Streets and "Fences," Portland-Style

Warning: This is what you might call two posts in one. [translate: sorry, it's kinda long!]

One of my greatest personal challenges in life is that I have a phobia of driving. I didn’t get my license until I was 20, and after my first freak accident, didn’t drive for roughly five years after that. It’s taken a lot of prayer and a lot of work to manage my phobia, and I’ve succeeded in functioning fairly well in terms of it.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m no one you should fear on the road. I’m not reckless or erratic. I’m not the granny driver going 25 in the fast lane. Everything that happens, happens on the inside. In fact, you’d probably never know about my problem unless I told you. (which I’m doing now, I suppose) I once drove in a caravan from the Portland area clear to Yellowstone National Park. I use to keep up with the insane traffic in the San Francisco Bay Area. I recently commuted to work on the most congested stretch of freeway in the Portland Metro area.

Still, if I can help it, I stick to city streets. Familiar routes. No surprises, and usually no high speeds. I don’t like to drive with other adults in the car (although my kids are just fine). I get into a comfort zone. Avoid quick interchanges, lanes that end, road construction. Anything and everything I can do to reduce the anxiety.

But sometimes, I’m just not satisfied with that. One of my favorite quotes, attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt, is: “You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” So I make myself reach out, try harder, “get over it,” you might say.

Last fall I signed up to be a volunteer usher at Portland Center Stage, a vibrant theatre in downtown Portland that has enjoyed a fabulous rejuvination this year. Once every few months I am forced (by my commitment) to drive into the city to fulfill my evening shift. I’ve worked at “West Side Story” and a wonderful one-man show called “This Wonderful Life”. Last night I had the opportunity to work August Wilson’s play “Fences.”

As is true for every time I have to drive into Portland, I spent about an hour before the drive feeling sick to my stomache. I literally felt like I was going to throw up. I also (like always) drew myself a very detailed map of the area, including where I needed to park, even though I’ve been there before. I had to try to picture every little detail in my mind to calm myself down.

The drive in was actually very smooth. And, thanks to preparation, I actually got right to the parking garage. Of course, I had to sit in the car for about 7 minutes after arriving so I could do some breathing and relax (I think I held my breath for practically the whole 30 minutes it took to get there!). Once I arrive somewhere, that’s when it hits me that I’m going to have to turn around and get home later, but I tried to shove that out of my mind so I could enjoy the theatre.

There’s something fabulous about working at a live theatre. Everyone is happy to be there. And practically everyone is nice to you. There’s a huge variety of people, from obvious season ticket holders (one lady last night handed me the wrong ticket, and when I tried to correct her, she said, “Oh, hold on a minute!,” then opened her purse to reveal the entire season’s worth of tickets folded up nicely in a section of her purse), to novice theatre go-ers (one gentleman just outright told me, “Listen, I’m new to this – where do I go, where do I sit? What are the rules?”), to old and young alike (there were three *large* groups of middle-schoolers there last night). I think there were even two television stars in the audience last night, but the lamest thing is that I can’t for the life of me place them. I know that I had seen them before, and I’m thinking it was on a reality show. But who are they??? This is going to bug me for a long time. I’m sure I bugged them just a little as I stared at them across the lobby, trying to force my brain to make the connection.

Part of the fun is also working with the same volunteer staff for each of my shifts. I am by far the youngest in the group – to give you an indication of what I mean, let me tell you there are three ladies in our group named Phyllis. THREE!! But while most of them are senior citizens, they are definitely some of the coolest, hippest retired folks you’re gonna meet. So last night I decided to have a little fun with them. They haven’t seen me since I got pregnant, so in our pre-show circle, they all started chatting with me about it. One lady in particular was giving me all sorts of “first time parent” advice. I could have left it alone, not corrected her on her mistaken assumption. But I know EVERY time the reaction I’m going to get, so after she was done, I paused a moment and told her, “You know, I’m sort of a veteran at this. This baby is #5.” She simply stared at me. The whole group got quiet, I’m not kidding. I finally said, “You don’t believe me, do you?” Then another lady said, “You mean to tell me you already have FOUR kids???” Then everyone started laughing. There were a couple of comments about how much I must like my husband. And then the first lady said, “Well, my, you just don’t look old enough to have been put through the ringer that many times!” And therein is the secret to people’s assumptions – I do look awfully young to have four kids. Heck, at 33, I guess I AM pretty young to have four (almost five) kids! But it’s always fun to catch people off-guard with my parental statistics.

Moving onto the show, the play itself was alright. August Wilson is a very important voice in African American literature, and I was already familiar with other works of his. This show was similar in tone and theme – which is to say, it was a bit serious, a bit of a downer at times, but also stopped to make you think. At a running time of 2 hours and 50 minutes (with 1 15-minute intermission), it was also a LOOOOOONG show. I unfortunately found myself getting rather antsy for the last 40 minutes.

We didn’t clear out until 10:30pm, and then it was time to face the ride home. I had prayed and prayed for no rain (bad weather conditions raise the anxiety level considerably), and was happy to see it dry when I walked outside. I sat in my car for a few minutes, tried to get myself oriented, and with a deep breath got out onto the streets of Portland. With just a few zigs and zags, I got onto my freeway and breezed home. But even though it was late when I got back, the buzz of a night at the theatre and a drive through the city kept me up until about 1am.

That may have been my last shift of the theatre season – I’m not sure, I’ll have to check my schedule. But if it is or isn’t, I’m sure I’ll be finding some other reason to stretch my neck out and keep on staying involved and alive. There’s just nothing else to do but what you can, and when you think you can’t, just have to make yourself do it anyway!!

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