The Deep End

Sometimes it's hard to know where to begin, so you've just got to jump in feet first to see where the waves take you -- and pray to avoid the undertow. August has come and gone. Despite the lack of coverage here, it did not pass uneventfully.

I had the extreme joy of returning home to Tennessee for a few weeks in the middle of last month, to celebrate both my parent's 40th wedding anniversary and my brother's 32nd birthday. Unlike other trips home -- for Christmas or doctor visits -- I did not rush this one. I gave it a full two weeks. Even that went by too fast.


I played Service Wench quite happily at my folks' anniversary party and met Kenny for windsurfing on the lake and disc golf at a state park; I made pierogi from scratch (my first attempt at the kraut-filled dumplings) and devoured them along with other Polish goodies at my brother's birthday feast; I photographed friends and family splashing in the backyard pool and my nieces making "nature soup" (bird seed, squirrel feed, and water from the hose) in the front yard; I watched the Olympics with my Dad and drove to see Ang in Nashville, where we went in a fruitless search for a mechanical bull. (Well, okay, we knew where there was a mechanical bull, but we didn't know it was "closed" on the weekdays. Bummer.)

Still, the best part of the trip, for me, was reuniting with an old friend I hadn't seen for the better part of a decade. Denise's older daughter is in high school now (wow!) and she's had another since I saw her last. Playing "Godmother" to these two, while "ort"-ing like a sea lion with the younger of them was a hoot, even if on the whole we didn't spend a lot of time together. The little one, I hear, now wants to visit me in San Diego. She knows that this is where REAL sea lions (and Sea World) live. She also believes that I live in a bungalow, like Mulan, and that she'll get her allowance every day in this mystical world far away.

I won't post pictures of minor nieces and god-daughters to the internet, but with the belief that adult friends are fair game, I share this one.


I introduced Denise to Ang on this trip; here the three of us embark on our pursuit of the elusive mechanical bull. Though the bull managed to evade us without moving an inch, finding the three of us in one place at one time was by far the better discovery.

There are, of course, always things that you've forgotten or which have changed when you return to a place you've called home. The first one that caught my attention was the sound of the tree frogs, a sound I'd long forgotten. Well, no. Actually, the FIRST thing that caught my attention was total darkness. In San Diego, you don't get a lot of dark. Even the palm trees here have uplighting. Driving from Manchester to Tullahoma in the car I'd borrowed from my brother, who lives well away from the madding crowd, I remembered what true dark really was -- and how difficult it is to navigate. Only after parking that car and heading to my parents' front porch did I catch the sound of the tree frogs. The next day, it was the sound of rain. Though there was never a "gully washer" or a "frog choker" thunderstorm during my visit, I was at least spared the intolerable heat of a usual mid-August in Middle Tennessee, so despite the dryness I call it a wash.

More and more I realize that the only real differences state to state, apart from the occasional accents of the natives, lie in the flora and fauna. Just about everywhere you go in this country, you'll find a McDonald's, a Wal-Mart, and a Verizon Wireless store. Its the lush, green oak trees, stalks of corn, and warm fresh water lakes which distinguish a Tennessee landscape from the eucalyptus trees, birds of paradise, and freezing salt-water ocean beaches of California. Where in California, the ocean is home for swimmy things with big teeth, stingers, or suckers, in Tennessee, the toothy, stingy, sucky things fly. I'll admit, I hadn't missed wasps or mosquitos.

I was surprisingly heartened to see other fauna, however. A family of deer or a fox crossing the highway; horses, cows, and goats grazing in pastures; squirrels, lizards, and birds of every color leaping, flying, and foraging. In a more metropolitan area, it's easy to forget that we share the city with more than gas-guzzling machines and yapping bipeds who've been Bluetooth enabled.

But back in the land of the Bluetoothians, I've found myself busied again with far different endeavors. In September and October, I'll be producing a full-length show while directing a much shorter piece elsewhere. I'll continue to record podcast interviews (available on iTunes, folks), manage the production calendar, and man the box office for a third theatre, while auditioning for a fourth, fifth, and even sixth. In fact, I've received a callback today from one of the two Repertory companies here.

Now, I'm no more right for this show than I was when they originally cast it (they are replacing an actor now), but I'm delighted to be called back for another appearance there. As any actor will tell you, when a theatre with the word "Rep" anywhere in the title calls, you drop everything. Thus, many theatre owners will tell you, this is a good reason to put "Rep" somewhere in your title. I can't tell you how many "repertory" companies appear on my resume which neither paid their performers nor performed shows in repertory, but I digress.....

I will try to get back into the habit of regular updates here, now that the blog is again open for business, but a year's writing sabbatical has quashed the habit.

Heavens! As if to prove a point, I've just remembered that I've failed to tell you about my trip to Del Mar, where, yes, I bet on the horses. Every race. Did pretty good, too. For a rookie.


What I really need now is a good Dick Francis novel.