EDINBURGH DAY EIGHT - TIME PASSES, AND THEN AGAIN IT DOESN'T

I might be an amateur horologist. Time, its passage, how things change continually is a manner that is constant, how we all seem to be shocked with another year passes, a child becomes older, a movie we love suddenly is no longer the hot new thing.

It's bizarre, at times a little bittersweet, and just the way it is. 

We went to the big castle yesterday. Wandered ancient streets, walked through prisons, felt strangely young in comparison to our surroundings. Went to Saint Margaret's Chapel up on top, which has a stained glass of St. Columba, the first person to have encountered the Loch Ness Monster. So of course one of my favorite saints. Strangely, the glass doesn't depict Nessie. Well, what can one do?

Saw an old friend yesterday. We were apprentices at the Berkeley Shakespeare Festvial long ago, and fast friends. Later, we were roommates at The Western Stage in Salinas, and worked on, among other things, a nine hour three part adaptation of East of Eden, one of the most intense and glorious shows I have ever been a part of. And we also did some shows with a fledgling company in Berkeley called Central works. Thick as thieves would be a good way to describe how it was.

Then time and life and school and marriage and moves and more moves... you blink your eyes twice, and decades have past, and you haven't spoken in years but keep up on all the socials.

Strange.

And yet, life is nothing is not constantly surprising, ready to give curve ball after curve ball, pretty much always when you think you are past such things.

Lance- my friend from back then, is directing a play called Bad Shakespeare here at the Fringe. In the very building I am doing Banned the Musical in. The very same building another pair of old friends from NYC, Todd and Nicole, are doing The Bronze Boy. (which is fucking great and if you are here you must see)

Coincidence, or fate? Qui sait?

I walk in to the theatre yesterday, and there is my dear friend, last seen in my apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan so long ago I was still drinking. 

Long indeed.

And yet, not a moment has passed. He is still he, I am still I, and we hug and talk like not a moment has gone by.

One of life's "So Anyway" friends. 

Years pass, you don't really talk or see each other, randomly connect, and first think you say is a variation of "so anyway" and you pick up where you left off.

Delicious and magic, this life, isn't it?

The show is a group of college theatre students performing various scenes and soliloquies from Shakespeares villains and not-so-nice-ones.

The theatre is a sauna, but I don't care one bit. It's a walk through pieces I know, some from the days Lance and I were apprentices in the long ago imaginary world called the past.

Then it's time for Banned. 

And we kick the shit out of it. Small house. Very quiet. Very hot. Another reviewer. 

We don't let it get us down. 

We are driving the bus, and on a mission from Dionysus. 

Then it's off to a whiskey tasting at The Lost Close, a really brilliant place under the streets of Edinburgh. I don't drink, so I sit and listen and smell the dram and then hand it to Lisa. She is quite wobbly by the end.

And then it's off to Pleasance Courtyard for late night food, a looooooooong chat with some of the cast about writing and theatre and life. 

And then sleep. 

But I wake early. Like 5 or so. I can't help it. 

Now we are off to see the Gems of Edinburgh. A tour of some sort. But I feel as if my pockets are full of rubies and emeralds already.

Here's a song. It's I Am a Scientist by Guided by Voices. Enjoy. 

THE OLD SANTA CRUZ HIGHWAY OF LIFE

Haven't written in a bit. Such is life. Things come and go. We wax and wane like the moon, and a lot of rock bands. Sometimes, we are super geniuses and everything we do is perfect and awesome. Other times, it's a struggle to put together a coherent sentence. 

Today I feel groovy, alive, happy to have baseball in season, flowers budding, sun shining, shows opening, possibilities presenting themselves like friendly cats on a neighborhood walk. 

It's a good day.

So, when last I wrote, I was in San Jose, the world I grew up in, the place where most of who I am was set into motion. I was there to retrieve some artifacts of my life, which had been sitting in storage since the sale of my mother's house. Records, photos, old journals, books, furniture, paintings. Some mine, some my mother's, divided up between me and my siblings. 

That was all good. Loaded up a U-Haul with my brother and my nephew, who is somehow now a young man but at the same time still carries the little boy I would baby sit when he was in diapers. 

One of the best parts of that trip was a car ride with my oldest friend in this universe. A simple jaunt over the hill to Santa Cruz, via the aptly named Old Santa Cruz Highway. Let's call that friend Brian, because that's his name. Met him when I was five. There is something to be said for knowing someone most of your life. Shared history, jokes, stories. Legends, really. But more than that, there are certain friends in this world who you keep close, no matter how far away you live, no matter how long it has been between visits or phone calls. Friends who, when you see them, you say "So anyhow..." and pick up right where you left off, as if not a day has gone by.

And on a cosmic scale, I suppose not a day has.

Of course, life has happened in great quantities to both of us. Triumphs and tragedies, unexpected events, strange adventures like getting a few grey hairs and then a few more. But even so, we are who we are, who we were, and who we shall be, and recognized that in each other, as usual. And so we drove, and chatted, and laughed, and caught up, and had the best damned time. 

It is a rare wonder to have such friends, and I am the luckiest person I know.

My mother would often say a quote I believe is attributed to Robert Louis Stevenson. We all should be as happy as kings. We didn't have the best of times, or the worst. But we had times. And mom would say that quote, often when things were rough. I always assumed whatever royalty she was talking about were truly happy, not like Princess Diana towards the end, or Richard III for most of his existence. 

Anyhow, that's where my mind is on this early Spring day. Grateful for old friends, for a life to live, for days and nights and music and trees and blue skies and clouds. 

Here's one of my favorite songs. It's San Francisco by The Mowglis. Enjoy. And call up some old friend and revel in the fact that there is someone in your life who gets you.