Child-like

Part of tonight's rehearsal was all about working with Damon and his stilts and the kinds of fabric he'll be wearing. My director is out of town so it was just me and Damon and Jeff (costume designer) and Tony (puppet/stilt man). At one point we decided to tape some cheese cloth to the mask Damon wears, to be a mock-up of the ninja mask he'll eventually wear. The cheese cloth we had was big and flowy so Jeff cut a head sized hole in it and slipped over me, like a poncho. He then put the Storm King gigantic mock up crown/mask on me and proceeded to tape them together, with Tony's help. Damon stood by, 8 foot something on his stilts.

Jeff and Tony put the mask/cloth contraption on me precisely because I wasn't 8 feet tall and they could reach my head. What ended up happening, though, was that I got to stand perfectly still for five min or so and be fussed over, totally unseen. I was behind a screen of cheese cloth (a veil, if you will, which I did because I'm that kind of girl) and these three tall men towered over me, pulling and pushing the cloth, taping and humming and working and I got to just stand. 

I was looking up into these manly faces, unconsulted and unnoticed. I realized how little of my time I spend looking up at people and started, for the first time, to mourn my height. I liked this stolen time of smallness. 

I felt like a little girl, actually. I loved it.

Favorite Sins

You and tequila make me crazy.

Report from Rehearsal

My director is away this week, which means that our rehearsals are primarily music rehearsals, interspersed with some stilt rehearsals and some waltz rehearsals. This means, essentially, that I get to sit back and just be a time-keeper for the week. So here I am, blogging from rehearsal, with An Echo in the Bone laid out in front of me, enjoying a Sunday morning of Black Prairie music and my book. Yes, it would be nicer if I was in bed. But then I wouldn't be getting paid, now would I?

I haven't written in a bit because I've been a little all over the place. I've been reflecting on my life and my relationships and it has been (as close scrutiny always is) unsettling and uncomfortable. Since I've been so much reviewing mentally it seemed a little masochistic to then sit down and write too, of all things.

That being said, I have been taking note (if not actually writing). Here are some of my favorite things that have been said in The Storm in the Barn rehearsal hall.

Given Circumstances: My 11 year old actor/protagonist is enacting a scene when he sees a snake and is frightened. My director is trying to get him to act a little more scared.
Director: "Are you afraid of snakes?"
Child Actor: "No."
Director: "Anything you're afraid of? Spiders? The dark? Heights?"
Child Actor: "The dark and heights."
Director: "Then this," she gestures to the snake, "is a dark high place." He gives her a look. "Imagine, if you will."

Given Circumstances: Our youngest actress is eight years old and always raises her hand while my director is directing, often to ask some pretty pointless questions. My director is patient with her, but does not treat her like grownups usually treat children. At this point, Steele (the little girl) has been given a bike bell to ding anytime someone opens the door the the general store. We run the scene and my director begins to give the actors some notes when Steele raises her hand.
Director: "Yes?"
Steele: "When I rung the bell it got kind of stuck and then I --"
Director: "I know, Steele. It ruined the whole play."

Given Circumstance: My choreographer was giving dance moves to my accordion player and he had a bit of resistance to dancing with the accordion strapped to his chest.
Choreographer: "Anton, I know that thing is big and heavy..."
Anton looks down his nose with look that clearly says "YES."

And finally...
Director: "The Smell in the Barn - a scratch and sniff book."

On to the Next...

It is nearly 1am and I just finished the 6th book in the Outlander series - A Breath of Snow and Ashes - by Diana Gabaldon.
It was amazing and sad and really almost perfect and I am SO glad I re-read it.

Tomorrow morning I finally start An Echo in the Bone, the seventh book, which I've never read, and have been waiting to read since it came out in 2010.

Oh good lord, am I full of emotions right now.

Standby Hey Girl

Maybe one of my favorite things ever.

Click Me, Baby.

Cobwebs

I knew I was catching at straws; but in the wide and weltering deep where I found myself, I would have caught at cobwebs.

- Villette, Charlotte Bronte

There are days when we all feel like we're catching at cobwebs. Or caught in the cobwebs. Sometimes there isn't a reason, sometimes there is. Sometimes your mind or your body or God or the weather has decided that today is your day to be down. 

What helps you on days like these? What doesn't help you?

My book                                                                    Facebook

A candle                                                                     Thinking

Mary Chapin Carpenter                                              My cell phone

Kisses from Zo                                                           Sleep

Long drives

Scent Memory

Tonight was my first night locking up OCT after rehearsal. I went around to each of the rehearsal spaces to turn off lights. The last one I hit was the Acting Studio, which is furthest down the hall. I opened the door and WHAM a smell from my past hit me in the face. My first thought was a visual one: very clearly, my numbers comforter. My second thought was emotional: that clench in the pit of your stomach when you think of something you loved and can never have back, tinged with a dash of bitterness. I groped around my mind, trying to remember. At first I thought it was the smell of my apartment on E60th, that I shared with Ben and Caroline and Joanna. But that wasn't right. So I closed the door, put my bag down, shook myself out a bit and stepped back into the room. It hit me again, just as hard, but clearer.
It was the smell of the cardroom in Booth.  I remembered my comforter first because it was such a small room and my comforter was so bright, it dominated it. I again felt the sadness of that term, feeling like a ghost, having come back to Bennington after being so sure I never could and having Bennington stripped of what I loved: not being a house chair, not having a show. But then I remembered what that term was full of: turmoil and drama, sleepless nights, hysterical laughter, the morning light sloping across the lawn and through Booth's backdoor. I suddenly and deeply mourned everything I still had then: my friends, my house, my school, my place in it all.
I just stood in the dark rehearsal hall, breathing through my nose like a race horse and muttering "oh god oh god oh god."
I tried to leave twice but both times turned around, just to smell my 5th term cardroom one last time.

How Bennington is this?

Seriously.

That point you reach

... when you're writing closing night cards and you've left those three people who you have truly come to love for last and now you have to actually write theirs.
What do you say?
"It kills me to know that this time tomorrow will begin the rest of my life where I won't see you everyday any more." ?
Or, "We can keep saying we'll hang out but we both know a show-mance is a show-mance for a reason, be it romantic or no." ?
Or, "I will miss putting your shirt on for you."?

2am Realization Re: Country Music

I find it so comforting to listen to country music not only because it was a big part of my childhood, not only because every song tells a story and not only because a big part of my soul belongs to Mary Chapin Carpenter BUT ALSO BECAUSE (as I realized, for the first time, tonight, while driving home, at 2am): it has absolutely nothing to do with you.
No country song makes me think of you, there are no country songs we ever sang together, I don't know a single country song you have ever listened to or even possibly enjoyed. Every song is 100% you free.

Modern Country Music: The Olivia Murphy Emotional Safe Zone.

Who's Who: Little Women

When it comes to fictional gaggles of sisters, who you want to be is always pretty obvious.

The Bennetts: Lizzie, duh. 

The Elliots: Anne, duh. 

The de Valles: Rosa (... right? Or Clara, because she lives? But then her life is pretty crazy...)

The March sisters is where it gets rough. Or maybe not rough. Maybe real.

Because the thing is, everyone wants to be Jo (duh). She's the free spirit, she's the writer, she's independent, she's the first sister Laurie loves, she's imaginative, she's spunky. And she marries Gabriel Byrne at the end.

Dreamy dreamy dreamy

So yes, everyone wants to be Jo. Or everyone thinks of herself as Jo. I always did. As a little girl, yes, but as a teenager too. In the movie Winona Ryder always stays up late writing in this ridiculous little hat and, because I wrote late at night too, I'd sometimes put one on and pretend like she and I were just the same.

My hat was not this bad.

Now, though, I've come to the conclusion that I'm not Jo. Maybe I never was; maybe I've changed so much as to become someone else but, no matter how it happened, it's happened: I'm Meg. 

Meg March is the oldest sister, the bossiest, the one who watches after Jo, Beth and Amy while Marmie is volunteering and their father is off fighting in the civil war. She doesn't stray far from home and marries the nice older man next door. She's the only sister to have children (during Little Women, obviously not counting Jo's Boys and other books). She's pretty but not stunning like Amy. She's sweet, but not with Beth's gentleness. And she's no Jo.

Who has two thumbs and bosses people around? THIS GIRL.

And while it does make me a little sad to accept that I'm not a Jo anymore, it doesn't kill me the way it would if I all of a sudden took a good long look at myself and realized, "Oh Jesus, I've become Mary Bennett." Or someone else equally awful.

I think that's the lovely thing about Little Women. None of the sisters are a caricature of her qualities and everyone can identify with one of them. Yes, Beth dies. (If you didn't already know that than you seriously need to pay more attention. Not to this blog post but to, like, the world. Cause everyone knows Beth dies.) Yes, Amy can be selfish. Yes, Meg can be annoying.  But also, yes, Jo can be unnecessarily harsh. We all have our faults. 

I've been thinking about this recently because my SM for Circle Mirror is directing Little Women: The Musical for her next show and the book has been laying about the greenroom. I asked her who she thought of herself as and she said, "Jo! Duh. ... What about you?" I said, "I used to be a Jo, but now... now I think I'm a Meg." And Steph thought that made a lot of sense to her too.

Force of Character

"If she wasn't precisely pretty, she had a force of character that is often more attractive than simple beauty."
- A Breath of Snow and Ashes, Diana Gabaldon

Why I'm re-reading

I've spent the last four months re-reading all the books in the Diana Gabaldon series, so that I can finally read the newest one and not be totally lost. All the books weigh in at least 1,000 pages, have endless multitudes of characters, subplots and intricacies. It's been a bit of an undertaking to re-read the six that precede my unread 7th. Despite impressive breadth of these novels, the core of the books is the relationship between two people, Jamie Fraser and his wife, Claire Randall.
And that is why I've devoted half a year to re-reading them - that relationship. It's hot, it's passionate, he's Scottish,  it's true love, it's all a girl could hope for between the covers of a novel.


"When the day shall come, that we do part," he said softly, and turned to look at me, "if my last words are not 'I love you' - ye'll ken it was because I didna have time."
- The Fiery Cross, Diana Gabaldon

Mt. Tabor

Took myself for a little walk this morning, since Zo's dad called and canceled nannying.
It was my first time up to Mt. Tabor and I just couldn't believe all the views of the city. It felt like a whole other world, except I could see my world from it.