On playing someone like you. Actually, not the song by Adele.

"Crimes of the Heart" closes next weekend. It's a play I'm performing in Chicago* that I first read when I was in acting school in Minneapolis, set in Mississippi which is sort of like North Carolina where I'm from** and a lot like Louisiana where my father's family lives. With my birthday approaching (I'll be a proud 24 on Wednesday!), I reflect upon who I've become during this last year, my self proclaimed Year of Becoming, and I find I have a lot in common with my character, Meg Magrath, the middle sister with "sad, magic eyes."

Meg is fun, brave and passionate. She moved far away from home to pursue her dream of being an artist. She says what is on her mind, even when she shouldn't. She's got a tough shell, but really needs the chance to cry sometimes. She's afraid of being weak, of being obsolete. She loves her family, bourbon and chocolate. She's had a mental breakdown. She is very young and somehow old.

Men are a sore subject with Meg. She broke one man's heart in a big way, like ran away to California the night his leg was crushed when a roof caved in during a hurricane BIG way. Since that time, she fears caring for anyone. Because if you care, you can get hurt. If you care and you destroy everything, it breaks your heart. It breaks your heart almost as much as being trapped in the wrong relationship, the wrong town, the wrong lifetime does. I am like Meg in this way; I care too.

As Meg, I get one more beautiful night with the man I left. One night to heal the seeping ache of five years spent wondering why. One night to move forward with clear, understanding eyes. One night to forgive myself, the hardest forgiveness of all. Even though Doc doesn't ask Meg to run away with him, she comes in singing the next day triumphant and joyous at the realization that, she "could care about someone... could want someone!" This understanding look in his eyes breaks open her heart.

As Maura,  I haven't met "the one"*** and I still am my own wife, as it were. But after nearly a year "back out there," I'm happy to say that recently my heart has returned. Fear's ally, numbness, has subsided and I am left a full, feeling woman ready and open to the world, and love, if it comes my way.

Of course, I am not like Meg in a few ways. I don't chain smoke and the practice smoking I did really effedup my voice for about a week. Thank you, Anna Pahomova. I don't think my father is a bastard. He's actually really nice. I don't have a thick Southern accent.**** I don't fight like mad with my sisters, an ever growing group***** Except for Alison, but she started it!

So no matter how many Tony's I'm not winning for this production, how many cabinet doors fall off the set, how many times the technical elements surprise us, how many Illinois suburban folk love it, how much money I've spent on gas, how many sweet friends travel across the country to see it, or how many pairs of pantyhose I tear through, I have learned wonderful things about Maura Clement by playing Meg Magrath. And that may not be as good as money in the bank, but it sure beats smoking two packs a day.

The cast of Crimes of the Heart, April 2012

*Okay, it's in St. Charles, so sue me!
** Okay, I moved there when I was 12, my dad was a JAG for the Navy. Just like Harmon Rabb Jr. Okay, not like Harm at all, so sue me!
***Okay, I don't believe in "the one." I just mean someone I'm effin wild about who feels the same way about me.
****Okay, I sorta do, but only when bourbon is involved.
*****Okay, I'm not sayin' nothin.

Monday night's alright for (re)writing old love poems.

Surely you must know


Sometimes when I'm with you,
I feel blissfully and successfully young
as if each passing moment contains
unending purpose and possibility.

But right now, I feel strangely old.
I start to notice things,
like the veins in my hands as I write this.
One day, when I wasn't looking,
they became my mother's hands.

And it's alright if you prefer
Bob Dylan to Dylan Thomas,
or if neither move your old soul,
as long as you keep drinking
dark roast coffee and india pale ale.

For years I've been dying to ask you,
where do malls keep their Christmas trees
during the rest of the year
and
do William and Penny Lane fall in love again
when she comes back from Morocco
and
can you see what I can't say when you look
into the hazel swells of my eyes?

If you'd give me the old college try,
like John says, I'd walk down to the end with you,
be it where the evergreen trees quietly live,
or the deadly deserts of a forgotten Morocco,
or the sacred place behind my longing eyes.

With any luck,
my daughter will have
her grandmother's hands
and your sense of rhythm.



copyright 2012
maura clement

On forgiveness being the greatest gift one being can give another.

________: Friendship with you is a precarious thing.

You are mistaken in thinking

that your simmering anger

makes you strong.

You are wrong in concluding

that your fistful of grudges against her

honors your dead father.

She wronged you once years ago

and you have wronged her every day since

with cold stares from your dark eyes

or worse, by pretending she isn’t there at all.

You have frozen her in time.

Cold and blue,

she cannot move or change or grow.

She is a fossil of the girl she was,

a museum artifact inside a glassy case.

Don’t touch.

But time does not freeze selectively, _______.

If in your mind she will always be the same,

then your thoughts about her will always be the same

then your actions toward her will always be the same

[and what are we but our actions?]

So you, ________, will always be the same.

You are an icy figure,

and your ice has begun to look like stone.

If you don’t melt soon,

you will weather and disappear into dust.

Angry dust.

Yes, forgiveness is a surrender.

But your unsinkable resentment is not a victory.

Life doesn’t work like that.

I wish I knew you before,

it’s hard to know you now.

On loving myself and why I stopped shaving.

I've stopped shaving my legs... and my armpits... and my everything...

My sister Claire will attest that shaving has never been something I was any good at doing frequently. But the stubble on my legs always resulted from passive laziness, rather than an active choice. The decision to stop shaving wasn't a sudden one, but rather a gradual progression over the last few months of my 23rd year, the year I have entitled My Year of Becoming. This is roughly how the progression has happened...

Maura in December: 

"I sometimes forget to shave my legs, so there's often stubble. Sorry about that."

Maura in January:

"I don't really like to shave my legs, so I only do it occasionally. So, there's that."

Maura in February:

"I don't want to shave my legs, so I don't do it. So, deal with that."

There are a number of reasons that I think shaving sucks and have abandoned it:

1. I often cut myself and bleed, thus attracting bears and vampires to eat me in my apartment.
2. Good razors are expensive, thus leaving less money to spend on my vices, including, but not limited to yarn, cheese, red wine and costumes.
3. Most importantly, shaving is something I've done continuously since I was 12 and I've never done it for myself, but because it's what I thought I should do.

Let me be clear... In choosing not to shave, I'm not making some grand feminist statement about how society is telling us women should look like Angelina's smooth, boney right leg thus we should all fight against the Man, wear burlap sacks and never shower. There is nothing wrong with shaving any part of your body... if it makes you, as a woman or man, feel more beautiful! In fact, my brother shaves his legs because he feels it makes him a more aerodynamic tri-athlete. However, I realized that I personally get nothing out of shaving. I don't feel more beautiful, or sexy, or desirable. I just feel annoyed that I could have spent that five minutes watching a clip of Sophia Grace and Rosie eating sandwiches on the red carpet at the Grammy's. 

I am not saying I'm somehow au natural in every aspect of my physical being. There are other modifications I make to my body to feel more beautiful. I construct elaborate hair-do's because they make me feel like a princess. I paint on blue eyeshadow because it makes my hazel eyes pop wide open (a trick taught to me by the strong and beautiful Gabra Zackman). I got a tattoo on my shoulder blade because I like the way it peeps out when I'm wearing a tank top (a look I stole from the lovely Anna Reichert). I get my eyebrows threaded because my unibrow starts to have a conversation with me otherwise. These endeavors to looks good outside make me feel great inside. That's the key.

I didn't throw out all my razors. I am an actress and will probably have to shave for a part. Maybe I'll want to be clean-shaven at a point down the road. And that's okay, because I'm not making a statement or a promise or an ultimatum. I'm just caring for and presenting my body exactly how I want to, right in this moment. My body looks different that it ever has before... and I really like it.

And as for the gentlemen, if they don't like it, that's too bad. I'm not worried. As I said to my brothers recently, much to their dismay, "I don't shave my legs, but when you've got a rack like these, it doesn't seem to be a problem." But seriously...

The whole point is, wait for it... 

Ladies and gentlemen, LOVE YOUR BODY. 

Dress it up or slum around. Be hairy or be smooth. 

Wear perfume or don't shower. 

But do whatever you do for yourself. 

Your body is home to only your soul. 

And it's effin beautiful.

On anxiety and contentment in this beautiful world.

We show great loyalty to the hard times we've been through.

-The Mountain Goats, "Riches and Wonders"

It's four in the morning and I can't sleep.
When recently getting to know someone new, I recounted one of the most troubled times of my young life. I don't remember how it came up, but the story of these few months always seems to resurface as soon as I begin to let someone in emotionally. This turbulent time from a few years back shapes my current mental landscape. Anxiety creeps back in and I am facing it head on.

In the summer of 2009, I was living on a dude ranch in Colorado. This summer was most adventurous and exciting. I hiked every week. I had an amazing guide horse named Josie. We reached an agreement that if I didn't kick him and gave him granola bars, he wouldn't run away from me when I dismounted to check my riders' saddles. I met some of the most fantastic women I'd ever met and made a few lifelong friends.

Pretty Josie.

Despite all the positives of this experience, at the end of the summer, under external physical and self-inflicted emotional duress from circumstances I needn't go into, I was enveloped by my first full-blown, crippling panic attack. Strong, confident me was now a crumbled mess, completely weak and petrified of the future. Thankfully, a group of heroes from Minnesota drove through the night to come rescue me. For that, I am ever grateful. I do not exaggerate when I say that I believe those men, especially one, saved my life.  Two weeks after this event, I moved to London to study abroad with my Guthrie classmates. I was not physically, emotionally or intellectually prepared to leave the country, my family, my boyfriend. Something had ruptured within me, a valve had broken loose and the weight of the world was now flowing through my veins. For two months abroad, I was miserable... and for no real reason. When I look though the photos of my first few weeks in London, I see a sad, shadow of myself. I look so lost.

One day, during that time, I ended up crying at the doorstep of Catholic church, where I met Father Tom. Father Tom was a charming, quirky old man, he invited me in saying, "Well, start at the beginning, dear, because you've just dropped out of heaven and I have not a clue who you are..." He made me tea and gave me a biscuit, which is required by British priest law. I told him everything, how delusional and afraid I was and how I wanted to go home. I wanted to give up the two years I'd trained in the program I worked so hard to get into. Although I'm sure he didn't fully understand what this hysterical American girl was saying, he gave me two pieces of advice which I never will forget:

Moira, 

you have one million dollars in your hand

and you are about to drop it to reach for a paper clip. 

Don't let your emotions get in the way of reality.

So I stayed. And on October 28th, I woke up and I felt better. Not perfect. But better. I traveled to Germany, France, Austria, and Scotland. I became friends with Tina Le and Anna Reichert. I crafted my mantra (My mission is to be humble and good.) The magic came back into my eyes.

This is all backstory to my original question: Why am I so loyal to this time? It is a time that I feel is vital to understanding the person I've become. But what is it that I am sharing... my weakness? my fears? Just so you know, this one time I lost it!

Lately, some of these panicked, anxious fears have returned to me... which is, of course, natural as I am 23, single, trying to make it as an actor, experiencing a brother just return from a war which has been going on too long, living in a new city, dealing with minor health issues, during an election year for a country with a financial crisis. But I never want to go back to that dark place, those fearful months when nothing was wrong but I couldn't smile. Someone told me yesterday that happiness is overrated; that may be true, but contentment isn't and contentment is a gift we can give ourselves every day.

I don't think it is wrong that our difficult moments define us... just so long as the jubilant, triumphant ones do as well. And so, if you see me and I look worried, put your thumb on my third eye and tell me to relax my brow. Tomorrow will worry about tomorrow. As my character Meg in Crimes of the Heart says after thwarting her sister's suicide attempt, "We've got to learn how to get through these real bad days... I mean, it's getting to be a thing in our family."

Lately, contentment looks a lot like this.

On the Actor's Hustle

"I feel like on a scale of one to ten, I kinda hit ten when I stopped having to serve people food. So, I've been riding ten ever since. This is great." 

-Chris Pratt of "Parks and Recreation" to Ellen DeGeneres on the recent successes of his career.

I really have to stop worrying about losing my job.

The poor economy is hard on everyone, but according to a recent study, my age group (18-34) is hit the hardest by it. I used to joke that those of us graduating with degrees in art were actually better off than graduates in other fields in a recession because we always expected to be unemployed. Everyone else had the rug pulled out from under them. “But I have a degree in human resources?! I should have a job!” is somehow a stronger argument than “I have a BFA in Acting and I got an A’s in yoga and circus skills, dammit!” Still, the awareness that acting jobs are hard to come by doesn’t make this first year out of school any easier.

It is nearly impossible to launch an acting career while working a 9-to-5 job. Over the last few months, I’ve found a number of part-time gigs in Chicago. I’m a nanny, a knitting instructor, a waitress, and a standardized patient (that's where I act like a sick person in order to prepare doctors for their USMLE Clinical Skills). These gigs (usually about 30 hours a week) pay the bills. But my job, first and foremost, is being the CEO, CFO, marketing director and product of the Maura Clement Corporation. My duties include, but are not limited to, rehearsing my upcoming play, seeking out and doing auditions, sending out headshots, staying physically fit (God bless all those Groupons for yoga), keeping abreast of what’s going on in the Theater (mostly through Jacob Perkins' facebook page), seeing shows around town and avoiding accidentally responding to adult film audition postings on Craigslist (*please note, dear reader, that “adult actress” does not refer to your age.) I continue to remind myself that I am an actress for a living, a waitress to pay the bills.

Scheduling my life is a nightmare. I always seem to be bartering for my time. Here’s a recent example, I needed to travel to Minneapolis for my Montana Shakespeare audition on a Tuesday, when I usually nanny. The family gave me Tuesday off in exchange for my Saturday night, when I often waitress. So I tell my manager at the restaurant that I can’t work Saturday and cross my fingers that it all works out without anyone firing me. And up till this point, it always seems to. This seems to be the case nearly every week. The juggle is how do I keep my art always my first priority without totally pissing off the people who I currently depend on financially?

The obvious conclusion I’ve recently come to is that if I get the acting job, which is after all the whole point, I’m going to have to quit all other jobs anyway and move to effin’ Montana. SO WHO CARES?!  Now I’m not saying I plan on being inconsiderate or a bad employee. On the contrary, I try to be a great nanny and waitress so that these people continue to think I’m worth all the hassle. But I need to give myself a break and not worry about losing these jobs because I see no end to the hustle. Am I going to always have a pit in my stomach for fear of losing my humble income? Hopefully one day the hustle will just be made up of acting gigs (How will I ever balance all these movie offers?! Life is so stressful!), but the reality is that in this field, we artists are continually interviewing for the next job. 

I'd like to transition the hustle to being made up of commercial gigs, teaching gigs, Standardized Patient gigs, knitting gigs, and acting gigs. That would be perfect. That would be a ten.

But regardless of the career hustle, life happens. There are things that are more important than my acting career and those things are people. Life happening is the best way to get perspective on the relative insignificance of whatever triviality I am worried about. Today my brother Jeff returns from his second 7-month tour in Afghanistan. So I dropped everything, got out of work, hopped a flight (very generously donated by the Dave and Jenifer Clement Foundation for Getting their Daughter Places) and am eagerly waiting to celebrate his safe return. That’s real life. My best friend Tina came to visit and we adventured around finding Chicago’s photobooths. That’s real life. My godmother is bravely battling a tumor. That’s real life. A boy brought me flowers on a third date. That’s real life.

Never forget that the best way to enrich your artistic life is by living your real one.

Chicago Photobooth Pub Crawl

Like every good adventure, it began with a dream. Tina Le, visiting from New York City rolls over in the morning and says to me, “I had a dream that we went to a photobooth and I licked your face.” I responded, “Let’s make it happen.” And so began a beautifully improtu photobooth pub crawl around my neighborhood, Wicker Park. Now, I don’t go out much and I don’t often buy drinks when I do go out. But I am type-A and I do love goals. So let’s say this evening I was a goal oriented drunk... Buy a different drink and take a photo at all the places with photobooths. Our first stop was the famous Reckless Records on Milwaukee Ave, a place I knew Tina would love because of it's wide selection of Jack White 45's. No drinking at Reckless, but Tina did find a record for her collection.

Next stop was my favorite bookshop, Quimby's ($3 a photo, black&white) on North Ave. Best part of Quimby's was the props they had available. Both Tina and I paid homage to our favorite book, Just Kids by Patti Smith, me with the book, her with her Robert Maplethorpe tee. There was also a fan, cause Tina is my geisha, and a rubber shark cause I am a bathtub explorer.

Our journey was destined to because of a serendipitous street art exhibit that was happening under the Damen Blue Line train station. Kiam had hung a mirror in the shape of "I AM" on the brick wall. We wrote what we were on a post-it and then he took this polaroid of us. We wrote, "Maura's best friend" and "Tina's best friend." How sweet.

Tina says this photo looks like she's meeting a celebrity.

A short jaunt down Damen past Division led us to the Rainbo Club ($3, sorta sepia, analog). The bartender proudly declared that their photobooth was one of two analog photobooths in the state and apparently Liz Phair took the cover photo for her album Exit in Guyville there. We drank Old Fashioned's in honor of Don Draper.

We continued down Damen to my favorite place on the adventure, Bar Deville. ($5, sepia, digital) We drank Tina's favorite beverage in the world, hard cider. There is free pool, lots of space, funky upholstered furniture and the feel of a French dive. We upset some gentleman by borrowing the pool equipment for props... and Tina bit my ear.

Our final stop was Beauty Bar on Chicago Ave where the bouncer was kind enough to let us not pay cover to get in to use the photobooth... but tragically...

And so ended a very well documented evening in Chicago.