Crazy For Feeling This Way

A bunch of us were standing around outside the theater after rehearsal last night, a short break before we started painting the floor and parts of the set. There were various circles of conversation going on and general, tired happiness. About fifty yards up the sidewalk stood the shambling form of a man, covered in shadows and carrying on his own conversation with the side of a building.

While I think most of us stood in that circle of light, shining down from the naked bulb outside the theater door, feeling like the light and sheer presence of numbers would keep this person away like some forest animal circling a campfire, it did not. He eventually wandered into our circle, mumbling in some street poet's tongue.

I'm fairly used to street crazies, years of walking the streets of San Francisco put me face to face with a number of them. I seem to draw them to me. I was particularly surprised last night when all traces of conversation died away as we allowed this guy to take center stage. He mumbled incoherently, attempted to call us out (for what I couldn't really understand) and did these knee bends that were dancer graceful. You could feel how uncomfortable everybody was, no one said a thing.

I began to wonder what it was exactly that had us all on edge. Was it the whispers of chaos, the worry that anything can happen because this guy did not follow our societal rules? Was it the possible danger that this guy could get violent? Was it a quiet reverence for own sense of sanity? Worries of catching the crazy? All I know is that there seemed to be an extended held breath as the guy lit a match to light his smoke.

I know that personally, insanity is one of those things that really gives me the creeps. Crazy people feel to me like a physical example of something from the supernatural realm, like a visitor that has fallen to our world but still holds too much knowledge from the other side to quite make it work over here. I know I'm made uncomfortable by the uncertainty of their actions as social norms are disintegrated, but then I'm also a little excited and intrigued by what may happen because of this. I think mostly what puts me on edge is the possibility of being a few brain tics away from the wandering street mumbler myself.

I can easily see my mind focusing on one thing a little too hard until it becomes an all consuming obsession, becoming just a little too heavy for the delicate teeter-totter of my mind and tipping things into the never-turn-back, pulsing crimson violet of absolute abandon. How thin is the line between a slightly outside point of view and bugshit crazy?

I avoided my typical sarcastic comment as our visitor wandered back into the shadows of Seattle. I stood quietly and thought about the sense of relief that flooded into the group like a long exhale after a held breath.