How to Disappear
I saw a play recently called How to Disappear Completely and Never be Found. It is being performed at Portland Center Stage, in the basement, where they run the plays that are one part unique and one part small, with a heavy dose of inscrutibility. It was almost a one man show - there were two other actors playing several other characters but they didn't really matter very much. It was about the main character. He was a stereotypical big city, stressed-out advertising guy, using drugs and alcohol to maintain his half-dead haze. And then he was dead. Or maybe just disappeared and trying to look dead, I'm not sure. But he left behind everything of his former life, his identity, his friends, even his clothing, and disappeared.
Maybe because this play was in the back of my mind, today I suddenly remembered an acquaintance from long ago. She was a La Leche League leader when my daughter was a baby, one of the more seasoned leaders who led the way when I earned my own accreditation as a Leader. She was typical of our bunch, devoted mom, attachment parent, breastfeeder, school volunteer. Her world was inextricably woven through and around her children. Until she disappeared. She just didn't show up to pick her daughter up at school one day - a private Montessori school - and nobody ever heard from her again.
At the time I wondered how she could have possibly made such a choice. But I wonder, does everyone harbor fantasies of getting a Do-Over? Does the Wall Street trader, life-long city boy wonder what it would be like to be the sixth generation to farm his family acreage? Does the person who spends a lifetime settled in the same community, pouring coffee at the same pot-lucks and meeting childhood friends at the cafe, wonder about the life of a nomad? How many people imagine just chucking it all and starting over, trying it differently the second, or third, time around?
I think there are endless opportunities to reinvent ourselves. Every year, day, even moment, new choices beg to be made. But to disappear completely? My guess is - it's mostly the good that is left behind, and the sorrows have a way of hanging on.
Maybe because this play was in the back of my mind, today I suddenly remembered an acquaintance from long ago. She was a La Leche League leader when my daughter was a baby, one of the more seasoned leaders who led the way when I earned my own accreditation as a Leader. She was typical of our bunch, devoted mom, attachment parent, breastfeeder, school volunteer. Her world was inextricably woven through and around her children. Until she disappeared. She just didn't show up to pick her daughter up at school one day - a private Montessori school - and nobody ever heard from her again.
At the time I wondered how she could have possibly made such a choice. But I wonder, does everyone harbor fantasies of getting a Do-Over? Does the Wall Street trader, life-long city boy wonder what it would be like to be the sixth generation to farm his family acreage? Does the person who spends a lifetime settled in the same community, pouring coffee at the same pot-lucks and meeting childhood friends at the cafe, wonder about the life of a nomad? How many people imagine just chucking it all and starting over, trying it differently the second, or third, time around?
I think there are endless opportunities to reinvent ourselves. Every year, day, even moment, new choices beg to be made. But to disappear completely? My guess is - it's mostly the good that is left behind, and the sorrows have a way of hanging on.
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