Chance = Change

...in this year 2007...crystal clear and windy and finally feeling like Winter! Peter's snuggled in bed, sleeping a well-earned late morning sleep-in, Sally the pup is snuggled by his side (where else?) and Cyrano sits at my feet as I write. He is definitely the more literary of our two "children", and seems to love it when i settle in to write for a while...he puts his furry little head down on my right foot and claims the corner next the desk as his own....he sleeps until I move from the desk.....a quiet New York City Saturday morning... each in his place, all's right with the world....it was a busy week for all.

It only slightly amazes me that both Peter and i are so happy not performing on a stage.
Whenever I stop to think about it, it feels a bit shocking...but i rarely have time to stop to think about it. When I do, I remember how so much of my life, (all of it really, until these past two years) has been spent either on a stage, or in desperate pursuit of getting back onto a stage...how much of my life has been spent inside the walls of one theater or another, while "regular life" proceeded without me outside the walls of whatever theater i was booked in at the time. I have always viewed non-theatricals as "they" or "them"...not one of "us"...and now, unquestionably, I am one of "them", and I don't even seem to mind!

I like having my nights and weekends to myself, with the ability to fill the hours unendingly with whatever i want to fill them with! No 1:30 "half-hour" to be on time for and no large chunks of time devoted to entertaining others when there is so much else I want to do out in the world...there were so many times, so many gorgeous days, that i yearned to be anywhere but inside a musty old theater....and this is coming from someone who truly loved the work i was doing all those years...and it's not to say that i won't be back into that schedule one day again...but i am simply writing about how amazing it feels to not miss it! I am surprised by how much I don't !

This is due, in no small part, no doubt, to how happy I am teaching at Steinhardt. It remains a fulfilling , exciting and surprising pasttime....each meeting I have, on whatever subject, with various faculty members, always leaves me feeling happily challenged and excited about how to move forward with what we plan...I vividly remember so many meetings at another palce I used to teach when I would leave each meeting frustrated and angry at the seeming short-sightedness and condescension with which the teachers were treated...and often, going into meetings there, would feel like descending into tortuous hours, where we all just knew we would be told what to do and how to do it....same territory covered constantly as if we needed to be drilled like children...this does not happen at the inventive and brave meetings chaired by Bill W. at Steinhardt...he is a tremendously smart and sensitive man who handles many complexities with a certain grace that I admire.....we made a date for lunch next week.