May 10, 2007

Burst forth, my tears, assist my forward grief - Anonymous text set to song by John Dowland (1562-1626)

Today I spent the better part of the day as a peripheral participant in the funeral of my best friend's mother. Her passing was unexpected and unique in the way all deaths are unexpected and unique and leave us wondering how the body can be brimming and then so quickly empty and become inanimate. The passage of years have inscribed in their path the commonplace reactions to the point that we find comfort in their repetition, but not today.

I did not really know her, but as I stood bathed in the waves of grief pouring out of her husband of nearly half a century, I found myself grieving alongside him. At first I dismissed my tears as simple empathy, but as I thought about it some more, I had one of those small epiphanies that seem to be part of the meagre benefits of old age: Though I truly could feel the pain of the widower, I was grieving forward: Grieving for my own death as well as the death of my own beloved, grieving for the death of my son, hopefully far in the future but nonetheless awaiting him as his birthright, grieving for the loss of this breathtakingly beautiful New England spring day that will be no longer as night descends.

As I was heading back into town to meet one of my clients, I could not shake the sadness of my realization, so instead of doing the responsible thing, I did the right thing and went home to my wife. I needed to feel her alive against me and cheat death for one more day.

I've been meaning to write about this for a while... since Saturday, actually.

My theatre group has finished touring its one act play 'Rites of Fire'. We'd performed in some pretty squished-for-size venues before, but our last performance took the cake. Tent-style.

We performed in a fairly large circus style tent. The floor, at least, was carpeted, but you try dancing on carpet. Plus, a recent rain shower soaked the tent wall directly behind us, so when we stood against the wall it was like walking into a shower curtain. Ew.

Plus, the stage smelt like sheep.

The performance went off well, despite these and other minor hitches. Our audience loved us, and we all felt.. fulfilled afterwards.

After much discussion we all decided to head to the local pizza restaurant for the after party. We were all high on adrenaline and were noisy as only teenagers can be.

I daresay we irritated a fair few of the restaurant's more refined clientele.

We were celebrating a fantastic run. I acquired a wine bottle full of water, which one of our actors tipped gleefully upon the head of one of our other actors. There were 'how many pieces of pizza can I stuff into my mouth at once?' contests, there were funny and flirty photo shoots by the dozen. We laughed our heads off and acted like we were absolutely stonkered afterwards.

I guess we were, in a way.

my little brother just said to me "savannah, i need more lists of stupid shit to do." he's the ringleader of some form of pathetic gang of cyberpunks, because my kid brother is actually *shudders* pop-ular. somehow.

"on fridays we always get together and do stupid shit, but they're not like, creative, so they make me think of it."

my immeadiate response was "dude, everything2!"

eleven pages. eleven.