Just Last Week Pompeii Was Covered In Ash

There are pictures of people who were killed by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius thousands of years ago in the city of Pompeii.  Their bodies are well preserved, not having been completed destroyed in the eruption.  Scientists believe they were kept as well as they were because they were quickly covered in ash and pumice, and then sheltered from air and moisture for years.  They were completely cut off from all the things which naturally destroy humans by the thing that actually destroyed them.

Recently, I was listening to my iPod at work, and "Journey Into Sound" by the X-ecutioners started playing.  One of the best shows I wrote and performed in used this song heavily.  Our musical director was in charge of transition music, music used between the scenes to fill the time, usually no more than 10 seconds of music, and if we really had a tight, good show, those pieces of music wouldn't be any longer than 7 seconds.  He really liked the song "Journey Into Sound" because it had many distinct parts to the song, and he was able to edit out about five different pieces of transition music that didn't sound like they had all come from the same song.  He was even concerned about this, and asked me if he was "cheating" by using the same song five different times in the same show.  I told him I didn't think he was, as it really didn't matter if he used the exact same transition five different times as long as the transition was right, and since his five pieces of transition didn't even sorta sound like the same song, I thought he could go to bed without fear of somebody accusing him of cheating.  I loved that show we built together.  It was so good.  So funny.  Audiences and critics loved it.  And, as it turned out, it was the last all original show in the downtown Detroit theatre that had been there for over ten years.

Thinking about it now, and every time I do, makes me cry.  I'm not sure why.

Back to the story... so my iPod played this song, and I started writing an email to my former musical director.  I told him about how I missed my time at the theatre, working with him and some of our mutual friends.  I missed working with his wife and I missed doing the work.  That work was really wonderful.  I told him that I wouldn't change marrying my wife for anything in the world, but that I really, really longed to work in that capacity, in that environment, and with that kind of person again, and I was afraid that it was a unique experience that I might not be able to find anywhere else.  I was crying when I wrote the email.  I was very emotional.  And I was a little shocked when I realized the last time I worked for that theatre was almost 10 years ago now.  I couldn't believe it had been almost 10 years.  What in the world had happened to 10 years?

I got an email back from him.  It was a little less desperate, less emotional, less longing.  He didn't love that theatre as much as I did, although he worked there almost as long as I did. 

Since working at the theatre, he's had a son.  He and his wife had been trying to have a kid for many years without luck.  They finally made a person, and they seem quite happy.

Since working in the theatre, my wife and I have been isolated, cut off from much of life.

It made me think of the people of Pompeii.  She and I got trapped under volcanic ash and pumice, shielding us from air and moisture, except we didn't die.  So thousands of years later, my wife and I emerge from the ash to find a world that is new and strange, and our minds are still back when the ash first fell. 

It was 10 years ago, but in my mind, I last worked at that theatre last week.  Just last week...