Timed Free Write 1- prompt: 'skill and habit'

I have been wanting to get back to free writing with a time limit.  Getting a prompt, write for 15 minutes, leave it as is.  

I might edit later ones for spelling and sentence structure, but this is the first I've done in ages.  Just cracked open a book and pointed at a word (sort of bibliomancy), and began writing.

SO, here it is:

 


Skill and Habit

The velvety fuzzy ground is what I think of.  The empty auditorium, soon to be filled with folks.  I am on my back, stretching out my legs, loosening my voice with exercises.  I am lying in one of the emergency exit alcoves, dark, with velvety curtains hung over a too bright glowing exit sign.
I sit up as others arrive, the actors coming from downstairs in their undershirts and corsets- all of the underthings before we put on our costumes and get fully readu.  Oh, and makeup too.  We are all doing a cacophony of waking up voice sounds, dancing around, stretching out before we go down and the excitement really starts to grow.
We get together in a circle, doing some group warm ups, and something to psych us up… one is a tai chi move, one that I continue to teach later casts about.  We are together.  We are ready.  We are heading back down to the dressing rooms.
I go out to the audience one last time, touching seats, starting my own ritual of touching every seat before I go down.  Well, not the balcony.
This beginning, this getting ready was the best there, in the big college auditorium.  University of Colorado at boulder, directed by Sean or Lee or Lynn, or one of the grad students.  The cast being Sam, or Justin ( someone I felt I had some sort of rivalry with, but I dunno.  Something weird.) or Adrienne, or Aaron, or many folks.
A place where I got a role, usually not the one I wanted, but I got a role, because I was good enough.  Maybe not good, but good enough.  Looking back, I still wonder about that time, that place, where other classes were being taken, but those days of rehearsal, those nights of performance, were a mainstay, a lifeblood, a reason for living and enjoying life.  Even if some things didn’t go well, or we had trouble with something else, we could breathe it out like we were taught, and keep on going.
And then I graduated.  And the usual routine was no longer there- days of dealing with the world- crappy jobs became the desperate continuance of life while I tried to find something- anything to keep the energy going- to be a part of it, to be good enough.  To belong.  To fit in.  To get out all of my demons, so they wouldn’t bother me.  To hide.  To be creative.  To be.  Because I began to feel like I was not to be.  It wasn’t meant to be.
Sounds like a sad first world problem.  And it is.  However, there are many folks in supposed third world company who find creative ways to live love and survive withouthaving to getting permission to create, and then feel like they are whole, just for a run of a show, then back to the ‘real world’, packing away our skills and habits, because they are not real skills and habits, not a real job, so change your perspective.  Forget the warming up and getting ready, the dark auditorium.  Remember your place.

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