Brain-O

It has been a while since I last blogged or had my private time with you, the Universe.

I finished the Pescara Games at the end of June and headed back to the safety and security of what I never used to have in this world a: “Home” in Palm Springs California. I put the finishing touches on my first book, The Back Side Of Wonderful, the final, final edit of a three-year (almost to the day) odyssey that began with a butterfly flying so casually by my nose and showing me the true meaning of life.

I thought I had traveled every corner of this Wide Wonderful World, and a week ago I landed in the Ukraine after four very long and non-direct flights to get to Eastern Europe and the little-big town of Donestk where I wrote a show while I was in Italy this summer for a brand new Diamond Stadium, and an “Amazing Little Soccer Team That Could”, The Shaktar football club that came out from behind the iron curtain and blazed a trail into the history books this summer by winning the UEFA Cup (the European Championships).

Everything was foreign to me here in the Ukraine, the Language, the Currency, the Culture, and most of all the food. Borscht on spaghetti?? What and where the heck was I? I fought it for a week, I was so upset with myself to think I was this world traveler ready to break a book about my life to the world, a book about how I can go anywhere and make magic out of anything.

Well, as it turned out, my health kept me home in California as the rehearsals began here in Donestk, so as I got better I was spending the time to finish my book. I let my handpicked team whom I had found along the way in my great adventure story take the lead and put this show together. When I arrived just two weeks before the show, I found that my ability to slip into “Doug Jack” mode has atrophied quiet a bit from being still in one place in oh-so-sunny California.

When I hit the ground running here in Donestk my feet refused to run they just dug their heels and in and stopped, I stumbled out of the door.

Well this was a first, how can a man who prides himself on being the choreographic version of Survivorman (being dropped into a country with nothing mote than a compass and a Swiss Army Knife and make an impossible trek to a destination in a window of time where he will be plucked out of the foreboding land by his extraction team) how could I not have the chops for such an adventure, one of many that I have spent my entire life doing, the only thing I know how to do, how could my feet NOT move forward how could I just buckle under the pressure of not sure how to order a taxi to get me to the stadium and do my job?

How, What, Why?? Man, indecision was all around me, I was shocked that there was actually a culture that I did not have any way of knowing my way around. I was stunned that my 47 year old endless reserve of Wonderful had run dry. I was amazed that all I really wanted to do was Go Home (when Home was such a new concept for me).

Had writing about my demons and facing my fears and blending the Front and Back Sides of my Wonderful life indeed stopped me from knowing how to do what I used to do with my eyes closed?

I spent a week in shock, mad at myself and brain-blocked, or blog-blocked as it were.

Then this morning, as subtly as the flight of the mysterious butterfly that delivered the message to me three years ago that all life is connected and everything is a step in the dance of life, the message again was delivered, this time from my friend the Universe whom I had forgotten to be speaking with in the early mornings as I usually do when I wake up.

Subtle and Humble and as Eloquent as ever, nothing had changed; everything was in fact as I know it except I was no longer the lead player in this survival series, I was no longer the only voice in my head as I trudged out of my door and found my way to the 42nd stadium of my life’s work, that I would call my office.

My team is the main character and I had for a week been watching them interact as I would have interacted. I watched the time they had spent (the Summer of 2009) to put together a show I had written in the spring of 2009 on a sun drenched eastern Italian shore. They brought it to Eastern Europe and did exactly as I would have done (no wait, they had done it better!) and I realize now the new job I am to take on, the new dance partner I am to add to my dance card. One of the proud parent.

To see them react, put into place and be a part of “me” mixed in with all the Wonderful parts of them that I have always seen inside of them. This has untied my feet, unblocked my brain and now I am able to express and hear the new music this land and this show affords me. I am also speaking again in the mornings to Madame Butterfly the Universe whom I have missed in the chaos of trying to get an autobiography out to the world. The extraction team of this Survivorman is the team I had found along the way, they showed me how to get back to a place I feared I had lost, they showed me the me in them, and the me I uncovered in them and WOW… an amazing, humbling and stunning wake up call this has been.

I truly am home in this far away land.

As corny as this may sounds- yes there is no “i” in Team but there is a “me”…

Taxi!