Storm before the Sun

It’s 9:00am. My one-woman show (Harlem’s Awakening. Storytelling. Live) opens tonight at the Prague Fringe Festival and it is raining kočky and pes, Of course I have no idea if this expression is used or even translates in Czech.

I’m nervous. I’ve done the show twice in Los Angeles. My Actor (I speak, and a sector of other actors speak, of “our actor” as an appendage, or another being or a separate soul)…My Actor is ready. She has done the work, She has prepared. She knows her lines. Knows when to move and when not. My Critic, the one armed with bows and arrows and ropes and knots and a few rotten tomatoes is equally prepared. The actor and the critic love moments like these. The angel and the devil, Laurel and Hardy, Ying and Yang. We actors fight to keep the critic at bay; mine always lurks in a corner of the stage, heavily armed with her own tools, patiently waiting for her moment to shine, When I write, ,my critic is a lumbering Saint Bernard who sleeps on my feet and keeps me warm, only biting at my ankle when I take a wrong turn down metaphor lane or growling at me when spend too much time away from writing at all.

I hope people come tonight. The audience may include Czech speakers; I will do my best to story tell through body and facial expressions. Using all of my tools in my actor tool box best I can and with variation, skill and style. The English speakers will hopefully be with me for the entire ride.

As the rain grows to the status of a thunderstorm, it feels like it wants to come in. To crawl through the window like a cat burglar out to steal time or a lock of hair or a sock that you can never find, It wants to be noticed.

This past week, I had food poisoning and my stomach often rumbled like a thunderstorm as bacteria rolled through my intestines wanting to be noticed. To steal my good time, my appetite and my desire to get out of bed even though I was in a foreign land on work-cation.

I am thankful, after day seven, that the storm in my stomach finally stopped as has the one outside my rented flat window just now. There is sunlight, Birds are literally chirping and I’ve just heard the echo of woman call out, “Ahoj!” (Hello!) to someone through the open window. I know for certain that the knots in my stomach are from something controllable and that my intestines are now being pulled and wrenched on by The Critic.

Perhaps after my cup of coffee I will tell her to stop.