The title of this post would make a good country song, but that is so not the point...
It is day two and I am already feeling the pressure to deliver.
My issue today is focus. I have so many thoughts going on, but I need to reign it in. Writing when feeling divinely uninspired equals no fun.
BUT...I gotta give the people what they want! (FALSE - This is for ME, not YOU.)
Today I had the fortune of seeing my very favorite play...which happens to also be the play I directed for my senior capstone in college. Dinner with Friends by Donald Margulies. It is also the last thing I directed...almost two years ago. Glad all those student loans are being put to good use, ma?
But that subject is too much of a drag for this cold weather. Don't worry, we'll get there...
Dinner with Friends is the story of two couples who have been friends for many years. One couple (Karen and Gabe) introduced the other (Tom and Beth). The play starts with Beth telling Karen and Gabe that she and Tom are getting a divorce. What follows is tumultuous. It is about what happens to couples, to friends when life intervenes. I think this is something we all know too well. I remember vividly the day I first encountered Dinner with Friends...and looking back it is kind of apropos of the subject for today's entry...I'm getting there! Get off my back!
So...it was my sophomore year of college, and my roommate was directing a cutting of the play. We had talked briefly about it, but I possessed zero context. It was a Tuesday...and her cutting was part of what Webster called ETs (which stood for Every Tuesday...even though we did not have them Every Tuesday...). That Sunday I had gone through a break up...my first real one. And it blind sided me. And I knew I was going to be seeing him that day at the ET. And one must look their best when seeing an ex. I wore an oatmeal colored sweater (which is still in my dresser) and brown pants (which I never do!) and I started styling my hair a new way...I know you are all riveted. I was nervous, but my dear friend Emily (the friend I would call if I had killed someone and need help burying the body) picked me up and we went to the grocery story to get flowers or something for a friend who was performing that day.
What is the point?
Well...in the car she gave me a silly book called Friends Love You Warts and All. It was a very sweet, entirely unnecessary gift, but so welcomed.
Connections. Connections.
In the second act of Dinner with Friends things have reached a very precarious point. Karen...my favorite character and the one I most identify with (she is my girl!) says:
"I spent the first twenty years of my life doing whatever the hell I could to get away from my family and spent the next twenty years trying to cobble together a family of my own."
Heavy shit, right? Well when I directed it I had an inkling of what that meant. I thought it was beautiful and I got it (in my head). I had traveled abroad, I had gone through four years of college and formed some very intense bonds. But 2013 really illuminated that phrase.
As previously stated, 2013 knocked me on my ass. The end of the year was kind of the pellet on top of a big pile o' turds. My trip home to visit my family was, to put it mildly, not great. I was aware of how I fit less...in a way I had never felt. And it was HARD. Don't get me wrong. I love them very much, but so much has happened in my life that they were not fully a part of. So much has happened to me and for me.I am still trying to work it all out.
While I was home that line of Karen's kept on ringing in the back of my head. It just wouldn't go away.
While 2013 sucked eggs, one thing it made me aware of (and is already apparent in 2014) is the community I have been gifted with. This time last year I was without that. And people came through; old friends, new friends. We are making each other our family.
And I must say that I find that exhilarating.
This post rambled...a lot. But that's okay. 2014 is about many things...one of them being apologizing less.
This wasn't as poignant as I was hoping...but I am seldom as poignant as I would like to be.
you might appreciate this:
ReplyDelete“Blood is thicker than water”, when used in the context of family over friends, is in fact a wildly incorrect bastardisation.
The true, full quote is “The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb,” and refers to relationships forged by choice holding deeper meaning than those of mere biology." (http://fluffmugger.tumblr.com/post/51297352858/random-fact-of-the-day)