Wednesday, December 02, 2009
This San Francisco Vacation
Day after tomorrow, at about this time, I'll be taking off to return to Abingdon, to home and husband and job and pups....i miss Peter and the dogs, so it'll be nice to get home. BUT: i am definitely leaving a part of my freshly re-raised consciousness here, in this very beautiful CIty by the Bay....like Tony Bennett, I can sing, as my jet raises up over the Ocean, "I left my heart in San Francisco..."...or at least a small corner of it, which is now reserved for future things to come.
It has been a terrific series of days, culminating in my being able to spend time with my old mentor/director and friend Barbara Damashek out in Berkeley...the minute I saw her standing by the BART Station to pick me up, I started crying...i had no idea I would weep like that ...but something in me simply relaxed with a release of tension and fatigue that made me cry because why? Because I knew I would finally be back in the presence of someone who so "gets" me, and who has always so "gotten" me from the moment we met on a windy NYC street corner (42nd and 9th, it was)...that I knew I was back at a sort of "home" again, and that made me cry with happiness. I have always said I would run away with any circus Barbara Damashek ever asked me to join...
Since that afternoon on 9th Avenue when she looked up at me (she is tiny and short) and said "You're Evalyn Baron, aren't you? I want you to be in a show i wrote" -and took me from my bus stop over to the 42nd Street studio where she was holding auditions for QUILTERS, and from which studio I emerged 2 hours later dazzled by all the music she played for me - and I knew I'd be going to Pittsburgh! - Ever since that moment in time, I have loved and admired this remarkable theatre artist....i have known her heart and have always been challenged and intrigued by it...not to mention comforted by her pure dear soul....i didn't realize how much I've been missing her. She's been living out in Kensington, next to Berkeley for over 25 years now, and this is the first time i have seen her home out here.
She drove me around for a couple of hours, showing me all the "bones" of Berkeley, Oakland, and surroundings, from the top of the highest hill (what a view of the Bay: you can see the curvature of the Earth, it's so vast a view) all the way to the Bay shoreline where we sat and talked and talked and talked, until we met Paul and Stephen in Berkeley for dinner at what has fast become our favorite Mandarin Chinese restaurant there. Then, we all went to see Issa in concert at Freight and Storage there...(formerly Jane Siberry, Issa has enthralled Stephen and both he and Paul have become fans and supporters of her work)...a great day all the way around....I now have Barbara Damashek back in my life, and I will keep her in it ...i will keep her in it.
Time and space to rest, read and listen have done good things for me out here, and if i can take some of the Thich Nhat Hanh training I have become interested in back with me, the anticipation of viewing and experiencing my life back in VIrginia as a challenge and opportunity to grow in important spiritual ways may help me in ways I can't begin to calculate at this time. One thing I do know: there is much I am being called on to learn and grow from in this time of my life, and if there is one thing I am certain of it's that I do want to grow and change in ways that I know I need and that will enrich my life from now on.....
I've always believed that things in a life are not accidental...that things happen for our enrichment's sake,even if we think they happen for quite opposite reasons....so these particular years of change - this entire time of transition - is to be viewed, and will be viewed by me as yet another form of Graduate School: for yet another terminal degree in living Life.
THis trip has been like a Preparatory School session for the next "semester"....and the bell will ring any minute now for the start of class.
But first, more Pacific Ocean, more beach, more beauty....and to you guys? More soon.
It has been a terrific series of days, culminating in my being able to spend time with my old mentor/director and friend Barbara Damashek out in Berkeley...the minute I saw her standing by the BART Station to pick me up, I started crying...i had no idea I would weep like that ...but something in me simply relaxed with a release of tension and fatigue that made me cry because why? Because I knew I would finally be back in the presence of someone who so "gets" me, and who has always so "gotten" me from the moment we met on a windy NYC street corner (42nd and 9th, it was)...that I knew I was back at a sort of "home" again, and that made me cry with happiness. I have always said I would run away with any circus Barbara Damashek ever asked me to join...
Since that afternoon on 9th Avenue when she looked up at me (she is tiny and short) and said "You're Evalyn Baron, aren't you? I want you to be in a show i wrote" -and took me from my bus stop over to the 42nd Street studio where she was holding auditions for QUILTERS, and from which studio I emerged 2 hours later dazzled by all the music she played for me - and I knew I'd be going to Pittsburgh! - Ever since that moment in time, I have loved and admired this remarkable theatre artist....i have known her heart and have always been challenged and intrigued by it...not to mention comforted by her pure dear soul....i didn't realize how much I've been missing her. She's been living out in Kensington, next to Berkeley for over 25 years now, and this is the first time i have seen her home out here.
She drove me around for a couple of hours, showing me all the "bones" of Berkeley, Oakland, and surroundings, from the top of the highest hill (what a view of the Bay: you can see the curvature of the Earth, it's so vast a view) all the way to the Bay shoreline where we sat and talked and talked and talked, until we met Paul and Stephen in Berkeley for dinner at what has fast become our favorite Mandarin Chinese restaurant there. Then, we all went to see Issa in concert at Freight and Storage there...(formerly Jane Siberry, Issa has enthralled Stephen and both he and Paul have become fans and supporters of her work)...a great day all the way around....I now have Barbara Damashek back in my life, and I will keep her in it ...i will keep her in it.
Time and space to rest, read and listen have done good things for me out here, and if i can take some of the Thich Nhat Hanh training I have become interested in back with me, the anticipation of viewing and experiencing my life back in VIrginia as a challenge and opportunity to grow in important spiritual ways may help me in ways I can't begin to calculate at this time. One thing I do know: there is much I am being called on to learn and grow from in this time of my life, and if there is one thing I am certain of it's that I do want to grow and change in ways that I know I need and that will enrich my life from now on.....
I've always believed that things in a life are not accidental...that things happen for our enrichment's sake,even if we think they happen for quite opposite reasons....so these particular years of change - this entire time of transition - is to be viewed, and will be viewed by me as yet another form of Graduate School: for yet another terminal degree in living Life.
THis trip has been like a Preparatory School session for the next "semester"....and the bell will ring any minute now for the start of class.
But first, more Pacific Ocean, more beach, more beauty....and to you guys? More soon.
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