Wednesday, June 12, 2013

June 12, 2013: Fool for Love

Seven weeks ago, I closed Fool for Love by Sam Shepard.  I played May, a bucket-list role of obsessive intensity that first got me truly hooked on acting during a scene study class when I was 19.  In that class, I remember rehearsing with my scene partner as our professor had suggested, exploring what happened to the relationship when we were physically very near or very far from each other, and how closing or widening the distance affected us.  This is a simple idea that is easy to explore, but for me it was profound.  There’s something so visceral about these characters that a physical exploration like that can’t help but illuminate their 
connectedness.

I have been agonizing over how to write about Fool for Love.  I need to reflect on the journey, to help me move forward and continue to grow.  But this particular journey was so wrapped up in my personal life that it isn’t possible to reflect only on the process of the play.  If I want to write about this honestly, I have to get personal.

I don’t know if I’ll publish this, but I need to write it.

Maybe I’ll work backwards.  I’m in the middle of a divorce right now, a process I instigated, and for which (among other things) I’m in therapy for the first time in my life.  Like a baby giraffe dropped 6 feet onto a rocky ground, I’m trying to find my feet and keep walking, because life doesn’t stop and wait for me to figure things out.

A dear friend of mine observed that every relationship is different, and unless you’re inside it, you can’t possibly understand the intricacies involved.  It can even be hard to understand those intricacies from the inside.  But there really is no room for judgment, ever.  This thought offers me some small comfort as I struggle to explain to people why I have ripped two hearts to pieces, or refrain from trying to explain and worry that everyone is judging me.

And, I try to remember, too, that the world really does not revolve around me as I was convinced it did in high school.  People are not constantly staring and judging.  People have their own lives, their own problems and joys.  There’s so much more to life than me.

And at the same time, my world begins with me: it’s what I have and what I know.  I guess I’m learning to know my inner compass, to listen to my inner voice (the one that’s deeper than the surface of my brain; the one that originates in my soul).  I’m learning to trust that there’s something profound in letting go and trusting myself.

Somehow, Fool for Love taught me all of that.  I had the joy of exploring the obsession of a relationship that was completely wrong, of pushing the extremes of feeling: love, hate, jealousy, desire, fear.  In exploring those extremes, I began to discover the elasticity of the human spirit.  We are amazingly resilient, and there is so much beauty in vulnerability and risk.  It is only through risk and vulnerability that we can connect deeply: with ourselves, with each other, and with something bigger.

My God is Art.  I didn’t know that until really recently.  I am overwhelmed and broken and terrified; and I’m also supported and grounded and deeply calm – because, I have Art.  I can create.  I can express.  I can explore.  The journey has no end, and there’s something deeply humbling about that.  Even in my brokenness, I know in my soul that there’s a long path ahead of me, a path that is connected to many other paths, beautiful in its joys and perhaps even more beautiful in its sorrows.

We live.  We love.  We fall down and we pick ourselves back up.  We ask for help.  We carry each other.  We collaborate.  We create.  We dream.  We discover.


Goodbye, May.  Goodbye, Eddie and Martin and The Old Man.  Goodbye seedy Mojave motel, and endless lightning storms, and desert sage.  Thank you for teaching me.