Boston

Someone with a lot of hate in their heart set off explosions in Boston today.  Boston, which happens to be the epicenter of MY heart.  I have posted a lot in response to tragedy about how the only response is to vow to love one another even harder than before.  Yeah.  That's still true and all, but someone went and fucked with MY GODDAMN HEART and it is NOT OKAY.

I worked in Boston's North End.  I lived in Southie.  I worked next to Fenway.  I visited friends in Somerville. I booked commercials in the South End.  I taught workshops in Dorchester. I wrote a play about the Freedom Trail.  I took groups of children to Copley Square for library field trips.  Name a part of this city and I have touched it.  I love it more than any other place I have ever lived and it's the only place except for my home town that I regularly visit.  My deepest friendships were forged in Boston.  The people that know me best and love me the hardest are from Boston. I cannot stress this enough:  Boston is my motherfucking heart.

And don't even get me started about the fact that this happened at the Boston fucking Marathon.  NO.  Marathoners are the kind of people who do what they do for something larger than themselves.  They are running for charity, they are running to affirm that they are able to accomplish what seems an impossible human endeavor, they are running to prove things to themselves...  Running is so close to being holy.  Fuck this sacrilege.

Yes, I still believe that love is the best course of action in the face of hate and tragedy.  Yes, I will try to love ever harder in the face of THIS tragedy.  But, if Boston has taught me anything, it's that when someone fucks with your people, you FIGHT.  So guess what, Hatred? I am not putting up with this shit anymore.  I'm not going to passively try to love you away.  I'm going to raise my voice and bare my knuckles and beat the everliving SHIT out of you.  YOU. DON'T.  GET. TO. WIN.

The things we make...

In undergrad, I had a conversation with a set designer friend of mine who was finishing a Shaker table for a period design class.  It was a lovely piece of furniture and, as I admired it, he said to me "I couldn't do what you do.  I have to be able to make something I can touch with my hands."  While I am ridiculously enthralled by the act and craft of performing onstage, there are few tangible things to take away from each show.  Playbills, ticket stubs, pictures, friendships...  Scrapbook fodder and memories aside, sometimes one longs to make something that lasts longer than six or eight weeks, 8 shows a week (2 matinee).

I'm not one to crow about my achievements because they seem kind of small sometimes.  I prefer to trumpet the successes of my friends (who are brilliant, talented, gorgeous, bound to change the world and have good taste in friends), but there is one thing I helped to bring to life that I am infinitely, extraordinarily proud of.  In 2007, a group of folks came together to put together an improv troupe on the University of Georgia campus.  In 2013, they are still going strong.  The group's alumni have gone on to success outside of the relative safety of UGA and some are professional actors and improvisors now, themselves.  They've won awards, they've performed before hundreds of people on and off campus and are a thriving group of dedicated artists.

Improv Athens, ladies and gentlemen.  I helped to make this.  And it's one of the best things I've ever done.  

Kim

For Kim, on the anniversary of parting:

“Here the whole world (stars, water, air,
And field, and forest, as they were
Reflected in a single mind)
Like cast off clothes was left behind
In ashes, yet with hopes that she,
Re-born from holy poverty,
In lenten lands, hereafter may
Resume them on her Easter Day.