buckets of sun in france but a lack of rain
bonjour. bon soir. i'm in the south of france, finally settled down after five weeks of being in constant motion, and i now have a place to call home, which i've realized is something really quite amazing. there's a whole lot of beautiful sunshine here and i have yet to see a drop of rain. perhaps this is why you haven't heard from me a little while....
the truth is, i've been having a challenge getting good internet time to write to you -- a few minutes every few days in random internet cafes only and that's no good for writing inspiring prompts for you. so it would appear that my grand hopes (detailed in the last post) to write to you from every city and to overwhelm you with new ideas for the play have been a little dashed.
but maybe that's for the best... maybe (as i gather from the lack of recent posts on your side) just as i have had my challenges in writing to you over the past month, you have had your challenges in writing as well. i'm just making a guess here but maybe you've been trying to get your feet under you with the start of the new school year and maybe you're still trying to hang on to the last bits of sun and warmth and would rather spend your free time outside instead of sitting at a computer writing to some playwright who is thousands of miles away.... maybe? if this is why I haven't heard much from you (or anything from several of you), I completely understand. it's hard to write about stars and sunshine when you want to be out in them soaking them up while you still can. i have the same challenges.
so. i'm still at the mercy of internet cafes for the next few weeks, just as i'm sure you've got loads of homework and other commitments, but maybe we can all make a renewed effort to get this play off the ground. lets give ourselves another month to be in contact and another month to let me know you're still interested in collaborating on the project.
if in another month's time there's still not a lot of activity on this site, we'll think of something new. perhaps we'll revisit Rain and put stars on hold for a bit. either way we will have a play for the next nextfest... i'm wishing on a few stars that it will be a brand new play developed on this website with all of you, but we'll give it another month to find out if that's in the stars for us right now or not.
for now... just write to me. about whatever. tell me what you've been up to and what's on your mind these days. tell me a funny story or a sad one. write to me for three minutes straight, whatever's on your mind, just like with the timed improvised monologues... go!
posted by Joy @ 10:38 AM
3 Comments:
i just got back from my aunts house on the lake. it was very fun. i've gotten hooked on puzzles. every time we go there, i start working on a new puzzle. first it was the last supper, then a picture of toys, now we're working on one of easter eggs. puzzles was something i never thought i'd get addicted to, but here i am. i guess you never know until you try... unless you're talking about food - you can tell if it's bad or not by the smell. i don't care what anyone says, but if it smells bad, it tastes bad. it's a simple fact of life. maybe that's why i'm so picky... i refuse to try anything. i guess it doesn't help that i'm a vegetarian. wow. i'm going to die of malnutrition.
enough about food.(can you tell i'm hungry?) i want to talk about sunshine and stars. the problem is, i'm finding it hard to think of anything to say.
i think one of the most beautiful parts of the sky are the clouds. who hasn't at some time lied down in the grass and stared at the clouds? trying to find shapes and animals? i remember when i was in grade 2, me and my friend would sit outside at recess looking at clouds, one day there was a large clump of them that looked just like a herd of cattle charging at us. we figured this was a good time for a game, and so we started running from the angry cows in the sky. we would hide under the equipment so they couldn't see us. eventually the clouds started to drift apart and we rejoiced, claiming we conquered over the clouds.
The stars appear at night correct? maybe we could have a character who is afraid of the dark, but at the end is introduced to the stars and they fall in love with them. they overcome their fears and are presented with a whole new experience that is more fullfilling then they could have ever imagined.
my 6 year old brother (although he was 5 at the time) once said "thrive in the dark, panic in the night" and that stuck with me. i thought about it, and it's true. it's in the dark when most people come alive, when the adrenaline pumps through you. that's when you play games like hide and seek or capture the flag with your friends in the park. that's when you feel infinite, like you can fly, like nothing can ever stop you. therefore you "thrive in the dark"
the night on the other hand indicates a whole different thing. in horror stories the monsters all come out at night, not at dark. "it was a dark and stormy night" "night of the living dead" the night is when your blood freezes inside of you, when you watch your back to make sure no one is there, when you swear you heard footsteps following you. you "panic in the night"
ah, those plastic glow-in-the-dark stars! thank you for reminding me of those! i love the image of you looking up at your 4 stars in your new, adult room. a question -- did you leave the rest of your stars in the room for your sister? if so, do you know if she made wishes on them or counted them to fall asleep? and when you counted them, did you count them all or were there too many? were they arranged in any sort of constellation? did you give any of them names?
how many different ways we try to recreate the sky above us. i was at a concert in amsterdam and there was a glitter ball that cast a swirl of moving stars on the black dance floor. when i looked down at my feet, i saw that i was standing in a sea of stars. i love that image. it was very appropriate for how i was feeling after my first week traveling the world.
can anyone think of other ways we try to recreate the stars or the sky?
clouds... there's a new one. i really like the idea of running away from the clouds, and vice versa, chasing after them. i love when there are clouds at night, not the kind that fog over the entire sky, but the whispy ones that contrast the sharpness of the stars and make me think of ghosts and magic and other supernatural things.
i also really like this idea of a character who doesn't like the dark, who panics in the night. has anyone ever known someone your age with a similar fear? i wonder what the reason for this type of fear could be, since usually it is one that we grow out of as we get older.
in Rain, Lisa didn't like getting wet because she associated it with getting dirty and her appearance was very important to her. i wonder if there might be a parallel to this with a character who doesn't like the dark... ideas?
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