lightbulbheart childhood, mental health advocacy, storylady

All the feelings…

A group of old and new friends is slowly working through a powerful book by Resmaa Menakem, My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies. During our discussion Tuesday night, I recognized how much training for white body supremacy was incorporated into containing and controlling my I-have-big-feelings-ness as a kid and how much I want to break the hold of that in my adult existence.

That work for me this week included collaborating with friends who raise and care for growing humans to see what feelings their kids need help normalizing and expressing. The result is this “If you’re happy/grumpy/sad/scared/lonely/wild/sleepy/bored/silly and you know it” video. I had a lot of fun playacting all those feelings, but the most important part for me comes at the end. Sometimes, I have to sit quietly and breathe long enough for my feelings to reveal themselves. I believe that’s necessary for us to do as adults, especially as we work to break down big systems outside the walls of our homes and inside the walls of our own bodies. I also think it’s vital to allow our kids the same space.

We have so many big feelings. How do you feel today? Are you happy? Grumpy? Sad? Stop, breathe, and let the feeling bubble up and tell you its name.

If you’re happy and you know it, shout hooray
If you’re grumpy and you know it, make some noise
If you’re sad and you know it, cry boo hoo
If you’re scared and you know it, hide your face
If you’re lonely and you know it, reach out
If you’re wild and you know it, drum real fast
If you’re sleepy and you know it, give a yawn
If you’re bored and you know it, great big sigh
If you’re silly and you know it, dance about

If you don’t know how you feel, stop and breathe I
f you don’t know how you feel, stop and breathe
If you don’t know how you feel, and you really want to know it
If you don’t know how you feel, stop and breathe

If you or your kids stumble over naming emotions, the Children’s Involvement Team of Sheffield, UK has provided a helpful feelings chart: http://www.sheffkids.co.uk/adultssite. I used it last year as a prop for Karaoke Visiting Hour and now it hangs in the space where I do online storytime.

Breathe, friends. ♥️

lightbulbheart childhood, creativity, mental health advocacy, storylady

Animated Discussions

I’ve been known to fall down a youtube rabbit hole from time to time. My latest bunny trail began with a repeated viewing of Matthew A. Cherry’s HAIR LOVE, an adaptation of his picture book of the same name. Love, love, LOVE.

Oscar-nominated Animated Short Film HAIR LOVE

In addition to this Oscar-nominated short (fingers crossed for a win!), my providential e-spiral included MOM – A MOTHER, MISSING HOME (tears), THE PRESENT (tears), DESTINY (sighs), and ALIKE.

ALIKE, 2016 Goya Award-winning short film by Daniel Martínez Lara and Rafa Cano Méndez (update: 23 APR 2020 – no longer available on YouTube)…I feel as if I should show it to people instead of trying to explain why I’m taking my sweet time with There’s an Easy-Bake Oven Where My Heart Should Be. It’s about the same business, just in a different medium. Regardless of our age, we all need freedom of imagination and creativity in order to thrive. I know that I depend on the wonder of children to restore my ability to move through the world with awe and kindness. How do we keep our tiny folks from losing their own access?

Give HAIR LOVE a watch, won’t you? I’d love to talk to folks about it.

lightbulbheart childhood, mental health advocacy, storylady, writing

Big feet and trash can to fill

In honour of Carroll Spinney, I present to you two of my favourite storytime socks.

Image of Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch socks

The cuffs of the socks read as follows:

Big Bird: I like big books.

Oscar: Go away! I’m reading!

Big Bird modeled wonder, astonishment, gentleness, and curiosity for me. Oscar taught me it’s okay to express my emotions, whatever they might be. No surprise then, that these two marvelous beings still sing at me and inform my work four decades later. My favourite picture of Carroll Spinney shows him performing Oscar while wearing Big Bird’s legs. Proof that these disparate creatures can (and often did) inhabit the same body.

I love this tribute to Carroll Spinney from Judy Gold. We are not alone, dear friends.

lightbulbheart Easybake, karaoke visiting hour, mental health advocacy, roadtrip, workshop, writing

Thesis Thankfulness – 16 years after the fact

Mental Health Advocacy, Inclusion, and the Empowerment of a Marginalized Community Through the Utilization of Theatre: A Historical Overview of Our Own Voice Theatre Troupe, Memphis, Tennessee

👆That’s the pretentious clunker of a title I gave my 2003 Master’s thesis…

It’s now been 16 years since I boarded a plane for Memphis to gather oral histories for my thesis research on Our Own Voice Theatre Troupe. Upon re-reading the final document, I am encouraged both that I’m now a much better writer and that my core research concerns have only strengthened in the intervening years. In many ways, OOVTT is responsible for the shape much of my work has taken. They provided me with a devised theatre roadmap for how to work, as well as a shining example of mental health advocacy in action. Karaoke Visiting Hour and There’s An Easy-Bake Oven Where My Heart Should Be would not be possible without them. I am much obliged for our visits, for being able to see them perform at home and on the road, and for their whole-hearted participation in the very first Easy-Bake Workshop. Special thanks to Khyber Daniel for our conversations this week and his prompt to dig my thesis out of cold storage!

Screen capture of University of Memphis Library catalog record for Amber's thesis.
I was pleasantly surprised to learn that a copy of my thesis is now held by the University of Memphis Libraries!

I am also incredibly grateful to my old friend and librarian, Dorothy Hargett, who allowed me electronic access to the full-text of my thesis this week! (I lost all my floppy disks a few moves ago.) I was fortunate to be one of Dorothy’s co-workers for almost a decade, and she was an actual angel whenever I needed care or a listening ear. Absolutely none of that has changed. When in doubt, ask a librarian! In Dorothy’s honor, I provide this paltry example of how I attempted to repay her kindness over the years (these beauties were taken for a library customer service presentation she created):

That’s some quality overacting right there.

lightbulbheart karaoke visiting hour, mental health advocacy, performance

Rest and Celebration

Currently listening to Paul Simon’s “American Tune” as covered by Shawn Colvin:

Still, tomorrow’s going to be another working day
And I’m trying to get some rest
That’s all I’m trying to get some rest

The 2019 Mind Play Theatre Festival has come to a close. I performed my newest piece, Karaoke Visiting Hour (KVH), a memoir monologue about losing and finding one’s voice and value in an unlikely place. Producers Adam Bryan and Kelly Wolf gave us good guidance and care, we had lovely and supportive audiences, and we are all now on to whatever comes next for us.

My next whatever is r e s t. I got sick a week before the Festival and my muscle tension dysphonia kicked up in a hard fit. The irony of losing my voice right before I performed a piece about losing my voice is not lost on me. I was on vocal rest for two days prior to performing and am now back in bed with all my various remedies; the most generous of which is actual rest.

Image from self-care mini-zine by Kelly Wolf, Open Heart Arts. Text of page reads: "I am celebrating where I am Right Now."
Photo credit: Kelly Wolf

While I rest, I’ll be reflecting on the two most valuable lessons I learned from the Festival. The first came from a self-care mini-zine created by Kelly Wolf (co-producer of the Mind Play Theatre Festival and creative glory behind Open Heart Arts). I was helping her fold them during tech rehearsal and the last page kept singing to me as I prepared to go on stage for opening night with maybe 70% of my voice in place: “Celebrate where you are at Right Now.” This in the moment self-acceptance is radical. It is not easy. It takes courage. I speak from fresh experience that this celebrating business works, my friends. Which leads me to the second lesson learned.

At the end of KVH, I ask the audience to join me in stomping on the floor to show us all what creative community support can sound and feel like. I hoped for some kind of response: “If just one person stomps, I will engage with that person fully.” But when the opening night audience responded with whole-hearted expressive engagement and would just.not.stop.stomping, I was brought to joyful tears! The performers in the green room beneath the stage said they thought the ceiling might cave in. While the closing night audience was a bit smaller, they also responded enthusiastically. Yes, the nature of a mental health play festival is that the people in the room are there because they’re on board with dismantling stigma and supporting voices in search of mental health awareness. Also yes, when you tell the vulnerable and honest truth of your story and ask clearly for what you want and need, people may respond generously. I can hold both of these things at the same time.

So, when my rest comes to a close, I will continue to celebrate and write with hopeful vulnerability. I will celebrate my way into work with my dear friend Tamara Kissane of Artist Soapbox on a recording (possible audio drama?) of KVH and see what it wants to be next.

In the meantime, I’ll just be here with my remedies dreaming celebratory dreams of supportively stomping feet.