How many times has the word “speak” been spoken so far in this play?
Speak, speak, speak.
I say it enough and it starts to sound funny.
Speak, speak, speak, speak, speak, speak.
Do we say “speak” to each other?
We tell our dogs to speak when we train them.
We use speak to talk about which languages we can commincate in.
Or when we want someone to be louder.
It seems like it’s more associated with formality –
Like, when “I need to speak to you about your job performance.”
Or “We’ve brought in this expert in environmental controls to speak with us.”
The prime usage of speak seems to hang out in our tech – in the speakers
That plug in our ipods, or computers – which is funny, because if there’s one thing a pair of stereo speakers can’t do, it’s speak.

It’s bad enough BEING a ghost
Neither alive, nor truly dead,
Entirely liminal
Floating over the boundaries
But to have such a busy schedule , too –
Of stalking and having one’s sins
Burned away in tortuous flames at appointed times!
That pushes the bad news of ghostliness over the edge.
I’d assume it was enough punishment to remain in the world you’d left behind,
Peering in at your loved ones,
Watching all you accomplished drift away in the tide of your no longer being there
Or even just to have died.
To have lost the weight of your body
The beat of your heart
The rise and fall of your breath
The feeling of a breeze whispering over your skin
And the smell of green leaves growing –
That would be loss enough.

Mark me. I will.
Is almost like call and response.
It’s almost ritual sounding as in
Peace be with you and Also with you or
Forever and ever amen.
It also feels like a rest – like a pause
After the flurry of getting to this moment
And before the chaos that the story about to be told will wreak.
It’s almost like a simple two person prayer.
In classrooms, I’ve learned numerous call and response techniques
But my favorite has always been Ago/Amay
Which translates as “Are you listening?” and “Yes I am”
Which, I suppose we could just as easily say
But Ago and Amay feel like a step into another space
A gesture toward something new
Like a pause
Like a prayer.

Hamlet is talking to the ghost of his father.
I am talking to the ghost of my ambition.
It has risen from its tomb to chide me.
It finds me negligent in doing its will.
I try to excuse myself, to dismiss this insistent ghost –
I tell it I have gone as far as I can go,
That I have done eveything in my power
That it must make peace with what is,
That it is dead and I am where I will likely always be.
The ghost shakes its head and something stirs in me.
Its gory locks shake something loose in me
Something that wants to shoot skyward like a firework.
It’s not quite ready to blow but the ghost can see it
And it’s getting out a box of matches to light the fuse of the rocket.

Before bed last night,
I was reading a book about the Voice.
It made me think about my own voice
About despite the fact that I get nothing but positive feedback about it,
I still would rather not speak much of the time.
Some keep quiet because they’re not enamoured of the sound
I keep quiet because – I don’t know –
I sometimes just don’t want to say anything.
There’s some internal rule about not saying anything
Unless I have something of value to say. I cannot simply fill up aural space
I’d rather listen.

There comes a moment
After so much willingness
After surrender after surrender
After not knowing where you’re going for what feels like ages
After watching your comrades fall by the side of the road
After tripping over roots and stumbling over rocks
When you’re bruised and bleeding and can’t see so clearly anymore
After you’ve paused and taken it up again
After you’re sure this is the end
You have to stop and ask.

The drums are hitting that downbeat with
So much power, it’s like they’re willing people to dance.
I don’t know this form. No one has ever talked me through
What I’m supposed to do when. Step step kick?
Step back? Twirl? I have no idea.
I’d be more comfortable with something a little slower
But you’re offering your hand now
And the music is insistent
So I will take your hand,
Get up from this bench
Walk with you to the dance floor
Where, perhaps, I will put my hand on your shoulder
(If that’s how this dance goes)
I’m going to trust that you know what you’re doing
I’m going to trust that you know how to lead
You’ve lead me this far –
So I’ll follow.

Anna made me laugh from a place I forgot I could laugh.
She showed me my spine and my shoulder blades.
She helped my ribs make room for breath.
She brought my hip toward her and all of me eventually came along for the ride.
She pressed on my shoulders, found a way to rock me like a baby stretched out flat.
There was one spot in my back that, I could swear, has never moved before.
She suggested I stop carrying my burdens on my back – that I might want to try
Juggling them – like big rubber balls bouncing from one part of me to the next.
When I sat up, I was a self I had forgotten.
I was the lighthearted me
The one who will laugh easily and robustly
The one who delights in the world.
An hour before I was heavy. I was buried in trouble.
The world felt like layers of earth laid on top of me
Something I had to fight my way through.
With each fistful of dirt that I pushed out of the way
A new bit would fall into the newly cleared space.
I wondered if I could keep it up.
I wondered if I could keep struggling toward the surface. I could see no way ahead.
One hour on Anna’s Feldenkrais table and I can go on.
I can see the stars.

So many voices, rushing in to judge.
So many opinions, crowding around to label.
So many, “fix this”, “That sucks” and “I don’t think so” s
I feel like I’m standing in a field
Trying to put up a barn
And instead of picking up a hammer to help,
These people stand around and critique my nails.
They think if they tell me what they think
That they are helping
But really they’re just keeping me
From getting this wall erected.
If you’re not here to help me get this off the ground,
Get yourselves gone.
I don’t care how you would have built the barn.
Either pick up a corner
Or pick up and go.

Making ghosts seems like a rather positive spin
On the destruction of death.
The ghost community has a much happier view of death. Death, the ghost maker.
Death: the ghost birth. In that moment, that from this side of the veil
Seems to be an end, is, from that side, creation, birth, the beginning.
The ghosts all celebrate when you pass through,
Pat you on your ectoplasmic back,
Welcome you to their tribe.
They honor their ghost makers – thank the ones that killed them or neglected them
Or let them starve
Because they made you. The ghost makers are the parents of a whole new life.
The end of one and the beginning of another.