This is David Roche's response to What are you skating towards in 2012?
Skating Like a Movement
For the last year or so I nursed the puck, staying in my own zone, circling behind the goal, then off to the side, watching the action down the ice, waiting for line changes, avoiding hits, guarding the puck carefully, two hands on the stick, stick on the ice, doing it right. I wanted a clear plan before I headed down the ice. I wanted focus. I wanted life to be comprehensible through the use of sports metaphors. No such luck.
Yet, as I shepherded my energy it built up. Now, all of a sudden it felt like five on three and there was a clear path ahead. Hey, I thought I was festering, maybe in a dark night of the soul. Instead I caught the crest of the chi wave. OK, back to the hockey metaphor. I skate toward the net now, I pass the puck to the wing, I am no longer on defense, I am a forward and I feel the rush and I rap my stick on the ice because I want the puck back, not to protect it, but to shoot. I have focus, all right.
I am focusing on a dozen different creative projects simultaneously. Among them: the first David Roche School of Beauty shoot is done and in post production. I thought it was going to be a series of videoblogs but it turned out to be a movie! I received a grant from Kickstart to make a short film. Paperback and Kindle editions of my book will soon be out. I am developing two new shows, including “Catholic Erotica” for a summer tour of the UK. Marlena and I are setting up a shoot of “Love at Second Sight,” our program for middle school students, creating a streamable product to generate passive income.
How did this happen? It turns out that every project I am working on is collaborative in some way. Kim Komenich is a Pulitzer prize winning photographer and a professor of video journalism at San Jose State; he brought a film crew of six grad school volunteers to do the School of Beauty shoot. Jan Derbyshire of Colossal Squid productions is mentoring my short film project. Jo Anne Smith is leading me through the new world of self publishing. Ruth Gould of DaDaFest is setting up the UK tour.
I belong! I am part and parcel of a community of creative people, many with disabilities. It is all about relationship. It’s not just me with the puck. I am on a team. I have learned to think like a movement. (Thank you, Al and Vickie!)
David Roche is an inspirational humourist, story maven, author, keynote speaker, and fountain of creativity, joy and laughter. www.DavidRoche.com
Note: I release individual essays from the collection, What are you skating towards in 2012? on a regular basis. Upcoming contributions are by Jacques Dufresne, Linda Perry, Richard Bridge, Stefan Lorimer and many others. You can access the accumulated essays here.
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