Expectant Waiting by Edith Tankus

Expectant waiting. I was introduced to that term by Robert Morgan and I’ve been experiencing it fully for the last several months. After forming the Sparrow Collective it seemed everything happened all at once. I started working with Robert and we made all sorts of artistic plans for the upcoming year. Then I went to England to visit my fiance, got pregnant, returned home and shortly after he joined me in Toronto where, because of our work schedules, we had two weeks to prepare for our wedding. Things were obviously taking a different turn. He went back to England and I would join him in what I thought would be a short amount of time. In the interim Robert and Anahita went to Iran, Thailand and Nepal for Sparrow’s First Flight Project. And I stayed in Toronto contemplating my domestic life with baby and new husband. I’ve been mobile with my work for quite some time performing in Canada, England and the States. and in the span of a couple of months my life had changed drastically. During the last two months, I’ve been spending my time re-reading stories and fables of my childhood and was particularly drawn to the Grimm Brothers’ Fairy Tales. After some years of touring my own shows and working with the wonderful U.K. based theatre company Kneehigh, this is a welcome new chapter in my life. Family, home, motherhood. And during this expectant time, I can also dream into the next project. I want to dig into memories of my own childhood and pluck ancient archetypes from the ether around me. The fairy tale world of warm hearth-fires, storytelling, imagination, flights of fancy, wide-eyed innocence and childhood terror. I love Robert’s work and we have plans to workshop ideas together in the fall along with the inimitable Anahita. Can’t wait.