This Week in Joyful Practice
Rabbit Holes (Interrupted)
Is there anything better than a good rabbit hole?
There is! A good rabbit hole + expansive time to fully explore it.
An ongoing conundrum for me is the way I find it so easy to get deeply immersed in a new practice or interest, to weave it into my daily life, only to get interrupted and then lose the thread completely.
Two weeks ago I watched the first half of the HBO series on Paul Reubens, PeeWee Herman as himself.
I’m not sure which of the many delights of this film to comment on here, so I’ll go with the one that’s in reach to me. PeeWee had his heyday in my preadolescent years. I may have been the perfect age to appreciate him both as a child and a future-adult—meaning that I understood that his humor had depth. I remember longing to see Paul Reubens as Paul Reubens. I remember staying up late to watch him on a talk show, only to see him appear as PeeWee. I was so disappointed.
It’s such delicious delayed gratification to meet (some version of) the real Paul Reubens now—in midlife. And it makes poetic sense, though it’s also tragic, that we get to finally “meet” him several years after his death.
The film helps me understand PeeWee as what he truly was—not a funny sketch character but performance art. Paul Reubens is a performance artist. And it has me thinking about persona as a part of creative practice—
Well, okay, it had me thinking about that. I watched Part 1 with my partner, which meant I had waited weeks for our schedules to align. We could have watched Part 2 immediately, but I chose to savor it. All week I looked forward to the next PeeWee Herman date night. In the meantime, I began consuming Paul Reubens content via podcasts, and then I bookmarked this New Yorker article and considered rewatching Part 1 but then my weekly obligations took over. Life got so busy that there we couldn’t figure out a PeeWee Herman date night last weekend and I’ve been competely shoved out of the rabbit hole.
Oh well. A new weekend approaches and I aim to dig my way back.
My summertime goal is to try to clear some space in my life to fully indugle the rabbit-hole urges: to watch and re-watch, read and re-read, to scratch the itch to research whatever new passing interest until I’m satiated.
In part because I’ve come to believe that there is so much value and deep pleasure in repetition, in not just experiencing art that moves or delights us, but truly integrating it through recurring consumption—it’s like letting yourself eat the cake until you truly don’t want another bite.
New Joyful Practice offerings are brewing.
We’re still tinkering with the details, but I’m excited to announce two new upcoming workshops. Stay tuned and look for an announcement this coming Tuesday.