2001-04-29
feeling kinda
okay. i've finally shrugged off some of the procrastination, and gotten a few writing projects done. check 'em out - My Life is not a Performance Piece and Riddle Me This. short, but i'm pretty happy with them. (just wait until i read them tomorrow, and think of all the stuff i should have said...)
spent some time catching up with my best friend today, and we had a great moment - we had stopped by the Market Theatre to see if we could catch up with tom. the box office was closed, and we didn't think it would be good to buzz up to the office, so we started to wander off. and there he was, coming around the corner! tom is a tall boy. it's hard to miss all 6' 5" of him. we went leaping over to congratulate him, and he invited us in to see the theatre. oh. my. god. if you ever saw Grendel's, it still wouldn't help. the place is so transformed... gorgeous little box of a theatre, rich with wood and marble and gilded ornamentations, lushly complemented with velvet armchairs. it is fabulous, and we couldn't get our jaws off the floor. we sat for a few minutes and listened to the band rehearse. and tom, utter doll that he is, invited us to the closing performance and party. i am so looking forward to the performance, and the party, and the chance to touch base with all the crazy, funny wonderful theatre people. it's going to be great.
on a different note, i'm still sifting thru my personal writings from about 6 years ago. i'm still making peace with who i was then, but the frisson of pleasure i get makes it impossible not to share some of it with y'all. egotistical, perhaps. you decide. these are actually two separate pieces, but they seem to work well together.
you�ve thrown down the gauntlet, and now i, who so recklessly had challenged you to this, am wary of the outcome. suddenly confronted, my bravado leaks away, and once again i wonder why i ever thought i could take you on. delusions of security, ideas that i knew who i was and what i wanted...all of this is turned upside down by your offer, and now you wait for an answer. what does it mean if i accept? who will this turn me into? as much as we create our lives, i think that they also create us, and the key is to find the balance of push and pull. and if i lose the center? what then? and where will i go after?
and so i go about putting my thoughts on paper, hoping that emptying my head of the confusion will let me see some rational approach to all this. a hopeless task, i�m sure. there are some things which aren�t rational...why else would the phrase �leap of faith� been coined? i weigh and measure, reason and argue (all with myself, altho first thing in the morning, my reflection in the mirror feels like a foreign country, and the conversation takes a surreal twist, as i discover that i answer myself with very unexpected phrases). how can one quantify emotion and passion? not possible. but how can i do other than try? it�s the only way i know to live, trying to find the order in things.
then again, sometimes you just have to stop thinking and get naked, says sonia. after all, things can get blown out of all proportion when subjected to endless analysis. i think this is true - there is a finite amount of time you need to devote to each subject, and when you run over the limit, all of a sudden you start seeing problems where there are none.
and what is it you want from me? i imagine that i can understand what you are thinking, but there�s no hope of that. i sometimes wonder that we are ever able to talk. the best i can do is assume that we might be speaking the same language, toss my ideas out there (bread on the water comes to mind...) and hope that the response i receive will make sense.
if nothing else, it is an exercise in patience and, in a sense, a zen exercise in giving oneself over to the experience. realizing the limits of communication, i can see that there�s no hope of controlling the situation. this thought has been like a pebble dropped in a calm pool of water. the ripples slowly work their way across the entire pond, elegantly ripping apart the smooth surface. in what sense do i have any control? none, in the broader sense of things. again and again, this comes back to me, as i wend my way through the day. i try to ignore it, but it comes back to tickle me at the edge of my awareness.
