Author: Susie Taylor

For the past four weeks I have been working in a play. Well an interactive immersive play that originally I declined to be part of. They wanted me to play a role that was angry and intense and I was scared to do it. I was aware that I would do it well but I was not sure would not BE WELL/SOUND doing it. So I said thank you but no than you and moved along.

They returned with an option.They asked if I would read for the role of the HOST which I was happy to do and then read a monologue that was written for her. I did..with that hole in my head from the Basel cell that was clogging third eye up…I sat in the Lobby of the GOLDDUST construction site Motel and read the piece written by Juan C. Sanchez

I read it and liked her and thought…awww she is sweet.

I agreed but as the rehearsals began I began to see that her relationship with her husband was beginning to through a spotlight on mine. Being in a role heightens your sensitivity to the topics they are working through. It makes you very empathetic to them and this time…different from the past…..I took heed ..I took the cross over and the charge as a lesson and looked at my relationships and reset somethings- what I call residue things…thing that had become unconscious old pattern of behavior but were outdated and not relevant to the current relationship…so
rather then become my character….I allowed the similarities to TEACH me and through remaining separate and not buying into the misery loves company card I was often sold about creativity -I resolved the issues I had with as much Grace as I could and was able to work on my role with distance and respect…

I was able to identity the mutual pain and instead of using that pain to build a character I release my relation ship to it and dissolved its power and approached the role with kindness….maintained pure kindness…it was a tight rope act…it was skillful and persistent and energy had to be managed…get too tired or off center and everything go a muck…a little here and a little there is ok but a safe distance from center is needed because once you release your grasp on yourself…

If I stay in character too long… I will have a much harder time differentiating between the two…Since I am an empath actor…./method type.
(which I believe is inherent …)

I go into charter and out of character throughout the night…I don’t perpetuate her too much…just enough …a faint scent …is all that is needed and then the phone rings and she arrives….

Being able to manage a character we play in theater or in life is that skill set that is attractive to me…knowing when to sit her in the corner and give her water and let her know she is good for now…is important.

It was tricky through…and I know that the more pain an artist harbors the harder it is to keeps things separated but I did and I was happy for it and I have built my ROLE of Mrs. Keith Wade on love and respect and kindness and empathy and with awareness that we are all alike but that we are all vey much different people moving through this world..

I respect her and I adore her and I am happy to share her story and the similarities of marriage and being a woman will always trigger things but I was happy for the awareness and I was able to see how I was playing into that role at times in my marriage and relationships and used her experiencing to inform my own…not the other way around….

So why I learned is that YES…you will be affected by your role if there is a cross over which mostly likely will be but then if you begin of feel personal charge in your life where it wasn’t a charge before learn how you would inform you character to deal with it and then deal with it like that…treat yourself as a friend and take her advice ///your advice…and grow and evolve…and keep yourself separate but respectful towards each other…dis charge the charge

Don’t let the character take over and pull you away…but like anyone who annoys you… a character in a play…they help us see ourselves..our TRUE SELVES…..but instead of letting that fester…allow it to aid you in evolving… and accept and love ourselves regardless…and push on to be better and do better if we can….

My process in the practical has proven to me that I am able to create from love…or from transmuting pain into forgiveness and forgiveness into story…I believe I have created a wonderful role and that she is fluid and kind and I am within her…not ON her or behind her…I am fully able to BE her because I know we have respect for each other and that she is not here to harm me and I am not going to cause her pain…we are simply coexisting for a moment in time and soon like everyone in our lives….we will say goodbye..

And hopefully sh is better for it and so am I.

The kids and Steve drove off today. And with a wave of my hand I was alone in my home…with my dog and my thoughts and i was fine. Instantly fine.

I couldn’t hear their thoughts or worries and I was free…

QUIET

THe sound of EMPTY.

THis is the first time I have taken a role during a holiday knowing I woudl miss it. KNowing I woudln’t;t be there…knowing I would be without the family..

THis si somethign I NEVER in my career was able to cope with…missing out …and so it is imperative that at this time I try and do things different ,,,I choose me first and not the extended fmaily…I choose my choices first and not try and fit them into my family as SSteve so often requested early in our marriage.

I was out late and he was already asleep so I woudl adjust…adjust to somethign HOME bound and in that I grew up in many ways but I lost a massive side of me…so

getting back into theater- knowing the difference what I want to do and what I don’t….just having a voice in the matter has adjusted everything.

I am a very go with the flow type of person.. I love spontaneity…but when that go with the flow means adjusting and contorting…NO MORE

I am home alone for a while…quiet. and calm becasue for the next few days this is MY house….not OUR house and sometimes a girl just needs to have a SPACE of her own…

side note

Met with SUsan – a wrote and editor at a place in ft lauderdale called The Alchimist….AMAZING place with Waffle shaped hash browns…

I handed he my writing and while we were getting to know each other a HUGE Guanajuato scurried past our feet and into the kitchen…it was captured and brought outside by a customer dressing in a pin up style with tattoos and glasses…
I asked her how she was able to grab a massive aguana so gracefully and she told me he happens to work at the nature reserve and this was small compared to what she normally deals with..

Seeing a beautiful pretty woman capture an animal like that when no other person let alone man in the place was able to do it was beautiful…
Times are changing…or at least i am seeing things very very differently.

s

Drama is addicting…it is exciting..it is at times thrilling but in the end…DRAMA is not in any way…..flow.

SO if you are aiming to have a FLOW state in your life, in your relationships, you have to be willing to let go of Drama.

The letting go usually is FILLED with Drama…mostly internal…it is a wrestling of your authentic self and your massive ego…I see it like that boxem game I had when I was little…it feels that way.

It also feels this was when I used to get into character…it was an aggressive EGO knocking out my better self in order to perform the DRAMA…

SO in life we want the reverse and instead of a knock out we want a GRACEOUT..
The only way to exit a story without having to deal with the repercussions is to do is in GRACE.

This is like taking a bonfire or energy and learning how to negotiate it to a a feather and then tickling the story and leaving..it is NOT Drama

Because Drama depicts Drama

So…in order to be in FLOW we have to consider that we are going to release DRAMA…which is to me…a SAD by product of all this…I feel calm and in not having real coffee I feel manageable and although I have had outbursts lately it has been directly due to waking someone up and in that…sometimes…they only respond to DRAMA because that is where they are but I do it as though I am acting…it is NOT me it is a tool I am using to mirror them and bring them out of it…and that is important because in that exercise I am showing them that in order to exit..you must fully be engaged with the story…know it and understand it and only then can you let it go and NOT…not in any of the MAJOR threads that have held me has that been a pretty scene.

I tend to CRY a ton…mourning…mourning the way things won’t be anymore but like anything ….sugar, coffee, bread, fake boobs, botox…there is a reality to living in a calmer reality…it is slower and kinder and creates less pain for you and those around you.

Be aware of CHARGES around you…see if you can NOT respond…see if you can dive under the wave and breath and NOT allow it into you…especially when it isn’t yours to hold.

Gossip is Drama…but the way….so be aware of that too…sneaky little thing she is.

S

The idea that we are playing a role is something that many people are talking about but who better to teach you the exit strategy then an actor who leaves roles for her career.

I remember Steve saying…you should teach people how to get over things because you start up new things all the time…and that is something people may want to know..

that sat in my ear a while and as I worked on my sensual sexy creative class the concept that I say coming through was that we were learning how to let go..how to negotiate through a through till you get to the other side by using performance and movement and the radio….

the residue is the part that always get me…in my method I call SURF
Story, Understand, Recast, Flow

the R is Residue…as well and it comes back to challenge you right before you make a full committed shift…it is the part you through you didn’t;t have to deal with…

For example…

I not attending a few family gatherings with Steve’s family this year and a few with mine…it is because I am in a show..this has happened in the part but I usually find a way to make it…a make a way to make it but this time I am releasing the need to do as I always do and just simply NOT going and owning that..

see…if I try and make an excuse,,,,why I can’t make it…it belittles the gesture of disconnecting from traditions in order to make new ones..mind you. I am the only one in m family doing it but that is bc I am in a play a…NNOOOOO…that is an excuse’….the play is helping me not go…I didn’t;t want to go…I wanted to stay….home …alone….
and I just happens I am also in rehearsal for a play…

so owning my recasting of independent susie is being challenged in the residue of owning NOT attending family gathering yet AGAIN…

I feel no desire to go….so I shan’t…

anyway… I am meeting with an author/editor/Susan who helped me write out a process I created for a grant which I haven’t heard from yet and she got me so I am going to see if she can help me create a book from all that I have done with my SURF method…a small how to book maybe …

He said it was him
it was him and he knew it
he said it was all his
all his and he owned it
he said he was sorry for pressing it on me
for telling me I’m crazy
that I don’t understand HERSTORY

he said he was sorry and he meant it too
he told me it was what he realized to be TRUE
he said he was sorry but I felt really glad
for at that moment a man was built of a wee little lad

he said he was sorry and in that he just knew
all the past blaming games must never’ve been true
he said he was sorry and the years melted away.
All I have are my wrinkles to mark the passage of the day

Time with forgiveness never did run smooth
yet time with forgiveness is the maker of YOUTH.

Many years ago I created a performance piece in an art gallery with two other women and a team of creatives. I loved it. When we finished I thought it was the bringing of a beautiful collaboration but what happened was that the two women I worked with walked away and never looked back.

I had a one night stand…once I think but I knew the guy so it was just a random act I guess but this..this moment where I worked with someone, created something beautiful. and then walked away was new to me… I cried…I felt abandoned, hurt, lost and confused.

I then gathered myself and moved on…more shows…more adventures…more classes.

Years passed…I spoke with both of them to mend my heart but nothing more…and moved on…I built other shows and lost other partners and learned I have a hard time working with CERTAIN women.

The women I have a hard time working with are those that are not forgiving…they hold onto something and use their anger to motivate them and I become their punching bag…I allow it as through through that they will heal but I realize that is such abusive to us both..

by being the punching bag I revoke them to express their anger toward me – not good in any way

So years have gone by and I end up in a room with one of their mothers and she mentions how perhaps it wasn’t me…perhaps it was her daughter and it occurs to me in that moment what I had suspected was true….

I am the maternal…I am treated as they treat their mother… and although they may try and make it something else…it isn’t…

I am the maternal and the maternal is helming now…
as am I

as are we

as is She

S

I am currently in rehearsal for a submersion piece. This is a theatrical experience that doesn’t turn off. I will be performing my role in a small room with people and i will be speaking directly to them.

I am playing a 1957 smart repressed controlled housewife who secretly desires to be with woman. I am building a great character and learning how to work through this very immersive process to the process.

The experience is the most loving I have felt in a very long time. It is kind and respectful and organized and clear and to me…from the outside…very enjoyable. I am actually impressed with the team Tanya has and how she can yield this entire event…but I know I have done things like this…just not with a team so the idea is just so intoxicating…but I enjoy my position as the actor and I am happy for it.

Anyway…I am going to have to find a room and work on my SURF class and make sure I can get out of character…an exit out and an exit into susie..So

As Maylin mentioned, I am going to have to test my process and see how this works. I have created a playlist…that bring me home…and I have opened up the conversation with my kids and my husband about how I need to talk with them regarding what I am feeling and how it may or may not be real..

I find that all of this – this acting…opens me up to pure joy but also to being vulnerable and insecure bc that is how I create the roles…from a very open heart experience that builds movements and through without my control and it seems that this one is taping into my grandmother…Cynthia…

I am gong to rent the space at MTC or somewhere to work through this….on my own….every Monday…
S