The Cocktail Party: Conversations
In my book, Theatre Is My Life!, this writing is the piece for June 25, so I thought I would share it today.
June 25:
“We die to each other daily. What we know of other people is only our memory of the moments during which we knew them. And they have changed since then.”
Unidentified Guest in T. S. Eliot’s The Cocktail Party, Act 1, Scene 3
In our lives, we know some people very well, and for a long time we have regular interaction with them. Others, we are familiar with for finite periods: in a class at school, in a job, in a social club, and we may or may not know them very deeply. Still other people we meet only briefly, with compressed communication.
No matter how we know people, I believe TS Eliot is right. We do in essence perish to each other daily, because we ebb and flow out of each others’ lives. In the present moment, when I encounter someone, he is alive to me. When that person is gone, I only have the recollection of the time we had together. I know only that aspect of him that I was able to glimpse and glean during our interaction, only what I was able to soak up in that brief juncture we shared on our earthly pilgrimage.
I think of all the students I encountered working together in the theatre. For the time it took to audition, rehearse, and build a show, a small — or sometimes large — group of us would be intimately involved. For those six or seven weeks, students would daily assist me in the costume shop or box office. Others who were acting in the play would visit the shop for measurements and costume fittings. Theatre majors would arrive to check in and check progress. The costume shop functioned as a safe place for students to drop by and discuss with me relationship problems and family joys, academic challenges and hilarious incidents.
Also, in Speech and Theatre, I formed close relationships with fellow faculty members, and with Judy, our department administrator. Music and Art teachers grew into friends as we worked on projects together. Professors from all over campus interacted in numerous academic meetings and schemes — and many were theatre supporters and part of a faculty patrons group.
Our diocese appointed a priest, Fr. Bill, to be the chaplain of the three Birmingham universities: University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham-Southern, and Samford University, where I taught. Being an Episcopalian at a Baptist college, I was thrilled to begin a new adventure of having Eucharists and an Anglican presence on campus, so I became as supportive of the new ministry as I could. I knew Fr. Bill casually, but not well at all, so forming this new relationship was delightful as we began to share communion and stories, plans and projects.
And that was all 20, 30, and 40 years ago. Through social media, I keep up with many of my former students, and often see some of them who remained in Birmingham. A couple of times a year, I have lunch with theatre and speech professor mates. And I sometimes see Fr. Bill. I would say we are all still friends — but I see them all much less frequently. So now, I poignantly think of these Eliot words, “We die to each other daily. What we know of other people is only our memory of the moments during which we knew them. And they have changed since then.”