My Summer Challenge

Summer is typically a tough time of year for me. The days are longer and hotter, filled with all kind of crowd-gatherings that block off streets, reroute buses, and generally amass a throng of people, among which not a single one seems to be paying attention to what they're doing or their surroundings. That's probably too harsh, but it feels good in that guilty way to get it out.

But I thought one way to pass the time and get some benefit from it, too, would be to take on a project over the summer. Something to help fill the days.

I took several years off from regular staff practice and had a hard time giving myself permission to pick them back up. At this point, I think my days and dreams of circus anything are mostly echoes from the past. The flood of memories that wash over me rises, then retreats, but lingers.

A few months ago, I struggled to find any joy partaking in my regular tech duties in the annual festival that serves as the dying breath of my live performance involvement after many years. This year, I felt mostly impatient. I strained to recall the joy and wonder that used to come naturally.

So I felt like I might be ready to close the door on that chapter of my life and stop entertaining the idea that I just needed to eventually get back into it under the right circumstances.

There's a lot I don't miss about the process and politics of collaborative live performance. But there's a lot that I miss about the creative generation, world-making and story-telling. And I'm trying to remember how to reclaim those elements without the weight of the guilt that I should be putting that effort elsewhere.

Meanwhile, I posed this summer challenge to myself. A challenge to get back into something I loved for no other reason than because I love it. Additionally, I want to improve how I feel mentally and physically more consistently. At least for the summer, but hopefully I will want and choose to stick with it longer than that.

I have a hard time finding other enjoyable ways to shake out an endorphin or two and to burn off anxious energy. I appreciate that I have to stop worrying about all of the everything else, because if I don't, that likely ends with a stick in the face. Pretty motivating.

I decided to record some of my sessions so that I could not only be able to evaluate what I am doing and figure out the corrections, but also so that I would be able to see my progress over time. Which I expect will reinforce the idea that I can get better at other things, too. I'm pretty sure that's true, I just don't always believe it.

With the proper effort and dedication, the progress will be inevitable. Having the loose three-month structure gives me a vague framework to figure out what reasonable intervals are. And ideally, builds in the accountability to push through inertia. With any luck, the return of long nights and comfort of rainy days will be swift.

While I certainly don't expect to promote or overshare my challenge journey, I guess someone might find it here. But I feel pretty good about blending in so far.

Tonight I learned the process to stick an unlisted clip on YouTube. I might be too scared to share much of anything with anyone, really. But I did realize that I want to be able to pull up footage of things I want to work on easily across different devices and without needing dedicated storage or proprietary apps.

By all means, not a high-quality production or highfalutin artistry, but I worked through the tedious parts and now just have to face the scary part of owning up to myself. It should get better from here.