An "Our Town" Goodbye, Calhoun Style
On Thursday night of last week I took TLC (15 kids in The Literary and Chocolate Society) to see another play comprised of four short cuttings by the USC High School summer institute program; Our Town, Antigone, Fools, and A Mid Summer Night’s Dream. This HS program extends to other majors in the University. For instance, you can come be a “future doctor” for a month too. To the theatre students I always whispered, “make REAL good friends with those kids…no seriously.” I taught in the program the last two years, but this year directing Godspell, working my new ChiArts job from home, and tying up loose ends in LA filled my schedule.
As I watched Our Town I was eagerly waiting for the part where Emily says goodbye to everything she knows because she has died and they let her go back home one last time. Because the director had cut the script down to 30 minutes, this part was gone. I missed it, so here it is:
“One more look. Good-by, Good-by, world. Good-by, Grover's Corners? Mama and Papa. Good-bye to clocks ticking? and Mama's sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new-ironed dresses and hot baths? and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? - every, every minute?” – Thorton Wilder, Our Town
I played Emily in 8th grade. And when my director asked, “Do you see the theme? That we must slow down and soak in life because it goes so fast?” I was like, “YES. Of COURSE I do. I’ve been the weirdo kid who HAS realized life while I live it because I’ve been given an extraordinarily annoying ability to observe deeply and treasure everything, much to my mother’s chagrin when it comes to storage space.”
I started a scrapbook of my life at age six. It was extensive. It included napkins from fast food restaurants, rocks, and leaves from trees I liked. I also wrote down all the things I played with my neighbor boys in a blue binder; games we made up outside on an old water bed we called “Tubby” we filled with the leaf blower, igloos building out of the snow plowed into the front yard by Andy and Adam’s dad who drove a city truck.
I started this blog with the intention of listing the things in LA I’d like to say goodbye to. Because when you move, it does feel a like a death of the people and the land you’ve come to love.
But this thought was simply too heavy. So heavy in fact, that it paralyzed both Rob and I. Then it hit us. We are adults. Yes. We forget sometimes when we bring surprise clown noses to the Taco Place and wear them just because. We ARE adults! And we have the ability to save our money and fly back and forth between Chicago and LA. So in a way, this move is an expansion. Right? Right. An expansion. We tried to let that soak into our spirits, but I will admit it isn’t easy.
For fun, I wanted to show you the start to my “goodbye list” that I deleted from my computer.
Here it is.
1) Goodbye Pinkberry on Fulton!
2) Goodbye Pinkberry on Rowena!
3) Goodbye Frog Froyo on Selma!
4) Goodbye to Yogurt Land on Fairfax!
5) Goodbye to Carmel near The Grove!
Yep. I never even got to the school I founded for five years. The beautiful kids in South LA who I will miss as I leave them and the theatre program I run. My Selah Choir family. The mountains. The sunshine. The crack addict woman who dresses as a clown for work on the corner, or all the Jack Sparrow’s and Spidermen walking to their cars after a stint on Hollywood Blvd near my apartment. I couldn’t get to these things because as shocking as it may seem if you know me, froyo was the only thing I could stand to part with in LA.
Instead of saying goodbye, I decided to make something that needed to be continued. Hey Emily from Our Town! Ever thought of that?! Ha. Nope. If you had, maybe Wilder would’ve let you live because you had unfinished artistic business left to do.
So, three days before flying away from my LA homeland, I made the first episode in a series of videos entitled:
“Jantre and Annie Cover Musicals on the Trumpet and French Horn”
By doing this, I'm not saying “Goodbye” to LA and my beautiful friend Jantre, I just made a promise “till next time.” Cuz you better believe we’re already working on Episode 2.