- Published on
luminescence: the emission of light by a substance that has not been heated.
LuMinEssence: the mission of finding light in the dark.
Another Day
It was actually a really nice day at work
The way everyone worked together
The day ran smoothly
The case was easy
The students were good
The conversation was fun.
It helps.
The way everyone worked together
The day ran smoothly
The case was easy
The students were good
The conversation was fun.
It helps.
- Published on
luminescence: the emission of light by a substance that has not been heated.
LuMinEssence: the mission of finding light in the dark.
On Counseling
Facing demons
Unlocking trauma
Crying
Unearthing excavating
Deep sea diving
When you… I felt… I wished you had…
When you… I felt… I wished you had…
What it means to write these words
What it means to say them aloud
And have them validated
Coming to an understanding and
The kindness of a stranger
Who you’ve been pouring your soul out to
On the counseling equivalent of Zoom
The way she sees you
Patiently waits
Helps you to breathe
Helps you to let go.
Unlocking trauma
Crying
Unearthing excavating
Deep sea diving
When you… I felt… I wished you had…
When you… I felt… I wished you had…
What it means to write these words
What it means to say them aloud
And have them validated
Coming to an understanding and
The kindness of a stranger
Who you’ve been pouring your soul out to
On the counseling equivalent of Zoom
The way she sees you
Patiently waits
Helps you to breathe
Helps you to let go.
- Published on
luminescence: the emission of light by a substance that has not been heated.
LuMinEssence: the mission of finding light in the dark.
Alumni Drinks
Sydney and my life there
Sometimes feel a million light years away
Tonight at a UNSW networking event
I met people who understood that life
Knew the place names
The geography
The way of life
Standing in a hotel bar
On 45th and 6th in Manhattan
And having this wave of memory
The Morven Brown building
The library
The walkway
The Basser steps
Studio One
The huts
The coffee carts
My office halfway up the steps
The myriad of wonderful people
All the late nights painting sets and rehearsing and galavanting around campus
The late nights finishing essays hours before they were due
The early mornings on the walkway
Being a Yellow Shirt and a NUTter and a revuer
Switching from Education to English and History
Falling in love with English literature and women writers and creative writing and critical theory
Falling in love with original research and archives and piecing together the puzzle of the past
And then AJ told me about summer camp
Then Heather told me about Buck’s Rock
Then Kris, then London, then Aaron
Then cancer
New Jersey
And now, nearly twenty years later,
I’m standing in a bar in New York
With the new dean of the Arts faculty
And other alumni from all walks of life
And one of them went to COFA with someone from Buck’s Rock
Because the world is small like that
And taking a deep breath
And feeling so thankful you got to live it all
Sometimes feel a million light years away
Tonight at a UNSW networking event
I met people who understood that life
Knew the place names
The geography
The way of life
Standing in a hotel bar
On 45th and 6th in Manhattan
And having this wave of memory
The Morven Brown building
The library
The walkway
The Basser steps
Studio One
The huts
The coffee carts
My office halfway up the steps
The myriad of wonderful people
All the late nights painting sets and rehearsing and galavanting around campus
The late nights finishing essays hours before they were due
The early mornings on the walkway
Being a Yellow Shirt and a NUTter and a revuer
Switching from Education to English and History
Falling in love with English literature and women writers and creative writing and critical theory
Falling in love with original research and archives and piecing together the puzzle of the past
And then AJ told me about summer camp
Then Heather told me about Buck’s Rock
Then Kris, then London, then Aaron
Then cancer
New Jersey
And now, nearly twenty years later,
I’m standing in a bar in New York
With the new dean of the Arts faculty
And other alumni from all walks of life
And one of them went to COFA with someone from Buck’s Rock
Because the world is small like that
And taking a deep breath
And feeling so thankful you got to live it all
- Published on
luminescence: the emission of light by a substance that has not been heated.
LuMinEssence: the mission of finding light in the dark.
At Home
A whole day at home?
With no where to go?
Not even grocery shopping?
The satisfaction of dishes washed
Clothes folded
To do lists shrunk
Even though you had to yell at the health insurance
(Oh my god the broken infuriating utterly ridiculous incomprehensible health care system that makes you feel deep rage and desire to rip your hair out and just give up at the incompetent inhumane bullshit of it all)
At least you got to yell together
And remember that you have each other
Even when it’s hard
Even when it seems the whole world is conspiring against your happiness and well-being
You are here.
With no where to go?
Not even grocery shopping?
The satisfaction of dishes washed
Clothes folded
To do lists shrunk
Even though you had to yell at the health insurance
(Oh my god the broken infuriating utterly ridiculous incomprehensible health care system that makes you feel deep rage and desire to rip your hair out and just give up at the incompetent inhumane bullshit of it all)
At least you got to yell together
And remember that you have each other
Even when it’s hard
Even when it seems the whole world is conspiring against your happiness and well-being
You are here.
- Published on
luminescence: the emission of light by a substance that has not been heated.
LuMinEssence: the mission of finding light in the dark.
Asbury Park
We went to Asbury Park
It was a bright blue sky day
Warmer than it has been
With a cool breeze that felt good in the sun
Voltaire ran across the sand like a lunatic
(He still won’t touch the water)
Sniffed and frolicked with puppies galore
And kept checking in with us
As if to say
YOU GUYZ THIS IS AMAZING
We walked along the boardwalk
And treated ourselves to lunch
Mussels and fries and chicken dumplings and
Bougie grilled cheese washed down with a lychee beverage
We had chocolate peanut butter ice cream
And walked back along the beach
Voltaire found another burst of energy
We came home and flooped
And hoped to return again.
It was a bright blue sky day
Warmer than it has been
With a cool breeze that felt good in the sun
Voltaire ran across the sand like a lunatic
(He still won’t touch the water)
Sniffed and frolicked with puppies galore
And kept checking in with us
As if to say
YOU GUYZ THIS IS AMAZING
We walked along the boardwalk
And treated ourselves to lunch
Mussels and fries and chicken dumplings and
Bougie grilled cheese washed down with a lychee beverage
We had chocolate peanut butter ice cream
And walked back along the beach
Voltaire found another burst of energy
We came home and flooped
And hoped to return again.
- Published on
luminescence: the emission of light by a substance that has not been heated.
LuMinEssence: the mission of finding light in the dark.
Mula Sa Buwan
I watched the Filipino musical
Mula sa Buwan - From the Moon
It was stunning
Watching this youthful exuberant company of performers singing and dancing in 1940s Manila
I kept thinking about Abuela and Abuelo
How they had loved zarzuelas
Abuelo had even been in one I think
Or at least a play
With the man who became known to us as
Tito Conejo because he had played a rabbit
How they were teenagers in Manila
During the Japanese occupation
The atrocities they saw
The heartbreak they lived through
And how all that was so poetically captured on the stage
Two, maybe even three, generations away
The way the Filipino flag became the Japanese imperial flag
My heart caught in my throat
The framing device of theatre
The way we tell stories
The power of letters
The power of love
The power of music
I want to learn Tagalog
I want to visit Manila
I miss my grandparents
Perhaps they are dancing on the moon.
Mula sa Buwan - From the Moon
It was stunning
Watching this youthful exuberant company of performers singing and dancing in 1940s Manila
I kept thinking about Abuela and Abuelo
How they had loved zarzuelas
Abuelo had even been in one I think
Or at least a play
With the man who became known to us as
Tito Conejo because he had played a rabbit
How they were teenagers in Manila
During the Japanese occupation
The atrocities they saw
The heartbreak they lived through
And how all that was so poetically captured on the stage
Two, maybe even three, generations away
The way the Filipino flag became the Japanese imperial flag
My heart caught in my throat
The framing device of theatre
The way we tell stories
The power of letters
The power of love
The power of music
I want to learn Tagalog
I want to visit Manila
I miss my grandparents
Perhaps they are dancing on the moon.
- Published on
luminescence: the emission of light by a substance that has not been heated.
LuMinEssence: the mission of finding light in the dark.
Happy Afternoon
An unexpected afternoon all to myself
The house was quiet
The floof was with the sitter
Time and space to work without interruption
And then the floof came home
And we played in the yard
And then he flooped on his mumma’s lap and didn’t budge for hours
I watched Iolanthe
(Onto the next!)
And fell into bed
Content.
The house was quiet
The floof was with the sitter
Time and space to work without interruption
And then the floof came home
And we played in the yard
And then he flooped on his mumma’s lap and didn’t budge for hours
I watched Iolanthe
(Onto the next!)
And fell into bed
Content.
- Published on
photo by Joe Carrotta
Oh How Good
It was a long day
By the time we got to the performing
I was bone tired exhausted
But hearing Daniel Rein's music ring out in the synagogue
To a full congregation
And seeing two women weeping
In the final moments of the Sacred Service
The way the audience was so still
You could feel it was something special
All those tricky rhythms and tempo changes and dynamic surges every other measure
Just the epic demanding sing of it
Totally worth it
Seeing Jez and Margo sitting in the same row as David and Katherine
Front and center
Found family with chosen family
Knowing Aaron was there too
Oh how good it was.
By the time we got to the performing
I was bone tired exhausted
But hearing Daniel Rein's music ring out in the synagogue
To a full congregation
And seeing two women weeping
In the final moments of the Sacred Service
The way the audience was so still
You could feel it was something special
All those tricky rhythms and tempo changes and dynamic surges every other measure
Just the epic demanding sing of it
Totally worth it
Seeing Jez and Margo sitting in the same row as David and Katherine
Front and center
Found family with chosen family
Knowing Aaron was there too
Oh how good it was.
- Published on
luminescence: the emission of light by a substance that has not been heated.
LuMinEssence: the mission of finding light in the dark.
The Game of Life
Aaron was working on a presentation for school
The pedagogy of luck
At 3am I had an epiphany
It should be like The Game of Life!
So I made a graphic
And it was a little tricky
But I figured it out
It was nice to be able to help
To feel a part
Because often our worlds
Seem very far apart
But here we are
The actor and the philosopher
Playing the game
Together
The pedagogy of luck
At 3am I had an epiphany
It should be like The Game of Life!
So I made a graphic
And it was a little tricky
But I figured it out
It was nice to be able to help
To feel a part
Because often our worlds
Seem very far apart
But here we are
The actor and the philosopher
Playing the game
Together
- Published on
luminescence: the emission of light by a substance that has not been heated.
LuMinEssence: the mission of finding light in the dark.
The Web
I was doing research on websites
And found a domain I wanted
But someone already owned it
I googled their name
And discovered someone else with the same name
Who recently, was the top fundraiser for the Leukemia Society
Thank you, stranger.
And found a domain I wanted
But someone already owned it
I googled their name
And discovered someone else with the same name
Who recently, was the top fundraiser for the Leukemia Society
Thank you, stranger.