25 Years

My father has been dead for twenty-five years.

I have now spent considerably more of my life without him than I ever spent with him. I have been an adult without a father longer than I was a child with one.

I was eighteen when my father died. An age at which one is technically permitted to vote, enlist in the military, and purchase cigarettes, but is still largely incapable of understanding how the world works, and certainly lacking a fully developed frontal lobe.

 

I was also an eighteen-year-old girl with enormous promise. People reminded me of this constantly (except, of course, my grandparents, who detested me, but that's another essay). Teachers, directors, mentors, friends. I was going to “be somebody.” I was going to “do extraordinary things.” My life stretched before me like a great illuminated boulevard, and somewhere at the end of it, presumably, stood Sutton Foster-level validation, Tony Awards, provable achievements that would make all these adults proud, hopefully a tasteful apartment with incredible natural light, and, of course, happiness?

Then my father died. After more than a decade of battling cancer.
And somewhere in the wreckage, without quite realizing it, I made a terrible bargain:

I would “make it worth it.”
I would become so extraordinary, so accomplished, so undeniably successful that the terrible thing that had happened to us would somehow be redeemed. I would take all that potential, all that promise, all the love and encouragement he had poured into me, and transform it into something magnificent.
Something worthy of him.
Something worthy of the loss.
Something that justified the size of this tragedy.

Which, when you think about it, is an absolutely insane assignment to give an eighteen-year-old (but after all, I was a “gifted” student, and I took it very seriously because almost all gifted and talented kids are totally deranged...)

 

For twenty-five years.
___

Now, there is an important distinction to make here.
My father never asked this of me.
Not once.
My father thought I hung the moon.
He delighted in me. He was astonished by me. He celebrated my ambitions, my peculiarities, my successes, and even my failures with a generosity I have spent much of my adult life struggling (and frankly, failing) to extend to myself.
He was not a man sitting at the breakfast table demanding to know why his teenage daughter had not yet secured a Broadway contract.
He was…my dad.
He loved me. I could viscerally feel that love.
And yet, after his death, I somehow transformed this loving, imperfect, deeply human man into the chairman of a celestial awards committee. I imagined him watching from the afterlife, arms folded, quietly disappointed.

 

Meanwhile, some of the brilliant kids I went to high school with were winning the giant awards, and I was watching their extraordinary careers unfold while privately conducting the sort of comparison exercise that ought to require protective eyewear and a licensed therapist.

I was truly happy for them. Their brilliance was undeniable.
I was also profoundly ashamed. And I assumed they were ashamed of me, embarrassed for me.
Not because I hadn't accomplished anything (I had accomplished quite a lot?) But because I had failed to become the version of myself I had promised I'd become at seventeen, back when I still believed life proceeded in a straight line, and tragedy was something that happened in Russian literature.
I had mistaken a possible future for a contractual obligation.
And worse, I had made my father its guarantor.

 

Of course, life had other plans.

There were extraordinary artistic experiences of the highest possible calibre, yes.
There was also my own terrible illness. Years of a screaming body demanding my attention with a ferocity that made artistic ambition seem, at times, like a quaint extracurricular activity.
There was grief, depression, and the long, unglamorous work of excavating childhood trauma that began long before Dad actually left this earth. There were years when merely remaining alive and continuing to participate in the world constituted a rather astonishing achievement.
But, of course, I didn't count those.
My internal awards committee did not recognize "survival" as an eligible category.
Nor did it recognize recovery, resilience, learning to trust, building a beautiful marriage, making a home, or becoming someone who could experience happiness without immediately checking whether she'd earned it.
These were apparently supporting achievements.
The principal award remained outstanding.

And so I kept going. Striving, measuring, imagining that somewhere, just beyond the next visible achievement, was the moment when I could finally look toward heaven and say:

There. Papa. Please. Tell me. Is it enough?

____ 

When I wrote White Hot Grief Parade in 2018, I was honoring my father, the enormous absence he had left behind, and the resilient, remarkable people who helped my mother and me survive it. 

I am proud of that book. It's where the world learns about Mike's love of Frisbee and pie-for-one and typewriters and What About Bob? And summer rainstorms and my mother, Catherine.
But the woman who wrote White Hot Grief Parade was still living inside so much pain. She had not yet completed her own harrowing journey through illness. She had not yet met Alec. She had not yet discovered so much of the life that awaited her.
She was still trying, in ways she could not entirely recognize, to make something beautiful enough to justify something terrible.
Now, twenty-five years after my father's death, I find myself wanting to remember him as a man, not a monument. And I want to remember myself as his daughter, not the executor of some impossible unfinished business.
Because the truth is that nothing I accomplish can make his death “worthwhile.”
And my life is not its compensation.
My life is my life.
It is not a memorial project. It is not an apology. It is not a twenty-five-year campaign to demonstrate that tragedy produces sufficiently impressive people.
It is simply the life I have been given, and the life I have made.
______

About two weeks ago, something changed.
Not dramatically. There was no ghostly visitation accompanied by the tasteful swell of an orchestra. Nothing announced itself. The world went on about its business, as it always does when a human life is quietly being altered. Somewhere a kettle boiled. A train arrived late. The sun rose over the same indifferent rooftops. But within me, a truth that had waited twenty-five years for an audience finally found me willing to listen. It was this: 

My father was never disappointed in me.
I was disappointed in me.
My father had never looked upon the woman I had—or had not—become with disgust.
I had.

And because I could not bear to acknowledge the full savagery of my own judgment, I gave it a face I loved. I took the likeness of Michael Silber and draped it over the crooked scaffolding of my own self-loathing. I fashioned an effigy from shame and longing, then used that monstrous creation to justify indenturing myself for a quarter of a century.

That is a very difficult thing to admit.
It is also, strangely, one of the most liberating things I have ever understood.

It is a terrible thing to discover that the voice which has condemned you all your life was your own. I had made myself both prisoner and jailer, and called the sentence love.
And it is a stranger, more merciful thing to discover that you may, at any moment, stop obeying it.
Because if my father was not the one demanding that I become extraordinary, then perhaps there was no demand at all. Perhaps the contract had never existed. Perhaps I had been working for twenty-five years to repay a debt nobody had incurred. No celestial ledger waiting to be balanced. No interest accruing with every passing year.

Only a frightened girl who had mistaken grief for obligation, and a woman who had grown so accustomed to paying that she had forgotten to ask whom, precisely, she owed.
And then came the thought that frightened me almost as much as it freed me:
Perhaps I no longer needed to imagine my father being proud of me.
Not because his pride had ceased to matter. 

Not because I loved him any less. 

But because somewhere in the long and difficult business of becoming myself, I had acquired something I once believed could only be bestowed upon me by another.
 

I was proud of myself.

 
Not in the frantic, feverish way I once understood pride. Not the brittle pride that must be earned again each morning, as though yesterday's living had left no evidence.
Something quieter. Something with roots. I was proud of the woman who had survived, and of the woman who had softened. Proud of what I had made and what I had mended. Proud of the dreams that had flowered and the ones that had died, and of the life that had continued growing around them.
Proud not because I had become everything I once promised I would be, but because I had become someone I could love.

And for the first time in twenty-five years, that love did not arrive as a verdict.
It arrived as peace.
I looked at my life and saw it: 

A body restored to health after years of suffering.
A mind learning to live without perpetual punishment.
A husband I adore, who adores me.
Work that challenges and delights me.
Dreams still unfolding.
Friendships.
Beauty.
Possibility.

I am happy.

Not every moment, obviously. I remain a human woman with an inbox, a nervous system, and a working knowledge of the New York City subway...But beneath the ordinary indignities of existence, there is something new:

A sense that I have arrived in my own life.
And that I do not have to keep proving my right to simply inhabit it.

 

_____ 

 

Lately, I have noticed my shoulders dropping. Not metaphorically. As though some ancient muscular instruction—hold this, carry this, don't you dare put this down—has finally been rescinded.

I think of the eighteen-year-old girl who lost her father and, standing in the wreckage of a world that had offered no explanation for its cruelty, decided she must spend the rest of her life "becoming extraordinary." 

She would make something of the suffering. 

Something enormous. 

Something worthy of the terrible price that had been paid.
She would take the senselessness of death and force it to yield a meaning.

Oh, Little Al. 

 

I understand why she did it. She was frightened. She was grieving. She was a child with a great and ravenous need to believe that the world possessed some hidden architecture of fairness; that if a thing was taken, something must be given in its place. That suffering, properly endured, might be exchanged for greatness. That the universe could be reasoned with, if only one brought sufficient evidence of one's worth.

And so she made her vile bargain with the silence.
She must be remarkable. She vowed to be worthy. She would make her father's death mean something.
 

And when the heavens offered no reply, she mistook the silence for agreement.

God, how tenderly I regard that girl now.

How fiercely I wish I could reach across those twenty-five years and take her face in my hands. Tell her that there are losses which cannot be redeemed, only lived beside. That no amount of beauty made afterward can make the destruction beautiful. That the world is not a just accountant, keeping careful books of what it takes and what it owes...

And that love, real love, has never been entered into such a ledger.

She was wrong about one great and terrible thing: she believed she had to earn what had already been given. Her father's love was not a loan. His death did not make it a debt. And the life that followed was not collateral against the loss.

Twenty-five years is a long time to carry a stone.

Long enough for the shoulders to grow crooked around it. Long enough for the spine to bend and call its bending strength. Long enough to forget the shape of the body before the burden, until the weight seems no longer something carried, but something you are. And what a strange, quiet terror there is in laying down a thing that has helped define you. Even a cruel thing. Even a thing that has worn the flesh raw. For when you have carried a burden long enough, its absence can feel, at first, like another kind of loss.
 

I think this is what I am learning now. That putting down the stone is not putting down my father.
That I may relinquish the punishment without relinquishing the devotion. That I may dismiss the stern and sorrowful ghost I fashioned in his likeness and make room, at last, for the man himself: beautiful and flawed, tender and human, a father who loved his daughter without requiring her to become a monument to his memory.

I may grieve him without making my life an extension of his death.
I may remember what was taken without surrendering what was given.

And I may go on into the years that remain—making art, loving fiercely, wanting things, losing things, daring greatly and sometimes foolishly, succeeding where I never expected, failing where I was certain I would triumph. I may live among the small and ordinary miracles: a warm bed, a hand reaching for mine, the sound of laughter in another room, a morning in which nothing remarkable happens except that I am alive to see it.

For there is no shame in an ordinary life.
There is no disgrace in a life that does not fulfill every promise made on its behalf.
And there is no human achievement great enough to purchase back the dead.
This is the ruthless truth of it.

My father died. 

I lived. 

Neither fact can be made to justify the other.
But one need not justify the other.

The years are not a debt to be settled. 

They are mine to inhabit. 

And after so long mistaking endurance for devotion, I find that I want to live them—not as proof of anything, not as payment for anything, 

but simply because they are here, 

     and I am here, 

          and there is still so much of the world left to love.

 

I know he would've liked that. 

 

 

May we all, on earth and beyond, be free.  

 

20 Years

Today is the 20th anniversary of the death of my father, Michael Silber. I’ve been pretty overwhelmed with feelings about it. Sometimes this anniversary comes and goes, the world spins on. This year? I don’t know. Perhaps it is the milestone. Perhaps it is all that we have endured as a planet, society, and what my individual body has been through, but the event is having a profound effect.

Right now we live in an era of loss. It is also an era of agony, division, disconnection, anxiety, uncertainty, trauma, grief, and of course a confrontation with our own very real mortality.

I survived COVID, when so many have not.
I had three life-altering surgeries that permanently changed my body and saved my life.
These experiences have give me insight into my Dad’s final years and days in ways I never could have dreamed of or anticipated.
For these, I am grateful.

These days, I find myself thinking a lot about what it all means, or what it is all for, what the Purpose of Life is, and what MY purpose is here on earth, and whether or not I am adequately fulfilling it. I feel I have been spared. Saved. So… why? I have doubts. So many doubts.

And in the context of today, I think 20 years. My God. 20 years on and I wonder have I done enough?
Become enough?
Fulfilled his hopes and dreams for me as a human being?
Would I make him proud?
And of course, we that are left behind in death never receive these answers with any certainty. It is one of grief’s sharpest cuts and cruelest agonies.

And yet, I can say with certainty that I have had more conversations with him in death than I ever had in life. 20 years of silent dialogue that provides all the certainty I truly need, and ever will.

So on this milestone of a day, I take heart in the fact that after all we have endured, I will be spending this deeply personal 20 year anniversary right where my Dad would recognize me as happy and purposeful, and where I know I belong: in a theatre, doing a play. Contributing to the world in the very best way I can. And when I think about it, isn’t that all any of us can do? Make the world better by contributing as best we can. 

I’ll close with words I’ve found before, they are near the end of the book I offered about all of this (and honored my wonderful mom and all the friends who held me up 20 years ago today). I hope it contributes something to you today, to whomever might need it:

I have had the greatest adventures anyone could ever hope for.
I would trade it all for Only. One. Thing. 

But that is not how it works. 

And that is what still smarts. And probably always will. 

Whoever you are, no matter how despairing or isolated, know this: being fully alive and fully present in all of your experiences—joyful and harrowing—is a human right worth fighting for. We are limited in life only by what we believe we are capable of. I am not remarkable. No. I am a human being just like you—capable of everything from the most deplorable of errors to the vastest glories. As are we all. But I endeavor to show up: to work, to love, to grow, to life. No matter what any of it chooses to serve. 

When we stare deep into the black infinity, when we truly take part in the democracy of loss and mortality, we recognize that all of us—no matter how wealthy, beautiful, talented, kind, willful, adventurous— die. We all die. You will, someday, die. And in the end, we all must face the same questions: 

Was I brave?


Did I use my gifts?


What did I believe in?
What did I stand for?
 What did I stand against?
Did I do what truly mattered?
Did I love enough?

It has been said that wisdom is a guide upon which to chart the journey of the spirit.
Wisdom is precious.
 And wisdom is earned.


Things I Miss: a List, Part 1

Jake. Gone too soon.

- Our beautiful ginger cat (who came to mom and I after Papa died), Jake. He was "The Man" of the family and an absolute sweetheart. Gone too soon at only 7. 


- Answering machines (and their answering machine messages)

    We had a particularly spectacular one in the 90s. I wrote the lyrics and sang it at the age of 10 or 11? Not sure. It was performed at 100-no-marking (obviously, some things never change) to a karaoke CASSETTE of the theme song from “The Addams Family. I then leisurely popped that masterpiece into our answering machine and used it as our answering machine message for OH, maybe nine years? Like, even when my Dad had cancer.
The lyrics went like this: 

    “You called us when we weren’t here
    but there is no need to fear 
    we’ll get right back to you, dear
    The Silber Family. 

    Oh 647-6759
    we’re sure to call you back on time
    and it won’t even cost a dime
    The Silber Family — WAIT FOR THE BEEP
        *snap snap*

    People used to hang up and call BACK to an encore. I vividly remember my Dad’s oncology nurses calling back and hearing nothing but their collective, explosive laughter. That was nice.
    It’s about as famous as I could ever feel at the time without being a creepy child actor. Because I was VOICEMAIL MESSAGE FAMOUS.


- Handshakes 

- Combing the shelves of Blockbuster and picking out videos to rent (and probably picking up some RedVines, let’s be real…)

Fetzer.

- Sometimes, my long hair 

- My friend, David Fetzer (and holding his hand which fit so perfectly in my own)

- Trick-or-treating

- Dad. Always.

- This particular version of myself:

Things I [genuinely] wish: a List

- That I could play any instrument with extraordinary virtuosity

- That I had said “that thing” to “that person” before it was too late

- That my colon wasn’t such a jerk

- That adulthood could be slipped on and off like a tailor-made couture dress

- That I could know Tati’s thoughts

- That I had my mom’s cheekbones [ughhhh those cheekbones…]

- That I genuinely loved singing more than I actually do

- That COVID19 had an available test, vaccine, and was no longer killing people

- That watermelon was a superfood

- That I could talk with my Dad. Even for 5 little minutes. 

© hula seventy

Questions from Book Tour - Part 6

At the JCC of West Bloomfield, MI - where it all began

1. How would you urge the reader to learn to approach life as you do, in relishing the mundane and the ordinary?

By recognizing that absolutely nothing is mundane or ordinary.

But also:
     Pause.
     Breathe.
     Look in people’s eyes.
     Ask thoughtful questions and really listen to the answers.
     Practice gratitude.



2. As you stress in the book, death is something none of us an avoid. Have many people reached out to you with their own stories?

Absolutely. I think that has been the most overwhelming and rewarding part. Why write a book about grief and your own boring, excessively ordinary life if not to connect to others about theirs; and thus discover that nothing is boring, and no one is ordinary at all.

It is an old maxim, but you get what you give in this one glorious life. By leading with authenticity and vulnerability, by exposing your inner-most soft places (and merely exposing, not flooding or forcing your experience down someone’s unwilling throat!)  we allowing others to behold them, at their own capacity and tempo. Calm exposure invites  one to ask the age old human question: “you too?” And that exercise welcomes people to truly connect with one another.

I am so grateful to all [including you, dear interviewer, whose name I do not have the honor of knowing—I am so truly sorry for your loss—] who have been courageous enough to share their stories with me. It has been the greatest reward of this entire process.



3. Why did you begin the book with the list of things you'd tell your 17-year-old self?

The beginning of each of the five “sections,” as well as the Epilogue begin with a return of the adult Alexandra voice, speaking directly to the reader about events from the present day that are in direct relation to the events of my/her father’s death. They are “echoes” if you will that resonate in the present, informed by the past. After those introductory section chapters, we continue with the narrative of 2001.

First, I chose to speak to my 17-year-old self, because that was the last time I was truly innocent to the events chronicled in the book—the age of my personal “BC,” some of the advice is witty and typical stuff we as adults all realize we were idiots about bak then (“buy Frizz ease”), and some is very weighty (“go on all the walks with him and tell him all the things.”)

Second, it was important to me to create a structure that calmed the reader instantly by establishing that the narrator of this book was Alexandra Silber: contemporary adult who “turned out okay” and maybe a little bit more than “fine.” While, in contrast, the protagonist of this tale is an 18-year-old “Al” who has not yet acquired the perspective and wisdom of the narrator, she is just experiencing the events in real time.

The  “things you'd tell my 17-year-old self” was a clear way to establish that there was going to be an ongoing interchange between Al and Alexandra (if you will) throughout this book, and creates for the reader a subconscious understanding that our protagonist is not yet fully processed, while our narrator, is. Those two “characters” just happen to be the same person—17 years apart.






4. Concerning everyone who helped you through this tragedy, are you still in contact with them? What have been their reactions to the book?

All of them. ‘Grey’ is a hugely successful theatrical designer. ‘Kent’ is changing the world working for a State Senator and just had a baby. Lilly is still my best friend and plays oboe all over the world. I saw her last month at the Metropolitan opera playing Strauss at American Ballet Theater.

They are, all, triumphs of human beings.

Lilly!

[Real] Rabbi Syme: Continued!

My previous post about [the Real] Rabbi Syme generated a wonderful internet "moment—" one of those lightning-in-a-bottle experiences where the internet proves to be truly connective. I wrote the post in response to questions I received through the course of my book tour, and online: is the Rabbi Syme (Perchik's teacher and advocate) of After Anatevka at all connected to a real person, particular a man named Rabbi Daniel Syme of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan?

The answer: yes. To briefly quote my previous post:

Fictional Rabbi Syme is based very loosely upon the real-life Rabbi Syme—loosely because my description in the novel is not so much a literal, but more of an evocative recollection and honoring of his influence. Real-life Rabbi Syme and I only spent a collection of minutes together in 2001, but they were crucial minutes. He gave me the gift of delivering the eulogy at my father's funeral service, as well as bearing witness to it when he lead the funeral service, and above all, he gave me an hour of his time months later, reminding me of what was eternal, and chartering a map toward the beauty, strength and individuality my faith. Irreplaceable gifts one can never forget. The influence of Rabbi Syme proves another true-to-life maxim: that we never know the depth of the influence we have upon one another. 

I then followed this by recounting a crucial memory of the real Rabbi Syme.
Keep in mind that I have not seen, heard from, been in touch with dear Rabbi Syme since 2001. Nearly 17 years.
I pressed "publish." 
I posted the blog's link to a few social media places.
The link was shared on Facebook.
Then again.
And before long?
An email in my inbox was sitting there from the real Rabbi Syme.
This was followed by a save-it-forever voicemail.
And finally, a phone call that, at long last, completed a circle I never even dreamed would reach its resolution.

Then today...

Today I gave a book talk at Temple Beth Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan—only a few miles away from Birmingham, the suburb of Detroit in which I grew up, and in fact, from Bloomfield Hills, where Rabbi Syme and I first met.

My talk went on, and as usual, I concluded with a reading. Whenever one of my book events is located in a temple I like to read the following passage and tell the audience a little about the real Rabbi Syme. How the character came to be and how this was my form of honoring the man who was my father's advocate, and thus, artistically, Perchik's.  I read:

  
     “Free a man of the constraints that limit and inhibit his development, and you have a free human being. Freedom is the natural state of man.” He looked away from the boy for a moment and recalled his youth, his own search for self. “My boy,” he imparted with a ferocious passion that shook them both by the throat, “there is nothing negative about our human potential—do you understand me? God Himself created you the way you are. Do not let anyone in this world convince you otherwise. And you are capable of anything, my boy. There is and shall always be a disparity among the gifts God has granted men, but we all deserve equal consideration. All men, no matter how low, how basic, or how tormented, deserve compassion, dignified brotherhood, and respect.
     “But part of respecting all men is respecting ourselves. Recognizing that God has blessed you. By embracing these gifts, we live as God lives, with love for all He has created—with an open heart.
     “Thus our Sages have said: ‘In every generation, a person must see himself as if he has himself come out from Mitzrayim.’ You, of course, know what Mitzrayim, this Hebrew word used for ‘Egypt,’ means, do you not?”
     “Boundaries,” the boy said quietly.
     “It does indeed—and the effort to free ourselves is a perpetual one.”
     The rabbi removed his spectacles and looked deeply into the eyes of the boy. “I promise you, Perchik: you are a truly blessed child of our Lord. I promise you will find the strength to overcome the oppression of your circumstances. This fight is your purpose—the strength for it inherent within you. Like rocks of salt shaken in water, the turbulence soon asserts itself in perfect order. My boy, you are supported by the greatest parent of them all. As it is He who has endowed you with your gifts, you can be sure that He, therefore, believes in their power. And for the record, my boy, so do I.”

Reader?
The real Rabbi Syme... was there.
In the audience.

Coming up in line as I signed copies of the novel that honors him in character, and thanks him in the acknowledgments, came the real-life, breathing man who bears the name Rabbi Daniel Syme.

We reunited.
Embraced.
Cried.

What other proof do we need that miracles happen?
Because they do.
Happen.

"I wish... I know"

     In 6th grade when asked by our middle school music teacher to bring in a CD of our favorite music, everyone else brought in Ace of Base, Boyz II Men and Mariah Carey, I? Brought in the 1989 Original Cast Recording of Into The Woods.
That’s right.
I brought in Stephen Sondheim.

I was obviously very popular, and by “popular” I mean I was not popular. But I didn’t care, because even at eleven, I could appreciate a 6/8 time signature, internal rhyming, all things Robert Westenberg, and poignant social parallels.

Into the Woods with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book James Lapine is a masterpiece of the musical theatre about the inner-lives and backstories of the world’s most famous (an infamous) fairy tale characters.  We are fortunate as a culture to have the original production preserved not only on audio recording, but in a beautifully filmed live video of the stage performance. I grew up devouring both.

A Narrator guides us through the first act of familiar stories: Cinderella and her Prince, Jack and his beanstalk, Rapunzel, Little Red Riding Hood, and some new characters such as a Witch, a childless Baker and his Wife, all criss-crossing and influencing one another in ways our children’s stories were never privy to.

The curtain rises, and the audience is welcomed by the Narrator (incidentally, played originally by Tom Aldridge, who also plays Mr. Gutmann in What About Bob, thus, making him a god among men) who says:

“Once Upon a Time…” followed by a now-celebrated and utterly identifiable series of chords, and lights up on the characters we are about to meet. The first is Cinderella. She sings a phrase that is to become the haunting theme of the evening:

    “I wish…”

Every one of our characters has a wish— to go to the festival, to have a child, for fortune, wealth, security, beauty. They wish. For things. They want.

How fascinating and fun.  By the end of the stream-lined first act, every character has achieved their well-known conclusions, and we celebrate with them in a rollicking Act One Finale celebrating Happily “Ever After!”

And then the curtain rises on a complicated second act.

Cinderella’s prince is unfaithful; life in luxury, unfulfilling.
The Baker and His Wife have their child, and they are ill-content.
With the wolf dead, Little Red fakes confidence in the shadow of her attack.
The Witch has lost not only her daughter Rapunzel, but her magic powers in exchange for physical beauty.
And above all, Jack has murdered the giant in the sky, and angered his wife, who now threatens to destroy their kingdom if she can not take her revenge on her husband’s killer.

Slowly, over the course of the incredibly difficult second Act, it is not an exaggeration to say that nearly everyone suffers in the wake of the Giant.

This musical opened on Broadway in 1989, at the very height of the AIDS epidemic, and as a child born in the middle of the crisis, I suppose I only now realize that the actors in the original production were suffering losses every day, of their friends, family, members of their communities. Mind-obliterating, countless, losses, daily fear— all of it, lacking in any kind of reason. ‘The Giant’ had ravaged their kingdom.


Into the Woods is a piece I have never truly seen myself inside of—somewhat unusual for an actor, as we tend to see where we would, or would like to, fit inside a story. But with “Into the Woods,” I’ve always been in the audience, seeing the whole picture, never precisely identifying with any individual story-arc.

Until now.

In the final few moments of the play, the too-old-to-be-babied, and to-young-to-be-ready Little Red Riding Hood, sits in shock. She is already vulnerable, traumatized from her experience with the wolf in Act 1, yet, in this moment she cannot move in the wake of losing her entire family. Her face is strained, still, but dry (and truly, the raw emotion on actress Danielle Ferland's face is a masterclass in trusting stillness and vulnerability). She realizes slowly, that she is alone in the world— a child, with nothing but a wolf-skin coat on her back.

Beside her, is Cinderella. She is dressed in rags once more, and having left the Prince, on her own again to face the world a stronger and smarter, woman than before.

Dreams shattered. Lives forever altered, the two women sit there. And from the depths of Little Red’s viscera, comes the musical phrase we know from what seems like forever ago, a cry from her soul so straightforward, so true, yet so painful she can barely utter it:

    “I wish…”

Cinderella looks at her. Not with pity. Cinderella cannot grant this wish. No one can. The kingdom has been annihilated. People are dead. Life will never be the same. The pain, unutterable. Her childhood, ended. With great respect, Cinderella responds:

    “…I know.”


Four words.
Yet this brief exchange is the summation of my entire life.

Four words that capture the essence of both versions of myself, of where I sit today as I write these words upon the page, looking back to “once upon a time,” exactly half my life ago. Before the Giant ravaged my kingdom; took all but my heartbeat.

Little Red, my eighteen-year-old self, and Cinderella, the self of today.  Would that I could look that brave young eighteen year old girl—who had already faced so much— straight in the eye, as Cinderella does for Little Red. Tell her that she is absolutely right, this is the bottom of the well of human pain. That her innocence is indeed, shattered, her childhood at its end. It will not get better, darling girl, I would say, it will only grow familiar and thus less harrowing; that there will never be anything deeper or more painful to wish for, ever again.

But now? Now she has earned her passage to the human race. She may now arrive upon its shores as the inextinguishable woman she is destined to become. That this exact tragedy, in time, if she allows it, will make her soul the richer; escort her to her highest self.

[The Real] Rabbi Syme

    As many of you out there are reading After Anatevka, you might be surprised to know that one of the leading questions I get is whether or not Rabbi Syme (Perchik's teacher and advocate) is based on a real person. The answer: of course he is. Rabbi Syme was indeed so influential, that I felt he had to be memorialized in After Anatevka for he was my first spiritual advocate.

    Fictional Rabbi Syme is based very loosely upon the real-life Rabbi Syme—loosely because my description in the novel is not so much a literal, but more of an evocative recollection and honoring of his influence. Real-life Rabbi Syme and I only spent a collection of minutes together in 2001, but they were crucial minutes. He gave me the gift of delivering the eulogy at my father's funeral service, as well as bearing witness to it when he lead the funeral service, and above all, he gave me an hour of his time months later, reminding me of what was eternal, and chartering a map toward the beauty, strength and individuality my faith. Irreplaceable gifts one can never forget.

    The influence of Rabbi Syme proves another true-to-life maxim: that we never know the depth of the influence we have upon one another. A fleeting moment to one, might bear a lifetime of profundity to another, for better and for worse. So it is in these tiny actions that we must recognize that our influence on earth is vast, has meaning, and should never be taken for granted.

    I include this story from my memory (also included in my upcoming memoir) in today's post because the prayer Rabbi Syme references, the Shema' Koleinu, is not only a prayer that is part of the Amidah (the core of every worship service), but especially significant on the High Holy Days, which are currently upon us.

    L'Shana Tova, one and all. May your new years be filled with positive influence that you both give and receive. Here's to a brighter and more peaceful world.


*


    Two months after the funeral I went to see Rabbi Syme.

    In the Jewish community, a rabbi is viewed as more than just a life cycle overseer, administrator, Bible reciter, or spiritual leader; but also as a counselor, a true community role model, and above all, an educator. The word Rabbi, in fact, translates as “teacher." At the time I’d be willing to admit that I required all of the above from good ol’ Rabbi Syme, a man I’d known for approximately 2 hours. I walked into Temple Bel El ready to order up the “super size me” platter of spiritual needs. Plus, I felt inexplicably close to him, compelled beyond logic to spend time in the company of the sweet, wise man who had, in such a brief collection of minutes, given me the ultimate gift—the eulogy. He had been the cartographer of the map that chartered the rest of my life.

    By the time I got to his office at Temple Beth El I realized, of course, that I barely knew him, and was suddenly embarrassed at my presence there. I knew so little of Judaism, had (unjustly) railed so harshly against it for, up until then, I had only ever associated it with my horrible grandparents.  Still, I entered and sat across from him. Two almost-strangers in two tiny chairs.

    “So. How are you doing?”

What was I supposed to say?

    “Fine, thank you Rabbi.”

I wanted to tell him about everything.

    “How is your family?”

Well well well, Rabbi Syme this is all getting a bit personal! I usually wait ’til the third date to list my favorite Mandy Patinkin roles in order of sexiness, craziness, intensity, beard length, let alone discuss my batshit-bonkers family, but I suppose I can make an exception. How. To. Respond. How can a person respond when “One time, grandma kidnapped me” is, say, the sixth most dysfunctional story?

    “I… don’t really know.”

Rabbi Syme sat up in his chair and nodded.

    “I sensed as much. They were… unusual.”

Rabbi Syme’s Spidey-skills: for the win.


    We talked for a long while that day, Rabbi Syme and I, or at least what felt like it.  It was an odd discovery, but Rabbi Syme was more than my first spiritual advisor, in many ways he was the first adult who, even in the mere three hours clocked together, was more interested in my cultivation of wisdom than of knowledge. I knew that the word Rabbi translated as “teacher” in Hebrew, but this exceeded reciting the periodic table. Knowledge is information—a collection of facts. Wisdom is the poetry inside those facts. Wisdom relies on evocation more than description. It is the difference between two photographs: one that looks exactly the way it looked in the moment, the other that looks exactly the way it felt. Memory through a lens.

    “Do you know the Shema' Koleinu” he asked, as if I actually might?
    “Rabbi, I wasn’t invited to the Bar Mitzvahs or the quinceañeras if you catch my drift.”
    “I ...do not.”
    “I’m kind of a Cashew.” He stared at me blankly. “A Catholic-Jew? An interfaith secularization situation?”
    “That’s very clever.”
    “Thank you.” I continued, nervously, “Well technically I was invited to both the Steinman kids parties and for what it’s worth I played Golde in Fiddler sophomore year of high school—”
    “I—” he stopped me, kind but swift, “I understand.”

    He went on.
    “The Shema' Koleinu is the sixteenth paragraph of a central prayer of Judaism, called the Amidah, which is the core of every Jewish worship service.

    It reads:

אָב הָרַחֲמָן, שְׁמַע קולֵנוּ, ה' אֱלהֵינוּ, חוּס וְרַחֵם עָלֵינו, וְקַבֵּל בְּרַחֲמִים וּבְרָצון אֶת ‘תְּפִלָּתֵנוּ, כִּי אֵל שׁומֵעַ תְּפִלּות וְתַחֲנוּנִים אָתָּה, וּמִלְּפָנֶיךָ מַלְכֵּנוּ. רֵיקָם אַל תְּשִׁיבֵנוּ.

    "Hear our voice, O Lord our God; spare us and have mercy upon us, and accept our prayer in mercy and favor.” Hear Our Voice is the essence of this prayer—and I sense that your voice has always been heard, both of the spoken and the sung variety. The eulogy proves that.”
    “Really?” I replied, not entirely understanding where he was leading me, all I knew was that I was willing to follow. 
    “Well I believe so. What do you think?”

     No one had ever asked me anything remotely like this, and I grew hot and uneasy fearing I would offend him, or say the wrong thing.

    “I really don’t know how to respond.”
    “There is no right or wrong here, Alexandra,” the Rabbi pacified, “it’s just a simple question. One of the beauties of Judaism is this ancient tradition of the dialogic process. Of discussion! Jews recognizing that understanding comes from meaningful exchanges, from challenges, not only with one another but with God Himself.”
    “Oh! Like in Fiddler how Tevye has a kind of dialogue with God!”
    “Exactly like that. God and Tevye have a very personal relationship.”
    “I really like that.”
    “So do I,” he smiled. “So? What do you think of ‘Hear Our Voice?’”
    “We all… want to be heard.”
    “Yes.”
    “And we all struggle to listen?”
    “I think so.” He leaned in. “Hear Our Voice is a very simple request, but it indicates that we want to engage beyond ourselves. It acknowledges the desire to be heard, and the validity of that desire.”
    “Wow,” I gasped. The thought took my breath away.
    “That’s why you are here today, isn’t it? To be heard?”

It certainly was. I nodded.    
He continued.

    “The prayer continues a few lines on: ‘Renew our days, as of old.’ Almost as if the speaker  is a little skeptical: Alexandra, do you think it is possible to recover the days of the past? And I’m not saying it isn’t.”
    “No but…” And then I saw.

    If prayers were only knowledge, prayers would fail. As wisdom, the prayer was true as anything. My father was dead. That was the fact. But the poetry of that fact could continue for the rest of my life if I turned these days of pain into lessons. Yes, the past indeed is truly “passed,” it is unrecoverable, and none of us can truly live there. But the wisdom gained by reflection upon that past is why we are alive. To make meaning. To understand better.  I looked at Rabbi Syme and said as much.
       
    “Do you believe, Alexandra?”
    “I believe you.”

I did—it wasn’t an evasion.

    “You know what I’m asking.”
    “I do. I can’t believe I’m saying it but I do. I believe in something.”
    “Well, good. ‘Something’ is possibility. ‘Something’ is something.”

    I thanked Rabbi Syme and left him that day, never to see him in person again. But his impact would be ever-with me, his name etched upon my heart, and, forever synonymous with integrity. 

Adult-ing - Part 6

Dorothy, girl: DELEGATE!!

26.  Delegate.
When it comes to tackling big projects, you can try to do everything yourself and have an aneurysm or…not! Why not? Because you can also choose to reach out and find the right people to help you— sometimes people that are (gasp) even better at certain tasks than you are. The former will raise your blood pressure; the second choice will raise your effectiveness.

Someone else always knows how to help.  Find and engage them.

Example: remember that episode of Golden Girls where the ladies want a fancy new toilet, and decide that the best way forward is to read a giant book on plumbing, then install the toilet themselves? Yeeeeah. Through a series of (hilarious) mishaps, they ultimately end up calling a professional plumber, who has to charge them even more than he would have in the first place, to not only install the toilet, but to clean up their DIY plumbing mess. …This is obviously a fictional example, but, you all know how I love a show about senior citizens, and also, it is an apt metaphor.

I am not a bad business woman, but I’m certainly a better singer than I am at talking about money. That’s… why I have agents and mangers. I delegate the business talk to them so I can do the stuff I am best at! Additionally, if your website is suddenly having glitches with a new web browser, why read a giant book on web design? Delegate. Hire a professional web designer. Just do it. Don't hem and haw, don't worry about the cost. Think of the Golden Girls and their giant plumbing bill.

See every stressful problem as an opportunity to delegate. You’ll get great results, and you won’t grow a tumor. Life is trying to teach you that most long-term, worthy endeavors are team efforts, and if you think about it, so much more palatable when shared with others.  Every unexpected tension in life is a lesson in disguise, especially solvable with the right team of people.


27.  Know your “Myths.” 
There is a popular phrase in contemporary psychology: “TELLING YOURSELF A STORY” or “WRITING A STORY.” What does that mean, exactly? I am not a psychologist, but I personally define this phrase thus: that it is not necessarily what factually happens to us, but how we choose to interpret and psychologically take on what happens to us, that defines our experience of life. “Writing stories” is a term that gives a name to why and how some people with terrible childhoods live forever in victim-hood, and others overcome the mindset and can even end up experiencing extraordinary gratitude for their adversities, if they even view them as adversities at all! It is not the facts, it is the manner in which we approach, interpret, internalize and identify with those facts.

I like this term, but in my own life, and in my teaching, I use an alternative: “Know Your Myths.” Why do I alter this? Firstly, the word myth insinuates instantly that the story is in some way not to be entirely trusted as fact, but is allegorical, and absolutely up for interpretation, like the mythic tales of yore. Second, I like that the term “myth” insinuates something ancient and older-than-humanity— something of great significance to be addressed and not ignored. If you were bullied as a youth, outright ignoring that adversity is not evolved— addressing, processing, and truly moving forward from the adversity, IS.

In her brilliant book Rising Strong, Dr Brené Brown says whole-hearted lives have the goal to “rise from our falls, overcome our mistakes , and face hurt in a way that brings more wisdom and wholeheartedness into our lives.” I shall regurgitate her wisdom here, but only because it is peerless and can’t be bettered so why try? (Now do yourself a favor and go binge-watch her videos and buy her books.)

Brené Brown’s process includes 3 elements:

    •    The Reckoning.  Recognize emotion, and get curious about our feelings and how they connect with the way we think and behave.
    •    The Rumble.  Get honest about the stories we’re making up about our struggle, then challenge these confabulations and assumptions to determine what’s truth, what’s self-protection, and what needs to change if we want to lead more wholehearted lives.
    •    The Revolution.  Write a new ending to our story based on the key learnings from our rumble and use this new, braver story to change how we engage with the world and to ultimately transform the way we live, love, parent and lead.

But knowing your myths is an not only an important part of being a healthy human being, it is an important part of self-identity. In my own personal narrative, for example, I know that my father passing away when I was 18 is a fact, I have long moved into the acceptance phase of the grieving process, but? My myth is that I shall, no matter what, always in some way be an 18-year-old whose father has died. I will always be a fatherless daughter interpreting the world through that specific lens. Okay, that is the truth: I can't change it. Thus, knowing that, without getting all in a wah wah waaaahhhh tizzy victim-mode about it, owning that myth and making space for it is a responsible part of being in the world.

Haven’t you ever walked into a film or play or started reading a book, only to discover that the subject matter was WAY too close to your own life for personal comfort? If you’d known your myths going in, you might approach engaging with that piece differently, all of which can have a positive effect.

Everyone has myths. They must be incorporated in to who we become, not extracted, dissolved, or ignored, Knowing your myths means you can plan around and benefit from them—the way one would with anything else. If you know you are an introvert that prefers quiet holidays to jam-packed adventurous ones, you book a peaceful event-less retreat in the country, not a trip to Tokyo Disney. If you broke your ankle as a kid, and it still gives you a little trouble, you know going in to a day walking around the city to bring your walking shoes. We must know, and work with our myths just like anything and everything else.


28.  See the world.
There are plenty of things one can gain from exploring different places. When you start exploring new places, you get a better understanding of the people living there including their culture, history and background, but you also get to know yourself— how you specifically fit into a pluralistic worldview, and it can both alter and strengthen your beliefs and values.


Further, studies show that traveling can improve your overall health and enhance your creativity. Therefore, it is recommended that you need to take time out from your daily tasks, office responsibilities, hectic schedule and everyday pressures at least once in a year. You don’t have to actually travel a geographic distance— there are plenty of cultural opportunities in our own backyards— sometimes just across town! Plan a tour with an open schedule and let life present you with the numerous opportunities that are waiting for you.

Travel improves social and communication skills, helps you get original and creative thoughts, boosts up your confidence, provides you with a real-life education, enhances your tolerance for uncertainty, and broadens your horizons.

You’ll realize how little you actually knew about the world, you’ll make new friends,  you’ll appreciate your home more, realize your “home” is much more than the place you grew up, and you might even find a new purpose, and create lifelong memories.


29.  Ladies always curtsy.
Trevor Nunn taught me that, so it must be true. I recall so vividly the first time we staged the curtain call of The Woman in White, and I instinctively curtsyed, and he shouted “GOOD GIRL!” from the back of the house. Then, explained later, that ladies always curtsy, and that he was pleased to know I was a natural lady.


30.  Nothing stays in Vegas.
Trust. This is coming from a woman who dated a cirque clown. …Trusssst.


Read More:

Adult-ing - Part 1
Adult-ing - Part 2
Adult-ing - Part 3
Adult-ing - Part 4
Adult-ing - Part 5

Yay Adult-ing!

The Visit

Moscow,
September 1910

That night, she dreamed.

Lying next to a fitful Maxim, she became aware of the unmistakable briny smell of the ocean air. Moments later, she felt Mikhail sit beside her on the floating bed, and then, in an instant, she knew he was there. She felt his gaze on her like the heat of sunlight through their shabby window. She opened her eyes and smiled at him. He smiled back.

“Gorky?” he chuckled.
“Well…” she shrugged.

He looked so well: as vibrant and rosy-cheeked and healthy as he ever had in life. His skin had a lustrous glow, as if a lambent flame deep within him was radiating a brilliant light of serenity, warmth and comfort.

“So,” she asked, smirking a little, “How is it?” she was overwhelmed with joy in seeing him.
“It is everything you hope it is.” He paused and thought for a moment. “That is all I should say…” He inclined his head, smiling, surveying her face, regarding her with love.
“I delivered the document, Mikhail. I succeeded.”
“I know, my love” he nodded.
“The journey was so treacherous. Thank God Dmitri found me in that alleyway, I never would’ve survived.”
“Well,” he glimmered “he had some help…”

And then they sat there a while. She bathed in his light, basked in his luminous presence, while he appraised her with a compassionate distance that simultaneously discomfited and soothed her. He was changed. But the change suited him. The signature resolve, the fight and pluck that so accompanied Mikhail’s every gesture seemed quelled; as if his fight had not been extinguished in death, but won.

She had kept her promise, and here, in her dreams, he was keeping his. How she missed him. Sorrow and yearning began to well up within her, and she turned away for a moment, allowing tears to fall down her neck and onto the pillow. Then, as if he had read her mind, he placed his hand on hers, and she felt a sudden, quiet, serenity. Turning back to face him she recognized there was heat and energy, but no weight or pressure in his touch.

Suddenly she felt herself rising, her vision sharpening, a wakeful consciousness pushing away the foggy mists of sleep. She wanted to sit up, alert, to be with him in waking life. But when she tried to move her she was frozen still, her limbs locked to the mattress. She fought and struggled to rise.

“No, Shura…” he whispered.

But she willed it to be. She pressed on, pushing through delirium with a wild force of love. His hand still on hers, his eyes locked on her struggling frame, he spoke easily, but his voice echoed from a far away place, as if in a tunnel,

“Look for me, Shura…” he counseled.

“Wait! Mikhail!” and she shattered through her paralysis, breaking through the immobilized cloud with a great force and sat up, breathless, at last.

Strikingly sober, she blinked the moisture from her eyes as they swept the room, observing with a great, clean, waking clarity, every corner and shadow as the first light of dawn began to caress the horizon. The hand he had touched was gripped atop the pounding of her heart.
He was gone.

Slowly, deliberately, she placed her hand on the spot where he had been and  and drowned in the ribbons of silence. Nothing remained save the cold of the dawn, the distinct scent of ocean air; and, fixed to the palm of her steady hand, a small collection of salt.

Performing on The Tony Awards

Sometimes in life, an experience is every single thing you hope and dream and pray it will be. This was one of those.

We do it for THAT Guy

Whenever I meet new people the question “How did you end up in the UK?” is almost always at the top of the list—and the answer, of course, is extraordinarily complicated because the winter of 2002, I experienced a very strange chapter of my life that I rarely talk about.

Thus, I do what we all do: I ‘Cliffs Notes-it—” that is, I give you the gist. Ya know: I skip over this weird four-month chapter of Twilight-Zone-Level weirdness that no one could possibly understand unless they were to be told the entire story, or perhaps, they were, by some miracle, there.

So whenever I tell what is the “Cliffs Notes story of my life” it goes like this:

    My Dad died.
    I moved to Scotland.
    SCENE.

That is… highly abbreviated. My Dad did die. And I did move to Scotland. But in between those events, I had to make a plan for the interim as if I were vaguely interested in continuing to live.

As one is want to do in a time of crisis, 18-year-old grieving Al made a series of incredibly impulsive decisions shortly after the new year.  In an attempt to “get on with things” I decided to:

    1. Fly back to the University of Minnesota, say goodbye, and clean out my dorm room,
    2. Drop of out of college 
to,
    3. grieve-but-not-grieve,
    4. Get a job. Perhaps at the mall. Perhaps at the diner I’d worked at all through high school.
    5. Maybe try out for some community theatre! Heck, I was pretty good and the Village Players were doing Our Town.

One day, while trawling the (still-baby-fresh) WORLD WIDE INTERWEB for options, I scrolled around for theatre gigs in my area to maybe “do some plays” while I worked at previously mentioned diner, got my freaking life together and I duuno like maaaaaybe re-auditioned for schools (but also maybe curled up and died— jury was out on that.)

I clicked on a link on Playbill.com: A semi-professional theatre was looking for a young woman aged 18-24 who could sing to play in their winter season— The Mousetrap, The Fantasticks and The Pirates of Penzance. You’d get $125 to build the sets, make the costumes, do all the marketing yourself, and be in the shows, and oh yeah: you got to live above the theatre for free and share a single landline phone in a hallway with everyone else who was clearly running away from their lives…Helloooo? Was the computer talking directly to me? I called the theatre and sold myself harder than an info-mercial, and 20 minutes later I had the gig.

Thus, I:

    6. impulsively moved, in January, to a little coastal tundra-town to live, and work in something (somewhat terrifyingly) called "Winterstock." The only catch? This theatre was five hours north of Detroit in a tiny little town on the coast of Lake Huron called Alpena, Michigan.

Alpena: mean January temperature 12ºF.
Alpena: where you were awakened every morning by the train that ran directly next to said theatre at 5am with a coal delivery from Cadillac.
Alpena: where the two main restaurants were Bob’s Big Boy and the other Bob’s Big Boy.
Alpena: With the weirdest, most provincial, Twin-Peaksy, and kindest gosh darn people you’ve ever met in your life.

I packed our car and drove there in the middle of the night with my also-grieving-mom who helped me move in and, miraculously, sort of…allowed me do this very, very weird thing.

And thus, once, long ago, in a mystical land known as Alpena, Michigan, several very magical things occurred that I shall never forget as long as I live.

- There were some eccentric adventures—which all took place in a very sketchy white van called “The Deer Slayer”
- I went to some peculiar social events (a few of which included babies in bars)
- I learned all about running a theatre.
- and I did three plays—two of which were sort of good.
- Crucially, I met some quirky, damaged, bizarre and totally wonderful people—all just as lost as I—and we held one another, lifted each other up in a very dark time.

I don’t know that I’d consider many of these people close friends to this day, but I do know that whenever I spontaneously run into them, or see them on social media, or come across a photograph or memory of that era— my heart swells with gratitude the way I assume an aggregate of shipwreck survivors must feel. Because like it or not we went THROUGH SOMETHING together—and those feelings and memories are ever-present. I am and will forever be grateful to the lost, rag-tag street gang who held me when I was a geiving child on the brink of womanhood, at my absolute lowest.

There were a lot of stories.
But this story?
This one was the most important of them all...


 *

I had a philosophy teacher in High School who once advised never to make life-changing decisions in February— and he certainly had a point. This? This was one of those Februarys. It was deepest February in Alpena Michigan— life was cold in every sense. The theatre had recently completed its not-so-stellar run of Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap, and we were all in a deep funk as we began one of the most beautiful musicals of all time— The Fantasticks.

The thing was? It was February. In ALPENA. A blue-collar town of roughly 10,000 people.
9.23 square miles.
One high school.
A lake.
Like maaaaaybe 5 restaurants.
And a set of railroad tracks.
Oh! And the World's Largest Cement Plant, wouldn’t ya know?
Who on earth was going to schlep through all that snow to go to the theatre?

But here’s the thing: in the middle of deepest February our motley little crew of broken people was bang in the middle of the doing The Fantasticks, and you know what? The Fantasticks was… good.
Really good, actually.

It wasn’t ideally cast, or sung, or particularly gorgeous to look at, but man: every single person in that cast knew what it meant to lose something, to break apart and put yourself back together. Every single person on stage knew what the heck was up with that beautiful little play, and we were giving it to you with every scrap, every single fiber of our fragmented, kalidescopic beings.

Kent flew in to play the young lover Matt so we were re-living our Interlochen magical fantasies, our professional cast of lost-but-talented-actors-living-above-the-theater were filling the roles beautifully, and we had a duet of local men playing the Dads so beautifully it evoked extreme emotions in everyone.  Something about this work felt important, and universal and like it deserved to be shared.

Basically? This production was one helluva little wonder, and we managed to play… to NO ONE.  And when I say “no one,” I mean it: there were days when there were SEVEN people in the audience—and I would know: I ran the freakin’ box office. There we all were— bleeding away, baring the beautiful nakedness of splintered souls to NO ONE, in the asshole of winter, in the middle of freakin' nowhere.

It was bleak….
…and heartbreaking.
    …and soul-crushing.
How could it not be?
No one was out there—if a tree falls in the forest does it make a noise?
If seven people see your beautiful play does it even matter?
What and WHO on earth are we even doing this for?


And then one day… a miracle happened.


We had just completed a midweek matinee where we had played to our smallest house thus far— a house of six. Six people. I changed out of my costume. I locked up the office, and, as one had to do between shows, I walked through the lobby in order to exit the building and re-enter immediately next door to the resident entrance of our apartments above the theatre. I moved swiftly—after all, I had soup to make and tears to shed about the state of my life.

And there he was: a man, probably in his mid-fifties, dressed in thick winter trousers, heavy-duty boots, a buffalo plaid winter coat, and a John Deer hat. This man was a living stereotype of typical Northern Michigan GUY—what on earth was he doing sitting by the entrance of a theatre? And why did he look so pensive? Was he lost? Was he ill? I approached him very slowly and asked:

    “Sir? Hello there, can I help you?”

He made no reply.

    “…Is everything okay?”

The man shifted on the bench beside the door, eyes locked firmly to the ground, and it was only then that I could see he had clearly been crying.

    “Oh, yeah” he said in a voice that evoked one scoffing off feeling “I uh— I just had the afternoon off and I saw that this play was happening and I thought, heck, why not? I don't think I've ever even seen a play with music in it before, where people sing and dacne and all that. Something just told me to come in and so I did and uh… yeah. I guess I didn’t expect it to uhh— ya know, hit me so hard…” His voice, laced thickly with his Michigan accent was breaking, “I— I thought it was really good. It uh— it made me—yeah. I’m fine I just … I… I really need to call my daughter…”

My insides lurched. It was as if the Universe was shining a spotlight on this man, in this lobby, at this particular moment in my little life.

...Who are we doing this for...?

We do it for THAT guy.

Because reader? THAT GUY IS ALWAYS OUT THERE.
Every show, in every audience, in every part of the world.
Even Alpena, Michigan.
In an audience filled with six people.
Because that day?
That day where six people were in attendance…? THAT GUY WAS THERE.

And when I tell you I think of That Guy every single day, I mean it.

So thank you, dearest and most beloved man I will never know or see again— you were a beacon of light in the darkest of days, and shine brightly in my memory, and continue to ignite every corner of my sometimes doubting heart.

It was all worth it.
It continues to be worth it.
Because then, now, and evermore: I do it for That Guy.

Alpena, Michigan

from ANTIGONE

ANTIGONE. [An aperture in]  …I’m tired, Father.

OEDIPUS. [Beat.] When you were born, you were hard on your mother.
    you came in to this world early, and raging.
You could not wait to be alive.
You do not yet belong here with me.

[SHE places HER hands upon HIS missing eyes… this is theirs, the ultimate gesture of intimacy.]

ANTIGONE. Father,
You gave me life.
It came with purpose—
    both were gifts.

[ANTIGONE exits.  OEDIPUS is silent for a few moments.]

OEDIPUS.
Love for this earth
    For life itself,
    And love for you:
There is nothing more.

And in the end,
    may silence make you strong…

The Cat

There are some things we just cannot explain.


It was now late October, and (despite the slow passing of each unbearable day), unseasonably warm for Michigan. The trees (which should have been mostly bare), were a glittering amber aglow in the humming street lights, made all the more lustrous by the deep cobalt blue of the sky behind them, like pieces in a velvet jewel box. There was a knowledge we could feel in our skin that the dew would be heavy in the morning.

Kent and I were on The Walk. Silent and solemn, we strolled hand-in-hand along the curves and reaches of Fairway Drive, taking in the oddness of warmth in the evening sky, the strange intensity of the colors, and an unshakeable feeling that something was happening. There was mystery in the air—we could feel it on our cheeks as the humid breezes lightly gusted. We could smell it like a spice, and could faintly taste in the back of our throats. Uncertainty hung.  And we were alone.

    —I am going to openly admit here that I do not, nor have I ever possessed a particular faith. Prior to that evening, I had never given significant thought to, what we’ll just call, the world beyond—

Kent and I walked on, blanketing ourselves from the evening. Without discussing it Kent began to sing—quiet and low, light but solid. His voice was distinctive, it cut through the dark as I linked on to the song, my own voice dancing on top and then below, weaving in he harmony that was our specialty.

—Things I did have in place:
I believed everything happened for a reason.
I believed that forces, invisible and unnamable were at work in the universe.
I knew that my mother was raised Catholic, my father’s family supper-club Jews (which I supposed made me a “Cashew”??) raised in a largely secular home.
I had gone to Jewish pre-school (and kindergarten!)
I had played Golde in Fiddler on the Roof in High School and was deeply excellent.
I had read Macbeth, and I knew not to fuck with the ouija board—

All at once there was a gust so strong I buried my face in Kent’s chest. He wrapped his arms around me, hands clutching along my back, his own face shielded from the wind within the mass of my hair.

—I believed in good and evil.
I accepted that good and evil was just how the world worked.
I was afraid of unknowns.
There was no one to pray to, there was no structured religion to comfort me, but an inner self-reliant religion of the spirit—

When we looked up, there it was, plain as day.
The cat before us was a silent ginger thing: collarless, and almost impossibly orange with white markings on his face, paws, and a bright white front as if he were wearing a formal dress shirt. He—for you could just sense that it was a he—sat looking upward, paws together, his tail curled perfectly around his feet. One could not deny—no matter how many times you blinked or shook your head—that he was smiling.

Kent and I stared in silence. We looked at the cat. Then at one another. Is this happening? our expressions whispered. My heart twisted in my chest thrusting blood through my entire body but not, for whatever reason, to my brain, which still could not fully comprehend the nature of the creature before us.

Kent crouched down and reached his hand out toward the cat. Psssst psst pssssst, he cooed, rubbing his fingers together, beckoning. The cat walked in a grand circle, making the dramatic entrance of a great actor perfectly catching his light, and approaching, he nuzzled lovingly into Kent’s outstretched hand. Kent smiled. He nuzzled back, scratching under his ginger jowls much to both of their pleasures.

Soon the cat caught my eye and stopped. What? No nuzzling from you? his expression said. I hesitated, but leaned down and stroked the cat along the length of his back. He responded differently to my touch, twisting thoughtfully and placing his head in the crook of my elbow, as if he were doing so with great, overwhelming feeling. It was so intense a gesture that it startled me. I stood, and seemingly having satisfied the cat's needs, quickly backed away and turned toward home. My feet carried me swiftly, practically running from the encounter, Kent rushed up behind me, taking my hand as we moved through the darkness. 

All at once Kent’s clutch grew tight. He stopped dead in his tracks. “Al…” he whispered looking beyond my shoulder. I turned.

It was the cat.
—In the same smiling, perfect position.
It was following us home.

We opened the door to 1367, eyes locked on the cat. He hesitated only a moment before walking inside.
    “What's going on?” said Mom, sensing something as she came upstairs to the foyer. Catching sight of the cat she stopped dead.
    “Who is this?” she asked.
As if she knew what we all knew.
We all knew.

We made way for the cat—the very real, tangible cat—as he slowly surveyed the entire house, placing his paw contemplatively upon the walls, nuzzling up against the corners, soaking the place in with his oddly human eyes. He thundered downstairs in a too-familiar tempo, then thundered upstairs to peak into the office, the bathroom, my bedroom. Finally, he stood before the entrance of the master bedroom. He stared inward through the door left ajar; absolutely still, not breathing, not twitching, frozen in a kind of resolve.

He entered.
He jumped up onto the bed of Death, circled the side that days ago had been Michael’s, and settled into the spot, head down, eyes closed.
The three of us had followed the cat throughout his house tour—down and up the stairs, and now we lingered in the doorway, agape.
No one made a sound.

    “...Mike?” Kent said—it was as if the word fell out of his mouth without the will of the speaker. But the cat opened his eyes, lifted his head, and stared directly at me.

Suddenly he bolted beneath the bed, struggled with an invisible adversary, screeching, mewing, and without any warning, thundered down the stairs and out the still-open front door, never to be heard from again. Like a comet, one moment vivid and dazzling, the next vanished; away on its own journey through the endless dark unknown.

But these things happen.
They do.
Happen.


*


Nights later, I dreamed: Dad was back, and no one thought it was peculiar or remarkable but me.  I made my way downstairs and a particularly well-fed, healthy-looking Dad was leaving the shower in his favorite green velour bathrobe. I did a double-take, stopping him on the landing with sheer joy.

    “Dad,” I cried, “Oh Dad, you’re back!”
    “Hi Al” he said, smiling hugely, neither confirming nor denying my previous statement, "It's good to see you."
    “Oh yes…” I cannot stare at him hard enough, cannot suck in enough of his smell which is so pungent, and real tears fill my eyes, “Papa, we've all missed you.”
He nodded, and with only the slightest tinge of sadness he gathered his green robe close around him and moved to make his way up the stairs.
    “Wait! Dad!” I said, “The cat.”
I had to know.
He smiled.
    “The cat, Papa. Was—was that…?”

Dad came down a few steps and got as close to me as I could sense he was "allowed."
He laughed a little,
    “Of course” he said, eyes sparkling, “but you knew that" 
I nodded.
    “I knew you’d be afraid of a ghost or an angel, anything like that. I knew you would need to know that you had seen it, touched it.  And I just had to make certain everything was okay.” He  turned to go again.
    “Wait—Papa!” I cried, not wanting him to go just yet, “Please. What’s it like?”
    “Al…” he sighed, “you know I can't answer that.”
I nodded again.

He turned to go again, but stopped himself.  Then, looking down at me looking up to him doused in the soft, warm glow of my dreams he said,
    “It’s everything you hope it is...”

I woke in tears.
Comforted.
Certain of nothing.
Certain only, that we know nothing about the world beyond.


...So why not believe?
    Why not?

Because it happens.
These things do.
Happen.