Ohh, it’s good to be back. If my digital life was a film, this would cue a long and ceremonious return back to town, with a solemn yet feisty backing track and sunrise glinting on the dust I stirred with my journey as a changed individual returning to beloved lands. At least, that’s how I prefer to imagine it. I could slink back into a former position with a haze of ethereal noisy ambience, but I want to envision a moment in which I hold my head high and declare the value of a time away from being a real-live-online-person, you know, the posting regularly and being present in a significant way in online media.
I’ve had a sabbatical from digital life as a performing arts person, it’s true. My return has been staggered. It was intensely personal at first, friends-only posts of family moments I couldn’t help but share. There were a variety of reasons for why I needed to take a break from the intensity of “existence” online. I consumed media without interaction required. I felt the pressure and chatter fade from my immediate aura, from my required-daily-output-of-adulting. I felt a blissful bubble of privacy and muted echos. I had the ability to focus on determining priorities, and the making-things-happen of working and living and the again-and-again of engaging as a professional and as a person in the real-life of everyday.
Meanwhile, I moved to the end-of-the-train-line in the city. I worked more until I worked less and reclaimed myself. I moved out of the city, back to where they tore out the train tracks even though the boats and silos persevere. I got a dog. I birthed a son. I finally grew a garden. The digital realm literally transformed, radically transformed, while I was more or less absent or observing.
And so, I am ready to step back into the slipstream. I want to beam and brim with ways to make both tiny and larger positive differences in the world. I want to be able to engage in the process and change that arts can be an instrumental part of, for individuals and for our culture to shift in ways of betterment and positive action towards the planet and those on it. Digital and not, communication can create and here I am.
I have been excited to contribute to my community with organizations such as Sheatre and Sandcastle Theatre. I will be continuing to live and work in the area and continue my professional practice as a music and interdisciplinary arts facilitator, educator, coach, consultant, and administrator… yeah yeah, and performer/creator too. I’ll be posting links to more information about this but mostly, using this space for information about performances, words, and music. There have been some new lyrics added to the Lyrics section of the website, and more will be appearing in the coming weeks. For now, the recent additions are: See Shell, Dead of Winter for the Spring and Smotion Waltz. Which would you most like to hear posted as an audio recording?
