The sky tonight.

It's nearing the end of the 8'oclock hour. We are standing, looking at the sunset. I take note of what's going through my head. I've just been looking at the moon. It's glowing tonight. I see a little more than half. I think about how we see the moon at different sizes at different times and wonder why. Why is that, again? Why it looks like half is covered at his particular moment. I think of the words waxing and waning. I turn back to the sunset. The telephone wires from this angle look like a music staff. I am just about to identify a "note" when my husband puts his arm around me, and then I forget. I start thinking about milk. I haven't had a glass of milk in…years. I can barely remember the taste. I think about what the land we stand on must have looked like centuries ago. And what will be here in the future, when we are long gone.




~DM

To my husband, who is everything.

“Everything you do seduces me. All you need to do is breathe and I would do anything for you.”

I never knew love until I met my husband. I didn't know that I didn't know it prior. How could I? I had nothing to compare. I knew I was missing something, but I didn't know what it felt like. Or how it would be different. When I found it, everything was naturally there. Everything that wasn't before. 

I think of him first in all things. I want to spare him any pain. I want to rush to his defense. I want to give up anything and everything if it means he gets something great in return. He would never ask me to, of course. But I've never known this want. This knowing that I would in a heartbeat, should I need to. I want him to go first. I want him to have the last bite. I want him to soar. I want him to succeed. I want him to be happy. I want him to feel loved. I want to create the best environment for him that I can. I want to make him proud. I want to shout form the rooftops how proud I am of him. I want everyone, everywhere, to look at him and stand in awe the way I do. I want each good person I know to know him. I want everyone who does know him to truly understand how lucky they are to get him in their life. I want everyone to agree with me that he is in fact the most talented, the most handsome, and the smartest. I want him to have peace. I want him to achieve his ideas of success. I want to burst and cry whenever I think about how much I love him. I want to freeze time so I can have him forever.


~DM

The wrong story.

I did. 

It was the hardest and best thing I ever did for myself. At first, it seemed selfish. I was doing this for myself. It wasn't until later that I realized it was a gift in disguise to let other people who were part of the story at that time go. In doing so, I freed them of being trapped in the wrong story as well. Had it been the other way around, I would have wanted to know so I could leave. Wouldn't you? You can't have a healthy whole when half is forcing a fit. 

It didn't start out that way. I simply didn't know better. I had a checklist of things that needed to be done. I made decisions based on a timeline. 

After awhile, something started to nag at me. A gut feeling I tried hard to ignore. I distracted myself and found myself running at a high stress level almost all the time. I would get frustrated in everything. I should be happy, so what was wrong? I kept misplacing my feelings, because I wasn't ready to face them. I didn't know that. I didn't know what was causing this. I just knew something was off. Missing. Wrong. I kept searching, but for what I didn't know. I hadn't yet learned that you should never ignore your gut. 

When I finally found out the cause, when I was finally ready and honest with myself to realize what it was, it was awful. It meant hurting someone else. Hurting someone in order to be true to myself. 

I didn't know how to do it. I made a bit of a mess of it for awhile, and blamed myself for a long time. I lived with a new fear after, thinking I should be and would soon be punished. 

I couldn't see the part where following my heart was a good thing, letting someone go was the right thing, and that it was okay to finally be happy. I wasn't used to the happy and I was on pins and needles waiting for it to be taken from me. I didn't think I deserved it. 

But I had already been living in fear for so long. First of what people would think, then to wonder where I would live, what I would drive, what I'd do with no insurance, then to how awful this would be to hurt another person. A person I so very much cared about.  

But I eventually realized that staying because of those reasons was terrible! It's a terrible thing to live in the wrong story and pretend things are okay. It's a terrible thing to stay because you're scared. It's a terrible thing to live any other way than what is authentic to you.

If you're not living authentically, you're not living. 

The leap was inevitable. It happened in a way I never expected. But when I jumped, the universe rose up and caught me! Some of the things I was worried about came true, but it wasn't as bad as I'd anticipated. And the necessities all fell into place!

Sure I dealt with heartache, with blame, with nearly a year and a half of anxiety and panic attacks. But if that's what it took to get me to my truth, so be it. 

Do I have regrets? I don't believe in regrets.  I believe everything happens just as it needs to to teach us the lessons we need to learn.

Do I feel like I wasted time? No. Nothing can be forced. That's one of the biggest lessons I learned. Nothing can happen before you are truly ready. 

Do I wish I could have spared others pain? Absolutely. 

Would I do things differently? Maybe. Would I change where it led me? No freaking way. 

When I compare where I am now, what it feels like to live in my truth, with where I'd been, I can't explain the feeling that wells up inside me. I know what it's like to live in a world of black and white, and a world of color.

It would blow my mind now that people don't choose to live in only what is true for them, if I didn't understand so deeply the fear.

Not everyone will understand. Not everyone will see your choices as brave. Not everyone will be able to adapt to who you really are. That's okay. It's not for them. You are the one who lives your story, and you know the truth by the way it feels. Even though (and I truly believe this) if we all tried hard enough, we could find ways to relate to each other, and begin to understand. 

I guess I just want to say that there are ways to get though that fear. You will survive it. You will. Even when you really don't think you'll be able to. And that you really are meant to live in truth and peace. It takes massive amounts of courage to be honest with yourself. It's often the hardest thing to do. To truly get to know you, who you are, what you want, and then to proceed accordingly. I wish I could hug everyone who is both struggling in getting to their truth, and those that were brave enough to leap.

The choices are to play pretend, not to live at all, or to be braver than you ever thought possible…and be okay.  Better than okay.  Freaking great. You come out a warrior, and nothing will ever seem as scary.

It's okay to make mistakes.
It's okay to apologize.
It's okay to forgive.
It's okay to forgive yourself.
It's okay to follow your heart.
And not only is it okay, it is necessary. 

Thanks for reading, 

DM

Schrödinger's Cat

When exactly does quantum superstition end and reality collapse into one possibility or another?

My husband and I are in limbo. We are waiting to find out things (three very specific things at the moment) that will shape our future paths and the rest of our lives.  Yeah, no big deal.

I've been known to be impatient. Not as much as I once was, but it's in me. My sweet love is stressed. Yet, for some reason I find myself a little more comfortable in this situation than I would expect. 

Maybe it's time, getting older, or the comfort I take knowing from experience that the universe is to be trusted. I can't help but feel some magic in the air before anything is known, and all is possible. No matter the outcomes, it's okay. The universe knows, and keeps steering us to things we never saw coming. All in it's own time, I suppose. 

Right now we are with, and without. As much as I want to know, I also don't.

I kinda like this feeling of possibility. 

Thanks for reading,

DM

At this very moment.

leeds, UT | 4.17.2015 


She used to come here to escape. To try to mend her broken soul. Heart shattered, she missed him terribly. She hoped that the farther away she got, maybe the easier it would be to forget he'd existed. But the truth was, when he tore through her world he changed everything. Left her in flames.

She spent so much time looking at the sky here, and teaching herself to find the beauty in everything. She had to find a way to live in the word again, and to see the good. And when she did not find it at times, "at least he's given me new eyes with which to see", she'd think.

She was open to the omens in a way she'd never been before. She was thankful for her new eyes. But just as she was resigning herself to the fact that he was lost forever, the universe stepped in, not done with them after all.

Now he is here. Her husband, holding the camera. She sees the sky in a different way now. Gone is the longing to be off of the earth and into the blue, for she loves so much what grounds her here.

Right at this moment, this is what's going through her head. And as she turns from the sunset to look at him, these are the thoughts she wants captured in this photo.



~DM

Saying yes.

I came across the above picture a couple of years ago now.  A friend of mine, Paul Duane, posted this along with many others on his blog after his first experience at Burning Man. That post of his affected me deeply. I still thinking about it and re visit it. While at Burning Man Paul asked, "Imagine that I handed you a microphone; when you speak into it, the whole world can understand and hear you at the same time. You can make 3 statements. What would you say?" 

So many of the words and phrases that these people shared inspired me. I still get chills when I scroll through. I find that different ones speak to me, depending on what I've learned, and what I'm going through. However, the one above remains my favorite.

1.) The more people you meet, the more you learn about yourself. 
2.) Before you have an opinion about something, you must experience that thing.
3.) If you say no, your reason for saying no must be better than the reason for saying yes.

I use these on a regular basis. The other day I found that I needed to reminded myself of #3. It's true that if it scares you, you should probably do it. Most of the time when I (and I'm going to bet you) say no, it's because of fear. When you check in and honestly find that the answer is "because I'm scared", you know it's time to be brave and say yes.

The fact that this strangers words have been with me and helped me for nearly two years now is pretty cool, isn't it? We impact other people more than we think. We all guide each other. Share your words, experiences, and stories. You never know who you're helping.

I thought I'd pass this on. Keep passing on.

Thank you, stranger. Thank you, Paul.


What 3 statements would you make?


Thanks for reading,

Deena Marie

xo

Neither here nor there

You know the space between sleep and awake? The hazy and mystical place where new ideas flow freely, and revelations are had? Where you are neither here nor there, but existing somewhere other than this plane? Where dreaming and reality meet? You know how sometimes it's a little more revelatory than others? Me too.

I had one of these visions/experiences the other night. My dad recently sent me the above photos. They speak to me so strongly as familiar and right and me, and only now when I thought to post them did I realize how closely they resemble to what I saw and felt the other day/night.

I was in and out. I was deeply aware of a stillness through the universe. A vastness, a beautiful darkness. All was quiet, calm, peaceful, and so still. All existing as it always had and always will. No time. There is no time. There is no clock, no need nor way to mark a date, or an hour, or the minute.

All was one, breathing together, and time felt suspended and infinite.

I was comforted, remembering that I'm part of that. The most natural thing in the world. Home. I could see the planets through a purple and blue and feel myself around them, and everywhere, for I was (am) part of everything.

It's one of those things you can't quite experience the same when fully conscious, no matter how hard you try. It's fleeting, but so real. So deep. A reminder, a re-awakening, a comfort sent your way. Letting you know that you know more than you think, to believe, and to trust.

For a brief moment, I was let out. Of my physical body, out of this world, out of time. Back to my origins. Back to my home. It's so beautiful there.

In the neither here nor there I've seen heaven. I wrote about it a couple of years ago. After Chuck died, I saw it. It is gold and grand and moves slowly.

In the neither here nor there I've seen my Grandpa and Chuck. They were young, they were happy, they were playing with a baby in a meadow. The grass was so green, the sun was shining, it was warm although they both wore jackets. They had huge smiles on their faces as they spun him around. This little blonde boy.

In the neither here nor there, the same night I was released to the cosmos for awhile, I also felt my future baby. My daughter? All around me. She is there. She is near me. It will soon be time. We're connected already.

A few nights ago my mom had a dream Chuck was teaching me a dance on a stage. He was around 30. He was in a tuxedo. He looked great. As he taught me, others gathered behind us. I think I'm supposed to share a message of his.

A few nights after that, she had another dream that Chuck was buckling a little baby girl into a car seat. She was wearing a dress. All I know, is they are together. She is in good hands. And she will soon be on her way.

She is waiting, watching over me. He'll send her when we're ready.

She knows best.


Thanks for reading,

Deena Marie

xo

That's a story for another time...

Last night I got to tell my story onstage among fellow actors as a fundraiser for the Wounded Warriors Project. This was put on by an old friend of mine, Charlie Halford. He got the idea after a chance meeting with a veteran who's story inspired him and got him thinking about how powerful storytelling is. He gathered up twelve of his closest actor friends, and we made a night of it. When you are asked to "tell your story", the possibilities are endless. It could be about a particular day, year, or role. I listened to my instincts as I wrote my story, and I've got it below for those of you who might be interested and weren't able to make it. The night was diverse. Each performer had a different idea and style of telling their tale, but there were recurring themes without us knowing prior. Once again, we are all more alike than we think. Once again, don't judge a book by it's cover, don't discount what someone has to say, has to offer, or has been through. We are all each other's teachers. I stay in an acting career because of my love of storytelling (it's also why I read, and why I write). So that the audience experiencing it connects, relates, and reminds themselves that they aren't alone. Yet when it's just you, not playing a character, but sharing your heart of hearts in front of people, it's so much more vulnerable. A completely different experience. Everyone was brave last night. As you know, if you follow this blog, I love hearing peoples stories, and words, and learning from them. I wish I could spend a day as everyone, in every career, with every experience. I am endlessly fascinated by people. Thank you all, for teaching me last night. 

One last thing. You may also know that I certainly don't define who I am by what I do. So if you want to read a deeper account of who I am, click here. 

Thank you.  Now, let's get into it!

There is a little girl, an only child, who lives off 6200 s and highland drive. She feels older than she is, and often out of place.

One day it strikes her as particularly profound just how small she is in a space so vast. How rooted to earth and how incredibly human she is. How she’s bound by gravity in the most permanent of ways and how much bigger she feels that what she realizes she is restricted to.

How, if she were to stand in a corner of her room, how small that space that would be. Nobody would know there was a special little girl in a minuscule corner of a room off 6200 s and highland in a city in a state of the world of the earth. 

How could she be so much, feel so much, and how would anybody ever know? Weren’t they supposed to know?

I have a crystal ball now that can show me the past.  If I could take her at this moment, her first philosophizing, feeling different, feeling full of passion and not knowing what to do with it, and tell her how it would all pan out, it might go something like this.

You’ll find a place for that passion when you decide toward the end of high school that you want to be an actress, this is when you fall in love with the stage. Not only with the thrill of performing, but with the sense of acceptance, family, and community your fellow thespians will give to you. You will be home. You will fall madly in love and you will never waver, or doubt your calling.

You will be anxious to perform outside of school, and you will start to right away. But you will want to climb higher and higher. You will want to train to be the best. You will decide that school here in Utah feels too small and you should go to acting school in New York City. You will get into the school of your dreams, and you will say good riddance to your home town, the one that doesn’t fit you anymore, and you’ll have no intention of ever coming back.

New. York. City. The city that called to you since you were ten. You always knew you’d be here. The day you leave for your new city, you’ll see your dad sob for the first time, and your legs will be shaky as you walk away to board the plane. Halfway through your flight it will really hit you, that you’re leaving the only home you’ve ever known, and there’s no turning around now.

Right before the move, your mom will buy you a purple sweater and you’ll wear it on your first day of school.  When your first day is over, as you walk the distance from the bus to where you’re temporarily staying, the sweater will fall from it’s place tied around your waist, and be lost. It will bother you your whole life that this little bit of home and her were gone so quickly. Isn’t it funny? The little details we remember?

On the first day of school you’ll also see a boy that you are sure is the one you’ve been brought all this way to meet. But you’ve got a mission, and you shouldn’t be distracted by things like boys, and life…right?           

The time in New York will have the biggest impact on you. It will be one of the hardest things you’ll ever go through. But also, one of the most magical. You’ll have the lead in the school’s final play.  But before that cast list is posted, you’ll wish so hard for it you’d make a deal with the devil if you could. 

There is NOTHING like the passion of artists, and the passion you have for theatre and performing when it is still all so new. It’s your end all, be all.  It is your EVERYTHING. You’ll have a scene chosen to perform for David Mamet. You won’t sleep for three nights leading up to it, because you’ll be so nervous.

You’ll do a show in an Off Broadway theatre, you’ll do readings in buildings just off of time square. You’ll make a fool of yourself when you have too much to drink and try very unsuccessfully to hit on a guy at a bar who’d just given a master class at your school. No big deal, he was just on some little show called Friends. 

You’ll begin to see how small of a world you live in when you see the same faces at auditions, and run into a friend from high school smack in the middle of time square.

Life is still happening around the bubble of your world of art, and it will creep in, and sometimes distract you from the tunnel vision you tried to have and thought you needed to give to your art, and to your art alone. To becoming an actress. To being the chosen one.

After graduation, you will be so terribly unsure of what to do next. You have no idea what it means to trust your path, or that all of these events will lead you into exactly where you’re meant to go.

There will be a morning you’ll be lying on a couch in Brooklyn in your pink pajamas, convinced you are going to die right then and there of a broken heart. That boy you’d seen on the first day of school was a part of your New York story after all, after a chance meeting at a party in the NYU dorms…and he has just broken your heart.  Shattered, and homeless, there’s really no choice but to go…home…for awhile. Like your grandpa once said, “when you have nowhere to go, you go home.”

You’ll be back and forth for a while, caught in between Salt Lake City and New York City, But strangely enough, Salt Lake will keep giving you work, until there won’t be a need to want to move. Despite your declaration that you’d never be back. You’ll learn over time, that there is more than one city in which to be successful, and that "SUCCESS" has many faces. That in life, as in acting, you’ll know the truth by the way it feels. And eventually you’ll accept that New York hasn’t and won’t ever feel like HOME, and that home had everything you were looking for all along. That your calling was to be a big fish in a small pond. Right in your own backyard.

That maybe you haven’t been a broadway star, but that you’ll never have a moment where you won’t feel satisfied by what you both create, on your own, and with the opportunities you are given in Salt Lake City. You will feel humbled and fortunate and emotional for each coveted role you are given. That eight years later from the first bit of press you are given in town, you’ll still feel a sense of awe that there is an interest, and wonder how long you’ll sustain this. It’s fleeting, you see. That’s what keeps you going. This career is never stagnant, never done. It’s a constant fight. To stay working, relevant, interesting. You must reinvent. You must work to get better, and you will get better. With age, with time, experience.

But…the biggest key of all, is NOT have tunnel vision, but to keep letting LIFE and LOVE in. And that while it may take a decade to process all that happened to you in New York City, you eventually will.

Be open, little one. Stay open. You will look back and smile to yourself knowing you left teardrops behind on the streets of New York . And the city that you think is too small for you will be the one to give you everything. Home will call you The Face of New Utah, Salt Lake City’s Community Celebrity, and SLC Sweetheart within a year. You will have worked hard for it, tirelessly. But will hover somewhere between feeling that it’s deserved after your hard work, and feeling like a fraud. The cross all performers bear.

And.  And, and and.  The reason why you didn’t die of a broken heart that day in Brooklyn on the couch, is because your REAL love was waiting for you, right here, at home. And the day you walk in to that gym and see HIM, you’ll understand that every heartache was worth it to finally land on this love. Your husband. Your muse. He will make you a better person, and a better actor. You’d live it a thousand times over to get here. home.

Your life will be full.  And satisfying.  In a different way than you might have thought. In a better way.

One day, a high school friend will ask you to sit on a stage and share your story, and you’ll share a bit of what you have. So far. There is still so much more to go. 

So little girl, here is your planet, and your path is laid out, the next chapter about to being, and there’s only one thing you need to know.  

Trust it.

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Thanks for reading, 

Deena Marie

xo

yoU Magazine

Have you heard about yoU Magazine?
The new creation from powerhouse Nineveh Dinha?
Talk about girl power, talk about inspiration, talk about empowerment! Women supporting women. Yes. More of that, please.

I got to contribute to the latest issue.  And I went there.
Take a look here! Are you pregnant yet? Page 13.

Full article:

Six months ago, I married the love of my life.  The morning after we got engaged and made the rounds telling family and friends our news, I was bombarded with questions.  Who would my bridesmaids be? What colors would I pick? What kind of dress did I want? Did we set a date? Meanwhile, I was just trying to process the fact I was now a fiancé.  I wanted to soak in the night, and the fact that I had just been proposed to by the man I love.  I wasn't anywhere near deciding what kind of cake I'd have! Fast forward through the process of making those decisions and pulling off the wedding of my dreams, settling in over the last half of a year, to the new question that I'm often asked.  The big one.  The, "so when are you going to have a baby?" I'm not sure what my reaction is supposed to be to this, or how most women respond, but it makes me cringe.  It's the quickest way to make me instantly uncomfortable.  I start sweating.  You see, I just don't think this is a casual question.  It's loaded.  It's the most sensitive of topics.  

I usually make a joke and quickly change the subject.  I know that when someone asks this it's coming from a place of excitement, and it seems to be what society has taught us is the natural question to ask a newly married couple.  Just like when you announce your engagement, the next questions are all about the wedding day itself.  

The reason why I get so sensitive, is because it I don’t think people realize it’s asking a slew of personal questions all at once.  Are you and your husband financially secure yet? Are you off birth control? How's your sex life? Are you actively trying? If not now, when will you be? Are you two emotionally and mentally on the same page? Are you tracking your ovulation cycle? When will you be at a place in your career when you can plan for a baby? Is your body ready? Are you prepared for the changes to your body? Have you two experienced enough to know how you’re going to raise, teach and explain the world to a brand new human being? It's also assuming you both want to become parents.  

Maybe it’s the day and age we live in.  Maybe it’s too much media and information overload, but I have witnessed a variety of stories from couples over the years.  I have learned that it’s not always smooth sailing for two people get married and automatically have a baby.  Some get married with no intention to have children.  Some can't seem to be on the same page at the same time.  One might even want one, and the other might not.  

I also know women who have suffered multiple miscarriages.  Women who have chosen to end pregnancies.  Women who have wanted nothing more than to become a mom, only to realize that due to health issues either for them or their partner, there was going to be a struggle ahead.  I've seen women go through rounds of in vitro.  Sometimes it's been a success, and sometimes it hasn't.  I've seen adoptions.  What I’m saying is, I've seen it all.  I've seen far too much for it to be an easily answered questions. 

It’s made me beyond superstitious.  Personally, I was always confused about motherhood.  My mom told me she knew her whole life she wanted to be a mom.  I've always been great with babies and kids, but I didn’t know that motherhood was something I desired.  That is, until recently.  Until I’d had a career for more than a decade, and met the love of my life.  Suddenly I’ve found myself in a place where work seems secondary.  And now that I've found my partner, it makes all the sense in the world.  Actually, and I'm reluctant to tell you this because of how long it took me to discover it, it’s what I want most.  

I’m not sure women can ever change being asked this question, but maybe we can change the way we think about it? Maybe we can approach it with a deeper sensitivity? Or maybe, we don’t ask at all.  But let a new mother to be let us in on the news.  So how do I answer the question, “When are you going to have a baby?” Well, it's a giant unknown.  And it's deeply personal.  I've already let you in on more than I should.  Yes, we want it.  As for the when? Maybe the first try, maybe the fiftieth.  That's between myself, my husband, and our future baby.  Whenever and however it happens.  And it’s only for us. 

Instagram: Deena_Marie
Twitter: @DeenaMarie
FB: Facebook.com/TheDeenaShow

Thanks for reading!


DM

Getting older.

4/5/2015

I never expected to be saying this, but I LOVE getting older. I recently had a birthday, and it was one of the best I've had. I look better than I ever have, and I attribute it to being so much more together internally. I know myself. I have wisdom. I have experience. I have insight. I have no fear. I follow my heart and I am in tune with my truth. I know just what I want. I know what I will accept, and what I won't allow. I know what I still have to learn, and where I want to invest my time and energy.  I've been wanting to put together a little list of what I love about getting older for awhile.  After a conversation with one of my best friends last week, I was inspired to do it.

~You know how to accept a compliment. How to accept it genuinely, and leave it at that.
~You don't feel guilty for saying no, and you are getting better at not having to explain your reasons.
~You understand that stressing out about five or even ten pounds (be it overweight, or underweight) is trivial. You've lived enough life to experience real trauma, real heartache, and it's given you a deeper appreciation for life. It's all about health. Your well being physically, emotionally, and mentally.
~You know yourself so much more. You're done with self consciousness and uncertainty.
~You no longer care what others think about you. Your wisdom has taught you that when someone judges, it's truly all about them and their perceptions.
~You are much more stable emotionally, because you don't have a desire to let drama into your life, or to create it.
~ You are calmer. You've survived the angst. The chaos. The growing pains.
~ You accept and embrace being open to life. You've learned time and time again that setting a rigid path for your life is small, and limiting.  That life always has a better idea for you in store.
~ You get braver every year. The more you get to know yourself, and what's true for you, the less time you're willing to waste forcing a fit or making yourself stay somewhere because it's an old version of what you once wanted. The only option is to grow.
~ You love the growth.
~ You understand that your imperfections are perfection. You are a one of a kind living breathing creature existing right now in space and time on planet earth.  Aren't you lucky! I read somewhere recently, "just to breathe is enough".  You're starting to get it.
~ You see the stark difference between the way you live in self absorption in your youth, and how you now long for the experiences that take you outside of yourself. You relish in this difference. It's real.
~You only have time for what's real, and authentic.
~ You don't feel a need to be anything other than what you are. No facades, no elaborating. You are who you are, and you know it's enough.


Instagram: @Deena_Marie
Tweet me: @DeenaMarie
FB: facebook.com/TheDeenaShow


Thanks for reading,


Deena Marie