The Smell of the Greasepaint
As a girl coming of age in the early 60’s I was enamored of the theater and dreamt of a life on the stage. I’ve written about my glamorous and talented great aunt Miriam who performed in grand theaters and music halls in Europe and America, and inspired me. And I’ve also written about my own acting and directing chops honed in community, camp, and college theater. (See Aunt Miriam, Diva, Theater Dreams and Piano Man – Remembering Herb)
But when it was time to think seriously about career choices I rejected a thespian’s life as an unrealistic, unattainable goal, and trained instead to become a high school librarian.
Retired now for more than a decade, I can look back on many happy and rewarding years working with kids in libraries. And yet sometimes I wonder if – like the Dustin Hoffman character in The Graduate – I should have chucked the conventional and followed the dream.
For in my mind’s eye I can still see myself up on the stage taking my final curtain call to the roar of the crowd!
– Dana Susan Lehrman
Dana Susan LehrmanThis retired librarian loves big city bustle and cozy country weekends, friends and family, good books and theatre, movies and jazz, travel, tennis, Yankee baseball, and writing about life as she sees it on her blog World Thru Brown Eyes!
www.WorldThruBrownEyes.com
Dana, most of us had the same values. I guess instilled in us from our parents and family. Work at a decent job, scope out the benefits and check out retirement plans. Is it an American thing? I know my parents parents had some struggling times and made sure to pass on that survival mode to their offspring. But I’m like you, wonder where that road not taken would’ve led. And then again, if you entertain parallel universes, there we are.
Ah yes Patty, I wonder!
The allure of theatre was great for thespians like us, Dana. But having a practical career was more realistic and perhaps more rewarding too. I suspect you and I had that in common.
Ah yes Betsy, my “practical “ career was a happy and rewarding one, but a girl can still dream, can’t she?
I love the featured photo, Dana. I just listened to a lecture in which the number one of seven suggestions for leading a happy life was to dream. It was by the late Rabbi Jonathan Sachs.
Thanx Laurie, and thanx for that lovely Rabbi Sacks quote. I’ve read a bit about him and his wisdom!
When I think of the roads not taken, the dreams allowed to wriggle away, I remember two things.
1: The parents of a woman I dated early in grad school (she was a senior) who wanted to change majors from pre-med to something in the arts, so her parents came to school and brow-beat and threatened her professors with unspecified legal actions so badly that they refused to let her transfer, to what extent that they could prevent it. She did eventually go to med school, and wound up a psychiatrist.
2: A poster I once saw for some financial planning services company. It was a picture of a baby in a crib, and the caption was “OF COURSE he’s going to be a doctor!” This absolutely infuriated me when I saw it.
Thanx Dave, lots of stories about dreams deferred!
Dana, yours is a well-told story we can all relate to: A dream career, set aside for a more practical one. Years later, we wonder, what if … As a kid disliking school, I dreamed of any career not involving school. Didn’t quite work out that way as I wound up spending 40 years teaching on college campuses. Wouldn’t have it any other way, and it sounds like you feel much the same way about libraries!
You are exactly right, Professor!