Saturday, April 28, 2001
Hmm, now seems like a long way from this morning. Where did i start the day? Oh yeah, back in Cleveland doing shows for little ones today. They were absolutely adorable. Then we drove on to Kentucky stopping on the way for dinner at Skyline Chili as we passed Cincinnati. Now we're in a hotel decked out for the Kentucky Derby next weekend. The balloon races start at dawn, but we're only thinking of sleep and getting an early start to Louisiana. Friday, April 27, 2001 Mush brained i am happy to have new pajamas to curl up in and relax. Thursday, April 26, 2001 I heard a very sad thing from the mouth of a student today. He saw us in the afternoon as he was heading to a baseball game and said, "Hey, great show. Sorry about those kids in the back. They don't represent our school." Why is this particularly sad? Because his teachers also expressed embarrassment over "those kids" right after the show. Truth be told, the houselights got turned out after we asked that they remained on during the show. If they had been on everyone could have seen how "those kids" were quick to participate when i went up into that part of the crowd to pull up a volunteer on the fly. "Those kids" would have been part of the show instead of hidden in the back. Why were they being rowdy? To get attention, which they got, but it was from teachers quieting them down instead of feeding into the show itself. But they need the attention as evidenced by how the "majority" students and teachers were talking bad about them. They needed to prove that they were important and had something to contribute to the experience. What makes this particularly bad is that all "those kids" in the back have a different skin color from the people who were bad mouthing them. The teachers expressed worry that suddenly they have more of "those kids" in the community and now they are insisting on having a voice since in the past they were simply overwhelmed and assimilated into the majority. Funny thing was that the middle school feeding into them didn't have the same problem. Perhaps it was because they had role models in the faculty they could identify with there, or maybe because they weren't separated out into a different section of the audience. Who knows. What i do know it that sitting in the back has never solved anything for anybody. If i could do the show over again i would put them front and center where they could show that they are not just "those kids" but part of the community. Or maybe just leave the lights on so that no one is left in the dark.~w Tuesday, April 24, 2001 Driving driving driving.
Aip ap sip zap. Dats the sound my brain tis making. I think i blew a fuse at six and have been running on sheer will short circuited since. Two weeks ago i had all my ducks in a row and was irritable about anyone trying to change their order. But, they were few and well trained compared to this week's bunch. I feel like i'm lucky if i can just corral all these ducks into one place, nevermind counting them or trying to line them in a row. At least the people are happy we're working with today. Hmm, that sentence seems out of line. Let's try lining it up again...at least we were working with happy people today. Ah, that's better. It makes more sense. I just felt i had no time to breathe. Zip whiz bing. We ping-ponged from one group of people to the next. From 9:30am to 7:30pm i don't think i stopped to think about anything but shows and workshops. We did have a "break" from 2:30 to 3:30, but i spent that with paperwork and phone calls to catch some ducks flying out of the corral. Now fed, book read, showered i'm ready for bed.~w Monday, April 23, 2001 We read more of Barbara Kingsolver's book today. It's quite an amazing piece of work told from 5 distictly different points of view. You can read about some of the research involved on her question and answer page about the book. It's fun to read out loud because each character has their own voice to tell the story that comes alive when spoken. It's a book i'd been meaning to pick up for myself thinking i'd like to eventually read it, but that ciro might not like to listen to it. Boy, was i wrong. The deeper we get into it, the more we both want to keep going and found ourselves in the hotel room still reading it saying "just one more chapter" about 5 times. Sunday, April 22, 2001 We had a lovely breakfast and visit with Jim, Susan, Lindsey, and Whitney before hitting the road again this morning. It was great to touch base with them. Strangely enough Lindsey (who was a baby when i last saw her) reminds me of my younger sister. There's something about the strange charming sneaky glimmer in her eyes with the quirk of her mouth. She must be family.
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