For Niki

Sunday evening, a professor, mentor and icon left this earth for better theatres. She was a brilliant teacher – she knew more about theatre history and literature and how to impart that knowledge to her students than anyone I’ve ever met. She was also a woman who spoke her mind with no fear of repercussions in a university riddled with nasty politics. She was quick to laugh and to make others laugh. She was loved by many, feared by some, and revered by all. We’ll miss her.

Her visitation brought hordes of students, friends and colleagues and ended up being an opportunity to reconnect with friends I hadn’t seen in years. It was strange in some ways – both saying goodbye to Niki and reuniting with old grad school buddies. It was a wonderful time in my life. But, it seems that since my love for theatre has left me, its been hard for me to revisit that time. It’s seemed wasted – all that money, all that time, all that energy – for what. I got the answer to that last night, laughing again with my old friends. And, ironically, this morning this song was on the radio reminding me that the journey is twisted sometimes, that it makes no sense sometimes, but it still gets us where we need to go when our time is up – as long as we just keep walking forward.


Indigo Girls - Watershed Lyrics


Thought I knew my mind like the back of my hand,
The gold and the rainbow, but nothing panned out as I planned.
And they say only milk and honey's gonna make your soul satisfied!
Well I better learn how to swim
Cause the crossing is chilly and wide.
Twisted guardrail on the highway, broken glass on the cement
A ghost of someone's tragedy
How recklessly my time has been spent.
And they say that it's never too late, but you don't get any younger!
Well I better learn how to starve the emptiness
And feed the hunger
Up on the watershed, standing at the fork in the road
You can stand there and agonize
Till your agony's your heaviest load.
You'll never fly as the crow flies, get used to a country mile.
When you're learning to face the path at your pace
Every choice is worth your while.
Well there's always retrospect to light a clearer path
Every five years or so I look back on my life
And I have a good laugh.
You start at the top, go full circle round
Catch a breeze, take a spill
But ending up where i started again makes me wanna stand still.
Stepping on a crack, breaking up and looking back
Every tree limb overhead just seems to sit and wait.
Until every step you take becomes a twist of fate.

I don’t know where this path leads, but I’m so thankful for the steps I’ve taken so far in my thirty five years – and I’m so grateful that I’ve been able to share it with so many wonderful people. And I’m looking forward to the next bend, the next adventure, the next lesson.