Very Random Thoughts

I ran into a fellow grad student in the library a couple of weeks ago and we comiserated about the fact that grad school has gotten in the way of getting any real work done. Oddly enough. I've written one script in the past three years which is a serious backslide for me. I've rewritten that script several times under pressure (From one of my professors. I guess I should really call it support instead of pressure). I probably wouldn't have put myself that far out there if it hadn't been for his insistence that I keep submitting. The commercial route is not my focus. At least, I'm not bothered by the rejections. It's clear that people want to take a pass on the subject matter (given the political climate) and not the writing - if that makes any sense. I've been encouraged to write a more palatable script. Not a top priority for me.

I produce and create theater. Grad school has reinforced that for me. My work makes people uncomfortable. Hell, it scares me. I write to disturb myself, to upset my balance, and most of all because I'm compelled. Deeply compelled to write.

Which is why writing my thesis is so frustrating. I broke my self-enforced playwrighting seal of chasity after talking with my friend. I started three scripts. I'm on a bender here. I've been posting some of the source work for one of the plays. I shouldn't have allowed myself to start on this one because I've become obsessed with it and I knew I would. I've been itching to work on this script for three years and diving into the source material these past few weeks has been liberating. I really want to go where I'm going and where life is leading me.

Our family has been on a death watch for the past week. Watching the physical rhythm of death has been affirming and horrorifying. The longer she holds on, the more horrorifying. The more pointless. She's completly unresponsive at this point, so the question is why? What is she waiting for?

It happens that way. I work on a script and life takes a turn imitating the action of the play. It gives me a deeper understanding of what I'm writing and what direction to go, where I'm sticking in the shallows and where I am entirely ignorant of the subject. So I'm grateful for this glimpse into life winding down. It's made me more appreciative of taking a breath and holding my kids and feeling the life welling up inside them. Of feeling the new life growing inside me and wondering about that rhythm because it carries the seeds of death. The jo ha kyu of life, if you will.

When does it shift? The conceit of writing is that we can determine the transitions, we can control the situation. The conceit of my script is aiming to capture the abrupt changes in life, of trying to create a situation where it's impossible to determine whether one is alive or dead. Consciousness and will continue, refuse to let go.