Shakespeare once said, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” With midterms rearing their ugly heads, my head is swimming in quotations.
Yet, America has felt more like a theatrical space than a country for the past few days. As the bubble of campus is tightening its reigns on my city lifestyle, reality begins to slip into performance and I forget that I’m not actually living in a toy town. There is space beyond the confines of this amphitheater.
I tried to remind myself of this by turning on the TV to watch the vice presidential debate, but I knew I had made a mistake. At least they outdid their respective Presidental candidates. I found my ears were able to escape the rhetoric and lyrical façade of the vice presidential candidates’ language and into the truth of some policy. But, at the same time, it just didn’t feel real.
These debates are entertaining, which is one thing America does well. But Centre College in Kentucky became the sphere of actors and directors. They even pushed the genre boundaries. It almost rivaled the presidential debate in which the drama that was supposed to unfold was muted by the comic tweets, commenting on the chosen color of each candidate’s tie. It seemed to be parodying itself, as humorous a s it was. So even something as real as politics couldn’t ground me.
The next mistake I made was a little more obvious. I headed out to Moundville’s Native American festival. I even indulged in a little fancy dress, wearing a feather headdress my mum gave me as a leaving gift.
“Wear it to the airport,” she wailed as I opened the paper bag. “Let them know you’re coming.” How fitting.
So off I went in costume, adopting a character from one of the many stereotypes of Native American women that had been thrust at me during childhood. Apparently everyone else had taken their wardrobe choices as seriously as me. I was passed by a line of 10 or 11 scouts, all in khaki, sporting bow and arrows and war paint, followed by a woman whom I can only assume mothered them all. She was attired in a floor length floral gown. They wailed at me as they passed. An attack was on the horizon, and they still hadn’t gone hunting for their evening meal. Just another day in the wilderness.
Despite my best efforts, I’ve had my head in the clouds. Tuscaloosa has become a distorted reality for a week. And I’ve embraced the acting about. So if you see a brown haired woman wearing a beaded head adornment and flowing dress floating around the quad, don’t be too alarmed. It’s just me.
