charley star photo

the unfolding

 

Holly at the Lake

(click to enlarge)

i love photographs that explore Place.  maybe that's why this is one of my favorite photographs from the trip. 

there's something about hayesville... the minute i drove into this small town, i could sense it -- it's a promise. a promise that if you stay here long enough, something  will happen to you. an unfolding. a promise that if you drop into this pace of living, stop twittering about so much like one tends to do in larger cities,  you might just (re) discover yourself.  It's the SLOW FOOD of living. Or, as Robert told me one night over dinner at the Copper Door, (like The Oracle, because that's the way Robert is) "you can't hide from your sh*t up here. The Mountain forces you to deal with your ego."  Or as their friend Nate told me when i first got to the Market (like some Greek Chorus Ambassador of Hayesville who spoke so highly of the place i thought maybe Robert and Holly had planted him there to lure me in), "this place is magical.  something happens to people that come here.  especially people who have Cherokee in them." (I have Cherokee in me.)  "Takes about two years, but then... you just drop into it.  It changes you. It's magical."  (he sounded like some mystical Oracle, because Nate sounds eerily like Robert, and that's just the way Nate is.)

on my second day there, holly had been giving me the tour, stopping at all the places she'd already scoped out for me and deemed photographically worthy.  and because she is an Art Director, and an artist in her own right, she does know how to pick 'em. after riding around for a bit, we stopped at the Market for a last goodbye to Robert and a pulled pork sandwich (because apparently, that's what they eat around here. it's good. tastes just like BBQ), before heading to asheville. on the way out, holly said she wanted to stop briefly at the lake "just so i could see it." the colors were amazing, this gorgeous red clay like they have in Georgia bleeding into the lake... Holly had walked down to the lake's edge with Priya, and I was able to capture this shot of them. 

The force of Place, and its affect upon us, is so often underestimated. We are creatures of our environment, and depending upon how in alignment our mental space is with our physical space, this force can either be constructive or devastating, making us feel out of sorts when the two are no longer in sync.

i guess that's why i like this photograph. because it's no longer a landscape photograph, it's a portrait of a woman whose rhythms are in sync with her environment.  it's no coincidence that holly chose to come here shortly after becoming a mother... its the perfect environment in which to sink into that new role.

and so as i stood back there, behind the lens, watching her, watching the two of them, mother and daughter, at the beginning of their own wide open expanse... there was something heartbreakingly beautiful and piercingly respectful that i saw in her: this beautiful unfolding into motherhood, this yielding of one's heart, one's ego, this softening of spirit, this opening into a great unknown... and there's something... singular... in that journey, something of an alone-ness, a mother-daughter world that only the two of them will ever be able to inhabit, but that holly, as the adult, will experience separately from Priya.  and so even though Priya is in the photo, I actually see it more as a portrait of Holly.

to your new place, Hol.  it's beautiful and you're beautiful in it.

x.

charley

there's something about getting older.

something... calming.  but this isn't a post about getting older, it's about being old enough to go 5, 10, 15 years without seeing someone, without really hanging out with them, and suddenly, here you are, in their house. spending the night. like a school girl sleepover.  because last time you really hung out with them, you were a school girl and that's exactly what you were doing. i'm talking about those BFFs you had in middle or high school. 

on this last trip home, i had the pleasure of hanging out with two of mine. lisa (whom i already mentioned and am killin myself for not even taking ONE snapshot!) and cammie. and yea, you spend  a lot of time reminiscing about the past, but you talk about current stuff, too. and it's nice to see how their life has unfolded. to play with their kids and see little pieces of your friend in them. to meet their husbands and see how the puzzle fits together, to see the paths they've taken. and you find yourself with a certain unwarranted sense of comfort and ease around them, because essentially, they're strangers for huge chunks of your life, but then, they're not. they're still your BFF in 7th grade passing you football-folded notes.  they're the one you turn to to figure out if you should french kiss Drew Rideout at the dance on friday night or whether you should fake being sick to get out of it (verdict: fake being sick). they're the ones you camped out with in their backyard and stayed up talking all night, (until you snuck over to the boys' tent). they're the ones you reserved 10 pages for in your annual, and in theirs, after your glowing tribute to them detailing

every.
single. 
breath.

you ever took together, you signed it: 

BFF!
R/H/T/S!!

these are the people you formed dreams with, discovered who you were with, laughed-till-you-cried and cried-till-you-laughed with. and so, to go back home and have the pleasure of visiting two of these formative friends.... well, there was something really restorative and just... nice... about that.

i like that.

xxo. thanks.

i loved hanging out with cam's kids:

street play

mack-daddy jackson

the incomparable McKenzie

               It is difficult
to get the news from poems
     yet men die miserably every day
               for lack
of what is found there.
                    --Asphodel, that Greeny Flower

*

before i was pregnant, i felt like 'the muse' was visiting often. my creative juices were flowing. i was writing a lot. poems seemed to spring out of the air. ideas were everywhere. in acting, i felt more and more.... open and effortless.

then i got pregnant.
and it all stopped.

to be honest, it kinda freaked me out. like, what if it doesn't come back? who will i be then? who will i be anway, as a mother?  i honestly had no idea what motherhood would be like, what was waiting for me on the other side of "due date."

blah blah blah. the point is, i had to surrender to where i was, and just trust that i was opening up to something greater.  even if 'the muse' never visited again, and i never wrote or acted or painted or did anything except change diapers the rest of my life.

the fact is that pregnancy/motherhood is like starting a new job (yes, an understatement i know but go with me here).  and like we all know, you can feel a little shaky the first few months of something brand new. even though you may love your job... it still takes a while to get into a confident groove, and with motherhood you're still trying to figure out not only HOW to do the job, but WHO YOU ARE in this new role. 

and as i mentioned here, i'm still not sure what it is, if anything, i am supposed to be focusing on now, outside of mothering.  but i do know that i'm learning to trust myself more. to trust in the process --- something i spent years studying in acting but motherhood taught me in 9 months of pregnancy. to just go day by day following my instincts + my heart, and trust that i will end up where am i supposed to end up, nurturing those things that i was meant to nurture and grow.

but i am happy to report that i have been working on some new poems lately, which i will soon record and maybe post one or 2 here.  (yes, i am a closet poet.)

but for inspiration, i have been loving this.  Check out Seph Rodney's video of Nick and the Candlestick.
thanks shari!

hope you find some inspiration today.
xxo
 

THE ARTISTIC PURSUIT, INSANITY & HAIR

            "Everybody's crazy.  It's just a matter of 'Does your crazy match my crazy?'"
                                                -- paraphrased saying by friend of a friend

            "Insanity is a very tempting path for artists."
                                            -- Elizabeth Gilbert

* * *

a friend recommended Elizabeth Gilbert's latest book, EAT, PRAY, LOVE.


so i went online to check it out. i read -- and love-- her essay about the artistic pursuit. well really, she is talking about writing, but it can be applied to any artistic pursuit -- or any pursuit in general for that matter. the entire essay is great, but this particular quote appealed to me so much because from my particular viewpoint as an actor, it rang so true:

"...start with the love and then work very hard and try to let go of the results.  Cast out your will, and then cut the line.  Please try, also, not to go totally freaking insane in the process.  Insanity is a very tempting path for artists, but we don't need any more of that in the world at the moment, so please resist your call to insanity. We need more creation, not more destruction.  We need our artists more than ever, and we need them to be stable, steadfast, honorable, and brave."

i have come across my fair share of the challenges and struggles of the artistic life.  so much of it is worthwhile, yes, but there is also much insanity, self-indulgence, heartache, and asinine behavior. in all the acting classes i have taken, hardly anybody ! has ever talked about this.  well, except one but he was a nut. but nobody talks about being stable in your personal life, because its not sexy.  nobody talks about being steadfast, honorable, and brave.  nobody talks about how to reconcile being stable in your personal life in the middle of doing primal screams on the stage and whatever other exercises you do to train yourself to have your emotions at your fingertips.  i have fought my own demons against all of the above, and witnessed others who overcame -- or didn't-- their own struggles with such paths.  in acting, the actor studies the psychology + behavior of human nature.... but what is the point of 'mastering' such craft if its understanding cannot be applied (for the better) to one's own life?  too often the artist may be a brilliant creator in his field, but his personal life is a tornado of destruction.

i remember seeing the movie POLLOCK a few years back.  Brilliant as he was as an artist, Pollock self-destructed in his personal life. He was a whirlwind of insanity.  and i remember thinking  "what's the point? what's the point of making brilliant paintings? You're indulging the worst parts of yourself and are a whirlwind of insane destruction." and yet... somehow...  i still romanticized it.  maybe that's what Gilbert is talking about when she says that insanity is tempting (and by insanity i don't think she means -- i don't mean -- just literal insanity, but all the crazy-making, indulgence, etc. that comes with it).  in some ways, the insanity is easier.  Easier than learning how to channel all that energy into something constructive.

i have always thought that the highest form of any art is not painting, or singing, or acting or photography-- the highest form of art is the ART OF LIVING, that ability to see yourself, your heart, as the canvas, and mold yourself accordingly as you learn and grow from experience. but i do relate to the "insanity is a very tempting path for artists" quote, so i struggle with this.  perhaps its the love of the rawness of it. the raw passion of it.  b/c the rawness feels so real, so alive.  i dunno. so yea, i guess i particularly like what she said about trying not to go insane in the process.  Actors are insane. Or maybe they are no more insane than the next person, but they just give themselves (or think the title 'actor' gives them) the permission to act upon their insanity, where as others hold it in check better.

which brings me to my point about my hair:  that i've been trying to hold my insanity in check for so long now, and that i must continue to do so especially now that i'm a mom, that... well, the insanity is bubbling to the surface and i need something constructive to do with it. 

which is why i am going to cut my hair.  i dont' know when, probably when i can cough up the 3 C's it takes to get a decent cut and color in this city, but soon.

like seriously.

like chopping it off. not britney style, but close to it.

and dying it blond. or red. or purple. or black.

i need a change. i need some drama. i need some insanity.