I have this lipstick that my Grandmary gave me called Think Bronze. I remember her pressing it into my palm in the closet-turned bathroom off her and Grandpajoe’s bedroom, mid chit chat, digging through a zippered mini Clinique tote, her frugal spirit having sniffed out a home for the freebie cosmetics she had got from the department store to accompany some other purchase.

It’s been a long time since she gave it to me. Maybe seven years? And just bite your tongue, clever cosmetics people. I know that I probably should have stopped using it ages ago, or whatever, but I’m a person who wears her shoes until they have holes and her feet find the cold, damp sidewalk. I come by my own frugality honestly.

And besides, it’s my stage lipstick – part of my pre-show ritual – but it’s running out. This little mint green plastic cylinder that connects me to her, to the woman she was, to her love and her belief in me, has only a couple of wears left. Should I alternate in other, less magical lipsticks? Or just think bronze?

It’s a lot to lay at the zipper of a mini make-up tote. But I find myself dwelling on ritual lately. Wading through habitual behaviour for the beats that still or start the heart.

I’m feeling especially tender about my pre-show ritual because of how little I’ve stepped on stage in the last couple of years. How much I’ve missed it. How out-of-practice I still feel. And how inconsequential these little personal truths feel in the bigger picture.

But it makes me wonder – what happens when our rituals are interrupted? How do we get reacquainted with ourselves, with our friends, our communities and work? How do we make space for new rituals in new times?

I don’t have any answers here, only questions today. But I would love to know what you make of this.

xo
Kait