Rehearsals and Reversals and More Rehearsals

So there you are, encapsulated, on a nine-hour flight, sitting in a middle seat between two women, neither of whom expresses any interest in exchanging pleasantries or profundities. In front of you, a screen promising a mind-numbing selection of proven paths to mind-numbness. And your headphones aren’t working.

You wait patiently, as one of the fleeing flight attendants suggested, to see if, in fact, once takeoff has taken off, the sound will sound. Nothing. So you sit, trying to watch a movie you can’t hear.

And suddenly, from the very wings of your psyche, you hear your inner-thespian, wording and re-wording what to say should someone happen to respond to the call-light. Yes, the plane is completely full. Yes, those who were there to respond to your every concern are fleeting by in a flurry of otherwise-engagement—meal carts, drink carts, carts of freedom from duty.

And during that hour of vain rehearsal, your inner-thespian, for lack of alternative, entertains you. You realize, of course, that it is you, doing this to yourself, this framing and reframing of the yet unsaid and unanswered, in the name of something like fun. You, doing this (a tad compulsively), to keep yourself entertained, occupied, otherwise engaged.

You are reminded of other encounters with your inner-thespian, waiting in line at Starbucks, repeating words like “latte grande, non-fat, extra hot” in preparation for your performance in that momentary, yet all-consuming Encounter with a Barista; of other times spent preparing for your bit part with a waiter as you sit alone in a restaurant, or with a policeman as you sit in your car reviewing speed limits, or with a nurse as you sit in the waiting room with last year’s issue of Health lying unopen on your lap. You, entertained only by the imagined voice of your inner-thespian rehearsing words that will, in all likelihood, remain unspoken, forgotten.

You funny person you, doing this to yourself, rehearsing as if you had the leading role. “No small parts,” you say to yourself. You oddly funny, genuinely lovable, inner-theatrical person.