Sponge-y

S ince I talked about VOTE! yesterday, I thought it was funny to see the first real time I talked about it in my old blog. So I've excerpted it here...man, I really used to be on fire. A part of me misses that. Another part of me is happy to be mellowed out (a little. I mean, I'm pretty sure most people would still put me more on the manic end of the spectrum than the mellow end).

Orginally dated December 4, 2007

What can I say, except that the line between feeling dried out and utterly saturated is very very thin.

More and more, I am channeling my energy, recycling exhaustion back into energy, but all in a chase of the three things I have chased my whole life... to inspire people with Nam Myoho Renge Kyo, to see my work on a Broadway stage and to encounter the kind of love that the mere idea of it makes us both want to be the best people we can be.
All of these things have been happening in various degrees all my life, but now...now is really the crucial phase.

Each day, I feel it move the earth more, rumbling below the surface. I feel it shake the way things have been, the way the subway shakes the foundation of my building.
 A guess a little explanation: I feel like I work with every waking and sleeping moment of my life. It is absolutely paying off...and when I think about where I was one year ago, it seems like a cut to another movie.

For anyone who could somehow not know, I work on Broadway all day and I write musicals too.
 A producer I used to work with asked me for my project, which is called VOTE!

From there, the big word seemed to be inertia, or I guess momentum, because inertia suggests a certain powerlessness, but the word is certainly true in the sense that a lot of the great things with this project have seemed to catapult themselves simply by their own weight. Sometimes I felt like I was pushing (indeed, I work until 2 AM, I work all day in my mind on it. I always always working), but mostly, I feel like I made some extremely correct decisions, aided by the wisdom, support, and fearlessness of my father and the weight of the material-- without a DOUBT the weight of my life condition; the weight of my daimoku and prayer-- propelled them in the direction I wanted to go.

I know things are really moving when I feel everything. When everything makes me want to cry-- Legally Blonde even!-- when my skin feels as tender as a peach. And every letting go and pushing forward, every song, every strike and strike's end has made me long for the first moment I could get myself to my room, all seafoam and white and fresh, to cry.
With things in my life so poised for triumph, it makes the missing of people sharper. Everyone really. Everyone I've lost and not lost, the ones I can't lose and the ones who just can't be here. I feel them there too and...every once in while, if someone tells the right joke, I can hear them laugh, and it breaks my heart that they aren't there for the perfect moment I'm having.

My mind has always spun, and I have often been prone to spinning out of control with it. But more and more, no matter how little sleep I've gotten, when I can wake myself up, as early as I can, to chant Nam Myoho Renge Kyo, the more I feel the words of Nichiren are true: "summon deep faith that Nam Myoho Renge Kyo IS YOUR LIFE ITSELF."

And I experience boundless joy in the law. And even when I feel self-conscious, as though I am reaching past my capabilities, I try to remember that the wise will (Always!) rejoice, while the foolish will retreat.

By challenging my life, these past few months, I have met some of the greatest people in my life so far...some people who redefined my standards, some people who made me understand why the standard I made was worthy of being the standard in the first place, some people who reminded me that I might NOT be an alien after all, people who SELL it, all the time, in great and sincere ways, people who've helped me sell it. Lots of new people. People with joyous, travelling spirits, people who reminded me of random Nevada pride, and Georgia pride, and taught me about Alaska, and planes-- both real and invented. A new person named Charlie Woffinden was born, and even though new, he was one reminder in a daily stream of reminders how much I love the ones who are still around: my heroes- Erin and Emily and Lauren and Texy and my friends from when I first moved here.

In my chase to understand what people say and what they do-- to understand the hearts of others-- my pursuit of dreams, of family, of changing the world, I am in the Second Act. I am both mentor and disciple all the time. A sponge, sometimes dry as bone with nothing to give that day. But mostly, saturated with all that I feel. So full you could wring me out.

And ready. Ready for what's next. For what I deserve. Ready to work. Ready to meet the next great love . Ready to welcome back the old. Always.
Ready to listen to music and to write it. Ready to sing it and to sing it with you.
Ready to talk about anything with you. Who will win the election, my musical, your boyfriend, the best hair products, love, the Saha World, Buddhahood, and the Human Revolution.

And finally, I want to say this: "When we find something important enough that we are not willing to lose it; when we can say that pursuing or keeping this makes us want to be a better person-- that is the moment when Human Revolution begins."

I know the exact day that happened in my life. July 31, 1999. 

But the inertia and momentum of that moment has served as a model for my human revolution in every instance.
While so often I may be like a sponge, my determination? Never. Never dries out. Never saturates.

Earthly desires are enlightenment.