I have a confession to make: Ever since I found out about the crayfish in the Rideau I have been looking for them on every dog walk. I spotted one, and I crouched down to take a video, but I am quite sure it was dead. It didn’t move at all, even when I tossed a pebble nearby. I have not seen a live crayfish yet, but I will definitely report back immediately when I do.
This morning, it was raining so Poppy and I stayed in bed for a lazy morning. Poppy snored and I read a novel. I’m Reading Tom Lake, by Ann Patchett. I borrowed it from the library, naturally. It’s been making me think about theatre as an art form - an ancient, magical spectacle that has endured for, I was going to say millennia but I decided to go double check first and the internet told me, 2500 years! That is amazing, and part of the wonderful thing about it is that the magic spell can be cast in utmost simplicity or as an extravaganza of effects, props, costumes, etc., not to mention a variety of ways in between.
Isn’t that a wonderful thought? I find the idea exciting, and awe inspiring. Perhaps this is because I have been picking away at the play again recently, and reading a novel about theatre and actors. I enjoy the idea of theatre people engaging in an act (punny, I know) that is ancient and hasn’t necessarily changed all that much over the millenia. It’s got a legendary legacy, and to be a part of that flow of history is a beautiful thing.
We had a blackbox theatre in my high school growing up. I did drama there with almost all the same people from grade 7 through grade 12. We did a lot of improv, and we wrote a play. Really, it was a series of vignettes with different kinds of seguays, musical for example. I sang a song as a segway, and I was an actor in a few of the vignettes, but I didn’t ever fall in love with acting and the theatre like some people I know/knew. Interestingly, I did go on to study film making, and film history during my BFA, so I believe a seed was planted.
I’ve been sketching out a screenplay for a little while now, collecting the historical information, reading books about related topics, watching films in the same sub-genre and writing down the framework of the stories as they come to me. It’s been fun and I would love to take a screenwriting class again. I took one back in 2002ish.
Back on the riverbank, I found a Brock quarter, with colour, from 2012, embedded in the mud. I photographed it and then removed it to add to the collection of artefacts I am compiling on my walks. Today I saw and photographed two morel mushrooms and a little patch of chives. Then I spoke to a couple about a rare bird sighting and we shared photos of mushrooms and birds. I adore those kinds of interactions. We marvelled at spring and went our separate ways.