writing

Intimidation Dance

/ autumncircles / 4 Comments

I know this incredibly beautiful woman. Her beauty is not in the stereotypical Helen of Troy sense as few wars have been waged over her, but she is pulchritudinous nonetheless. She has many friends ranging in levels from simple acquaintance to casual yet personal conversation to intimate know-nearly-everything-about-you. I cannot tell you how many times she has been complimented for her smile or honest charm or willingness to help when needed. She has a better relationship with her kids than she gives herself credit for and the same could be said of her relationship with her husband. They have a marriage based on equal partnership yet lived in the reality of give and take. It’s not perfect, and neither is she if you use Merriam-Webster’s definition, but there are times when I look at her and think, “Wow. She has a great life. Thank God.”

blessed art thou among women…

This woman I know works hard. Even though it is far from the dream she had for herself, she loves her job and is proud of the work she puts in each day. She tries to make the most of her time with her family and works with determination to accept the times when that is not possible for whatever reason. She has emotional struggles like many of us and she has worked diligently over the years to find paths to peace, gateways toward wisdom and layers of herself to love. Sometimes, when I hear her talk, I cannot imagine a time when she was afraid or didn’t believe in herself.

floating above you
I see with clear eyes your grace
clouds challenge within

Today’s woman I am writing about is also talented. She is a writer, has some solid, albeit dormant, acting chops and may have been an inventor in a past life, given her MacGyver-like skills. She loves her thesaurus (as evident by pulchritudinous) and is unashamed to use it. When she embarks on a project – whether it be a short poem, work related newsletter, Chekhovian drama, reparation of a small rocket launch pad, or configuring convoluted connections in a snow storm involving taxis, trains and planes to ensure arriving in Texas for a marriage license waiting period deadline – nine times out of ten, most dentists agree, she won’t quit until she has either reached a superlative solution or the heartbreaking realization that there is not one to be found.

but the tigers come at night…

And then I read posts like this and like this. I learn about the winner for the A Room of Her Own Foundation Grant, along with the finalists. I hear an old friend of mine that I didn’t even realize could sing, sing and write songs like these. Hell, even two of the people I love most in the world (next to my kids) have started a folk duo and every time I get to hear one of the songs they are working on, I get the hair-raised-on-the-back-of-my-neck-they’re-that-good feeling. (If I had a link to one of their songs, I’d post it, but they are currently “in development.”) I have many past friends who are continuing to make a go of it in the theatrical world – working either locally, regionally or in NYC. I could go on…

My stomach muscles tighten and my head begins to swim. Electrical impulses inside my brain begin to dance to an irregular arrhythmia pulsating from my weakening heart. Large, dark clouds of doubt flood my retina and my vocal cords begin to swell preventing spoken words. My lungs fill with cement pressing down hard on my diaphragm. Lastly, my fingers become thick and heavy with poisonous lead making it impossible to clack out the cacophony of angry voices yelling at me “Who do you think you are, anyway?!”

I close my eyes to await the inevitable implosion of my universe. When it doesn’t happen immediately, a small breath of air is able to seep through a tiny crack in my formidable fortress and a smidgen of light softens the darkness.

you are my child and I love you.

I wrest my lids open just enough to see a note I have placed under my makeshift laptop stand, given to me by someone too young to be able to not tell the truth.

You Rock

You Rock

And I go on, being me, remembering that I, too, rock…

Cool news when I needed it

/ autumncircles / 4 Comments

The manifestation of my blog was inspired by a truly wonderful foundation – A Room of Her Own – who is dedicated to women writers and artists. Their mission of “furthering the vision of Virginia Woolf and bridging the gap between a woman’s economic reality and her artistic creation” is not only extremely commendable, but an awesome undertaking. They provide the biennial $50,000 “Gift of Freedom” award to allow tremendously gifted women the financial means to pursue their craft who would not otherwise be able to do so. I hope to someday complete the application process and enter for a room of my own from their foundation.

Until then, I have this blog. I started it to hone my skills, to up my game, to keep me honest and, above all – to keep me writing, writing, and writing some more.

As of late, I have become discouraged at the slower-than-I-envisioned pace for building a blog of note. It is a lonely business – writing. When I was a performing actor, I had instant applause and other actors to garner encouragement from. As a writer, I have to put it out there first and wait an eternity to get a response back. I have come very close to convincing myself that I am not looking for praise, just a connection with other humans through our shared experience. Close, but not quite able to cross that divide. I am only human, after all.

There is that ever so loud, ego maniacal desire to have others validate my words and, therefore, validate me. I do not hide the fact that I would rather be a working writer, than a writer who has to work. I have honestly never wanted to be stupid rich but who wouldn’t mind having enough money to not ever have to worry about money?

That’s another post.

Today’s post is about a smaller contest they sponsor that I recently entered. I found out today that I was named a finalist in the “Sudden Fiction” and won for an e-message I wrote. They will publish excerpts from my sudden fiction piece entitled “Manifesting the Invisible” and my e-message, in which they asked for my message to the world of women writer’s (and beyond).

I am thrilled! Baby steps are all I need to keep going because I know only too well that my “journey of a thousand  miles” begins here. Always. (Thanks Lao-tse.)

I was going to post my entries here, but have decided to wait until after they publish on their website May 1st. It will give me a second opportunity to promote the AROHO Foundation and fodder for yet another post.

In the meantime, another baby step in my journey was Brain, Child Magazine‘s publication of one of my haikus. That I can post as it is in their current edition. It was fun, for Christmas – and I absolutely love writing haikus.

Christmas Fantasy

Christmas fantasy
WTF does Rockwell know?
Chaos twinkles bright

© Kathleen Vaught
December 13, 2008

Thanks for stopping by my blog and helping me create a room of my own in this universe.

Now, if I haven’t posted their link enough, stop by A Room of Her Own Foundation, to see if they can help you or you can help them…

Facebook infiltration

/ autumncircles / 3 Comments

Okay – I was NOT going to do this, but I need to write. Something. Anything. When I do, it calms my brain which is in overdrive over nothing. Well, not nothing, but certainly not something worth overdrive. No one’s ill, we are not totally broke and my marriage, family and career are tops at the moment.

Yet, the brain in my skull still finds a way to hit supersonic speed over tidbits of banal life chatter. Oddly enough, I don’t feel comfortable writing about what is bothering me. Hmm.

It’s my very own list of 25 random facts about me of which some I am not sure anyone – including husband and best friend know. The list was hard to compile for this blog since I have been pouring out a lot of random me for almost a year now.

  1. I do not feel like I am in my forties. At least, this is not what I imagined being 40-something would feel like.
  2. I prefer to type everything because I don’t like my handwriting.
  3. I have been putting this off out of fear that I do not have 25 interesting random notes to write about myself.
  4. I used to dream Sting sang me his new songs before he released them. Like on some sort of alter-dream-plane-universe.  Then, in the real world (well, my reality anyway), the songs would always sound familiar, like I’d truly heard them before. Most notable among those were “Every Breath You Take,” “All This Time,” and “When We Dance.”
  5. I used to consider joining the Army. Not to fight but to lose weight.
  6. I had an older brother who died of a terminal genetic disorder at the age of ten on St. Patrick’s Day, 1974. He would have been 45 this past January 30th. His short life and death affected my entire life. Seriously – my entire life.
  7. I once pumped out 12 ounces of breast milk. Quite an achievement for someone with my “a is for apple” cup size.
  8. I still have my wisdom teeth, but often do not feel very wise.
  9. I am pretty sure my soul has had previous lives but on the whole is fairly young. I think this may be the reason why I weep whenever I see soldiers in uniform, have a weird sense memory of hiding in the bushes as a child while trying to escape to freedom, and see faces in various objects, shapes and designs.
  10. I have a crush on Matt Damon and wrote him a letter thanking him for his smoldering yet authentic performance in The Bourne series. Surprise – I never mailed it. (Maybe I’ll post it here someday?)
  11. My first cigarette was when I was a tween with my cousin, Tracy – Salem Lights, menthol. Never was a full-fledged smoker – I smoked off/on for years and officially quit in 1992 after a severe throat infection. Occasionally when I am with my peeps, I’ll have one or two.
  12. I still have a curling iron I borrowed during a show in college that I forgot to return and it haunts me from under the bathroom sink like Poe’s “Tale Tell Heart.”  (FYI – I graduated college in 1993 – nice, huh?)
  13. I continue to dreadfully miss performing in the theater. I secretly search the audition lists and pray for an opportunity to run away and rejoin that circus.
  14. I sometimes forget which hand is my left and which is my right. I use my wedding band as a reminder.
  15. I used to be too afraid to reveal something like number nine out of fear of judgment from others. Now, I figure, what the hell? Judges will judge whether they know that about me or not.
  16. My husband recently referred to me as still being a MILF to him – aww, isn’t that sweet?
  17. I am sitting here listening to aforementioned husband play the guitar and sing while I type this out. He does both quite beautifully and on days when my brain is in negative overdrive, I get jealous instead of happy for him. How crappy is that?
  18. I tell everyone that I started my acting career in kindergarten as the third billy goat in the Billy Goat’s Gruff. But in actuality, I think that is a lie. I am thinking I was a rock by the bridge the goats cross over. Oh, well – we all get our start somewhere.
  19. I got a $15,000 bonus (lots of money in 1997 for a fledgling actor) when I worked at PaineWebber in NYC and walked away from the job and the clear opportunity to make more if I stayed in order to come home to Texas to start our family. No regrets – NOT ONE.
  20. I am coming around to the awareness that blogging while satisfying on many levels, is also very lonely. There are no stage lights to illuminate me, no hands clapping furiously after my post and not enough interaction with other humans with the same creative leanings as me.
  21. Sometimes I get so caught up in the things that aren’t working, I forget about the things that do:
    Does Not: fabled idea of relationships – Does: reality of relationships
    Does Not: my ability to deal with frustration and anger – Does: can deal with just about most anything else
    Does Not: worrying about money – Does: trusting that there will always be enough
    Does Not: worry – Does: trust
    Does Not: stuffing my feelings – Does: letting them pass through me naturally
    Does Not: hiding from fear – Does: facing it
    Does Not: shame – Does: love
  22. I desperately need a manicure and pedicure. And a weekend away by myself. Something I have never done – be alone in an unfamiliar place without anyone I know to keep me upright.
  23. I have a postcard from Alaska to someone named Kelli in Denton from someone named Dana in Houston that I found in a book. I have always, always wanted to go to Alaska.
  24. I prefer coke zero over diet coke, salt over sugar, lake over beach, vibrant over pastel, Shaun Cassidy over Lief Garret, spy novel over romance, coffee over tea, Superman over Batman, peace over war, love over indifference, and life over death.
  25. I have no fucking clue why I wrote all of these out after all of this time especially considering that I think I have confirmed my #3 fear. Oh, look! A turtle!

Peace.