Wishing I'd paid more attention in college...

This weekend, my beloved is in STL, visiting his darling daughter - and staying (also meeting) my soul sister and best college bud. What a wonderful opportunity for these amazing people to meet and get to know one another without all the pressure of "meeting the boyfriend/best friend" Especially after 2 years of buildup. They're hitting it off marvelously! In fact, she told me today that she even forgot he was my boyfriend and was just thinking how great it is to have this new friend and be hanging out with him. I couldn't have asked for more :) And yet...it's never easy for me to be told that I'd been forgotten. Is is so hard for me to remember myself? Ridiculous, isn't it?

I spent the day taking an inspiring and intoxicating workshop with members of the SITI company. Suzuki kicked my ass when I was 20... 8 years later, it hadn't gotten any kinder. But I understood the Viewpoints today - and it informed some work. I felt what was going on and saw the benefit of this work - and I LOVED EVERY MINUTE OF IT. I wish I could go back to undergrad - where the SITI company and Anne Bogart herself came into my classroom to teach us workshops - where the company performed on our stage, where I had access to professors and artists whose JOB it was to tell me what they knew.

At the time, I didn't understand it. My heart, my body, and my mind weren't open to it. I was so afraid of not being good, or failing, or probably, working too hard - I wasted college. (Don't tell my dad!) I'd like to go back and do it over again, I'd pay more attention - I'd read all the plays I was supposed to (and save myself playing catch up with the cannon), I'd listen to every word that every professor said instead of crawling back up inside my shell and crying, "she just doesn't like me!" and I'd really learn.

Funny to me - I'm such an academic in some many ways. School is (more or less) easy for me. With the exception of chemistry, it always has been. I can write a paper quickly. I can discuss a book or a play or a theory. I was good at school.

But it took a really long time (and it was well after my matriculation) that I finally grasped what it was to learn.

WOW.