Falashay Pearson
@Falashay with the sweatshirt she has worn all during quarantine and her fancy read rain-boots.
-Theatre-
Falashay’s story was one of the first to really break my heart. The upheaval of everyone’s lives is prevalent right now and she was not left unscathed.
I pulled up to her house and as we stood on her front porch, it started to rain. One of those hot summer rains but for some reason as she poured out her thoughts, fears, and hopes it felt like we were all cleansing and releasing.
Interviewed 5.28.20
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Casey: So first and foremost, how are you?
Falashay: Hi. Well, this is Falashay Pearson.
And I have been a range of emotions. Mostly negative. I've been doing the best I can. I already, prior to this pandemic, have been suffering from general anxiety disorder and some depression. And so this has heightened it to say the very least. My whole family's in Illinois and Wisconsin. So I haven't seen any family since January. So it's been a lot. I actually considered moving home initially, but I was still working. And now I'm not. Yeah, lost that job. So yeah. It's been a lot.
Casey: How are you feeling today?
Falashay: You know, today. I'm okay. I was not so great yesterday. Just because. I mean, I'm sure you saw all this stuff about yet another black man being killed by the police and I think, as a black person in this country, we've gotten kind of used to these things happening. And I felt very numb yesterday and then I saw a video of this young black boy singing and I burst into tears. And so it's just been a lot, to say the least. But today I'm feeling all right.
Basically, I'm taking a day at a time. And some days I wake up and I feel great. And some days I wake up and I feel terrible and I just let myself be how I am, I guess.
Casey: Yeah. Have you talked to your family? How are they doing?
Falashay: My family's mostly OK. I have lost two family members. Not to the coronavirus, one to a drunk driver. I had to watch her funeral online on Friday and then on Saturday. And then I lost one to gun violence a few weeks prior to the other. Both cousins on my mother's side. So it's not been the best for my mom's side of the family.
My dad's side of the family is doing pretty well. And we stay in touch with house party and face time. My dad and I do a Netflix party twice a week. He's the cutest. I was raised by my dad's side of the family. So that connection with them is really important. But I'm just trying to stay as connected to everyone as I can.
But I stay the most connected to my therapist because she's been helping me deal with a lot of like... I have been kind of distancing myself from friends. Not on purpose, just unconsciously. I'll just not answer calls or I won't text people. And she's kind of been helping me work through that because she's like, "You need people Fal." So I'm like, "Yeah, probably."
Casey: Oh my gosh. I'm so sorry. This has been a tough couple of months for you.
Falashay: Yeah, it's been a hard few months. But I mean, I don't know. I guess I kind of have always had the same kind of outlook on my life, which is just like things happen and you pull through them or you cave under them. And I've been a puller. I've definitely been a rise above type of a person. It's just more difficult in a time like this where you literally can't hug people. You can't lean on anyone physically, you know. So that's been challenging more than I thought because I'm an introverted person. But even me, I'm like, "Man, I kind of wish I had somewhere to go." Where usually I'd be like, "I don't think I'll go. I think I'll be OK. Thanks for the invite." But now I'm like, "Oh man, what I wouldn't do..."
Casey: So what have you been doing in quarantine since your here?
Falashay: So initially I was nannying full time and I moved in with them. And then after about two and a half weeks, they told me they were going to their lake house or mountain house in North Carolina and gave me a day's notice and left. And I have not been working for them.
I do also work at a pilates studio. And we've been online since March 13th or 14th. And so I used to teach about 20 clients a week. I've been teaching 4 now, sometimes less a week. And I also started community class for Gyrotonic, which is one of the things that I teach. I teach pilaties and Gyrotinic and I offered it to artists at a sliding scale where it could be twenty five dollars to zero dollars, depending on how severely they're affected. Did not take off as much as I'd hoped. I really wanted more people to join in. But the few people that did they really enjoyed it and they couldn't keep it consistently or anything like that, which is not something that I anticipated happening. I just wanted to introduce it to more people.
Saturdays at 11:00. Sliding scale for artists and teachers. And I also waived my fee for the studio. So literally don't feel bad if you can pay zero dollars because you paying is not going to pay me for that class. So anything that does get paid, it goes to the studio, which is good because it's a small business owned by a woman. There's twelve employees. You know, it's been a struggle.
So I've been, you know, teaching from home. I go back to the physical studio June 1st, which has been making me very nervous. But we have to do so much cleaning and so many temperature checks and triage-ing. I mean, I'm basically about to be a triage nurse. So, I mean, I feel a little bit more comfortable just with all the steps we have to take. So there's that happening.
Casey: You've been staying busy in a weird way.
Falashay: I mean, in a way. Once I wasn't nannying anymore, which like honestly, I moved in with them March like 15th and then they left two weeks later and I haven't been with them since. And so that was a huge cut in income for me. So it was like it was really hard. It was very stressful. I cried a lot because I was getting five hundred dollars a week from them and like, you know, so that was a huge cut in my income, especially because the pilates studio, I was making like one hundred and fifty dollars every two weeks maybe. So it was just a lot.
Thankfully, my boss signed us all up for partial unemployment and now she has a PPP loan, which, you know, since there's that extra six hundred dollars with unemployment right now, technically I would make more staying on unemployment. But for me, it's more important for that small business to survive. I've been working there for four and a half years and I've never had a boss as kind and as caring about her employees as my boss is. She offered to furlough me. And I just told her it wasn't worth it for like an extra two hundred dollars. If I'm going to be poor at least I might as well have integrity. I've been poor my whole life. I might as well just keep my integrity on top of it. Like it's not really that big of a deal.
Casey: And I'm sure she appreciates that.
Falashay: I hope so. I mean, but even if she doesn't, I don't care because I'm doing it from my heart and like. Yeah. I think people see your heart even if you don't see them see it.
Casey: It sounds like you've been busy in a way. Are you finding it possible to create artistically in this time or are you finding any motivation to do things creative?
Falashay: I mean, no, not really. I've spent most of this time trying not to cry every day. And so for me, forcing myself to write or forcing myself to make online content has not been something that has been at the forefront of my mind. I have done some self-tapes and my roommate's an actor also. So we tape each other whenever we get some kind of audition. Of course, they've been real slim right now. There's nothing going on.
I am thankful that I'm on the advisory board at Actor's Express. And so one of the best days I've had so far in quarantine was they invited me to the marketing meeting and, you know, a zoom thing and it was just so nice to feel included in that forum again. I interned at Actor's Express, which is how I even moved to Atlanta. I've worked there since my internship, during my internship, you know, and now being part of their advisory board. I feel like a bit of a home base there. And it's been really nice to have them think of me in that way and to have them include me in things like that. It's meant a lot. And I don't think that... I might cry. You know, you just never... You just never realize how. I don't think that they even could know how much it means.
I'm sorry. I'm not a public cryer.
Casey: Take your time. It's OK. This is a crazy fucking time we're in so it's okay. So obviously this is insane. And it's a struggle every day. Do you have anything that you are excited to do every day or something that's a new habit or something sacred to you in this time that is getting you to the other side?
Falashay: Yeah. So I started saying this and then I totally went off tangent before. But something that I did early on after I lost my nannying job was that I made a schedule for myself.
And this is probably just the Virgo brain in me. But like it calmed me down. Just having a schedule. I don't follow it very well. But that's the Libra cusp in me probably.
I did find a love for different exercise mediums and modalities. I do something every day. But then I hurt myself. I actually had to go to the doctor a couple of weeks ago because I severely injured my back. Not while exercising just doing something else. So I had to take two weeks off. And it was really stressful. So then I started doing some yoga stuff online. I was like, so proud of myself I even lost 7 pounds. I was like, "I'm coming out of quarantine and I'm going to be way harder than when I began." So, yeah, that was kind of a hit too, like, have to stop because that was like the one thing that every day I did it and it helped me feel a little bit better.
But I'm still doing something everyday like that. And that has been really helpful. And then every week some friends of mine from college and some that I hadn't met before. But like, I met them through this online game with them playing Werewolf's, which is like kind of like Mafia. But we do it over zoom but we do it every Saturday. And honestly, even like this past Saturday, I had to watch my cousin's funeral and I was like, “I don't think I'm gonna go.” And then I went and I did it anyway. And I'm so glad that I did because it lifted me up so much to be around those people again. And everyone had so many encouraging words. And I don't know, it's weird that like some of them I had not met prior to this. And I feel like they're going to be my homies for life now. You know what I mean? And we're all over. Some people are on the West Coast some are in New York some are still in Chicago which is basically my home base. So it's really nice to have that.
Casey: I love that there's something to look forward to. And then my last question, what do you think you're going to take out of this?
Falashay: I think what I learned just initially was that I was doing too much. I was nannying. I was teaching at the pilates studio. If God was liking me at that moment, I was in a show. I was dog sitting, house sitting. Anything I could do. And I was always being pulled in a million different directions and I didn't really take space for myself. And of course, now all I have is space for myself. And I think that it's been something that I'm going to take with me.
And even when I start back at the pilates studio, I've reduced my hours. I'm starting later. And it's because I have found this little routine in the morning that I don't want to give up. And just to have to teach at eight a.m. or some, you know what I mean? So my boss was OK with that. And like I said, she's honestly the best boss I've had in my entire life. And if I have to be doing something that is not acting, this job is what I want to be doing until I can be full time.
And shout out to Core Buckhead pilates studio.
