Isobel from "The Passionates"
            By, Dave Ulrich
            Copyright © Dave Ulrich

                                   ISOBEL
            I want to tell you about this day. This one day. I'm driving
            and it's hot. Not a good hot. An uncomfortable hot. I'm going
            to my crap job with it's crap pay. It's early and it's
            already hot. And as I'm inching along in the thick traffic
            I'm wondering why I didn't go to grad school for something
            else. Anything but theatre. Anything that would have allowed
            me to own a home and take vacations at exotic, sunny resorts
            with a beautiful and brilliant partner. But I'm right here,
            well aware that I will always have to have a crap job. A crap
            job to survive so that I may have the chance to do great
            things. A crap job and I'm already grown up, but I don't want
            to grow up. I'm not ready to be a grown up. Traffic is stop
            and-go. My CD is scratched so I'm listening to some bullshit
            on the radio. Talk radio. The kind that depresses you because
            you hear the most unenlightened, insipid callers. But every
            button I push leads to music that hurts my brain or
            commercials that are shockingly ridiculous. This one caller
            is so dramatically offensive that I've got the phone in my
            hand with the digits pressed, hovering over the 'send' key.
            All the while stopping and going. Stopping and going. A flash
            of light shoots off the windshield of the car in my rearview,
            a billboard confuses me, the car in front of me has no
            license plate, no anything, and I wonder how you can do that.
            Is it legal? A truck beside me spews out black clouds of
            exhaust that smell so awful and so strong that I have to roll
            up my driver's side window despite the heat. This hot, hot
            heat. I turn down the volume just in time to hear squeaking
            during the stop. I'm not sure if it's me, or a car beside me.
            I time my stops a little later, or a little earlier to see if
            it's me. I can't tell. I'm going crazy. Stir crazy in my car.
            I'm feeling angst. Frustration. Alone in a world that
            disagrees with me. That I disagree with. Something. Like
            that. Then a car beside me veers over and smashes right into
            me. Seriously! As if I simply weren't there. As if I had come
            out of nowhere, as if I had an invisible car. Of course I had
            been sitting there all along, in a visible car, rolling a few
            inches. A few inches every few minutes. Yet this jerk-off
            starts flicking his hand impatiently like I need to hurry up
            and pull over so we can discuss what I've done. What I've
            done. Like it was me. Like I've inconvenienced him! And I'm
            sitting there going "Who the hell do you think you are to act
            mad at me? You... fucker." So I pull over and he pulls over
            ahead of me. Without hesitation -- serious -- I'm barely able
            to get my door open, and he's at my car screaming, asking
            what my problem was... why I can't stay in my own lane? "What
            the hell, mister," I say. "You drifted right into me! I
            didn't go anywhere." Bullshit. That's all he's got to say.
            Like I'm the one full of shit.
            The cars are only moving inches at a time, so I run up beside
            a few. Try to get someone, anyone, who saw it to pull over
            and be witness. Nobody will acknowledge me or roll down their
            window. Not one. No wait... one. Cracked his window and said,
            "Hey, sorry lady, I can't be late. Not today." But, whatever.
            When I come back, defeated, out of breath, pissed off, still
            in shock, and... well, he's called the cops on his cell and
            they're on their way. I still can't believe that this guy is
            such an ass. Really. Talking to him just makes my temperature
            rise in the sweltering heat and I know my cheeks are flushed.
            I stutter... well, not exactly. I'm, you know...? Not
            stuttering, that one word... dammit. Stammering. Jesus.
            Anyway,I just can't make my point with him. I can't speak.
            And I'm mad at myself for it. I'm too emotional. Pissed at
            myself for never knowing how to behave in the dramatic
            situations of my real, unscripted life. In this traffic the
            cops aren't going to get there anytime soon -- even if they
            cared to hurry. So I fold my arms and lean back on my car
            facing away from the traffic, as much as I really wanted
            people to, you know, gawk at me. 'Cuz that's great. And I
            take inventory of just how much this screws up my life --
            just as some guys start laughing at me while their car inches
            by. The laughter turns to cat calls. It's annoying, but it
            hits me that these jokers might be useful. So I walk around
            my car and ask if they saw what happened. There was no "Oh,
            you need help?" Or "Yes, I saw it... and I won't let that
            asshole screw you over." No. No, instead I hear: "Yo Ray,
            this bitch wants to suck our cocks." Because evidently, "Did
            you see what happened?" translated into fraternity Greek is a
            sexual advance. Clearly it was my mistake, so I just return
            to my vast oven retreat, fold my arms back up, and breathe in
            the burnt oil air while the sun gets all aggressive with me. 
            But then... I just break. My eyes narrow beneath my
            sunglasses, my teeth clench and I think, "Why the hell do I
            do it?" Why. Why do I bother struggling in my life just to
            fight for and sometimes, rarely, get the opportunity to try --
            to try -- to enrich the lives of others. I always thought I
            could handle this lifestyle because deep down I really did
            want to help people, teach people, entertain people. But it
            suddenly punches me square in the gut that maybe... maybe....
            just maybe... I don't actually like people. Maybe I only
            exist as an actress to create a distance from myself and my
            own... humanness. Maybe I'm really just pompous. Doing this
            to feel superior. Maybe. Maybe it's all ego. Maybe I'm sick,
            or scared, and yet -- still furious. And I suddenly didn't
            know anymore. Where I fit. Why those radio callers are so
            freakin' idiotic. Or why this lying piece of shit had to hit
            my car. Why men have to be so brash and disgusting. And why I
            have to care that I'm going to be late for a grease-soaked
            job as a servant to over-sized Americans. Americans parking
            themselves at the trough to shove too large portions of food
            into their gaping lie holes.
            Or why I have to endure all of this so that I may, exhausted 
            - but gratefully -- race to the theatre that night and
            rehearse for five hours of real usefulness... and take five
            and ten minute naps every hour and a half -- each time waking
            up only to debate taking up smoking again so it feels like I
            really took a break. That's what I'm thinking under the
            engine rumbles and brake squeaks. That's what I wrestle with
            as freckles start blossoming on my nose and shoulders and I'm
            dehydrating. Actually feel myself drying up inside. And then
            I see it. This flower. This imperfect, little crap highway
            flower. Probably part weed, cast out of the daisy family many
            generations ago. It's tiny, slim stalk bent by the weight of
            a bottle cap, making it lean like it's in a yoga stretch.
            This was not some impossibly beautiful flower arrogantly
            reeking perfection. This was just a simple, beautiful misfit 
            - craning its neck in a sea of trash. Out among gravel,
            weeds, fry boxes, cigarette butts, plastic bags, shredded
            tires. Not even able to stand tall, but standing nonetheless.
            The most hostile environment imaginable, and there she was.
            Surviving. Offering her little splash of color and organic
            beauty to a sickly world of sun-stained dirt and patches of
            gray. And there was another one -- maybe ten feet away. I
            counted seven in all within, I don't know -- a five yard
            radius. And I cried. I don't know why exactly I cried in that
            moment. I'm not a crier. So why so strong a reaction to that?
            Especially when it took me awhile to unfold my thoughts on
            it? Why was it exactly what I needed to see? I think -- I
            thought... I saw myself in her. The myself I forget at work,
            in traffic, on the dark nights of the theatre. She was not
            alone. And she was not worthless. Not wasted. It didn't
            matter that most of the day cars were zipping by not
            noticing. Days, weeks go by and she's unnoticed. But when
            she's needed -- there she is. Carrying on. Enduring the heat,
            the exhaust, the bullying. A symbol of life among the shit.
            And others like her stand proudly, too, three thousand
            obnoxious weeds away from her bottle cap embrace. And that...
            that's what we are. That's what they are. That's what the
            theatre is. As we climb the chain of life, the patterns
            remain the same. We are the flowers among shit, resisting the
            weeds and bringing beauty. Maybe the only ones who notice are
            just like us. Maybe only the other flowers pay us any
            attention... but does that make it a waste of time? The weeds
            could overrun that one little flower easily enough. But
            something stopped them. Maybe the beauty... or at least the
            conviction and persistence. So maybe we, too, can pry open a
            few closed minds. But even if we don't, what's wrong with
            what we do? What's wrong with the theatre acting as a meeting
            place for the flowers of the Earth to gather? All of us
            giving each other strength to go back out there and shine...
            right in the middle of shit.



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