A View From the Road

My play was accepted into the Saskatchewan Playwright Centre’s Spring Festival of New Plays.  It’s going to be matched to a top Canadian director, a dramaturge, and a dedicated company of professional actors.  It’s going to get four days of workshopping and a public reading in May.  From there it will be ready to be shopped to theatre companies all over the world.

As I wrote before, I have tweaks, changes, and about three new scenes to write for it, but I intentionally held off until hearing from the SPC.  Now I can implement those changes and have the best possible version of the play ready for the workshops.  Needless to say, I am really pleased with this news.

I spent the night at the Radison in Saskatoon.  The view out my 15th story window was great.  Raegan and I had a great time on Sunday night consuming red wine, gin, pizza, and laughing ‘till our smiles hurt.

After lunch she hit the highway and I hit Starbucks to write a development proposal.  That’s how my first work day of 2010 began.  It seemed appropriate that it took place in a coffee shop on a road trip.  I have lots of travel in my plans this year.  I intend to be in Toronto later this month, and I have a trip to San Diego booked in February.  I may yet take in a television market in Washington DC in early February and there’s still a shoot in Bucharest coming up soon.

Today I’m back in Regina and it will be a day of paperwork.  I want to get all the business stuff out of the way so I can focus on the shitload of writing I can now start on for ‘Moccasin Enterprises’.  Once that project’s complete, I have to start writing for ‘Crimes of the Art’.

It seems there’s a lot of writing in my future as well.

Saskatoon Ponderings Upon A Dichotomy

I’m doing an overnighter in Saskatoon today and I’m going to be hanging out with my friend Raegen.  I first met her on a plane a couple of years ago and we’ve kept the channel open ever since.  With a heavy heart she’s making the drive from Edmonton to Saskatoon, and will be leaving her son with her ex in time for school.  It’s similar to the feeling I felt when I put Jazzy on a plane a few days ago.  I wish I could just split her in two so we could each have a piece, but that would only cause her to stop breathing.

I’ve had ample time to think about my headspace since I first posted my ‘Crossroads’ article.  To recap, I was wrestling with the vulnerability and imbalance I felt by hitching my wagon to Court.

On the drive up, I figured out that I was my own worst enemy.  I stopped moving.  I stopped going with the flow and I clung desperately to the ghost of a moment that long since passed.  Court needed to move on down life’s flowing river to take care of things in her life.  I tried to stay in the place we were, when we first met.  The longer I stayed in that place, the more vulnerable and imbalanced I became.

I pinned my happiness to another individual and that’s always a losing proposition, even under the best of circumstances.  The only thing in life that I have control over, is myself.  My happiness tends to be pinned to my expectations and it’s a lot more realistic and easier to control my expectations for a situation, than to try and blindly change the situation through blunt force of will.

I saw my situation as a dichotomy, a choice between either pursuing a desired outcome or giving up.  Decisions in life should never be reduced to such dualities.  Life unfolds dynamically, and decisions in life should mirror that reality.

Life is in constant forward motion.  I get what I want out of it when I’m going with the flow, evolving and dynamically adapting to opportunities and obstacles along the way.  I tried to anchor myself to a memory and I blinded myself to the way forward as a result.

Courtney is Courtney, and I am me.  She is my friend and the journey we take as individuals will not change the fact that I choose to care about her, even as I move on with my own life.  I am no longer concerned with our outcome because, as so many have said before, life is a journey, not a destination.

New Year’s Day

I was sitting at the bar yesterday in O’Hanlon’s reading about how life is like a river that constantly flows, interacting with its environment, and creating yet new harmonious patterns.  Then suddenly my stream of consciousness was interrupted by a beautiful woman in a strapless dress, who wanted to talk to me.  Her name was Cheryl and she was a bride’s maid in a wedding party.

As with most wedding parties, this one came with a bride and groom, Kimberly & Clayton.  They wanted what I had, and Cheryl was the girl tasked with getting it.  She explained that my spot at the bar would make a great photo opportunity for the bride.  Kimberly was indeed a beautiful bride, and her dress was equally strapless.  I realized that the act of her, or any other bride’s maid, climbing on top that bar, may lead to a boob falling out.  I was happy to oblige.

I very quickly, and mildly, slipped into filmmaker mode.  I made some subtle adjustments to the scenery, placing chairs and even providing my half drunk pint ‘o Keith’s as a prop.  When all was said and done, the wedding party even paid for my pint.  How’s that for going with the flow?

No boobs fell out, but it was still the highlight of my day.

After that I headed to my cousin Patti’s house where Mike and Tammy were staying.  We had a fondu and a few drinks.  Before too long I realized that I was going to be stuck there for the night, having tipped back one too many glasses of champagne.

It was still a New Year’s spent with lang syne people in my life, except this night featured more drama.   These were drunken dysfunctional family members rather than just friends I go back to high school with.  There were a lot of laughs, and even a few tears.  It’s always good to find ways to keep the channel open with people I’ve known all my life but see very little of.  With that said, I feel bad for crapping out on Shawn last night.  Next time you see him, tell him I owe him a beer.

So now I’m sitting at a table in a coffee shop writing in my blog, and once again am wondering what to do with my day.  I don’t really feel like making plans.  Three guys are playing Backgammon at the table next to me, and I may introduce myself to them.  Beyond that, nothing really leaps out at me.

They say the first day of a new year is always a good time for new resolutions and reflections but I don’t really feel like doing that this year.  I’m still getting lots of mileage out of old resolutions and reflections and I’m really happy with the direction my life has taken.  I’ll continue to set goals and roll with the flows, but more than anything, I feel like I have unfinished business with the lessons I thought I learned from the serendipitous happenings of 2009.

Have a great year everyone!  May all of life’s boobs grace your falls through all your journeys though 2010!