though my life is a giant apocalyptic mess, I am embarking on a journey forward with the mantra of learning to love what is and seeing the beauty in the potential.

On that note, expect to see changes from me in the coming months. The first change is that I will be returning to Utah or Idaho soon because the cost of living there vs NYC is more conducive to pursuing an entrepreneurial idea I have. I also intend to do a lot more writing, singing, and working out, and I invite you to join me on my journey while pursuing your own goals so that we can continually inspire each other. 

Life is hard, beautiful, ugly, strange, happy, confusing, sad, and messy. It sucks more than anything some days and is completely exhilarating others. Something that I can never say often enough is how happy I am to have truly wonderful friends and family. I weep when I think of the absolute love and kindness that has been shown to me. If I can ever pay that forward in even its smallest measure, my life would be fulfilling, indeed. One thing is sure, I’m happy to be alive. I am excited for the opportunity to have this experience of endless possibilities and to continue to journey where there is no knowing where I could be swept off to.