There had been Friday meetings set, but they were cancelled last minute. I suddenly felt determined to go to Six Flags. So I did. Got there just after open. Rode my favorite loop first, then the big dusty coaster (front row), the pirate ship, the revolution, answered emails, did some drafting at a picnic table over a free Diet Coke, even rolled calls about the festival poster near Bugs Bunnyland. Took a spin on the carousel before heading home around 2. A lot can happen with free parking and four hours. I texted Puhg while I was there, what was with the urgency. He suggested, could be some kind of anxiety purge. “The body keeps the score,” he added. Perhaps my guts have been so metaphorically rattled lately they long to be physically rattled.
I was an email freak the rest of the afternoon. Drove over to the west side around 6:45 to catch the play. The gals did just great. I didn’t stick around long after, had to process in the night. Puhg woke up when I walked in, confused but smiling.
Saw the show twice Saturday. The matinee talkback elicited tears but two prominent artists snubbed me in the evening. TM was inexplicably also in the audience and no one knew why, though he did laugh at my most brutal joke. I decided to take pride in how I handled these strangenesses instead of worrying too much. Had a bad expensive salad grr, walked aimlessly near the beach.
Sunday there was a very long discussion about how to organize the day which ended quickly when my aunt agreed to lunch. Had to dab up my face and fit but soon we were on the sunny patio with free garlic bread. I’d walked past the night before, at sunset, thinking, “now this is a place I’d like to go one day.” The cheesy Italian flag and angled roof. Our server advised me to read more Nietzsche. Tax Ant said that would never happen in the north woods. I’d gotten a headache on the way over, and I swear the spicy tomato ravioli cured it.
We took it nice and easy to the theatre, sniffing flowers each block. It was a packed house, which always feels so good for goodbye. I couldn’t help but peep from my back corner—did so and so laugh at that? Ah so and so set her head against so and so’s shoulder there. Oh good so and so’s dad chuckled. Puhg accuses me of loving to lean back and observe what I’ve sown. (And fine it's true!)
The cast did even better than their best. The talkback was incredibly special. Friends were there—ER for fun, AZ for research, BM as a fellow playwright, my manager, the original gaffer!, and more. I had a true giggle when we called JS in to be acknowledged for his amazing set, and he slurred he was already drinking in the lobby. He held up a little homemade frose for emphasis.
The lobby was such a scene. A girl bawled for a long time and a mom said thank you. A guy told me about gang violence in his high school, a couple about their church being targeted, two fellas joked, RB and my aunt hugged, photos, packing up for the party. Not based in science, but there was a release that happened—when I invoked my grandmother in front of the step-and-repeat.
Puhg and I went over to celebrate with the crew and even some cute parents and at the very end I showed the two muffins the photo of us I took a year and a half earlier. I’d said, “I have a feeling this is going to work out.” We re-created the image, looking about the same on the outside, though all three of us were much much different on the inside.
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