Bedlam

The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way.

I've seen it written with "Way" capitalized too.

I've had a couple "I really need to cry" moments in the past couple of ... well, hours, and I don't quite know why. Not cry like, "Oh my gosh England is too big and lonely and I don't know what to do," more - at least I think - more "Things are so beautiful and dangerous I really just need a moment." That sounds so sappy and so unbearably me-ish that I can hardly read it.

But like it was sunny out today. MIRACLE. I went to an amazing tea place today, called Boston Tea Party (any former Exeter students reading this can agree) that makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. It's not just a creature comfort either, I don't think. I mean the food is good but the place is old wood, they give you tea in pots if you choose to stay in, there's an upstairs lounge with a long Saxon-mead-hall-esque table and comfy chairs, students reading books. And I'd been to Boston Tea Party three times already, so it's not like it was a brand new experience. Tomorrow I'm hoping to spend the whole day in town, finding the secret floor of the Exeter City Library where they keep all their plays and just reading all day. I hope.

And I started directing Act Two of Oleanna by David Mamet for my Directing class. My actors, even although they insist on getting into the character's heads and feeling what they're feeling, are great. The hurtle is that I have to do it with two women, but with minor changes of "his" to "her"s and readjusting the sexual tension for two women, it looks like it's going to be fine. But even then, whatever issues I was worried about between the Kenyon drama training I've received and the English drama training these actors have received have begun melting away.

I was skeptical about the girl-on-girl Oleanna before today, and now I'm not. Now I'm excited for it. That sounds sketchy but since I am no longer skeptical I am happy.

I went to a vintage shop with Ken and bought a shirt WITH A GRIFFIN on it. And the vintage shop itself was like (Kenyon people:) The Pink Flamingo times 10; or (New Hope people:) Love Saves the Day but without the Penis Pasta and naked things. And bigger. (If you know neither of these places, I'm sorry. I tried.) Like I'm starting to think about what I need to be for Halloween (any suggestions feel free to comment)!

So it's been a beautiful day, fun class, fun adventures, prospects of an even more beautiful day tomorrow, and then I went to a late night "Kabob and Pizza" store just now with Ken and Stephanie Reiches. It was pretty sketchy, but for some reason when I was sitting there I had one of these moments. Among Christian mystic circles I've heard them described as "mini-sabbaths" but who knows if that's what I was actually experiencing. Maybe it was just that there were four bobbies down the road and I felt suddenly safe and a part of everyday England. Or maybe it was that I was out with friends. It wasn't warm and fuzzy like Boston Tea Party, it was poignant, almost. I don't know.

I think I've finally come to understand England as a real place, though I stand by my claim that it's a fantastical kingdom. Now it's just a REAL fantastical kingdom. Which makes it ... magically realistic? Oho, literary genre humor, do you ever get old? Yes.

But there is a reason this post is called "Bedlam."

After I was done having that moment at the Kabob and Pizza joint, my mind was stuck with an appetite for lofty things. Of course I can't induce a perception of beauty, so I turned to far-down-the-road, speculative, and semi-existential thinking. Like "how much longer will I be in England?" "How much do I miss Kenyon?" "What would've happened if I had stayed?" "What would've happened if I went to Saint Andrews?" "What am I going to do with my life once I graduate?" "What am I going to do when I get back, over the summer?" "What am I doing now?"

I find myself now punching tables and then regretting it.

I've had much more time to write, much more time to read, now that I'm here. And maybe it's just the change of pace but England is very inspiring. So am I going to settle down and be a playwright? How will I make money? Will I go to grad school? Where? Will I direct? Will I dramaturg? HOW DO YOU LEARN ABOUT DRAMATURGY? I need to get more organized. How do you get more organized?

And maybe it's just that I am some sort of overstimulated sap, who spends all his time enraptured by the English countryside. Maybe it has kind of driven me mad, but I don't think that's entirely true. England fills me with contrition: a lot of preconceived notions are beginning to fall away and there's nothing else left for me but this lovely, horrible contrition. Like pulling a baby tooth out, or pouring steaming water on a poison ivy rash.

So I guess this makes England practically too silly to be real, not entirely too silly to be real.

There was a guy we met at The Turf, the pub near Topsham I talked about in my last post. He was in the first year of the Kenyon-Exeter program. He met an English woman that he fell in love with. I think then he went back to Kenyon, finished his degree, then moved to England, married her, bought a house in Topsham, has a family, and he and his wife earn their living as food and wine critics.

THAT is how to use an English major. Like, when you think about it, that seems just like the perfect life.

But is it? Is it really?