I remember a summer hut in Celerina as a very very small child and how wondrous it was to me that the hut was so completely buried in winter that people on the nursery slope would ski over it without even knowing it was there.
I remember the height of the snow banks up the hill in St Moritz, where dad is buried. Right through my teen years I remember the freezing cold and the blizzards, the incredible difference between summer and winter. But that was way way up high in the Swiss Alps. Dad slept with a humidifier, as the moisture was frozen or cooked out of the air. Fresh clear clean thin cold air.
Here now it makes me nostalgic. But this is lowland, it used to be a swamp. All these huddled red brick buildings. I was in one this morning getting young Americans to think about Iago and his first speech. “The politics of envy” was the module title, and the set text is Othello so it was passed to me. As these brilliant and sparky young men and women worked, I looked out the window and saw the wasteland of white across the campus. The snow keeps on coming keeps on coming. It I hadn’t been digging out the car every morning it would be an impossible task by now. As it is it is a war of attrition.
Everyone still gets up and gets out every morning. They drive as far as they can and trudge the rest of the way, wrapped up in many layers. Inside the buildings it is hot hot hot. You get there and strip. Then dress up again like a tank for your five minute walk in the real world.
It is stark and cold here. We are all working through it as best we can. Thank God for my new boots, they are worn in now and my feet would otherwise be drenched the whole time. Everything is either snow or slush and it doesn’t stop coming down. My heated gilet was an impulse buy on the offchance. It is my most treasured possession this week. Probably I’ll never wear it again but it is worth more than its weight in gold. I’m like a futuristic cowboy. My ears are the only true victims of vanity. If I had a beanie hat I wouldn’t have to do complicated things with my scarf to stop them falling off.
Three classes today and then I got a hot corned beef sandwich after tech. We open tomorrow, at last. We are ready now. This has been a long journey to getting game ready. We will still tweak things, add things, change things, play with things, make things better, make things different… This show with this company will just breathe and breathe and man I love the lot of them. It feels exceptionally safe in this group of five. I’m very very happy to be part of it, the old guy, eek, etc.
Bedtime now though. There’s not been much time to stop properly yet, but there will be. This weekend perhaps in Chicago. But with the majority of my classes today, I’m well placed for a relaxing tail end of the week despite three sold out shows.
AlBarclay 