Fifth Business

I took a writing class several years ago. Besides the fact that the class was a blur to me because I felt so utterly out of place (I am still not comfortable saying I'm a writer; I write, but in my mind, I am still not good enough to be called a writer), I remember one class where we discussed Fifth Business. This random term popped into my head while I was driving recently (I remember the spot it came to me, exactly; I had just passed Tim Hortons, which is a coffee shop for those of you who don't know). Fifth Business. It dawned on me that as of late my life is full of Fifth Business.

Before I sat down to write this particular blog, I googled Fifth Business. I wanted to see what might pop up. I was unaware that someone had actually written a book called "Fifth Business". Perhaps they had the idea long before I did. But, included in the description of this book was the origin of the book's title: Fifth Business, a character essential to the action but not a principal. It is a theater term; it is the folks that come onto the stage to further the plot, to make sure the main characters go in the direction they ought to go, to not stray from the storyline. They are the bellhops in all the movies that occur in hotels. They are the cabdrivers in the all the scenes where people are in cabs. Or the old woman in her recliner in the senior citizen's home that divulges at just the right theatrical moment the story of her life. And the main character realizes something at the capitulations of all these characters.

And then these characters dissolve from the scene, having spread their knowledge like golden dust and then having strode off to Neverland.

I have had so much Fifth Business lately that I ought to be walking the straight and narrow. My life's plot should be riding on a taught string.

I have been thinking about all the people that have come in and out of my life, every person that has left an impression on me; I am like a card of smeared black fingerprints left when someone might be in a hurry. I can see all of ther faces. I can hear the conversations I had with them. I can feel my mind wrapping around their comments and turning on a light switch on my head. I can see them all, but some names I have forgotten. Like the boy from college who always told be about the stories he wrote. And I would lean on one hand and listen, because truly I envied him for his create endeavors, and maybe he continued my life's plot by letting me know I could have dreams, too.

I saw him in the mall, recently, and I could not remember his name. He clearly called me by mine, but I could not remember his. Fifth business, it is essential to the action. But not principle.

More recently, though, I have been restless. I feel like I am standing still, but my mind is crawling. It is not content, it does not sit still.

My plot needs jolt. It needs to move forward.

There have been things that recently in my life have appeared so important to me. So important that I have hung my moon on them. So many of these things don't even make it to the calibre of Fifth Business; maybe they are props, distractions, general two-dimensional back drops that have not left me feeling fulfilled. But I have looked upon them as principles; things that are essential to my story.

How blinded we are by the props, the Fifth Business that is at a moment important, but fades so quickly.

I realized my principle tonight. My son, my little Ethan, has developed a fascination for Cars. Cars in general and especially Cars the movie. He asks for it constantly, in his slightly unintelligible one year old way. So, I gave him a bath and put him in his footed pajamas, and laid him in my bed. I sat down next to him, and he snuggled into me. His hair smelled like flowers. Cars was on. I stroked his hair, and rubbed his dimpled hands and he never flinched. I know he was watching his favorite movie, but I tend to think he liked me being there.

Fifth Business has its place, but Ethan, he is principle. I need to remember that.

Fifth Business always exits the stage. Principle is there until the curtain drops.