Mr. Nelson was having a strange day indeed on Friday. The whole time I was with him his phone kept ringing, to the point where he was ready to walk two blocks to the beach and fling the damned thing into the ocean. I was ready to help.
A sweet-smelling cloud of serendipitous gasses followed him about and I got a whiff of them myself.
We met in the neighborhood bordering Venice and the city of Santa Monica. Objective: introduce Mr. Nelson to Ms. Swain, get a peek at a potential space for our teaching and/or other projects, and have a conversation about maybe doing some teaching together.
We three meet and consume lemonades and coffee. We also barge in at the Powerhouse and love, love, love the theatre space: a black box with a high ceiling, a grid, and lights. I count 76 seats. It is a beaut. I think of buying it. Then a woman with an accent approaches us and, having taken a bit of shine to Mr. Nelson, confides that she also has a notion of buying it.
We agree to a play date next week, where we teach each other our respective practices: meditation (me), tai chi (Chris), and yoga (Ms. Swain), and explore the nexus with theatre work.
I have some strong feelings about acting. Awareness practice and theatre work can accomplish much together. I go so far as to consider acting as potentially a kind of ministry and envision a sort of Theatre Dojo.
While we were awaiting Ms. Swain, Mr. Nelson and I took a stroll down Main Street and found ourselves peeking through the windows of the Exhale Sacred Movement Center in Venice. As I glanced at a poster advertising some of their upcoming workshops, I gasped. There, at the bottom, teaching a workshop on August 27, is Darlene D'Arezzo. Darlene D'Arezzo and I were in high school together. We worked on a radio station together back then. I would later learn that Darlene lives out here and has established a yoga studio for kids. I go in and leave a note for Darlene. They tell me she rarely comes in - yet by the end of the evening she has left a voice message on my phone, saying she had just a book on Buddhism and had wanted to track me down to rap about the dharma.
Onward! We meet Ms. Swain and tell her of this experience, and she informs us that she works at Exhale.
The world knits itself together in so many amusing ways. This was one of those moments where one notices the stitching and it all seems rather weird and hilarious.
Ms. Swain peels off to go see an Athol Fugard play, but Mr. Nelson and I need food. We retreat to O'Brien's on Main Street, where we are promptly and diligently ignored for several minutes. There appears to be one server making the rounds to clear tables. We move indoors, and obtain menus for ourselves. Finally, we hail the fellow who has just brought menus to the ladies sitting at the next booth, and ask him if we may order dinner.
"I'm sorry," he says, and I don't believe for one moment he is sorry, "I cannot take your order. Please see the bartender."
We go to the bar and we find: no bartender. Nelson looks at me. I consider going 'round and pouring myself a Bass. (And tipping myself.) Instead, I take him by the arm and we leave. They are much happier to see us at the Library Alehouse, so we settle in. We even run the Theatre Dojo concept past the waitress, who seems mildly interested in the idea and more than mildly wary of us. She then seats someone for dinner next to us and voila, it is the accented woman who spoke to us at the Powerhouse.
Next steps: a play date for the three instructors, a look at another space in Hollywood, and work on a written proposal for our project.