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Sixteen years ago today Troy and I, along with our beloved dogs Max and Molly, became New Yorkers, and eight weeks ago today we officially made Fayetteville our new home. New York was such a perfect place for us until it wasn’t, and these days we shake our heads in wonder at how perfect this place is for us now.
People here warned us that we’d fall in love with Fayetteville; they predicted that we’d very quickly find our community of like-minded artists and friends. And now they smile and nod as I notice how interconnected everything and everybody is around here. For instance, Huck’s school. Somehow we stumbled upon a house in a neighborhood that is in the zone for Washington Elementary, a school seemingly just right for Huck (and his parents). Considered Fayetteville’s “funky school” according to the third grade teachers, Washington has a strong connection to TheatreSquared, our friends’ Bob & Amy’s professional theatre where we got to work last year. Last Friday afternoon Troy did a promotional scene from “A Christmas Carol” for a TheatreSquared program (along with the actor playing my husband Julius Caesar) at Washington’s first assembly of the year. The school also has a wonderful family that volunteers to do accelerated math with students who need it, and through a series of more wonderful luck we got to know this family recently. Huck came home from school last Thursday full of stories about his special new math group that gives him extra stimulating work outside of the regular classroom curriculum, which is something we’ve always wanted for him.
Then there’s the Shakespeare I’m working on with The Classical Edge Theatre, a company run by an amazingly talented married couple who are also the high school drama teachers. Every single person working on the show is not only an incredible actor, but many of them deliberately decided to join this artistic community after time spent working in large cities like New York, Boston, Chicago and San Francisco. There’s also the Northwest Arkansas Prison Stories Project that I’ve been volunteering for where the wonderful poet in residence is a former student of the son in-law of the woman who leads Huck’s math group, and the fabulous woman who started it goes to our new church St. Paul’s Episcopal, as does the man playing Casca, as do our neighbors who are helping us navigate the dog shelters. In other words, basically everywhere I go I run into someone I love.
Like the other night at the Arts Live Awards, a children’s theatre run by the delightful Mark Landon Smith who plays Mark Antony and also runs a casting agency that has gotten the three of us a few jobs. While at the awards show, we met more folks we’ve been hearing about, caught up with folks we already know, and before we knew it Mark was calling our names to come up and present awards to the young actors. Why? Because this is Fayetteville! So there I was standing in front of a room full of excited, happy teenagers and their proud parents, along with a bunch of supportive professionals who teach and direct for the theatre, and I thought to myself, “I think I’m gonna like it here.”
So New York, Happy 16th Anniversary. Come visit us sometime.
Me, too! I think I’m going to like it here a whole heckuva lot!
I love reading about your new life in Fayetville! I’m so glad you are finding like-minded community there!
I want to visit right NOW!!! xoxo
Thanks for your comments, everyone. Ironically today was a very discouraging day here in Fayetteville, job search wise, dog search wise … hoping for a better tomorrow.
YES! HERE’S TO A BETTER TOMORROW!!! HERE’S TO DOGS AND JOBS … and other 3-letter words with an “O” in the middle. Like BOBS and DOTS and HOPS and DOEs and JOYS.