one perfect moment.

Every now and again, things line up in such a way that make any other notion than I lead and utterly charmed life impossible to entertain. I work a lot of jobs, one of them is stage managing at the Northwest Folklife festival. This is my 8th year, and began and continues as a way for me to get my theatre fix every year since I don't really have time to do much else. I've been stage managing since I was sixteen, so the ins and outs of the job are no surprise. This particular gig winds up being stage and house managing because my stage is very intimate and the doors for performers and audience are the same.
I was toying with the notion of asking for a different stage this year as I'd been working with the same acts for quite a while and was curious to see what the rest of the festival had to offer. When the offer for the contract came, I was in the middle of a full time button mashing contract and didn't really remember that I meant to shake things up a a bit. I'm' glad I didn't. At FL this year, there were a few people in high places who moved on, so everyone one kind of moved up a step. It's been interesting to watch because you can see the pet problems that people wanted solved from below, and now they finally have the power to make that happen. One of the changes has been my stage. I feel like they finally have a feel for what my stage can do. A lot of things they were expecting to be a crowd issue weren't, one thing was. Friday I started earlier than usual after putting in work at 2 other jobs, so I was kind of tired and cranky. friends have been there throughout the day to help out, and today when one finally had to leave one of my favorite MCs came in and continued to rock my world. Me stage has been almost perfectly full all weekend long, not to much, not to sparse. pretty good. And still I'm tired and kinds of cranky because the hipster showcase with the piercing acid jazz while I have a migraine fills me with a burning hate.

It's easy to get caught up in the "gig." Just do the work, get them in, get them out, next.

Tonight my last act was magic, pure and simple. They were musicians who've been playing longer than I've been alive, each phenominal in their own right. This year they shook things up a bit and played together in what amounted to a Celtic jam band. I was winding down, locking doors in the back, cleaning up and poked my head in. And couldn't walk away. They were having a fantastic time on stage. The ease and grace with which they played, the natural, organic connection from which beautiful music flowed... they were having fun. relaxed, happy, just being who they were. Then I looked out into the house and Every. Single. person was smiling. Everyone was picking up on the band's vibe and in the middle of my exhausted cynical day was a room full of happy. Genuine, warm fuzzy happiness. Some ladies came down to swing dance to the jigs and they did very well, twirling and swirling and missing and picking back up and laughing the whole time. My MC asked my sound guy who'd been having a day of epic frustration if they could do one more after they were supposed to be done. I didn't know this so when he let them go, I snuck behind the stage and asked if it was ok? He said R had approved it, I said "of *course* you asked R, how could I ever doubt you?"

When they were done, I blinked and the whole house was on their feet. I've been doing this 8 years. Don't remember a standing ovation. Then the band pointed to R, and the house turned to applaud my sound man, who is awesome and made of unicorns and really deserves the recognition. And then R said, sure, one more.

So they played a waltz that one of the fiddlers wrote 30 years ago and loves to bits. And people came down. My floor was filled with happy couples at the end of a magic night. No one was self conscious, no one was awkward. There was no tomorrow, no worry, no past, no pretense. Nothing but the music and that single feeling that filled my theatre and spilled into the lobby then the dance floor and the stage and the aisles were full. I had forgotten that magic from my early days in high school when I would lead my gang of tool using thespians to one moment of "yes, we did it, and we are awesome." In a gang of high school misfits or complete strangers, giving them one moment where they absolutely belong, that one absolutely perfect moment is why I do this. I have never, as a stage manager, cried before. I've wanted to out of frustration and fatigue and people who get annoyed when I guard their safety or steal my food. This meeting of hearts and music in front of me was so beautiful that I could not hold back a tear, nor would I have wanted to.

I have a bank of memories that I keep of utterly beautiful moments so that when I nee to pull something out to remind to of the things that aren't falling down around me I have some "stock footage."
This is going there.

I miss you

It has come to my attention that I've been somewhat remiss in my posting of late. It's not because I have nothing to say, it's not because I don't like you. The most obvious and socially acceptable reason is that I've been utterly swamped. I took a grading project and accepted my post as a stage manager at Folklife before I got a full time, but temporary,job. So, for the last week and the next, I've hardly had time to think about something that wasn't random data that I'm either trying to find and mark a pattern in (full time) or, Gods help me, semi random data in the form of high school book reports that I'm supposed to make suggestions for on how to turn them into coherent statements. Also, one chunk of data at the desk and computer job involved looking at badly spelt searches to see if the user meant this thing, or that other thing. I swear, I'll never be able to spell Philadelphia without spellcheck again.

The other reason is that, oddly, I've found that when things are going well I don't find the need to comment on them as much. Perhaps i don't want to 'break the spell,' perhaps I'm too busy out there being rad that I don't have time to blog about it. This can lead to the possibility that people think I'm bummed out a lot because that's the only thing you read if you're not here in the radness with me.

I shall attempt to correct this in the form of regular blogging, rad or suck. For example, this weekend was my one island of breathing room in a few weeks of hard burn. To coin a phrase, "I confessed a certain something to someone, and although I was quite worried about the process, it turned out pretty darn good in the end."

I'm never quite sure when I'm supposed to be rational and reserved and reasonable and other restrictive words that begin with "r" and when I'm supposed to just take a deep breath and dive in and surrender to the current and let life wash over me. I've tried the "keeping it pretty locked down" track, and that worked out ok, but I'm trying this "you know what, fuck it, Imma jump" thing lately, and it's working out rather well. And by "rather well" I mean "sometimes I'm almost afraid I'll get overwhelmed by the beauty in the world and what I feel so I try to hold on and it gets even scarier...."
OH, I have a great example story for this. OK, so when I try to do all bendy stretchy things in yoga, I've learned that when I try to hold on and moderate the stretch, to keep back a little and use tension in other parts of my body to "moderate" the stretch, that's when things start to cramp up and hurt and get stiff. But the more I can relax, the more I breathe into the part and just surrender to the movement, focusing on lining my bones up and letting softness take over, I get into much deeper places and less cramping and more awesomeness.

And now I must shower and try to convince this migraine to give me just one more week before setting in. I can hold it at bay, but I need to make it to June 1 and then I can rest.

Fox News: explained

On the bus this morning, heading over 520 we hear an announcement. It seems there's a van on fire in the right hand, west bound lane just before the western rise. Naturally this begins a bit of flurry from a few folks, especially one or two up front who seem to be chatty but perhaps not seamlessly in tune with social customs at all times. (ahem)

in a few short minutes we cross the rise, and lo! there is a poor commuter guy with his laptop bag standing on the bridge watching his old minivan demonstrate a rather rapid exothermic chemical change. Science is Fun!

We get just off the bridge and a second announcement comes on, indicating that 520 is now closed in both directions, and buses what can should use I-90. Whew. I seem to have really good timing for this sort of thing. Up to now, both announcements have been accurate with regards to the details.
Shortly after this, a third announcement comes on, a different speaker, female, and gets it all correct save that she says "eastbound" lanes. One of the chatty folks then says "Ohhhh, *eastbound* lanes."

...really? I was stunned. it was as though someone knocked me, not too hard, but still in the chest. We *just* drove by there, not 5 minutes ago. Hell, it wasn't even 3 minutes ago. We are *in* the eastbound lanes, we clearly saw the fire, with our own eyes, facing the other direction in on the side of the road not-ours. You have *first hand, eye-witness* data, two radio reports that support your observations, and because one person on the radio got one thing wrong you've restructured your whole reality. If it's from the magic box, it must be true right?
I thought, goddamn.....no *wonder* Fox News is still on the air. If some people are willing to surrender their reason to an "official" source for an event they know, for a fact, to be otherwise, how many more out there are willing to roll over for something that doesn't sound right, but is probably true? How much bullshit are people really willing to take?

How many times have I *known* something to be true and allowed someone's opinion to override my fact because I didn't believe in myself?

Santa?

Many years ago some of my friends reenvisioned the holidays. This is part of the inspiration for some of the weird shit we get up to around traditionally heavy days. Family and societal expectations and baggage can add up to a heady mix of drama, guilt and suck to go with your eggnog. I'm not saying you should ignore your family on Christmas...but there's nothing wrong with having a cookie battle with dinosaurs and MST3K pron after either. Valentines day that's just friends hanging out being goofy because half of you are sleeping with each other's husbands anyway (with permission, of course. We have manners after all), Easter spent in a hotel full of nerds, the year is full of opportunities to dance the line between the traditions of Past Me and creating a Now that Future Me will look fondly on.


http://www.tinkertank.org/Home/Home.html

oh happy day

There's been a lot of emo in this blog lately. Well, to say that discounts the reality of it. Honestly, I'm glad of the experience of it. I'm glad it's over, don't get me wrong. I'm not the sort who enjoys my unhappiness for the sake of unhappiness. Emotional pain, like physical pain is really just an unambiguous reminder that I'm alive. Pain can't hurt me, it's just a signal alerting me to another state, a potential danger that I'm then able to examine and analyze. Some of the moments, even though hard, still have a haunting beauty that I'd not trade for the world. I don't regret a single thing because, one, there's no point and two, it's gotten me where I am now.

And that, is someplace wonderful. I've been rather on the fence about whether to post certain things here or to start an anonymous type blog that gets into the finer details of the way I'm doing things. Then I remember that if any of my whole tens of readers aren't keen on it, well, there's a whole internet out there for you to like, I don't need that responsibility. I still don't feel the need to go cathartic with the disgusting details, but I don't feel worried about mentioning that I do honestly believe that one of the reasons we are here to experience and to create the experience of love and joy in the way it most makes sense to us. That the Universe benefits from our collective experience and when one of us finds happiness, we all find a little. So one focus that I keep coming back to is to stay on my own path, my own feet, my own joy and where others meet me, well, that's where the magic happens.

Part of this is being honest with myself. Sometimes I want something so much I try to force it. Don't we all? It never freaking works, because all that time forcing something has taken me off center an when I finally get the thing, it's not what I want because I don't even know where my feet are anymore. I'm trying to be more honest with myself and with others. I can't be more honest with others unless I know what I want in the first place, and the first step to that is figuring out why I'm afraid I might get it. What would happen if I succeed? If I fail? What happens if I just sit on my ass in my little pillow fort of fear and don't do a goddamn thing. At least failure is interesting.

So there's been a change of cast. The leads are still the same, but some of the character parts have exited and others have come onto the stage. I must say I'm rather pleased at the change. Many of the things that I've been making excuses for and leading and nudging and nurturing and waiting for are here. I'm frequently pleasantly surprised at the difference in starting place, or rather, the difference in meeting place between this new person and I. We're on the same page, but we've moved to a different chapter and many things I've wanted for a long time are finally looking like they're within reach. Spaces I can go to in my head, spaces I can go to in my body, the give and take doesn't feel like work, like something "to do" but something that just is done.

I'm trying not to attach too much to the future. I'm trying not to get too excited about potential in case it doesn't come true. But I think I can let a lot of that go. This one seems to understand the terms for what they are, and doesn't just consent to them, but is enthusiastically participant in the process both of having learned, of learning more and of meeting me where I seem to find myself at the moment. It could be there's more here. I'm not worrying about that at the moment. Future Me will handle it, she totally can.

For now I have a hale and hearty man in the fields, with whom I feel closer and more affectionate than I have in a long while. I feel like even the conversations and moments I'm careful about don't need to be as careful. that we're both in better place to trust each other and to take care of the little things in little ways.

I have one bonus man in the stable. Our relationship is just budding, but it seems we want very similar things, these some of these are very different from the space where HHM and I meet, and even in the short time I've been here, really looking into the two very different parts of myself have lead to a strengthening and spilling over of joy from one relationship into the other. And that's really what it's about for me, increasing the joy beyond the sum of its parts for everyone involved who chooses to play along.

I'm happy.
I'm also tired, because my happiness spilled over into the wee hours of yesterday, and it's now the wee hours of today, and my inner clock is a toddler who is convinced as soon as the sun comes up it's time for cereal and cartoons. I'm working on that. in the meantime, I sleep.