It's a little past 7 this grey Edinburgh morning. We've been here I think three days, but the days all blend together like coffee beans in a grinder, so I'm not sure of exact day count. I'm getting ready for our first performance here at the festival. We've done our press launch, met dozens and dozens of fellow Fringers, theatre goers, and good people of Scotland.
I've managed to be a bit of an asshole to pretty much everyone in the show.
It's a skill I possess.
As we rumble and roll through ups and downs, techs and launches, the desire to create something unique and brilliant and amazing, which most of the time is thrilling, can at times eat up your reason, logic, and sense of joy, and you are left with childish behavior directed at people who are trying to help you on your quest for theatre magic.
So I have been short with people. Sarcastic. Dickish.
And I can't stand myself when I am like that.
I don't suppose anyone does.
I am so lucky to be here.
I think part of me has been trying to recreate last summer's experience.
And that's madness. Last summer was brilliant and mighty, but that was last summer, and it deserves respect and singularity.
Last summer, on the night before opening, a few of us went up the Royal Mile around midnight to perform mystic rights at the theatre, say a few pagan prayers, and revel in our being here.
Last night, I went there again, but with a different set of friends. And as we walked through the cobble stoned streets, I realized I've been trying to time travel, to step through dimensions and force this wonderful, perfect reality into some warped idea of 2023.
There was a witch we met at midnight that fated eve before we opening Eigg. She was frightening and magnetic and clearly a sign from the forces of nature that we were doing what we were meant to be doing. She took the form of a large drunk man who I was fairly certain was going to kick our asses. She ambled up the Mile as we triumphantly paraded back to our flat, confident and inscrutable. She appeared out of the shadows, beer in hand, mumbling spells full of invectives. We called her the Witch of Edinburgh.
Now I shall call her the Warlock of Time. A beacon of those moments of rarity when you are certain life has meaing and purpose. Those moments that can't ever be replicated but that we seek nonetheless. And we get so busy on that quest, we miss out on the magic of now. Of here. Today. This moment. This show. This year.
I can't force magic to happen. I can't live in the past. I am here. Now. In the most exciting festival I have ever been a part of. I am opening a brand new musical tonight. I am with my wife and a group of friends who are to a one lovely and strange and brilliant.
Let this be what this is.
That's when the magic happens.
Now I walk. I drink coffee. I think about how to apologize to those I've treated poorly.
And I let the past go.
I leap.
I fly.
Here's a song for today. It's Learning to Fly by Tom Petty.
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