Making A Loving

No, that’s not a typo.

Reading Boze Hadleigh’s Broadway Babylon, a dishy take on the Imaginary Invalid known as the professional theatre, I came upon this quote by theatrical producer Richard Barr (1917-1989), “I have to be loving what I do for a living.” Of course, the proximity of the two words loving and living grabbed my heart.

Mr. Barr was a tall, stoop-shouldered man who shared the office next door to the one where I worked for Cameron Mackintosh long before he was Sir. He was quiet, gentlemanly, always had a kind word for me in those hectic days of transatlantic calls and theatrical crises.

His words gave me a full out stop.

Of course, we have to be loving what we do for a living! But how many of us do? As far as I’m concerned if even one person doesn’t, something’s out of whack on earth. One!

Suggestion: let’s give up making a living. It’s a fraudulent phrase anyway. No one is making a living. In fact, we who are here are already alive, and we don’t have to make anything to have that be the case.

So let’s switch, instead, to making a loving.

Think on it! Every person on earth, doing what they truly love, and are, therefore, good at, to serve themselves and the rest of us. It sounds like a miracle to me.

Try making a loving, and see what happens.