Remembering
Aug. 24th, 2004 08:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qosIt's raining again.
Driving home from the gym this evening in the gathering darkness, I was abruptly and poignantly swept back in time. . .
1981 - my sixteenth summer. . . and it's scary to think how long ago it's been. . . My first summer dating. I'm six months older than T, my first boyfriend, so I'm doing the driving. There's not much to do in Longview, so we see a lot of movies that are playing at the two theaters in town. Actually, we see the few movies several times. This is the summer of Raiders of the Lost Ark, which we see at least three times. This is Longview, so we also see Clash of the Titans a couple of times because there's nothing better to do.
But it's not the movies I'm thinking of tonight: it's sitting in my Volkswagen Bug with him and spending an hour or more kissing, and then driving home alone afterward in the dark, almost deserted streets. I don't usually think of rain when I think of that summer -- so it's not so much that summer at all: it's him, and that first discovery of passion, and the exhilerating sense of breaking the rules while doing exactly what I am supposed to be doing. Driving alone that late at night was another milestone, one that was almost as important as what we were doing together. Being out late, in the dark, outside of the sheltering walls of my parents' house and the pools of light from the porch and the windows, left on to welcome me home and to keep back the dark. . .
"What I'm doing" was pretty innocent stuff. It took us half the summer to get around to open-mouthed kisses, and we didn't go any further past that point for a very long time. I was, as I have commented here before, a classic Good Christian Girl, and he knew what he was dealing with. Or he did at first. He was part of an initiatory transition, and I was never quite the same after those first few weeks. He was Han Solo to my Princess Leia, and I had been looking for a scoundrel in my life. One with a heart of gold, of course - but a scoundrel. He was it for me.
Remembering those nights brings to mind other nights. . .
One of the best nights of my life was outwardly undramatic. I was with one of the best friends I've ever had, a living daimon, camping on the edge of a desert. We were sitting in directors chairs, and there was no one else as far as the eye could see. It was summer, and sunset came very late. We sat under the Big Sky and watched the stars come out and a storm front slowly build up miles away. We saw lightning, heard the thunder, but the storm itself never threatened us. Above us, the stars were clear.
Of all the friends I have ever had, this one was the one with the deepest sense of purpose in his life. I've always envied him that. And that night, I was all too aware of my own lack of purpose, of the way I had drifted through life. We talked, and he asked cogent questions that made me do some hard thinking.
There was a sense of being outlaws, out there alone together. I was still married then, unhappily, although I had not yet reached the point of choosing divorce. I don't think I can communicate the whole complexity of the feelings without saying far too much about the old fantasies (non-sexual) with which this evening resonated, or the complexity of the friendship with this particular person (not actively sexual, but with sexual awareness between us). . . and that evening was vivid and intimate and spectacular and very much apart from everyday life.
And finally, there was opening night of the first play I directed. It was a small affair, as these things go: a black box theater in a student center, with an audience limited to 50 people. But we were sold out, and my cast was wonderful, and I was wearing a lovely strapless sundress in the California spring evening, and felt beautiful as well as proud and accomplished. The professor of directing, who was the most difficult to please of all our faculty, didn't say anything to me that night, but he was smiling -- and that's when I was sure that I had accomplished something significant.
I wasn't going to be graded for the production, even though it was the result of a suggestion from my thesis committee. It was, in fact, something of an outlaw production (long story), but it was my own personal "senior exercise." By being able to gather this cast and crew, rehearse them, withstand the wildly unusual challenges that were thrown at me, and create a production to be proud of, I knew that I had mastered not just the classroom lessons of my major, but had achieved the personal growth that had been my own reason for coming to college and choosing a theatre major.
Re-reading this now, I realize that I use the word "outlaw" twice, and it certainly lurks beneath the first memory as well. A day or so ago, I wrote about needing the daimon to help me break out of the boxes in my life. Passion breaks us out of boxes. Ecstasy takes us out of our normal consciousness. My directing professor told me, "Sometimes you have to get in over your head before you can find out what you're capable of." I have always felt I was capable of far more than my daily life demanded of me -- but I almost never dared to do so on my own initiative.
I'm starting to ramble. . . . How does a single mother, a sensible, rational person, keep passion alive? Not so much sexual passion, but the passion of creativity and daring and expansiveness -- the joy that doesn't ask permission or approval. How do I continue to break out of boxes without cracking the foundations I need to be a responsible adult? That is my fundamental question.
Driving home from the gym this evening in the gathering darkness, I was abruptly and poignantly swept back in time. . .
1981 - my sixteenth summer. . . and it's scary to think how long ago it's been. . . My first summer dating. I'm six months older than T, my first boyfriend, so I'm doing the driving. There's not much to do in Longview, so we see a lot of movies that are playing at the two theaters in town. Actually, we see the few movies several times. This is the summer of Raiders of the Lost Ark, which we see at least three times. This is Longview, so we also see Clash of the Titans a couple of times because there's nothing better to do.
But it's not the movies I'm thinking of tonight: it's sitting in my Volkswagen Bug with him and spending an hour or more kissing, and then driving home alone afterward in the dark, almost deserted streets. I don't usually think of rain when I think of that summer -- so it's not so much that summer at all: it's him, and that first discovery of passion, and the exhilerating sense of breaking the rules while doing exactly what I am supposed to be doing. Driving alone that late at night was another milestone, one that was almost as important as what we were doing together. Being out late, in the dark, outside of the sheltering walls of my parents' house and the pools of light from the porch and the windows, left on to welcome me home and to keep back the dark. . .
"What I'm doing" was pretty innocent stuff. It took us half the summer to get around to open-mouthed kisses, and we didn't go any further past that point for a very long time. I was, as I have commented here before, a classic Good Christian Girl, and he knew what he was dealing with. Or he did at first. He was part of an initiatory transition, and I was never quite the same after those first few weeks. He was Han Solo to my Princess Leia, and I had been looking for a scoundrel in my life. One with a heart of gold, of course - but a scoundrel. He was it for me.
Remembering those nights brings to mind other nights. . .
One of the best nights of my life was outwardly undramatic. I was with one of the best friends I've ever had, a living daimon, camping on the edge of a desert. We were sitting in directors chairs, and there was no one else as far as the eye could see. It was summer, and sunset came very late. We sat under the Big Sky and watched the stars come out and a storm front slowly build up miles away. We saw lightning, heard the thunder, but the storm itself never threatened us. Above us, the stars were clear.
Of all the friends I have ever had, this one was the one with the deepest sense of purpose in his life. I've always envied him that. And that night, I was all too aware of my own lack of purpose, of the way I had drifted through life. We talked, and he asked cogent questions that made me do some hard thinking.
There was a sense of being outlaws, out there alone together. I was still married then, unhappily, although I had not yet reached the point of choosing divorce. I don't think I can communicate the whole complexity of the feelings without saying far too much about the old fantasies (non-sexual) with which this evening resonated, or the complexity of the friendship with this particular person (not actively sexual, but with sexual awareness between us). . . and that evening was vivid and intimate and spectacular and very much apart from everyday life.
And finally, there was opening night of the first play I directed. It was a small affair, as these things go: a black box theater in a student center, with an audience limited to 50 people. But we were sold out, and my cast was wonderful, and I was wearing a lovely strapless sundress in the California spring evening, and felt beautiful as well as proud and accomplished. The professor of directing, who was the most difficult to please of all our faculty, didn't say anything to me that night, but he was smiling -- and that's when I was sure that I had accomplished something significant.
I wasn't going to be graded for the production, even though it was the result of a suggestion from my thesis committee. It was, in fact, something of an outlaw production (long story), but it was my own personal "senior exercise." By being able to gather this cast and crew, rehearse them, withstand the wildly unusual challenges that were thrown at me, and create a production to be proud of, I knew that I had mastered not just the classroom lessons of my major, but had achieved the personal growth that had been my own reason for coming to college and choosing a theatre major.
Re-reading this now, I realize that I use the word "outlaw" twice, and it certainly lurks beneath the first memory as well. A day or so ago, I wrote about needing the daimon to help me break out of the boxes in my life. Passion breaks us out of boxes. Ecstasy takes us out of our normal consciousness. My directing professor told me, "Sometimes you have to get in over your head before you can find out what you're capable of." I have always felt I was capable of far more than my daily life demanded of me -- but I almost never dared to do so on my own initiative.
I'm starting to ramble. . . . How does a single mother, a sensible, rational person, keep passion alive? Not so much sexual passion, but the passion of creativity and daring and expansiveness -- the joy that doesn't ask permission or approval. How do I continue to break out of boxes without cracking the foundations I need to be a responsible adult? That is my fundamental question.
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-24 09:37 pm (UTC)i wonder that too!
theory #1: not all boxes need breaking. choose wisely.
theory #2: there are always more boxes.
what do you think?
(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-24 10:07 pm (UTC)"Choosing wisely" is, of course, the trick. Especially when breaking boxes is almost always contrary to conventional wisdom. One needs unconventional wisdom to do it well.
When I was a senior in high school, I saw a short animated film called "Joshua in a Box." Joshua was a blue ball that pushed and bounced and finally broke his way out of the box he was in. He bounced around wildly for perhaps a minute, then he formed himself into a box and condensed himself back into a ball, leaving a new box around himself.
The silent moral has remained vivid in my mind all these years.
Did you read/hear that
(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-24 10:27 pm (UTC)Now you're going to have to come visit!
yes! when i come for spring break we must all stay up way too late drinking and babbling!
(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-25 05:39 am (UTC)Let's hope our spring breaks coincide!
[takes a moment to check school website]
Mine is March 21-27
(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-25 08:05 am (UTC)well, there're always the weekends... ;>
(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-25 08:42 pm (UTC)I'll take a vacation day, send The Child to Grandmommy's house for the night, and we'll stay up and drink and tell stories.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-24 11:57 pm (UTC)I am envious of those who've been part of a dramatic production! I'd love to do that one day.
I think this breaking boxes vs being sensible issue is also one of the great spiritual challenges we all face. In the deepest senses, I'm not sure there is an answer - it's a mystery. On a day-to-day level? Perhaps it is about becoming aware of the ways in which you feel boxed, and occasionally becoming aware of the unconcious boxes that hold you - then trusting (and asking) God and your heart to guide you?
*laughs* But what do I know! Again, thank you for this sharing.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-25 05:53 am (UTC)I was always a little surprised to find that I was a theatre major! It is fun! A great deal of work, of course, but fun! I've only acted a few times. Most of the time I have been director or stage manager. And that's a different kind of pleasure. I enjoy directing very much.
I'm not sure there is an answer - it's a mystery.
I had to smile when I read this. Have you seen the movie Shakespeare in Love? "I don't know. It's a mystery" is a phrase that runs through the story.
But you're right, I think. This is not a question which has one good answer. Some boxes we need to learn to support, and others we need to break. And I suspect the one may become the other with very little warning.
Looking to God and the heart for guidance is about the best advice I can think of.
Thanks!
(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-25 07:31 am (UTC)I've begun to think that life is nothing but the formation and destruction of boxes. We get restless, we break out, and we form a new box--hopefully one more to our liking. Then we grow dissatisfied and break out of that one...only to form a new one again. There's nothing wrong with that as long as we know what we are doing, that we are constantly seeking new levels of satisfaction.
Life is like a spiral, going up-up-up, and when you think you've come to the same place again, you're only half right--you're at the same spot if you look down from above, but if you look sideways, you are actually a loop higher.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-25 08:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-25 08:31 am (UTC)That was the year I was born.
Makes you 16 years older than me, at least physically.
I feel like I have spent my entire life building and breaking down the boxes of my world at a breakneck pace. Besides learning, it is one of the only things I feel satsfied in life doing. Sometimes I wish I could make a living just redefining myself, but jobs that require those skills are ethier dangerous, hard to get into, illegal or all of the above.
I wonder sometimes if I should give up exploring about what else I have inside me in favor of forming a stable base with the ideas I have already explored. I always choose to break down the next wall, I choose to broaden the way I define myself. It makes me into a chaotic individual, someone who is hard to "know" but every friend of mine feels that they "know" me or at least can relate to me on multiple levels.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-25 08:52 pm (UTC)I don't feel as old as I am. In my mind, I'm about 25 years old. The scary thing is how old the folks are who are younger than I am!
Sometimes I wish I could make a living just redefining myself,
Yes! My Journeys, my personal myth saga, involved living in different star systems for consecutive lifetimes, growing up and becoming someone slightly different each time. . . each time building on the past without repeating it. Each time I discovered more about myself as I learned myself in new surroundings and new cultures -- and learned more about those new places and peoples, too.
I always choose to break down the next wall, I choose to broaden the way I define myself.
I haven't done that consciously in my life, but that's the way it has worked out. I get embarrassed sometimes around people have stayed in one place and "gone deep". I end up feeling like a dilettante. But there is always so much *more* out there to discover! I can't really imagine focusing all my time and energy on any one narrow activity or field of knowledge.
I don't think I'm chaotic. (Especially not compared to some of the folks in my life!) But I am complex and complicated, emotionally as well as intellectually and in my personality. It means that I can connect with people in a variety of different worlds. In fact: that was the goal of my Journeys -- to be able to bridge worlds, to be a mediator, someone who could partake of all the worlds but not be defined by any.
I suppose that what I'm looking for in my life right now (one of the things) is a way to pull it together, to take all the varied experiences of my real life and bring them to some kind of coherent service. Not an ending. . . but a fruition, a blossoming.