Memphis.

Today was beautiful -- sunny, a little windy, bright, cheerful, a tad too cold. It was also the day that one of my best friends was married. She's come such a long way from the girl who stood across from me on her wall.. her nerves mimicked in my same safety gesture, eyes on the floor.. too terrified to speak to each other.

The ceremony was wonderful. Her uncle is a minister, so he performed the ceremony. We all stood on taped numbers on the staircase at the theatre -- with Wendy's tape reading "Warden" and Daniel's reading "Prisoner" (guess whose family member put those down?) The setup was gorgeous. The wedding was even entertaining.

See, the minister had held onto Daniel's ring for safe keeping (since it's large and having it on Wendy's sister's finger was dangerous in that case). Thus, the ring was in his coat pocket. In review: ring in minster's COAT pocket, minister in robes, COAT in box office. At the time to exchange rings, he stares expectantly at the matron of honor. She stares back. Wendy turns back and goes "oh crap!". Now, yesterday he told us how ministers will tell people to "bow their heads in prayer" to cover for mistakes. So now he says it.. and the bridal party nearly erupts into laughter. Then he turns to the groomsman standing beside me and murmurs "I need your ring." Groomsman proceeds trying to yank it off his finger -- it barely fit on any of Daniel's fingers!

Memphis has been interesting in other ways. I've seen a lot of people I haven't gotten to see in awhile, and I've been surprised at how a lot of them have changed in ways I haven't expected. I was the first person to step foot inside the house of a man who I haven't spoken too at all since I left in May. I had lunch with a girl I adore and never see enough of who hates herself... and hours after I left her, discovered her fiance will soon leave for Iraq. I saw a guy who's lost and searching for a way out in anyway he can - even if that means fleeing the country. And I saw someone I adore who has changed in ways that I'm not quite sure I can handle for much longer. He's always reminded me of Casey.. and at first that was endearing. I love Casey. He is..was.. an amazing person who's infallibility was destroyed and that destroyed him... and I'm terrified of watching that happen to my friend. His ego has grown to such grandeur because he is never turned down. He broke the heart of a dear friend.. and I chalked it up to youthful indiscretion. But I'm seeing it more now in ego and lack of priorities and it kills me. I do not want to lose another friend to drugs.. or to their own beliefs.

Memphis was my home for 18 years, but it's feeling less like home these days. I used to cry to leave, but I think I will be glad tomorrow to be leaving to a place that is more home like now. Maybe it's because Maryland is now where my friends are. It's where I'm accepted and loved and where I think of theatre now. Theatre Memphis where I once worked, ate, and yes, even slept... is no longer home. It's not what I refer to when I say "the theatre" anymore. And this is the first trip where I've been able to see that.

Don't get me wrong. Memphis will always have a special place in my heart. I will always remember the sprawling streets, the insane traffic, the people. Theatre Memphis will always be where I first fell in love with theatre and where I met many of the friends who helped me survive high school. But it's not home. And I think that kills me just a little.

Rambling...

I love that with FP in production, I've actually had time to spend with the "4400" despite the snow and ice. Last week was weird in the fact that I actually had time to have dinners and movies and random time to just exist without having to be somewhere... 10 minutes ago. The break hasn't been so restful, but I'm loving that I can see people again.

Of course, the fact that I have free time is only leading me to feel more restless because I need to be doing something. So, I have (of course) started a billion knitting projects. I swear I'll actually finish one of them soon. At least, I need to, considering I'm supposed to be in Memphis next week. I can't believe that came so quickly.

Some of the cast of FP are actually starting to distress me, and I'm not entirely certain what to make of the situation (despite Andrew's fierce response to beat them up for me... followed by some bizarre facial gestures...). One more weekend.

The highlight of my week... sitting on the floor of our little hallway with Becca surrounded by magnetic poetry words composing the poem of the day. I love that the exploits of the 'tomato' are completely unsurprising to everyone, because they just accept that what I'm writing is bound to be weird.

And because it's been on all day...

Idinia Menzel, Fool Out of Me

All that I don't know
Paralyzes me
But somehow I keep going on
Just settling for this mediocrity
And I wonder if god is trying to make a fool out of me
There are legends who die
And I've never even heard their songs
And there are heroes of a generation
Whose poetry is not on my shelf
And my soliloquies would make Shakespeare
Turn over in his grave
And voyagers would forbid me
To join in their crusade

Writing is stressful.

The past week or so has been insanely so due to an overwhelming-ness of way too many things to do and not enough time to do them in and way too many decisions to make.

In which I ramble...

I'm exhausted and yet I've been up since 3:30. Today was my day to sleep in.

I just think the stress is starting to get to me. I love what I'm doing. I do. But trying to be in two places at once with the extra 'at home' work, coupled with very little sleep and an attempt to re-edit and re-write an entire script because I hate it... I honestly do... but I need mail it off to whoever it is that I'm supposed to be sending it to. Argh. ha. You know it's bad when knitting doesn't even calm me down. I've started and ripped up so many projects I nearly snapped a set of needles in half.

I did have a wonderful dinner with Lindsay at IHOP (all you can eat pancakes!), which more than made up for my afternoon.

Horses

Today, I went to the first rehearsal for a staged reading at Venus, but this post isn't really about the play. The show itself dances around the idea of the rodeo... which brought me full force back into the time I spent in Arizona and, thus, the time I spent on horseback.

I was the typical horse loving girl. So much so that my parents finally gave in to sending me to "pony camp" in our town in the summers where I spent time each day riding in a circle and competing in weird gymkana like events. During the camp, I met one of the instructors who then offered to give me riding lessons... so... my mother started taxiing me once a week the 45 minutes each way to her barn.

Drina and I had an interesting relationship. As stubborn as she was, I was willing to be more so. We came to a rather tenuous understanding -- if I would be willing to trust her, she was willing to trust me... as long as I provided carrots or apples or peppermints following the lesson. I trusted her to take me unflinching up a steep hill in the forest of Chickasaw. I trusted that she wouldn't let anything happen to me as I wouldn't lead her into danger. But I maintained my complete horror at the unbridled joy my lesson partner took as she galloped down the corn fields.

Until the summer I spent in Arizona. There was no room for fear in Arizona. My first week there we went out into the desert where we slept under threat of rampant wild cattle stampeding the campsite (once) or trees falling upon tents (five times). We mounted up and rode partially out into the desert and played "bean tag" near the pen of a wild bull. Until our instructor led us INTO the bull pen, at which point we play "get the hell out". We ambled slowly to the top of a mesa in the middle of the desert to watch the sun set in shades of pink and purple and blues that simply weren't possible in the bluffs of Memphis. We raced wholeheartedly along a dried out creek bed to make it back to the barns before dark. I learned for the first time how to fall without fear (a lesson I could have used beforehand when Drina stopped dead after a jump and sent me flying to the ground... or the horse before me lashed out and sent Drina into a series of spins that left me blacked out half on the concrete of the road half off with her hooves dancing around my head... or the time we were cutting back across roads to get help for my instructor's daughter and Drina slide on newly poured tar and sent us skidding across the road -- my leg still firmly in the stirrup under her side).

I also learned that speed could be joyful. I found joy in settling into the saddle and letting the horse carry me across the sands of the desert. I learned that flying across a straight path could in no way be fearsome when cutting tight circles around barrels so close that your foot brushes the unyielding metal or gripping your legs tightly to the saddle and leaning slightly as the horse beneath you dances between tall white poles praying that she will not choose to zig when the proper response is to zag... is such a rush.

When I returned from Arizona, I took new pleasure in pushing my heels down and giving in to Drina's steady gallop and soothing canter. I loved swinging onto her back with only a bridle in place and feeling her muscles beneath me as we trotted and cantered and galloped through the fields. I loved at the end of a hard ride walking slowly in a cool down before swinging off and resting my head against hers and she contentedly munched her daily treat. I found confidence in those slow easy moments.

I hate that no matter how many times I see it, Rent will never fail to make me cry.

My thoughts for all those who suffer, have loved ones who suffer, who have died, or will die from AIDS.. who deal with drug addiction every day in their own lives or those of the people they love. It's not easy, but the journey through it is what will make life worth living in the end.

thoughts on death and thanksgiving

"No story sits by itself. Sometimes stories meet at corners and sometimes they cover one another completely, like stones beneath a river"

from The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Mitch Albom

This quote has been ingrained in my mind since the day I first read it three years ago. Just four months before a friend of mine had passed away due to complications from a disability she's had since birth. I saw her only for four hours a week, but she left a profound impact on my life. She struggled to do everything, but she was there, after her own therapy session week after week running right along beside the rest of us in that dusty ring, helping other kids find freedom in riding. Every evening, we would walk our horses back across the pasture to the small paddock that was their home. Every evening, we would talk about mindless things. It's funny how the last night I saw her is so vivid. It was the last night of the spring session, so we were later than usual walking the horses back, so it was already growing dark. The crickets were chirping and the horses kept trying to stall every few minutes for a bite of the fresh grass. We ambled toward the gate, talking. She was so excited.. she was about to turn 18 years old and she was going to have her first boy/girl party that next week. We walked back after locking the horses into their paddock, hung up our halters, and said goodbye for the next month. Two weeks later, she died.

Now, this quote has taken on a new meaning for me. It holds for me a new kind of hope, because I can at least hold onto to the idea that Travis's story still flows where our lives intersected.. I hold the stones from his river in my own.

In 2001 I met Travis aboard a cruise ship. I terrified him by accurately guessing that he was interested in boys (at a time when his own family had neither accepted nor seemed to be willing to accept his orientation). He would order the adventurous dinners while I had my customary fruit and dessert (and, of course, snuck bites off of his own plate). After our week aboard the ship, we continued meeting. We rollerbladed around the lake.. curled up in our favorite booth at "our" Mexican restaurant.. dreamed of moving to a big city.. flew around the city in his Saab while Rent and disco music poured from his speakers.. laughed as he, from Virginia, called me screaming out street names while I attempting to find the closest Wal-mart and the best directions from his current location. I was devastated when I learned (in 2003) that he had been diagnosed with HIV..and soon after, full blown AIDS. Believe me when I say I hate hospitals.. I hate medication.. I hate the way AIDS patients are treated. In early 2005, he called (along with his partner Michael) to tell me that he was going off medication because he wished to live what time he had left as a human being. The images I have of him from his last trip to New York show him as not the man fighting the disease.. but my friend. July 5th, 2005 Travis passed in a hospital in Kentucky. Michael called to tell me the news.

I like to think I could have handled the situation better. I threw myself into Sid with a new abandon that I think frightened even my closest friends. We were opening that weekend and I didn't let myself think or even breathe... I worked hard and partied harder. I never called Michael to see how he was doing. I regret that now, but at the time, the most I could do was survive. A week later, on July 15th, Michael placed three phone calls to my cell before and at 2 in the morning. Phone calls that I pressed "ignore" on.. because I was curled up on a friends couch speaking about some 'serious' issue that I can no longer remember. At 3 a.m., I received a message from his phone.. a message asking what we had spoken about (although, there had been no conversation). I called back, confused. Minutes later, I hung up in shock. Michael shot himself shortly after 2. I have not missed a late night phone call since, nor have I ever felt entirely comfortable making a phone call.

So, this Thanksgiving.. the second since their loss.. I am going to take a time out. Thanksgiving, for us, was a time of joy and phone tag and laughter over the fact that we were all, in different parts of the country, hiding out in seldom used rooms to escape from the insanity that was our families. Last year, I once again buried myself in work.. jumping a plane after a show.. flying home for the insanity.. then jumping back on a plane and throwing myself into stage managing/performing/designing. This year.. I'm going to deal with it. I think it's about time.