Lex Leifheit » New London

Letter to Myself Upon Emerging*

Lex — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 15:33:44 +0000

This weekend, I turned 35(!) and we hosted a whirlwind of activity at SOMArts. One of the activities was a writing workshop, led by my Feast of Words co-host Irina Zadov, where people wrote letters to their past and future selves.

The biggest thing about turning 35 for me is that I’m now either teetering on the brink or officially disqualified from several emerging leader support systems that have been critical to me in recent years. Which is as it should be … time to send the elevator back down.

With the combination of birthday + writing exercise fresh in my mind, I wrote a letter to myself at age 25 when I was just starting out my career. And if I had read this when I was 25 I would have been all like “I am totally doing all this already.” Because I knew everything. Anyway …

Dear 25-year-old self,

It’s 2001, which means you are living in New London—boyhood home of Eugene O’Neill, current home of poets, puppeteers, playwrights and should-be rock stars. The Wailing City. It’s small and gritty and it’s on the water and you love it. You just started work at The O’Neill and you love it. You are directing plays with amazing creative collaborators and you love it. Not having any money is hard … but it won’t kill you. Not having heat will drive you crazy so move already! You will be so much happier.

You already know this, but these are the big years. You are nostalgic for these years and you are living them. There will never be more bonfires on the beach, late-night puppet shows, poems, exploring abandoned buildings, riding the subway, coffee in Brooklyn. Over time you will become less dazzled by someone’s job title or the fact that they live in The City. People will become less interested in dazzling you and more interested in opportunities for collaboration, less interested in romance and more restrained in their joy, less interested in dreaming and more interested in networking … so be dazzled by everyone and everything. Try to stay up late (although you are bad at it). Be alert, be inquisitive. If there’s an experience in front of you, have it. See as much theater and live music as you can.

I wish I could tell you, 25-year-old-self, to say yes AND no more often. To have difficult conversations before it is too late. To drink tea before asking for that raise because if you don’t you will start crying and it won’t matter that you prepared a letter detailing your expanded skill set and responsibilities. Make decisions. Commit. Stop trying to keep every door open, you can’t keep every door open, nobody can keep every door open. As your Russian acting teacher says, “be bravier.”

Savor lazy mornings and slow weekends. Be patient, the future will find you sooner than you realize. Don’t be bullied, and don’t be so hard on people. You don’t have to be nice to someone just because you feel sorry for them, that’s your Midwestern roots talking. You do have to be compassionate. Age and experience really do make a difference in this area.

And … although these are the big years, years of glamour and discovery and adventure, there will be other years. Years of deeper feeling, shared years, meaningful years, years of change. Be dazzled by them all, appreciate them, live in the moment. Keep learning and changing. As they say at The O’Neill, “risk, fail, risk again.”

Your friend,

Future Lex

*p.s. despite rules and guidelines, I think when we stop emerging, we stop living. Corny and true!

New London’s Only Winter Tourist Attraction

Lex — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 16:45:12 +0000

Hygienic Art celebrates the 30th year of its Salon des Independents this weekend with what will surely be a cast of thousands, roaming the snowy streets of New London in search of art that won’t be hard to find. I’ve always loved the Hygienic’s can-do spirit, as in YOU can do—the Hygienic is an arts organization that truly lets everyone in, and the theme of the annual Hygienic Art Show is “No Judge, No Jury, No Fees, No Censorship.”

To that end, I was seriously excited to drop by hygienic.org and see that they have adopted a new ning website! I’ve had a few discussions with emerging arts leaders about whether or not ning is the way to go (requires users to become “members” to use many features–too much commitment?). But now I can see that for the Hygienic, this is perfect. The Hygienic is all about participation, and doesn’t it make sense for an organization to embody its real-life essence online? This is done to brilliant effect with the Hygienic’s new site. AND, as an added bonus, Hygienic expats like me can participate from afar.

XOXO, Hygienic, and happy XXX!

Friend: Janaka Stucky

Lex — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 12:31:51 +0000

Back in the year 2000, I was asked to produce an event called the Hygienic Cabaret, an off-shoot of the Hygienic Art Show in New London. A group called the Guerilla Poets wrote me and said they were interested in performing. The Hygienic Cabaret is mostly local, and these guys were from Boston, but they seemed interesting so I offered them free beer and a couch to sleep on.

Many beers, a few broken plates, one drawn-and-quartered babydoll, and two standing ovations later, Janaka (who is an undertaker, in addition to being a poet) told me about his plan to revolutionize the American grieving process. A line from his poem elegy pretty much sums it up:

“The Leopard People of Sierra Leone carry their dead in a bag; whenever they feel sorrow, they cut off a piece and eat it.”

Eight years later, Janaka is still making waves with Black Ocean, a literary/multidisciplinary movement that is hard to define. Black Ocean just released Holy Land, a book of poetry by Rauan Klassnik. If it is half as good as Dear Al Qaeda, it’s worth a look.