Dark Phoenix Rising

Lately I've been feeling like Dark Phoenix. Yeah, from the X-Men. (I identify with fictional characters on a level nobody else I know of has ever been on.) There is a lot simmering in my heart and mind and soul just now, and some days it feels like I'm hovering on the edge of a psychic break.

"What are you talking about?" the non-X-Men-literate among you ask, quite probably while shaking your head fondly all the same (I'm thinking of a few of you in particular here). Well, once there was a woman named Jean Grey who had the powers of telepathy and telekinesis.  Through a series of strenuous events it eventually became clear that Jean was far more powerful than she thought she was, and that she and her mentor had been blocking off that power because it was confusing and frightening and she didn't know how to handle it. But then the psychic break happened and she became Dark Phoenix, all that power unleashed, not suppressed anymore but also not under proper control.

Sometimes I feel like I am more than what I have settled for, that there are things I could have and be with a simple flex of power running just under my skin. And feeling powerful scares me. I'm afraid of turning into Dark Phoenix, that my judgment isn't strong enough to temper my abilities, that I could destroy just as soon as create, wound as soon as heal.

But you could also argue that pretending the power wasn't there was what started the Dark Phoenix problem in the first place.

It's all very confusing, even to me, and I live in this head. (There are days I can't help but think that my life must make more sense from the outside.) So if you're confused now, too, I certainly can't blame you for it. 

Things I Don't Get #56: Spiky Hair

Okay, okay...I don't really have a list of things I don't get. And I did just randomly pick that number. But it's true that I don't understand the current male obsession with spiky hair, which to me includes any form of hairstyle in which the hair carries too much product to actually move.

I say "current obsession" like it hasn't been around for a while. I don't actually know how long it has been around, because I was home-schooled and thus insulated from trends, but I know that my first exposure to it was when I was about sixteen and the ten-year-old boys I took TaeKwon-Do with were sporting the spiky hair. I used to pat them on the head and mock them for their vanity and for the fact that I could almost slice my hand open on that crusty mess.

Flash-forward to the present, and the crusty spiky look is everywhere. Last night, for instance, I saw a guy walking around Meijer with his hair spiked up so much a bird landing on his head could be killed. (Maybe he fears birds. Maybe the hairstyle is defensive.) 

Despite thirteen years of increasing exposure to it, I still think spiky hair looks ridiculous. This could be more nurture than anything else...neither my father nor my brother has ever gone in much for that sort of thing. I don't mock people for it anymore because it's been a trend for so long it's practically normal now. It's morphed almost completely into "something I personally think looks silly" from "something I mock you for because you're only following the crowd." Also, most boys who were ten when I was sixteen are now too tall for me to pat them condescendingly on the head and crack some of their hair product loose. The mocking just wouldn't be the same, somehow.

Besides, it might take me three tries to wash the gel off my hands.

New Works by Old Friends

Last weekend my alma mater, Calvin College, put on a production called New Works by Old Friends. It was a selection of 10-minute plays written by alumni, and mine was one of them. As in, I wrote one. Very few people caught on to that right away when I would mention "my play." They thought I might be directing something, or maybe acting in something ("Oh, you mean Midsummer Night's Dream?" one girl asked me after hearing "my play"). Writers fly under the radar...though possibly still not as far under as the tech crew. I've never been on tech crew, so I can't be sure.

I've written skits for youth group presentations before, but this was different. People would be auditioning for the chance to be in this play, not drafted into it against their will. Also, the writing of the play was the extent of my creative control. No one consulted me on my vision or asked me what I meant by one line or another. I had no input in casting, staging, anything. This was exciting in that I love that theatre is a collaborative art, and all of the imaginations involved bounce off each other and create something greater than the sum of the parts. This was terrifying in that I wondered if that sum would be recognizable. 

What if my writing didn't stand up under outside examination? What if what I thought was clear was actually obscure? Or what if all the people I had told in my initial excitement piled in to see the play, found that they didn't like it at all, and felt they had to come up with something nice to say that I could tell was spoken out of pity? 

There was a lot of internal wrestling over these questions and the larger question of where they were coming from in the first place, but I won't get into that now. Now, what matters most is that none of my doubts were justified, and more than all of my hopes were. From the moment my portion of the show began on Friday night, I knew that. My play had taken on a life outside of me. It had been processed by a director and a pair of actresses, all very talented young women, and it was being taken in by an audience. It was an incredible experience. 

(It was the first theatrical experience my little buddy Lucas ever had, too...he did very well for a two-year-old. I was proud of him. My favorite part of him being there was when he tapped the back of my chair because he wanted to hold my hand.)

Saturday night they gave me a name tag to wear that said "playwright" on it, and they had all the playwrights in attendance come up on stage after the show. This was far less comfortably incognito than Friday night had been, but it was kind of fun in a ridiculously surreal way. And then after it was all over I got to spend time with Calvin friends I haven't seen in ages.

I'm so glad I got to do this, and that it came this year. I couldn't have written this play any earlier than this year and had it have nearly the depth and truth it has. I received so much encouraging feedback last weekend that has encouraged me to hope for...well, for more than I was settling for. I could keep going with all the mental and emotional and spiritual stuff that was/is bubbling up because of this play, but I don't feel I could do it justice at this point. 

To sum up, it was quite possibly the best weekend I can ever remember having in my entire life.

Seven Things

 My friend Beth tagged me on a blog challenge I had never seen before. I've seen more than my fair share of blog challenges and never get tired of them, so this is hard to do. Props to Beth. Rules: Write 7 little-known facts about yourself and then tag 7 other people to do the same.

1.  I can't remember a time before I could read.

2.  I can't remember a time before I was writing something or other. One of my earliest works (self-illustrated) featured a pair of parrots who got everything I wanted at the time, including a doll house. Someday this might be worth millions, so I hope my parents have it in a box somewhere.

3.  I enjoy cooking once I get going on it, especially with a long day ahead of me and a lot of throwing random things together. ("What's in this cupboard? Oh, I'll use some of that, too!") Of course, I can also be mind-numbingly lazy when it comes to food and do something like finish off a jar of peanut butter for dinner. Just eating it off a spoon, not with bread or crackers. I don't recommend this.

4.  I've never tried to hide this, but apparently it's still a little-known fact: my general dislike of dirt and danger is not a result of age (twenty-nine is really not that old in the grand scheme of things). I have never been a fan of dirt and danger. As far as that goes, my personality was pretty firmly formed by the age of eight. I can break out of my usual spheres by choice, and usually enjoy myself, but I only get more rigid if I feel badgered to the point of insecurity.

5.  I have found that I usually get most irritated at someone when they are displaying character traits that I myself have/repress.

6.  My favorite part(s) of living alone: having dance parties and crying at whatever I want to and singing randomly to myself and not having anybody around to mock my weirdness. 

7.  My favorite friends embrace and enhance the weirdness.

Okay, I'm going to tag the following people: Kerri, Sabrina, Brittany, Abby, Stephenie, Lisa, and Jessie (Beth tagged her already, but it's been months since she blogged so I think she needs an extra nudge).

(I will post something about last weekend before the end of the week. I'm still processing the awesomeness.)

Interpretation

I write a lot of fanfiction. Sometimes I get quality reviews, even quality critiques. And sometimes I get reviews that say things like this: "Sorry to say, but that's kinda sad. But otherwise, good job." Sad happened to be what I was going for in that fic, and I thought I warned people about it upfront by including the word "angsty" in the summary. 

When I read reviews, I find that things which are perfectly obvious to me are not obvious to everyone. Sometimes I read the story over again and I can see that the flaw is in the writing, that I failed to accomplish what I was trying to accomplish. Sometimes, as in the case above, the flaw seems to be in the interpretation.

Granted, interpreting some of my writing might be a little difficult to people who come to fanfiction sites to read about their favorite characters making out (there are lots of these people out there). The story, the characters, the themes sometimes hover between the lines. I don't like to be thoroughly obvious in any form of writing because I like to make people do a little digging, which in turn is because I like to dig myself. My favorite writers of all types write in a slightly oblique fashion, making things a little difficult. Life isn't easy, and not all of us really want it to be.

I have been thinking a lot about interpretation this week. This weekend, for the first time ever, a play I wrote will be in performance. There will be three layers of interpretation between my original intent and the end result: the director, the actors, and the audience. This is as it should be, but I wonder...what will people see?

Friends have been asking me what I want their reactions to be, and up to now I have been unable to formulate a proper response. But every time I've tried to give it a shot, because the way I think about the reactions of others is broader than the scope of this weekend. So if you're coming to see New Works by Old Friends, and curious about what I want from you, here's my go at it for tonight:

I want you to be you. 

One of the downfalls of my creative side has been that I have tended to script life. I'll say such and such, and you'll say such and such, and I'll throw you this witty remark, and you'll give me this certain look, and I'll...etc., etc., etc.

I'm tired of that. I want people to be honest. I don't want to tell them what to feel or say or think. I want to interact with them in real life, not direct them in my own personal mental theatre. If I can keep my character inventions confined to the page, that will be a much more useful way to channel creative energy that has previously been wasted inventing scenarios featuring invented people who wear familiar faces.

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Speaking of familiar faces reminds me of a story about the opposite. Tonight I went to see the fabulous Deborah Lew perform at Calvin. While there, two girls I'd never seen before approached me.

"Are you Suzanne Winter?" they asked.

"Yes," I said, panicking briefly and wondering how they could possibly know...oh, right, my publicity photo for the play, probably from....

"I'm directing your play," said one, introducing herself. 

"We're both producers for the show, too," said the other, also introducing herself.

Note that I can't remember their names. I am not proud of this, and their names will definitely be the first ones I look up when I get the program in my hands tomorrow night, but my brain seriously short-circuited at being approached by strangers while I was alone. I am glad that for Friday and Saturday there will be people I know around. I can be a lot more extroverted when people I'm comfortable with are somewhere close by.