nightmare

Most of you know I blog, some of you know I journal, a few of you have read my plays and only rarely have I inflicted poetry or art on people I love. Last night I had a nightmare that the books and notebooks I journal in were filling the rooms of my house, spilling out of boxes, off of shelves and pushing out the windows. That my whole life, neatly writ down in black and white was taking over my REAL life, lived in vivid technicolor. It was quite alarming.

I woke up thinking I must write the play that's been knocking around in my head for awhile. I want to write what I know, namely, a play about Me. How to stop it from being narcissistic I have no idea, but that seems to be the story that wants to come out. Everyone has a past, and mine is better documented than most. So why not a play about my life, my thoughts, my fears and dreams?

The history of me is a history of Me in Love, of being Hurt and making myself Strong again. Maybe I'm afraid that if I write the script people who love me will look at me askance, will worry and ask if that's what I really think. That they'll get upset or angry or even refuse to love me anymore, a fate I could not bear. But then again, the idea of finally opening up--of truly freewriting, a freewheeling historic sprawl across super-sized paper--is sort of liberating. I have the outline here and ready, the characters in the wing, I just have to see if I'm brave enough to write it down.

And if I am, if I'm brave enough to let anyone read it. A life recorded and locked away for Posterity is safe, but a life uponstage feels more dangerous than a thin cord stretched across Niagara.