Their attitudes differ

i

To understand
each other: anything
but that, & to avoid it

I will suspend my search for
germs if you will keep
your fingers off the microfilm
hidden inside my skin

ii

I approach this love
like a biologist
pulling on my rubber
gloves & white labcoat

You flee from it
like an escaped political
prisoner, and no wonder

iii

You held out your hand
I took your fingerprints

You asked for love
I gave you only descriptions

Please die I said
so I can write about it

After all you are quite
ordinary: 2 arms 2 legs
a head, a reasonable
body, toes & fingers, a few
eccentricities, a few honesties
but not too many, too many
postponements & regrets but

you'll adjust to it, meeting
deadlines and other
people, pretending to love
the wrong woman some of the
time, listening to your brain
shrink, your diaries
expanding as you grow older,

growing older, of course you'll
die but not yet, you'll outlive
even my distortions of you

and there isn't anything
I want to do about the fact
that you are unhappy & sick

you aren't sick & unhappy
only alive & stuck with it.

yes at first you
go down smooth as
pills, all of me
breathes you in and then it's

a kick in the head, orange
and brutal, sharp jewels
hit and my
hair splinters

the adjectives
fall away from me, no
threads left holding
me, I flake apart
layer by
layer down
quietly to the bone, my skull
unfolds to an astounded flower

regrowing the body, learning
speech again takes
days and longer
each time / too much of
this is fatal

-Margaret Atwood

We are supposed to bring along things that inspire us on this trip. I am bringing my book of poems by Emily Dickinson and Margaret Atwood. I'm also bringing The Mind of the Maker by Dorothy Sayers. It's going to be a 'Wonderful Women of the World' summer. Any women of the past or present inspire you? Leave me a comment and let me know.

PS. 4 days til I leave.

A Job That Pays?

I leave in less than two weeks on a brand new adventure. Away from these people, this home, this life.

I'm travelling across Canada with a theatre company from Toronto. I get to write a play with other actors and directors from across the country and then tour our masterpiece to all the major cities and a few others aaaall summer. Sigh. I also get to see my family in Saskatchewan. Did I mention I was excited?

So here's where you come in internet. I'm supposed to be interviewing people before I leave about their faith experiences. I want to challenge myself by interviewing people very different from myself. This could mean physically different, religiously different, or socially different. Anything that makes us not in all the same descriptive categories in some way. If you are interested, please leave a comment on this post.

TED Talk

It is funny to me how many people have sent me this link. It's almost like theatre is important to me or something. Enjoy.

Patsy Rodenburg: Why I do Theatre

I love my job. yes. no. kill me now.

What a semester.

I feel grounded now, at peace with my life, more hopeful than I've ever been, and I can do anything. I can do anything I want to. I've ran into many people from my past in these last couple of months and the general consensus is one of hopelessness. These people had all sorts of dreams when I knew them in high school and beyond. And now they are working at Starbucks wondering how they can become the manager or new shift supervisor. It's like they peaked in high school and believing that they could do what they wanted with their lives stopped there. How sad.

Please do a job you love, whoever you are. I am basking in the goodness that is my life right now, not without its troubles mind you, but on the whole I am very very happy and content. A rarity among my friends I am finding. I am reading the Anti-Theatrical Prejudice by Jonas Barish right now and although it's slow reading I am finding myself appalled at how counter-cultural theatre and acting really is. I finally had to ask myself, am I willing to constantly be fighting to be taken seriously, to tell the truth in the face of a stubborn society, and to always know that I am both adored and loathed?
Yes. Yes yes yes a million times yes.

Do something that instills passion in you. Do not choose a profession or a lifestyle out of obligation, money, anger, or vengeance even. Do it because it gives you life. Makes you laugh, makes you cry, forces you into relationship, causes you to be wise, wills you to be good and to do good.