The music was vivacious—gentle, compelling, with a beat that became one with the sounds of the polished black shoes that slid across the floor. The smooth voice sang with a sadness that oddly did not mirror any regret. All around the room spun a whirling menagerie of people donned in the soft, billowy colors that usually grace only sunsets. The men and women dancing had evidently forgotten all else but their partners and the music. Their minds forsook thoughts of the worries that lay just outside the door, and they stepped lightly together, perfectly, as if their two bodies could not remember having ever been separated from the dancer that held them, had never been different entities. As the music shifted, so did the dancers and their perspectives. The women’s chins slowly rose as they lost themselves in the fantastical world they had never dared to imagine could actually exist. The men’s grip became slightly tighter as all former preconceptions that there was no desire for them to lead fell swiftly away. The man wanted to be the lady’s gentleman. The woman wanted to be the gentleman’s lady. It was a flawless picture of what was originally intended for man and woman on the very first morning earth saw. Beauty.
The time was 12:30 in the morning. They had been dancing since their Oscar party had ended at 11. Some of them would set their alarms for 4:37 a.m. They did not care or even notice. It mattered only that life was different now. The smallest smiles were detectable on the lips of the women, for they could feel the tenderness and persistence the men led with. “I need you like a heart needs a beat,” was a phrase in the song that the dancers hardly heard yet affirmed with each step they took, for there would be no discovery if not together. How could they dance alone?
Note: None of you from home remember me as a dancer. In fact, you probably remember a girl too timid to even try dancing. “I have the build of a hockey player, not a dancer,” and “I’ve got two left feet,” were sayings you most likely heard if you hung around me at all and the subject of dancing came up. I always tried to leave looking graceful to my younger sister. However, something has changed within me. Something is not the same. Through a series of fortunate events of which I am not at liberty to speak, I have taken part in ballroom dancing lessons. There is nothing I enjoy more than dancing an entire night away with salsa, foxtrot, swing, and especially the waltz and the rumba. So don’t be weirded out by what you just read. I’m learning a lot through dancing. Last night, the dancing floor began to be less and less crowded until there were only two couples left. I sat and watched and was very inspired. So, all my dancing compadres, thank you for letting me study you last night!
Monday, February 25, 2008
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Stranger than Fiction
Truly.
Picture this: You are an author. You have been writing your second book for four years. Four long years you've invested into the characters, the plot, and every element of the story. Your main character, a man named Captain Remington, is your literary masterpiece. He represents everything your mind has concocted over the years. He is brilliant, cunning-- your worst enemy or your closest friend. He, above all else, is what rules your thoughts by day and by night because his life and his fate are dearest to you. He is from the mid-1700's. He never existed and never will, not this man, he is too enigmatical, mysterious, too well-bred and intelligent. People like him are never born into this world.
Then suddenly, this character, whom you have strived so long to perfect, walks into your world. Your world, my world, Gwen Vehlow's life at Teen Mania in Garden Valley, Texas in 2007.
I have never felt stranger emotions. I have found a clone of this man Christian Remington, and he has read my book, and he is just amazed as I am. Christian and the intern are the same. I never met the intern before Sunday. They are reflections of each other and in another time, this intern could very well have been the captain I have tried for so long to bring to life.
I don't know what to do myself.
Odd. Weird. Other-worldly.
Picture this: You are an author. You have been writing your second book for four years. Four long years you've invested into the characters, the plot, and every element of the story. Your main character, a man named Captain Remington, is your literary masterpiece. He represents everything your mind has concocted over the years. He is brilliant, cunning-- your worst enemy or your closest friend. He, above all else, is what rules your thoughts by day and by night because his life and his fate are dearest to you. He is from the mid-1700's. He never existed and never will, not this man, he is too enigmatical, mysterious, too well-bred and intelligent. People like him are never born into this world.
Then suddenly, this character, whom you have strived so long to perfect, walks into your world. Your world, my world, Gwen Vehlow's life at Teen Mania in Garden Valley, Texas in 2007.
I have never felt stranger emotions. I have found a clone of this man Christian Remington, and he has read my book, and he is just amazed as I am. Christian and the intern are the same. I never met the intern before Sunday. They are reflections of each other and in another time, this intern could very well have been the captain I have tried for so long to bring to life.
I don't know what to do myself.
Odd. Weird. Other-worldly.
Saturday, July 14, 2007
An Ode to the Stage
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There are certain things in life that belong to one place, one set of people, one mind. These things are regarded sacred by some and misunderstood by others. I am part of the first group. Theatre is life. And if theatre is life, then I certainly got a breath of fresh air this evening.
I had forgotten what it was like to walk into a house and sit in the audience because I never used to reside on that side of the stage. I was always on the stage, inside the picture, taking people by the hand and leading them from their cares and worries into a new world if only for moments.
Memories flooded back as I sat there eagerly waiting for life to spring up inside the proscenium. The smell of the theatre begged me to find my way backstage and start putting on make-up and don a costume. The sound of the orchestra warming up reminded me of the day my company first rehearsed West Side Story with a full orchestra and how the lush music coming from the pit brought tears to my eyes through its simple beauty. That stage... the very one where I had fought witches, where I had followed Aslan, where I had been part of the gang rivalry in NYC... I longed to be there again... or to even be in the wings running the fly system, listening to the stage manager banter back and forth about useless things on the headset all the way through the show.
It was Guys and Dolls I attended tonight, and my mind was full of West Side Story flashbacks... This NYC skyline differed so from the one I had acted before. It was fantastical and whimsical whereas the skyline the Jets and Sharks fought before was harsh and realistic. The music was happy, comical. There was nothing to be happy about in the musical I was in. The curtain call was full of smiling cast members. This sight brought back to me one of my favorite West Side Story memories. Our curtain call was unlike any I had ever heard of before. At the end, when the lights came up, the cast stood there, without bows or smiles or movement. We just looked out at the audience, to standing ovations every night, and we haunted them with the sincerity of the story we had told. It haunted me too.
Applause, standing ovations, the energy between audience member and actor... all of these things strictly belong to theatre. There is no energy between a video camera and a screen. It makes no sense to applaud when a movie is finished, for no one responsible for its creation is there to hear it. Ah, theatre on the other hand, theatre is a living entity. Audiences can suck the energy right out of an entire cast or they can exhilarate them in such a way that they perform as never before.
An actor walks through a door and becomes someone else for the night. We are given the opportunity to be things we could never be in real life, to do impossible things. The anticipation of stealing the hearts of people sitting in the darkness somewhere in the other side of the orchestra pit is a singular feeling.
An audience member is given a peak into that person's life for a while and a reprieve from his or her own life. We are given the opportunity to learn from the mistakes and choices of others. The anticipation of that curtain that hangs between us and a story of those we love is a singular feeling.
I miss this other life, this chance to take a break and enter an alternate reality.
When next will you allow yourself to be ushered from this world to another?
Friday, July 13, 2007
Hollow Crosses
They had been fighting for days. They were not ready. Boot camp had lasted a year, but the final day had changed everything. Suddenly all was not training and practice. Suddenly there was a real war with real people dying. Suddenly comrades were falling and not getting up again. Private first class 013 had not been prepared for any of this. She had heard rumors of the war she was going to face, but the truth had never penetrated her heart. Six months ago she had graduated from boot camp and been shipped to the field. The war was nightmarish. It was not all glory and honor as she had once dreamed. The world was bleak, and her assignments seemed so insignificant and meaningless. She had not been sent directly to the front lines but was held back. Every day she saw the casualties coming from the battles and skirmishes. Most of them were female. She had wondered then where all the men were. She heard the battlecries and screams of pain, smelled the smoke. No, she had not expected this war to be so fruitless. "Staggered by what I hear," she remembered from her days of training, "bewildered by what I see..."
And then there came the day when 013 was called into the battle. So many of her comrades were still safe in boot camp. So many had wandered off to the surrounding villages to try to blend in with the civilians. So many forgot that 013 had been their friend. So many had gone before her and fallen under the fire of the enemy. They had marched away and not returned, and she feared that their faith was buried beneath hollow crosses in the cemetery. She was afraid to go there, afraid to see who had given up.
Three weeks 013 had been on the front with no reprieve. Despair gripped her mind firmly. Her weapons were useless, the enemy always seemed to be winning, and she knew she was not even worthy to be with the heroes fighting alongside her. She was making no difference at all. Many times she tripped and many times her closest comrades, PFC 024 and PFC 018, had to lift her out of the mud. "I'm hurting the cause more than I'm helping it," she had thought as she staggered at last into the relative safety of a foxhole.
024 and 018 had no idea what happened. They were fatigued, bruised, and stumbling just as much as every other soldier in their company. Their faces were hardly recognizable behind the grease paint and dirt smeared across their cheeks. They had been running with 013 from a fox hole to a fence line that offered very good shots on the enemy. She had been right there with them, seeming a fraction more resolute than normal, and now she was gone. 024 turned abruptly and saw 013 go sprawling in the mud. "Man down!" she yelled at 018 over the sound of the guns. She and 018 scrambled back to their friend, pulled her up, and slung her arms over their shoulders. 013 sputtered, coughed, and moaned, but said nothing coherent. 018 saw crimson seeping through 013's uniform.
"It's a stomach wound!" she cried to 024, who was desperately scanning their surroundings.
"Let's get her back to the fox hole," 024 said, flinching as a bullet whizzed by her head. They hefted 013 up and managed to get her back to the small depression in the ground. They eased 013 down on her back. 013 was not well. She was coughing up blood and writhing in pain. "We're losing her!" 024 said, for she was unable to stop the bleeding.
"Where's the commander?" 018 asked. "He's the only one that can help her!"
024 spun this way and that on her knees, looking up and down the drawn lines. The soldiers were so sparse, so beaten. So many were women. "Where are the men?" 024 muttered. "We need the men!" She spotted the commander then, leading a small charge on their left flank. 018 had also seen him.
"I'm going for him," 018 proclaimed, leaping from the fox hole.
"Get back here!" ordered 024. "We can't get to him right now! You'll get yourself killed! She'll be dead by the time you even get to him!"
018 did not bother to turn and tell 024 that 013 had already stopped breathing.
024 paled when she looked down at 013 and prayed that 018 would get to the commander safely. 013 was not one to give up so quickly, but she was dead. Only the commander could offer any hope at all, if there was any left to be had. 024 bowed her head and wept as the war continued.
024 saw a vision then. In the midst of the smoke that assaulted her nose, eyes, and mouth, she saw 018 trotting toward her with the commander not far behind. 024 blinked and rubbed her tired eyes. She could not tell whether what she was seeing was real or fake. She glanced down at the still form of 013 beside her and gripped her comrade's still warm hands. "You'll be alright," she told the silent soldier. "He'll make it alright."
A soft voice spoke 024's name, and she looked up through tears to see the commander climbing into the fox hole. 024 briefly wondered at the fact that she still had a name. She had forgotten.
018 was on her knees beside 013. "She's dead, sir," 018 reported. "She's been dead since I left to find you."
024 scooted back from 013 slightly so the commander could get to her. He was crying too. What was that supposed to mean? She eyed 018, who returned her gaze with the same fear written across her face. Wasn't the commander going to do something? Or was he going to let 013 be buried beneath a hollow cross like so many others, forgotten?
"She's not dead," he said at last, setting a hand over the blood on 013's stomach. "She's unconscious."
018 knew 013 was dead. She had watched, horrified, as 013's labored breathing had halted. And 024 had been with 013 since that last breath and nothing had changed. 013 was not alive.
Yet the commander had taken 013's hand, and it looked like she was gripping it. He whispered her name, and she opened her eyes and smiled at him. 018 and 024 had not seen her smile for days. The commander helped 013 stand, then he wiped his thumbs across her cheeks, unmasking the healthy flush of youth. He straightened the helmet on her head and brushed his hand past her stomach. The blood was gone, and there was no ragged hole in her uniform. Somehow the rifle that had been left back in the puddle was in his grasp, and as he entrusted it back to 013, he said, "I am with you. Now go. Fight and do not fear." He motioned at the battlefield. 013 let out a wild cry of victory, jumped from the fox hole, and ran toward the line that was creeping into enemy territory.
The commander touched 024 and 018, and they could feel life returning to them too. New strength poured into them, and the serene eyes of their commander gave them hope. "Go," he urged.
The smoke returned. 024 was just about to run after 013 when she realized that 013 still lay at her feet. The hand she clutched was growing cold. It had been a vision after all. 013 was dead, and 018 was gone. 024 could no longer see anything but smoke. She sat down and put her back against the wall of the fox hole. She could not give in to depression now. 018 would bring the commander back. She had to. 013 would not be dead long before he of the unspeakable name came to breathe life into her again.
Copyright 2007 GMV
And then there came the day when 013 was called into the battle. So many of her comrades were still safe in boot camp. So many had wandered off to the surrounding villages to try to blend in with the civilians. So many forgot that 013 had been their friend. So many had gone before her and fallen under the fire of the enemy. They had marched away and not returned, and she feared that their faith was buried beneath hollow crosses in the cemetery. She was afraid to go there, afraid to see who had given up.
Three weeks 013 had been on the front with no reprieve. Despair gripped her mind firmly. Her weapons were useless, the enemy always seemed to be winning, and she knew she was not even worthy to be with the heroes fighting alongside her. She was making no difference at all. Many times she tripped and many times her closest comrades, PFC 024 and PFC 018, had to lift her out of the mud. "I'm hurting the cause more than I'm helping it," she had thought as she staggered at last into the relative safety of a foxhole.
024 and 018 had no idea what happened. They were fatigued, bruised, and stumbling just as much as every other soldier in their company. Their faces were hardly recognizable behind the grease paint and dirt smeared across their cheeks. They had been running with 013 from a fox hole to a fence line that offered very good shots on the enemy. She had been right there with them, seeming a fraction more resolute than normal, and now she was gone. 024 turned abruptly and saw 013 go sprawling in the mud. "Man down!" she yelled at 018 over the sound of the guns. She and 018 scrambled back to their friend, pulled her up, and slung her arms over their shoulders. 013 sputtered, coughed, and moaned, but said nothing coherent. 018 saw crimson seeping through 013's uniform.
"It's a stomach wound!" she cried to 024, who was desperately scanning their surroundings.
"Let's get her back to the fox hole," 024 said, flinching as a bullet whizzed by her head. They hefted 013 up and managed to get her back to the small depression in the ground. They eased 013 down on her back. 013 was not well. She was coughing up blood and writhing in pain. "We're losing her!" 024 said, for she was unable to stop the bleeding.
"Where's the commander?" 018 asked. "He's the only one that can help her!"
024 spun this way and that on her knees, looking up and down the drawn lines. The soldiers were so sparse, so beaten. So many were women. "Where are the men?" 024 muttered. "We need the men!" She spotted the commander then, leading a small charge on their left flank. 018 had also seen him.
"I'm going for him," 018 proclaimed, leaping from the fox hole.
"Get back here!" ordered 024. "We can't get to him right now! You'll get yourself killed! She'll be dead by the time you even get to him!"
018 did not bother to turn and tell 024 that 013 had already stopped breathing.
024 paled when she looked down at 013 and prayed that 018 would get to the commander safely. 013 was not one to give up so quickly, but she was dead. Only the commander could offer any hope at all, if there was any left to be had. 024 bowed her head and wept as the war continued.
024 saw a vision then. In the midst of the smoke that assaulted her nose, eyes, and mouth, she saw 018 trotting toward her with the commander not far behind. 024 blinked and rubbed her tired eyes. She could not tell whether what she was seeing was real or fake. She glanced down at the still form of 013 beside her and gripped her comrade's still warm hands. "You'll be alright," she told the silent soldier. "He'll make it alright."
A soft voice spoke 024's name, and she looked up through tears to see the commander climbing into the fox hole. 024 briefly wondered at the fact that she still had a name. She had forgotten.
018 was on her knees beside 013. "She's dead, sir," 018 reported. "She's been dead since I left to find you."
024 scooted back from 013 slightly so the commander could get to her. He was crying too. What was that supposed to mean? She eyed 018, who returned her gaze with the same fear written across her face. Wasn't the commander going to do something? Or was he going to let 013 be buried beneath a hollow cross like so many others, forgotten?
"She's not dead," he said at last, setting a hand over the blood on 013's stomach. "She's unconscious."
018 knew 013 was dead. She had watched, horrified, as 013's labored breathing had halted. And 024 had been with 013 since that last breath and nothing had changed. 013 was not alive.
Yet the commander had taken 013's hand, and it looked like she was gripping it. He whispered her name, and she opened her eyes and smiled at him. 018 and 024 had not seen her smile for days. The commander helped 013 stand, then he wiped his thumbs across her cheeks, unmasking the healthy flush of youth. He straightened the helmet on her head and brushed his hand past her stomach. The blood was gone, and there was no ragged hole in her uniform. Somehow the rifle that had been left back in the puddle was in his grasp, and as he entrusted it back to 013, he said, "I am with you. Now go. Fight and do not fear." He motioned at the battlefield. 013 let out a wild cry of victory, jumped from the fox hole, and ran toward the line that was creeping into enemy territory.
The commander touched 024 and 018, and they could feel life returning to them too. New strength poured into them, and the serene eyes of their commander gave them hope. "Go," he urged.
The smoke returned. 024 was just about to run after 013 when she realized that 013 still lay at her feet. The hand she clutched was growing cold. It had been a vision after all. 013 was dead, and 018 was gone. 024 could no longer see anything but smoke. She sat down and put her back against the wall of the fox hole. She could not give in to depression now. 018 would bring the commander back. She had to. 013 would not be dead long before he of the unspeakable name came to breathe life into her again.
Copyright 2007 GMV
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