holocene

When I was in eighth grade, I went to see a play at the local community theater in my hometown. It was a production of Big River, which is a musical version of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.  We went there to see the play on a field trip for school and it was the first time I had ever been to a real play. I was absolutely mesmerized by everything in the theater. The music, the stage, the lights, the costumes, the rows of soft red velvet seats in the aisles. I snuggled down into my chair and knew I would be coming back again and again. But what I was most in love with was the boy who played Huckleberry Finn. Andy Meador. He was definitely in high school, and I remember reading about him later in the paper. He was really outstanding, even as I look back on it now. That guy was way too talented to be doing plays in the Little Theater for long.

I was beyond smitten.  I was fixated. After the play was over, we all got back on the bus and Mr. Finn, still fully costumed in his tattered brown overalls and dirty straw hat, bounded onto the bus and sat down right next to me. My little eighth grade adolescent heart was pounding against my chest.

"Hi. Did you like the play?"

"Ummmm..." I blushed and smiled awkwardly, trying to breathe normally.  I looked at the line of stage makeup across his jaw, and the blush and eyeliner and faint trace of lip gloss and felt hot, all over. I could feel my hands and feet and face filling with blood. He grinned at me and hopped up thanking us for coming. I sat there, stunned, overwhelmed with teenage lust and pure true love at first sight. There's a reason I still love a fabulous performing man in a little eyeliner and silver blush.

I went back to the theater at least three more times during the run of the show. I even went so far as to sneak in a tiny cassette tape recorder so I could tape the songs. Yes, I bootlegged Big River. Then I went home, transcribed the lyrics and learned every word before the next performance. By the last show, I knew the entire play, word for word, by heart.

Not much has given me that sense of total joy, the joy of discovering an art, of being a part of something magical, that the theater gave me that month when I was 13. Nothing has ever made me feel like that since, save for seeing Radiohead play live and this summer when I saw David Tennant in real life on stage in Much Ado About Nothing in London. I feel a hint of it sometimes when I see a band I love or a really amazing film, but nothing is as visceral, as real live, up close as the theater.  For most of high school, I wanted desperately to be part of that world, to run away to New York and become an actress, but instead, after one failed audition, I gave up and went the route of playing sports and being popular and having a boyfriend.  I stopped dancing. I stopped acting. I stopped making art. I just sat around in cars with boys and played the fixture.

I think about that story now, today, because it reminds me of two things. One, that I spent a lot of my life up until I was about 30 obsessing about boys and making decisions based on how it would affect the ones in my life, rather than based on what I wanted for myself. And two, because of this inability to put myself first in my own life and choose what was best for me outside those obsessions, I gave up so much of myself.  I think of the play in the theater and remember that I had a dream made of fire once, a wish so big for my life, and instead of making that dream happen, I went into the dark night of the soul and stayed there for a long, long time.

It's the new year, and there are a lot of people who make New Year's resolutions to be better. We plan to stop eating badly and start exercising and quit smoking and drink less and be better employees and friends and lovers and parents and people. This year, for once, I don't have to make those promises to myself. This year, I have my shit together. I'm healthy and getting healthier every day. I work out like gangbusters and eat well and sleep enough and don't smoke or drink at all anymore. I feel like an adult, and amazingly that in itself has allowed me the luxury of indulging all those adolescent quirks and feelings that I had traded in for booze and boys.  The person I am without drugs and alcohol is the person I always wanted to be, that I always was, but was too scared to show anyone.

Because when everything falls into place, and you can really see yourself without hiding, without drugging yourself into oblivion, you see everything. You are ancient and recent together. You are holocene. And when you get comfortable and feel safe in a life that isn't wrecked around you, and you find that you like what you are about and who you are, your only obligation is to just keep going. You have no excuses anymore. You have to find the fire dreams of your youth and follow them. You can take nothing for granted, especially not time. You must do the things you think you cannot do. Because the only person left in your way is you. Just. Keep. Going.