Blog #1, July 10, 2021

Jim's Musings from Paris

It’s been one week since we (Jairo and I) arrived in France—Paris, to be exact—our newly adopted home. The send-off was bumpy. After months of downsizing, which meant selling or giving away almost all our accumulated possessions, we were able to pack 2000 pounds of essential artwork, books, files, winter clothes, memories, and two wooden rocking chairs into two crates to set sail for Europe. The two rocking chairs span my career as a theatre professor at The University of Akron. One, an Amish-made, bent willow rocker, was given to me by the cast of Peer Gynt, the third production I directed at UA in Spring 1992. The fact that the young students scrimped together enough money to make the purchase and traveled to Amish country to pick out just the right chair, while keeping it a secret from me, meant a lot to an undeveloped director trying to find his way, and the chair still holds a distinct place in my heart. The second chair, a black Captain’s style number, was presented to me in commemoration of my thirty years of dedicated service to The University of Akron. More about that later.

The other bumpy part was saying goodbye to friends and family and friends who have become family. 32 years of living in a place creates a lot of ripples. The last months have included taking stock of some of those ripples and trying to acknowledge the effect our work and our lives have had on the community at large and our own close-knit community of artists with whom we create and procreate, dance, dare, suffer, and celebrate.

Now here we are in Paris. Sometimes as I sit drinking my morning coffee and look out the window at the beauty of this city, it seems like a dream or that we are on vacation and in two weeks we will need to pack our bags and head back to Ohio. Then I remember the look on our grandson’s face when he saw his abuelo for the first time in a year and a half and, running, he leapt fearlessly into Jairo’s arms. In those moments, I know that this decision was the right one. We have placed ourselves in the eye of a hurricane whose winds blow expressions of authentic joy and love. (And, yes, I know there will be suffering, too). We have no choice but to participate. As this Third Act reveals itself, our actions will generate even bigger ripples than before, and those ripples will reverberate throughout the different Acts of our lives and in the lives of those we have met along the way.

Thank you, fellow travelers, for spending time with us and following my musings. I look forward to sharing more thoughts with you along the way.