Kaleidoscope 2006

(I wrote this about six months ago at the end of Kaleidoscope Summer Arts Camp for brilliant teenagers)

No drama, no drama -- that was my mantra. And for once! my life was relatively calm. No one dying or being diagnosed with cancer. All those gloomy poems and stories I worked out in years past. But of course there were dramas; my heart was a big dart board and it was pierced once, twice, three times at least. Mellow, I thought. But it wasn't always mellow. In fact, a few times far from it. And yet for the most part, I didn't stress as much as usual. We wrote less than last year, but wrote just as well. Stories and poems emerged in their own good time. I delivered the goods, the ones I have at any rate. Were they received? Did the lessons find their mark? I may only find out years from now.

What I discovered is my own discomfort with change. I love the new but hate to lose the old. And then there we were last night - Conner, Elizabeth, Kemper, Chad, and Alysha. The actors and writers not even enrolled this year, but sitting together in the quiet of the Johnson Lobby. We sat around the campfire of long-burning love and I read from Picara and they laughed and commented as if we had all jumped into Eli's world as in Mary Poppins when they go into the paintings.

And all was right. All was complete within my world. I felt that I could let go of them and even let go of the book soon. Soon enuff. After all, I still have Nat, Dee and Kel. And now this new crop, these young faces and their words like torches in the night. I have watched them evolve and it has surprised me, but not really. Just gotten me caught up in a new adventure. What will we learn over the next year? What will bring to the table on July 3, 2007?