Alone Time?

I hate being alone.

If I were to write an autobiography, it would begin with those words. Being alone is probably my greatest fear: greater than my fear of tight spaces (which is substantial) or of heights (which is even more substantial). I suppose it's scarier because it's a different kind of a fear. It's a fear of something which I can't run away from. Myself.

I am scared of my own thoughts. Scared to be alone in a room with myself, without anything to distract me. Ever since I was little I've been this way - I was not the child who could sit and be content playing by herself. I was the high-maintenance child who constantly begged her mother to play with her.

It's because I think too much, really, and that's something that's always bothered me about my writing. I always feel so heavy when I write, like everything that I write has some deep, solemn meaning (such as this post). I run away from my thoughts, because my thoughts are usually self-critical ones. I can't just sit and think about anything. If I'm going to think, I'm going to THINK. And THINKing is exhausting. Since that's all I do when I'm alone, I don't want to be alone, because I'm afraid of getting caught inside of a funk that I won't be able to crawl out of again.

At the same time as I'm thinking and feeling too deeply, all my characters feel shallow and monotonous, because they all reflect my own feelings, instead of their own individual ones. I don't know enough about them...all the focus is on me. And my solemn thoughts make every moment of my story solemn, and the same as the moment before it.

Perhaps I don't spend enough time alone. I THINK too much, but I don't EXPERIENCE enough. I don't know anything about human nature, because I haven't learned my own feelings about different experiences. I can't write about my character experiencing something on their own, if I don't know what it feels like to be alone. What do you do, when you're alone? What do you think about? What do you see? Is the world different when there's no one there to experience it with you?

But, then again, what proof is there that something happened, if you don't have anyone to verify the experience for you?

Oh, the world is so odd.

The Musings of an Alice

     Sometimes, something so significant occurs in your life, that it seems as if everyone should know about it, regardless of whether you told them. "Didn't you know?" "Didn't someone tell you?" No. They didn't. Which is why these stories must be told, at some point, even if it is told weeks after the story began.

Although the story ends
I cannot just pretend
It never happened.

In short, I was called by my director to be Alice in her production of Alice in Wonderland, though I hadn't auditioned for the show.  Surprised, flattered, honored, all of the above. I almost cried.

When things like this occur

I find myself unsure

Of whether it really happened. 

 
That was the 21st of March. Rehearsals started the following Monday (26th). The first performance was May 5th. We had a month to block the entire show, learn our lines, get/make our costumes and props, design the lights, master the background music, and build/decorate the set. The illustration below shows the result.

This is my illustration of our interpretation of the show, including costumes.

It was a wild ride, that couple weeks. The last show was May 20th, and I graduated the 5th of May (after having exams and tech rehearsals at the same time, I graduated opening night) . . . and now it's all over. But, as I said, a story must be told, even after it's already ended.

Once upon a time, a little girl named Miranda enrolled in a college, got a job, and became another little girl, all in the span of a few short weeks. This was rather overwhelming for someone so young to handle all at once, and her many adventures quite tuckered her out. Exhausted, she sat by the light of her laptop one night, and paused to sort out her mind and try to remember all the things which had happened to her.

 On Wednesday, the 21st of March,  the phone rang, and it all began. Miranda heard it from upstairs in her room, but she was trapped in the web of school, so she ignored it. Yet for some reason her ears pricked up when she heard her sister answer the phone. The director, calling for her.

"I really wanted to offer you the part of Alice..."

How could she say no?

Rehearsals until 11pm, sometimes later. Aching legs and an aching head. Blood shed onstage. Yet she would never trade any of it. The cast was eleven people, and they became as close-knit as a family. High-level-stress situations naturally form bonds between people. It's one of the great joys of showbiz, that with the stress comes a new-found family.

Opening night was fantastic, as were all three other shows. Miranda soaked every minute in, trying to savor the experience, sink into her character, relish her time onstage in Wonderland. Standing on the stage, in the dark, after the final bow, she found herself wishing that she could go back to the beginning and do it all over again. She would miss Alice. She would miss Wonderland.

And now, her life must go on. College is lurking up around the corner. Oh dear.

Hopefully it makes more sense than Wonderland. 

Cap and Gown

How strange this is,

Freedom so free -

No pens or books

Consuming me.

The future looks

So big, unsure,
And full of life:
Adventure!
A 'Pirate' knife
And wild cries
From stadiums
All fill my skies.
Opprobruims
All left behind -
There's nothing now
But what I find
In all there is
In "yet to come".
And all of this
Is, after all,
To come to pass
At Seton Hall!

GO PIRATES!