I really do need to read, "Our Town," by Thornton Wilder again and I won't be able to quote it exactly, but in her monologue Emily says something to the effect, "People just don't look at each other any more." I say this to Steve and Soph when I want to hit the pause button on life.
My camera is my pause button and today it paused on the 3 canines that live in our home, because they represent the epitome of looking at their surroundings. Winston, the one facing away from me, is often reacting to the things around him: the wind, a leaf, the birds and it sometimes, most of the time, drives me bonkers. Percy, our little buddha, can hold a position forever, totally focused and Lucy is the one who brought it all to our home with the way she sidled up to me at the shelter, when I thought she was securely contained in her kennel.
Here's to a new year that involves hitting the pause button and living as Emily only realized we should be living after she died. The words:
Emily: Oh, Mama, look at me one minute as though you really saw me. Mama, fourteen years have gone by. I'm dead. You're a grandmother, Mama! Wally's dead, too. His appendix burst on a camping trip to North Conway. We felt just terrible about it - don't you remember? But, just for a moment now we're all together. Mama, just for a moment we're happy. Let's really look at one another!...I can't. I can't go on.It goes so fast. We don't have time to look at one another. I didn't realize. So all that was going on and we never noticed. Take me back -- up the hill -- to my grave. But first: Wait! One more look. Good-bye , Good-bye world. Good-bye, Grover's Corners....Mama and Papa. Good-bye to clocks ticking....and Mama's sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new ironed dresses and hot baths....and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth,you are too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it--every,every minute?
Stage Manager: No. (pause) The saints and poets, maybe they do some.
Emily: I'm ready to go back.
