Comfort Zone, Exit Stage Left!

As the launch date for this adventure approaches, the realization of just how far out of my comfort zone this trip is going to take me, is beginning to set in. Moving to a city, even for one month, brings up fears and anxieties that might otherwise have remained dormant had I not decided that it was time to "shake up" my snow globe. It has taken everything I have to quiet the "what ifs" that are drag racing through my mind at lightening speed. 

When I had my son, I vowed that I would never "imprint" any of my own fears and anxieties on him. As an example of this, I was deathly afraid of thunder and lightening as far back as I can remember.  If I happened to be in a car while a thunder and lightening storm was occurring, I would wait there until the storm passed, rather than running the 10 feet to my door.  If I was in the house at the time, you would most likely find me hanging out in our windowless storage room in the cellar or if it were really bad, a closet in a bedroom.  When Bo was little, instead of allowing him to see the intense fear and anxiety these storms would cause me, I opted instead to make light of them. By doing so, I was hopeful that he would not become afraid of them simply because I was. Instead, gritting my teeth and doing all I could do to hold it together mentally, I would take his hand and pull him to the center of the room.  There we would dance around, laughing and singing, as if the thunder and lightening crackling outside the window was music, instead of something that I believed was more sinister. As the "music" increased, so would the volume of our laughing and singing.  To this day, my son isn't afraid of thunder and lightening and strangely enough, neither am I.  After a while, I found myself enjoying these storms.  They became a form of entertainment for me and when one approaches now, I often wonder just how "big and over the top" it will be.

Unfortunately, this strategy doesn't apply to every situation. Some fears and anxieties are inherent , rather than learned from outside influences and those are much more difficult to overcome..  Those are the ones that can be extremely oppressive, and not allow us to live our lives the way we were intended to; with fulfillment, purpose and direction.  So, although it is true that we can't eliminate all of our fears and anxieties, getting rid of the ones that we do have some control over, can make our lives that much more enjoyable. In the same way I faced the storms raging outside my living room window in order to show my son that they are not to be feared, I face this trip to New York, hopeful that my son will see that living life is not meant to be feared either. 

"It's only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on earth -- and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up -- that we will begin to live each day to the fullest, as if it was the only one we had.  - Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Look at me Mom, I can fly!

There is an incredible feeling of helplessness and fear that sets in when you listen to a voice mail from your child 200 miles away telling you that he has lost his phone and is trying to figure out what he should do. More fear sets in when you realize there is absolutely no way to make contact with him because as he stated on his voice mail, "I borrowed some "random" guy's phone". As you listen to his voice mail again you begin to hear in the darkest corners of your mind, the sounds of a high speed train on the express track to a nervous breakdown. The "what ifs" quickly begin their assault on your mind as the voices in your head get louder and louder; "Oh my goodness. He is just a baby. How could you let him do this?". This was the situation I found myself in during Bo's most recent trip to New York city; a trip he took alone. Both Bo and I felt confident that he could do this. He could handle money, hail a cab (he had even been instructed on what the proper tip was), had memorized all of the important addresses of his agent, acting coach, etc. could maneuver his way through the subway system, knew the location of every White Castle in the city, and lastly, he carried the one item I was dependent upon to keep me sane about the entire idea of his traveling alone; his cell phone. Without that in his possession, I was certain he would be swallowed up by the big, bad city of New York, never to be heard from again. But that didn't happen.

What did happen was that my son exhibited some resourcefulness above and beyond what I had expected of him. After I received the voice mail from random guy's phone, I was then contacted by my husband who said that he had just heard from Bo. He called from a payphone to tell his father that he was okay and trying to figure out what to do about the situation. What was my first thought upon hearing that bit of information? He used a WHAT? Who uses a payphone in the 21st century? Heck. I didn't even realize he actually knew what one was or better still, how to use it. Within a half hour of the payphone call, I began receiving text messages from him telling me he was at the train station waiting to board his train, which by the way was now delayed by 2 hours. But how was he texting me without his cell phone? As fate would have it, he had brought his I Touch with him that day.  He found a place with wifi, accessed a free text app, and voila. Ingenious! I was amazed at his ability to think with such clarity during what had to be a very stressful situation.

Some time around midnight, his train finally pulled into the station and a weary and thoroughly exhausted Bo exited the train.  There seemed to be something very different about him though. After listening to him tell the story, it became apparent that he learned something rather important about himself that day; that when life through him a curve ball, he was more than capable of catching it.  I can only imagine what this knowledge has done for him.  So, rather than get upset at the loss of his expensive new phone, I quickly chalked it up as a small price to pay for such a valuable lesson learned. I taught him one more lesson that night. I sent a quick text off to "random" guy thanking him for allowing my son to use his phone. New York isn't such a big, bad city after all. :-)

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood.....

My son's acting intensive started yesterday, and until we actually move their in July, he must commute.  Rather than have him take the train, I decided to drive him.  I had wanted to spend some time checking out the neighborhood where we will be staying in July, so I wouldn't feel so "lost" upon arrival. Some early observations of note:  this city is noisy and this city is crowded.

After sitting on a park bench near where our apartment is located for some quiet time to reflect on the upcoming trip, I realized that the possibility of ever finding quiet time in New York was zero. New York is a very noisy place. I come from a small rural town.  The only sounds of annoyance on any given day, are the birds who loudly gossip with each other at 4 a.m. in the morning outside my bedroom window.  On one recent day, so annoyed with them for not allowing me to "sleep in", I threatened, albeit sarcastically, that I was going to "take them all out".  After spending the day in New York, however, I have a suspicion that noisy birds will be the least of my problems.  Even more apparent, is the fact that if I even so much as utter the words "take them all out", I will not be spending my days in my quaint rented apartment in the upper west side, but instead in a cold, dank, barren jail cell at the nearest police station.  I will admit that the same fate I wanted to bestow on my birds, crossed my mind with respect to the dreaded "horn blowers" yesterday.  On more than a few occasions, I wanted to march myself to the center of the traffic and in my very own Norma Rae moment, wanted to jump on a car and shout "Do the people you are actually beeping at, do what you want them to do once you blow your loud annoying horn at them because REALLY PEOPLE, blowing your horn at someone isn't the proper way to ask anyone for anything"!!!!!  Freedom of speech in this country, yes, freedom to blow your horn at someone who didn't move their car up two feet in stopped traffic, NO!  Keeping quiet in the city is going to take everything I have in me.  :-)  I have to keep in mind that my family only has so much money to bail me out of any given situation.

As I previously stated, New York is a very crowded city, no matter what part of Manhattan you are in and the people here move quickly and with a sense of purpose. I also noticed that New Yorkers walk with  military style precision: eyes forward, arms down, moderately quick pace. It becomes obvious after watching them though, that even though they walk with such precision and purpose, that for the most part, they have no immediate place to be.  They walk this way strictly as a means to survive the crowded sidewalks; survival of the fittest at its best.  The crowded city life will prove to be a problem for me only because I don't like being in congested situations.  For a number of reasons, I find them to be especially unsettling.  For starters, I always feel that I have to keep moving while in them.  I am somewhat vertically challenged (OK, seriously vertically challenged) and I always feel that if I stand around in a crowd for any length of time, some tall person will decide my head will make for the perfect armrest.  Don't laugh, it has happened before.  :-/  It is the fact that I live with this mentality, that adapting to this particular way of New York life shouldn't be a problem for me. Nope, I can move with the best  of them. Truthfully, it's the horn blowers I'm most concerned about.  :-)

The Gift of "Times" rather than the Gift of "Things"

When I think back to my own childhood, it's not the "things" I remember receiving but the "times" I remember having.

Most people who know me well, know that the most important thing to me as a parent is providing my son with a well balanced scale of positive life experiences; a wealth of memories that will sustain him long into adulthood. To me, this is THE best gift one person can give to another.

As I wait for our adventure to begin, I am thinking about how multi-purposed this trip truly is. Yes, it is providing Bo with an opportunity to hone his craft, and yes, it is also providing his mother with an opportunity to see daily life unfold in a new city, but even more importantly, it's going to provide us with some wonderful memories to reflect back on.

Okay, I can't lie. There are some "things" I remember from my childhood,  like the Chatty Cathy doll who stopped being chatty when her string was pulled too violently one day by someone who shall remain nameless; or my Chrissy doll that I got when I was 9 years old. I remember her only because of her amazing hair, which by the end of her usefulness to me, was not so amazing. For those of you who don't know, Chrissy had hair that grew out of the top of her head by turning a knob on her back. One day I"grew" her hair and then promptly chopped it all off with a pair of scissors. After becoming disenchanted with her newly shorn locks, I quickly began to turn the knob waiting for more hair to flow out of the top of her head. Nothing happened. Sadly, I realized what had transpired, and into the trash she went. It seems that all of these "things" ended up in the trash after they had lost their usefulness to me. Where was the long term value in them? What could they provide to me later on? How did they help define who I am today? The answers to these questions are as follows: nothing, nothing, and yes let's hear it again...nothing.

The truly wonderful memories we create with each other are as nourishing for our souls as water is to our bodies. They are the ties that bind us together and provide us joy in the good times, and comfort in the bad. Throughout my son's life, I have tried to instill in him the importance of having such memories to reflect on later in life. He is beginning to get the picture as I am starting to see him make more choices in his life based on the inherent and long term value of something, rather than what he can get for it at Game Stop when it has outlived its usefulness.

"Life Is Never Easy for Those Who Dream" - Robert James Waller

My son Bo is a dreamer and has been since the day he was born. It's one of the things I most love about him. Through him, I see a world not defined by limitations but by extraordinary opportunity. His ability to dream, as well as his undying curiosity, has stirred within him a sense of passion about things my own fears would never allow me to even think about. My advice to my son has always been to go for it. Live your life. Live your dreams. You are more than capable of making those dreams happen!

As the title of this post states, however, life is never easy for those who dream but I'd like to add that it's not easy for those who stand behind the dreamer either.

I have had a sense lately that I must have missed the section in the parenting handbook where it states that we can't allow our children to reach for the stars; that by doing so would only cause them more harm than good, and that to allow our children to dream BIG is to set them up for a life of constant disappointment. Yes, I must have missed that chapter. Perhaps it was when I closed the book and redirected my attention to my then 4 year old who came into the room in an excited flourish to loudly proclaim "some day Mom, I'm going to be on television!" Yes, perhaps that's when I missed it. :-)

My son HAS dreamed the impossible dream and even if his first credited role is his last, he has lived it, and it wasn't so impossible to achieve after all. Even if the only benefit he gains from this accomplishment is the belief that he is capable of attaining the unattainable, then he is far better off than most.

To the naysayers out there, I would like to tell them this. It's never too late in one's life to dream BIG and to reignite within them their own dreams of long ago. Live your dreams and if you can't, at least be happy and encouraging to those who are doing so. Life shouldn't be so hard on the dreamer, for without them, the world would be an awfully boring place in which to live.

Houston, we have a problem!

I am someone who is extremely organized.  I usually have two or three lists "circulating" in my head at any given time and often, I am adding to one list, while crossing stuff off of another. Multitasking at its best! Somewhere in my mind is a virtual file cabinet overflowing with appointments, dates, phone numbers, social security numbers, passwords, birthdays, anniversaries, logs of past conversations, thousands of "read" emails, historical references and so on and so on. In the past, I never had a problem remembering anything.  My keen memory has always been something I have taken great pride in.  That, and my ability to be meticulously organized and detail oriented. The "virtual" lists I juggle in my head daily, are a major contributor to that organization. I would often pen a hard copy of these lists to paper "just in case" my brain failed me; which until recently, it had never done.

One of the things I noticed about getting older was that my sharp as a tack memory is not so sharp as a tack anymore nor does it multitask as easily as it used to.  In fact, I liken my mind to that of a computer whose hard drive has been corrupted.  The information was there but now, whenever I try to access it, my brain just spins aimlessly, stopping every so often to try and retrieve the information, but coming up empty handed.  My computer recently suffered a similar fate but I was able to fix it quite easily.  I simply hit CTRL F11 on start up and wiped the drive clean. My computer is now running faster than ever; almost as good as the first day I got it. It accesses and retrieves information effortlessly, all while running several different applications at a time. I wish there was an option to do this to my brain.  How cool would it be if I could simply press a button and defrag my mind, deleting all of the useless and corrupt files to make room for the relevant stuff in my life.

Unfortunately said button does not exist, so back to the real issue at hand.  For the first time in my life, I can't come up with a "list" for this trip.  I have no "what to bring list", no "what needs to get done before I leave list", no excel spreadsheet in my head listing the daily allowable expenditures for food and the like, no "what we are going to do while we are there list", etc. etc. I am at a loss without my lists and to not have one for this particular trip is especially discombobulating. Every time I try to access the list, my brain sends out a password denied signal and I am refused entry.  Either my brain is telling me to just wing it for once in my life, or it has decided that this is just too complex of an adventure for me to undertake, and has decided to protest by limiting my access to the list hoping that I will abandon said adventure.

Let's just hope that the list appears soon, or I have this sinking feeling we're going to end up in New York with just the clothes on our back, and a couple of toothbrushes in my pocketbook.  Now THAT would be a real adventure.  :o-)

Panic!

I first realized I had a distaste for cooking when I flunked out of cooking class in junior high.  I mean seriously who flunks out of cooking class?  Referred to today as "specials", cooking is right up there with sewing, art and gym. Back in the day, they were considered easy "A"s. To get one in cooking class all you had to do was show up, make a batch of cookies from scratch, and the A was all yours.  I rarely showed up, burned my cookies(and the cookie sheet) beyond recognition, and if I remember correctly, started a small fire when I dangled a dishrag too close to the heating element. That was the beginning of what would become a life long distaste for cooking.  As luck would have it, I went on to marry someone who liked to cook almost as much as I hated to.  It is a well known fact in my house that "Mom's home cooking", consists of opening a drawer, pulling out a menu, making a phone call, and going to pick it up.  So needless to say I was struck with panic today when I realized a very important ingredient was missing in my adventure scenario.  SOMEONE WHO CAN COOK! There is an upside to this.  My son recently said he wanted to drop 15 pounds.  Looks like that will be easier to do than he first thought.  :-)

The Blurry Brain!

It's easy to become complacent with our lives; to let the world pass us by, because in truth, that takes much less energy on our part.  As we get older, energy becomes a valuable commodity.  Prior to expending it in large quanties, one usually takes great consideration and thought to determine whether or not the end result will be worth it. Complacency takes no thought and very little energy.  At 50, that sounds like a great deal!  That being said, although my son is the focal point for this blog, and the reason we are going to New York for the month of July, I would be remiss if I didn't say that this trip was as much for me as it is for him.  Static is good for those times when you need an excuse to end a call, as in "sorry, I can't hear you, there is too much static on the line", but it's not so good in life. Sometimes things need to be shaken up a bit so that our vision of the world around us comes back into focus.  It's not enough that I have been relegated to wearing bifocals after having 20/20 vision most of my life, but when my brain becomes as blurry as my eyes, then it's time to take action.  No, a visit to Lenscrafters won't correct the blurry brain. That's primarily what this trip is all about.  I'm not going on vacation to New York, or going there to see it through the eyes of a tourist, but instead, I am hoping to become part of the fabric of the neighborhood I am living in for a month. In a way I guess this trip is meant to shake my snow globe up a bit, with the hope that once the snow flakes settle to the bottom, I will once again be able to see the world around me with the clarity I once used to.  I can't wait!

Wine, Wine and More Wine!

When renting the apartment in New York, as an added incentive, the owner offered a bottle of wine for each night's rental. I thought it an odd incentive and wondered just how "good" the wine would actually be. I don't drink wine and therefore, I really didn't care if it was good or bad BUT I was intrigued by the offer anyway. Come to find out, the owner is a sommelier at one of New York's finest restaurants. I am pretty much convinced that the selection of wines will not consist of any from the "Three Buck Chuck" selection at Trader Joe's,that my husband is so fond of. Hhhhmm...what should I do with all that wine?

Laundry Talk!

Good news! I heard today that there are laundry facilities in the basement.  Up until this point, I had envisioned myself trudging through the neighborhood streets with laundry basket in hand. Of course, I am somewhat saddened by my realization that missing out on a visit to the laundry mat means I miss out on an opportunity to meet some of New York's most "interesting" and diverse people.  For me, this is one of the aspects of this trip that is most appealing but if I had to make a wager, I'm quite sure I will come upon them somewhere else.  :-)

A New York State of Mind!

I checked out the location of the apartment we will be staying at in July.  It is close to central park, the museums and some very "interesting" looking neighborhood restaurants and shops. When there, I did come upon two places that will definitely be a part of my life while there.  http://www.pureyoga.com/en/newyork/ (4 blocks away!!!) and a place I have already spent some time at and would recommend to anyone: http://www.magnoliabakery.com/,  My idea of heaven?  A Yoga workout and then a glass of iced tea and a cupcake at a bakery with a giant glass window that just begs to be used for "people watching".

If any one has any other "must sees", please let me know.  I am open to all suggestions.  :-)

First Credited Role and First Screen Test

Bo - Law and Order Criminal Intent, Season 9 - Episode 8, "Love on Ice", Original Air Date: May 18, 2010

Screen Test: One Life to Live, February 12, 2010