No picture this muse.

You ask, why?

It’s been that kind of week!

I finally figured out something huge about myself–I’m a runner. And no, not a physical runner. In that regard, I hate running. But I run from the complex parts of life, especially when all goes to pot during hell week.

Fight or flight? Flight all the way, baby, to you name the getaway. I’ll meet you there.

But the show plans were all laid out. We spent two years piecing together this show (Twelfth Night, the musical), not unlike how I’m piecing together my life again.

It’s been a long couple of years. Sometimes just saying that brings tears to my eyes. And the healing’s still going on. It’s so much work.

But there was a plan to be in this show–my last show with the girls.

Alex read that in my bio, and he said, “Be careful what you say. You don’t know this is your last show.”

But I knew the writing’s been on the stage wall with this one. It’s true. I have a basic human need to be seen, but so does everybody else in the cast. Only my castmates are better at being visible than I am. I have no practice when it comes to this sort of thing.

I could be naked on that stage, and no one would care (except me, and my family would be mortified for me).

And, yes, I’m being dramatic, even though I’m not dramatic enough to hang with the real deal. Actors who know how to act. Singers who know how to sing. Dancers who know how to dance.

So I wanted to run. It’s as fundamental to me as running is to a real runner. (Here I go repeating myself, a problem I get into when I get nervous. I get thrust back into a variation of chemo brain.)

But I committed myself to this show two years ago and tech week was upon me. I’d worked so hard to get to this point in time.

None of us could have been on that stage a year ago, but especially me. Considering what I went through to get here, I should think it my miracle that I can be on this stage today.

But my daughter didn’t feel well and had to miss practice on Sunday. And, we didn’t think anything of it. Only the director told us to give her a Covid test. Boy, did we laugh? It’s not a thing we worry about anymore. Why would we think anything of her not feeling well?

It’s nearly impossible, no, it is impossible, but she woke up the next day with the cough–the dreaded Covid cough.

And we tested her, and just like that, two lines had to change the course of all those well-laid plans. Tech week became hell week just like that.

I called the director, and she kept saying how sorry she was; no one could say anything but how sorry they were, but my one daughter was out for tech week and the first weekend of shows and my other daughter and I needed to test negative twice–once on Monday and once the day of the show.

And that meant sitting out of tech week. Talk about being an outcast–missing all that cast bonding, hard work, and final strings that get pulled together at the last minute to make the show all that it’s worth, all the failure before it all (pray to God) comes together opening night.

We already had one N’Opening Night with this play. Could there be another?

We tried to get someone to videotape it to practice at home—no such luck. But the pressure was mounting. We felt like we were in lockdown again, with one of us quarantined. No one wanted to be around me, to be safe. Everyone canceled my appointments.

And then it was Thursday, the last practice before opening night, and we still weren’t allowed to go. I started panicking as if I hadn’t been in a high state of alert as it was.

I tried to remind myself that stress is a cancer survivor’s worst enemy. But not even Hugh Jackman could get on a stage, sight unseen, know where to stand, figure out the cues, the band, and look like a pro. If we couldn’t go to that practice, forget about bowing at curtain call, we would have to bow out of the show.

Am I going to test negative and truly show up on Opening Night without knowing what I’m supposed to do? Or am I going to sit out because I’ve been an outcast?

The pressure was killing me.

Talk about who’s gonna win the Final Four? Yes, it’s boiled down to Kansas and UNC now. But on Thursday, we had no idea it would turn out like that. And who’s gonna win tomorrow? Not unlike the tension in my own life.

And by that point, I just wanted to run away. I didn’t need to be in that play anyway.

But Alex insisted I write the director and ask if my daughter and I could get a negative Covid test to give us that one practice. Thank goodness he talked sense into me. She agreed. We showed up to practice to a hero’s welcome with cheers and applause.

In one week, my daughter and I went from an outcast to cast members. It was a hell week, for sure, one for a muse, at least.