Stage Fright


Just before you jump out of a plane there is a second when you are totally wrapped up in what is about to happen but you have the illusion of choice. The real moment of control where you could have said no and stayed in the plane was immediately before this moment. And the wind-screaming reality is immediately after. In parachuting the moment is but a moment. In other scary endeavours the moment is a process and can produce a meltdown that lasts an entire evening. You can feel it circling you like a pack of wolves until you can take no more.

Actors call it stage fright.  You are in the wings, waiting to go on, and you wonder what nature of fuck-wittery brought you to this point where you are standing in the dark wanting to die as you gaze into the jaws of the illuminated stage.

The trick is to get to the illuminated stage.