Nuts In November

Hello everybody,

It is touching when people say that they miss you. Some sweet acquaintances of mine told me today that they missed not getting a newsletter in awhile. That felt nice. It's certainly not that I haven't thought of writing one. It's just that - well - I am very tired. Lame, but the truth. The company I work for is hosting a film festival right now and I'm running the box office by myself, after having created and implemented a new ticketing system. It's been sooo much work and a lot of stress. The level of fatigue I'm experiencing right now makes me painfully aware of the fact that I am not 19 anymore and probably in serious need of some shiatsu massage, so if anyone would like to walk on my back please feel free to email me. Yesterday I got to work at 7:30 a.m. I left this morning at 1a.m. Let it be my official declaration that 19 hour work days are not to be encouraged. I surprised the staff though by turning our meeting room into a lovely green room, complete with decor from Chez Taitt, and it was quite a hit! Yes, I am sitting here right now in a living room without a coffee table. We did end up having a great Opening Night with one of my favourite artists, the lovely Chantal Kreviazuk as our guest (check out her beautiful Ghost Stories if you haven't already) and she brought that hubby of hers who really is quite the cutie. For those of you into film, you should check out the festival because it really is like no other. Find out more about it at www.rendezvouswithmadness.com

School is going well. I'm still there part-time although I had to miss my classes this week because of the crazy film festival. I get to see most of the cast of Ragtime this week and it's so great be with them again! We're doing a one-night reprisal of the show at a synagogue this weekend - should be very interesting. This time I have a solo in the most glorious song in the score (although I miss you Patrice!) and it's such an honour to revisit this gorgeous material. I swear, if we remounted tomorrow I'd be happy to do it for months... but I am not happy about the loss of Ed Bradley. I am stunned and sad. I loved his interviews and the humour, intelligence and class he brought to his work. Losing him and Peter Jennings within two years is a real blow to the world of broadcast journalism. I hope the two of them are hanging out. If so, there's probably an amazing news magazine in the works in Heaven.

Despite the tiredness and the pulling out of my hair at work, I must say that I've had my mind expanded in the past couple of months and that to me is the purpose of this life. I work for an arts organization located on the grounds of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. For so many years I walked past that building - usually on the other side of the road - carrying a boulder of presumptions and preconceptions on my shoulders. The building was stigmatized as the nuthouse and people often made sure to walk in twos and make eye contact with no one who looked "off". Well now the place that still freaks so many people out is one in which I often walk the halls. It was very strange at first, spending time around so many people who either don't speak, speak unintelligibly or speak to themselves. It was unnerving the first time a patient glared at me, or tried to block my path, or hit on me. The natural instinct was to immediately erect that "me" and "them" wall in my mind and to try and "elevate" myself above it all. But then one day I thought back on my own life, on the experience I had when I was 19 that almost broke me, and I saw clearly what had been foggy up to that point. I was simply the fortunate version of them.

I was the one who had a family and a support system and faith to hold me up. I was the one who had an outlet - my music - that comforted me when nothing else did without frying my brain or poisoning my bloodstream. I was the one whose loved ones wrapped a rope around me so that they could yank it and keep me from the edge. That was the only difference between me and "them". Had our circumstances been reversed, I could've been the one roaming the corridor in stilettos singing the Star Spangled Banner. The amazing thing is there is a spirit within those walls, an energy that perhaps springs forth from the unfiltered, uninhibited, unchained realm of consciousness that we lazily call madness. But the more of these people that I encounter, the more I see of their gentleness and genuineness. And I say to myself that to label them one thing with disdain suggests that we apply the opposite label to ourselves. So is this world - with its war and waste and wanton destruction of both life and property - sane? I know that being around these people is something that was supposed to happen in my life, evidently at this point. I don't know why exactly. I just know that the warmth and sadness and discomfort and humility I feel when I cross paths with these "crazy" people is making me a fuller person. Maybe that means a better wife and mother someday, or just a better artist. I know that it will seep into the creative parts of me; it won't be able to help itself. You can't be the same songwriter, or singer, or actress once you've looked something in the face that morphs into a mirror, can you?

I'll write again in a couple of weeks, when I will share some very kool news with you. Right now I am - surprise surprise - seriously beginning to fall asleep. Sweet dreams.

Love,
Tanisha