We all know that we should eat well, exercise, limit alcohol, and not smoke- but when I do all of those things and still feel like going back to bed, I feel like I am somehow failing at life. So…Today I’m going to FLIP IT!
Who says I can’t change up what I expect from myself to succeed at life today?
Have I hugged someone? Check. Laughed? Check. Made someone else laugh? Check. Looked someone in the eye and smiled? Said thank you? Check, check. Written a haiku in my head for no reason except- how else can I express my joy at this world but in a head-haiku? Check.
My name is Julie Tamiko Manning and this is thought number ten.
I have been thinking all day of something to think about for this Thought Residency but I have come up with nothing and I think it’s because I’m in a very medium place right now.
I am not sad but I’m not happy, I am not stressed but I’m not chill, I am not waiting but I’m not settled, I’m just here and I’m not even trying to not be here so my thoughts are… just…here?
My name is Julie Tamiko Manning and this is thought number nine.
This thought is on time. Or at least it was supposed to be on time.
A stranger once told me I needed to look into the underlying reasons of why lateness was an issue of mine: was it because I overestimated what I could achieve in a day? Was it because of my ego- thinking that my time was worth more than others’ time?
I’ve never done the work of looking into that, although I’ve always meant to.
All I know is that at this moment, I am working on a device that has only 9% battery life left, and that’s not all I’m running out of.
My name is Julie Tamiko Manning and this is thought number eight.
You know when you’re walking down a busy city street and your hood is up because it’s snowing and you almost walk into the intersection without realizing it because you’re thinking so much about where you belong in this world and who you belong to?
I used to have this friend who would grab the back of my shirt when I would thoughtlessly wander into traffic.
I either need to get myself another one of those or I need to take my hood down and pay attention to where I’m going.
My name is Julie Tamiko Manning and this is thought number seven.
In thought number two I talked about a comfortable silence. But I am also thinking about a different kind of silence. The silence of backing away. The silence of shutting down. The silence I experience when faced with racism, towards me, towards others, even now as an adult. The silence of our brothers when we are not present to defend ourselves and even when we are present and the only ones to defend ourselves is us. The silence of sitting down instead of standing up. You know, THAT silence.
My name is Julie Tamiko Manning and this is thought number six.
So I have been thinking about inner demons-more like feeling them. And I am wondering how we hear those inner demons and choose to go forward, open the door and go outside.
Um.
I don’t have a solution to that, I’ve just been thinking about it.
My name is Julie Tamiko Manning and this is thought number five.
My name is Julie Tamiko Manning and this is thought four.
My name is Julie Tamiko Manning and this is thought three.
So I was in a show with a life-sized elephant puppet, called Jumbo. Jumbo had 2 puppeteers inside him and one manipulator/actor on his trunk. One of the most poignant scenes with the puppet was a non-verbal scene with a fourth actor. I always wondered what made that scene work so well. It occurs to me now that it was one of the only moments of pure complicity: everyone-on and offstage worked towards the one goal of giving Jumbo life. They were complicit. Without ego. Backstage, We would all watch like breathless children from the wings.
My name is Julie Tamiko Manning and this is thought number two.
I’ve been thinking about silence.
…
Recently a friend told me that I gracefully repress emotion. And that that’s not healthy.
But sometimes silence is good. Sometimes there is so much love and beauty in Silence. Sometimes Silence is just the absence of words (which can be so exhausting and complicated) and not the absence of me.
My name is Julie Tamiko Manning and this is thought #1.
This summer I was working at the Blyth Festival Theatre in Huron County in Southern Ontario. I would wake up every morning and before I got out of bed and I would take 30 seconds to think of something that I was grateful for. This was something that a friend of mine had encouraged me to do, and we would report back to each other every night. We were responsible to each other. I did it for her, but it didn’t really do much for me as I was having such a great summer. Then I eventually stopped. But this November is proving to be a bit more difficult, so I think I might have to revisit that daily practice of
gratefulness.
