Magnets

This post is only tangentially travel related, but I think it is prompted by two trips I have taken in the past two weeks. First, I traveled to Arizona. In case anyone is reading this who doesn’t know me personally, I run a touring Shakespeare company based in Michigan. I am really interested in the work of other, similar companies, professional theatres that are serving regional audiences, and that are dedicated to their specific places. For a while I have been wanting to travel to other parts of the country to see these kinds of companies in action, and so I started with a visit to Flagstaff Shakespeare in Flagstaff, Arizona. It was my first time traveling to Arizona, and was a fantastic, inspirational, soul-satisfying trip (more posts on this trip, with photos, are coming in the future). Then I spent this past week at the Interlochen Center for the Arts, in northern Michigan, where I spend a week every summer teaching a Shakespeare Bootcamp to high school actors. Interlochen is a gorgeous campus in the woods, on the shores of a small lake, and my week there feels like an artistic retreat.

I just finished up my Interlochen week, and have been thinking today about that experience where you feel yourself magnetized to another person. I am purposefully not using the word attracted, because in common usage that has such a heavy connotation of sexual attraction, and I feel like magnetized is much broader. When you feel pulled towards some one, that could be some one who will be a romantic partner, but it could also be a friend, teacher, student, colleague, scene partner (I throw this one in for the other actors out there, who I hope will recognized what I mean), some one who will be important to you in some way. These are people around whom you open up and feel like your real, whole self, and so you find yourself gravitating towards them. I feel like the universe has put a few of these people in my way recently, and I am so happy for that.

To bring the concept back around to the travel theme, I also sometimes feel magnetized to places. In some cases, I feel a pull to visit a place that I can’t quite explain, like I read about that place or see pictures, and I know I have to go there. In other cases, I visit a place and part of my soul just feels at home in a really deep way. I had this experience going to Sedona on my Arizona trip. I wanted to see it, and as I made the gorgeous drive from Flagstaff, I felt more and more pulled and connected to the place. It has kind of been calling me back since then. More on that soon!