the race

I have not been blogging a lot, or anything of any real value lately. This is not to say I am quitting. I don’t think I am ready to throw in the towel, but things here are busy and I keep wondering, with every new thing I take on, what is going to drop.

I realize how much artists in today’s world are beggars and choosers. Both. Not just jacks or all trades, but we alternate between feast and famine. This shows how rusty my writing skills are…look at those last two sentences – egads, that is a lot of old sayings to fall back on.

I have started something new. I can’t say what it is yet, so that is what I will call it – something new. And it is new - ‘like a naked new born babe’ as Macbeth intones – so fledgling, so raw that a harsh breath or a wrong step could dissolve it like sugar in water. But it will require much of my time, as all new creations do.

Meanwhile it is audition season so I am constantly pouring over sides, and running to and fro, and I have freelance graphic jobs on my plate, and kids, and contract hours to put in, oh right, and I am still understudying. So things like blogs, running, reading books and making cute earrings fall to the wayside. So today I have tried to do some of that. I took the smallers to the library and got way too many books, started reading Fortress of Solitude, made myself three pairs of earrings, and lookie here – a blog entry.

Still, I go back to that thought: something will drop, or fail, or be compromised. I have watched many an actor run from day job, to rehearsal, scarf down an unhealthy dinner, and then race home to try and sleep a little before doing it all over again. It brings to mind Mike Daisy’s recent article. We take side coaching gigs, and teaching jobs, we work events and trade shows, we randomly work patient simulation and wait tables, or work temp jobs. We do everything and anything, so how will we ever master one thing?

We are constantly talking about the value of of art, but what about the value of the artist? I think of that last moment in Being Julia when Annett Benning has that perfect flash across her face of victory, loss, regret, exhaustion...whatever that brilliant thought was. It was perfect. I think, will I ever have that moment when I am always going to be running in fifteen different directions? The ability to have complete attention to one thing eludes me, so how can I ever achieve a moment of purity.

But such is life, and so away I go... gaining speed, and I'm off.