Monday, July 27, 2009

Hit the ground running...

Yesterday I arrived from a 26-hour professional obligation in New York City to our house in Homestead just in time for a planning meeting followed by several more smaller planning sessions. My writing focus teacher Meera had a brainstorm on our final project and our class the next day, and I helped the facilitators for our Future in Art class prepare for their elective (which I was basically informed of as I was planning). Then I continued to edit our montage (don't tell) into only a few wee hours. Tonight however is a true wee-hours session. Our relief editor magician Lucas Leyva came in tonight at 11pm to help with our quadruple-video-music-collaboration project. In case I didn't explain, we divided the camp into four groups to come up with a video inspired by the four directions: east, south, north and west. Cindy and Lucas are in the other house working on West and East. Tomorrow will be North and South day, most likely, although the other two will surely need some touch-ups. We need to film a sunrise for East, for instance, the logistics of 1 which I have no real clue about.

That is a point I have been thinking about a bit. Having no clue here is part of the learning; it is almost a requirement. Adam tonight said, in our little goodbye pool party to the seniors, "In high school it was hard to learn that I didn't know anything and now I'm happy to know that I don't know anything." Terribly paraphrased, sorry Adam.
We learn the importance of planning well and the necessity of improvising; riding by the seat of our pants; "hookey-jooking" as the saying here goes. There is an art to the hookey-jook. The ability to stand in front of a mass of expectant young faces and realize that the plan you made is not going to work, or that there is a better plan, or that you have no plan at all. And going. Trusting your fellow facilitators to jump in at a moment of doubt, and trusting your own instincts to tell you where to jump. Heading face-first into that unknown with crazy energy and absolute focus. The hookey-jook unhinges your ideas of your own self-limitation and also humbles you with the actualities of the space and the moment. It is not a technique, it is an approach. How to find your way when you lose your map or realize its been made by a fatigued cartographer with too much to do. How to stand there transparent but full; a wide-eyed clown ready to change the world. And of course radiating positive energy. That is the great savior. That is what keeps the students invested, and its what sparks your mind to realize what to do next.

For me, the next thing to do is to edit this madness.



Long focus time tomorrow, in preparation for the final show.

Second-to-last men and women's group. The women will have a soul-enriching discussion and the men will be outside playing soccer. May the best person graciously accept to win.

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