So I'm trying to figure out what's happening with my body. For parts of every day the tingling in my arms has decreased to the lowest level in 5 months, and I begin to hope that maybe I'm getting better, getting back to the person I was. But then, pretty much every day, if I sleep too long, or after I've sat in a restaurant chair talking for an hour, or at other random times, suddenly my arms go all wiggy and I can't move my neck without thrills - the unpleasant kind - running up and down my limbs. And there's still that weird tiredness in my legs...
They told me that the spinal cord takes up to a year to heal, which is what I keep telling myself, but I can't help wondering if the damn thing worked at all. I'm itching to get another MRI to see if the frightening hourglass that was my spinal cord is really gone or if I still have that pinch, slowly eating away my mobility and strength. They don't want to give me one - cutting medical costs, etc., but I think I need to be a demanding health consumer. I was supposed to see my doctor this morning, but he bailed on me, and now I have to wait until Friday!
All in all, this recent change in the way I feel about my body is a constant drag on my subconscious. I think back to when I played Lucky, and would perform that nuclear explosion of a monologue and do a dead flat fall right onto my face so I'd bounce six inches in the air (the stage was padded, but still), or Marat Sade where I bought my own harness so I could be suspended by a meathook for an hour before running around screaming and hurling myself into metal tables. Or even two years ago as Coriolanus, getting wheeled around on that cage smashing it with wrenches as hard as I possibly could, sometimes missing a little so my fingers were perpetually swollen and bruised. Of course that's partly how I got myself into this mess... But to think that my whole world view would get changed by a play where I mostly stood around talking and sometimes played the viola, and for two seconds I got pushed over by a guy and fell hard on my butt and that has completely shifted everything, it's just bizarre. And I don't like it, I won't pretend.
As an actor you have to believe that you are invincible, to a degree, so that you can take the risks you need to take. I'm still trying to take the risks, but I'm so aware of the costs now. Maybe that's good...
Maybe it has just necessitated a new chapter - which seems to be where you were heading before it ever happened. I don't want to get all feminist, but as a woman, my body changes constantly and it absolutely changes my attitude about the world. If I'm puffy, stretched, putting on weight or maybe I'm just having a bad hair day - my entire mood shifts. Too much of my identity is wrapped up in how I feel about my physical self and I forget too easily how little impact my body actually has on the people around me. It's who I am that contributes to my relationships and to my art. I'm not an actor and I get that part of your instrument has been effective, but things that actually made those characters amazing, wasn't what you did with your body, that was maybe just the crutch that made it look cool. What makes you great is so much more than prat falls and combat. Your understanding of story telling and its relationship to an audience, and what the consumer world is asking for, and where the gaps are, all of these things are what we need from you and they are what keep you going. People like me, need people like you for things other than physical craft.
ReplyDeleteYou are too good to me. Thanks!
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