Oh, that's right

I was running on the lakeshore a few days ago right as the sun was setting.  I tend to keep my eyes ahead or on the lake, but I happened to look back over the skyline - the sky was that gorgeous yellowy-orange-pink.  The airplane exhaust trails shone silver against it, like jewelry in the sky.  And I was happy.  I didn't need to be anywhere else for that moment, or have anything, or be someone else.  I was glad to look over my shoulder and see beauty and call it home.

I started rehearsal for something else that same day I had that view, something short and simple that will finish up before I really get started on the next exciting project.  It's not an accident that I had a moment of total satisfaction the day I started rehearsal for something.

How do I forget this?  I mean, I have been through this cycle so often you'd think I would know by now:  I love plays.  I LOVE them.  More than people, on occasion.  (Or if you feel less loved by me reading that, think of it this way - I love you by way of plays.)  And there is a part of me that just isn't alive if I'm not working on something.

It's literally like flipping a switch and connecting more circuits of my brain.  

I remember the moment I figured out I was doomed to work at this as a profession.  I was temping by day in an accounting department and could not figure out why the other workers were so stressed and fretful that numbers weren't in the exact right place.  "Who cares?" I thought.  "Why does it matter?"

At night I was interning at a theatre - one of those nights, my job was taking notes during a run of Once Upon a Mattress.  The finale came, the entire cast was on stage, they struck a final tableau, there was a pause...and the director nudged me to take a note: "Make sure Charles in the back moves about a foot to the left."

And here's the crazy thing.  I could see immediately, SEE, why that was important.  Why moving Charles a foot to the left would make a difference, make it better.  The minutae of this process, while just as pointless, made sense to me.

So why am I ever ever even slightly bewildered if I feel grumpy and restless and depressed when I'm not working on a show?  Why on earth don't I get it by now?