❤️ Theatre!

I watched the Olivier Awards on YouTube last night. There were some very moving moments that had me weeping tears. They come because I have such a passion for theatre. I started putting on plays in our garage when I was four years old. It never occurred to me that I might make a profession of my passion. I was wholly lacking in ambition.

To be practical, I took a one-year post-grad program to become a teacher. I needed a job. The only job offered to me was to teach at the high school I’d attended, teaching geography and theatre. I did not want to produce plays for adult characters, so I decided to work with my students to make shows of their issues and language.

We did so well, professional reviewers came to our shows, and we were invited to perform at Simon Fraser University, but I let my contract run out. I declined to continue teaching, but it led me to working as a staff member of the Arts Club Theatre in its inaugural season. I went on to design and build a small theatre in North Vancouver’s art centre, and I raised all the funds required to do it.

I thought about my history last night after those tears flowed. Theatre was the engine of my life. My passion for the artform was more important to me than income or status. It absolutely floored me to discover, at age 38, that my birth mother was an actor of considerable accomplishment. Coincidence? I don’t think so. 

Theatre was my only truth. I had no idea who I was, and I never stopped wanting to know who I was because I did not think of the Tyrells as having anything to do with me. Theatre was the one real thing that defined me.

I’ve written about this before: Often, I would sit in our dining room and look out the vast windows at the ocean. And at the yard across the street where the Blanches lived. They had a large white cat named Aleck. They never allowed Aleck into the house, and it pained me to see him sit at the kitchen window begging to get in. He was begging for access all the time.

When the Blanches moved to California, they gave Aleck to me. Two unwanted souls suddenly had someone to love. I was eight at the time. Aleck and I became inseparable whenever I was not at school. As a result of that relationship, I became passionate about animals and plants. I knew animals needed plants. Loving animals became my second truth.

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Yesterday was slow and easy. We had a couple of walks, one in the rain, but otherwise we passed the day softly together and praying for Spring to get its ass moving and warm us up! It’s cloudy again today. It will be another day spent quietly indoors.