I AM GONNA MAKE IT

Dreamt of going to school. Elementary School. I went to Strawberry Park Elementary in San Jose, California, long ago and about twenty minutes from the sea. In the dream, it was that school, but looked more Ivy League, less weird 1970s style. When I got to the school, there was confusion as to which classroom I was to go to. One was overcrowded, even though the room was very big. I went to that class first. The teacher was nice but struggling to keep control. He told me he thought I was supposed to go to the classroom next door. So I went there. That room was a little bigger than a broom closet, and was empty.

For some reason, that woke me up. Lisa was asleep. Padfoot was asleep. Just me and the room and that dim light from the windows and electronics that fills a room in the middle of the night.

So. I am still wrapping my head around the fact that there is a virus that has spread across the entire planet, infecting over half a million people and killing so many. Even now, it doesn't seem real. It all feels like a dream. Sometimes, when I am having a particularly bad dream, I will realize that it is indeed a dream, and I will wake myself up. No such luck with this one so far. And the peak has happened yet. I mean, how are we supposed to wrap our heads around estimates like 100,000 to 2000,000 dead just here in America? Large numbers are hard enough to contemplate in happy times.

I think our brains are all processing and changing, adapting to this new reality. How it will change is anybody's guess. Cuomo the other day said some will become better people, some worse. That's probably true. I'm fairly certain our appreciation of the little things by and large will increase dramatically. Also, I think the way we treat each other and the planet will change. The need for universal health care is pretty apparent, and gets more so each day. So does the wonder of nature, which is moving along with no care, shaking off a bit of our mess and showing her glory more and more. Every day, the sky is cleaner, and it seems like there are more birds in our neighborhood. Maybe we just hear them more because the traffic is so much lighter. I don't know. But I like a cleaner planet.

Yesterday, for the first time since this all kicked in, I did a good bit a yard work, mowing both our lawn and the neighbors. Took a few hours, but felt great. Working on the new script, it was nice to have something like that to do, so that my subconscious could kick around ideas without me telling it what to do. And, of course, ideas came. For me, writing is best when I let my subconscious come up with the fun stuff. It's like that idea bubble they make you do in writing classes, or at least the classes I took. You get a blank piece of paper, write down and idea, and then make a bubble around it, and then just let your mind go where it wants, and write down other ideas that somehow relate to the first idea. Free association. Improv. Being in the moment. It is something artists always strive to do, find a way to follow structure and at the same time be in the moment.

I think that's what we are all trying to do now. I come across friends doing their best to deny the moment. To fill their day yelling at the tv, or posting every couple of minutes about how it's a Deep State conspiracy. Or how good their ratings are. There are even some who are still trying to tell toilet paper hoarding jokes. Not too many, though. That, I think, has finally jumped the shark. And while all those things are of course valid things to do, sometimes I get the vibe that some of those folks are not being true to themselves.

No doubt, I am not true to myself all the time either.

No movie to promote today. We watched an Amazon original called The Pale Horse, one of their new Agatha Christie adaptations, and it was great, but I fell asleep early on. Maybe the lawn mowing tired me out. Maybe the whole global pandemic did. Hard to say. I did do a zoom meeting with a bunch of local writers, and that was amazing. We all vented about things, or talked about what we are working on, or what we want to do, and decided that the meeting itself was a great idea and plan to do one each week. For me, writing isn't a problem, even now. What I want to write about has changed, but the act of writing itself helps me. Hence, this blog.

Ok. Time to wrap this one up, then it's off to go shopping for a few essentials. And later today, I do my first bit of teaching/rehearsals. Should be interesting. Will I have a class full and wild, or an empty broom closet?

Here's a song.