Water

I was sitting in an Italian bakery in Lima, awaiting a very late flight.

The older man next to me was so engaged in conversation with his friend that I felt uncomfortable being on my phone.

How was I going to shrink into a screen with such relationity on display?

I started to cough mid-bite of my dessert. In an instant he looked over and offered me the glass of water on his table.

“Take this, I haven’t touched it.”

I immediately did.

And the crystallized humanity cut through my whole social universe.

I walked the street after, eyes wide. I was still recounting it to a friend after arriving in Texas.

How many days of tension does simple humanity generate?

Chaos and affection

There is water on my kitchen floor this morning.

My house is odd — tall, with very poor drainage. Mini floods happen. Weird corners of my kitchen turn into watery caves that will not leave.

I stood and asked myself, "But where does this water come from?"

It's like my kitten, always waiting at my door.

There is always a small drainage issue making footprints unavoidable. There is also a meowing creature that demands my attention at four a.m.

Why? Because she wants to play.

There is a permanency to the chaos and affection of life itself.

On its smallest scale, perhaps, it's the most visible to me.

Theatre

It might just be theater.

I used to do theater in high school. So many plays. I wrote plays. I directed plays. I acted in plays, and now I nearly never think about it. I wore a wig and white make-up in Amadeus. I played Mary in The Crucible, which had one line. I wrote a short play called "Sunday Afternoon" and slipped out the back of the theater during the performance, my seventeen-year-old self.

Maybe I like a real life that's artistic but outside. Not performed but merely enacted, pushed forth like someone giving birth to each new thing,

odd word sounds coming out of my mouth as I form them.

For the record: I created a cozy and dark home inside that theater. I needed it.

But of all the things I have pursued in my life,

actor is not on the list.