2019-05-02 - 5:47 p.m.

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Gave myself a list of tasks to work on this afternoon, even if that meant only a few minutes per task. Whatever. One of these tasks was to do some Step Work and study. And I came across this:

Fear is our number one character defect, underneath all the others. Our behaviors are driven by ancient fears for our very existence, of losing our security, of not getting our desires, and of being shown up for what we are trying to hide. These culminate in our faults: our instincts and emotions in collision, or deep seismic gaps between what we instinctively want for ourselves and what we wish for others.

I find this both inspiring and ironic. The former because every time I read one of these passages I think of how often I said my version of this in class: Fear is the only thing ever standing between an actor and his better work. The latter because I had pondered putting off further reading in Radical Forgiveness.

Because the quoted passage seems apt to me regarding - I don't know of a less pompous or portentious way to say this - matters both great and small. Only as sick as our secrets. And so on. So much, so many of what I would have to call character defects are rooted in some way or other in dishonesty, and that dishonesty is always about trying to hide something. Trying to keep something secret, especially something I'm ashamed of. Whether it's a little thing or a big one.

Which, when you think about it, is pretty much the same thing - maybe exactly the same thing - as fear of getting "in trouble." Which pretty much reduces to being that five-year-old boy again.

So I think I'll go back to Radical Forgiveness again, and soon. And I think I'll set myself this goal: that I'll be able to explain at least that initial chapter's essence to Matt or to David. That I'll be able to synthesize it, make it my own. Whenever I venture into this territory I hear Jim Patterson's voice saying that you can't claim to know something until you can articulate it to someone else. If you can't explain it you don't know it; you certainly haven't mastered it in any way, even internally. He used to say "I know what I mean but can't explain it" or "I understand it in my head" are utter fictions. Still don't know if I agree that these are such black-and-white tenets.

Work today was so much better. Some harried moments, even some harried stretches. But I was able to get some seemingly simple tasks done, tasks that would've been impossible if Nataly and Josh hadn't both been on registers. I could float - reorganize shelves, break down boxes, rearrange pastries, which sounds so trivial and trite but it was A Thing: The morning's first orders, all to be ready to go out the door by 7:15am (!), included two Morning Pastries assortments, a Morning Continental assortment, three bagel packs for one order alone, and another dozen-and-a-half bagel order including cream cheeses that we only had expired containers of. Ha ha. Pickings were so slim for the rest of the day that people were asking why we'd "cut down" so much on the amount we're baking now. (There was a moment when a chipper blonde woman stood down at the end of the bakery glass, and who stayed there when it was clear I was about to ask if I could help. And instinctively and immediately I knew: she was going to say she "needed an assortment" to take to some function, and damn if I wasn't spot on. And the guy after her wanted a half-dozen.

Doesn't anyone ever fucking plan ahead? And why don't they get that this is exactly what places like Potter's and Pleasanton and Third Coast do. Oy.

Anyway. I was cheerful and even contented much of the time, when on Tuesday and Wednesday I wanted to run screaming from the place. Partly because work was less hammered and miserable, partly because last night's rehearsal was better. And - no doubt - partly because I had no rehearsal to look forward to tonight, and therefore no rehearsal to feel anxiety and dread about.

To Lucky's for groceries. Home to shower, put groceries away, do some of these tasks. Long e-mail to Derek plus an iTunes gift of "Passeggiata" from The Light in the Piazza for him as a jumping-off place for his imagination. Barb's got my number, I was showing off a little in my e-mail. Didn't have to try to seem quite so cultured and erudite. Part of that is pure ego. On the other hand part of it is genuinely altruistic; my "teacher hat" comes on and I want to open this world and this way of working to his kind, talented, lovely young man.

Back and forth with Manna and then CVS, and my primidone is now "only" $72 instead of $252, for which I'm willing to feel grateful. (It's a three-months' supply; oh please let this new provider be willing to cover three months of all the others at a time?)

Time now to sear some tuna, saute some veggies.

Should study lines after dinner, that's the main thing on the list that I haven't done.

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ebb - flow

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