While You’re In: Go back in time with Mirah, create chalk art, and find stress relief
Mirah and more
Although the Capitol Theater remains closed for who knows how long, the Olympia Film Society is ramping up its efforts to keep folks entertained. The latest: live-streamed shows with Mirah, whose Tuesday, Aug. 11, concert kicks off the society’s singer-songwriter series. She’ll play tunes from her 2000 debut disc, “You Think It’s Like This But It’s Really Like This,” being reissued this month. “My biggest hope with making music is that the music I make can do for other people what all the music I’ve listened to in my life has done for me,” she said in an article on the society’s website. “It helps me be alive. It helps me be a person. It helps me feel things. It helps me connect to myself and to other people.” Tickets are $15 per show or $40 for a three-concert series, with 20 percent of proceeds going to the Northeast Farmers of Color Land Trust. You’ll have 48 hours after each show to watch and listen. The society is also continuing to screen films online. Current selections include the wacky, kinky and super-colorful “Holy Trinity”; the society is even hosting a Q&A with director Molly Hewitt at 6 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 8, on its Instagram page.
Get out the chalk
If you love to draw — or just want to see some new, fresh, limited-time-only art — check out Sumner’s Chalk Art Festival. The fact that the small Pierce County town’s festival is online this year is good news for Thurston County’s artsy types: Asked if people from out of town could enter the art competition, the Sumner Arts Commission decided to make it so, inviting anyone anywhere to create a 4-foot-by-4-foot work made only with sidewalk chalk and submit a photo by 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 15. Bonus: If you and your neighborhood participate, you’ll be creating your own local Chalk Art Festival wherever you are, and you’ll be able to check out the art in person — while observing physical distancing, of course — instead of on screen.
Feeling stressed?
Actually, if you’re not, The Olympian would like to know your secret. But while the fight-or-flight instinct can be a good thing, the human body doesn’t do well when high stress becomes a chronic condition (as it easily can when a trip to the grocery store might be a life-or-death situation). Many people know healthy ways to reduce their stress (taking a walk, say, or focusing on breathing), but fewer are skilled at noticing just how stressed they are and whether that stress is serving them or making life harder. Nkem Ndefo and her colleagues at Los Angeles-based Lumos Transforms teach people how to assess their stress and reduce it when they need to, and during the pandemic, they’ve been sharing what they know in free 45-minute classes on Anchoring Resilience for Turbulent Times. “We’re committed to continuing the free anchoring classes for as long as we have resources and energy,” Ndefo told The Olympian. Among the stress-reduction tools Lumos teaches is the soothing butterfly hug. It’s a hug you do on yourself, which is useful in this time of physical distancing, and its adorable name calls to mind butterfly kisses, done by fluttering your eyelashes so they brush against someone’s face (or other body part). With cooperation from an appropriate member of your household, the kisses also could be a fun way to reduce stress, though The Olympian did not confirm this idea with an expert.
Freelance writer Molly Gilmore is grateful for those of you who wear masks that fit properly. She discusses local arts, entertainment and more with 95.3 KGY-FM’s Michael Stein from 3 to 4 p.m. Fridays.