the post about the play

I still don't know why I do this, if not to chronicle my goings and doings in a semi-anonymous format that allows me to speak honestly about the things I ordinarily couch in euphemism and politeness.

So it bears repeating that I made a whole production happen. Ex nihilo. And it was good.

I had lots of help (without which exactly nothing would have happened), but the fact remains: I adapted a script and produced a show and people came to see it and now it is over.

There was a blizzard, there were five weeks of sharing a room with Max, eating butternut squash soup and kale chips, and there were blurred strings of nights spent running from the nine-to-five to the theatre, speeding through sandwiches in the name of art.

Decisions were made, blurbs drafted and postcards printed. I wrote a few paragraphs to justify the endeavor to the viewing public and then we opened. Max left and others came to stay. There was stress and there was drama (not the least of which a product of my uncanny ability to cram the unlikeliest group of the tragically interconnected into one room with an almost absentminded inattention to the inevitable awkwardness).

Then, just as soon as it started, it was done. Non-date dropped me at my door with an armload of props and, as soon as I shut the door behind his retreating plaid flannel, I was all by myself. Alone in a quiet apartment that smelled of my mother's perfume with two bouquets of flowers and a thin layer of pervasive dust. Left to peel away the residue of eyelash glue and shower myself back to reality, to find some way of rooting my wet feet to the floor before the world blew away and darkness made its final descent.

By blessed coincidence, I had to rush back to the island for dinner. The Gentleman in Question and I met in a bright little cafe downtown, at a table covered in rose petals (I had nearly forgotten Valentine's Day except to send myself a pound of dark chocolates in a heart shaped box) and shared some octopus and sparkling wine. We ended the evening in bed with a Chartreuse nightcap and books, oh beautiful books. I swear that is not a euphemism for sex.

The subsequent "day off" (thank you Abe and George) was a blur of frenetic housecleaning, budget reconciling and enchilada making, in which I barely took the time to breathe.

So I'm finding it difficult, now, to convey the weight of that one moment, particularly since I've done everything in my power to fill these empty evenings since. But it was a moment, nonetheless. And now I am left to panic in its wake, to fight the urge to lie down and never do another thing in my life, to ride the high to something bigger and more beautiful than this trap I've set for myself. To show up and start doing what I said I would.

Note: guns-blazing black-or-white mood provided in part by Henry Miller and by the late night pep talks (thanks again, Max).