Engage, or how I never met Patrick Stewart

I rarely use, hear, or read the word “engage” without thinking of Patrick Stewart. I always liked him, but it was my friend Audrey that encouraged my interest to fanatic proportions. My mom used to work at the Bondurant Racing School of High Performance Driving, and when she told me that Patrick Stewart would be taking a class there I could hardly believe my luck. My mother was roughly able to estimate the schedule of the classes, and gave me a call to come down to the school as the object of my obsession was likely to be in the office within the next hour or so.

I arrived excited and nervous. I took a seat in my mom’s office and watched the glass door where students briefly entered the air conditioning on their breaks between sessions. What happened next was a moment when several things I had never truly understood became illuminated for me at once.

When Sir Patrick Stewart walked through that door in his racing suit, outer layer hanging about his hips with the inner layer still up to his neck, I was star struck. I hadn’t really known what that word meant until I experienced it. This moment was also the most extensive example of charisma I had ever witnessed. I was in awe of his utterly fit body as he quenched his thirst at the water cooler. I found out later his wife had forced him to work out after his first heart attack, and it showed.

My mom was a little concerned at my reaction as I was beginning to understand what people meant by “kingly presence” and how Zeus would kill mere mortals who gazed upon him with shear magnificence. “Now you can’t freak out on him,” she cautioned me. “He’s on vacation.”

I looked at my mother as if she had lost her mind. “I can’t not freak out on him. He’s Patrick Stewart. He’s amazing.” I knew the moment I spoke to him I would spaz out and tell him how great I thought he was in everything from “Star Trek” to “Jeffry” to his recording of “Peter and the Wolf” and that my friend Audrey had the hugest crush on him.

I tried to martial my self control, but I could have no reasonable belief that I could speak to Patrick Stewart and maintain any level of dignity at the same time. I totally understood that it was inappropriate to fangirl him while he was on vacation. So I enjoyed the view while he was there, all the while failing to bring myself under any degree of emotional control. When Stewart went back out to the race cars I left my book, “The Art of Star Trek” with my mom and asked her to get him to sign it for me. So I have a beautiful book signed by Patrick Stewart, and I got see him. I’ve just never met the guy.