Stain-glass Eyes

Spring has arrived with a cold bite of wind, but there’s no turning back now.   The birds, plants   and trees have already committed to snuffing winter out!   I’m looking ahead to April and May. They’re as full of spring’s promise as the migrating birds I’ve seen lately. April will bring me to Austin,Texas.   I have plans to be at the premier when my son Holden appears on stage. I included the link to the opera, for my readers, (scroll down to see “Good Country”). https://theatredance.utexas.edu/stage/cohen-new-works-festival/2019-cohen-new-works-festival/2019-festival-lineup Good Country is a chamber opera based on true accounts of Charley Parkhurst, a trans* stagecoach driver during the California Gold Rush. After surviving a holdup, Charley and his passengers tumble into a saloon for a night of revelry and revelations set to a score by Keith Allegretti, libretto by Cecelia Raker, and stage direction by Alice Stanley. Internationally accla...

There are avenues in my mind that lead me to dream-like places. It happens most when I’m outside with nature and alone.   Sometimes I can be listening to conversations while I’m with a group of people and I am cast away to another place. I try not to let this happen. (but it does)     While reading Ensouling Language, by Stephen Harrod Buhner, I’m reassured this isn’t a bad place to go.   It’s a place writers can depend on to help them create. This dream-realm is a space where I can inhabit a character’s body, my mind can jump into a character’s brain.   I have used this dream-place to escape some traumatic times in my life. To rise up against fears I've had.  I depended on a pretend world to simulate another present time than the one I was currently in. I’m not only talking about when I was a child, either. It’s a strategy I’ve used as an adult, too, and it helped me cope. I’d pretend I was someone else, or somewhere else. I’d fabri...