December 8th.    A recharge day.  Very cold, white, calm, still outside.  Woodfire warm in.   Calls to Simeon, our fantastic cook down the road, to accommodate all the dietary restrictions for this upcoming group.  Calls for creativity and we’re all up for it.  Waiting to hear about a project in New York I’d love to do.  We were just able to let Martyna Majok, a very promising new writer, know that we will be able to host her and her dramaturge for the first part of January.  So excited that we’re able to keep the spirit of the place going immediately after our first retreats.
A storm is on the way!  Big snow and ice expected beginning Tuesday morning and continuing through Wednesday evening.  We’ll see how it impacts travel Wednesday.  It conjures up memories of ice storms from our past here when the entire countryside turns into Narnia, every tree, every branch encased in ice, a glass world.  Silent, silent, then C-R-A-C-K!!! a huge branch somewhere gives under the extra weight and crashes to the ground.  Power outages, trees on roads – all of which people here take in stride.  In stride.  The road and the power crews here in Vermont are so efficient and expert and dedicated.  Very impressive.  So come on storm!  Wishing and intending everyone safe travels here to the warmth and safety of Fuller Road.

December 7th, 2014  11:30 pm  Bedtime.  Taking over the homestead by ourselves for a few days after saying goodbye to our new dear friends.  The house feels happy with all the creative juices absorbed, kind wishes of safe travels transferred.
A full day.  Arose at 4:15 am to take Elena to catch a 6:20 bus out of Hanover; rehearsal for her for another play started this afternoon in New York.  Back to stoke fires and converse with Jennifer Kiger and Diane about Indiana roots, empowering oneself, embracing all the contradictions of being an American, Ocean Springs, Mississippi and their dynamic Democratic female mayor.  Then I drove Jackson, Kym, and Jennifer down to the Citgo Station where we’d taken their non-snow tired cars to rest for a day in a parking area and wished them well for a safe trek home.  Jackson will return on Wednesday, driving up with Leah Gardiner, one of our 4 directors in our second group, after a quick visit home to New York with Lola and Dickson.  And back to Fuller Road to pick up Diane and her 1:20 bus out of Lebanon.  Lots of driving today.
All hail, Philip Himberg of Sundance Theatre Lab!  Originally we had Maria Goyanes and Stephany Ybarra from the Public Theatre joining us next week as artist mentors, but this all changed with the recent tragedy surrounding Oskar Eustis’s son.  I reached out to Philip to see if he or he and Chris and Ignacia might think of joining us for a day to replace Maria and Stephany and Philip got back in touch with me immediately saying they happened to be at Mass Moca in North Adams, Massachusetts about 2 hours away.  After details and timings were worked it out with his staff, he has agreed to drive over on Thursday to join us for lunch and to lead a discussion/workshop with our 4 directors.  Fantastic!
To sleep!

Day 1.  No, 2.  December 4th, 2014

Alright, it’s the morning of the 2nd day and I haven’t blogged yet.  Things got away from me.  Like turning 60 on the 2nd.  Like during the drive up with Jackson and Richard finding out that dear Jennifer Chang, one of our invited directors, 34 weeks pregnant, had begun having Braxton Hicks contractions and her doctor submitting a no fly order.  Like my mind not able to shut off thinking about all that had to be done, trying its best to be organized, then dissolving me into incoherent, incomplete sentences and utterings.  Ugh.

But it’s a new morning!  Chilly, bracing, beautiful.  As I write this a little snow flurry has snow globed the view out the windows.  Chickadees are digging into the new suet at the bird feeder.  Simeon Cook, our cook for these first 2 days, just dropped off a big breakfast basket of homemade yogurt, granola, late harvest apples, jarred raspberries. Richard and I just came over from Robert and Lenice’s, our mile or so away “neighbors” who are putting us up for these 2 weeks, and stoked the fire here, got the coffee going.  After a day of travel, our directors – Kym Moore, Elena Araoz, and Diane Rodriguez – are holed away in their various bedrooms, catching up on sleep, writing.  The first session is at 10 am with a reading of Diane Rodriguez’s project.  Richard and I may pitch to help read some of the parts.

Travel went well yesterday.  I picked up both Elena and Diane in Hanover and Lebanon, both coming in on Dartmouth Coach, Elena from New York, Diane from Logan Airport where she’d flown in from LA.  Kym Moore drove up from Providence RI and kept musing what she was getting into as the “Moose Crossing” signs appeared and the dirt road drive from the main road to our place wended on forever deeper into “wilderness.”  Then dinner time.  9 pm.  Glasses of wine. A sumptuous feast of Simeon’s extraordinary chicken pot pies, cooked kale with cider, salad, a HUGE apple crisp and homemade whipped cream.  And the conversations, getting to know one another, laughter, gratitude for being together.  Wonderful varied talk of the fierceness of young Brown University actors, of the exodus of actors and dancers and visual artists to Detroit and New Orleans and Omaha (Omaha?!), of projects past and future, of dreams and vitality and renewal.  After feeling a bit spent with preparation for these weeks it was the rejuvenation I had hoped for.

Coffee now with Elena and Jackson and Richard around the kitchen wood fire.  9 am.  Our home is very happy.  Fuller Road, you have begun.