beauty, or the temporal string of collective art

connection enough

My best friend is beautiful. Today she texted me, and I haven’t seen her in a few weeks which is a long time for us. She’s in New York right now, and I hope she’s happy. I was in a theater when she texted me, her words all buzzing and beautiful on the screen, telling me stories about the play she just experienced. I watched the people rehearsing in front of me, scripts in back pockets, activating objectives and working on getting breath in the body, and I felt myself cry a little bit. I’m not too proud to say it. I smiled and let a tear fall, very softly and silently, because the experience of communal creativity is to experience your being in perfect harmony with those around you. It’s true. I was moved by the simple parallel of our existences, her and I—imagine if she didn’t know me and I didn’t know her, yet we still were experiencing the beauty of collective art at the same time. Is that not connection enough? What a beautiful thought, I thought. Our hearts and souls are tied by an eternal passion for the summoning act of theater; muses I invoke you, speak through me, and with your words I will honor you as best I know. Me and her, we and you, all of us together sing a song of art and dance a dance of joyous creation, pulling the string of undivided invocation, summoning each other closer or spooling each other farther away, yet never cutting the celestial tie.

I love the stage. My best friend is beautiful. As I watched the scene unfold before me, I wept a little tear of wonder at the symphony of our bodies and souls, in perfect and tracked alignment, practicing life and death together, practicing the music of existence until we get it right.