Thinking Willy-Nilly

Spurred on by the comment of my long-time-not-seen Mother-in-law, I write before retiring to bed. At least this time it's my own bed.

Ah, and casting for Seven Brides for Seven Brothers is complete! So now if I am beset by theatrical images, they have faces and bodies to them. I can finally begin mental blocking, which I then run by my better half. And I mean the good kind of mental blocking, not the mental blocking that means things are gummed up and unmoving, but in fact the blocking that means I know exactly where everyone and everything will go. I outline their traffic patterns and reasons for said traffic patterns.

Muad'Dib is dangerously right: I'm going to enjoy this.

Part of me doesn't want to. Part of me is holding on with both hand and all ten fingernails to the Sayyadina that came home from "Into the Woods," hung up her theater shoes and just was. At home with my children, keeping up the house; staying within walking distance from my own front door . . . these are the things I want to hang on to. I was released from all the garbage that overwhelmed me last winter and spring. I was unshackled from the drama of the theater. I was looking forward to more home and more family and more children.

And now . . . the TheaterGeek inside is scrambling for secure footing in my head. As well it should be, seeing as The Husband and I are co-directors, and I'm the only one between the two of us who has done it before.

I have noticed in the past two weeks that I have lost a part of myself. It's a small part - but I have begun to miss it. I used to be a ListMaker. You know: To Do, To Buy, To Bake, Gifts, To Clean, To Pack, etc. Any process that could be made faster and clearer by having a list laid out before hand HAD a list. And then, as we were gearing up for Auditions I noticed that I had not the slightest inclination to list.

I then sat down and TRIED to list. It was very difficult. After a few minutes, holding my head between my hands, staring down at the lined paper of a purple notebook thinking "Where do I start?" I realized that I was unable. I remembered that I was once able, and was no longer so.
Over the aforemeantioned two weeks, I have attempted lists numerous times - just today, in fact - to little avail. It is much like trying to break an egg by squeezing it in your hand. Or like walking through a maze while hungry and dehydrated. You know there's a rhyme and reason to the twists and turns - or that there could be if you thought about it hard enough - but you're so miserable, you don't give a damn. You just want to sit down and - dude.

I apologize for the "dude," but it really fits my brain right now.

My infamous "Give-up Attitude" is not gone! It's still here! I wonder that perhaps it always has been.

No . . . I was not a "Give-up"-er my entire life. Were that so, I would not have ever been a singer, dancer, college student, good cook or good daughter. Or good wife or have well behaved children. No, this is a new-ish malady.

It's likely that the give-up attitude is directly linked to my weight, in which case I do not desire to further discuss it. In fact, I am now going to abandon this thought process altogether.

Except that in doing so, I shut off my mind from the free flow of inspired thought. And still I choose to keep it that way. So I will go to bed as I have been advised and try not to think of these things anymore.

No; not to think of possibly being over-run by TheaterGeek. not think of being a "give-upper" or an "Issue Skirt-er." Nor will I dwell on my being the "Dream Breaker" as I'm sure I was for some people while casting.

I just have too many thoughts I don't want to have. And the thoughts I do want to have and DO want to write about keep getting shoved violently aside, bombarded and trampled over by all the other yuck that I have taken in over the last few weeks like unaware shoppers on Black Friday.

Perhaps I always will need Theater. Sitting before my laptop, thinking that thought - I let out a low whine like a dog. How do my posts become so terribly personal like this? I suppose it has been quite a while, actually, since most of you were invited willy-nilly into my brain and heart, to be lost along the routes that my thoughts travel from one to the other.

Well, I guess then for those of you who missed these "Wonka Factory" type explorations, you will be pleased by my vulnerability and unwillingness to really see myself - and the opportunity that this give you to see me so clearly. From so far away.

And those of you who just skipped to the bottom of the post hoping to see pictures because the blog itself looked dangerously wordy: you were right to do so.

Good night.