Me doth protest, she thinks too much !!!

I am in a funny place.

Not in terms of location -although had you wandered into my street this week you would have observed a temporary bamboo theatre created to hold 8 or 9 monks in various stages of elaborate costume and stick on moustaches with Paper Mache dolls on chairs and bells, clangy things and joss sticks warding off hungry ghosts- no no, I mean mentally.

Don't say anything rude.

I am self aware.

And perhaps that is the problem.

There are times when I wish I knew myself less.

That way, when I behave in a certain manner, or think a certain way, it would all seem as if it had come out of the blue and before I could understand it, the behaviour and the thinking would be gone.

That 'Blissful ignorance' thing everyone always goes on about.

Trouble is, I have never held that to be true.

I know ignorant people and they are not blissful, they are ignorant.

Anyhow, back to me.......

I am currently at the pointy end of a play production.....not my first.....not my last....just another one.

Producing and Directing a play (and this time I am doing both, with assistance) is like creating a child that will be born an adult and will be made up of dozens of other adults who remain somehow frozen in their own childhoods.
I do not mean this to sound in anyway derogatory or defamatory.

It is simply a fact that in order to tap into our own creativity as adults we MUST remain open to the wonder of our childlike states.

The world is rough.

Real life is scary and confronting.

If we were to look at it with the dry disconnection of a scientist we would see that, on paper, there is little to be amused, inspired and delighted by.

But we DO find joy, and love and harmony, and beauty, and richness and laughter.

We DO reach out to embrace tomorrow.

We DO believe in the world.

We forgive, and we forget, and we try again.

And that hope, that belief, that desire to create magic where none exists is our inner child.

Our better self.

I am always confused by people who say that they don't like children.

What's not to like?

They are us.

Only smaller.

And less able to lie.

But back to me.........

This 'Process'- this 'Creation of a Play' works in three parts.

There is the Early Stuff-Auditions/Casting/ Booking things/Team building/Blocking-

There is the Middle Bit- Rehearsal/Production stuff/Emotional well being of the cast/characterization/ drinking too much/ exhaustion.

And then there is The Death- The Performance Itself.

You did not misread that, for this is the truth.

For the directer, and for the Producers, the play is finished before it ever hits the stage.

Don't get me wrong, in all my years I have never missed a performance and I will stand there patting backs and kissing foreheads until the last punter has left the theatre.

I give notes after performances, when things are quiet.

But I am in mourning.

My child has left me, and will soon be gone.

I think for people in my position, the fact that the Child is so happy to be free and walk on it's own- and by this I mean the enormous momentum of a cast and crew working in unison- is a kind of tortured double sworded joyous relief.

Yes, it is simply fantastic and totally rewarding to see it.

But I have never yet spoken to a directer who didn't utter the words " Well, that one's done" after Every. Single. Performance.

So,back to me and my funny place.

I recently went through a bout of melancholy.

Nothing major.

Frustration and a general desire for less bad news on the television and more forward motion on a personal level.

It lasted 4 days.

I kept working, kept talking to people, kept exercising and it passed.

I am ever vigilant for the shadow of The Black Dog.

Having been in it's company once before for a debilitatingly long period of time, and having learned from the past, I did what any self respecting insecure Obsessive Compulsive Egotist would do.

I wrote witty emails.

Not one, dozens.

To all sorts of people.

Most of them friends.

(Hopefully, they are still friends).

I wrote useful things like 'Tips for this and that'.

I wrote loving things like ' This is what this and that means to me'.

I wrote cross things like 'This is what I think of that'.

But all of them bursting with razor sharp observations and comic brilliance.

And sat back awaiting their over awed responses.

Silence can be so quiet sometimes.

Of course,people have lives of their own.

They have families, and jobs, and stuff to do after they have been with their families and at their jobs.

I do too.

I have all those things.

And I know- and here is where the self awareness thing really scores an own goal- I know that MY need to communicate my tumultuous 'look how fast I can tap dance to the tune of my own heart beating' has very little to do with all the things that makes THEM dance to THEIRS.

I know, and I knew then, that MY need to cut the air and fight the demons with the only weapons I have- my words- is more about me looking for the reassurance that it was going to be OK, than it was to show everyone how clever I am.

I know I'm clever, what I sometimes need is to know that I'm Still Here.

The book of that name by ABC journalist and mother Anne Deveson dealt with the heartbreakingly sad destruction and ultimate death of her son due to the horror that is Schizophrenia.

I am not schizophrenic, if I was, I would tell you.

But when I read that book many years ago, I was struck by that phrase.

Oprah calls it 'affirmation' and I have talked about it before.

It's when you look in the mirror and think..."is that what I really look like?"

It's when the child inside you calls out just to check that there is someone there when the lights go off.

And to check that you are still there too.

When someone says " I can hear you, I can see you", all the doubts, all the shadows, the shallow breathing, melts away.

Reply emails started appearing.

No one was worried about my mood.

Happy, buoyant and witty- that word again- I was clearly on top of things.

"Oh Wendy, you are so funny'- yeah tell me about it, I'm fucking dying here.

I wanted to send out follow up emails headlined.

AM BEING HILARIOUS-PLEASE ACKNOWLEDGE

But even I knew that that sounded desperate and clingy.

Eventually my inbox filled up.

Frankly, I didn't need to read them.

I just needed to know I wasn't alone.

I am loved, I know that.

I have three children with whom I have a passionate mutual love affair, and always will.

I am blessed with the strength of friendships they make sitcoms out of.

But I am letting go of yet another creation that must take flight in order thrive, and it hurts.

I know another will come along and replace it, and I will fall as deeply in love with its process as I have the others, and I will grieve when it comes to life as I have done with all the rest.

And it's not ego.

It's not 'My Vision'.....for fucks sake, what is that in a collaboration...?

It's not even really about me.

You see, when I do my job properly, I am invisible.

And maybe it's about that.

Maybe it is.

Blink.....and you'll miss me.