It's been busy. So much has happened since I last wrote I barely know where to start.
I guess I'll just dive right in.
Here I sit, am back in Toronto. It was still dark outside when I awoke. I had hoped that it was a temporary awakening and that I would be able to roll over and go back to sleep, but my mind started spinning on a million things and the next thing I knew I had left the cozy warmth of my bed and the symphony of my husbands gentle snores, to come into the kitchen and write an email to a friend about a book he lent me.
The apartment is perched up on the eighth floor. It must have rained last night because the streets are slick and there are black glossy puddles. The solitary car edging its way down the slide street facing the apartment has its headlights casting a warm orange-tinged yellow pool of light, which bobs gently on the road. It's too dark to see what colour the car is.
Of course, the West Coast girl in me imagines that the rain has brought cooler weather, but that is probably just wishful thinking. Every time I venture out of the air-conditioned apartment and onto the Toronto streets, I am surprised at how humid and hot it is. Especially, since the day before we left Vancouver Island to come here, the Garry Oaks had just started scattering their crinkled leaves across our lawn and I found that I needed to pull on a thin sweater for my windy seashore walks.
Here I sit, in a Toronto apartment, slightly stunned at all the changes that have occurred. We flew in Thursday. Friday I was picked up and whisked off to the set... The set! Eeek! Yes, that kind of set.
I'm not quite sure how it all happened, but I am doing a show.
I am in Toronto, going to wardrobe fittings, getting hugs from people who I will know much better in a week or two, talking about scripts and striding through a massive factory that is being transformed into a Second World War munitions factory, breathing in the sawdust ladened air, while two full-time crews work day and night to get the sets up and ready for shooting.
It is thrilling to be back, to belong, to be part of this whole wonderful mysterious world of make-believe again.
Bomb Girls. I am a bomb girl. Ha! Just writing that sentence makes me smile! I'm sure when you read that you got an image of high-heels and a tiny cinched-in waist and voluptuous breasts spilling out all over the place. And yes, I'm sure some of the younger girls in the mini-series will look just like that.
I, however, will not. I am, after all, a mature woman of 51. And as I write that I hear some of you say, "Yes, Meg, but we saw you play Martha, in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, she/you definitely indulged in spillage and what-not." Be that as it may, my character in Bomb Girls does not.
At least not yet, I'm not sure what surprises Michael, Adrienne, Janis and the other Michael (writer, co-creators, director, producers etc.) have in store for her, but I can't imagine spillage being one of them. She might end up unbuttoning a button or two, but that would probably be the extent it.
Who knows? Who knows? Kind of exciting, not knowing what is around the corner for your character? Yes, I know what happens in the first two scripts, but after that is anyone's guess. Where will little Lorna end up? What's going to happen? What sorrows are lurking around the corner? What joys?
I love this character. So much I can relate to. She's such a mix of things, so strong, yet fragile too. She's at a turning point in her life, a crossroads. It's 1942 and she is one of the many women who risked her life, everyday, to build bombs and ammunition for the Allied forces fighting overseas.
I love diving into this time period, reading up on it, doing research. Images of this summer: my boy, Will, his long lanky frame perched on a stool in our kitchen, scouring the Internet for Second World War interviews and videos on his computer for me to watch. Me, bustling around the stove, cooking up some tasty treats so he'd know on a visceral level that he's home. David and Amy coming over for dinner and a brisk noisy game of Dutch Blitz. Bountiful flats of ripe summer fruits, their fragrance filling the kitchen with a feeling of abundance, homemade tart lemonade with ice cubes rattling in the fridge.
Summer. Ah...
And now, here it is, autumn and the family has scattered to the winds again: Will's back in London, gearing up for his studies at drama school, and Don and I are in Toronto to do Bomb Girls, Dave and Amy are back home living life, working, going to church, and Emily's bopping around New York doing New Yorkish things.
Life shifts, changes, like the rain, coming in, going out, fast moving clouds. I wonder what's next?