Chance = Change

I seem to be having enormous difficulty doing it well lately: communication. I need to sit still, listen, observe what is going on around me, be quieter than I even think I can be...I need to listen better. Because i am...well...odd...i feel so at odds with the people around me...even the people I love the most...at least the people in my life are committed to solving problems...Peter , my darling hisband, is a truly terrifc man for that reason alone (though, God knows, he's terrific for many other reasons as well)..he is strong, I am strong,all the people i love are strong...so, the Universe is definitely trying to tell me something by allowing me to feel this wretched discomfort in my commerce with just about everyone who crosses my path lately. Whew! I could chalk it up to play I'm directing a reading of (BERGIN PINES, by Tony DiMurro, very good, very intense, very much about anger), I could also attribute it to the wretched head cold I am currently plagued by, or maybe a combination of both...the cold is making me feel very awful a lot...but also, I cannot underestimate the effect the move from the Barter is having on me. I am essentially asking myself to undergo a "communication transplant"...that is: three years (and more) in one place, working with a certain group of artists with whom I've developed a certain creative shorthand, having gotten used to a particular group of artists' neuroses in combination with my own, now I have thrown myself back into another mix entirely, and there are new things to remember and learn...new voices to hear with my old ears ...ears that have listened a certain way for several years now and need to exercise themselves into a rediscovered flexibility...funny how we hang on to old ways of listening...old ways of judging...BUT then comes this question: what is it that I am looking for ? True listening is a good thing to strive for in myself...true listening...but what is it I want to hear? This is what my struggle seems to be. I am willing to listen, but WHAT DO I WISH FOR? What if what I am hearing is not it? True listening does not automatically result in agreement with what is being said. Sometimes I think that when i truly listen, I hear more clearly what is underneath being said, and I want to say :this is what you are saying and this is what I am hearing...can we discuss the discrepancy? This seems to be the only way for me to proceed lately. Living in the discomfort of the discepency. I honestly believe that all people want the free-est, fullest self-expressioon possible..i also believe that people live in fear of full self-expression...we say, rather, that thing which will keep us safest, most entrenched in what we know to be our positions of power. So instead of saying "A", we say "B' while we think we are saying "A"...full self-expression would result in both "A" and "B" being said in a balanced and conscious way...total full communication.