I Will Follow You Into the Dark
This time of year, 9 years ago, I had a conversation with my friend Sarah as we walked across a parking lot to her car. She was casting a show for which I had just auditioned.
"Alli," she said to me, "I have had a hard time with this. I was going to cast you as the lead, but" she paused, "I would like to not? Is that OK? I want to give you a smaller part because I need help with getting this show up and you're really good at that... is that ok?"
My answer was, of course. Proud, I was, to have her turn to me when she needed help, and proud I remained of her accomplishment with that show. That was the first time I had produced anything for anyone other than my family and close family friends.
It was an odd tidbit from life to remember randomly as you're walking down Broadway one March afternoon, alone. Yesterday was exactly 8 years, 2 months and 10 days since Sarah died. There are some things you never get over. I thought that as I looked up at the billboards that line the buildings of this, the world's theatrical epicenter.
Yesterday I was accepted into an extremely prestigious (if not the most prestigious) graduate program where I, for three years, will study producing and theatre management. Overcome with joy is an understatement. I called my mom during my lunch break and screamed and yelled and jumped up and down as I walked to the gym. When I got there I changed, walked down to the bikes and before I had even begun I heard a voice.
"Alli," the voice said.
I turned around and there was my friend, a not-so-great friend, but good friend of the crew back home (which makes him like family) with whom I've shared meals and run into all over the place. His face is blown up and big and the center focus on posters and billboards and subway advertisements that promote his very-much-a-hit off-Broadway musical that was merely a nice draft he mentioned to me the day we met years and years ago. He leaned in and kissed me on the cheek.
"How are you sweetie?" he asked me.
"Great!" I replied. "I just found out I got into grad school!"
"Thats amazing!" he replied, and kissed me again. "Congrats!"
I beamed and continued my workout. On my way back to work I walked right past the theatre where RENT (ironically produced by the same guy who is produing my friend's very-much-a-hit off-broadway musical) has been playing for years and years and years. My eye caught the graffitti'd wall, the part where someone had written "525,600." I choked up. I remembered those nights when Sarah would drive me back from rehearsal in her family's station wagon and she'd blast RENT and make me sing in harmony to her always out of tune, but always full of fun, voice. How, I wondered, did I get from there to here? How lucky I am.
Tonight a show opens on Broadway called The Year of Magical Thinking, which is based on a book about the loss of a woman's husband. Many people in my office have seen it and their responses range from "amazing, incredible, I was totally moved" to "it didn't affect me that much." The latter comment is usually followed by a, "but I've never experienced death before."
At the top of the b-roll footage for the show Vanessa Redgrave (who is the lead, and the only person in the show) says "Life comes at you fast." Usually, I giggle, but when I heard it yet again yesterday afternoon I smiled.
Hope is a delicate thing. When you lose so much at such a young age it is very difficult to fill yuorself with hope. Rose colored glasses are a joke. Life, as you know it, is tainted. However, there is only one choice: to survive. And the only way to survive is to dive into life with a blinding passion and do everything you possibly can to suck as much from everything as much as possible all the time. Often, you forget. But sometimes, in a moment, or a series of moments over the course of an hour or two, you remember, and all at once you can see how you went from A to B and life plateaus once again into the perfect, painful balance of joy, loss, success, failure and gratitude for everything and everyone that got you to where you are.
"Alli," she said to me, "I have had a hard time with this. I was going to cast you as the lead, but" she paused, "I would like to not? Is that OK? I want to give you a smaller part because I need help with getting this show up and you're really good at that... is that ok?"
My answer was, of course. Proud, I was, to have her turn to me when she needed help, and proud I remained of her accomplishment with that show. That was the first time I had produced anything for anyone other than my family and close family friends.
It was an odd tidbit from life to remember randomly as you're walking down Broadway one March afternoon, alone. Yesterday was exactly 8 years, 2 months and 10 days since Sarah died. There are some things you never get over. I thought that as I looked up at the billboards that line the buildings of this, the world's theatrical epicenter.
Yesterday I was accepted into an extremely prestigious (if not the most prestigious) graduate program where I, for three years, will study producing and theatre management. Overcome with joy is an understatement. I called my mom during my lunch break and screamed and yelled and jumped up and down as I walked to the gym. When I got there I changed, walked down to the bikes and before I had even begun I heard a voice.
"Alli," the voice said.
I turned around and there was my friend, a not-so-great friend, but good friend of the crew back home (which makes him like family) with whom I've shared meals and run into all over the place. His face is blown up and big and the center focus on posters and billboards and subway advertisements that promote his very-much-a-hit off-Broadway musical that was merely a nice draft he mentioned to me the day we met years and years ago. He leaned in and kissed me on the cheek.
"How are you sweetie?" he asked me.
"Great!" I replied. "I just found out I got into grad school!"
"Thats amazing!" he replied, and kissed me again. "Congrats!"
I beamed and continued my workout. On my way back to work I walked right past the theatre where RENT (ironically produced by the same guy who is produing my friend's very-much-a-hit off-broadway musical) has been playing for years and years and years. My eye caught the graffitti'd wall, the part where someone had written "525,600." I choked up. I remembered those nights when Sarah would drive me back from rehearsal in her family's station wagon and she'd blast RENT and make me sing in harmony to her always out of tune, but always full of fun, voice. How, I wondered, did I get from there to here? How lucky I am.
Tonight a show opens on Broadway called The Year of Magical Thinking, which is based on a book about the loss of a woman's husband. Many people in my office have seen it and their responses range from "amazing, incredible, I was totally moved" to "it didn't affect me that much." The latter comment is usually followed by a, "but I've never experienced death before."
At the top of the b-roll footage for the show Vanessa Redgrave (who is the lead, and the only person in the show) says "Life comes at you fast." Usually, I giggle, but when I heard it yet again yesterday afternoon I smiled.
Hope is a delicate thing. When you lose so much at such a young age it is very difficult to fill yuorself with hope. Rose colored glasses are a joke. Life, as you know it, is tainted. However, there is only one choice: to survive. And the only way to survive is to dive into life with a blinding passion and do everything you possibly can to suck as much from everything as much as possible all the time. Often, you forget. But sometimes, in a moment, or a series of moments over the course of an hour or two, you remember, and all at once you can see how you went from A to B and life plateaus once again into the perfect, painful balance of joy, loss, success, failure and gratitude for everything and everyone that got you to where you are.
posted by AllDeTime at 11:31 AM
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