Tillamook Head this morning.
A Big Life: Encouragement for People in the Arts –
Snow Day!
Today is a snow day for schools on the coast!
Checking the district website, I confirmed this at 6:40 a.m. this morning. The information was as clear on the bright blue webpage as the snow which piled up outside my window. On the other hand, Aesop had a different opinion. That website still had me on the roster as a substitute. I flipped back to the district website. It was perfectly clear: No School Today.
Feeling a bit silly, I abandoned all faith in computers and called the people at the school. After all, they adored me. They might laugh at me but they would never stop hiring me, the wonderful writer and actor in their midst who loved working with their children in Special Ed, right? If I couldn’t call them, who could I call? Besides, I told myself, no one will be there anyway. To my surprise someone picked up the phone. She replied, “Oh, we are required to be here in cause some students show up. There is no school.”
Performing my script “In Season” in Daisy Dukes Shorts Night 2019. From left: Ross Laguzza, Victoria Blake, Cecily Overman.
Hating the idea that anyone would be expecting me, even a computer, I checked Aesop again. By this time I knew I was acting insane but I couldn’t help myself. Suddenly the purple and black pages of the website had become a cold alive entity with a mind all its own. It was clear IT still thought there was a job for me. Wait. The person on the phone said “we”. Did “we” mean “me”? Adults? But why? Knowing I was being ridiculous, I called the school once more to clarify that not only were there no students there, there were no teachers there either. “Right,” the same voice confirmed. “No teachers are here,” she said. There is no reason to come.”
Hanging up, I checked Aesop a third time. To my consternation, I was still on the roster. I did NOT like seeing my name there. I am a very diligent person. What if I didn’t take the drive through up the ice to the school and somehow IT found out? What if it accused me of being a no show? Maybe it would decide I was a poor risk. Could I exist as a performer and a writer without my day gigs? Would my delicate ego withstand being rejected as a substitute teacher? NEVER. I would not tolerate it. I decided to do BATTLE with Aesop. I would reject IT before it rejected me. “I know!” I cried. “I will hit the CANCEL JOB button.”
As producer of PDX Playwright’s* Crazy Dukes Instant Play Festival last week-end. Deciding the prompts with stage manager Monica Dailey
In triumph, I pulled the trigger and pushed the button. I was met with a stern retaliatory threat from Aesop: “If you cancel this job, you will NOT be allowed to take any other jobs in the district today. Are you SURE you want to cancel this job?” Despite the ludicrous fact that I was being rejected from jobs that WOULDN’T exist and that I was cancelling a job that DIDN’T exist, I found myself backing down and taking my hand off the trigger. In turn, Aesop holstered its guns and I remained a teacher on ITS roster. Refusing to feel pathetic by my lack of muster, I told myself there was no point in engaging in warfare with a computer. Instead, I would wait for the polite phone call which was sure to come from some nice REAL person in the district office.
Instead, two hours later Aesop emailed me with these hard words: “You have been removed as a substitute for this job. Your services are no longer required.”
I felt hurt. Wow. Hurt?
Abandoned ideas from the audience for the playwrights in writing their Instant Shorts. We could not use them all!
Words can hurt under the most bizarre circumstances. It’s important to notice that. The truth is even when we know the reasons behind them, rejection still can destroy us. As artists, we can never remind ourselves of this enough. Whether our sitcom gets cancelled or the art show is over or we only make it to the third interview, there is always an ending to everything. My motto these days is that most of the time, it’s not us.
It’s a snow day.
Seaside beach this morning
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*PDX Playwrights participates every January in Portland, Oregon’s Fertile Ground Theatre Festival of New Works.
This year my short script In Season won a place in the Daisy Dukes Shorts Nights on Jan 25-Feb 1. I was the producer of their Crazy Dukes Instant Shorts Jan 25-27, 2019.
