Inside the Process ~ Day 84 ~ “Soon, this place will be filled with ghosts.”

This post was composed on August 23, 2012.

Soon, this place will be filled with ghosts.

In just two days, we have our final show, and then it all flows from there: Andi will depart the next day; we’ll have a closing ceremony; soon after, the others will depart and slowly everyone will start to reintegrate back into their old lives, or new lives, or new versions of old pasts or something.

And then, a gap, because we’ll stay here. We, a core group, who call this place home—we will stay while others go. I’ve never really understood that. I don’t understand the passage of time; I don’t understand how someone once was here and now they’re not.

I have no doubt that it will be a hard transition. And, to be honest, I’ve barely thought about what this place will feel like in September and beyond, or what my life will entail post–summer 2012. It’s so strange to put so much effort towards one goal, and then you meet it, and then what? Accomplishment and loss go hand in hand, it seems to me.

And you have to learn to ride these tides; there’s nothing to do but embrace the flow, and resisting change doesn’t change a thing—it just makes it that much harder. You can punch at the waves all you want, but you’ll never stop the tide.

Soon, there will be a death here. Death will swallow our community from the inside: the death of the summer, the death of this version of the community, the death of what is now—the birth of change. I think about all the versions of loss and heartache, and hopeful rebirth, and void nothingness that we’ve deeply integrated into the show. We’ve spent all summer studying this stuff, and yet, every time… I think death smacks you in the face every time. There’s actually no such thing as a soft death, even when you see it coming. The moment of death is actually always a surprise—and it always stings.

And then there’s this question, where all human minds turn: “What is to come?” What happens after death? Mystery. Nothingness. Everything—the beginning of pretty much everything. I guess as much as you have to ride the tides, you also have to really feel the sorrow of death, and you also have to accept the change. The only thing guaranteed is that, if you wait long enough, something new will happen.

Next thing.

And we go on.