This is what I just said to myself out loud after sitting down and finally making time to write stuff down. I want to. I really do. But July seriously got away from me. Slippery thing that month is. And it's not like it was filled with sunshine or anything because here in Seattle summer really didn't start until August for the first time in the 17 years I've lived here. The grumbling about the weather gets old but we just can't help ourselves. We're so light-deficient as it is we all take Vitamin D supplements. We are due, Mother Nature, so if you can hear us.. an Indian Summer wouldn't be out of place, if you know what I'm saying.. and I think you do..
But despite the fact that March lasted for five months, I feel like my life finally turned a corner in July. There's a lot to explain so let's get started..
It began with a vacation to Arch Cape, Oregon to meet my mom and my extended family on my dad's side. My aunt and uncle in Portland, Or take the trip every year but my immediate family doesn't always go. My two other aunts and uncles who live in Tucson and Winnipeg respectively were also there and it's rare to see them even once a year so the time spent was really precious.
We played cribbage and Mexican Train - a fantastic domino game, read, ate really really well, listened to stories my uncles would tell about growing up and when they would all get in trouble like the time when Grandpa was so mad at my dad that Dad jumped out of the second-story window to get away from him. We took long walks along the beach, took as many naps as we wanted and just absorbed each other's company. I got some good time with my 9-year-old cousin, Maeve, who's brilliant and precocious and also with my cousin Jon and his wife and their new little boy I'd never met. I really try not to take family for granted like I did when I was growing up, but these moments make me realize I wish I had more time with all of them. They're fun and wonderful from this adult perspective.
I stopped to visit my gram in Vancouver, WA on the way to the beach and took a run at the park near her house.. so gorgeous that day.
My cousin, Maeve, in her little beach hideaway she 'renovated'. Her word.
I went for a run on the beach, which sucked (because I couldn't pace myself at all), but this picture did not.
We went on a five mile walk to Cannon Beach on our last morning and finally the tide was out far enough to see some starfish!
One of my favorite pictures with the Hipstamatic app on my iPhone with a filtered lens from the movie Cowboys & Aliens. Yes really.
My aunt and uncle who live in Portland are the couple in the foreground. I love this shot. Haystack Rock, in Cannon Beach, is in front of them.
A different shot of Haystack Rock..
My mom and I are another story. We bickered most of the time we spent together that week, which really disappointed me. Finally something broke near the end and the next morning, we saw eye to eye but it was a hard road to get there. Honestly, I think she just started making an effort. She's a wonderfully generous person overall - but I feel like a little kid around her when we see each other because I don't get that she values our time when I'm right in front of her. And I behave like a brat trying to vie for her attention. I get guilt trips over the phone, but when I make the time to visit, I feel like I might as well be invisible. I'm not sure what that's all about even thinking about it now, but at some point, I gave up trying to understand and she tried a bit harder and it ended up somewhere in the middle of tolerable. I miss the friendship we created when my step-dad was alive. He had this influence on her and she was so happy it was suddenly so easy to be around her for almost three years. I love that she's happy with the boyfriend she has now, but she's changed and I'm not sure how to get the friend back I had in her.
When I headed for my road trip to the beach, I felt like the weight of the world had finally lifted. I made what felt like a big decision to leave OCT, the theater company I'd been with for a year and a half. We'd moved out of our space due to financial reasons and since the spring, when we'd begun our production of Rocky Horror, I hadn't felt intrinsically involved anyway. I tried really hard to insert myself during that time, but for whatever reason, I couldn't get in and couldn't get anyone to talk to me about what I could do to help. So I offered my assistance to Theater Schmeater, another company that had reached out to me last fall. They were glad to have me, I took on the asst stage manager position for the upcoming Twilight Zones show and my theater world suddenly started to bloom. I met a really lovely and cohesive group of people, learned what I'd been doing wrong in the past from my new friend Peggotty (a nickname she helped me pick from one of the Zones episodes) who is a phenomenal stage manager, and realized something was missing in my life that thus had to change.
When we started our next show, Ajax, a Greek tragedy that was to end our season, I'd cleared up some misunderstandings with OCT and felt a bit like I was back where I could help. But the people involved in Rocky felt overextended and therefore weren't around much to help with Ajax. I felt a bit abandoned at times, like a scapegoat at others and I was simply treading water just to get the damn thing opened. It was far from an enjoyable experience and a few of my company relationships unfortunately suffered irreparable damage because of it.
The cast, however, was pretty amazing and a great help. Many of them came from my ex's company, Balagan, and tho I had a lot of anxiety about working with them, it was like old times and they put any fears I had to rest. Getting reacquainted with them was great but until opening night, when The Boy appeared at the ticket booth I was manning, I didn't think much of it.
But there he was.. right in front of me. After TWO YEARS of virtual silence and finding out over Facebook the day I returned from Burning Man last year that he was engaged, we were face to face and smiling at each other. I knew he was coming, but it didn't help my nerves. Yet somehow I forced myself to see the positive in the situation because I was so over feeling crappy about it. We hugged, made a point to sit down during the opening night party and had a long, overdue talk that completely cleared the air of all the pain and sadness caused from not being friends. All at once, it was just gone and it was all so easy. We found humor in our messed up communication and we finally and completely buried our past. It was an enormous relief and I couldn't have been happier about it.
A few weeks later, it was time to make that change and I knew what I had to do. I emailed him and asked if he could see me back in his company again and that's where we are now. I'm stage managing their upcoming show in the fall, Dog Sees God - about the Peanuts characters almost all grown up and in high school but undeniably more twisted and fucked up than the cartoon strip - and then they'll vote on me being their company Production Manager around the time that show opens in October.
In the meantime, I took on working both weekends of 14/48 - the short (and insane but amazing) theater festival that happens twice a year. Seven 10-minute plays are created by as many playwrights the night before and the following day they're staged, designed and tech'd to be performed that night based on a theme drawn from The Cone of Destiny. That night, after the first performance, a new theme is drawn and the process starts all over again the next day. The next weekend, a new group does it all again. This year, they had the women do the first weekend and the men do the second. I ran the lights the first and assistant stage managed the second - which was A LOT more work and A LOT more exhausting - but so rewarding. My theater world actually exploded exponentially during this time, the talent pool was simply stunning to watch, and shockingly, I think I did a good job, which made me feel incredibly proud of myself.
Last but not least, July brought forth a spark that has me smiling so much these days my face actually hurts. I'll call him Bernstein, from an inside joke we have. He's 34 - yay! - fairly grounded and has some pretty kind eyes, which Shine has ingrained in me unintentionally is something important to have and I couldn't agree more. He's in my next cast and I met him at our photo shoot for press. That could complicate things, but we don't think it will. I noticed him immediately, but wasn't sure I should pay that thought any real attention and then he came to one of the 14/48 performances and we chatted a lot. When I went backstage after that, I noticed I had butterflies. I can't remember the last time since The Boy I had those.
I saw him in his show the following Sunday and he was fantastic. I met him and the cast for drinks afterwards and we just stuck together most of the night. The butterflies multiplied. Tho I was too nervous to say anything when he walked me to my car, we did come clean over texts like 16-year-olds once we got home.
Surprisingly, a date still has yet to happen because he went to Eastern Washington with his current show right after and will be back Monday night but there's a palpable excitement to see each other pretty close to immediately once he returns. Until then, we've had a couple of phone calls that lasted well into the wee hours and the stupid giggling on both sides no one else would understand but it's all kinds of awesome.
Next on the calendar is Burning Man. My virgin sponsee and friend of 16 years, Anthony, and I leave in three weeks exactly! My girlfriends who aren't in our camp, Sasha and Sophia, are riding down with us. It certainly won't be boring, but there's still lots of planning and preparing to do. My butterflies are working overtime, I tell you..
This year's theme is Rites of Passage. I can't explain how appropriate this feels for me. I didn't recognize how transitional this year would be until I had some time to see it in retrospect and finally, I can see it as it's happening.. like I've caught up to the realizations because they're wrapping me up in this warm blanket of energizing love. I don't know if I should call it luck or karma or what.. but whatever it is, it's about time and it's fucking fantastic.
