Friday, May 23, 2003
today it's better. yesterday my mother called to say that the "nodule" hadn't grown any, and still appears to have the clean edges that suggest it's not malignant.
there's a moment you always try to reproduce in class, on stage, at auditions, when someone starts a sentence with "and the doctors said . . ." and you try to pretend you don't know the end of the sentence. when you actually don't know, and realize right as the words are coming out that the next few could mean the difference between the saddest play and the happiest one . . . part of it felt electric. i wouldn't have been surprised, in that tiny moment, if the ground had opened up and some sort of demon came out.
acting is just acting. no time ever in my life have i ever felt like that, and i could never in a million years summon it into being. i've felt a lot of real things on stage, but it is absolutely true: acting is pretending.
part of me revelled immediately in the relief, and part of me thinks "doesn't appear to be malignant" isn't exactly relief. that part thinks that if i let my guard down, the tumor will know and begin to blossom--as if i'm keeping it down right now by sheer desperate force. as if i had anything to do with it. one of the women in my cast had her own cancer experience, and told me to go home and watch TV and not do a single thing i don't want to. i have to believe that there's plenty of time for worry and heartache and the general experience of the last two days to crop back up if bad news comes. in the meantime, i can't bear it.
after saying his saying something thoughtless the night the good news came, c. and i talked everything out. i can sort of imagine the difference between doing this with him around and doing it alone--or doing it with someone less ideal--and it makes me shudder. how awful.
today, it's better.
there's a moment you always try to reproduce in class, on stage, at auditions, when someone starts a sentence with "and the doctors said . . ." and you try to pretend you don't know the end of the sentence. when you actually don't know, and realize right as the words are coming out that the next few could mean the difference between the saddest play and the happiest one . . . part of it felt electric. i wouldn't have been surprised, in that tiny moment, if the ground had opened up and some sort of demon came out.
acting is just acting. no time ever in my life have i ever felt like that, and i could never in a million years summon it into being. i've felt a lot of real things on stage, but it is absolutely true: acting is pretending.
part of me revelled immediately in the relief, and part of me thinks "doesn't appear to be malignant" isn't exactly relief. that part thinks that if i let my guard down, the tumor will know and begin to blossom--as if i'm keeping it down right now by sheer desperate force. as if i had anything to do with it. one of the women in my cast had her own cancer experience, and told me to go home and watch TV and not do a single thing i don't want to. i have to believe that there's plenty of time for worry and heartache and the general experience of the last two days to crop back up if bad news comes. in the meantime, i can't bear it.
after saying his saying something thoughtless the night the good news came, c. and i talked everything out. i can sort of imagine the difference between doing this with him around and doing it alone--or doing it with someone less ideal--and it makes me shudder. how awful.
today, it's better.
