The Patience of the Bricklayer

New post. May 1st. Two months since the last one. Almost. Right on schedule.

I'm in the next phase of launching the theatre project, which is to begin doing something instead of lots of clerical paper shuffling, organizing & imagining. Not that this phase is all that different, it just involves so much more actual contact with people and self-promotion. We are awaiting word back on our non-profit/ tax exempt status- no real sense in when that may actually come through- as well as a decision about a grant, which we were expecting to hear from "by the end of April". I decided I should contact them just to check in, keep abreast of the process and remind them that we are still here. They responded very nicely and appologetically that their board will be meeting tomorrow evening, May 2nd, and will contact me about their decision. So- still waiting.

I seem to do well at waiting. Most people believe this about me & are impressed by the ability to be patient, still & to trust. We all know that waiting is an excruciating excersize in suspended animation, each episode comprising seconds of infinite length making up something akin to an historical epoch. It's surreal & not very entertaining. It's boring & it sucks, but wait we must. Fortunately there are other things to do and this is why we have hobbies & avocations. So we wait & busy ourselves with other things.

I'm in a bit of a quandary with those three topics: non-profit/ tax exempt status, grants & waiting. The initial grant will help me to better determine what I do next & what scale it will involve while the status determination will help to receive firther funding with other grants. The next phase will depend upon doing a production so that I can demonstrate, or prove, that we are worthy of some major risk brokerage & backing. Meanwhile there are stones to be hewn, landscapes to be surveyed, mortor to be mixed, workers to muster & ground to be broken. "The patience of the bricklayer is assumed in the plans of the architect". That's a line from a poem I read decades ago, the only line from it that has stuck with me. I've long forgotten who wrote it so excuse me for not giving credit.

Last Wednesday we had our first board meeting & celebration. Three of us went to a local upscale restaurant, Food 101, & enjoyed a wonderful dinner while I reviewed the process accomplished & plans for this next step in developing the organization. I had prayed the week before & felt that I wasn't to be too concerned with the non-profit status & grant determanition, which I mostly had managed to be concern & worry free, and that I should begin focusing on mounting a production & shooting for our first performance in September/ October.

we're currently experiencing technical difficulties...

I figured that the major problem with keeping a blog would be the regular updating of it. So it is. I probably don't have the correct priority ratio going on here since my dedication to posting on my blog is very, very low in comparison to what I feel is important: starting & organizing a theatre company, writing, composing music, finding grants to apply for, applying for grants, researching & developing material, designing... writing for the church, ministering to others through faith & arts, and deriving creative ways to draw us all closer to God and into the bigger picture... etc ad nauseum. None of that in any particular order except to say that writing a blog about anything, let alone about all of this, absolutely comes last. I mean, have you noticed the span of time between this post and the previous one? I feel that may actually be good. Believe you me - I've read many blogs out there. No comment other than, like television, I've found it a pretty good practice to cease and desist. I could write about my current adventures in freelancedom: hitting the Regional Entertainment Production & Administrative job expo in Boston last Saturday, recording, copyrighting, publishing and distributing a CD portfolio for said same, applying for a grant from the Foursquare Foundation, applying for a DUNS number & registering my small business as a non-profit so that I can apply for another upcoming grant... and so on & so on. I think you probably get the point here- not exactly the most exciting stuff to read, and I'm fresh out of pointless rants to post to the hordes of faceless non-entities surfing through the blog bog out there. Although recent developments in the Port Dubai Transit Authority department have got me on my toes and away from this mezmerizing Orwellian magic mirror we call cyberspace...

When I do write again- when I have the time and I feel I actually have something to say- I'll try to make it engaging & worthy of expending your time and brain power on. Maybe- just maybe- it will be insightful, thought provoking, clever, encouraging & inspirational. Someting to strive for and live up to. Anyone getting the hint out there?

still life, moving fast ...

I'm slowly making the virtual move out of my studio and into the world of being a mendicant by avocation & necessity. The first of the year was slated for self promotion- hey... here we have a blog now- and that fell away as I received a generous offering of computer malfunctions and the time consuming reinstallation of the operating system and all programs. The holiday lag tapered as I made my way through 7 to 14 & then 21 days of intensive cybertherapy with my laptop. An unhealthy emotional transference was forged and we had to cease our regular meetings for awhile, but I can't live with out the thing. It's like white zinfandel in a box- instant state of the art creativity which has superceded a natural predilection toward purity and patience in honing a craft. No seasoned vintner here, waiting for the fruits of the harvest after weathering a harsh, trying year. It's February first now. I've come back to beg of it some gracious assistance toward organizing my life in accelerated real time. There's research to be done, grant proposals to be written & submitted, promotional material to be developed, printed, published and distributed- all via this same wunderboxe which I use to write with, to compose music, to illustrate and design with and to communicate to the world at large and my family in the next room. The fact isn't lost on me that one hundred years ago people were far more productive without computers than we seem to be with them, but I can't break away from it. Having a fairly reliable reference library, world music ensemble, vocation counselor and research assistant available 24/7- particularly at 3:00 AM- in my studio is a futuristic dream come true and a bargain that I'm not willing to part with. From here on it's to infinity & beyond. And practice, practice, practice... together.