Clouds Part

Going to Dell'Arte for graduate school was an experience that, it turns out, I needed a long time to process. I hate to use words like process. I really do. But the processing sort of happened, unbidden, while I was busy being angsty and depressed about not having done enough work during my first year in Portland. There it was, running in the background, chugging diligently away, draining my battery life and occasionally, like a salty old cat, leaving chewed-up revelations at my doorstep, which I met with disgust and feeble gratitude. 

This metaphor got away from me. 

What I mean to say is that I'm learning that my high-octane dismissiveness of anything resembling introspection or feelings hasn't done me any favors in my 20's, and I'm trying to come to terms with this new thing in my life. Processing: the salty old cat that arrived, uninvited, on my porch. I've grown used to the cat. Even look forward to seeing it come sniffing around when I leave out a dish of scraps. Maybe someday it will let me scratch its ears.

 

June hymn

We finished up our exit interviews and thesis assessments with the Dell'Arte faculty this week. Not much left to do except finish up a few straggling assignments, get our websites in order, and prepare for the great and gradual departure of our eight-person ensemble from this sleepy, sunny little town.

It's odd, how things like fanfare fade out as you grow older. It's a fundamentally Dell'Artian philosophy, actually- a classmate's father once commented "it's a good way to be. None of this 'everybody gets a trophy' crap." And it's true- after three years, we've come to expect to be told to do it better next time, and for the conversation to end there.

And so off we go into the wild blue next time, armed only with the longing to do it better. That, and the smell of the river stones in the sun, will do just fine.