🔮 Changes: Towards a Well-Written Future (Patreon)

[1900 words, or roughly a 8–10 minute read]

Hey patrons,

What's working well in your life? What's not serving you so well anymore? What needs to change? What needs to stay the same? What needs more time before you can see that clearly, or take a step in a decisive direction?

All things I've been asking myself, too.

A few months ago, I wrapped up the final report to the Canada Council for the Arts about the BARBETTE project and sent off my final proof approval to my printer for the upcoming SLOW CIRCUS: BARBETTE book. I was ready to take a break. I'd cleared my calendar. Resolutely journaled about doing NOTHING for no less than three months. Told friends so that I'd have some external accountability.

Naturally, this coincided with the FRANKENSTEIN stunt contract showing up in on my doorstep, because the Universe loves to laugh when we make plans.

As is often the case, two things were true at once: I desperately, badly needed to stop everything I was doing and take a break. And I absolutely, inarguably needed to accept this film contract and dive directly into an intense work schedule in order to keep a roof over my head.

So, at the outset of this contract, I tried to tie up the loose ends I could: I made sure that you here all had Tournelle du Soleil instalments to keep you company while I was grinding it out in the Netflix studio lot; I drifted off of social media; and I thought about what I could start doing differently. A lot.

This year, I've decided to start slowly pivoting my priorities and crank up the heat on the writing ambitions I began to articulate last year. Correspondingly, I'll be trying some new things with my Patreon this year that serve those goals. I know all of you are here because you feel strongly about supporting my work in some way, whether that's for a short time or a long time, with financial support or with words of encouragement, in all the ways those things shift and evolve over time. Consequently, I've always made it a point to communicate my goals & action plans as transparently as I can to you amazing folks supporting me here.

So – let's get specific about it!

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CH-CH-CH-CH-CHANGES (what I'll be doing a little differently here on Patreon this year)

( 1 ) New Essays & a 50/50 Approach:
As I start to roll out more essays amidst circus memoir serials like Tournelle du Soleil and research posts, I'm going to split content between patron-only and no-cost posts to entice more readers into our strange, wonderful fold.

I've seen other thinkers and writers whose work I enjoy online using this approach and I'd like to give it a go. This'll make it easier to share any of my writing that resonates with you online through social media, too, where your non-Patreon pals can read it.

Half of new writings here will be for patrons who financially support my work through this page (that's you guys!) and half of it will be no-cost and public-facing. Patrons like you who support me financially each month will get early access to public posts, discounts on digital and physical things I keep publishing, and other small ways for me to keep saying 'thank you' for helping me do what I do.

( 2 ) Older content is going to start showing up in new places:

Being brave and putting my thinking & writing out there in a consistent, visible way means shouting it off whatever rooftops I have access to.

I'm going to slowly start taking short snippets and excerpts of essays or memoir that arrive here first, and experiment with trickling them out to social media. (I am scared of doing this. I will try anyways.)

I'll begin to slowly archive some of my older posts that don't fit tidily into the new Collections feature here. This is my 300th post on Patreon! Proud of that, but folks don't need 300 scatter-brained pieces of writing to sift through. I'll take my time here and slowly curate things towards a more cohesive state of affairs.

Finally, my dusty, unused YouTube channel is also going to start serving as a public-facing archive for older video content you've enjoyed here, like my Atelier Barbette vlog series. I'm hoping I can get my Big Boy Jumps ballet-misadventure vlog series there, too. (Eventually. This is, admittedly, quite low on my gigantic digital to-do list).

I'll be making sure to find lots of small ways to show my thanks to you, dear patrons, as this space continues to grow and evolve: freebies, early releases / first looks, shipping and book discounts, polls and feedback – all that good stuff. I'm currently researching what sort of good-quality microphone to get my hands on so that I could start recording patron-only audio versions of stories and essays (like a patron-only audio channel here, so you could listen to the latest post instead of reading it, if you wanted) (I like this idea for accessibility reasons, too!).

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THE LONGER SPIEL (for those of you settled in with a nice cuppa something warm with some time to kill)

"Ess, every fucking time you write us an update it's like you're just finding some new way to repeat the exact same thing: 'I'm burned out.' 'I burned myself out again.' 'I've been burning the candle at both ends.' 'I've taken a flamethrower to the candle and thrown magnesium powder on top of the whole mess for dramatic effect.' When are you ever going to stop and rest long enough that you quit repeating this hell-cycle over and over?"

A great question, dear reader.

Those of you who have been here on my Patreon for a few years have heard me sob this story before. I know – I'm sick of hearing myself say the same shit over and over again, too. I'm also sick of repeating (and failing) at the same solution over and over: slow down; rest. Why can't I just slow down? Why can't I just rest? Why can't I just stop. everything.

It's complicated, of course. Let's imagine that I'm in a lifeboat, out in the open ocean. Whatever personal failings or remedial life lesson loops I'm stuck in are things that are wrong with the lifeboat itself: maybe it keeps fucking leaking, no matter how well I think I've patched or plugged holes; or maybe the oars are wonky and I can't row myself in a straight line. And then there are things outside of the lifeboat. Larger currents, rogue waves, and storms that I can't control. Things that I can only sail to the best of my ability (and to the best of my lifeboat's mechanical capacity...).

I've been a skillful sailor in navigating some of these things so far – like in working in the chaos that is the film & TV industry over the last 8 years, or starting to become the kind of circus professional I want to be despite starting late and having lots of injuries and setbacks.

But the weather is getting pretty bad.

For film, everyone expected the floodgates of work to open following the conclusion of last year's strikes (actors strike, writers strike). Instead, there has been aggressive contraction in the industry. There are very few new shows starting up. There is a third strike on the horizon for late spring/early summer. Most people I know –whether they work in front of the camera or behind it– are out of work with no relief in sight. I'm aggressively adjusting any hopes I had for a busy film/TV year for acting or stunts beyond my current (very lucky) FRANKENSTEIN contract.

And then there's circus. My BARBETTE grant was helping me navigate these stormy waters, and now it's completed. I don't have that financial safety net anymore. I can't afford to take the hits that I was taking on not-well-paying, high-time-and-energy-investment circus contracts. My ambitions and achievements as it relates to circus and performance art in the past 2 years are things I'm proud of; they've also largely landed me at a net-zero position financially. I don't trust my ability to keep the lights on with circus work.

Then there's the biggest storm of all, brewing darkly on the horizon – 

Since nobody pays attention to Canadian politics or news (including Canadians), here's the broad strokes of what's happening here at the moment: economically, things are going from bad to worse in Canada at a breakneck speed.

I am frugal, work with a budget, have the extreme good fortune to have been in my apartment for the last 7 years (it is therefore [a] rent-controlled and [b] at this point, about $800 below the absolutely eye-wateringly unaffordable Toronto current market rates for similar units). I have had consistent, well-paying work over the past five years. And yet – I need to make more money than I've ever made – just to tread water as the water-levels keep rising. Why? Well, for many reasons, some simple, some complicated, there is a housing crisis, inflation is skyrocketing, and food is unaffordable.

Canadians making $60k in 2019 would need to be making more like $110K in 2024 to have the same quality of life. Everyone's working harder, for less, and backsliding into debt and instability. We're disillusioned with our government and apathy, unrest & paranoia is growing. Our national police, the RCMP, wrote a report that leaked "warning the federal government that Canada may descend into civil unrest once citizens realize the hopelessness of their economic situation." It feels like we are hurtling towards a breaking point.

Other Canadians my age are even starting to leave the country in search of less crushing income-to-cost-of-living ratios. Should I be doing the same? I've started to wonder.

I've looked into the UK ancestry visa program, through my maternal family. I've started anxiously poking through the exhaustingly confusing process of German citizenship through descent-claims on my paternal side. These processes are complicated, expensive, and take a long time. I figure it's better to start looking early.

Am I being paranoid? I think to myself as I scroll through different immigration lawyer pages. Am I naive if I'm not looking at how to get out? follows closely on the heels of the first thought.

I'm scared of being the frog in the pot of boiling water.

I'm scared of getting trapped if I slow down.

But slow down I must.

I'm going to slow down.

And I'm going to write.

Whatever is supposed to follow from that, will follow.

What may come, will come.

(and –to attempt to not conclude on what might risk coming off as a very dire note indeed– we'll try to have some fun along the way, right?) (A: right!)

Alright, that's the size of it for the day. Thank you all for being here. Thank you all for your support. And thank you all for reading this far!

I'll be reaching out again soon (early next week) with a Google form to solicit some testimonials about any of my work you've read and enjoyed thus far, as well as a comment box for requests from you about any particular subjects, experiences, or questions you'd like to hear me write more about.

Until then, stay strange and wonderful.

With deep gratitude and fierce hope – s.