Cast Party

As I was riding my bike yesterday, I noticed a change in feeling towards people I encountered, especially people who might be around my age. I noticed that I feel towards them as I might feel towards fellow members of the cast after a show was over, when we were relaxing in some festive room, celebrating. Whatever role we each had had to play, we had taken off our costumes now, and were simply together, in the commonality of our collective effort and abiding humanity.

So I no longer cared if this was a high powered executive, or a humble worker, or someone with a successful family, or someone who felt all alone in the world. Whatever things had gone on in each of our lives, I sensed that we had had high points and falls, deep loves and deep lessons, things we cared a lot about and things we had let slip. Probably none of us felt totally content with our performances, but now we were beginning to glimpse that it didn’t matter anyway. We could celebrate life, accept each other in the room of those who had finished playing the game.

Not to say we weren’t still living, not to say the intensity and beauty of our lives were passed, or that we were coasting rapidly towards a finish. It’s not life, but the game, that’s over - the game of trying to measure up, to be good enough, to have a plausible story that we could tell. We now knew that no one was worse, and no one was better, that it was good to help each other, and to strive for honesty in all things. That we didn’t need a story as much as a willingness to listen, and we didn’t need things or accomplishments to define who we were.

As I said, all of this was just a feeling in my mind as I rode by and looked at the other people on the trail. But I found it made me feel easier among them, just as I’ve felt easier, lately, in other venues. And I thought, I can invite anyone into this room of celebration. They don’t even have to be old enough. If they are young, or their career is, maybe there’s something that I, or someone else in the room, can give them to help them on their way. And if they need to be celebrated, they will have come to the right place.