Past and Present Colliding Monday Morning Check-In Post

How Are You??!!

Set of “The Secret Story” at Chicago Dramatists

The house light dimmed as the stage was still in darkness. The magic in this moment, the moment in between was palpable, it always is. My breath caught in my chest and my eyes welled up as I remembered every time I’d ever stood on a stage or sat in a theatre.

We were at Chicago Dramatists, a stage I performed on more than once and whose rehearsal space I used beneath where we were seated when I directed my last play in Chicago, “Reckless” for Sense of Urgency Theater Company. I had already produced and acted in “Terre Haute” there years earlier, written by the amazing playwright, Lisa Dillman, who was standing in front of the theatre as we rounded the corner. Past and present colliding. Lisa now lives in Michigan, so imagine my delight upon seeing her there.

As the stage lights came on, the incredibly talented Ann Filmer stepped into them and began her one-woman show, “The Secret Story”, which she also wrote and originally performed at Lifeline Theatre earlier this year. She brought it back to the stage for one performance during Chicago’s Rhino Fest, a month-long, multi-venue extravaganza of performances billed as “Chicago’s longest-running fringe festival”.

Ann’s writing and performance were beautiful, heartfelt, and deeply personal as she shared the story of her childhood, her mother, and the many mysteries of her mother’s past, some now uncovered and some still buried in the murkiness of the shadows of her mother’s history, who is now gone fourteen years from this world, dying eight months after Ann’s father died.

It was an emotional ride, made more so by the ongoing examination of my own past, which I am invited to do with every step I take, every time I get in the car, and every place I go right now. I have yet to drive past my childhood home. It sits just 31 miles from where I am typing, my father is another eight miles further.

My father, I texted him on May 13th, three days after we arrived here to let him know I had something I wanted to share with him about a big change I had made. “Nothing is wrong, and I don’t need anything from you,” I made sure to include in my message to him.

An hour later he returned my text by phone call. He was out having dinner by himself. He had trouble hearing me, due to the ambient noise, a consequence of choosing to call me back from the safety of a public environment. So I slowly and loudly repeated to him the news that we had returned to Chicago, back to the apartment building we’d left twenty years ago, an apartment building he’d come to once for a summer BBQ.

“That’s great that you kept the connection with those people,” he said when I explained we were again renting from Theresa and Vasken. Still struggling to hear me he said, “Let me call you back when I am home, later this week or maybe this weekend,” he said. “Unless I am not feeling well, which is a lot of the time these days.”

“Ok,” I said and hung up, unsurprised that he would cut short our initial call.

Two weeks passed before I heard back from him, this time via email. He let me know he had been unwell and would call me when he was up to it. I replied to let him know I’d received it, wished him well, and looked forward to connecting when he was able.

A month has passed since then.

I have not been writing about my past since immersing myself in it. I think this is about to change. I also have been writing less in general due to the many fun things there are to do in this city of my origins. The Faeries strongly suggested during our Solstice transmission that we all have as much fun as we can this summer, and I am taking their advice. Farmers’ markets, restaurants, adventures with the dogs, pride fest, and theatre, are just some of the fun of this past week alone. I’ll share more about all of this along with some more simple yet powerful magic later this week.

Free and Fun and Empowerment at Pride Fest and new Sunglasses!

I am also surrendering to Pluto in retrograde in Aquarius, which is supporting my deep internal reflection, as it is yours, along with Saturn which is about to go retrograde in Pisces. This is a whole, “Fuck the structures and rules and let’s create and explore and feel all of the feels,” vibe. The fluid and even flimsy at times reality of Saturn in Pisces we have been experiencing for the past year is about to get even more watery and weird.

The cicadas are beginning to die off, and they finally made it to my block on Saturday night. There is some deep metaphor here that this once-in-lifetime event made it to my address just as it was ending.

How are you? Please let me know in the comment section below.

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