Dreams

The town car is quickly encroaching on my space in the cross walk. It's black, and it moves like an animal; impatient, and menacing. Hunting pedestrians, I presume.

It's 11am. I'm a block from home, and still wearing my pajamas. Colin has already made one valiant effort to get the drain in our shower working, and I've already made one valiant attempt at eating. Both have failed. I've come out here for stronger Draino and baby food.

"Hey!" I yell! I reach out my free hand to tap loudly any metal I can touch, which is what walkers and bikers in the city do when threatened as such. The predator/car stops before I get the chance.

It's then I notice the Jesus decals, affixed, one each, on the car's headlamps. I wonder fleetingly if those have been installed just so that when a pedestrian like me is finally run down, in the last moments of their life, they will see the face of Jesus. Getting closer and closer, and then , BOOM! Perhaps they will mistake it for the light at the end of the tunnel, with Jesus, just as they'd always thought he would look, floating at the center of the funnel of light. Perhaps the driver finds that comforting.

What I would find comforting right now is simple food. Having taken only 6 of the 14 required days of my course of two antibiotics for an infection of my ovaries and uterine lining, I must anticipate a bumpy week ahead. I've taken metrodinizole (flagyl) several times before, and always been treated to days on end of nausea and general stomach upset. Followed by months of chest pain, which no one believes, because no one else has ever reported it to Phizer. Now it's gone generic, and even Phizer balks and responding to any such report. This time I'm obliged to mix it with another antiobiotic, at half the dosage but twice the length of time, so I'm laying in supplies for the coming week. White bread, meat, rice, pasta, and sugar for when I need a quick boost.

Boost in energy or spirits, I'm not sure I can tell the difference. Colin came home last night from the theaters at 59 East 59th (called, incidentally, 59 East 59th theaters.) Dr. Ruth came to see Rearviewmirror, (http://www.reverieproductions.org/ ) and loved it (or so the person sitting in front of her said - "there was this little tiny woman sitting behind me who loved the show!") There have been three very positive reviews published. The director is well known and the writer, a brilliant, award-winning friend of ours, is also beginning to make a name for himself. The venue is equally reputable.

Yet the New York Times has not come. Normally a show with such a pedigree would attract the attention of the Times - After all Billboard, Reverie's last show, with less well-known actors, writer, and director, and at the same location but a smaller theater, at least scored a big photo and some coverage, if not a review. Half the Times review staff is on vacation, or so they tell the P.R. representative at 59 E. 59th, and they won't review a show a week before it closes.

The irony is that if The Times reviewed Rearviewmirror, it may not have to close, The theater is encouraging Colin to extend it, which, however attractive to the two actors who would get their Equity cards if that occurred, is tremendously financially risky. Colin is lamenting his fate when I get in the door. Bitterly lamenting.

When a child falls down and skins its knee, a parent has a couple of choices about how to respond. Does she coddle the child, smothering it in kisses and hugs and words of comfort? Or she can freak out and feed them anxiety about the risks of going out into the world with all those knees and elbows all over the place. Or shall she discipline the child, going on a tirade about the new jeans he's just ruined? Ignore said child until he calms down?

I usually choose a combination of coddling, judging and ignoring when Colin gets like this. Yes, it sucks but it's going to be OK, and yes, you should probably be more financially responsible and get a day job to support your theater company habit, and having said that I think I'll ignore you until you calm down.

Tonight I turned on him. (This may fit into the "freak out" category of coping with the hurt child.) "Aren't you just SICK TO DEATH of other people controlling our lives???" I think he was a little shocked. "I mean, I've been auditioning SOLIDLY for months now, and only ONE CALL BACK! And you labor and sweat over this theater company and the Times doesn't come and it's like some major tragedy, you leave the house early before I'm even up and come home after eleven and I never see you except tired and grumpy, we still can't pay fucking rent!!!"

Well, that's not exactly what I said, but you get the idea. Maybe it's because my infected female organs have not been dutiful in producing whatever happy hormones keep me sane (or deluded) on a regular basis. I feel I've been given a dose of empathy, these past few weeks, for my friends with clinical depression. It's as though someone picked me up by the scruff of the neck, lifted me over a pot of depression, and dunked me in. I wake each morning for my daily dose. So I have to tell it like I see it.

Colin sat on the couch. Silence. "Are you ready?" I asked. "Are you ready to give this all up and have a reasonable life? We both have masters degrees and I haven't been able to buy a new pair of tennis shoes in four years! What the fuck is WRONG with us, anyway?"

We watched Little Miss Sunshine last night. The thing that struck me was that by the end of the movie, every single character had a dream they held dear utterly shattered. Sometimes it was their fault, but most the time it was due to circumstances beyond their control. The teenage boy was colorblind, the father didn't have a recognizable name, the little girl had a bad coach for her routine. But at the end of the day, everybody was fine. Just fine. 'There are winners and losers in this world," the father kept repeating. "The winners never quit." But despite heroic efforts on his part, even he could not force events to shape as he'd wanted them.

Thanks be to Grandpa, who sets Olive straight. "The real losers are the ones who never tried."

I've never suffered delusions of grandeur. All I've wanted in coming to the city was to work in my chosen field, grow in knowledge and skill, and be part of high-quality work. Because the pursuit is artistic doesn't make me different from anyone else. If you were an enterprising scientist, you would want to go where all the best scientists go, right? If you were into space, you'd settle in Houston. If you had cancer, you'd be heading to the best cancer center in the world if it could be afforded.

I was inborn with the skill of singing and communicative movement, therefore naturally I ended up in New York. I've always enjoyed sharing my talent, and honing it. Indeed, it's made up the greater part of my life's work. As a child I was counseled by my father to "Do something you love, and you'll never work a day in your life!" and so I did. And it was fun. When I was actually doing it.

Now I spend 90 percent of my time auditioning for work, and almost none actually doing it.

I had a few regional jobs and a stint on a Broadway National Tour, (which I quit) and since then I've been involved with a few start-up shows in town, all produced on a shoe-string, with material of lower quality than anything I ever did in the middle of the country. At what point does having a dream become counter-productive? When pursuing it causes you to be unable to grow?

Clearly we're not alone on this rambling existential path. Last month I noticed a sign up at the Equity Building: "Starting: A support group for those in their 30's who are thinking of giving up the business. Meets first Tuesday of every month. 7pm, Room 204." Pretty much ALL my actor friends in their 30's are thinking of giving it up. They begin to pine over things like children, a stable a home, and health insurance. And then things get - interesting. Some keep going. Some continue thier waitressing job and continue to train and audition. Some move to Montana, get a job at an architecture firm, and buy a house.

I'm picturing myself, around 80 years old, sitting on my chair, reflective (what are the odds I won't be the reflective type even when I'm 80?) I'm trying to predict which action I take today will produce more regret - not having given to the end of my talents with my very last breath, or not having savings to live comfortably, or even afford that oxygen tube I need up my nose at all times. Or will I wish for something in between?

Then again I may not make it to 80. One of those town cars with Jesus on the headlamps could end my dull if somewhat bizarre life today, or, people apparently die each year from coconuts falling on their heads. (http://www.straightdope.com/columns/020719.html)

For years I've joked about any number of alternate paths I could take. I could dismantle my entire life and moved from the city, on my own or not. With Colin, I could move upstate, where our mortgage on our three bedroom house would be less than what we pay in rent for our one-bedroom apartment here. I or we could open a B & B in the Caribbean - Colin could take people our on sailboat rides for an extra fee.. With my leftover college/retirement fund, I could start a school of International Folk Music in the City. ("World Institute of Music," or WIM - I have already named it.) Would Colin, for his part, be willing to take a right turn or a left with me?

And would turning to a different path produce regrets, or instant and life-long bliss?

"Maybe." Colin says to my query, for the first time in our acquaintance.