Dear Kim:
It is odd how I write to you. In terms of temporality, I mean. A
fancy pomo word for time.
Although I wish I would write about my day as it happens, more
often I find I cannot do that. I need the space of overnight to figure
out what the previous day was about.
(Kim:
This is what Wordsword meant when he said that "art is the
spontaneous overflow
of powerful feelings recalled in tranquility.")
So,
here it is Saturday afternoon and I am writing to you about
yesterday. Because yesterday was too full of activity and
I was too full with it, to talk about it with any real substance.
Despite my fatigue post surgery, which can descend upon me with
the sudden and unexpected ferocity of a hail storm, I am reconnecting
with my creative self and falling in love again with my work.
This is probably because I have taken on several new projects
which throw me into the exciting and slightly terrifying space
of the
unknown.
Next week, we begin a series of workshops at the Missouri School
for the Blind. I will also soon move into the rehearsal space
of the script we have created for the St. Louis Federal Reserve
Executive Board about sexual orientation and homophobia in the
workplace. I am directing two short theatre pieces
for adolescent girls for the new COCA teenage theatre ensemble
for a showcase that goes up June 9. And I have accepted a
commission to create an original dance piece to take
place on the Eads Bridge over the Mississippi on June 24.
(Kim:
All these projects sound so exciting. Congratulations!)
The
confluence of all of this for me personally from a medical
point of view is beyond absurd. In part, because
this is on top of all my usual work, die general administration,
drumming
up money through grants and personal cultivation,
etc
Yet there is a mystical part of me that feels that
because these opportunities have manifest without extreme
effort on my
part, they are part of a creative flow in which I want
and maybe even need to swim. Surgery or no surgery.
Even within an intermittent veil of fatigue, I feel
energized by the idea of working with new people and
on new ideas. And
surgery aside, I wonder if some of my fatigue is sometimes
from the energy drain of feeling stuck with the familiar
or dealing
with the staleness that come from certain kinds of
repetition in my
work.
One way I am coping with trying to manage this precarious
balancing act is to cancel something that is not absolutely
essential the moment i find myself getting tired.
I have to go to a party for The DisAbility Project
tonight. I didn't realize I am tired until a few minute
ago. So I will
skip a group meeting about the Mississippi River Project
this afternoon in which my presence would be welcomed
but not required.
(Kim:
We only have so much change in our pockets. When it is gone,
it is gone.
Best to use it for the important stuff.)
Some
people will understand. And some won't. And that is just how
it is.
Later,
Joan
Saturday, May 20, 2006