It's a gift, really

The moon, as it set tonight, was a massive orange sliver, dropping heavily toward the skyline.  It's cold.  Really cold in the tunnel.  Had to wait awhile for my bus.  In the front, sports talk.  Next to me, a woman who needed to rant about bus service cuts; she was right in a lot of things, but stuck on a loop of thought and not really listening to anyone...I just wanted to get home.  I tried to look out the window and focus on seeing the moon.

Went to a show, on the theatre pass.  I dozed off during the first act, again, because the person in front of me blocked my view of most of the stage, it makes it really hard for me to pay attention.  I have no idea what happened in the first act.  I was awake for the entire second act, it was staged more forward and everyone was standing, so I could see them.  Sad but true.  (It was my fault for sitting where I did.)  I stayed awake for the entirety of  "Reading to Vegetables," but probably dozed a little during the clown show.  It's not that I'm bored.  Just hard for me to sit for any length of time and stay awake.  (Except on an airplane, I can fall asleep anywhere but on an airplane.)

When I was younger I tried out for the local community musicals, got in a couple (non-singing roles.)  At the time, I thought I did it because all of my friends were doing it.  Then in college, I did theatre because I wanted to get over my fear of public speaking, and I wanted friends.  It helped with the latter, if not the former.  But I think I've been continually drawn to it because I want to perform.  Because I've always wanted to perform, I just never felt like I could fully admit it, commit to that idea of myself.  I had to make excuses to let myself do it.  I'm trying to let myself committ to that now.  But aside from the glamour of movie stars and tabloids, it's a strange thing to choose.  A difficult thing to do, in how much you have to give of yourself.  People say of artists (or others) who are "successful" and kill themselves that they had so much fortune, and how selfish they are, but no amount of money will ever be able to chase any lurking demons away.  I guess you have to face them down and somehow heal yourself, or they will always haunt you, and sometimes you lose.  The drugs, the fame, the money...they don't fill in the holes, remove the pain, they just cover it up, it's still there when you are alone and facing yourself.  These people, in those moments, are the same as anyone else.  Broken like everyone else.  Maybe more so, willingly exploring, as they do (for us), the darkest and brightest corners of our humanity, and shining a light there for the briefest of moments.  Holding our hands so we are less afraid to look there, in ourselves.  We are a little less alone, a little less alienated when we bear witness to it, and on some level we are healed, we find a little bit of redemption in the shared experience.  Maybe we should just say, "thank you."