L'émoi passe et c'est toujours la même chose

The BB has taken on co-direction of my play this semester and the relief this brings is immeasurable. She is domineering and artless and her presence lends me substance like heels or weapons make a person more convincing. I am grateful beyond words for her power. I can whisper things to her at the desk and she will translate them into formidable orders no one dares defy and I need never raise my voice. She will deserve all the credit when we're done for though I can lift and paint and create and dream, I cannot shout, I cannot lead. I need a front man and there she is.




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RW is campaigning in a way that is meant to land us in Ireland in March. This interferes with other dreams but he is both insistent and persuasive.

I used to take this role with my ensemble as the one who sought and booked and confirmed and organized trips, but I have no idea what drove me then because it was not the love of the stage. It was something more competitive, which is - for me - rarely a motivator. For RW I sense the motivation is travel, spending St. Patrick's Day in Dublin, and not fame -- and maybe this is why I can tolerate him in the way I cannot tolerate a lot of performers.

In the theatre years ago I learned to breathe diaphragmatically, deeply to the core and refilling from the middle outward. There were many hours spent lying on the floor in those blackened spaces, hands to belly, in and out, listening to my breath and searching for my centre. At first there was frustration when I could not find it, much as I could never find a pulse in my wrist. It makes you wonder if you're dead. When I finally found that place I was so pleased... after that, I could always find it again in a moment with one inhalation -- and just like that, breath becomes steady. I count, I count, I still count. And these many years later I still sometimes count the depth of my breaths, picture the centre filling first when I feel I cannot get enough fresh air.

RW wants to go for tea -- and though I want tea more than I want to go to Ireland, it seems sensible to accept the first invitation if not the second. When the order comes up we take the wrong cups. He sips and tells me that my tea tastes like soap. (It has cardamom and ginger.) His tea is tepid, and mine is hot, hot enough to scald my tongue and the roof of my mouth. This is the way I want it. (It occurs to me to wonder why I seek extremes when the world is so completely filled with people who are fine with everything at room temperature.)





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