I am working as costume manager with Lyric Light Opera again! Say YAY (yay). Thanks. I'm really grateful to be able to be back with them, to have theatre be a part of me once more. Didn't know that anything had changed? That's understandable. It's been awhile.
2 years ago, when my marriage was falling to ruin around me, I began desperately trying to "fix" it, any way that I could. I removed from my life anything and everything that was ever mentioned as an irritation in an effort to be whoever it was that he wanted me to be. Funny thing, though, is that I had spent over 2 decades doing the same thing and it hadn't helped, but I couldn't see it at the time. I was in the middle of costuming The Sound Of Music for LLO when it was spoken of as an issue and I decided that I needed to pull it out of my life. Just as I was doing that, however, I discovered just how far things had deteriorated and there was no hope of salvaging anything. I pulled out of the show anyway, knowing that I would be of no good to anybody, and I had to begin survival strategizing.
During that time I dumped most of my friends, withdrew almost completely from everything and, unfortunately and unintentionally, offended everyone that I knew. They wanted to talk and to understand what was happening, to give me love and support, but I couldn't say a word to anyone, and with my obliterated heart I couldn't feel anything other than the searing pain that ruled my life. I thank God for the girls, they needed me and that got me moving everyday.
Fast forward to today...I've spent alot of time in the past year-plus, reconnecting, apologizing, being very transparent and open about everything. I have begged forgiveness for hurts that I caused that I never meant to do, and in most cases all is well. The hardest of all was to go to Debbie and Brenda, after all that we had been through, and explain what had happened. I knew that they would have understood at the time, had I been able to verbalize anything. But I couldn't, and I hope that someday I will forget the look on Brenda's face when I quit on her during that show. Being the beautiful women that they are, with their gracious hearts, they allowed me to return and in doing so have given me such a gift of life that I can never repay them.
Theatre, for me, is a necessary part of life now. I have beautiful, happy memories(during an unhappy time) of being a child in North Carolina, allowed to run freely through an old theatre house while my mom did costuming for the local company. It must have been their tech weeks when these fabulous adventures occurred, because there were always alot of starts and stops and people moving lights around and hustle/bustle going on. I remember watching my mother, through an open doorway, on her knees with pins in her mouth, fixing the hem on a dress. I also remember her marking the back of a suit jacket, and I was shocked. SHOCKED! I was most definitely NOT allowed to mark on my OWN clothes, what was she doing, to somebody ELSE'S clothes???
I wasn't allowed to talk to her during these times(good thing, given that whole suit situation, which she explained later after discovering why I was pouting and giving her the silent treatment), but I could go anywhere in the building that didn't have a locked door. I watched a record being made once. Actually made. Wax, turntable, grooves, sound...it was so cool! I used to sit in as many seats as I could, to see which was the best one. I played critic, scribbling squiggly lines on paper (cursive writing, you know), chewing on the eraser, nodding my head sagely or tsking every now and again. I remember the director asking me once, as I sat in the very back of the house, if I could hear a particular line. I also remember a young man singing "Mr. Bojangles" and kicking his heels together, so high in the air that it looked like he was flying!
But what I remember with the greatest clarity, is how the theatre smelled and how the sound was so different there, held and contained...a song freely sung, yet captured in it's real state. Not like a recording, which is only a piece of itself. It's hard to put into words.
During dress rehearsal, I wasn't allowed to run the house. I was plopped in the center seat of the front row, with snacks, my blankie, my pillow and my stuffed pony (uniquely named Horsie...I still have him). Warm in my jammies, I would put my head on my pillow, which was always on the left armrest, pull my blankie around me, Horsie under my chin, and settle in, a captive audience. Sometimes the cast would wave or wink at me from the stage. There was a dreamlike, other worldly, feeling to those nights. I remember that I felt enclosed inside the hold of the house, smelling the light mustiness of the seats and curtains, the wood, the paint from the sets. I remember the shuffle and stomp of the dancers across the stage and the solid way that everything sounded. There was nothing light or wispy, it was secure. And warm. And safe.
I would wake up briefly as I was being carried to the car, usually by one of the young men in the cast. And then I would need to wait until the next show to be back there.
And that's what hits me, all at once, everytime I walk into an empty house during tech week. That's why I love tech week, known as Hell Week to most. As soon as I can, I walk to center stage and just stand there, alone, saying hello to my memories and welcoming them back like the precious friends that they are, pieces of my heart returning to home, after weeks of preparing for them during planning and rehearsals. I feel my mother there and I understand her. Even though the whole experience of the theatre was very short in comparison to the rest of my life, it was powerful.
My voice isn't reliable enough since my throat was damaged by a severe case of whooping cough a few years ago to allow me to perform(ensemble only, of course), but I give my gift through serving those who can. With each one of them, a part of me enters the stage and participates in the story. I stress on opening night, attacked by nerves so much so that I am completely sick to my stomach. I dance with them offstage, my heart soaring and singing with them so loudly I wonder that no one can hear it. I want to explode with happiness when they are pleased with their performances and I want to hold them when they are upset. I doubt that they ever know, or could ever guess, how deeply I care for them, how much it matters to me. I am certain that the ones who never leave my heart are unaware. I feel frozen and unable to share what I feel...so I try to show it in ways that are likely never recognized. But I know and with that I take satisfaction.
How could I have shoved this from my life? How far down into despair had I fallen to think that it would help to destroy myself? I was in hell, yes. I rehomed animals, I left my gardens, I gave away all of my possessions except what I needed to function each day. I stopped writing, I stopped dancing, gardening, star gazing and beach walking. I denied myself of everything that brought me happiness before I realized what I was doing.
But coming out of that darkness, back into the light of living, back into the arms of my life, is a sweetness that I would not have known without that journey. I have faced my greatest fears, walked down the path that I didn't choose, and what gifts have I been given? As far as theatre is concerned, never before did the house smell so much of me in all of my memories, never before had the songs been sung so sweetly...never before did I not worry about the jabbed fingers or the lost sleep. Never did the shed tears at success bring such a cleansing joy, even when spilled in private, away from eyes that couldn't know how right it all was. And a story such as Camelot...what could have been more perfect? It was a gift to me, the final closure on a sad book and the affirmation that this was part of a new beginning for me.
I have been finding home again, the home in myself that brings me peace and happiness. In nature, which will surprise nobody who knows me, in simple little things like frogs, tiny flowers, the laughter of those that I care for. In music, in friends, in laughter, in the subtle sharing of selves, in hard work and in the quiet times in between.
And I have found... But that is another post, for another time.
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