Growing Up

Ahhhhhhh.  The show is open.  I didn't blog all week 'cause I was working long hours and all was focused on surviving.  I did get a bit of play time with the boys, though.  We charged up and down Hamm hill and played in the new "clean" dirt that got poured in  our big hole after septic cleansing.  These pics are from a warm day earlier in the week.  This morning was actually totally frosty white outside.

The play came off well.  I wasn't sure if the audience would follow us back and forth between on and off air scenes and between humor and pathos, but the feeling from the stage was that they did.  There were some intrusive laughs that were welcome, but changed our rhythm a bit.  It was so good to bring the audience in.  They're crucial in this story.  A few of my Dutch words need a bit more help on pronunciation, but I got all my lines and my voice didn't pop!  Hallelujah!  

It's a strange skill for me to moderate my output.  It used to be that it was all GIVE GIVE GIVE... and now it's HOLD ON and STAY EVEN -- at least at times.  It's an odd state.  I find myself more grounded and not so flighty.  Even all week in rehearsal, I wasn't joining in with the antics and gooney fun with my scene partners side stage with the tech focus.  It was an interesting place for me.  I love to be goony and cut loose with the ensemble, but I quietly just wanted to work.  This feeling stayed with me all through opening.  Have I lost my mirth? -- No.  Have I lost my youth?  --I don't think so.  But I am growing up.  I kinda like it.  I don't need the approval so much when I know it for myself.  Hummm.  Of course the singing humbles me and keeps me focused so this show is never easy.  And even with the text, I must stay engaged or I'll "fall off my trolly". 

Afterwards I was congratulated on my voice by a few ladies.  I shared with them my struggle.  How scared and difficult it is for me to trust and be free and they looked confused.  I'm realizing they don't want to hear that, or at least they don't get it.  They don't believe me.  I need to smile and give them a genuine "thank you" and leave it at that.  I am in the role and it is working.  Nothing that smacks of apology is needed.  Here is another area where I can grow up.

Another day, another sigh

Oh.  Today I learned that the sensitivity in my left ear and the constant phlegm in my throat over the last year is because I have an acute infection in my left sinus and a chronic one in my right.  My doctor had prescribed a CT exam back in July and I only just got in this week.  Wow, that was strange: sliding into a big Cheerio machine and told to be still.  Saliva gathered in the back of my throat and after several concerned moments of waiting I finally swallowed, hoping that wouldn't smudge the X-ray.  Wow.  I've had an infection all these months!  That's scary because I don't like being so susceptible.  I wonder if the antibiotics will work? 'Course I can't get into town until tomorrow night... Dave thinks the pharmacy will be closed. Humm...

I sang again today, high.  It's been awhile.  It's scary hold

ing your own with 4-5 people.  I've got some old tension/grabbing habits.  I hope I can find the sensation of freedom and keep coming back to it.  I do not view myself as a musician.  I feel I don't get it technically, or that it just doesn't come natural like it does to "musicians", but I know I'm musical, and I have a strong voice that I am STILL coming to know.  Sigh.  Singing makes me feel so full and so fragile at times.  Acting is much simpler.  Dance is even more rewarding and fun.  I hope to do these things long into my life.

I miss my son Donovan.  He's away at school so long, 

and then he's so willful at home.  I need some time with him alone.  --Weston and I had a wonderful long sunny walk in the fields today.  We collected some dried prairie grasses for bouquets for the awards banquet this coming Sunday.  Tomorrow we'll collect more leaves and dry them and string them up in a garland.

Today when I pulled the frosty tarps off the garden a bumblebee was asleep on the face of a sunflower.  I stared at it, not sure if it had froze or if it was still moving.  Later it was gone.  Wow.  I think it spent the night out there.  I think we'll have to pull our tomatoes in soon.  This blanketing the garden each night is getting old, and the leaves are still getting bit.

Weston and I played "Easter bunny" with 3 of his stuffies: Brown Bear (of course), Soft Paws (the bunny), and Seal (Donovan's new puppet from SeaTac).  It was fun, but then Dave and I were trying to select Greek masks to buy for our advanced acting class and Weston could hardly stand it.  He kept pulling on me to get me back to playing with him.  I hardly got anything done all day... but I did get to play with Weston, and he's only four for a little while longer....

Like a Child

Sometimes I forget that the most beautiful thing one can be is exactly who they are.  The Who that is the child: quick to trust and quick to forgive, and quick to seek new adventure.  This child has no thought for appearance smudges or moles that suddenly arrive on one's face. This child is ever present, ever honest, and ever seeing.  

--Thank God for humor and for MAC photo booth warps.  They make for hours of entertainment.  Seeing Donovan with his never-ending forhead in this picture makes me miss him at school.  As Dave said, he's like the working man at our house.  He gets up early, commutes to "work", and rides the bus home 8 1/2 hours later.  He's the provider-man going out into the world and we pepper him with questions upon his return.  No wonder he craves his quiet drawing time as soon as he's home.  When I ask him to help in the kitchen, it's like I'm tearing him away from his one true love: the freedom to do what he wants for the first time all day.

I'm singing again now, and sensing old fears rising their heads to the challenge like sunflowers.  I want to breathe, relax, and soar, and be kind to myself... but it's strange how it's still such a mystery.

I'm going to Calgary tonight to see a play.  We're taking some students with us in our van.  Why does it still scare me?  All the traffic, the high speeds, the city... I'm afraid we'll die and the boys will be left.  I'm such a wreck in the car in the city now.  That's what I get for living in a small town for so long.  I think it's been 12 years since I've seen a TV show.