Meanwhile I feel like I'm going through writer's bootcamp. My English course started this week and already I've easily written 2,000 -3,000 words for the class. I've also started writing a play, the details of which are currently top-secret. You can see why keeping up with this blog is going to be difficult. I've also decided to worry a little less about the grammatical structure here. This blog is my playground and it doesn't have to organized or religiously spellchecked.
Meantime, I'd like to ask my petite audience what they think is the most important quality in a leader? Think about horrible bosses, great teachers, or anyone that motivated you at some point. How did they do it? [I'm reading a book on leadership right now, and it's kind of fluff stuff.] Post your responses in comment form. Thanks oddles.
Here's a copy of my first paper. I'm not sure if its technically okay to post this online, but I don't see why it wouldn't be. I wrote it, and here it is for the world to judge:
It was the hottest summer they'd seen in a long time. I could feel the thick layer of sawdust and sweat caked on every fleshy part of my body. Looking back through my shoebox of photos, I've broken the laws of physics. I am in two places at once. Having the judgmental eye of hindsight, I am hit with all of the cliché thoughts about what I was wearing and the how silly my hair looked. I can't help but wonder if my appearance, which I now judge ridiculous, acts as any kind of statement about my so-called "friends" at the time. Who would let me out of the house like that?
And yet, that isn't at all how I felt. I was doing something with my life. I was filling my most basic desire as a human being. This explains why so many other desires went unmet. I had purchased a box of microwavable French bread pizzas to get me through the week. It wasn't until day four that I realized I'd been eating garlic bread for lunch everyday. The oversight didn't bother me. I was fueling myself by other means.
Once in the middle of the night I went out for a walk. I took my camera and along the way, snapped photos of the various sites of interest. The incarnation center, which we lovingly deemed "the incarceration center," stood with the same 1970s pride it had at birth. It was our home—theirs, mine and ours, for the summer. A few miles up the dark country road, was the piano factory. As the mucus membrane of Ivoryton, Connecticut, the factory had long-since been forgotten. It stood in great ruins, beautiful. A bit further up Main Street was the library. Ivoryton library was the converted historic home of one of the town's historic residents. That is to say that both the home and its occupants remember the piano factory fondly. Browsing through the travel section, you may find a picture book on Ivoryton in its golden days, or several aged books on the general continent of Africa. I paused for a moment to consider the global map with only these two destinations. I snapped a photo and continued my journey.
The raccoons were out tonight, rummaging through a single tin can of garbage. I'd never been so close to these animals and I felt my stomach slowly falling to the ground bellow. I was overcome with the guilt of a trespasser. I imagined walking through a famous painting and becoming a nuisance to the painting's subjects. I had entered a world in which I did not belong. I quietly tiptoed away, taking great care not to smudge the scene.
A few moments later and I had arrived at my destination. Streetlights were few and far between. For the most part, the thick black sky remained one solid mass of soft darkness. I looked up to the one bright spot on Main Street. The playhouse had been well cared for over the years, so much so that it no longer fit into its surroundings. The bright bulbs around the front of the building, called out as if to scream that there was life in this sleepy village. I lifted my camera to finish the roll. I took 3 pictures, knowing I could buy a postcard in the lobby. Then I walked to the steps of the theatre and sat down. I looked out to see what the building saw, hoping it could share some stories with me. The view was disappointing. The playhouse deserved better.
A subtle wind blew, or perhaps I'm imagining it. I sat on the theatre steps and I realized that I would not always be in Ivoryton, Connecticut. I wouldn't always be protected by the theatre or the small village I'd come to know so well. I rested my head on the ground and under the theatre lights I absorbed my dollhouse world. I could feel the cells in my body dance. It felt like a family reunion. I felt like I was part of something. I was creating. I was filling a supernatural desire to create and every moment I spent near this theatre was another moment of rejuvenation and fueling for my soul. I was being prepared as an emissary into the world.
Looking back through the blurry pictures of that summer, three years later I'm still searching for that elusive feeling of accomplishment. I left something at that theatre and as I search for it, I hope that somewhere it is also searching for me.
