The Aftermath

Coming back from tour is hard.  Or perhaps I should say coming down from tour is hard.  After every sequence of performances -- home season or on tour -- I crash.  Emotionally and physically.  Over the years, I have learned some coping strategies.

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you'll know that packing stresses me out.  More than travelling, even.  Unpacking, however, I find therapeutic.  My medical stuff gets unpacked immediately because I need it that night.  The rest happens over the course of the week.  First, though, there's the sorting.  I take out the remnants of food, my wooden silverware, my used coffee mugs and water bottle.  These go away; Wizard declares them health hazards and heads for the dishwasher.  Then, there's the clothes, the often still damp rehearsal and performance clothes (those truly *are* health hazards, but he seems not to notice).  Rehearsal gear goes in the machine washable hamper. Costumes go in the handwash basket.  Any unused clothes that have not been in too close contact with the former go back in the closet or wherever they should have come from.  I pull out my wash bag and check my toiletries: refill any lotions, shampoos, hair product tubes, throw away any bits and pieces that got stuffed in the bag because I was lazy, and put the bag away.  Same goes for the makeup bag.  I make a list of anything that needs replacing.

After that, and yes, I do do it in this order, I check my wheelchair repair kit.  It's usually fine; I put it in the car.  Then, I check my wheelchair.  This week, I have some serious maintenance.  One of my sideguards fell off at the after party; I busted a move and .... disintegration.  The screws shot everywhere.  I can replace the screws; that's easy enough.  BUT this should not have happened.  I checked my chair before I left, but I didn't check the security of the screws; I just saw that there were 4 screws in approximately the right place.  Had this actually happened on stage, it would have posed a significant risk to me and my colleagues.  Plus, I would not have been able to do some of the moves; I use sideguards as support. My bad.

When I'm done with this part, I go through the remaining junk at the bottom of the suitcase.  I wipe the case and air it out, if necessary.  Then, depending on how long this has taken and when the next trip is, I either put the stuff back in or put the case away.

The processing of my stuff allows me to filter the performances and work my way through the intense loneliness I feel when I am not that closely connected to my colleagues.  I revisit the mistakes I made; I decide which ones need practice and which were random.  I revisit the high points.  I think -- though there is no proof of it -- that putting away my things allows me to reestablish the boundaries I need to live in the every day world.  Performance asks you to be so open, so vulnerable.  I can't live in the world with that degree of unprotectedness, so I need the time to reestablish some limits.  I polish my stuff.  Clean and order my stuff.  Gradually, I set myself and my world back on the right axis.