coming together

We had a corporate visit this week, and oddly, after four months of tearing my hair out and feeling like I was trapped in an exercise of futility, I walked into a workspace that felt like progress had been made. Sales numbers were up. It was clean and organized. There was finally a plan to fix some of the broken down junk that had plagued us. The first words my boss's boss said to me were "Everything looks really, really good" in a way that made me feel like he hadn't gotten to say that in a very long time. I finally felt like maybe we've made an impact.

Progress. Finally. I went home and breathed a sigh of relief.

--
Next, a memory.

Once, years ago, there was a letter to the editor in my local newspaper from a couple who had visited my hometown from Nebraska. They wrote of their car breaking down in the dead of night on Christmas Eve, and being helped by some anonymous stranger who just happened to cross their path. The stranger lifted the hood, spent about twenty minutes in there, and then told them to try to start the car again. It revved up again as if it were new. The stranger refused any payment, wished them a merry Christmas, and disappeared into the darkness.

A display of admirable human kindness. I think of this every once in a while when I contemplate the human condition... when the world crumbles into war, and selfishness seems to be the overlying sentiment. It reminds me that good exists, and it's closer to home than you might think.

--

My sister appears to have fallen into the role of town crier within my family. She's often the one who dispenses the news to the rest of her siblings of goings-on when something major happens. I'll never forget the phone call I received one August Sunday morning, when I went into work to get some stuff done. It was a pleasant surprise to hear from her.

(cheerfully) "Hey Sayre, what's going on?"

"Grandma's dead."

Text doesn't do it justice. There was something so incredibly direct and level about it that it was immediately disarming. We talked about it for a moment, and I promptly prepared my travel arrangements. She has this innate ability to break bad news in a gentle way without futzing around with flowery, treacle-filled sentimentality.

So with the arrival of an email from my sister with simply my brother's name in the subject, I knew something had happened. He had been taken to the hospital with symptoms of pneumonia... and from there, every three hours, it was alternating good news, bad news. It's pneumonia, and maybe a pulmonary embolism. No, it's not an embolism. There's a bacterial infection in his bloodstream. He's in better spirits and appears to be responding to the medication. No, wait, he's been moved to cardiac ICU. And then, suddenly, he was released from the hospital. The antibiotics moved incredibly quickly and he recovered, literally, overnight.

The stream of news was absolutely exhausting, and then add a layer of self-mortality to that. It was a little over a year ago that I entered a hospital emergency room with a 104 degree fever and respiratory attacks every fifteen minutes. I felt like I was dying... and I came to find out that I was, and would have if I hadn't sought treatment at the moment I did. I was diagnosed with pneumonia and a pulmonary embolism. I tried to downplay the seriousness to my family -- they all had lives and important things to attend to. It was four days before my fever broke, and another two after that before they felt the danger of the clot detaching and causing a stroke had passed. Now, here's my big brother, in a similar boat... and I know the seriousness of it firsthand, but also know recovery is attainable. I tried to assuage my family's fears best I could through emails and phone calls, while also quietly making arrangements for work and travel, just in case.

It wasn't necessary, thankfully.

--

As the last of six kids, and one who came along a bit after the rest, most of my siblings were already breaching adulthood and defining their directions in life, and as such I often felt left out at family gatherings. Often, it was Jerry who made the effort to make sure I was included, and would often bring me along for the ride of his own life. I witnessed him stop and help countless people along the way.

Time passed, and we grew into very different people -- I'd wager a guess that amongst the family, Jerry and I are the most disparate of the family. He was never particularly comfortable with the gay thing -- it took him ten years to get a hug from his little brother without flinching. I've never told him about my diagnosis, because ultimately, I don't think it's that important for him to know. There's very little common ground between us, but that doesn't lessen my admiration for him.

Jerry is the kind of person so many of us strive to be, and he doesn't even realize it. Every once a tall tale would be spun, designed to cast a light of amazing glory upon himself that would be met with massive levels of incredulity. Instead, it's the things he does not talk about that inspires his family.

That anonymous stranger who saved the couple from Nebraska was Jerry. There were enough details in the letter that those who knew him knew it was him. And the kicker -- Jerry denied it. And still does. His life is lesson in humility, and how to be, truly, a good person. I get the feeling he doesn't envision himself to be a terribly important person, hence tall tales... but the most extraordinary things seem second nature and insignificant to him. He doesn't realize how incredible he really is.

Perhaps the key to true greatness is a complete obliviousness to it.

beginning to figure it out

So for the past month (as regular readers are well aware), I've been generally disillusioned with my job and the way I spend my time these days. It shows all over the place, from my lack of regard for my living space (my room is a hell hole at the moment) to my current physical condition, to just my general demeanor and attitude. I no longer carry the enjoyment or zeal for my work that I once did -- I don't feel as if I'm doing anything I can take great pride in, or get any kind of fulfillment from, which has now spilled over into my personal life. All this means, from the more zen point of view, that it's time to move on.

Would, were that an option. With the state of the economy and job availability such as it is these days, finding something that's just right is a daunting task. You may be hard pressed to find anyone who fits the bill of "jack of all trades, master of none" better than me. It makes me extremely useful and valuable as an employee once I'm in and going, but not at all marketable in the initial search. This has always been the case in both good times and bum times.

All this has led me to a great deal of introspection and reflection about what it really is that would make me feel like I was doing something worthwhile, that I could be really, really GOOD at. I've never felt at greater ease than I did when I was performing, and upon graduating high school I packed up and moved to NYC to pursue those aspirations. Life, as it so often does, got in the way, and despite some very encouraging auditions and a few workshops and readings along the way, after seven years I couldn't keep it going. I left, terribly disappointed that perhaps it just wasn't meant to be... and having absolutely no idea what I would do next.

But on the plus side, during my seven years, I was surrounded constantly by incredibly talented people who I came to know as my dear friends. They had the same struggles with occasionally more success... and the whole time I was there I couldn't understand how people who were so brilliantly talented (moreso than me in many cases) had just as much trouble maneuvering around the road blocks as I did.

Shortly after I moved to midtown Atlanta, I was exploring the neighborhood and found an old church building. It had been sitting vacant for years after the restaurant that had operated there in the 90s vacated. It was a beautiful building that had been masked by graffiti and disrepair, but gazing upon that church my head swirled with a million ideas on how to revitalize it and put it back to use. Last year, the building finally found a tenant in the form of a Presbyterian congregation, but I walk past it nearly every day and another detail of my idle daydream begins to fill in for The Cathedral Theatre. And every time I've looked at that building I've become more and more aware of what it is I'm meant to do.

I want to start and run that theatre company. I want the joy of giving my impossibly talented friends the opportunities that have eluded them thus far. I want the thrill of being able to explore new works, re-examine old works, and present it to the world at large. And just to placate my own ego...maybe a small vanity project or two along the way. The more I imagine of what's possible, the more excited I get. I'm not even doing it yet and I already feel that passion that's been missing for a while now. And realizing that maybe my first instinct wasn't so far off the mark after all is really quite gratifying. This is something that feeds off what I'm good at and is, in turn, good for me.

I don't have the slightest clue about where to start. But, for me, defining the idea is a huge first step.

quick update

Had jury duty yesterday. I was on the standby list, so when I called in to see if I was needed, I was told "Thank you for your service and enjoy your day off." Sweeet! I promptly got to laundry and sitting on my butt, watching TV. I've discovered this show called The First 48 on A&E -- it's a documentary show (don't call it reality, that cheapens it) that follows homicide detectives around in several cities and tracks the case they're assigned to for the first 48 hours after it breaks. It's fascinating to see how quickly they can work and how good they are at their jobs.

Every once in a while I find myself oddly fascinated by some sort of niche -- right now it's forensic science and detective work. Anytime I'm near a TV playing Forensic Files, CSI, Law and Order, or any other of the host of crime procedurals, I get sucked in. And in another lifetime, I probably could have been damn good at that too.

I've been thinking about learning another language. Or six. I'm always in awe of people who can fluently converse in multiple languages and I've secretly yearned to be one of them. I took three years of Spanish in high school and I can pick up bits and pieces of conversation... but I speak what is commonly known as 'restaurant Spanish' -- enough to communicate, too little to converse. I've heard lots of good stuff about Rosetta Stone and it's not astronomically expensive, so maybe one day I'll go learn Spanish. And French. And German. And Japanese. And Welsh (they have Welsh!). While living in NYC, I ran into so many visitors who were so tenative and scared about their broken English. I always wanted to be able to allay whatever fears they had by spilling out with their native language out of nowhere.

--

Finally, had a doctor's visit today. CD4 is 447, VL is 28k. That's a considerable bounce back from my previous readings... in fact, my CD4 is higher than it was when I first started seeing Dr. Z. Meaning: No meds. I'm holding steady and have been for a year, minus that one little blip... that's good news.