Monday, June 26, 2006

Gelatinous Grey Matter

Yup...that's pretty much the state of my brain these days. Every summer of my life has been occupied with SOMETHING--camp, work, wedding planning, grad classes, SOMETHING to keep my brain active and nurtured--but so far, my 29th summer has been largely uneventful. I'm starting to feel bored and boring. During dinner last night, I actually asked Nick what his favorite kind of pasta was. Really? REALLY? This is what my conversational skills have devolved into?

I could do a number of things, I suppose. Finish that book I started writing last summer. Yet the few times I've returned to it in the past week, I find that I've stumbled across a huge writer's block. I could read all those books I assigned for summer reading. But after starting two of them, I grew bored and turned to "Entertainment Weekly." I'm kind of "literatured out" after the school year. I could take yoga, wander the city, take a class, go to a museum. Jesus, I live right across the river from one of the most exciting places in the world! Yet I long for someone to DO those things with. And pretty much everyone is working.

It's times like these I start romanticizing about moving back to Philly. But really, what would I be doing there? Probably the same thing.

The problem is, we're going on a cruise at the end of July. Which will be an AMAZING experience, I'm sure. But it's cutting into any sort of plan I could have made--any job, class, play I could have done. (It's a family cruise, so I didn't have much say in the planning.) Just last night, I got an offer from a playwright I've worked with before to do something in the Strawberry Festival. But it opens in early August, so I'm sure I won't be able to do it since I'll be away.

Waaah, waaah, waaah, right? All I long for during the school year is a little free time to myself. Now I have gobs of it, and I'm getting antsy.

Part of this is because the last time I had so much free time was the summer of 2000. I was finishing up my second year with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps--a pretty stressful year, in many respects--and once summer hit, the depression I'd kept under wraps all year had plenty of room to take over my life. I was overcome with a terrible, prevailing sense of sadness, just wanting to sleep my days away.

After that year, I've been sure to keep myself extremely busy. As Joan Baez states, "Action is the antidote to despair." My friend Gwen recently complimented me on how full my life seems to be, and how she envies my involvement in so many things. Really, it's all selfish--it's just to keep myself occupied and alive.

Nick has been very understanding--humoring my need to go out and do stuff at the end of the day, when all he really wants to do is play X-box. ;)

On Saturday, we saw a fantastic production of "Antigone" by the Urban Youth Theater at Henry Street Settlement (one of Nick's students played Eteocles). As I was watching these incredibly talented young people, I kept thinking of my own summer theater experience, and how GOOD it was for so many kids. (It truly amazes me that while music and art are pretty much a given in the curriculum, as they should be, theater ALWAYS takes a backseat. I blame the thousands of BAD drama teachers out there who give theater a bad name!) Then I started toying with the idea of creating a summer children's theater in tandem with the Attic. (Don't you love ideas that come JUST a few months too late?)

So I'm going to explore this little project over the summer, since I know squat about grant-writing or fundraising or any of that hoo-ha. Maybe next summer...who knows? I'll have found the antidote to my despair.

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