A Cleansing (Ghostly) Breath

I’m feeling much better now.  Some days, life seems to spin out of control and you feel like your myriad responsibilities are un-complete-able, you aren’t getting enough sleep, you haven’t had a well-balanced meal in weeks, and you don’t have the time to fix any of those problems.

And then . . . you sign up for an acting job a week before your wedding, and people wonder if you’re crazy.

This is a very small job – it’s a tour of a historic cemetery here in town (complete with ghosts, songs, and actors who don’t know their lines), with minimal rehearsal time.  It is playing only this weekend, right before the wedding.  The Professor was skeptical but supportive, and my sister is in it (it’s been nice to see more of her).  Counterintuitive as it may be, adding this small responsibility to my plate has helped.  It is fun, low stress, and a break from thinking about the imminent nuptials.  We’re all so worried about getting our lines down, nobody has time to ask about how the wedding planning’s going.  It’s hard to freak out about something you don’t have time to think about.

So this weekend at Historic City Cemetery, I will be escorting a huddle of people through a graveyard, at night, on Friday the 13th.  Spirits (aka actors dressed in white) will flit back and forth among the graves while a chill wind ushers the living along the lanternlit path (not joking about the chill wind – a front has moved in and it is COLD today).  We will tell them stories about the people buried under the granite monuments, sing a mournful song or two, and breathe deep, happy that we, at least for now, are only visitors and not permanent residents.  This homage to the dead is a fitting complement to the wedding – the cool, gray, everlasting quiet of eternity is set in stark relief against a loud, robust, meaningful celebration of life.  I know to which place I belong – I’m not ready to rest quite yet!

PS – I went to recline against a small stone during rehearsal and knocked the thing over (**thank heavens it didn’t break!**)  As we bent around it and muscled it back into position, I saw that the only letters still clear enough to read were . . . B R I D E.  Haha.  Good thing I’m not superstitious.  Shudder.