The time has come...

the walrus said, for SF to fade away.

When I started this blog, I was in a very different place in my life. I had more time, and I viewed life through a different lens. I know I will miss it, and I may regret this decision the minute I click publish, but Surreptitiously Facetious isn't me anymore.

Chances are I will start another blog (after a bit if a break), one that is a better reflection of the me I am now. If anyone is interested in being notified if that happens, please feel free to comment on this post or email me.


It's been a good ride. Farewell, and thanks to all.

The perfect cure

Hours spent talking with friends, sharing leftover wedding cake along with our lives.

Nine hours of sleep.

Finishing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, for the second time, completing a read-through of all seven books begun the day I finished it the first time.

Lying on my hammock, looking up at the most perfect sky ever created, knowing it was creating exclusively for me out of unfathomable love.

Sunlight.

Healing for a sad and tired heart.

Hard week.

I know it's been a long time, and this will probably be a long, whiny post, so I apologize in advince for anyone hoping for witty -- there's no witty today.

Last Friday I found out Madeleine L'Engle died. I realize that it may seem odd to some, but for me, it was like losing a favorite grandparent. She was, and is, instrumental in my life. Even so, I have been surprised at the degree of grief I have experienced. Even now, a week later, if I think too much about it I find myself welling up, and as we have all experienced, grief magnifies and intensifies the normal hardships of life until the mundane becomes overwhelming.

Sounds bothered me a lot more than usual this week. Everything seemed so much louder than normal, and students yelling to one another in the hallway, usually just an annoyance, became a irritant beyond reason. A trash can being pushed down a hallway behind me made me want to cover my ears. Whispers during a class assignment made me irrationally angry, and even normal conversation level was difficult to maintain. High school is a noisy place, and when the smallest sounds feel like needles in your soul, it is very nearly an impossible place.

On Tuesday I was observed, and on Wednesday I taught an inservice for new teachers. Even though both went well, I even got what I would consider rave reviews, both events made my stress level for the week much higher than normal. I have a terrible time facing judgement.

I haven't been sleeping; I try, but mostly I just lie there and contemplate the ceiling fan. It's hard to resist the urge to turn the light on and read - if I am awake anyway, I might as well, right? I try and resist, if I stay up reading I certainly won't sleep, but the temptation is always there, and the effects of all those insomniac nights are increasing. My students laugh when I forget how to say a word or lose my train of thought again and again, and I play it off as ditziness, but it scares me to feel my mind slipping like that. As the sleep deprivation continues, the effects pile one upon another, growing exponentially.

My week is almost over -- 2 1/2 more classes, a rehearsal, and then I can let go...hopefully I can get some sleep, cry a little, and next week life can return to normal.

The greatest woman I never knew.

I’ve never met her. I never shook her hand, and I’ve never heard her voice.

She’ll never know she changed my life.

I don’t remember when I first entered her world. Was I nine? Or seven? I never remember being without her. As I grew, that world did too. She taught me to ride on a unicorn and how love can make a mitochondrion live. How love makes everything live, even Mr. Jenkins. Because of her, I can try to see the Beezee inside the Mrs. O’Keefe, no matter how many of her I meet. She taught me to watch for the might-have-beens and that everything I do, no matter how trivial, matters all the way to the stars. She showed me how the light can heal and how ancient prayers could ward off the dark.

When I reached that place where I could no longer believe in the god of my childhood, she gave me a God I could love, and from her I learned that it was OK to be angry at Him. She made Mary real and showed me how to continue to live after unforgivable hurt; even to forgive that unforgivable hurt.

In a past full of darkness, when I was all replete with very me, she showed me light, like a lighthouse beacon in a hurricane, helping me understand that past the wind and rocks, somewhere, there was hope, like a fixed star or a rock to lie on to watch those stars. How I could empty all myself of self.

I never met her. She might be the most important person I’ll never meet.

Goodbye Madeleine. We’ll miss you.

The fear has passed.

Well, sort of.

The revisions are done for the most part, and we start rehearsals tomorrow. This guy gave me permission to use any of his music I want to, which is a huge weight off my mind.

Tomorrow I have to assign roles to my cast, but hopefully the tears will be minimal.

I really, really appreciate all the support I have received on this. Lots of people have read it, and given me great feedback, and everyone I have told has been really excited for me. Thank you all so much!

I really should be writing right now.

Well, I guess technically this is writing, but I should not be writing on a blog, I should be working on the play.

This is a problem.

It’s not done. It’s cast, but not finished. I suppose I could call it finished, in a sense; in the sense that all the scenes are written in some form, but, in another sense….

It’s not done.

Every time I read it, I find more stuff that needs to change. The problem is, I don’t really know what it needs to change into.

There is also the small problem of the utter terror that fills me every time I think about the play. I can’t stop wondering if I have made a huge mistake, that I am doing a tremendous disservice to the kids, and that I will get laughed out of the festival. I'm glad no one told me about the fear stage.

In the “stuff that rocks” column, the kids love the play, absolutely love it.

I guess maybe that matters more than the other stuff.


Maybe.

90 minutes.

Auditions today. Lots of fun kids, a little king frog to warm up, and then we started running scenes.

My scenes.

It wasn't really real before today -- I knew I had written a play, obviously, but it felt imaginary somehow; a play is not a play until it's characters come to life, borrowing breath from actors who read their lines and step into another life.

Amazing.