Muddy Actor

The cellphone slip out of my hand and into the mud. Great. I pick it back up and don't bother to wipe it off before I hold it back up to my face. Maybe the mud will help keep my nose from freezing off as I trudge through the cold, wintery rain to my car on the other side of this country of a campus.

"Why do I even try anymore?" I whine to my husband on the other line, who is incidentally warm and comfy and not having a confidence crisis.

"Because it makes you happy." He says.

"It's really cold." I chatter.

"Are you close to the car yet?"

"No, I have half a football field to go."

I carefully pick my way around the soccer and football field. Way across the way I can see a little blue emergency light glowing, but there are no lights where I am. For all I know I am walking along the edge of a cliff overhanging the raging Atlantic rather than a steep muddy hill overhanging a goalpost.

I finally get to my car, crawl into my cushy leather seat and say goodbye to my husband.

I feel like crap. Not just because I'm cold and wet and dirty but because I've done it to myself again. I went to another audition, why do I bother even stepping out of my house?

Sunday was great. I started off for the elusive little theater on the elusive little campus while the sun was still up. After a few wrong turns I'm happily greeted but the big stone sign saying "College of Notre Dame" and I breath a sigh of relief...I found it...and with an hour to spare (and even less sunlight). Unfortunately the stone sign is the last one I see, around and around and around the campus I drive looking for a theater, or an arts center, or for the only direction provided in the notice "Bldg. F". I ask every person I meet, but for some reason the campus is peopled with people who don't attend the school and have no idea where anything it. By pure happenstance I find the library, and much more, a map to the campus. I stomp around the campus, in the dark looking for mysterious Bldg. F and finally find Le Clerc Hall. Well L is only five letters away alphabetically.

Nevermind, it was a bitch to find the audition hall, but I'm there. For twenty minutes I'm the only one there, but finally the director shows up and a few other auditioners. The stage manager. We're all congregated in the hallway talking and laughing. It's a great bunch, small bunch (three people) by great.

I go in, do my monologue (this time I go with Lady Anne, I like her consonants, they give me a good stability) and get great feedback. The director even gives me new direction, I do well with it. I am very good with direction.

He gives me a new monologue and the same thing happens. I nail it. I feel pretty darn good. Can I come for a callback tomorrow night...you bet I can!

Or I can't. The theatre is a thirty minute drive from work. I leave right at five and that gives me one and a half hours to get there. It's raining so I figure I need a little extra time at rush hour. It takes me three hours. Stuck on the beltway, with no cellphone number to reach the director, no way to call the hall, and no one at the companies office I am stuck being that which I hate the most. The late and uncommunicative actor. I hate myself. I hate myself. I'm NEVER late.

I show up, planning to apologize in person and hear the words "Thanks for coming, we don't need you". Instead they're really nice, they let me read, read a lot. But only for one part...though I read a few scenes. I'm feeling pretty strong for the first few, then something happens. Guilt? Nerves? Lack of adrenaline? My hair dried? Something happened and my voice goes up, my stage presence goes down, my sense of space suddenly escapes me and I can't look at my partner. My hand does this stupid sawing thing in the air. Where the heck did that come from. I know I'm doing stupid things, yet can't help it. It's inexplicable. I'm botching it and I know it.

We finish, I say thank you, apologize, then head out again...in the cold rain...to drive another two hours back home. That's when I pick up the phone.

"I fudged it."

"I'm sure you did better than you think you did." he says reassuringly.

I'm not sure. Everyone there has already been part of the company. I'm the newbie and the least comfortable. Why would they want to cast someone who has to have her hands tied behind her back and find the companies flow. I'm screwed.

"Why do I even try anymore?" I whine to my husband.

"Because it makes you happy." He says.

Does it? How does it feel to be doing something? Right now it feels useless, hopeless, wet and muddy. I should just give in and be an accountant.