November 25, 2010

It’s relatively early in the day. I usually write these near 11:30pm and it’s just past 11:30am. I have just heard momentous news, and I am going to be writing e-mails to friends and colleagues everywhere. I figure I may as well do it this way, and take parts of this and turn it into the e-mails later. It might save some Morse Code puffing!

I have just heard that my paintings and the play – The Book of Judith (http://bookofjudithplay.blogspot.com/) – are going to be exhibited at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM). I am to be a guest curator. The theme will be my legacy of Inclusion and my growing understanding and message portrayed as art, video and other interactive elements. After a stationary instalment in the museum itself, we will tour both the play and art. This will be in partnership with the Trillium Foundation who are already backing a spring and fall tour of The Book of Judith.

In all it’s a year’s commitment to celebrating Inclusion and diversity.

Michael Rubenfeld and Sarah Garton Stanley are integral to the creation, development, production and presentation of the play. We will be in close collaboration for all of it!

Even the World Peace through Inclusive Transformation will get a leg up as this theme and initiative are very much part of my legacy. Will I finally be able to get research backing for the BMX Model of Inclusion?

Recognition and the opening of doors come in quiet and unassuming ways. Yesterday included a last minute rearrangement of my schedule so I could participate in a teleconference with the ROM. It was no big deal – I am always rearranging my schedule last minute. Staff needed on the spot support to put a last minute proposal in front of the museum’s exhibit selection committee. Today I was in bed, getting ready to get up so the technician could fix the electronics of my bed. The call came and my future shifted.

It’s such an ordinary moment that my emotions haven’t caught up. I get what Mike was saying about meeting with the video game producers on Monday. It’s such an ordinary day, unlike a special day that one has been preparing for - a wedding or graduation - that the obvious next step is to go have lunch. The overall mood is so ordinary, so: “Well, of course – what else would we do except say yes.” In the absence of a big high it nearly feels like a low.

Yet I have been preparing for this day in one way or another since I was four – 57 years. I am coming home to a rightful place in the world. I don’t need a big high right now. I need to place myself firmly in the passion for Inclusion that has carried me through these 57 years. I need to fully feel and express my gratitude for the opening, for the many hands – seen and unseen – that have carried me to this day, and for the vision, energy and courage I have been given to keep on working the path when there was no sign that this future was realizable. Hallelujah!

Michael and I will be at the ROM on Monday for the first production meeting, to find out really what we need to do to set up the contracts, partnerships, etc. Then we will go have a beer. By then I think I will be ready to celebrate!