Green Roads and Rainbows

A couple of hours ago, I got lost on a country road –one of my favorite things to do. There were parts of the road where the trees connected overhead so it was truly like driving underneath a green canopy. My grandfather, Daddy Shell, used to call these “green roads.” We’ve had lots of rain lately and Alabama at this time of year is normally lush anyway but everything is especially vibrant with all the explosive new growth. I’m writing this at the crepuscule, that sweet spot between very late afternoon and evening. The kind of light at this time of day is different from any other, turning things a Technicolor version of how they appear for the rest of the day. It’s as if the cones are giving it all they’ve got before turning over the job of sight to the rods until dawn. I’ve often thought that this kind of light serves as a great metaphor for how artists feel the world. Ordinary people see things as they appear for the rest of the day, for artists it’s a perpetual twilight. Perhaps that’s why at this time of day I feel an absolute balance of melancholy and excitement. “Coincidentally” it is also the hour that approaches “curtain” for most live theatre productions.

Theatre, in all its variations (to include film and television) is my religion and my spiritual journey is inextricably connected to my art. That is why this process of moving into the most efficient and effective way for me to get to do that is so important. It’s going very well by the way. Not easy. No one with any sense thought it was going to be. We are 228 days into the process in case you were curious. Thanks from the bottom of my heart for those of you who have hung in from the beginning. I know that it has not been easy for you as well. It must be frustrating to watch me, wrapped at times in my own narcissism, recreating the same problems over and over. There will be a great benefit that comes from all this work. I trust the benefit will spill over to those who have traveled with me– perhaps in ways we won’t even understand.

Tonight, when I found the highway after being lost on country roads for probably an hour, all of a sudden I heard myself singing at the top of my lungs. From somewhere inside me, a Lakota ceremony song had erupted. I looked up and saw the rainbow you see pictured here. I pulled over to take a photo of it, thinking of you, hoping you might be somewhere singing too.

See y’all tomorrow.