Saints and Poets

The lights dimmed to nothingness on the cemetery and audience. A tear rested on the shelf of skin below my eye, and the Stage Manager's words resonated in my head: "Saints and poets, maybe. They do some."

***

It was my first trip to the local high school. Oh, how grown up we were! In a group, we walked through the locker-lined halls. Someday we'd have lockers like these. We'd pause here between classes, flirting, laughing, passing notes. Our teacher ushered us into the all-purpose room serving as a theater for the week.

We had come to watch the high school drama team's dress rehearsal of Our Town by Thornton Wilder. The official production began that night. We got a sneak preview.

Captivated by the ordinary life portrayed on stage, I fell in love. I was in sixth grade, and that love has never waned.

***

We walked out of Water Tower Theater hand in hand, my husband and I.

"Tell me about how it moved you," my husband said.

I paused, pushed the rock in my throat down. "Did I ever tell you how I was jealous of writers?"

"No."

"I was a musician. That's what I was supposed to be. And I loved it. I practiced after school when my friends did--I don't really know what they did. But I always thought, wouldn't it be fun to be a writer. I took creative writing classes. Even when to a writing workshop my English teacher sent me to. It felt like a betrayal, like an affair. I was a musician."

My husband silently unlocked the car door, confused, I'm sure, by what this had to do with the play we had just seen.

***

"Does anyone ever realize life while they live it? Every, every minute?" Emily asked the Stage Manager onstage.

"No. Saints and poets, maybe," he answered. "They do some."

I had been playing piano for seven years, flute for almost two. I had written short stories, even started a writing club. Ignorantly, we called it Writer's Block. My mom tried to explain the foreign concept of not knowing what to write, but we kept the name. We were a block of writers. And sometimes my sister, who I coerced into being our secretary from time to time.

But that line, it caught me. Saints and poets, maybe. They do some.

***

"I saw this play once before. In sixth grade. All these years, that line has echoed. It's why I love this play. Do you think it guided me? All those years as a musician and a writer?" I put the blinker on, blinked myself to clear the blur of tears from my eyes.

My husband's hand felt warm on my knee. "Yes. I do."

Heather A. Goodman wants to realize life while she lives it. Every, every minute.

Comments

[susan fish]

I love this. I love this play. I love that line. Yes.

[Jeanne Damoff]

Good thoughts. I also like the term, "Practicing presence." It may not mean exactly the same thing as "realizing life," but it's similar in that it refers to living in the moment with the people who are present, not thinking about what happened yesterday or what's going to happen tomorrow, setting aside one's own agenda to embrace the God-given now. Photography helps me do this as well, because it attracts my eye to detail, framing a moment in time and freezing it forever.

Thanks, Heather. Love, Jeanne

[Pamela]

I think I felt your breath on my face just now when you exhaled....