TITLE: 31 things AUTHOR: Tavia DATE: 6/19/2008 07:38:00 AM ----- BODY:

Today, for my 31st birthday, I share 31 blessings of my life:

My husband, Percy Wheeler.
Percy is an inspiration. My best friend. My biggest fan. He's a constant, unwavering source of support, laughter, encouragement, comfort, challenge, truth. Meeting and marrying Percy has truly been the greatest surprise and the greatest gift of my life.

My family - Terry and Carolyn Gilbert and Cy Gilbert.
I know that not everyone is nurtured by their family. Not everyone has a close, loving, honest relationship with their parents or their siblings. So I am aware of my good fortune and feel deeply thankful to have been given parents who are wise and funny, intelligent and seeking, generous and warm, kind and real and loving. And now that we're both adult-ish and he no longer stomps on my feet for little sister torture tactics, my older brother, Cy, has become one of my closest friends. He's immensely talented, and has a great capacity for love and and tenderness, a burning fire that fuels his intense passions, and a spiritual grounding that has cleared pathways for my own quest.

My kitties.
My lovely catties give me unconditional love and affection, steal my pillow in the middle of the night, purr in the crook of my arm, chase their tail round and round in the bathtub, vomit on the stairs, the bed, the couch, the kitchen floor, and my bathrobe, chase each other up the stairs and down the stairs and up the stairs no down the stairs, who reach their paws out to touch my cheeks, who purr and flex and stretch in joy with just one loving look from me, who come running to the door the second the key is put into the lock. To all the kitties I have loved - thank you: Mirren, Blossom, Houdini, Sossity, Puffin, Smokey, Polar Bear, Echo, and Turtle. (And a special thank you to my little black rabbit, who I had when I was 12 years old, and who was named Percy Olin.)

Voice and story.
Working with my voice and learning about the mind/body/soul/spirit/voice connection has brought me the greatest joy and the greatest challenge. Hearing voices and stories enriches my life - from singers like Cassandra Wilson and Bob Marley and Johnny Cash, actors like Davina Porter and Norman Dietz and the cast of The Archers and the late Anna Fields, radio producers like Dick Gordon and Krista Tippett and David Isay.

Portland, Maine.
Portland has been my home since the fall of 2001, and it's the city in which I met my husband, became connected to the ocean, started riding my bicycle long distances, started my first compost pile and garden, and felt a part of a connected community for the first time. This is the city where I started my voice acting, found my business partner, and chose a direction for my heart and soul. I thought I would be here for 3 months, and seven-plus years later, I'm still finding beauty and meaning in this unexpected home.

Cornish College of the Arts.
The college that gave me four rigorous, demanding, enriching, and empowering years of study. I'm honored to have studied with all the great teachers at Cornish, and the thankfulness I feel at my years there is too deep to detail.

The Salt Institute.
Salt gave me a place to learn storytelling, to learn to listen, to learn to trust my perspective. All these years after my three intense months at Salt, I'm still processing what I learned there, becoming the person I began to be there, connecting with the people who started me on this long journey in sound and voice and story and truth.

Nancy Gnecco.
Nancy has been a great teacher and a spiritual guide. Her direction has been invaluable.

Stephen and Jess.
Stephen is my precious friend, my business partner, my director, my sounding board, my confidante, my teacher. His fiancee, Jess, has become a dear and trusted friend. I'm grateful every day that Stephen puts up with me, believes in me, shows me patience, humor, understanding, and commitment. I'm so fortunate to have both of these wise and wonderful people in my life.

Leah.
My indescribably beautiful sistah. She teaches me gardening, health and nutrition, strength, deep friendship, soul, love. I could rave about her, but she and I know what she is to me.

My host of beloved friends.
Jamalieh and Josh, Jason, Elena, Vernon, Pete, Eric, Nadine, Lynda, Jennifer and Jeremy, Maggie, Thatcher, Scott Sheffer, Scott Logan, Pam and Kyle, Donna Galluzzo, Cathy Plourde and Add Verb Productions, Mandy, Peter and Karyn, Paul Haley, Zack Barowitz, all my Renaissance Voices compatriots, Bernie Horowitz, Bianca, Marita, Jeff Forman, Liz and Nate, Erik, Randall, Ian, Andrew, Lorelei, Cynthia, Hal, Matty and Sarah, David and Louisa, Els and Jim, and a very long list of people who make my life a life well lived. And those people who have gone from my life, and will always be deeply loved and deeply missed - Zeke Miller and Howard Miller. Byron. Josey.

My feet.
These feet of mine, which have given me so much incredible pain and challenge, have given me compassion, understanding, wisdom. Without these feet and all these 19 surgeries and all the unusual experiences of growing through life with a persistent reminder of mortality and humanity and fragility and strength, who would I be? Where would I be? These two funny feet have been a gift.

Stevie Kallos.
Stevie was my teacher at Cornish and my friend after college. Now she's a wonderful novelist and she's publishing her second book, Sing Them Home, coming out this fall. Stevie is a loving and devoted parent, a wonderful woman, an artist, an example of how to navigate in this complicated world. I admire her so much, and will be proud to narrate the audiobook of Sing Them Home later this year.

Paul Meier.
Paul is a great teacher, researcher, writer, and listener. His talent for dialect work is huge, and his understanding of voice and speech and communication and story-telling and theater is magnificent. The International Dialects of English Archive is a gift and one of the best things on the internet ever.

Pat Fraley and Hillary Huber.
Pat and Hillary have been my friends and supporters and cheerleaders. I have been amazed at the amount of generosity, care, concern, and kindness they have shown me. They're not only talented and successful, they're real and they operate in the world with integrity. I adore both of them.

Grover Gardner and Blackstone Audio.
Grover gave me my first unabridged work as an audiobooks narrator, and I'm thankful that he was willing to take a chance on a green, unknown narrator. Blackstone has been a great publisher to work with and I'm proud and honored to narrate for them.

Literary Companion.
Ogden Morse gave me my first narration work ever four years ago, and not just any work, but Shakespeare, Greek classics, classic American and British novels - incredible words to read. He believed in me and gave me a chance to narrate, direct, cast, and manage his narration projects. Without Ogden's faith in my work, I would not be where I am today. And Ogden isn't just a client, he's a person I have grown to deeply respect and admire and trust. The more I work with other people, the more I recognize how unusual it is to work with people who take their time, build businesses and relationships slowly, and whose actions speak louder than words. I hope I live up to Ogden's example.

Scott Davis and bicycles.
I had such a crush on Scott Davis back in the day, and even though he broke my heart a little bit, it was because of him that I started to ride a bicycle. I had to think of a way to spend time with aloof and squirrely Scott, and the best way I could think up was to ask him to help me pick out a bicycle to ride...and then to suggest lots of bike rides. I didn't ultimately have a love affair with Scott, but I did get a love affair with bicycles. He was lovely, but bicycles are even lovelier than tall, freckled, redheaded boys.

My grandparents.
I've always loved my family, but as I grow older I'm finally starting to understand the importance and meaning of family. With growing perspective, I understand how I link back to those who came before me, and I appreciate the lives they created, and what those lives have planted in me. My grandfather, Don Houts - a watercolor and oil painter. My grandmother, Mildred Houts - a nurse and homemaker. My grandfather, Glenn Gilbert - an upholsterer and small business owner. And my grandmother, Tharel Gilbert - a small business owner and homemaker. I appreciate my relationship with my one living grandparent, Tharel, and really enjoy watching her develop a friendship with my husband.

Seattle.
Ah, Seattle. Where my heart lives. There is always a space left empty by my distance from this city. I will never forget driving into Seattle with my family for the first time when I was 14 years old, and feeling like I'd come home. Seattle gave me summers at The Northwest School, two years at the University of Washington, my first apartment, my first experiences living away from home, first concerts at The Moore, love affairs and fierce battles, the WTO protests, theater and dance and music and art, adventure and tumult and my first home on Capital Hill (the smallest possible condo), education formal and informal, beauty and pain and wandering and tears and a sense of self and smallness and greatness and place. I never meant to leave my city for longer than 3 months, and now I don't know if I'll ever get back for more than a visit. But I know my beautiful Seattle will always be there. I yearn for Seattle.

Idaho.
My home state. My 13-years home, which I only now appreciate after having long left it. I grew up with the complication of living in a Mormon Republican state, when I was from a Christian family and where being aligned with the Democrat party was the deepest religion. This was not easy. It was lonely and stressful and made me anxious to get away. But now, when I look back on my life, I see how fortunate I was to grow up on my friends' farms - gathering eggs from the chicken coops and experiencing sheep-shearing and running across the corrugated metal roofs of the pig pens and watching a hog being born. I helped irrigate a field and had bonfires in the desert among the sagebrush and lived near the Snake River Canyon and Blue Lakes. I rode dirt bikes in the South Hills and hiked down to Pillar Falls on the last day of my senior year of high school. I took piano lessons in Filer and guitar lessons in Pocatello and watched fireworks and listened to the city band concert at CSI. I did theater with the JUMP Company and the Dilettantes. And as it gets farther and farther away, it feels like it wasn't so bad. It's not so terrible to be from a state with incredible natural beauty, roadless wilderness, and the sweetest-smelling air. I'm grateful now, and I can't wait to go home for a visit.

The Trek Across Maine.
Percy and I finished the Trek on Sunday - 180 miles biked in three days. I have a lot to write about this, so I'll tease you and leave you with my deep gratitude and thanks for this incredible experience.

The Common Ground Fair.
I went to the Common Ground for the first time in 2001, and I've been almost every year since. What an incredible place! A celebration of organic farming and gardening, all things local and beautiful. I love going to the fair, where I see people I know and love and only run into once a year. Percy and I biked to the Common Ground in 2002, and maybe we'll do it again this year. It's the best fair, and makes me so glad to live in a rural state.

My home.
For at least another year, we are renting the home of the lovely Alfred DePew, who has moved to British Columia. So we get to live in the middle of Portland, within walking or biking distance of the Portland Museum of Art, Bangkok Thai and Norm's, Monument Square, the library, Deering Oaks Park, Wigon Office Supply, Aurora Provisions, Arabica, Whole Foods, the North Star, Salt, MECA, and The Space Gallery. We have great neighbors, beautiful flowers in our yard, enough space to allow both of us to work from home, and we are so very fortunate to have this house to love.

Seth Godin.
I have to include Seth Godin, who has taught me more about business than anyone else. He is so remarkable, so unusual, so honorable, the purplest cow of them all. I appreciate the contribution his work makes in my life and in my understanding of what I'm trying to accomplish with my work and why I want to work for myself. I am so glad to 'know' Seth Godin, and hope one day to thank him in person for the role he plays in my education.

Tom Filogomo and Tim and Jim at The Studio
Tom agreed to do a project with me a few years ago, and he has surpassed all my expectations. He's become a friend, and he's shown me great patience, kindness, trust, and commitment. I am so glad to know him and to be moving...slowly but steadily...toward the fruition of our partnership. The Studio has been a resource for me since the very beginning of my voiceover career five years ago. Tim and Jim have been unbelievably generous with me - answering countless, hysterical "I don't know what I messed up in ProTools! HELP!" calls, scheduling me for last minute studio sessions, helping me get my home studio in working order, even going shopping with me for equipment and setting it up for me. Tim and Jim are great fathers, great community members, great people, great friends.

Steve Urkowitz.
Steve has been a great friend to Percy and to me, and he's been incredibly generous to both of us. He was an inspiration on the Trek Across Maine, radiating joy and humor and encouragement, as he always does. On several occasions, Steve has handed me the keys to his beautiful Greenwich Village apartment and allowed me to stay for several days at a time at his home when I've had business in New York. He's a joker, a jester, and he does serious theater business. I adore him.

Buzz and Becky Leonard.
This couple has become dear friends to Percy and me, including us in their family gathering on Christmas, fishing trips, birthday celebrations, and dinner dates. Percy and I see that after four children, several grandchildren, and careers that forced long distance separations, Buzz and Becky are as much in love as they were when they first met. They seem to really like us and want to hang out with us, and we feel really lucky to know them and be invited to be a part of their lives.

My community.
I love living in this community, where I can see friends at Coffee By Design, where I know the owner of Bangkok Thai, see friends at the farmer's market on Saturday and Wednesday, walk at Kettle Cove or bike to Cape Elizabeth. It means a lot to me to meet people Percy has known for 20 years, to feel the amount of love and support I've been gifted by marriage. Maine is a wonderful place - a magical state. I love living here, close to the ocean, close to New York, Montreal, Vermont. If you've not visited - come for a little while! See Old Orchard Beach in the summer, Wolfe's Neck Park any time, Popham Beach in the fall, the Eastern Prom on the 4th of July, the first lilacs in spring, the waters of Boothbay. Maine is like no other place on earth.

Theater.
When theater exists in its highest and best potential, it transcends the boundaries of time and space, geography, class, gender, education, economics, language. It is ancient and archetypal, present, meditative, magical. At moments I see and hear glimpses of the best kind of theater, and it fills me with the deepest source of joy.

The Source.
I'm finding my way back to you. And back to myself. Thank you for never disconnecting. I am learning to step aside and let you flow through me.

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----- -------- TITLE: Revealing AUTHOR: Tavia DATE: 6/11/2008 08:20:00 AM ----- BODY:
I've been working with phenomenal voiceover coach Nancy Wolfson since January. I'm very close to cutting a new demo with her - it will be done at the end of this month. And last night was a very, very difficult session. Nancy is awesome - very direct, very blunt, very honest. And sometimes the truth can hurt. Last night she called me on my people-pleasing, don't-want-to-do-it-wrong, want-everyone-to-likemeloveme voiceover work. I'm sick of it myself, and she demanded better. I got through the session and she gave me a great, very fun technique for breaking the mindset that jabbers, "Don't be rude. Be pretty. Be nice. Be perfect. Don't upset anyone. Don't make waves. Disappear. Don't stand out." It's a very loud voice, but it quiets quickly with one shift in thinking. Still, embracing the place in my voice that is real and authentic and not worried with pretty/pleasing/perfection is pretty uncomfortable. When I hooked up with my husband after the session with Nancy was over, I told him that it wasn't my voice that needed work so much as my soul. I don't think that I will be able to approach the level of mastery and opportunity I want if I'm so concerned with not rocking the boat - with putting everyone else's feelings above my own. Nancy is calling me on my voiceover work, but what she's revealing to me is that I have to grow and evolve as a person in order for my voice to grow and evolve. I can't be so concerned with nice and pretty. I have to be confident. I have to be strong. To care about my opinion of me and not worry about what anyone else thinks of me. I have to begin to operate instinctually and emotionally and stop over-thinking everything. My sweet husband told me to practice with him, and I enjoyed a giggling half hour of saying things that to me seemed terribly mean, but for him read simply as honest and assertive. Then he told me I had to stop it. I probably sound like a terrible doormat, and I'm not. I can be pretty mouthy and tough, actually. Ask my parents. No, don't - just take my word for it. I easily stand up for people I love when I think they've been wronged. I rail against injustice. I can debate and stand my ground. But this evolution that is required in my soul needs to open a new place, a different place in me. It's got to come from a place that doesn't strive to be grounded, but is grounded. It's the place where I am relaxed, because I've done my work and I can trust that it will pay off. It's the place of faith and deep breathing and space, not rushed, overworked, overtired, over-stressed yearning. I've been passionate about studying voice since I was studying as an actor at Cornish College of the Arts. From the first day in Deena Burke's freshman voice class, the connection between the physical voice and the emotion and heart - the soul revealed, exposed by the voice - fascinated me, but it also immediately and deeply challenged comfort and complacency. While working through four years of intensive voice and speech courses, I achieved tremendous physical release, stripped away countless, habitual guarding tactics that were obvious in my voice work, and expressed long buried grief and heart scars through evocative voice exercise. I was blessed to train at Cornish under teachers like Deena, who gave me a safe environment to integrate my mind, body, voice, heart, and soul and become a strong and independent theater artist. Now I'm essentially on my own as an artist. I'm almost done with these months of study with Nancy. I'm not in school, I'm not surrounded all day every day by a team of top teachers who nurture me every step of the way, who push me to grow and evolve and toughen up. I'm lucky to have a fantastic business parter, Stephen McLaughlin, who is my audiobooks director and with whom I co-produce, and who challenges my heart and mind, but most of the time I'm on my own as I pursue my work as a voice actor. So it's my choice and my responsibility to be disciplined in my study of the voice. It's up to me to be as demanding as my teachers were, to identify how far out of my comfort zone I'm willing to go to grow as a voice actor. I'm just as floored today as I was in my college years at how the voice reveals one's very essence and soul. If you're going to be great, there is no hiding, no safety, no idiosyncratic desperate attempts to be guarded that can show up in your voice. That is freaking scary. It's far scarier now than it was when I was a student. When I was a student, I was free to study and explore and experiment and make mistakes. I worked with total devotion and commitment, but my rent wasn't riding on my studies. I didn't make a living as an actor, I was just studying and training for some nebulous future. Well, the future has arrived. I have made one of the scariest choices I could have ever made - I rely on my skill and talent to put food on my table. To pay my rent. To feed my cats, who eat...a lot. I have to make some uncomfortable changes in the way I operate in the world. Now is my time to be fierce with myself and compassionate, too. To acknowledge that my comfortable likemeloveme style has gotten me this far, but it doesn't get to lead the rest of the journey. I know I'm ready.

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----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Blogger JW @ Ferguson Library DATE: June 11, 2008 at 10:13 AM Nice work, Gilbert. You're a brave one. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Blogger Nancy Wolfson DATE: June 11, 2008 at 9:22 PM BRAVO, Tavia.
The pursuit of creativity and true growth requires this strange leap into DISCOMFORT. If you feel a little uncomfortable (or very much so) then it's an encouraging sign you've ventured into new territory. It isn't easy, and in fact can feel something close to masochistic. But ya won't hurt yourself. And as Fat Albert once said, "If you're not careful, ya just might learn something."
I applaud your emotional bravery. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Blogger Bob Souer DATE: June 12, 2008 at 12:07 PM Tavia,

This is a really excellent post. Thank you for pushing yourself to be so open about the things with which you wrestle.

It's inspiring to read.

(And I truly love Nancy Wolfson!)

Be well,
Bob ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Blogger Unknown DATE: June 26, 2008 at 12:11 PM There is such a struggle between those two opposites, isn't there? I mean, there's always been this push for as long as I've been studying theater to make theater more accessible at all costs. However pursuing that train of thought leads to dumbed-down, lowest common denominator shows. On the opposite side of the spectrum, if you insist on making art personal, and refuse to care about the community, you end up acting for no one and you risk becoming self-indulgent.

It's something I don't really understand the balance of. Or at least don't notice it until I run close to one of those situations, when I revise and start off the other way.

Balance is the hardest thing. I'd love to hear more about this. Hopefully I could learn something. ----- --------