Going Home and other such adventures

I was having one of those Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Days. They seem to happen more often while living in what is still a foreign country. Emotions are all over the place. Always.

There are the frustrations: My inability to express myself perfectly, follow things in class, and the fact that I find myself spending too much money money on things that I would have before deemed a ridiculous sum (such as a 5 euro calling card that only gives me 55 minutes).

Couple that with some stresses: an increasingly busy schedule, still trying to settle into a new flat, and forgetting to plan English lessons and having to do them minutes before class.

And then throw in the fears: the fact that I accidentally underloaded last semester I might not have it count or, worse, I might be suspended from my program, or the fear of flying to London only to have them decide to deport me home because I no longer have a visa (since it was stolen in Portugal).

Let's just say I was feeling a bit overwhelmed.

The rain and the cold were getting to me and I was jealous of sunny North Carolina.

So as I was walking from class to my English class, I asked for a miracle.

A few hours later I was sitting in a cafe where I was stealing internet from someone and eating a hasty lunch. I finish and the waiter brings me a piece of chocolate mocha cream deliciousness that I hadn't ordered.

I give him a look that goes from "wait what?" to "you don't have to do that."

He counters with his own look of "Relax. Take it and enjoy."

And mine shifts to "Thank you. Thank you."

Miracle delivered.

Now I just wish I knew how to say, "you made my day" in Spanish.

“Hoping to go see this next month in London: The prayers of Peter Brook | Stage | The Guardian,” the Facebook status read. Emil Kang had popped up on my news feed by chance.

"Peter Brook? Like The Empty Space Peter Brook? Like the acclaimed genius artist and director Peter Brook? The one who changed experimental theatre? Peter Brook!?" My mind ran fast, my fingers faster.

“Really? Because I just might join you there…” I wrote in response.

I was half-way serious.

A few days later I get a reply. Emil informs me that if I’m serious about going to see the show he might be able to get me a ticket.

I become completely serious.

Well, not completely serious. I might have let out a school-girl style squeal.

Several series of e-mails later, travel plans are made and I find myself with a plane ticket to London.

*******

Then, the other day I finally got the chance to Skype with Emil. It was the follow up to an e-mail I had sent back in November following an artistic crisis-near-breakdown. I was frustrated because all of my searches for collaborating artists had been proven futile. I couldn’t find an outlet anywhere. This lack had made me realize just how important art and performance were to me and all of this culminated in one long e-mail to Emil (who I hadn’t really seen or spoken to since my Freshman seminar with him, a couple years ago.)

Fast forward a few months to now and our conversation found me in a lot better state [artistically]. I told Emil of how his response to my e-mail, the personal development I was experiencing, along with my experiences in London and Portugal all led me to create the theatre collective here. I think he was more proud of me than I was of myself.

We talked future possibilities, current musings, and parental concerns. Emil told me the story of how his parents threw a wine bottle at his head when he told them he didn’t want to be a doctor, instead pursuing a career in the arts.

We agreed that there would be more time to discuss these things in London. And then he gave me a few things to consider in the mean time:

Get feedback on my work. “It’s not very good to get to 50 and find out you stink.”

Keep searching for more ways to do what I’m doing but further it. Look to do it in different ways. The same idea, but in different ways.

Push myself to work with my weaknesses as well as my strengths.

*******

Today I drudged up some of the essays I wrote for the performance class in which I had Emil as a professor. Some of them were pretty terrible. And they certainly made me surprised that Emil remembered me in a positive light.

Always growing, always moving. My perspective on performance has certainly altered since that communication performance course in which I first came into contact with Peter Brook. I remember feeling confused reading "The Empty Space" and thought it was interesting, but maybe just a bit weird.

At the end of the semester, we had to get into groups and write a performance piece. I didn't really understand the whole idea of performance as something other than traditional theater and wrote this really terrible mini-play. (Trust me, I just reread it. It's awful.)

Our professors stretched us and helped us change it into something that, if I remember correctly, was half presentable. But I do remember feeling frustrated during the process and complaining with my group that the professor didn't make any sense.

But then, when it came time for all the groups to perform, I remember clearly this one performance. I can't remember what it was about or what exactly they did, but I remember this red piece of cloth that they used throughout the piece. And I thought it was one of the most beautiful things in the world. And it was beautiful because I couldn't figure out why it was so beautiful. It just was. And I didn't have to make sense of it.

*******

Now, this week, the collective is going to the street. To start to make beautiful things that will probably make little sense. Or will make the sense that people decide to place on them. Or perhaps we'll come up with a sense of our own.

In a few weeks I’ll be heading to London. To watch beautiful things crafted by a man who at first made no sense to me.

And now I finish with a sentence that will try and be a summary of all these things in my head. But this sentence isn't coming, so I'll just throw out a few words.

Pursuit and passion and perform and play and pushing and prayers and peter

and I think I somehow got stuck on p's.

I just had my fortune read by Abuela. She took the Spanish playing card deck and passed them out on the table.

Apparently I'm going to:
Have change that I won't like.
Fight with a girl over money.
Get invited out to drinks by a married man who I'm going to like.
Do very well in the University.
Receive a really nice present.
Have a special someone who is going to ask me to live with him. Apparently he's a really good one. But I'm not sure about him.
Go to a wedding and meet a man there who is going to make me think.
Have a phone call about love.
Fight with my parents about something.
Go on a trip that I won't like.

My madre had hers read. She recieved something she didn't like. "Mentiras," she said.

"Mentiras," Abuela says to me. "Mentiras ella dice. Pero vas a ver que va a pasar."