I wasn’t sure that my initial rant was published, but I see that it was. So be it. I awoke this a.m., my last day to advise Adult degree students, feeling refreshed and ready to move on to whatever is coming. You see, being “always a bridesmaid” has its advantages. When I conceived this title for my blogging here, I was referring to my status as an adjunct these past 11 years. Anyone who has ever been an adjunct will immediately “get” it. However, I realize that my life could be paraphrased in this fashion. That is, if I am living in a glass half empty kind of day, then I see that everything I have done has been near the mark but almost never on the mark. In fact, I can remember those moments in life when I felt that oneness with the universe, that aha moment, that “by George, I’ve got it!” instant.
The first time I remember it was onstage in college, playing Juliet (omg!) and saying the words “Parting is such sweet sorrow that I shall say good night till it be morrow.” At one of the 4 performances we got to do, I had an extraordinary experience, wherein I was one with the words, with my Romeo, with the universe, and especially with the ghost of W. Shakespeare. It only happened that one time, but it was a transcendent couple of seconds. I found a story in one of Eva LeGallienne’s biographies on her life in the theatre, where she talks about a very young Uta Hagen, who had been cast as Ophelia to LeGallienne’s Hamlet (yikes). She came offstage at one performance and didn’t know where she was or what had just happened. She had had one of those moments. If you’re an actor, you are very fortunate to have one in your life in the theatre.
The other much more recent event occurred about 10 years ago in the Cathedral at Chartres. My husband and I had taken our taciturn, secretive 16 year old daughter on what we called a “not mitzvah” celebration to France. She of course never went inside the cathedral but stayed outside, smoking and conversing with some gink. I however, who had had the good fortune to have seen many gothic cathedrals in Europe by this time, did go in. As I walked around the altar area and behind it, I started to feel my knees buckle. I was overwhelmed by the place – the blue glass, the light, my childhood Catholicism, all of it. I sat down and felt as though I knew those craftsmen/artists who had created this place. I got it all – their need to create – for the greater glory of their God but also for themselves – because they were artists and that’s what artists need to do. I saw that a priest was hearing confessions in several languages, and my husband actually had to talk me out of doing it. I was ready to rejoin the faith of my childhood. I didn’t. However, I did go back to Chartres last February and I did not have the same experience. I didn’t think that I would. I did climb to the very top till I was at the same level as the angel Gabriel blowing his horn over the town, at the tippy tippy top. It was a different and very satisfying experience, but it wasn’t one of those mystical moments.
Okay, that’s it for my “moments.” I can’t say that birthing children was one, because it was too fraught with pain, which I guess keeps you very tied to your body. What I’m trying to say is that in these two instances, I was a bride for just a brief time.
I’m having a glass half full day today and I see that though it’s my last day to counsel adult students, and that I don’t know how I’m going to make enough money next semester, I feel as though the moment is enough. This day, this time. That’s all I have anyway.
I am not going to make this the personal diary of an overweight, aging comedienne turned teacher anymore. I want to tie my life to my work in the here and now. I want to learn from the others who post on the Commons here about how to become better at what I do. I do expect to be always a bridesmaid though I will keep a bit of me open to the possibility of….whatever that is that I’ve tried to describe above.
