Sarah Schultz @mysteriouslygreatobservation - Tumblr Blog

May 17th, 2020

A day like this makes it hard to show up to the page. i feel emotionally drained.

I’ll start by saying a blog post is insufficient to encapsulate the pain and suffering of an eating disorder.

I’m grateful to have four years in recovery and a daily reprieve. Here’s a snapshot of my disease: bingeing on grocery bags full of food followed by afternoons spent running outside or on the elliptical at the gym or working out in my living room or sometimes all three while sustaining myself on caffeine and small traces of calories followed by repeating the process of bingeing and compulsive overeating throughout the night. Shame. Anger. Frustration. Depression. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

Sometimes more painful than the eating is feeling like a prisoner in one’s body. I think most people with an eating disorder would agree that it’s a lifelong struggle that takes consistent spiritual love and devotion. And sometimes no matter how much growth and spiritual progress I experience, every once in awhile I experience very painful triggers. Here are the big ones and also might serve as a PSA for people with eating disorders:

photographs of myself

mirrors & window reflections

dressing rooms

sizes/numbers

getting weighed or knowing my weight (I don’t, as a part of my recovery)

other people’s comments on my body or someone else’s body

discussion of diets and skinny positivity (aka the world)

TV & Film industry primarily featuring very slim and fit women

I understand that this list is not the problem. If I am bothered by something or someone outside of myself - then what’s going on inside?

Which brings me back to today. My dad texted me a montage of pictures from his Iphone. I immediately clicked on it, assuming it was pictures of him and his Arkansas family, his girlfriend and her grandkids, not knowing I was in a couple of them. I’m not sure when they were taken. I could have stared longer and maybe figured it out. But two seconds looking at the pictures was enough to eventually bring me to tears and give me a lingering ache in my head and my stomach, a physical, mental & spiritual pain that feels as old as time. I was carrying perhaps twenty pounds more than I am now. That’s a guess. Another part of this insane disease is

body dysmorphia

an inability to see one’s self. My eyes are broken. Because I see a nutritionist and get a blind weight, I do know i’ve released quite a big of weight in the past year. I’ve let go of caffeine. I’ve had more energy and better sleep than in the past decade of my life. I move in a way that challenges my muscles. And yeah. common sense - I have sensible portions, three times a day. I DON’T SKIP MEALS. I DON’T CUT CARBS. I also don’t binge. I don’t wake up in the night to eat with the help of a Power greater than myself.

It’s never been about the food though. The food (or lack thereof) was a convenient distraction for my spiritual malady. I’m so grateful God intervened and I finally decided to open my ears, my mind, my eyes and my heart. One day at a time. It gets easier. The darkness fades a little faster each time it comes.

This too shall pass.

May 16th 2020

Just another Saturday in quarantine. I made this soup.

I did more yoga, the TRUE series with Adriene & Benji.

I’m also enjoying reading my latest book, The Splendid & The Vile, by Erik Larkson.

A historical biography on Churchill’s reign as Prime Minister of England during WWII, specifically the year 1940-1941 when Germany was attacking London with nightly air raids.

I’M SO COOL.

History is fascinating though. All the diaries, journals, notes, and records of the past. People actually used to write. They would describe scenery and landscapes. On a particularly blistery winter in London one General describes the view outside his window. The city

“...with its chimney pots and angles picked out in black against the white snow coverlet and the gray sky above.”

By contrast, here’s a post I read on Twitter today:

Anyway.

The second pilot in quarantine continues its progress. I’m up to Act II. I’m having FUN. I spoke to a friend who’s a documentary filmmaker about the mystery of “network mandates” - how networks will release guidelines to production companies for the types of shows they’re looking for. She said having an agent helps. She also really supported my idea when I used her as a sounding board. She laughed when I explained the premise. Shared my enthusiasm for the project. I’m feeling more motivated than ever.

Onwards and upwards!

May 15th, 2020

Instead of writing last night I just watched a series of YouTube videos. Conan O’Brien makes me so happy. Especially his relationship with one of his producers, Jordan Schlansky. If you haven’t witnessed this, do yourself a favor - press pause on whatever it is you’re doing in your day - and watch this.

He makes me smile so much.

i great up watching Conan and I still turn to him for comfort and yesterday I needed it. My mom called to say she put our cat down. Mr. Beasley. She was in tears. So hard to lose an animal. Then a friend of mine called...she too is struggling...heavy family matters, money, being dependent on someone who is sick.

Meanwhile I had part I of my workshop on the second draft of my feature - part II will resume next week. We read 47 pages. A couple people were very warm and sweet. And a couple people weren’t. Feedback is hard. Being visible is hard. Sharing your work is hard.

A phone call in the evening made everything worth it. It tied the whole day together with a glowing ribbon. I got the number of a TV writer in LA who was kind enough to talk to me about his journey from being a miserable actor in New York and feeling disconnected to a business he thought he loved to where he is now - a showrunner in sunny Los Angeles.

What I felt when we finished talking was hope. And rejuvenation. And inspiration. Our stories were so intertwined that I’ve listed some of the similarities here.

Originally cast in a play in elementary school

Came from a dysfunctional family

Began writing plays

Thought that if he was an actor and in the spotlight he would be seen, get attention and therefore a hole would be filled and he would be fixed

Dealt with an eating disorder

Suffered deeply from jealousy, feelings of compare & despair

Wrote a revealing play about his family

Eventually felt very disconnected as an actor because he didn’t really know himself. Found out he was miserable.

That last bullet point is the one I’m just now coming to terms with.

Eventually he used a bunch of tools and a loving support group to assist in his spiritual growth

He kept writing. He wrote more.

And his work flourished. He emphasized there were a ton of empty hallways and closed doors. For years he thought his plays were going to get to Broadway because they came very, very close. And he thought that would equal happiness. But his feet kept leading him in a different direction. And now he is a mothereffing trailblazer on an animated children’s television show. He wrote the first blind Disney princess. His characters are champions for featuring disabled demographics. Disneyland Paris is turning one of his scripts into a staged musical. His career is a treasure trove of gold.

He told me to make a list of things that are in my power to do but that I’ve been too afraid of.

He left me with a story about snorkeling.

There was a woman who dove down beneath the ocean. She saw a sparkling shell and wanted to get closer but the current was pulling her away - she tried to swim nearer because it was so attractive but couldn’t. Eventually she had no choice but to go with the flow of the water and she was led to another part of the cove where there were ten times as many shells, just as beautiful.

I’m halfway through another pilot - this one mirrored from a pilot written by one of my favorite writers/comediennes of all time. It feels truer than most of what I’ve written up to this point. By truer, I mean I genuinely like it. I think it’s funny. I’d like to see it, film it, be a part of it. It feels light and playful.

God, lead me to the pretty shells.

May 13th, 2020

Quarantine time is bending all the rules. On a weekday I’m up at 7:10 AM. I blink and it’s six o’clock. I want to yell at the clock, slow down! This time is precious! Can’t you see I’m writing and cooking and wearing different variations of elastic pants!?

I finished the pilot. I may use that same writing exercise to write another. Why not? It’s flexing a muscle.

This evening I listened to a speaker talk about prayer and meditation. I try to practice this daily but I forget that small activities can be prayer too. My pilots can be prayers. My shitty first drafts can be prayers. All my mistakes can be prayers. All my bad auditions and rejections and job interviews that went nowhere. All prayers. If I live like this - nothing, absolutely nothing - is a waste of time. It’s all one big offering to the Universe or Spirit or God or Goddess or whatever you want to call it.

In this sense, I’m never really lost or stumbling in the dark because there is no dark. Dark doesn’t exist.

How liberating!

I’d like to stop taking everything so seriously - especially my life as a creative person and the pressure I invent to go with it.

God, grant me continued flexibility on & off my yoga mat. To discover, to play, to stay open-minded. To slow down & enjoy. To get lost, knowing there’s no such thing. I’m safe.

I offer myself to thee, to build with me and do with me as thou will.

May 12th, 2020

There seems to be a new script pouring out of me at a startling speed. Over thirty pages - nearly a finished pilot - in two days. I write this with trepidation. I feel like a fraud and that may actually be true. I was inspired by a recently aired second season of a television show, the title of which I won’t mention just because I downloaded the pilot script and have been using it as a launching pad - a mirror to write my own. Is this cheating? I’ve done this exercise before with television pilots and I’m astonished at how effective it is in birthing new material.

The problem is - can I really claim it as my own? Could I really submit it to a production company? How does one even do these things?

E.L Doctorow on writing:

“It's like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”

Pertaining to the television industry, it’s possible E.L. Doctorow had no idea what he was talking about. According to random articles on the internet, you have to know everything. The arc of every character, every season, every episode, every scene. It’s overwhelming. When i use my self-created writing exercise, I know none of these things. I’m a car with two headlights on a dark highway.

See? This is what I do. I dig myself into a hole until the act of writing becomes so distasteful that I avoid it entirely. It’s a very convenient tool for blocked artists. Feel free to use it!

Towards the end of my workday I checked my inbox. A submission service got back to me with a lovely rejection letter of my screenplay, in addition to several lengthy pages of critical coverage. I’d submitted my first draft for their contest several months ago and paid extra to get feedback.

“.....the premise pivots and changes from sequence to sequence, never quite giving the audience a concrete narrative to grasp onto.....

....the margins are a bit too narrow, which is affecting the overall length of the script, and the character names aren’t lined up correctly over the dialogue....”

This is really not what I wanted to read after spending my day writing. Yes, it was my first draft. Yes, I’ve made considerable changes since then. Yes, I already have plans to workshop the second draft with another group of actors. But it’s impossible not to feel discouraged.

It also made me wonder...

Am I a screenwriter after all? Is this my medium? Where is this sudden television pilot coming from? Is it possible I work best in a shorter format?

Are these questions existential, pithy and boring?

Sometimes I feel like I’m walking around in a dark room with outstretched arms, just trying to find something solid to hang onto. I do know one thing. When writing pours out of me, no one can take that away.

One of my favorite quotes from Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way:

"Okay Creative Force, you take care of the quality, I'll take care of the quantity."

So what if my structure was trash? So what if I had four different plot lines? Ever seen INCEPTION? I had 116 pages with a FADE IN and a FADE OUT. And I tried. And my trying was honest.

I’ll finish my pilot. I’m curious to see how the story ends.

Sarah

May 10th, 2020

I was really supported today. All day. Sometimes I’m floating downstream, other times I’m fighting a current. Today was a downstream day.

My doctor is a kind woman and as we grow to know each other better we exchange book recommendations. Today she also shared a recipe for almond bread and a link to a yoga writers class. Her head was covered in a wrap because she’s mid-chemo for Lymphona. I share this because I’m grateful for my healthcare today, for telemedicine, for connection, for the providers who keep showing up.

Soon after our appointment ended I had a call with a filmmaker/writer who took a break from her busy schedule to talk about the production of her feature film and its journey from an idea to the page to the screen. We talked grants, treatments, pitches, investors. She was extremely down-to-earth, open & generous. I told her a little bit about feeling like a novice screenwriter and I got nothing but encouragement and also the same maxim I hear over & over regarding the entertainment business at large - there is no one way.

Afterwards I hung out with a couple friends over Zoom and again expressed my doubts and fears as a writer. What is my goal pertaining to my script & shouldn’t I already have one? I was reminded that this is a habitual pitfall of mine. Often I treat my creative process like an assembly line...or an equation.

1+1=2

Where 2 is the only important factor of the equation and if you don’t get the result, an answer, a codified and measured result, then you’ve wasted your time.

But art does not follow this logic because art is not logical. It’s not something to be solved. It’s not reasonable or sensical or a means to an end and if I treat it that way then I am putting myself in a position to be wildly disappointed. The work comes first. I get so results oriented that I skip the growth process. If you skip the growth, how can you grow? A garden without water will fail to bloom. I gifted myself with flowers in the afternoon.

Today is Mother’s Day. I zoomed with my mother & brother. Mom showed me the garden on her back patio.

Here’s to the beginning of Spring and much growth ahead.

#gardens #happyspring #growth #newbeginnings

May 9th, 2020

A beautiful spring day with a walk in Central Park. Never underestimate the power of change in routine - following a different path. I let my feet lead me through the city of woods, feeling the relief only trees and rocks can provide, listening to a favorite podcast along the way.

Late afternoon was cooking a new recipe, 1-pot Massaman curry. I’m aware it’s the year 2020 and yet after I accomplish a dish, I still write down the recipe and keep it on an index card - something about adding to the stack brings me an odd sense of satisfaction.

“Find what feels good”, a favorite mantra of my newly discovered yoga teacher, Adriene Mishler. If you’re unfamiliar, check out her channel here, where you’ll soon meet her sidekick Benji & hear the occasional Backstreet Boy lyric in the middle of a supine twist. I love it when people don’t take themselves too seriously.

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And because I can never quite abandon my dark, weird side I ended the evening by immediately clicking on “Cracked Up: The Darrell Hammond Story” on Netflix, a documentary about mental illness, trauma and comedy. Right up my alley!

Hammond is best known for his impressions, most notably Bill Clinton. I remember watching him on SNL as a kid in the 90s and early aughts, wolfing down cheeseburgers in sweatsuits while speaking in that sexy Clinton purr. While rehearsing for his one man show he describes auditioning for the show, the high level of anxiety and fear - being 39, on lithium & new to the scene. I pressed pause.

I was once dating a man (old enough to be my father - but I digress) and somehow Darrell Hammond came up in conversation.

“Darrell Hammond is a nut. He’s bipolar.”

He emphasized the last word, as if saying Darrell Hammond had three legs, or had robbed a bank and was not to be trusted, wanted as a criminal on the loose.

Of course he wasn’t aware that I too am Bipolar, receiving the diagnosis some ten years prior. I knew whenever I heard that tone it was best kept quiet. Would I be treated like a criminal? It certainly sounded like it.

I heard the same tone of voice in college, when the wound was still fresh. Our Spanish teacher put a picture of an animated character on the overhead projector to teach us vocabulary, an adjective of some kind, perhaps ‘happy’ or ‘excited’, only the character’s features were exaggerated, over the top. Some of the students laughed. A girl sitting right in front of me spoke.

“He’s bipolar.”

Same tone. Same emphasis. ‘Watch out for that guy...who knows what he’ll do!’ I learned then. Best to stay quiet about who I am. My identity. Because it is who I am. Right?

SNL & comedy have held huge places in my heart, particularly in recent years. I’ve devoured the show’s history, the legends, stories of past casts and their legacies. I’ve literally had dreams about studio 8h. I know - sometimes I wonder just how out of touch with reality I am. But can you choose what you fall in love with? Your dreams and desires? What you want?

Improv has saved my life when I thought life would take me out. And hearing Darrell’s truth forced me to pause. You can be 39 years old and have the biggest audition of your life. You can even be on lithium (although thank God I’m not). Who knows if I’ll ever walk down the halls of 8h, as a writer, a guest, a host, an audience member, a featured player, an extra (again), a recurring character.

Where am I going with this?

I don’t know. There’s no bow to tie up this entry with.

Here’s my character reel for a fun distraction.

Of the nature of women, nothing final can be known.

Tara Westover, summarizing the musings of John Stuart Mill in her 2018 bestselling memoir, Educated.

I’d seen this book floating around for a couple years & briefly caught snippets of Tara on a podcast speaking about her unusual upbringing, wearing sweatshirts to dance class and the like.

But actually reading it? A very powerful experience. Bill Gates nailed it: “It’s even better than you’ve heard.”

It’s literally a miracle she survived her childhood in one piece, coming from a family who strictly avoided the “evils” of the “Medical Establishment” and a father and brother suffering deeply from mental illness, undiagnosed and untreated. Her dad subject to near constant fits of paranoid delusions, her brother periodically engulfed in flames of violence and rage.

Above all, Tara’s story gifted me with PERSPECTIVE. Lately for whatever reason the books I’m reading feature mental illness as a common theme and most of them are not without tragedy. Mental illness is a part of my and my family’s story, some of it treated (my own), some of it not (my grandparents). Therefore but the grace of God go I.

But there’s more to Tara’s story. It’s not really about her family. It’s about her relationship to herself. She’s a g.d. hero! I hesitate to say feminist because I don’t even know what that word means to me, but she broke the chains of her rigid Mormon upbringing and decided what was true for her.

After receiving zero education at home she earns a scholarship to Cambridge to pursue graduate work. She writes of feeling out of place, across the ocean in an alternative universe. One night after a celebratory dinner for the students, her mentor stops her.

“It has never occurred to you,” he says, “that you might have as much right to be here as anyone.”

“This is a magical place. Everything shines here,” she replies.

“...you are not fool’s gold, shining only under a particular light. Whomever you become, whatever you make yourself into, that is who you always were. It was always in you.”

At another point in the book, Tara’s advisor compares her to the heroine in Shaw’s Pygmalion. Uneducated, then transformed.

“Think of the story, Tara. She was just a cockney in a nice dress. Until she believed in herself. Then it didn’t matter what dress she wore.”

This evening I took advantage of my free time in the quarantine and participated in a writers and actors workshop over Zoom. Also participating was Charlotte, a girl no older than twelve, raising her hand with feedback, original thoughts, a voice of her own.

Yes, Charlotte. Yes.

Next week and the week after we’ll be workshopping my feature length screenplay. It’s the second draft and in it a group of girls at a women’s college stage a production of Pygmalion. *Spoiler Alert* At the end, they kick some major butt and take over the school.

#educated feminist pygmalion transformation

Comfort

Wednesday, May 6th

My much awaited throw blanket arrived today. It’s perfect. Thickly weaved, colorful shades of pink, yellow & blue. “All Roads Yucca Throw”.

Yucca is a genus of perennial shrubs native to the Caribbean - unsure what part of the blanket inspired the name exactly. Certainly nothing plant-like about it. Although I suppose like the species it does have a certain tough quality to its threads.

I haven’t always been able to afford nice things. Though often I had a lot of them growing up. Learning how to take care of myself has been a journey unto its own & the decision to do so is a victory that I’ve worked hard for. With lots of help along the way,

Here are the things I don’t want to write:

- The time I jumped a turnstile

- The time I spent $400 on an improv class, then wasn’t sure how I was going to afford drop-off laundry (I’d never had the NY experience of doing it on my own & I was unwilling to try)

- The time I got in a cab, knowing I didn’t have the money to pay for it

- The time I worked at a cafe for minimum wage, even though I had a college degree and spirit full of ambition.

This is an incomplete picture of my dysfunctional relationship with work and money. I take solace knowing I’m not alone and there have been others before me with the courage to change, thus paving footprints in the sand. I also can let go of my shame because really, who has the time!? Plus, I’m LUCKY. I got help for this stuff when I was still in my twenties. Some people go their whole life stuck in a spiritual rut.

What are things like today? I have clarity. I earn maybe three times what I used to and yet it doesn’t even begin to define my worth. I’ve also just begun. I’m just revving up my engine, baby.

I have a weekly spending plan that’s neither restrictive nor beyond my means and I use it. Hence, my new throw blanket...which took way too long to pick out because I’m still obsessive and the colors had to match just right.

Yucca. Tough. All Roads.

I hope none of this was boastful. Whatever. If you need help, google support groups & ways to stay anonymous if that’s your thing. Wink wink.

Sending love,

#journey recovery allroads

Nobody wants to be anywhere. Nobody likes anything. We're cranky. We're irritable. And we're dealing with it by constantly changing locations.

Jerry Seinfeld on the Human Condition

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This describes me perfectly without a daily dose of whatever keeps me sane...prayer & meditation, sunshine, a downward dog, a deep breath, a belly laugh.

Where ever you go, there you are. Thank the Heavens for those brilliant comedians who are the sages of the ages. Keep spitting your truth, Jerry!

#nosoupforyou #sages #sketching

Perhaps imagination is not where we go to escape reality but to remember it

Glennon Doyle

Glennon writes about the “unseen” and the “seen” - the rich magic of our creative interior lives and the course, outer harsh “reality” of the world - the disparity that exists between the two. She implies that the second “reality” is not reality at all. It’s the magic and beauty of our inner lives that’s the true reality. Our imagination is our POWER, our god given wands to call forth this reality.

What is the truest, most beautiful story of your life you can imagine?

Today, another day in the epicenter of the quarantine, I spent an exorbitant sum (for me) on an in-home massage. I took the necessary safety precautions - screened the masseuse, asked the right questions, practiced good hygiene, etc. etc.

I listened to Chopin and felt the soft breeze through my open window and felt someone touching me and thought ‘Oh yes - here is God too.’

#wands #chopin #self care #magic

Capture

Sunday, May 3rd 2020

What day of the Quarantine? Who knows.

i moved to Manhattan for the second time in August of 2012 with my best friend from second grade. We were 24. I was keeping a journal at the time, a thick black book - in block letters on the first page was printed “New York Diaries”. I wanted to capture everything and I wrote in it daily. Not just the first weeks in the city but the days and weeks leading up to the move. My mom and I flew to the city to sign a lease on a 2 BR on 91st street & 3rd avenue where I would live for the next 4 years.

This is the kind of person I tend to be - it’s all or nothing, black or white. I want the whole world or none of it, I will do everything there is to do or I will do nothing. And what happened? That journal didn’t last very long, although it started out magnificently.

And even though I haven’t given up writing - far from it - that’s like trying to give up on my blood - not an option - I’ve recently, or not so recently, abandoned a daily practice of capturing. Which I feel is a writer’s true purpose. To capture something. Maybe we can call it Truth, although that feels a little too precious. Maybe a feeling, but that feels lacking...maybe it’s just a piece of conversation, or why I’m pissed off today, or that time in Kindergarten when I cried in front of the whole class because it was storytelling time and my story was about getting the stomach flu over the weekend and the kids thought I was gross because vomit is...well...gross. Couldn’t I just have shared about beads?

Anyway. Peace, I’ll show up to this page tomorrow.

Sarah

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