Solo

One of the hardest things about solo work, is well, its solo.


I need the audience. Its all about serving it to them anyway. And this sounds like whining, even to me, but it is hard to make it new and different for the same person who has been watching you do it day after day. Alas, that is the WORK of the work. So I will not complain.

I am my own scene partner, there is no one to call and say, hey let's go over this scene, or to call me and say that .I don't have anyone but me telling me if that was good or if that sucked, or if that was interesting and let's explore it some more...I shouldn't say NO ONE, I do have some very wonderful friends, who have given of their time and allowed me to use their eyes.

It's even more...challenging when its a show that has been mounted once and your director is in a different city, and she thinks your just the greatest thing since sliced bread and just trusts you to get it done...and your children need you and you feel guilty because you need to rehearse and your husband needs you to rub his back after his 12 hour day, that he worked so that you can be an artist and the laundry needs to be folded and you're doing one of the scariest things in your life and and and...

I am clearly having a moment today. And it all boils down to this: I WANT MY MOMMY. If she were here, I think that I could call her and she would understand, at the very least, me. If not the particulars of my peculiar life, I just know that somehow, she would understand ME. And I realize that the most wonderful gift that  going through the process of this show has given me, is that I can finally say that, "I want my mommy" and not feel guilty about crying for missing what I never had. I can finally GRIEVE. And that is a good thing. It hurts. It is painful, and it is scary, but, after the pain washes over me, and I cry and fret, and feel like it is so unfair that I have to face this life without her, I breathe, and I am okay.

The sky didn't fall. No one else died because I allowed myself to feel it, and no one was hurt. I didn't lose control of my life even though I may have lost control of my emotions momentarily, and and and...

I'm still here. Solo.