I wrote a poem yesterday. This is not a typical activity for me, although it’s not completely unheard of. I feel the inspiration to write poetry maybe once every five years. This is to say I experience an openness, an invitation from within myself, a pure freedom of expression only so often. I feel some sadness at that statement because I am in my essence a creator, an artist. The work that I do, the way that I create art and share it with the world is usually very public facing. It is often just me, alone onstage with a microphone in varying stages of undress.

I am being intentionally vague about what I do because I am using this very first blog post on WordPress (a site that I have had registered since at least the last time I wrote a poem) as an experiment in anonymity. I’ve had a request recently from a collaborator that I blog my upcoming adventure and I’ve been trying to figure out how I can do that while staying authentic. Authenticity is my highest held value and the idea of writing a blog and having to hold back my truth in order to spare feelings or not ruffle feathers feels like a conundrum. The answer seems to be anonymity. Something that makes sharing this blog with a wider public tricky but I’ll deal with that later.

Upcoming adventure you ask? Why yes, I’m about to take a six month contract as a performer on a cruise ship that will be crossing most of the planet. I did this contract once before, last summer, on the same ship. When I returned to land I found it difficult to truly communicate to my friends and family just what the experience was like. I could give broad sweeping generalizations, but the tiny day to day minutiae was hard to translate. And what about the drama? The “who’s fucking who this week”, the secret parties in the engineers workshop and the “Casey stepped on a sea urchin and she’s out for a week so we have to reblock all day instead of go to the beach” moments are what really make the experience rich. But I can’t publicly share all that shit without making a lot of enemies and ruining my experience onboard. So here I am again, at an anonymous blog.

Ask anyone who’s ever worked on a cruise ship and they will tell you that the entertainment department is the most hated group onboard. This is because they tend to have the easiest job by far, which is not at all unfounded. The show I perform in only goes up a few times a week, which give me heaps of free time. Last contract I read a lot, learned how to lift weights, did a lot of writing and swam in the ocean almost every day. I am very aware of my privilege and try not to flaunt it. So having a writing project outside of my other work is important for my sanity. Last time I wrote an entire series from the perspective of 30 of my body parts on their relationship to me. I have done absolutely nothing with this work, it sits alone in a google doc now, waiting to be noticed.

A friend recently celebrated a milestone birthday and what he asked for in place of a gift was for people to write blogs. If you know this person then you know that this is not an unusual request for him to make. How interesting and serendipitous that this request should come one month before I ship off, actively seeking my next writing project, needing a push to find my authentic voice in a medium that requires discretion. So I dust off this old and unused WordPress blog and without too much force or strain, begin to look for a name.

Which brings me back to my poem. I found myself having a very quiet and peaceful day. It was snowing in New York City for the first time in years. My mind wanted nothing other than to sit and stare out my bedroom windows at the grey. I kept trying to force some activity upon myself, cook! clean! read, write, exercise! But my heart kept winning and she wanted to sit. In this quiet moment words started to bubble up, so I jotted them down. I’ll share them with you now:

What is this

This fallow moment

Where nothing really comes to mind

The quiet dusking of my room

Maybe there is something in here

This open space, not empty

Maybe this is where everything is.

So here it is, my gift to that friend who requested a blog, which turns out to be a gift to myself and quite possibly someone else someday. A new project, a new creative journey, a documenting of a new adventure. Found at the intersection of a quiet moment and an idea from a trusted friend. A sweet spot, the sweetest for me. This very intersection is often where my best work is born. Maybe someone will be kind enough to help me make this page look interesting, perhaps I’ll buy a domain. I am a rabidly willful luddite who vehemently resists technology so I hope anyone reading this can understand the leap I took to even open the website, let alone upload a photo. The cover photo is a blurry nude portrait of me which is ironic considering the entire point here is to be anonymous. But for someone who has made a career out of oversharing, dabbling in anonymity takes practice.