Almost Home.

Copyright Claire A. Taylor Photography.

Today is technically Day 16 of #21days of being a minimalist.

This time has blown by a little faster and been a little less productive than I had hoped. I’m okay..! But I wound up sick and in the hospital for a night with a bad infection, and I’ve had a few lethargic and sick days.

I’ve had to rethink my mental framework of this exercise. I had thought that these 21 days would have to be super active and full of work. Like, I’d be doing something wrong if I wasn’t constantly listening to podcasts and journaling and pouring through my belongings to chuck things and blogging here every day. But what this taught me is that I can still be doing work and still learning things by just living. In no way was I “almost dying” but a brush with poor health made me realize that what I needed with me during that time was simple. I wanted good rest and good music. Traveling two 10 hour drives in the back of the car, I had just about enough energy to stare out the car window into the vast beauty of the desert or Utah, the Navajo Reservation, the mountains of southern Colorado. It’s a world out there. Even when I was feeling horrible, I only needed a few things to make me feel happier.

I have gotten rid of a few things since my last post. One thing was very hard: my “sleep no more” mask. I saw the show in New York at the beginning of our tour. I wanted to keep the mask as a memory of the night and to maybe use in the future of my acting career, or maybe even just proof that I had been. I recently left it behind in the trashcan of a hotel room. It just didn’t make sense to carry it along for the last month, all the way to Chicago, and then all the way to Oregon, and then all the way back again. I imagine seeing the show again in the future, and will get another mask at that point if I realize I have made a huge mistake. But as of now, I feel totally fine that it’s gone. I can always buy or make a mask that is specific and important to me if I ever do mask work in the future.

I also typed up important passages from one of my journals that is almost finished. It is mostly random notes or old free-writes based on a character I studied. Anything that is of value to me is documented digitally now. I can’t quite bring myself to just toss it yet, especially with the stickers on the outside. But I think I will soon.

I’ve also gotten ride of a few more clothes and worked on minimizing my online presence (Deleting old tweets, old facebook posts) and deleting any files that I can. I don’t want to have digital clutter as well.

Being very mindful of what I bring for the day. Items I need for work: camera, computer/hard drive, chargers, bag of makeup. Other things: snacks, water bottle, headphones, kindle, wallet, room key, bag of toiletries, this phone.

Probably could have found a way to bring less. But I think I’m working on it.

My first act is to figure out what I actually own. I admit to having a storage unit. I feel like I have a different current situation than most people I see beginning minimalism. People have some major event that changes their lives - they look around at all their stuff and think, “I’m unhappy, something’s got to change.” I feel like I was forced into a change where by default I have to own very little and have felt the benefits first, and now I’m backtracking to learn why. 

There’s a game we play in acting. It’s called “In my suitcase I have...” where one person says an item, and the next person says the original item plus a new one and on and on until the string is so long, someone can’t do it. I think it’s funny how much that relates. The longer the list, the harder it becomes, the person with the most things to say builds an incredible amount of stress leading up to their turn. But also, a trick to helping the group is to say things that are more unique, more memorable. Someone may have a harder time remembering “pencil” or “sweater” but I bet they won’t forget “the weight of sins” or “my grandmother’s figurine collection” or “my favorite stuffed animal” because those things are specific and meaningful. 

To get to the point: I have a lot of things in my suitcase. With me on this tour I have a large suitcase, my northface backpack, a camera bag, a reusable shopping bag full of food, my purse, and a blanket. I’m tackling my suitcase first. I took out each item in my suitcase, cataloged it, and repacked. 

crosstrainers weatherproof workboots converse dress flats

large winter coat small insulated coat raincoat leather jacket light grey sweater dark grey sweater denim vest

2 pair jeans brown pants linen pants 5 workout leggings 2 pair sweatpants long skirt 2 pair shorts

2 long sleeved workout tops 4 workout tanks 6 sports bras 2 running shorts

long grey tank green tank pattern tank white fancy tank blue fancy top orange long-sleeved shirt romper dress fancy wool dress striped business shirt

7 t-shirts 7 long sleeved shirts 2 flannels 1 black undershirt

3 bras 14ish socks/underwear pj boxers light scarf gloves assorted jewelry and watch swimsuit bottom 2 swimsuit top

1 bottle whisky bag of medicine laundry detergent toiletries straightening iron

I was able to get rid of the following: 1 purple shirt - I only wore as pj’s and god I hate that color, 1 white long shirt - have the same in green, 1 long grey shirt - old and stained, comfortable but not worth it there will be more comfortable shirts, 1 black tank top - redundant piece that’s old and the shoulder part tends to slip off, 2 stretched headbands - I hardly use these except to set my hair, I kept two. 

Here are some of the excuses I came up with to keep things:

1. Yeah, these are not my favorite clothes, but I need practical clothes for my job. I’ll get rid of more things when I get my stuff out of storage.

2. I will be in a bunch of different climates over the next four months. If it’s cold, I’ll need all these long sleeved shirts.

3. Who knows if I’ll have an audition coming up or self tapes, I should probably keep these few nice clothes on hand. 

4. I don’t have access to laundry very easily. I hate doing laundry. Doing laundry infrequently adds value to my life. 

5. I don’t want to get rid of the clothes I don’t like until I get to my storage unit because I don’t want to spend the money on buying new clothes in May when I know I have some things packed away. 

6. When I packed originally in January, these were the things I already decided I couldn’t live without. Why would I get rid of this stuff when I could declutter my storage unit if only I had access to it. 

Let me start off by saying, my job is hard. Not hard in the traditional sense, nor is it the hardest job out there, I’m sure; I’m not performing life-changing surgery on a living person. But to me, my job is hard. 

It is hard that I sleep in a new bed every night, often for only a few hours before packing up again. My work days are often 12, 15, 18 hours long. I sit in cars for hours at a time without space or privacy to achieve personal tasks. I act in three heavy and emotionally draining shows. I meet new people constantly and use a great deal of brain space keeping professional contacts straight in email chains and in person. I have no ability to form in-person relationships with people. I love my job, if it weren’t hard, I wouldn’t enjoy it. 

But I don’t have time (or rather in my perception) to do some of the things I feel passionate about right now. I want to be a great photographer. I could wake up in the mornings early and take a walk with my camera instead of just snapping pics at our venues. I could finally finish that play or two I’ve been working on. I could focus on my body and my health. Work toward happiness. There are skills I really want to learn. It all feels so difficult to make space for these things after all my obligations are met. It feels especially overwhelming to have goals piling up on top of each other, and all this guilt about doing none of them. 

They say it takes 21 days to make or break a habit. I know that’s not real science anymore, but three weeks seems like a very manageable amount of time. Every 21 days I will pick a new skill, goal, activity, or approach to live with. I hope to track how it makes me feel, what setting aside time and space to do something small everyday can do for me. 

A Whale Shark is Not a Whale

I went to the aquarium to be somewhere else. No one has any clue where they actually are when they stare at fish. When you’re under the sweet blue waves of the sea, you can be anything. Even a fish.

Me? I’d choose to be a whale shark. She’s so big and gentle. She’s bigger than anything else around her. Her heart is a hundred times larger than the small fish that swim protected under her belly. They do not whisper their thanks but match her long undulations double time to stay perfectly under her arms. I think whale sharks must have a hard time explaining how they feel. Their voices vibrate much lower than their companions’. She silently swims along, never changing her pace while her broad mouth wordlessly opens and closes.

I went to the aquarium to forget where I am. No I’m not in Georgia. I’m sitting inside an air bubble released from an underwater volcano. I float past the whale sharks. A starfish reaches out and holds me close. I float on: I shake hands with an anemone, I catch a ride on a seahorse and battle a sea dragon, I smoke a cigarette with a puffer fish, I pray beside an angel fish, I polish the teeth of a piranha and paint new spots on a leopard shark. I visit all my friends. My little volcano bubble lets me see it all.

I am mad that men think they can touch me.

I am mad that men insist they know what is best for my body.

I am mad that my sisters have to fight for our rights.

I am mad that because of you, I consider carrying pepper spray.

I am mad that little girls and boys may not grow up taking art classes in school.

I am mad that little kids who grew up thinking a black president was the most normal thing in the world, might think that this is normal.