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...

Sunday, May 20, 2012

In the Weeds (that's In the Rhizomes for you post-structuralists and/or botanists out there)

I have not written here in a bit because have been working hard between finishing up teaching and prepping for an upcoming interview, the good news being I have been short-listed for a position.

However, this has meant working non-stop and when not working at home, needing to go out and take a walk, talk to a friend or go to a meeting or my last classes.

What I am pleased about is that I am managing to take care of myself during this and what started as a chore (the pro formas I needed to write to be considered for the short-list and now the preparation for presentations) has become quite interesting and kind of exciting.  I'm not sure how or why my perspective changed on this so radically, though I have some guesses.

The result is: the need to discuss my work in various ways has led me to see it as a way more coherent whole than I suspected, and I am finding ways of bringing in the disparate pieces of writing of mine and others, along with performances, etc. and see the various strands weaving an interesting tapestry of sorts.

When I say 'coherent whole' I want to be careful because I don't mean some Unified Theory of Everything, because I don't even believe in that kind of totalization...but there are identifiable threads, what my fave philosophy double-act Deleuze & Guattari would call assemblages...to distinguish from mere fragments (random) or molar aggregate (unitary)...assemblages relational, ways of combining and recombining.  That sort of thing.  Rhizomatic (i.e. weed-like) being another way they talked about this kind of thing...but I don't have the energy to define that right now - if you're way interested, tell me and I'll point you thata way...

Yes, I'm re-reading a bunch of philosophy right now in preparation for this interview, in fact I began that reading the day before I found out I had the interview, which is not surprising.

I feel I'm on the edge of something right now - a kind of articulation through practice and words (together and separate) - searching for some words that feel like they are literally on the tip of my tongue, but slipping around...eluding me but dancing close enough to taunt me with their presence, even if I can only see them in shadow.

So, like, wish me luck...More later as I know it...or don't...as the case may becoming...

3 comments:

  1. fingers crossed on your behalf, sticking friendly pins in good dolls, sending positive vibes, what have I left out? Oh, yeah, the super-duper tinfoil chapeau thought-transferrence procedure -- zzzzzzzzp. There ya go!

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  2. Maybe someday you´ll have doubt about Cuba…. I´m cuban…Always I have much doubts, about to the light velocity many times by hour, many hour by day…many times by months I´m witness of the absence of the truths…If some day you want to know something truthful about Cuba you can write me although I´m not as good for make friends as for say the truth what nobody say, nor the writers in favor nor the writers against…The humanity history have more abyss number than the galaxy number in the universe…

    Franklyn Mc Murray, 27 years old,from Cuba, neithe I´m good with the sax in the band where I work…

    franklynmc@correodecuba.cu

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  3. Thanks for comments. Franklyn, I'm not sure what your comment refers to in blog post? I don't think I've written anything about Cuba....but good wishes to you anyway. Emm - I'm in UK now about to go up to interview in the North....will keep you posted.

    j

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