Life at the Speed of Life

Astounding the number of students who have labored and loved and performed here. We all want to leave our mark, somehow, in some way in the lightening speed of our ephemeral existence, right?

To some a depressing empty theatre, but to others a FABULOUS blank canvas just waiting for Alice or a man dancing beneath a streetlight in the rain, or a dentist with too much gas in his tank.

Come on up the stairs. Come on. There really is the only magic I know up here.

Costumes hold their own identities: the pink girls, the Duchess, the beautiful girls, the tin man all live on.

The wolf still lurks and Rapunzel's mother has finally set her headpiece down. Captain Hook has retired but the red of his coat still has a voice and the lost boys are around here somewhere.

Our BELOVED Alice and her wee bloomers and YEAH ME--the captain of my tiny ship.

76 degrees and clear skies if you please. Today I want to THANK YOU most of all for being an essential part of my life.  Yes, I certainly know that no one has called for coffee, brought presents, or painted my rosebushes lately-but you have done something AMAZINGLY BETTER. You have stayed connected with me through my photographs and writing, and let me tell you, nothing NOTHING means more. Although I do like presents. A special THANK YOU to the people who have bought some TAXMICE OF MONTPARNASSE!!! You should have seen those little darlings when they got here!! Swimming vast bodies of water, wearing out their wee mouse paws hitching rides, WOW!!! It is a miracle that they even exist!!! Right now I have 100 ONE HUNDRED taxmice!!! If someone pays me $50 for each mouse I will pay off any real and imagined tax debt and fix a couple of aching teeth!!! THAT WOULD BE FABULOUS. Until then . . .take a trip with me to one of my most magical, and challenging places.  Backstage at SBHS. Right here nowhere is emptier, quieter, and more deserted than this backstage without the students, AND up the steps to my costume loft and workroom of (sit down right now) SIXTEEN YEARS!!! and marvel at the costumes I have constructed, found, altered, and stored.  I just spent 3 entire days knocking the whole place back in shape YET AGAIN.  Why do I do this? What if I had found a real life, or stayed with a genuine career? What if I had managed to stay successfully married-ideally into wealth and ambition, if I had gotten published, or my clothing would have gone fashion viral?  What if I had traded my crumb filled existence, my dog hair covered sweaters, and my sand and grit dusted everything barely making it day to day for . . . oh dear. Here is where I get stuck.  Because, DANG, see that wall of students wildly painted signatures? Starting with one of our dearest dearest friends ever, who sadly, left us way, way too young?  It is simply this: to me LIVE THEATRE is a PERFECT metaphor for life.  We come together, high expectations, struggle, argue, cry, laugh, work, work, work, the show goes ON, the curtain goes UP, we perform like mad genius fools and then quicker than a dragonfly's lifespan, faster than the clock on my kitchen wall, and more finally than death itself--the show is OVER.  Everyone is gone and we have only memories of our time spent together held as common beats of breath and moments of shining cooperation and interaction.  Is it easy? Has it brought me fame or fortune? When I had the chance to do better, why didn't I? Why did I and why do I persist in this patched together, ragtag sort of QUEEN of BOHEMIA lifestyle when most my age are settled and deciding portfolios of the financial kind and paying off their houses? The writing to come will no doubt expose the reason and rhyme of this impossible riddle. But for now, for me--live theatre--the words of playwrights spoken with emotion, the entrances and exits, exact timing, and much angst over nothing makes sense of preparing for death. Preparing for life. It is divine.  And here is where I prove to be a good girl in the Journalism Department, which is pretty much the only place I care to be a good girl, it DOESN'T happen without other people.  I get out of bed every morning, OK, most mornings, because of some wonderful small or grand thing I get to do with someone. Or for someone. And I am MOST HAPPY to get out of bed if that someone is one of my beloved children. So again, THANK YOU for paddling along with me in my small boat for a moment or two. I love you for that. and LOVE ALWAYS.