And On To The Next Great Things

My god it's raining and has been since last night around six when I got in the car to go to Monticello to d0 the play Later Life one more time.

We put the show on for a group of bicyclists who are doing something called Tour Florida and part of their tour was to come to the Opera House and watch Rich and Lisa and Jon and me say those words we've said so many times before and become those people we've become over and over and over again.

It was wonderful. The bikers were a tremendous audience. They got the jokes. They laughed. They gave us a standing ovation.

And before the play began, Jon and his wife Stephanie announced that they are going to be parents. As if we hadn't guessed from the way they kiss, the way Stephanie glows, the way she has become so beautiful that looking at her is like looking directly into the sun.

In the final moments of the play, Mr. Perkins, who built the Opera House back in 1890 and who many claim remains there to this day, cut the stage lights right at the kiss scene. Not the lights backstage or any other lights, just the stage lights.

Oh. Mr. Perkins. You are so funny.

Kathleen, my friend and the world's best stage manager, figured out how to get them back on and it was all okay. Just another night in the Opera House.

Seriously. Kathleen is the world's best stage manager. When I take my "prop" food onstage I look down at that plate to see chicken salad which she has made herself and which is the best chicken salad ever on top of baby greens with pansies and sweet williams she has grown in her very own garden. Yes. I'm not kidding.
Hey. Between two of my characters later on, I sit backstage and eat that prop food. You bet!

Mr. Moon came to see the play for the third time, which goes way above and beyond the call of spousal support if you ask me. It was nice to know he was there, sitting amongst the bikers, along with our neighbor, Ms. Petit Fleur, and they stayed after while we cast members got our beers and sat there together, going over the joys this play has brought us.

Listen. That play gave me back my life. I'm not kidding. When I was so low, it gave me something to feel good about. A reason to get out and go do. A chance to be with people I love and who seem to respect what I do.

Yeah. Good times.


I went back upstairs to go backstage and pack up all those dresses and pants and wigs and sequins and I was alone in the dressing room for a few minutes and I took that picture. That is me, feeling content with a job done well enough. I love those minutes alone backstage. If Mr. Perkins is lurking, I can only feel a benevolent presence and I welcome him into the space. He's seen prettier and younger ladies than me undress.
Huh, Mr. Perkins?

So that was that and today is today and it's still raining and I'm going to town today to get a tooth filled and oh, boy. You know I'm looking forward to that one.

And in the catagory of REALLY BIG NEWS HoneyLuna got her acceptance letter from the nursing school at FSU yesterday. She has worked so hard to get into that school and she is going to be the world's most fabulous nurse and then midwife. You just wait and see. We talked about her last night, sitting around the table at the Opera House after the play. You should hear the way those folks talk about this girl, whom they know from being in a play a few years ago. Let me just say this- they love her and are almost as proud of her as her mama and daddy are.

And so phases of life are ended and phases of life are begun. We're in rehearsals for this next play and we'll meet on Thursday night to practice that one.
A new play.
Another new baby coming.
Another level of study and education.

The rain is trickling now. The wisteria is more green than purple. The bees have gotten what they could get and my backyard no longer hums with their pleasure.

But the magnolias will be blooming soon.
I swear they will.

And they will be glorious.