spring redemption

...hi. how are you? I've been busy.

Closed "The Eye of the Storm" on Monday night. In two weeks "The Fishbowl" opens. It is so good that the weather has become lively and energizing.

I'm sitting on the couch in the new house, with no one else home for once--last night I got home before 11 for the first time in forever--took the day off work to do shopping for the show and instead I read a book and did my taxes online and caught up with some email. (How can I possibly owe them $60? I had a gross income of $5581! I'm going to re-do it on paper and see if I can legally weasel a better deal.)

One email contained the invitation and draft Haggadah for a friend's seder next week. Just beginning to look at the text I begin to weep. Devoted readers, you may recall a certain past surfeit of Passover writing--well, again my Passover-lovin' spirit awakens. Bonnie the catloaf is sleeping chunkily on the couch, the breeze is ruffling the houseplant leaves, I've got a bellyful of corn muffins. Got to eat up those grains, though with three non-observant roommates I'm just going to kasher/designate a small cupboard-section. It's a good time, because of/despite all the work I have to do.

Thinking over the past year, wow, there have been liberations in my life. Recently I read about the Jewish concept of 'liberation' as not unbounded, self-centered ability to "do whatever I want" but rather freedom from the false demands of the economic and social status quo, the (American?) idols we know so well. In the past year I've seen more and more the liberation that inheres in 'making your own rules,' not having no rules; living by idealistic and perhaps devotional principle with love and faith. The commentary in Michael Strassfeld's The Jewish Holidays says, "true liberation binds us, false service giving way to true." So, I'm learning. I trust the Process.

The people around me these days are really a great set. In theater, at work, at home, in the West Phila community, I'm a bit starry-eyed. Grateful.