June Newsletter- Of moms and monks, The Baker's Wife, what I'm reading & more!
In this issue...
Of moms and monks
The Baker’s Wife onstage
What I'm reading
Most popular post
Of Moms and Monks
Sometimes when I’m feeling particularly stressed out or overwhelmed, I like to play a little game inside my head, called “How Long Could A Buddhist Monk Do This Without Cracking?”. Allow me to elaborate. Buddhist monks have long been admired for their strong sense of inner peace as the result of years of discipline and practice. There is no denying their commitment to mindfulness, nonviolence, and wisdom.
I just wonder if those monks would be quite so peaceful if they were parents and had to, say, go to nine different performances for their three kids during the final week of school. Just as an example, I mean.
Here’s a rough timeline of how I imagine this playing out:
Performances 1-2
The monks, having been steeped in their Zen state up until now, would be digging these performances- especially that deadpan rendition “Eye of the Tiger”sung by a second grader in a three-piece suit at the elementary school talent show. They’re big Rocky fans, after all. “Look at these beautiful children sharing their talents with the world,” they’d think. “How utterly delightful!”
Performances 3-4
Things would be a little tense after one of the monks was 20 minutes late to Kid #1’s band concert, missing her important solo. He apparently got caught up in meditating and “forgot that thing was today.” Still, he would make up for it by bringing fresh flowers from the monastery garden to the theatre showcase the next day, so the other monks would decide to let it slide.
Performances 5-7
At this point the monks’ composure would definitely start to slip, as these three concerts are scheduled at the same time, and in different parts of town. One of them would “jokingly” suggest they skip the whole thing and go for ice cream instead, to which another would make a passive aggressive comment about being damned if he had spent all his money on drum lessons and didn’t have anything to show for it. (But he’d somehow dress the whole thing up in a metaphor about dewdrops on a lotus petal, so, like, it would come off as super elegant?) The whole thing would sound pretty deep to me, but then I’d notice the other monks rolling their eyes behind Metaphor Monk’s back.
Performance 8
Things would reach a breaking point here, with Chauffeur Monk having to circle the block for 45 minutes during Kid #3’s ballet showcase because there was nowhere to park and “Western civilization still hasn’t effing figured out how to keep up with the infrastructural needs of an ever-expanding population.” I’d attempt to remind the grumbling monks of their initial enthusiasm for the children sharing their talents with the world. They’d ask me how many talents were left.
Performance 9
Well out of their nirvana states by now, the monks would be at each others’ throats by week’s end, constantly making jabs about the children of today being overcommitted on the way to Kid #2’s choir concert. Arms folded, the monks would at first smirk at the slideshow of gap-toothed children projected over the sounds of Louis Armstrong’s “What A Wonderful World.” But by the end of the sappy presentation, their smirks would turn to sniffles, and slowly, slowly they would put their arms around each other. Somehow, they had done it. It hadn’t been perfect and they had broken about a thousand different religious tenements, but they had gotten through it together. And most importantly, now they could hightail it back to the monastery. Vows of silence were no picnic, but they would be looking pretty damned good right now.
Come see me onstage!
The Baker’s Wife only has two weekends left, selling out every performance of its run! If you’re in Austin and want to get tickets, you can get on the waitlist at The Alchemy Theatre Company. Thanks so much to those of you who have already come to see this incredible show about life, love, and the importance of good bread!
What I’m Reading: All Creatures Great and Small
A while back I told you how much I loved the PBS reboot of All Creatures Great and Small- a delightful drama that details the memoirs of a vet in 1930s Yorkshire. After quickly burning through all three seasons, I decided to check out the books the series was based on while I waited for season four. James Herriot wrote three books in the All Creatures series: All Creatures Great and Small, All Things Bright and Beautiful, and All Things Wise and Wonderful, and, having read two of the three so far, I am happy to report that they are just as delightful as the show. In fact, as is almost always the case with books, Herriot’s anecdotes are much more rich and detailed than could ever be captured in an hour-long TV show. Tackling everything from pampered Pekingese lapdogs to the chaos of lambing season, the stories are sometimes sweet, sometimes sad, but always uplifting.
My most popular post of the month
Facebook’s latest algorithms seem to be doing a number on public pages’ engagement lately, making it even more necessary to subscribe to your favorite content producers elsewhere. (Like here! Yay, you!) It’s possible I’ll need to shift to exclusively posting on Substack in the not too distant future. In the meantime, here was last month’s most popular (not to mention painfully relatable) post!
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