Back later this week

or, Death Refuses to Take a Holiday

This past week, I worked a bunch on a draft for a followup to this post, about narrativizing experience:

I wanted to talk about how sometimes, when that natural ability to storytell our intense experiences into manageable narratives gets twisted, or beaten down, or ignored, it comes out in less helpful ways that sometimes lead to the kinds of behavior that hurt us in the first place.

It’s all in the draft. It’s coming, I swear.

This week, though, a third member of the larger theatre community died suddenly. And folks…it’s just a lot.

I hope to tell the story I wanted to tell later this week. For tonight, I just want to say: hold your loved ones close. Do that thing with them, make that phone call even though phone calls are hard. Do the show. I just got done doing a show, and even though it was super tough getting through the run with everything going on, I’m still glad I did it. Honestly, I’ve never really regretted doing a show, even when I was exhausted, even if the material was shit, even if some people involved were insufferable, even if I was insufferable. There’s something about it, when you’re into theatre. If you know, you know.

And if you don’t know: what do you have in your life that’s like that? What lights you up? Doesn’t matter what it is. Music, romance novels, chemistry, trains, stamp collecting, houseplants, Russian, pet rats. Do the thing. Move toward the thing that feels good, if you can find what feels good.

And if you can’t find what feels good: wait. Please wait, and hold tight.