Lodestar Quarterly

Issue 8 • Winter 2003 • Featured Writer • Drama

Marla's Devotion

Linda Eisenstein

Scene 3

Scene 3

Lights down to a spot on MARLA.

MARLA
Joey never exactly says it, but she thinks of me as a dilettante. This is how she sees it. She's the goal-directed one, and I'm the one who floats around, being arty. Just because it's taken me a while longer to get through school. But I do have goals. They're just not the kind of goals she recognizes. Right now my goal is to pay attention to the workings of my own mind. This seems like a good way to stay alert to it. I take two steps forward, and then I kneel down and prostrate myself, and then I get back up, all the time being absolutely mindful of what I'm doing and thinking. You know one of the first things I noticed? How utterly distracted I am. How scattered. How many times a day I find myself staring off in space, my mind floating in fantasy. Or how I can find myself standing in front of the refrigerator with the door open, staring inside. Like some new delight is going to miraculously appear in there. And I pace around so much, I can put down my coffee cup and then not be able to find it without wandering in circles from room to room. Not anymore. Now I have to really want that cup of coffee. I can't just spring up and get it on a whim. If I want to read a book, or eat a piece of cake, or answer the phone -- well, I have to set my priorities. All the time being aware. I think being aware is a darn good goal. Joey was right about one thing, though. When you're doing this? Diarrhea is no picnic.

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Linda Eisenstein's plays and musicals have had over 100 productions throughout the world. Her award-winning plays include Three the Hard Way, The Names of the Beast, Marla's Devotion, Discordia, Star Wares: The Next Generation, and Rehearsing Cyrano. Her plays and monologues have been published by Dramatic Publishing and appear in anthologies by Smith & Kraus, Heinemann, Penguin, and Vintage Books. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in Blithe House Quarterly, Kalliope, Whiskey Island, and Anything That Moves. She lives in Cleveland, Ohio.

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