Rituals: If I Must

No, I suppose I don't have much ritual to my name. What is constant when your family splits and reshuffles when you're fourteen? What can become ritual across state lines? When my fifteenth birthday was a surprise party, sixteenth alone in my father's apartment, seventeenth listening to Jonathan Larson when Clara and her brother crossed the moat to show up with a cactus.

My anti-roots please me. Truthfully. I can be a dandelion spore. Look!

I wrote a list of personal rituals today in Theatre History. We discussed the performance ritual of the Hopi people. My list was tiny and barely existed beyond 2004. It said, "Oldies, Groundhog Day, Tremblay's Candy Shop, Malcolm in the Middle, my grandmother's house near Gurnee, celery stuffed with sharp cheddar."

If I must bring children into this world, I will run with them each fall. I will eat with them each morning. I will enforce a strict policy about attending theatre each spring, Christmas pastries each December, and reflective birthdays. Stargirl is required reading. Diana Ross is figurative king. Quiet. Listen. That train is saying "Hello! Hello town!" If I must.

And, if I don't have to, I will be my own children. And I will fill myself with Hopi hopey.