I have spoken this line said by Puck in two different productions. The first was set in ancient Baghdad, and our director changed many things besides the location like names, dialog, even the play within a play. I was "Div," and I believe the line got translated to "And we Djinn sweep away all that the day has been." In the other production I was one part of a three-person Puck and we whispered the sweeping part as if it were the end of a lullaby. I loved both productions and my part in them, but in neither one did I pay enough attention to this line.
I've been thinking about this since one of my professors brought it up in class last week. He used it as a metaphor for things left unresolved. In Midsummer Night's Dream, for example, things seem to tie up fairly nicely in the end - Hermia and Lysander get to marry, Helena gets her Demetrius, Hippolyta and Theseus are getting along better, and Oberon and Titania have stopped fighting. However, all is not really well. Demetrius is still tricked into loving Helena due to the flower's charm. Titania was duped into having sex with a demi-donkey, and due to that false guilt submits to her husband's will to give up the boy she promised her late kinswoman she would raise and protect. Not exactly wrapped up in the nicest and neatest of bows. So Puck, the most mischievous of all, is responsible for sweeping all this dust behind the door, out of sight, out of mind, and we can all continue to live in a bit of a dream world. The dust is hidden, but not gone.
Hits a chord with me. My life seems much too dusty these days.
I am an expertly efficient, routinized machine. I wake up, go to my classes, go to work, eat, do, perform, and sleep (somewhat). I show up on time, I keep my schedule, I do the work that is required of me. I've even gotten better at having fun, having a social life, keeping up with friends and family as best I can. Nobody can deny that I am completely functional. But then I have all these worries, doubts, and fears that I don't know what to do with. They settle quietly on surfaces or nestle in the cracks but they never leave. Yes, I do well in school and I'm graduating in the spring but I have no idea what comes next. I don't know what I want to do, what career I'd like to go into, even what I'm qualified for. I don't even have a pipe dream anymore, no "I wish I could be" or "My dream job is." I've always been in school and I have no idea what I'll do with myself outside of it. I don't even know where I'll be living, or how I'll occupy myself, even go about looking for a job when I have no goals in my head. All this work, and the whole point of the entire operation has yet to assert itself, to clue me in on its essence. I have always enjoyed existentialism and I'm beginning to understand it better than I ever have. Everyday I'm occupied with the means, the means, the means, and no end emerges. I work, I execute, but I do not make or create. Most days I don't notice but some days something happens to disturb the whole operation and all these things are remembered. The dust is kicked up again and gets into my nose and my lungs and it almost chokes me. Maybe that's being too melodramatic, but I can't deny that the anxiety and the panic is there, that my heart races and breathing gets harder and I worry that if I don't find an anchor soon I'll get swept away with it all.
There wouldn't be a problem if the dust would just stay behind the door, stay settled, but it has a way of getting out into the air. A few days ago I experienced a big disturbance when I saw someone I thought and hoped that I would never see again. It has been a fairly long time, but the memories are still unpleasant. More evidence that you can put things out of the way but you can never eradicate them. I have many memories that behave similarly, pop up when I least want them, bothering me, infecting me. Memories of people, people I've loved, people who have left, people who hurt and whom I cannot fix, things that have happened, things that recur, feelings that are so intense as to be surreal. Sometimes the effect of all this is so dissociating that I feel I cannot even recognize my own life. I've lived 21 years, long to some and short to others, and I would have thought I'd be more at peace with things, that they'd seem more familiar. But that does not seem to be the case.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who wonders these things, like how much dust can be tolerated before it clogs the machine and stops all functioning. I know most people have similar dust in their lives, pushed into dark corners and crevices and left to be undisturbed and forgotten for as long as possible. And I know people's tolerances for it surely differ. It's just that for me, at this stage in my life, I find it to be a very prominent and fairly upsetting presence that, sweep as I might, does not hide for long.
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