Scottish Rite building

I want.

I want… something. Popcorn with a drizzle of butter and dusting of salt? Chocolate? Beautiful music? Jewel colors? Velour? Silk? A hug? My feet up on a chair? Sunlight? Lilacs with lovely scent? A nap? Something to chew on? Smiles? Laughter and good conversation?

Security? Steady income? Large savings? Stable government without criminal trials of candidates? Clean air and water? Lovely animals outdoors and none inside my house? Food storage? A steady supply of cheese and dance, with whole milk ice cream and dark chocolate? The ability to lift and carry heavy furniture without the necessity of doing so?

I’m seated in the broad entryway of the University of Saint Francis, with sunlight streaming in from an overcast sky, the sort where you just know if they weren’t white clouds, it would feel hot. Instead it feels a pleasant warmth, enough that I don’t need a jacket over my short sleeved shirt. The building’s air conditioning is definitely an afterthought, retrofitted onto a building that’s 100 years old this year. It’s effective, mostly, but not cold. There’s a faint musty smell, as the building is not in regular use, even by the university. There have been plumbing problems as well as an aged boiler for hot water radiator heat. I suspect this is the last show we’ll be putting on here.

My son is in dress rehearsal for Fiddler on the Roof, with Fire & Light Productions, a homeschool theater academy. I signed up to watch the door and let only theater people in, two days this week. The performing arts center is right downtown, with relatively frequent foot traffic, in a city where most people drive. For the first couple hours there was a constant flow of people coming in; now the rehearsal is in full swing and nobody else is coming. Well, except my relief as door monitor, another mom.

I went around the front interior of the building, taking pictures. The architecture, the detailing, is good looking in a 1920s style, with adjustments for fire alarms and track lighting. The restrooms have steps up to the plumbing, because the pipes are inside the raised floor. There’s curlicues and bronze molding, a sturdy stone-in-composite entryway floor with a two-headed eagle medallion in the middle. The chandeliers are not webbed but do not shine. The white wall sconces glow in their gilded curly holders. The foyer carpet has a large figured pattern in vivid colors somewhat worn, not enough to be threadbare. In places the paint is peeling. The best looking wall sections are polished stone, tan marble. Even the mirrors have traces of tarnish around their lower edges.

A year ago when we were here for Brigadoon, there was an elderly gentleman in the building during every performance. He was the building’s caretaker for 30 years, give or take, inherited along with the building. He wore a University of St. Francis polo shirt in royal blue, but he was a Shriner, part of the now much-reduced club that built the building. They called it the Scottish Rite building, an auditorium with grand staircases to the upper seats, meeting rooms in the basement, a full kitchen. The boiler room, he said, is two stories tall, below ground. I have trouble imagining that. But then, I’ve seen enough Superman cartoons with 1930s boilers and generators; it’s not totally unimaginable.

I feel like Tevye. My world is changing. It isn’t what it was. It isn’t yet what it’s going to be. And I’m tired, uncertain, resting partly because I can’t make everything all right. I’m not even sure what “everything all right” looks like.