Addicted to Learning

This cookie takes 45 minutes to decorate — and that is not
 including making the dough,baking the cookie, making the
icing and laying down the red flood layer. 

What drives me? What do I want? What am I after? Is it happiness I seek? I notice that when something breaks or goes missing, I feel compelled to fix or replace it immediately so "everything gets back to normal." It's as if stasis is what I seek. So is my life truly just about keeping things working; keeping things the same? Am I born to maintain my self-determined status quo?

Why do I look at real estate ads? Why do I tell people I am restless? What do I mean? What is "restless?" I conclude it's stimulation I seek.

And why am I compelled to write? Why do I always need a project? Is the answer "stimulation" again?

Yesterday, writing my previous post gave me deeper insight. It isn't stimulation I am addicted to, it is learning. I had never before realized that I was technically unqualified to do all the work I have done. I had noticed when personal computers revolutionized our lives that I could not read a word of the manuals. I always hired someone to teach me how to use new software.

I am addicted to experiential learning. That is my truth. And today I am going to go out in the pouring rain (and on a Saturday before Christmas, an anathema) to get all the supplies I need to bake some perfectly shaped, perfectly even-textured large cookies on which I am going to practice Royal Icing Wet-on-Wet and Wet-on-Dry techniques — but not as crazy complicated as the ones above. Look at those reindeer! Are they not ridiculous? But it is those poinsettias that kill. Those lines between the leaves cause migraines! They are drawn with a needle-like stylus.

End of an Era

Scott called me yesterday. He was my boss for the years I worked as marketing manager for Opus Framing and Art Supplies. I loved my work there; if fitted my personality.

My first job was as a high school teacher. I taught geography and theatre. I knew nothing about either but loved both subjects. Then I became a stage manager, trained by my new employer. Then I became a phonetics teacher in Nice so I could learn French. Then I built a theatre and then I ran an art gallery and then came the job at Opus. All my life I have been doing things I had to learn how to do. I love learning.

I joined Opus just as the owner decided that direct marketing would be there exclusive form of advertising. I was hired to develop their newsletter and I decided that there would always be an editorial in it to give the store personality. I wrote the editorials but I published them as having been written by the store's owner, David. But David found people wanting to engage him about our topics and he did not like that so I started writing the editorials in my own name.

That turned out to be a blessing. Soon the 60,000+ people on the list knew my name and I soon developed a reputation as knowledgeable about many aspects of life as a visual artist.

Although I left many Opus years ago, I continued to write the editorials. And then, when I retired from working for others, I decided to collate all my editorials into a book. I stank. So I wrote a different book and called it Artist Survival Skills and published it myself. I hoped and prayed I would recover my actual expenses. I printed 2,000 books and they sold out in a year.

So I printed 3,500 more and Scott's call yesterday was to buy the last two boxes. I have about 35 of them left here at home, but every other one is gone.  They sold roughly 4,000 of them. Their customers, after reading my editorials for 27 years, knew who I was. Scott is taking me to lunch to celebrate. Why? Because the book was sold for $35 and 4,000 books X $35 = $140,000. My book was, once, one of their highest ranking SKUs.

But now all that is over. Harbour Publishing (formerly Douglas & MacIntyre) is considering re-publishing it because I don't want to re-write it and publish it again myself. No thank you. It was great, but it is over. If Harbour Publishing says, I face a big decision: To write or not to write. I am disinclined, so they may have to hire a writer to work under my guidance or the offer may die. I am due to hear from them very soon.

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).

•

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.

The Set: Final Choices

Last night was worrisome. Around 9:00 pm there was a power failure and it lasted a long time. I went to bed, worried that my fish would suffer from the lack of circulation. But there was nothing I could do.  This morning I turned on the lights with trepidation but all is well.

•

All is very well, in fact because I think I have a better set idea that the current working model. Here is what won the first round of concept models. It is the "transparent house" idea (for a play about the history of Presentation House).

And here is the model I built this morning and prefer because MUCH of the text and all the visuals are derived from my diaries. The actor carries a diary often and reads from it (not me). So I thought the set might be my diary and I could pull up screens rolled up inside of images from the stories I tell. (You can see two such images pulled up in the photo; there is also a screen for projections).

I built the theatre at Presentation House with repurpose, recycled and scrounged material; I had no budget for salaries or materials. I want the costumes and set for this history of that past, to reflect that.

A Present for Myself

Home - Renovated Completely

There isn't a spec of surface in my place visible that I haven't done. I have never lived in a place done completely to my specifications, so I am loving being home and may never move.

My million dollar spice rack built to my design.

I just had the dishwasher removed and
new cabinets built.

Master control; right console. 

Left console.

The Things I Didn't Do

As I walk today, I will be contemplating the irony of being in a constant state of ecstasy due to doing things I never did my whole life. I can't stop wondering if I could have had a very different and more fulfilling life had I had the courage to be a creative theatre artist.

I feel dually blessed: I am creative enough to succeed at the professional level but I also do well as an arts administrator, and administrators have more regular hours and better pay. I was a chicken. I lacked confidence and paid the price. At least, in retirement, I am enjoying the experiences I missed.

Before, I wanted to write because writing was far, far more rewarding than administration. And I still want to write, but now I want to write so that I can make things. It is the making things, that thrills me. Glue, tape and scissors are my best friends. And the aisles of the dollar stores (especially the Japanese ones), Michael's, Opus, bead stores, the Punjabi Market and The Party Store are becoming favourite walk destinations.

I can't say I have regrets. Just questions.