Er. Pardon me while I ... do something else.

So far, one of the hardest things I've done while I've been here is to not burst into tears in front of my students when we took our seats at the Globe. I am easily moved to tears; I cry almost as easily as I laugh. I am not unlike those small children on the internet, captured on video, who burst into tears of deeply confused joy when handed a new puppy.

And I sometimes cry in front of my students - certainly when we watch some plays (and if it's Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Winter's Tale, Othello, or Lear, then always)***, or when I teach Angels in America and the history of AIDS and HIV in the US (I warn my students in advance). But I really try to avoid simply spontaneous weeping (especially when some of them are students I have only known for a few days).

Anyway. It caught me by surprise. I hadn't thought - and in fact, still don't think - of the Globe as any kind of personal or artistic Mecca. I wasn't aware that I had attached much of anything to the place itself. But we marched up several flights of stairs and found our narrow wooden benches, and I turned around and looked at the stage and the people below me and suddenly found myself trying my hardest to not think of anything at all.

We'll be back there on Monday night and again during the day on Tuesday when we tour the space. I don't know if being there will keep sneaking up on me during those trips as well, or if I simply sidestepped the whole thing. I don't think so - I would actually hate to lose the opportunity to have that feeling, whatever it is. I'd rather not do that in front of people whose papers I will be responsible for grading. Maybe that was an unwise choice. Or at least not a very genuine choice.

***when I was proofreading this post, I had to keep going back and adding more plays. I finally stopped re-reading it because I was just going to list: ALMOST ALL PLAYS THAT ARE GOOD, which was going to be a really long list.