There are times when the greatest accomplishment of an entire year of your life is the mere fact that you survived it. Twelve months of survival. Three hundred and sixty five days of waking up in the morning, tending to your body’s basic needs, leaving the house, not throwing yourself in front of a moving vehicle during the course of the day, coming back to the house at night. A birthday, a Christmas, a dental cleaning, a Flag Day. Some people enter your life, others exit it. Maybe you drop a habit or pick up a new one. Hopefully you fit into the same size pants you did a year ago. Hopefully you haven’t done any major damage in any area of your life over the last twelve months. And maybe some years survival is enough. Even more than enough…a significant accomplishment.

Because sometimes you’re trapped in mud and any forward movement is exhausting. And wasting energy pretending like it’s all ok seems absurd; hell, you need that energy to contend with the mud. But because other people can’t see your mud they make judgments about your lackluster performance in life or your inability to smile on cue or your failure to give a fuck.

But you keep going, because that’s what you’ve been conditioned to do. But you must find reasons to keep going.

Sometimes you keep going just so that you can hit all of the great Easter candy in Walgreen’s come springtime. Shit, if Peeps and Cadbury Eggs aren’t reason enough to endure the pain of living then I don’t know what is. Throw some Starburst jelly beans and a Russell Stover Coconut Nest in there and I just might make it to June.

Sometimes you keep going because you’re waiting for a new season of a television show or a movie sequel or the film adaptation of your favorite book. When I sat next to my father in a movie theatre awaiting the start of the first Lord of the Rings movie in 2001, he turned to me and said: “I’ve been waiting forty years for this.” For me, the Harry Potter books kept me going; J.K. Rowling was my crack cocaine dealer, and I plunged into severe depression/withdrawal when I finished reading the seventh book.

Sometimes you keep going for a person. A child. A parent. A spouse. A friend. You build your life around this person (or group of people) and place the responsibility of your survival and happiness in their unwitting hands. You may not realize you are doing this; they may not realize you are doing this. But you are doing this. And it is a really bad idea. Because the other person feels the weight of that responsibility, and they will eventually resent it.

Sometimes you keep going because you don’t let yourself think about it too much. You keep yourself so insanely busy and preoccupied that emotions are a luxury. An indulgence. You take the world in half hour increments and you’re so deep in the Monet painting of your life that it’s just a series of necessary and random strokes rather than a cohesive and overwhelming whole. This way of coping can work for a while, but it cannot sustain a life. Eventually you step back and see the painting. The end of the final entry from the journal I kept my senior year of high school reads: “The scariest thing in my life is that I don’t know what I want that will make me happy….I feel very empty about life in general right now. If I just keep busy, I’ll forget about it. I always do.” (9/16/95). I was sixteen years old. Fifteen years later I can speak from experience when I say: it does not work.

Yet we keep going. Plowing ahead through the mud, eating our Peeps, probably drinking more than we want to, and maybe becoming curiously obsessed with things like knitting or Star Trek or fine cheeses (for me: exercise, books, alcohol, cats). December bleeds into January which bleeds into February which bleeds into eternity and you keep getting up every morning, not throwing yourself in front of a moving vehicle during the course of the day, and going to bed at night.

Any one of these external things upon which you’ve built your tenuous existence could collapse at any moment. Any of them. All of them. You know this. But the very fabric of our society seems to be based on this principle: seek things outside of yourself that will make you happy. So while we know it’s nothing more than a quick fix, a duct-taping of our sad, sad hearts, we participate out of desperation. “If this [fill in the blank] gets me through the next ten hours” we think, “then I’ll make it home without throwing myself in front of a moving vehicle and it will all be ok.” I understand cigarette smoking, drug abuse, morbid obesity, alcoholism; they are desperation personified.

And then we hit a severe recession. And grandmothers start hanging themselves in basements because the homes their dead husbands built with their hands are being foreclosed. And fathers start murdering their families before killing themselves because they have no money, no job, no hope. And even the most basic external things that people used to build their happiness upon are no longer attainable/affordable. And we, as a nation, all end up in the same place: celebrating the fact that the one thing we managed to do this year was to survive.

Well, now that you’re here: welcome. I happen to have some experience in this realm. If you’ve never been here before, let me show you around.

First: congratulations. Don’t let anyone tell you that what you just accomplished wasn’t a major fucking miracle. Second: you’ve probably guessed by now that you are just setting yourself up for catastrophe by seeking things outside of yourself as reasons to live. (More on this later.) Third: cry. Cry a lot. Let yourself wail. Let yourself feel it. Let it live. Because as long as you’re crying, as long as you’re feeling, you are alive and you are accomplishing a great feat.

But you may soon learn that if you drop the façade, let others see the truth and the pain you are going through, they may try to fix you. They may try to “help.” A few may actually do or say something that truly helps, but most will just utter some sage bit of wisdom they stole from someone else, like “it’s the journey, not the destination.” Then they may send you a link to some website with quotes about positivity or information about anti-depressants. And they’ll let you cry and wail, but they’ll be waiting for the moment when you stop so that they can begin to assail you with all of the ways you could be “living the life you want – right now!” and trying to tell you exactly how to fix the problem of this overwhelming sadness pervading your life. They will assume they know the inner landscape of your heart because they think they know their own, and so they will chart out a plan for you to follow to fix your problem of sadness. They very well may be doing it out of love.

But there always comes that moment when they see it isn’t working and they get frustrated. Angry. Fed up. I can feel it in a friend’s voice over the phone. I can see it in their wrinkled brow when sitting across from each other in a restaurant. They expect to solve decades of sadness and depression with a 5-point plan of attack.

They set themselves up for disappointment. And they don’t seem to understand that what they are feeling in that very moment is what you are feeling most of the time you are awake. It is a disability that no one else can see. It is mud, and you are wading through it. And you’re tired of trying to explain what the mud looks like to everyone else. So I frequently just play along now. I nod, or thank them for the suggestions.

Those of you who have never been here: I am so glad. I don’t know what it feels like to live your life, but I am glad that you don’t know what it feels like to live mine.

Those of you in the mud: you know exactly what I am talking about. And more people are joining our ranks these days. Take care of them if you can.

So now the great question: if you are not going to depend on external things/other people as reason to live, how do you keep going? Excellent question, and one I’ve been pondering since I was about ten years old. I do not have an answer, but I keep working on it. I am a voracious spiritual seeker, and I find that helps. For me, right now it’s Buddhism and Meher Baba; for you, it might be something else. But even that sometimes can feel like a crock of shit – an opiate to numb desperation.

In recent years I have found a few people who seem to be a few paces ahead of me on this journey, and they are the most helpful. I have had glimpses of the happiness of a life led not for others or external things but for the divine light that resides within, and I am hopeful that the more I work on it the more time I can spend in that place. Because that stuff spreads; when you find a way to live from that place, you pass it on to others.

So as 2009 comes to a close and you begin to reflect, please be kind to yourself. It has been a tough year on all of us, and if you didn’t find a cure for cancer or lose those ten pounds or accomplish a single damn thing on your goal list, I absolve you. You are reading this blog, which means you survived. I am impressed by us all.

A week from today I fly down to North Carolina to see my family. I have not seen them in a year. I can’t wait to step on that plane, because I need to be someplace surrounded by people I love and who love me. This holiday season, I wish that for all of you. My friends, you are beautiful. You are strong. You have a beautiful light inside of you and it doesn’t need anything outside of you in order to shine. I’m going to take next week off for Christmas, and I’ll be back on Thursday, December 31st. I wish you a happy holiday. I wish you love and good food and copious amounts of alcohol. And I am so very glad that you have survived.

love, jennifer

The month of December brings me to the end of my beloved Frida Kahlo wall calendar. The final image is The Little Deer (1946), so the head of Frida on a deer’s dying body has been staring at me since December 1st. The word “Carma” appears in the lower left hand corner; painted after an unsuccessful surgery on her spine, some have argued that this painting epitomizes Frida’s view of herself – a woman incapable of changing her own bleak destiny. Actually, many of Frida’s paintings convey this same theme: I am doomed.

Lately I have been thinking about the dead.

This week I wrote a piece for Lit Drift about the current Vladimir Nabokov controversy (i.e. Nabokov’s final, unfinished novel was recently published against his explicit final instructions), and it got me to thinking about dead people and the stuff they leave behind.

I actually think about dead people at least twice a day. I chant every morning and every evening as part of my Buddhist practice. At the end of the chanting session, there are four silent prayers; one of those is a prayer for the dead. It is an opportunity to pray for dead relatives and any other dead person I care to throw in. This silent prayer for the dead has become one of my favorite parts of the practice. Twice a day I get to say hi to my grandparents, uncles, various other ancestors, my childhood cat Sheena, etc. It feels as if they are somehow less dead now because I spend time with them each day. I always add some non-relatives to the list….dead people whose life work has positively influenced me. I like to let them know how grateful I am for what they did while they were here.

One dead person who always makes the list: Virginia Woolf.

Frida Kahlo and Virginia Woolf…Yup, I have a habit of surrounding myself with dead, sad, brilliant, creative women.

The older and wiser I get the more willing I become to listen to old people and dead people. I do not equate age with wisdom; many old/dead people are complete idiots. But a few really know their shit, and I count Virginia Woolf among them.

I first read Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own in my “Women & Literature” class my sophomore year of college. I was eighteen years old. I reread it last year at age thirty, mostly while sitting on sidewalk benches in SoHo during breaks from my miserable, soul-sucking day job.

The first time I reread Woolf’s famous thesis line (“a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction”), I burst into big, fat tears and sobbed uncontrollably on a green wooden bench on Spring Street. At age eighteen Woolf’s thesis was an abstract concept; at age thirty it had become a painful reality.

Thanks to her many brilliant novels and essays and the posthumous publication of her diaries, I have access to Woolf’s gorgeous mind and unique wit. Never before have I ever felt so connected to the inner workings of another human being; sometimes I am scared by how similarly we view and feel the world. But not to fret – I make sure to steer clear of large bodies of water whenever I fill my pockets with rocks.

I realize that all of the dead people I thank twice a day as part of that silent prayer have one thing in common: each did something while they were alive that has consequently affected my life. I have benefitted from some act or choice they made before they died. In the case of the non-ancestors on my Dead People Gratitude List, they are almost all people who turned pain into something beautiful and the results of their efforts have trickled down to me. Case in point: Frida Kahlo and Virginia Woolf. If these two women had just sat around and stewed in their pain rather than work to transform it into something beautiful, they would not be a part of my life and they would not be on my list.

So the key here is action. Making a choice. Turning shit into art.

I have been emotionally overwhelmed this week by the beauty, strength and courage of one of my friends, Gregg Mozgala. Last Friday night I went to see Gregg perform in a dance piece, “Diagnosis of a Faun,” at La Mama. Gregg has been developing this show for the last year, and it is wonderful. But I am not emotionally overwhelmed because the show was wonderful; I am overwhelmed by what Gregg has done.

Gregg has cerebral palsy, and in the course of one year’s time he has managed to transform himself into an amazing dancer. In the ultimate act of alchemy, he has transcended his physical limitations; the result is art. Mind-blowing, awe-inspiring, kicking-life-in-the-ass art. Click here to read the New York Times article and click here to view his appearance on the CBS Morning Show.

[This success and attention could not be happening to a nicer human being, by the way.]

Gregg’s show stirred up a lot in me emotionally, and I have been thinking about the act of alchemy. I have to believe that in life we are handed what we are supposed to transcend; otherwise I cannot explain the pain of being alive.

Winter is upon us. As we enter this season of dying and as I say goodbye to twelve months of Frida’s pain on my wall, I am thinking about alchemy. I am thinking about individuals, alive and dead, whose wisdom and courage inspire me. And I am thinking about the dead person I one day aspire to be.

When I found out yesterday that the New York State Senate voted down the gay marriage bill, I was surprised and perplexed. I mean, this is NEW YORK. We’re supposed to be the progressive, liberal state that serves as a catalyst for the cultural and social change that later ripples throughout the rest of the nation. I thought, “How could MY New York be such a dillweed?!” But apparently there are enough New Yorkers who still oppose equal marital rights for homosexuals to vote down a bill and effectively kill this issue in the Senate for at least another year.

Call me naïve, but I find it hard to believe that so many people are still threatened by gay people. I mean, didn’t everybody take Big Gay Al’s Big Gay Boat Ride back in 1997?

Christians and Republicans and Nazis -- Oh my!

But even with all of the impressive political and social strides that gay people have made, all of the innocuous openly gay public figures (like Ellen DeGeneres) out there doing cool things in the world, all of the movies and t.v. shows and books and widespread dialogue about homosexuality, there are still plenty of American citizens who would rather strap themselves to a nuclear missile than let my gay friends share the same legal marital rights that heterosexuals have.

And I JUST DON’T GET IT.

My first exposure to homosexuality was in high school. One of my first (and best) friends when my family moved to Columbia, South Carolina my 8th grade year was a gay man. A few years later I joined the apprentice company of Trustus Theatre. Located in the middle of downtown, conservative Columbia, Trustus was this sort of utopian theatrical wonderland; amazing theatre was being done on a regular basis and everyone was accepted for whatever-the-hell they were. Being a part of the Trustus community influenced me profoundly as an artist and as a person, and I will be forever grateful for being invited to join their fold. It was a diverse and talented group, and many of the company members and apprentice company members were openly gay. Honestly, I spent more time around gay people when I was in high school than I did around straight people. The first wedding I attended was a commitment ceremony between two female Trustus company members in January 1996. It was a beautiful, moving event that sparked a good deal of controversy in Columbia….as one would expect.

The very first friend I made my very first week at Wake Forest University was a gay man; we are still friends. One of my two best friends is a gay woman; we have been best friends for almost a decade. My current social circle in NYC is probably at least 50% homosexual. So, in essence, what I am saying is this: I may be straight, but I know the gays.

I know them in part because I have never felt threatened by them. Because I have never felt threatened by them, they have felt comfortable inviting me into their lives. Actually, I feel threatened by very little in this world. I am not threatened by alternative lifestyles, conservative Republicans, religious cults, people of different colors and/or ethnicities. Pretty much the only people I find threatening are those who commit (or intend to commit) acts of violence and/or harm others. I have spent over half of my life intimately involved with the homosexual community and I have never once seen a gay person commit any act of violence that has harmed anyone else. I’ve been to some really kickin’ parties, seen some really awesome drag shows, received expert fashion and grooming advice, and been educated about the fineries of show tunes and folk music, but my relationships with gay people have never once thrown me in the path of violence. Actually, gay people are some of the coolest and most loving people I know.

But what that vote yesterday told me was that there are still plenty of people (even in New York) who are still threatened by gay people. Religious groups cite the Bible and assert that God believes homosexuality is wrong, some conservatives argue that it could lead to legalized polygamy, others moan and wail that it’s “bad for children” to be raised by gay parents, douchebag idiots threaten that it could lead to acceptance of bestiality or pedophilia….

To me, it’s all a crock of shit. Every reason offered up as to why gay people should not be granted equal legal marital rights reeks of feces. And that shit smell is attempting to mask the real issue: fear. People fear what they don’t understand. Don’t give me this bullshit about the “sanctity of marriage” when infidelity is rampant and about half of the marriages in this country end in divorce. The Bible also says that divorce is a sin; what a convenient interpretation religious conservatives choose to take of this sacred text. No, this all smells like fear mingled with poo.

But I want to take a moment to open my heart up to those people who live in constant fear of my folk-music-loving, well-dressed friends. To those people who oppose gay marriage, I have a sincere question for you: Why? What about gay people scares you? Why are you so threatened? I have my own theory, but I would also like to hear it directly from you. So while I assume that the majority of people who read Theblevinsblog are liberal, pro-gay marriage folk, if you are not I would really love for you to explain why. Leave it as a comment or contact me directly and I promise I will not mock you or tell you that you smell like poo (and I ask all of my liberal, pro-gay readers to do the same).

People fear what they don’t understand, yes. But I think that the issue is not a lack of knowledge/understanding about homosexuality (thank you for the very informative boat ride, Big Gay Al) but rather confusion surrounding something much deeper. I was born and raised in the South, so while I consider myself a New Yorker I also have years and years of firsthand experience with the kind of bigotry and ignorance that fuels the other side of the gay marriage debate. So here is my theory:

Many people are terrified of individuals bold enough to live fully in their truth. Anytime someone fully embraces their essence and is brave enough to share that with the world, others who are not embracing their own essence may feel threatened by it. That bold act implies that it actually IS possible to live inside your truth, even in the midst of ignorance and hatred and prejudice. Most people don’t want to believe that such a thing is even possible. They can’t even wrap their minds around it. It challenges every bit of repression and pain that they grew up with, and they have come to define themselves through that repression and pain. Homosexuality is just a tangible representation of this other way of living that they have convinced themselves is an impossibility. I think it has very little to do with sex and more to do with audacity. Living in one’s truth. Letting your light shine in the world and not apologizing for it.

It actually reminds me of a dream I had two weeks ago that I cannot stop thinking about:

I was depressed and dejected and walking down a city street at night. I rounded a corner and saw a NYC bus parked by the side of the street. I saw a green gas truck with the word “Approved” written on its side barreling towards the back of the bus. As the truck approached the back of the bus it started speeding up rather than slowing down, and suddenly it plowed into the back of the bus. The force of the collision sent the bus flying in the air…right in my direction.

As soon as I saw that the gas truck was going to hit the bus, I froze. I knew what was going to happen and it felt like I was watching it in slow motion. I did not have any time to run away. And it’s a good thing I didn’t: the bus whizzed by me, so close that I could feel its heat…literally inches away from me. If I had been a few paces ahead or behind of where I was I would have been hit by the airborne bus; because I did not move, I was safe. The bus made contact with the ground right behind me and burst into flames. I could feel the heat of the explosion, but I wasn’t harmed by it. Again, if I had not been exactly in the spot in which I was standing I would have been killed. I was inches away from this violent, dramatic incident; I got to witness it in great detail yet wasn’t harmed by it. The immediate conclusion I drew from the dream was enough to snap me awake: I am constantly protected in ways I cannot see. I lay awake, my heart pounding.

But as I have processed the dream over the last couple of weeks, I have been struck by something else: because I did not move, I was safe. I beat myself up a lot about not moving forward in my life….feeling frozen…etc. But maybe sometimes the wisest thing to do is remain still and let shit blow up around you and wait for the right moment to proceed.

That green gas truck with the word “Approved” written on it was the final vehicle to drive through the Brooklyn Gay Pride Parade that I attended this past summer. I liked it so much that I took a picture of it:

I felt like the gas truck was saying: “Hey there, gay people – we approve you!” So to all of my big gay friends I say this:

You are beautiful. I love you. I can’t wait to be invited to your big gay engagement parties and big gay wedding parties and big gay divorce parties. I think right now all you have to do is just stand still and let shit explode around you. You are protected (and loved) in ways you cannot see. And Jennifer Blevins approves you.

I am very thankful for you. You keep coming back week after week to Theblevinsblog, and you occasionally even share the blog with others. Some of you reach out to me and tell me that you read it/like it, but I know that many of you simply read in silence and then go about your merry way, carrying my words around in your head. Regardless of which category you are in, I feel your love and I appreciate you. So today I am taking a break from my usual format and offering you a gift.

Today I offer you a photo essay.

There are two New York Cities: one is for the tourists and one is for the New Yorkers. If you are a tourist, you do things like go to Times Square and the Statue of Liberty and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. If you are a New Yorker, you avoid Times Square like the plague and enjoy the Statue of Liberty from afar as you ride over the bridge in a subway train on your way back to Brooklyn. As far as Thanksgiving is concerned, you wouldn’t be caught dead at the parade; instead, you go to the balloon inflation the day before.

I got out of work early yesterday and Jen Katz (i.e. one of my two best friends in the entire universe) met me at my office building in Columbus Circle. It was a drizzly, overcast afternoon….beautiful in its own drizzly, overcast way. We walked up to 79th Street together. I was utterly exhausted, having stayed out until very late the night before with an old friend who was in town (wonderful to see you, Bello). I was not into this whole “let’s go watch people pump helium into balloons” thing, but Katz wanted to go and I love Jen Katz. So I went. And I am oh so glad I did.

We started to see signs directing the masses to the balloon inflation. Suddenly we happened upon a free cookie stand. Yes! You read that correctly: free cookies!!

Free cookies AND balloons?! 'Tis the land of milk and honey indeed!

We followed the flow of people snaking around the Museum of Natural History. Ahoy! A pirate:

Next came SpongeBob.

SpongeBob preparing to eat his balloon handlers.

Katz with SpongeBob's foot.

The “finger up the ass” series began with the wiener dog:

Me with my finger up a wiener dog's poopchute.

The Energizer Bunny:

My finger up the Energizer Bunny’s poopchute:

The highlight for me was Kermit. Kermit was my hero growing up. I had at least three Kermit-themed birthday parties when I was a kid, and I was kind of in love with him. The Kermit balloon is always one of my favorite balloons in the parade.

So of course I had to stick my finger in his mouth:

And his poopchute:

The ass of the great Kermit.

Spiderman was awesome.

So I stuck my finger up his ass:

Snoopy:

Buzz Lightyear:

My finger up Buzz Lightyear’s ass:

Finger in the poopchute!

Picking Dora the Explorer’s nose:

Picking Hello Kitty’s nose:

Picking a smurf’s nose:

The smurf squishing my head:

Happy Thanksgiving. Thanks for reading. I am thankful for you.

In an attempt to delay the inevitability of having to deal with my life, last weekend I stumbled into a Manhattan movie theatre and decided I would see whatever film was scheduled to start next. I looked at the board and saw that 2012 was beginning in five minutes. So without letting myself think too much about it I purchased a ticket, entered the theatre, went to the bathroom, nestled into a cushy seat and invited Roland Emmerich and John Cusack to help me forget my life.

People, we’ve got three years. Three years to get our shit together. Three years before Danny Glover/Barack Obama comes on T.V. and tells us we’re fucked. Three years before Oliver Platt/Dick Cheney abuses his power in a time of crisis (wait, that sounds familiar…). Three years before John Cusack/Jennifer Blevins is the one writer to survive the apocalypse and becomes the poet laureate of the world by default.

Because to quote another great poet, House of Pain: “But I ain’t going out like no punk bitch.”

Oh yeah….that’s right, bitches. Ya’ll go ahead and fall through cracks in the earth and be consumed by fireballs and dust clouds and tsunamis and the inherent greed of man. I’ll be the one hopping on airplanes in the nick of time, befriending crazy doomsday prophets who impart important information, and happening upon benevolent Buddhist monks on dirt roads in China. Because I ain’t going out like no punk bitch.

What a silly, fun, ridiculous movie. It was unapologetically itself, and as such I was able to forgive it. My expectations were simple: to watch shit get blown up in new and exciting ways. My expectations were met. Thank you, Roland Emmerich. Of course random attempts at giving the movie “meaning” and “significance” were thrown in there, and I guess I was supposed to walk away with renewed faith in humanity. Whatever.

Regardless of how you interpret the Mayan calendar, it can be both fun and terrifying to entertain the possibility that the world as we know it is about to end. I will be 34 years old on December 21, 2012. I work out almost every single day, eat well and try to take care of myself, so there’s a very good chance I will still be physically fit n’ healthy on doomsday. I have every intention of staying on my current spiritual/ emotional/ intellectual path these next three years. So, in essence, when the shit hits the fan on 12/21/12 I will most likely be in the prime of my life. Ergo my combination of intelligence, physical health and faith will probably make me a prime candidate for surviving the apocalypse.

While the movie did not succeed in reaching the thematic and symbolic depths it aimed to hit, 2012 did actually affect me emotionally. Because it captured one idea really well: when the world falls apart, the only thing that matters is love. Yes, an incredibly generic and cheesy theme….but very true.

As I watched the movie I started listing the people I love the most and calculating their chance of surviving some kind of global disaster. I assembled my family in my head and got very realistic. I tried to figure out a plan of how I could get from New York to North Carolina as the earth’s crust disintegrated beneath me. My eyes started tearing up as I thought about my parents; I know they would not be physically strong enough to survive, even if I could get there in time to help them. I thought about my brother and how he would be the single most important person to me the day the world fell apart. Not only is he my brother and one of the three people I love most in the world, but he’s also a cop/former Army man and one of the most resourceful individuals I know. If the two of us could reach each other, I think we’d be ok.

I started adding friends to this list in my head and noted which ones made it to the family side of the list; there are two in particular who already know they would be more than welcome to join Team Blevins on the day of the apocalypse. I started thinking about the randomness (or not-so-randomness) of fate and tried to imagine the strangers who would enter my life as we all worked together to survive.

I started thinking about my depression, which has always greatly influenced my relationship with myself. It’s so fascinating to me that I know I would fight for my life, even though there have been plenty of times when I have not wanted it. For some reason self-destruction has always been an alluring aspect of my depression, yet my survival instinct kicks in when threatened by external forces. I have no doubt that the moment California fell into the ocean I would launch into survival mode and begin a quest to try to save myself and as many people I love as possible.

Why is that?

It’s almost like a parent who harms their own child but gets angry when other people do it. Like my psyche is saying: “Look, no one can be threatening and harmful to me but me, and we are NOT going down in a ball of flames on 12/21/12.” When the threatening party is outside of yourself, the battle lines are clear and you can see your foe. We all have that survival instinct, but people with depression/bi-polar/etc. understand that things get really complicated when you can’t see what you’re fighting. When what you’re battling is inside yourself, it can be very comforting to sit in a movie theatre and watch a disaster/sci-fi flick and be given a tangible enemy to fight.

And in the case of 2012, we are presented with an interesting personification of this internal battle: our core becomes our enemy. We are being attacked from within. Actually, it’s kind of a nice way for people to see what it feels like to live with depression or bi-polar: some days all you can do is run like hell and try not to get sucked in.

I continued to develop my apocalypse survival plan as I exited the movie theatre and got on the subway to go home. I started thinking about how great it would feel to be one of those survivors. I think that maybe I would be a very good person to help start the New World.

Because I ain’t going out like no punk bitch, and I seem to have a flair for speaking the truth.

It started with the shrieking. Not long after I moved into my apartment a little over a year ago, I noticed an abundance of high-pierced shrieking coming through my wall from the apartment next door. It seemed almost inhuman, but I soon learned that I was wrong. It was a child…a small child (about 2 years old) who sounded like she was in constant peril. She would scream and cry and wail and run up and down on the hardwood floors, sometimes as late as midnight.

I bought a white noise machine. I bought earplugs. I started chanting for my neighbors’ happiness as part of my Buddhist practice. The only time I ever complained about their noise level was last December; one Sunday afternoon they brought home a new wall-mounted television. They affixed this television to the wall that we share. They turned the volume all the way up. The noise level was so intense I could feel it in my floorboards. I knocked on their door more than once that afternoon to ask them to turn it down, and no one ever answered. I left a short, handwritten note on their door, asking them to kindly lower their noise level because our walls are very thin. Later that day they knocked on my door as they were getting in the elevator; when I opened my door the elevator was about to close and they called out: “We were testing sound levels – it will never be that loud again.”

At no other time did I ever complain about their noise level.

And about five months later, they had a baby.

Fast forward to last week. After I returned from my retreat, I was laying in bed one night when I realized that I never, ever, ever get a good night’s sleep. On my retreat I slept as long as 10 hours each night; at home, I’m lucky if I get 5-6 hours a night. I am exhausted. I look old and worn and pale. As I write this, I am on my fourth day in a row of trying to function with almost no sleep. When I am as exhausted as this I don’t make sense…everything seems absurd and stupid and I can’t bring myself to care about anything. Makeup no longer conceals the circles under my eyes, and I operate as if in a dream.

I do not blame my neighbors for my insomnia; I have had this problem on and off since I was in high school. It’s just one of those parts of being alive that I deal with. But I do know that excessive noise makes it worse, and their noise level has long been excessive.

So that night right after I returned from my retreat I just couldn’t take it anymore. I got out of bed, sat down at my computer, and typed out the letter I have been composing in my head for the past year. I went through multiple drafts and tried to keep my tone firm yet compassionate, persuasive yet kind. I ended the note by saying: “I understand it must be very challenging to raise two small children. I didn’t complain about your noise level sooner because I am sympathetic to the difficulties you face and was honestly hoping that the noise level might get better over time. But after sharing a wall with you for a year now, I can see that things are only getting worse. All I ask is that you make a concerted effort to reduce your noise level, especially after 9pm.” I printed it out, folded it up, and taped it to their door around 11pm (smack dab in the middle of a late night shrieking fest).

And then…nothing happened. Days went by and I didn’t see them. I didn’t receive any response to my note. Suddenly their noise level dropped so dramatically that it was as if they had moved away. “Wow,” I thought. “Maybe all I had to do was complain.”

Monday morning I happened to run into the father around 5:45am as I was leaving the building. We exchanged a tense hello, but I was running late and still only half-awake so I didn’t try to engage him in conversation. I thought to myself: “Next time I see him I will thank him for lowering the noise level.”

That evening when I returned home there was a note taped to my door. The note was not addressed to me but rather to the building manager; the letter was dated last Friday and I was merely cc’ed on it. I walked into my apartment, set my belongings down on the floor, stood in my kitchen and read the letter. What happened next inside of my body is best described by Madeline Kahn at the end of the movie Clue.

“flames…flames…flames, on the side of my face….breathing…breath…heaving breath…”

Their letter was absurd. Hyperbolic, accusatory, and angry. It said that I had been “writing letters…to complain about noise levels.” I wrote a total of two in one year’s time. They claimed: “Ms. Blevins was aware that a young growing family would be her immediate neighbors” (which is not true), and that “Ms. Blevins’ demands are unreasonable.” They concluded the note by saying: “We will not have our family bothered in this way…Can you please advise me as to what measures I can take to stop this problem which has risen to level of harassment.”

Flames. On the side of my face. Breathing…heaving…

STOP.

Before I let the anger settle into my body, I took action. I didn’t even let myself think about it. In a nanosecond I saw the future of this exchange play out in my imagination – a passive-aggressive war with my Lebanese neighbors, ending with one of us moving out. Recently I have been having a very rough time emotionally, and as I stood there in my kitchen, still wearing my coat, reading that note, feeling those flames, I knew one thing absolutely and without question: there is no fucking way I have the emotional resources to deal with this right now.

So I became the parent of my own emotions. I saw the anger…almost like a thick, chewy, tangible cloud descending on my system. In the 20-30 seconds it took me to read their letter, my heart rate raised and the blood started pounding through my veins and everything in the world suddenly looked different to me. I felt the fight-or-flight instinct begin to kick in. I wanted to call a friend and angrily read the letter to her over the phone. I wanted to call my landlord and angrily read the letter to him over the phone. I wanted to huff and puff and sulk and throw random items around my apartment.

Instead I walked back out my door, coat still on and letter still in hand, and knocked on my neighbors’ door. As I waited for them to answer, I closed my eyes and focused on my heart. I tried to imagine my heart as ten times the size of my head….bursting out of my chest and emanating love. I knew that the energy exchanged between us in the first few seconds after they opened the door would be pivotal, so I didn’t even think about what I was going to say. I just envisioned a tiny body connected to a gigantic heart powerful enough to love the entire world.

The father opened the door. I opened with: “Hi. I am so sorry, but you seem to have completely misread the tone of my letter. Can we talk?” He invited me in. I sat down on the couch with his wife and little girl. We talked. I kept thinking: “Heart-Heart-Heart.” I resisted getting defensive. I didn’t get angry. I repeatedly expressed compassion and understanding for the challenges they face as parents of small children.

They asked me if I wanted to come over for dinner next week. I said yes. They said they would call the building manager and tell him to tear up the letter. We said our goodbyes and I went back to my apartment.

I took off my coat. I took off my shoes. I picked the plastic bag containing my take-out dinner up off of the floor where I had dropped it 20 minutes earlier and placed the contents on my kitchen table. I was starving, exhausted, and emotionally spent. All I wanted to do was eat, get ready for bed, and pass out.

But that thick, chewy anger cloud was still there. It really, really, really wanted me to engage.

It wanted me to stew inside of it. It wanted me to hand over the remaining shreds of my energy so that it could be fed and continue to grow. I refused to read the letter a second time and instead folded it up and put it in a folder in a drawer….yet my mind started replaying segments of the letter. My stomach hurt. My eyelids hurt. My brain hurt. I had nothing left to give.

Instead of eating my dinner, I laid down on my back on the floor of my apartment. I spread out my arms and legs in an X shape and I just focused on my breathing. I closed my eyes and tried to see the anger in my mind’s eye. I examined the changes that were happening in my body. Every time my mind tried to cling to a quote from my neighbors’ letter, I brought myself back down into my body and focused on my breath. I stayed that way for half an hour…until my dinner was cold and my heart rate had returned to normal.

I didn’t talk to anyone else about the letter for the next 24 hours; I knew that the anger cloud wanted to be fed, so I just didn’t feed it. I didn’t look at the letter again until 48 hours later. And I debated long and hard about whether or not to make the story this week’s blog.

But I finally decided that I would make it this week’s blog for one very good reason: my granny.

Granny was my mother’s mother. She lived with my family while I was growing up, so she was kind of like a second mother to me. I loved Granny deeply. She was a short, little Italian woman from New York and she never lost her New York accent even though she lived with us in the Southeast for the last 25 or so years of her life. She was one of the funniest human beings I have ever met, mostly because she was completely oblivious to her comic genius. She loved the hell out of me, my brother, my mother, my father…and I still get teary-eyed when I think about the intensity of that love.

Granny’s mind/memory got worse and worse over the years, and towards the very end she got pretty bad. However, there were two things that Granny never forgot: a really great meal and a person who had wronged her. Granny died at the age of 93, and towards the end of her life she was STILL talking about some girl who had wronged her the day of her 8th grade graduation. I don’t remember the specifics of the story, but I always remember that Granny decided to remain angry at this person for 80 years.

I think there’s something genetic about Italian anger. It can be very, very potent and is probably strong enough to withstand a nuclear holocaust. Granny was angry at a lot of things. Sometimes it was funny, but it was also very sad. Because when you decide that you are a victim and the world is out to get you, that decision dictates how you live your life.

On some level, anger is unavoidable. Anger is part of life: shit happens and it makes you angry. Getting angry doesn’t mean that you are an unevolved or unenlightened person. However, holding on to anger is a choice. I think it can be hard to see it as a choice, but ultimately it is a choice. We decide where we direct our energy. Anger is energy.

I don’t want to stay angry at someone for 80 years. I don’t want to be angry at my neighbors. I don’t want to spend any more time inside of the chewy anger cloud than is absolutely necessary.

But I am part Italian and I did inherit that gene….

So I will keep you posted.

“Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.”

-Arthur Schopenhauer

I love how Schopenhauer proves his own point by his use of the word “man.” (And, of course, given Artie’s views on women it’s to be expected.) His observation is astute (albeit depressing), and my response to Schopenhauer would be as follows:

“Ergo, surround yourself with those who possess fields of vision greater than your own.”

-Jennifer Blevins

I spent last weekend (a/k/a my birthday weekend) by myself at a spiritual retreat on a 500 acre nature reserve in South Carolina. It was my third birthday in a row spent in such a way, and this ritual never fails to offer up a veritable crockpot of emotional shit for me to explore. When you isolate yourself with no phone, no internet, no television, no alcohol and limited contact with other human beings on the day of your birth, you can’t help but get a wee bit pensive.

I make this trip biannually, and the handful of days I spend at this place each year are starting to feel like the only real days of my entire life. Everything else feels like some sort of hazy dream that I’m just trying to get through; as soon as I embark on my retreat, I settle down into myself and let my internal monologue reign supreme. Sometimes I fall in love with myself, other times I completely despise myself, and occasionally I am gifted prophetic bits of guidance that I let steer my course once I am inevitably pulled back into my normal hazy dream existence.

My June retreat offered me a very clear directive: “Quit your job.” So I did. I’m still dealing with the aftermath of that decision (especially financially), and was really hoping for some kick-ass, direct-from-the-Divine guidance this time that would solve all of my problems. What I got instead:

“Patience.”

That was the only guidance I could squeeze out of my monumental, almost-on-a-full-moon, golden birthday adventure: patience. Fucking patience.

Fucking fantastic. Thanks a lot.

So I’m supposed to be…patient.

PATIENT.

LOOK AT ME BEING PATIENT.

I shall work on it.

This place where I go twice a year is dedicated to a spiritual guru from India who “dropped his body” in 1969. The entire center is plastered with pictures of him, so everywhere you turn you see pictures of a benevolent, jovial, enlightened Indian man staring at you (there were four pictures in my tiny cabin alone). In some he’s smiling, and in others he’s staring directly into your soul. It freaked me out at first, and now I absolutely love it. Followers from all over the world visit the center, and the first afternoon I was there I wandered into one of the communal kitchens and walked straight into the middle of a birthday party for this guy named Raj from India; Raj was wearing a t-shirt with the guru’s face plastered on it. I told them my birthday was the next day, and suddenly I found myself in the middle of a birthday celebration for me. We ate a feast of Indian food prepared by some of the women visiting from India and then everyone sang happy birthday to “Jennifer and Raj” and we ate cake. It all felt kind of magical…like the spirit of the guru had just been waiting for me to show up for my own birthday party.

That was Day One.

Day Two was my birthday. If you have never spent your birthday by yourself, I highly recommend it. The experience offers a unique challenge: you are responsible for celebrating your own life. You can’t wait for someone else to make the day special for you. You can’t sulk if a friend/significant other/parent doesn’t surprise you properly or get you the right kind of cake. It is you, with you, celebrating you, and if you don’t feel like celebrating you then you are forced to ask yourself: “why not?” And to answer that question you must dive down into your crockpot of emotional shit and can consider any answers you find as a result to be your birthday gift.

There have been times in the past when I did not feel like celebrating me, but this year I did. And I decided to do it by giving myself a new experience. When this center was built in the 1950’s, the followers built a nice little house for their guru in a gorgeous area overlooking the lake. This house is considered a sacred spot, and it is only open during certain times. You must remove your shoes before entering and remain silent the entire time you are inside.

The house was open from 9-11am on the morning of my birthday, so I decided I would go. But rather than just walk through quickly and peek at the exhibits like I had in the past, I decided I would sit in the guru’s bedroom (i.e. the most sacred of rooms) until something happened.

So I went. I removed my shoes at the door, bowed with reverence and love to the watchers of the house as I passed through the threshold, and walked into his bedroom. There was one older man already in the room, sitting in a chair with his eyes closed. A picture of the guru hangs over the bed, and it’s one of the pictures where the guru’s eyes really penetrate you. But not in an intimidating way….more in an “I-know-this-life-shit-is-hard-and-I-feel-for-you” sort of way.

I sat down in one of the chairs near the foot of the bed. I planted my feet firmly on the ground, rested my hands on my thighs, and started to focus on my breathing. I closed my eyes. I asked for guidance. I asked for love. I expressed gratitude for being invited to visit the center. I expressed gratitude for my life. I felt the weight of my body supported by the metal chair.

Then more people joined us. An older woman, clearly in a lot of physical pain, entered the room. She stood over the guru’s bed and started rubbing the top of the bed with her hand and then rubbing that same hand over her lower back. After a few minutes of this, she sat down in a chair near the old man. Then a woman with long black hair who looked to be about 50 years old came in. She knelt down next to the bed and bowed her head so that it was touching the top of the bed. After a few moments of prayer, she got up and sat in the chair next to me.

So the four of us sat there together, in silence, breathing. Praying. I started praying for the others. I prayed for the old woman’s back. I prayed for the old man’s sad heart. I prayed for the prayers of the woman with the long black hair to be answered.

We all cried, but all at different times. I glanced over and saw tears rolling down the face of the old woman in pain. I watched as the old man got up from his chair, walked over to the foot of the bed, and knelt down (with considerable difficulty) to prostrate himself before the picture of the guru. After a few minutes on the ground, he got up (with even more difficulty) and walked out of the room.

I started thinking about patience.

I started thinking about the fact that not too long ago I would not have expressed gratitude for my life. I started thinking about the things that I want to do with this life, now that I actually want it. I started thinking about how 31 is not that old; I am only just beginning.

I started thinking about all of the people I love and who love me; there are so many.

I started thinking about my writing. I started thinking about this blog and those of you who read it.

And then I started thinking about the guru, and I realized what I was seeing play out right in front of me: when a person lives fully in their essence and shares that with the world, others can only benefit from it. Here is a dude who publicly declared at a young age that he was “God in human form” and then spent the rest of his life trying to help and inspire other people. I am sure that not everyone he encountered in his life agreed with his assessment of himself, and I am sure that he experienced a lot of pain and resistance. But because he put himself out there and stayed true to his essence, he changed the lives of countless individuals. I spent my birthday morning in his bedroom with a handful of these individuals, and I saw firsthand the effects of the guru’s love.

The old woman left not too long after the old man. I had been sitting there for over an hour, and I was beginning to get hungry for breakfast. My stomach was rumbling and the metal chair was starting to get uncomfortable. A thought suddenly occurred to me: I want to kneel down at the foot of the bed, too. I didn’t really know why, but I just wanted to do it. So I decided I would get up, kneel down, and then leave and go make myself a birthday breakfast.

But right as I was about to get up from my chair, a new person entered the room. It was a hippie-looking guy, maybe 40 years old, and he immediately planted himself at the foot of the bed. He sat down on the floor and basically camped out. There’s a little note on the bed that asks you to “kindly limit your time at the bed in consideration of others,” but apparently this guy didn’t really care. Because he sat there FOREVER. After about 15 minutes, he was showing no signs of moving.

“But I’m hungry and uncomfortable!” I screamed silently. “You’re fucking with my schedule, hippie-man. I must kneel and eat! Kneel and eat!”

And then I caught the eye of the guru. He looked like he was smiling at me.

“Patience,” he seemed to say.

“Ah-ha,” I silently responded. “Touché.”

Patience.

That night I stumbled into another dinner (which was great, because I hate to cook) and ended up supping with a woman and two men in one of the communal kitchens. The woman was from Utah, one of the men was from Charlotte, the other guy seemed to be a nomad, and all of them were at least 20 years older than I am. When they asked me how my birthday was going, I brought up the subject of patience. We proceeded to have a conversation about the relationship between patience and faith.

Because the more I thought about it, the more I realized that patience demands faith. To be truly and sincerely patient, it helps if you have faith that your patience will eventually pay off. Patience is easier if you have faith that there are things outside of your “field of vision” that you just cannot see.

So you can: a) have patience that someday you will be able to see things outside of your field of vision; and/or b) seek out people who already do see outside of your field of vision and spend some time with them.

Or, I suppose, you can prove Schopenhauer right. But what a boring and depressing life….to assume that all we are is all we can see.

Happy birthday to me; this year I will work on patience.

The heart is a muscle. It is our center.

The heart uses four valves to ensure that blood only flows in one direction: the tricuspid valve, the pulmonary valve, the mitral valve, and the aortic valve. In a healthy heart, each valve closes as blood travels from one chamber of the heart to another so that the blood cannot go back to where it was before. Blood must keep moving through the heart if we are to be healthy; it shouldn’t go back.

If it does go back, something is wrong with a valve and the heart is not healthy. If your heart is not healthy, you are not healthy.

So it is healthier if your heart knows how to let go…knows how to let the blood flow and doesn’t try to hold on to it or force it back. It is healthier if it knows how to let each valve close at the appropriate moment, trusting that the next valve will open and let the flow of blood continue.

The heart chakra is the fourth chakra in the body; its corresponding colors are green and pink. It is the center of love, compassion, forgiveness, empathy, understanding, acceptance, peace. Of the seven chakras in the body, the heart chakra can be the most difficult one to keep open.

Well, at least it can be for me.

Sometimes I just want to hide from you people. But I made a commitment to myself when I started this blog in April that I would post at least once a week, no matter what. At some point in the last seven months this blog took on a life of its own. I still don’t really know what I’m doing with it. Sometimes I resent it, and other times it seems like the only good thing in my life. It has changed countless existing relationships, started many new relationships, and I continue to be simultaneously shocked and moved by the sometimes very personal things that many of you choose to share with me. It’s like you people think I’m Oprah or something.

Maybe it’s because you trust me. Maybe you feel like I give you permission. Because I remain transparent and authentic in my writing, perhaps you feel safe doing the same with me. If so, that’s beautiful – please keep doing it. I love receiving your brave notes. It reminds me of the scene at the end of Footloose when all of the students are at the school dance they fought so hard to have yet none of them are brave enough to actually get up on the dance floor…not until Kevin Bacon gets up to slow dance with his special lady friend. Then that shit is ON. So maybe, for a few of you, I’m your Kevin Bacon.

If so, that’s awesome.

But remaining transparent and authentic at times like now when all I want to do is hide and close off my heart is very hard.

Another thing that is hard: I think you think you know me. And I don’t blame you; I would think I knew me too, if I were you.

Saturday night I attended a benefit for Visible Theatre in Tarrytown, New York. I saw my lovely friend Julia for the first time in months, and when she started to ask me how I was doing she suddenly stopped herself and said: “Well, I feel like I already know how you’re doing since I read your blog every week. You’re like a celebrity in my life.”

I laughed at her comment and it made me feel good at the time, but it got me to thinking. I started thinking about what it means to be a writer.

When I first discovered I was supposed to be a writer, I didn’t tell anyone about it. I was scared to death of my discovery so I kept it a secret. When I finally did start writing and telling some people about it, I was terrified. Not necessarily because I was afraid my writing wasn’t going to be good – rather, because I knew my writing, regardless of the genre, was going to be revealing and honest and I didn’t know if I was ready to share myself with others. When I did start sharing my writing with others, it started changing my relationships….sometimes positively, sometimes negatively.

I’m still at the beginning of this journey of being a writer, and already I feel invaded. Yet, of course, I was the very one who invited you in.

I often think about what my friend Sherry told me about my astrological chart: “it’s quite possible that the way you are perceived when people first meet you is quite different from your public persona and also how you are on a deeper level.” That’s actually a characteristic of those with my Myers-Briggs personality type (INFJ) as well. It’s the rarest type, and we are frequently mistaken for extroverts.

I wonder who I am to you, especially those of you who read this and don’t know me personally. I imagine that I am crafting my writer public persona as I write this blog, and I have very little control over how you see me. All I can do is offer myself up; you do the rest.

But sometimes this shit is really hard. Ever since I was a kid I have vacillated between extreme emotional states – sometimes jubilant and courageous and manic, other times deeply depressed and withdrawn and hopeless. I developed a generic public persona that hovers somewhere between the two extremes, and it’s rare I venture too far from it in mixed company. I can count on the fingers of my hands the number of people I regularly let pass that threshold; there are probably a lot more people in my life who think they get past it than actually do.

I did that to protect myself and to protect the people around me. The intricate scaffolding I built up around my heart as a very young girl is actually quite impressive; as an adult, I’ve been working years on trying to tear it down. And as I do, I work on forgiving myself for building it in the first place. It was the only solution available to me at the time.

So part of what I try to do with this blog is remove the scaffolding and open my heart for you. I don’t really know yet why I do it. Do you have any idea how terrifying it is?

But we both seem to be getting something from it, so I will continue to do it.

These days I feel: lonely, burdened. My heart feels heavy. It does not want to open for you.

So I’ve been thinking about this gorgeous, powerful muscle I have in my chest and learning how it works. I am fascinated by those four valves.

Because what the mechanics of the heart say to me is that my heart doesn’t just need to open – it needs to move. It needs to flow. Blood needs to keep moving forward; those four valves ensure that it does.

I feel like I’m at a sort of precipice in my life right now. Many relationships and areas of my life are changing and shifting, and I want to continue to let them do so. Those valves are there for a reason…no need to go back.

And I’m going to keep showing up for you, and letting you do with me what you will. Like any muscle, the heart needs a workout if it is going to get stronger.

So consider this my workout.

I feel victim to a force greater than myself. I have spent years writing about it, trying to understand it, wanting to get away from it. It is a very personal and private matter and involves another person; how can I possibly write about it in a blog? Let’s see…hm. I shall write about magnets.

A magnet produces an invisible magnetic field. That invisible magnetic field produces a powerful force that either attracts or repels other magnets. Bring yourself back to elementary school for a moment: you are sitting on the carpeted floor of your classroom in your red Oshkosh B’Gosh corduroys, playing with and learning about magnets. You turn two magnets one way and they repel each other; you enjoy trying to make them connect, even though they don’t want to. You turn one of those magnets the other way and it’s difficult to keep them apart. You keep pulling them away from each other, only to watch them find their way back to each other in the end.

Yes. Yes. Yes. I can relate.

Why do they do that? I don’t really know. There are specific, scientific reasons for it, but every time I try to research the science behind magnets in order to write this blog I begin to hear the voice of the teacher from Charlie Brown in my head and can’t focus on or retain any of the information. Science was not my strongest subject in school; you can probably guess what was.

Believe it or not, I actually performed in a show about magnets. Yes…a play about magnets was actually written and I actually performed in it. When I was working at the Barter Theatre (a/k/a the “State Theatre of Virginia”), I was in the Player Company. Player Company members were the non-union bitches. Translation: one day a Player could have a leading role in one of the Barter mainstage productions, and the next day that same Player could be sorting through the recyclables out in the trash shed behind the rehearsal hall. I loved it and hated it and I still consider my fellow Players to be family members to this very day.

The Magnetic Adventures of Moe Mentum was written by a company member to be performed by Players at elementary and middle schools. There were three characters (Moe Mentum, Inertia, Polaris) and more than one Player learned each role so that any random mixture of Players could go out and perform when needed. As Players, our lives were dictated by the call board hanging in the hallway of our actor housing; the schedule for the next day went up every night by 11pm. Each night we would trudge over to the call board in our pajamas, hoping beyond hope that we wouldn’t see our name listed next to an early morning performance of The Magnetic Adventures of Moe Mentum. It wasn’t that we didn’t enjoy doing touring shows for kids per se; I actually consider the production of Charlotte’s Web I did with that same group of actors in elementary and middle school cafetoriums to be one of the best pieces of theatre in which I have ever been involved. We just didn’t like doing Moe Mentum.

My favorite performances were when the cast lined up as follows: Eugene Sumlin as Moe Mentum, Jen Katz as Inertia, Jennifer Blevins as Polaris. Poor Eugene had to wear a unitard. A grown man in a unitard in a middle school gymnasium. Oh, poor Eugene. Eugene also had to learn all of the really hard lines about magnets. As Polaris, I just had to be the bad guy and try to destroy the world with my evil electromagnet. But Moe Mentum’s job was to explain to Inertia why magnets do what they do, so poor Eugene had to stand in front of hundreds of kids in a unitard and try to make magnets exciting.

It never failed that during the Q&A session after the show some kid would ask Eugene a very specific question about the mechanics of magnets. None of us had actually researched magnets, and Eugene only learned his lines for the show (and hell, he barely learned those), so he prepared a stock answer for that inevitable question: “Well kids, that sounds like an excellent question to research in your local library.”

Magnets. Yes: Moe Mentum would explain to Inertia why magnets do what they do. Magnets repel and attract because it is their very nature to do so. It is a mindless, instinctual act on the part of the magnet. You don’t see one of the magnets debating if it should affix itself to the other magnet, or asking the other magnet: “um, do you really think we should?” No. They just do it. They connect. And they stay connected until some other force pulls them apart.

But, given the opportunity, they will always connect again.

I think people may have magnets inside of them. Sometimes you encounter a person whose internal magnet repels your internal magnet. If you are thrust into a particular situation with that person which you can’t escape (for instance: your workplace), then you must find a way to create enough distance between you and that other person so that the two of you don’t experience that crazy magnet-repelling-thing that you created so excitedly on the classroom floor in your red Oshkosh B’Gosh corduroys all those many years ago.

Every once in a while you meet the opposite kind of person. You are drawn to them, and you can’t fully explain why. It seems beyond your control.

You go through life and you encounter people with all different kinds of magnets of varying sizes and strengths that attract your magnet, and you build relationships with those people and mutually enjoy the harmonious connection of your internal magnets.

And then one day you meet the big magnet. The mother of all magnets.

You become haunted by this magnet. Now that you know this magnet is out there, you can’t help but want to connect with it. It feels like your destiny to connect. After all, that’s what magnets do.

But what if this magnet is inside an asshole? Or a troll living under a bridge? Or a Republican? Well, you might be able to work with those kinds of things. Adapt. Be flexible. Learn to appreciate bridges and Fox News.

But what if this magnet is inside someone you can’t be with? And what if you know that, even if you could be with this person and this magnet, it would be a terrible idea? And what if your logical/rational mind is very clear on this point?

“Bad idea,” says the mind.

“But I must connect,” says the magnet. “For that is what I do.”

Magnetic fields are invisible, yes. But you can feel them. When you flipped those magnets back around and held them apart from each other as a kid, you could feel in your hands how badly they wanted to come together. And there was a certain relief when they finally did…like maybe the universe makes sense after all, and you just need to go out and find the right magnet.

But maybe not. Perhaps the most interesting part is the energy that exists between the magnets….the life force that is created between two magnets yearning to connect. Maybe that’s the whole point.

But, if so, that sucks.

I try to wrap my brain around the magnet phenomenon in my own life, and I find I cannot. And it might be because magnets are brainless and could give a shit about my hang-ups, moral conundrums and circumstance. They don’t adhere to logic and they don’t ask for your permission. Actually, the more I write about magnets the more offended I am by their audacity.

“Fuck you,” says the magnet. “I will have my day.”

At least I know I’m not alone in this, because I can feel the other magnet pulling. Over the years it has pulled with varying levels of strength, but that other magnet is always pulling. The owner of that other magnet is probably just as confused about it as I am.

And I imagine he is also offended by the audacity of magnets.

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Just a reminder: if you read Theblevinsblog, like it, and aren’t too timid to declare that publicly, please become a fan on Facebook. And if you know someone else who likes it, send them an invitation to be a fan! I don’t really know what good it does me to have a fan page on Facebook, but my friend Jeff thought it wise. And it does offer me solace in my darker moments. And it is a bit ironic. And there’s a picture of me on there as a little baby with schnoot all over my face.

Why I am more special than you

If I could pick one week of the year in which to spend eternity, it would be the final week of October. I never feel as alive as I do in late October, and the buildup to the most beloved pagan celebration never gets old. Halloween is arguably the coolest holiday we have, and it also happens to be the day of my birth. When I was a very little girl, my mother would dress me up as a black cat every Halloween/birthday in a black leotard, tights, kitty cat tail, whiskers n’ ears and I would greet trick-or-treaters at our door. I naturally assumed that the entire holiday was a global celebration of my birth; how depressing to grow up and learn of my relative insignificance.

When my younger brother and I got a little older my father would take us trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. It was my favorite night of the entire year. My mom and little Italian live-in granny would stay home to handle the trick-or-treaters who came to our door while my brother, father and I set out to conquer our suburban neighborhood. The stakes were high on Halloween for the entire Blevins clan; we each had a job, and we each took that job very seriously.

Team Blevins would set out in full costume around 5 o’clock and continue to trick-or-treat late into the night. We would hit really good houses twice, hoping that they wouldn’t remember us the second time around. The three of us would make occasional pit stops at home; while we went to the bathroom and/or downed some Gatorade, my granny and my mom would sort through our loot and take out the crappy candy to recycle. The crappy candy would go to the next round of trick-or-treaters who came to our door and Team Blevins would hit the streets again for Round 2. Round 3. Round 4. We were unstoppable in our quest for free candy and cheap thrills.

My dad would hang back at each house, letting us work our little kid magic. When we would rejoin him after the deal was done, he’d ask, “Whadja get? Anything good?” We would collectively assess our loot and discuss whether it belonged in the “crappy candy” pile or the “to be eaten” pile. When we had trick-or-treated all that we could trick-or-treat, we would head home and strip off our ceremonial garb. Then would come the coolest part: our parents would let us eat the candy. There was no “pick out your favorite three pieces and then go to bed”….no “human beings aren’t meant to consume that much refined sugar in one sitting.” Nope. They would let us sit down on the floor in front of the t.v. in the living room and pig the hell out. My brother and I would launch into a frenzy, pinging off the walls from all of the sugar and excitement and electrolytes and pure little-kid-joy.

Then we’d get sick and pass out. I would wake up on November 1st another year older and severely depressed that I would have to wait 364 days for my next Halloween/birthday.

You can’t help but feel just a little more special than all of the other kids when your birthday falls on a holiday…especially a holiday as cool as Halloween. I must confess that I have carried that sensation with me into my adult life and I still feel more special than all of you non-Halloween-born plebs. Like I was chosen for greatness by a mystical power that determined I would be born at 2:03pm on October 31st in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Like I’m Harry Potter, predestined to battle Voldemort and save the world. Except instead of using magic I’m going to fight him by pelting candy corn and little boxes of Nerds and chalky Double Bubble bubble gum at his head while dressed up as a sexy nurse.

Recently my friend Sherry was kind enough to share her knowledge of astrology with me by checking out my chart and telling me what it means. When I was born, both the sun and the moon were in Scorpio. And so was Mercury. And Venus. And Mars. And Uranus. The moon, the sun and 4 planets were all in Scorpio the moment I was born. So if you don’t like Scorpios, perhaps we should not be friends.

Sherry says I have a “pretty fascinating chart.” See? I told you I’m more special than you. I was kind of overloaded by everything she told me, but it all resonated and made sense. It made me feel a lot better, actually. Like maybe there is some design/explanation for all of this life shit after all. But my planets are all clustered together in an intense way under the most intense sign, so I imagine that it could be difficult to be in a relationship with me. Sorry. She said that the way those planets are positioned in relation to my ascendant means “it’s quite possible that the way you are perceived when people first meet you is quite different from your public persona and also how you are on a deeper level.” So….yeah. Good luck with that.

As we were talking about my chart and her chart, I thought about the universal need to be seen/understood/special. Isn’t it funny how we all crave so desperately for someone to tell us who we are? The plethora and popularity of Facebook quizzes alone is proof that we are obsessed with being told all of the ways in which we are unique.

I wonder if this need has something to do with a basic survival instinct. Maybe our cave-people ancestors planted the roots of our Facebook quizzes. Because you have to be pretty self-focused to survive dinosaurs and sabertooth tigers and the like. If you weren’t self-focused, you’d probably just let them eat you and get it over with because, hey – what the hell does it matter anyway? But if you know which Sex in the City character you would be and which decade you really belong in and how effective you would be in a zombie attack, you are no longer just a random cave-person. You are special. You are unique. You are Carrie and you really should have lived in the 1960s and when the zombies attack you’ll be on the front line. So you are one-of-a-kind and have a lot to lose if you let that sabertooth tiger eat you.

But yes, we do all need to feel special. Unique. One-of-a-kind. Like I do every year when I experience my first Halloween decoration sighting in a drug store. We adore it when we are told the ways in which we are different. We crave it. And I think it has to do with love.

Part of the process of entering a relationship/falling in love with someone is telling them all of the ways they are special. Irreplaceable. Unique. When you love someone, you try to reflect back to them all of the best parts of themselves. And if you succeed, they love you more. And then they stick around to find out what other amazing things you’re going to say about them. And if you are truly able see the beauty of their essence and report back to them about it, they are putty in your hands.

We want to feel special because we want to feel loved. The best love relationships in life are the ones where you love the self that is reflected back to you by the other person…whether it be a lover or a parent or a friend. The need to feel loved is a universal need; I think it’s natural to crave it.

One Halloween when we were living in Charlotte it rained. Rain during the day turned into a torrential downpour that night and our parents told us that the weather was too nasty to go trick-or-treating. I think I was about 10 or 11 at the time. I went and sat in my room and cried my eyes out. I sobbed. Maybe because a part of me knew that I didn’t have many trick-or-treating Halloweens left before I got too old…I don’t know. But I was devastated. My father found me sitting in my room, crying. He told us to put our costumes on – we were going trick-or-treating. He drove us around in the pouring rain, waiting in the car while we walked up to each house underneath umbrellas to get our candy.

I felt really special that night.