Airtime

One preternaturally-oranged stewardess in front of me; a solemn lanky kid, not quite yet fitting into his hair, but sporting a Princeton t-shirt (so that's ok, right?) next to me; and an absolutely adorable baby across the aisle to my right, configures the seating arrangement for the next six hours. The flight is in fact congested with babies, siblings of babies and their correspondingly young and coupled parents, all of whom compose a rather enjoyable distraction for me. Chubby arms flail around chubby baby bodies; helpless mothers negotiate the relative terms of in-flight quiescence; while upright and aggressively mobile toddlers maneuver the aisles like so many armed forces in search of confrontation or unoccupied toilets. I actually like this sort of thing. Leaving all discussion of maternal urges and ticking uterine clocks aside, the kids are really the only thing happening here. Eager, vivacious, curious and temperamental, they're more like animals than people and the clarity of their emotion is a perfect study in honest and vulnerable communication. I can't say whether the parents appreciate the close attention I am giving their children, but the kids respond affably enough and I spend most of the flight making faces with the baby to my right.

Airplanes have a terrific chill that is as aggressive as it must be economical, otherwise there's no way to explain the preference for discomfort. Despite the plane being fairly empty towards the front, the majority of passengers are packed towards the back with the rest of the cargo and pre-heated meals. The stewardess passes me by with practiced efficiency and I trust in the appearance of her authority: telling me when it's alright to piss and when the turbulence might trouble me too much to attempt it.

Despite all of the many entertainments, distractions, food-service options and regulation-courtesy on-board, I'm engrossed by (and not a little afraid of,) my ambitions for Avignon. I have a tendency to over-schedule myself, (another form of my previously-mentioned proclivity for exaggeration?,) and in addition to learning and practicing my French, I've scheduled nearly two shows a day (sometimes three) and plan to review each of them for this blog, along with some errant philosophizing here and there, (really, I can't help myself.) All the shows, needless-to-say, are in French, as is the want of the people in the S. to speak the language fast and garbled. What I'm trying to say is, I think I'm overwhelmed just thinking about the activities I've scheduled for myself. All this pre-planned bustling and my often moronic optimism to excel has proven more often to effectuate a crisis than to prepare for one. I can already tell: at the first sign of tedium, I'll shut down from power-failure, pout and complain of comprehensive exhaustion. Sitting here, my apprehension of crisis redounds to psychic effect: my life, personal, professional, emotional, intellectual and ethical, swings into doubt, my distress at even getting up in the morning contributes to the argument, as if to say, See! See! You won't be able to. You haven't got what it takes! The problem of a certain dramatic fluency is made clear when I not only commit to my distress, but so enjoy my performance that I look to further develop it. Can I complexify the state? Can I render in both form and content absolute dejection and personal insecurity? It is both a study and an activity and it is entirely sincere. At this point, I generally begin scratching. Questions concerning propriety, progress, value and the constituent relevance of my descriptive detail assault not only what I am writing, what I will write, but what I have written and the urge is to scratch out the page. My palms are sweating and the "fasten seat-belt" safety sign is illumined and I am stuck in my seat with gritty fingernails and a dingy smell around my collar and upper jawline. I'm philosophizing now. This is my existential mode - it's dramaturgy is familiar and conclusively depressing. The baby across the way begins to flirt with my distress, waving frantically as if to capture my attention, retrieve it for something relevant, living and in need of affection.

[interim thinking here...?]

Reflection is often a dangerous activity for me. Now that I've concluded my MFA in theatre studies (playwriting, bitching, etc.) I'm aware only that something needs to be done: not what to do, or how to do it, or an appropriate timetable in which to get it done or whatever, only that priority number one is: get paid. This thinking and looking all the time...well, it smacks of aristocratic pretensions and, as has been mentioned, it doesn't pay so I need to either get paid or get married or stop (stop writing that is.)

Avignon...France...well, I suppose I'm trying to budge another year out of my rapidly dwindling schedule of adult-expectation. Perpetually fearful that I'm not quite ready yet, but will be, soon, I hope? From what I can tell, adult life is meant to be one long monotonous (and yet, an infinitely varied sort of monotony; whether humorous or irritating, it demands endurance) series of petite contrivances. Failure, if you will. Even excellence conquers by the sheer will to endure failure and like an idiot, try, try, try again.

Kyoung says: I have to stop talking and I'll write more; stop flirting and I'll make more.

My thoughts about theatre in France: state funding and the really marvelous locale should encourage me to write pretty expensive theatre: no doubt to be badgered by a lack of funding, a lack of space, and all for the emaciated audience of whatever friends and family I can either demand or guilt into attendance - (does anyone else hate preaching to the choir as much as I do?) Point of fact: my mother was the first person to respond to my blog. (Hi mom! I love you.)

But the theatre is good for humiliation: all that space can't help but humble a comparatively tiny body, and it's truly a beautiful frame for the human struggle. ...But the option of marrying a banker, delivering 2.5 children and a golden retriever to house on a hill in CT makes a certain kind of sense to me, plausible and reassuring, given my lifestyle of professional agnosticism. I think of the wardrobe I've packed and the rather novel possibility of marrying a French banker! I'll be damned if I can't find irreverence in it somewhere. As professional insecurities disperse and sexual possibilities proliferate, I find that I'm flirting with this baby again to the increased annoyance of her mother who is clearly trying to put the baby down in its cardboard trundle and accomplish some rest for the remainder of the flight. The lights have dimmed and heads crank awkwardly back, side or forward to watch a movie and I leave my writing to do the same.

***

After my in-flight film about how love doesn't last we touch down in rain-soaked Dublin and have a barley quick layover before boarding my second flight direct to Marseilles. I can barely contain my enthusiasm and pass out across the row's three-seat spread for the remaining two-hour flight.

France is magnificent and as we approach the coast I am hurried back two-years to when I was last here, and a swelling impatience to touch-down damn near makes me giggle and scream and I begin practicing French phrases to distract myself till landing.