Getting Older and Creakier; Longer and Stronger

Today, I was tightening some screws on my seat pan.  During the tour, my chair had begun to groan.  By the end of rehearsal this morning, my chair had its own voice: it wasn't happy.  It was tired.  It was cranky. It's tires were crappy and dirty and noisy and had no grip.  It had given up.  I know how it feels.  We're getting towards the point in the season where I feel scared of the random events that might hurt my body.  Over work.  Over tired.  And....  I feel careful.  Watchful even.

No one dances in every section, but when we ran all of the new piece for the first time, there was a sense of running a marathon.  This is weird because the new piece requires very little of the kind of movement that has rivulets of sweat running down my face (generally a good thing for the makeup and for my general appearance).  That said, the positions, the angles, the torque, even the liquidities feel more extreme.  My body feels like my chair: we're both coming to the end of a long, long period of activity and complaining about it.

At this point in the process, we owe it to each other to be careful.  To take care of ourselves.  To eat, sleep, and not go sky diving.  It is strange to write it this way, but it is work.  I am working to make sure that I am keeping my end of the deal.  The self care necessary to be able to go on and do this is more than it ever has been.  I would do it on willpower alone, but the marathon doesn't end with the end of the show.  We just keep going.  So, I'm here for the long haul.  So, yes, I am AM going to hesitate before committing to evening activities.  Or weekend parties.  I am even going to hesitate before trying to body experiments.  Safe and sound.  Slow and steady.

I had a note the other day -- about being bigger, about extending, about lengthening on stage.  I will need to sleep on it in order to be able to find the body that can grow in that way.