Bunchland

Fiona Highet is working on a play in Winnipeg while her family’s in Toronto

About two weeks prior to leaving Winnipeg for home I stopped having any interest in observing the situation.  I have learned that two hours of good times per day is simply not enough for me. I stopped buying groceries. I learned that I can live on hummus. One week to departure I had one suitcase fully packed. I have reviewed my itinerary 40, 000 times. Two more sleeps. The river is rising – it is time to go.

In the interest of reconnecting, Andrew and I have booked us all in to Great Wolf Lodge for two days when I get home. We’ll pull the kids out of school and spend one night there – a place neither of us have even a passing interest in going (more like a justified aversion), yet the kids have wanted to go and we want to be together, just the four of us. I shall pay for my time away.  Read more...

Fiona Highet is working on a play in Winnipeg while her family’s in Toronto

The rivers are no longer frozen and not yet thawed. The show is up and running but still a long way from over. I’m just past the half way mark and I feel kind of half way about everything. I need groceries but I have to finish everything I’ve already bought. I want to go out to karaoke and have a bunch of drinks and take advantage of being able to sleep in, but I don’t quite have the energy. I’m halfway through season five of Friday Night Lights and halfway through the biography of Cleopatra. My winter coat and boots feel like a little more than what’s required but I’m not here long enough to justify buying anything new. And I miss my family, but not nearly as much as I did. I’ve gotten used to not breaking up squabbles and doling out snacks, and I’m playing the same record over and over and no one is complaining. I love doing the play every night, but as far as being away from home goes, I’m crawling to the finish line, no longer interested in the race. Freedom is wasted on me.
Thank heaven for the audience…

Fiona Highet is working on a play in Winnipeg while her family’s in Toronto

Here’s the thing about the theatre – for the period of time in which you are rehearsing and performing you become part of a family, for better and worse, and with an intensity and commitment that only those who devote their lives to the art of pretend can conjure. So while it is true that I miss my family and ache for them daily like a phantom limb, I must admit that I am now swaddled in a most exceptional family, that although impermanent, is deep and true and providing me with comforts I didn’t anticipate and now wonder how I’ve lived without.  Read more...

Fiona Highet is working on a play in Winnipeg while her family’s in Toronto

Project Self-Knowledge Manifesto: To Seek out Independent Interests and Relish the Advantages of Alone Time

At this point I am afraid I must conclude I have no interests independent of family and work. I do like having time to go to the gym and practice yoga. Is vanity a legitimate interest? Not so sure about that one. (Back home in Toronto I find myself quite interested in my sexy garbagemen – but more on Eddie Van Garbage and David Lee Trash at another time…) As to “relishing advantages,” I have made the following list:

Being On My Own Pros  Read more...

• Uninterrupted sleep
• No one making fun of my farting
• Pistachios for breakfast
• All the food I left in the fridge is still in the fridge when I next look in

Fiona Highet is working on a play in Winnipeg while her family’s in Toronto

In this first week I have received 13 emails from my daughter, most of which have flowers or cupcakes in them from some app on her iPod Touch. On Skype every morning, my son has shown me the Star Wars lego character he’s eating breakfast with and has amused himself by making silly faces into the camera. Andrew and I have emailed and spoken on the phone at least once a day. I’ve sent the kids cards by Canada Post. We have employed every method of staying connected imaginable.

Still, I feel a million miles away. Bundled up to my eyeballs in hundreds of dollars worth of fleece, down, and smart wool every morning, I walk down Waterfront Drive on my way to the theatre and pass the statue of the Selkirk Settlers; the three of them huddling tightly together against the wind, their flimsy threadbare kilts barely covering their underfed asses, thousands of miles away from  families they would almost certainly never see again, and feel like a bit of a wuss.  Read more...

Fiona Highet is working on a play in Winnipeg while her family’s in Toronto

The goodbye was torture.  Next time I’ll leave under cover of night.  The day was all about waiting – straight out of The Places You’ll Go by Dr. Seuss – we spent the day in the waiting place.

I was weepy all day, as was my daughter.  Poor thing:  a cold and a few bad sleeps compounded to make her especially tender and she spent the day in and out of tears, hugging me and demanding to be told “one good reason” why she couldn’t come with me to Winnipeg.  She ran after the taxi blowing kisses and I cried all the way out to the airport.

My darling son, whose warm strong body and easy laugh I cannot imagine six weeks without, gave me a hug and returned to playing with his cousin. When I called out a final goodbye, he sent back a sing-song “ok goodnight”.  I’m sure he’ll miss me sometime…  Read more...

Fiona Highet is working on a play in Winnipeg while her family’s in Toronto

Mothers go to work.  So what. It’s 2011.   Big deal.  Kids survive – more than that, they thrive on having mothers with rich lives, they develop confidence and responsibility and learn a myriad of valuable lessons by watching their parents grapple with the stresses, pressures, joys and triumphs of their working lives.  As a bonus, money is made.   Beyblades and apps can be purchased.  Read more...