1. I definitely felt more energetic today. I continued to isolate myself and wear protection when I was anywhere near Debbie, concerned that I'm still contagious. I would hate it if Debbie got reinfected.
So, even though I thought Covid's mild hold on me weakened today, I missed out on two family celebrations of Carol's 61st birthday. I missed brunch around 10:00 and a dinner around 4:00, but, thanks to Debbie, I did get to enjoy the superb scones, mini eggcups, and fresh fruit Zoe prepared for the brunch and later Debbie brought me home a bowl combining the Cobb salad, chicken pieces, and stuffed mushrooms Zoe prepared for dinner.
Even with a welcome uptick in my energy today, I still needed sleep during the day and napped the entire time Debbie was over at Carol and Paul's for the birthday dinner.
So, to sum up my current Covid situation: only the mildest symptoms (occasional sneeze), continued concern about being contagious, and I need more sleep than usual.
2. I admit it. The myriad feelings of love and gratitude I feel when I think back on the four Shakespeare plays I got to be in at Lane Community College far exceed the contributions I made to these productions in the small roles I played.
My feelings, though, don't have a lot to do with what happened on stage.
I loved the whole process of preparing and rehearsing for these plays, starting with the initial read through, continuing as our director, Sparky Roberts, blocked scene after scene, as we moved toward costume fitting and eventually worked in all the lighting and sound cues.
I spent a lot of time at the theater during rehearsal times waiting. Sometimes I spent that time running lines with others or rehearsing scenes independently from the director.
Often I socialized or sat back and listened to other cast members yak with each other.
These conversations about everything from zombies to pirates to video games to movies to telling stories about ourselves forged bonds between us that not only significantly enhanced our work with one another on stage, they created the memories and the feelings of love that surfaced so strongly today and yesterday as I knew a number of the cast members I'd worked with were gathered in Tigard to honor Patrick.
My onstage contributions may have been small, minor, but what I experienced to prepare for these performances and off stage during them with members of these casts was huge and will live with me always.
3. I thought a lot today about the Lane Community College production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? that Patrick Torelle directed in the winter of 1996. Patrick also played the role of George, opposite Linda Burden-Williams playing Martha. It was an arresting production and, for me got right to the core of what Edward Albee's play explores about the power of the illusions we create to distance ourselves from actual pain and tenderness in our lives and what George and Martha had to go through over the course of a single night in order to exorcise these illusions. I saw it three times.
I began studying Edward Albee's plays in about 1980. I thought of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf as portraying Martha, especially, being estranged from her true self, what I thought of as home, and, by play's end, returning home again.
At some level, I think, Patrick must have thought of this play in similar terms.
I remember being astonished and thrilled by how Patrick opened the play with Martha in front of a mirror, making her self up for the evening's upcoming social occasion while over the Blue Door Theater's sound system the perfect song played: Supertramp's "The Long Way Home".
I may not remember the details of the play's opening perfectly, but I'll never forget how that song prepared me emotionally to experience Martha, over the course of the entire play, taking the long way, fiercely protecting herself from her deepest fears and the tenderness deep within her, until finally, at the break of day, she returns home.
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