Opening Night

Perseid meteor shower

Opening night!

It’s opening niiiiight!

Well, almost

It’s also closing night 

Four weeks of rehearsal

Dancers drilled

Notes pounded 

Lights programmed

Sets built

Programs designed

Characters hones 

For one night of show

It’s also the end of the summer

Almost time to leave this happy place

My fifth summer in six years

Second working on the musicals

My “Buck’s Rock babies” 

As I call “my” kids

Over the years

I’ve watched them grow

Turn from awkward unsure ducklings

Into confident swans who know that

At least, if only here, 

In the middle of the Connecticut woods

They have a home

Where they are accepted for who they are 

Where they can express their creative selves

Freely and safely

Without ridicule 

My first summer

I looked at the long-time returners 

And shook my head

How could they keep coming back

Year after year?

Set up their lives around 8 weeks of summer camp?

But I too have kept returning

The one year I didn’t, a 

Miserable cold wet Sydney winter

I pined for my American Brigadoon 

And I returned

And fell in love all over again

With the place

With the people 

With my role in this community of artists 

Walking home from a late night tech

Beneath open night skies

Falling stars

And a maze of meteors

Whose lines are only sometimes visible 

I am home. 

I Know What We Did Last Summer

This summer
I ran rehearsals and taught singing lessons
And led a meditation session in the Igloo overlooking the forest.
I worked and played and hung out with the most wonderful people.
We sang Persichetti and Handel and Traditional and Anonymous.
We read sheet music and improvised and played by ear.
We ate cookies and mac and cheese and pizza and toasted sandwiches
And gobbled up the fresh fruit like we would never see it again.
We stargazed and ran through cooling rain and shivered through raging storms.
I did office duty
And counseled homesick kids
And had long d&m's with campers
I sat in on the Philosophy Club and discussed the existence of god and morality and ego.
I stayed up for late night techs
And got up early to make sure the keyboard was ready for rehearsals.
I helped to stage
6 music concerts
2 musicals
And 1 peace night
And I managed to write my thesis.
I discovered I have more skills than I thought
I relished in what I still have to learn.
I had a tough summer. I had a wonderful summer.
It was emotional and inspiring and exhausting and blissful all at once.
And at the end, I packed up the car with my boy
And drove off, literally into the sunset,
Heading west for the next adventure,
Having no idea what is next.
The end.

Storm Time

from http://www.wfsb.com/ 

I love storms.

The smell,

The fizzle crackle in the air,

And the sound of rain.

But tonight I was nervous. 

Warnings of flash floods and tornadoes across the state,

And being a grown-up in a place of children,

I felt a responsibility. 

A couple of the campers I work with

Are afraid of storms,

And I came across one of my theatre babies

In the theatre,

Huddled over

Tense and barely breathing.

I sat with her,

Offered my hand

And she clasped it tight.

And every time the thunder roared

She held her breath and shivered.

We sat together,

And chatted through the storm.

I joked about singing My Favorite Things

It seemed appropriate. 

And we giggled at the thought of becoming the cliche. 

And to help her breathe

I told her breathing deeply would be like practicing diaphragm exercises. 

If she wanted to play Elphaba, she’d better get practicing. 

It made her laugh. She breathed, and trembled a little less with every thunder clap. 

The storm passed. 

I ended up sitting in the Music Shed with a couple of campers

And my friend with a beautiful wooden flute.

Occasional patters of rain danced across the roof.

My friend played his flute.

And I felt calm. 

And I felt that this is what being a grown-up must be like.

To be put your own fears aside

And help the smaller ones around you. 

The end. 

July 4th

My friend Helene and I singing the Swedish frog song.
Photo by Rene Macioce. 

The camp where I work was founded by pacifists, people who had endured the horrors of Nazi Germany. Today our place of work is staffed by people from all over the world Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Ireland, Scotland, Canada, Poland, Czech Republic, Sweden... As a result, we don't celebrate Independence Day, we celebrate Diversity Day. In the evening the international staff and international campers share their cultures, their music and stories and tidbits of information that make their cultures different to the American one. But even Diversity Day makes me uncomfortable. I feel anxious around displays of nationalism. And so, I wrote and shared the following. 

Diversity Day. I don’t care where you come from. 

Allow me to explain. I am Australian. I am Spanish. I am descendent from Filipinos, Dutch, and Polish. I have blood relatives in Spain, Switzerland, England, America, Canada, the Philippines, and Australia. I speak un pocito Español. I grew up in Sydney, approximately 10,000 miles from this place. Where I come from we wear thongs instead of flip flops, the forest is called the bush. We eat lollies and not candy, and wear singlets instead of tank tops. We say it is hot outside, and not it is hot out. I call my friends on a mobile not a cell, We don’t walk upside down. Nor do our toilet bowls flush in the opposite direction... I don’t think. I never rode a kangaroo to school. I never owned a pet koala. I never met Steve Irwin. 

I’m rather uncomfortable with declarations of nationalistic pride. I grew up in a country whose national day of pride is Anzac Day, which commemorates the landing of Australian and New Zealander troops on the shores of Galipoli, Turkey, and were subsequently slaughtered in their thousands. Now we’re friends with the Turkish, and we eat their delicious foods and every year thousands more Australians congregate at Galipoli to remember the fallen from nearly a hundred years before. 

I’m a raging pacifist. I don’t get war. I really don’t. Once upon a time the British fought the Americans. Then they decided to stop. Now they are allies. Now they laugh at each other from across the pond. Seventy years ago my country was shooting Turks, and Germans, and Italians. Seventy years later I grew up eating pita bread, pretzels, and pizza. When my grandparents were teenagers they were sheltering from Japanese bombs and fearing death. My grandmother now drives a Japanese car, we all eat sushi, and my class at school almost had more Japanese students than Australian. 

I don’t get displays of nationalistic pride. They make me uncomfortable. I’ve spent the last five years traveling the world. I’ve been to Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Germany, France, Switzerland, England, Wales, and the US of A. Now I may have only begun to scrape the surface of the metaphorical travel iceberg but here’s what I’ve discovered in my travels. No one place is better or worse than any other. America is no more the land of the free than Australia is the land of sunshine. In all those places I’ve seen people going about their daily lives. They wake up, they eat food, they go to the toilet, they spend the day making ends meet, if they’re lucky they’ll have time to play. At the end of the day they gather with their families and then they go to sleep. There are variations on this theme. Yes, many people have less other people. Yes, you have the occasional people that spend their days plotting the demise of other people who aren’t their people. But you know what? Most people just happened upon this here crazy planet, and they’re doing the best that they can.

Diversity Day. I don’t care where you come from. I care that you treat me decently just because. I care that I can be open to cultures and traditions and foods and that aren’t my own. It may be naive. It may be simplistic. But we’ve got to start somewhere. I hope you’ll care less where I come from. At the end of the day, let’s just exist on this planet together. Let’s draw on several thousand years of human history and share the foods that our ancestors ate. Let’s find a way to share life, liberty, and the pursuit of happyness in all its rich diversity. 

The end. 

A Weekend in New York

On a whim I decided to go to New York for the weekend
It is entirely possible from London
If one has a flexible schedule and a willing credit card
So I booked the trip
And flew to New York on the Friday afternoon
And I stayed at my friend's house in Queens
And looked after his cat

I saw a Broadway show
It was even better than the cast recording
It made me laugh and cry and filled me with joy
Then I went to the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
And melted at all the resources they have available for free
I met up with beautiful friends who inspire me
I met five young sailors in Times Square
And the wonderful, delicious musical stereotype of it all thrilled me
New York, New York, it's a...

On Sunday afternoon I went to a recital at Steinway Hall
And watched Walter Hautzig, at age 90, play delicious pieces by Mozart, and Schubert, and Chopin
The walking stick hiding his nimble fingers and lightness of touch
As he played I thought about how musicians from centuries and countries far away can be brought to life right here, right now, through patient learning, through dedication
He talked about learning Chopin's Ballade in G minor at age 16
And how when he was ready to perform it at his school in Vienna
The soldiers marched in and the world fell apart
And Mr Hautzig decided that they could never take away his music
And they didn't
And he ended up working with my great-grandfather in Baltimore
One from Shanghai via Spain via the Philippines
One from Vienna via Jerusalem via New York
And I ended up working with his granddaughter
An Australian in Connecticut
Completely separately, amazing coincidence of strange happenstance
Or are we drawn to the same people in each life time?

Going to the airport, it was chilly
The rain kissed a gentle goodbye
There was even a rainbow
I boarded the plane
And suddenly I was back on the Tube wondering if I had dreamt the entire thing

The Hunger Banquet

Talking about issues of food security and food distribution and the wealth of people and economics and people living in the world and the way we eat and distribute our resources. I was in the “middle income group” and so my dinner was rice and beans and it was surprisingly delicious and the kids on the floor, the “low income group”, ate bowls of rice and the people at the “high income” table ate three different kinds of pasta! Imagine the luxury, three different kinds of pasta in one meal! 

I live in total luxury. I have everything I ever need in the world at my fingertips. I have the power of my mind at my disposal. I can choose to be happy with my lot. It is a surprise that the people who live in the most wealthy most product filled most resourceful countries have the highest rates of depression. They have everything and still the world holds no joy. I choose to hold joy. I choose to have gratitude for all that I have. All that I have access to. I want to make a difference. I want to make the world a beautiful place, a joyful place, leave it a little better than when I found it. This place I came into. This time, this place, this age of terrorism, of mass consumption, of food aplenty yet mass starvation, of highest technological innovation, of new age hippie spiritual life. To love, to life, to joy. To be. To be here. Here I am. Hello.

Rachel

So imagine you have a friend

And she is an artist

And she knows a lot about sustainability

And she studied trash for her thesis

And she inspires you to know more

To learn more

To be better than you are

And she shares her books about recycling and up-cycling and waste reduction and breaking the waste cycle and the one about how it is possible to use human excrement as fertilizer without making people sick

And you see her in action

Teaching young people about sustainability

The table of beads made from rescued factory bits

Rubber tubing and buttons and bolts and nuts and screws

The left overs from other things 

That in the current system would just be thrown away

The table with the “guess-who” games on food and energy and water

Did you know that Fiji water comes from a place where the local people have no access to clean drinking water?

The fact sheets and interactive tables

How quickly can you sort the recycling?

Do you know what can be recycled in your town and that it changes from region to region

And country to country?

And it blew you away

Her commitment and her enthusiasm and her passion

And you know she is one of life’s rare people

A sparkling gem of intellect and vigor and joy

And you want to know more, do more

Because you have met her

And shared a few days with her

And been inspired by her

And you know it is possible to live in a world where people care about the resources they are using

And be responsible for the life they are living

Because she showed you it was true

She shone light on that which was less than ideal

And she made you see things in a new way

And you are glad that such people in your life exist

To make you question

To make you see

To give you renewed enthusiasm for this life this path

Of creativity and sustainability and passion

Dear Rachel, thank you for your light and joy

Hunter Valentine

You are in the middle of the forest. And one night three women appear. One holds drum sticks. One holds a guitar. One holds a bass. They form a band called Hunter Valentine. Three women on stage rocking out. It lifts your heart. It pulses in your soul. They are fantastic. You watch your campers dance around you. A group of campers are allowed on stage to dance. One of the youngest campers runs up to you and tells you that being at camp makes her less afraid of being on stage because she feels safe here. I tell her that she should do it all the time. She tells me the people at school will laugh at her. They probably will. Because people at school are horrible. They are afraid of people who follow their bliss and so we are conditioned to be afraid of ourselves. Dear Camper. People will always tease you. People will always be afraid and jealous and ready to knock you down. But someday you will find the strength within yourself to say I CARE NOT WHAT YOU THINK!!! And you will laugh when the girl who bullied you in high school and pushed you into the lake for no reason other than she thought you were tragic “friends” you on Facebook. And people might say "oh, you are just a guidance counselor", but you will know that you make a difference and you love what you do and one day you too will be on stage rocking it out. And you will dance beneath the moon and find kindred spirits and be inspired by powerful women who fill their music with passion and energy and sing love songs about revenge. The end. 

An Australian in Connecticut

Imagine you are in a place nearly 10,000 miles from where you grew up. And you are surrounded by teenage girls a whole thirteen years younger than you. When you were their age they were babies, some not yet even born. When you wake up in the morning you don’t hear the raucous call of kookaburras, magpies or cockatoos. You hear woodpeckers and the pretty chirps of birds unrecognisable. The girls eat cheerios and eggs and bacon for breakfast. The tea is “er-bal”. They eat fries instead of chips, and drown them in ketchup not tomato sauce. Nearly everything they eat contains high fructose corn syrup. They wear tank tops not singlets. Thongs are considered inappropriate day wear. When it’s “cold out” they wear sweaters, not jumpers. They giggle at your accent and wonder why you call trash “rubbish” and cell phones “mobiles.” But across time and space, you find yourself sitting on a picnic bench on a porch. And together you are writing stories. And you all love to write, and create things, and play music, and dance, and sit under a bright blue sky with trees sparkling in sunlight. And one night you have a slumber party. And you listen to the rustle of chip packets, and smile at their giggling, and look at the world anew again because you remember what it was like to be them, even if you have grown up world's apart. And it fills your heart with light to know these girls and to share a piece of summer with them.