I was thinking that perhaps I should change the name of this blog, but I think that it is totally appropriate since I get that Why question quite a lot?  Why did I do or not do or would or would not do believe or not believe.  Why?  Because I am a very unique person.  There are so many facets to me that I have not met them all, nor probably shown them all to anyone. Why, because it was there.  Why, because I really wanted to.  Why, because it moved me.  Why, just because.

I was an extra this past week on a movie set where there were many of us running around presumably helter skelter and being chased by wicked things.  We, of course, had a designated camera range, don't run over the main actors hunched down in the middle of us, and do try not to take the camera man out.  As usual in shooting any scene there are a few to several takes and then more takes of the same scene from a different angle.  In this scene there were props set out for relieving tired and injured people, including a few stacks of bottled water.

Before I continue let me first tell you all that I am not a graceful gazelle leaping about, looking lovely, jumping everything in site.  I bump into things, a lot.  I am particularly fond of fire extinguishers on the sides of buildings set at about 5 feet or so height.


So the scene was set and we were at approximately take 105 (well it seemed like that many) running around being terrified by these wicked things, avoiding main actors and the camera man when I suddenly tripped over one of the stacks of bottled water and fell to my knees.  Did I mention that this scene was being done on a tar covered setting?  Someone grabbed my arm, helped me up, and I continued running for about two steps when the director yelled 'cut'.  I slipped back to my starting mark, raised my pants' leg to check out my now stinging a bit right knee, and saw that I had scraped it. It reminded me of the scrapes I had gotten as a kid.  Everyone was, of course, concerned, but I pooh poohed it as nothing.  However, they would not be satisfied until the medic saw it, cleaned it, and covered it with a spray adhesive (which was OK after the initial embarrassment of it all since he was rather nice to look at as I sat there on the army cot in the MASH-like tent).  After assuring the Production Assistant, who joked about my skill as a stunt actor, that I was fine and the scene was reset we continued on with a few more takes - more running, dodging people, crashing into the actress in the scene ;\.  Then it was over and we all headed for home.  I did find out that the whole incident had been captured on camera.  I would love to have that piece of film.

Now you all know adrenaline eventually peters out and reality kicks in.  That happened approximately 20 minutes later and I realized that I had fallen on my knee.  Not a real fun night from that moment on.

Most of the people were quite concerned about the fall, so I continued into the next day with reassurances that I wasn't limping, the swelling was going down, etc. etc.  Then I got my first Why. "Why were you running?"  Ummm, because that is what the director wanted.  "But you can't be running."  Now it was my turn to ask Why?  The answer was one that I wish people would bite their tongue (really hard) on.  "Because You're Too Old" to be running.  You know perhaps I do need to rename this blog.  Can you rename blogs?  It should be Because I'm Not too Old.  I cannot live on the premise that you're too old to do things.

Beginning the Reinvention

At the age of 65 or so, with an assumption that I would retire at 70, I started thinking about the facts of retirement as I believed them to be.  I entered the work force at approximately the age of 11 assisting my cousin with his paper route.  Girls weren't allowed to have routes.  Don't ask, that's an entirely different blog subject.  lol.  From that point I was working at something, babysitting, lunch clerk, bar maid, go go dancer, nurse, computer programmer, mother.  I knew that retirement was a word and condition made up by the rest of world, not by me.  I also knew way before retiring that I would not actually retire. I would just do something else besides go to a job every day.  And that something else would not be sitting in a corner watching the world go by.

I've always lived with the philosophy of not regretting something that I had done, but regretting something that I had not done.  I have more issues with the latter than the former.  I was in the final years of my second adult career outside of single parenting (yes, parenting is a definite career, in truth the most difficult of my careers) at retirement time.  So I asked myself what one thing, if I were sitting on a porch reminiscing with friends and family at the age of 80 or so, would I have to say I regretted not doing in my life.  Being ready to write a list that I'd have to narrow down I was very surprised that the one answer came quite quickly.  It was to never continue what I had started in high school and pursued occasionally in college and then dropped totally as work, becoming a mother, scrabbling to exist took precedence - acting.  I never totally abandoned  it and my mind always created new fantasies and vivid dreams for all of my life.  My stage became a place in my mind that I could go to and play on whenever I was able.  Once I realized that seeing what I could do in acting was the ONLY thing I would regret not doing I started on my road to today.  I knew that I needed to get into the world itself , but I still had a full time job, so preparation had to revolve around that.  I found the perfect answer at the local Barbizon School of Modeling and Acting.  I enrolled in their next adult session which met once a week in the evening.  I was actually following in the footsteps of my daughter who had graduated from a Barbizon school 25 years prior to my enrollment.