Work, Play & The Spices of Life

It's 8:17am on Sunday morning. Today is 'Day Two' (of I don't know, maybe 85 or 90 days total) of performances. We performed our first show on Friday evening, then went out to celebrate at another premiere: the Sex and the City movie. Yesterday was our first full day of (4) shows, plus a daily parade that we participate in, and the ironing out of various tech issues... I'm tired, and it's only just begun! I get to do this every day for the next 22 days or so, until our third actor, Adam, arrives to begin rotating the show with us. Then I might have a day or two off. Of course, I'm never really 'off-duty' from my responsibilities as Show Manager. *sigh*

All that being said, I am LOVING this. So, so, sooooo much! Joy and excitement bubbles up in my tummy each time we are about to begin a show. I love being on stage. I love working hard. I love the kids. I love my fellow cast and crew. I love the Six Flags Entertainment staff. I love that THIS is my job. This is what I do.

But it's a lot. And it's my first time. There have been so many 'first times' lately, I'm trying to remain really mindful of them all, each time they occur, because it's only ever the first time once. I'm also trying to remain mindful of the very much 'first time nature' of this adventure in an effort to be gentle with myself; The most challenging thing for me is to be in the same boat as my cast/crew members (with whom I also travel and live with) in terms of never having done a show for this company, never having been to St Louis, never having, well, done any of this before, all the while having to act as their "leader" and show manager. But I'm managing. Add to my basket of Meghan-specific challenges at this time is the fact that my brother and I are dealing with the recent death of our aunt in Vancouver - a complicated task given that he is there and I am here, and there are many less-than-pleasant details that we must attend to. And again, *sigh*

But I am okay. Just like my horoscope said, my life these days is kind of like plowing through heavy, murky waters aboard a sometimes claustrophic, brightly lit, high-tech vessel where a non-stop party is being thrown by slightly chaotic connoisseurs of fun. For real.

Yup, that's pretty much my life right now.

And I wouldn't trade it for the world.

New Friends, New Home, New Adventures Ahead...

Well, after a day of unpacking, re-arranging, re-evaluating and re-packing on Monday...

(I really don't think it seems like much... considering I'll be away for THREE MONTHS!)

Finally, my bags were packed and I was ready to go... leave on a jet plane to begin my St Louis adventure! Thankfully, I have two very great people to share this journey with:

ABOVE: Two thirds of 'Team Saint L': Special Agent MD and Agent Special K, on board plane # 1 from Toronto to Chicago, aproximately 600hrs in the am!

And BELOW:, Agents Triple M and Special K after being assisted by Mr. Love (for real, his last name was Love!) at Avis Car Rentals, on their way to pick up their vehicle for this summer's assignment. Clearly, they are in good spirits.

When we finally got "home" to our condo after a long day at the park (the amusement kind, where we will be performing this summer, not the lovely green and relaxing kind) followed by an evening grocery shop we wisely ordered pizza and updated our facebook statuses:

Thank goodness Special Agent MD brought along this handy mouse and persian rug mouse-mad, or else I'm not sure the evening would have been truly complete!

But in all seriousness, it's been a lovely and sometimes strange adventure over the last 48 hours for me; On Monday night (the night before I left - at 4am on Tuesday!) I got a call from my brother in BC with some unexpected and not-so-pleasant news. I can't help but find myself pondering (yet again) Why This? Why Now?

And so, that's what I am trying to do: Live every moment here to its fullest, take in every breath, sight, sound & feeling as it arrives, and remain oh-so-present to the events of my life as they swirl around me...

I am suddenly reminded of my 'free will astrology' horoscope (by Rob Brezny) from last week:

Your life in the coming weeks Scorpio, may resemble a dream of sailing deep beneath the waves in a yellow submarine where a nonstop party is going on. It'll be as if you're plowing through deep, heavy, murky waters inside a brightly-lit-high-tech vessel that is controlled by slightly chaotic connoisseurs of fun. (NOTE: See the picture at the end of this blog post of our set, taken during rehearsals in Montreal last week!) You may feel a bit claustrophobic , but that could encourage your imagination to run wild, which will be a good thing as long as you don't believe every thing it tells you. In conclusion, get ready for entertaining adventures that will range from being a bit creepy to totally delicious.

Hmm, will do...!

End Note: This is three quarters of the lovely and fantastic 'Team America' (now stationed at Six Flags America in Maryland), on our set in Montreal last week.

Best Memories EVER

So, exhausted from an intense 6 days of rehearsals in Montreal, I barely managed to arrive in one piece to my usual Tuesday night meeting with my teen group, Team 'Keeps It Real,' the other night. But I made it. And not that I would ever dream of not making it to my last Tuesday night with "the teens" before I leave for the summer, but boy oh boy, it was definitely worth it this week!

They had planned a "We're Going to Miss You Meghan" party for me. It was a TOTAL surprise. And I loved it. I loved EVERY. SINGLE. MINUTE...

Check it out: They brought a cake for me that said "We'll Miss You - Keep it Real!", and there was a colorful banner that said "We'll Miss You Meghan", AND there was a poster-sized card that they all signed for me!!!

I Heart Team Keeps It Real:

*LOVE*

Being ever so thankful, and loving this surprise party with all my heart, I glowingly told Mark that this night would now go down in my own personal history as one of THE Top Memories of My Life - for reals!

The other two Best Moments of My Life are about as equally self-centered, but at least I can admit that. The first 'Best Memory EVER' is the surprise party that my friends managed to throw for me (and again, actually surprise me with!) the summer before I left Vancouver to move to England for my first year of university. It was spectacular. I will never forget that glowing, bursting with love and joy and happiness feeling that I experienced when I walked in to my friend Brian's kitchen only to find almost all of my friends standing there yelling "SURPRISE!"

Spectacular. Truly.

And the other moment that ranks among my top three 'Best Memories EVER' would be the moment I took my bow after a Monday night show of my solo play at the 2006 Fringe Festival. You see, much to my surprise the house was PACKED that night, but I didn't realise until the curtain call who exactly was there. As I stood basking in the applause that night, looking out into the audience, I realised that there were groups of people dear to me from SO MANY different parts of my life. It was kind of like another party... Hmmm, is anyone else noticing a trend in my favorite memories here?

Well, among some of my other favorite memories are:

• The 'Fly by the Seat of Your Heart' (Thanksgiving 2004, I think)weekend of spontaneous and simple fun-having with my dear friends Alison and Gabe that inspired the matching tattoos that Ali and I got in 2005:
  

• That series of Saturdays in the Spring of 2006 when my friend Annie and I used to get up early to attend modern dance class only to then veg out on her couch and drink and smoke and watch season 1 of 'Project Runway' on DVD - those were good, good times!

• Winter Nights 2005, when Ali and I lived together and our friends John and Gabe made a habit of coming over on weeknights to eat take-out Thai food and drink red wine through red licorice straws while sitting by the fire and playing scrabble... And generally, just being silly.
  

• Searching for the elusive "cool area" in Paris, Winter 2000, with Damian, Tiina, Thea & Aaron. So long ago. Still one of the best days of my life.

• Being the only ones on the dance floor at the St Supice Pub in Montreal last week with my fellow cast & crew members. Ridiculous goodness.

• And most recently, playing with Henry and having good chats with my roomate Laura. In fact, just now I got drawn away from the computer to go outside and do some chalk drawing on the front path with H & L:
  

So yeah, I guess it's pretty clear that enjoying life with people I care about pretty much defines a great moment for me... And I'm oh-so-lucky to have so many of them!

Here's to many more to come!

(How Do I know?) Who I Am

[Day Five of Rehearsals in Montreal]

As I sit here typing in the cool dim glow of my laptop and the morning light, while my roomate Katherine sleeps soundly (it is only 6:09am), I am consumed with warm thoughts of the beautiful people in my life who help me to know who I am... And I find myself flipping this question around in my brain like a coin: How do we (can we?) know who we are?

I guess I'm pondering this question right now because I feel like lately I've been learning a lot about myself, and furthermore, that this summer will provide me with even more self-learning ops! But how do we know when we really "know" ourselves? (Uh-oh, I think I just heard Carrie Bradshaw's voice-over speaking that sentence in my head!)

Well, maybe I should examine my experiences as of late that I feel have provided me with some knowledge about myself?

The first thing that comes to mind is the nice long phone conversation that I had with my friend Devon last night. As I relayed to her the (potentially mundane) details of the events of my life over the past few days here in Montreal, and expounded on my feelings about almost every last little thing, I felt myself easing into a better understanding of myself simply hearing my own stories told aloud in my own voice! I also felt reassured by all of the feedback and insights that Devon had for me about my experiences and feelings; I felt reassured because she is technically "an outside eye" (she doesn't live in my brain after all) but she knows me, and my history, and the way I think and typically react to things, so well that I trust her reassurances and advice. Sometimes when we talk, and I feel like I am learning something about myself, I wonder if I'm actually learning something new or if I've just found the perfect person to help me remember every important thing that I already know about myself...

And that's a beautiful thought, that I am very attracted to: the notion that we already possess all the knowledge, wisdom and skills that we need for this lifetime, and we are simply here to tap into that well deep inside of ourselves and recall as much of it as possible while we're here...

Or are we here to meet the people that are meant to teach us something? Or are we drawn to the experiences that will teach us something?

I think I'm leaning towards the "all of the above" answer to this question, and more importantly, am enjoying this questioning (learning!) process...

So here I go, off into another day...
and more learning...

Comme Ci, Comme Ca

Okay, so it's Day Two in Montreal (well, actually it's Day Three, but only the second day that I woke up here - Tuesday I woke up in Toronto, drove with my fellow actors to Montreal and started rehearsals that afternoon!)

It's 7:42am and, like yesterday, I've been up for nearly three hours now. By choice, don't worry. I just like getting up early, doing my morning yoga, and having time to myself to eat my breakfast drink my tea and of course, hang out a little on the 'book.

So, it's the beginning of Day Three and I gotta say, I'm feeling really good. Not so good that I feel like I have no work to do, but rather good because there is a lot of work ahead of us! And we've done a lot of great work already, and it's all just feeling really... good!

It helps that I love this city as well. Though, I realised something important on Tuesday night (my first night here this week); I realised that although (or perhaps because) I have had such a long-standing love of Montreal, it's not really the kind of love that makes me feel good about myself...

Granted, there were probably a lot of factors that were contributing to my general sense of insecurity the other night as I sat sipping my Pinot Noir and eating alone on a lovely "terrace" (read: patio) on Rue St-Denis. It was the end of our first (LONG) day which consisted of meeting eaching other for the first time, spending 5 hours in a car together, followed by our first rehearsal, and there were still a lot of "x-factors" left for us to deal with; For example, the other two members of my cast (we have two casts rehearsing the same show for different locations this week) will not be joining us until today, I have yet to be briefed on my additional duties as "show manager" and we hadn't even finished blocking yet - these were among some of the "unknowns" that dangled above my head that first night as I sat alone on that patio.

But try as I might to find comfort in this city that I claim to love so, it really only succeeded in increasing my self-consciousness and insecurity... As I gazed at the seemingly effortlessly attractive people at the tables around me and along the street, I couldn't help but worry that somehow I stood out as clearly from somewhere else - because I wasn't as effortlessly attractive? I don't know what it is exactly about this city that makes me feel this way, but I came to the conclusion that I like Montreal so much, and have liked it for so long, that it kind of intimidates me with it's coolness - kinda like that friend that you have that you really kind of just admire and want to be a little?

And then I got to thinking about my other urban love: New York City. And I realised that NYC does not instill any insecurity me. I feel the same love for her, but kind of like your best friend whom you love so much and feel so comfortable around that she actually kind of makes you feel better than you are, NYC brings out my Best Self!

Anyhow, I've gotta run out the door to rehearsals now... more later!
XOX