2018 you are dead and with it so much, you changed me and I hope it was for the better. You started with the greatest therapy theater could allowance. “Falsettos” I learned that exposing yourself and your flaws and vulnerabilities is a leap of faith full of fear and contemplation but on the other side is freedom, and worth every bit of rehearsal, every note, every word, every movement on stage.

2018 you were the death of childhood ideals. And you were an artist’s search to restore those ideals even if just for a few short hours in a dark room with lights that illuminate scenes of playwright’s dreams. And fighting to keep that ideal, that dream alive is the greatest good I can do. Because Seattle and children don’t mix. And what I mean by that is that innocence, purity, inspiration, curiosity, and an honest search for learning don’t mix well in a mind consumed with markets, businesses, money, and power. The great difference between Entertainment and Art making.

So 2019 I’m taking whatever morsels of innocence, purity, inspiration, curiosity, and thirst for knowledge I have left and sowing them in good soil, soil that will cause a little to grow into something beautiful, something nutritious, and life giving to others. Anyone have some ideas for some good soil???

In the epic of Candide his ideal optimism is crushed by a world seemingly against him and the constant search for fulfillment, success, or adventure is met with distopia and we are left with to go back home and to make our garden grow. It is not your garden but our garden, a return to cultivating our own and returning from the world which is disappointment, power, politics, and markets to something much smaller, intimate, vulnerable, and illuminating

“You’ve been a fool

And so have I, . . .

Let us try,

Before we die

To make some sense of life.

We’re neither pure, nor wise, nor good

We’ll do our best we know

We’ll build our house and chop our wood

And make our garden grow . . .

And make our garden grow

Let dreamer dream

What world they please

Those edens can’t be found.

The sweetest flowers,

The fairest trees,

Are grown in solid ground.”

Candide, “Make our garden grow,” Leonard Bernstein

The death of ideals or dreams or crystal perception of the world and our place in it are not negative, they are realistic, they are precious. They tell you why we need them and why they need to be planted in good soil, in soil that will take those ideals and turn them into something. They tell you why parents protect, why teachers teach, why pastors shepard, and why artists make art.

Photo credit:

Dakota Nicole King

Kyle Connors