We’ve come to the point of needing to change our lives: our home, Lily’s school, get jobs, make money, close the shop. We filed our taxes last week and the state of New York gave us an extra $1 thousand because they thought we needed it. They were right. We needed it. We need it right now! We have been living a life in this little town at the end of the train line emanating from NYC. It is the kind of place that I foresee as being overrun if there were any super catastrophic dilemma in New York City. MetroNorth would open up free ridership to all those evacuating and in a matter of hours, this town would be swarming with people with insufficient food and clothing, never mind the wherewithal to cope without their cell phone chargers. The dairy farmers would have people swigging from udders–it would be chaos. (Udder chaos!)
Nothing like that is actually happening that would promulgate us to move elsewhere, but the three of us are experiencing the stress of self-inflicted chaos. We have to move ahead, find our new lives. The move up here from the city was always a segue in itself, to get Lily to The Kildonan School, and to remediate her dyslexia. We are blessed to have this one child; we would do anything to help her to thrive, and we have every confidence that she will. Dennis, with his dyslexia, eventually thrived in life; he’s won 5 Emmies and he’s enormously creative. It is he who staged our house in Rockaway when we needed to move out almost two years ago when ATWT closed. That house sold in a day largely due to his staging of it.
Dyslexics are creative and resourceful and think differently from the rest of us. They cut to the chase on solutions; they see concrete things with a sparkling sharpness that others confuse for not listening. Nope, they’re ticking away at the way to solve a situation long before we’ve brought it fully to the fore. Less concrete things, things like making a move take more of my abilities. Process is my forte. I can put things together–map ’em out, figure out the steps we’ll need and present it.
Both of us, however, Dennis and I, felt we are failing miserably, so we needed to sit down and start the segue all over again. “Making segue” is a term I came up with when we first moved up here, before the show closed, but knowing its inevitability to close, we planned this simultaneous side life. We rented an apartment big enough for the three of us should the things that eventuated eventuate. I found a place across the street from the Amenia Public Library so I could catch their wi-fi on good days and on bad ones work there. We didn’t buy furniture, we slept on twin mattresses on the floor brought up from Belle Harbor. I dozed off at night faintly confused that I was sleeping with the Jonas Brothers. (I mean their posters slathered on the bedroom walls.) Moving here, I had my plan to write Monday thru Friday while Lily was at school; write and freelance as I’d been doing for years since she was born. Being mobile, I could work anywhere.
The segue could serve us whatever happened: we didn’t have another mortgage. ATWT was still on the air. The new school was $10,000. less than the one in Brooklyn, and if I was careful, rent and all I wouldn’t spend more than $10,000 on food, lodging, the works. We might relocate for good, or move on from here. So when the notice came that the show would close, we, of all the cast and crew, were ready to hit the ground running–putting the house in order, gussying her up to put on the market.
Simultaneous occurrences happen all the time. We just don’t realize they’re happening. Still, they change our lives whether you realize them or don’t. Dennis’ show sent out pink slips–not too bad, we had a plan for our exit, stage right. I’d gleefully finally figured out what to write about–“Making Segue”. When boom–I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I hadn’t realized what a segue I was about to make.
To be continued…. Copyright MVDonegan 3/22/12