A Good Little Soldier

 A friend and collaborator died Monday morning. When I heard the news I felt unmoored. I was in middle of doing a lot of stuff. I sent out my monthly list, rushed to turn in a tv project before the strike deadline. Then I hopped on the the subway to go an all-day creative meeting, while setting up meetings for 2 other theatre projects. And in between this I was taking last minute calls from ppl, and texts from other writers in prep for the strike. 

Most of the day I just felt spaced out and eery. It didn't occur to me until this morning that I didn't really 'take in' the loss. I'm not saying that I needed to put on a burlap sack and go wail in the nearest cave. But I didn't really do anything. I heard the info, said 'oh that's so sad' and then kept marching. Like a good little soldier. 

Then emails were sent out about 'what picket line do you want to join...spread the word...make signs....' and texts started coming to meet for coffee. And it's nobody's fault but -in that moment- everything felt so incredibly loud and crude and sad. 

Some times I think we're all just marching along like soldiers. We're drafted or volunteer for the next battle. We put on our professional armor and march in these platoons. When colleagues fall by the wayside, we look down and -without breaking our stride- mutter 'how sad....condolences...so sorry for your loss.' Then we keep marching b/c the guy in front of us is marching and the guy behind us is marching and we don't want to be the weak link that leads to collapse of the group. And some times I think we're not marching toward some destination, but really we're retreating from something. Marching faster and faster so that this thing doesn't catch us...mortality. And then maybe we don't want to stop b/c we think that fear will catch us. Fear will surround us and death will take us away. 

So I just stopped marching. I turned off my phone. The world has enough good little soldiers...for today at least. I lied down in bed and looked at the trees rustling outside my window. And I thought about my friend's life, his death, how we first met, the lack of finality. After a while I got up, answered an email, had lunch, and continued....