I don’t know what I’m doing.
Or,
perhaps as Richard Robichaux more elegantly described it to me, I have
discovered the emptiness of my cup and am anxious to spend some time
filling it.
Fifty
years appears to be long enough for me to have acquired some skills,
played with finding ways to implement those skills, and finally
recognize that I know so very little about what I am doing. My cup has
been filled over and over again by the experiences I have had working
with actors, students, directors, designers, technicians, managers,
patrons, administrators...the list of intertwining folks who have shared
this journey with me is expansive. It is from these people and the
work I have done with them that I have learned so much. Yet, up until
this point this journey has been a spur in my life; an apparent bird
walk beyond the agenda of daily living.
When I was ten, which was just over forty years ago, I read Inherit the Wind.
I was moved and inspired by this play. It made me so want to be a
lawyer and throughout my life that fantasy of the intellectual
playground of the law flirted with me. Although I produced the play in
my garage, it didn’t occur to me then that the real love affair was not
with the subject of the play or the law, but with the act of playing
itself. I have no memory of this production of Inherit the Wind...which
is probably a blessing. I cannot imagine it was at all watchable or
that there were very many patrons present to watch it, yet there it was.
For
reasons having nothing to do with interest, I was not able to
participate in theater in high school. When I entered the University of
Minnesota in 1979 I registered for Arthur Ballet’s introductory theater
course and enjoyed it, but it wasn’t until I began ushering for a local
community theater, Theater in the Round, that a vision of being part of
the creation of theater began to become something I could see. Over
the following several years I volunteered for more front of house
positions, then ran a light board and a sound board, then became
involved in construction and finally became a stage manager for shows at
Theater in the Round.
Within
this time it was the rehearsal process that unpacked for me the real
delight and energy of the creation of theater. The thrill of
performance and audience was obvious, but the deeper draw was in the
rehearsal process. I worked with some reasonably skilled directors
during this time, and their abilities in relation to working with actors
and communicating their vision of the beauty of the play were
inspirational for me. There was a joy in this work that I was drawn to.
At
the same time, I had no vision of what this would look like as a
career. I lacked an understanding of how to share my passion with
others and so lacked a mentor to guide me into the fold, and my
singularly dysfunctional experiences in academics at the University of
Minnesota at that time left me without an entrance pass to this world.
In some ways it is almost inconceivable to me that I found myself on a
different path, and yet the exigencies of economic survival along with a
tumultuous journey in my own mental health and understanding of how to
be an adult required that I seek more secure and traditional pastures in
which to settle during those years. so, by the time I was in my
thirties I had left this world behind in exchange for a more stable and
traditional life of work and family. It would appear that at this time
my cup was filled with other things, and there was no room for my love
of theater.
Fast
forward to 2001, when I left my work with our family business I once
again flirted with pursuing law, but accurately perceived that I was
more drawn to work that had greater potential for being relational and
creative. Consequently, I obtained my license to teach Communication
Arts in Minnesota. As I worked through the teacher training program I
was aware of the possibility that when I found a job in a high school
there would be potential for a renewal of my involvement in theater.
Perhaps I could find a job where there was a need for someone to direct
their plays? Lo and behold, there was. I began work at Roseville Area
High School in the Fall of 2001 and between then and now I have
directed fourteen mainstage shows and a host of one acts. At the same
time, we created a community theater in the theater of a local church,
and I have directed another fourteen full length shows there. Over the
past eleven years my involvement in theater has grown from the first
year when I directed one show to the more recent years when I have
opened between five or more productions per year -- all while continuing
to hold my full time job with the school district and to be a parent to
my two wonderful kids.
It
is not, however, about volume. It is about joy, and also about how
well this work fits with my skills and passion. I believe passionately
in the power of the creation of a safe space within which talented and
creative people can work in community to trust their intuition and make
beautiful things happen. I am patient, creative, energized and
thoughtful in the creation of those spaces. I have an ability to set my
ego aside and serve the needs of the production. I have experienced
wonderful success in my development as a director, and I am
extraordinarily excited about setting aside the things that have
distracted me from pursuing this art and making it the full time work of
my remaining years. I am busily emptying my cup in anticipation of
this opportunity to fill it.
When
I was young, the natural question that folks would ask would be, “What
do you want to do after you finish school?” At that time, since it
took me twenty years to finish my undergraduate degree, that was a
particularly complex and vexing question. It is interesting now,
however, that the choices I might make after I complete an MFA in
Directing are considerably less pressing or significant that they manner
in which I would engage the program itself and how myself and the
program would benefit from that experience. What is immediately
exciting to me is the experience of the learning that would take place
within the MFA program itself. When thinking about the goals or purpose
of obtaining this degree, the most primary and immediate goal is to
benefit and embrace the act of obtaining it. I have an almost greedy
desire to enter into a world in which I am completely immersed in the
exploration of the craft of directing. I look forward to becoming more
skilled with all of its elements, from textual analysis to technical
vision to relations with actors and on and on. While I have some
background and knowledge related to the history of theater, there is so
much missing from my knowledge and I look forward to filling the content
knowledge part of my cup as well. There is so much richness and
complexity to the craft, and I look forward to deepening my ability to
navigate those challenges.
At
the same time, there is a future beyond the program, and where I might
venture in that future is an interesting and equally exciting question.
The idea of working as a professor in an educational institution is
very attractive. I was, and am, a very skilled teacher and I would
enjoy merging those skills with my developing skills as a director to
utilize them in concert in a post-secondary setting. I am also
attracted by the idea of securing a position as a director in a
professional setting. I have had numerous experiences in the past
decade directing shows where I was also the producer and the front of
house manager and so on. I have had a few tastes of what it might be
like to be directing within a context where the business of theater is
being managed for me and would dearly love to have more. While I bring
some useful skills as a manager and businessman, to have those elements
off my plate provides so much more room for my energy to be focused on
creative process. I have many interests, and am confident that an MFA
in Directing will allow me to find contexts that fit those interests and
that training.
My cup is empty, and I can see that an MFA in Directing program would provide an extraordinary place to fill it up.
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Sabbatical: Day 138
Sabbatical Update...
Doing grad school apps...schools that I am interested in...
Brown University - Prestigious and highly competitive program in Rhode Island where the MFA Directing program is affiliated with Trinity Rep. Long shot to even get an interview, but what they hell...it's only $75.
UNLV - Would need to brush up on my poker skills.
UC San Diego -- Actually this would be a pretty cool option. They have a well regarded program and would probably have an interesting blend of film and stage opportunities. I mean, the program would be a stage directing program, but being on the west coast I could imagine that there would be a film influence.
University of Portland - Cool city. This one is just a two year program, which is a mixed blessing.
Columbia - New York City is good.
Baylor - Yup.
UT Austin -- Met Richard Robichaux this Fall (who teaches there).
Florida State - Golf
University of Hawaii -- Need I say more?
University of Iowa -- Hmmmmm....
Mankato State - Because they only admit one per year this is actually a long shot.
Maybe others? This is my list for now. I might need a couple more mid-level programs. I'm in the process of collecting video footage to make a video portfolio. Most of the rest of my materials are ready, so as soon as the video montage is done I can start sending off my apps. I will take the GRE in December (I think). Only a couple of programs require it.
Have reached the point where my impending absence is becoming common knowledge within the school district. This is useful on so many fronts. Folks are interested in where I am going and why. Also, it puts me in a unique position to have conversations about educational practices and reforms. Of course, it is somewhat freeing for me in regard to how I perceive the work I am doing. I am still quite passionate about the things for which I advocate, but since I won't be here to finish any of it I can be considerably more contented about potential outcomes. It's very zen.
At the same time, there is a growing background buzz in my soul. It's a kind of tension related to change -- and such a large change at such a late stage in life is a recipe for lots of internal buzz. I'm having to be extraordinarily intentional about developing patience. This has benefits. I found myself at rehearsal this week being aware of my tendency to push through the current moment to get to the next moment and watched as I slowed down my awareness and let the current moment percolate for a while. It is letting me be a better director. I have always known that I tend to push the process so that there is lots of coverage but not a lot of depth. It's nice to be pushing into deeper places. Of course, a show like The Street Project lends itself to that. There is more to plumb and less to cover.
Starting to think I might not sell the townhouse. Rental market is quite strong right now and it could be a good fit to rent the place out.
Either way I have a lot of crap to get rid of.
Doing grad school apps...schools that I am interested in...
Brown University - Prestigious and highly competitive program in Rhode Island where the MFA Directing program is affiliated with Trinity Rep. Long shot to even get an interview, but what they hell...it's only $75.
UNLV - Would need to brush up on my poker skills.
UC San Diego -- Actually this would be a pretty cool option. They have a well regarded program and would probably have an interesting blend of film and stage opportunities. I mean, the program would be a stage directing program, but being on the west coast I could imagine that there would be a film influence.
University of Portland - Cool city. This one is just a two year program, which is a mixed blessing.
Columbia - New York City is good.
Baylor - Yup.
UT Austin -- Met Richard Robichaux this Fall (who teaches there).
Florida State - Golf
University of Hawaii -- Need I say more?
University of Iowa -- Hmmmmm....
Mankato State - Because they only admit one per year this is actually a long shot.
Maybe others? This is my list for now. I might need a couple more mid-level programs. I'm in the process of collecting video footage to make a video portfolio. Most of the rest of my materials are ready, so as soon as the video montage is done I can start sending off my apps. I will take the GRE in December (I think). Only a couple of programs require it.
Have reached the point where my impending absence is becoming common knowledge within the school district. This is useful on so many fronts. Folks are interested in where I am going and why. Also, it puts me in a unique position to have conversations about educational practices and reforms. Of course, it is somewhat freeing for me in regard to how I perceive the work I am doing. I am still quite passionate about the things for which I advocate, but since I won't be here to finish any of it I can be considerably more contented about potential outcomes. It's very zen.
At the same time, there is a growing background buzz in my soul. It's a kind of tension related to change -- and such a large change at such a late stage in life is a recipe for lots of internal buzz. I'm having to be extraordinarily intentional about developing patience. This has benefits. I found myself at rehearsal this week being aware of my tendency to push through the current moment to get to the next moment and watched as I slowed down my awareness and let the current moment percolate for a while. It is letting me be a better director. I have always known that I tend to push the process so that there is lots of coverage but not a lot of depth. It's nice to be pushing into deeper places. Of course, a show like The Street Project lends itself to that. There is more to plumb and less to cover.
Starting to think I might not sell the townhouse. Rental market is quite strong right now and it could be a good fit to rent the place out.
Either way I have a lot of crap to get rid of.
Friday, October 19, 2012
By A Stream
The morning sun was still just a suggestion in the air, but the light had made that shift from deep dark to a collection of shapes and grays signaling an end to another cold night on hard ground. The noise of the stream was constant through the night, oblivious to the setting and rising of the sun and the innumerable patterns forced by that movement. The stream just flowed, its water forming natures great White Noise Box. No need to bring your Brookstone Sleep Machine here. All night long the stream continued to churn and flow, the only difference being that the turmoil of its battle with the rocks and fallen branches became phosphorescent in the new light. Age made the night longer, a series of shifts from one shoulder to the other without definition or separation; a continuous movement back and forth and back and forth though clearly the hours that passed confirmed that some kind of time must have elapsed between each shift. The sleep that was available wasn't poor as much as it was just not as pure; tainted by a vague discomfort that was made more manifest by the hard ground but in the end wasn't so different than the sleep found in a comfortable, warm bed.
And of course, the need to pee. The great motivator of the stiff and cold, slowly overwhelming the desire to remain within the warm cocoon of the sleeping bag. A pressure perhaps felt dimly during an earlier shift in the total blackness, but ignored -- unlike the normal rhythm of home, where this pressure gets an active response at least once during the night. Sometimes more than once. Sure, there are those rare nights when the head hits the pillow and nothing disturbs sleep until the morning comes and it is sufficiently noteworthy to be worthy of note, "Wow, I slept all the way through the night." And then there is a long, blissful release of fluids. Ah, sweet relief. In the cocoon of the sleeping bag, however, such an interruption or movement out into the cold and dark is so beyond the pale that it is rarely even considered. The subconscious sublimating the desire to pee completely and utterly. And so the morning comes and the slow drive of that pressure begins its dance. A complex calculus is begun in which the benefits of remaining in the warm and cozy cocoon are weighed against the need to find relief.
Pressure too from that other part of the brain that remembers and knows something about the beauty that will be found in the cold and lightening dawn around a campsite. There are rewards to be found in those moments that are not available in the day to day comfortable morning routine of warm and dry and convenient. A breath of cold air made manifest into a whispy trail of condensation...one's personal fog bank that drifts wherever you choose to wander. The contrast between the warmth of the socked feet in dry boots crunching across damp leaves and twigs. The world outside the cocoon is crisp and fresh, but not comfortable, and there is a pleasure in engaging that world and stealing from it the comforts that human ingenuity offer. Efficient clothes, a quick fire, warm coffee. These things appear almost effortlessly and there is then the moment when, armed with these accoutrement's of civilization you can sit silently in the dawn and watch the world rise from its slumber.
And now the stream presented itself for morning inspection. There was no sign of life to be found beyond its motion. No birds or squirrels interrupting the view. This was a harsh world and while the presence of deciduous trees suggested that somewhere there must be life, it too was sluggish and reluctant to venture forth too quickly into the dawn. Some lack of life was a blessing. The sign on the Forest Ranger information board had read, "Large Bear Seen" with yesterday's date. "Large" How large does a bear have to be for one to consider it "Large"? We assumed it was probably bigger than, well, big enough. But our food was safely tucked away and no nocturnal visits had disturbed our health and welfare, so all was well.
And the stream tumbled on. The light grew and the colors found form beyond the greyscale of dawn. The air smelled like new beginnings. The second cup of coffee. Noises from the tents. Another day.
And of course, the need to pee. The great motivator of the stiff and cold, slowly overwhelming the desire to remain within the warm cocoon of the sleeping bag. A pressure perhaps felt dimly during an earlier shift in the total blackness, but ignored -- unlike the normal rhythm of home, where this pressure gets an active response at least once during the night. Sometimes more than once. Sure, there are those rare nights when the head hits the pillow and nothing disturbs sleep until the morning comes and it is sufficiently noteworthy to be worthy of note, "Wow, I slept all the way through the night." And then there is a long, blissful release of fluids. Ah, sweet relief. In the cocoon of the sleeping bag, however, such an interruption or movement out into the cold and dark is so beyond the pale that it is rarely even considered. The subconscious sublimating the desire to pee completely and utterly. And so the morning comes and the slow drive of that pressure begins its dance. A complex calculus is begun in which the benefits of remaining in the warm and cozy cocoon are weighed against the need to find relief.
Pressure too from that other part of the brain that remembers and knows something about the beauty that will be found in the cold and lightening dawn around a campsite. There are rewards to be found in those moments that are not available in the day to day comfortable morning routine of warm and dry and convenient. A breath of cold air made manifest into a whispy trail of condensation...one's personal fog bank that drifts wherever you choose to wander. The contrast between the warmth of the socked feet in dry boots crunching across damp leaves and twigs. The world outside the cocoon is crisp and fresh, but not comfortable, and there is a pleasure in engaging that world and stealing from it the comforts that human ingenuity offer. Efficient clothes, a quick fire, warm coffee. These things appear almost effortlessly and there is then the moment when, armed with these accoutrement's of civilization you can sit silently in the dawn and watch the world rise from its slumber.
And now the stream presented itself for morning inspection. There was no sign of life to be found beyond its motion. No birds or squirrels interrupting the view. This was a harsh world and while the presence of deciduous trees suggested that somewhere there must be life, it too was sluggish and reluctant to venture forth too quickly into the dawn. Some lack of life was a blessing. The sign on the Forest Ranger information board had read, "Large Bear Seen" with yesterday's date. "Large" How large does a bear have to be for one to consider it "Large"? We assumed it was probably bigger than, well, big enough. But our food was safely tucked away and no nocturnal visits had disturbed our health and welfare, so all was well.
And the stream tumbled on. The light grew and the colors found form beyond the greyscale of dawn. The air smelled like new beginnings. The second cup of coffee. Noises from the tents. Another day.
Thursday, October 18, 2012
On Being Normal
BLOG READER WARNING -- I have finally told some folks that this thing exists so now there's an audience of more than just myself. I don't know what I was thinking. I was perfectly happy pretending that I was writing for an audience and knowing that nobody was reading any of it. Not that I expect lots of folks to read but now I feel some pressure to be interesting, which is funny and stupid. So I am warning you, dear reader, that you are not my audience. In fact, I am my own audience. I am putting it in a blog in the interest of expanding my audience beyond myself, but I have no idea how to write for you, so I am going to write for me. Consequently, a lot of this is likely to be boring as hell, pedantic, pedestrian and other p words of which I cannot immediately think. There. Now I can eschew that pressure (there's another p word) and just continue jotting thoughts as they occur. Perhaps eventually there will be a readable style going on, but that's not the goal. Too bad for you! ;-)
I think it would be nice to be a normal human being. I know they're out there somewhere. Hello!??!? Maybe not.
I think it would be nice to be a normal human being. I know they're out there somewhere. Hello!??!? Maybe not.
Dictionary.com: conforming to the standard or the common type; usual; not abnormal; regular; natural.
They used to call colleges that trained teachers Normal schools.
Wikipedia: A normal school is a school created to train high school graduates to be teachers. Its purpose is to establish teaching standards or norms, hence its name. Most such schools are now called teachers' colleges; however, in some places the term normal school is still used.
Which is totally weird and is at the root of a lot of what is wrong with schools.
Conforming schools.
Or conforming people. The question is whether conforming is a consummation devoutly to be wished or anathema to real happiness. I mean, you wouldn't want to be called abnormal or irregular or unnatural. On the other hand, most of us don't want to be seen as merely standard or common. We are inevitably conflicted by the definition of normal.
But perhaps most important are the consequences of normality, or the lack thereof. Normal people do lots of things that seem a bit elusive to me. Or maybe its just that the things that are generally elusive are labeled normal because they benefit the labelers.
In the end, though, normal is pretty irrelevant. What matters is happy.
And happy is much more significant and perhaps less elusive. When I think back on the happiest times in my life, they were times when there was a strong synergy between my sense of satisfaction with the integration of family, love, work and play. If you think of normal in terms of being integrated it starts to make more sense.
Happy is what normal does.
Normal is what happy does.
Happy is what happy does.
Normal is what normal does.
What is the intersection between happy and normal and comfortable?
Wiki How has a great list of 10 ways to be happy that I like. You can use it to self-assess your happiness. There's probably a number that can be assigned to it...people like having scores.
1. Be Optimistic -- This is an easy one for me. I am optimistic to the point of living in a fantasy of positive expectations. I believe everything will always turn out alright. Actually, they don't really do that, but I think it doesn't matter. My experience is that often times, if you keep believing that something will work, then it will work. It's infectious, too. If you think something will work, the people around you will also believe it and if everyone believes it, well then there you have it. This is particularly useful with my work with theater, where a great deal of faith is required. Optimism is a kind of faith. It's a faith in the future. If you don't have faith in the future it's hard to be happy.
2. Have Something to Look Forward To, Always -- In an earlier blog I talked about anticipation, which is like this. Anticipation is often as good as the real thing. I love watching this happen with movies or books that are coming out. Folks will wrap their whole existence around that moment when their anticipated favorite film or book arrives. The midnight opening or release. Of course, at this moment my whole life is wrapped around something to look forward to, and that's definitely raised my happiness quotient. At the same time, you can't live for the future. There's a big difference between anticipating and wishing the current context was over. "I'll be happy as soon as..." is a fallacy. If you are happy already, then you can anticipate with happiness. It's about Joy.
3. Follow Your Gut -- Well, this is mine to a fault. If something feels right, I am totally there! Oh, yeah, let's follow that feeling. The hell with discipline or reflection! Hmmm.... Something resonates here around conformity...don't conform if it doesn't feel right. Something like that.
4. Make Enough Money to Meet Basic Needs -- Apparently that's about $40K in the US. That's one of the scary things about this upcoming journey...no income! I guess the other nine ways to be happy will have to be enough!
5. Stay Close to Friends and Family -- Oofff...this is a hard one for me. I'm not good at maintaining contact with people. When I do manage to connect with folks we will typically have lots of #6, so that's good! But connections are infrequent. Part of this has to do with being busy, but for an introvert there's the constant impulse to just go home and read a book. Particularly given how social the work I do in theater can be. Even though its at arms length, when I'm directing I am in a completely intensely social environment and a I think that as a balance to that I retreat to solitude a lot to recharge. But it is important to do this.
6. Have Deep Meaningful Conversations -- This is something I am happy to do at the drop of a hat. In fact, it is one of the things that I enjoy the most and I think I can make other people crazy around it. At the same time, I'm can be completely guarded and folks have no idea what I'm thinking. Like I'm an egg easy over sitting on your toast. Everything is all packaged up and neat but then when you poke it the yolk gets everywhere! Very messy.
7. Find Happiness in the Job You Have Now -- Yeah. That's good advice. I keep trying to do that but it's a struggle. I get that the grass is not greener on the other side of that there fence. In fact, it's the same damn grass, most of the time, and moving over the fence rarely fixes anything in the long run. On the other hand, sometimes the history of a place and a position are such that a change is indeed for the best.
8. Smile -- I like this. I do this.
9. Forgive -- I do this too. People generally mean well and if we weren't so narcissistic we'd probably tend to have less stuff to forgive in the first place. If someone hurt you it's likely they were thinking about something else. Still, sometimes it hurts anyway.
10. Make Friends -- Not so much. People are hard to get to know. And annoying. Ha! Not a good outlook I suppose. And I'm busy. I'm too busy to do a good job of connecting with the people I already know without having to figure out how to manage new relationships.
Hmmmm...#5 and #10 don't bode well. Perhaps normal has something to do with not being isolated?
There is a rhythm to happy as well. It ebbs and flows. It's nice when it all works together. Then change happens...and you can feel euphoria or enthusiasm, but real happiness gets built over a longer span of time.
Allright, enough bullshit for one post.
In the end, though, normal is pretty irrelevant. What matters is happy.
And happy is much more significant and perhaps less elusive. When I think back on the happiest times in my life, they were times when there was a strong synergy between my sense of satisfaction with the integration of family, love, work and play. If you think of normal in terms of being integrated it starts to make more sense.
Happy is what normal does.
Normal is what happy does.
Happy is what happy does.
Normal is what normal does.
What is the intersection between happy and normal and comfortable?
Wiki How has a great list of 10 ways to be happy that I like. You can use it to self-assess your happiness. There's probably a number that can be assigned to it...people like having scores.
1. Be Optimistic -- This is an easy one for me. I am optimistic to the point of living in a fantasy of positive expectations. I believe everything will always turn out alright. Actually, they don't really do that, but I think it doesn't matter. My experience is that often times, if you keep believing that something will work, then it will work. It's infectious, too. If you think something will work, the people around you will also believe it and if everyone believes it, well then there you have it. This is particularly useful with my work with theater, where a great deal of faith is required. Optimism is a kind of faith. It's a faith in the future. If you don't have faith in the future it's hard to be happy.
2. Have Something to Look Forward To, Always -- In an earlier blog I talked about anticipation, which is like this. Anticipation is often as good as the real thing. I love watching this happen with movies or books that are coming out. Folks will wrap their whole existence around that moment when their anticipated favorite film or book arrives. The midnight opening or release. Of course, at this moment my whole life is wrapped around something to look forward to, and that's definitely raised my happiness quotient. At the same time, you can't live for the future. There's a big difference between anticipating and wishing the current context was over. "I'll be happy as soon as..." is a fallacy. If you are happy already, then you can anticipate with happiness. It's about Joy.
3. Follow Your Gut -- Well, this is mine to a fault. If something feels right, I am totally there! Oh, yeah, let's follow that feeling. The hell with discipline or reflection! Hmmm.... Something resonates here around conformity...don't conform if it doesn't feel right. Something like that.
4. Make Enough Money to Meet Basic Needs -- Apparently that's about $40K in the US. That's one of the scary things about this upcoming journey...no income! I guess the other nine ways to be happy will have to be enough!
5. Stay Close to Friends and Family -- Oofff...this is a hard one for me. I'm not good at maintaining contact with people. When I do manage to connect with folks we will typically have lots of #6, so that's good! But connections are infrequent. Part of this has to do with being busy, but for an introvert there's the constant impulse to just go home and read a book. Particularly given how social the work I do in theater can be. Even though its at arms length, when I'm directing I am in a completely intensely social environment and a I think that as a balance to that I retreat to solitude a lot to recharge. But it is important to do this.
6. Have Deep Meaningful Conversations -- This is something I am happy to do at the drop of a hat. In fact, it is one of the things that I enjoy the most and I think I can make other people crazy around it. At the same time, I'm can be completely guarded and folks have no idea what I'm thinking. Like I'm an egg easy over sitting on your toast. Everything is all packaged up and neat but then when you poke it the yolk gets everywhere! Very messy.
7. Find Happiness in the Job You Have Now -- Yeah. That's good advice. I keep trying to do that but it's a struggle. I get that the grass is not greener on the other side of that there fence. In fact, it's the same damn grass, most of the time, and moving over the fence rarely fixes anything in the long run. On the other hand, sometimes the history of a place and a position are such that a change is indeed for the best.
8. Smile -- I like this. I do this.
9. Forgive -- I do this too. People generally mean well and if we weren't so narcissistic we'd probably tend to have less stuff to forgive in the first place. If someone hurt you it's likely they were thinking about something else. Still, sometimes it hurts anyway.
10. Make Friends -- Not so much. People are hard to get to know. And annoying. Ha! Not a good outlook I suppose. And I'm busy. I'm too busy to do a good job of connecting with the people I already know without having to figure out how to manage new relationships.
Hmmmm...#5 and #10 don't bode well. Perhaps normal has something to do with not being isolated?
There is a rhythm to happy as well. It ebbs and flows. It's nice when it all works together. Then change happens...and you can feel euphoria or enthusiasm, but real happiness gets built over a longer span of time.
Allright, enough bullshit for one post.
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
On Being in New York
Anticipating the opportunity to travel in the next couple of years I was prompted to recall the first time I traveled to New York City, and the times since then that I was lucky enough to go back. New York City feels like such an elusive target. It's a place that people get excited about visiting, or being in, or living in, or being from, or anything. It has its own mythology that lives beyond its reality and yet is really alive and around you as you walk the streets. You don't have to say you are going to New York City. You can just say New York, because anywhere else requires the qualification, not the city itself. There is a bit of time travel to it, as if you are somewhere not just far from home, but somewhere separate from the planet that we walk when we are not there. There are other places like this...places that should probably make the bucket list and be a part of the fabric of a life richly lived.
I was twenty the first time I went as an adult. I know I had been there before...we lived in southern New Jersey and so going through or stopping in New York was a part of living in that part of the country. My parents tell the story of my father being on Jeopardy, but they didn't have the money for parking so my mother drove around the block, presumably with me in the car seat (one of the first of these now ubiquitous devices) until he was done. I don't remember this, but I can blame that lack of memory on the fact that I was not yet three rather than on my more frequent confession that my memory is horrid. During grade school I remember being in the museums and the various tourist stops. As a teenager, on an occasion or two I visited the city, though not Manhattan, with my father and step-mother to visit her Italian family, which has its own New York mythology.
So, it's 1982 and I had dropped out of college, quit my jobs, packed up my Honda Prelude with all my belongings and headed off for adventure. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Apparently a lifelong yearning, but when I tried it at twenty there was so much baggage and insanity swirling around my life...and fear...that I hadn't the capacity to sustain the journey. After a couple of months I came home. It was, of course, the middle of the deepest recession of my adult life (until the most recent one, of course) so there was no work. But those are other stories for another time.
So I get in my Prelude and head for Philadelphia to land with my dad and do temp work and whatever else I can figure out. Kevin Carr followed me out there (or led...I don't recall except that I had a reason to be there...family...and I don't recall Kevin's reason to be there). He may have stayed with my dad's family for a bit, but he had his own place shortly and he managed to land a job with a restaurant, which I could not. I think I was gushing dysfunctional vibes at the time, so I wasn't very employable even if there wasn't a recession. The whole visit to Philadelphia only lasted a few months and included some interesting odd jobs, a girl, and some really bad poetry.
Anyway...
Kevin's father had a conference to attend in New York during this period and Kevin was going to go up to New York and visit him, so we went to New York for the weekend. He was staying in some fancy hotel, but of course hotel rooms in NY are teeny, but it didn't matter to us and he let us just crash on the floor. We took the train to NY from Philly, which is the only way to go there. Of course, since then I have visited by plane and also driven in and parked (ouch) but the best thing to do is to go in by train.
I love traveling by train. It is slower than most other ways of getting places, and in the US it doesn't often go where you want to go. But it is in every way superior to other methods of travel. There is an opportunity to connect socially that is unique and mostly I love the rhythm of it. When it's working right and you catch the right mood to do it you can just flow along.
So we emerge from Grand Central a bit wide-eyed but no doubt doing what we can to look like we know where we are...which we don't. NY in the late 70s and 80s had a tough reputation. Crime was pretty much the principal influence on the tone of the place and there was a gritty and dirty flavor to it all that you can see in a lot of the films from that period that are set there. There was nothing transcendent about it that I ever saw. Instead, it was all raw and edged and harsh and somehow violent. A bit like a flesh eating plant. A really large flesh eating plant. Like big enough to devour you, and your friends, and your friends' friends. Beautiful, but completely dangerous.
From there was a wonderful couple of days of wandering and discovering. Like all visits to New York, it was too short. We were pretty much broke so little of what we did involved getting off the streets. Except for one moment, and this is the moment that stands out from this visit as the most sparkling. The hotel was in mid-town and Kevin's father is very cool and one of the nights we were there, after his conference events ended he led us uptown a couple of blocks and we went down to a basement level bar to listen to some jazz. Great jazz. Smooth and dark and blue and we were taken to a completely new place.
And then after NY, we went to Vermont, where Kevin had family and we skiied at Stowe and I lost a contact so I drove back to Philly from Vermont with one eye.
And that's the first layer of New York, but there are more layers to uncover. There are places in our lives that have these layers. Like we know the place in different ways depending on who we were or who we were with when we were there. Or are there. A place can change, but more essentially the way we view places changes.
I was twenty the first time I went as an adult. I know I had been there before...we lived in southern New Jersey and so going through or stopping in New York was a part of living in that part of the country. My parents tell the story of my father being on Jeopardy, but they didn't have the money for parking so my mother drove around the block, presumably with me in the car seat (one of the first of these now ubiquitous devices) until he was done. I don't remember this, but I can blame that lack of memory on the fact that I was not yet three rather than on my more frequent confession that my memory is horrid. During grade school I remember being in the museums and the various tourist stops. As a teenager, on an occasion or two I visited the city, though not Manhattan, with my father and step-mother to visit her Italian family, which has its own New York mythology.
So, it's 1982 and I had dropped out of college, quit my jobs, packed up my Honda Prelude with all my belongings and headed off for adventure. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Apparently a lifelong yearning, but when I tried it at twenty there was so much baggage and insanity swirling around my life...and fear...that I hadn't the capacity to sustain the journey. After a couple of months I came home. It was, of course, the middle of the deepest recession of my adult life (until the most recent one, of course) so there was no work. But those are other stories for another time.
So I get in my Prelude and head for Philadelphia to land with my dad and do temp work and whatever else I can figure out. Kevin Carr followed me out there (or led...I don't recall except that I had a reason to be there...family...and I don't recall Kevin's reason to be there). He may have stayed with my dad's family for a bit, but he had his own place shortly and he managed to land a job with a restaurant, which I could not. I think I was gushing dysfunctional vibes at the time, so I wasn't very employable even if there wasn't a recession. The whole visit to Philadelphia only lasted a few months and included some interesting odd jobs, a girl, and some really bad poetry.
Anyway...
Kevin's father had a conference to attend in New York during this period and Kevin was going to go up to New York and visit him, so we went to New York for the weekend. He was staying in some fancy hotel, but of course hotel rooms in NY are teeny, but it didn't matter to us and he let us just crash on the floor. We took the train to NY from Philly, which is the only way to go there. Of course, since then I have visited by plane and also driven in and parked (ouch) but the best thing to do is to go in by train.
I love traveling by train. It is slower than most other ways of getting places, and in the US it doesn't often go where you want to go. But it is in every way superior to other methods of travel. There is an opportunity to connect socially that is unique and mostly I love the rhythm of it. When it's working right and you catch the right mood to do it you can just flow along.
So we emerge from Grand Central a bit wide-eyed but no doubt doing what we can to look like we know where we are...which we don't. NY in the late 70s and 80s had a tough reputation. Crime was pretty much the principal influence on the tone of the place and there was a gritty and dirty flavor to it all that you can see in a lot of the films from that period that are set there. There was nothing transcendent about it that I ever saw. Instead, it was all raw and edged and harsh and somehow violent. A bit like a flesh eating plant. A really large flesh eating plant. Like big enough to devour you, and your friends, and your friends' friends. Beautiful, but completely dangerous.
From there was a wonderful couple of days of wandering and discovering. Like all visits to New York, it was too short. We were pretty much broke so little of what we did involved getting off the streets. Except for one moment, and this is the moment that stands out from this visit as the most sparkling. The hotel was in mid-town and Kevin's father is very cool and one of the nights we were there, after his conference events ended he led us uptown a couple of blocks and we went down to a basement level bar to listen to some jazz. Great jazz. Smooth and dark and blue and we were taken to a completely new place.
And then after NY, we went to Vermont, where Kevin had family and we skiied at Stowe and I lost a contact so I drove back to Philly from Vermont with one eye.
And that's the first layer of New York, but there are more layers to uncover. There are places in our lives that have these layers. Like we know the place in different ways depending on who we were or who we were with when we were there. Or are there. A place can change, but more essentially the way we view places changes.
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
And a Purpose Statement
I also am supposed to write a Statement of Purpose for a number of the schools. This is a very short beginning. The actual statement is generally supposed to be about twice this length...
I don’t know what I’m doing.
Or, perhaps as Richard Robichaux more elegantly described it to me, I have discovered the emptiness of my cup and am anxious to spend some time filling it.
Fifty years appears to be long enough for me to have acquired some skills, played with finding ways to implement those skills, and finally recognize that I know so very little about what I am doing. Some of this stems from the fact that I have had a dearth of meaningful learning experiences related to the craft of theater outside of those that were forced on my through the various projects into which I have thrown myself. Interestingly, my age at just over fifty parallels the fact that I have been a significant participant in just over fifty productions. Fifty is a great start toward something, but with the very limited training that I have had, formal or otherwise, I am acutely aware that my understanding of what that start is pushing me toward is somewhat limited.
So the simplest expression of what my purpose is in pursuing an MFA in Directing is that I desire to fill my cup, which I am singularly aware is too empty.
But on the other hand, I know exactly what I’m doing.
I am clearing the decks and shifting gears (and mixing metaphors) in a focused and passionate effort to ensure that the life I lead in this next, and probably terminal, expression of my career is completely focused on the one area of my life that has consistently provided me with joy.
I don’t know what I’m doing.
Or, perhaps as Richard Robichaux more elegantly described it to me, I have discovered the emptiness of my cup and am anxious to spend some time filling it.
Fifty years appears to be long enough for me to have acquired some skills, played with finding ways to implement those skills, and finally recognize that I know so very little about what I am doing. Some of this stems from the fact that I have had a dearth of meaningful learning experiences related to the craft of theater outside of those that were forced on my through the various projects into which I have thrown myself. Interestingly, my age at just over fifty parallels the fact that I have been a significant participant in just over fifty productions. Fifty is a great start toward something, but with the very limited training that I have had, formal or otherwise, I am acutely aware that my understanding of what that start is pushing me toward is somewhat limited.
So the simplest expression of what my purpose is in pursuing an MFA in Directing is that I desire to fill my cup, which I am singularly aware is too empty.
But on the other hand, I know exactly what I’m doing.
I am clearing the decks and shifting gears (and mixing metaphors) in a focused and passionate effort to ensure that the life I lead in this next, and probably terminal, expression of my career is completely focused on the one area of my life that has consistently provided me with joy.
An MFA Application Bio
One of the MFA Programs I am applying to is asking for a 500 word bio. Here's a first draft that I am amused by...
Splash: I am 10. I read Inherit the Wind and try and produce it in my garage.
Splash: I am 15. We produce movies with my parent’s Super 8 camera.
Splash: I am 18 and I take my first theater class at the University of Minnesota. I take more, but eventually drop out of college.
Splash: I am 18 and I usher at Theater in the Round, a local high quality community theater. I become increasingly involved there until within a few years I am Chair of the Technical Advisory Board and working as a stage manager with great directors. Which might explain why I’m not having much luck in college.
Splash: I am 22 and we start our own theater company and produce our first show and it’s a mixed bag of success and failure but exciting and engaging and then the financial reality looms and emotional baggage crashes down on us and Splash. That’s over.
And I am 25 and I get married and suddenly there isn’t as much room. And I wander off into a career and there is no Splash.
And for a number of years the waves splash but I am not standing on the shore. Some years I don’t even hear them, though I take my children to the Children’s Theater Company in Mpls and my wife and I attend The Guthrie and Theater in the Round, but...Splash...I’m not listening.
Splash: At 39 I decide to leave my role as a partner in the family business and enter teaching English, hoping that I might find a position where I can also do some high school theater.
Splash: And I do and I did and over the course of twelve years I direct over thirty mainstage productions and a whole bunch of one acts and establish a new community theater and find some time to perform a few roles and I get disenchanted with traditional public education and realize that this is what I truly love. This is the ocean in which I want to swim for my whole day. Not just for the moments when I can squeeze it in after school or in the evenings after already having a full day of work but when it is the complete focus of my whole being. My work. I realize that...
Splash: I should spend the next decades doing only the one thing that truly brings me joy. That I want to do it in a way that is not compromised and diminished by doing it on the side. I want to do it in a way where there is the energy and the commitment to exploring text and character and image and life.
Splash: I am applying for MFA Directing programs.
Splash: I am 10. I read Inherit the Wind and try and produce it in my garage.
Splash: I am 15. We produce movies with my parent’s Super 8 camera.
Splash: I am 18 and I take my first theater class at the University of Minnesota. I take more, but eventually drop out of college.
Splash: I am 18 and I usher at Theater in the Round, a local high quality community theater. I become increasingly involved there until within a few years I am Chair of the Technical Advisory Board and working as a stage manager with great directors. Which might explain why I’m not having much luck in college.
Splash: I am 22 and we start our own theater company and produce our first show and it’s a mixed bag of success and failure but exciting and engaging and then the financial reality looms and emotional baggage crashes down on us and Splash. That’s over.
And I am 25 and I get married and suddenly there isn’t as much room. And I wander off into a career and there is no Splash.
And for a number of years the waves splash but I am not standing on the shore. Some years I don’t even hear them, though I take my children to the Children’s Theater Company in Mpls and my wife and I attend The Guthrie and Theater in the Round, but...Splash...I’m not listening.
Splash: At 39 I decide to leave my role as a partner in the family business and enter teaching English, hoping that I might find a position where I can also do some high school theater.
Splash: And I do and I did and over the course of twelve years I direct over thirty mainstage productions and a whole bunch of one acts and establish a new community theater and find some time to perform a few roles and I get disenchanted with traditional public education and realize that this is what I truly love. This is the ocean in which I want to swim for my whole day. Not just for the moments when I can squeeze it in after school or in the evenings after already having a full day of work but when it is the complete focus of my whole being. My work. I realize that...
Splash: I should spend the next decades doing only the one thing that truly brings me joy. That I want to do it in a way that is not compromised and diminished by doing it on the side. I want to do it in a way where there is the energy and the commitment to exploring text and character and image and life.
Splash: I am applying for MFA Directing programs.
Tuesday, October 09, 2012
A Sabbatical Conversation
Sometimes its just a matter of being done. There are so many places where good work needs to be done, and the need for good work to be done is an energizing reality. At the same time, if the good work always needs to be done when does it become personally counterproductive to expend energy in the doing?
Yesterday's sabbatical conversation was with someone who shared that they were at a workshop recently and in the face of so many great ideas and strategies for change she thought, "yes, but..." and it's that "but" that is the killer. It is the thing that allows the fear of hopelessness to become the controlling feature of attitude toward belief.
I have always liked this quote from Dune, "I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration." It goes on from there with some interesting insights into overcoming fear, but this idea that fear is death is powerful to me. Not that I am fearful of failure so much as fearful of wasted energy. Or maybe of purposelessness.
Or maybe I like this quote because it is the fear of change that prevents the essential shift in education that is required in order for us to serve kids.
Wherever the fear is coming from, when you hit a point where you are learning new and amazingly cool things and all you can think is, "I will never be able to implement any of this in my context." Then it's time to find a new context.
Yesterday's sabbatical conversation was with someone who shared that they were at a workshop recently and in the face of so many great ideas and strategies for change she thought, "yes, but..." and it's that "but" that is the killer. It is the thing that allows the fear of hopelessness to become the controlling feature of attitude toward belief.
I have always liked this quote from Dune, "I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration." It goes on from there with some interesting insights into overcoming fear, but this idea that fear is death is powerful to me. Not that I am fearful of failure so much as fearful of wasted energy. Or maybe of purposelessness.
Or maybe I like this quote because it is the fear of change that prevents the essential shift in education that is required in order for us to serve kids.
Wherever the fear is coming from, when you hit a point where you are learning new and amazingly cool things and all you can think is, "I will never be able to implement any of this in my context." Then it's time to find a new context.
The Sabbatical...Build Not Do
I can't do the math right now to figure out how far into this process I have come. Well, that's not true, clearly I could do the math and a piece of my brain right now is wondering if I can do it while I type. Day One was June 10th (or 9th?). And that was Day One of the Preparation Phase, which is going on this whole academic year. Theoretically I'll launch into The Sabbatical itself on June 10th, 2013.
Practical Update: The concept continues to be that I am going to remove myself from all that has been and move into something new and singular. There are two possible paths, the Graduate School Sabbatical...MFA Directing...or the Kerouac Sabbatical. Right now I am beginning the process of preparing grad school applications in anticipation of arranging for that path to come to fruition, but I'm pretty okay with just ending up on the road.
And for the moment the thing that is most engaging me is the reality of being a short-timer in everything I do. I am a short-timer in my work with Roseville Area Schools, in my work with Eat Street Players, in my work with MN Thespians, in my home, with acquaintances...kind of everywhere. As I mentioned previously, in many cases this has brought me into a remarkable series of conversations. I would like to get more effective at posting those conversations, so hopefully I will do that. In the meantime, I am reflecting on the importance of sustained presence in the work that a person does day to day.
A lot of what we do is oriented toward the long term benefit. Short term we get paid or folks appreciate what we do (sometimes) but often times the effort exerted is spent in the creation of foundations on which better work can be built. I think of this with the theater that I have been doing with Eat Street Players. Up until now my efforts on any given production have had several purposes that motivate me to do more work. On the one hand there is the obvious desire for the particular production to be of quality and to be successful; but also there is the essential belief that a theater company takes years to build, and that each successive production helps to create audience and infrastructure that provide the potential for the following production to be that much better. I have seen this happen at Eat Street Players. Our most recent production of The Music Man was a better show in many ways than anything we had produced previously. And moving forward you would think that there is the potential to sustain and build on that foundation...but the reality of leaving in June turns that potential on its head. I will not be doing a big musical for this theater group next summer, and so suddenly the hard work of propping up the various productions that are currently proposed for November, January, April and June seems more daunting and less manageable than it did as recently as this past August.
This is not particularly insightful or startling. Obvious even, really. But it is instructive to discover how essential the future is to motivating effort in the immediate presence. I would have probably reported that the shows I have done with Eat Street Players I did because I wanted to put up those shows, but it appears that the desire to create something larger, something lasting, is a more significant motivator than I would have credited.
I like how this resonates with an idea that Sam Tanner works with a lot with his students. He tells his students that the daily drone of activities and compliance are the bullshit of education, (yes, he uses that word...for which he has gotten into trouble in the past) and that his class will be focused on building something worthwhile. This idea of building is at the core of what makes life worthwhile. It isn't enough to just be doing something, the sustained life needs to be building something.
Practical Update: The concept continues to be that I am going to remove myself from all that has been and move into something new and singular. There are two possible paths, the Graduate School Sabbatical...MFA Directing...or the Kerouac Sabbatical. Right now I am beginning the process of preparing grad school applications in anticipation of arranging for that path to come to fruition, but I'm pretty okay with just ending up on the road.
And for the moment the thing that is most engaging me is the reality of being a short-timer in everything I do. I am a short-timer in my work with Roseville Area Schools, in my work with Eat Street Players, in my work with MN Thespians, in my home, with acquaintances...kind of everywhere. As I mentioned previously, in many cases this has brought me into a remarkable series of conversations. I would like to get more effective at posting those conversations, so hopefully I will do that. In the meantime, I am reflecting on the importance of sustained presence in the work that a person does day to day.
A lot of what we do is oriented toward the long term benefit. Short term we get paid or folks appreciate what we do (sometimes) but often times the effort exerted is spent in the creation of foundations on which better work can be built. I think of this with the theater that I have been doing with Eat Street Players. Up until now my efforts on any given production have had several purposes that motivate me to do more work. On the one hand there is the obvious desire for the particular production to be of quality and to be successful; but also there is the essential belief that a theater company takes years to build, and that each successive production helps to create audience and infrastructure that provide the potential for the following production to be that much better. I have seen this happen at Eat Street Players. Our most recent production of The Music Man was a better show in many ways than anything we had produced previously. And moving forward you would think that there is the potential to sustain and build on that foundation...but the reality of leaving in June turns that potential on its head. I will not be doing a big musical for this theater group next summer, and so suddenly the hard work of propping up the various productions that are currently proposed for November, January, April and June seems more daunting and less manageable than it did as recently as this past August.
This is not particularly insightful or startling. Obvious even, really. But it is instructive to discover how essential the future is to motivating effort in the immediate presence. I would have probably reported that the shows I have done with Eat Street Players I did because I wanted to put up those shows, but it appears that the desire to create something larger, something lasting, is a more significant motivator than I would have credited.
I like how this resonates with an idea that Sam Tanner works with a lot with his students. He tells his students that the daily drone of activities and compliance are the bullshit of education, (yes, he uses that word...for which he has gotten into trouble in the past) and that his class will be focused on building something worthwhile. This idea of building is at the core of what makes life worthwhile. It isn't enough to just be doing something, the sustained life needs to be building something.
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