I found last week, that I was a little off my game. This entry is late, for example. And several other entries went half-written. With every minor success, I found that I’d dropped a different ball. Every errand or online task was met with tedious obstacles and the jury was out on who was to blame. But then, this Saturday, I showed up at the symphony with my mom and sister and the tickets I had purchased were for Sunday. So - it’s me.
In an attempt to make myself feel better, I think of the time I was on a raft with a troupe of girl scouts. The best thing that happened was that the troupe leader, one of the most together people I have ever met, attempted to demonstrate the waterproof phone pouch she had just bought. Instead of dunking it she just dropped it into the river and then immediately realized what she’d done. It didn’t float. This was not a dumb person. If that had been me, I confess, I might’ve stewed on it all day, or at least said some terrible things about myself. But she laughed it off and made everyone feel better. If she can make mistakes, I can make a mistake, I tell myself later, once I’ve stopped stewing.
My favorite phrase for these situations comes from a wonderfully bad theatre experience. I had taken my German brother-in-law to see a terrible play where everything was meant to be experimental but was in fact very traditional and contrived and boring, without even an intermission to allow us to slip away. As we exited, I squeezed his arm for forgiveness and all he did was click his tongue and say, “Well… decisions were made!”
I think you need to hear the intonation of this expression to use it best. It’s not a sign of defeat. It’s an acceptance.
1×
0:00
-0:04
First, this represented, to me, not just his forgiveness but his deep understanding of how a piece of theatre is made. As a teacher, I always just wanted people to realize that Art is a series of CHOICES. It is not a mistake. It doesn’t happen on its own. It really is a series of decisions based on study and skill and genre and meaning and aesthetics and a million other things. It is, therefore, meant to be analyzed and taken seriously.
(Many of you, my clever readers, might say, “Well, no duh,” but I’ll have you know, I’ve debated this parents and adults who hold grudges against English teachers. They say writers don’t really put symbolism in their books and plays are just for singing and dancing - that is until they actually grasp their meaning and then want to boycott them, Florida.)
Making choices is one of the first phrases you learn as an actor. You have to make choices or you’re boring, you don’t get the part. You have to make choices to build your character and bring reason to your movements. Decisions must be made!
Directing a play is a great example of just a waterfall of small decisions from the big artistic choices to the most basic. What color should that light be? When should they turn their head? Can that person be dismissed early? How do I get that background girl a moment in the spotlight? Do I edit this word? Should I use a plastic horse or an inflatable one? Does this fart sound I’ve ripped off the internet have a good enough sound quality to fit in this song? You know, really important decisions. But they all add up, and when it comes to a play, the decisions should be acknowledged, not just given a standing ovation so that you can exit more quickly.
I also love the phrase Decisions were made because while it is in the past tense, it is wholeheartedly embracing the present tense. The now can’t be undone. You made a million tiny decisions that have led to the current circumstances. And you find yourself, here.
Like the time I left our house at 6:30 am on a Saturday to take my daughter and her friend 2 hours north to a soccer tournament. Before we got there, it began to rain, and then to pour and then to drown us. My daughter’s friend had not even brought a sweatshirt, and we were without rain gear, in my husband’s car (my car is like my purse - it is cluttered but it has what you need.) It wouldn’t have mattered. When we got to the airfield that held 157 soccer fields and found field number 9 3/4, we opened the door to the car and were immediately wet through to our underwear.
With 7 hours left of soccer watching ahead of me, tired and in cold, wet clothes, I called my husband crying like a baby. Just sobbing. I said, “What decisions have we made to allow this to happen? I’m surrounded by adult people who seem to be fine with this, but I’m not fine with this!!”
I still wear the pants I bought that day at Kroger between games. And now I just think, “Well, decisions were made.”
Try it for yourself! It works for everything:
Unsure of the Lewk being presented by a co-worker? Decisions were made!
You are passed out drunk. Are you a terrible person? No. Decisions were made!
Want to explain a good or bad date to someone? Just say Decisions were made!
Feeding your family a particularly bad meal - one whose spicy ingredients didn’t even make sense for your chicken nugget-loving family? Decisions were made!
Want to explain why you don’t feel sorry for someone who has treated you badly? Decisions were made!
Should I have stopped at four examples, but no, I just keep rambling? Decisions were made!
The following poem is also about Art and Choices. In the last play that I acted in, I wore a period costume and I had a great, funny part - I loved doing it. Standing backstage one night though I had a momentary, out-of-body experience where I looked at myself, a grown woman with children, wearing a costume and a wig, about to go play make-believe in front of other adults. I thought, “How is this not ridiculous?”
Well, what made that game of make-believe legitimate was the stage itself. That’s all. That framed box has signified the end of one world and the beginning of another for so long. And who gets to determine what goes in that frame - be it theatre, fine art, movies, or television?
There have always been gate-keepers to art, high or low. I am fascinated by the way that TikTok and Youtube have changed that and the way Art and Entertainment are curated and accepted. But mostly, I’m interested in the way that everyday people gobble up their own little bubble of entertainment. We take the leap. We turn it on, and we wait excitedly for the lights to dim or for the huge line of tourists to move so that we can see the teeny tiny Mona Lisa for ourselves.
Sometimes it’s hard to decide what is valuable - you just know it when you see it.
The Day the Muse Died
There are gilded edges that declare
The open
That begin the leap
The velvet curtain
Tucked each side of a proscenium
Modestly waiting, showing a leg
Before the once upon a time
Before the shift
The lights must dim and raise somehow
Even the street performer has to have a
Flash before the mob - a green light, a go
Book bindings bend
A click of the touchscreen starts
The feed me Seymour of the all holy content
The twist of the knob, even then
The turning on of the attention button
But oh worshippers, to whom?
And how revered should be the gatekeepers
The ritualized formality of the welcome
The pilot season of what is watched
The framers whose carved and painted craft
Served only to say, like the frame,
There it is! This has been curated.
We have deemed this worthy.
Yesterday I watched someone watch someone react to watching someone.
I wondered what I was watching - and paled
At the under-curated content of my own household
And again at a gift shop where I found
Staring out at me from a bright white frame
A cat wearing a spring hat, inside a cup of tea
And when the store owner stood behind me
Gazing at the cat with reverence, said
“The creative mind, right?”
The sound of defeat was so resounding
That the shop door bells, of their own accord,
Collapsed in hopeless defeat
By the way
The symphony we went to see was a staged concert of Ragtime, the musical. They gave us seats despite my snafu. And it was truly gorgeous. Here’s maybe my favorite song from it. It has pretty much everything I love about music in it. And in keeping with the idea of Art-ever-changing and youth leading the way with new sources, new voices, new mediums, nothing could relate more than the turn of the last century - this musical really does do that.
So despite it all, I hope you’re out being one of these lovers who play…New Music.
Click on the album below to listen through your favorite streaming service!
Thank you Jodie! This piece speaks to me! I just had a conversation at work about the importance of decisions and owning them even if they were wrong. You have always had such a beautiful gift of writing in such an eloquent way that also speaks to the heart. I love reading your work. Keep at it my friend! It has been an outstanding decision of yours! 😉
I really enjoy taking a sip from your firehose- you are a protean beast of creativity.
why am I sobbing right now?
thankhyou
Thank you Jodie! This piece speaks to me! I just had a conversation at work about the importance of decisions and owning them even if they were wrong. You have always had such a beautiful gift of writing in such an eloquent way that also speaks to the heart. I love reading your work. Keep at it my friend! It has been an outstanding decision of yours! 😉
Right! Even your wrong decisions got you to here!
Nothing says “the things we do for our kids” quite like a soccer tourney.
Thank you for understanding.