A Refresher Course in Friendship and Life

I was delighted yesterday when I got a text message or an email or something that informed me that I didn't have to attend rehearsal. I was delighted because it meant that I could go see Uncle Vanya by Utah Shakespeare in the Park. The show was amazing, and so was the feeling of coming home. It was summer again, with my makeshift family in the basement of the HFAC smiling, hugging, cracking jokes in thick Russian accents. And it rolled over me-- the immensity of what I have gained.

Kat and Jordan and Jackie came over and, after an interior design party, we all watched Thumbelina on the newly rearranged couch. The familiarity was so comforting that I resolved to sleep in my own bed last night (let me explain the significance: when I get very lonely, I sleep on the couch in front of the TV. For some reason it makes me feel secure and important. I have been sleeping on the couch for a week, and my bed has been turned into a giant catch-all. the visit from Kat and Jordan and Jackie effectively banished my loneliness to the extent that I was willing to clear away the detritus and sleep in my own bed) . So I stayed up a few minutes later, changed my sheets, and was about to crawl under the covers when I decided that I should thank the Lord for this small but significant achievement. So I knelt to pray.

It wasn't extraordinary. It was short and sincere. but I had the strangest feeling- it was as if I had been screaming for weeks and weeks, screaming with my whole being, tirelessly straining against the infinite silence. During this prayer the feeling dissipated. It was replaced with an understanding of Heavenly Father's patience and His love for me.

I have never doubted. I read C.S. Lewis's A Grief Observed this week, and it's largely about how he felt abandoned by God after the death of his wife, Joy, and how he found his way back to faith. But I never felt that way. When my mom died we turned immediately to God for comfort. He has yet to fail me. I am ever surprised by His ability to console and His willingness to forgive and uplift.

I have never doubted (except myself).

How can I be doing so well one minute and floundering the next?

I just got this great job as a substitute teacher. I work for Kelly Educational Staffing, which supplies the Provo School District with subs. I have worked two days. I think it's too much for me to handle, but I don't want to quit because I need the money and Kelly needs employees. I only have to stick it out until December. It seems so far away from here. I purposefully left my phone in my car so I wouldn't have to answer a call if I got one this morning.

I'm about to fail my English class, which wouldn't bother me (seriously, I've been failing classes for the last 9 years. No big.) except that I would have to take it yet again, which would be attempt number four. I just wanna pass this stupid class.

I can't get excited for She Stoops. I mean, I am excited because I know the show is going to be great, but I can't be excited about my part yet. This bothers me. It's totally diva. I don't want to be a diva. I want to be agreeable and easy to work with. I want to learn from this experience. I want to work really hard and I want to create something worth watching. I suppose all of this will happen in time. I just have to find a way to fall in love with my character.

I don't much like it when someone tells me to enjoy life, as if that is the magic end-all that will put my sufferings into perspective and snap me out of this awful funk. I certainly believe that there is always something to be grateful for, always some sample of love to be relished. In every bad situation there is the possibility for immense good. I just think it cheapens the significant experiences of life when I just enjoy every minute of it. I would rather celebrate the cadence of life- its rises, its pitfalls, its exhilarating unpredictability. Sadness can be rich, deep, and full. Happiness should expand and breathe and thrive. Love will be glimpsed, lost, and sometimes overwhelming.

I don't have to be happy to be truly alive.

~~~

Recorded 10/28/10

Epic like The Fellowship of the Bard, The Two Bards, The Return of the Bard

Sometimes in the stillness between thoughts, I am overcome with bitter sadness. It's heavy and ugly and mean. It suffocates the light right out of me. Between breath and heartbeat, I am enshrouded in impossible melancholy.

And then it's gone.

The earth turns, a breeze picks up, and I am left with traces of this great evil, shadowy fingerprints around my heart, all over my mind.

I think I realized today, in the wake of darkness, what I had in Romeo and Juliet. Its preciousness shone clearly, and I wept "for such a feeling loss."

I have always wanted to be a part of something wonderful, something immense, something immortal. I think Romeo and Juliet was my chance-- the lives that were shaped and the souls that poured in and the sunset behind us each night and the friendships forged and the slow change in the seasons and the hundreds of people whose paths crossed with ours. There won't be anything like it for a long time, if ever again.

I should have savored every second of it.

But here I am, suddenly alone in my room, struggling against residual despair and longing to be back among such glorious people, creating something worth remembering.

We held on to it, back when we could feel the end looming over us. The depth of the love and the warmth of that party at Anne's house staved off the encroaching darkness for a little while. We were a family for a few perfect hours.

I really wish we had taken a cast photo.

Everyone is asking me what my next project is, what I'm doing now, or when they can come see my next show. The nature of theatre is much more life-like than film; a show grows and progresses, then fades and essentially dies. By the natural progression of things, I must let this project die and move on.

I think I will always be haunted by Romeo and Juliet, much as one never forgets the potency of a first true love. Years from now, when I happen upon the script in a move, when I go to my daughter's high school production, or receive an unexpected phone call from Kat or Benji or Meg, I will feel the amber glow of this summer chase away the shadows.

I will smile sadly.

And I will be thankful then, as I am now, to have been right in the thick of something wonderful, something immense, something immortal.

USIP RandJ - picture slideshow

~~~

Recorded 9/13/10

"Walking the Last Bridge Alone"

I mentioned earlier that I felt better.


That was before.


Actually, I'm worse now than I was last semester.
...


Yeah.
...

So.
...

...

Meg asked me tonight, "What's your problem?" And I sobbed and said, "I don't know."


I don't know what my problem is. I don't know why it's getting worse. I'm sure I would if I thought about it, but I don't want to think about it. I don't want to start poking around only to discover that it's far worse than I thought and I'll never be cured and I'll live my life NOT as a lobsterman's wife, but as some poor, crazy sap at a loony bin who never finds love and then escapes to collect grocery bags into a stolen cart and scream at people when they get too close to her corner.


There is something seriously wrong with my mind.

Perspective

Surer footing. That's what this summer has changed the most; somewhere among the washed-out parking lot jam sessions, picnic lunches, and late night conversations, I think I have finally felt that indescribable sense of self awareness that gives purpose and meaning to life.

When my mom died almost two years ago, I fell apart. No, that's not quite right. It's like I split in half. Or was pared down, the most complex parts of me sloughed off, dissolved away. I was left with a poor imitation of the thing I'd lost. I became, out of necessity, some form of a mother to my friends, my siblings, my dad, myself. And that was fine. Sarah-lucy says that's where I needed to be. I think, though, that I've grown out of that. I don't know whether it's because I've begun to heal... I have a hard time believing that I don't need a mother anymore. Whatever the reason, whatever the origin of this growth, I am ready to move on.

I need to live on my own. I need to be in an environment where I don't feel responsible for the emotional well-being of everyone around me. Now that I've grown accustomed to sweet independence (not just a lack of curfew, but the true, rich, blessed freedom that comes from a sure center), I have to hold on to that, cultivate it. Therein lies the way to restoration, to reparation.

I feel better.

I'm still an emotional wasteland who misses her mom, but I feel closer now to the person I want to be (someone loving and trusted and delightfully complex and confident and brimming with potential) than I have felt in years.

~~~

Recorded 8/21/10

Out of the Dark

If you're wondering what I've been doing with my summer, the answer is this:




You should come see it because it's wonderful and it just might change your mind about Shakespeare or about life.

Also, I've been discovering my path, probing my fate, searching for that something that will lead me to the fulfillment of all my dreams. But seriously, I've been growing up.

Apartment hunting. It makes me feel mature. It makes me feel scared. It makes me feel like I can't wait to leave this place, but how could I ever go?

I have to remind myself that moving out does not equal betrayal, and that everyone will be a bit better off with me not in the house.

I have to remember that I can always come back for Sunday dinner, and that I can still take the girls out for movie nights and such.

And I have to think about how much I will grow, and how that will better qualify me to raise my own family when it's my turn.

So.

With the remainder of my summer, I'll be tapping in to my core and illuminating my future.

Hobey ho, let's go...

Twenty-One Going On Three

An inexplicable sadness washed over me this morning as I cruised State Street on my way home from rehearsal. You see, there was this awkward moment after I said goodbye to Meg when we ended up walking the same way to our cars. For some reason, I was unable to find anything intelligent to say. I ended up babbling about Sub Zero ice cream and the summer heat.

Meg is so grown up, so mature, so personable, so very much a woman. I, on the other hand, am awkward and juvenile. I still love Disney movies with all my heart; my favorite band is Hanson; I tend to watch movies over and over again; I live in a state of immediacy, concerned with my immediate future and feelings; I find it hard to express myself, and therefore spend much of my time being frustrated. All things I associate with childishness. By the next light, my mind had drawn a vivid parallel to a small child imagining that she is a mother, cradling her baby doll, smothering it with sticky-faced kisses, placing it gently in her own bed and insisting that it sleep. Then, satisfied, she toddles off to her plastic kitchen to place pizzaappleburgercorn in the oven for "some bites".

I have been playing at adulthood. I have created this life for this version of myself who yearns to live abroad and to really make her mark, but I live at home, safe in my bed with my teddy bear and my Harry Potter books on tape. The whole situation was punctuated, perhaps, by how deeply I was touched by Toy Story 3 and how out of place I felt at Jenn's bridal shower; my thoughts neatly illustrated by the day's events.

I really honestly feel like I've been living a lie. The sadness and the horror and the loneliness of such an epiphany seized me, and my confidence died. Today I grieve for myself, for the person I was, the person I thought I had become. I am alone and uncertain, stripped of my identity. Square one. It's time to set out to find me again.

What I don't understand is why I feel this way. Why should one failed conversation mean that this collection of personality traits and habits and interests I've carefully cultivated is irrelevant? How can one insignificant moment shatter my reality so thoroughly? Why should I doubt myself and my progress over the years? I was finally sure. Do I question my confidence, or do I scrap it and start all over?

I'm really glad that tomorrow is Sunday. I always seem to feel better, securely anchored after a good church session. I'm grateful that I always have something to fall back on, somewhere to start afresh when I need to.

I used to feel that looking for synonyms in a thesaurus was like lying, that my writing wasn't honest if I had to consult one to find an appropriate word. I've come to realize, however, that the thesaurus is an opportunity for growth. I use words that feel good, words with which I can really connect and relate. The thesaurus enables me to speak my mind, maybe a little more eloquently than I otherwise would have been able to.

"Soul n. 1. [Essential nature] spiritual being, heart, substance, individuality, disposition, cause, personality, force, essence, genius, principle, ego, psyche, life. 2. [the more lofty human qualities] courage, love, honor, duty, idealism, art, poetry, sense of beauty 3. [a person] human being, person, being."

"Hope n. 1. [reliance on future] faith, expectation, confidence."

"Experience v. undergo, feel, live through; see ENDURE."

~~~

Recorded 6/26/10

I -Wish- My Teeth Were That White

This is what I just wrote for my Romeo and Juliet bio:

"Aubrey is excited to be making her Shakespearean debut with Utah Shakespeare in the Park. She's a junior in UVU's theatre program who loves Hanson and aspires to have a working cell phone.

Some of Aubrey's previous, less Bard-ish roles include Little Becky Two Shoes inUrinetown; Fantine and Mme. Thenardier in Les Mis; Alice, the miserable ghost in The Secret Garden; Mrs. Smythe in A Christmas Carol; a manic, borderline dissociative identity cast member in Holiday Night Live; and myriad nameless ensemble characters. She wants to thank her daddy for shelling out gas money and otherwise being incredibly supportive."

I don't know why writing about myself in bio format is so hard. I guess I just always feel the need to be clever, entertaining, or funny, which is difficult when I'm just rhyming off past credits. I feel okay about this one, though.

I feel okay about a lot of things. Shelli and I finally made up, Jess and I finally made up, I'm only eighteen pounds away from my goal weight, I'm finally making money, I just saw a super racist anti-littering PSA from the 60s, Kyle bought me Shout It Out, it's summer, etc. etc.

Summer.

Camp.

That's right, folks, I am now officially 1/5 of the way through the inaugural Noorda (star!) Summer Camp.

Umm..

Um..

I really don't have much more to say about it, except this: it's fun, it's great, it's wonderful, it's my dream job, it makes me exhausted, and I think a month is just long enough.

So...

Okay, there is one thing. You see, there are seventeen characters in the show I'm ASMing. Unfortunately, we only have 14 children in the cast, so Jeremy asked if I would step in and take on two roles, except that there was no asking involved, and I can't exactly say no because this is my job. It wouldn't be a big deal (it isn't actually a big deal) if I didn't have another show that I was trying to memorize

Other than that, though, I feel pretty okay about it. Also, I used this camp as an excuse to buy some delicious and nutritious snacks, about which I feel okay. :)

Summer is the best.

Yay!

I just got my Romeo and Juliet script! Whoo! Well, I guess now I know what to do with all of this work out energy. :3

Of course, it might take an hour to print all 39 pages since our nice fax machine ran out of toner and we're using a dinosaur of an inkjet.

Time to break out the highlighter.

:D

Briefly

I was cast as the nurse in Romeo and Juliet!

Whoo!

This is my first real part in a Shakespeare show, it's kind of a huge deal to me, and I couldn't be more excited! My therapist will be happy to hear that I have something to work toward. I'm SO HAPPY that I have something to work toward. Someone thinks I'm talented! That means so much to me!

It's a-fixin' to be a good summer.

:)