TravisBedard.com

Actor, Puppeteer, and Teaching Artist

To a New Year…

A month ago I died.

Only for a while, but if you stick to binary score keeping it’s the sort of thing that makes you sit up and take notice. My recovery has been pretty speedy so I spend a lot of time making light of the situation, but I am a lottery winner, the odds of making it out aren’t good, never mind being home and mobile so quickly. To be feeling this good so soon after release feels like a miracle.

Oh my friends I’ve
Begun to worry right
Where I should be grateful
I should be satisfied

Following on the heels of the Fall Rep for Classical Actors Ensemble, and with nothing on the horizon in my theatre world, this end of year and my cardiac adventure feels like an ending. I have worked hard to gain a foothold here in the Twin Cities as an actor, but ended up wasting time with a company that doesn’t particularly care for me, and ignoring what it is exactly that is my strength and my best gift to communities that I’m in, my personal and community advocacy. Acting is for me. It makes me happy and I’m not going to stop making things, but it’s not what I’m best at.

Oh my heart I
Would clap and dance in place
With my friends I have so
Much pleasure to embrace

The hundreds of people who reached out to support Megan and I in our hour of need (and got us through the terror inducing first wave of “due now’s”, THANK YOU) didn’t do it because my acting moved them. They did it because we’ve built relationship with them somehow someway. Whether through their art or through personal relationship – we’ve put in the time. That’s what needs to happen here in the Twin Cities.

But my heart is
Returned to sister winter
But my heart is
As cold as ice

The thought of volunteering and ushing and seeing 50 shows a year again are daunting. The knowledge that the straight no-chaser truth that my notes generally consist of weren’t always appreciated in Texas and just flat out aren’t going to fly here in the passive-aggression capital of the Midwest? Daunting. Starting over in general… daunting. No one wants to be at square one at 41. But here we are.

All my friends, I’ve
Returned to sister winter
All my friends, I
Apologise, apologise

Any year you die is going to end up pretty low on the list, but any year you get back up has got to be okay.
Next year will be better, more intentional, more me. I’ll be more at home in this foreign land.
And my friends, I’ve
Returned to wish you a Happy New Year.

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One thought on “To a New Year…

  1. Sending much love your way at this year’s end. A new beginning is always good, imho. Xoxo

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