It's astonishing how regularly my life compass swings back to hover and twitch above the idea of Permission. (Clearly, with a capital P.) I mean, how many times must I relearn a sharp lesson, like how many shakes of red pepper is too many for the sauce or how this wannabe shortcut fails into a one way street or how the spindling seed of every liberating decision in the past 10 years has been to grant myself permission to be good and kind to myself? To honor my gifts. Pursue my dreams. Expect exceptional love. Splurge every now and again. Prune my inner circle of brush and thorns. Speak my truth, always. Be good and kind to me for no reason at all. I've had the "Permission" conversation with myself to release the internal tension all these things have produced. For more than a decade, for instance, writing anything that hadn't been commissioned or wasn't being shaped expressly for the stage felt selfish and indulgent with so many emails to check, laundry to ...
