Missing Lewis

We study each other through the glass, his fins swirling the water around him. He blinks at me. Slowly, his mouth opens, and he blows a bubble. As it floats to the top, I can feel my heart grabbing in my chest. It pops. Wolfgang's a Betta, and trying to build a bubble nest, meant to house his offspring. Except, there will never be any offspring. He'll never even meet another Betta. I run my fingers over the surface of the bowl, and he follows them. When I pull away, he stays pressed up against the glass, watching me with his dark eyes.

The most painful part of an animal being sad, is that it's all they know. With people, we can pretend not to be, or blame others, or find a way to cope. But animals, they only know sad, an overwhelming depression that fills every part of them, and simply radiates pain to everything around them.

We just lost our duck, Lewis. His mate, Ping, couldn't be sadder. She won't leave the coop, she just stays tucked into her nest, wrenching heartbroken quacks into bedraggled feathers. Our dog, Jake, lays beside the fence door, waiting for a playmate who will never again come outside to play. Our chicken steps out, and he excitedly raises his head, clutching at the hope that this white feathered bird might be Lewis. I bite my lip as his head sinks back down.

Here's to you, Lewis. Your unmistakable squeak of a quack that always made me laugh. Your stunningly blue eyes. The way you dipped entirely underwater when you swam. The one curly feather that stuck out from your tail. The way you played with Jake and ruffled your feathers. The way you so lovingly protected Ping. Here's to you, Lewis. I love you, baby.

Heartbeat

My head lies curled up in my arms on my desk, so I can hear the tick of my watch, a gentle tug back into reality. It murmurs quietly, clicking metallicly. The bell sends me sweeping through the hallway, and I suddenly realize that I'm invisible. Without my telltale chaos of curls, I blend in, unrecognized. Later, they paint on someone else's skin, until I'm completely unrecognizable. The extra rolls of flesh aren't mine, and my own face is smooth beneath the painted wrinkles.

In the wings, I feel lost. I am not myself, where have I gone? Fear and sadness begin to well up inside of me, until I suddenly feel my heart, pounding against my chest. A gentle tug, back into reality, my heart. I am myself. And as it murmurs gently to me, I smile. I have found myself.

Wake-up Call

The hammock rocks back and forth, a searing orange in the earthen scene around it. My arms stretched over my head, my fingers and toes tangled in the strings. I can see the shafts of sunlight filtering through the trees, brushing over the soft dirt on the ground and lighting up parts of my skin. I'm surrounded by tree trunks, adorned with shuffling leaves and whistling birds. Rolling on my side, the hammock swings with a renewed vigor, and I shut my eyes, losing myself completely. Much later, I hear something moving in front of me. Opening my eyes, I find myself to be face to face with a white chicken. She cocks her head at me, ruffles her feathers, and continues to scratch at the ground. Laughing, I pull myself upright, finding the sun has already ran to the other side of the sky. Feeling strangely perfect, I return to reality, realizing that sometimes, all we need is a strange wake-up call.

Onstage

She watches me mouth the words to myself. Closing my eyes, I close myself in a different world, trying to remember what to say, but the words remain stuck on the page. With a sigh, I flip open the script in front of me, searching for them. Her voice interrupts.
"You know, you look crazy. Like you're talking to yourself."
I laugh, shaking my head. Out loud now, I read the words, gently coaxing them off paper. She's clearly not amused, glancing around to see if any one's staring. Two people are, as entranced with my mutterings as she had been. I hadn't noticed. Her own words jest, but her tone turns authoritative, a mix of begging and reprimand.
"We're not exactly 'onstage'..." she says gently, trying not to offend. I shake my head yet again.

"All the world's a stage," I whisper," and all the men and women merely players..."

12 Angry Jurors

"I love it here," I whisper to him, both of us glowing. His face is cartoon-ish, but worn, the eyeliner smudged around his face, the lipstick clinging only to the edges of his lips.
"I love our tech, I love our stage, I love our lights, I love our costumes, I love the smell of the dressing rooms right before a show..." I don't realize that by the end of this, I'm nearly crying. The broken lipstick breaks into a smile.
"You're using your monologue voice," he teases. I laugh away the welling tears.
"It's the only voice I have."

Every actor has a "monologue voice." It's louder. More supported. Projected. Slightly more dictated. For some, it may belong to a different person entirely, but some may be unnoticeable. I don't believe these are the voices of acting. These are the voices we use to tear out out innermost raw emotions, and everything else, is just acting.
Some people belong onstage. Like this boy in front of me, the brilliant star of a brilliant show. His voice can draw you into any world he likes, and within seconds, he's already holding onto your heart. Even standing in the back of the theater, I love the way his voice fills the room, curving into every crevice and mind, painting whatever he fancies. His character is nearly fluid, pour him into any form, and he'll fit perfectly, shrugging into it the way one may put on a jacket one's been wearing their whole life.

Even without being in the show, I belong there. I'm not used to the clunky weight of a tech flashlight against my belt loop, blending with the shadows in anonymity, but I'm recognized in the dressing room, quickly finding my perch on the edge of the counter, even after being missing for months. An extra hot iron is pushed into my hand, and I quickly become a part of the counter itself, belonging. The hairspray mixes with the anxious energy, filling the room with a comforting and familiar smell.

I worried that I was wrong about the theater, that coming back would be disappointing, at best. But I was wrong. How wonderful, how familiar, how incredible, to be back at home. I'm home.

Life in Bloom

"You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty." -Mahatma Gandhi

Gandhi begs us not to lose faith in humanity, describing humanity as an ocean that's not entirely dirty. However, I didn't understand what he meant, until I was surrounded by it.
Pressing close to the nose of the ship, the sky and water blend together in an endless expanse of blue. The wind runs its fingers through my hair and throws it against my face, aglow in the screaming sun. Waves crash around themselves as though they have no idea what they're meant to be.

I always thought he meant that we aren't a bad people just because some of us are bad, and I always disagreed. I thought that humanity was doomed, that our shared human nature was in itself, corrupt. I was wrong. Nobody is a bad person, because the drops are not individual people. The ocean is each of us as a whole, our humanity in one great swirling blue. We may have bad parts, but we're not bad people.

On the beach, I kneel in the warm sand, and scoop up water between my fingers. It sparkles in the light. Spreading my fingers, it trickles back, glittering like jewels, and is quickly lost in the ocean. I stand, and slowly take a step into the inviting waves. The warm water laps around my ankles. I walk farther, until all but my head is submerged. With a sharp breath, I let the water cover me, and I'm suspended in the brilliance of it, bobbing up and down with its current as it pleases.
People behave with the same acceptance, but only if you're willing to swim out far enough.

Back at home, I return once again to the English room on the top floor, and a glimmer from the window catches my fancy. I turn, and gasp as a realize all the trees have grown back their leaves. The decrepit branches have been replaced by those with a renewed promise of life. Each boasts its own colors, shaking gently in the light breeze. I never realized how beautiful life was in bloom.

To be Loved

"People- people who need people
are the luckiest people in the world.
We're children, needing other children,
and yet, letting our grown-up pride,
hide all the need inside.
Acting more like children,
Than children."
-Funny Girl

They tell me I'm childish and desperate for attention. A drama queen. Pathetic. I know. I agree. I'm addicted to the sound of applause. I'm well aware of the tizzies I go into when I'm ignored.
So when I ran into a friend at rehearsal whom I haven't seen in months, I tagged along behind him and others. He's the big brother I never had, the mentor I look up to, and the shoulder I cry on. The conversation danced around the colleges they're going to, the shows they're putting on, the groups they got into. Nothing I could relate to. So I followed, pretending my heart didn't hurt.
Suddenly, his arm was around me. I smiled and buried my head in his chest. Laughing, he kissed the top of my head. And I realized, that was all I needed. To know I was loved. It doesn't matter how much attention he gives me, because when he reaches out to me, even in that one small gesture, I know he loves me. To be loved, and to know we are loved, is all anyone asks for.
People need other people, maybe not for constant attention, but just to be loved.

Guilty Pleasure

In the airport, a wary woman sits alone, hunched over. She wears light winkles around her eyes and mouth, but her luggage is childish. She looks embarrassed, and as her blond hair falls back from her face, I catch a glimpse of a Ben and Jerry tub balanced on her knees. Startled, as though she knows I'm watching, she pulls a plastic spoon out of her mouth and tucks away her guilty pleasure. She swings the bag over her shoulder and brushes off her shirt, reclaiming her dignity, and she melts into the crowd at the other end of the terminal.

Library Instructions

To Find a Book:

• As you walk in, skip the stairs. The stairs carry you to a world where choice have already been made, where favorites are placed in front. Skip them. You must delve directly into the heart.
• The trick while wandering, dear reader, is to ignore the voices that everyone else hears. The trashy romance, the cliched mysteries, the naive slang of high school drama. Ignore it. Listen for a very different voice.
• Wander into the very depths of the shelves, the untouched. The books have their own delicious smell, and your mind begins to ache with a hunger. These books, reader, have been forgotten, and are simply aching to pull you into their world.
• If you close your eyes, and listen just right, you can hear them calling to you. Do not be afraid to run your fingers along their spines, to inhale, to sense them, to feel them.
• If you feel you find one, you must pick it up, flip through it, take a taste of the language. If it doesn't suit you, move on. The best books taste delicious from the very beginning.
• Most of all, remember this, dear reader. As you read it, you must take in every detail of it. Don't just read it.Enjoy it. Knowledge is the food of the mind.

Trigonometry

Today, we began trigonometry. Strangely, although not surprisingly, I fell in love with it. The perfect angles, the right triangles, the beautiful sides. Strangely, I understand.

It's so simple, so straightforward, so understandable. Every triangle holds only 180 degrees. A right triangle always follows the same laws. Every set of three sides can only form one triangle. No tricks.

Words, on the other hand, words are liars. Words are emotions. And emotions are painful. With every tear shed, theres never a right answer, never a perfect thing you can say to stop the hurting. But for every equation, theres always one perfect solution.