Only Five Days

to pull all of this together: the $100,000,000 assignment (which essentially is written), the list of "Spoon River Anthology" characters we want to do; a two minute oration on something we give a damn about; a new exercise, which includes a very specific assigned relationship + secret, so we'll have to figure out what that is, and do chair work, and he has the physical task, I have the emotional task, "extreme, with an element of truth, just happened or just found out, life altering"...and I guess we don't live together if I have to knock.  And always, be ready to sing something.

I was too mundane (again) I don't let myself fantasize, I'm not letting myself dream big.  These are supposed to be huge.  Like I don't even know what that would be...I guess I believe this is all I get and I should be happy that I have that (I get told this all the effing time! "Well, it could be worse." "You're lucky you have this." "Sounds like a first world problem.")  Am I not allowed to want a better life?  Are we only here to keep ourselves small?  Who does that serve?  What is the meaning of life?  Is it only to avoid suffering?  If no one ever dreams, nothing gets better....why can't I be the one to dream?  Are we so fearful that we need to keep knocking each other down until we know our place in the mud; that we learn to censor our thoughts and our dreams in order to keep negative attention away until we cease to dream or believe in a better life?  Is the point of art to rise above the mundane?  Is the point of life to rise above what is?

And so this again (might be Marianne Williamson, might be Nelson Mandela.)

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightening about shrinking so that others won't feel small around you. We are born to make manifest the glory of God within us. That is not just some of us, it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. And as we are liberated from our own fears, our presence automatically liberates others. " - Nelson Mandela.

How do we begin to be liberated?  How do we begin to dream again?  Or at least, how do I?

(Camera batteries are dead, pictures to follow.)