The Good Meeting

I remember the date in June, 2001, which was the first time I ever traversed the New York subway entirely on my own. I was a 32 year-old man. Ever since I had been with Toni, I was used to just following her, because she knew the system like the back of her hand. It was a little disorienting to be on my own.

Yesterday may have been the first time I did the Underground entirely on my own - not as momentous occasion. It doesn't sppear as complicated, doesn't seem like there are as many routes. And people don't walk as fast.

I was attending a meeting with the folks at SANDS. Their office was a few blocks up from Oxford Circus. I got out of the tube and it was bright and sunshiny, though it had begun raining before I had arrived at 28 Portland Place.

It was an illuminating meeting. The show made quite an impact on them last Friday, and they can't wait to get me back in town to perform it again. So we were discussing how to make that happen.

The big question for me was, and is: What do I want to do with this show? And, of course, there's only so much more I can do with this show. There's not going to be a motion picture - video was discussed, again. There was a general consensus that video can be dangerous, it was too easy to imagine medical practitioners using it in the wrong way, showing select scenes to get an impression of "what not to do" for example, and I'd hate to think of that. They agreed.

Publication is a possibility. I never thought a play publishing concern would be interested, who would want to perform this work other than me? But letting a bereavement support organization distribute it so others can read it, people who need some new way of looking at their own grief? That's appealing.

BTW - I love UK pop radio. I had no idea my British relations consumed so much contemporary American R&B and hip-hip.

There were some great, surprise exchanges, reflecting on the performance. Neal thought the show will go over great in the British Isles because, as he says, it's not very American. I wanted to know what that meant, and Erica chimed in that she wasn't sure I was American, once she heard my brother lived here she got all confused, and thought that perhaps I was British and that I was the one who had moved to America.

Also, Neal gave me their one criticism - the title. They understood it after they'd seen the play, but had to admit it was a bit off-putting beforehand (and he's not alone in that assessment) and so ... where did I get the idea to call the play I HATE THIS?

I picked up one of their own books from off the table, and told them I wanted to title of my play to sound like this picture looks:



There were smiles all around, as if to say, "Well. Yes. That's all right, then."

I was very impressed with them, and their work. Their mission, primarily, is to comfort and advise the bereaved, those who lost children before term and up to twenty-eight days after birth. Now they are beginning to get into research and prevention, working to discover the reasons certain babies don't come to term.

It was a warm, positive meeting, and it went on longer than I thought it would, it was such an interesting, engaging time.

Toni was feeling very unwell all day yesterday, I got to take the kids out for a long walk late yesterday morning, getting postcard stamps, and a kite - maybe there will be kite-flying later this week! The plans for to day ... well, we'll see if they come to fruition.