Dimly Present

     During my visits to NYC, it always seems I'm poked and prodded in ways that I'm never expecting. Partly because I get to see good theatre and partly because the older I am, the more I have released myself from personal defensiveness towards the city. In years past the city would require all of my energy and effort, but getting to know this culture of individualists it's daily rampage and the way it all cyclicly operates, it has become easy to manage, and more so, enjoy. My last two trips have rendered nothing more than excitement and an invitation for a quick return.

     I was able to see the musical “Once” based on the Irish film released several years ago. The musical was the recipient of last years Tony Award for “best musical.” It's impossible to tell you how mesmerizing this piece of theatre was. It's rare that I have found myself so emotionally invested in a theatrical piece. At it's conclusion I wanted everyone to be quiet, stay in my seat, regroup, gather my thoughts and figure out what just happened to me. Reflecting on the story from the stage, I gleaned shadows of a greater story, and in this particular evening that overarching backlit shadow was hope.

     In the beginning of January I was privileged to spend some long-awaited time with a dear friend of mine who carries large amounts of wisdom and discernment. Speaking to her is like having all of your words, feelings and thoughts filed correctly into a clarity filing cabinet. She has the ability to diagram, order and shape things in a way I wish I could. In speaking about certain situations in my world, she concluded with a certain thought: hope was lost. Without hope the specific situation I was living was bleak, dismal and dying. Yet to season the situation with even the slightest sprinkle of hope would refashion the entire life-concoction before me.

     One of my favorite moments of “Once” is the first scene. The character named “Girl” steps onto the stage in a dimly lit area and listens at a distance to the entirety of Guy's song. Her back is to the audience, but her spirit so present. From that moment on, Guy's life is challenged, pushed, and prodded. Girl, with her rough-edged drive, stringently stands in the midst of Guy's blurred dreams and his complacent and to him complicated hopes. Girl was presence and presence challenged Guy's vacillation. The presence of anything, no matter where it's spacing in the room, still makes it present. Presence makes it living. Living makes it active, and activity calls for movement, one way or the other.

    I was singing a beautiful song alone in a big room with no one to hear it but myself. And the song had a wonderful melody and beautiful poetic lines, but there was no honesty or reality behind the notes, the phrases, the content. I was filling the room with sound and nothing more even though I knew the song like the back of my hand, but I didn't really know the song because I was singing it just for me.

     Then across the way, quietly entering--hope, faintly seen, stood at a distance and listened. Hope heard all the notes, the words, the crescendos, the denouements, but wasn't affected by my song. Yet hope stayed and was still present. After singing the song over and over expecting a different result hope asked me to stop singing. Then hope began to sing the same song but it was different. After a moment hope asked me to join in. In harmony we sang. I invited hope to stay.