A little list of home.

Being on stage has it's obstacles. Lines. Blocking. Costumes. Lights. True Meaning. Focus. Plus so much more. While on stage, as much as you want to live in the world in which you and others have tried so hard to create-really-the last thing you want is for something to invade that space and destroy it. The unexpected. An actors nightmare. Though this is so true, it's interesting to seem to really want real life to blend so easily from off the stage to on. Funny how that works huh? Tonight during a scene, something that happened sparked a core within me that I hadn't thought of in a long time. Home. I starting thinking about my house. Not just the structure-but the little things within in that warm my heart to drift there so often. My home home.

The way the light hits the wood floor in the summer evenings. The smell of fresh cut grass with the doors flung open. The way Lily sits by the back door with her head cocked ever so slightly making up her mind if she wants to go out or if she is content. How the curtains in my room sway with the breeze-only here do they dance the dance they do. The spice rack by the stove-little nick knacks around the house. Scratches in floors, on walls, in furniture and the stories of how they came to be. Great hide and seek places. Fall memories of leaf piles, Halloween candies, and spiced smells that seep into the walls that almost seem to last year round. Winter emotions with the crackling of our fireplace in the den-the twinkle of the lights in the dark late at night. Spring lilies sprouting up round the house-standing by the door watching mom tend to her garden day in day out. Summer rain pounding, beating, pleading to come in from the storm-the only comfort that surrounds those days is the binding of books that are shared. Evenings on the porch. Singing with dad. The simplicity of a family dinner. The simplicity of life. The necessity for love and compassion towards one another. The generosity of a neighbor. The fondness of normalcy-the habit of home.

Life happens and develops-it surrounds and influences everything it touches whether we as humans want it to or not. Tonight, it appeared both on and off the stage. The life prior to me stepping onto the stage was brought back to me like a drifting bottle, and only by a small word that was said in the world on stage that we had created: love. The whole show is about love, but it isn't until the end that we hear a listening-a game-a poem-of the little things in life that in a seasonal round about way, have meaning. These little things spark passion, memories, life cycles...love. The relationship between instances in life and a human being is well...astonishing to me...These little things are not so little-but monumental in the fact that they have rooted such meaning in the characters lives on stage that they have created who they are and the lives they live. It really makes you wonder what 'little' things have influenced your life and the way you live it-or more so, the 'little' things that you have influenced upon others lives that may have caused them to live a certain way or wonder a specific thought.

Still...what amazes me even more-is how the simple things in life have such meaning and steal such focus because of the fact that they are simple and beautiful and tangible. The things that are really meaningful in life have a magical way-a being almost in which they are able to reach out across boundaries as if on a brisk evening stroll from beyond the world of that fourth wall and into the minds and lives of the characters standing on that black stage. In my opinion, Truth in life, Truth in love, Simplicity of being alive and thankfully living, The honesty of it all-if honesty is really and truly happening-is such a gift. A gift that feels like the comfort and beauty...of the affectionately demure habits of home.