How I learned to ....

**BLOGGER'S NOTE: Ex-Kenyon folks, please feel free to comment on your post-Kenyon feelings/thoughts/emotions, without or with sympathy. I am just curious to know what you're thinking, how you're dealing, advice you have for me. But do be honest. **

Here we go:

Whoa.

After, um, 2.5 hours sleep on Thursday night following my equally-long Requiem concert that evening, I awoke on Saturday at 3:50 AM to pack and throw myself on another airplane toward Gambier, starting a weekend which would leave me entirely sleepless until 4 pm Sunday afternoon, at which point I would sleep straight through the night until 9 am this morning. Talk about the early bird special. The early Drunk Bird special.

On the way back to the airport at 4 am on Sunday morning, I tried my very best to stay awake in order to keep Erin company. I succeeded only about half, the most amusing part of my efforts coming when Erin asked me a question about someone at Kenyon and I proceeded to explain their situation. Halfway through my explanation, I realized that I was a) half asleep again and b) discussing whether or not this freshman Koke had a "subscription". I didn't even have to be at work until Tuesday and it was bleeding into my brain already. Anyway, I very much doubt he does have a subscription to the BSO.

The weekend was .... I don't know. It was great. In some ways I worry it was too great. There, I said it, so you can all save your hushed suggestions that perhaps I am still too attached to school. It was great to use a shared vocabulary again, other than one involving flexpasses, patron numbers or train destinations. It was great that so many appreciated that I had come back, and it was great to see Stew and Anna do their thesis (I cried), which was a remarkable show. It was great to be in a place that made me feel things. Good things, happy things, proud things, sad things, things based on experiences and people and not on just Myself.

It was great to know that something that had been intelectually discussed and analyzed and decided against still existed with someone else despite our best mental efforts, even if that means it was also a bit agonizing. Just a bit.

Kenyon is the place where I did things that I am the most proud of to this day. I am not the logical, sensible sort of person that is "proud" of "making a life" here. In many ways, i did the easy thing anyway. I know the city already. My parents are a T ride away if I forgot a skirt. I would like to be in a Place that I can go back to and be glad that I graduated, that I can go back to Kenyon and and be glad I did too, because that would be easier for me. I don't mean a real place, because Boston is great and I'm often happy that I am in Boston instead of Gambier, and the people I know here from Kenyon and high school and wherever else are great, too. But I guess I often do not feel fulfilled anymore, and that is my own fault, and not theirs.

Erin was saying in a past blog that she felt worried about going back because Kenyon is no longer home and she is afraid she no longer has a place there. That sounds normal. For me, it's the opposite. Which can't be normal. Every time I am there I feel as though I have Come Home, as though I have a Purpose and Potential. I also feel Novel and, not gonna lie, that helps too, since things have a tendency to get monotonous and anonymity-shrouded during daily routine here (".... the destination of this train is .... government center). I am no longer a beautiful and unique snowflake, etc.

Most of all, Kenyon provided me with what I miss most of all -- a big community of friends, working toward a common cause (survival). By the way, I hate eating alone. Some people don't mind it. I do. I am so sick of it.

My job is fine, it really is. It's not like the other one and does not require Dire Action. But it is one's typical Ticket Work, boring but with the potential of horrid screw ups around every turn, and pays so little that it leaves me worrying about money all the time (so, seemingly, does not alleviate the one stress that work indeed should). And it's not Kenyon. And yes, I do remember how much I complained.

How strange to think that 6 months ago I didn't have to give a thought to paying rent. And that I thought buying my own food would be novel. My dad says I am chronically unhappy, a trait which, we both agree, must have been inherited from him. I think, personally, that I am just Dumb and that I would be happier if I stopped screwing it up (whatever that entails).

I talked to Jon (Tazewell) for about twenty minutes before the play started on Saturday, and he told me basically the same things that Daniel does. I did ask him to elaborate on whether he felt I needed to do anything different to build my resume if I am someone interested in academic theatre. He said no. OK, fine, whatever. Here I go, joining Stage Source to put on my first rickety production. What does it mean that my favorite part of directing is working with the actors and not the designers? Why don't I ever think about what I want my shows to look like? Why do I think about it all the time now but not while it mattered? Why is it that the career of a succesful director is no more stable than the career of an opera singer? Am I doomed to be an Assistant Director forever because that is what I like doing?? I am so frightened of the pretense, of the need to Make a Name for Myself, of everything Riding On everything.

Eh. Breath. Through research, I have discovered that I actually should seriously look into dramaturgy, seriously. As a second thought, being Mehleis (the beyond-awesome English/Theatre High school teacher/director who both saved and changed my life in HS) keep popping into my mind, as they have been for like 5 years. Again, not a bad way to make a living. I am a person who enjoys teaching, who enjoys showing others how to find their creative voice within the context of a, basically, right way to do things. I am a person who also enjoys the magical combination of routine without drudgery.

In any case, any case at all, I should join Stage Source and I should do SOMETHING in 2008 that no one has to give me permission to do, other than the building renter. ::Picks up 'Streetcar named Desire, puts on adapting hat, stares at text::

Anyway, if there's one cheery thing that has come out of this entry, it should be that I love and appreciate People most of all. Thank you, everybody. I like you, a lot.