Quiet Time

All of us at the end.

Our play, "Box, Window, Door" ended in a cloudburst of chaos, despite getting a rave review. Last Saturday night (the night before our next set of performances started on Sunday), the entire cast left the show. We had pre-sold tickets for Sunday. I had lined up an entire evening of music. It was a nightmare. Angela Grillo (the director), Evelyn Stettin (the playwright), Ricardo Gonzalez (the stage manager) and I managed to put together a presentation for the audience explaining the process of creating the play based on dreams, explaining the protagonist's story, and explaining a bit some of the symbols and images that recur in the play.  We performed some selections from the show and had a "question and answer" session after. It actually went very well. The audience was attentive, interested and had a lot of good questions afterward.



Then my band played and we had some Irish whiskey.



Sackjo22 + 3



Now that the play is over and the large case I had been working on since August has settled, I feel like I can, need to, and should spend some quiet time just writing, processing how I have been feeling, thinking deeply about things, paying some attention to my home and garden which are terribly neglected, and writing down my dreams (my real dreams not my aspirations). I had laryngitis this week.  I never get laryngitis.  I imagine that is my body's way of informing me I need some quiet time.  It's hard for me to occupy that quiet space for fear of being forgotten.

Saturday Space

Yesterday was the first Saturday in a long time when I have not been burdened by work -- legal or creative -- or by illness.  The sense of peace as I sat in the early spring garden was more like a memory as I have not yet really transitioned from the space of heart-full anxiety to quiet.  Yet the garden was quietly lovely with bird song, intermittent car noises from the road behind the apartments behind our garden (those sounds like waves crashing on the shore), and the white noise hum of various engines or generators belonging to the neighbors.  There were clouds so the light was not purely clear, but the clouds were big, billowing gestures in the sky.  The breeze was soft.  Perennial blooms have burst and I was grateful to sit among them, the palette of the garden gently green, purple, pink, blue, as lavender, pink jasmine, daisy, rosemary and mallow flower.  Bees hummed too.  I was not able to see from where I sat under the lemon tree, but roses have started to blossom as well.

Clearly, I have not been "shomer shabbat" as I have sacrificed that peace for "duty."  Still, I value Shabbat and look forward to this trend continuing -- to have my Saturday space back, to be in my home with my family, Shabbat morning my time for reflection.