I’d like to write a play about space.
I got one of the letters last night and it took me by complete surprise, slipping in quietly under my nose while I’d been too busy looking for a loud, storming entrance.
I think I’d lost any sense of my own movement and when I woke up this morning my roommate had left for Mexico and there was warm air blowing in through my window. I snoozed my alarm four times, thinking about a big breakfast and today’s meetings and how all I want to worry about this spring is slowing down to a snail’s pace and airing myself out in the sun.
I was late waking up this morning and put on a stupid grey t-shirt and some extra perfume and the subway was so crowded that elbows were poking into my back and my face was pressed uncomfortably close to a stranger’s neck. But it didn’t matter because you can taste spring outside and everything feels like it’s waking up again. There are lots of good things right now:
Like a map of Spain on my wall to help plan our trip. Like two letters from my grandpa in one week. Like remembering to take my vitamins. Like a healthy dose of anxiety. Like watching the Oscars and eating enough sushi to feel sick to my stomach. Like being able to page through other people’s journals. Like knowing when it’s time to take a break. Like seeing letters I wrote when I was seventeen. Like having people to remind me to pay attention to all of this.
At 2:00, I stood on the corner and it looked like all of New York was melting under the first suggestion of spring. People peeled their coats off triumphantly and the remnants of last week’s snow formed little waterfalls from the rooftops and building facades. I waited to cross Broadway and thought about how everything right now feels like waiting. I’m not good at waiting- it’s up there with driving, Nintendo and washing my hair on a regular basis. I have virtually no patience, no matter how often I try to harvest it. I pick at the corners of things, assume I know better (I usually don’t) and no matter how many times I’ve done it, the process of waiting for a response from an application or a submission or an interview always feels like the most acute and self-inflicted torture imaginable.
After the third and final interview for my first real job, I moped around for days. I’d just moved to New York- presumably for this job- and couldn’t find a way to maneuver through the abyss of waiting. ”Send out more letters,” my mom said. I grumbled that it seemed like courting rejection, but she insisted. So for about three days I distracted myself from waiting by assuming I’d already been rejected.
I ended up getting the job (I got the call and accepted while waiting in an ATM vestibule near Columbus Circle) and, more importantly, learned that one of the only ways to survive the waiting is to put up a scarecrow and frighten it off. Skip off in the opposite direction, feign indifference, and cheerfully explore what you assume is the worst possible scenario. It’s a little mental trick and is certainly more productive than nail-biting (another thing I’m not good at).
Remember the Twyla Tharp rehearsals I sat in over the summer? The piece- Come Fly Away- opens later this month in New York and has a nice little write-up in this week’s New York Magazine.
Weekend reading- Fool For Love by Sam Shepard and one of Braden’s early drafts of HERE.
I’d been looking forward to The Tempest all day- all week, actually- but I was sadly disappointed. The seats were uncomfortable and there were long pauses where Prospero forgot his lines, looping back through his blocking to try and jog his memory until someone on stage finally whispered the words. This was in the first five minutes of the play and despite a stage covered in water and Caliban crawling out of the floor and trees lighting on fire, there was no magic to any of it.
The express train ran local because of the snow so by the time we got back to the apartment all the bars and restaurants were closing, except for the sushi bar across the street. I ordered Drambuie (warm) and we watched the women’s skating final and outside it kept snowing. The cars were moving slowly and our waitress was moving slowly and even I was moving slowly, stretching out words and touches and a general feeling of contentment for as long as it could last.
