Welcome to my blog..


"We struggle with dream figures and our blows fall on living faces." Maurice Merleau-Ponty

When I started this blog in 2011, I was in a time of transition in my life between many identities - that of Artistic Director of a company (Apocryphal Theatre) to independent writer/director/artist/teacher and also between family identity, as I discover a new family that my grandfather's name change at the request of his boss in WWII hid from view - a huge Hungarian-Slovak contingent I met in 2011. Please note in light of this the irony of the name of my recently-disbanded theatre company. This particular transition probably began in the one month period (Dec. 9, 2009-Jan. 7, 2010) in which I received a PhD, my 20 year old cat died on my father's birthday and then my father, who I barely knew, died too. I was with him when he died and nothing has been the same since. This blog is tracing the more conscious elements of this journey and attempt to fill in the blanks. I'm also writing a book about my grandmothers that features too. I'd be delighted if you joined me. (Please note if you are joining mid-route, that I assume knowledge of earlier posts in later posts, so it may be better to start at the beginning for the all singing, all dancing fun-fair ride.) In October 2011, I moved back NYC after living in London for 8 years and separated from my now ex-husband, which means unless you want your life upended entirely don't start a blog called Somewhere in Transition. In November 2011, I adopted a rescue cat named Ugo. He is lovely. As of January 2012, I began teaching an acting class at Hunter College, which is where one of my grandmothers received a scholarship to study acting, but her parents would not let her go. All things come round…I began to think it may be time to stop thinking of my life in transition when in June 2012 my stepfather Tom suddenly died. Now back in the U.S. for a bit, I notice, too, my writing is more overtly political, no longer concerned about being an expat opining about a country not my own. I moved to my own apartment in August 2012 and am a very happy resident of Inwood on the top tip of Manhattan where the skunks and the egrets roam in the last old growth forest on the island.

I am now transitioning into being married again with a new surname (Barclay-Morton). John is transitioning from Canada to NYC and as of June 2014 has a green card. So transition continues, but now from sad to happy, from loss to love...from a sense of alienation to a sense of being at home in the world.

As of September 2013 I started teaching writing as an adjunct professor at Fordham University, which I have discovered I love with an almost irrational passion. While was blessed for the opportunity, after four years of being an adjunct, the lack of pay combined with heavy work load stopped working, so have transferred this teaching passion to private workshops in NYC and working with writers one on one, which I adore. I will die a happy person if I never have to grade an assignment ever again. As of 2018, I also started leading writing retreats to my beloved Orkney Islands. If you ever want two weeks that will restore your soul and give you time and space to write, get in touch. I am leading two retreats this year in July and September.

I worked full time on the book thanks to a successful crowd-funding campaign in May 2014 and completed it at two residencies at Vermont Studio Center and Wisdom House in summer 2015. I have done some revisions and am shopping it around to agents and publishers now, along with a new book recently completed.

I now work full-time as a freelance writer, writing workshop leader, coach, editor and writing retreat leader. Contact me if you are interested in any of these services.

Not sure when transition ends, if it ever does. As the saying goes, the only difference between a sad ending and a happy ending is where you stop rolling the film.

For professional information, publications, etc., go to my linked in profile and website for Barclay Morton Editorial & Design. My Twitter account is @wilhelminapitfa. You can find me on Facebook under my full name Julia Lee Barclay-Morton. More about my grandmothers' book: The Amazing True Imaginary Autobiography of Dick & Jani

In 2017, I launched a website Our Grandmothers, Our Selves, which has stories about many people's grandmothers. Please check it out. You can also contact me through that site.

In May, I directed my newest play, On the edge of/a cure, and have finally updated my publications list, which now includes an award-winning chapbook of my short-story White shoe lady, which you can find on the sidebar. I also have become a certified yoga instructor in the Kripalu lineage. What a year!

And FINALLY, I have created a website, which I hope you will visit, The Unadapted Ones. I will keep this blog site up, since it is a record of over 8 years of my life, but will eventually be blogging more at the website, so if you want to know what I am up to with my writing, teaching, retreats and so on, the site is the place to check (and to subscribe for updates). After eight years I realized, no, I'm never turning into One Thing. So The Unadapted Ones embraces the multiplicity that comprises whomever I am, which seems to always be shifting. That may in fact be reality for everyone, but will speak for myself here. So, do visit there and thanks for coming here, too. Glad to meet you on the journey...

Friday, June 3, 2011

Today I watched men bat balls around...

Yes, in a very odd follow up to the last post about telling V.S. Naipaul where to shove his misogynist bullshit, where was I today?  Watching the first day of a Test Match between England and Sri Lanka at Lords Cricket Field (stadium?...not sure).  It was a gift to my husband for his 40th birthday.

In case you've never been, here's the thing about cricket games:

They are really, really long - like all day...and in Test Matches, five days...so after sitting there all day, we still don't know what the result of it will be...this requires stamina.

Mostly men attend them and they wear - at least at Lords - boating hats.  This means the ladies' rooms are usually not overcrowded, a plus.

There are boxes with really rich people sitting in them.

During breaks the really rich people drink champagne and look as if they are carving up the planet between them - but that's OK because it's actually just a chuckle.

It can be really fun, relaxing, deadly boring and the fun, relaxing, etc. again.

Beckett played cricket.  Beckett is a hero of mine, therefore I feel I should like cricket.

When applying suntan lotion it is good to make sure you get the bit underneath your arm or you end up with weird red burn marks.

It is hard to write a coherent blog post after spending 8 hours in the sun watching cricket, especially when you are supposed to be getting up early to go to Scotland the next day...

And speaking of which: I may not be able to post onto the blog each day as we are staying at a little 'holiday camp' in the south of Scotland where there may not - gasp - be an internet connection.  However, I promise you my dear and intrepid readers that I will write a blog post each day and post them when I can - at the very latest in a week.  Meanwhile, you can catch up on all the long windy ones I wrote earlier.

But I will leave you with some photos of Lords:

Bill at far left amongst the true believers - no one moved the whole time or said anything -
space pod is press box.
tiny people far away are cricketers - closer is an artist and her assistant eating ice cream -
artist worked glacially slow I suppose in synch with a five day ball game.

So that is how I spent my day...and now I must finally go to bed.
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3 comments:

  1. AnonymousJune 4, 2011 at 5:33 PM

    Julia, love this Martian view of cricket ! I'm English born and bred and still do not "get" cricket. Not so much the rules, but why some people are so very into cricket, it's virtually a religion. I see snippets of it on TV and just think : tedium on grass.

    I've just been reading this blog through from the start. i too am in a transition. And my father, an impossible person, died two days after yours. Thank you for what you're doing with the blog. I too have issues with the whole silence thing ; shall we speak up ? should we speak up ? do we have obligations to the living NOT to speak up, not to speak certain things ? It's a quagmire.

    Panther

    P.S. I'm trying to work out how to contact you separate from this site.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Julia Lee Barclay-MortonJune 5, 2011 at 12:42 PM

    Hi there, thanks so much for this, and you can contact me via me email, which is on my profile and also on my Linkedin profile. Sounds like it could be a fruitful conversation. I also appreciated your comments on earlier post but am traveling now so using email in a pub and can't focus too well...and I don't even drink.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousJune 5, 2011 at 3:49 PM

    Thanks, Julia. Will be in contact in due course. Enjoy the trip.

    Panther

    ReplyDelete

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