There's a Robert Earl Keen song I love where he comes home to his hometown bar and everyone's there, and everything feels so right. I think the song is actually about heaven. The B3 Organ line alone backs up my theory, but I won't get into that now. Tonight, I got a little bit of heaven with my acting class, of all the unlikely things.
I came to LA pretty burnt out on acting, which is pretty sad considering how little of it I participated in since college. There was just something about actors that made me tired and unhappy, because so many of them were tired and unhappy. It made me feel like that would be my destiny- to be sad and shriveled, mean and petty, and most of all, extremely needy. This is the nightmare scenario, and I don't mean to cast any kind of aspersions on the wonderful actors I've been lucky to meet and work with in my time. But we in the performing arts know the kind I'm talking about, and they just drained all the joy out of me for some time.
Tonight, and really every Monday for the past six weeks, I've been exposed to something different. For that span of time, I've had the sheer joy to watch actors of varying levels of skill and experience come together to learn and grow by attacking their work and tuning in to repressed feelings that brim beneath the surface waiting to burst out. There is not one person out of a maxed out class of 24 people that I don't want to work with or lose from this class, so much fun has it been watching their growth.
And the best of all was after class tonight, when all but just four or five of us went out for a drink and a burger afterwards. We sat and talked and complimented each other for our bravery and daring and really meant it. No one was BS-ing anybody. There was more love in the room than I could almost stand.
It really does feel so good, feeling good again.
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