Bye bye 2019 and the 2010s...I am ready for the Roaring Twenties.

I wanted to write a year summary and felt daunted, then realized it should be a decade summary and was more daunted. This decade has been a rollercoaster from start to finish.

A thumbnail (the details are all here in this blog, at least from 2011 onward, with reference to 2010).

At the end of 2009, things were looking up. I had finally finished my PhD and was dragging myself out of the worst of the grief over my miscarriage in 2007, a day after my wedding.

But at the very end of the year, my 19 year old cat died while I was in the US (at the time I lived in London) and then on that day I had what turned out to be the last phone conversation with my father on his birthday (same day my beloved cat died). A few days later, at the beginning of 2010, he was rushed to ICU, and I flew out to Sacramento to see him before he died. I have written about that prior, but that floored me...but also clearing out his storage area I found photos of my grandparents when they were young. So while I was in a grief fog clusterfuck, I also found a seed of what would become my life for most of the decade, writing about my grandmothers. But first, months of grief fog for a father I barely knew, who I lost twice, once in life and then again in death.

This decade has been like that. Oh joy, then death, then in the death grief fog a seed...and something grows...then joy, then death, then...rinse repeat.

My second marriage, begun with such hope and joy that was cruelly crushed the first day of our honeymoon (the miscarriage), was disintegrating in slow motion by 2010 and by 2011 had ended. That along with wanting to work on this book about my grandmothers—which desire also had contributed to my closing up my London based theater company, Apocryphal—led me to make a leap with no safety net back to the states. I say no safety net because when made decision no job or place to live, but I was rich in friends, one of which let me stay at her place to make that decision.

In the summer, I spent time with my cousin Darcy, celebrating her remission from cancer, and  researching our shared grandmother, my mother's mother, in Minneapolis. Earlier that summer I met the lost part of my grandfather's family, lost because he had had to change his name during the Red Scare to save his job. I found clues to his real identity in all the stuff in my father's chaotic storage unit in January 2010. Again with the seeds.

Then, poof, back in NYC...where I discovered Inwood at the top tip of Manhattan when trying to find someplace I could afford, and moved here. That was a great find. The parks, the green, and then in October, the beginning of autumn in Inwood Hill Park was a revelation. This was October 2011. I had found a job at Bronx Community College and then later at Hunter.

Ugo the IWW (Inwood Writing Workshop) cat

A month later, I adopt Ugo the cat, who I found online at WaHi Cat Colony. He was an adult cat, so harder to place and still available. When I saw him, I knew he was mine.

I then am shortlisted for a full-time teaching post back in UK in May 2012 and fly back to interview and audition for it. They choose someone else. My ego is bruised, but I am so grateful for the ability to come back to NYC that this is the feeling that takes over.

My stepfather Tom sends me a lovely affirmative note about this.

A week later, Tom is in the ICU. He dies a few days after my birthday, Bloomsday (during which I read him Ulysses) and Father's Day. I am holding his feet when he dies and feel giant waves of love that almost knock me over. I am devastated and moved. I have a dream of a net and a diamond. Indra's Diamond my mother says. She is more bereft than me. Who wouldn't be?

I end up finding my own apartment on the top floor of a five-story walk-up in Inwood. Tom left all his kids including me (his step-daughter) a small amount of money, which was enough to furnish a new place (with Ikea and Housing Works and Freecycle). I got it all ready for me to live in, including my own study. I began to work more in earnest on my book. And decide to take some extra time to sort out my life.

Then comes Hurricane Sandy. Happily, my apartment survived and Inwood had electricity, so was able to host people up here who were stranded downtown. Sadly, we lost some huge trees in Inwood Hill Park. The beginning of understanding how vulnerable NYC is to climate change sinks in.

A couple months later, a friend who I had met at a meditation retreat where we were accidental roommates talks me into online dating, and I meet my future husband almost immediately.

Didn't see that coming. I was just trying to get a date before I turned 50.

John and me in Montreal at Botanical Gardens Valentine's Day 2013

Much happiness ensues of course, because it's super fun to be in love. Then of course all the issues rear their head about money and citizenship, since he is Canadian. Very long story short, we do everything by the book and he ends up down here, but there was a bunch of stuff he had to deal with in Canada and that all was way more complicated than he would have wished. We survived it all, but it was challenging, as in years of being challenging, in an apartment I had chosen for me alone, not two people.

On the happy side, I kept working on my book, got support from a crowd-funding campaign (all this is in blog circa 2014) and other votes of encouragement. John helped me with all of this and has been a relentless (in a good way) cheerleader of my work. I was given fellowships to residencies, and that helped, too. I directed a staged reading of ''whatever God is..." and Ian W. Hill directed My First Autograce Homeography (1973-74) at The Brick, all in 2014. My first short story publication as an adult also happened in 2014 with The God Thing, which has since been nominated or been a finalist in some awards, which is gratifying.

There have been many highways and byways with the book, The Amazing True Imaginary Autobiography of Dick and Jani, and with luck it will get published fairly soon. That is a long story that I cannot give details about, because much is in process. But it had been a steep learning curve for a theater chick to figure out publishing, and wow, it's different, but OK.

However, I was beginning to figure stuff out and making some headway when I came back from a lovely yoga retreat at Kripalu in December 2016 to a phone call from my mother that David Berry, my ex-stepfather, the playwright, had died suddenly of a heart attack, boom. I have written about that a lot too. But his sudden death floored me. It was two months after the DTs struck the US, and I was convinced that is what killed him, a gay Vietnam Vet artist. What greater insult than a homophobic insane person who had 'bone spurs' that he used to weasel out of service in Vietnam.

I lurched through another series of months in a grief fog, but also managed to finish another book I had begun in September. However, I was adjunct professoring, and it was killing me. I was exhausted all the time, and the pay, in case you don't know, in terms of hours work, is basically minimum wage.

I realized it was killing me right around the time I read a book that is the most iconic book of the decade for me: The Body Keeps the Score. I mark the time I read that book (early 2017) as the moment when I realized I was not a broken toy. But instead had a normal response to severe traumatic events. I cannot overstate how important this moment was. How healing, and how much my life has changed since.

From then on (Feb-March 2017), I mark as an existential shift in my understanding of myself and the world. I quit being an adjunct and decided to go full-time freelance, which has worked better than I could have dreamed. I decided to go to Westray, one of the Orkney Isles in Scotland in June, where I had not been since 2010. I had written my PhD there, and fallen in love with Orkney in 2003. It has always felt like a spiritual home, and some part of me feels severed from my soul until I get back there. I had postponed this trip a number of times because of my relationship with John and trying to work out schedules and time, etc. But I knew this time I could postpone it no more. My mother and John were going to go with me, but then could not for separate reasons.

Two stones from Ring of Brodgar in Orkney

Dear reader, I went anyway. And that made all the difference.

I stayed on in the olde Manse overlooking where the North Sea and Atlantic meet and revised my second book, Girls Meeting God, to get it in shape for submission, and taught my first ever private writing workshop, on this small Orkney Island, which was a  success and a revelation.

John meanwhile was able to sort out his Canadian albatross, and so when I returned, we were in much better shape on many levels.

Thus began the life I have now: writing, teaching writing workshops, coaching writers, reviewing manuscripts, editing, and sometimes back to theater.

Speaking of which, when the #metoo movement began in 2017 that allowed me to write my stage text On the edge of/a cure. Working with MoveOn and their text team to help elect Doug Jones in December 2017 allowed me to have a reading of this play. I did not realize until seeing this political work effect a positive change how paralyzed I had been...ever since watching DT stalk around behind Hillary Clinton on the debate stage. I could not move during the debate. Literally. But did not realize how totally paralyzed I was in terms of a certain kind of voice until I wasn't.

On the edge of allowed me to speak about things in a way I never have done before. It was also possible because of reading The Body Keeps the Score and Leigh Gilmore's Limits of Autobiography. In 2018, another play I had written in response to another trauma response I was having because of various terrorist incidents, Shit, was produced by IATI as part of their play development program. I got to see another director work with my texts and that was lovely.

Other reading that inspired me along this journey include Elena Ferrante's Neopolitan Quartet, Joan Didion's everything, Jennifer Egan's writing, and the ongoing ever present influence of Doris Lessing. With some key assists from James Baldwin and David Foster Wallace. Yeah, it's weird, I know that. If you know me, you understand the breadth, depth, and gaping holes in my weirdly selective knowledge of Whatever.

2018 saw the expansion of the freelance work, up to and including starting a retreat for other writers in Westray, an experiment that succeeded enough to repeat it in 2019, twice, and yes, going again in 2020. I also tried again in the spring of 2018 to heal from the traumatic miscarriage in 2007. I went to a workshop at Kripalu hosted by outside teachers that was so wrong it was almost hilarious. But  when I went to the Kripalu yoga classes I felt at home. I made a decision: I would become if at all possible a Kripalu yoga teacher so could be part of carrying on this important lineage, which is the opposite of spiritual bypass faux positivity crap that makes my skin crawl.

Back track to the shit storm of 2016, to remember that was the year also that my beloved cousin Darcy's asshole cancer returned. So the drumbeat underneath all my activity was: how long does she have left and how could I help? The answer was: all I could do was make phone calls and send crystals and gifts when possible, and she would die in September of 2018. My biggest fear in leading the retreat in 2018 was that she would die before I got home. Instead I just got a severe case of frozen shoulder. And the news Girls Meeting God was a semi-finalist for a book prize. The gods are fucking weird. In 2018 John was able to travel to Westray with me, and we had a week together as a 5-year-delayed honeymoon, so that was cool, too, but again all was overcast with the reality of Darcy's illness, the shoulder, and starting a writing retreat. Someday, we will have a proper honeymoon.

I was able to get to St. Paul at the end of August to see Darcy before she died. I wrote about that, too, and someday maybe that will get published. It took me well over a year to write about it even as a short essay. She was the closest I ever had to a sister so the word 'cousin' doesn't cut it as a term to describe her meaning to me. Suffice to say her dying plummeted me into a grief fog that was so complete, I have almost no memory of autumn 2018. I do remember trying to revise my book and sending it in, leading a workshop somehow, going to her memorial in November and then my memory does not return until December 2018 when I went to a very good healing workshop run by Aruni, who is a Kripalu veteran teacher, on grief, loss and renewal. Without that series of days and sharing with a few other people who were equally poleaxed by grief, I am not sure I would be functional.

The one thing I was able to do consistently throughout 2018 was text with MoveOn and that helped the Dems flip the House anyway. Did thousands of texts a day, like clockwork. I am proud of the work I did and the many, many others who did so, too.

Then in 2019 I focused on healing. I had intended to do yoga teacher training in October 2018 but my shoulder ixnayed that. (The body Does keep the score.) I began studying Qi Gong with Alicia Fox, which was transformative. I decided not to try to write because I was exhausted. I taught two workshops, though.

Artistic discoveries of this year that were revelatory include Hilma af Klint at the Guggenheim in January and April, her paintings gave me life. The fact she knew a hundred years ago her work was not legible until the future was amazing, and now they quiver with meaning. In October, I discovered Betye Saar at the new MoMA. She is in her 90s, and only now being discovered. If you are a female artist, you best live long to see your work recognized in your own lifetime.

Graduating on Summer Solstice at Kripalu

I also directed a staged reading of On the edge of/a cure. That was both incredibly healing and challenging work that took place between February and May 2019. By the time I was done with that, I was ready to finally do the Kripalu yoga teacher training in June, which shifted me irrevocably. It was the capstone I intuited it might be that drew all the parts together, all the fragments somehow settling into one person. I have written a lot about that, too, but mentioning it here again because key to so much. Getting underneath fixed, linear story has been a cornerstone of my artistic project and lo and behold it's the cornerstone of yoga, too. Fancy that. But to embody this rather than just have an intellectual or artistic framework is a whole other level of living it.

At the 2018 retreat I worked on a novella and short story. The short story White shoe lady won the Nomadic Press chapbook contest in May and was published in December, and the novella I am about to begin revising. In the 2019 retreats, I began writing about my nonlinear journey through yoga. I am writing a lot now. If I had not allowed myself the long down time, though, I don't think I would have the reserves I do now.

During 2019 my workshops and retreats doubled and I now have numerous coach clients, and my own work is beginning to find a home. I am now teaching yoga, which may not seem like a big deal, but me it is huge, because to teach the way I do means embodying radical self-acceptance and compassion, so it keeps me honest.

the shelves that John built! So much more space & writing can breathe (me too!)

And equally, I spent the last week before Christmas organizing my office and the last few days doing the same thanks to John building me new shelves. John is doing well, too, in school and full time work, thriving in a city he moved to in his fifties, not a small thing.

In other words, instead of rushing off somewhere Else to heal or whatever, I am here, in my own space, in my own skin, in my own life. I am 56. It has taken this long. Oh, and I finally created a website, which relates to all this, because I brought together all my various moving parts. The Unadapted Ones. Check it out. Most likely my next blog post will be there, the one that greets the New year and new decade. This is the one that sums up the decade this blog covers. Maybe I am more settled now. I fear saying that, however, less it calls upon a real or psychic earthquake... I began this blog in lieu of a website in 2011. I wasn't sure what I wanted to be when I grew up...

For 2020, I am present and accounted for, accepting reality as it is rather than as I would hope or fear it to be (as much as possible, understanding no one human ever totally can do that). If I keep staying sober one day at a time in February, I will be 33 years clean and sober. I should add without that rock solid ground, None of this is possible. And without the companionship and counsel of many other people who also stay clean and sober one day at a time, I would be bereft.

So...Happy New Year. Happy New Decade.

Find what brings you joy and go towards that more. Accept what is weighing you down is in fact weighting you down, and if possible, slough it off. And if you have any trauma in your background, and you have not read it yet, for the love of all that is holy read The Body Keeps the Score.

Let's help carry each other to shore.

path to Maes Sand outside of West Manse in Westray

the water the shore the distance the light the shadow...Westray

le puffins at Castle O'Burrian, Westray

In Blue review

Sometimes I use my blog to review theater that I see that interests me enough to write about it, and this is such a time. I was lucky enough to see In Blue, written and directed by Ran Xia at The Tank in NYC on Friday night (running through December 15), and wanted to share some thoughts on that.

The play does not reveal itself easily. The subjects are poet and playwright Else Lasker-Schuler and Blue Rider painter Franz Marc. I am on not an expert on either of them, and am not going to pretend to be for this review, though I am a fan of The Blue Rider (Der Blaue Reiter) school of painting, its most famous member being Kandinsky. I went to the play in part because of a memory of going to the museum in Munich devoted to this work back in 1984 and being blown away by the riot of colors and the sheer energy of the work.

Franz and Else's connection is not clearly factual or fictional, though according to the play there were postcards Franz sent to Else, and he illustrated one of her poems with his famous blue horses. But the sense of In Blue is that it is working much like abstract-expressionist paintings, vivid imagery that does not cohere to a specific story in the naturalistic sense of that word. What makes it hold together are the performances of Alyssa Simon and Finn Kilgore, who are grounded in each moment wherever it may go. Simon as Lasker-Schuler especially needs to move through multiple levels of presence, sometimes even within the same sentence, and does so with grace, ease, and humor, whereas Kilgore is an anchored fictional presence, seemingly evoked from Lasker-Schuler's memory and dreams. The direction and use of the beautiful set designed by Sarah Adkins and lights designed gorgeously by Becky Heisler McCarthy is imaginative and wonderful to watch unfold (sometimes literally). And, a special shout out to the costume designer Florence Lebas for sourcing the historically accurate and drop-dead gorgeous Lasker-Schuler shoes, which alone are worth the price of admission. The musician, Luke Santy, who is credited as performing a 'live score' is also a delight, and his presence and live music, including his interaction with Simon, adds a necessary present tense sense to the moment to moment flow of this multi-layered piece.

I am not attempting to be overly oblique here, but just wanting to evoke a sense of what it is like to watch this show. At first I became obsessed with dates (since many were mentioned) and where we were from moment to moment. Then I gave up and it got easier to follow. In the end, the bits, like in a Blue Rider painting, revealed themselves as a whole. The difference between theater and a painting being of course that the painting you see all at once whereas the play accumulates over time. So, I would counsel patience while watching, as it will all eventually come together, not in a linear whole but like a certain kind of painting or experimental music.

I do recommend going to see this play, as it gives insights into the early 20th Century, with some uncanny and uncomfortable parallels to our own tumultuous beginning of the 21st, and to a kind of love and connection via art and words that transcends—albeit in a troubled fashion—even such inconveniences as death and time.

An interview about feminism, literature, theater, politics, philosophy and On the edge of/a cure

Very happy to link to this on camera interview I did with the lovely David Andersson of Pressenza's Face2Face. 

The conversation was wide ranging and touches on feminism and theater, literature and politics, philosophy and perception and how that is all embodied in my newest play On the edge of/a cure (from which I read), that will be presented as a staged reading by Rogue Players in May.

I would love it if you would watch the interview, tell me what you think, and please share it if you like it. I have never done anything like this before, and I have to give a special shout-out to my friends Gina Dorcely and Julie Boak for helping me prepare. Many friends helped as well, but they made sure my look was right, and while that might sound superficial, trust me, when you are being interviewed on camera for the first time, that is as deep as it gets. For someone who has had chronic visibility issues (as in wanting to disappear but also somehow be seen), doing this interview and having it look and sound good is not only helpful (hopefully) for the ideas conveyed and my own work, but also deeply healing.

I was so impressed with David Andersson, how well he listened and understood the ideas and concepts I was airing. What a rare thing to feel one is having a real conversation about such topics in any environment, but even more surprising when it's on camera. As awful as the behavior is that has been exposed in the #metoo movement, I keep finding male allies who are sincere and caring. My theory is that the bad guys are not the majority but they have gaslit women and most men into believing they are, thereby masking their bad behavior as "normal." It's not normal. It's ridiculous. So, kudos to David who can listen, ask great questions and care enough to engage with the answers women give.

I have been neglectful of this blog because of so many things happening at once, which followed an extended period of grief, that still pops up once in a while. So, this kind of happy event is a welcome relief and respite. Something else I have been doing that has helped a lot is studying Qigong alongside my yoga practice. My energy levels have increased dramatically as has a kind of innate resiliency. Indeed after a couple weeks, I realized I was not depressed, but depression had become so normal to me, I didn't even realize there was another reality. Happily, I am no longer depressed after years of being so. Who knew?

In other good news, the fabulous women of the IWW workshops (there are now two!) invite you this Wednesday for a Full Moon Equinox Reading at Tannat Wine & Cheese up in Inwood, the top tip of Manhattan. Invite below. If you are in NYC, come along. These women are rocking my world.

There may be a space or two opening up in the workshops, so get in touch if you are interested (email on flyer below).

Review of RANDOM ACTS by Renata Hinrichs

Haven't blogged in a while, but RANDOM ACTS made me do it. Happy to tell you about something you should see!

***

While waiting to watch the newest iteration of RANDOM ACTS, Renata Hinrichs' moving, funny and more relevant by the minute one-woman show, I was struck by Renata's program note in which she credited the inspiration for this show being her experience living downtown during 9/11 when "memories from my childhood started to surface. The sirens and searchlight that erupted near St. Vincent's Hospital were reminiscent of the chaos, confusion, and terror I experienced as a child in the midst of the struggle for Civil Rights in the South Side of Chicago in the 1960s…" These memories, along with subsequent interviews with her parents to fill in the blanks of her memory as a young child, form the basis of her show.

Renata Hinrichs in Random Acts photo by Mitch Traphagen

As someone who also lived through 9/11 in NYC and had my own work transformed by that experience, I recognize the impact of traumatic experience on opening up new/old zones of the self. I mention this now because I think this part of the show, which is never mentioned within the production itself, may have some relationship to its emotional resonance now. In a talkback Renata spoke about her desire for this show to be authentic. This aligns with an unnamed movement I have watched develop in which many of us who directly experienced 9/11 have spent a lot of time since then working to create performances that embody complex levels of reality, while grounded in experience.

I don't want to give away the show, because there are many twists and turns in Renata's expert story telling that are best left to discover while watching. However, her instinct to tell this story from herself-as-a-child's point of view is a good one. We are accustomed to seeing the events of the Civil Rights era from the adult point of view with conscious actors, people with honed sensibilities who have decided what side they are on and for whom or what they are fighting. While these stories are moving and necessary, to witness these events from the point of view of a five and six year old girl, who herself is living in between so many worlds, gives a new and valuable window into these events. 

Renata was the child of a young and idealistic Lutheran pastor of a primarily white church on Ashland Avenue—a long boulevard that divided the white and African-American sections of the Southside. Her father tried to integrate the church much to the dismay of some of his own congregation and other neighbors, especially during the riots that ensued in response to Martin Luther King's assassination. Racist white men responded to her father's tolerance by hurling rocks in their window. 

Renata attended a primarily black kindergarten, walking on her own to school (as someone raised during the same period of time, I can assure you, this level of: oh, kids can take care of themselves, was normal, though was interesting to hear the audible gasps in the audience when Renata recounted her mother's conversation with her father about this—times have changed!). She encountered hostility on the street for being white, that as a little girl she did not understand, but the person who looked out for her was a young African-American man whose face she never saw. Her father told her that was her guardian angel, which as a five year old she took to heart.

Her questions about the violence against African-Americans intensified in the crack down after the riots—especially the killing of a young man like the one who had helped her—are heartbreaking, and become a kind of Black Lives Matter rallying cry, though not as a political movement, but instead from a little girl's ingenuous questions about unfairness. In the show, Renata embodies childhood without sentimentality, but also without losing the reality of the fantasy life of a little girl who wants to dance (and indeed becomes a dancer as an adult) and who believes she has a fairy godmother (and a guardian angel). Suffice to say at the end of seeing this show for the second time, I was sobbing (as I did the first time). This is not a normal response for me, and I attribute it to Renata's clear gifts and the impact of her—yes authentic—story.

Renata as an actor has an uncanny ability to transform into all the people who she is telling us about, including her own older, teen, and young child self. She does this with simplicity and humor, aided by the expert staging of director Jessi Hill, who also helped Renata expand this piece into a full-length evening that feels embodied and immersive, thanks in no small part to Matt Otto's excellent sound design. I also appreciated the simplicity and effectiveness of Daisy Long's lighting design, that added depth and definition to a small stage, which worked in sync with Chika Shimizu's adaptable set that shifted with the mood and place of the moment. If you can, you should this show.

RANDOM ACTS is running at the Barrow Group through March 2, 2019, Tuesday-Sunday.

My stepfather David died on Friday suddenly and without warning

I usually can write about grief, even poetically. This time it's harder. This time the loss is abrupt and without warning. This time it is my stepfather, David, who died on Friday of a massive heart attack. This time I didn't get to say goodbye. While he was not married to my mother anymore, he is the one who had been in my life since age 3, who brought me to theater and writing, who enlarged our lives that had been made small because of my first stepfather, who was a deeply disturbed human being, someone I could best describe as a Methodist Artaud, signaling through the flames of his own suffering, unable not to take those nearest him down with him.

David came along in 1969, and suddenly - from my point of view - I was only 6-7 when my mother and he got together - they had met earlier in 1966 (but my mother was still with the first stepfather) - the world got bigger and brighter. Instead of crying, my mother was smiling. Instead of liver, we ate pizza and could drink exotic liquids like Pepsi, even eat...Oreos! My first stepfather had been a whole foods Nazi. Some of this was good: eating organic vegetables from our own garden, etc. but some of it was really bad: forced eating of liver being a main one and no sugar - at all. This very forced-feeding practice was the centerpiece of a writing exercise I did at Kripalu this past week in fact...maybe will add that later. But the point being, David came along, and even though he was damaged and sad from Vietnam and having to take care of his younger brother and sister because his mother had just died young, as had his two fathers, all of alcoholism basically, he also had great artistic passion, and so brought me to the theater.

Oh, so big deal, all kids get to go to the theater you might say, but not so much in back of beyond Maine and also most kids don't get to go to theater rehearsals and sit next to the director and help him time the scenes while watching her future stepfather rehearse his part in You Can't Take it With You and have the extraordinary experience of walking onto the realistic looking living room set and then see that the stairs that looked like they went upstairs from the front, when you went to the back, went back down. This was an astonishment - pure magic to my six year old eyes.

Or be rattled to the core when there was a blackout and an explosion sound, so disturbed in a luscious way - the way only live theater can do - that I remember trembling while eating a reheated chicken pot pie in the back with all the actors who treated me like their special little friend. I was part of this big family of happy adults. I had never seen happy adults before this. That could play and laugh and cry and be warm and fun. And this was all - I should add - a community theater production. So these adults had other jobs in the real world, but this was how they spent their evenings, preparing for shows. I sat next to the director riveted by his power and how he had people move around and timed everything. I loved working the stopwatch for him. I would have gone to the moon for him.

The other huge part of my life that expanded was being able to stay at the cottage on Peaks Island, Maine, that tragically the family had to sell recently, but where I spent many summers - on a sunporch looking out to the Atlantic. That beauty saved my life over and over and over again. An ocean, the tide, the sunrise, the moonrise, the sound of waves crashing against the rocks over and over and over again.

All of this after living in isolation and fear from the disturbed first stepfather - moving around downeast Maine, having no friends my age, and just being basically scared. I wrote a lot apparently - poems in magic markers I gave to my mother, and played with imaginary friends, but I had no fun place to go.

We then moved to Connecticut and David and my mother worked in the arts, him at the NTI and she at American Dance Festival at Conn College. In the midst of meeting all these wonderful artists and seeing work by all the luminaries of the avant-garde in the early 1970s who passed through both places, including Peter Brook, Joseph Chaikin, Living Theater, even Richard Foreman at the dance festival - not knowing who any of them were and wondering what the hell was going on but all of it leaving a deep imprint...then in the midst of that beauty and strangeness a horrific period of time where I was left with a caretaker who also went nuts - for real - and I've written about all that so not gonna do it again, but it was David who saved me from her. His sister who had been living in this deeply weird situation with me was able to extricate herself and go get him. My mother at the time was in NYC. If you saw my play Autograce in 2014, you saw a version of this incident, and the scene in which he entered the house and got me out.

There was a lot that devolved from there, he was deeply affected by that episode as well and it exacerbated his PTSD from Vietnam and no one knew what to do with me so I ended up at my grandparents on the Cape. But then a couple years later, once David had written a play that would end up on Broadway, GR Point, and that was moving forward and my mother and he had recovered enough to bring me back, we all lived in a house in Providence, RI. David had accepted he was gay - that was a drama, because in the 1960s you weren't allowed to be gay, and in the 1970s only a few people were and they usually weren't Vietnam Vets with plays about that experience headed for Broadway, so it was all very confusing and hush-hush on the public level, yet privately we were living in an episode of Absolutely Fabulous like all the time. I was Safi.

But again, surrounded by lovely actors and dancers and people in the arts of all kinds, and I was drawing and making theater and writing, even if I was a bit distrustful of the whole disco fever whirling around me. And of course that world crashed out around us - first my mother and he divorced because it was too much for her, for them both - and she flourished professionally and so did he and they stayed friends, and I went on to a boarding school and started directing plays - not surprisingly I suppose - and writing and all that but mostly: plays.

My high school graduation was hilarious - I introduced my mother, then when I realized how impossible it would be to introduce David (ex-stepfather) with his lover and my mother and her fiancé (future stepfather) and her father and his second wife (my step grandmother) and David's best friend from college who was a mentor/uncle person to me, also gay but not David's partner, and David's half-sister, Barb...etc. etc., I just said instead this is my mother, Robin, and Tom and David and Peter and Robert and Lily and Barb and Walter...etc.

This was in 1981. About 10-20 years from then this would not have seemed unusual. Trust me when I tell you in 1981, this was not a common sighting. However, I knew, even as I made dark humored jokes about it all - we all did - that for all the chaos - and there was chaos - it was special.

Then AIDS came along - was coming along - and pretty much all the people I had known growing up in the 1970s around that time died or were dying of AIDS. Miraculously, David was not one of them, nor Walter (who was his friend from college and such an important stable figure for me growing up - even though he like everyone had his own demons and addictions). But we mourned deeply and for what seemed like fucking forever.

In 1981, I ended up going to his university, Wesleyan, which was something I never thought would happen - but did for a variety of reasons. Our lives remained intertwined, through out various theatrical and his screenwriting endeavors. We had times of being very close and times when we were at severe odds, emotionally and artistically. But never did we lose respect or love for each other.

His biggest honorific to my mind was referring to me as troop. This was a term of respect, because he knew I too had been through the wars. He always said coming into the apartment where I was with Mrs. Levine, the caretaker, had reminded him of a battlefield. This was not the only one either, and he knew that. We both struggled to deal with our damage through art - writing and theater. We succeeded and failed. We were harsh critics of one another and each other's biggest allies.

He tried to warn me about my first codependent marriage. I hated him for it. He was - for the record - absolutely right. I will never forget one of the many moments wherein we stood or sat somewhere laughing like teenage girls. This was while I was getting divorced from my first husband who had dumped me for someone younger, telling me that on the day I found out my first play was to be published. I had the anthology and handed a copy to David, saying, "Here, this is the thing that cost me my marriage." And he said, "Good trade."

It was cold and windy, we were on a sidewalk in NYC after some event or other, can't remember which, and we laughed so hard I practically peed myself.

That is the David I love so much. I love all of them, and of course the little me misses the one who saved me, and that is a part of the firmament that will never be replaced, but the times we made each other laugh, so hard and so much people probably thought we were stoned, but after a certain point in time (another long story) we weren't. It was just the absurdity of life, the one we shared for fifty years.

I can't remember what it was, but something happened yesterday, as I was walking to a meeting clutching my bagel and coffee, and I thought or said something to myself that I knew would make David laugh and I could see him, I swear to God, see him laughing in front of me, those eyes twinkling and that impish grin, and I hope that will always be the case. I can't bear to be without that laugh, anyone who knew him knows what I mean.

I will leave you therefore with two photos that encapsulate our times together. One (semi-fictional) from Autograce (Stephanie Willing and Derrick Peterson in 2014) and one from 2013 of us at Elephant & Castle (that John Barclay-Morton took - it was the first time he had met David, and he, too, was charmed). David gave me the ring that is visible on my hand in that photo, that I have worn every day since.

Goodbye David, I can't believe you're gone. And in some ways I just refuse to.

Please join us on the Island Sept. 10-18

My newest stage text Merde! will be rehearsed and performed in a house on Governor's Island that was curated by Dyfunctional Theatre Collective.

This weekend, Sept. 10-11, will mostly be open rehearsals. On noon at Sept. 11, director Patrice Miller is putting together a ritual of remembrance for the 15th anniversary of 9/11. As the island is off the south of Manhattan, this will be a lovely way to attempt to remember this time outside of the ways we are usually meant to do so. As Patrice said in her invite:

Perhaps you will find yourself in this beautiful city of ours on Sunday, September 11th. And perhaps you, like me, do not feel particularly great on this day in this city. Okay, if you're like me, you hate 9/11 and all of the discourse, flags, and media coverage that fly about. 

This year, I find myself in the midst of a performance workshop on Governor's Island working on a piece that reflects on the intersections of private and personal trauma (Julia Barclay-Morton's latest text, Merde!). I am taking the opportunity to create a ceremony that is inclusive, peace-focused, and creative. Those of us workshopping will be using the ceremony as a little bit of research and development for our piece, specifically looking at the relationships between trauma and ritual. By being with us on Sunday, you are helping us create a piece of performance, as well as helping us redefine what this day can be for New Yorkers. 

As for the play itself, there is a lovely interview about this piece, its evolution and why it's important to me here at: Indie Theater Now.

Invite below:

Merde! (because is there really anything else to say at this point?) We’d like to meet you in the house, the one we dream of when half-asleep, where our secrets whisper to us from under the stairs and between the books on the bookshelf, where the Freedom Tower is framed by every window. Sometimes what we see makes us scream, hide, seek. This is and is not an installation performance, this is and is not a piece about what has gone unseen, about what has blown up in front of our eyes, this isn’t about Godot or God but it isn’t not about those things either. It is an experiment in speaking, in invitations, in the performance of public and private truths in a house on an island in a city of dreams. You are invited to join us for Merde!, my newest stage text directed by Patrice Miller as an experiment in performance on Governor's Island (a short ferry ride from Manhattan or Brooklyn and a world away). The first weekend is more about process and the second more about performance. On Sept. 11, Patrice will be constructing a ritual of remembrance to lead off our work that day. This work will enter into the performances on Sept. 17 & 18 of this text that I wrote in response to one of the many terrorist attacks earlier this year, which resonated unsettlingly with having been in NYC on 9/11, London on 7/7, and San Francisco during the 1989 earthquake. Merde! is not about seeing ourselves as victims or a catalogue of events, but an attempt to unearth the deeper causes and effects of violence (overt, systemic, symbolic, natural, human-made), and how these public events reverberate with more personal seismic events, generally hidden from view that perhaps need witness in order to heal.  *** Text by Julia Lee Barclay-Morton Direction by Patrice Miller Featuring: Tyler 'Tad' D'Agostino, Olivia Baseman, Roy Koshy, Melissa Nelson Presented as part of the Dysfunctional Collective at House 8B, Nolan Park, Governor's Island Saturday, September 10th: 12pm-6pm: open rehearsal   Sunday, September 11th:  12pm - Sky to Ground: A Ritual of Remembrance and Process  followed by open rehearsals until 5pm  Saturday, September 17th:  2pm: showing  4pm: showing  Sunday, September 18th:  2pm: showing  4pm: showing *** The performances are FREE but we do have expenses (insurance, transportation, printing costs, etc.), so if you would like to help us defray our costs, please consider a tax deductible contribution, which you can donate securely here:  https://www.fracturedatlas.org/site/fiscal/profile?id=6339 All donors will be thanked in our program and websites, social media platforms and such, and we would be happy to also give a signal boost to any projects of yours as thanks! ***

For more Info about Dysfunctional Collective and Directions: Presented as part of the Dysfunctional Collective by Dysfunctional Theatre Company at House 8B, Nolan Park, Governor's Island. *** I would love to see you there.

Asking for help (aka Lessons in Humility)

I haven't written here for a while for a number of reasons. The batshit crazy state of the world being a big reason, but also I tripped on last step down to subway platform on June 14 and fell. I thought I had sprained my ankle and muscled through the Wesleyan Writers Conference for 4 days, then came home to take care of it. It didn't heal, went to urgent care twice, was x-rayed and at first no sign of fracture. When - a month later - I saw an orthopedist in a clinic (the fun never stops when you're on Medicaid), they took more X-rays and there was a fracture - a small fracture - on top of foot. I now have an air cast and feel saner, because there's a reason it wasn't healing. I'm not a wimp or whatever.

So, that is difficult because we live on the fifth floor of a walk-up. I am isolated much of the time, because: stairs. Lots of stairs. I do go out, because if I didn't I'd go insane, but can't walk for very long, etc.

OK, so there's that. And of course that has meant asking for a lot of help. I am not good at asking for help. Ask my husband. I either refuse to acknowledge I need the help and potentially hurt myself or decide I do need help - but when I do - I Need To Have The Help NOW. Fun times for both of us as you can imagine. I'm getting better at it. A little bit.

But...this has converged with a couple of editing jobs falling through for me while John has gotten work, so he's also had the motherlode of the paying work plus dealing with me limping around and not able to do much around the house. Thank Goddess we had fixed up the study before this happened, so he has a good place to work. And the living room is now a space for just being. So we can have some space to work and rest.

So, this is where I start to need asking for help from you. John and I have begun a small editing business, that I have announced here, but again here is that link: Barclay-Morton Editorial+Design
If you know anyone who could use writing, editing, proofing and/or design services, give us a shout. Or recommend us. or both!

I have also begun - after careful consideration - a Patreon. This is a different kind of crowd-funding platform that helps creators fund their creations, per month. I have chosen this model, because I have a number of projects on the go right now, including my book that is now complete and for which I am seeking representation and publication, beginning another book, a play-text that will be produced in September on Governor's Island, a photographic and video practice that documents daily life in small-form meditation, and of course this blog. I am also beginning to write essays for publication.

Therefore, what I could use - as this platform is set up to provide - are patrons of my artistic life in general. As with a regular crowd-funding campaign, at different levels there are different perks, but you can become a patron for as low as $1/month. I figure this is as democratic as it gets.

Am I going to save the world with my work? No. Am I glad I - and my other wildly talented friends -can create works of beauty and contemplation in the middle of a world gone seemingly mad? You bet.

Last night, I accidentally put on the RNC. I saw Giuliani practically foaming at the mouth but in a relatively articulate way, and a crowd who adored him. I became afraid. I then went and looked at my little Patreon account with the short meditative videos, and I could breathe again. I then started to type up handwritten work for November that is the beginning of a new book. And I could breathe some more. Even with my gimp ankle, I did some gentle yoga and some breathing meditations. I did some more writing. I was able to breathe a little more.

My work cannot save the world, but as William Carlos Williams wrote:

It is difficult
to get the news from poems
yet men die miserably every day
for lack
of what is found there.


So this is me asking for your help to do my part to put my kind of poetry into the world - in the form of play texts, performance events, prose, short videos, askew photos, reflective blog posts and essays. I will send you little bits of me and my work every month, so you will know what I am doing and why and something about the process of creation. You can partake in as much or as little of that as you want.

Any support - no matter how small or large - means the world to me. It holds me accountable to you and to my work. It means that I am creating for an audience, that there are people out there who believe in poetry - in the largest sense - and supporting living artists, specifically this living artist.

Here is the link.

Alternatively, if you would like to make a one-time contribution to the original crowd-funding campaign for The Amazing True Imaginary Autobiography of Dick & Jani, you can do so. The book, as mentioned, is now written, but not yet published. However, if you donate on this site (and on some levels of Patreon), you will receive a copy of the book as soon as it is available. I am in the midst of querying agents and publishers. This process - including revising the book (last revision this past month in response to excellent feedback at Wesleyan Writers Conference) has taken way longer than I imagined, so could use help completing this process as well.

Thank you all for reading these words. Thank you for letting me ask you for help. This is me now letting this go.

Going back to my old school...and other ways the world spirals - with variations on the theme...

So, in an amazing - and entirely unexpected - turn of events, I was awarded the Jeanne B. Krochalis scholarship to attend the Wesleyan Writer's Conference this coming week, which begins - serendipitously enough - on my birthday. Well, arrival for the borders does anyway. That's close enough for jazz.

While this is good enough news on any day of any week - the Conference being well attended by prize-winning authors who teach classes, give talks, go over your manuscript, etc. and I couldn't afford to go otherwise - the thing that makes this particularly astonishing to me is this is my old school.

I graduated from Wesleyan in Theater (Directing) in 1986. My friends were the writers. One of my step-fathers (yes multiple) was a writer. Other People Were the Writers. I just Directed stuff. I helped Other People speak. I didn't even really want to act, so I let Other People be Seen. I was neither seen nor heard - in public that is. Of course in privacy of a rehearsal room, people are generally at the mercy of their directors, whether in a nice way or a mean way or a combination pack. In other words - directing was Perfect for me. I could control my Little Private World, but not be out there when it went public. Generally, not even my words were part of it. The two times others directed my half-baked play efforts, I was kind of - basically - well - embarrassed. With directing, I was confident. Confident enough to even defy my advisors and graduate with High Honors anyway. I knew from controlling small, private rooms. I had learned this skill by watching many others (all male) do the same and from one kind of psychopathic caretaker (but hopefully I never inflicted the worst of that on anyone - though sometimes I fear that when I was still in grips of my most self-destructive behavior there may have been shades of that level of manipulation - in other words I would have made an Amazing CEO - but mostly I was the nicey, nicey kind of secret manipulator. I had other teachers for that, both professional and familial). But in any case, this was all really different than writing.

When you write something, it's just sitting there. Anyone can think, say, feel anything about it. All without your permission. Terrifying. Why would anyone do such a thing? I've now been doing this for years, and I'm still not sure I understand the answer to this question. I guess the main thing - hardest thing - scariest thing - about it is: realizing at some point the pain of the silence is greater than the fear of what will happen if you speak.

And then you can't fucking shut up.

Even if it terrifies you. Even if most of the time you want to crawl into a hole and die. Still, you keep coming out and handing sheafs of paper out into the universe like a Goddamn Fool.

Another part of this Conference, though, too - as I mentioned in another blog post when I had my first reading at KGB Bar last September - is that I've changed rooms. Because even when I write stage texts, there were/are other people involved. There is a director (even if it may be me sometimes), actors (God bless them every single last one of you brave, intrepid souls), even the audience is Right There in the Room. There is a group feeling about it. I had productions below and above KGB - in two different theater spaces. Then, one day, last year, I was the one Reading my Own damn Book (whaaat?) at KGB Bar - where the Writers Read.

And now - I'm going back to Wesleyan - where I was Julia The Theater Director Barclay - but this time as Julia the writer person she thinks maybe sorta kinda with huge imposter syndrome but they gave her the scholarship so probably she's allowed to be there Barclay-Morton (added a Canadian to the end there). Also. Sober. As in Not Drinking. As in that wasn't the case when I was there. So. Different. In every way. Almost. Because I'm still me.

When I clicked open the campus map and saw all the old buildings and new ones, I started crying. I kept saying to myself - I'm allowed to go back. I didn't realize until then I didn't think I was. Some part of me - for a number of reasons - has felt somehow disqualified, which is beyond weird, since I did pretty well there - especially given how fucked up I was in so many ways.

But there is this theory - which I think I believe - that what you learn to do in one state you find difficult to do in another. So, say you learn to do something while intoxicated in some way - it is hard to re-learn to do it without the intoxicant.

So that plus the New Room thing - and the fact that when at Wesleyan I felt in awe of The Writers in my life - means I am alternating between excited, moved beyond measure, and terrified - in a kind of private roundelay within my own psyche. As a Gemini (a triple Gemini at that) this is Entirely Possible to Do.

I'm prepping now, having to ask the lovely woman, Anne Greene, who runs the Conference and the Writing Center questions that I feel I should already know the answer to, but no - here I am about to turn 53 and a newbie in so many ways. As I told her in an email, this is both daunting and fabulous. I guess this is what they mean about staying young?

...and oh, here's the best part - best for last? - Anne asked me to help out a bit with the Conference panel with Ann Goldstein - Elena Ferrante's translator and an editor at the New Yorker - and Ferrante's publisher, Michael Reynolds from Europa Editions, too! She asked this of me before knowing I've read all the Neapolitan Novels, so my biggest fear is not having anything to say or ask, but whether I might drool on her. This is probably how most normal people would feel about meeting their favorite movie star or sports hero. For me, it's Elena Ferrante's translator.

Oh, and grateful, too, beyond measure that my beloved Canadian's first response to this was elation on my behalf. No weirdness. No resentment. No backhanded compliments or minimizing, just huge smile, kiss and hug. For most of you in normal relationships with normal backgrounds, this would just seem, well, normal...but trust me, if you have a certain kind of background and have been consequently in certain - um - not so good relationships - this kind of full throated support, love and endorsement comes as a surprise. I shouldn't be surprised by it by now with John, but I am and was.

...and speaking of that - in other news - we split up the study - using a great divider and book cases, so now it's for two people, not just me. At first I was traumatized by this prospect, but now that we've done it, the fact is my stuff is way better organized, and where we had one room, we now have two. Everyone is happy. So that is another miracle. (Except our cat, who like me detests change, but he's adapting. Sort of. With his usual stomach rumblings. But he'll adjust.)

Lots of changes! So..here's to impending 53. Kind of - I'm almost afraid to say it for fear of somehow jinxing it - excited. Wish me luck or send a prayer or good vibe or happy dance to whatever you so desire, as I go off to this conference on Wednesday (like a little kid to kindergarten it feels like - except with weird deja vu). But really...What a birthday present!

Reflecting on Universal Robots

Many reviews have already been written about Mac Rogers' Universal Robots, which was originally produced to great acclaim in 2009. Consider this post then more of a reflection, because I spend more time discussing the ideas implied by the play rather than the production itself. I have tried hard to avoid spoilers, which means my argument at time may seem oblique, and in the end to understand this reflection, you ought to go and see the show for yourself.

Universal Robots, running now through June 26 at The Sheen Center, produced by Gideon Productions, and directed beautifully by Jordana Williams, has a lot to commend it. Inspired by Czech playwright, Karel Capek's R.U.R., and using bits of Capek's life within its structure, the play is a parable about humans trying to make automata, later called robots, that are almost human, but not quite, and the attendant issue of humans acting like monsters, thereby making the robots seem more human. A theme we have oddly enough become accustomed to since Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein. Indeed, Rogers manages to create his own monster that appears to draw (aside from the major chord of R.U.R. and Russian Futurism) equally from Blade Runner, Frankenstein, and the gloriously cheesy television series V - creating a delightful mash-up up of high and low-brow references.

The actors all did a splendid job, keeping the presentational style alive without turning their roles into one note. The barkeep/robot (Radosh/Radius), Jason Howard, is the obvious standout, because he moves through so many phases of human-robot-human(ish), which he does with astonishing precision. Williams has staged the play with real dexterity. The only issue I had was not being able to hear lines when large scene changes were happening, but that can be fixed easily enough. What she and the designers have created on stage with a limited budget is all in all quite wonderful.

There are many ideas explored in the play, both directly political in the first part and implicitly political with the growth and evolution of the robots in the second, when they inevitably overtake their 'masters.' Putting this event in the context of political revolution (which is debated in the first part under the guise of Karel, the playwright, discussing his politics and art with his friends at a cafe, where they are served by a humble bar-keep, who turns out to be a pivotal robot prototype) is a canny context, even if I disagree with the implications of this context as the plot of the play unfolds.

Lovers of science fiction will be particularly happy seeing this play, because Rogers is very good at playing with this genre in an intelligent way. I was somewhat discomfited by the seemingly facile glazing over of genocide at the end, though I imagine that was intended to be ironic.  The issue I have with the speculative genre - and this is admittedly a taste thing - is that - not dissimilarly to the robots - we are in a world that is created entirely by the author. Of course arguably that is true of all plays, but within science fiction the author creates all the rules by which his or her world runs. Therefore, if you begin to question those rules, you feel a bit silly because you have no 'real world' to which to point without seeming hopelessly humorless or dull-witted.

I think this issue became bigger for me because Rogers chose to contextualize this parable within a semi-biographical-historical context rather than a purely fantastical one. Therefore, I could not help but wonder what his fictional robots implied regarding real life political change and revolution. The implication seemed to be that any revolutionary ideas are suspect and lead to violence. That then is an argument implicitly for a kind of pleasant, humanistic status quo, which is embodied here by clever, good humored artists who are supported by inherited wealth sitting around talking served by a bar keep who is happy to say over and over again how much smarter they are than him and so refills their drinks all night long without complaint. Perhaps even more now in 2016 than when the show was first mounted in 2009, these questions are quite alive in the US with such a contentious election season, and it is hard not to see them in this context.

While the revolution being referred to is Czech after WWI in relation to the Bolshevik revolution and leading into WWII in relation to Hitler's fascism, the talk about who is allowed to make art, how people who labor and are not considered 'elite' should be treated, and the ways in which we dehumanize one another - embodied in this case in the first half by the treatment of and acquiescence to the role of second class citizen played by the bar-keep. The fact he becomes the prototype of the robots is doubly eerie because of this. The fact he is 'sacrificed' twice in the play - once as human and once as robot - I found somewhat discomfiting. I fear sometimes that these tropes become dehumanizing in and of themselves, because throughout this robot/drudge is considered less than human. Even if there is a nominal mourning of that fact, the reality of it is somehow not undermined.

There is also the meta-frame of the theater, aided by Capek, as playwright, being a a key player in this drama. The main idea proposed is that telling this story in a theater is somehow redemptive of even a mass genocide. The audience for the show the night I attended felt that way, that was clear. Many people gave the show a standing ovation and were clearly moved. I did not feel so moved, most likely because of the concerns raised earlier, but I am fairly certain I was an outlier on Friday night.

This also leads me back to my original concern with the science fiction genre, because as I write this reflection, I feel silly taking such a premise so seriously in the first place, but so be it. Rogers has the guts to ask very important questions - which is the most important thing a playwright can do - but I then do feel compelled to take those questions seriously enough to respond to at least some of his (implied) answers. I should perhaps also say that - as a matter of taste - I seek to swim in more vulnerable waters than this speculative form allows, but within this frame much has been accomplished. I am grateful to Rogers and the whole cast and crew for creating a piece of work that made me think so long and hard about it, in relation to current politics and the role of theater in general.