but these are her words, that a friend shared this week, and I love them so very much. I hope you find them as powerful and helpful as I did.
​

If you’re reading this, this fucking brain cancer probably got me.

But let me be crystal clear while I’m able: I did not ”lose a battle” against cancer. This is a ridiculous, steamy pile of horse shit that society has dumped on cancer patients. Western medicine, and Western culture, especially, is so uncomfortable talking about death that instead it created this “battle” analogy that basically shames people who die from cancer.

News flash: None of us gets out alive from this rodeo called life.

There is no shame in dying from cancer – or any serious illness. And it doesn’t need to be a battle. It’s a transition that each of us will go through. I was asked by a shaman, whom I spoke to after my second brain surgery, “Are you running towards life or running away from death?”

Whoa! That got my attention.

There’s a BIG difference. I got it wrong more often than not.

Don’t let fear fuel your choices. Live fearlessly. Run TOWARDS life. Don’t worry about what people will think. Trust me, it doesn’t matter.

Focus on you. Be true to yourself. Be your own best friend. People who tell you you’re selfish are not your people. If the voice in your head says these unkind things, get a new voice. Honor your mental health and seek out a good therapist with the same vigor you’d search for a romantic partner.

Speaking of, be intentional about cultivating friendships that lift you up. As those friendships grow and change, don’t overlook them while you search for that “great love of your life.” (No, I’m not suggesting you sleep with your bestie. But you do you!)
Another unhelpful message that we get from society is that we need a “love of our life,” as a romantic partner.

Single and childless when I was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, I looked around my life and came up sputtering and sobbing from the wave of grief washed over me. I thought I’d be doing this alone… no husband, no kids, no “great love.”

How wrong I was. At the first appointment with my neuro-oncologists, one of the nurses diligently hauled in chair after chair for the great loves of my life who came with me that horrible day and many days after that.

I sat and listened while the doctor explained the 12-month treatment plan, focusing on my breathing, then looked around the room…. filled with great loves of my life: incredible women friends whom I had met at various stages of my life.

Surround yourself with people who contradict that unkind voice, people who see your light, and remind you who you are: an amazing soul.

Learn how to receive these reflections from your people. Because they are speaking the Truth.

Love yourself, no matter how weird and silly it might feel. Every morning, give yourself a hug before your feet hit the floor. Look deeply into your eyes in a mirror. Say to yourself, out loud, “I trust you.” That voice in your head might say you’re a dork. Ignore it.

As I prepare to leave this body and embark on this mysterious journey of my soul, I hope these observations from my deathbed are somehow useful.

What I know, deep in my bones, is that learning to love myself has led me to be able to say this: I’m so proud of how I lived.

May you, dear reader, feel the same when you head out on your soul journey, too. Until then, enjoy the ride. And always eat dessert first, especially if there’s pie!

My Rumi-Inspired Road Trip

anniewood.substack.com/p/my-rumi-inspired-road-trip

how to love the world


A version of this piece first appeared in The Huffington Post.
The 13th-century poet and theologian, Rumi, is throwing a party in his guest house, and I’m invited!
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight. The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in. Be grateful for
whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.   -Rumi
Okay, Rumi didn’t technically invite me to his party since it seems to be taking place in his own guest home, for himself, but he seems like such a friendly host that I’ve decided to surprise him.
In a moment of bravery, I also invited a few of my own feelings to accompany me.
I’m in my Jeep with Worry riding shotgun.
Worry keeps slamming her foot on the invisible break in front of her.
She thinks I drive too fast.
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Impatience is sitting on Worry’s lap and keeps telling me I’m not driving fast enough.

Joy is riding on the roof. She loves to feel the wind in her hair. She suddenly, giddily screams, ROAD TRIP! Her face is flush with wonder as she stuffs it with popcorn.
Where did she get the popcorn?
That’s the thing about Joy: She always manages to find the things that she most enjoys and fully immerses herself in them, completely and unabashedly.
She’s my favorite.
But Rumi suggests I let them all in, even the bothersome ones like Anger, Sadness and Doubt.
I choose to suck it up, and I open the door for the whole gang.
I sit them together in the backseat, tell them to buckle up, and off we go to Rumi’s place!
Within moments, Sadness begins to cry because Anger sucker-punched her in the face.
I want to throw them both out. Anger is pissing me off, and Sadness is a total buzzkill. But instead, I take a deep breath and calmly ask them if they want to talk about it. For a moment, they are taken aback by my sudden interest in them.
The silence didn’t last long.
You always ignore me! Anger yells over the wailing cries of Sadness. Sadness adds, You ignore me too. You pretend like I don’t even exist.
I remember something I read in my Buddhist studies. Stories about Mara, the God of death and sin.
Mara personifies unwholesome impulses, unskillfulness, the “death” of the spiritual life. He is a tempter, distracting humans from practicing the spiritual life by making mundane things alluring, or the negative seem positive. -Wikipedia
Mara wants to stop Buddha from achieving enlightenment and teaching it to others. Once, when Mara arrived at Buddha’s door, Buddha invited him in for tea. (Rumi and Buddha really enjoy entertaining.)

With all the bickering in the backseat, I figure a new action plan is called for for my own well-being, so I … engage.
Even with the unpleasant ones. Besides, when I don’t keep an eye on one of them, they tend to run amok. Anger and Sadness especially caused me some trouble in the past. (They’re probably in cahoots with one another.)
Sadness ran away from home once, and I thought I was better off without her, so I changed the locks on the door to make sure she stayed out. Soon enough, she came knocking at the door all teary-eyed, begging to be let back in.
I ignored her, though, because I was busy doing shots with Avoidness.
At one point I noticed that Anger, (who had moved into Sad’s room as soon as she split,) was now growing taller and wider.
Anger was turning into a giant, her head exploding through the roof!

I sent Anger to her room and bolted the door shut.
Worry, sensing the imbalance in our home, freaked out and started working overtime by checking and rechecking to see if the stove was left on, if the locks were securely locked and if my heart was still beating.
I couldn’t seem to get rid of Worry who was now bunking with Doubt.
All of this was happening while Joy enjoyed a glass of Pinot Grigio in the Jacuzzi, watching Seinfeld reruns on her phone.
I know, it’s a lot.
It wasn’t until I read Rumi’s poem that I finally understood that I was making everything worse by banishing some emotions, and at the same time, allowing other’s total freedom.
That’s when I decided to bring all of them on this trip.

As we drove my mind told stories, like minds like to do, regrets about the past and concerns for the future. The stars of these stories were with me in the car now.
Only this time, instead of rejecting them, I began to observe them.
Like I was watching a movie.
I found it liberating to watch and simply be with my emotions without getting caught up in their drama and without kicking them out of a moving vehicle.
This non-attachment has allowed me to have Sadness without being Sadness. I feel Angry without living in Anger and I can experience Joy without getting lost in her to such a point that I lose my way home.
I can live my present-moment reality with them all without grasping at extremes.
We all totally bonded on this road trip.
I wept with Sadness on the hood of the Jeep, cradled Worry in my arms, and kissed Anger’s crinkled brow.
I don’t want to beat them up or abandon them anymore. I want to get to know them better so we can all reach an understanding.
The understanding that they are with me, but they are not me.
The understanding that they need to be heard but not followed.

The understanding that, when any of them show up at my door, I can handle them and their shenanigans.
Which is good news since we are all on this wild ride together, so we may as well play nicely.
So, yeah… go ahead and get to know your crew.
But don’t forget to buckle up, buttercup.

Hello, peoples of the Internet(s)!

I've been thinking a lot about honesty this week. And how we hide from ourselves, and how we hide from our authenticity, our authentic selves. We wear masks all the time. In fact, I'm an actor. One could argue that I chose a profession where I strive to hide behind other selves ALL THE TIME. But what I do is make-believe. It's storytelling. It's sacred and sometimes even healing, in its best form. In its lesser form, it is hopefully, at the least, entertaining and an escape. 

But what about the ways that you and I hide from ourselves? The ways that we dodge our truths. And all the things that really might be going on inside of us, underneath our armor. If the actor's job is to be comfortable being uncomfortable... if the actor's job is to expose themselves... if the actor's job is to hold the mirror up to nature...

Then the next question for me is this: how do we, as human beings -- as non-actors --  strive for the same discomfort and exposure and reflection in our own lives? Can you imagine what we might discover in that brave exploration? 

“Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.”
​- Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

“I’s been livin’ a long time in yesterday, Sandy chile, an’ I knows there ain’t no room in de world fo’ nothin’ mo’n love. I know, chile! Ever’thing there is but lovin’ leaves a rust on yo’ soul. An’ to love sho ‘nough, you got to have a spot in yo’ heart fo’ ever’body – great an’ small, white an’ black, an’ them what’s good an’ them what’s evil – ‘cause love ain’t got no crowded-out places where de good ones stay an’ de bad ones can’t come in. When it gets that way, then it ain’t love.” - Langston Hughes


"What is urgent is seldom important, and what is important is seldom urgent." - Dwight Eisenhower


“Poor planning on your part does not necessitate an emergency on mine.” - Bob Carter

So here's the thing... we're still in the midst of a global pandemic, but I'm continuing to learn during this strange time. I've been teaching classes online since we went into quarantine in March of 2020, and I found some amazing surprise takeaways from my students. I share them with you here, and I hope you're as inspired as I have been:

* I was struck with the intimacy of this format. This strange hybrid of film & theater, because it’s in close-up, we have to be even more intimate with each other.
* We’re becoming better listeners, because the audio is more reliable than the video, with lag & latency issues. So while being deprived of some senses, others are being heightened.
* Awareness of the need to sometimes slow down and make space for the character, honoring their time and not our adrenaline rush of pacing. Don’t speed. Slow down. Honor my interpretive choices rather than have one foot out the door of the audition.
* Things can land profoundly, you can listen better, and there’s a safety to the risks that we have to take when we’re taking them from our homes.
* I thought acting online was always going to suck, but I’ve learned that we can turn it into a revelation. And a revolution.
* We turned lemons into limoncello. This is even better than lemonade.
* We are resilient. And our storytelling can still be sacred.
* My fears about the failures of online performances were, on a weekly basis, disproven.
* The importance of finding a place to play. 
* Feeling more ready to plunge back into the artistic world.
* It is possible, both online and in self-tapes, to use our creativity and our imaginations to create whole worlds. 
* In addition to learning about the importance of taking risks and connecting and raising the stakes, I’ve also felt a freedom and an empowerment that is based in my control of my own creativity. Not to mention hope and inspiration in these hard times. Taking the sacred breath. Making time and space for myself. And the reminder that there is always a way to connect, even in isolation.
* I now know that it is in fact possible to make something good online, something that not only is entertaining but also feels good as an actor. I’m no longer as anxious about being remote, I’m feeling much more confident.