On Complaining and Being Grateful
On Complaining and Being Grateful
This one's about the sun setting earlier and the sleep not getting any better and the days not getting any shorter.
Every time I remember to write for this newsletter, I find myself in a bit of a weird place. I’m just constantly in a weird place. Without apologizing, it seems that only the most negative of my thoughts get poured out onto public posts such as this one. Every time I sit down to write this out, I talk myself out of it, already knowing the answers to what will make things in my life more bearable, too embarrassed to admit that I am deeply afraid of change and the loss of the good that I have in my life now. But things have shifted recently, and it seems like change may be overhauling my life soon, anyway! So whatever! I’m over it!
I am the biggest hypocrite in the world. You ask me, Alicia, what’s the reason you write? And I answer, Well, it’s that I want to make sure that people feel less lonely in the world. The loveliest responses I’ve ever gotten for my work have always been from those who say that they feel seen by my writing. Knowing that the things that I am going through / will / may / probably will go through have happened to others is a comforting thought. Sort of. Knowing that things can be survived is good. I’ve been through worse, that is a thought that I keep repeating to myself. I do not like to allow myself to be sadder than necessary. I do not like to be more sorry for myself than I need to be.
I should be grateful. I am grateful. But it feels like it’s become one of my compulsions to say “thank you,” rather than say, “I am tired of living some sort of half-life.”
Writing makes me feel like hypocrite, nowadays. I believe that every story that I write, no matter how light-hearted or dark, should hold some sort of deeper meaning. A joke about “reverse wetbacks” becomes a commentary on US-born Mexicans. A reference to an Arcade Fire song becomes a reference to unreported sexual assault. A dig at Ted Cruz becomes the tearing-down of a protagonist who doesn’t know what how to deal with what life has dealt them. I say what I believe in, in that every moment is a chance to live the truth you’re in now, but I am tired of writing them down because I am tired of living in dissonance between what I practice and what I preach.
I don’t have anything planned for 2023, playwriting-wise. I really don’t. I’m not saying this to be coy or whatever, but it genuinely brings me relief to not know what the new year is going to bring. It’ll be a relief to know that, as far as I know, I will have no obligations to write anything new beyond what I feel in my person is necessary to put down on paper at the moment as it feels right. It’s a relief to think that I may fade out of theaters’ observations for the moment, being able to focus on helping foster our creative economy through my day job, instead. It’s a relief to put off thinking about grad school applications for another year, and it’s a relief to know that I’ll get the chance to disappear for a while.
I’m thinking of traveling out of the country sometime in the spring or the summer, turning my notifications off for a week and two, and letting me sit in this body in a place that I haven’t talked to in a good while. If I’m being honest, it will be a relief to be Alicia the Person versus Alicia the Playwright, and see how this person fits in the world as it is now, for a change. What happens when I try to be someone? What happens when I no longer talk about what I write and what I watch and what I read? What is left? I don’t know what’ll happen in the next few months, but if writing may be taken from me by force—because there are only so many hours in the day—then I will make the choice to find something other than that playwright within myself, first.
I will write because I always write, but I accept that it may not coagulate into a play, into a story worthy of being seeing my others’ eyes, save the ones that I trust with my life. And it will be relief to not share it with you all, and hope that I will still hold value in your eyes all the same.
“They don’t understand it either, they live in fear of the lights going out, as if every day wasn’t already made of lightning and blackouts.”
—Yuri Herrera, The Transmigration of Bodies
Lots has happened in the past few months. I am grateful for all of these, especially the beautiful people involved, and more.
I got a good haircut.
Your Mileage May Vary received a warm, well-cared-for staged reading at Rec Room Arts, featuring some wonderful performers that I hope Houston theater will welcome with open arms.
I traveled to Los Ángeles for funsies and had a great time.
I traveled to Dallas for the first annual Del Shores Foundation Writers Festival as a Finalist in their Playwriting category. I highly recommend applying to this wonderful opportunity.
I was named the Texas representative for the 2022-23 National Leader of Color Fellowship cohort.
I traveled to New York City for my company’s first ever in-person retreat. We work remotely, so this was the first time a lot of us were meeting others in person. I’m grateful to be working for such a wonderful, fulfilling purpose with wonderful, wacky people.
I then hung out in NYC for an extra day of funsies before heading up to ol’ Massachussetts. Had a great time there, too.
I wrote a short ten-minute play, Left Lung Punctured, Gored by Bullet, last month. (Or was it August? September?) It’s about longing and rest stops and what the world does to a person. It takes place over twenty years, all in seven pages. It’ll have a staged reading on December 3rd at Rec Room Arts, sometime in the evening. As always, I’d love to see y’all there. Hit me up for deets as the date approaches if you’re in.
I’m also participating in Nanowrimo for the first time ever. I’m building out the world that Left Lung Punctured, Gored by Bullet is set in. The novella (novel? who know what it’ll end up being) is set in an alternate universe that I’d proposed as my final project for a history class back in college. (Shoutout to Ryan Quintana for even considering accepting a speculative fiction piece as a legitimate end to my coursework in his class.) This Nanowrimo will also center on a beloved original character that I’ve already been writing for years now, and I’m excited to give this characters and others the chance to be developed in a full draft versus less serious fare (read: college AU fanfiction). Let’s see how the month shakes out.
Who knows what’ll happen in the next few months? Hopefully, I will open Substack and cringe at this overdramatic entry of mid-twenties angst. And one day, the sadness will end.
hasta la proxima,
AM
recs:
books / plays:
Socrates by Tim Blake Nelson. I read this one as a bit but then it turned out to be a bit of a serve…
The Transmigration of Bodies and Kingdom Cons by Yuri Herrera. He’s just that contemporary novelist! Signs Preceding the End of the World is still my favorite novel of this, but there’s so much lyrical beauty in these hopeless borderland tales.
You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi. Just the most beautiful romance I’ve read all year. What I really loved about it, though, is that it addresses the most interesting aspect of love – all types, friendship and romantic and more – for me, which is the process of self-discovery through it. Wild stuff!
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. I really loved this when I read it when I was sick in September with something that made me all gross and sweaty and feverish, but now I wonder if it’s actually good. I think it is.
movies / tv:
Decision to Leave (2022) dir. Park Chan-wook. I was lucky to see this with one of my favorite people at the Lincoln Center while I was in NYC, and watching this ridiculously horny and unhinged movie with her is a memory I’ll treasure forever.
Nope (2022) dir. Jordan Peele. Because obviously.
Nathan For You (2013-2017). Someone recommended this to me in college because Fielder “looks like someone I’d be attracted to.” Even after watching this and The Rehearsal, they remain absolutely correct.
Mississippi Masala (1991) dir. Mira Nair. Love is f*cking real!!!!
Smoke Signals (1998) dir. Chris Eyre. John Wayne’s teeth: Are they plastic? Are they steel?
articles:
“30 years later, DC Comics’ first transgender superhero is still the genre’s best” by Jessica Crets for Polygon
“Stone Skipping Is a Lost Art. Kurt Steiner Wants the World to Find It.” by Sean Williams for Outside
“Diana Burbano, a Colombian immigrant and punk rock playwright, is always true to herself” by Jessica Gelt for Los Angeles Times
“The Threat of An Inclusive American Theatre” by Nataki Garrett for The Root
“‘BoJack Horseman’ Creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg Explains His Wacky List of TV’s Best Shows” by Alan Sepinwall for Rolling Stone