it feels like i never left...
The show I'm in opens tomorrow night. I'm really excited and at the same time terrified. I haven't actually been in a show since I graduated from high school...about 3 years ago. It's so different to be in costume, makeup, lights, with a microphone again. For so long I was behind the scenes; calling lines, giving stage directions, pulling curtains, running lights, playing an instrument in the pit below the stage, but not right out in front of the audience. Not for a long time. I'm a little nervous as to what it's going to feel like; being in the lights in front of all those people after not doing it for so long.
It's like riding a bike for the first time after a few years. You're shaky the first few minutes, but within seconds it comes back to you; your legs and arms just know what to do, and the grace you used to have comes back threefold.
I'm seeing that in me this week, once they put me in a costume and slathered my face in makeup, shined lights on me and made me sing into a microphone. At first I was more scared than I had been all along. But slowly, every night, it began to feel a little more comfortable, a little less like going into pre-surgery. Then it happened. Last night, and even more so tonight (once I got over the strangeness of my mother sitting in the audience), my body, my voice, my soul remembered what to do. Remembered how good it felt, how natural it was, and the lights, the makeup, the costumes became my friends, helping me achieve even more grace.
It's funny how you don't miss doing something until you do it again.