Squinting away from the sun, with my toes curled around the base of patio table in front of a beautiful pool in a Fire Island house I recently talked about great drama with a man I hardly knew but who somehow had shared great swaths of my distant past.
As a fellow NYU Tisch School of the Arts alum our paths had crossed for a number of years without actually ever overlapping, even for a moment. But on that day in July, we had finally met. There we sat as the sun began to wane on a very hot 4th of July weekend, discussing the theater and the people we both know/knew who "made it."
My husband sat quietly in one of the other chairs. My friend, this man’s boyfriend, sat just as silently in the fourth, both witnesses to the volley of bullshit being hurled between me and the man.
Though I fudged my way through the discussion of whether I understood O’Neill or not, I was right there when things turned to Checkhov.
"Those years" my reference to my years in drama school are mostly a blurr. Well, the part where I was supposed to be studying the great works of the theater or at least the latest shit to be called Avant-Garde were anyway. Those were moments punctuated by great
After some mention of a production of The Cherry Orchard, the discussion turned to Checkhov. The man asked me if I "got" Checkhov. "yes, I think I do. I get those people. I get their endless waiting. I get their angst."
He dismissed it. Something about the silliness of the aristocracy. He himself an un confessed aristocrat I was sure he couldn’t understand.
I have lived so much of my life waiting for that proverbial train to Moscow. Even this blog features the weather in the place I’d rather be today. One day it might be Paris, most days it’s New York. I might go on an occasional jag for London or someplace exotic like Bhutan; but there is always some other place I’d rather be.
When I’m unemployed, I wish I had purpose. When I am working, I long for the unstructured life. When I am happy I am suspect of what ill is lurking just beyond the horizon.
I love the city and I love the country. I hate everything in between.
