Knitting at the Tokarev Movie Audition

I take my knitting or crochet with me most everywhere I go. Inevitably, I get stuck waiting somewhere (Wal-mart check-out line, doctor/dentist waiting room, carpool, restaurant – waiting to be seated or waiting after ordering, theater – before the movie starts, riding in the car, etc.) People say things to me like, “I don't have enough patience to do that.” I just smile, and wonder to myself how they can just stand or sit there and do nothing while we wait. Seems like doing nothing while waiting is the actual exercise in patience. Usually though, people just ignore me. They have conversations with their friends about private things as if I'm not even there. Sometimes I'm very involved in a complicated pattern and I might as well not be there, but most of the time I only take easy projects with me (something that can be put down at any stitch without getting messed up). The easy project occupies the part of my brain that gets distracted. You know, like when you're sitting in a boring lecture (or church), the part of your brain that starts counting the beams in the ceiling or the colors in the stained glass window, the bored part that keeps you from paying attention. When I'm knitting something easy, that distractable part of my brain is busy. I may not be looking at the speaker, but the rest of my brain is listening and remembering. With a quick glance, I connect a voice to a face, and go back to my knitting. It's like watching TV and knitting. Very little watching actually happens. Unless it is an action packed, no talking TV show, most are easy to listen to and follow with few glances. There is no action in a long line or in a waiting room. I really don't knit with the intent of eavesdropping on others. I do only bring my knitting to give myself something to do besides just wait. I accidentally end up with the inside scoop on a total stranger's life. Then run into that specific stranger, and overhear them talking about one of the first talkers. When you shut up and listen, people say everything.

Last Thursday, I was waiting in a movie audition line with my husband. I was knitting. People were talking. Someone who had finished auditioning came out, stopped and talked to his friend in line. I heard about his experience inside. Some people were talking about having an agent or not having an agent. One just barely grown-up girl, excited about the prospect of being in the movie, was talking to her mother, a bony, loud, scratchy, deep voiced woman with a southern 'country' accent. The girl was a few people ahead of my husband. I sat down on a step in the shade near my husband's place in line. This mother sat down beside me. She had to be loud because her daughter was further up in line (everyone could hear). Her daughter was nervous and excited, wondering if she wore the right outfit, wondering if she could speak with a good Russian accent, wondering if she would even get a part. Her mother was derogatory and condescending. She had mean come-backs to the things her daughter asked her (instead of support and reassurance). From their discussion, I gathered that the role the girl was trying for was some type of Russian tramp. Her mother told her that she'd get the part because it was perfect for her. The daughter was initially relieved at her mother's reassurance, but then she realized that her mother just called her a tramp. Her countenance fell. She lost her smile. I saw her shoulders droop, and I heard it in her voice. Her mother went on to say that all women are actors. They are born actors. All women are liars. I wanted to reach over and smack that woman for calling all women liars, for bad-mouthing her daughter in front of a crowd of strangers, and for ruining her self-confidence right before an audition where self-confidence could be what gets her the part.

It was an audition to be in a movie with Nicolas Cage! Wow! Even I was excited to be there, and I wasn't trying to be in the movie. What if he was inside watching the auditions? He wasn't, but whoever gets these parts is going to film with him. I smelled cigarette smoke while knitting and listening. I figured it was this mom smoking. I wanted to fuss at her about something. She was really getting under my skin. I wanted to say, “Do you mind? I'm knitting a baby blanket and I would rather it not smell like smoke.” I looked. It wasn't her. It was a heavily tattooed guy further back in line. I just sat there knitting and wondering if this girl could recoup from the blows from her mother in time to shine in this unforgiving, hurried, Hollywood style audition. Of course, she can fall back on medical school (that she hasn't started yet). Her mother said that she would push her through medical school, but not acting.