theatre_blathing ovenbird I will be here all day--from 10 am to 7 pm so my daughter can dance in two shows. I will keep the costumes organized and fix her make-up and make sure she gets a bathroom break and pin up her hair and keep track of the complicated schedule and figure out what to do about the tickets I spilled my water all over in the car and manage snacks and ensure she's hydrated and pull out my bag of tricks to deal with stage_fright. I will sit in the audience. I will clap and cheer and be the person she looks for at the end when she takes her bow. In my velvet upholstered seat I will feel nostalgia sink its claws into my thigh and draw blood. I will remember the way my mom laughed the loudest in any audience and I could always find her that way. I will recall the heat of the stage lights on my face. I will be swept into a memory of frenzied backstage costume changes and the way it felt like I belonged to something--I was a piece of the story that played out on stage and I was necessary. The role I play now is invisible. (I am so often invisible.) When the stage lights go up, I will sit in the dark, sticky with the residue of granola bar wrappers, older than I feel I should be, already tired at the beginning of a long day, hungry because I missed breakfast in the fray. I will watch the spotlight shine on all these small faces, eyes bright with so much future. I will rehearse my own obsolescence. This is joy, I think. Or this is grief. I can hardly tell the difference anymore. Everything is just a different flavour of pain and I'm here to taste it all. 250622 what's it to you? who go blather from