February 1st, 2003 - 6.42 pm
I was at Thompson Valley today, judging their forensics meet. Which in and of itself really isn't that weird, but it was weird for me to be at Thompson Valley on February 1st. Weird because I don't belong there anymore. Weird because I have this whole other life now that goes so far past Thompson Valley. Weird because five years ago today, Tia died.
I woke up this morning thinking to myself, "Five years. Five years is a really freaking long time." And I found myself humming "the Songs" like Paula Cole's I Don't Want to Wait.
(I was in the funeral home, standing apart from everyone seeing Tia's hair and nothing else, and hearing that song, thinking, this is so inappropriate. Then, a few months later, being at her parents house, and finding that CD in there, unopened. I wonder sometimes what happened to that CD)
or Don McLean, American Pie.
(We sat in Dom's basement in a circle at a cast party singing that song. Because it's so long and silly and tradition. Then, that day, "February made me shiver" and I felt like maybe that was the day the music died.)
or this song from A Chorus Line, What I Did for Love
("Kiss today goodbye, the sweetness and the sorrow." The TV Singers sang that at her funeral. We were supposed to call it a celebration, but we all knew what it was.)
That was how I started my day.
Once I got to the school, I was really OK. I mean, I sort of found myself acting like I was not just on an even keel but above that. I know I do that sometimes, start above an emotional level, because then, if I do dip, then I'll still be in an OK range.
And the strange thing was, as the day wore on, I was still feeling OK. I didn't really get down. I was kept so busy, that I didn't have time. And, I think, I didn't really want to go there.
But then, Zac and I decided we wanted to go to the theatre. So we wrangled some keys and walking in that door was like a punch. Because it was so different, and yet so much the same. The musty smell of the curtains was gone, because they got new curtains. The wall, that used to be a horrific pale green was a stately gray, but the feeling was the same. My steps were sure and certain, because I know every inch of that stage
(Sitting on the couch is where I found out. Where Mr. Leonard, Ms. Shaw and Mr. Black found us, me Zac and Brooklynne, and finally Zac told me)
I remembered sets of old, the first time I set foot on that stage
(auditions for the student shows my freshman year. . .jesus. 6 years ago. Terrified, trembling, but I was sure loud!)
remembered the last time I left that stage
(Curtain call, A Mid-Summer Night's Dream. My scream that night was a mixture of sheer joy and the saddest moment of my life.)
remembered the strike of The Unsinkable Molly Brown
(The "ghost" of Loretta Burns showed up. That one exit sign, in the balcony stage right still flickers)
remembered the first time I climbed that horrifying ladder
(strike for those first student shows. So scary!)
Thought about all the time we spent there that we weren't required to
(Zac talking to me about Muffy, being with Adam, and Dom and Megan waiting for pizza, and Adam swearing that if the next person who walked in the door didn't have pizza he was going to kill them with his chains. Sitting in a big circle after a long night of tech attacking a pizza and laughing until we were hoarse)
I went into those tiny, yellow dressing rooms, and ran my fingers over the bricks. Names and shows, laughter and tears, sweat and blood, and enough hairspray to have singlehandedly created the hole in the ozone layer, one too many sticks of incense and times playing Bohemian Raphsody.
(Zac sitting on the end of the counter, palepalepale, all of us huddled in there so no administrators would find us and kick us out, back to class, back to the world that hadn't stopped for us)
And I cried. For all the good times, for all the bad. For all the hours and seconds and the ghosts of those memories that will stay there forever. I don't think that theatre will ever be an empty place for me. And when I walked to the edge of center stage
(Where Andy was pushed off and broke his arm.) I felt a sadness in my chest and a lightness, knowing I'm not the 15 year old that I was.
