Farewell FoCo

Fort Collins. Photo by Tim O'Hara 

I arrived in a snowstorm

The thermometer reading -10C (14F) 

The trees were bare, the fields brown

I was stressed and tired and sick

From almost a year of waiting 

To be with my love

And finally, I was here. 

Once upon a time

People came to Colorado for healing

The mountain air prescribed as a curative for 

Asthma and anxiety and neuroses of the soul.

After London, I needed healing.

Fort Collins was not in The Plan.

But providence/luck/fortune/life

Bought me here

And the rocky mountains did their job

Along with the kind souls encountered

Perhaps London was a dream. And Sydney another lifetime. 

In just the past six months, 

My love and I were married 

I performed in my first Shakespeare

Priced row upon row of vintage books

Planted peas and potatoes and tiny slender leeks and

Harvested buckets full of greens

We played board games and card games and made sense of puzzles

We watched our way through seasons of HBO hits, and 

While my love lectured on ethics

I cycled for miles, in sun, in rain, in snow, in biting cold and raging wind. 

In the afternoons, I watched over a small human - my time here accounts for two-thirds of his entire life. 

I wrote the first draft of my one person show

I borrowed books from the library and made ample use of their inter-library-loan program

Reading books from Wyoming and Oklahoma and Arkansas. 

We found ourselves in a circle of friends 

Caring and generous and kind and fun

What took two years in London

Took six months in Fort Collins. 

It wasn't always easy. I couldn't work. Couldn't drive. Was restricted by extreme cold. 

I had bouts of depression and couldn't access counseling services. 

But I was with my love

And it was a wonderful adventure. 

Now, new adventures await

And we must say goodbye 

The college kids. Old Town. Cycling. The breweries. The canyon. The reservoir. The ‘A’ on the hill. Drip coffee. The eerie whoooooooo of the trains rumbling through town. Wolverine and Happy Heart. The Farmer's Market, Jodar Farms and Donoma Farms, The Cave Girl, Mt Everest and Youngs and the Chinese restaurant with the kids behind the counter. OpenStage and CSU and taichi and yoga. The library, the archives, the Poudre River, and the Spring Creek Trail. The park, the lake, running down wide streets. 

An entire town is impossible to capture in list form. 

We leave when the trees are full of green and 

At the tail end of a “wild weather” week -  

Thunder storms, and rivers ready to burst their banks, and the threat of tornados. 

The sky provides a free light show on our final night, and eventually

It rains.  

In the morning, we sweep the floors

Say goodbye to our first place together, 

And close the door, 

Giving thanks

That we have lived here. 

Hurry/Wait

Someone is waiting
Two someones actually
My love
And I
Waiting
For my visa to come through
So I can move to America
And we can be together
It's partly why I'm walking 780km across northern Spain
"Pacing in a straight line"
As Aaron's dad put it
Waiting in London I was going stir crazy
My life
Just a game of waiting
Filling time

We had optimistically booked a ticket for March
The visa didn't arrive
The plane left without me
And I sobbed in frustration
London stayed miserably cold and bleak
I worked hard
I spent time with friends
I tried to embrace London
I hoped to land an acting job
Nothing came
I felt lonely and frustrated
Dispirited, disinterested, and disenchanted

I got the idea to do the Camino again
This time solo
This was for me
It would fill the time
In a positive and productive way

I'm walking
My feet are sore
I'm meeting wonderful people
I'm breathing in the Spanish landscape
It's so beautiful
Every step
An affirmation that
I'm here
And a step closer
To my love

Hurry visa
I'll wait
I'll pace across Spain until you arrive
And give thanks to the universe
That I can be here

Buen camino
Don't stop walking
The journey
Is the destination
Is life
Is love and joy and heartbreak and beauty
And being

The end.

I Could Never Be a Vegetarian

I distinctly remember
As a teenager
Eating a chicken leg
Actually gnawing on the gristle
And declaring to my vegetarian step-mum
"I could NEVER be a vegetarian.
I LOVE meat!"
Nom nom nom.

And then
When I was twenty-something
I got sick
Really sick
I was sick for a year
I had everything
Laryngitis
Bronchitis
Influenza
I got sick of being sick
I did a bit of research
And decided what was making me ill
Was my diet

I cut out meat
And boosted my intake
Of fresh leafy greens
Became friends with farmers' markets
And devoured
All colours of the rainbow
In fruit and vegetable form

I did it slowly over time
To get used to new flavours
New ways of cooking
And you know what?
I stopped getting sick
I started appreciating
Food
I learnt how to cook
With what was available
And seasonal and fresh

If you had told my teenage self
That one night
For fun
I would whip together
Raw courgette and carrot noodles
With a red pepper and pine nut sauce
And meatless eggplant balls
Because those were what she had in the fridge
She would have laughed
And said
"GROSS! Where's the MEAT?!
That meal has NOTHING in it!"

But my present-day-self
Offers thanks
To the farmers who grew all the veggies
The people that delivered them
And the recipes that inspired their ultimate
Delicious consumption

The end.

An Ode to Willesden Green

Dear Willesden Green
Our time together
Is coming to an end
My lease is just about up
And soon I'll be moving
To another part of London

But before I go
I wanted to say
Thank you

For pretty little flat
The first place
Where I lived alone
Finally had
As I had always desired
A room of my own
With a window seat
Overlooking the rooftops of London
A space where I felt safe
And free to sing
And play flute
And not worry that anybody was listening
The first place where I had the
Luxury of an entire
Fridge and kitchen
And bathroom to myself
Could put utensils
Wherever I wanted them
Arrange the fridge
As I saw fit
Not worry that a flatmate
Was having thirty minute showers
And making me late

Speaking of showers
Willesden Green
The place where I was
Properly introduced
To the reality
Of living in an old city
Where the plumbing
Is antiquated
And the water pressure
On the third floor
Almost non-existent
Particularly when it's freezing outside
And the water pressure
Is intentionally reduced
To stop the pipes from exploding
And I literally
Had to shower in a bucket

Thank you for my park
Hilly and pretty
No matter the season
With its duck pond
And playground
And rose garden
Close enough for quick 4km runs
Big enough for longer runs

Thank you for the plethora of shops
And the library
Even if it often felt dank
And under-loved
For the internet cafe
Always open and
Staffed by lovely Polish immigrants
Who are always smiling

For your proximity to the city
And wonderfully efficient
Jubilee Line
Which one day was experiencing
"Severe delays"
And still had me home
Fifteen minutes later

For being the first home
In my life
That I was able to leave
And come back to
To find it all my things
Just as I had left them

I'll be sad to pack up my suitcases
And say goodbye
But I'm ready
For the next adventure
To begin.

Thank You

Thank you
Mum
For your generosity
And looking after me
Even when you're
Far away

Thank you
Skype
For keeping me connected
With my boy
Even when he's
Far away

Thank you
Raspberry sorbet
And white chocolate shavings
For your deliciousness
And taking my troubles
Far away

The end.

At the end of the day

thankfully, not my day. 

It is nice to come home
To cheese and crackers
And homemade hummus
And to chat with your love
And to light a candle
And be still

The end.

Good Grief

We met.
We traveled the world together
We walked 780km across northern Spain together
He loved music and singing and played guitar and saxophone
He proposed twice in two different countries, the second time in front of my family with the ring we had designed together
Dreams of a house in the 'burbs
And a life of stability
Together.

And then one night
He called
And literally over the phone
Said it was over.
The end.
No explanation, no chance for discussion. Please collect your things,
Goodbye.

And by coincidence
Or fate or providence
Or sheer good fortune
Two days later I started a meditation course
In the introductions
I could barely even say my own name
Literally burst into tears
And sobbed out my story
Witness the breath
You are not your emotions
It is okay to cry
Every week
A new practise
A daily commitment
To just be
I went to sleep every night with the ipod he had given me under my pillow
With Sarah Edelman meditations
You are safe
And you are well

And in the year that followed
I cried more than I ever had in my life
But, every day
Meditation
And all my teachers
Jon Kabat-Zin, Louise L. Hay, Doreen Virtue, Anodea Judith, Eckart Tolle
Lorna and Judy and all the women and men in my class
Kept me sane
Breathe in, breathe out,
Be here, now
Without judgement
I started running again
Ran my first half-marathon
I decided to become an actor
And quit my day job
And within a couple of months
Had my first paid acting gig
And had been accepted to drama school in London
I got singing and dance lessons
I traveled on my own
I saw my idols performing
I moved overseas and dared to live the life I had always wanted
I learnt to stop hating myself (that in itself, the greatest milestone. Oh to look at younger me now and laugh at how she couldn't even look herself in the mirror, how she wished so much to be more, to be better, to be different, to be so not herself!)

It was harder than I ever could have imagined
I'm not kidding when I say I cried and hurt and raged with grief
But the meditation, the running, the eating well,
The following my path
Because it was my own
Was freeing and liberating and self-affirming

And now
Three years later
The grief is still there
Though far more manageable
Life has changed
I have a new love
New adventures to look forward to
And a completely different perspective

I just have to breathe
And be present
And
This too shall pass
And all is well. 

The end.

Apple and Cheese

Dear apple and cheese,

Thank you for being in my fridge at the end of a long day.

Love,
Tired-but-feeling-better-thanks-to-deliciousness-and-grateful-that-I-have-a-roof-over-my-head-and-food-in-my-belly-and-sometimes-really-that's-the-world-to-be-grateful-for-the-end.

Sing Out, Louise!

I’m so proud of my kids tonight

For the past three weeks:

“Project! Articulate! Every word is important!” 

Daily drills. 

Feel your feet. Activate the breathe. Let go. 

I’ve felt a bit like Mama Rose

“Sing out, Louise!”

Hoping I’m not nearly as crazy as she was.

But I get why she does it.

You can see the potential.

Hear the voice that’s dying to come out

And it’s just hidden by inhibition

Or from lack of ever trying.

And you sit in on the rehearsals. 

And you work through the score.

And you stay up late

And you wake up early

And you hope that all the hard work will be worth it

And you get to show night

And suddenly there’s that extra element 

That is simply not available in rehearsal,

The audience.

And your children lift their game,

And you sit watching their show

(It’s theirs now, they own it.) 

And you feel like you’re in one of those TV shows

And you’re watching the show like a montage

Except you know every word

Every bit of blocking

And the director is sitting to your left

And every now and then you look to each other and laugh

Or worry about a delayed cue

Or a missed line

And you hear the audience go wild at the end

Cheering your kids

And you feel an immense sense of pride

In your work. 

And you thank each and every actor

For all the lessons they have taught you. 

The end. 

Once on This Island

(With thanks to prima guapa Rachel)

From Boston to Hyannis and 

Across then across the water 

To the island of Nantucket.

I’ve been here in the summer, late spring, and winter,

I’ve seen soft pink roses climbing up the trellises and walls

I’ve seen icicles dripping off the picket fences

I’ve been here before it’s warm enough to swim

And hot enough to brave the chilly water.

I’ve cycled down to the beach

And sat on the warm sand

And fed myself hot chips,

I’ve sat on the deck at the brewery 

When the sky was bright blue

And the sun was warm

And the local wines were flowing.

I’ve sat in the Bean when the weather outside was biting cold and played Scrabble and drunk hot chocolate,

I’ve sung in the church choir at Christmas

And stood in my tita’s impossibly tiny kitchen and 

Learnt to bake American style Christmas treats, 

Sugar cookies, lemon love notes and chocolate truffles 

I’ve built gingerbread houses covered in candy 

And danced the chicken dance on New Year’s Eve.

I’ve walked down Main Street countless times

To the beautiful home of my Titos de Nantucket.

I’m not just a mainland tourist

I’m family,

And the familiar (haha!) lovely welcoming warmth of it

Is comforting.

The island may seem idyllic, 

It is indeed beautiful,

But being here over several visits over the past few years

I know it is a place where people live their lives.

There is joy and heartache and work and life

Just like any other place,

But today I sat on the wharf

With my book

And I watched the boat ferrying my prima back to Boston 

Head out of the bay

And I sent her a message to remind her to throw two pennies overboard

To ensure she will return

And the sun was warm

And the water was shimmering

And I smiled my thank you to the beach

That I can be here

And feel like I’m ever welcome 

To share in the magic of the island

The end. 

Generosity

Sometimes no matter how hard you work

And how hard you try

You just seem to fall short

Financially or spiritually or emotionally or physically 

And you need some help 

And sometimes you’re too afraid to ask 

Because asking means conceding defeat

But people, 

Out of kindness or love or simple pure awesome

Just reach out and say

I’m going to help you 

Like the time(s) when my mum gave up everything so I could have what I needed

Like the time I didn’t have enough money to go to drama school and my dear friend said 

Here is what you need 

And the time I was in drama school and wondered how I was going to pay the rest of my fees and live in London and a stranger said 

Let me help you and gave me a scholarship

And the time I was in NYC and my phone didn’t work and people who I’d met literally the day before gave me their phone 

And the time when my boyfriend was tired and needed him time and still waited in line with me and gave me an extra kiss and held my hand and told me 

It’s all going to be ok

And you have to keep going

You have to keep trying
And then you have to let go
And sometimes ask for a hand

And it helps 

When the kindness of strangers of friends of family

Of people whose paths cross over yours

Extends outward and

Takes a weight off your shoulders and helps you along the way

And reminds you that there is love and light and kindness in this world

Even if it sounds cliched 

And all you can do is say thank you

And hope it sounds as sincere as you want it to 

And hold in your heart that one day you’ll repay it all back ten thousand fold

The end. 

The Way

Your love sends you a link to a film

Directed by Emilio Estevez

And it's about the Camino

And how a man goes to recover the body of his son

Who dies along the way 

And the father decides to walk it himself

And it stirs a memory

Of all the markers along the way

Of people who have died 

Whilst making their pilgrimage

And it makes you wonder
In all your memories of the Camino

You hadn't thought about those markers

But you remember that journey

That walk across the top of Spain 

That you did yourself, four years ago

Walking 780km in 6 weeks

It seems like a life time ago

A whole other self that took that journey

That made you so much of who you are today

The night before the Cruz de Ferro

The highest point on the Camino

You tossed and turned and agonized 

About what to leave behind

What to ask the Camino to relieve from your shoulders 

Traditionally you bring a stone from home

And leave it at the highest point

And with it you leave all your troubles

And you had this realization

That no matter what thing of significance you left behind

There would always be something

In life, there would always be something troubling you

And you would have to make this pilgrimage literally annually to be absolved of pain

And in the early hours of the morning

You had an epiphany

You didn’t want to leave pain and suffering

You wanted to leave something positive

Something that you could carry with you forever

And you decided to leave gratitude

Dear Universe. For being. My soul. For love. For energy. For strength. For knowledge. Thank you. 

And you posted that message, written on the back of a peppermint tea bag wrapper

Into a cairn built into the highest point 

Posted a message to the universe

To your higher self

To a future self

And from then on, the Camino became more beautiful

The scenery more picturesque 

The grass actually greener

Whether or not you had passed into the lush province of Galicia 

Doesn’t matter

Something was lifted and changed 

And four years later

Sitting in London

You remember that self

That tortured self who wanted to sing and dance and act and be in love and be happy 

And you whisper in her ear

It all comes true.

The end. 

Lanzarote

Despite my pasaporte de España

I’m not fluent in the language

An 8-week course and a little time in Spain 

Do not a fluent Spanish speaker make

But I can follow a conversation

Catch words I recognize

Get the gist

Churros con chocolate for breakfast

Now there’s a language I understand! 

The energy of the island

The blanco of the houses

My titos, relatives who lift my heart and soul and make me laugh

Spoil me rotten

Feed me up with tortilla y papas arugadas con mojo

The onions and garlic and olive oil

National signifiers of Spanishness

The essential ingredients to any good meal

(Remember standing in the markets in Islington

And the three musicians

Who played flamenco music

Were set up next to the olive oil stand

And you thought that was very appropriate

The glorious delicious cliche of it)

And from the tiny aeropuerto

You can fly to Nuremburg or Madrid or Varsovia or Gran Canaria or Gatwick or Amsterdam

And you think no matter how long you’ve been away from

Your island home

Far away in another hemisphere

The novelty of being able to travel to such destinations for a weekend

Will never quite wear off

And you’re entirely grateful

That so much of the world is your oyster

And you can understand enough to say

Gracias. 

The end. 

Thank God, It's Friday

You walk from Westminster to Embankment
Along the Thames River Path
And all the snow has melted
And there are tourists taking photos
And the Eye is spinning.

And you're an hour early for a meeting
So you decide to wander for a bit
And you come across one of those maps that dot central London
And tell you what sites of significance
Are within 5 minutes walking distance
And you see that St. Martin in the Field is nearby
That place you've heard of so often on classical music stations.

And you walk in through a side door
And it's not as big or ornate as you were expecting
But it is lovely.
And down the far end of the church is a striking window
With a curved cross
Designed by an Iranian-born woman
Shirazeh Houshiary.

You sit halfway down the church
And there are people dotted around
A few homeless people sleeping
Sitting upright
Their hoods pulled over their faces
Sitting where it is warm
Curious tourists looking for a quiet refuge
From the busy-ness of London
And you.

And there is a man at a grand piano
He has dark hair, and is balding slightly
He has dark rimmed glasses and a black sweater.
He is playing Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. 
The acoustic is amazing.
He is rather good
And he is enjoying the acoustic too.
Letting the sound
Really reverberate through the space.

The man sitting three rows in front of you leaves
And you suddenly have a clear view to the pianist
And you feel a bit exposed.
Because until that moment you had almost imagined you were no more than a
Passive spirit observing this place.

And then it is time to go
To your meeting
And you meet a lovely soul
Who inspires you
And lifts your spirits
And an hour flies by
In conversation.
And you walk back along the Thames
And the sun has come out for a moment
And you think
Thank you for bringing me here.

The end.

This Is

This is me breathing

This is me standing in space

This is me embracing all twenty-seven years of me 

This is me rejecting everything I know and starting again

But embracing everything I know and incorporating it into the starting again

Everything is important

Nothing is important 

Everything matters

Nothing matters

In the words of Alanis

I’m high but I’m grounded

I’m sane but I’m overwhelmed 

I’m delirious

I’m stable

I’m happy 

I’m emotional 

I’m floating on the energy of you

This is me kissing your face

Your hands your lips your ribs your thigh

This is me holding you

This is me crawling into bed to be tangled in you 

This is us lying in bed together

This is the sound of rain on leaves on trees on the world

This is us snuggled under the doona

This is us sharing who we have become today in this moment

There is no time no space

Only what we have constructed determined to be so

There is only this moment

How can we make promises beyond the moment when this moment this breathing this now this second this “this” is all we have all we can be

The power of memory

The power of now

Eckhart speaks to us and we smile and quote movies

Heath and Julia and Joseph and Alison Janney 

And it makes us smile 

It makes us laugh

Makes our energy sparkle radiate pulsate on the same frequency

You said that

We were on the same frequency

And it made me tingle with delight 

This is me falling in love with you

This is me feeling light and wonderful

This is me wanting to rush to rooftops 

And tell everyone about you

This is me smiling

This is me writing 

This is me not being able to find the words to express what I’m feeling

This is me laughing at myself for being like this 

This is me being incredulous that it is at all possible

This is me giving thanks to the universe

To the powers that be

To spirit

To the unnamable thing 

To you

To all the stuff of the last year and a half that has had to be lived 

To experience

To life, to life, lachaim! To Tevye saying why is it so? I don’t know. Because. It is. 

Because it must be so. Because the world is completely unknowable. And yet I know it. I can fathom it. Even if just a little bit. But that’s ok. It’s my little bit that I fathom. 

And here I am fathoming and living and breathing and being frustrated and being delighted and being here on this earth. And my god, it has taken me so long to be okay with the fact that I’m even here! But HERE I AM AND I’M OKAY WITH THAT. 

And then let go of that because that’s not important either. 

Soothsaying for the ego.

All of it is great. All of it is nothing. 

Love. Life. Joy. Bliss. Sadness. The world. 

Here we are.

Here you are.

This is me.

This is us. This is the world. This is everything and nothing. 

These are signifiers for the unnamable unquantifiable unimaginable energy of life of shifting of currents of time of space of the world of everything ever happening to be existence.

Once upon a time there was a big bang

And the world began

And the light was started

And a little while later you and I were lying on the grass (that had grown in the meantime)

And the lights from that beginning were shining down

The very glow of them

And in the moment I offered my thanks to the universe the spark the divine unnamable thing that is the energy of the world

I saw my first shooting star of the summer

And in a ring around the field where we were lying

Were dark clouds, even darker than the dark of the night

And they were flashing bright with lightning

Somehow that night

We were simultaneously star gazing and storm watching

And the air smelt sweet

And you tasted like peppermint 

And there was a fizzle a spark of chemistry an exchange of energy a thrill of joy rush delight 

And then we agreed to say goodbye

This is me breathing

This is me standing in space

This. Is. 

The end. 

The Hunger Banquet

Talking about issues of food security and food distribution and the wealth of people and economics and people living in the world and the way we eat and distribute our resources. I was in the “middle income group” and so my dinner was rice and beans and it was surprisingly delicious and the kids on the floor, the “low income group”, ate bowls of rice and the people at the “high income” table ate three different kinds of pasta! Imagine the luxury, three different kinds of pasta in one meal! 

I live in total luxury. I have everything I ever need in the world at my fingertips. I have the power of my mind at my disposal. I can choose to be happy with my lot. It is a surprise that the people who live in the most wealthy most product filled most resourceful countries have the highest rates of depression. They have everything and still the world holds no joy. I choose to hold joy. I choose to have gratitude for all that I have. All that I have access to. I want to make a difference. I want to make the world a beautiful place, a joyful place, leave it a little better than when I found it. This place I came into. This time, this place, this age of terrorism, of mass consumption, of food aplenty yet mass starvation, of highest technological innovation, of new age hippie spiritual life. To love, to life, to joy. To be. To be here. Here I am. Hello.

Rachel

So imagine you have a friend

And she is an artist

And she knows a lot about sustainability

And she studied trash for her thesis

And she inspires you to know more

To learn more

To be better than you are

And she shares her books about recycling and up-cycling and waste reduction and breaking the waste cycle and the one about how it is possible to use human excrement as fertilizer without making people sick

And you see her in action

Teaching young people about sustainability

The table of beads made from rescued factory bits

Rubber tubing and buttons and bolts and nuts and screws

The left overs from other things 

That in the current system would just be thrown away

The table with the “guess-who” games on food and energy and water

Did you know that Fiji water comes from a place where the local people have no access to clean drinking water?

The fact sheets and interactive tables

How quickly can you sort the recycling?

Do you know what can be recycled in your town and that it changes from region to region

And country to country?

And it blew you away

Her commitment and her enthusiasm and her passion

And you know she is one of life’s rare people

A sparkling gem of intellect and vigor and joy

And you want to know more, do more

Because you have met her

And shared a few days with her

And been inspired by her

And you know it is possible to live in a world where people care about the resources they are using

And be responsible for the life they are living

Because she showed you it was true

She shone light on that which was less than ideal

And she made you see things in a new way

And you are glad that such people in your life exist

To make you question

To make you see

To give you renewed enthusiasm for this life this path

Of creativity and sustainability and passion

Dear Rachel, thank you for your light and joy

Sunday Night

Happiness is coming home on a Sunday night after a long week of work and rehearsals and teaching and being able to chat to your family on the phone and throw together a pot of potato and leek soup and have a vegetable quiche slowly cooking in the oven, ready for lunches and dinners for the following week. It's slicing up a loaf of fresh sourdough bread from the markets, ready for toasts and sandwiches. It's having Adam Hills and Co. playing in the background, making you laugh as you chop spring onions and leeks and peel potatoes and throw diced pumpkin into a pot of boiling water to soften the flesh. It's finding a double yoke in the last egg. It's going to group meditation and feeling the love and being surrounded by oodles of positive energy. It's listening to podcasts on the train on the way home. It's wearing gumboots in the rain. It's the kindness and support of your friends. It's watching a musical with scripts in hands and being so close to the actors you can literally reach out and touch them. It's the magic of being able to watch productions of shows thousands of miles away on your laptop. It's about taking pause amidst the hustle and smiling and saying wow. I live a life enchanted. And it is magical. And you lick leek and potato soup off the wooden spoon and know you've done good. The end. 

Jason Robert Brown

And one day you find yourself in a theatre surrounded by a bunch of avid theatre nerds and you are all there because in time and space you have sat listening to the original cast recordings over and over and some of you have performed in amateur productions of his shows and the music is what gets you. And although it is not a large venue, it is entirely intimate and you can hear his breath and the plosive p’s and b’s and t’s and feel the pressure of his pinky hitting the top notes of the piano. And he excudes so much energy so much passion so much life as he plays and sings the songs you know so well but suddenly tonight they are new because the brain that wrote them is performing them in front of you and you wonder how he can possibly still be sitting with all that energy surely he must be floating surely the way he taps his foot so insistently that the whole auditorium can hear it feel its pulse surely he must need to stand but his back is straight and there he is sitting playing the piano and singing. And he is utterly marvellous. The way the music is driving and full of vigour but the lyrics are melancholy and funny all at once and the whole room is transported to intimate worlds far away in the land of America but still so familiar it could have been your own living room. You have had that conversation. You have had that heart break. You have felt that loneliness. You have shared that laugh. The magic of watching the craft come to life. Feeling like you are there as he writes the notes the chords the lyrics  the song is created in front of you before your eyes inside your very ears. And all there is is a piano a microphone and a man in a spotlight. And it is lovely. It is breath-taking. It is music. The end. 

Part of It All

There is a song in the musical [title of show] called "Part of It All", in which the two leads Hunter and Jeff sing about wanting to be a part of the buzz, excitement, inevitable post-show blues, and life that is show business. And it is lovely when you are in the midst of it, and feeling exactly part of it. When you spend your days singing and dancing and fluting and running to the theatre and from rehearsal to rehearsal and you go to sleep dreaming about inversions and chord progressions and you spend your nights covered in white paint and hair gel and glitter and the thrill buzz excitement of being in front of an audience. And you wake up ready to start all over again. And if that is being part of it all, I love it with every inch of my being.