Beth
08-11-2008, 05:54 AM
It was a minor miracle that we made it at all. Early Friday morning we awoke at a campground in southeastern Indiana. My partner and our children had spent the week camping with family while I worked in Kansas City for the week. I joined them there Thursday evening. (About the only benefit from being away from the kids all week is that I am such a celebrity when I return…at least until I say, “No” for the first time…) So Friday morning we pack up the camper, the kids, the tons and tons of stuff, haul the kids to her sister’s for the weekend, and head back to Indy. A very quick stop at home to drop off the van and camper, unload the cooler, and check the mail. It’s two o’clock when we head out for Chicago. We can relax, there’s plenty of time. The show doesn’t begin ‘til eight and we gain an hour. We actually get to talk to each other uninterrupted for HOURS and I am thinking, I remember this…
Getting through the afternoon Chicago traffic is a little crazy but we make it to our hotel which we booked close to the Borders where Janis will do her book signing on Sat. It’s twenty miles to the theater and it’s only 5. No sweat. Plenty of time for a shower. We head over to the venue. Our plan is to grab something to eat nearby. But every freeway is sitting still. And every street is packed. And every traffic light is way too long. Tick, tick, tick… It is 7:30 now and we are within ten miles. We are both feeling pretty frustrated at this point. Embarrassingly, we have a GPS but you can only reprogram it to avoid just so much…And then, we end up on Foster Ave. Foster, how funny. And then we cross Nashville. And then I am starting to think this is weird, but I also know we’ll be fine. We see the venue, cool, and 6 blocks away we find a place to park. All is well. It’s ten til eight. I turn off the engine, and my partner’s cell phone rings. I hear her say over and over, “Oh no!” What, what? It’s her sister and her mom is being airlifted to Indy. She is having a stroke. I tell her, OK, let’s go. We’ll work our way back to the hotel and get our stuff and drive back tonight. She tells me there’s nothing she can do and she wants to wait. Her siblings are there and she’ll stay in touch for the next couple of hours and then decide. So, I get to see the whole show and my partner spends most of it in the lobby. We left the next morning and her mom is recovering with little to no residual effects evident.
And, the show was the best I have seen yet. Janis has become a true Master of the Stage. You really can’t tell where one begins and the other one ends. You could feel that the audience was outside of itself, experiencing something and not just watching a performance. That’s pretty cool when you think about all those different lives connecting there. I was delighted to be part of the magic! It was absolutely worth the effort to be there.
Getting through the afternoon Chicago traffic is a little crazy but we make it to our hotel which we booked close to the Borders where Janis will do her book signing on Sat. It’s twenty miles to the theater and it’s only 5. No sweat. Plenty of time for a shower. We head over to the venue. Our plan is to grab something to eat nearby. But every freeway is sitting still. And every street is packed. And every traffic light is way too long. Tick, tick, tick… It is 7:30 now and we are within ten miles. We are both feeling pretty frustrated at this point. Embarrassingly, we have a GPS but you can only reprogram it to avoid just so much…And then, we end up on Foster Ave. Foster, how funny. And then we cross Nashville. And then I am starting to think this is weird, but I also know we’ll be fine. We see the venue, cool, and 6 blocks away we find a place to park. All is well. It’s ten til eight. I turn off the engine, and my partner’s cell phone rings. I hear her say over and over, “Oh no!” What, what? It’s her sister and her mom is being airlifted to Indy. She is having a stroke. I tell her, OK, let’s go. We’ll work our way back to the hotel and get our stuff and drive back tonight. She tells me there’s nothing she can do and she wants to wait. Her siblings are there and she’ll stay in touch for the next couple of hours and then decide. So, I get to see the whole show and my partner spends most of it in the lobby. We left the next morning and her mom is recovering with little to no residual effects evident.
And, the show was the best I have seen yet. Janis has become a true Master of the Stage. You really can’t tell where one begins and the other one ends. You could feel that the audience was outside of itself, experiencing something and not just watching a performance. That’s pretty cool when you think about all those different lives connecting there. I was delighted to be part of the magic! It was absolutely worth the effort to be there.