Oscar Wilde
Huh.
I was reminded of these words by an online posting from a former theatre alum. .... a failed experiment in my life if ever there was one... time to time i'll peruse whatever technological means of voyeurism are at my disposal to check in on the whereabouts of bygone classmates and comrades... out there in the world... most of them (ok, mostly all, damnit.) plying their trade... hoofin' it in shoestring theatres... street corners, renaissance fairs, college classrooms... waiting tables or bartending or the million other plus things one must do in the meantime when one is waiting for their "big break"..... paychecks and pittance... but Passion!! Passion!!! ...
and at times i get a bit wistful... a rogue streak of envy seeps in... ahhhh.. la vie boheme.... so colorful and free... and yet. i must remind myself...
I was a Terrible ACTOR.
Seriously.
If ever there was one.
so enamored of the stage at such a young point in life.... when I was 4 I told my parents that I wished to be an orphan.. Why? because after many viewings of a certain red-headed tramp and her parent-less companions traipsing the halls of a rundown depression-era building with a bathtub-gin-stinking mistress as its' guide... it was clear to me - as it should've been to everyone else... Orphans get to go thru life singing & dancing... every life's banality and circumstance fertile ground for yet another sing-along and clapping of metrical toes.... the lessons were clear!!! your life force, your chi, your joie de vivre was far too grand and toe-tapping, too fay, raucous and whimsical to be contained in the pages of ordinary life!!! to confine such spirit to the auspices of a bourgeois nuclear unit would mean death, stifling, stagnant decay.. but the freewheeling halls of musical bliss in the hands of a devil-may-care noontime drunk in an unfortunate wig - now This - this was the spot for me. i had found my true north. patent-leather shoes now pointed firmly in that direction & ready to bid my bemused parents adieu and seek refuge in my new glorious claptrap home.
the orphan. all-singing. all-dancing. taking this great big pot of putrid lemons and making a scintillating cocktail of well-spiked lemonade. here Here!!!
astonishingly similar to the life i might've signed on for full-time - the underpaid artist - the romance of living from one unemployment check to the next.... never knowing where your next burst of inspiration (or income) might spring from.... the world... your ever-loving rag-tag oyster... bare bones & passion, baby. Bare Bones.
and i've made a trade-off, it's true. to the untrained eye my life would appear utterly ordinary, sedate, suburban, serene & settled... a slightly spiced-up version of a familiar recipe from the pages of ladies' home journal.. or good housekeeping... my world perhaps nothing more than a friggin' tuna noodle casserole.
So Be It.
perhaps this go-around i've not been slated for the stage... my particular truths not to be revealed to a paying audience behind the veneer of plastic & foam...stagepaint & falsetto... cloak & dagger... lipstick & iambic pentameter.... poetry & lamplight..... bravado & boxsteps....oh my.
and maybe it smacks of absurdity to say it (but say it i shall - anyway...) ... but life has handed me some other bits of covering.. a hat or two.. darest i say a mask..... of motherhood... wife... child.... scribbler.... unbeknownst poet... singer of lullabies & living room torch songs.... incessant tapper of toes.... shakin' my ever-loving bootie in the kitchen as that damn casserole sets on the stove.. ...
yogi. or some semblance thereof. learning to work with my hands, grow food, paint, write... sand wood, stain furniture, dig weeds, & change a million stinky diapers.. and all manner of things i never imagined for this one long & glorious life...
an orphan.... vanquished from my former art-as-life-and-sustenance tribe.... but i hold this still in my heart....
it's never too late to be a red-headed orphan.. i believe... dye your head with the cheapest box of henna you can find.. stain your hands while doing it... mix up your own batch of bathtub gin - or just a strong cup of coffee - and get back to the business of singing & dancing - every single damn day, if you choose - though maybe no one is watching...
you don't need a mask to tell the truth... just maybe a sturdy set of ankles & some flexible toes - to step into the shoes life's handed you - maybe several pairs deep - and DAnCe....... cuz really ... you're as free as you want to be... life's capricious headgear notwithstanding... i am slowly crafting my own great megaphone...... sidling up to it and whispering... gusts... beginning to blow.... and one 'a these days... anytime now really... a song.... so sweet & un-sublimated... is gonna start to roll....
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