Valentine's Day

So, I sort of failed at my winter break to do list. Didn't write a single post. And, honestly, I'm very proud of myself for that. I needed that space to breathe and really dig into my reading for my thesis. I have only now found a chunk of time to write as I sit on the floor of the building where I was taught to understand Kant's reason, found my own voice as a woman, and formed some of the most important relationships in my life. Here is the echoing halls of Armstrong, I have a moment to reflect while I wait for my sister to pick me up and drive me home to my family.

Smack dab in the middle of the first month of the new semester, I chose to leave for 10 days. In all honesty, I didn't get much of a winter break and I was going a little nuts my first few weeks back at school. I had a hard time concentrating, I kept feeling panicked, and only the firm embrace of my darling could really get me to sit still. Also, I got sick twice in about a month. I needed a break.

As soon as I landed in the Rocky Mountain West, I felt relief wash over my body. Ah. That crisp, thin mountain air filled my inadequate lungs and I felt calm infuse my every cell. The next five days (including today) were a mixture of meditation with my old group, wine and laughter with old friends, yoga taught by my dear friend Kari Kwinn, revisiting my college haunts, and remembering how different it felt to be here when I was younger. I am still the same Sierra. My hair is still red, my heart still beats to the same rhythm of Rocky Mountain love, I still study religion. Yet, I am not the same. I am an adult now. My friends and mentors can hear it in the way I speak and it seems more true than ever when I look at seniors in college and laugh to myself about youth. Suddenly, it is I who is not so young.

This Valentine's Day will be significantly distinct from any I've experienced thus far. I will hold my niece. I will celebrate my parents 35th wedding anniversary. And, I will share this (somewhat ridiculous) holiday with someone special, even if from afar. This is the Sierra who lives and breathes in this body.

So far, I like growing up.

Winter Break To-Do List

Write all the blog entries I've thought up
Return letters from friends
Watch Dexter
Sleep
Eat a lot
Run a bit
Be a human
Update "professional" website
Be a friend again
Be a better daughter/sister (ie: reply to phone calls and emails)
Apply to grants
Apply for jobs
Complete research for thesis

To-Do List Until Then:
WRITE

Something New on The Horizon

Actually, it's the horizon that is new.

All my friends are getting married or having babies (ok, not all of them, calm down those of you who aren't). But, since they are busy doing that, I figured I needed to be busy getting my own life world a-rolling.

Due in no small part to conversations with two men who very well may have changed my life (Mat and Jeremy, you were certainly keystones of my summer) I have decided that it's about time I start following my dreams. Ah, but which ones you may ask. Of course, the ones that I have hidden for the longest. I have decided to launch a website with my own production "company". The idea is that this will be the technological hub of my professional life. This will be where I can hone my craft(s), meaning writing (in its varied forms), film production, film editing, improv, and research (oh and anything else I can probably think of and then justify). Don't worry, I'm not abandoning this blog, but you might see a difference in what appears here (or maybe none at all).

I'll keep this post short and to the point because hopefully you will now need some time to have a look around my new website and all that is currently available on it.

http://www.doubleeffproductions.wordpress.com/

Think of it as an interactive resume/C.V. Think of it as a way for me to remember what it is I love and to feel justified in pursuing it. Think of it as whatever you want.

And, follow me and my "company" on Twitter @Sierrasayer and @DoubleEffProd

If you're interested in getting your own creative life going and want to talk about collaborating together (especially if you live in Boston), let me know. I'm happy to work with actors, writers, directors, producers, blog contributors, etc who are interested in taking themselves less seriously, but their passions deadly so.

Sharing is Scaring

So, it turns out that to be a writer, you have to share your work with others. A lot. Workshopping groups, professors, friends, family. Sharing your work becomes an important component of the writing process.

And, I’m elated to do so. That is up until the actual moment I share it. I love the idea of sharing my work, being vulnerable to another, and hearing what they have to say. Honestly, though, handing (or emailing) something that I’ve spent hours on terrifies me. My stomach drops. My heart pounds. And, I think to myself, Am I a narcissistic fool? Did I just really send that dribble to my [insert important person] thinking they would care? I don’t even know if I’m a good writer! Hell, I don’t even know if I’m a writer!

Thankfully, I tend to send or hand my work off before I’ve given my insecurities too much thought. The moments of dread and horror come immediately after the work has left my totalizing grasp.  Will my jokes make sense? Do I sound self-pitying? Is there truth in what I wrote?

There’s really no way to know. I sit in my little room with my lovely dog, feeling insecure and exposed, hoping to God that at the very least no one will hate me after reading my work and that maybe someone somewhere will get at least one joke. Much to my surprise, though, the feedback on my creative work from both peers and professors has been incredibly positive. In fact, one professor looked at me and simply said, “Sierra, you are a writer.”

Perhaps then it is time to shake off my insecurity (or at least keep it at bay long enough to actually share my work) and see what it is I can do with this thing, this dogged desire to write.

The Spot

Ace and I had our two year anniversary yesterday. This is the longest non-familial relationship I've ever had and that makes me so happy. This dog, in all his glory, all his fur, all his idiosyncratic existence, is a part of me. Hell, he might be the truest part of me.

We're doing well, Ace and I. I'm learning how to live a a life that is "utterly wild" in the sense of Mary Oliver's poem (and my tattoo), even though I'm not quite sure what it means. Ace is showing me how, me with my dumb humanity and need for logic. It has something to do with responding to the impulse of each day, loving the beauty of ourselves, and sleeping enough. And, probably lots of snacks.

Yesterday, we lay on my bed, listening to Florence + the Machine (Ace's favorite band). As the sweet sounds of techno-soul-rock reverberated against my walls, I rubbed Ace's belly. For the first time (after two years of belly rubs), his leg started to thump as I found his "spot." I was amazed that he had this reflex, this response to a rub on the tummy.

It seems that even as we grow older together, we still have so much to discover. For that, I am grateful and by that, I am humbled.

On Long Pauses

So, I haven't been blogging much these days. And, I'm sorry. Only, I'm not really.

I've been writing and creating like crazy and I feel amazing. I just haven't felt the need to write blog entries yet. Part of me feels like I'm still "catching up", but at some point I'll have to accept that this rapid fire pace is my life here.

A friend and I recorded a song the other day and I hope to shoot the music video soon. Also, I plan to have my website up and running by the end of next month. Times, they are a changing. So, you have all that to look forward to.

Until I feel the pull, much love to you all. :)

It's all in the timing

I got a tattoo yesterday. The moment was right. The final line of this Mary Oliver poem curves over my left hip.

A Meeting

She steps into the dark swamp
where the long wait ends.

The secret slippery package
drops to the weeds.

She leans her long neck and tongues it
between breaths slack with exhaustion

and after a while it rises and becomes a creature
like her, but much smaller.

So now there are two. And they walk together
like a dream under the trees.

In early June, at the edge of a field
thick with pink and yellow flowers

I meet them.
I can only stare.

She is the most beautiful woman
I have ever seen.

Her child leaps among the flowers,
the blue of the sky falls over me

like silk, the flowers burn, and I want
to live my life all over again, to begin again,

to be utterly
wild.

On belief

I used to believe in myself.

I mean, really believe in myself. I honestly thought that I'd be a successful writer one day. I really didn't have any doubts. Unlike the last couple of years, when I've couched everything in a disclaimer. "I want to be a writer." "I'll find out if I can do this."

Some of that is humility, and I honor that. But some of that is just plain doubt. When I was a kid, I didn't doubt because I knew there was one thing I had to--was compelled to--do: write.

And since that time, I've allowed people--some out of love--to stifle me. I've allowed the have-a-back-up-plan-advice-givers, the it's-hard-to-be-a-writer-and-make-a-living-mentors, the you're-not-good-enough-for-our-student-publication-classmates to creep into my inner space. They drowned out all of you who told me to dream, encouraged me to reach, and believed in me. More importantly, they drowned out my own still, small voice, or rather I stopped listening. And that's what this year has meant to me: listening to myself again.

And now I've decided to become again what I never was. Like my seven year old self, I'm going to jot down all my ideas and write bad poetry. Like my fifteen year old self, I'm going to believe I can make it. As my new twenty five year old self, I'm going for it.

And as Sara Bareilles just said in concert, "This is a song about people who should mind their own damn business." Well, this is a life about the same.

Turn and Face the Change

Time to embrace a new year with a new look for the blog. Enjoy!

Back in Boston (well, the American Cambridge)

On this lovely Sunday evening, sitting under a fan in my new room where I have finally (thanks mostly to my two studly roommates) moved in, I am happy. A little warmer than I'd like to be, but happy.

It seems that really, I just need some time away to appreciate being here a little more. I mean, how lucky am I? I have the best dog ever (who sat rather wonderfully at my feet while I had brunch at a restaurant near my house for 2+ hours this morning), I get to study amazing things (including screenwriting since I was accepted to the course I applied to!!!!), and I have really good friends (both here and around the world). And, since I know this is a moment in time rather than a prison sentence, I can honestly do whatever I want and deem worthy of my time for the next nine months of my Harvard/Cambridge/East Coast life.

This, my friends, is freedom. And, I think my favorite patriot, Paul Revere, would be proud of how I'm using mine.

Ace at Brunch