It could be imagined New York is way distant from the petty frienemy (friend/enemy) conflicts
and selfish envies of the Antwerp Village. But the gamesmanship of John Swift highlighted the idea of patch protection on
the Groen Platz terraces. He was exposed by me and shot down, but John is not the only frienemy agitated by Gill/Brian and
the duo possibilities.
Doesn't matter though - here in New York. Doesn't it?
You can call me paranoid, but because I have psychological impulses it is possible to observe
and detect them in others. It wasn't the knives of his enemies that hurt Julius Caesar - not on a soul level. It was the knife
of Brutus.
So how could frienemies reach me here?
Well, there is one member of the troupe who is actually as much a frienemy as John Swift ever
was. He is the worse kind of frienemy to deal with, because he is very subtle in his uses of gamesmanship.
Lenny.
Ken, in his black and white way, paints me as the 'star' of this production. It is hard to
think of 'stars' in Tightrope. Everyone has his/her good and bad. But Lenny can also be regarded as a 'star', because his
sax work and intelligent acting contribute immensely to the whole.
Who can say there is a 'star'?
Well, Ken does...and that causes competitive conflict within the egos wanting the tag.
Gill is hunting for acceptance. She talks much, but the willingness to be speaking rather
than listening means she has a weakness that is hard to decipher. She is observant and can see subtle avenues, but she sees
the outer layers more easily than the carefully hidden deeper motives around her. She can see much, but there are layers that
elude her.
I can't explain these layers. They are matters of soul and mind conflict.
23/08/99 - My body had adjusted well to the time movement of Europe to USA. No jet lag of
any great note.
But, by Sunday (22/08/99) I was completely exhausted.
Not by Time adjustment....but by emotional senses of desertion and betrayal.
The tightrope crew arrived in New York and Ken and Bonnie were on hand at the airport, eventually,
to drive us to Ken's appartment in Waverley Street. Any chance for Gill and Brian to talk was drowned by the proximity of
so many people in such an inadequate space. But Gill suggested we share a bed in a room where the other bed was shared by
Roy and Lenny. We did this, but the clarification of Gill/Brian awaited time and space. But this never came as rehearsal took
up the day and the social 'party' took up the evening.
But what caused the emotional anger of Brian was the way the night developed in scenario.
Roy took the bed Gill and I had shared the night before because he apparently found the other bed too hard for his taste.
Gill took the spot on the hard bed vacated by Roy, with Lenny beside her in his same area. Being last into the room I was
faced with the only space remaining - the space next to Roy.
The annoyance building up in me grew and I refused to sleep in that room because of the symbolism.
So I chose the couch in the living room.
Everyone had gone to bed and it seemed my tiredness would drift me off to sleep. But my whole
system fizzled with hyper-tension, because mixed in with the sense of collapse between Gill and Brian was the agitation and
suspicion on what could occur with Lenny and Gill sharing the same bed.
Yet within half an hour of my laying on the sofa Lenny emerged from the bedroom ...took a
shower and entered the kitchen to eat and hang out. This took away the source of suspicion, but my mind remained suspicious
on what may have occurred BEFORE Lenny's re-emergence.
With Roy sleeping in the same room and with the possibility that I could choose to enter the
room at any moment...it was pretty obvious to a detached mind that nothing much COULD happen.
But my mind was far from detached.
I tried to sleep on the couch, but the uncertainty of what was happening around me kept me
alert, rather than restful. My best move to clear away the uncertainty would be to enter the bedroom and simply take up the
vacated spot next to Gill on the hard bed.
As Lenny stayed up most of the night...and as Gert and Wesley returned to stage a social party
with hin in the kitchen...it would have been the most effective move I could have made. It would allay my suspicious mind
and induce a restful enough state to sleep, because any likelihood of ouvert betrayal would be taken away.
My experience with Annemie has left me highly sensitive to correct procedures of separation...and
within a framework of honour and respect.
But where I had trusted Gill and granted her honour and respect while we were in relationship
I had lost this quality....because I was aware Gill/Brian was in limbo and seemingly Gill was intent on breaking up.
Yet Gill had bragged constantly about her belief in talking through relationship problems.
It was her way. So the end game awaited the talk..to my mind...because to separate without talking means there is no hope
of salvage for a potentially solid relationship that has just HAPPENED to have fallen under a temporary unfortunate period.
In fact, Gill/Brian had done just that.
The circumstances of living together, rehearsing, performing Tightrope and our duo, plus the
cramped environment that left us feeling completely locked into each other's pocket...meant that Gill/Brian had experienced
something entirely impractical on personal levels. Top of the list in "Don't do-s" in any inter-relationship manual.
Both of us knew the problem. Neither of us could work out how to avoid the problem. We were
unable to re-impose a realistic scenario that offered space and freedom to the individual.
We knew the problem. We both wanted to find a solution. We couldn't!
So we ended up being propelled from one extreme of being locked up with each other onto the opposing extreme
of exploding apart...once the outside energy of the New York trip imposed itself onto the Gill/Brian island.
But my soul has a powerful love for Gill...and the Gill/Brian period was one where two people
reached a fantastic level of joint purpose on emotional and creative avenues. To have undergone the sheer intensity of interaction
Gill/Brian experienced over the past couple of months shows the sheer power we could have reached.
It COULD have been lifetime.
But it was destroyed, because to achieve our aims (as we saw them) we had to cement our duo
into an act. The circumstances that left us uncertain on practical living space and finance combined to negate the positive
benefits we had envisaged.
Impulsively...writing all this has led to my desire to mend the friendship bridges damaged
by the past week or so.
