Not Dead Time: LIVING Time!!!

with Karen Coleman & Charlie Donnelly in The Browning Version (Arches, 1998)

Mr Crocker Harris is 'retired' from teaching

“Patience is not passive; on the contrary, it is active; it is concentrated strength.”

Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

Waiting has always been difficult for me. But rather than chewing the furniture and tying myself in knots, I need to see the next 6 months as a chance to learn to become excited by whatever lies ahead. The audition went well I think but now that it is done, whether I get into the RSAMD or not is in a sense irrelevant, as the time has come for me to make profound changes in how I live my life anyway, and how I approach my art. I cannot continue to hibernate or tread water. I cannot continue teaching in secondary school kids simply to pay off the mortgage. It’s a waste of my gifts, of my life. Putting financial security at the top of the agenda is no longer tenable. Increasingly over the past couple of years it is spiritual congruence and living authentically, -adventurously- which has taken on greater and greater value and importance for me. Sacrifices have to be made. Whatever should occur, whatever the Academy may decide, I am resolved: I cannot afford to forget to keep evolving, emerging.

One thing's for sure... This is not dead time; it’s living time!

Decisions about who I want to become can and indeed should be made NOW- quite independently of whether I end up going to drama school or not. I will become an actor again whatever happens, I know this. But what kind of actor?… Who for? And why? Answering those questions is what this life phase is really for.

In fact this spring can actually be one of the best times for self-awareness and real growth to take place. To get myself focused on planning how I want to spend the second half of my life; deciding what is most important to me and how those realisations are going to affect my connection and relationship with the world. The journey, this waiting, may have a more significant impact than the end result. Impatience may keep me from gaining from this present experience. Whereas calm patience can be the ideal catalyst for soul growth to occur.

There’s a real art in being patient, which involves surrendering and simply trusting that God knows what He’s up to. I am not used to this. I have to learn how to wait on Him and trust that He is making me bide my time for good reason. My own lower ego must not try to force things to flower before they are mature enough to be uprooted. He has the best in mind for me, and I am going to have to accept that whatever occurs will be for the best. And so I surrender because He knows what He is doing for my highest good.

That said I woke up from a nightmare last night. My car ran away down University Avenue after I left the handbrake off. I chased it, panicking and screaming for people to get out of the way as it rolled down the hill. It ran over a woman who quick-wittedly lay down in the middle of the road and let the vehicle pass over the top of her and her terrier dog (was it Jill Ridderford? Morna Burdon?) By the time I had got to Byres Rd there was no sign of any accident but the car had disappeared.

As soon as I awoke I knew his was about going to drama school, and my fear of making the wrong decision about my life. Things being out of my control and the fear that I am required to relinquish my car and the security of other possessions and trust that God will permit nothing disastrous to happen. It feels very scary but in the end there is precious little I can do about the consequences. I have to trust that others will just get out of my way and notice when my car comes hurtling towards them!

Meanwhile I have decided to audition for Peter Lamb’s production of Titus Andronicus. Again, if I don’t get it, that’s fine-; after all I can at least say I have played the part before in the botanic gardens ten years ago. The thing is I haven’t acted for 10 months- since Tango in fact- and I am scared I have gotten out of shape. If you don't use it you lose it, isn't that what they say...? I hope though that long enough has elapsed though for me to come back to it afresh, and with a rejuvenated sense of purpose. I am setting myself the target of being more authentic and fully connected this time. To resist cheating. And to be more loving.

I have also agreed to direct another show for Giffnock next January- and the fee should go towards my college fund if it should go ahead. I have some other ideas for making a bit more money using my acting skills- more of which in future posts.

Exciting times.

12th March 2009, 13.55

The date and time of my audition for RSAMD.

I was never any good at keeping secrets about myself, even though in this case it might be more politic to keep shtum and so avoid the embarrassment afterwards of having to tell everyone I didn't get in. But that's me.

It'll be a very important day; not just because a part of me still craves endorsement and validation (I fervently pray I was more secure and confident about what I do), but because I have for all my adult life harboured ambitions of receiving formal practical training. My untutored talents, such as they are, deserve critical attention and proper training. Looking to the Academy for these things- especially at my age and CV- is a bit pathetic, a measure of my neediness perhaps, but that's what crave. I can't deny it. My confidence has always been low (It's been VERY low of late.) I feel neglected-stuck and left behind somehow. I want to prove to myself and the rest of the world that I and my gfts are worthy of attention.

I really need to get my head sorted, and stop beating myself up for all my failings- both real and imagined.

"What have you done? What have you done? You tit."

Max in The Homecoming (with Ronnie McCann) 2005

"What have you done? What have you done, you tit."

Having to do battle with computer gremlins yesterday, which had me crawling around the back of my computer, cursing the dust and the faulty connections and spaghetti of wires- I was getting more and more fractious and enraged. So much so I was not really considering the obvious solution of a System Restore, and instead getting more and more stubbornly committed to the idea of trying to repair stupid mistakes compounded by my own emotional response to the unrelenting logic of an inorganic, insentient machine.

Jerome in Henceforward (with Mairi Gillespie as an android housekeeper!) 1994

I suppose this irritation wasn't helped by the mounting frustration that I am having to wait in so many areas of my life. I have always hated waiting. In the past 6months I have become increasingly aware what a deeply impatient man I am. If anything this irascibility and intolerance appears to be getting even worse, not better, since I became more conscious of it! The Bible says love is kind, love is patient. I feel so unkind and impatient. I get sarcastic, truculent, even vicious whenever my patience is tested. I am even like this when it comes to looking for ways in which I might express love in action as an extension of my spiritual life! I want to arrive now! This absurd, paradoxical dilemma when seen from the perspective of my Overself, my Higher Ego is more than faintly risible. It is vital; for me to learn how to forgive myself and be more ready to laugh at the ridiculousness of this. But I am so bloody impatient in virtually every aspect of my life I frequently lose my sense of humour. A pupil in my S3 class was behaving like a eejit last week and I was incensed because he was acting up because he was bored, or didn’t understand how he was letting himself and his group down. He was laughing in my face and I ended up having to turn around and walk away in order to stop myself completely losing it. I heard him say, “You need to develop a sense of humour, man”. I thought I was going to explode!

Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings!

Austin in True West (with Robert Patterson and Sheena Penson) 1993

I am exasperated by so many things in life- by wilful ignorance, sluggishness, queues, coughing, irresponsible behaviour, being ignored, being noticed, violence, sloth, repetition, rudeness, not being listened to, being taken for granted, arrogance, immaturity, pretentiousness, competitiveness, the banal, the clichéd and the trite, the sentimental and the unnecessarily complicated, youthful vanity, stubborn age, selfishness, noise, quiet, selfishness, blind spots, the slow pace of growth, the Sisyphean nature of self-discovery… Oh so many, many things. But with the past couple of years’ meditation and self-analysis I have been afforded some long overdue insights into aspects of my nature of which I might be mortally ashamed, if it were not for God’s endless patience. In the past I could easily have blown this impatience thing out of all proportion and fully identify with these failings if I wasn’t equally aware of His forgiveness. What I'm saying is, I know now that my impatience is not the whole Me. It may pollute the shallows of my soul ocean, but the depths are mercifully uncontaminated. The Source and my Higher Self offer me with a wise perspective on my ego, its fears and failures, and also give me hope that in shining a light on these reptiles they will begin to shrivel and die. I still have to take that assurance that they will though, that they are shrivelling and dying, I mean, because at the moment, if anything, I appear more impatient, even more tetchy-with myself and others. It is due to my impatience and frustration (bred from fear of Death ultimately, the idea that time is limited, and that I am not doing enough- as if immortality might be earned by doing more stuff, better- the fear that I haven’t tried hard enough) that I will often miss out on what is really happening in life. I constantly give myself a hard time for not doing things quicker, more efficiently- possessed by the idea that everything could always be better. Spoken of like this, this is clearly a ridiculous way to approach existence, I do see that; but at the same time it has been such an unconscious habit of mine for so long that I scarcely know how to behave or think differently. And when you think about it, is it really such a bad thing? Things get done, and quickly, don’t they? Well yes, things do get done- but wouldn't they anyway? Yes, there have been some benefits- if there had not then I would have seen the foolishness of being like this long before. I have worked my ass off passing exams, perfecting my characterisations (Lear, Max, Titus, Benska, Kevin, Sammy, Sam and so many, many others have been founded on impatience and rage), working tirelessly as a director, and a teacher with unrelenting self- discipline and determination. But at what cost to my inner tranquillity and peace of mind?

Mr Crocker-Harris in The Browning Version 1997

I now find myself this rainy Sunday afternoon in January- all grey clouds and howling winds- zealous to start work on my next projects as an actor and director. But I am forced to wait. I have to wait for news of when my audition for drama school will be. I am champing at the bit to get started on work I care about, but instead I am being completely snowed under with schoolwork- reports, NABS, homework and prelims to mark, lesson plans, after-school meetings blah, blah, blah…. The school have asked me to direct a summer show (Godspell) too, but there is also my production of The House of Bernarda Alba for Giffnock Theatre Players starting in 3 weeks time- and, I hope, a role in Dario Fo’s Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay! at the Ramshorn if director Maggie Lovell feels I can cram it all in with all my other commitments. I am so caught up in the frustration waiting engenders in me that I am in danger of missing out on the opportunity to properly prepare myself for the likely avalanche of work and stress all this is likely to entail. Instead I am rattling round this house this weekend, tearing my hair out, desperate to ‘be creative’ again. But today in the Quaker meeting it dawned on me that this apparently fallow period is really a heaven-sent opportunity for reconnection with my spirit, a time of inner reconstitution, for taking stock. These weeks of waiting are a spiritual test, containing a profound lesson in biding my time, rationing my energies, and calming down. But it occurred to me also that I have always tried to avoid being in the present, forever impatient to get started, to get somewhere else. Impatience is always about looking toward the future. Like a restless child on a long car journey it is constantly asking, “Are we nearly there yet? I’m bored… How much longer?” rather than simply enjoying the scenery. The boredom that child feels with what is passing him by is the best image I can think of what I have always done as a (so-called) adult; I am not really assimilating and being grateful for the fact that the journey is actually the fascinating thing, and infinitely more important and more precious than arriving at the destination. If I build up arriving in my mind so much, I will almost inevitably be let down when I do reach the final destination. And then of course there will always be something else to get impatient about. “What are we doing tomorrow, daddy? When are we going home?” I can see that if you, the reader, have a predisposition to indolence there is ostensibly much to envy in a fella like me who keeps himself so busy. But the truth is it is an addiction. You can never do enough to slake it. It’s an unappeasable, rapacious demon. And like all addictions it removes one from the richness of the present moment, reducing everything to one objective, namely getting the next fix. There is nothing romantic about this, nothing admirable. Sorry, nothing to envy here, folks. Yes, lots of stuff gets done, usually at a prodigious rate- but at the same time I am never really appreciating things as they happen. I am not stopping to smell the flowers or admire the clouds. Ever active, yes; but not fully alive. Always moving on and not allowing myself the time to reward myself by appreciating the here and now, or indeed how far I have come, or more importantly just breathing and saying “I am happy, right here and right now because I am alive.” I am rarely in the present moment. Except, that is, when I meditate. I am usually looking towards achieving something in the future. This focus means I am not fully alive. Meditation has taught me the value of being here now. I have started to appreciate how most of my life I have managed to avoid being truly connected. I live stressed out of my mind (literally); distracted, never appreciating what is really going on if I don’t take the opportunity to bring myself out of the trauma of the moment (which is really anxiety and worry about the future!) and see myself from the higher perspective of where my life really is, and what my present activity really is about within the context of my soul, the lives of others, my larger destiny, the significance of what I am doing now, its relevance to the divine will. Tearing your nerves apart is not creative.

Titus in Titus Andronicus (2000)

When God doesn’t give us stuff instantly, part of us wants to yell just hurry up and just give me it now. What we fail to appreciate is that while we wait God is actually teaching us important lessons in how to love. Because Love is patient. Sitting in the Friends’ meeting this morning, waiting for clarity, waiting for resolution, waiting for a word- it became at some point crystal clear to me- as if someone had suddenly switched a light on- that God was keeping me waiting because the waiting was itself the lesson. To wait. To be patient. To not want to hurry things through. I am dying to act again, and part of me was angry at Him for making me wait so bloody long- but from a Higher perspective it is now vital for me to acknowledge how necessary it is for me to learn patience, to appreciate the gift of acting, to enjoy just being alive, instead of simply working, working, working to avoid connecting with being alive. “Why are we waiting, why are we waiting?” …Because we are learning about the wisdom and necessity of the Discipline of Waiting, and not trying to proscribe and force the pace at which God works. In His wisdom he needs me to go deeper right now before I will be ready to take on challenges of the year ahead.

Spooner in No Man's Land (2005)

I have written a lot about love in recent posts- (Sorry to keep banging on about it!) but what the lesson is for me in this fallow period of my creative life is that the amplitude of the Love vibration needs to expand. It is not just love of character, love of the profession, love of the acting process, but love of ones’ fellow actors, ones fellow human beings, love of life, love of God in every moment- not just when you are on stage. If I can learn and appreciate this then I am going to be permitted to start work on this next phase much sooner. I have been given scraps of comfort from a number of sources in recent weeks- encouragement that I am not forgotten even though I have not done anything for a few weeks. Three people recently told me that my Lear from over 2 years ago was the best performance they’d ever seen in the theatre; Ann Marie diMambro’s kind message endorsing how moved she was by our production of her play; the review I recently stumbled across of my last performance as Stomil in Tango 7 months after the run finished. These are reminders to me that I have a place in people’s memories because of my work, and that I can afford to take some pride in the effect it has had on others- and however small and insignificant in the grand scheme of things it may be, it had at least have some value to them. I see these positive and encouraging comments as tiny karmic telegrams, saying, “Yes, you have done well; do remember that. But just hold on a bit longer; there will be more to come when you are ready to be more complete, more present, more loving, more connected, more at peace. Take this time to get some perspective on what you are doing right now, and why. What does it all mean? And what should you focus on if you are to grow in the way God wants you to grow?

Herbert in The Talented Mr Ripley (2005)

And His answer right now seems to be… Wait. That’s all: just wait...