Haunted

“The people you’re sneaking away from,” Mr. Whittier would say, “they don’t want you enlightened. They want to know what to expect.” Mr. Whittier would tell you, “You cannot be the person they know and the great, glorious person you want to become. Not at the same time.”

You cannot be the person they know and the great, glorious person you want to become. Not at the same time.”

If you were planning to be stranded on a desert island for three months, what would you bring along?

“Telling a story is how we digest what happens to us,” Mr. Whittier says. “It’s how we digest our lives. Our experience.”

“You digest and absorb your life by turning it into stories,” he says, “the same way this theater seems to digest people.” With one hand, he points to a carpet stain, this dark stain sticky and growing mold, branched with arms and legs. Other events—the ones you can’t digest—they poison you. Those worst parts of your life, those moments you can’t talk about, they rot you from the inside out.

Sticking stuff inside yourself. Sticking yourself inside stuff.