Life and limb –

Hello friends, people of the light, octupuses clutching arrays of truth with each arm. From Gillette, Wy, to San Fransisco, Ca, I am meeting wonderful yous, who are creative, funny, soulful and generous with your sparks of happiness.
Here’s what I feel; for we who live on the limbs of adventure, for what is adventure but persuing a dream, life is topsy turvy. Life is overwhealming in the constant slaps of cold water on our faces, but unnerving, too, in the warm pools of a compatriot’s eyes.
For us, life is not a knock off, and it ain’t cheap. But it is so real.
After the shows, many of you ask me, “where have you been?” My answer would obviscate the truth. All I can tell you now is that the universe has opened up for me. Hopefully for you, as well it should.
There is an old expression, ‘a baby is born with a loaf of bread under each arm.’
Now I understand that phrase. The loaf may not be sudden wealth, or even health. In fact, on the surface, a baby takes both wealth and health in enormous quantities. But what a child brings, if you are open to it, is happiness. Wholeness. An education in the self that rivals any therapy and/or religeous pilgrimmage. A child lays at your feet the opportunity for connection..to the universe.
Bring it on, I say to women and men who are thinking, praying about having children. Any way you can, adopt, use science, use whatever tools you can, because the children of people like us will not sell us out. The work we’ve done. The paths we’ve cut.
How do I know? Because I am carrying on the legacy of everything good my parents did through our son. And I am very conscious not to pass on the not so good. And just like in art, mistakes are the gateway to deeper truth, real presence, and knowledge. Until you make mistakes with your children, you haven’t made a mistake worth mentioning. And until you’ve made mistakes and learned from them, you don’t know anything.
And children forgive, they love so powerfully that f*cking up can bring you closer together than ever imagined, if you cop to it and meant it.
So while its admirable to work toward perfection, to be your best, mastery comes from crawling out on a limb beyond all that convention.
That’s why I love Janis Joplin. That’s why she’s my teacher, why playing Janis is my master class. What a gift Gigi Gaston has presented to me in asking me to be Janis in the show she’s written and will direct, “ROOM 105”, which will be at the Macca (old globe, next to Hugo’s in West Hollywood, Ca) starting October 4, 2012.
I offered a homeless man with one leg in a wheelchair a fresh, hot bread bowl with clam chowder at the Wharf this morning. He said, “there are no clams”.
I said, “I took mine back because there were no clams, they replaced it with this new bowl FULL of clams. I’m offering it to you.”
“Where’d you get it?” He said.
“Boudin. It costs an arm and leg. No pun intended.”
He took the spoon, dipped it in the soup, brought it to his mouth, and said, “I don’t like soup.”
“I aint servin’ you man. Either you want it or don’t, cause some one else will.” I pulled back the plate with the giant bread bowl and started to walk away.
“Hey! Hey!” He called.
“You missed your chance buddy boy!” I called.
I liked him, but he was a squanderer. Resources are too precious to fritter away, that includes time and creativity. And love. Waste not, want not.
So, give, live, risk, gain, lose, laugh, cry, yell and kiss. But don’t waste a minute, or squander an opportunity, because your time will come, and you better be ready. Love, Sophie.