"End of Summer" by Stanley Kunitz

An agitation of the air,

A perturbation of the light

Admonished me the unloved year

Would turn on its hinge that night.

 

I stood in the disenchanted field

Amid the stubble and the stones,

Amazed, while a small worm lisped to me

The song of my marrow-bones.

 

Blue poured into summer blue,

A hawk broke from his cloudless tower,

The roof of the silo blazed, and I knew

That part of my life was over.

 

Already the iron door of the north

Clangs open: birds, leaves, snows

Order their populations forth,

And a cruel wind blows.

— Stanley Kunitz, "End of Summer" from The Collected Poems of Stanley Kunitz

 

Things I want to remember about this week 8/9-8/14: a List

Oh London. I have returned. I am new. I am unchanged. The World is altered. The World is the same.

 Standing in on the same patch of the South Bank I stood upon on March 16, 2020 -- the day before the world closed down, and seeing that the river, the bridges, the city, the sky-- are all still here. 

I will never tire of a stroll through Borough Market and the bells of Southwark Cathedral.

Reunion with my dearest London pals the day before rehearsal. So much has changed. So much has not.

Finding this "Banksy" on my walk to work...

Marvelling how every. single. item is literally exactly where we left it 18 months ago... 

Not to recreate. But to create anew...

I took this photo on March 16, 2020, after a desperately sad, confused, and terrified walk to the theatre to retrieve my belongings, and I wept for our show and the world. I didn’t know if I would ever see this marquee—and all it represents—ever again. The next day I boarded a ghostly-empty plane home to New York and we all know what came next…

Tomorrow I return to the Menier Chocolate Factory and to Indecent in London, reuniting with the same, small group of people I was “in the plane crash with.”

I don’t know that I have ever been filled with so many emotions the night before a first (re)rehearsal. Yes, excited, joyous, relieved, moved and SO grateful; but equally anxious, terrified, overwhelmed, underwhelmed, and desperately sad. All of it. These, plus countless questions…

All I can do is serve.

Everything is exactly the same (the same clothes, props, words, shoes, even the wigs are in the middle of being re-set…) Yet NOTHING is the same.
Nothing.
Not the world.
Not my physical body.

I miss my husband and family.
I feel faraway from my medical team.
Yet, when your job has always been more than “just a job,” when it is a calling, one answers the call. And it sometimes comes with great sacrifices.

After everything we have collectively and personally endured, I’m re-evaluating and re-weighing what all of it means to me in so changed a reality.

You too?

I think living inside Uncertainty is more than merely “healthy,” it is an essential part of claiming our human-right to peace. But living inside Uncertainty is a practice, and one I endeavor to, daily.

So here we go.   

“From the ashes we rise…” 

Not to recreate. But to create anew.

 

The [RE]humanization of our role models

I have a couple of things to say as a person sometimes in a position of leadership, role-modeling or mentorship.

I think we all could benefit from the reminder that the people we look to as teachers, mentors, guides, inspirations, wisdom-sharers, and leaders are also only human - just like you.

Admiring people to the point of assuming they are all-knowing, or have it figured out for everyone, is not actually flattering OR kind. In fact, it bypasses their inherent humanity, which leads to easy and huge disappointment.

That disappointment occurs when the person we admire displays anything other than our idea of their perceived perfection. It also separates them from us and creates/perpetuates hierarchies that are not actually real or helpful.

We've been conditioned to do this. Hopefully, once we see how unhelpful and unnatural it truly is, we can choose to try and unlearn this.

When we forget this, we essentially remove their permission (in our eyes) to be a whole person.

All to say, I am, just like you, ALSO only human. I'm moving through my own nuanced, messy, not-always-100%-correct decisions, experiences, and life.
As are we all.