wow. holy mackeral. or should I say (the local) sea bream?
Scotland.
Scotland.
Scotland freaking ROCKS. the festival has been amazing. a totally challenging and beautiful convergence of art and life. the Traverse and the National Theatre of Scotland have been aMAAAAzing! as have the delightful pairs of parents and grandparents! who have come to visit us, treating us to hot meals of pub fare and dim sum.
we share beds and swap rooms. husbands leave for work in the states and girlfriends come bearing peaceful warm hugs from frenetic professional new york lives and through it all the forward motion of This Thing continues, sometimes threatening to exhaust itself, sometimes busting at the hinges, (no, like, literally) but there is this forward motion, this impetus to keep growing and This Thing revealing itself.
every show is an opportunity to learn what It actually is. which is wonderful. this bittersweet and constant Falling Short of a certain height that will be perpetually out of reach.
this is a good thing. i think.
aspirations making themselves known.
and my parents are here! they are currently THE delightful pair of incredible, happy, supportive, joyous, generous, courageous, faith inducing, faith filled parents who have believed in us and followed us here willingly since 2005 when we had absolutely no idea WHAT we were getting ourselves into. maybe they did. maybe our parents, all of our parents, just wanted us to be happy. maybe they thought we actually had something here. maybe they had absolutely no idea but they were willing to risk it anyway – thousands of dollars, air plane miles, a broken foot, some sweetened hearts, some trampled temporarily, inadvertantly, some salty tears and strange afternoons, fantastically bizarro nights – some air guitar, hundreds of cups of teas and coffees later, we are here.
Saturday, August 16th, 2008.
yesterday was the Roman Catholic holiday The Assumption, if I remember my Catholic schooling properly (I think.) I quite like the image: Mary, instead of dying per se, being assumed wholemeal (as opposed to piece meal) straight up into heaven.
I like it so much that we get to be here. This is a beautiful country. Even when it is pissing down rain (as they say) in your face and you’re cold and you’re stubborn and you won’t buy yet another umbrella, because the first one broke and sliced open your left thumb nuckle. Hypothetical. Is that how you spell nuckle? Nuckel. Woah.
There is a castle, and sea, and the most magnificent sky and letter R sounds. Beautiful people excited about making good plays. Full audiences. People Qing for return tickets. And a chance to do something pretty special that’s bigger than any one of us. Not a bad dream for a young woman to be living, a young woman from New Jersey and malls and hairsprayed French braids and cheerleading squads and trips to see Canadian geese and bowling alleys.
Everything is preparation.
(FYI, I think.)
I hear there is a full moon tonight.
Not 100% certain.
Somebody forwarded it to me in an email from Long Island City. Not sure where the message originally came from. Not sure if full moon’s the same over here and across the Atlantic.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm,
Jess