Boy Oh, Boise

"Sometimes a person has to go a very long distance out of his way
to come back a short distance correctly."
- Edward Albee

A map of Boise, Idaho is not going to show me this.

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1/30/10, 3 a.m.: Astoria, NY. scraps of my life are shredded or stuffed into boxes, cases, and crates, then drawn and quartered, scattered across the Tri State area. The King of the city makes me a bloody, dismembered example to all others who to deign to leave these boroughs.

1/31/10, 4 p.m.: Boise airport- Katie, a sweet Juliet with big brown eyes that scan a sea of travelers holds a sign: IDAHO SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL. (this means me). I have a sign! I am sign worthy! And I get a green minivan...

2/1/10 6.30 a.m.: I wake up in the basement of a giant house in a mountainside just outside downtown Boise. The American Rocky Mountains yodel in silence, ever in my periphery. We meet the cast and crew of Shakespearience. ALL the people are friendly, creative, exuberant, and inspiring.

2/2/10 10 a.m.: We get down to business blocking the first 10 pages of Othello's one hour version. Our input is valued and molded. We are truly an ensemble. I join the YMCA for $20 and take yoga. "Artist" perks.

2/4/10: Happy birthday, Dad, Sue, and Kathleen! More blocking. More inspiration. More Yoga. More nightmares of being chopped up in my sleep. First paycheck! I am getting paid to read and examine the characters fleshed out with words that hang weights upon my tongue.

2/5/10, 6.30 p.m.: The mini van breaks down. Othello, Iago, Desdemona and Emilia see Albee's "At Home at the Zoo" at the Boise Contemporary Theatre, where we rehearse 10-4 six days a week. Jerry is riveting and when we finally find the strength to talk, we can't stop talking about him. We drink locally brewed beer and eat locally grown potatoes that become the diversely chopped fries before us. The restaurant has its own farm and granary --to make its own bread and raise its own meat; it infuses its own vodka and serves water in recycled wine bottles cut in half and sanded down. Idaho is more green than any other city I've known (besides, perhaps Vancouver).

2/6/10, 9.35 p.m.: Still thinking about Jerry and his crazy-cut digressions. Who convinced me a bike was an acceptable replacement for the minivan? Wheezing uphill unearths anger. I want to scream like Jerry at a park bench. It takes me longer to push the bike 4 miles back up Bogus Basin Road, back to the mountain cave dwellings where I hide and hope I am not chopped into Desdemonian "messes." Will I be smothered tonight by my racing heart? I push the bike "back home"--someone else's Home. The air, full of a clean Idaho scent is not mine. It is someone else's memory. Someone who leaves the doors unlocked. Is Jerry sane? What's the difference between drifters and dreamers? Is this a dream? Why can't I sleep? Where do I go "back" to?

If I burn the map, can I follow the ashes?