Kew Gardens & Sweet Chamomile

"Words, words, words..."

- Hamlet 

Recommended tea: 

Celestial Seasonings' Sweet Chamomile Organic Herb Tea  

Okay, there's something that you should know about me if you don't know it already - I have MAJOR anxiety problems. Major. Like, so major that one time I had to go to the hospital because I thought that I was having a heart attack. 

It was a panic attack. So, anyway - note this

A few years ago I was in a car wreck. I wasn't hurt, my car wasn't hurt, but I did spin 360 degrees on the highway before going into a ditch and barely missing a cop who had pulled someone over.

Ever since this incident, I have trouble driving. Usually I'm okay to drive - I just get a little nervous or tense. When I  have to drive long distances, it can get pretty bad. But if it starts to rain? That is when the panic attacks rear their ugly heads 

(or when I am in a cubicle, but that's another story for another time...)

At the moment, I am rehearsing two shows simultaneously. One I am rehearsing 45 minutes from my apartment. The other I am rehearsing an hour and a half from my apartment. The second one is also going to be performed a few states away. Needless to say, this requires a lot of driving. 

And what happened today? It rained like the devil. I turned on my air conditioning, because the cool air calms me down. Unfortunately this fogs up the windows, so I had to turn on the heat so that I could see. It went back and forth like this until it started raining so hard that I couldn't see at all, regardless of whether the windshield was foggy or not.

So I reached down, pushed a random button on my iPod, and hoped that it would play something to calm me down.


Is it just me, or does the iPod seem to know exactly what you need to hear exactly when you need to hear it? What did my iPod play? A recording of someone reading Virginia Woolf's short story Kew Gardens. This particular Woolf story I hadn't yet read. 

This is the first sentence:

From the oval-shaped flower-bed there rose perhaps a hundred stalks spreading into heart-shaped or tongue-shaped leaves half way up and unfurling at the tip red or blue or yellow petals marked with spots of colour raised upon the surface; and from the red, blue or yellow gloom of the throat emerged a straight bar, rough with gold dust and slightly clubbed at the end.

I've never really believed in magic or spells, but it was as if these words held some incantatory power. Like when you listen to Shakespeare - essentially, it doesn't matter what the speaker is saying because their words are so beautiful. I felt the anxiety drain out of my shoulders, through my fingertips. I drove through the rain like Fred Astaire dancing. Easy, simple, beautiful. 

Yet again, Virginia's hands reached through the pages (or in this case, the speakers) and held mine. She helped me. Maybe she saved me. What I do know for sure is that she took something terrifying and made it awe-inspiring.

I had a fantastic English teacher in high-school - probably the best English teacher on the planet. His favorite phrase was "the beauty of language and the power of words." He had us memorize it. This phrase was on every test, every quiz. It was taped to his door and stapled on his bulletin board. 

"The Beauty of Language and the Power of Words."

My mind went immediately to that phrase. Really, this moment proved to me that spells, magic, incantations - all of those things are actually real. Words are that powerful. Language is that beautiful. Like a witch's brew, words can be deadly when you use the right recipe - the right combination. They can also give you life. The Psalms in the Bible are like that to me - they are so beautifully written, so powerful, that the words alone can make you feel God's presence, regardless of what God may be up to at the time. 

As an actor, I make my living analyzing words. I use them to discover my character, to create, to awaken something in myself. The playwright uses his words to inspire truth and honesty in the actors and in the audience. The right combination can make a whole audience of people burst into laughter, simultaneously. Or gasp, simultaneously. There is nothing like being onstage, speaking the perfect combination of syllables, feeling the power that those words give you, feeling what they do to you and to the audience.

Words are so precious. Words are so powerful. And yet, we don't think about what we say. We don't take the time to make our conversations beautiful. Or even honest. Words can be like weapons in the hands of serial killers or sociopaths - we don't always understand how dangerous and how powerful they can be or what they can do to other people. 

Words are our most powerful asset. Words are our best friends. Words are our greatest enemies. I think we live in words. I think God lives in words. 

How do you use yours?

Reading Rainbow & Cherry Apple

"When the Day of Judgment dawns and people, great and small, come marching in to receive their heavenly rewards, the Almighty will gaze upon the mere bookworms and say to Peter, 'Look, these need no reward. We have nothing to give them. They have loved reading.'"
- Virginia Woolf


Recommended tea The Republic of Tea's Cherry Apple

My mom has been a teacher for over 30 years. She loves helping children discover that reading is wonderful, and that it is something that they can do well. 

Some mornings, my mom would arrive at her school a little early. There would be parents there, with their little children, before the school had even been unlocked. 

"Why?" I asked her.

"Because the kids haven't eaten anything all weekend. They get all of their food at school because their parents can't afford to buy it for them."

Forget about buying picture books at $17.99 a pop - some of these parents can't even afford to buy their children food. When our nation is made up of five year olds who have to focus on keeping their stomachs from growling, and parents who have to focus on feeding their kids, how can we expect them to focus on learning? Or even excelling? 

Imagine, then, my lack of surprise when I learned that Reading Rainbow had been cancelled. Lack of funds is stated as the reason for the cancellation, but the Wall Street Journal adds, "Pointing to changes in educational programming funding... the Department of Education and PBS are spending more money on teaching kids how to read, not on teaching them to savor the act itself."

Our children aren't learning how to savor the act of reading. They're not making it that far. Now, apparently, we're happy if we can just get them reading at all. 

Coincidentally, the Wall Street Journal had another article on their website called "Good Novels Don't Have to Be Hard Work." The article talks about how modern readers are putting down James Joyce and (blasphemy!) Virginia Woolf in favor of Stephenie Meyer. 

Lev Grossman writes, "You'll find critics who say they have bad taste, or that they're lazy and can't hack it in the big leagues. But that's not the case. They need something they're not getting elsewhere. Let's be honest: Why do so many adults read Suzanne Collins's young-adult novel 'The Hunger Games' instead of contemporary literary fiction? Because 'The Hunger Games' doesn't bore them."

But is that really why? Are we putting away Woolf and Joyce because we're bored, or is it because our culture is slowly but surely being trained to turn our brains off? To do what we think is easy instead of trying to do what might be a little more difficult? To focus on just learning how to read instead of learning how to savor it? 


My BFF (BFF here is a technical and absolutely appropriate term) Lindsey pointed out that this might seem like I'm implying that young adult literature is not valuable. Lindsey is usually right about most things, so I definitely take her opinions to heart. 


I can't stress this enough:  The Hunger Games is brilliant, and young adult literature is incredibly valuable! 


If you haven't read The Hunger Games, I encourage you to do so (then read the sequel Catching Fire!). It is thematically challenging and thought-provoking. I do not have a problem with The Hunger Games or with young adult literature. 


What I DO have a problem with, however, is the generalization that contemporary literary fiction (in the article he sites Woolf and Joyce specifically) is a "boring," and therefore not valuable, genre. In fact, I have a problem with anyone saying that any literary genre should be completely ignored in favor of another genre.


I adore young adult literature. Sarah Dessen is one of my favorite authors of all time (read The Truth About Forever and Someone Like You right now), right up there next to Ms. Woolf, and Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak is one of the most beautiful books I have ever read. But that's exactly my point - that Sarah Dessen and Virginia Woolf and Laurie Halse Anderson belong NEXT to each other on the shelf rather than having one on the shelf and one in the wastebasket. 


Teachers should say to their students, "I'm glad that you enjoyed Twilight. You should try Pride and Prejudice" or "You should try Wuthering Heights." 


Teachers should NOT say to their students, "Wuthering Heights is boring. Never read it. Here's Twilight."

There is something intoxicating - miraculous, even - about discovering not only that you can do something difficult, but you can do it well. It is vital in our development as intelligent, well-rounded human beings. Similarly, there's something divine about picking up a complex piece of literature and ANALYZING it. Go ahead and hate it, or go ahead and love it - but the important thing is to read it in the first place! And after you read that classic, read a biography. Then read a young adult book. Then read a science fiction novel. Then read a book of poetry. 


Just don't buy into the idea that your brain is too small to handle or appreciate any collection of words. OR the idea that every book doesn't have something valuable to teach you. Sometimes, that takes digging - but the dig is worth it.


As a child, there is nothing better than that moment when the words on the page turn from gibberish into WORDS! When "C" and "A" and "T" become "cat!" 


When faced with the task of reading for the first time, it seems daunting. It doesn't make sense (much like, some would argue, Joyce). But you keep picking away at it, syllable by syllable, and after all of the trying, nothing is more rewarding than the moment you realize that you can actually do it (much like, some would argue, JOYCE)! 


I remember running into my living room, waving my picture book over my head like a flag, yelling "I CAN READ! I CAN READ!" It was like finding Narnia at the back of the wardrobe. I felt the same way after I read The Iliad for the first time. 


A whole world that I had never seen before was now opening itself up before my very eyes. The world where I would meet my best friends - Anne (with an "e") Shirley, Jo March, Harriet the Spy, The BFG... and later Hector, Lizzy Bennet, Atticus Finch, and Orlando. Can you imagine being deprived of that world?


Similarly, as an adult, there is nothing better than wrapping your whole brain around a difficult  or different book and discovering that you can relate to it or that it stirs something in you. It's like trying sushi for the first time - it seems crazy at first, but once you get your first taste you wonder how you lived without it. 

We're accepting value meals instead of home cooked meals, e-mails instead of letters, and Cliff's Notes instead of the full text. Now, we're even accepting the idea that books that hurt our heads are not worth picking up.

When did we forget what life was about? When did we forget how to savor, and start doing just enough to squeak by? When did we lose faith in our brains and our ability to make the unknown knowable?

Reading equals freedom. Reading equals empowerment. Reading lots of different things equals tolerance. Loving reading equals loving life.

What will the world be like when no one loves reading?

Julie & Julia & Butter Tea

"If I was going to follow Julia down this rabbit hole, I was going to enjoy it, by God - exhaustion, crustacean murder, and all. Because not everybody gets a rabbit hole. I was one lucky bastard, when you came down to it."

- Julie Powell, Julie & Julia

Recommended Tea: Tibetan Butter Tea

Recently a friend and I had a discussion about our careers.

"I'm so tired of working at a job that I don't care about! Well, I care about it, and it's a great job, but I'm so tired of not being able to do what I love," friend said.

"Well," said I, "maybe you would feel a little better about your job if you did some more stuff on the side that you really DID care about. Like, if I only worked at my job during the day and didn't do anything else, I would lose my mind. Which is why I act on the side. And blog. And volunteer. And act some more. And direct sometimes. And teach sometimes. And sometimes dress up as storybook characters and read to kids. And read. And garden. And write plays."

This is what my life has always been like. Student/bookseller/filer by day, devious actor/volunteer/playwright/director/gardener by night. This has been what has saved my soul and kept it in its little birdhouse. Since I was twelve I have always gone a billion miles a minute, have always done ten things at once. And I intend to keep it that way.

But there's something about working that post-college job that really, really depresses you. Sure, there may exist (in some alternate universe) a collection of people who were able to go right into the job that they always dreamed of. If those people exist, I have never met them. More power to them.

For the rest of us, there's that doomed phrase - "make a living." I touched on this a bit in my blog entry for Into the Wild. After college, after spending four idealistic years studying what you love so that you can do what you love for the rest of your life, you forget about all of the steps that it takes to get to the place where you CAN actually do what you love instead of doing it in your spare time.

This is especially true for the artists among us (and I proudly, maybe a little naively, throw myself into this category). There is no road map, no route to get to your dreams. But there is a light bill. And rent. And food. These are clear, touchable things that you can wrap your head around. Survival means eating and shelter. Eating and shelter mean money. Art and money, at least at first, do not...well... "mesh well."

So you apply at the restaurant or the clothing store or the (cough cough) bookstore. You think "I'll only be here for a little while - just until I can get started. Then it's DREAMTIME!"

Months or even years later, you're still there. And you're still not in dreamville. And the longer you stay OUT of dreamville, the harder it is to find your way back to your route. I am convinced that this is why the world doesn't have as many artists as it should - the artists get trapped in a cubicle and get so comfortable (or scared) that they never want to leave.

But for those of us with one foot in retail and one foot in the arts, there's an overwhelming need to create. To do something that matters. To do ANYTHING that isn't paperwork or folding or (cough cough cough) shelving.

This is what Julie & Julia is about - finding that thing that pulls your soul out of the deep, dark, "make a living" hole and puts it somewhere inspired. Whether that route is cooking your way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking or singing karaoke at Twin Kegs on a Saturday night, the creative have GOT to find ways to create, ways to stay connected to the muse, no matter what they may be.

And what better place to find inspiration than Mrs. Julia Child? Julia Child, in my humble opinion, should be right there on the "great, strong women" shelf next to Eleanor Roosevelt and Katharine Hepburn. She was able to find that thing that she loved more than anything, even though it took her 40 years to find it, and seek it with all of her heart while staying poised and positive. And when she found that thing, she threw herself into it heart and soul.

Julie Powell is similarly worthy of admiration. Not only because she threw herself into this extremely daunting project heart and soul, but because she was able to bring inspiration into her world, grab Julia's hand, and pull herself out of the cubicle ocean.

I also completely adore the idea of following in the path of a (my favorite phrase) "strong woman" in order to learn how to blaze your own. For Julie, that trailblazer was Julia. For me, there have been maybe a billion - Dolly Parton, Stevie Nicks, Audrey Hepburn, Katharine Hepburn, Jo March, Elizabeth Bennet, Sarah Bernhardt, and, the one nearest and dearest to my heart nowadays, Virginia Woolf.

One of the things that I love most about being a woman is the feeling that these women (be they fictional or real) are my sisters, my friends, my family members. That they sit on my shoulders like little angels, whispering their words of wisdom, completely ready and willing to help me drag myself out of that ocean of comfortable mediocrity and into the universe of my dreams.

Jo tells me to cut off all of my hair.

Elizabeth encourages me to speak my mind.

Dolly whispers, "If you don't like the road you're walking pave another one."

Stevie screams, "ROCK ON, Gold Dust Woman!"

Katharine shouts, "If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun."

Virginia gingerly places her hand on my shoulder and says, "They say that one must beat one's wings against the storm in the belief that beyond this welter the sun shines; the sun falls sheer into pools that are fledged with willows."

And what have they all told me to do in unison? What did Julia tell Julie to do?

JUMP!

Jump into life! Jump into your dreams! Stop wasting your time, energy, and talent. Take a risk. Find a way to make your life about what is really important to you instead of about earning a pay check. Build a little birdhouse in your soul. Show the world that you are a force to be reckoned with instead of trying to play by the world's rules.

And that is exactly what I am going to do.

Hey! Look At This!

• The Julie/Julia Project
• Visit Julia Child's Kitchen!

Julia Child shows you how to make an omelette

The Waves & A British Breakfast

For now my body, my companion, which is always sending its signals, the rough black 'No,' the golden 'Come' in rapid running arrows of sensation, beckons. Some one moves. Did I raise my arm? Did I look? Did my yellow scarf with the strawberry spots float and signal? He has broken from the wall. He follows. I am pursued through the forest. All is rapt, all is nocturnal and the parrots go screaming through the branches. All my senses stand erect. Now I feel the roughness of the fibre of the curtain through which I push; now I feel the cold iron railing and its blistered paint beneath my palm. Now the cool tide of darkness breaks its waters over me. We are out of doors. Night opens; night traversed by wandering moths; night hiding lovers roaming to adventure. I smell roses; I smell violets; I see red and blue just hidden. Now gravel is under my shoes; now grass. Up reel the tall backs of houses guilty with lights. All London is uneasy with flashing lights. Now let us sing our love song - Come, come, come. Now my gold signal is like a dragon-fly flying taut. Jug, jug, jug, I sing like the nightingale whose melody is crowded in the too narrow passage of her throat. Now I hear crash and rending of boughs and the crack of antlers as if the beasts of the forest were all hunting, all rearing high and plunging down among the thorns. One has pierced me. One is driven deep within me. And velvet flowers and leaves whose coolness has been stood in water wash me round, and sheathe me, embalming me.

- Virginia Woolf's The Waves

Recommended Tea: The Republic of Tea's British Breakfast

When I think about explaining why I loved this book, I find myself completely overwhelmed. To put it as simply as possible, The Waves is probably the most honest, beautiful thing that I have ever read. I found myself sometimes reading a page two or three times, as if each sentence was a long hot bath that I desperately did not want to get out of.

Someone once said that Patsy Cline's singing voice was the voice that they always dreamed they had - the voice that, they felt, matched their soul. All I could think upon reading The Waves was - if my soul had a voice, I would want it to be Virginia Woolf's. The language is like music, the imagery is vivid, the characters are so real. Woolf once said that The Waves was not about different individuals, but rather about all of the different individuals that live inside of us that are provoked to appear at various points in our lives. There is the social butterfly, the great orator, the mother, the recluse, the outsider - all of these exist within us, and all of these are truthful as they exist within us.

Virginia Woolf understood that human nature - reality - is too complex to be summed up with words, but (miraculously!) she is able to do just that. With this work, Woolf has shown me, beautifully shown me, the truth about life - it is an ocean, and our souls are boats piled full of people attempting to brave the waves.

SPEAKING of The Waves:

Check out clips from The National Theatre's experimental staging of Woolf's novel

The Hours & Pink Grapefruit with Pink Peony Petals

"Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself"

- Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

Recommended Tea: The Republic of Tea's Sip for the Cure Pink Grapefruit Tea with Pink Peony Petals 

(a bouquet of Pink Peonies wouldn't hurt, either)

I saw the film The Hours a few years ago. I will go ahead and bravely say that it went right over my head (imagine my hand sweeping over the top of my head right now, because that's what I'm doing and that's what the movie did to me). I knew nothing about Virginia Woolf, nothing about Mrs. Dalloway, and frankly only watched it because Nicole Kidman was awarded an Oscar for it. 

So, after reading Mrs. Dalloway, after growing into Virginia Woolf, hearing her calling me from the bookshelf and then from the pages of Orlando and now from trees and flowers, it was still with a little trepidation that I picked up The Hours at the local library. Was it going to be better than the movie? Was it going to injure my newfound love for Virginia? Instead of hearing Virginia speak to me, would I be picturing Nicole Kidman's prosthetic nose in my mind?

What joy, what bliss, then, to discover the beauty of Michael Cunningham's The Hours. I admit, I couldn't shake the images of Meryl Streep (even though the actual Meryl Streep appears in the book - surprise!) and Julianne Moore. But, I am happy to say, Nicole Kidman's nose took a back seat and I saw Virginia (and her own lovely nose), heard her voice, could even see through her eyes as she looked up through the beautiful and terrifying water. 

For me, the beauty of this book lies in its truth. It explains so vividly what is so terrifying and similarly what is so wonderful about being a living, breathing human being. There is the beauty of the world, ecstatic errands, flowers, making cakes, throwing parties, stolen kisses. Similarly, these things can each hold their own terror. There are also the hours - all of those terrifying hours that stretch out ahead of you for who knows how long. On some days, those hours disappear into the horizon, making it almost impossible to get out of bed. On some days, that horizon seems all too close, uncomfortably close, and the terror comes from the realization that it's closer than you once dreamed. 

But, that is the MOST beautiful thing about the human condition - we all experience that terror and that comfort together. We all both fear and respect death. We can all appreciate the beauty of the sunshine and the fear of the day when we will see it for the last time. 

Michael Cunningham says it best himself:

There is just this for consolation: an hour here or there, when our lives seem, against all odds and expectations, to burst open and give us everything we've ever imagined, though everyone but children (and perhaps even they) knows these hours will inevitably be followed by others, far darker and more difficult. Still, we cherish the city, the morning, we hope, more than anything, for more. Heaven only knows why we love it so.

I also find it worth noting that everything that I have just said, explaining why I loved this book, explains why I loved Mrs. Dalloway. That feeling of interconnectedness is so well presented in both, which is why I think it is so important to see The Hours as a companion for Mrs. Dalloway. They are like cheese and wine or oreos and milk - they bring out the best in each other. Michael Cunningham obviously has a great love for Virginia Woolf and her work, and this is a love letter to her and to the modern readers who love her but wish that they could see her take on the world as it is now. 

So, I would suggest going to your local (independent!) bookstore today, picking up a copy of Mrs. Dalloway, and keeping enough money in your wallet to buy The Hours next week.

But above all else, avoid Nicole Kidman's prosthetic nose.

Hey! Check this out! - Mrs. Dalloway's Literary & Garden Arts

Also, hear Woolf's actual voice below.