I can picture the colour spilling out behind the filigree branching of that skyward bold old oak tree on the corner of 15th and McDonald Street Santa Rosa.

So each morning I’m up and ready in my thermals, jeans jumper and joggers only to find that saintly rosey sky leaden with rain clouds and hiding its splendid colour.

OK  so I could have been more strategic and planned to photograph on a dry sunny morning – perhaps even a snowy tipped one whilst in Detroit. But how did I know it would be raining for 10 straight days.

I guess  I was too busy actually expanding rather than thinking about or recording it. (And yes I had chocolate when I shouldn’t have!)

My trip was and has been primarily to touch base with my twin; for me a  source of  parallel thinking, feeling and insight. The process of checking in with her always crazily, uncannily  provides a parallel insight into how we’re going. It’s sort of a life co-coaching exercise.

I had the great benefit of meeting some fabulous people whilst away. Friends of my sister who are into similar mental and work-based pursuits. I recorded some podcasts with them and will store them on my All in 10 minutes blog.

We had great talks about stories we tell ourselves and how they stack up. How we use metaphors and the power of thoughts and language to steer us toward or away from the path of individuation and wholeness. How the intrapersonal communication is informed by those internal stacked stories. And how our cells store memories of traumas, joys, grief and phobic reactions. I’ll group the talks as a podcast series called  “internally communicating”.

My dear friend James who is a professional podcaster would be horrified at the quality of some of the audio – so it won’t be good enough to store on a professional site such as his. I searched word press to find the plug-in podcast function – only to find my childhood guru “Mighty mouse” as the marketing icon. Now if that’s not a personal sign of a sunrise I don’t know what is. 

So Here I come to save my day – rain or not, with a final blog from America

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For me it was bumping out out a show, often at 3 a.m, doubtless tired and pissed, but so happy – in the smells, the dust,  the wonder and the satisfaction.

When I was starting school, my stage, cast and lead character was Mighty Mouse  a cartoon character from the sixties (who years later was disbarred from Comic Valhalla due to a perceived opium addiction!) Mighty Mouse was everything to me, my scene, my rising star, my metaphor and script for surviving the school yard. He was my Raison d’être.

He may have been small, but he was power-packed. “Here I come to save the day, that means that Mighty Mouse is on the way.”At that time in my life I was hanging out for a miracle and a saviour. And in the process, that wonderful alchemistical theatrical process, I rescued my self.

Notwithstanding the blatant fantasy fixation, the game provided me a rich vein of coping strategies. It  gave me the ‘pretend until it feels better’ mentality and the  ’practice until you get it right’ strategy. Both of which I’ve maintained to this day.  All through high school and through my working life I’ve cast the play, the characters, the scenery and style. So as to make my world interesting enough for me to be a part of.  If I found things boring I changed it. If the the colour was drab I’d enliven it. Sort of Steven Covey meets Colour by numbers.

• “Adventures in Paradise” became 2 years teaching in PNG.
• “The Little Princess” became 2 years in Government House
• “The Sound of Music” turned into the Australian Opera
• “Hawaii Five-O” translated into 5 fabulous years working in Television and
• “Disneyland”  morphed into the Public Service with its rich seam of fantasy.

But here’s something for nothing – the technique is exhausting. So I’m bumping out the show. No not suicide – just changing roles. A mid-life trauma has forced me to reconvene my cast of creative thousands into a new show altogether. But how?

In a recent documentary on the making of the Australian Hedda Gabler, the fabulous Cate Blanchett commented on the exchange between actor and audience. She ruminated that each production is forged in the exchange between actor and audience and each interpretation therefore is ”right”.

I’m not sure about this new theatre I’m engaging in. Not sure about the cast, or the role, or the plot. But I’ve settled at least on the audience. They’ll be explorative, faith-filled, imaginative, forgiving and kind (as much UNLIKE Hillsong as possible). This is theatre of the soul, not the masses.

And of the show itself? It won’t be outside the self,  it will be within. I’m happy to bump it in anytime.

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