Shift Happens

Day 57

Before we are all the way awake, we hear Elizabeth's quiet footsteps in the wet grass on her way to her Tai Chi practice on the dock. This is a lovely way to wake up. Before long, I am up too, and decide to have a hot shower and make the Pirate some coffee and peppery rice (it's all the food we have).

We do coffee and breakfast by the lake again, since it is yet another beautiful day in the valley. We take our time this morning, since most of our fun will be tonight. Elizabeth has generously invited us to the dress rehearsal of a performance she is singing in. She doesn't tell us too much, only that it is more of a pageant, or tableau, than a play. And it's being performed at Rokeby, a 195 year old Hudson Valley mansion in which the 10^th and 11^th generations of the original families still dwell.

When the Pirate and I arrive at Rokeby with Elizabeth, it takes us a moment to fully absorb this setting. The grand house sits on 420 acres, some which roll down to the river toward the west, where the sun is beginning to set. The house is lovely and haunting, the way a tattered wedding dress found in an attic is. It is at once grand and crumbling. The front porch of Rokeby is slowly filling with the players for tonight; people in black lace veils, or kimonos with fake bloody boobies; priests, satyrs, ladies in black and white with flowers crowning their heads, and on and on. Elizabeth guides us around, introducing us like close friends and under-the-radar celebrities. She first says our names, and then says The Pirate and The Mermaid, which is their cue to say “oooh, you're the ones on the motorcycle”. Can we tell you how cool we feel?

The lady of the house, a striking woman with blue eyebrows, greets us and lets us know that it's OK to take photos, so I waste no time. The show goes on at exactly 7:10, and we plus one of the players' husbands are the audience in its entirety. The performance, by the way, is called Shift.

At 7:10 on the nose, it begins. Over the next hour, we are treated to a voyage through the phases of the moon and the phases of the heart. The performance is outside, so as the sun sets and paints the valley in pinks and salmons, we are sung to, meandered beside, and encouraged to let go of the things which are keeping us from our own inevitable shifts. It is moving, and beautiful, and perfectly timed in the scheme of our own journey.

The Pirate and I have been on the road for nearly two months. We have traveled a good bit, literally and figuratively. We are not the same people that began this trip 57 days ago, and yet, just like the moon shifting from full to dark, we are. We needed to witness this performance very much, without realizing it. When the play is over, and the players are doing notes on the veranda, the Pirate and I slip down to the front steps, and whisper about how we have shifted, as individuals, as a couple and as members of many communities. We both say how grateful we are for this night that has so artfully reminded us to take our shifts into account with the same importance as we will check our mail and tend to our work when we get home in a few days.

It is a magical night, indeed. To be here with Elizabeth, bringer of Maeve, the character who has been so influential in shaping my perspectives around independence, service, love and history is such a profound joy. And to be here with my Pirate, with whom I can apply these perspectives so effortlessly, is sublime.