Any Other Way

ME: I do not want this play to open. I'm going to bomb the theater.

CLARA: Why? You're good at what you do. If you bombed the theater, the theater will be gone. bombed. Sad, right?

ME: ...No. I'm a mean little grinch.

CLARA: I want to fly to you so much

ME: Me too.

CLARA: and punch you.

ME: No!

CLARA: You are going to be okay.

ME: Yeah.

CLARA: You are going to learn something you couldn't have learned any other way.

Two years ago.

CLARA: It's okay to be afraid. You don't always have to be unafraid.

Not Anybody's Job

It's kind of weird that it's not anybody's job to make you unafraid.

I dreamt about my fiction professor from college last night--a courage pusher. I haven't thought about her in a very long time. Not that she didn't play a huge part in the formative years of my writing education. She's just not on the mem rotation. But there she was, with her maroon lips and long grey hair. Big smile. She's a horrible liar. I could tell she hated what I was writing, but she found something, some nugget she could sort of rally behind. I wasn't asking to feel what I didn't deserve to feel. Just to feel unafraid.

So I guess if you want to be immortal, don't worry about making the great American masterpiece, or making legislation, or even making a baby. Just make people unafraid.

May 2010.

"There are very few monsters who warrant the fear we have of them."--Andre Gide