Transition Spaces

Mikaela says:
Last night, surrounded by my favorite women and a small sample of men who adore them, I found myself unable to drink to a toast. Let me start by saying I'm not a big drinker (except when I am, which is NOT often, and hence the fireworks when I do...), but I do love drinking to things that come up in the conversation.

You know, someone will be telling some story or another, and I find myself again and again saying, "I'll drink to that." Maybe this is a carry-over from that first-ever drinking game party during the Superbowl in my freshman year of college. Rob should remember this one, even though the end of the night gets fuzzy for me.

All the best players from each team were thrown into a hat, and everyone had to draw a name. When that person took the field or was mentioned in the commentary, you had to drink. Well, the year was 1994, and I drew Emmit Smith. You can fill in the blanks.

Even so, I still love drinking to things. Maybe that's my underlying affirming nature. Maybe I just like the solidity of a good clink, a physical reminder of all those moments when those around the table share a past experience.

Regardless, last night, despite the hedonist overtones of the story being told, it ended with a statement about lack of personal discipline. Here's me, drink in hand, ready to ... wait a minute! I can't toast to that! As Marjorie will readily attest to, my life at the moment (and maybe all moments) is all about self-discipline. I'm scheduled within an inch of my life, and I still feel -- often -- that I don't do enough. Given certain facilities and resources, a conscientiousness about community, and consciousness about all that could be done to make this world better, how can you do enough?

Now that school is done, that most selfish and simultaneously self-less of all endeavors is over, what spills in to fill the void? There's work you get paid for, work you make time for, family, friends, personal time ... events that tug at you for one reason or another...

But I feel there's a debt built-up over the past four years that I've done nothing but study to give back to the groups who have entertained me or nurtured my soul. I've taken and taken, and now their patience should be rewarded, and I should give what I can, right?

For example, last Wednesday there was a little fundraising event for local playwright Daniel Hamilton (who got his start as a winner of the Manoa Project teen playwrighting competition created to honor the life and commemorate the death of the son of UNM CRP professors Ted Jojola and Dely Alcantara), who is turning his script about J. Robert Oppenheimer into a movie in conjunction with Tricklock Company. Tricklock ensemble members Chad, Summer, and Byron, with Daniel as narrator, did a fantastic reading of several tantalizing scenes.

Love Stories During the Armageddon of a Citrus Fruit is a beautiful, poetic script -- think Waiting for Godot meets Dr. Strangelove. It might be challenging to translate to the big screen, but ... he's local boy made good. Shouldn't there be more I can do to help?

(As a total aside, I so love this town... At an event where I shouldn't necessarily have known anyone, I of course ran into my oldest ever friend -- we've known each other since we were 2, another friend I've known since elementary school, and a woman who currently lives in one of the communities where I've been working, who is the mother of the movie producer, of course!)

And Tricklock itself has provided great show after great show. Adding so much to the cultural richness of this town...

This particular strain of guilt goes on and on. Meanwhile, the Ms are all facing internal life transitions on all sorts of fronts. We're no longer school friends; now we're life friends, finding our way, redefining our relationship, re-striking the balance between our passions, our loves, and our connection. Thankfully, this one does not inspire the kind of angst that not volunteering enough does. I have no doubt the Ms will sort it all out. That's what we do. All we have to do at the moment is be where we are, support each other even from a distance at times, and keep coming back for more. There are too many strands of our lives pulling toward each other to be pulled so easily apart.

So while I may be m-pyrically silent -- or at least quieter -- for this month while I hang out with the best teens I've met in a long time, rest assured my life continues to be full and crazy and chaotic, and I do the best I can to keep my little self disciplined.