Come for the Play, Stay for the Music

Starting something new is never easy. It often feels like starting over. I keep thinking about how many times I have done this. I'd like to say this was the last time, but I know there will be plenty of new challenges. I will say that I am coming to the end of what I hope is the last major shift of my life. I have wanted to hurry it. Patience has never come easy to me. I am easily frustrated. On the other hand I have a bull-headed stick-to-it-ness that lends its own set of troubles and boons.

I have been a fan of drastic changes in my life. If I were a betting woman, I would be an all-or-nothing player. I am all in. No one can say that I am not passionate. If I believe in something, I believe it with all my being. This is a good and a bad thing (Isn't everything?) The pattern is that I throw myself into a role that I believe in, make all the changes, and cut the ties to the old. It seems easier. Then you just don't deal with the old stuff. It's gone. New play.

But the last production still bears an influence on the new. The players may change but the central character stays the same. (That's me. I get to be the lead in this play. It's my damn play.I'm telling this story.)

So now I am unraveling the story, because I have forgotten it. I need a new narrative. There is some dramaturgy work to be done here.

Setting:
Central Texas.

For me this is where life truly began as an adult.  Leaving my childhood home in a yellow Pinto, packed and ready to go the morning after high school graduation, I came to Austin to go to study theater at the University of Texas. That summer, I worked as a costume mistress for the UT summer stock. I was Joe York's dresser in "Company." I met my friend Janie living in Kinsolving and learned to love dive bars. We walked over to "Hole in the Wall," ventured out to the Backroom on Riverside, sat on the grass at outdoor festivals. We were sure that the Austin City Council's main job was to entertain its residents. Live music, beer, days in the sun at Barton Springs...

I went to school too. Took dance classes and acting classes and worked in the Costume and Scenery shop. Art History, Costume History. Dr. Reinhardt, who taught Costume History, said that I always looked like I had just come out of a windstorm. I did. Long, crazy curly hair. It was the 80's, so I even permed it to make it curlier. Dance clothes with a wrap-around skirt tied over it and leggings were my costume. After a year, I left the dorm to move in with my cousin. It seemed I needed supervision.

Austin was different then. Rent was cheap, it was easy to go to Barton Springs, outdoor concerts were low-key and neighborly. I was in Heaven.

I met my bass player on the Spring dead day, the day between the last day of classes and exams. Janie and I took a six-pack and some snacks to Poor Man's Barton Springs for the afternoon.

When the beer ran out, we realized that it had to be happy hour some where, so we packed up and headed to the Flying Circus, where we proceeded to allow ourselves to be picked up by a pair of musicians.

My life was about to change for the second time in my newly adult life. I was about to become a traveling musician's girlfriend.

What do you call a musician without a girl friend?

Homeless.

Namaste' y'all.