The Time Gap

We've all talked, heard, or at least felt this dissonance regarding time in the past few years. It's as if we all fell asleep when everything shut down in 2020 and now we're all waking up again to realise that three years have passed without us even feeling them. I've heard people of all age groups, religions, genders, and colours say this -- that time simply... disappeared.

But I've felt this before.

In 2014-15, in the span of six months, my best friend, a family friend, and a cousin all died. My uncle was diagnosed with terminal cancer and given three months to live. There were two ugly, out-of-the-blue divorces in my extended family (both marriages were well over a decade old). My college roommate and good friend abandoned me when I needed her most. I was almost literally drowning in homework at college, all with little sleep and no nutrition because performing arts profs don't care that the cafeteria (the only food option in a small college town) is only open for four hours a day. Half of my mother's side of the family stopped talking to each other about some financial dispute that I'm STILL not clear on the details of nearly a decade later.

I returned to college after Christmas 2014 secure in the love of my family and the loyalty of my friends. When I graduated four months later, not a single shred of it remained. It had all been bombed out from around me as I floated in some parallel universe in a different province, unable to protest anything that was happening.

Time stopped for me. 2015 through 2019 was a blur of... nothing. Time did not exist. In late 2019, my concept of time was still shaky.

Then the pandemic hit.

As it stands now, I have no explanation, few anchors, little memory of anything that happened after January 2015. I still, now, today, fully expect to wake up and have it be 17 January 2015. The clock stopped, the tape paused... and yet things kept happening, as if in a dream. It's 2023 somehow. I'm not old enough to be asking, 'where did the time go?' and yet somehow I'm asking it. How am I married? Who really is this guy in the bed with me? Where did all those friends from college go? What shows was I in? How long has Brittney been gone? What novels did I write? And M and Grandpa are gone too? Why am I living this is dusty, scorching, one-note town? How did I get here? It's almost like amnesia, or like my brain was switched into somebody else's body and now I'm living the life of a person I don't even know. And this is exactly how I've felt since 2015.

I've never had the words to explain it till now, and even now, I feel they're not adequate. But now that everyone else in the world has that shared experience of losing two years to lockdown... at least they can understand too, even if none of us are ever able to put it into words.

Missing Person

Written 4 June 2022, 1.24pm.

Trigger warning: su*c*de

I've been thinking a lot lately about who I used to be. That passionate, fiery, justice-loving, people-loving, fiercely kind, deeply-trusting person.

I keep thinking about when I was eighteen. The friends I had, the joy and the time and the clarity and the passion I had. I'm still in contact with some of the important people in my life from that time; the rest have all died. I was genuinely content to sit in my pink bedroom and choreograph Petra and White Heart songs. That was the time in my life when I felt the most complete and the most spiritually satisfied. I had a thirst for God that I didn't appreciate at the time, and in retrospect it showed. I fell into a couple of traditionalist traps, but by and large I was a fighter for true justice and love even then. A lot of my views at least mildly clashed with the religious establishment, but I was skilled enough in writing to persuade several key figures to at least properly consider what I was saying.

I keep thinking what could have been. What if I had ended up with that guy from youth group? What if my cousin had never died? What if I had never gone to college -- or at least that college?

That's a big one. The day I arrived, my faith started dying. It was slow at first, but accelerated tenfold when Brittney died and none of my college friends cared. And instead of getting out after my second year when I had the chance, I fought to return -- to return to the place that pushed me to such dire depths, spiritually. I was severely depressed, deeply wounded, and grieving, and I ran out of province back to a place that was also abusing me, but in new and different ways.

By the time I left college, I was no longer the happy, joyful, passionate person I had been when I had started. The stress of the insane performing arts course load and the abuse from the director who tricked me into believing he had my best interests at heart had taken a heavy physical toll. I was probably a couple of months away from death, based on my physical health alone (I'm not even thinking about the severe depression I was in when I graduated). Instead of being a launchpad for what could have been a beautiful, God-honouring life, college was the death knell for me. I have so many still-bleeding emotional wounds that can be traced directly to that school, that director. Almost every single one of my dreams have died because of him and his words to me. He would say 'performers have to have thick skin,' but the fact is he is abusive and uses that phrase to justify his atrocities. I had thicker skin before I went to college than I do now. I had courage. I had spunk. I had joy. I had passion. I had LIFE, and now every single speck of all of that is gone.

I miss who I used to be.

In my pain and abandonment from God's people, I pushed away God Himself. And now I'm trapped in a tiny desert town with an absurdly high cost of living, absolutely no emotional support, and 'well-meaning' in-laws who are trying their best to take the place of that abusive man. It used to be nothing for me to jump in the van and drive several hours to do a show, or hang out with friends, or try something new. And now I never leave the house -- partly gas prices, and partly fear. I can feel my soul shriveling up and dying a little with every second I live, every breath I take.

I attempted suicide on 8 March 2017, and now, over five years later, I wish more than ever that I had done it then. I wish my life would have ended that day. But I trusted that things would get better, and five years later, they've gotten worse. My soul is dead, and that's a fate worse that still lungs. Every morning I wake up is the same and that's the one thing I never wanted to happen. I wanted to live with passion and joy and verve and courage and life, and I am doing none of that.

I want to busk. I want to make dance films. I want to make shows. I want to learn new styles of dance. I want to write publicly again. I want to be able to have an opinion and not be literally abused for it. I want to be free again. I'm not free. I am in a prison of 'if you do this, I will withhold the love I promised you and stab swords of stinging words into your heart.' I am in a prison of working eight hours a day at something that's fast-paced, but not intellectually stimulating. I am in a prison of hearing over and over the words 'you're not even trying and you have no business doing this.' I am in a prison of being years behind my peers in terms of experience because I stubbornly stuck to a college that had absolutely no intention of actually training me within the field that I went there for, and I had not even begun to heal those wounds before rushing off into marriage and bringing all of that anger and pain into a relationship that did not deserve such a burden and now is so broken by my issues it may never recover.

I miss who I used to be. I would kill to get her back.

Respect

It's well-known here that I do not get along with my in-laws. Specifically, one particular in-law.

That infuriates my husband to no end. He's long since accepted their abusive ways (after all, for twenty years he had no choice) and thinks they're completely normal, but I, with 1. my strong sense of right and wrong/justice, and 2. my growth-and-learning mindset that my own parents very intentionally fostered in me, do not and will not. I decided after college that I will no longer tolerate abuse, and that very definitely extends to family. Including married-in family.

The problem is, my husband was raised to 'respect his elders.' Not because they have earned respect, but because they 'said so.' Because they're older than him. (This, I've heard, is pretty typical of abusers.) And he demands that I do the same, because they destroyed his mind and spirit so thoroughly that he cannot think of doing anything different.

I, however, have been raised to challenge the status quo. Mind you, I did this naturally anyway, but my parents were smart enough to redirect it rather than punish it. They taught me that respect must be earned, not given, no matter how old they are and how much authority they have. My own parents earned my respect by hearing me out whenever I challenged them on something. They didn't always agree with me in the end (sometimes they did, but definitely not always), but they listened to me and addressed the underlying concerns behind my challenge. (This was the problem with the profs at college... they prescribed quick fixes that treated the symptom, not the cause; they didn't listen and address. As such, I got labeled a 'problem student' and was relentlessly bullied and verbally abused BY MY INSTRUCTORS for the better part of five years because they thought they were better than everyone and couldn't shut up and listen for just five minutes.) My parents encouraged me to think. A lot. 'Critical thinking skills' is still one of my mother's favourite phrases, and it shows in the way she educated us. My husband classifies himself as a rebel, but he's regularly scandalised by the things I say over the course of a normal day because he was severely (I would argue brutally) punished for saying far milder things.

My in-laws have questioned EVERY SINGLE ONE of my husband and I's choices since we met. He and I planned our wedding together and then had the entire thing absolutely destroyed by my in-laws because they actively hated everything I wanted for my own wedding. I actively block out the memory of our wedding day, because it wasn't my wedding and it never will be. It was absolutely not the wedding I wanted. It didn't represent me at all, only them. And I will never get that opportunity again. We will never get to have the wedding we wanted. That's supposed to be a HUGE core memory for almost every married couple and I literally can't even think about my wedding without wanting to scream, or injure myself, or both. I'm crying as I type this.

I used to love posting my art publicly. I loved writing on social media. I loved posting my dance videos. I loved sharing about my life honestly, the good and the bad. I loved interacting with the (many) people who loved my work. All it took was one little 'good Christian' family to destroy all of it. As soon as my husband and I got engaged, every single thing I posted became grounds for World War III. It is absolutely not possible to overstate the intensity of the multi-day screaming matches, the awful words they would say, and the gaslighting whenever I'd call them out on their toxicity. Gas was $1.39 a litre here today. Their gaslighting is so thick they could charge eight bucks a litre. You could power a loaded semi truck for months with that stuff, and it's just as toxic for the environment.

What I don't understand is why I'm supposed to respect my in-laws when they don't do the same to me. 'Do unto others as you would have others do unto you' goes BOTH ways, not just one, and I refuse to be bullied into being a pawn in their stupid little game of control.

I will respect them when -- and ONLY when -- 1. they start hearing me out FULLY instead of bullying me after one (1) word (taken completely out of context), 2. they start realising that they've never lived my life and cannot possibly understand it, let alone re-write it, and 3. they realise I'm my own person and survived the first twenty-five years of my life QUITE nicely without their interference/micro-managing, thank you very much.

And even then... only after they've made a long, consistent habit of doing those three things.

One Year - Novel Rewrite Update

One year ago today, I officially started rewriting Kyrie.

I'm well into the 'midpoint' section now. This is the part where the villain begins to show his true colours. This villain is based on some of the villains of my own story, and that, coupled with (yet another) domestic spat and my worsening asthma, is causing a lot of havoc in my body.

I tend to approach my writing as an actress. I place myself in the scene and act out all the characters in the scene. I think this is why people often say that reading my writing reminds them of watching films -- I write what I see in 'real time.' This means that I share in every character's emotions and reactions, and having mined some of the darkest times in my life for this midpoint, those can be very intense, very visceral reactions.

I had planned to write two scenes today. I've written one and my heart rate is already 92 (my resting rate is around 70 and I've been sitting all morning) and I needed my rescue inhaler. I don't know if I'm physically capable of writing the other scene, as it will hit even more of those 'triggers' for me.

On one hand, I'm hoping that the audience will feel the same anger I'm feeling at this character. But on the other hand, it's forcing me to unpack some stuff that I haven't yet regarding some of the people in my own life who treated me this way. I don't really know how to deal with these things in a way that won't ruin my life now. A lot of those villains are no longer a part of my life... but they're now in my head. And I don't know how to get them out of my head.

I am very proud of the progress I'm making in the novel, though. This midpoint scared me a lot and now I would say I'm over the hump and running downhill from here. I've already faced and worked through a lot of blockages and fears in (re)creating this work and I'm so proud of being able to look back on such a substantial document. I would say I'm just past the halfway point of the story, and most of the plot points that scared/overwhelmed me the most have already been written. I have forty-some scenes left in this novel. If I wrote one per day, I could finish before July. If (more realistically) I wrote one scene every day off of work, I will be done before September. Of this year.

I never, EVER even dreamed I would actually experience being so close to finishing a full rewrite/revision of any of my novels, even my best ones.

Two big things that have helped me get this far are: 1. framing it as a 'rewrite' rather than a 'revision,' and 2. making a timeline.

As long as I thought about it as 'revision,' I thought I had to completely restructure the book. 'Revision' implies 'moving stuff around,' but I couldn't find stuff to move around. I liked the structure and timing of the book exactly the way it was and couldn't find another way I thought was better. It was like trying to make a puzzle when the pieces were two different sizes. But as I soon as I started calling it a 'rewrite,' I didn't have to re-order anything. I could keep the general idea exactly the same and simply make it stronger.

This was where the timeline came in. I already had a pretty strong idea of the timeline in my head, but I pulled up a calendar from the year in which the story was set, and wrote out a day-to-day timeline of every single thing that happens to the two main characters of the book. Some of the things don't make it in the book at all but are referenced as things that happened off-screen, or are simply there for my own orientation (grad weekend, for instance -- I don't mention grad at all in the story, but it lets me know that I can't have the characters going to classes or doing homework anymore). Some events did get rearranged here, but not nearly on the level I thought they would have to be.
I colour-coded certain recurring themes and printed off this timeline (all six pages of it) and have had it at my desk ever since. It's been my lifeline and has done wonders for my poor overtaxed brain. The acid-melting-my-brain-whenever-I-try-to-revise feeling completely disappeared once I did this.

I'm so close and so proud and so happy and so relieved and I'm feeling so accomplished. Here's to the second half of the story.

April Saturday

Saturday morning.

My asthma is acting up the worst I think it ever has. I've doubled my meds for the last two days (as my doctor advised), but I still feel like an elephant is sitting on my chest and I'm breathing through a straw. It has not escaped my attention that the anniversary of my cousin's death from this same disease is this coming Friday.

At one time (late college), I would have welcomed this -- oncoming death? No more dealing with the world and all its neurotypical BS? Sign me up.

But now, I sit on my couch with a half-finished painting beside me, half a rewritten novel in front of me, and a crochet project that's almost done nearby, and now I think, I can't go now... I'll never see how these turn out.

The painting in particular stands out to me. I really don't like how it looks so far. I would consider it the first failure of my fledgling watercolour hobby. But I want to finish it, to see if maybe the finished project doesn't look so bad after all. My husband likes it so far and knew what it was without me having to explain it, so it's at least recognisable. If I die now, I will never know if it'll turn out all right in the end.

The novel... there was a time when I would have been okay leaving it unfinished. I made several attempts on my life between drafting it and now. But now I'm around the halfway point of a proper rewrite, and I'm invested. I want to know that I can finish it, even if the 'final' rewrite still needs some touching up. I want to send this out to beta readers. I want to send this to an editor. I want to publish it. I want other people to get invested in this story too.

The crochet project is a small one. I've made two others like it this week. But I used less stitches and a thinner yarn for this one, and I want to see how the final product changes with those variables altered.

I'm still stuck in the desert with no real hope of getting out on the horizon, and it's still beyond my ability to explain just how suffocating it is to wake up to this drab, soul-draining view every morning of my life. But if I can still be creative here, then I can be creative anywhere. Right now my main goal is to fill this dead brown place with colour -- and given how vast and stubbornly brown this desert is, that means I have a LOT of work to do.

So I have to finish this painting, this novel, this crochet project. And that means I have to take care of my health -- something I've never properly done before.

Stop Press: Album Release!

Music fans, rejoice!

If, like me, you missed the Kickstarter project (in 2019!) and were too poor to afford the astronomical shipping ($75???) for the CD pre-order, Terry Scott Taylor’s This Beautiful Mystery is now FINALLY available to order from his Bandcamp page!

I have deliberately avoided listening to this album. I have not bought or streamed the digital versions of any of the songs (though they have been available for a while). I want my first listen to be alone in the dark with a hard copy, with nothing to disturb or interrupt the art. I have no idea what it will be like, but I saw the email and dropped everything to order it because I am that confident it will be worth it. I have never done that ever with any purchase in my entire life. But I will not let this one get away from me again.

Terry Scott Taylor is arguably one of the greatest songwriters to walk the earth. Full stop. He has had nearly 50 years of professional songwriting experience, and it shows. His craftsmanship is unsurpassed. If you have never heard the work of Terry Scott Taylor, do yourself a favour and get this album. Your life will be the richer for it.

It is FINALLY NOW AVAILABLE ON CD on Bandcamp here. But hurry -- it's a limited run. Once these are gone, there will be no more.

Enjoy.

First Quarter Review

It's the end of March... the end of the first quarter of 2023. Already it's been a great year in terms of goals and stepping forward into my performing artist dreams.

Some highlights...

- Participated in Nachmo (National Choreography Month) in January.

- Created an entire choreographic work/dance film from scratch in 58 days.

- Was one of only eight choreographers accepted to show their work in the Nachmo Online Film Festival.

- Released my first-ever long-form dance work to the public.

- Was invited to audition for a speaking role in one of the largest and most recognisable productions in Canada.

- Passed an exam at work, resulting in me getting a new role with more responsibilities.

- Went to a tap dance festival (met Dianne Walker and Jessie Sawyers for the first time).

- Got my second-ever dance commission project.

- Got to improv live again.

I have gotten more opportunities and education in the past three months than I did in my entire $80,000 college degree. This makes me both sad (about the time and money I wasted) and hopeful (that I am capable of doing this myself no matter what anybody else says).

Now for the hard part... trying not to coast.

Checkmate

I've talked before about my struggles with memory loss. This frustration with myself came to a head while producing my most recent dance film, but it has long been seeping into every aspect of my creative life and eroding my confidence.

In mid-February, I attended a tap festival. For an extra fee, one could present a piece before the festival faculty for feedback. Terrified but wanting to know where I stood in such a diverse field, I paid the fee and then agonised over which piece to present.

I've choreographed so many pieces, and since my college years, a good many of them have been solo tap dances (because they were easy to film and post on Instagram to show that I really was working on my performance skills -- not that that convinced anybody, apparently). At first my plan was to memorise one of the more recent works, but as the film became a behemoth that demanded every single second of my free time, I decided to fall back onto a much older piece that's been my mental noodling piece since I choreographed it in 2018. This was -- ironically -- mostly because I had it completely memorised and could whip it out at will. My feet ran through it on my work break at least every other day without much thought. I had this piece.

But as the presentation time drew near, the looming dark cloud of dread that I would find a way to forget this piece threatened to eat me alive. I couldn't remember anything else. What made me think I could remember this?

I tried to shove the fear away, knowing that if I focused on a poor outcome, of course I would produce a poor performance. I ran it through mentally a couple times with nary a pause. I knew this piece. I knew this piece.

Thirty seconds into performing it, I completely blanked.

I was in front of Dianne Walker, of all people. I couldn't just stop. So I jumped to the next thing I could remember -- my placeholder set of 32 counts of buck single time steps. And I camped on it for 64 counts -- nearly half the dance. I threw in the few phrases I could remember, but all I could think was I'm presenting my own choreography in front of Dianne Walker and not only am I not doing  the choreography, I'm doing beginner time steps of all things. But I smiled and eventually I remembered some other sections and managed to at least sort of land the ending.

Of course, after such a showing, the consensus of the feedback session was, 'it was simplistic.' I was frustrated, don't get me wrong. That choreography was so complicated and so intricate and I hadn't even done half of it. They hadn't even seen what the dance really was. But not one of them said, 'I could tell you forgot.' These were industry professionals, most of whom have been dancing longer than I've been alive. If anybody would have noticed, it was them.

I went back to my seat after the session and told myself, defiantly, 'I can improv. I don't need to fear memory loss anymore. I can busk.'

See, for years (literally years) I've been wanting to busk. It's both extra cash and practice. What's not to love? But the problem was despite my impressive back catalogue of choreographed tap solos, I could not manage to learn even one of them. And I wanted to have a solid forty-five minutes of solo work in my feet before I went out busking, so my dancing would be worth paying for -- even if it was only a handful of coins. But what I learned after that experience was that I could improv an entire piece in front of a crowd -- even a very knowledgeable crowd. I was completely capable of it. Memory loss could not stop me now. So what if I forgot the dance? It completely within my abilities to improv my way through and now I knew that for a FACT.

It was a powerful moment. After three years of being cut down and shrunk to nothing because of my memory loss, I finally -- finally -- had something that the memory loss could not touch. I could still dance whether my stupid memory liked it or not. I had checkmated my memory loss.

Nachmo, Continued

On 28 February, I released my first long-form dance work.

This fulfils a LOT of goals I had -- both long-term and short-term ones.

Are there things I wish I did different? Absolutely. But is this a big milestone? Yes. This is something seventeen-year-old Kate would have absolutely drooled over.

On 28 February, I fulfilled a promise I made to my younger self. Everybody else let her down, but I did not.

Despite everybody who said I would never be, and especially despite everybody who went out of their way to sabotage me, I am a choreographer. I am here, and I am not going away. I went to the edge of the dream, and I did not turn away.

Presenting Sottovoce.

Nachmo, Day 31 - A Show Complete

I just finished choreographing the final dance number of the show.

It’s very odd choreographing a capella. It’s hard to know when you’re done. Most of my pieces for Act I felt too short, so I tried to make Act II longer, to settle into the emotions more. This final piece especially was difficult, as I’m trying to blow the tiny spark of defiance inside me into a roaring flame in one dance number. I’ve become so used to hiding that spark that it was hard to find it for this piece — I’m not entirely sure I succeeded, but I felt a natural end so I wrapped it up. I didn’t want to drag it out too long either.

Submissions for the Nachmo online film festival open up tomorrow. I choreographed this piece with the express purpose of submitting it to that festival. And if it doesn’t get selected in the lottery, I’m releasing it on YouTube. Either way it will be released to the public by the end of February. I am still terrified. I’m not quite halfway done memorizing it. I have no idea if I’ve communicated the story clearly. I’m trying very hard not to think of the reception from the less supportive extended family and college contacts.

But no matter the reception, the fact is, I choreographed an entire long-form dance show in 31 days. I wanted to challenge myself, and I have. I have worked a capella — something I have never, ever done before — for a whole month. I have finished choreography for an entire show — something I have attempted several times but never completed.

I also made a goal for myself to create and stage a full-length dance show before I turn thirty. With this month of focused choreography, that goal is now within reach.

All I have to do is outrun the fear for one more month.