Curtain rises, break a leg, eh ...

~ a new play in development, for now, let's call it 'Thursday, this week'

Jul 24, 2025

‘untitled next Act, in development’ - Act Two, Scene One - rehearsing a life that’s not what it was, not quite what it’ll be … like MWD applied to the image in my mirror

Sometimes we, speaking only for myself, but I suspect many Musing readers feel this too, … we arrive at a moment that isn’t a beginning or an ending, but something oddly in between.

Not lost. Not found. Not quite ready.

Still, here we are.

The quiet that follows disruption doesn’t always feel like peace. Sometimes closer to ‘falling to pieces’ …

It can feel like recovery. Or like being stuck between scenes, unsure of the next line, but holding the stage anyway.

My desk is orderly enough. So is the “temporary setup” at a new place, so there’s no excuse not to plunge into the pile of tasks ignored during the last 10 days of rearranging where everything sits, deciding which wall to hang what on, or which drawer to empty to make way for this pile or that one.

The files are still too many, the drawers too full, but everything has found a place, if not a purpose. I’ve moved, reshuffled, and rethought. Some messes are gone. Others remain, but I no longer trip over them.

In Calgary, late July hums like an idling engine: post-Stampede, too soon to be pre-back-to-school, too early for sweaters, too hot and sunny for urgency. It’s a kind of civic pause.

For me, it’s the first workday in a while that hasn’t been all boxes and stress. Slightly better sleep has returned. Lists grow shorter.

Still, momentum feels... ambiguous. Outside my office window, sunshine teases a better idea into my memories: of crops waving their greetings on a hot summer breeze, golf courses begging for me to swing with all my energy, and rutted gravel backroads inviting lazy country drive detours.

But I’m at my desk.
Choosing to be here.
Wrestling not with time, but with what comes next.

An in-between feeling isn’t indecision.

It’s incubation.

I’ve been sifting through more than just files and furniture; I’ve been unpacking what the last year has meant, what got dropped, and what I still want to carry. Life feels less like a plan and more like a draft script being revised in real time.

We all know how to push through chaos. But what about the slow days after it? The ones that don’t scream for action, but ask quietly for reflection, for choices not made in panic but with purpose.

I don’t miss the noise, but I miss the clarity and urgency that it sometimes brings.

This morning, I paused. Thought about my clients, future projects, unmet goals, and unspoken wishes. Not in a strategic sense, but just in that way we sometimes feel the weight of our next chapter tapping on the glass, wondering when we’ll turn the page.

There are things I want more than most things. To craft work I’m proud of. People I miss. Relationships I didn’t build when I could have. Ones I still hope to grow.

There’s nothing wrong.
But not everything is right. Not yet.

Act One is everything that is behind me.

And this next scene, still unblocked, waits for my cue.