Wine and Dreams
We sat around the table overflowing with pulpo and smoked mussels from Spain, shrimp with tangy cocktail sauce, tender lamb chops sprinkled with herbs, sticky chicken wings, yellow rice with spicy sausage, a bowl full of crunchy fresh vegetables, cheeses and cured meats and hummus.
And wine. Lots of wine. Good wine, not the Carlo Rossi or malt beverages of the dives in New York where we talked and yelled and laughed and smoked and threw up in filthy bathrooms during our NYU days and early morning-late nights.
We sat around the table all Saturday evening, friends from college, cheers-ing and laughing and talking about the past, talking about dreams, talking about reality. We talked about our expectations for life at 18. Who we thought we would be at 25. How we had reasoned that we would have it all figured out by 30.
We don't.
We are all actors. Some of us haven't performed in years. Some are still fighting to be onstage- monetarily, emotionally, physically. I haven't done much since college- a couple community theater plays, an ensemble piece that was ideal until it fell apart weeks before leaving for a European tour, a semi-professional Greek tragedy in New York that was more of a tragedy on the production level than the writing, a staged reading on an island with an I-pod as my sound system. I miss the theater, the rush of being on stage, the hot lights on my made-up face, all eyes on me. But my priorities have changed. I don't mind my life being unpredictable, but I want it to be on my terms- not a producer's or director's. So I shifted.
I told my friends sitting at that table that there is a fine line between giving up on your dreams and being realistic. It sounded good at the time. But now I wonder. Instead of choosing dream or reality, why not just shift through the gray area. Shift your dream to become realistic. Or a step above realistic. Who wants to shoot for something entirely realistic?
Into our thirties, one of us nearing forty, it became clear that reality doesn't always apply to artists, because we will never be satisfied with what is "realistic," what is practical. But we can shift our dreams to make them apply to who we are now, not who we were at 18 or even 25.
At 31 I write. Now, my computer screen is my stage.
After five bottles of wine and the clock ticking on past midnight, then one o'clock, we rubbed our eyes and yawned, we drank our glasses of water and hoped for a hangover free Sunday. Because that is a true reality of being over 30- the days of drinking all night and waking up clearheaded are over. But thankfully, so are the days of stumbling home down 14th Street and peeing in alleyways and giggling and crying over bad-for-me boys and trying to "just get through" a class.
In our thirties, we toast and laugh and reminisce, but we never want to go back.
That would be, well, unrealistic.
And wine. Lots of wine. Good wine, not the Carlo Rossi or malt beverages of the dives in New York where we talked and yelled and laughed and smoked and threw up in filthy bathrooms during our NYU days and early morning-late nights.
We sat around the table all Saturday evening, friends from college, cheers-ing and laughing and talking about the past, talking about dreams, talking about reality. We talked about our expectations for life at 18. Who we thought we would be at 25. How we had reasoned that we would have it all figured out by 30.
We don't.
We are all actors. Some of us haven't performed in years. Some are still fighting to be onstage- monetarily, emotionally, physically. I haven't done much since college- a couple community theater plays, an ensemble piece that was ideal until it fell apart weeks before leaving for a European tour, a semi-professional Greek tragedy in New York that was more of a tragedy on the production level than the writing, a staged reading on an island with an I-pod as my sound system. I miss the theater, the rush of being on stage, the hot lights on my made-up face, all eyes on me. But my priorities have changed. I don't mind my life being unpredictable, but I want it to be on my terms- not a producer's or director's. So I shifted.
I told my friends sitting at that table that there is a fine line between giving up on your dreams and being realistic. It sounded good at the time. But now I wonder. Instead of choosing dream or reality, why not just shift through the gray area. Shift your dream to become realistic. Or a step above realistic. Who wants to shoot for something entirely realistic?
Into our thirties, one of us nearing forty, it became clear that reality doesn't always apply to artists, because we will never be satisfied with what is "realistic," what is practical. But we can shift our dreams to make them apply to who we are now, not who we were at 18 or even 25.
At 31 I write. Now, my computer screen is my stage.
After five bottles of wine and the clock ticking on past midnight, then one o'clock, we rubbed our eyes and yawned, we drank our glasses of water and hoped for a hangover free Sunday. Because that is a true reality of being over 30- the days of drinking all night and waking up clearheaded are over. But thankfully, so are the days of stumbling home down 14th Street and peeing in alleyways and giggling and crying over bad-for-me boys and trying to "just get through" a class.
In our thirties, we toast and laugh and reminisce, but we never want to go back.
That would be, well, unrealistic.
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