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| Renée looked this way at 19 too - some people Never change, hooray! |
Claire’s has been around since 1975 and I’m fairly certain I went there when it was smaller back in high school (1978-81). What was the dive bar next store The Anchor now looks like a relatively respectable restaurant, but I’m fairly sure that’s where we drank underage when I was 16 or so, escaping good girl-itis and getting away with it - usually after enduring a poetry reading at Yale or some such act of cultural enlightenment so called. These vague memories of that-which-is-Connecticut. For anyone who doesn’t know Connecticut, all I can say is: class. It is riven with class and race differences, status envy and wild discrepancies. New Haven is the apogee of this divergence of fortune being one of the 7th poorest cities in the U.S., which includes one of the most prestigious universities, Yale, that educates many of the richest students. It is a small third-world-like high-walled ivy covered compound in the midst of a sea of public housing projects and run down houses.
I was going to start writing this earlier but on the train sat next to a young woman who turned out to be an experimental playwright on her way to Providence, RI. The ‘what are the chances’ coincidence of this is off the charts. We talked as if we’d known each other for years and exchanged cards and email addresses and will most likely be in touch for years to come. Her name is Adara. I was going to ask to take her picture but then thought that might seem weird from someone she just met so did not. However, it was as deeply wonderful as improbable to meet this young playwright, who also creates ‘fractured plays’ that her college professor told her she will not be able to sell in the commercial world.
Between coughing and the foggy brain caused by my cold, I was able to give her whatever shreds of wisdom I could from my 30 years in this world, 25 of which are professional. I look forward to reading her work and will keep you posted on any developments from this meeting. And, if you’re reading, hi Adara! It was great meeting you. Keep up the good fight, which I already know you will because you are clearly as far gone down the road of real risk and experiment as I already was at your age.
I am on my way to visit my parents in Maine, which is probably one of the reasons the cold has kicked into gear, since my body knows I am going somewhere it is possible to crash and stare at a ceiling and drink hot tea and not have to ‘be’ anyone to anybody. I have had issues with my mother over the years but ever since she was able to turn stuff around for herself, which included getting together with Tom, there has always been a room with a comfy bed I can fall down into and that is a good thing. I also fear, almost every time, that I will regress into a surly teenager and lose my identity but in the past years this has not happened, so hoping this trend can continue.
Speaking of which, one of my favorite phrases in the British shipping news (which is broadcast every night at 12:45am GMT on the BBC) is the description of a waning storm as “losing its identity.”
Speaking of which, one of my favorite phrases in the British shipping news (which is broadcast every night at 12:45am GMT on the BBC) is the description of a waning storm as “losing its identity.”
Perhaps that could be a theme song for my life right now – losing my identity. But like it’s a good thing.
[Hilariously after having written the above, I watched 'On Golden Pond' on the bus from Boston to Maine, which is about the same thing. So think of me as Jane Fonda...please. That'd be nice. And pretend I have her body and am about 30...dreaming, dreaming...]
I don’t have much to say right now, as I feel I talked myself out with Adara. So just a few highlights of that conversation, in terms of what we agreed on:
- any good play/theater event cannot be transferred to film
- women’s voices are silenced in many ways including being funneled into stereotypically ‘female’ topics
- people, especially those who run theater venues, say they want risk and innovation but are actually scared of it
- if when watching a show you don’t feel you need to be in the room for that show to happen, then it's not meant for the theater, it's meant for film or TV
- Chaikin’s quotation about self-hatred is true, "a person’s self-hatred is a measure of the effectiveness of the oppressive system under which he lives."
- V.S. Naipaul is full of shit (see earlier post in re this)
- we are not post-anything
- Facebook is creepy and we are all victims of ADD thanks to overzealous social networking
- on the other hand the internet can connect people and introduce long form thought if used properly…but that’s hard.
- working part time is a necessary precondition to create your own work outside of money work
- we write fragmented non-linear stuff not to ‘be experimental’ but because it’s how we see reality.
- meeting each other by chance on this train was whack.
Renée and I also talked for hours, but as we have known each other for 30 years and have not seen each other in a long time and therefore had a lot of intimate stuff to discuss, the highlights of that conversation will remain between us…for public consumption is the fact that we are still as connected as ever through both the back channel of strange childhoods in the 1960s and 70s and the open channel of theater wherein we both began a creative/spiritual search through the detritus of the 70s to now, sometimes together, sometimes apart - always in conversation and so much less alone for that.
Words fail here as in so many places….and so - perhaps - silence….[in which of course so much can be heard…like for instance the Incredibly Loud tree frogs outside the window now I am in Maine. They are the size of a small finger but louder than an ambulance siren. Who said nature was quiet??]
A suggestion for anyone who hasn’t done it: take a walk for 25 minutes without any goal or destination. Listen, watch, and turn off your phone. Enjoy. If you make work, write or whatever, note down the sensations afterwards, you may be surprised at what comes up. If not, just enjoy. If you want to share with me your impressions, I'd be delighted. If you're into yoga, you can call this a surrender walk, if you're into Situationism call it a dérive. Either way, it reveals more than it conceals and can be done in rural or urban environments.
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