B A C K S T A G E

 

Unless 

 

you've been backstage for a performance

 

 

 

you will never know 

 

what goes into the staging

 

of

 

a person's story.

 

 

As the curtain of 2020 has risen

we have seen 

 

resilience, collaboration, innovation

 

as well as

 

defeat, division and personal loss.

 

You can be in line at the gas pump

 

or in the parking lot of a home improvement store

 

and a complete stranger will have no problem

 

insulting you

 

lashing out - even threatening you

 

or 

 

breaking down in front of you.  

You never know what has gone on

B A C K S T A G E 

for 

 

a performance as such.

That is why I've changed course.

 

From the political scene to the pandemic

 

I observe from my theatre seat

 

and I wonder and I weep

 

but all it took was for

 

one man

in his mid-70s

 

standing in front of me in line 

 

buying bottled water

to rant 

 

about the closure of his business

 

to question my use of a mask and goggles

and then to

I read his script.

 

 And the uncanny thing about it is

it 

 

was my script.

 

The muffled words sucking in and puffing out 

 

from behind his mask,

 

"I'm so sorry but it's been so hard. I'm losing everything. I deeply apologize" 

were like a tinnitus in my ears

that resonated his pain with mine.

 

His admission ticket of humility 

 

wasn't for a seat for the final act

but 

 

for entrance into the darkness 

 

of 

 

the corridors 

 

of 

 

our humanity.