The `Speare Bearer: More Seattle and Stories From the Hole pt. 2.1 07/18 One big surprise that awaited me in Seattle was the day I went around to the Seattle Center to introduce myself at all the local theaters, and I walked into Seattle Shakes, and spotted a friend from school in the offices. Thea and I went to Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) together, and were friends, but I hadn’t seen her since just before we graduated, 5 years ago, and surely did not expect to see her working for Seattle Shakes (She was not a Performing Arts major, but an advertizing+graphic design major), or in Seattle in general. We both caught each other off guard, had a delightful, flabbergasted reunion, briefly caught up, she gave me the skinny on Seattle Shakes, where she is one of their head marketing coordinators, and on the Shakespeare scene in Seattle in general. It turned out about 3 days later, when I was about 2 days east of Seattle, that I finally just realized I was EXHAUSTED from my 5 month ride at this point, and needing to go home and rest.  So I was BLESSED from God with a really cheap hotel room in the small town I’d ridden to east of Seattle, Cle Elum, a really cheap flight back to Florida from Seattle, access to an airport shuttle that could take me AND my bike back to Seattle, and the means to pack my bike up (which had proven an immense challenge before). And it also turned out that the girls lived really close to a light rail that could take me directly from and to the airport (where the shuttle dropped me off), to catch the flight I’d booked, which would depart 36 hrs after I would return to Seattle. Are you following this? Anyway I really had a great time staying with my friend and her roommate for that time. They are both such intelligent, and fun ladies, great conversationalists who both work in theater in Seattle, so I had a great time dishing with them about that. We talked about art, theater, feminism, Arrested Development, our futures, theater in Seattle, dished about local the local theater climate, being artists.. Even though most of this trip was about getting away from my insular group of artist friends in NY, and being around real people, who have normal jobs, and live more traditional lives, as much of a breath of fresh air as that has been, I really love artists and love being around them so much, talking about art and the artists life. It’s one of my great joys, and the girls were so thoughtful, and funny, and eloquent. They were super kind and hospitable to me, and really put me at ease in the kind of stressful transition back home. I’m super grateful for that. Turns out there’s A LOT of SCAD people in Seattle.

Let’s all tell stories about fear…

They can be true, first hand or second hand, but it’s got to be a story about someone being confronted by fear, and how they dealt with it.

… This might be a good game for the Speare Bearer’s audiences to play…

I am coming to the conclusion that all kinds of Art, but in my case particularly the performing arts, is a service industry. We are called upon to offer the best, and most true and vulnerable parts of ourselves to make art that edifies humanity, and draws them closer somehow to the divine. If you are calling yourself an artist, and you aren’t doing this, I personally believe you are missing the mark. I say this also taking into account the basic belief that as an artist, if it means something to you, it means something to somebody else, and working from your heart helps to heal yours and theirs.