Q2 2024: A Brief Intermission

“Je fais une pause” - Angela’s new favorite French sentiment.

In American culture, particularly at ‘America’s National Ballet Company’ (speaking from my year and a half experience working there), the hustle is not only a lifestyle, but an inescapable, uncompromising standard.

However, something j’adore about French culture (from what I’ve learned watching Emily in Paris) are the purposeful, guilt-free moments of relaxation sprinkled throughout the everyday; it isn’t uncommon to take a 2-hour lunch break including a glass of wine, maybe a cigarette and absolutely no rush to get back to the office.

Sometime over the past year and a half, I sort of un-learned the ability to take a 2-hour break. Then, after a month-long break I was forced to take due to my health, I now have no other option than to take une pause at least once or twice a day each and every single day.

A very causal photo hanging in my office.

Prior to May 31st, 2024,

I piled anxiety, guilt, shame, worry and fear on myself for any moment I wasn’t working efficiently. High productivity was a non-negotiable. Frequent (daily) problem-solving was required to succeed in my role, facing obstacle after obstacle that I (alone) was required to navigate in order to meet a high volume of (seemingly) high-stakes, time-sensitive demands.

On May 31st, 2024, however, I was given no other option than to learn the meaning of “je fais une pause” or in English, “I’m taking a break” and all my problem solving, efficiency and productivity meant nothing when I lost the ability to eat, drink or sleep due to extreme pain and rapid onset of debilitating symptoms of disease.

I’ll spare you the painful details because I still cringe at the wounds healing all over by body, but on May 31st, symptoms of a chronic condition - one that I had achieved 4 incredible years of remission from since 2020 - landed me in the hospital for a seven days. My entire life subsequently came to a screeching halt.

Housewives and lots of rest were key to maintaining my sanity while I was stuck in that bed.

Since being diagnosed over 14 years ago, I (thought I) had found the formula to live medication free with no symptoms (a major win!) to sustain remission; being symptom-free was a luxury I recognize that I am lucky to have had at all in this lifetime.

I want to note sustain(-ability) as the operative word of the last sentence. The calm environment I thought I had created inside my physical body was, in reality, slowly busting at the seams and hanging by a shred of thread because of the house of cards (a.k.a. my external environment) I was waking up to every day.

I was spending 40 hours per week working, plus another 20-30 hours per week raging about this job (in therapy, on the phone with my family and to the poor Tinder boys who definitely did not give a damn about my “hard” job). Another 20ish hours per week were spent numbing myself trying to escape the hamster wheel, and all in all, it felt like the job (or the pursuit to run away from the pain it was causing me) almost never, ever stopped. “Anything else you want to talk about?” - my therapist, every single week.

Oh! and in the spare hours I had enough energy to get out of bed for, I also attempted to build out my project plans for avec Productions…the math wasn’t mathing.

View from the sixth floor of the hospital I spent a week in.

Hustle culture is everywhere in Manhattan.

For many New Yorkers, the financial, personal, spiritual, social and health benefits of those blood, sweat, and tears result in a proportional return on the number of hours you put in.

As a junior staff member for a historic nonprofit institution, however, you better be prepared for those fringe benefits, including:

comp’d tickets to world-class performances
the galas you get to attend for $free.99 (you’re still on the clock, honey)
eye-opening conversations with new members of your network
cheeky exchanges with delightful guests at high society events
dinner at the front table by the entrance of the Grand Tier Restaurant with a donor attempting to take sympathy on your overworked, poor soul
and or the countless pep talks from colleagues who “believe in you!” and remind you things like, “Stop worrying so much! You got this! You are soooooo talented!”

somehow cover all of your needs - or costs (the financial ones, personal ones, spiritual ones, social ones and the medical ones).

Now, if you are 1 of the 5 million people diagnosed with the particular chronic health condition I live with, you’ve probably heard somewhere along the way that it’s a good idea to keep your stress level in check because the disease tends to have a higher chance of flaring when you don’t.

In fact, according to a study by the National Library of Medicine, “growing evidence from clinical and experimental studies suggests that stress acts as a promoting or relapsing factor” for this condition. It goes further to say that “some clinical data support the view that stress management, such as through relaxation exercises, is beneficial to patients, particularly those who are refractory.”

So, now that we can all (hopefully) agree that stress could be an issue for someone like me who lives with this chronic disease, the next logical question is, what is the best way to mitigate it? Relax. But, how do we do that? So many options! But it really boils down to taking care of four basic needs: rest, diet, assistance and recovery. I had learned how to:

Get enough rest
Consume a balanced, nourishing diet that supports optimal physical, mental and social performance when at work (or play!) and at rest
Ask for the help I need
(…and most importantly) Learn how to take breaks and let my body recover from the work it has to do every single day

As you may have guessed, my “formula for remission” required to keep my chronic illness from interfering with my life plans (again) started to veer off track when the ultra-pressurized lightning speed of my life in New York blasted off, and I lost the ability to take care of my most basic, human needs.

A cappuccino a day keeps the exhaustion away…and makes it impossible to get ahead on your bills. Forget about saving any money, honey!

I found myself grateful for where the journey was taking me, in disbelief at how I got there, and totally unprepared for the impending self-combustion that was about to ensue. My ability to relax became compromised when I learned I needed assistance with “pumping the breaks,” and I finally sought care and began pharmaceutical treatment for chronic, worsening anxiety.

Zoloft changed my life and rocks my world. On it, I can breathe easy, I can think clearly, I can make a fool of myself in social settings and not judge myself for it, I can fail and be totally okay with it. I started taking 50 mg of it about 6 months after moving back to New York from Berkshire County, where I spent the previous summer revving up this career-specific stress machine that made me incapable of taking care of those four basics needs (rest, diet, assistance and recovery).

Same rock a very special Ted Shawn once laid upon (also probably exhausted from his contributions to the dance community - iykyk).

Okay, now bear with me, I know this is somewhat of an elementary concept to (hopefully) most adults - but, if I was taking steps to chemically course correct (with the Zoloft), why couldn’t I force my mind and body to slow down and let go of the pressure LOAD that I told myself I needed to carry in order to get my work done?

The work (mind you), I did for many reasons.

I want to point out though that one major reason I chose to accept this job and move back to New York City was because I thought it was a step that would help me grow. After a year of being at this company, I thought I would have proven my worthiness to be able to afford to pay those aforementioned costs (financial, personal, spiritual, social and medical) and be able to actually enjoy life OUTSIDE of my life at work. Oh, how naive I was.

There are many theories as to why we find ourselves in cycles of burnout, but sometime after:

My Summer 2023 consisting of 5 straight weeks of insomnia from very challenging 6-day work weeks
Roughly a whole year of an unhealthy cocktail of foods, habits and substances
Growing lack of trust that my needs - or costs - could be covered by the organization I worked for
(…and most importantly) What I would describe as a state of mania rotating between working, dancing alone in my apartment to shed the day away, going to dive bars to let off steam, going to nightclubs to sweat off pain, racing to the next thrill to quench my desire for freedom from heavy, suffocating restrictions…

The combustion I mentioned earlier was now lit aflame.

Following a sobering solo trip to Los Angeles in early 2024, I returned to Brooklyn with the awareness that the Maserati-speed lifestyle that I was trying to squeeze inside of the antiquated, deeply flawed, procedure-less environment that my job existed inside of was no longer sustainable (there’s that funny word again!).

Sunny, slow-paced, softer and simpler life for that one week in SoCal helped me see more clearly how the benefits of the job I was working to cover the costs of my financial, personal, spiritual, social and medical well-being were deeply out of alignment.

Not long after returning to NYC, I reached what the French might call “croustillant” (close, but not to be confused with croissant). Feeling fried by the express train speed of my outta whack life, I woke up one cloudy Wednesday morning, abruptly decided it was the day to quit my job, and went into the office to promptly do so.

This was not yet, however, when I took “the break.” Keep reading. Or take a break and come back after a cup of tea. Recharge - it’s really good for you.

After one month straight of rooftop parties, house parties, house music DJ sets, one performance I danced, two avec Productions workshops I hosted and one week back home in North Carolina to continue indulging in the sweet taste of that freedom, I was forced to utter the fated “je fais une pause.”

Pot boiled over and my body shut down. Thing is, when you:

Stop getting good sleep and
Swap your tried and true anti-inflammatory diet for alcohol, bagels, pizza, tenders and drip coffee because those foods are convenient, so delicious and comforting, then
You lose faith and motivation to continue excelling at your responsibilities; you’re discouraged by high employee turnover, you’re fatigued by the unrelenting, unwavering resistance to recommendations you make to try to alleviate the chaos and you come to a point where you just can’t handle anymore rejection of the help you ask for. So, you then
(…and most importantly) can’t figure out how to relax and are told by supervisors that “the only thing standing in your way is yourself” translating to “you give yourself anxiety and this organization takes no responsibility for the position you are in”

Your body, mind and soul are then put in a position requiring a pause, and you have no other option than to unplug that sparking wire before you can continue producing the energy to keep f*cking going.

Quick stretch in the ER, before getting admitted to the IBD ward.

After spending the first week of June in that hospital bed, and a month of recovering back to myself, I have learned the incredibly humbling lesson of true disease management since departing from my très chic NYU Langone hospital room.

Coming out of the hospital with your chronic illness still running through your body is one thing, but recovering from the needles, physical weakness from being bed-ridden and the general depletion of your vitality from the lengths you go to get that one inflammation marker number back down to the normal range of 1-10 (when it was sitting above 200)….takes some time, patience and a whole lot of support.

These days, top priorities on my to-do list include:

Get your damn sleep, even if you have to take Melatonin every single night
Drink celery juice, eat salmon and dark, leafy greens
Find and create opportunities for joy
(…and most importantly) chill the f*ck out! For at least an hour a day, either go to the pool, take a bath, do a little improvisation dance or somehow find some time to be still and mindlessly roll around or stretch or lay. Just do something where you can take that sweet break from thinking, emoting, or perfectly executing one of the many tasks on your to-do list

“Je fais une pause” - for real this time

I share all of this detail because I hope someone reads this and takes an actual break. I hope someone gets halfway through this excessively long blog post and decides to rest their eyes, even if it’s for one, two or three breaths. This is my hope because I now know that pausing and taking even just one breath can go a very long way. I wish I had understood and implemented that strategy much, much sooner than May 31st, 2024.

I stop and smell the flowers (and say what’s up to the bees) every day now.

Two pillers of avec Productions’ mission are artistic growth and creative discovery. While I haven’t been able to execute my original plans for how I thought that would manifest in 2024, I have spent the last month meditating on why those goals are so vital to have, and I’ve brainstormed how to make this business model more sustainable (omg, there it is AGAIN!) so it can be shared with more people who want to achieve those same goals.

Essential components of any growth or discovery require a strong homeostatic baseline to operate from.

If you are 1 of those 5 million people (in reality, that number is much higher, as stress is suggested to exacerbate other chronic health conditions), you then have to get those:

Sleep
Food
Mindset
(…and most importantly) Intentional rest

things in check - right now. Then, and only then, can you start to even think about adding plans to grow and discover to your plate. Otherwise, plan to keep picking up the “Do not pass Go and do not collect $200” card for every new responsibility you pile on.

Since leaving the hospital and returning home to North Carolina AGAIN (third time as a grown adult; a trend), the little Toyota truck I cruise around in through my tiny hometown goes at the perfect speed for me right now. I can control all of those things required to keep my stress in check and I’ll be just gosh darned if my disease isn’t responding “exceptionally well,” to quote my doctor, to my treatment plan!

Funny how your basic, human needs being met can change your whole perspective on life.

Now that avec has morphed into a not New York-specific organization, I’m finally able to step back and see the potential for what it can be outside of that bustling, fast-paced city.

Artists around the globe need chances to grow their relationship with their creative practice and discover what style and pace of working serves that practice most effectively.

This pause on life is giving me the break I need to evaluate how I can offer that, and I’m thrilled to share a few ideas I have in the works, all subject to morph once again into something different as life demands them to. I can’t wait to share them with the world very soon, and in meantime, I’m in no rush to produce them and I am enjoying marinating on the details of exactly what they are.

Phew, glad that’s over. I wasn’t sure if telling this story on avecproductions.org/blog was appropriate, as this company is independent from me as a person, but, I hope this blatant transparency can humanize the folks behind the stunning performing artists you see onstage.

Beyond the lights, the tutus, the red velvet walls and seats, the champagne toast after the show, the graceful, otherworldly, stunningly and fiercely talented beacons of strength and beauty we call “dancers” that I did have the privilege of supporting in my work during my time in New York, there’s people like me. People who are overworked, grossly undervalued, and deeply, bone-achingly tired after pouring hours and energy into the work required to sustain this art form (…hmmm maybe the sustainability thing is worth looking into?).

Of course I learned invaluable lessons, and of course the long-term benefits of my career choices are worth the costs (in some version of this universe…), but the culture of expecting employees to show up at 200% when their homeostatic baseline (100%) may already be below “the average” (non-diseased) has to be talked about more.

As 1 of 5 million people who could potentially feel this way solely based off the National Library of Medicine evidence that essentially says that

relaxing could help relieve stress,

which could be beneficial for patients at risk of promoting or relapsing disease, specifically in refractory cases (a condition that does not respond to treatment), I’m sharing my journey with “invisible illness,” a wildly popular trend in the performing arts community (maybe it’s popular in other communities too, but I only speak from where my career has taken me). I can’t help but find causal relationships between the nature of the environments I have worked in and how they have affected my mental well-being and ability to do my job effectively. And further, I can’t help but mention that I went at the pace required of me to do my job until I could sustain that pace for not even a second longer.

Yes, the benefits of the lifestyle of an arts administrator are incredibly illuminating, it’s a gift to be able to experience at all, it nourishes the curiosity burning inside every creative persons’ insides, but the costs of operating at the pace I did, in the environment I did, created a perfect storm for disease to thrive.

My ability to relax was forfeited

when I signed the agreement to work that job, and I refuse to give up that ability ever again.

I’m grateful my situation is not any worse.

Since leaving New York, I’ve suddenly heard about more than a handful of people suffering far worse symptoms of this exact condition, or enduring treatment for cancer, or mourning death and other tragedies way beyond my blip of a hospital stay.

I’m lucky, and it scared me enough to try to not let myself ever forget how lucky I am. I never want to feel fear like that again and I never want to lose control of my health for the sake of a job ever again.

So, I applaud you for absorbing this long, very personal blog post and leave you with the following requests:

Get enough rest
Consume a balanced, nourishing diet that supports optimal physical, mental and social performance when at work (or play!) or at rest
Ask for help you need
(…and most importantly) Learn how to take breaks and let your body recover from the work it has to do every single day