I start rehearsals for my last College of Marin show tonight. We had our first production meeting yesterday and I was in the zone – laughing, joking coming up with utterly scandalous and inappropriate ideas ( my favorite kind) for costumes, plot, staging etc. I was on. Then something shifted and I was scared. I could feel my muscles fatiguing, my breathing getting more labored and I thought – can I do this? I mean I could barely do this when I was healthy!
I don’t know how to downshift and I need to learn fast. But in truth I’d rather not learn. I love the adrenaline rush you get from creating something from nothing, from herding unruly cats and creating something magic through sheer force of will. It’s a rewarding thing and like all rewarding things, it’s hard as hell.
Last night I likened it to having a kid – 34 hours of pain and nausea and great discomfort, years without 8 hours uninterrupted sleep, all-nighters with the croup and for what? For this walking miracle whose mere presence makes life worth living, that’s what. I would go through all of it again for just one more day with my boy. Everything worth having seems to require a certain amount of pain and discomfort. It makes the simple times so very very sweet, the hard fought accomplishments such treasures. I want to experience that again.
I want to make an audience laugh from their bellies until they leak. I want to give them a moment that takes their breath away. I want them to find themselves discreetly wiping away a tear. “You see I want a lot" said Rilke "perhaps I want everything:the darkness that comes with every infinite fall and the shivering blaze of every step up” and why not?
In the meantime, everywhere I go there is love – in places both expected and totally unexpected.
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4 comments:
Glad you are having joyful moments and making noise and trouble. Can't make it ot LA but I plan to go to Yoshi's in May and your show at COM in April and to se you when you are available- lots of love and admiration - Ginny
Must be more you can pack in (haha) ...like a radio piece for This American Life?
Your blog is keeping me going too!
Bravo,Bravo, Bravo!
it has enriched my life to read your blog.
you are a dear one with things of wonder and wonderful things to say.
thank you!
The Rilke is amazing...I love his work and your seemingly infinite retrieval of poetry.
You ARE vibrant & you will come to trust that you can let the rest of us carry what you don't need to so you have the energy to transmit the magic that's yours to make.
To "War & Peacemeal" and you getting the support to create what enlivens us all!
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