Looking back... And a little bit forward, too

The past week and a half has been quite the adventure for me.  I already wrote about the production of Les Miserables that I took part in.  That was the story of my nights from Monday, July 22 to Saturday, July 27.  We put on a 7 PM show on each weekday, and an afternoon matinee on Saturday.  It was...amazing.  That word gets overused, but I can't think of a word that describes it better.  I loved going out there and telling that story (and watching from offstage).  Each day we did even better than the day before; I was so impressed with everyone and how it all came together.  So rewarding after all the hard work that we put into it.  And that was some of the most fun I had in my life.  I will never forget it - the work, the friends , and the feelings.  Especially the feelings.  Man, Reggie (who played Marius) nearly brought me to tears when he sang "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables".  For those who need context, Marius, a young revolutionary student, has just lost all his friends and fellow revolutionaries in a ferocious battle.  He returns to the cafe where they would gather, and thinks of his  fallen comrades.  You can feel his misery, his anguish over their death in the lyrics of that song.  And Reggie expressed that so well - I just about wept on stage during Friday's performance.

It wasn't just the context of the play that made me feel that way.  Each performance was one closer to this experience finally being over.  There would be no more practices each Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday.  As my friend Natalie pointed out before Thursday's show:  "It's our last Thursday on the play!"  It all just accumulated to that Friday night; Reggie's song was just the icing on my cake of bittersweet feelings.  It was an extremely rewarding week, but I was sad to leave behind what had been such a great experience for me.

Still, the show was over, and I've spent the days since Saturday in Yellowstone with my parents and siblings that came to see the play.  After a week of tiring acting, I was excited to spend the next few days unwinding on a camp out.  However, I forgot that I was going to have 13 nieces and nephews at this camp out, all 10 or under.  Man... exhausting.  Trying to help look after that many kids proved very tiring.  I'm super impressed with my sisters - I was beat after a couple days of helping with these kids; SOMEHOW, they take care of these children everyday, often without any kind of break.  It just basically made me appreciate moms in general (and those who will be moms) even more; frankly, I'm glad I'll be the one bringing home the bacon.  I don't know that I have the patience a mother requires to take care of children 24/7.

Not that I'm not looking forward to being a parent.  Despite how tough it's been helping with my nieces and nephews, they really are great little kids.  It's made me look forward to having some of my own munchkins.  Not sure when that'll be...but I'm excited for it.

Interesting what you can learn about yourself through a little reflection and the occasional look forward.

Showtime!

   I've been part of a musical production for the last 3 months.  It's not for school, and I'm not being paid for it or anything like that.  A town close to where I live, called St. Anthony (in Idaho), customarily puts on a musical each year in celebration of Pioneer Day.  So it's just a community gig, but I've really been enjoying the whole thing.

   This year, the musical is Les Miserables.  Many of you are probably familiar with it - it's an exceptional musical.  For those that are unfamiliar with it:  in a nutshell, it's the story of a man named Jean Valjean, who, after being let off of a chain gang (after many years), breaks his parole and flees the law in order to take care of a friend's daughter.  His parole officer, Javert, is unyielding in his pursuit of Valjean, and the story goes from there.  I won't spoil the plot for you.  All you really need to know is that the name of the musical is French; it means "misery".  And it's a fitting name; Valjean and the other characters go through some heavy stuff in this play.  But it is an incredible story, with a great message layered beneath all the crap that rough patches.

I wasn't planning on doing this when I first came up to Rexburg for school.  I just wanted to do well in school, work a bit, go on a few dates, and hang with my friends.  I have two brothers that also live in Rexburg; my younger brother, Corbin, is my roommate, and is also attending the college here (BYU-Idaho).  My older brother, Garrett, also went to school here, but graduated a while ago.  We're a tight-knit trio, and we enjoy spending time together.  It was two years ago that Corbin and Garrett heard about St. Anthony's musical productions; they took part in one called Hey, Tom Sawyer! and they really enjoyed it.  So, naturally, when I came up here, they wanted me to join them in this year's show.  I admit, I was reluctant at first.  I don't typically go out of my way to do extracurricular stuff; I'm most at ease at home, reading or playing a video game.  But I figured, "Hey, it's a show with my brothers.  It'll be fun."  And so I attended the auditions with Garrett.

By then I warmed up a bit to the idea.  It might be fun to be Beggar #3 or something.  I wasn't expecting a lot.  So I was pretty surprised when the casting email came out.  I found my name next to a character named "Enjolras".  Who, it turned out, was the leader of a rebellion that takes place in Act II.  I had recently seen the movie of Les Mis that had come out just a few months before.  I vividly recalled that Enjolras was, in fact, nothing like Beggar #3.  He's one of the bigger characters in the cast; I would have lots of lines to memorize, and about 3 months to do it.  I was...not very happy at first.  I was worried I wouldn't be able to manage this character with everything else I had going on.  I occasionally cursed myself for doing so well at the auditions.  Why didn't I just do an adequate job, instead of going out of my way to "wow" the director?  Still, I didn't want to ruin the show, so I went ahead and resigned myself to my role.

I'm happy to say that my initial feeling toward all this was dead wrong.  I have been having a great time, even when I wasn't sure of any of my lines, and I have made tons of friends.  There must be something in the water in St. Anthony - everyone in the cast is really awesome.  And I must say, I'm glad to have something to occupy me, especially considering that I have not actually done well in school this semester.  While I'm not proud of that, I am very proud of the work that I've put into this musical.

Tonight is opening night.  I hope that everything will come together and go well.  I hope that I can portray my character well, and I hope that any who attend will appreciate the story we will tell.  

To use the immortal words of Bilbo Baggins:  "I think tonight will be a night to remember!"

"What's in a name?"

   Shakespeare penned that question in Act II of Romeo and Juliet.  And it's an interesting query; I've pondered it a bit the past few days.

   You see, in the play mentioned above, Juliet uses this question to assert that names are actually meaningless - they are simply how we label and organize the world around us.  "That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet," she says with sagacity disproportionate to her teenage years (and frankly, "teenage idiocy" might be accurate, too).  On one hand, of course, she's correct.  If I called a rose a taco, it wouldn't smell like a taco - it would still smell like a rose.  If I called you Matthew, that wouldn't make you my buddy I met in Germany (unless, of course, you're reading this currently, Matthew).  The very essence of what we are is not determined by what we are called.

   So why do we put so much importance on names?  We do it all the time.  That crazy concoction you and your roommates made for a late night meal deserves a memorable label (such as "the Masserole").  Pets have to have the name that fits them just perfectly.  As soon as you get the ultrasound image showing whether you're going to have a baby girl or a baby boy, immediately your mind goes into "name brainstorming" mode.  If names don't really determine what we are, why do we obsess over them, occasionally with frustrating, fanatical effort?  It's not going to change what you are.  You're still going to be a human being.

See, this is the kind of stuff I mull over in my mind.  It's insane, I know.  Nobody in their right mind thinks this hard about something as simple as the tradition of naming.  I only started considering these things because I've been having difficulty thinking about what I wanted to call this blog.  I mean, a blog's not serious writing - not in my case, anyway.  In truth, there will probably only be a few people who ever see this blog.  And yet I've spent the better part of 3 or 4 nights proposing names to myself and systematically scratching them off my mental list.  I've struggled to find something that would describe just what I wanted to say about the content of these posts.

As I strained my brain to find something fitting, I saw the question of "why we name" from a new perspective.  Certainly, what we're called won't change what we are.  But our personal names - the ones we give to children, to pets, to things personal to us - might those have an influence on who we are?  My name is Caleb.  It's of biblical origin, and means "bulldog", or "loyal".  I don't know if I'm either of those things; but I know that in 6th grade I looked up the name in the Encyclopedia Britannica.  And then I looked up the stories of Caleb in the books of Numbers and Joshua.  I wanted, in some way, to live up to the name I was given.  And so I try,  in my little faltering ways, to be like Caleb in the Bible.  I try to be a loyal friend.  I consider how being like a bulldog might in some mystifying way improve me as a person (still no definitive answer on that one).  I believe that, perhaps, our names give us more definition than Juliet might have believed.  They don't change what we inherently are; but they give us something to strive toward, a model upon which we might consider building our character.  In that way, our names describe us.

And so, I present to you, friends, my blog:  "Discussions with Myself".  The name is imperfect.  But I hope that here, you'll get a better idea of who I am, what goes on in my life, and maybe learn a little about how this all affects what goes on in that crazy, random brain in my skull.

And I hope that, eventually, the name will fit the thoughts I express here.