Well...we're back in the car again.

When people ask me what my favorite movies are, I always say the same thing. Star Wars, Alien, Breaking the Waves, Rushmore, Young Frankenstein. Great movies, a good mix for a theatre nerd type, and good representation of me. A certain comic style that I always try to recapture on stage in Young Frankenstein. A little Von Trier and Anderson (love them both.) Classic sci-fi movies that show my love for fantasy, melodrama, being scared, and Ripley. I never say Jurassic Park but the truth is I love this movie. I’ve watched it a lot. It’s exciting and scary and fun. The female character is smart and interesting and wears sensible shoes. There is this part in the movie where the young boy Tim has crashed into a tree in the car after being attacked by a T Rex (what is not to love about this movie?) Dr. Grant is trying to save him by getting him out the car and as they climb down the tree, the car falls down the tree and lands on top on them, enclosing them in the car again. At this point, Tim says, “Well…we’re back in the car again.” I like the young actor’s reading on that line. It’s not a complaint. It’s just a fact. It is what it is. I quote this line a lot. Well… I’m back in the car again. Well… I’m back at the airport again. Well…I’m back on the train again. Well…I’m back in a strange bed again. That is long story to explain the title of this blog.

EPIC SUMMER THEATRE ADVENTURE PART TWO.

Elsa and I are back in the airport/airplane/car/strange bed again. I’m not sure when I will post this exactly (I am at the Toronto airport right now) but we are headed to The Manitoulin Conservatory for Creation and Performance in Canada for a Mask and Clown Intensive with the wonderful John Turner and Michael Kennard aka Mump and Smoot aka the Canadian Clowns of Horror. Elsa and I have been trying to come to this intensive for about 5 years and every year something happens. Usually being broke happens, but also summer schedules are hard. We made it happen this year. 

Determination and sacrifice (mainly on Elsa’s part) MADE. IT. HAPPEN. I am 79% excited and 21% scared. We rented a small cabin and will accomplish 100 hours of clown and mask training over the next 15 days. I think we are very close to the lake and I plan to swim as often as I am able. I think I will be offline most of the time but we’ll post a bit as we are able.

We aren’t the only Tricklockers continuing on with adventure. Hannah is still in Poland teaching with Teatr Figur Krakow at their summer education camp and then she heads the Summer Intensive at The Gardzienice Center for Theatre Practices. I will let her tell her story on this, but I'm soooooooo excited for her. 

***side note: I don't know why my blog did that ^ I can't fix it so whatev. Maybe it's highlighting it because it is IMPORTANT!

So that leaves Krakow. Oh Poland. Poland, where a part of my heart always lives. On the last night, Aaron and I walked back to our flat after dessert and coffee and Aaron said dramatically, “Boohoohoohoo.” I said, “What’s wrong?” He said, “I don’t want to leave Krakow!”  This is how we always feel. The shows at Teatr Barakah were great. The audiences were great. Barakha was great. We saw old friends, made new friends, hung around the city, John and Bernadette joined us (John is our longest Board member and all around cool guy) and we just generally had a fabulous experience.  I ate so much Zurek, a sour soup with sausage, potato, and a hard boiled egg. Aaron calls it breakfast soup. It is delicious.

                                                                  Krakow

We traveled by train from Keiv to Warsaw, Warsaw to Krakow. 12 people and about 36 bags. Narrow halls, tiny sleeping cars, in Warsaw we had 6 minutes to get off the train. Six. Minutes. This group of people is just remarkable. They were upbeat, worked together, and loved each other. On the train we went from compartment to compartment hanging out, laughing, talking, drinking Ukrainian vodka (gifts from PostPlay.) This is an amazing group. No doubt about it.

                                                                          Love these people

Now I am in Canada. I lucked out and stayed at the perfect Toronto hotel for my travelling troubles. I arrived Wednesday night at the hotel at 11pm and I had to pick up Elsa the next day at 5:30pm. Then we rent a car. When I arrived on Wednesday, I was exhausted. They let me have a late check out, they had laundry on site so I cleaned my clothes, they had a restaurant with a yummy veggie omelette, they let me hang around in the big comfy chair in the lobby and use wifi, and the lovely man at the little store in the lobby where I bought my gum asked about my peppermint oil which sparked a 30 minutes conversation about practicing mindfulness. This was a particularly interesting moment. I put the gum on the counter and he said, “I don’t know that you need this gum, you already smell so minty.” I explained I use peppermint oil to help with my headaches and anxiety. Something about this opened him up to me and we talked for a long time about releasing anger, removing greed, and letting go of ego. Or at least recognizing it when it is happening.

I had a few days of emotional roller coasting riding immediately after the tour. Depressed it was over, elated it was so successful, homesick, in love with Krakow, freaked out that instead of going home I was going to an intensive training, massive separation anxiety from Aaron. I would get weepy, “I can’t believe we are going to be apart for 17 days!” Sometimes you just have to take the ride.

                                                                 This guy. I love this guy. 

Elsa and I are at the hotel in Sudbury (half way between Toronto and Manitoulin Island) and I went swimming this morning. I thought it would be magic for my knee but even swimming hurts it a bit. Kicking my leg on my first lap and I gasped in pain. Oh man. Healing sucks. It is just going to be months of recovery. I have to be okay with this. I have been healing my knee along the way.  I will admit that a crazy tour is not the way to heal a knee, but it’s what I have been doing. I will keep at it.

Okay. Off to clown camp we go! A couple of mid to late 40 year old best friends, living in a rustic cabin on a lake, training in clown and mask 10 hours a day, in an old farmhouse in Canada. This is the life.  I’m so grateful that I have awesome parents who help and support my work so much (they took care of our creatures while were gone and spoiled the crap out of little Shudek!) I’m so in love with my amazing theatre company. I’m so lucky that I get to really experience part of the world not just with travelling but with actual artistic exchange. I have great friends and an amazing partner. I have so much gratitude. I’m going to focus on all of that goodness. Take it with me into the clown work. Open the door. Up, up, up. 

Amsterdam to Kiev and all the love in between

****** I wrote this blog several days ago but was unable to post it. SO MUCH HAPPENED BETWEEN NOW AND THEN! I will leave this blog as is and end with some new updates.

“I pretty much live my life jumping from one moment of laughing to another moment of laughing. I just can’t remember the bits in between very well. “  -Katy Houska

I am on a train traveling from Amsterdam to Kiev. In case geography is hard, that is a pretty long ride. We do Amsterdam to Berlin, change trains and travel to Prague, change trains and take a sleeper car to Kiev. I love a train. It’s so lovely to watch the world from a train. Our seats now (we are in Germany) are facing a way that requires us to travel backwards. It’s not Aaron’s favorite, but I don’t mind.

New York was great. As always. Our show went well and awesome people came to see it and we all hung out after. It’s such a great city. I love being there. I was sitting at Washington Square Park, people watching and listening. I always learn about myself when I am in New York. I fall in love with humankind and my heart swells to be a part of it. It struck me that New York is Donald Trump’s home. How on earth can he live in New York, such a rich and diverse tapestry of people from all over the world, and be such a hateful, racist monster? How is that possible? I just don’t understand.  I don’t want to talk about politics in this blog. I have A LOT of thoughts. It’s been rough to be on social media so much promoting the tour. It’s hard to not get sucked into the headlines or comments on people’s page. I don’t want to engage right now. For one, having a mean and divisive “conservation” through a comment feed is never going to change someone’s mind. But it was hard to ignore all of the comments on Doug’s page about how “it isn’t about gender.”  Ugh. I’ll blog soon about HRC.

It is fascinating to be touring while all of this is going on. I can’t wait to hear what people think of this crazy. I should just make a shirt that says, “I AM SORRY ABOUT TRUMP. I DON’T UNDERSTAND EITHER!” It has been nice to catch up on the speeches from the DNC. So many beautiful and inspiring moments. I am holding faith that a little more than half the people in the US are kind, thoughtful people who want to help others and see themselves as a world citizen. Fingers crossed.

I haven’t been sleeping very well. Jetlag, I know, but it’s been a little worse than normal. I have bouts of troubled sleeping brought on by anxiety. It’s usually money related. Running a non-profit is hard. Being responsible for all the bills is stressful. Back home, I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night, heart racing with thoughts of “How are we going to get through the month?”  I have a little bit of this going on so last night instead of reading my scary apocalypse novel, I started re-reading Yes Please by Amy Poehler. FIGURE OUT WHAT YOU WANT. SAY IT LOUD. THEN SHUT UP.  She’s the best. I also watched the movie “Sisters” on the plane and it is funny and the cast is awesome. I also watched “The Lobster” which is super weird and AMAZING. What the fuck? Have you seen that movie?

We had a minibreak in Amsterdam so that Aaron and Katy could finish shooting some scenes for the movie. Amsterdam is so pretty. Bikes and canals and slanted houses and windmills. Sigh… Also, pancakes with savory things baked in them are delicious.  It is still a dream to retire part of the year there. At least visit for chunks of time as we can.

Alex, Hannah, and Erin are already in Ukraine and apparently, it is incredible. I can’t wait to get there!

****** THREE DAYS LATER…

I am here. We will blog properly about Ukraine on the Tricklock blog but what a powerful place. If you don’t know the history of Ukraine or the recent things that have been happening here, you should look it up. It is heartbreaking and overwhelming. I was in the square yesterday and imagining the photos I had seen from only two years ago, in this same exact spot. Rubble and fires, protesters and military, I think about Mariana talking about the piano that the artists rolled out and played in the midst of it all. I think about the flag that was held up amidst the bombing that said, “You are beautiful.” Also, this city is lovely. The architecture is amazing. The churches, oh THE CHURCHES!

If you are my friend on Facebook you probably know that we traveled by train for 48 hours. We were on one train from Prague to Kiev for 35 hours straight (one break to grab food.) It was crazy. I knew it seemed like a fast trip for the distance, but I was overwhelmed with planning this tour. Twelve people, three cities, three different shows, plus workshops, insurance, budgets, reports, PR, taking care of home, etc. It’s a lot. When I saw the itinerary for 26 hours I thought, that sounds fine. There was no arrival date so it looked like a trip that left early in the morning and arrived early the next morning.

It arrived early TWO mornings later. Ahhhh. Gotcha.

The discovery moment when the train conductor is showing us the long list of stations along the way and making a circle with his finger like a clock and says in English, “24 hours” in his thick Russian accent was a shocking moment. Katy looked back at me with disbelief and the Polrail email that said something about a two day trip (that I thought was another trip I didn’t buy) comes flooding back to me. Katy, Drew, Aaron, and I made the best of it. The train was hot. It was cramped. It was not comfortable. I always look for the lesson. What is the universe teaching me?  Here are the things I learned:

1. People are kind. The Slovakian guy in the next car who was helping us translate Russia as best he could watched our shock, horror, and disappointment take place in real time. I said, “24 more hours? We don’t have any food.” This man gave us his bag of food. Meat and cheese and bread and two beers. We said, “No, no, we can’t possibly take your food.” He said, “Of course you can. I am almost home. Take it and eat it. It is okay.” This is one example of a series of things that people did to help us along the way.

2. Sometimes you get a gift at just the right moment. About 30 minutes after our discovery, the train conductor helped us to understand that at the next station we would have almost an hour stop. This station had an ATM and a grocery store. We pulled out money and bought food and water. There was not another stop like this the entire rest of the trip. If we were stopped  for a long time it was in the middle of nowhere. If we were at a good station, we only stopped for 5 minutes. That stop and station was our one and only combination and it came right after our discovery. It made the train ride much better.

3. My privilege is a luxury that most people don’t have. I went to use the bathroom in the train and the seat is broken and there is no toilet paper and there is a bloody rag in the trash and it smells strongly of pee (I am not a person who is bothered by much. Years of taking care of small children, I can take almost anything, but the smell of pee is gross) and I thought to myself, a huge number of people in the world live like this every day. Not necessarily on a train, but my clean bathroom back home and my comfortable bed and the food in my fridge, and the water that I can drink that runs from a faucet in my home is a fucking luxury and I should never, ever take it for granted.

4. Pay attention to details. UGH. If I had just taken a breath and read the email properly and asked one question and waited for an answer we would have known about our train trip. I got frazzled and busy. Slow down. Calm down. Deep breaths.

So, now we are here. All of Tricklock is here. We open tomorrow. More soon.