An audience of one.

I always have trouble returning to a regular blog practice when I get back in town. How ever did I do this before? What do I feel like writing about? What do people feel like reading about? It’s just a puzzle all over again no matter how long I’ve been doing this.

Awhile ago I read John Irving’s Until I Find You – which I greatly enjoyed at over 800 pages of reading goodness. It is the tale of Jack Burns, a boy who grows up in the shadow of a father who he has never met, and with a mother who spins certain fables about her search for her ex-lover. The story you think you are reading (and Burns thinks he is living) is not what it seems. And so Irving works his magic with wonderful characters, details and strange naughty escapades.

At one point in the novel, Jack Burns is told by his acting teacher that when performing on stage, he should only focus on his “audience of one” – an individual (present or not) for whom he would always deliver your most stunning performance. Never mind everyone else, the restless, the coughing, the tittering masses – there is only a single individual who counts when directing your energy. Of course Jack Burns’ audience of one is his missing father – and constantly so throughout the book. That father, he imagines, watches him everywhere – on stage, in life, no matter where he goes.

And I get that. In fact, it is frequently how I blog – to an audience of one – though the individual changes for me on a fairly regular basis. So often when I write here I am responding to someone in my head, or trying to live up to an image I have projected, or delivering a message to someone about their importance in my life. While some posts are the generic “to all” updates, many of them over the years have been attached to particular individuals. There because I want someone to hear or see a part of me that I might otherwise be afraid to express.

Lately my audience of one has been a bit more fixed. I feel bad if I don’t post, because I know that person reads here to find out how I am during the day. I feel proud when I post something really good that I know he will enjoy. I feel strange when I post about him because I feel like I’m talking to him and about him at the same time.

I wonder if other people have this experience – writing? acting? dancing? Or is your audience the literal in front of you? I’m just curious about how much we perform for those we imagine rather than those who are there.