The Moment Before

If you are an actor, the term "Moment Before" may be familiar to you. In the theatre world, the Moment Before is the crafted scenario prior to the scene that the actor has prepared. Each actor must formulate this moment in order to understand the circumstances of the scene and to emotionally get invested in the work they are about to do. This is not what I'm talking about. I am experiencing a very different Moment Before. I have felt this strange sensation before, and one day in college, I journaled about it.

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3/15/19

It's not that often that you find a day like this in the middle of March in Boston. I am sitting on a step of a statue with Gia on the most beautiful day that I have seen in a while. The chirping birds almost cover the cacophony of honking horns on Tremont Street. The branches of the trees sway in the breeze like the loose trash bags half-hanging out of the rubbish bins. Even though there are piles of dirty snow piled up around the ice skating rink, the grass has begun to peek out of the mud and show its emerald hair. My own brown hair blows into my face as I write this. It has been an overwhelming week- and there is really no end in sight- but on a day like this all I can focus on is the raspy voice of the Italian street singer in the distance and the faint smell of marijuana on the breeze that never seems to fade in this city. It's easy, on a day like today, to imagine that life was a movie.

Shot 1: The multi-colored winter coats strolling up and down the winding paths of the commons, the people of Boston not yet brave enough to shed their outer layers.

Shot 2: A flock of birds taking off from their runway made of dirt and bottle caps.

Shot 3: The intricate dance of a leaf and a CVS receipt as they tumble past my feet.

Shot 4: Pan up my combat boots to the makeshift picnic that Gia and I have assembled. As the cheery yet understated title sequence song fades into the background, there is a moment's pause before the character wearing my combat boots stops writing in her journal and says the first line. It is in this silence that I want to live. Where the words that come out of her mouth could be anything. She could look sideways at the character with Gia's dark curls and pentagram necklace and profess her love for her. She could express a doubt about their plan to rob the Museum of Fine Arts next Thursday. She could shed a tear and confess how much she misses their own time period since they traveled from the 1800s to 2019. She could belt out the opening number and clue the audience in that they are about to sit through a two-hour musical. It is a silence bubbling with possibility, where nothing is established. There are no rules and no expectations.

It makes me wish that life was made up of those pauses. Before anything was decided. It is in this moment that I realize that is exactly where I am right now. With the wind tousling my hair and rustling my pages, I have no idea what I will say next. Where my steps will take me. Nothing is set in stone- I may bump into a stranger on the diagonal crosswalk and fall in love- or I might kill him and begin my life of crime. We are all living in The Pause. The Pause before the rest of our lives. Every line is our first, and it could change everything.

Ending shot: Pan away from the scene by the statue, No lines have been said, no plot set up, no conflict resolved. There's no pressure to live right. There's just the privilege of living. As the credits roll, the audience gets up and exits, leaving the girls to decide for themselves what the future holds. It is unknown, but life is sure to be exciting for the girl with the French sunglasses perched on her nose and her friend with the ribbon in her hair.

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The Pause. I guess that's my word for The Moment Before. It is the feeling that anything can happen. As the days before I leave for Paris dwindle down, I find myself living in that Pause more and more. Right now, Paris is a glorious blank slate of possibility. A swirling night sky where every constellation is a different path I could take. The minute I touch down at the Charles de Gaulle airport, things start to take form. But of course, that's where the adventure starts. I have spent the last few months preparing for this journey, climbing the mountain. The Pause, The Moment Before, is the exhilarating intake of breath before I jump off the cliff. But the entire journey is made worth it by the feeling once I have made the leap, once I begin to fly.