Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

A week ago this evening my wife and I braved the cold to drive to Riverwalk Theatre in Lansing.  I tried out for the part of Macbeth - one of the great roles in classical theater.  I had studied the script, let my pretty much all-gray hair grow out, pumped up a bit to add some musculature to my lanky frame, and practiced standing and moving without my patented slouch.  I read well and did my best to generate at least a little spark of sexual tension with the sometimes much younger women reading for Lady Macbeth.  (My favorite tryout moment came when a stone-gorgeous young woman in her mid-20's approached me before we read and asked, sotto voce, "Is it all right if I touch you?"  I mumbled out some mature response, but inside I was thinking, "Is this a trick question?")  I found out later in the week that I got the part.  Yippee!

Holy crap!

All I need to do between now and March 26 is learn a butt-load of lines, attend rehearsals five nights a week, learn the choreography for then practice five stage fights (at least I get to kill four others before the worrrrthy Macduff takes my head for a trophy), continue to pump up, and, maybe, get the old dye job on the noggin.  I also have to overcome my fear of "going up" (forgetting lines) on stage, something I never used to worry about when I was younger and the lines stuck easier.

So why do I do it?  Because I love it.  There are certainly times in my life when I question whether what I'm doing is in integrity with my personal mission, whether I am putting positive energy into the universe or just getting by, whether I am living life with bliss or waiting to do so at a later, more convenient or less scary,  time.  But when I am preparing for and acting in a production, especially one like "Macbeth" in which I will get to push myself to the limits of my talent in order to forge a visceral connection with the audience, I don't question any of this.  I know this undertaking is right and I am delighted to do it.

Back in 1992, when I was 38 years old, I returned to acting after several years away from it.  With the then recent death of my mother, the break up of my first marriage, financial and career reversals, and back-to-back physical relocations sending me reeling, it was a delicious treat to rediscover this pastime that had been lost.  It was a great balm to sooth all the loss I had experienced.  At the time I thought it provided me with something else as well - a chance to let my young daughters see me doing something that made me happy, and by seeing that know that it was okay for them to do the same.  In some respects I'm sure it did.  But looking back at it now I understand that the chance to see me happy and present with myself didn't mean as much to them as I thought it would.  They would rather I had spent more time with, and been happier and more present with, them.  I understand this now, even if I misjudged their needs then.

But regardless of the uneven steps that brought me here to this "bank and shoal of time," I now get to immerse myself in a crazy, passionate, challenging undertaking "tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" until April 5.  It will be an experience, as Mr. Shakespeare says, "full of sound and fury," but not, as he also says, one "signifying nothing."  At least not for me.

Masks and Creativity

In the last few years of his life my dad wrote what he called his "non-poems."  He called them that because he was not a poet, he was a structural steel draftsman.  It wasn't his place to write poetry, so he wrote "non-poetry."  From time to time he would recite one or a few lines from one to me.  It was only after his death in late 2006 that I found his whole "non-poetry" oeuvre.  Some of them were sprinkled with his unique brand of humor, "Grandpa Humor" my daughters called it.  Consider this short one: "Some people say I'm indecisive, but I don't know if I am or not."  But others showed a sadness behind the humor, as did "The Mask" which I reproduce below in his own hand:

Although my dad had friends and family, he spent much of his time in solitude.  In many ways he enjoyed this solitude, but "The Mask" showed that he was fiercely lonely, too, and in many ways afraid to show what he felt to those of us who loved him so much.  If you were to have asked me about him I would have told you my dad was introspective, aloof in many ways, and an only child who turned into an old fart who liked his privacy and space.  Shows you what I knew.  

My dad's "non-poems" also showed that behind another mask he wore - that of skilled, old-school draftsman (no CAD for him) - there lived a strong urge to be creative.  Not just to experience creativity of others, but to create something of his own.  In his wonderful book, "Creativity: Where the Divine and the Human Meet,"  theologian and spiritual rabble-rouser Matthew Fox writes: "To speak of creativity is to speak of profound intimacy.  It is also to speak of our connection to the Divine in us and of bringing the Divine back to community."

In one respect I guess that my own creativity is more apparent than my dad's.  I speak and write and act on stage and share all of this with my family, friends, and community, if not the world at large.  Tonight, for instance, I will try out for the role of Macbeth in the upcoming production of Shakespeare's classic at Riverwalk Theatre in Lansing, Michigan.  If I get the part, the product of my creativity will be evident for many to see and not tucked away in a notebook (like my dad's "non-poems").  But here's the thing.  The act of creation is a very private and as Fox says, "intimate" thing.  From a cosmic perspective, my dad's using the energy of the universe to create his "non-poems" is no different from my using that energy to create a character on stage.  In each case, the act of creation is, it seems to me, a form of prayer, an act of great reverence for the eternal and the transcendent, a small nod of thanks to the entity, the force, the ever present energy (it's okay, you can call it God) that has for whatever purpose, grand or random, loaned this spark of energy to us.  Now, I also think it's true that by sharing our creativity with others we have a great opportunity to spread and magnify the energy inherent in our creation.  But that is a subject for another day and another post.  No need to get too bogged down in philosophical reflections when I need to be preparing for auditions.  As my dad said in another of his "non-poems":

"Life isn't all that complicated, as long as you don't let something jump up and bite you in the ass."

Well, there you go.

Hold on Loose

Back 34 years or so ago, my college economics professor hypnotized my soon-to-be wife.  Professor Kenneth Asquith, blessed with a calm, even voice, was a skilled amateur hypnotist.  He was interested in hypnotism primarily as a means of determining whether or not each of us has lived multiple past lives.  So after Kim looked at the candle, listened to the Professor's cooing voice, and nodded out, Professor Asquith took her back through time.  He had her remember winning the Miss Rockford pageant and participating in the Miss Illinois pageant that followed.  He took her back to the age of three - "How old are you now?" he asked.  "Free," she responded, mispronouncing the word as she had in 1956.  He tried to take her back to her mother's womb and beyond, but stopped when she became uncomfortable in her memories.

Through it all I sat mesmerized.  "Take me, take me," I thought, "I'll do it!  I'll go all the way back!"  But when it was my time to go under, I couldn't.  I wanted so badly to be hypnotized that I was unable to drop into a hypnotic state.  Kim, on the other hand, who had been more or less indifferent to the whole process, had dropped right off.  (Admittedly, she was otherwise one of those people who could sleep soundly whatever was going on in her life, and I was not.)

I've thought of that incident often through the years.  It has served as "Exhibit A" in the past experiences I turn to when I get frustrated that something I love so much is lost or that something I want so much seems out of my reach.  Through the years I have clung to people only to lose (or damage) our relationships.  I have clung to "stuff" only to have it break or get lost or lose its allure.  I have clung to the idea of elusive ways of life (working in "the right job," living in "the right climate and culture," finding "the right path to enlightenment," and so on), blindly plodding through life with these ideals dangling in front of my nose like a carrot in front of a plow horse.

There are many things I want to do with the time I have left in my life.  In order to do them, I need goals, objectives, action plans, and so on.  I need to take action and measure results.  I need to expend effort.  A play doesn't write itself.  A speech doesn't magically appear in my computer's documents folder.  I don't go on stage to perform a great role without spending hours learning lines and rehearsing (although trying to do so is just what happens in one of my recurring nightmares).  I don't make the world a better place by just wishing it were so, even if "positive thinking" helps.

Ten years ago I attended a retreat called "Warrior Monk."  The retreat was designed, in part, to help participants be clear about their missions in life, to learn how to create goals and objectives in support of theirs missions, and (the hard part for me) to learn how to lessen their attachment to certain processes and results.  I thought, "What?  I'm supposed to spend all this time coming up with a mission, goals, and objectives, and not get attached to how I pursue them or what happens?"  The paradox was almost too much for me.  But then I got it.  I have always had a tendency to "hold on tight" in order to get what I want or to not lose what I have.  A better way might be to "hold on loose."  Do the planning, do the work, then let it go.  Repeat as necessary.

In his wonderful translation of the "Tao te Ching," Stephen Mitchell says it well in this excerpt from Chapter 10:

Giving birth and nourishing,

having without possessing,

acting with no expectations,

leading and not trying to control:

this is the supreme virtue.