I’ve been video editing all day with my ex.

I had a two-week run last month at a theater downtown of an original show that I wrote, and my ex was in videotaping it for me.

Usually I’ll do an entire show from behind the piano, but this time it was a full theatrical production so I was doing some stand-up, and I moved around quite a bit on-stage between different keyboard & prop stations.

Watching the video was pretty enlightening. During the parts where I was performing my songs, I liked what I saw. But in the “in-between-the-songs-parts” when I was moving from one station to the next, it was like a whole different person. My posture changed – it was not the same person who had been doing the singing. It was more shuffly-like, self-conscious, almost apologetic. As I was watching, I kept thinking “Who are those 2 people!” But of course, both of them were me.

The next day, the day after the videoshoot show day, the producer said to me “That was great – you’ve made a lot of changes since yesterday! You must’ve watched the video!”

But no, at that time, I hadn’t seen the video yet. (Didn’t watch it till 2 days ago actually!)

I don’t know why the show had changed so dramatically from one day to the next. Whether it was self-consciousness on the video day because my ex was there filming, or was it because I was aware in general that a video was being shot so I wasn’t fully “myself”, or, am I always like that!?

============

Last night I had a long talk with JM. We talked a bit about what I’m going to do when my ex and I finally sell this house and truly move on. I told her about my plans to go on the road.

She said “So playing music is going to be ‘it’ for you , then? This is what’s in your blood and this is what you’re going to do?”

I said I believe so. But it’s not that I’m “closing the door” on anything else – I intend to keep my mind and my options open, to see where I best find my way.

Because really, it really doesn’t matter what I “do”. I just want to be, all the time, that confident person that I liked in the video. The one on stage doing the singing. Not the other, “in-between” one.

=============

btw – the video came out great. We edited out all the parts I didn’t like.