Made it safe and sound. As of 12
hours ago, I am now back in Iowa.
True to life on the farm, this
morning, I started doing my daily chores. Nothing heavy, mind. We don’t have
calves to feed; the lawn didn’t even need mowing. But here at Wapsi Canoe,
there are always paddles and life jackets to put away.
As I was doing so, wrapping the
cord around the safety vests, noticed at the pane of the garages’ window a bee was
desperately buzzing up and down the tiny pane of glass trying to escape to the
wide world beyond.
This pane of window glass was less size than an 8x10 sheet
of paper.
Two feet from this window was the
garage’s walk-in door, closed; however, it had a window in it three feet high
and two feet wide. This tiny bee simply wasn’t thinking big enough.
Even funnier was that two feet
from the walk-in door I had the garages’
hangar door open – a space twenty-four feet wide by seven feet high, with fresh
morning air gently blowing in.
All this poor bee would have to
do is back up, take in its surroundings, and fly right through the opening only
four feet away! I nearly helped the wasp, but decided it would be best for all
parties involved to let it exhaust itself and find the exit on its own.
I realized that if I could speak
bee, I would be willing to coach it out of its predicament. However if I did, I’d
use the process of via negative that I learned at Dell’Arte International. It
would be so much easier to tell the bee:
“No. that’s not it. Think bigger.
That glass is just holding you back; however, there is that huge open doorway
over there,” than to say:
“Ok bee, I know that you sense that the outside world
is just beyond that plate of glass, that’s good; you have good insect
instincts. But do you see how this tiny pane is solid? Sure, with enough force
of will, you might be able to break through it, but did you notice this gaping
hole right over there? Maybe it might be good to think bigger. Oh, you’ve moved
onto the door glass. Good! You see how much bigger your view of the world is
from here? Now, you might notice that
here is also covered by impenetrable glass. Yes, yes I can see the world
through it. It thrills me that you can
too. Bud did you notice how air isn’t passing through it? Ok, that’s good. Explore
this door window. Great. Good work. I’ll leave you to it, but I think when you
have a moment, you’d really like to check out this giant open door right over
here. I think you’d like what you find there.
“Whew! What a mouthful!
This is when I had a realization:
Too
often when I make theatre, I find myself being the bee. I have the ability to
sense the verdant world, but commonly find myself not noticing the pane of
glass between me and my objective. How funny
must it look to the outside world, little me buzzing up and down against this
tiny idea while completely oblivious that a bigger picture is next door, and
that if I just looked around, the answer to my problem is a giant gaping hole
two feet to my left!
By the time I finished putting
away the life jackets, I returned to the window, to find the bee gone. Good work,
bee.
Thank you, Ronlin and my Dell’Arte
brethren for letting me learn to coach bees.
Thank you, Ronlin and my Dell’Arte
brethren for letting me be the bee.
The future is right there: just
find the hole where the fresh air is getting in.
Here’s a hint: it’s probably
huge; and not right in front of you…
Waffles!
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