What I’d do
1 Saturday morning. I’m woken by my 6-year-old autistic grandson. The young fulla wants his breakfast and to play on the PS4; I just want another 10 minutes’ sleep. The two of us eat breakfast together, I want to watch Saturday morning cartoons, the young fulla wants to watch Top Gear for the thousandth time, he’s obsessed with cars. We watch Top Gear. Later that morning I’m at Westwave, 3km in the pool today, prepping for the Banana
Boat Harbour Crossing in April. The silence of the pool is my zone where I can free-flow-think about the projects I’m working on. It’s where I can turn scripts upside down in my mind and see what makes their engine tick beneath. Astroman dominates my thinking, it opens at Q Theatre tonight, is it in the best possible place it can be? Is the script ready for an Auckland audience?
2 Saturday evening. Low-carb dinner. I’m on
this diet where I get to eat dust, green stuff and other flavourless assortments. After dinner I want to watch Spiderman Homecoming, the young fulla wants to watch Top Gear .We watch Top Gear. With the young fulla in bed I get a chance to work on my Master’s thesis — had some ideas in the pool and want to see what
3 Sunday morning. Hire a trailer to go and get the young fulla’s gear from his whare. WiNZ swept him and his young mum under their “carpet of no return” and into a single room box. Hence, they sleep in the same room together, there’s barely space to breathe. It’s no place to be raising an autistic child (who’s also been diagnosed with ADHD) and his mum is finding it difficult to cope. Our pleas for governmental help fell on impotent ears — so, with his mum on the verge of breaking, he’s gonna be staying with us for at least the medium term — a sign of the draconian times. they look like on the page. But I find myself thinking about Astroman again. It opens at Q Theatre tonight — is it ready?
4 Sunday evening. I’m emailing Manukau Institute of Technology, where I lecture in Creative Arts. I’m going to have to take a sixmonth leave of absence so that I can focus on my grandson’s needs. My boss has been really understanding about the whole situation. I hit send and cross my fingers that six months will be long enough. Having completed the email, I continue work on my thesis. The young fulla interrupts with a knock at my office door. He wants to watch Top Gear again, but it’s bedtime. With the young fulla in bed I start writing this article and set myself the challenge to see how many times I can plug my latest production, Astroman. It’s a love-letter to the 80s and opens at Q Theatre . . .