The Word Cloud

I went to see a film today. I went with my daughter and her 12 year old daughter. I love films and the theatre – it’s always been my favourite thing to do to go and see them. I get completely swept away by the magic of it - I’ve never been able to distance myself from the screen or the stage, to make my brain realise that what I’m seeing isn’t real. Because deep down, I don’t believe that it isn’t. Of course, I know that it’s not actually happening, but then, in a way – it is. Drama captures life, emotions. It touches you only if you feel what the character’s feeling – it’s empathy. So the way I see it is that that if a girl onscreen is crying, I’m sad because her pain exists – it’s something that is being felt by real people, all over the world, right now. And it’s something that I have felt at times in my life. Like when my first love and I broke up, and it felt like I was being ripped apart by Sad. Or when my parents died, and I thought the little girl, who will always be there, not too far from the surface, would never be able to stop crying. It’s why I’ve never been able to watch horror films – admittedly, that girl in the skimpy white dress who’s just fallen over in the garden isn’t real, and her death is a sham: but all over the world, too often to be able to comprehend, real people are breathtakingly, speechlessly, screamingly frightened. Why would you want to watch that? How can you see that and walk out of the theatre and be the same?

The film was about a stage school – we went really because Elise, my daughter’s daughter, wanted to see it. She likes to dance – street dance, she calls it. I think it’s great, to be honest. My daughter’s surprised, but I love the rhythms of the music – it wakens me up, makes me want to be able to move like they do in the music videos. How ridiculous would that look?! Although, I suppose Madonna doesn’t have a problem with it, and she’s no longer the ingénue... 

Still…although I think she looks preposterous, I envy her. The music Elise dances to – it’s sex. Sex in note form, and it’s hypocritical to claim that I have no interest in sex, just because I’m not 22. Why the hell shouldn’t I dance to such music and feel alive, just because I have a granddaughter? Things have changed – when my mother was my age, she was old. Genuinely old. When my grandmother was my age – in the photo I have of her, she’s wearing a high-necked black dress that looks like it’s made of tarmac, and just as impenetrable. But then…you know what happens to tarmac when it gets hot – it melts. Soft. Pliable. Who’s to say my grandmother’s not wearing red lacies under that tarmac-dress?

The pupils of this stage school were growing up together, discovering their strengths, their weaknesses, and their sexuality. Boy and girl shyly kissed, thought they were in love, and then argued and stopped speaking. That happened to me the other day. I was Girl, of course. And I was as shy and scared as this teenager when I met Boy. I was married for thirty years, and I was faithful. So was my husband. This is something I know without doubt. If not, then I know nothing, and everything I’ve ever been sure of becomes uncertain. He loved me, therefore I know. I was loved, therefore I am. He died. When I kissed Boy, I felt like I was unravelling. I felt duplicitous, unfaithful, dirtied and immoral. How dare I? He’s dead, not gone! I’m afraid I was not good at conveying this to Boy, and Boy was hurt. I think he felt like I was blaming him for the dirt, for making me feel a cheat.

Of course, the girl and the boy got back together again. The film reached a crescendo of explosive performance: they were the leads of the graduation show, which had a thread of romance. Throughout the show, as their fictional (fictional within fictional) counterparts argued and made love again, they realised that their love was more important than whatever it was they had fought about. At the end of the school show there was a fictional kiss – but theirs was real. Real within fictional. My heart cramped up, like a hand was crushing it. My insides cried because I don’t know if I’ll ever have a Real Kiss again. I’m not ready for this!

When I was young, I acted. I needed to: when I discovered acting, I realised I hadn’t found joy in anything like this before. My family hated it – I was an ugly child, and came from an academic family, where we were valued on our intelligence. We were always told, “We’re different; our family is different. So don’t worry if you don’t feel like you fit in, it’s good to be different.” Except, when I was different, from them, it was unacceptable. They said they were afraid for me: afraid that I would fail, and be disillusioned, that I needed a back-up. I fought, for a long time during school – I was afraid as well. Afraid that if I gave up, I’d be disillusioned. Disappointed. That I’d never be anything but ordinary. But in the end, I suppose their fears engulfed mine, and sensible won. So, off I went to study. I studied History of Art, which I did enjoy. It’s stories, you see. The stories of the paintings, and of the artists who created them. That’s what I love in films, and what I loved in acting. The unending, intangible, mysterious, emotional, unparalleled potential of stories.

Then life happened, as it is wont to. I met the man who became my husband, who was my life’s very own success story. I got a job, too good to consider ignoring. And I had my children. But secretly, constantly, privately, I perform. I’ll catch myself in the mirror and make up a fleeting scenario, pretending I’m being filmed. I’ll strike a pose – even now - when no-one is around, and pretend I am having my picture taken. Oh, when nobody else is there, I’m such a show-off.

I always thought I’d do it though. I always thought that, next year, I’d have the time, I’d be able to. That I wouldn’t allow myself not to try. Every now and then, I’d think, “It’s time, I can surely fit it in now?” I’d do a bit of research, look for an audition, and then suddenly, it would seem absurd again, impossible. Doubts would filter in – how much of yourself you’d have to give, the demands that would be made on you, the separation from your home and family. Would they ask me to do something I didn’t want to do? I’d never have taken off my clothes, for a start. Or at least, I thought I wouldn’t. Who could say what would I would have done, who I would have become?

And in the end, I remained what I dreaded being: ordinary. Impressively, undeniably ordinary.