Beba

Focus, Deanna, focus.

To blog about my self-absorption - or how my self-absorption is a result of the malicious taunting of my middle-school-peers (you know who you are :)). Or, to blog about how the yoga mat is often called the microcosm of the universe, but I really think that everything is the microcosm of the universe (every experience we have is a direct result of our dealings in the world at large). To blog about my meeting with a playwright wherein he confessed he had a relationship with a 12-year old girl when he was 22 (and how I did not react)? Should I blog about my walk home from 11th Ave to Queens, or the fact that I am the world's worst waitress?

Should I blog about my trip to Hudson and how I performed a reading of a new play and was treated like a Queen for a day - or the wonderful artists I met - or should I tell you about the geodesic dome they put us up in, and how the subtle aroma of whatever was inside sent my heart brimming to the point of euphoria (for a reason I cannot tell you, I can't remember the origin of the scent nor what was actually responsible for it, only that I was transported to my childhood and was thankful for the trip). Maybe I should write about my host?

Maybe about how the wedding plans are progressing?

My eternal shyness?

My plans for the week?

The fact that my computer died?

How I wrote and recorded my first song with K? (I'll post it when we've finished editing).

My health?

I don't know what to write about. Plus, I think I just blogged about all the above anyway. Just now. So....

Why not write about....

What I really want to write about is...

Beba.

Beba is the man to the left. That's my granddad. Though, I didn't know he was my granddad for my first years of life because everyone called him "Beba". I suppose that's typical when the family assigns a pet name to a grandparent.

He looked a bit like Peter Fonda when he was younger. When he was older, Rex Harrison.

There will be no grandparents at our wedding...

None of them still living...

Beba was the first to go....(he died from a heart attack when I was 12)

But....he was favored....by me.

He was an actor, too.

I didn't know this until after he died and I became an actor.

It wasn't brought up too much by my grandma. When I asked about those summers he worked with Horton Foote at a theatre in Maine, she looked down and shook her head and said she didn't want to talk about it.

I wish I had the pictures to show you....of him onstage. Of his headshot. They are at home in South Carolina. I'll get them to you soon.

But, there's a wonderful picture of him as Torvald.

And in "The Importance of Being Earnest".

And the man was obsessed with Shakespeare.

He wasn't averse to musical theatre....

I had learned to sing "Memory" when I was very young, and he'd accompany me on his piano. (Musicals sparked my interest in the theatre, though I only do straight theatre now). This happened almost every time I'd see him.

He'd sometimes launch into an English accent...

When my mom was young, they struggled. He had to drive a taxi, and then he took on a job at the post office.

Which he hated so much he would drink lots of scotch when he got home.
And he'd record silly things on the tape recorder.

But, by the time I knew him - he was pretty much a prince. And, if he did drink? I never knew. My mother was in love. And my grandparents were in love...

Even though their pet names for each other were hilarious and sarcastic and if I knew you better I'd put it on this blog.

By the time I knew him, he was down to a cigarette a day, and he'd smoke outside. He was SPECIAL. And I loved him so, so much.

And, before I go out onstage for any performance, I talk to him. Always have, always will.