I Ego, Therefore I Am

I went out for a lovely dinner last night.  It was lovely for many reasons; the food was good, we sat outside on a clear summer evening and my friend was paying. Now anyone with any sense of propriety knows you don’t argue with the person paying the bill. This is standard etiquette, right? But having grown up in a barn, fallen off a turnip truck and been absent when God handed out sense (all things I have been accused of over the years) I proceeded to take my patron for a jolly ride into Nancyland.

She’d been sharing her love for The Law of Attraction and telling me about how she prayed every day to have calm clients and a wonderful, peaceful day. My inner-contrarian wanted to shout “but that’s all bull-shit” in that tactful and sensitive way I have about me.  Instead I asked if it had worked, had all her client’s been calm that day? What about the next day? ‘Cause if all I had to do was pray to get what I want, if it actually works, then whoo-hoo, I’ll be rolling in millions and having sex with Ewan McGregor tonight!

Wouldn’t we all love to have the magic formula for controlling our outcomes? Wouldn’t it be great if we got exactly what we asked for? Uh, no. My two year old longed to play in the street. He thought it was absolutely the Best place for him. Did I listen to his pleas and prayers? Uh, No. The streets are a dangerous place to play in and so is life.

I believe that in the cosmic scheme of things I am two years old. I long to play in the street, have my cake and eat it too and have sex with Ewan McGregor (I am a sexually precocious two-year-old.) Luckily, I have a Higher Parent who says no (let’s call her Mimi) and if I am smart I listen to Mimi. If not –giant trucks roll over my life.

But Nancy, you say, you’re a 12 stepper, doesn’t your 11^th step tell you to pray and meditate to a higher power? Why yes it does, you clever person you. But finish the step –it tells me to “pray for knowledge of Mimi’s will for me and the power to carry that out.” (Not all the signs say Mimi, but you get the drift.)

My job is to put aside my Ego, my “want-a-nator” and ask what Mimi wants for me and power to do that shit. But, you ask again because you weren’t born yesterday, on a turnip truck or in a barn and so have the natural skepticism of the discerning mature adult, what if Mimi wants you to do something you find boring? That would be a problem, I agree. 

But Mimi wants what’s BEST for me, not what’s easy. I trust Mimi and not out of “faith” but because of the cold, hard facts. The life my ego chose for me was not so good. My ego still wants to lead me a merry dance and it never ends well. When I listen to Mimi I cruise the Wu Wei with Pooh on my way to happiness. (For those not getting the last reference please read “The Tao of Pooh” it will clear a lot of things up.)

In Taoisn the Wu Wei means “without doing, causing or making”. It means, to me, flowing With the river instead of Pushing the river. I have a black belt in river pushing, making things go MY WAY!! I want it so I will MAKE it happen.  And though as a member of the human race it is very difficult to admit this, I am usually wrong. Not that I didn’t learn something from my three failed marriages, my bankruptcy’s, losing my house, my car and my shit (literal and figurative). I did learn valuable lessons. The biggest one; don’t listen to Nancy, she doesn’t know what she’s doing.

 Does it mean I no longer make ego mistakes? Au contraire mon ami, it just means I recognize it a little earlier than I used to. It now takes 4 days to recognize my ego at play rather than 4 years. In other words, I no longer marry the mistake.

Recent example; the web series. I pushed that river right around the bend. Did it work? Nope. Not even close. I’ve been down about it, can’t lie, but then I realized I didn’t really like shooting film stuff. I love the thrill of an audience. I want to make people laugh, cry, think and be there while they do it. So why did I push so hard to make the web series happen? Ego. Pure and simple. I thought more people would see it, I would be discovered, ink a 3 picture development deal, move to LA and have sex with Ewan McGregor. 

In other words, I had no Good reason to do it. I didn’t like filming it. I didn’t like writing it in choppy segments. It wasn’t giving me joy.

That’s how I can tell if my Ego is running things or if Mimi is. Mimi is a lot of fun. She gives me joy and passion. My Ego gives me hurt feelings, massive fuck-ups and bruised –well –egos. When I’m cruising the Wu Wei things fall into place. It’s like magic and we all love magic, right?

Recent example; I’ve been thinking, seriously, about becoming a Life Coach so I started asking Mimi for some sign about what was next for me. I’m pretty demanding of Mimi but she doesn’t seem to care, she indulges my little whims, my need to have proof of her existence.  So I do my 11^th step prayer work, ask for knowledge and let it go.

So I’m looking for some sign about the coaching thing but instead on Sunday, one of the guys I work with tells me he wants to stake me in putting together a dinner theater here in Wilsonville. He wants to know if $20,000 would be enough. He’s serious. Now Mimi (and Boyce) could just be yanking my chain but hey, if that ain’t a sign, I don’t know what is. And as I told my friend last night I could not have planned to start a theater company this way. Can you imagine if I had told any of you that my plan was to start a theater company but working at a Toyota dealership where I would meet a guy who loved the theater and wanted to give me money. You would have rolled your eyes. Am I right? I’m right. I would too.

So he wants to do something for Christmas. Anybody got some good ideas? Bonus points if it includes me having sex with Ewan McGregor.

The Blind Leading the Blind

I’ve been pondering a career change. Although my part-time job in the call center of a Toyota dealership is very fulfilling and I have helped many customers make the critical choices between a Corolla or a Camry, Hybrid or gas, I’m not sure I’m really being challenged.

I’ve been researching becoming a Life Coach. I’m assured by many on-line resources, who want to take my money to teach me to become one, that it is a real profession and of great worth to the population in general. But how would I coach someone to get a life when I don’t have one of my own? Would this just be the blind leading the blind? (Hence the title of this blog post.)

If I’m going to help others follow their dreams, I better get some closure on mine. That’s what I’m thinking.

I had been looking at going back to school to become a real counselor but, sheesh, it takes years and I’m already old. Besides I have no money which is part of the impetus for a career change.

I thought about supplementing my meager income with a stable and satisfying job as an actor. We all know this is a lucrative career. Why, in my hey-day as a professional actor in Seattle I made up to $50 a week doing 7 shows a week of “Leave It To Jane.” Surely with inflation that has gone up to $55 a week.

Those two great ideas are based on life-long dreams that may not be as life-long as I thought. When is putting aside a passion, such as acting, not a sign of failure but a sign of maturity? I’ve never been accused of maturity so I’m not sure what it feels like, but I have felt failure. Are they different? Does maturity suck as much as failure? If so, I’m sticking with Peter Pan and refusing to grow up. Oh, who am I kidding, a 60 year old Peter Pan is shockingly sad and I could never fit in those green tights now anyway.

When is it all right to admit to oneself that you will never, ever move to NY, live in a dinky studio and study with Uta Hagen?  Is it okay now that Hagen is dead? Can I finally admit the real reason I never went was my pathological fear of cockroaches? When can I stop beating myself up for being a scardy cat and a big, fat wussy?

I never followed those dreams. Not to any conclusion. How could I possibly charge someone to let me guide them? To what? A part-time job in a call center?

Still, I wonder if I do have something to offer, if only as a cautionary tale. I could pull out all my press clippings (all three of them) and show them my videos of my fabulous career in Community Theater and scare them into taking a giant leap into their lives. Look what will happen to you if you don’t. Gives me shivers just thinking of the likely impact.

John Lennon once said that life is what happens when we’re making other plans. And it is true I have been alive these 60 years and I was doing stuff. It might not have been in a straight line toward a stated goal but some of it’s been fun. I guess. And I have had some truly wonderful moments in my life, not all of them centered on my kid.

I’ve been asking myself, what have I done that has given me great and lasting pleasure? I can think of two things, other than being a parent, which is the greatest S and M in life.(Should be "fiftey Shades of Parenting")

The first is watching sponsees flourish. I have had the supreme honor of working with sponsees in Al-Anon guiding them through the 12 Steps. Most of them never finished but three of them have. All three of them have vastly more pleasant lives than when they started. Not just pleasant –really fulfilling. They are happy and when they came into the rooms they were broken. 

Of course, being a sponsor is a spiritual position. I was not speaking with my own authority but that of the 12 Steps and a Higher Power. Still, I showed up every week, sat in the rooms with them, usually over more than two years, and helped. I did help. What a joy it was to help people who wanted help. I had tried to “help” all my friends and lovers over the years and their standard response was “piss off.” But these three women showed up, notebooks in hand, ready to take the next step, literally and figuratively. If I died now this would be my greatest achievement.

I also had a shining moment in the summer of 1990. I had started a small summer stock company in the coastal town of Newport, Oregon. We were in our second successful year of producing family friendly fare for the tourists and townies.

Because of a production I had seen of “The Miracle Worker” at my high school (thank you Kathy Paladino) I have loved that play forever. I never got to act in it but I decided to direct it that year. Would summer theater goers want to see a dramatic play after their Neil Simon? It turns out the answer was a resounding yes as every performance sold out. I had a great cast (thank you Annie Kaiser) and I think my love for the material shined through.

After a performance a grown man –in his 40’s probably –walked up to me. He was crying. He took my hand and thanked me for the play. It had moved him. To tears. And to take my sweaty summer hand. He thanked me. For directing a play I loved. He had been moved by a 50 year old play about a 100 year old story. No, it wasn’t Broadway. No, I didn’t make very much for directing it and the actors made even less for performing in it. But what a gift! To me.

Maybe I do have a little insight into following your heart. Maybe it’s not a grand plan but those decisions we make day to day just because our heart wants to. We don’t receive money, property or prestige. We get something better. We grow a soul.

Is that enough?