Irondale: Day 1

by childofwine

So here I am. Day 1. Again. For the third time.

It feels strange this one. I’ve got definite expectations yet of all the programs this summer know the least of what to anticipate.

The work on this first day at once familiar and complete upside down what I spent so long grafting on to my body a month ago. Same principles, different approach. Different goals, similar techniques.

My brain is confused.

That’s okay. I knew this one would be the one that brings every thing I’ve discovered under a microscope. That brings ME under a microscope.

There are four of us participating in the training. For three weeks. There is no escape and there is no hiding. Already I feel a desire to use what I learned, to focus on my breath and maintain the ideas of focus, intention and attack from SITI. Already my tricks, tactics and habits are betraying me – far worse than ever I could in front of ‘her’, the one who could crumple your ego with a twitch of a private smile, the one we all most wanted to pay attention to us.

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I’m feeling guilty that, that I’ve betrayed somehow, my attempt to write a Super Awesome Insightful Poignant Funny Wrap Up of My Summer with the SITI Company in Saratoga by not having completed it – written it! – while still in NYC, immediately upon my return, before I left for Halifax… and I’ve started it, I have, but it’s hard to try and sum up an experience while, clearly, it is still on-going. I haven’t admitted defeat and in one way or another the sucker’ll get done but it’s definitely a challenge to transport my mind back to that experience, one already seemingly a lifetime ago, whilst in the midst of starting a brand new epic adventure.

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I have a beautiful house here belonging to two wonderful Halifax theatre artists and their daughter. They are away at a festival for the summer and I am lucky enough to not only have a room here but to be the only one in the house at the moment. I am back in my wonderful Halifax, a city whose arms I immediately fall back into like an old lover who simply moved away or a best friend with whom the conversation never stops.

I definitely forgot how to pack for this weather.

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Three weeks here. Three weeks during which I will try to write my SITI wrap up, work on Groundling Theatre Company material, finish that synopsis for that composer who probably thinks I’ve forgotten all about the project, maybe even sit down with those special friends to talk about that damn pesky chicken project. Three weeks to drop my mask so I can play with new ones. Three weeks to really challenge myself as an artist and inherently as a human.

Three weeks to once again challenge the new me that seems to be living a more stable and functional life than possibly ever before barring some happy years as a young tot. Three weeks to once again, in a microcosm, examine how I walk in the world, how I watch my environment, if I can soften my judgment and deepen my breath.

You know. The simple things.