“Blow Up (The Outside World)”
My freshman year at Wesleyan a friend told me that I was not the type of person to ask, “What’s for lunch?” but rather, “What is lunch?” I took it as a compliment. Though I’ve never been referred to as a genius, I’ve always aspired to use my brain whenever appropriate, and the meaning of lunch is as worthy a topic as any other.
Today I went back to class for the first time in a quite a while. In a stinging twist of irony it was held in the same room where I first studied acting. The musty scent of old furniture and well-worn set pieces filled the air, and tears came to my eyes. I was transported back in time, filled with remembrances of a clueless young man who nevertheless knew that he wanted to inhabit this strange world of props and cues and was willing to scrape nickels together in order to do so.
I settled into my chair, and I was struck with a sudden realization. I spent the better part of the last decade in Los Angeles. When I arrived on the west coast, I had the great speeches of Eugene O’Neill memorized. By the time I left, I thought TMZ was worthy of attention. What had happened over time was obvious. I had gone from matters of the inside to matters of the outside, and now, back in a basement in the West Village these many years later, I was returning to the inside.
Any success I’ve had has always come from concerning myself with the inside. If the outside happened to follow, it was unintentional. Perhaps for others it works the other way around. But not for me, and I have to honor that.
And so the journey continues on apace. Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s time for lunch, whatever that may mean.
For the Mineralava Musings, this is Edoardo Ballerini.