Higher Education: Writing Recovery Party

Barbara Jwanouskos recovers. 

I don’t know what it is about the time period that encompasses late January, pretty much all of February and into early March (oh wait, there’s a word for this… winter) that makes people, or rather, me crazy. Maybe it’s the five minute walk it takes to go around the corner while attempting to walk in the snow/ice to the bus stop every morning… Whatever the case, I think I’ve been overdoing it lately with artistic output and input.

Dear CMU, could you please invent teleportation devices so I can avoid the snow?

We had a weekend here called “Playground” where students put up one man shows, short plays, musicals, dance pieces, installations, and a variety of other performance pieces as well as visual arts. It was two and a half days of theater all day, which was amazing and certain gets your imagination wandering in all sorts of directions. It also can be completely draining. Seeing show after show and interacting with so many people begins to exhaust my resources. I’m like a two-year-old that needs a nap.

This was followed by the first table read of our thesis plays with real actors! (oooh!) And as insightful as it was to hear the words not from your fellow writers, but from people that are highly trained in making bold acting choices, the feedback can be a bit daunting too. You’re hearing a play that has gone through at least eight or more major revisions and it’s hard not to feel as if instead of reaching the crest of the mountain peak, you’ve just reached the fake-out peak. You realize there’s so much you still want to change…

Well, it’s no surprise that things fell apart and I got sick. I mean, isn’t that what always happens when we spread ourselves thin? Our bodies and minds can only take so much, after all before a recovery period is needed. And what happens when we get sick? Our capacity to get things done diminishes even more.

Ummmm… No.

I read an interesting article the other day about how athletes train to become Olympians. Apart from physiological traits or committing to a particular regime, what sets Olympians apart is that they are unwilling to give up. For many of them it takes eight years or training (or more!) to get to the point where they can compete at an Olympic level. But the “aha” moment came when I read that “when they’re not training, they’re often resting and eating for the next session.”

Resting. Oh wait, I don’t think I’m really doing enough of that… I guess many Olympians get ten hours of sleep a night WITH a half-hour to 90-minute nap during the day too! And not that playwriting is like being an Olympic athlete in a physical sense, but I do think you are asking yourself to continually operate at a high level. Writing every day, teaching playwriting, putting up plays, seeing others’ plays, reading others’ plays, formulating thoughts on your work, others’ work and being able to articulate yourself…

A lot of times we get time to leisurely have these thoughts pop up and then dissipate, but sometimes more is demanded of us, which is great and exciting and pushes us to the periphery of where we think our limits are thereby extending them (which is good). It comes with the need to recuperate though. I think that time to become reflective, turn inward and sit in quiet is important too. It’s such a rough transition to going from “full speed ahead!” to sitting in your deep dark inmost cave and hibernating.

If, as artists, we could take a page from the Olympians and possibly give ourselves the time to sleep, dream, and not plow through every single project back to back, but at some point say, “hey, I’m going to sit this one out,” and be okay with that, perhaps we could go further and we’d last longer. I know for myself I want to be a long-burning flame, not one that flickers out with a gust of winter wind.

So, rest up friends! Join me in my Writing Recovery Party, which involves each attendee sitting separately and silently in their own homes. Perhaps with lots of cozy blankets, fuzzy socks, dim lighting, warm herbal tea and little to no stimuli for a while.

At least until the snow starts to melt…

…which will be any day now…

How do you take care of yourself when you’ve pushed yourself too far artistically? Share with us!