As the Dust Settles

This is not really about acting. 

Maybe a bit about coaching.

I opened the nondescript box containing my best friend’s ashes today. 

 He had been in my guest room, on a bookshelf for months, as my family awaited permission to have a memorial in the place he chose.

 I would at times turn toward this box and talk to my friend, feeling him truly in the room.

I had not been avoiding it.

Just deciding I didn’t have to do it yet.

 He wanted his ashes scattered by my family at places we knew he wanted to be.

 And this.

 It turns out.

 This meant I had to divide him up.

 As an actor, as a friend, as a mother, as a daughter, as a human, I have lost loved ones.

 Most of us have.

 I have attended wakes, touched the skin of the dead, cried over open caskets (very big in the South) and grew up not being afraid of the human body.

 My friend came out an an age when it was not easy.

 Is it ever?

 I know. It still isn’t, for so many humans on our planet.

Transitioning humans. Non binary. Gender curious.  The vulnerable. The children who feel so wrong in their bodies, and don’t know who to trust with this feeling.  The brave humans who went before, coming out, risking assault, risking contempt, risking arrest, risking their loves, risking death.

 My friend had so much love along the way.  His path, although not easy, was lighted by many who understood, or learned, or grew to know, or loved through their ignorance.

 For those of you who are not free to be who you are without risk.

 Our hearts open to you.

 I wish there could ever be a light hand at your back.

This hand, the knowledge and grace of all who have gone before.

This hand, not pressing, but there to steady.

Confirmation that you are not alone.

 This is your path and only yours.

 No one gets to decide who you are, how you present your beautiful humanity to the world, and when you make your choices.

 Find the humans who love you.  Find the humans who support you.

 And yes.

 There will be mistakes by us as we offer our hands. We will get pronouns wrong, call you by a distant name, show photographs of someone that is not you.  We will turn away when we are not comfortable, or you will see in our eyes that we are not there yet.

 We will do lots and lots of reading and scrolling and think we understand.

 And we know that we don’t.

 But you do.

 And that is where the magic happens.

 And, yes.

 Sometimes we have to add some weight to the bend of that moral arc.

 Maybe the arc can be all the colors.

 As I literally divided the ashes of my friend today, sitting on the grass with birdsong and my dog and my tears and my sons' baby cups as dippers and a pewter pitcher and my terrible humanness, I felt my not worthiness to do this sacred thing.

 I did think about the stories we tell, for others who cannot always tell them.

I did think about my friend's thesis production, Fifth of July, which has a running story of a loved one's ashes. They were in a chocolate box. They were in the refrigerator.

 I did think about this dust, this elemental powder as I didn’t wear gloves because didn’t we all do that so much last year. 

 That this is what we come to in the end.

 Or the beginning.

 And why.

 Cannot we just offer a hand to all in this human journey, as we grope our way from all fours, to stand tall, to fall, to fail, to live.

 Cannot we just.

 Love all the humans.

 I send love to all who have lost a loved one and tried to honor them.

 There is no right way.

 There is just your way, which is beautiful and loving and true.

As the dust settles.

Your way may appear.