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...

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Here comes Ricky....

Live blogging Santorum's deep south victory speech...

OK now Santorum is wearing a lavender tie and suit as he sweeps the Deep South...He's gonna clean Romney's over-priced clock.  People keep telling me I'm crazy, but come on folks, look at the numbers.  He's been outspent 10 to 1.  He feels God is on his side and he does not doubt it.  If you know anything about the US outside the big cities and coasts, folks, this is the meat and potatoes.

Let me appeal to my time as an Evangelical Baptist to break it down for you, because if you're reading this blog, you probably live on a coast or outside the US and are sophisticated, secular folks who think people who actually believe in a religion are stupid or nuts.  Well, doesn't matter.  These folks believe what they believe, know that you think they are nuts, and don't care.  They pray for you.  Seriously.  When no one was helping in New Orleans some Baptist women from Texas went to help because "we believe everyone is Jesus and so we're going to take care of them folks."  Crazy?  Not necessarily.

I'm writing this while watching Santorum speak in Louisiana, speaking about his little girl, with the clear skinned children and beautiful wife behind him.  His sign behind him says "Made in America".  He's got a made up half-southern accent tonight.  In fact if you close your eyes, he sounds like Clinton just a little bit, which is kind of weird.  The breathless pauses, the weird flat face that could probably win poker against a grifter.

Santorum's only a few years older than me.  I think that is why I feel I can understand him.  I remember this guy.  He's the guy who would win the student council fight by calling the other smart kids pretentious, while getting straight As himself.  You remember, don't you?  Well if you were the unfortunate "brain" (my nickname - not meant complimentarily)...But these guys, they are the popular ones in what is usually referred to as "real America" (i.e., not NYC, LA, SF, Seattle, Portland, etc...)

"All the establishment against me.  You had faith in a grandson of a coal miner (steel worker?) in Pennsylvania...centrality of faith in our lives..." Uproarious applause.

OK now he's literally licking his chops.  He can feel it.  His kids look like they actually love him.  Is it an illusion?  Could be.  Does it matter?  Not if it looks good on the television...and now he's won Mississippi.  His wife kisses him.  He smiles.

And he's wearing a tie, a nice tie.  It reads to me: I'm as good as you, Mitt.  Screw the sweater vest.

Now there are young women singing a song they wrote for Ricky called "Game on."   "There will be justice for the unborn" is one of the lyrics - sung by young women.

Some more of the lyrics....

Game on
Join the fight.
We finally got a man who will stand up for our rights.

A man who finally understands that God gave the Bill of Rights...
Perhaps since Reagan a man who will stand up for what is right...
Factories back on our shores...

***

You can't make this shit up.

Most of my friends think Obama would beat him easily.  I would like to believe they are right.  I really don't know.  My money's still on Santorum.  Not because that's what I want but because his followers and he are True Believers....

Game on indeed.  Be careful folks and please Do Not write this guy off.

No comments:

Post a Comment