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...

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Happy (slightly belated) New Year!

Happy New Year!

This was the first time the year passed and I didn't think: oh thank God that's over.  I will always have affection for 2013 (the year I married my beloved!).  I am happy to greet 2014 as well.

Having completed my portion of the editing project mentioned in earlier posts, I'm now back focused on my grandmothers book (hooray!).  I've worked many hours most days since Jan. 2 and am happy for that. The good thing about the crazy amount of hours worked and the levels of concentration needed for the editing project is that I now know what I'm capable of doing and can bring that same focus to my own work.  Also, the editing project gave me the discipline to motor through times of discomfort and tedium, which for a book project this big, with the level of research involved, is necessary.

I have done some writing about the 1940s and read (and chronologically ordered) my grandmother Jani's many opinion pieces, letters to the editor and articles by and about her that range in subject matter from an attempted rape (wherein she fought back and the man ran), which led to her successful fight to see rape laws changed in Wisconsin, issues of sexist grammar, racist and sexist basal readers (she taught remedial reading at an inner-city Milwaukee high school in the 70s), 3-mile Island, NOW, teenage pregnancy, her (unsuccessful) race for city council, violence in schools, teacher's wages, bank fraud and more...this was all from 1971-79 btw (she died in 1980). This does not include her many speeches, longer form articles, three (at least) books in progress, many short stories, hundreds of poems and piles of correspondence.  The correspondence, poems and stories range from the 1930s onward and include matriarchal genealogies from her and her mother, many hundreds of photos, newspaper clippings about marriages and divorces (hers), etc.  Boxes and boxes, people.  aka: a lot.  And this is just One grandmother.  I have discovered this past week that she was as liberal with the truth in print as in private correspondence.  This appears to be a family trait.  I find I feel ashamed of this even when I haven't indulged in this level of deception myself.  In fact the biggest challenge in this whole process is to maintain some level of detachment from my grandmothers' various, pretty obvious shortcomings and not take them all on board as if they are my fate.  Historical codependence perhaps?  

Speaking of which, my new writer hero is the historian Jill Lepore.  I wrote her after reading her piece in The New Yorker about writing her new book about Jane Franklin (Benjamin's sister).  I told her about the grandmothers' book (including above issues) and she suggested I read her journal article 'Historians who love too much' which is brilliant...and helpful...in it she discusses something called micro-history, which is distinguished from biography in that it focuses as much if not more on the social-cultural-political milieu around the person/s (usually not as famous as traditional biographies) being discussed.  I found this helpful, especially as I had begun to describe to myself the poles of the grandmothers book as oscillating between the price of rebellion (Jani) and the soul crushing cost of conformity (Dick).  This in the context of being female in the 20th Century (born before women could vote) and not wealthy (so economic imperatives to marry/go along to get along especially having grown up in the Depression are strong). Breaking the rules was dangerous.  Not breaking them was stultifying.  So, while there is a vast store of personal knowledge, details and whatnot, it all is unfolding within this larger political/economic/gender/philosophical context, which is the context in which all of my writing and theater work has unfolded since 1983.

So...in honor of those who have previously, continue to  and will carve out the poetical-political-philosophical sphere....I leave you with some gorgeous photos taken by John (my beloved Canadian husband & photographer) from my favorite New Year's Day ritual: the St. Mark's Poetry Marathon...


Jonas Mekas, filmmaker, poet, artist - 91 years old & still the coolest guy in the room

Philip Glass - after playing a lovely solo on piano - yes that close & what a treat

Clarinda MacLow - very talented dancer/artist all round great human being (& college friend)

Patti Smith - always the star attraction - always supremely human & always Herself
This year the force of nature also known as Anne Waldman (founder of marathon) stole the show with
a volcanic eruption of words/sounds/screams/cries/visions & nightmares of floods inspired by climate change

There simply is no better way to bring in the New Year than in the middle of St. Mark's Church surrounded by supremely awake, caring, angry, loving human beings.  Hundreds of poets and their admirers.  I felt so safe there, like everything was going to be OK.

John and I volunteered early in the day at the reader's desk, which was a great experience, too.  I can't recommend this enough.  Another reason, among the millions, to love NYC.

Blessings to all for the New Year - may you find your way to your deepest, truest Self-as-becoming... I've had some senses this past year of true connection to everyone around me - seeing, even in the subway filled with people, some type of divine energy manifesting in multiplicity.  I wish this for you, too, because there's nothing better than feeling blissed out in a crowd (without drugs, I hasten to add) and truly awake.

Sometimes everyone just pisses me off, too and I worry about money and shit (just so you know), but I do have those connected moments, which make me feel like this life is just part of a great Dance about which we know only a little...and what could be more wonderful?
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