the good life | At Home with Emmy Lou

I have always looked young, felt young, sounded young. I have always been mistaken on the phone for a child, been taken less seriously in work settings, been carded and looked at with squinty eyes at bars. I have a happy and youthful air. It happened before I was aware of it… I was dubbed ‘perky Perkins’ in middle school, ‘squeaky E’ ever after… I often prompt the word ‘aww’ and get that face, that ‘she’s so cute!’ face. I have loved it, I have been frustrated by it..

I hit the ground running pretty hard when I moved to the city. I knew I had a little voice, and quickly got going with a voiceover demo and auditions and work… I found my avenue pretty early on, and have channeled my inner 12-19 year old to the point where I convince myself onstage that that is who I am. I forget I am anything else. I become that vulnerable… and I like it very much. It releases something inside of me that I tend to suppress in my everyday. It lets me go to that place where fairies could very well be walking on my pillow.

I read a fictional something somewhere where they wrote about age in heaven. It was about how people in the afterlife aren’t specific ages, but instead are their whole lifes self. They are simultaneously 2 and 62. It talked about what a parent goes through with their child…How a parent, in this life, mourns their infant once they grow. They mourn their little one’s 5 year old self when they turn 10. It happens in friendships and relationships, too. Time gone by. But this story gave hope. It said that in heaven, when you re-meet your long lost friend, you will meet all of the parts of them that you loved so much here on earth! All ages! All essences!

I am going through a huge life change right now. I got the acting job I have been working towards my entire adult life, (I got to spend a week working on an incredible play by Bekah Brunstetter at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center. What else could I want? What else could I need? To work like that all of the time, of course! But still…) Things are actually coming to fruition in my career, slowly. I am getting in shows and recording voiceover work, I booked my first commercial. I am coming to understand that dreams come true, and what an amazing idea that is.

a particularly beautiful and reflective moment at the O’Neill.

And I am leaving the restaurant industry! After about a 7 year stint. 7 years! I was a child when I started! I am a woman now! I feel deeply sad to leave my friends there… working day in and day out with artists and thinkers and true friends. it is a difficult thing to give up. I am leaving the most beautiful people… tears in my eyes.

I am going to move home to Virginia for one month to take care of my grandmother. She is 93 (Born in 1920! Can you believe!?). It is a big thing for me. To take that career risk… (leaving the city for a month… you lose so many jobs, and you worry and worry that those opportunities will never come again! What if I miss IT!?). She fell and broke her pelvis and needs in home care. I am going to spend some time with her, get to know her, learn from her, serve her, and save up some money and move onward and upward, out of the service industry and into something else to pay the rent, something unknown! I will hopefully be helping her as well… help her and my mother figure out their next step. Three generations of women, all together! I think it will be quiet, hard, wonderful and epic.

My grandmother and me at my brothers wedding.

My mom told me once that she didn’t feel that she had aged inside. She said she felt the same way she did when she was 16… of course she gained wisdom and confidence, but that she still felt young. Nanny says she still feels young. She looks in the mirror and doesn’t recognize herself. She is going through a big life change, too. And it is as life-altering at 93 as it is at 22!

So I guess I match. I feel young. I feel afraid! I feel vulnerable! Change! Decisions! Adulthood! Choices! Pain! Joy! I am inspired, excited, moved and motivated. I feel that the world is in front of me. That there is so much left to uncover. A whole life to live.

“Can the child within my heart rise above?”

Moti and I decided to try a new vegetable share this summer, and we came home from our first visit with a bundle of chamomile, among other things. I had no idea what to do with it.

I have lived in New York City for a while now, and have been pounding the pavement for years to make a career for myself in the theater. I think I can speak for most of the performing artists in the city when I say that we are satisfied with very little: enough money to eat and pay rent, a full calendar of projects (ideally one right after the other), and perhaps a relationship or five to keep us fueled in our limited in-between time. Looking back over the past three weeks on my calendar, I notice that my dreams are realized, that I am, or should be, truly satisfied (for now, of course!). I am a part of a community of artists that constantly challenge me; I am making plays with backbone and purpose; I am auditioning for this and that, here and there, and that gives me hope. My eyes are on the mountain. I have a companion-husband… an artist himself… and we have made a sweet home where we can lay our heads. (I just vacuumed.)

It is good to write it out, I think. What I want and what I have. To realize that I am here and well on my way to something, and that perhaps that something has already arrived. There are so many other things associated with being an artist: dissatisfaction, fear, budget, feelings of inadequacy… did I mention fear? How is my ego today? Huge? Tiny? Am I aware of myself?

I am beginning to understand that simple pleasures and kindnesses are the key, at least for me, to a peaceful life. A cup of tea. A thank you note from a friend. A tickle fight with my husband. Learning what to do with chamomile. A church visit. A little energy spent on helping someone else.

It turns out that chamomile means “Earth Apple” in Latin. It also has an endless list of uses; It mildly helps with menstruation, calms anxiety and eases stress, helps with digestion, improves the skin and lightens hair, reduces swelling and eases pain. And here I thought it was simply good for tea with honey and milk!

It took me quite some time to snip off the flowers at the top, and to lay them out on a trey. I am going to wait for 7-10 days and let them dry, then keep them in a mason jar. Apparently it will keep for up to a year! I bet a cup of this tea with help me when I am feeling anxious or overtired, or simply when I need to step back and understand how good I have it.

I cut off the little buds from the chamomile. I am going to dry them out for about a week. The internet says I can dry the stems, too, for a milder tea!

Tech for my theater companies latest piece: “That Poor Dream;” a loose adaptation of Great Expectations. It explores income inequality in America and the cast’s own troubled relationship with class.

A particularly lovely moment for me this past week. People watching in midtown in between rehearsals.

At Home with Emmy Lou

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