Close but no cigar

At the end of a career, and I'm at the end of a writing career and beginning something a bit different now, reflection is natural. And among the things I remember are positive feedback and commentary under sometimes special and sometimes public conditions. For example, in no particular order ...

• The poet who told me my story "The Idaho Jacket" was the best fiction he'd ever read about the Pacific Northwest. I think he's wrong but I'll take it for a rainy day.
• The director who told me the blue toilet paper gag in "Christmas at the Juniper Tavern" was one of the best visual jokes he'd ever seen on stage.
• The audience member who at the curtain of "Country Northwestern" yelled out in the darkness, "This play has balls!" How I'd like to fill an audience with 200 of this guy!
• The many published reviews and commentary of support and constructive criticism by Bob Hicks over the past 30 years, last year in support of Juniper and my new digital video Deconstructing Sally. Hicks has been the most intelligent critic in town over the years, and it doesn't hurt at all to have him in your corner.
• The university dean who wrote me that "The Seagull Hyperdrama" was a significant scholarly achievement.
• The patron of Portland theater who, years ago as an old woman, created a special award just to give it to me (and write it off her taxes). Patron of the arts in the best sense of the tradition, this.
• The best practicing novelist in the Northwest giving me a generous blurb for the back cover of a new book a few years ago.
• The Seattle editor who called my first hyperdrama the second most important performance event in the NW for the year (a quarter century ago now), behind an appearance by Barishnikov.
• The weekly newspaper that selected me as one of the 100 people who most "made Portland Portland," although the Portland to which this refers is long, long gone. No wonder I'm nostalgic!
• And too many more to list.

So even if I'm not rich and famous, it hardly has been an invisible career, just a typical one on the margins of center stage in this star-driven culture we live in. We had our moment of relative fame, and then we didn't, and none of it has anything to do with the work. It's the work that matters, and the work is there, still. So I retire with a strong sense of accomplishment, a bit of pride, more of humility, and I move on to a new challenge that is probably beyond my skill set but I'll sure have fun trying.