How come you don't know?

12/14

Kimberely comes in for a final meeting before Christmas break. Reviewing our website progress with Stephen. Continuing to work on the list of those who have performed at West-Park over the last 18 months...actors, musicians, dancers....for an event in April that will hopefully bring a wide cross section together. A living resume to show the width and breadth of what we have been. We’re starting soon enough to make it happen.

Teddy tells me that Sean has bee transferred to an upstate facility where he will be fitted for prostheses and a supplemental electric wheel chair. He thanks us for getting him from  the steps on his way to getting his life back. 

I’m dealing with the reality that I can’t make everyone understand one another or see the best in in one another. To see things as I do. But I can set limits. This is new for me. Being clear about how we talk to one another. And why that is important. So many relationships around me are, well, fraught. But if we can start by setting standards for what is acceptable, for what the expectations are, it can be a beginning. Hoping I’m not too old to keep learning.

Noche is experiencing Internet problems. We’ll see if Teddy can fix that. 

And we’re all holding our breath. Waiting. On edge again. We’ve made it so far, amazingly. I believe it will be all right. But we wait.

I’m staying late. As is Danielle. Trying to finish the weekly update, the service. And chilling news coming in  from Connecticut. The words on the screen like from another reality. That's how it happens. You're just going about today's life and then something from the world of chaos suddenly and silently creeps in. Yet again, another gun tragedy. This particularly American form of terror. And strangely, usually male and usually white. And usually with legal guns. Exactly why do we believe that average citizens need to be able to possess assault rifles and automatic weapons? Exactly why? Invading into my Advent meditation, worship preparation. How to make sense?

It’s late. Teddy shares a cold Guinness with me. We’re gathering  good and positive thoughts for RL. It has suddenly become way to close too Christmas.

Much later, I return from a trip into Williamsburg for another apartment play by Stan and Matt, the Representatives. The play they just finished preparing at West-Park. They've just about perfected this drama form.  This time it's The Rakes: An Introduction.  Strangely, ironically and painfully, part of the story as it emerges is about a character  who was on the Virginia Tech campus during that massacre.

George is on the steps again, in the south alcove. I greet him. He looks at me. How ya dealin with what happened up there? Up there in Connecticut? 

Crazy. Doesn’t make sense. I don’t know....

You sposed to. That’s your job. And he harrumphs. Takes a draw on his stogie.  He points up to the newly installed long life energy efficient light bulb above him. Why you got those things?

Bright aren’t they. Supposed to be green.

Green? Green? Don’t you know? They got some kinda poison. Cover us with poison light rays. It soaks in. They gonna kill us. Got it all planned out. Those bulbs is a trick....

Another harrumph. Another draw on the cigar. How come you don’t know? How come?