First published in the anthology of Perishable Theatre's Ninth Annual Woman's Playwriting Festival
I have a toaster, and it makes pretty good toast. But it is a little cranky, and sometimes it burns the toast, and when I adjust the little lever that advertises by a series of iconic brown rectangles that it controls the time the toast toasts, sometimes the bread comes out barely warm: raw toast. I wonder sometimes if it would be smart to go out and get a new one, or if that's just bowing to the modern consumer ethic that is so rapidly turning our planet into an overpolluted and undervegetated wasteland. But it wouldn't it be a daily delight to have reliable toast? But it would also be good to keep from filling landfills with perfectly usable appliances like this one. But it could perhaps find a happy home through the offices of the Salvation Army thrift store. But then I look at its dents and wonder if they wouldn't think it too trashy to sell. And then there I am, stuck between my Sybarite and Spartan selves, frozen with indecision, like that donkey stuck halfway between two meals. And then my daughter points out that it's time to bring her to meet the school bus, and then I sigh with relief and I can move again.
I have a life, and it's a pretty good one. I have a happy family and a nice place to live, my days are interesting and we're not starving. But I'm approaching the mid-point of my actuarially-forecast years, and, like anyone with imagination enough, I wonder sometimes about the choices I've made. I've made my living as a juggler, clown, and rope-walker, but not so much for a few years. Friends of mine with similar shows are now touring the world, and I wonder what they did that I didn't. I write and do reseach for politicians; but I'm 0-for-3 in important elections. I look around and see many writers who've written more, performers who've performed more, activists who've activated more than me, and I wonder why.
But from this viewpoint, how exactly do you tell if you've made the right decisions? No one is grading this performance; there are no reviews. I'm happy, but I find myself identifying my own turning points, and rolling them around in my head as I fall asleep: the plans uncompleted, the jobs refused, the flirtations ignored---the moments where a different choice might have cascaded into an entirely different life. Did I make good choices, or just easy ones? Where would I be now? Maybe it isn't too late. The wonder grows, the conjectures multiply, the doubt swells.
What's more, I'm starting to realize that if I'm going to do anything about that wondering, the time remaining is no longer infinite. Part of this is a matter of arithmetic; I can count. But another part is coming from my peers. A friend of mine, now finishing graduate school in her 40's, figures she has 20 years to get vested in some pension plan---anywhere. That's her goal. She figures that this is the last opportunity she has to change her course while there's still time enough to make a difference.
Another friend, one of the most talented circus performers I've ever had the pleasure to work with, retired from the ring last year, and gave up dangling from rings and standing on his hands. He's spent the past 20 years touring with different circuses, but finally decided that his back and arms weren't going to last another 20. Though he could probably hold out for a few more years, he is now teaching math to eighth-graders in Phoenix, figuring---again---that he still has enough time for another career.
So I continue to look at my toaster. I was in a store recently, buying a waffle iron (it was an emergency) and there were some toasters on the shelf there. They were all shiny, and I could see myself in all of them, unlike my toaster, which has been dulled by dents and corroded fingerprints to a variegated but indifferent semi-matte gray. There was one that, defying all I've ever known of toaster tradition, was cherry red, with big bold white controls, by far the most flamboyant of the lot: the proudest, the loudest, the boldest, the most exciting. Here was a toaster, it seemed to say, that would always be an ornament to the kitchen, that would be the most exciting possible toaster money could buy. Buy me! But what was truly exciting about that toaster was that emblazoned around its big bold white controls, there were numbers! Numbers to imply a certain unfailing precision in toast-darkening that would forever banish my toast woes. No more the imprecision of little iconic brown rectangles. Now, I could have my toast done to a `3' and if that's not dark enough, give me a `4', or even a `3.5'. Flamboyance and precision! Beauty and talent! Could I have it all?
I wonder.