Two More Weeks

I've begun a countdown. That's not a good sign.

Or maybe it is. It means I haven't come to like this place so much that I prefer it to my home and husband and cats.

I'm actually working a lot. I've coached several young artists on thier recital material and am staging a couple of them in some various scenes. It's good to have some sort of creative work to look forward to every day.

In the rest of my time I'm uploading countless photos to Flickr. I've taken nearly 3000 pictures with my birthday camera. It's truly become a hobby outside of my stage work. I've been trying to discover everything I can about this camera - using the macro feature, playing inside the manual mode, testing how clear the digital zoom is... John says that once I've mastered my G7 then I'll be ready to move on to a single lens reflex. So much of my free time (and sometimes my work time) consists of me looking around to find good things to photograph. I've begun to notice the light more, to look at detail on flowers and furniture, and to see framing in my mind wherever I am. It's not an obsession. Yet.

I've also subscribed to the podcast "Opera Now!" and am catching up by listening to some of their past shows. It's a few singers out of Chicago and their banter is quite entertaining. Smart too. Their last show featured a conversation about both Monteverdi and Regietheater (or what is commonly called "Eurotrash") stagings of traditional works. Everything about opera seems relevant to me right now, but I think it's because I am so entrenched in the art form by being out here for three months.

I had a matinee this afternoon and then ran off, on a complete whim, to Glimmerglass State Park. I don't know what made my car turn right instead of left at Highway 20. Perhaps it was the impeccable weather or some sort of headspace that I wasn't conscious of. Perhaps it was the realization that I am losing my mobility on Monday. Whatever it was, I found myself turning into the park 15 minutes later and shelling over a bit of cash to park near the lake. I found a picnic table under a tree that was lazily swaying out over the lake, sat down and wrote in my journal for a while.

Sometimes solitude is magnificent.