Cowan Palace: Eating More Feelings

This week Ashley picks up from an earlier blog about eating her feelings and writing about it.

By the time you read this, I’ll be off on my honeymoon getting sunburn and probably eating too much at a complimentary buffet. But hey, that could be appropriate given I’m here writing about food again!

A few weeks ago, I shared some of the difficulty I was facing while working on my Olympians piece, Charybdis (or: Charlene’s Hungry). Don’t remember? Well you can reread it here: https://sftheaterpub.wordpress.com/2014/09/03/cowan-palace-lets-eat-our-feelings-and-write-about-it/

Oh, and I lied about the food poisoning part. Well, kinda. It was really “morning sickness” but I certainly felt (and still feel) that many foods have been poisoned for me throughout this pregnancy and that my entire relationship with food has changed.

But let’s get back to my play for now. In my previous blog, I mentioned that in order to finish my draft, I would force myself to attend an Overeaters Anonymous Meeting as it’s the setting to my piece. And boy, did I!

I should mention that I’ve had a pretty rough time with feeling nauseated throughout the past several weeks. And one of the things that helps balance it is snacking. Constantly. Even when eating is the last thing I want to do, if I can get myself to consume something, it’ll often help. Well, on this particular day, a few Saturdays back, I was suffering through some sickness. But knowing my time was running out to attend a meeting, I couldn’t back out. So I hopped on two buses and commuted an hour to the Sunset.

When I got there, I stood outside the building too nervous to go in; why hadn’t I thought about this earlier? What was I going to say if they wanted me to talk? Would I be honest? Should I try to be a character and put on an act? I let the minutes pass by while I attempted to get my story straight.

Since I’m a terrible liar (as Ashley Cowan; give me a character to play and I will confidently lie my face off!) I decided to just be as honest as possible without having to give too much of true self away.

I walked in and through a bigger meeting space to get to a smaller room. There, I saw five other women waiting patiently. The mood was quiet and thoughtful. Which immediately made me tense. We opened with the Serenity Prayer and then all the new people were asked to introduce themselves. I quickly decided against a fake name and went with my own when asked.

Next, we were informed that this was a “literature meeting” which meant we’d spend the majority of the meeting reading from a book, each of us taking turns to read a paragraph at a time. We were also told that the material we would be reading from was actually from Alcoholics Anonymous and that when we saw AA written, we should say “OA” so we could adapt it for our purposes.

Already, OA was starting to seem like a forgotten stepchild in an anonymous world. And I have to admit, I didn’t get a lot out of the readings. A lot of the material did not translate well for our needs and it just made the meeting feel sad.

Afterwards though, came the segment on sharing your experiences. I waited silently and shyly for others to speak. Those that chose to open up all came from different perspectives, which as an observer, was fascinating. Their stories were varied and their relationship with food ranged as well. After one woman spoke about being pregnant and having a difficult time managing the snacking required to fight her nausea in a healthy manner, I was inspired to speak up, if only to tell her she wasn’t the alone.

And though my voice was shaking a bit, I told them the truth. That this whole year, I’ve been struggling with food. From planning my wedding and calculating every calorie to trying to find peace with feeling like all that work is being undone as you gain weight to support another growing body. Food has been both my hero and my monster.

Which is certainly lending itself to my writing. But, working on this play has also brought back a lot of feelings from my childhood, when I really struggled with my body image. And maybe part of me is already fearing that I’m bringing a daughter into a world that can be quite cruel and that there’s a chance she may have to fight her own demons.

Growing up, I had always been a strong swimmer and spent my evenings doing laps with the swim team. There was both a threat and a safety involved in that. On one hand, I had to be in a bathing suit in front of my peers. That made me incredibly self conscious. On the other hand, there’s this beautiful weightlessness you feel when you’re swimming and I was actually really good at it. Needless to say, I’ve always been drawn to water so this Greek myth was even more of a personal pull.

After completing another draft of my script, I recently fell asleep and had a dream I was at a pool with beautiful people in attendance when a kid came up to me and said, “I bet you wish you were surrounded by people that look more like… you.” He was very judgmental and cruel in tone. I desperately started trying to defend myself to this small child saying, “I’m doing the best I can! And I’m pregnant!” but he just laughed.

The water, the critical feelings, the anger, the pain of it all just came rushing back. And I realized that this subject really may have been a bigger bite than I could chew. What that means for the piece is that while I have a completed draft of it, I’m realizing the story that came out ended up being bigger than a short. There’s more I want to say there, more I think I have to say at some point if I allow myself to keep swimming in it, but that time isn’t now.

This is not to suggest that I hope you skip the reading of it on November 22! The play is a beginning, a piece of more to come, but I’m happy to have a start and something to share. Heavily influenced by the meeting I attended and my own food demons, I hope you’ll be there in the audience to hear this take on Charybdis along with two other Greek monster tales.

Until then, see as many Olympians plays as you can! And be kind to yourselves. Because the truth is, if that insecure kid you may have been years ago could see you now, I’m sure they’d be pretty happy and proud of who you’ve become.

The 2014 Olympians festival will play 12 nights, November 5-22, Wednesday through Saturday, at the EXIT Theatre in San Francisco (156 Eddy Street). Tickets are $10.00 at the door, and can be purchased starting at 7:30 the night of the show.

Cowan Palace: Let’s Eat Our Feelings and Write About It!

Ashley gives herself a writing challenge and confronts her own food demons.

So it’s September and I’ve been attempting to climb over a writer’s block that’s managed to wedge itself into my path for a few months. But considering the piece in question is for the San Francisco Olympian’s Festival and auditions are just a few weeks away, the clock has started to tick louder and louder each day.

I submitted three proposals for consideration last year right before the midnight deadline. Two were silly and fluffy. One was way more personal and scary; which ended up being the play I was matched to write.

Last year I had a blast writing my Olympian’s short, Oenone because I was able to take an honest, awkward middle school existence and channel it into a retelling of Paris’s first wife while making fun of some of my twelve year old self at the same time. It proved to be both fun and healing and forever solidified my belief that in this life, we’re all just middle schoolers trying to find a place to have lunch.

I guess I had hoped I’d have a similar experience this year. The myth I was drawn to surrounding Charybdis involved this female character being punished for eating one of Hercules’ prized cattle. She was then thrown into the sea where she was left to resume life as a monster.

Growing up, I always felt my relationship with food was a struggle. Without going too much into it now, it’s consumed more of my thoughts and energy than I’d care to admit. And when I thought about this idea of being turned into a sea creature over a ravenous appetite, I was inclined to finally explore it. Even though it made me feel a bit more vulnerable than I expected. Every time I would draft out a few pages, it never felt quite right. Perhaps because I wasn’t sure what I wanted to really say and how truthful to be to my own experiences. How many demons should a writer unleash before they attempt their story?

Ashley takes a bite out of life and also, some meat.

So instead of answering that question, I thought it may be more useful to do some research. Since I had chosen to place this play in an Overeaters Anonymous meeting, I figured I should probably educate myself a bit more on the organization. Which meant, agreeing to attend a meeting to truly obtain the experience.

See, this isn’t really a new thing for me. I’m always trying to “dare” myself to do stuff so I can share the story later. (A few years ago I challenged myself to go alone to a strip tease class for that very purpose. And if you know ANYTHING about me, you can imagine what that was like. And if you can’t, well, here’s an image: I was unaware that we were supposed to bring a towel with us to incorporate into our dance routine. So I then had to use my bright pink hoodie in its place…awkward, duh.) So true to my character, I went online and found a San Francisco Overeaters Anonymous meeting.

And then I (hilariously) came down with food poisoning. What luck, huh? I’m forever an accident waiting to happen. I will be attending one, however, before my next blog is out and I look forward to sharing the tale with you all soon. In the meantime, I found a whole bunch of valuable YouTube clips to keep me busy. I mean, aside from all the puppies and babies and stuff.

I stumbled across a 1985 dramatization of a slightly chubby, middle aged woman who eats cookie dough batter after her teenage daughter sasses her about not understanding what it’s like to go out on a dancing date. The short film seems to be sponsored by Overeaters Anonymous and while I couldn’t help but mock some of the dialogue and direction (this woman’s husband shames her for eating a tiny cupcake and then she goes to the grocery store where a judgmental clerk says, “see you tomorrow!”), this dated piece did provide some interesting information and a perspective of someone attending an OA meeting for the first time.

Straight from the YouTube clip: sassy 80’s daughter sassing her mom!

Yes, some of it was pretty amusing to watch because I’m mean and can’t get enough of 80’s hair styles, but I also appreciated this idea of finding people with similar experiences and chronicling them to help heal each other. There’s something kind of hopeful about how someone who truly felt hopeless could find acceptance and learn to cope through the encouragement of others.

Since my only personal experience with meetings of this nature was through a stupid ex-boyfriend (stupid because he was idiot, not because of his addictions), it’s a world I only really know through pop culture’s eyes. And even though it makes me pretty uncomfortable to dive into this particular whirlpool (Charybdis pun, holla!) I feel like it’s time to face my own monsters for the sake of writing this piece and explore this myth the way it deserves. Did I bite off more than I can chew? Probably. I’m working on that. But hey, choking makes for enjoyable future blogs, doesn’t it?

So in the meantime friends, make sure to sign up for an Olympians audition (this is your last week to do it!) and I’ll look forward to seeing you there with the newest version of my story.