Wagon Summer

One for hopping on or off them. I'm not quite sure how I'll be using this blog, other than that I will. I'd like to start taking some pictures again, and I'm sure I will once I'm up in Maine, out in Portland, and otherwise bopping about Williamstown.

The summer schedule is full. Right now I'm at home. That's been full of unexpectedness, blessings mostly. Chelsea walked in all of a sudden and surprised me. I've seen good friends and been getting things done. I'm starting my summer reading projects, which tend generally towards theological study. I've begun Wilfred Cantwell Smith's The Meaning and End of Religion, my first serious book after the school year's end (the others were Jules Feiffer's autobio which I read to give myself a snarky but satisfying break, and his The Man in the Ceiling which again proves my point about great literature coming packed for kids). Anyway, the Smith book begins with a history of the word religio and is thus far pretty fascinating and intelligible. Eben and I are also reading N.T. Wright's The New Testament and the People of God, and I'm trying to keep up with him in Wendell Berry's Home Economics and a rereading of some Marilynne Robinson, always provocative and deeply moving.

Next week late I head back up to Williams to tourguide for three weeks. I'm living with good friends, a harp, a bunny, and a banjo (mine, restored, an 1890s Stewart that now out of Eben and Nathaniel's more competent hands will be free for my bungling - I can't wait). The plan is long days at work and no home assignments apart from a visa for France and what else I choose: more reading; some memorization of poems and scripture, to keep them indivisibly with me; writing poetry, finishing a children's book, working on a concept for a show; movies, long overdue, with various buds; working out to get ready for:

Apogee Arts in Maine! (More info about them here: ). Alison Chase, the founder (also of Pilobolus), has taken me on. I'll be dancing in a site-specific piece in a quarry (with a live steel band and giant tractor puppets), as well as living with Alison in a house on the coast and acting as her personal assistant. There will also be kayaks, a sauna, and several large trucks I'll need to learn stick shift to drive. I couldn't be more thrilled about the project, or the people I'll be working with -- it's a big show with company members, community members, and local farmers driving the tractors, all headed up by a very very nice dance-theater luminary. So I'll definitely be writing about my experience there.

Til that time, this blog may fill with ruminations or it may lie dormant. The last days of school and graduation are still keeping my thoughts, but I have to trouble through them in my own mind first.