I can feel things starting to fall away in this weird almost meditative process. My last couple of theater projects are wrapping up, and I'm sharing my google docs folders for a variety of projects with the folks who will be carrying those projects forward...preparatory to archiving and deleting the files from my own google drive...the house is cleaner and lighter as for the first time when we cleaned for a social event on Sunday rather than stacking files in new and more organized ways I simply threw them out...not needed anymore. The growing list of things that are not needed and are then pushed out beyond the edges of my life into recycle, or waste, or reuse, or donation...but out of my consciousness...and little by little the number of things that are in my consciousness decreases.
It's a process in which I am still quite early. There are still lots of folders and files and things littered about that need attention and then distribution...but for the first time when I look around in select areas of my life things are starting to look...uncluttered. And the idea of living a simple and uncluttered path begins to take a more substantive form and to feel like something that could, in fact, occur.
For about sixty days this simplicity will be quite stark. When I leave Lincoln on July 1st, there will be no income, just a small reserve of cash...don't spend it. There will be no house to attend to...it will either be managed or abandoned. Will there be a phone? Maybe...but maybe not. Disconnected except for those moments when the often ubiquitous wifi net settles over me. No files...what few files I might want to keep will be in a box in Mpls along with the small pile of furniture that will follow me to Mankato. A few essentials to facilitate camping. My laptop, for sure, but mostly to write. A camera. My iPad...for reading. Left behind waiting for the move to Mankato, a few files, some furniture, Yoda, my golf clubs.
Irrelevant details...but what I am sensing and wanting to explore is the way that on this macro level I am sensing the same kinds of cognitive experiences that go with meditative on a micro level. Things are falling away from me in the same way that thoughts fall away when we sit in quiet reflection. So that eventually the life that is lived is uncluttered in the way that the meditative mind is uncluttered.
It is strange because it feels elusive and inevitable at the same time.
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Someday it will be Spring!
It snowed this morning. April 11th. Cold, wet, icky snow. It's kind of funny to watch everyone freak out about it, as if snow in Minnesota is a rarity. History belies this belief. Once in every ten years we get over 4" in April. Once in every five years we get over 2" in April. I have always said that the problem with Minnesota is that there is no Spring. We have Winter until sometime in April, then a couple weeks of warming and then, boom, Summer. It may not be preferable, but it is certainly normal. It is what I have always missed about the East coast, which starts Spring in March and continues well into late April and early May with a long, gradual build to warmer temps. Of course, it's in the 80s out in DC this week, so what the hell...it's weather and it'll do whatever it wants to do.
On the other hand, the extraordinary euphoria that Minnesotans get to feel when it finally does hit 60 and the grass starts to grow is something that folks in the rest of the country never really experience. Nothing like being stuck indoors hiding from the cold for five months to make those first warm days seem like some kind of heaven on Earth.
Heading down to St Peter this weekend to check out a townhouse for my move to Mankato. It's a little further from the school than I would prefer...a twenty minute commute...so I'm not sure if I'll pull the trigger even if I like it. There is a newer townhouse that will come available in September that is only ten minutes from campus. That would be much better if I can figure out where to live for the thirty days or so until it's ready after I get to Mankato.
Speaking of getting to Mankato, I have a better idea of the Summer journey itinerary. Here's the outline:
Meanwhile, lots of cleaning, packing and purging still to do!
On the other hand, the extraordinary euphoria that Minnesotans get to feel when it finally does hit 60 and the grass starts to grow is something that folks in the rest of the country never really experience. Nothing like being stuck indoors hiding from the cold for five months to make those first warm days seem like some kind of heaven on Earth.
Heading down to St Peter this weekend to check out a townhouse for my move to Mankato. It's a little further from the school than I would prefer...a twenty minute commute...so I'm not sure if I'll pull the trigger even if I like it. There is a newer townhouse that will come available in September that is only ten minutes from campus. That would be much better if I can figure out where to live for the thirty days or so until it's ready after I get to Mankato.
Speaking of getting to Mankato, I have a better idea of the Summer journey itinerary. Here's the outline:
- Wyoming and Little Big Horn from July 1st-7th.
- Mitch's Cabin (west of Billings) and a Yurt in the Montana mountains July 8th-15th
- EDTA Leadership Summit in Denver from July 16th-20th
- North through the Tetons and into the Cascades July 21st through August 2nd
- West to Seattle August 3rd - 10th
- East through Washington, Idaho and Montana and back to Mpls August 10th-17th
Meanwhile, lots of cleaning, packing and purging still to do!
Monday, April 08, 2013
It's the Last Midnight...
Into the Woods opened last Friday; an event that marks the last opening of a show for me prior to starting grad school in the Fall. I think it also marks the end of a period of feelings of ambivalence about the upcoming changes. Time to be ready to roll, I think.
Time, too, to start posting on a more routine basis...which probably means that the posts will be more mundane...more of a journal than a commentary. Not daily yet, but more frequent.
In addition to having two performances of Woods this weekend, I went and saw the final performance of How To Succeed at RAHS on Sunday. The kids have a lot of talent and it was particularly cool to see how they had pulled this show together out of the chaos of Spring Break, Music Trips and Easter. They had almost no rehearsal time, but it was colorful and fun and occasionally brilliant. The student playing Wally Womper had completely doused his head in baby powder to affect age, to the extent where every time he turned his head sharply, he left a cloud of white dust behind. It was completely hysterical...if not necessarily intentional. By the end of the show the cast was playing it as a bit and J. B. Biggley was struggling to hold character over his laughter.
Now I need to clean the house! Time to get it ready to lease out. Want some stuff? I've got stuff to spare. It'll be fun to do. Deep cleaning and purging.
44 days left with Roseville. That'll go by in a heartbeat.
What to do with Yoda (cat)? Can't take her on the road in June, so she needs a home for about sixty days. Maybe a facebook post will generate a temporary home.
Time, too, to start posting on a more routine basis...which probably means that the posts will be more mundane...more of a journal than a commentary. Not daily yet, but more frequent.
In addition to having two performances of Woods this weekend, I went and saw the final performance of How To Succeed at RAHS on Sunday. The kids have a lot of talent and it was particularly cool to see how they had pulled this show together out of the chaos of Spring Break, Music Trips and Easter. They had almost no rehearsal time, but it was colorful and fun and occasionally brilliant. The student playing Wally Womper had completely doused his head in baby powder to affect age, to the extent where every time he turned his head sharply, he left a cloud of white dust behind. It was completely hysterical...if not necessarily intentional. By the end of the show the cast was playing it as a bit and J. B. Biggley was struggling to hold character over his laughter.
Now I need to clean the house! Time to get it ready to lease out. Want some stuff? I've got stuff to spare. It'll be fun to do. Deep cleaning and purging.
44 days left with Roseville. That'll go by in a heartbeat.
What to do with Yoda (cat)? Can't take her on the road in June, so she needs a home for about sixty days. Maybe a facebook post will generate a temporary home.
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