In January, I was convinced—for the twenty-sixth time in two years—that I was absolutely, for real, not-a-joke-this-time, quitting show business. All to say: jokes on me, I didn’t plan an extended stay in Red Bank, New Jersey to act in a play, which I believe the very definition of being in show business, at Two River Theater.
Let me be clear: I did not go to Red Bank, New Jersey, on any kind of overly earnest, self-healing pilgrimage. I went because I was having a Category 5 Identity Crisis™ and accidentally drove past the exit to my therapist’s office, then kept going because I didn’t feel like crying in front of someone with a quartz paperweight and aggressively kind eyes.
So, there I was in Red Bank. It sounded fake. (Doesn't it sound fake?) Like a town from a children’s book where woodland creatures run a gift shop. But there it was. A real place with real rivers. Two, in fact. The Navesink and the Shrewsbury. I know this because I Googled it while eating a panic hot dog in the car on the way there, twenty hours after completing jury duty.
Before I could take a Tums I found myself in the cutest little one bedroom you ever did see, situated along said rivers (a pro), nuzzled up to the industrial-sized garbage dump of the (quite fancy) retirement home next door (a significant con), and a hop-skip-and-a-jump from a tavern called The Molly Pitcher Inn (a hoot).
Tatiana in tow, I took the job, we moved in, and the first night I cried.
I've never been great at transitions, at change. A Cancerian through-and-through, I love my home, my nest, my comforts, and the first 72 hours in any new digs are always agony. I now know to just allow it to happen—the ploppy tears. I bring a few comforting things with me (and possibly get that 72 hours down to a respectable 48). It helps to ease me in to unfamiliar bed-sheets, cutlery, strange lighting and weird noises. A blanket from home. A heating pad. "Professor Owlinski" the stuffed owl I won in a poker game hosted by Tyne Daly sometime in the mid 20-teens... (and come to think of it, I brought these same three comforts to each of my surgeries in the hospital back in 2020-21. We've been through stuff...)
Human beings can adjust to a lot, but when time is of the essence, when you have to go to rehearsal and appear to be a functional person and work must get done? There is just something about one's stuff. Let's just say: after nearly 20 years in said-showbiz-I-have-yet-to-quit, I've learned how to "be on the road."
But this time? I was coming out of a personal landslide. Though even that sounds too dramatic for what it actually was: a slow, silent erosion of meaning, purpose and the former pert-ness of my cheekbones. I was hollowed out. Still churning out one-liners like a pro! But hollow.
This must be why stand-ups have drinking problems. I considered starting one, or nurturing another vice, or getting a 'shoulder crow,' but I was honestly too tired to really commit to becoming an "Interesting Town Character."
You ever completely fall apart in
such a boring, scenic place that your misery feels almost rude? That
was me. Sitting by the water, feeling like an exposed nerve while a
couple nearby named Gary and Lisa discussed crab cakes and laughed like no one had ever ghosted them on Instagram. I wanted to scream, HOW ARE YOU LAUGHING? THE WORLD IS MELTING! But
I didn't. And meh. Gary and Lisa wouldn't have reacted if I had anyway. This
was New Jersey, after all. These people have seen some shit.
After the show finished in the evenings I would walk over from the theatre, snuggle up with Tati and watch true crime shows—heists, mostly. It felt as though I was achieving something: I was solving crimes. Good job, me.
Emotionally more mature, better regulation skills, perspective and capacity to navigate the world? Definitely.
Size of the emotions? The same.
Dammit.
So fine: I had come undone, in a slow, creaky implosion! But bahahahahahahahaha my career was booming! I had worked 43 out of 52 weeks making art! Even some of it was great art! I had health insurance! A pay check worth tens of dollars! A literal financial plan! A cute haircut! Subscriptions to things!
But my sense of purpose was... missing, presumed dead and starring at me sadly from the back of a 1980s milk carton. I had reached that particularly dramatic point in a downward spiral where you start listening to Lana Del Rey on purpose. I kept whispering, "What is the point of anything?" like I was a sad Victorian boy with scarlet fever. And in one particularly preposterous moment I stared at my fingernails about to paint them before I quietly muttered "....why?" (Alec can attest to this, he bore witness. We laughed. But for a few seconds it was bleak).
But Red Bank just—let me be. No one in this town tried to fix me. The ducks ignored me. The barista slid me a free kitchen sink bar muffin without asking if I was okay. Even the rivers weren’t trying to teach me a lesson. They were just doing their thing, converging in the background like, “Hey, we’ve been here for 10,000 years and we didn’t figure our lives out either.”
One afternoon, I watched a seagull eat half a bagel off a park bench with such pride I almost cried. I thought: Maybe
I could do that. Not eat bagels off benches, necessarily, ya know: snatch at life. Find something small and beautiful and eat it like it was a feast. And also? rude that this is a seagull which is very theatre-coded and I get the message Universe, I am tryyyyying to get a grip over here.
But I didn’t. I just sat there
in sweatpants I definitely should have retired three emotional
breakdowns ago, and I watched the seagull do its thing, water swirl in that calm, competent
way only water can. Not trying to be inspiring, just being very busy and
wet.
In the end?
Red Bank didn't fix me. There was no lightning bolt of revelation, no cathartic sob on a riverside bench.
But something shifted. My thoughts softened. My hands unclenched. I stopped needing to name every pain, stopped auditing my life like a failing business. I didn’t throw my phone into the river (or the other river), or sell all my belongings and open a paint-your-own-pottery studio (a foolish idea anyway because there already is one called ' Time to Kiln' and it's adorable). I just... felt a little better. Like maybe I didn’t need to know what comes next to just exist.
Eventually I left, of course. You can’t hide in New Jersey forever. (Or maybe you can, I don't know your life.) But something stayed with me. A sense that even when everything feels like it’s falling apart, it’s still okay to eat fried clams, talk out loud to ducks, and let two unbothered rivers remind you that the world keeps flowing, whether you’re thriving or just trying really hard not to cry in public.
I didn’t get all the answers. But I did get a seder plate I painted myself at 'A Time to Kiln,' and to my great relief: a couple of weeks of peace.
I’ll take it.
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