THELMA AND LOUISE ABROAD

Hello from 8:41am Greenwich Mean Time; lovely London. Here are some impression-sensation smears of getting here from Vermont: 

-Last minute stress and surge of faith; “yes, I have my passport”

-Childish delight as I see an Eastern tailed blue butterfly on the way to the car. There will soon be clouds of them in the yard.

-The smell of the almost emerged lilac bush flowers. It gives me a desperate shiver as I worry that I may miss them since their season is so short. I’m only gone a week. Truthfully, the small changes I may miss causes a small excruciation in my stomach. It’s so hard to leave home.

-Melencholy as I drive through only the second day of sunny weather in two weeks toward the airport. “Goodbye butterflies and light breezes…”

-On my first flight a man snores behind me like he needs medical intervention. I worry about him.

-Newark airport public restroom amazement/disgust as I enter a stall and find a teal microfibre sweat-stamped butt print on the seat. 

- Seven hours of a freezing airplane made mildly better by watching “MacGruber.”

- Terrible sleep in the most uncomfortable seat. 

-A sweat rivulet forms at my braline and drips into my buttcrack as I stride toward passport control

-Gratitude as the passport agent smiles and lets me through despite my country’s heinous crimes against humanity. 

-Massive relief and shoulder release as I find my driver. I sleep half the hour into London from Heathrow. 

-I napped in my weird, boiling hotel room for a couple hours and then did work from my bed. I wasn’t going anywhere. I was a captive of my own lethargy and lack of will. 

-Today is off to work, thank god, because the hang in the hotel room can be seriously depressing. There is a whole world out there!

Today we worked rehearsing the Thelma and Louise” musical at Toynbee Hall, in Whitechapel. As a person who has read a lot about Jack the Ripper, this place has historical significance which I will not go into here. I did find it eerie to be in places near where those poor women were murdered in cold blood. Unlike most people who are fascinated by the Ripper case I do not admire or worship him for the obvious fucking reasons the “Ripperologists” don’t seem to get. Seeing absolute swarms of tourists drinking in the Ten Bells fills me with sadness. I’ll write a whole post about this some other time but I’d like to mention the reason I have read so much about the Ripper case. I am fascinated with Victorian England and its repressive, prudish, misogynist, racist, colonialist regime led by a woman, Queen Victoria. I have read just as much about her and her bizarre need to drag us all to hell, which we are still feeling the brutal repercussions of today. Dismantling these fucked up ideals are much easier when you get a sense of this history. 

Ok, enough of that. The Thelma and Louise team along with all the lovely actors, dancers, singers and musicians are back at it, full on. This is the first time we are hearing orchestra, band and singers together. What joy! Even in its imperfect, newly born moments the sound of the complete unit elicits tears from most people in the room. Music is so fucking powerful! I will never take the sensation for granted. It is a direct line to our lost instincts and connection to each other as a species. A force as powerful as an avalanche or a tsunami; our human vibration and amplification. We are exquisite creatures. It’s so crazy to hear the songs for the first time while having to make notes! It’s a sensory meltdown! It’s a desperate scramble to capture first impressions and to note what does or doesn’t work. It is the place where I have to fire on all cylinders with my nostrils open and the many arms of Shiva to note it all down. (God forbid that any of my handwriting from those moments should ever be made public! Haha) The orchestrator, music director and I bark changes on the fly, the nimble musicians implement them without losing stride. They are athletes at the highest level. They are magnificent. I am in awe of them every single second. 

We work so hard I am often too tired to eat dinner. I just go home, shower and hop into bed. The week flies by until I realize I have to squeeze in a trip to the grocery store to buy biscuits for my friends and ManFriendJeff back home. The UK “biscuit” is superior in every way to the ones we have in the US (cookies) so, unsurprisingly, that’s what everyone at home asks for. I found a new one from Scotland that I had never seen, which was simply incredible! The “Tunnock’s Milk Chocolate Caramel Wafer Biscuit” is melt-in-your-mouth, but also crunchy and not too sweet. Its caramel cream to wafer to chocolate ratio gives you a perfect bite. Heaven! 

Questions? Treat suggestions? bring em on! XO!