Set Set and Mind Burps

My new set design, "the book," was rejected by the director. All that work for naught, but I have no regrets. Instead of being happy about "the book" design, I am ecstatic that I had absolutely no problem whatsoever with his decision because:

1. I am proud that he likes my "transparent house" design so much. 
2. By making the model (even though it was rejected) I will not forever wonder if that design might have been better.
3. I am proud that I can handle rejection and compromise readily as I am someone who values creative partnerships such as those I have with Kim (the play), Warren (the screenplay) and Jane (the wigs and costumes).

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I imagine this happens to everyone: You have an interesting meal and then, after leaving the table to embark on your ensuing activity, you burp and get this highly accurate reminder of the flavours of part  of the meal. No, I am not going to write about burping.

I have always had what I call "memory hiccups." Whilst totally engaged in some task, suddenly, like a burp from a past meal, a profoundly clear sense of sensory déj-vu engulfs me. I feel myself in a memory. Usually a recurring memory involves some profound emotion; that is why we all remember where we  were when we heard Kennedy had been assassinated. But my "memory hiccups" are always of the most mundane moments. But they feel like I am there.

Once, when I was in Nice with Steve, my friend Marie-Claude proposed that we go to see a church with frescos she had discovered doing her doctorate. It  was in a picturesque little Italian town near the border, so off we went. And while there, we climbed down into the bed of a nearby stream to have our lunch and, having been together in the car and then in the church for hours, we found ourselves separate but happy. I ate and meandered downstream; M-C wrote postcards sitting in the sun on a rock and Steve ate with his shoes and socks off, bathing his feet in the water.  It's the memory of that simple uneventful lunch that I burped the day before yesterday. 

I have always wondered what triggers these burp/hiccups. They thrill me but they cannot be made to happen. remembering things consciously is not at all the same experience, so I realize it is their unbidden nature that provides the thrill. Ain't life grand.