Phantom limbs + Joan Didion

There is a well at my center, somewhere above the diaphragm and below the thyroid, prolly, and that’s the place where the stories start. I think it’s also the place where I just store love, in general—it’s what flares when I watch my children fall asleep or my husband does something thoughtful + lovely or someone gives me a gift—intangible or store-bought—that is exactly the thing I need. There’s inflammation in that space in those moments, but also when I have something to say.

Also, too, in this moment: when I have the need of something to say without the first clue what that something is.

How do you know when a thing has fulfilled you, creatively? How do you feel filled up? A year+ without performing (with who-knows-how-many-more months to go) + some recent reflecting with one of my best friends has forced the question on me. I can’t decide what I think. I usually write to decide what I think. Joan Didion famously said that first, but she and I have this in common, I guess.

In the last year, people have asked me a lot if I miss theatre. I have no idea how to answer this. I mean, the clear answer is yes, of course, without question. But it’s simpler than that. Would you miss an arm you’d lost? (I don’t mean to be flippant about limb differences—it’s just the first thing that came to mind.) I mean, there’d be immediate pain , bloody + obvious, and the necessary healing that would take place, but after that? Eventually, you’d learn to do things with your other hand, I suppose.

It’s an imperfect metaphor, but you get my point, yeah? Learning to do things with my other hand this year has mostly meant writing + crafting, things that often take a backseat when I’m in a show, because I simply cannot do everything. Some people can. Beyoncé can, and I’ll take her MasterClass when it comes out, but until then, it’s like FAMILY. CREATIVE PROJECT. SANITY. CHOOSE TWO.

Covid brought my career, like every actor’s career, to an abrupt halt. It had to. We were careening toward something contagious + dangerous. The Great Intermission (do we like this phrase? I can’t decide.) began because it had to.

Me, at the end of a long April road trip to judge a high school show. After I parked my car, I had sunglass prints on my nose (photo) + a head full of thoughts (post).

Me, at the end of a long April road trip to judge a high school show. After I parked my car, I had sunglass prints on my nose (photo) + a head full of thoughts (post).

In that stillness, I returned to my sewing machine to make quilts + to my computer to make words. I used the precious creative energy I had left to reboot my Etsy shop + finish a novel I’d been tapping away at for two years. After that, a short play. I sold some ornaments. Then a shorter play. Then one that split the difference. Now another book, while the one I finished last summer whiles away its time in the inboxes of the literary world, looking for a caretaker, like that baby bird in “Are You My Mother?”

Maybe I’m losing the plot here.

Here’s my point: I write all that out + marvel at myself, at what I managed to do during this endless repetition of days. I am wildly proud of the work I’ve done. It matters.

And yet…

There is this phantom limb that hurts or itches or something. Part of me wonders: if theatre never truly returns to the way it was before (and a lot of it shouldn’t return to the way it was before, but those are thoughts for another day), are these small, quiet pursuits enough?

There were a great many years (well, nine, but listen, it was a LONG time) where I performed not at all. None. Nothing. I missed it, of course I did, but I was happy, too. I was teaching + making art (just for myself) + making tiny humans. When I finally came back + got the newsprint under my fingernails again, I swore I’d never let that much time go by.

And now, here, this. Thirteen months gone since I was on a stage. The longest hiatus I’ve taken since those years out of the spotlight, with no idea when I can return. Is there solace in words? Definitely. Words are the most important thing to me, always have been. Are those words—on paper but not spoken—enough to pave the potholes in my heart? Can they be, someday?

I don’t know the answer to this, except that I know words are easier. Words don’t require me to be away from my family for hours on end. Don’t ask me to punish my sleep, my health. Don’t put my body, with all its wobbly insecurities, on stage for literal review. The characters I write are waiting on me, instead of me waiting to inhabit them. The math is easy—the words are worth more.

In theatre, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. (Or something. Math, you know.)

All I know is there is an itch, but nothing to scratch. So I write. I sew. I wait to see if it will all be enough.