solitude

"Women need real moments of solitude and self-reflection to balance out how much of ourselves we give away."                                                             -Barbara de Angelis

       One of the most difficult aspects of touring is the lack of time I spend alone. Maybe from all those years home-schooling--waking up to an empty house, readying my cereal with only the cats for company, reading Dear Abby in peace and quiet--maybe that is why I just love waking up to silence.

        

        Unless of course, it is a silence broken by Drew.

        But on tour that is generally not the case.

        Wish to God it were. 

        Anyway, I have a lovely roommate whom I adore, but still--I do so love my privacy. Walks by myself.  Filling my time with just me and the piano, playing my feelings, transcending the monotony of life with a song.  Scrawling the outline of my life into my unsuspecting journal religiously. Reading the Bible and trying to gain wisdom, trying to read God's heart in those ancient words.  

         But all of this can be hard to do on tour. Long, solo walks aren't the most practical when you are literally staying on the side of a highway, with homeless people milling about nearby. The hotel in which I am now staying "used to have a piano," the woman at the front desk assured me.

         The past tense of that sentence was painfully clear.

         Journalling and reading can be disjointed at best when your roommate generally likes to keep the television on. 

          So, this is me trying to say that I am making solitude more of a priority. I want to turn off the noise, the distractions, of a world that is all too happy to compete for my attention. A world that is all too used to winning my attention. I want to hear my thoughts and understand how I am feeling; to sift through the parts of me that have nothing do with the fact that I stand 5 feet 8 inches tall or that my eyes are brown and have everything to do with my spirit and mind--my heart.  The things that aren't seen readily, that aren't perceived from a distance because the truth is they are the stuff that you get to when you dig down deep.

           And no, I couldn't stay there always, true. Sometimes a girl just needs to be made happy by the recent purchase of a $130 dollar jacket for the sensible price of $30. You need to come up for air with a little bargain hunting.  

            But it's a balance of remembering who you are apart from what you do. And that might just mean getting away and just being. Thinking. Praying. Writing. Walking. 

           Solituding. 

          

           Did she really just make that a verb? you're wondering, aghast. Yes, I did just make that a verb--and spellcheck is trying its darnedest to keep it from staying in it's current hybrid form. Well I am keeping it. And feeling a little like Dr. Frankenstein--only, you know, swap the dangerous monster creation for an innocuous word creation.   

           Not that exciting done my way. Which is probably why Mary Shelley did it her way. And I bet she spent a lot of time in solitude spinning out the plot in her head, deciding on the characters, writing and re-writing a fitting ending; doing what needed to be done and in the process, reminding herself of who she is and glimpsing someone who she hoped to become. 

  

           Which is why I want to follow suite. 

I couldn't help it

    It's amazing how the busy part of my day doesn't usually start until about 6:30 p.m. It's at that point that I make it to the theater, joke around get ready with my friends, and put on a show.

    And on lucky days like this, I then hop on over to The Universal City Walk to have a late dinner with my brother Josh. We talk over shrimp and connect with our waiter as we discuss with him everything from football to Mel Brooks to the suite in Cinderella's Castle.

    I get home at one o' clock, crawl into bed and ice my knee (gotta up the hamburger intake again, I guess!), but am not nearly ready to put an end to the good times quite yet. And really, can you blame me? 

----------------------------------------------------

     But let me tell you about the worst time I cracked on stage. It's pretty fresh in my mind, seeing as it just happened this past Sunday. 

       Those of you who know ACL will recall the most poignant part of the show. It's when Paul falls down and hurts himself, catalyzing an intense discussion among the remaining actors which encompasses the risks of our business as well as the looming question for every dancer, 

      What would you do if you couldn't dance anymore? 

        So there is the back story, and now let me tell you my recent...um...unanticipated choice for my character in this scene. 

        Right, so Paul had just gotten hurt and we were mournfully watching him get carried off stage. Well, everyone was except for me and Colt, that is...

         Colt and I had been embracing, and as soon as we stopped I happened to glance at another actor on stage I will call "Pat."  Pat was standing there, looking very concerned over poor injured Paul, with hands demurely clasped behind her back. The audience could only see Pat's front, as she was facing squarely forward. 

         Being further upstage than Pat, I, however, could see what was going on behind her.

          Or more appropriately, what was going on in her behind.

         As I mentioned, Pat had her hands clasped behind her, but her thumbs pointing downward.  Well, not downward, exactly, as they were literally digging deep into her crack, for lack of a better term.

         Slowly and methodically, she was moving those thumbs up and down, so as to reach the entire length of the crack--all while keeping her face arranged in a manner as to look very concerned for Paul and give away nothing of the virtual butt-scratching marathon that was going on. Seriously, you could barely even see her hands anymore, she was that far in.

           Well, I saw this in the blink of an eye. The next moment Colt happened to look over and see the exact same thing. Our dreadful mistake was meeting eyes.  

            We absolutely lost it. 

             We both hunched over and made the kinds of noises that one makes when either spewing out an undesirable drink or simply trying to suppress a laugh.

             We tried and lost. Miserably.

             So while Paul was being carried off stage because he just sustained a career-ending injury, Kristine and Al were laughing. Like I said, it was a choice. I never said it was a good one.

              The next moment we were all supposed to be looking towards the upstage right wing, where Paul had just left, frozen and sad. I couldn't even look there, since the audience would see my profile and the jig would be up; I had to turn my head completely upstage while I made tiny and not so tiny snorting noises and tried to quell the involuntary shaking of my shoulders.   

            Colt and I couldn't even touch or meet eyes for the next five minutes of the scene. If we did, we'd lose it all over again. The poor guy had lines coming up--sooner than my one line towards the end--and he, at least, needed to get control of himself.  

             I started thinking very hard about the saddest events I could conjure up--my parents' dying, my family's new puppy dying--As soon as I got sufficiently sad and thought I was okay, the image of Pat, wrist deep in her you-know-where, came back to mind and I started the horrible snorting sounds all over again. 

              At one point Colt even whispered, You. Have. To. Stop. 

              As if I didn't know that; as if all of my energy and might wasn't going towards that exact thing.  

              It was bad, very bad. Not my most professional moment, I should say. However, I will maintain that digging into one's crack on stage while showing this sympathetic look might not be the epitome of professionalism either. So for the record, it wasn't all me, is all I'm saying. 

disney world

   I just got home from a 12 hour day at Disney World.

   And then had to promptly turn right back around and evacuate the building, due to a fire. For real. A ton of fire trucks showed up, sirens blaring, along with the Fire Chief, heading up the whole dog and pony show. We patrons all straggled outside, nobody judging anybody else for the bizarre combinations of pajamas and outerwear that were being paraded around because truly, we all belonged to the same motley and displaced crew.  

  But the fire was put out. And while everyone was waiting for the elevators to be turned back on, I decided to take the eleven flights of stairs to my room. It wasn't too bad, actually. I figured I could use the exercise after all the treats I had today.  

   Which brings me back to Disney World.

    All of its Florida-warm-weather-roller-coastering-Lion-King-Festival-watching-churro-and-ice-cream-eating-safari-riding-which-means-seeing-crocs-and-white-rhinos-and-lions-tower-of-terror-dropping-till-my-guts-feel-like-they-might-have-been-left-at-the-top-of-the-ride-Mexico-looks-like-the-night-sky-eating was truly fun.  

    I mean, good--no great!--clean fun.   

    And though I don't usually buy swag--especially theme park swag--a group of us all decided to buy some and wear it proudly. I mean, there aren't that many places in the world where you can comfortably put on a pair of over-sized mouse ears and still be taken seriously. 

    Plus, mine were way on sale.  

     Anyway, here we are, mugging for the camera. The kind British lady who snapped the image of us all posing quite dramatically without even planning to asked, Are you drama students, then?

     I yelled out, What? Us?! Why we've never been on the stage a day in our lives...

      Ha.

      Don't worry, afterwards I did explain that we sort of make our living on the stage, so don't walk around thinking that I am a liar after reading this blog.  

      Anyway, here we are in all of our Disney swag...

  

     And tomorrow, back to real life. If being on tour can ever be considered that. Plus, I get to hang out with my brother, who randomly and wonderfully enough, is here in Orlando on a business conference...Life is good. Wouldn't you agree?

whaddaya think?

     One of the blogs that I read faithfully talked about this topic a while back, and the amount of passionate answers that showed up in black and white intrigued me. Everybody seemed to know the answer. Case closed.  And yet, not all of the answers were the same. Funny how that seems to happen.

      Here's the thing, in my business I have tons of different kinds of friends. Male and female, gay and straight, "ethnic" and white-bread American, religious and non...I truly enjoy the relationships that I experience with each person; I learn from them and have grown from them.

     Plus, a lot of them are just amazing amounts of fun. Not to mention kind, hilarious, and compassionate, to name a few other attributes. 

     Anyway, the hot debate was (and might always be) this:

         Can men and women be friends?

     Or do you think the issues of physical attraction, emotional closeness, etc. always get in the way? I am very interested in hearing your opinions on this, so please don't be shy. Also, if you have a system that you have established for setting up and keeping boundaries, feel free to share.

         I value your thoughts...

sense memory

         I am fascinated by sense memory, by the way a certain feeling, place, even smell can bring back a time gone by with all the rush and clarity of no time having gone by at all.  

         If I ever smell the shampoo, Outrageous, I am instantly brought back to my second summer at the Chautauqua Institute. I am closed within a small room, with Christine's bed opposite mine; pictures from home are plastering my space, it's a makeshift wallpaper that bears my heart. I wear cut-off jean shorts that are scandalously short over my skinny legs, but that doesn't become apparent to me until long afterward, when I reminisce while looking through pictures of that summer in upstate New York.  I am surprised by those jean shorts and the length of legs they didn't cover. They put the short in shorts. But I digress...

        It has been a while since I have smelled Outrageous, but all those memories are interconnected with that perfumed smell. 

        Or when I look at a large van--you know, the kind that those large homeschool families are wont to drive around? I would know, because I belong to one. Though we have since morphed from that...Anyway, I remember so clearly going with my brother Jonathan and my pop to the dealership to test drive a super big van. 

        At least, to our easily impressed selves, it was Noah's Ark that could go down I-95. Minus a few animals. 

        We talk excitedly back and forth, imagining what life could bring if we met it armed from within this van. We dream of the basketball games we could play in the large space in the back while pop navigates and gets us to wherever we need to go. In this van, the destination isn't all that important--not when you have all the space in the world and an imagination ready to fill it with fun while you are doing that necessary chore of being driven.  

    And best of all, our parents do buy the Dodge Ram van. It is huge. And it can go fast. We buckle up, roll down the windows, and chant, 30! 30! 30! with our fists pumping in the air like we are rallying the troops. We don't know that 30 miles per hour isn't anywhere near fast--and pop doesn't have the heart to break it to us; he just drives fast and lets us think that it is because we are calling out, 30! 30! 30!

    The smell of roses bring me back to the rosebush my first major crush had the creativity and foresight to give me. Not just roses that bloom for a while but wilt all too soon--no, he gives me a rosebush, so that I can appreciate it over and over again, year after year, as he puts it with just the right bit of sentiment. 

   And I did, long after our own romance had wilted.  

    The look of cranberry glass brings me back to my Mimi, who had a whole wall of the direly fragile stuff, stacked ceiling high, in her home in Naples. The thought of knocking into that and bringing down both the judgement of our Mimi and the disappointment of our parents on our heads keep us tip-toeing around her living room each visit. And that cranberry glass--combined with the alligator living in Mimi's backyard--makes Mimi's home a place that instills in us both joy and fear, all at once.  

   

   Needless to say, visits to Mimi's house were always accompanied by some very serious speeches from our parents that strictly forbade us from the backyard(and its gator!) and the cranberry glass. 

   Not that we really wanted much to do with either, anyway. 

   I am grateful for these smells and sights that creep up, seemingly out of nowhere, and act as clues, revealing our yesterdays, our youth, our beginnings. They are cords of steel that link us to a past that it is good to not forget, I think. 

eat a hamburger and call me in the morning

      How many people go to see the physical therapist for a bothersome knee and get told to eat a hamburger?

      Um, only one that I know of.  

       See, I go in, tell him that my knee has been hurting and he starts to examine it. He twists it and turns it, pokes and prods me and lets me know that it isn't a torn anything. Well this is good. Maybe, he says, it is bruised...Hmmm. Okay. Then he looks at me and says, This might sound weird, but do you eat many hamburgers? 

      I wrack my brain for an inventory of things that I eat that could be classified as "many" and immediately see stacks of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches...

     Uh, no, I reply.

  

     How about steak? he asks.

     Not really, I say.

      Do you take iron supplements? Drink protein shakes? 

      Nope, I answer, hoping that his next question involves cereal inhalation (okay, so I don't actually inhale it; but I do eat a lot of it) so I can finally give him a resounding yes.

     He doesn't even mention cereal and goes on to say, The reason I say this is that well, you are very small (he gives my leg a quick pinch as if to prove his point that if my leg were not very small, he wouldn't be able to so effortlessly pinch it). You don't have any fat, and therefore have no shock absorption. I am not a nutritionist, but you need to eat red meat. Is there a boy who could maybe take you out for some steak?

      I smile and say, I think I can find some friends who will eat some meat with me.

      He gives me a few knee exercises to do, looks at me and says, Try to eat a hamburger at least three times a week.  

       Okay, I will, I solemnly promise. Then I thank him and walk out the door.  

       When I told some of my friends this, they thought it was quite funny; in fact I am pretty sure that I will not hear the end of it anytime in the near future. And, as per my instructions, I went out after the show tonight and had a delicious hamburger. 

       I am thinking I am one hamburger closer to my knee feeling better.

magical mystery manatee tour

   It was 7:30 am and I was awake. This in itself is a miracle, but nothing like the miracle that was awaiting me.  My friends Kevin, Dave, Mindy, and I set out for the Crystal River in Homosassa (yes, there were quite a few good natured jokes made about that name...), Florida. 

  We got to the pier and boarded the boat--complete with the wonderful Captain Jan--that we had chartered. Now, it was just as sunny as one would imagine a typical Homosassa day to be, but it was cold. Not Detroit cold, thank goodness, but still 40 degrees or so. 

  Everything was beautiful, though--cold or not. The water was blue, the trees tropical with spanish moss hanging like spider webs, and a clear, wide blue sky encompassing it all.  We left the dock and just looked at our surrounding, already realizing that nothing about this day was going to make us regret the early wake up call. 

   We put on the wetsuits that Captain Jan gave us, they were already wet...We tried to see that as a kind way of assimilating us to the water...
  And then, we became super heroes!
  But the real superhero quickly showed up...
   It turned out the unprecedentedly cold Florida day worked in our favor. Because of the weather, the manatees literally flocked to the springs which were found in their state-appointed sanctuary. Captain Jan had never seen as many manatees out and about as she did yesterday with us. 

  Finally, it was time to make the plunge. The last time I had snorkeled was in...North Carolina?...don't totally remember where it was, actually; it was some vacation involving water with my family. And we snorkeled. But the point is, I hadn't done it for a while. 

  We climb down the ladder one at a time--Dave, Kevin, me, then Mindy. I have a few moments on the ladder where I feel the cold enveloping me and wonder if I can really do this. I decide that I didn't come out this far to just look at the manatees from a distance, so I jump all the way in. Then I dip my face in the water, snorkel keeping my air supply regular, and start to panic.

  Just a little.

  See, I am not a fish. I know, I know--big surprise. But it just isn't natural to breathe underwater. And at first it scared me. A lot. And I was doing this erratic breathing, sure that each one was my last and the water would start filling my lungs with the next breath. But that snorkel really does work--I kept breathing air and eventually started to relax and look like this:
  And with all the sporadic breathing and my heart beating quick and being so aware of the water and absolutely sure of myself not being in my element, I completely forgot why I was even there. Until, this guy came up beside me and startled me.
   See, manatees get up to 3500 pounds. That. Is. Huge. If fact, their closest relative in terms of mammals is the elephant--simply because they both never stop growing. And yes, those of you familiar with the fantastic comedy of Jim Gaffigan may have heard of them called the sea cow. This is because they are herbivores and mostly eat grass. They actually sort of sidle up to lawns and munch the grass, acting like a natural lawn mower. 

   I wish Drew and I could get one for our lawn.

  Anyway, since they are so huge, they have no natural predator; so they have never learned fear. They are curious about everything, and coupled with their very poor eye sight, they like to get up really close to you.  

  I had such a fun time with a baby. He swam up to me, getting really close, and then I started to stroke right behind his flipper (which is what Captain Jan had informed us that they really enjoy). This baby manatee started flipping over, exposing his white belly, and rolling like a puppy. It made me want to laugh, but Captain Jan had told us that noises do startle them, so I kept quiet. Plus I had that snorkel in my mouth, keeping me alive and quiet at the same time. I guess you could call it a win-win for both me and the manatees.  This baby would follow me around for a little bit, and kept wanting to relate to me, which I was only too happy to do.

  The manatee skin is really rough and thick and feels unlike anything I have ever felt before. Also, some of them had algae growing on their backs which schools of fish would munch on and make me want to laugh. But I didn't. Win-win situation, remember? 

  At one point, we went through this rocky tributary that led to this beautiful lagoon that looked like it could have been a scene from Lost. I felt like we were the only people who had ever been there before, and we sort of pretended this was true. It was also at this time that all three of my friends admitted to having peed in their wetsuits anywhere from 2-4 times. In fact, one of them even informed us in a matter-of-fact manner, I'm peeing right now.

  I hadn't known that this was a normal thing to do. In fact I still don't know if it is, but that gave me all the confidence I needed to just let it go. The five seconds of warmth was totally worth it. I'm just saying.

  We finally went back to our boat, and decided to just sit out on the edge of it, feet in the water, watching those gentle and kind manatees do their thing.  At first I was so cold, my body shivering so violently, that when I tried to hold my hot chocolate I spilled it everywhere. I simply could not hold my arm still. In an effort not to drench the boat in hot chocolate, I decided to save it for later.  

  But our time in the sun, on the boat, surrounded by kind and magical creatures, was truly something I will always carry with me. We all loved it. If you ever get a chance to swim with the manatees--please do. You will not be disappointed.  

  Oh, and once we docked we decided to use our vouchers that came with the charter for a nearby restaurant, Crackers (yep, there were jokes about that one, too). And I expanded my horizons by eating alligator. And I realize this is so cliche, but I have to agree--it does taste like chicken, like tough chicken. 

  We bought two underwater cameras which we used with gusto. I honestly wanted to take a picture of just about every little thing I saw--including one small and pretty fish that Dave kept me from capturing on film, saying, You really want me to take a picture of that fish that I am positive we can find with a simple google images search? 

  Oh, guess not. So, we mostly stuck to manatee shots--especially us with the manatees.

   It was truly a perfect day.