Debriefing

It's been a strange day.

The show is over, the houseguests are gone--and I'm feeling at loose ends. I had not let myself THINK beyond the last day of the show, except to assume that as soon as it ended, we'd have to start packing in earnest, preparing for a move. Now that isn't happening--yet--so what to DO with myself?

First, we put the house back together after the chaos of the weekend. Then I got the kids going again on their reading lists, and I dug out that drawer full of paperwork I've been avoiding. And--I called Papa Rooster and made a date with him for dinner tonight (here, to spend a gift card we'd been given. It was yummy--the food, and the company!). Connecting with him helped my mood a lot. We both agreed that though we're tired out from doing the show, we're so glad we did it. Like family vacations, those are memories ALL of us will share. And it really was something fun to do together.

We talked about but couldn't solve the problem of getting our house sold. That's in God's hands, and at least we're in this together! We had another showing yesterday, so that was kind of encouraging. The bummer of it was--the realtor called and got our answering machine after we had left for church, DIDN'T call the alternate (cell phone) number, and brought some folks over while we were at church. Now, it's been been so many weeks since anyone has come through that we have gotten out of the habit of leaving the house realtor-ready whenever we leave. And this weekend, we had houseguests and three musical performances to boot! So it was a mess. I keep hoping that there will be poetic irony in this--that after all my effort and exertion, it will be the people that saw the house at its worst, practically, that will be the ones to buy it. You know: Let them know that this is your hand, that you, O LORD, have done it. (Psalm 109:26--it was in the morning prayers here today.)

Okay, now let me share one funny story from Friday night, the last show with my husband as Aslan. In the funeral scene, Lucy and Susan (our daughter) sing a lovely duet called "Field of Flowers." As they mourn, other characters gather around on the stage, and then the White Stag leads on the littlest girls--Ballerinas--who carry flowers. Every time, Chicklet4 has always kept the most tragic, heartbreaking expression on her face during this scene, giving some people the impression she was actually crying, maybe because that was her daddy lying there on the Stone Table? No, she's just acting, we'd say.

But Friday night, she came on stage with the giggles. I could see her trying not to; I'd see a few seconds of tragic, then she'd dissolve into giggles, then put the tragic face back on, then giggle some more. Toward the end of the scene, the Ballerinas flit back behind the Stone Table, wave their flowers to one side and the other, and then place the flowers on the dead Aslan's body. Usually Chicklet is somewhere in the middle and places hers on Dad's chest, but this time, she ended up at his head and I could see the giggles coming on harder as she tried to figure out where to lay her flowers down. She decided that she should just place them on his face, and the sight amused her so much that she began giggling and chicken-dancing in place. Then she showed the ballerina next to her and got her laughing too. It totally ruined the emotion of the scene. But it was cute!

Later on, I started to say to Papa Rooster, "Oh, I have to tell you about Chicklet in 'Field of Flowers'..." and he said, "Oh yeah--some ballerina put flowers on my face during that scene. It was hard not to react, when I was supposed to be dead."

"I promise I won't put my flowers on the other Aslan's face tonight," she told me seriously in the van on the way to Saturday night's performance. "And I won't laugh." And she didn't!

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't post one picture of Bantam16, who learned a new skill for this show. He's always been on backstage crew before, but they really needed someone to run the lights and he said he'd be willing to try it. I was so proud of him! He did great too--all nine shows without missing a cue. Yippee!