Spotlight

I have the best of both worlds in some ways. I am a lawyer who loves her job as a deputy public defender and a writer. I love the performance aspect of both.

As a kid, I would always see movies in my head. I was the star of course. It never occurred to me that writing and performance are so linked. That side of me, the actress side, was never cultivated until I started performing my memoir pieces.

As a teenager, we made fun of the band and drama kids. I was too punk rock and cool for that. But a few years back, I took a theater workshop and was blown away. It was all about analyzing the script or piece and interpreting it. It’s as if a lightbulb went off on my head. I’m an actress!

My husband wasn’t surprised by this. “You want to be the center of attention, it’s always the Juanita show”, he said. I nodded. He was right. I love having a room’s attention and while sometimes I go overboard with it, I am happy I have that desire for attention because it’s motivating.

I used to let nerves get the better of me. Last year, the day of a performance, I moaned, “Why did I agree to do this piece”? My heart was racing, my palms sweaty, I was so scared and anxious. But then a wise teacher said, “Stop framing it that way, say you’re excited and use it.”

That teacher was right and recently, I have been able to be more free and open when reading. I just let go and throw caution to the wind. I even do my “voices” when podcasting.

If this pandemic has taught me anything, it’s to go for your bliss. Be powerful, and courageous.

Especially, especially I will say it again, with your art.

Pandemic Nation

I started reading Prozac Nation again. I’d read it years ago. Yet, I’d forgotten how desperately wrought and honest the book is about depression and anxiety. She (the late Elizabeth Wurtzel) captured it, and has been criticized for being too “confessional”. Which is bull. Too confessional is another way of saying too hysterical, and too dramatic, or what is otherwise known as being “too female”.

This whole Covid-19 pandemic has and will cause a mental health and addiction crisis that will reverberate for years to come. We are all just coping. Holding on to the life raft of our sanity by our fingernails. Dealing with the unbelievable and the unknowable and basically, trying to handle the biggest shit show ever to happen in our lives.

How are you coping? I want to know. I need help. We all do. I vacillate between working all the time to drinking on the weekend to sleeping to binge watching television. I have no balance. That is out the window friends and it may never come back.

My whole life, I’ve always felt like I was living and walking on a tightrope of sorts. It’s probably why I moved around so much earlier in my life. Lately, I find it hard to move at all. I feel as if I might fall off the tightrope into the abyss below if I take one misstep.

Even trying to cope by writing brings me anxiety. My poetry class I’m taking online stresses me out. It’s not in my lane and I fear criticism.

All of my successes seem trivial now. I want to finish editing my book, which is too close for comfort. I can’t even open the document. It seems like too much.

So my friends, if you’re listening, I hope you can see this is just me. Being me.

I’m going to end on a positive note, as I sit here at 4:29 in the morning, listening to my husband snore. And this is the best I got right now, all I got: This will have to end eventually.

And then we can all go back to living our lives of quiet desperation and hoarding consumer goods and chasing the American Dream that does not exist anymore, a dream that maybe never existed at all.

That’s all I got.

Dreaming

On my second cup of espresso, I stretch. It’s my 9/80. I’ve been working remotely but more than ever. It’s nice to have a break from my non-stop work connection. I find it very hard to disconnect from my job right now.

My phone rings constantly from the jail, Face Timing with my colleagues, Zoom meetings, Skyping, telephonic court conferences, and the never ending story of emails. I’m too connected. I worry about my clients constantly. People used to think public defenders were lazy and incompetent. Now they’re seeing, I hope, just how crucial we are and how much we care.

At night, I’m too exhausted to write. Last night, I made cheese enchiladas and fell sleep by 8 pm. I awoke at 4 am and thought, “Is this all a dream?”

Today, I am disconnecting and looking forward to laying out, listening to music (especially Bowie) and no emails or phone calls.

This morning, I listened to a live remote re-recording of Crowded House’s Don’t Dream It’s Over. Neil Finn’s voice breaks through. The words touched me:

“There is freedom within
There is freedom without
Try to catch the deluge in a paper cup
There's a battle ahead
Many battles are lost
But you'll never see the end of the road
While you're travelling with me

Hey now, Hey now
Don't dream it's over
Hey now, Hey now
When the world comes in
They come, they come
To build a wall between us
We know they won't win.”

His words reminded me that there is freedom within. Within our minds and hearts, we have the ability to transcend. Isn’t that what art is about? Art arises from space, time and chaos. My podcast that I just finished season one of was birthed from this pandemic. I’d always wanted my stories to have musical interludes. So there’s that. There’s always beauty. Always.

So for now, I will just dance and sing. And I will remember my dad today on his birthday and dream of the world when this pandemic is all over.

Catch

One of my favorite songs by the Cure, while I love them all, is a song called “Catch”. The lyrics go like this:

Yeah I know who you remind me of
A girl I think I used to know
Yeah I'd see her when the day got colder
On those days when it felt like snow.

You know I even think that she stared like you
She used to just stand there and stare
And roll her eyes right up to heaven
And make like I just wasn't there.”

The words of Robert Smith made me mull on who I was pre-pandemic and who I am now. I have changed inside.

This whole coronavirus crisis has made me realize that at my core, my very core, I am: an artist, an actress, a (bad) singer, a poet and most of all, a writer. 

Life is so precious and so fleeting. We can spend it in a prison of our own making or we can sit the sun. We can lock ourselves in a room. Brood. Complain. Or we can use our imagination and travel to distant places using only our minds.

Luckily for me, my artistic medium of choice requires only the canvas of paper or a computer. I write to be heard. For someone to listen and care. Ultimately, I want to be liked by you all, loved even. That’s why music speaks to me so. All of my favorite singers are desperately romantic: Bowie, Robert Smith, Morrissey and of course, the crooner love song queen, Patsy Cline. 

People think just because one is melancholy that they are also not joyful and loving, but the most dark are also often the most full of light. I want to be that light filled and joyful girl I used to be. The one who thought good times would go on forever and that she was invincible. The one who existed pre father’s death and pre miscarriage and infertility, and pre pandemic.

But maybe, this new me is who I’m supposed to be. Dark, light, happy, sad and not artificial ever. True to herself and a daydream believer. Still an optimist but more realistic, knowing that life is short.

Oh it’s far too short. Too too fleeting. But it’s lovely too.

Dystopian Daze

It’s such a surreal time that it’s almost cliche to say so.

Dystopian is a good way to think of it. I had a conversation with a friend the other day. We were discussing about how one doesn’t really know when things are dystopian because I believe most of us are optimists. We all want things to get better and visualize them getting better to calm our anxiety.

For me, I saw the warning signs right before my San Antonio AWP conference in March. It was the calm before the storm and when I returned from Texas, I did a deep dive into coronavirus and saw the red flags. I spent a week writing an article and then boom, everything went ballistic.

Everyone was out and about and then, all of sudden, the world was on lockdown. My job moved to remote court work and for the next weeks, I worked on bail motions for my clients. Trying desperately to get as many people out that I could.

Now, it’s a bit of a comedown. Still dystopian yes, but I feel adrift. My highlight of today will be working and Skyping and a non-optional vet appointment. I wonder, when will court start in person again? When will my husband’s dental offices be allowed to reopen? And most importantly (I’m being facetious but not...), when can I go to Vegas again?

I’m thinking of my dad on a daily basis, along with praying every morning when I wake up for my mom, my husband and my mom in law, and for my dogs to stay well because they are my solace.

I miss my family. I want to see my sisters, my best friends, and my work colleagues. I want life to go back to normal, even if it’s a new normal.

In return, I pledge to appreciate every minute, and every moment, and to listen to the birds and feel the warmth of the sun. I promise to love my loved ones and be a kind and benevolent force in the world.

Most of all, I vow to use my platform and voice for the greater good and to never be intimidated to say what I feel. To trust my instincts. To get another tattoo.

And to listen to music and dance. Always.

Wishing on a star

I always loved the Pinocchio cartoon and the idea of wishing on a star. The thought that our dreams and wishes have power is a compelling one to me.

There is so much sadness right now that I can barely write. I’ve been recording old stories on my new podcast. Memorializing my stories in a kind of audio file memorial to myself. See https://anchor.fm/juanita-e-mantz-pelaez.

I am feeling my mortality. Deeply. As our own Starman David Bowie said:

“Planet earth is blue and there’s nothing I can do.”

So where do I go now? How do I manage my sadness and grief? I have no idea my friends. I’m floundering losing myself in motion work for my incarcerated clients and trying to calm the quell of panic that is bubbling right beneath my surface.

My friend Jane died this week, she was an investigator for our office and had been publicly battling cancer. I wept knowing we can’t even have a funeral for her right now. That sweet soul deserves a funeral and to be celebrated.

But these are our times. Many tired souls will go without the rites and celebration they do deserve.

And, we will all just be here to bear witness.

My wish I suppose is that we all remember these times and when life returns, for surely this is not life right now, or at least not a good life, then we appreciate it and all live it to the fullest.

Life is fragile, especially right now. Stay well. I’m here. Stargazing.

JEM has a podcast! All your faves in JEM’s voice!

Check it out at https://anchor.fm/juanita-e-mantz-pelaez and on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/4XiizDZaXIG7DqzzmnbNhr?si=ye98o8hJRGmNpPJ5d1wN0Q