Thursday, November 03, 2005
The Closest Thing I Can Liken it to is Alien Abduction
What a day (this is coming to you a day after the “what a day” day). It was long in the usual sense of long – I had physio at 8am, class at 10, rehearsal at 1.30 and work at 6. I’m just getting home and it’s 11pm. However, it’s not that that made the day so crazy.
1) 9.45am Barbara asks how I’m liking the process, and I tell her I’m loving it, and for the first time admit that I don’t really want to go home. It’s very complicated to let that stuff out into the open, because the implication is that I leave Ben completely, put the Thistle Project on indefinite hold, sell my condo, sell the contents, basically, leave my friends and family, and start over on the coast.
2) 11.45am walking home for lunch, I start thinking about Ben, and the fact that sleeping in the same bed with him was very easy, and about his beauty, and the easy affection from him. I call him, which is an emotional mistake, since I’ve said that I’m not going to think about him until I return in December, and figure out the situation at that time.
3) 1.20pm walking back to the studio I’m thinking more about Ben, and realise that if I’m brutally honest with myself, I’d leave him for my career, because it’s more important. And not only that I’d leave Ben, but more on the grand scheme of things: in a theoretical universe where I have to choose between my vocation (in the classical sense of the word – my calling), and a soul mate, I choose the vocation.
4) 5.25pm checking my messages, I have one from Christine, my best friend in the known and unknown universe (my surgically removed Siamese twin/wife if we lived in the 30’s/Artistic Co-Director of the Thistle Project/co-writer of the Gorey piece), announcing that we’ve been awarded $3000 for the workshop of our Gorey piece, conditional upon the granting of rights from the estate, which has already occurred. This takes care of whether I’m going back to Toronto or not – I’m at least going back for the month of July, and a week in August to organise and participate in the workshop.
5) 10.10pm in conversation with Ronya, I articulate the fact that though these sorts of difficult decisions – between love and vocation (which are still issues despite the fact that I’m definitely going back) – are harder, but better, and better simply by virtue of the fact that they are harder. That is, the fact that one must struggle with the decisions makes one confront one’s vitality – it makes you know you’re alive. And this is a good enough reason to rejoice in the dilemma.
So that’s a pretty full day, I’d say. I’m going to bed.
1) 9.45am Barbara asks how I’m liking the process, and I tell her I’m loving it, and for the first time admit that I don’t really want to go home. It’s very complicated to let that stuff out into the open, because the implication is that I leave Ben completely, put the Thistle Project on indefinite hold, sell my condo, sell the contents, basically, leave my friends and family, and start over on the coast.
2) 11.45am walking home for lunch, I start thinking about Ben, and the fact that sleeping in the same bed with him was very easy, and about his beauty, and the easy affection from him. I call him, which is an emotional mistake, since I’ve said that I’m not going to think about him until I return in December, and figure out the situation at that time.
3) 1.20pm walking back to the studio I’m thinking more about Ben, and realise that if I’m brutally honest with myself, I’d leave him for my career, because it’s more important. And not only that I’d leave Ben, but more on the grand scheme of things: in a theoretical universe where I have to choose between my vocation (in the classical sense of the word – my calling), and a soul mate, I choose the vocation.
4) 5.25pm checking my messages, I have one from Christine, my best friend in the known and unknown universe (my surgically removed Siamese twin/wife if we lived in the 30’s/Artistic Co-Director of the Thistle Project/co-writer of the Gorey piece), announcing that we’ve been awarded $3000 for the workshop of our Gorey piece, conditional upon the granting of rights from the estate, which has already occurred. This takes care of whether I’m going back to Toronto or not – I’m at least going back for the month of July, and a week in August to organise and participate in the workshop.
5) 10.10pm in conversation with Ronya, I articulate the fact that though these sorts of difficult decisions – between love and vocation (which are still issues despite the fact that I’m definitely going back) – are harder, but better, and better simply by virtue of the fact that they are harder. That is, the fact that one must struggle with the decisions makes one confront one’s vitality – it makes you know you’re alive. And this is a good enough reason to rejoice in the dilemma.
So that’s a pretty full day, I’d say. I’m going to bed.
// posted by MSR @ 5:24 PM 
