Day 41: Fiddler on the Roof

In the days after a show ends, the entire cast and crew goes through a kind of culture shock.  The more immersed in the show you were, the harder it hits you.  It's almost like having a hangover, but--instead of your head--something inside of you aches.  As though a little piece of you has broken and won't ever be repaired.

In the wake of this (and in our modern age of communication) the notes begin to pour in.  Each is heartfelt.  Each is true.  They offer thanks to this person and express love for these others.  Speak about how special it has all been.  Talk of what they learned from this show.  Of how much it has meant to them.  The rest of the cast reads the notes.  Nods.  Maybe tears up a little.  We know.  We were there.  We have a bond now.  We are, in a way, a family that will never be broken.  

But we will be separated.  

Some of us are moving on to new shows.  Some are moving on to whole new lives all together, in new places.  We will never be this way again.  We will see each other at other events, at other shows--even in passing on the street--and we will smile and hug be glad to spark that bond again, but it won't be the same.  It can't be the same.  We are no longer breathing the same air.  Pulling the same load.  We are no longer living together in that imaginary time and place that the stage inhabits.

So we write notes, and we cry, and we say ineffectual words that fail to express how much we will miss this moment--this singular, fleeting moment--with these people.  A moment that was beautiful, but also heartbreaking, because it will never come again.

And so I write this post in honor of my Fiddler Family.  I will not try to find words to say something that cannot be expressed in words alone.  We would need two and a half hours and a stage, because the only way I could express how I feel would be to do it all over again.  In the end, everything that I might say was encompassed between the first and last lilting notes from the fiddle.