Ne vouz faites pas de souci

I am obsessed with the artist Sophie Calle. I was first exposed to her in an exhibition at Mass MOCA in 1999 and I have been hungry for more ever since.  That exhibition included photographs and diary entries from a stint where she pursued a monochromatic diet (i.e. she ate only pink food for a week, followed by only white food…), photographs and writing from a stint as a maid in a Paris hotel (primarily of the personal effects she encountered in the rooms she ‘cleaned’), and photographs and writing collected by a private investigator who Calle had entreated her mother to hire to follow Calle.  Other work I’ve been fascinated by since then includes a late 1980s phone booth installation in lower Manhattan where she offered snacks, pillows, dimes, and positive aphorisms for passersby looking for some TLC and/or connection.  

On Friday I visited the Episcopal Church of the Heavenly Rest uptown forher latest exhibition, “Rachel, Monique,” which is inspired by the loss of her mother. The exhibit presents a variety of elements; photos, audio, diary entries, and a video: Couldn’t Capture Death. On this video, you see the last chest expansion, and then, several minutes later the rituals of letting go: stunned stillness, checking for pulse and breath, tender kisses on the cheek, ultimately – one version of the spiritually ineffable.

Ever since I was first exposed to Calle – I felt a deep artistic kinship with her. We are both insatiably curious about strangers’ private lives, and especially the clues people’s personal effects tell us about them.  Like Calle, I prefer an immersive installation experience in my art, rather than a traditional ‘framing.’ I am also interested in excavating the deepest depths of my and my collaborators’ personal lives and psyches for public consumption.  I am influenced by her playfulness and sense of humor, as well as her willingness to probe and confront the most challenging feelings and concepts through art.  

detroit and america

Dina just sent me this article because we've been talking about the play Detroit, by Lisa D'Amour... I'm so glad she did. It's a long piece but so moving and so important. And it has great pictures.

I have some people from Michigan, from Saginaw and Flint. And one of my best friends is from Detroit. And I loved the book Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. So, I'm really interested in Detroit. Also because it is potent. It is a real place that is also a reflection of empty promises and corruption and really terrible thinking. 

The article also reminded me of the fascinating recent profile of Theaster Gates in the New Yorker.  I'm so happy these people exist in the world and they're at it every day doing their good work.

I'm also really glad I wanted to hyperlink Lisa's name. It made me do a little internet-stalking and I learned more about Lisa from her website. I knew I really liked her world view and way with language and all that from reading (and seeing the production of) Detroit. Now I know we are also very kindred. She recently did an installation called Nest that was part environmental installation, part devised theater piece, part social inquiry. I also have my Nest... that endeavored to engage similarly.  And she wrote and directed a theater piece called "Swimming Cities of the Switchback Sea" for Swoon's moving installation of homemade barges a few years back. I love Swoon and that project especially. I wish I could have seen the show.

Ahh, theater... ephemeral as neighborhoods. 

when look and feel unite

WOW.
I thought that shot from Requiem from a Dream where Jennifer Connelly's character wears the Steadicam after she leaves the terrible guy's apartment was powerful and about as intimate as a camera could get... (each step conveys rhythm and emotion) but that was only the beginning.
This is the future.

"... como el musguito en la piedra, ay si, si, si..."

This piece premiered in Wuppertal in June 2009. It was the final piece Pina Bausch created.

I remember feeling so much grief when Pina passed away (also in 2009). I wrote on here about it, it was the same week Dorrit Hoffleit (astronomer) passed. Tonight I saw Danztheater Wuppertal perform Pina's final piece at BAM. It was revelatory. It was the most minimal set of any of her work that I've seen live, though of course the design was very considered and simple and powerful. (It was a vast white floor that periodically, surreptitiously, broke apart like land masses turning to islands. Plate tectonics. Swaths of splintered darkness amidst the light.) Also, her sense of humor. She makes me laugh so much.
And the most beautiful women. In gowns but with their hair down-- and all that that suggests.
The piece began and ended with a woman on all fours. Down stage right at a 45 degree angle. Her hair cascading over the back of her head and falling on the floor. Men came and lifted her, working together they maintained her exact position even as she was over their heads. The only difference was whenever they lifted her she would bark like a dog. When she returned to the floor, she was silent and placid again. Pina consistently achieves my favorite possibilities of performance:
- evoking giant themes (the need for love, for intimacy, for emotional security, for freedom) with the lightest touch
- the sense of 'losing' your mind, of elevating the body, the spirit, the animal above the cerebral, the psychological
- humor in the most imaginative constructions
- communion/community

Thank you Pina. Always and forever.

crazy kids

I love how free-spirited these kids are and I hope they won't feel like they have to stifle or censor themselves as they get older.
I also hope their classes get more diverse!
I also really like this band. I had never heard them before.
Thanks for sharing, Will.

"It's Always Right Now, Until It's Later"

I didn't write that. Daniel Kitson wrote that. That is why it's in quotes. (Today is the day that websites like Google and Wikipedia are protesting the proposed legislation to censor and monetize the sharing of information online. Like many bills, these bills make it sound like you are a bad person if you oppose them (i.e. No Child Left Behind... no ones wants to leave a child behind). In fact, the titles of the bills don't fully do them justice: Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House. Since today is a day of awareness re: these bills I thought it was important that I use the quotes. Also, I believe in giving credit.
(My nephew Callum loves pirates which I was an eensy bit worried about until we went to see Peter Pan and I saw that in the version he was familiar with Smee rejects the violent and scary traditional life of a pirate for life in London with the Darlings.)
Right now I want to give Daniel Kitson a whole lot of credit. I saw his show of that title last night at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn and laughed and cried and thought about so many, many things. Despite the fact that it is one man speaking alone on a stage (albeit a stage brought to life with simple, beautiful bulbs hanging from varying lengths of red string (?)) telling the stories of two individual lives-- it was extremely theatrical. It was not a love story. He told us that up front. And the life 'stories' were not told from beginning to end nor imbued with too strong a point of view. Instead, Mr. Kitson described the ordinary and extraordinary events that make up a life. There was one point of intersection between the two of them-- but it was not a major event in either of their lives. They each fell in love, had children, had some struggles, and passed on. Their names were William and Caroline and I wept when Mr. Kitson described the moment each of them died. In fact, I felt that massive bowling ball heaving in my chest feeling at one moment, the love I had for Caroline had grown so big, and so full, and here it was being snuffed out. I really, really recommend you go see this show. It is very, very special.
Also, Daniel Kitson's present-ness throughout was exquisite and rare. When one older patron got up towards the beginning of the 4th quarter Daniel interrupted his story to say, "Oh, well, that's a shame." He was looking at the man but since the man was walking up the stairway and had his back to the stage and was probably trying to disappear anyway... he didn't respond. The front ofthe house then made a 'sad sack' kind of "awwww" sound, like they felt badly for Daniel. To which he promptly responded, "well, that's not the right sound." He went on to say he was feeling shame for calling out the poor guy who was leaving and he was mad at himself for doing so. It was very interesting how different Daniel seemed in his speech when he was performing very talking to us, for example, about the 'necessary bits of admin' at the top of the show. Outside of the story, or in moments of hiccup within the stories, he stutters. In the story, he speaks fluidly and perfectly. Last night he stumbled on the word 'father' (to which he commented, 'hmm, never had trouble with the word father before) and "ladybird/ladybug." Though he may have said something to suggest that that one was written in. Not entirely sure. And not sure I need to know either. Ahh, the great expanse of unknowing.
Will Eno told me this show was his recommendation of the year and I agree with him in the play category. My favorite musical of the year is Once. Which is opening on Broadway in March I think. Go see that too. It too is revelatory.
Also, thank you to Stella, Katya, Caleb, Jonathan Fielding, Michelle Stern, Ray Levin, Annie Baker, Amy Herzog, and Melissa Wells for sharing the experience. It felt good to share it with you.

In honor of the upcoming anniversary of the demotion of Pluto as a planet

Here is a delightful if a little heart-wrenching video made by Brendan Hughes and the cast and crew of Sexual Perversity in Chicago, which played at the Wellfleet Harbor Actor's Theater in the summer of 2008. (I was in the show.)
In honor of Pluto. Because we've all felt demoted before. Knocked out of orbit. Replaced or discarded entirely.


As thia 7 year-olds can attest however, Pluto is not forgotten. Not by a long shot.



For more of this excellent kid wisdom, click here.

team effort

my every show ritual: shot of the cast on the last day of rehearsal
(THE LAST DAYS OF JUDAS ISCARIOT, by Stephen Adly Guirgis)


A few of the images I put up on the wall for visual reference.


a shot from load-in, featuring our lovely Associate Costume designer and John McDermott's gorgeous hand-made hubcab lantern practicals


Grant Yeager (lighting designer) is also a genius.


right before Satan's entrance...

silence

My friend sent me an extraordinary article called The End of Solitude. I think it is definitely worth reading.

It also got me thinking about how I really enjoy solitude, and often feel like that is one of the qualities few of my peers share. Something that makes me 'weird.' I don't mind feeling weird though. Also, I thought about how most of my favorite books center around character's who are struggling with being alone versus being 'attached.' Siddhartha, Leaves of Grass, A Moveable Feast, The Road.

I am riding on the bus to Boston at the moment and feeling very cocooned in my foliage-staring, computer-reading, This American Life-listening bubble. I know I am technically connected, and I'm certainly in a crowded group environment, and yet I still feel like I am garnering the benefits of solitude. If nothing else I think living in a city teaches you to access and protect the state of solitude, the mental experience of it-- even without being technically alone.


In memory of Dr. David Musto, who passed away yesterday. He was a great man who well understood the infinite value of solitude. I remember fondly sitting in the house in Williamstown this past summer and listening to Dr. Musto and Jean's ideas for possible Broadway musicals. Dr. Musto, you will be missed.

where I'm at today

I think the pictures speak for themselves.
I am a very lucky lady.


Thank you Liz Engleman and the Tofte Lake Center for bringing Emily Conbere and I out to a cabin on your Boundary Waters, taking away our cell and internet vices, and giving us a week of the most stunning quiet to work on our play.

And thank you Tucker Hollingsworth for your absolute picture-perfect proof of the beauty.

lemonade

It's been rainy lately but the sun is starting to come out... which means... there might be...


He is very, very excited. And I love that.

treehouse

I have a new home- for two months anyway, and I feel like I'm living in a treehouse. I moved my bed to be horizontal along the window (trying to de-accentuate the long and narrow nature of the room) and when I look out I see lots and lots of trees, the greenest grass, a sculpture on the grass (Lousie Bourgeois?), the green mountains in the distance, and Degas' dancer on a sign for the Clark Art Museum. The Clark is one of my favorite museums and it also has the most extraordinary hilly, woods-y trails out back that are ideal for summer running.
The trees remind me of Michael Greif's production of The Three Sisters that I worked on last time I was here (2008) and I believe I was in this very same room when I spent the summer here in 1999. My room was right about Charlie Day's room and I much-enjoyed coming up the stairwell every night and seeing him sitting (shirtless) on his bed playing his guitar. I was a teenage girl and he was playing music-- what can I say?
It's been a hectic but incredible past several months. I've launched a new company-- with the name taken from this very blog-- and mounted a full production of Steven Levenson's Seven Minutes in Heaven-- a play we first conceived of together less than 15 months ago! All the reviews are in, and they are marvelous (check out www.coltcoeur.org to read them). And I couldn't be more proud of the show, the designers and crew, the cast, Steven, and myself. The best collaboration I've ever had. And we still have 5 more shows!!!! (Go to www.here.org for tickets)
Anyway, here is the physical view from from here.


As far as the mental view: Amanda Charlton (the fearless leader of the Williamstown Theater Festival Workshop) put it so well last night when she emphasized how special and rare this time is. For two months, I get to be ONLY a director. I don't have to be a tutor, or a girlfriend, or a receptionist, or a babysitter, or a perfect daughter, or ANYTHING else. I am so excited. I love being a girlfriend and a daughter, and sometimes I even love tutoring-- but for the next two months-- it's all about the pursuit of art/entertainment. How very special.

this is my 151st post!

I'm going to see this band tonight at Hotel Cafe, one of my all-tine favorite venues, anywhere. (It happens to be in LA.)
I think this is a pretty great song, and I enjoy this video-- especially how homemade it feels.



I flew Virgin America to get here yesterday and I've got to say, best airline ever. At least for now. I love the low, blue LED disco-lighting and the free selection of great music videos. Here's one I watched that's super-fun. And, since it's almost the end of the year and the requisite "year of __x__" statements and 'best of' lists aren't too far off, I think I can say even though the song really came out at the end of 2008, 2009 seems to have been a pretty spectacular year for Ms. Sasha Fierce and looking back in two or three decades I hope we all remember 2009 as the year of "Single Ladies."

Killian's Red

I'm exhausted and over-extended at the moment-- I literally drove 11 hours in a 28-hour period this weekend, and the bookends to the time in Maine were not R&R, but rehearsals, rehearsals, and more rehearsals. I'm directing two shows that open next week and doing a lot of tutoring since it's the 'busy season' for college applications... but one day last week I was reading this story on the train and I have been thinking about it ever since. It grabbed my heart and made tears stream down my face even as I walked along 42nd street during rush hour with my eyes glued to the page.
It's super-inspiring and makes me think about how even when I feel like I'm having a hard day or things aren't going well in some small way-- I am very, very blessed. My job is to live this life to its fullest and to make the most of myself; and experience and share joy with the people I love. And hopefully, through my work, share some magic with people I don't know personally too.

Read this amazing story.

the day at hand

It is so good to get away—especially somewhere so different. I spent the past week in Fort Worth, Texas and I really loved it. I was there directing Richard Greenberg’s Three Days of Rain for Amphibian Stage at the lovely Sanders Theater. The show runs through September 20th—and I’m really, really proud of it. The actors’ and designers’ work is inspired and truthful, and the whole Amphibian team are a bunch of amazingly hard-working, brilliant and artistic people.
I also got to go to two museums in the past couple days as my schedule opened up-- The Modern and The Kimbell—and those experiences added a hefty serving of joy and inspiration to my already-awesome time here. I was moved by the works of Gerhard Richter, Nicholas Nixon, Philip Haas, Anselm Keifer and Francis Bacon that I saw, but my favorite was the exhibition of William Kentridge’s work at the Modern—and his process of charcoal drawing, erasure and stop-motion animation is a bit of an exploration of many similar themes as the play I was working on… this quote from him is more eloquent than I.
“The final state of each drawing becomes a record of this painstaking process of erasure and addition—a palimpsest evocative of the emotional tension between forgetting and remembering. The making of each film was a rediscovery of what each film was. A first image, phrase or idea would justify itself in the unfolding of images, prases, and ideas spawned by the work as it progressed. The imperfect erasures of the successive stages of each drawing become a record of the progress of an idea and the passage of time. The smudges of erasure thicken in the film, but they also serve as a record of the days and months spent making the film—a record in slow-motion.”
It was especially resonant because I have vivid recollections of going to see the 2000 exhibition of his work at the New Museum in NY. The drawings and films had a profound impact on me, for their artistry, and also for his subtle but potent scrutiny of socio-political events close to him; namely, apartheid in his home of South Africa.
For me making a play is much like building a relationship with a person or with a work of art or literature. It takes some time to connect, there may be false-starts, missed connections and so on, but gradually, a bond is forged and intimacy follows. Something grows where once there was nothing. For a time it is all-consuming and then, often too quickly, it is over. The thing, the convergence exists only in memory. As the Walker character describes in Three Days of Rain, it is still there. “Old things scraped away to reveal older things, like a palimpsest, or pentimento.” I do not type the words without hearing Caleb Scott (the actor from my production) saying them.

its really good when it feels like the world is converging

so, in recent personal news: I guess I moved back to NY. I am kind of happy, kind of sad. I really love LA but fortunately I really love NY too. For now, this is where it's at. I love my work and I am here to make it happen.

Tonight I went to see Fuerza Bruta.
I was traveling solo which was a little self-conscious-making at first.
I felt like I had wandered into a rave only everyone was sort of old and speaking German and Portuguese. The haze was steady and the beat was pounding as we stood in an area marked with a circle of tape on the floor. Over the course of the next hour I watched a Bond-type dfigure bound forward on a giant treadmill pushing through heavy rain, strong winds, a door, styrofoam crates and a wall of boxes. I watched two Amazonian women defy Newton's laws and chase each other on gorgeous giant mylar-- they ran at an angle very wanting for V8. There bodies were perpendicular to all of us standing on the ground and they were flying and tumbling and leaping across mylar that moved like sheets of rain in a hurricane, their bodies tiny at 60 feet high. A gaggle of mermaid-like beauties in gauzy dresses ran, dove, stretched and pounded on a football-size sheet of heavy-duty plastic filled with varying-degrees of water. The surface started high above us and floated down to just above our heads. Putting fingers to the surface, I could feel the dancers heat if not their wetness. In another section the entire cast did a sort of cross between Capoeira and aggressively-athletic Irish step dancing in unison while deconstructing a prototypical 'house' set. My favorite part was at the end though. I thought I had seen and felt it all. The gunshots and bloody shirt early on made me think of death, the fetal-like women encircling each other in womb-like water had made me think of birth.
The music got louder and louder and the lights and rain and smoke machines were dancing and everyone there joined in. All the Brazilian girls and German children ran towards the center and the rain started to pick up. Soon we were all drenched and sopping and sloshing to the music. I didn't feel alone at all anymore. Everyone seemed young and fun and beautiful.

Plus-- my friend Ryan Templeton's friend Jon Moris who I'd hung out with in LA was in the show and when I went to say hi one of my favorite LA people-- choreographer and designer extraordinnaire Ryan Heffington was there too. I saw friends, I danced with strangers; there was great SPECTACLE and I felt some real emotion. Brute force indeed.
All in all, good night.

minimal spectacle

One moment from the past few days that I must share:
Ka-Ge, a director/choreographer coming to the Lab from Thailand led a small Butoh workshop a few days ago and it has been the afterimage on my eyelids when I close them since. He is a great teacher but he also has a gift for movement that has the dual effect of moving you to stock-still awe, AND he makes it look so magical-- of course you want to try it.
The video below is not so similar to what we were doing but it does give a sense. Many of the videos on youtube can be watched but not embedded. I found the Sankai Juku ones especially compelling. If you are interested there is a lot of material online-- one thing that is important to know though is that this a 'modern' form. It was created post-WWII and very much in response to the physical and emotional pain, loss and decay Japan was suffering. It is sometimes called the 'Dance of Darkness.'
Perhaps because Ka-Ge is a natural comedian he led us to dark somber places but also shaped scenarios where we all couldn't stop laughing. In one exercise a group of six of us were 'high-so' (high-society) and at a cocktail party. Very slowly, with minimal movement over a short span of music (he was playing the theme song to The Godfather no less) we moved into a position for a group portrait. Over a count of ten each we moved as one into the zenith-point of three expressions--happiness/laughter --> anger --> sadness. Then over another ten count we morphed into dancing-- where at most you could move maybe A finger or A shoulder. It was surprisingly funny.
In another exercise we took about ten minutes or so to walk across the floor, he would call out sort of visual/environmental cues, and remind us that the wind was moving through our hair, the we could feel the sunlight on our faces, that while we were moving forward there was also a strong force, a wind, the weight of the past, pulling us back. We attempted to make manifest all of these environmental elements in every physical movement. As we got near to the other side he said we were almost at the ocean, we could see it, we had almost arrived. Then, a drop of rain fell on us. Soon, more drops, and eventually, the sky opened up and poured down. He told us we were made of salt, and the rain was making us weak, like a melting candle, we were dripping down, crumbling. The rain got less but we were already crumbled on the ground; our forms gone. The sun was shining again but we were cracking in the sun now. We were just heaps of salt drying up on the ground.
The craziest thing about this was I really had a sensory experience of being an old woman. Very very old. I felt like myself in my body, but my body was different, it didn't listen to me, it didn't respond the way I asked it to. I felt very weak and when I looked down I saw all the wrinkles and folds and all of the thoughts from my life starting passing over me. Not just the life I have led up to now either-- but I felt like I could see the future. And I know this sounds crazy, but I felt like I could see and feel my moment of expiration. My own death. It was very strange and surreal. And powerful.
I was always afraid I was going to die when I was young (especially because of some health problems I had when I was little, and also, not liking airplanes etc.) but if this flash-forward was true-- I will die a natural death, as a very, very old woman.

how might it have been any different?

In my opinion, the only way to really move forward is to move THROUGH. I'm pretty sure there was a quote to that effect I saw on the wall in some middle-school classroom-- I vaguely remember referencing it here in fact... but sure enough-- it has stood the test of (some) time and some experience-- and in a variety of different arenas of my life.

You might not have pegged me or this blog as a likely participant in the conversation on the financial crisis and economics-- but since I am a firm believer in understanding a thing BY discussing it... and I want to explore any element of my or others' lives that may be of interest to me, and hopefully others'-- I think the topic itself is ripe for the blog-block.

Mostly though.. I want to say--
READ this article by Michael Lewis from Portfolio called
"The End".

I was turned on to it by David Brook's editorial "The Sidney Awards" in yesterday's NYTime-- an editorial which in and of itself-- on the constant and increasingly shorter-forminification of all things-- is FABULOUS and I also strongly recommend.

Lewis' editorial is great and one of the most concise forays into the current economic crisis I have read. It is also makes a fascinating point on the almost inevitability of America's current financial situation and the correlation between the questionable but status-quo morality practiced in the name of 'Capitalism' in America, as well as our obsession with re-invention, change, all things "new," and youth. I first remember being concerned during one of George W. Bush's State of the Union speeches fairly early on-- he talked about how there were more people buying houses than ever. That struck me as strange-- who were these people, and how on Earth could they afford it? Everyone I knew had less money than ever before and couldn't even afford their rent-- and these were all college-educated working professionals! Also, the proliferation of the freeway exit ramp posters encouraging everyone and their sister to "Buy a House! No money down!!" seemed oddly makeshift and casual for so serious an undertaking as buying a house has always seemed to be to me...

overwhelming

I remember reading this Wordsworth poem junior or senior year of high school, with Eben sitting behind me... and feeling its potency then.

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
(1807)

Today, this week, month, year, several years?? there are moments when I feel a bit overwhelmed. By the amount of books I want to read. By the number of movies I feel it is imperative to the continuing development of my soul that I see. By the quantity of news that I feel it is my responsibility as a privileged member of a media-laden society to process... By the phone calls I would like to make to stay in touch. By the disconnect between the number of ideas I have and the number of them I have brought to fruition. By my love for people. By my anger at people. By my compassion for people who are suffering, those I know and those I don't know. The list goes on and on.

Last night I went to a fun reunion-of-sorts party which had the unusual distinction of including speeches. Maybe because the party was celebrating my friend Sam's brief return to NYC from Obama-land... and he has been so close to such a great orator for a bit, and maybe because of how monumental this week was, and because many of us at the party went to a high school where declamation was not just revered but PRACTICED... we were all game. A college friend got us warmed up with a more conventional toast, and then Sam took the step ladder and went on for a bit. He told stories from the trail, stories we will probably learn in the coming weeks (about for example, Barack's first night in NYC as a transfer student at Columbia, when he slept under the stars in an alley on 109th Street), and he talked about how much the people that are his support team have meant to him these past two years especially. He grew up in a neighborhood in Boston called Jamaica Plain and many of his childhood friends were there to raise their glasses last night. He talked about his girlfriend Sasha and how much of a rock she has been, and how having her there to listen to him gripe, or share in his glee, or just shoot the proverbial shit with has gotten him through more than anything. I was really happy for him. I am really happy for him. He is the kind of sensitive, thoughtful, complex-minded individual you might assume would favor a career in the arts or education over politics.

And you know the most amazing thing-- instead of going to Washington, where he could surely get a cushy job in the administration-- he is choosing to keep doing what he has been doing. Finding people who have never participated in politics ever before maybe, talking to them, getting them excited, and sharing their stories... He is choosing to stay with the movement, and effect change from the outside in-- rather than play the conformity game with the bureaucrats in Washington. And the really exciting thing to me-- the macro-level reality is-- when this Obama-thing started two, or four, or arguably more, years ago-- it must have seemed like a near-impossibility. The people involved must have felt pretty overwhelmed by the amount of change him being elected President would effect. The paradigm-shifts. The mind-opening...

Ahhh... but we did it. Here we are. It wasn't easy. Change is not easy (Sam kept saying that last night, I guess it is something Barack says pretty often...). As Sam put it, "It's fucking hard. But it's worth it. It's so exciting."

What would I prefer-- to NOT be overwhelmed??
Please.
Unlikely.

sand sand sand luck luck luck

I think I am the luckiest girl in the world.
I truly feel SO lucky.
I had a day off today and I got to run, swim, read, eat, drink, talk, act, write, watch, and play. I have a cray-pas set that says "Learn * Play * Enjoy" on the side and I am heeding those directions.
I just finished up a week in one of the historic dune shacks on the Surf Side of Route 6 in Provincetown. It was built in 1949 and rustic-- no electricity, water only from a brilliant red pump well (I thought of Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan every time I used it!), an outhouse, and a 35-minute hike over steep dunes to get in. But once you were there-- HEAVEN!~ At times I felt like I was in The English Patient or The Little Prince or this great exhibition I went to in a museum in Paris in 2000 where different artists explored ideas of 'deserts' and 'mirages' etc... Sand sand everywhere! One night, our first time walking back in the dark in fact, we had a real adventure when the flashlight we had stopped working about 1/16th of the way into our journey. It was a cloudy night sky so not much help from the stars and with literally only dunes in every direction-- it took us over an hour but we found our way home. One of the craziest parts is I entered the lottery to win this week in early February, and I picked this week sort of randomly, and then lo and behold this job brought me to Wellfleet... Was it fate? Is there such a thing? I'm just saying...
Different friends, old and new, came for visits-- we even moved 'rehearsal' to the beach in front of the dune one day and had a great picnic and tennis-ball catch session. Another morning I woke up and mentioned to my mom that I had figured out how I might be able to get a director I worked for this summer's email... I would call another old friend who had worked for him... not two hours later my mom and I are walking around Ptown and said director rides by on his bike. Three hours after that he was at the dune shack and we spent a lovely couple hours talking shop and not-shop.
Coincidences? Manifestations of desired outcomes? I guess the why is less important to me than the 'events' themselves...
Just keep 'em coming please!
here are a few pictures: