To Be Seen
All good things don’t necessarily end, they just change like the seasons. All of us are moving through our own summer, fall, spring, or winter; our own moments that we either hide from or face at 2 am when our minds are still or buzzing. Whatever change we are facing, I guarantee that we all have a story inside of us that is yearning to be told and heard.
I believe energy can neither be created nor destroyed, but it does change form. I remember that much from high school physics. I believe each moment is its own season and that all good things don’t have to end, they morph into something else. That brings me comfort.
Comfort when memories unfold like bullet points on a post-it note at 2 am.
2 am: a conundrum of wondering if sometimes we need to answer the call of a memory and be grateful for that moment in time, or move on by inhaling a memory and forcefully exhaling it into space.
Space concerns me when I plan ahead at 2 am–what will the spaces I need to move around look like as my seasons of illness change? Will I get to travel through different spaces on this plane? Will I sit in London’s Covent Garden again or walk along the Arc de Triomphe? I’m getting a bit tired.
Tired yes, but that’s when it’s time to remember to keep moving through this season because I believe we are not our own timekeepers, and each moment must unfold in order to have a new experience that 2 am reminds me I thirst for. A memory can do so much:
2001
There was heat. The two would-be lovers were close enough to taste each other's breath as Alma leaned in hungry for John’s lips–his seal of approval. His silent rejection of Alma an ache as he looked at her, exposed, vulnerable as I watched through the window, just out of sight where I would not be seen.
Sight lines Jonathan—crouch down a bit over my prompt book with script and list of lighting and sound cues. I sit in a booth out of sight as I stage manage a production of Summer and Smoke by Tennessee Williams in Loyola University’s Studio Theatre, watching the final scenes of a missed connection between two people unfold. Nina Simone’s “Wild Is The Wind” glides from the speakers:
“Love me, love me, love me, love me
Say you do
Let me fly away
With you”
The haunting piano chords brush the back of my neck with a feeling I don’t understand. Is it just the impact of the show or a memory that hasn’t yet happened?
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The Memory I Waited For–Sunday, July 10, 2022
A melancholy understanding unfolds as I write this having just returned from viewing a production of Summer and Smoke a few blocks away from the university. Nina Simone did not underscore the end scene onstage, but I felt the piano chords caressing my neck as I witnessed a missed connection between the would-be lovers onstage. The scene unfolded moment by moment and I watched as if I didn’t know the story, clutching my cane in the studio theater that reminded me of my stage managing days. I could hear Simone far away in my mind as I witnessed the hurt of not being seen. An ache. Not just Simone’s beautiful, sorrowful words and piano, but the need to be seen flowed through me. Alma’s story onstage, my story of morphing with illness–my experience with memories came rushing to me during curtain call. As I exited the theater, I felt my own summer of accepting and understanding that I may not know how my story will unfold, but the hot summer sun and breeze on my neck felt so good. I let myself enjoy that moment of learning to understand that we can’t stop time but only feel it; and that may be lonely, angry, sorrowful, joyful, but ultimately moments unfold. Life unfolds.
The city looked the same, a bit more modern, but the same overall. Only the people were gone. I can hear an early rehearsal from 2001 where I danced around the theater singing O-Town’s “All or Nothing” as I mopped the floor:
“It's not the way I choose to live
And something somewhere's got to give
As sharing this relationship
Gets older, older”
Oh did I mop that floor and put on a show at rehearsal as the mop turned into a microphone. I never pictured getting “older, older…”
I remember that moment with no sadness, only peace. Casts change, memories can blur, but one thing remains: if we’re lucky, really lucky, we remain open to listening to time and developing our relationship with ourselves in the present. I don’t know exactly what comes next, but I trust the seasons to help me flow. That’s why I was beckoned back in time—to hear a story that yearned to be told from the depths of my mind at 2 am.
Enjoying an iced coffee outside of Starbucks on Sheridan Road in Chicago after seeing “Summer Smoke” Jonathan people watches with his mosaic style cane.
