Sunday, January 18, 2009

Week Two/Day One

The answer to The Most Often Asked Question: Clockwise.

Clockwise is the direction in which the water encircles the drain, here.  Actually, as I recall, I believe this is the same as up North; ergo, another Urban Myth dispelled.

The new position is great; I can't imagine being more fully embraced, more warmly and enthusiastically welcomed...  I have spent the week becoming familiar with the context and history of the company, orienting myself to the city of Melbourne, checking out neighborhoods and seeking a place to live.

I've been learning the language...  For instance, telling a client in Australia that I would use "wireless lavs" in a show: I would MEAN wireless lavaliere microphones for the talent, onstage.  What would be UNDERSTOOD would be my intention to install wifi in the bathrooms.  Gotta be careful, clear and watch the faces of those around me.  I check with the others on the DGglobal team often, on colloquialism and nomenclature...

The weather has been in the 60's and 70's and balmy, with the occasional cool evening; a tad more appealing than the below-zero freezer that Manhattan has been, this week.  I have taken an apartment in a high-rise in The Docklands, from which I can see views of the Bay, some parts of the Harbour, a park, the Yarra River and a BIT of construction.  At night, the construction becomes a latticework of lights, so it isn't so bad; and the tradeoff of altitude and being able to see the water and encroaching weather is worth it, to me.

Tradeoffs.

This opportunity is truly One of a Lifetime.  I have the good fortune to have been asked to do a job for which I am exceptionally well-suited; and to which I will, I believe, be able to make a valuable and profitable difference to the growth and evolution of this company while surrounded with happy, open, energetic, honest and caring people who thoroughly enjoy what they do - what we do - and only want to get better at it and do more of it.

My days are full, and full of discovery, exploration, conviviality and no small amount of learning and out-on-a-limb-ing.  I am happy and increasingly enthusiastic as I increasingly appreciate the magnitude of the tasks before me and the quality of the others on this team...and, most importantly to me, the faith in which I have been vested by the owner of the company.

Though, when night falls and it all grows quiet...in the early mornings when the air is still and the birds are first stirring...then is when I realize and feel the impact and import of what I have left behind.  The friends, I know I will keep; for I have always been assiduous at keeping in communication with those for whom I care.  But the love I have had to leave had taken such deep root and become such a valuable and nurturing part of me that his absence is a cavernous, painful void within me...an emptiness I cannot fill.

The tears come easily if I don't remain vigilant; the pain of separation is poised, ready to spring into my consciousness at the moment my guard may drop.  I have traveled so far away from a love I had hoped to find for so long; a love stronger and more passionate than any I have ever experienced, before, and far more profoundly felt than I had thought possible for a man this far along the road.  A love finally found, a love that found me, and a love I have left behind.   Sometimes I think I simply cannot bear this.

In 1990 I swore, when Terry died, that if I ever found love, again, that I would never forsake that love for work or career: and, now, I have done exactly that.

This is all the more painful because I know in my soul what I am leaving behind and how spectacularly rare is something of this depth and quality... How completely, nearly desperately, I wanted to find it, and how when I was looking the other way, it found me.  It took nearly twenty years for this to come along; actually, given that this is stronger than anything I have ever experienced, I suppose it took my entire adult life to discover this: I can't imagine this can happen again, in my lifetime.  

He loved me, unconditionally, against tremendously obstructive conditions. This loss is profound; the more painful because the feelings have not died, I have forsaken them.  Him.  It is killing me.  The irony is that it is his love that, in no small part, helped to make me ready and right for this job.

I could not remain in New York in the face of this: he cannot leave New York in light of his own position.

It is as hard on him as it is on me.  He needs to take care of himself; and for him that means not attempting to maintain something so geographically distant.  I must respect this; yet every fibre of my being screams at the thought of losing him.  I am losing him.

I had thought that I might refresh my surfing skills, after settling in Australia; but I have already been so battered and bashed about by the waves of emotion, during this first week, that I don't see myself adding to that tidal tumult with anything beyond the virtual and emotional in which I am now immersed.

Deep Breath.

Today is Midsumma in Melbourne; it's a huge, annual event.  I think I'll take today and be among the throngs of happy people who live here...

I promise the next post will be more upbeat.