For the first time in my thirty+ year teaching career, I feel comfortable about an ending. I’m in the penultimate week of an eight week Residency as a Full-Time String Game Teacher, a fantasy/wish/dream that I began speaking aloud about a year ago, and have now realized, almost. Early on, I sensed that a performance by the students had to be a culminating activity for this process, and requested of the Principal to be placed on the calendar. The preparations, a few rehearsals, and the poster are all now in place, and we’ll see what happens next week with the Great Calabasas String Circle! Somehow I’m not nervous at all, and perhaps that feeling is a result of finally settling into an identity as a Show Runner, a Director, the one who gets the group up and doing something, even though it doesn’t quite work yet. It will, I’m sure, it will…
As an anticipatory reflection about an imminent [eminent?] ending, I thought to call this piece a “preclusion,” as opposed to a “conclusion,” but then I realized that as the verb “preclude” the word has quite a different signification than the one I’m looking for. Oh well–inventing words often doesn’t work….