Trying something here
My cup has been running over lately and with it my wordcount; the experience of wrapping up my career as a school teacher and restarting that of theatre artist has got me chattier than usual, brimming with thoughts I want to share. In the runup to my directing début in Brussels, Two Gentlemen of Verona, I was writing social media posts –admittedly intended in part as marketing but also as an outlet for the reflections and observations that were occurring to me daily. Time was shifting, telescoping and teleporting me between this production and past ones of the same play. Also in the mix were my thoughts and emotions as my life as a teacher waned.
A handful of friends were kind enough to read to the bottom of those heartfelt posts, about the meaning each character and collaborator held for me, but even as I wrote them I knew there was probably a more appropriate medium for them. I have felt the pull of writing for a while and suspected I would only have more to say as I enter my first year of retirement, one already programmed to the hilt with months of planned travel and yet another production sure to generate another director’s notebook worth of thoughts: my son’s play Homunculus, which we aim to produce in Brussels, then take all the way to the Edinburgh Fringe. In short, I’m sure to have too much to say, and I thought this might be the moment to migrate the musings to a new platform.
Mixed in with these musings in the moment will surely be some of the memoirs I’ve been chipping away at over the past few years, starting with some surprising ancestor stories I’ve learned in recent years that I want to share and amplify.
Hard to say who will come along to read what I write, but whoever you are to have read this far, I gratefully welcome you and hope you will read on.