Vagina Monologues

Last night was the first performance of this years production of the Vagina Monologue's for this group of young, strong, passionate women. What an amazing, incredible, surreal night for me, just to be on stage with this year's cast. They are all so kind, yet during these two weeks of rehearsals have made great strides gaining confidence and poise before an audience that was anxious to learn about Vagina.
For me, being on stage was the best seat in the house. The house lights were just bright enough for me to see the faces and reactions of some of the women in the audience. During a few particularly visually suggestive monologues, some women were right along with the performers; we even got an "Oh Yea" from someone.
The last monologue was for all transwomen and is very emotional for me. The other young women on stage with me have declared themselves to be lesbian, but their passion for this monologue was equal to mine. Starting with Thursday night the intensity with the final thoughts of our monologue have been strangely surreal, over the top emotions coming from somewhere in my consciousness. It has been like an "out of body experience". My emotions have carried me beyond the page and words and the stage where I am saying those terrible things and I begin to weep with a charge of loud angst and very strong emotion as I loudly cry the final text of the monologue. I am lost in the emotion of those words and the audience have become veiled and blurred as I am drawn quickly into the thick emotionally charged words of the monologue. And when I am finished Jesse grabs my hand, bringing me back to reality and the dead silence from the audience for what seems like a minute of solemn, hushed, collected breath of respect.