Calm the Voices

This time next week I’ll wake up in New York City.

This morning I’m working hard to be in the moment, to enjoy this easy Sunday morning, sip my coffee and reflect.

My brain is whirling with a to-do list a mile long, with tasks and shopping lists, and meal preps and show times and LTYM tasks. Things that must be finished before I leave for NYC. Things that must be finished before I leave for Tulsa to meet my sis and trade out care for our dad after his neck surgery on Thursday.

I’m thinking about our cast yesterday and the total clustercluck of the scheduling when we arrived to find people in our space, and adapting and shifting and while it worked on me a bit, that cast was wonderful.

It’s always a little tentative. The first meeting. Even when we have alumni join us, there is a tentative…reserved air that abounds. And then just like that, things open up. Smiles and laughter and heads nodding and sideways glances turn into conversations.

It’s lovely the air of protection and ownership our alumni have over this project. This movement. This transformative thing that is Listen To Your Mother. It’s lovely the show of grace and willingness to include new faces into the family.

Our schedule is compact this season. A lot due to our wedding, a lot due to the fact that the third year is by far easier and we know how to do it. I love this production team beyond words. We are so in sync. I think it translates to our cast and that connection into a community becomes the force of energy that we need to sustain us throughout the bullshit and stress that inevitably comes with producing an event.

The sun is out, the breeze is chilly, but nice. It is a day that needs to be productive for me, so I’ll go make some lists, check some things off and get on with the living.

Sitting here to write this, though has calmed me a bit. I don’t feel the crazy ebbing in like I did an hour ago.

Chalk another one up for making time to calming the voices by writing the words.