My friend Irene made sure we had two floor tickets to Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors tonight at the Globe. It’s difficult for me to explain how amazing this experience was for me.
I’m normally against such “art worship,” but this is one of the few places on earth where the words come to life. Where the snobbery of the theater world is stripped clean by the masses teaming in the front, away from the seats. Where the in-jokes are for the commoners and the art is for everyone.
I have a deep love of Shakespeare. He was one of the first who taught me to love telling stories. To say I was humbled and awed would be an understatement. But those are the words I have.
“I thought it would be larger,” Irene said. I agreed. Then I realized it was perfect. (Also, we noticed that if it rained the show could go on because everything – except the floor seats – was covered.)
The first part of my Euro-adventure is nearly over. Tomorrow at 630 pm Central European Time (that’s +6 to those on the East Coast) I’ll board a plane to London. I’m always amazed at how quickly my time in Berlin flies. And how easily I find settling into a routine with John and Aimee.
To be sure, I miss my desk and my home life. I miss the freedom to roam as I need to and the autonomy of my own space.
But it’s an even trade-off to be in Europe.
England, though, will be something else. I’ll be bouncing around the country. My weekends will involve trips to visit friends (in Sheffield, in Brighton and maybe a third location to visit another Loveland-ite), and my weeks will involve city runs, cafes (Bar Italia in Soho) and visiting with playwrights at The Soho Theater.
It’s a radically different lifestyle than here. One I will need to adjust to quickly if I’m to keep my running life together.
That I’ve made serious life change in the past two years isn’t news.
I’ve quit drinking, stopped smoking, ended some unhealthy relationships (sometimes happily, sometimes with great sadness), revamped my eating, taken up a healthy exercise regiment. I’ve started – in small ways – to find myself as a person again, uncovering all the components that most of the “normal” world takes for granted. Or maybe they don’t.
I suspect, though, they do for this simple reason: I am amazed daily at the small discoveries about myself and how I interact with the world; I don’t see others expressing the same wonderment. Unless they are in The Program, in which case they have a warped sense of maturity as well.
More than two years out, though, I can already feel I’m moving into another new stage of my sobriety. The first year was about hanging on, the second year was about re-assembling the broken bits, and the third year seems to be about the future.
The future. A concept that for most of my life I lived without. How odd, then, that I can conceive of a tomorrow. (This is one of those little wonderments.) That brings with it possibility. And with that, hope.
There’s a website called Kickstarter that enables people who have an idea to solicit help in working on a project. If the project doesn’t “make” – that is, if there aren’t enough funds generated – nobody pays and the project goes away.
I’m a big believer in the micro-loan way, giving individuals the opportunity to do what they want to by developing a network willing to fund their work. It seems rational to me.
So when I came across this particular project, a young man who wants to hike the Appalachian Trail and write a book about his experiences in order to dispel the stereotypes of the region, I was hooked.
I’m definitely going to pony up cash for this project and I hope you do too.
Now, I don’t know Forrest and I haven’t talked to him about the project. I know nothing about him (although I’m going to send him a note for sure). So let the buyer beware.
For me, though, this seems like an amazing project. One I’m happy to support.
I spoke with my dad today. He lamented that he’s already missing my daily posts.
My family has (begrudgingly) accepted that I live in the meta-verse. I exist online in a far more real way that I do in the real world. This has it’s ups and downs. I’ll leave you to debate the merits of those things. For my father, I suspect it allows him a window into my world, one that is hard enough to get when you’re around somebody every day. And we are not.
The daily posts won’t be coming back. Not any time soon. It’s time to get on with my actual writing. School will be finished on Saturday (grades are due) and I’ve dedicated this summer to my writing.
That means less time online. Less time blogging. Less time Twittering.
This summer, it’s all about the words. And the stories.
91 days ago, I challenged some of my students to write 90 posts in 90 days. To get up every day and write. Write when they didn’t have anything to say. Write when they did. Write when they were sick and couldn’t think. Write when they were excited to sit in front of the keyboard.
Showing up is 90 percent of the battle in life. When you don’t want to. When you think you can’t. When everything inside you is telling you to run away. If you can find a way to show up, you’ve oftentimes won already.
***
Too often we don’t show up. We keep our mouths shut. We allow the common, collective knowledge and wisdom to go un-challenged. We say nothing when we know we should. When we are un-comfortable.
It’s part of the Social Contract, after all.
For the most part, I try to avoid such thinking. Because of that, I have been described with many adjectives – contrarian, argumentative, just to name a few of the more polite ones.
I’m okay with that. Mostly. Although I certainly wish people saw it for what I mean it to be instead of what they perceive it to be.
The dream was always a little cabin, in the middle of nowhere, away from humanity, where I couldn’t cause anymore damage.
I can see the cabin, a small 2 room place. The bedroom and living area separated by a door. One story. I have never much cared for two. It’s too difficult to escape. Too easily trapped. A kitchen with enough elbow room to really get down to it. A fireplace in the living room. And woods.
I have known this place in my head for years, a place far removed from the people I know, the live I have lived and the world around me.
I have known it because in this place, with nothing around me and no people to harm, I can write and drink and exist until it’s time to not anymore.
My life prevents me from doing this as often as I should. Or more accurately, teaching prevents me from writing as often as I should. Although, if I’m truthful, teaching is a choice that I make.
Still, those rare moments when deadlines are so upon me that procrastination is no longer an option and I must write. I treasure them.
Tonight was one of those nights, even if the writing I did is not the kind of writing I would normally do.
Still, I finished a draft of my first textbook chapter, a treatise on how emerging social technologies can transform the university classroom.
The chapter, which grew out of a talk I gave to the college faculty last fall, is a weird mix of academic research (thanks to Rhett, my super fabulous Graduate Assistant), technical papers from the 1940s, 1960s and 1970s, book writing and Internet research. Honestly, I’m interested to see how it flies in the wonderful world of the academy.
Either way, I’m happy with it and it will find a home somewhere.
***
The thing I enjoy most about writing is piecing the puzzles together. The words come much easier today than they ever have, a confluence of experience, practice and voice. I know what I want to say (mostly) and I know how to say it.
Maybe it’s April in Academia. Maybe there is something else within me trying to parse this answer.
I can’t shake the fact that my writing is suffering of late. Because I haven’t been doing the thing that I am supposed to be doing. Which is, of course, writing.
There is only one way into this world. Consistent. Persistent.
No way around it. I know this, and yet I am consistently pushed away from it. Obligations that are not of my making but are of my choosing.
“I have no idea if you think your making a film about Duke or Thompson. And I’m filling with hate and rage just thinking about it.”
I’ve been devoid of words the last few days.
Not for the normal reasons, I suspect. I’m not over-whelmed with work although there is work to do. I’m not emotionally exhausted although I’ve probably been thinking too much.
There is just not much around me. Although I know this is simply the post-SXSW depression that comes (which is different than the SXSars the befalls all my partying friends). You can’t be immersed within the chaos of 12,000 people for 10 days and not come back changed.
This particularly tired mental diatribe bores even me so I can only imagine what you’d do if you had a jackhammer and mallet, and a promise for the police that there would be no thorough investigation. These are not kind thoughts that I have about you, but I think we can all understand they are more about me.
Follow me on Twitter 
Recent Comments