When I first arrived here in Fowler with (the lovely!) Sabrina Sikes who drove me up here from Los Angeles, we arrived at the Buddhist Church of Fowler and met up with Paula and Ashley who were waiting for us. After welcoming us with hugs, they handed us brown packets that held all of the preliminary information we needed for our upcoming time in the institute. While scanning the contents of the packet, I became immediately overwhelmed when I pulled out the schedule pages, which contained the full schedule of our entire month here. I almost fainted. I couldn’t believe the amount of stuff that was listed before me, that I would supposedly be able to complete within the coming month. That evening, we had a welcome dinner and got to know each other through playing games with Michael John Garcés that got us to start thinking about community mapping and what really defines the word “community.” Coming into the institute this year, we did have three fewer days than the institutes normally have. These days are normally committed to the institute students getting to know one another and forming a community of their own. Because we were lacking these days, exercises like this initial community mapping exercise were very helpful in getting all of the students to start talking to one another and to members of the Cornerstone Ensemble.
Despite our later start this year, I don’t feel that we, as students, have been lacking in our ability to get to know one another. Through canvassing for auditions, holding auditions together, meeting community members of Fowler who were extremely interested (or not!) in being active participants in putting on the production, and having classes together for the first few days, spending a week together has brought us all very close. I feel as if I’ve known the other students and company members of Cornerstone for about a year.
As a group, we have had a lot of fun exploring what this small, wonderful town called Fowler is all about. On Tuesday morning, after we had already had a night of auditions, Paula gave the students a scavenger hunt of Fowler to complete in our exploration of the town. In our hunt, we were to visit various sites like the cemetery in Fowler, Panzak Park(where our play will be held!), the library, five of the many churches in town, and five school buildings. We were also sent to find things like a found object, a place where past and present meet, and a place where we could write a haiku. Although Sabrina, Siobhan, and I didn’t have quite enough time in our 90 minutes allotted to complete the scavenger hunt, we have been gradually checking some of the sites and things off our list throughout the past week. One idea from the scavenger that has stuck with me is the idea of past and present meeting. I had a lot of expectations for my time here before I arrived. When the time finally came, and I was here, I began to realize how much more of my past is important in this type of work than I had ever realized it would be. I have to remember who I am and my particular aesthetic in art as I am also meant to be focusing on a lot more practical parts of rehearsal during this part of the process. This helps me to stay committed to the act of storytelling, even when I feel like I’m not directly affecting the ultimate outcome of the play. When we were assigned in our scavenger hunt to write a haiku, I was inspired to write a poem about my time thus far about the conglomeration of things I’ve experienced.
Harvest moon.
I haven’t seen you yet.
I’ve been hiding.
Not hiding from you, but from
the bright hot sun
so hot
so
hot
that when I step outside in the dark of the night
and I see a faint light in the distance
I think
No!
Not the sun!
And I run inside, to cover up my arms
And neck
And face
And skin
And the Buddha man says that my soul doesn’t exist.
But I think there is something.
Is soul the same as spirit?
To me they both mean music
And friendship
And my ghosts who still live there
Right there, in my chest.
A little pocket of wonder that sometimes opens up
To the tune of a good story or a kind word.
And that ghost soul spirit life seeps into my arms
And legs
And feet
And toes
And my limbs go numb when I hear his name
And his day of death
Is the same day that this 90-year old man
Was brought into a long, long life.
And I think
Yes,
You can share spirit with another.
And you can live in wrinkled skin
With a different past
But sitting in that metal folding chair
Is a man
That was my friend.
You don’t sound like him
Or look like him
Or think like him
But to me,
You are the man
In his moon.
Maybe I’m afraid of you
For coming back and growing peaches
Did you mean to be here?
Peaches by night
Buddha by day.
Peach boy.
Beach boy.
You are the forever boy.
Not a boy no more.
Moon shining
upon the shore.
And here I sit
Hurting?
Healing?
Harvesting something
For you to see?
Find me.
Find me.
Find me.
Be free.
Day off today! Second year(oops! WEEK) starts tomorrow! Love, Mary
CTC Institute 