last July Sunday

Oh no! It's 6 a.m. already? Quick bounce out of bed. Feed animals. Clip lilies. 361 today. Good. Nice and low. It may rain. It's muggy.  New plants came last night. No time to deal with them now. One last look at the garden. 

(our ten year old peach tree has... peaches!)

Ed, I know it's early, like, really early, but I'm eating breakfast now. Okay, I'm coming down... Yawn...

I rush off to the Young Shakespeare Players theater. Dress rehearsal today, starting at 8. I wont be here for the performances, but I get permission to watch the rehearsal. All seven hours of it. 

(backstage: getting ready)

It's the full version production of the Tempest -- itself, not the longest of Shakespeare's plays, but you know how it is. You cut into a scene, make corrections.

Snowdrop is Gonzalo (165 lines). With a second small part of Juno (10 lines), which she was to play on nights she wasn't Gonzalo, but then the second Gonzalo quit so she has to cover all plays and switch in and out of Juno as well. It's a big load for a 9-year old first timer. (The ages of players range from 8 to 18.)

(as Juno)

Watching a rehearsal, to me, is even more fun than watching the real production. First of all, the auditorium is empty. And I can take pictures. I'm not nervous about anyone flubbing lines, because, well, who cares. And I get to see the kids become their parts. I've always loved this part of parenting and now grandparenting -- watching them become something. The learning, the transformation.

 

 

She's great of course, because she is mine, but too because she knows her part and her cues and she knows the parts of others, and she is both embarrassed and delighted to have me there, just like my kids would have been had I shown up for a rehearsal. You know, lest I do something that would mortify her, them.

They have a short lunch break. I go to Bloom Bakery and buy a cookie and a coffee... 

 

 

... then I come back to it. I've seen the Tempest several times, including when my own daughter was in it some thirty plus years ago. Same company, but back then, they did it in the park, like in New York, Shakespeare in the Park, only different -- in Hoyt Park, and it was buggy and the kids had to change in the dark, behind bushes and it was both great and magical and very uncomfortable. The group moved to an indoor space when one became available and I luxuriate in it now. 

And they bow... 

 

 

 

... and I go home, quickly.

No, not to plant, not to work in the garden -- but to deal with my mother's issues and then to quickly fix dinner because the gang is here for it.

Where did this day go? 

Ed, do you want to watch the Olympics? After that awful Ripley episode we need to put behind us? 

That is my last Sunday in July.

with love...