The very, very, very long farewell

It will come as no surprise to anyone familiar with my clown work that at 10:00, the hour when the man was supposed to come and buy my car, I was frantically ransacking the apartment, looking for the key.

Half an hour later I had the key. But still no buyer.

Finally called him. This guy is really fantastic at not letting you know when his plans have changed, even if your plans depend on his. We have rescheduled. Again. If he flakes again...oy, I don't want to think about it.

I can't shake the feeling that the car is going to find some way of clinging to me, like one of those exceptionally persistent cats that manages to follow its former owner across the continent even though it has one eye, a bum leg, no spleen, a colony of fleas that has evolved its own sophisticated metropolis, and a case of distemper strong enough to kill a tiger. I'll be in class in Tuscany, rehearsing some intricate and dangerous bit of slapstick, and suddenly, from outside: Honk.

And I'll look up, and my scene partner will clobber me.

Words to travel by

Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace.
The soul that knows it not, knows no release
From little things;
Knows not the livid loneliness of fear,
Nor mountain heights where bitter joy can hear
The sound of wings.
How can life grant us boon of living, compensate
For dull grey ugliness and pregnant hate
Unless we dare
The soul's dominion? Each time we make a choice, we pay
With courage to behold the restless day,
And count it fair.

--Amelia Earhart

Friday night on the steps of St. Alphonsus

Here's the story of the best thing I've done in a while.

Full moon. Cool Chicago summer night. Corner of Wellington and Lincoln. St. Alphonsus, a large church with an improbably ornate gothic doorway, where the entire cast of The Mysterious Elephant was hiding out in the shadows, musical instruments in hand--two guitars, a banjo, a violin, a French horn, a children's xylophone, some hand percussion.

A guy named Micah had asked us to help us surprise the woman he described as the love of his life. A few weeks ago, he told us, they had a magical moment when they watched Mysterious Elephant and drove home singing "Oh, elephant, elephant." He wanted to give her another magical moment because, he said, she deserved to have a lot of them.

So we watched them come across Lincoln, out of what looked like a garden party. He led her up the steps. Scott (in semi-costume as Cristoff: fake dead arm paired with a red T-shirt and shorts) wobbled up to them. I think maybe she thought he was drunk at first. But then she recognized him. We heard a peal of delighted laughter, and we came out of the shadows onto the landing. (Is it a landing when it's outside? Especially when it's outside a church? Porch seems too modest a word. But anyway.)

We sang the Elephant song, with the last lyrics changed:

We surprised you
Micah has asked us to
He'd like to ask you...

And that was when he showed her the ring. I think by then most of us were already crying. She was. She kissed him like she meant it. Everyone applauded. There was a cheer from the garden party. The cast turned around and walked back to the recording studio.

My god, I love being an artist. It's hard, it's impossibly frustrating and contrary, there's no money to speak of, but I wouldn't trade a moment like that for the world.

This is really happening, isn't it?

My student visa arrived in the mail today, and I've sent the last tuition check, and yeah, I'm really going to Italy. I don't know why I'm having such a hard time believing it. It's just been such a distant dream for so long that, even though I've spent a long time working to make it happen, the idea that it actually would happen seemed less fact than faith.

The first time I even thought of doing something like this was when I first studied with 500 Clown--so, fall 2003? I remember Paul talking about the year he spent at Dell'Arte as a gift to himself. And I understood it logically then, but now--I'm as surprised and delighted as if I'd just opened a fantastic present.

Can't really linger over this post because there's so much to do: the car to clean out and sell, the Italian to study. I think I have a pretty solid hold on the past tenses now. I love that Italian has a sort of plupluperfect, the trapassato remoto, for events occurring before the events in the pluperfect, the trapassato prossimo. It does make you understand the poetic appeal of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, however wobbly the science: in Italy you're not just a woman with a past; you can be a woman with a remote past, an immediate past, an imperfect past, an absolute past.

I should go work on the future tenses, and that's not just metaphor.

Further Adieux

Here's how to depart like a clown: Quit your job, and then get laid off two weeks before your scheduled last day.

Ha. Wow. I can't imagine anyone being more prepared to leave than I am, or better personal circumstances in which to be laid off, but it's still the sort of thing that leaves you dazed.

This means I can sell the car sooner, and I spent part of the evening drafting that ad. That'll be a little sad too. I've dreamed of living carless for a long time, but this is the first car I ever actually bought, and she's an old friend. An old and faithful and very tired friend.

Last night we watched Blues Brothers in Grant Park, and that's a fitting farewell to this city. (Maybe more so because the rain got unbearably heavy right around "It's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses.") When people cheer for the first shot of the skyline, you know you're in a pretty good place. (The shot of Wrigley Field, incidentally, drew mingled cheers and boos. Okay, I can understand being a Sox fan, but surely you're not going to argue that the Cell is superior to Wrigley? I mean...it's just not. It's just not.)

So, anyway. Now I have more time in which to say goodbye to the city, and write, and pack the new duffel bag, and all that. I think that'll wind up being good, really. It's disconcerting, but it'll be good.

I hope this doesn't mean the car is going to crap out right as someone is test-driving it.

Farewell to the Elephant

Struck The Mysterious Elephant this morning. I've said goodbye to a fair number of shows in the Chopin basement. It's odd, the places that come to be centers of your life.

And now that delightful show is gone and so there is really and truly nothing between me and Italy, and oh, oh wow, is it happening soon. Soon enough for me to panic just a bit this afternoon. Soon enough for me to scrub out the fridge and buy a new shower curtain liner in anticipation of subletters. Soon soon. Soon soon soon soon.

Another thing recently gotten out of the way: the possibility of an insanely perfect role in a high-paying show that starts rehearsals the very day I leave. Ah, well. Good to check things off the list.

A rather large departure

Oh my sweet lord, do I have a lot to do.

Haven't done a lot of posting here because I've been busy rehearsing the fantastic new Strange Tree show, and most of my writing energy has gone towards a couple of nonfiction projects. But now the show has opened, the folks at the day job have been informed, and I can announce the next big step:

Two months from today I'm leaving for Italy to study clown at its source--commedia dell'arte at the Accademia dell'arte in Tuscany.

This is the campus:


So, yeah, I'm reasonably certain I'm going to be a different artist, and probably a different person, in December.

I can't wait.