June 2018 – I used to write a blog that concerned itself with theatre in all its shapes. But once I turned 60 years old, I began to feel a certain waning interest in writing only about the theatre. The whole enterprise has seemed to pass me by, and I felt I no longer had the opportunity to make any difference or any mark in the art form. So I let my blog slide for a little over a year while I pondered the question of whether or not I should again take up writing in it.
This blog is the answer to that question – no. It seems to me now that I would rather write on a variety of things and not be tied down to one subject. I’d also like the blog to be a new search for some meaning. Attaining the age of 60 means adjustments, and perhaps within this blog I can share some of the things tossing about in my head about looking for a different meaning for my life.
1983 on the Arctic Circle, Dempster Highway, Yukon. I’m on the right. 66° 33′ 43.42″ N 136° 18′ 34.18″ W
Two things have occurred to me in recent years. One is that I really have no skills other than teaching and doing theatre. I really don’t know how to do much else at all; perhaps fix and troubleshoot computers. Two, I have been in one kind of classroom or another since I have been 8 years old. I know no other business. So I think this blog will act as an outlet as I begin to try and find other things to give my life some purpose beyond these two frameworks.
In 1983, I took a trip up to Inuvik, NWT, which is the farthest place north to which one can travel in a 2×4 vehicle. Getting north of the 60th parallel was quite an achievement in and of itself. But I distinctly remember one sensation as I was driving up the Dempster Highway. There was a point on the road where I felt as if I was driving on the part of the earth where I was so close to the top of the world that I could actually see it, and the road ahead of me was just a winding path leading me up to the top of the earth. I have a feeling that’s what North of 60 will be like – just writing all those thoughts one has while following the path to the eventual “top of the world.”
And so – let the journey begin. -twl