Lifer For Life

I ran into a former One Lifer in Central Park this weekend. It's not particularly surprising--there were quite a lot of us over the years (and I was there for quite a lot of those years!), and despite assorted retirements, moves to LA, and untimely deaths, many, many have stayed in New York. I see some, not regularly, but when someone organizes a gathering, or when we network through the crazy world of NYC production. Yet, the surprise encounters, whether on a street I always walk, or in a place I rarely go, always manage to make my heart skip just a little. There is a connection, both in the history, and in the loss. There is the feeling of it all being just yesterday, and a simultaneous feeling of it all being very long ago. There is an elated feeling about how far we've come, and a winded feeling about the effort it sometimes took to get there. But I guess that's what history and memories are all about--they force us to look just a little farther down that street that we might walk every day. And they let us see not just where we have been, but where we are going, just a little more clearly.

I ran into a former One Lifer in Central Park this weekend. And, as always, that little step back is helping me move forward.