Opening night was last night and, my goodness, I was so proud of those kids! It really went incredibly well. To the point I'm a bit nervous about tonight. To see these kids in all their adolescent glory--dealing with all the concerns and vexations and worries they have--out in front of everyone singing and dancing their hearts out is really quite amazing. Knowing them as I do, and knowing just what it took for some of them to do that, and the sacrifices they've made, makes me love them all the more. 

I'll post photos in a few weeks when I get them back, but the sets and props and costumes were really something. Our community, led by some amazing parents, has poured heart and soul into making the kids look great. And the kids seem to have absorbed that and used it as a springboard to a greater performance. 

I often feel a bit guilty when I see how much time people devote to doing costumes or scenery or props or selling tickets and so on. Theatre is notoriously transient and fleeting. We work for months and then it's gone after three days. Is it worth all the time and trouble? All the disruption in people's lives and routines?

I always ask myself that question and towards the end of rehearsals, I always start to waver. But then, on opening night, I always come to the same conclusion. Yes, it's worth it. 

It's worth it for the pride the kids feel. It's worth it because it makes them feel important and special--that they are worth that effort. When you are an adolescent, that's a helpful message. It's worth it because it's beautiful and helps make the audience happy and have an enjoyable experience for a few hours. 

But I think there are deeper reasons, lessons I hope my students will absorb. I've decided to try to figure out ways of helping them understand this more consciously. It is profound for students at this age to see people doing work and doing it well. Life is work. If we are normal, we will spend a lot of time working in our lives and doing work well and joyfully, or at least with satisfaction, is one of the keys to happiness. 

So, even though I feel a twinge of guilt when I think of all the time the parents are putting in, I love it that the kids are seeing them working hard, working joyfully, working generously, and working well. Doing the job right in spite of how long it will last or the low material reward. Work is inherently worth doing well. 

There's another thing I love about this. These parents are all doing this with no compensation. They're doing it because some things aren't about money. The worth and value of some things far exceeds any price that can be affixed. That's another lesson I hope the students learn, one that is in short supply these days. 

And finally, doing big stuff, ambitious things, is tiring. It is exhausting and one needs to be careful not to live an unbalanced life or to just do big things for the sake of doing big things. Small can be beautiful too. But big projects remind us that humans are remarkable creatures. We can do terrible and brutish things, and we can often fail at the good things we try. But we can also do wonderful, beautiful things that we don't always think we can. In a time of so much uncertainty and worry and doubt, I think that is a good thing to remember. Even if it's just a big thing in one relatively small community, for three nights for 135 kids, I like it. 

Okay everyone, I'm going to give you a life lesson for free. Let's say you are an aspiring performer. Your school has an active theatre program and you have spent a few years in it. You hope and dream that one day, you'll get the lead (this could be changed, incidentally to be about something else, like starting on the varsity team in a sport, etc.)

Let me give you some advice on this.

If you are flaky and unreliable when you have a small role in the chorus, your director will pr0bably not trust you with a lead. If you goof off and miss rehearsal frequently (unless you are excused) then the director will probably not seriously consider you for a larger role.

Parents: if you grumble about casting choices (don't kid yourself--this stuff always gets back to the director) and if you are half-hearted in filling your obligation to sell tickets or help with props or paint the set or whatever, then you are shooting your child's future chances in the foot. 
If you are glib about your child missing rehearsals because of your lack of organization or planning, if you don't live up to the commitment that came with your child being part of the play, then you are sending the director a powerful message that you cannot be trusted.
Sadly, that means your child can't be trusted since your child is dependent on you for rides and logistical support.

If I can't trust you with little things, I will not trust you with big things. Far too many people work too hard on a play to take a chance on someone I can't fully trust. 

You don't get the lead and then develop responsibility. You act responsibly with small things, earn trust, and then (assuming you also have talent) you get the lead. So many people want to do this in reverse. But life doesn't work like that. 

I would add that while I'm talking about the context of theatre, this applies to many other things in life--sports teams, jobs, and so on. If you can't be trusted with little things no one will give you greater responsibilities. 

This seems so obvious, and yet I am always astonished at the number of people who don't understand--and act--on this principle. I get that adolescents might not realize how this works, but I am surprised more parents don't get it. 

Every year I'm shocked by the people who are shocked that they (or their children) didn't get big roles. Sometimes they haven't prepared adequately or worked to refine and stretch and develop their talents to the point that they could be seriously considered. Other times, perhaps most often, someone is talented but has goofed off a lot. Or a parent has been scattered, unsupportive, and not very good at making sure their child was where they needed to be. 

Believe me, future stars, this makes a big, big difference. Trust me on this. I begin looking at potential lead material years and years in advance, watching carefully to see who has talent, but who has a good work ethic, who can focus. Who cares enough to try. And which parents will support them. I know other directors are the same in this regard, and I that that coaches are, too.

So, there it is! Free advice that will change your life. You are welcome.


 

I haven't done much blogging lately. Part of that is because I've been really busy in the yard and garden since March. Since that's the bulk of what I'm doing these days--and since it is one of my favorite places to be, I thought I'd post some random photos.

Here is our house. I named it Mockingbird Cottage because of all the mockingbirds that roost in our trees. It's small, but we like it. You can see wisteria climbing up the porch and some day lilies in the front bed. The other plants there are irises that I need to cut down. 

I am a real fan of day lilies. They bloom and multiply every year, providing weeks and weeks of color for very little work and money. I have them all over the place. 

This isn't a great picture, but it shows the long sloping backyard. Gosh, I love it. Sitting on the back deck as the sun goes down over the trees, or at night when the fireflies are out makes me think I'm in heaven. The grass rolls into the woods, which continue for quite a while on our property. It makes me feel like an English country squire. 

Here's the corn--which is almost ready and I'm thrilled. It looks like a good crop this year. I've been experimenting this year mulching with newspaper and straw. I have a reason for this but won't bore you with the details. 

Here is the view you see of the garden when you drive up. I have big plans for making this quite lovely but ran out of time and money this year. For now, you see the trellises--cantaloupe and cucumbers growing in the boxes which I built myself. 

Just in case you wanted to see it, a close up of the cucumbers.

Today I harvested the first of our summer crops--a lovely cucumber. It was really good!

Here's a close-up of the cantaloupe plants climbing. Our soil is really high in a nutrient they love, so I'm hopeful for a good harvest. Sadly, the humid climate brings lots of molds and fungi, though, and sometimes they die before bearing fruit. Keeping my fingers crossed!

Here's a watermelon vine growing out of the cantaloupe box into the rocks. "Hey," you ask, "did you put that drainage ditch and retaining wall in yourself?"
"Funny you mention it," I reply. "Let me tell you about it." 

Once upon a time, the ditch looked like this. Except weedier. Water had eroded it into a very irregular shape.

So, I spent weeks--WEEKS--wrestling the earth. You see all those rocks? Well, they came from my digging. Our dirt is almost entirely rocks with a bit of clay. 

I dug the ditch out and line it with big rocks. Then, I built a retaining wall for the garden. I dug a three foot trench, lined it and then backfilled it with rocks (I'm still working on getting enough rocks). You can see the long grass at the foot of the ditch--that's where my son needs to weed eat and it's what the whole thing used to look like. 

Okay, that's the grand tour. Thanks for stopping by!

My maternal grandfather was a deliveryman for Wonder Bread. He spent his whole working life--basically from the end of WWII to some time in the 80s waking up at 4:00 am and then driving around all day in a non-air conditioned truck lugging those big racks of bread. He did this 12 or 13 hours a day for most of his adult life. 

Grandma did not work outside of the home in terms of having a paid job, but she worked. And worked. And worked.  She cleaned and canned and cooked and sewed and gardened and volunteered in the community. To give you an idea, they had six kids and didn't have a dishwasher until I was in my teens.

It was not an easy life for either of them. After grandpa's retirement, things got better. For the first time in his life, Grandpa stayed up past 9:00. In fact, he got downright decadent, becoming hooked on "Hawaii-Five-O," which came on after the late local news. But they spent a whole lot of years working in ways that most contemporary Americans (myself included) would consider pretty tough duty. And, even after he was retired, Grandpa went to the parks and did hard physical labor for fun that most of us would consider inhumane were inmates forced to do it. 

So, one might expect that at the end of their lives, Grandma and Grandpa would have been tired and beaten down by the sheer hardness of the work they had done as long as they had been alive.

You could assume that, but you would be wrong. In fact, it was exactly opposite. Grandma and Grandpa loved to work. They seriously enjoyed work. On holidays, they would work for fun. The felt that work was ennobling and worthy in and of itself--something one did because it was fundamentally valuable, regardless of the outcome. 

I remember a conversation with my Grandma. I was in my early teens and I was helping her clean her kitchen or something. She asked me if I liked to work. I looked at her like she was crazy--I know I looked that way because I felt that way. I told her "No."