Stewardship

Last night’s events were quite the sendoff from Idaho. 

I showed up for a live production musical The Addams Family at a small theatre in northeastern Utah.  Confidently handing the lady my ticket, she said it was for yesterday.  I questioned her, because they don’t have shows on Thursdays.  She said, “Honey, it’s Saturday.  Hang on.  I’ll getcha a ticket.”  I had fully missed Thursday this week, thinking Saturday was Friday.  This means I no-showed to my first ever horse ride through the trails of Logan Canyon.  The very nice lady found an empty seat for me in a nearly packed house, free of charge, eight rows back from stage.  What a generous gift.

The cast worked triple duty: Selling concessions, ushering us to our seats, and acting out a two-hour high-energy musical.  I chatted with an “old woman” in costume and she explained how most of the cast were related.  Sure enough, she was the grandma, Pugsley her grandson, Wednesday her granddaughter.  Gomez kissing his wife and making innuendos wasn’t acting…  When Pugsley forgot his lines, the entire cast seamlessly filled in the blanks as if it written that way to begin with.  They exuded so much chemistry that they did do some ad lib, mostly Gomez, and he had his wife in stitches with inside jokes and expressions.

A funny moment surprised me emotionally.  One of the cast members, who was discovered dropping eaves behind a tree, was asked how long he’d been hiding in the shadows.  He summoned Eeyore for a disheveled “Aaaallll my liiiiife.”  A delayed laughter betrayed the entire audience, announcing that we were all hiding in the shadows with him.

The community between the audience and cast went deeper still.  There were jokes that obviously needed context, and most of the audience seemed to have that privelge.  Gomez was thanking all of us for being there, and especially thanked the husbands, considering there was a very important football game in session, and politely asked us to not give anything away to him about the score.

While greeting the actors outside, I felt compelled to tell one of the younger actors that I believed he had a nice future in acting.  His part had little speaking, and he always did his scenes in unison with three others, but he stood out with pride the entire show.  He sold every move, song and dance.  When I patted him on the shoulder, he lit up with pride, and so did his three mates in celebration for him.

This led me to tell each actor a specific piece of the evening that connected with me.  The joy they brought me was immediately reflected back to them, infinitely more intimately than applause from a crowd.  It was rewarding to be able to convey my appreciation of them with real energy, transferred directly with real human interaction.

An absent moon darkened the skies ink black, making the stars dazzle like diamonds.  Last night I noticed the stars arcing further west to the same horizon I was on.  Then I realized those were lights from the homes perched on the mountainside.  It was so dark that the mountains could not be seen.  It took me immediately back to jr high planetarium days.  I’ve wanted to go to space ever since.

These four months have been the most rewarding and memorably significant.  Inexplicable encounters, indescribable views, and insatiable gratitude.

And to be raw, I’ve been terrified the entire time. 

“This is too good to be true.”

“This is going to crash and burn.”

“This will end ugly, just like everything else good has.”

How can I exist with this duality, dichotomy?  How can I write about landscapes that brought me to tears while my fingers shake from fear?  How dare I complain about a single ounce of frustration or unrest while I’m the only person within fifty miles of this mountain lake.

The truth is, my river is muddy, filled with debris that clouds its beauty.

Self-doubt.  Fear.  Distrust.  Guilt.

I’ve been living as if this is an experiment.  Testing the limits of failure.  No scientific experiment ever works the first time, so why would this?  I challenged myself to wear one of my non-baseball hats out last night.  I still had to give myself a pep talk, and felt uneasy, ‘knowing’ people thought I looked funny, while we watched thirty people in Halloween makeup prance around a stage.  Somehow in a theatre of three hundred people, they were all focused on my hat.  The hat is not that cool, I assure you.

My eyesight has been improving, and now I’m able to better see the cloudiness in my river.  I’m developing a filter system for the debris and sorting the trash from the recyclables.  I’m pushing all my chips forward, betting on empowerment seasoned with wisdom and humility, and a promise to be a good steward.

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