OK, so I'm toast after teaching two classes back to back at BCC today and was going to take the day off from writing, but then remembered the faces and stories of the close to 70 students I met today (35 in each class). As a way to introduce them to each other and interpersonal communications, I ask them to break off into pairs and interview each other. Before hearing these more in depth descriptions, I ask them to write down first impressions based on each student standing up and saying their name. The contrast between the two is usually pretty interesting, and sometimes not at all. In the second class we had time to go over first impressions, people could choose to hear them or not (they were given to me anonymously so no one would know who had had that impression), which to my surprise everyone wanted to do. I started with me, so I could take fire first, and the impressions were hilarious, ranging from hippie (!), confident, nervous, calm, fun & energetic, funny, wise (!) to my favorite: 'likes own joke.'
Other students were pretty severe with one another so one student who was considered 'stylish' by some was considered 'snobby' by others. I was impressed by the bravery of the students - both writing down their real first impressions and being willing to listen to what others thought of them at first.
The reasoning for the exercise is to prove the basic tenant of interpersonal communications: we are never not communicating.
The reports from the interviews were quite interesting, and are what I was thinking of when I dragged myself off the sofa to write this post. The countries I remember being represented today (most of the students are first generation immigrants, with a few born here of first generation immigrants) were: Ghana, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Wales, Italy, Mexico, Guatemala, Ireland, India, Pakistan with a few African American students in the mix. There were more, but cannot remember them. Most of the students live in the Bronx, East Harlem or Washington Heights. A majority are teenagers/early 20s but many are late 20s into 30s with children and jobs. They are majoring in such subjects as criminal justice, psychology, computer science, nursing, radiology and two want to be writers (I'm excited about that). Many were from mixed-race/national backgrounds. It's such a rich and astonishing mix of people.
Most of them are shy to start but as they begin to talk with one another open up and there is this blossoming of the classroom, almost literally, from closed little isolated buds into a patch of wild flowers. I know that must sound incredibly cheesy (which is perhaps why another student's first impression of me was: "serious and cheesy"), but it is an incredibly transformation.
In class I have tons of energy and am happy to be there, but as I am walking home, it is as if every last shred of energy I ever had is sucked out of me. It feels strange that such a relatively simple exercise could take that much out of me, but I think the close to 70 students part is a challenge, because I want to connect and be present for each one of them, and that takes - well - energy.
This is the great teaching conundrum for me. But, I hope to continue with the attitude I had last semester, which is: this is what I am doing, so let me do it to the best of my ability and see what happens.
I love walking back from BCC to Inwood, across the bridge in and among the families and young people that go to the college. The whole area comes alive in a different way when I am teaching. I feel a connection and an understanding that would otherwise perhaps not be there. The same thing happened when I taught at University of East London. I connected with the young people in my neighborhood of Walthamstow, knowing the language (slang), the attitude, the deeper concerns, gave a life to a whole group of people I knew before that only on the most surface level.
I suppose the sad part of this story is how rare these points of connection are, how divided we can be even when not wanting to be.
So, my gratitude for the day is that I can feel this connection here and now. I wish I could have the time to myself to write and take photos, paint, make theater. I can't help but feel when I started teaching again I was taking a step back from when I was making my living full time as an artist (a brief period before I finished my PhD), which I did only once I took the risk in UK to stop teaching. However, I am grateful, especially here in this economy, that I can teach.
The conundrum of making money as an artist and my living from that is I am then subject to "market forces" and/or granting/government predilections, etc. On the other hand, I know there is a belief that I have at times, too, that - especially at my age - if I'm not making my money on my artistic work alone, I'm a failure. So I have to battle with that little juggernaut.
I then wonder why on earth I left the UK, even though I know why I left the UK, because I now am working freelance, adjunct with no benefits and no track record of receiving funding here because I created that track record in the UK.
Which is why I am now at Bronx Community College teaching interpersonal communications - which on the one hand is not my first choice but neither is it anything I would trade easily as work, life and teaching experience.
But yes: I would like a more stable way to make money or for the proverbial commission that changes everything, for someone to buy a book (based on the stories in this blog or the lives of my grandmothers), want to produce one of my plays on a more well-funded level and for this multi-layered, molecular vision that I have to be accepted in the larger world. So, if you're reading this and interested in seeing any of these things happen and have money/resources to do so, I'm all ears. Ah for the elusive patron!
Barring that, I'll keep puttering along and offering what I can into the universe as a combo writer-artist-teacher.
Please note my restraint in not talking about the Republican primary tonight. It's all just too depressing and makes me think I should plot a way to live in the Orkney Islands for good. It may be one of the few sane places left on the planet. But, of course, if I lived there for a while, I'm sure I'd be disabused of that notion as well...I suppose it's all about what kind of insanity of one's own and others one can tolerate best.
I do realize the irony, by the way, of waxing lyrical about the students and then questioning if I'm a failure because I work as a teacher as well as an artist. These contradictions abound in my life and consciousness as anyone who's been reading this blog knows. I don't know anymore if these are to be 'resolved' or instead accepted as that - unresolvable contradictions - not sure it deserves the vaunted name of paradox or not. But it does haunt me that perhaps what is holding me back is my own fear more than (very real) financial necessity - perhaps that's a holdover from the logic of my wealthy boarding school classmates who also chirped on about doing what you want and the money will follow. This very well may true, but I think is easier if you come from a privileged background. I really don't know...chickens, eggs and all that...but I'd happily accept a change in financial circumstance for the better.
I should add that most of my favorite writers these days: Mary Karr, David Foster Wallace, David Shields all teach and/or taught at universities...so this should tell me Something, if I'm willing to listen. Like: if you want to make work of a certain kind of complexity, sometimes it's good to teach, too. Plus, I actually like teaching...duh.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
teaching acting is fun: time to bring on the dancing girls
Teaching acting is fun, there's just no getting around that fact. Had a lovely, lively discussion with my Hunter students about what theater/acting is. The idea was to have everyone address that question and move on to some exercises, but because there were 16 lively, interested/ing students, the discussion took up the whole time.
I am assigning them the book The Presence of the Actor by Joseph Chaikin as the textbook for the class, so it's not only about learning acting fundamentals - the focus - but also looking at what that means, how that can be seen as a social as well as artistic act, etc. This was the book, alongside directing The Serpent (which was created by Chaikin's Open Theater and notated as a ceremony by Jean-Claude van Itallie) that changed my theatrical life and therefore my life. It showed me how politics and theater can work together, indeed always work together whether consciously or not.
To have the privilege to share this with a room of young people is just that: a privilege. To get paid, even if an adjunct's salary, a miracle.
Tomorrow, back to BCC and Interpersonal Communications - I taught it twice last semester, so not feeling as nervous as when I started back in October 2 days after landing in NYC from London with jet lag, having read the first couple of chapters on a tiny plane that got across the Atlantic via Iceland and then Goose Bay, Canada. The Iceland Local as I dubbed it back then and probably wrote about here in October.
It's been a long journey from there to here in a few short months.
Oh and the big bonus is the walk across Central Park to get to Hunter from the West Side. A gorgeous stretch in the high 60s, that can include a stop off at a cafe for a cappuccino, as it did today. I am looking forward to smelling the grass and the baby sprouts and blossoms throughout the spring, watching the subtle transitions take place all the way to May. That's the kind of thing I live for these days.
I have spoken to a number of friends about my age or a little older, and we all have the same experience: we now notice the seasons more, nature seems closer on all levels, even if we live in cities. Is it that I begin to understand there will not be infinite springs? That each one is precious? I don't know.
I do remember delighting today in the sun and shadow sidelight of winter and saying outloud-ish - wow, this could be a great year. I am too superstitious and have had too many weird-ass turns in my life to say it "will be" a great year - but I am praying at least for the openness to consider the possibility and to allow that in if it is possible.
I got a gorgeous note from a friend today saying she was moved by the last two posts, because one was so dark and the next one was filled with the connection to friends and warmth. I told this to another friend who said: yes, they go together.
In the recent past, it's been the opposite trajectory, namely, light first then the dark. Now, it seems to be going in the other direction. In facing the darkness, walking into the closed doors and shadowy places, light can begin to shine through.
I'm terrified to write any of this, by the way - terrified something terrible will happen because of it. The last time I was truly happy, my wedding day in 2007, was followed by the darkest day of my life - the miscarriage...a few years later when I finished my PhD, which also felt pretty amazing, my cat and then my father died. I have reason to fear "good things."
But at least I do want to try to turn my face to the sun when it is shining, knowing - only too well - that it's a temporary kinda thing. Then again, so's life in the end, right? Maybe this is the "lesson" - even if I'm sick to death of lessons...I'd be happy as a clam to have the second part of my life be all about dancing girls and glitter.
Seriously.
I am assigning them the book The Presence of the Actor by Joseph Chaikin as the textbook for the class, so it's not only about learning acting fundamentals - the focus - but also looking at what that means, how that can be seen as a social as well as artistic act, etc. This was the book, alongside directing The Serpent (which was created by Chaikin's Open Theater and notated as a ceremony by Jean-Claude van Itallie) that changed my theatrical life and therefore my life. It showed me how politics and theater can work together, indeed always work together whether consciously or not.
To have the privilege to share this with a room of young people is just that: a privilege. To get paid, even if an adjunct's salary, a miracle.
Tomorrow, back to BCC and Interpersonal Communications - I taught it twice last semester, so not feeling as nervous as when I started back in October 2 days after landing in NYC from London with jet lag, having read the first couple of chapters on a tiny plane that got across the Atlantic via Iceland and then Goose Bay, Canada. The Iceland Local as I dubbed it back then and probably wrote about here in October.
It's been a long journey from there to here in a few short months.
Oh and the big bonus is the walk across Central Park to get to Hunter from the West Side. A gorgeous stretch in the high 60s, that can include a stop off at a cafe for a cappuccino, as it did today. I am looking forward to smelling the grass and the baby sprouts and blossoms throughout the spring, watching the subtle transitions take place all the way to May. That's the kind of thing I live for these days.
I have spoken to a number of friends about my age or a little older, and we all have the same experience: we now notice the seasons more, nature seems closer on all levels, even if we live in cities. Is it that I begin to understand there will not be infinite springs? That each one is precious? I don't know.
I do remember delighting today in the sun and shadow sidelight of winter and saying outloud-ish - wow, this could be a great year. I am too superstitious and have had too many weird-ass turns in my life to say it "will be" a great year - but I am praying at least for the openness to consider the possibility and to allow that in if it is possible.
I got a gorgeous note from a friend today saying she was moved by the last two posts, because one was so dark and the next one was filled with the connection to friends and warmth. I told this to another friend who said: yes, they go together.
In the recent past, it's been the opposite trajectory, namely, light first then the dark. Now, it seems to be going in the other direction. In facing the darkness, walking into the closed doors and shadowy places, light can begin to shine through.
I'm terrified to write any of this, by the way - terrified something terrible will happen because of it. The last time I was truly happy, my wedding day in 2007, was followed by the darkest day of my life - the miscarriage...a few years later when I finished my PhD, which also felt pretty amazing, my cat and then my father died. I have reason to fear "good things."
But at least I do want to try to turn my face to the sun when it is shining, knowing - only too well - that it's a temporary kinda thing. Then again, so's life in the end, right? Maybe this is the "lesson" - even if I'm sick to death of lessons...I'd be happy as a clam to have the second part of my life be all about dancing girls and glitter.
Seriously.
Monday, January 30, 2012
Blessedly peaceful day
Had a very hard time sleeping last night after writing the post about the anniversary events of these past days, but today - even though hard to rise for its beginning - was lovely.
My friend Nathan helped me pick up two free file cabinets from a Freecycle donor, who turned out to be none other than the writer Katha Pollitt, which was quite a pleasant surprise. Nathan and I know each other from university days and it turns out her daughter also graduated from Wesleyan (a mere 20+ years later but well anyway...) so we had a nice chat. This is one of those only in New York experiences that I cherish.
We (I should say Nathan) dragged the file cabinets into my apartment, then went to eat - at first to Indian Road Cafe, which is the local coffee house/organic restaurant of choice, which was too full, so we diverted back to Broadway and decided to check out the $3.95 chicken lunch special at a Dominican cafe called La Ceniza. Well, let me tell you, we got amazing food, a lot of it, and kick-ass cafe con leche, all for a whopping total of $12 for us both. We sat there for ages while some older regulars watched soccer (aka to the rest of the world outside US: football) on television. We were welcomed as if we were long lost friends and asked to return. This place's opening hours are 3am-6pm, so we decided it's for the transit workers - we are at the end of the A train and a bus depot - and the folks who have to get to places really early in the morning (aka the cleaners). So, if you're looking for the best deal in Inwood, I think we found it.
We had a long, winding conversation - the kind that you have every day of the week if you are in college or your early 20s and work in a bookstore, but that feel luscious and extravagant when you are in your late 40s and 'have busy lives'. While we have known each other for years, it is only now I am back in NYC that we are reconnecting and it's a real bonus, among many, in my life today. There is also something unbelievably comforting in talking with someone you have known since you were 19 or 20, the shared history, generational, political, artistic, spiritual aspirations, questions, concerns, delights...nice.
After that, talked with another friend on the phone, sharing some issues that were plaguing us both, helping each other as best we could through the darker patches of our lives, shining the kind of light only a compassionate other can shine. We all have blind spots, no matter how supposedly self-aware, so these friends of mine who tread a similar path are a treasure.
Another friend was coming over for our new Sunday ritual, i.e. Dinner and Downton. Was about to start that cooking for that when my lovely, amazing, talented, wonderful friend from London, Bib, called on Skype and we talked about the opening of her gallery show, which sounded like it went beautifully. In case you are in London, the name of the show is Noisy with Appeals to Silence at 31 Shorts Gardens, Covent Garden and runs through February 8. Bib worked with me as part of Apocryphal Theatre and her visual work has been deeply affected by her time with us creating living sculptures as part of and for our improvisational theatrical creations. In turn her work deeply affected the way I viewed and view theater. She is exhibiting alongside Agniezska Stone whose work is also bold and stunning. Go if you are in London, you will not be disappointed. These two artists are both breaths of fresh air.
Talking with Bib was lovely, about her opening and our lives here and there. I was telling her that she and all her European friends could probably never comprehend the depths of stupidity in the electoral process here or else their relatively rational/socially-minded brains would explode. As anyone reading this blog knows because of my periodic outbursts, coming back here has given me a new appreciation for the brazen idiocy we are privileged to endure. (Enduring Freedom, remember? The name of our first attack on Afghanistan...sigh...)
Katie arrived soon after for dinner, I made risotto with kale, prosciutto and olives, which I don't mind saying came out pretty damn well, especially considering I have zero counter space. It's amazing how much you can chop on a 9" x 6" cutting board on the side of a sink. I'm an expert! We had our usual fun time together chatting and wondering about the fate of fictional aristocrats and their servants during WWI...if anyone had told me I would consider that fun even 10 years ago I would have told them they were insane, btw...
No files have yet made it out of a box and into file cabinets, but I did place them in a good spot. I did final prep for teaching my first acting class at Hunter tomorrow and for my BCC classes that start on Tuesday.
There are numerous things I feel I 'should' be doing/have done, etc. But needed deeply this connecting with friends after a night of feeling excruciatingly alone, which was of course waves of childhood/adolescent pain/numbness washing over me in yet more "healing" balm...
Final rant: healing sounds so nice. Healing actually hurts like hell. This is as true of physical healing as it is of emotional healing. It just sucks. But it is necessary. I hate that shit. But, like, big deal. Doesn't change a damn thing.
One of my best friends Julie reminds me of this a lot, for which I am extremely grateful. Otherwise, I would think I was losing my mind or was going to always feel like the Swamp Thing. But no, just part of the process...the infernal Process...which leads to..um..feeling basically OK enough to not want to jump out of my skin in some explosion of self-destructive activity...woohoo. But yeah, even for that, I'm grateful. Sad, isn't it?
Now, soon, earlier than I've managed...a little yoga and then bed, please dear Jesus, to sleep....
My friend Nathan helped me pick up two free file cabinets from a Freecycle donor, who turned out to be none other than the writer Katha Pollitt, which was quite a pleasant surprise. Nathan and I know each other from university days and it turns out her daughter also graduated from Wesleyan (a mere 20+ years later but well anyway...) so we had a nice chat. This is one of those only in New York experiences that I cherish.
We (I should say Nathan) dragged the file cabinets into my apartment, then went to eat - at first to Indian Road Cafe, which is the local coffee house/organic restaurant of choice, which was too full, so we diverted back to Broadway and decided to check out the $3.95 chicken lunch special at a Dominican cafe called La Ceniza. Well, let me tell you, we got amazing food, a lot of it, and kick-ass cafe con leche, all for a whopping total of $12 for us both. We sat there for ages while some older regulars watched soccer (aka to the rest of the world outside US: football) on television. We were welcomed as if we were long lost friends and asked to return. This place's opening hours are 3am-6pm, so we decided it's for the transit workers - we are at the end of the A train and a bus depot - and the folks who have to get to places really early in the morning (aka the cleaners). So, if you're looking for the best deal in Inwood, I think we found it.
We had a long, winding conversation - the kind that you have every day of the week if you are in college or your early 20s and work in a bookstore, but that feel luscious and extravagant when you are in your late 40s and 'have busy lives'. While we have known each other for years, it is only now I am back in NYC that we are reconnecting and it's a real bonus, among many, in my life today. There is also something unbelievably comforting in talking with someone you have known since you were 19 or 20, the shared history, generational, political, artistic, spiritual aspirations, questions, concerns, delights...nice.
After that, talked with another friend on the phone, sharing some issues that were plaguing us both, helping each other as best we could through the darker patches of our lives, shining the kind of light only a compassionate other can shine. We all have blind spots, no matter how supposedly self-aware, so these friends of mine who tread a similar path are a treasure.
Another friend was coming over for our new Sunday ritual, i.e. Dinner and Downton. Was about to start that cooking for that when my lovely, amazing, talented, wonderful friend from London, Bib, called on Skype and we talked about the opening of her gallery show, which sounded like it went beautifully. In case you are in London, the name of the show is Noisy with Appeals to Silence at 31 Shorts Gardens, Covent Garden and runs through February 8. Bib worked with me as part of Apocryphal Theatre and her visual work has been deeply affected by her time with us creating living sculptures as part of and for our improvisational theatrical creations. In turn her work deeply affected the way I viewed and view theater. She is exhibiting alongside Agniezska Stone whose work is also bold and stunning. Go if you are in London, you will not be disappointed. These two artists are both breaths of fresh air.
Talking with Bib was lovely, about her opening and our lives here and there. I was telling her that she and all her European friends could probably never comprehend the depths of stupidity in the electoral process here or else their relatively rational/socially-minded brains would explode. As anyone reading this blog knows because of my periodic outbursts, coming back here has given me a new appreciation for the brazen idiocy we are privileged to endure. (Enduring Freedom, remember? The name of our first attack on Afghanistan...sigh...)
Katie arrived soon after for dinner, I made risotto with kale, prosciutto and olives, which I don't mind saying came out pretty damn well, especially considering I have zero counter space. It's amazing how much you can chop on a 9" x 6" cutting board on the side of a sink. I'm an expert! We had our usual fun time together chatting and wondering about the fate of fictional aristocrats and their servants during WWI...if anyone had told me I would consider that fun even 10 years ago I would have told them they were insane, btw...
No files have yet made it out of a box and into file cabinets, but I did place them in a good spot. I did final prep for teaching my first acting class at Hunter tomorrow and for my BCC classes that start on Tuesday.
There are numerous things I feel I 'should' be doing/have done, etc. But needed deeply this connecting with friends after a night of feeling excruciatingly alone, which was of course waves of childhood/adolescent pain/numbness washing over me in yet more "healing" balm...
Final rant: healing sounds so nice. Healing actually hurts like hell. This is as true of physical healing as it is of emotional healing. It just sucks. But it is necessary. I hate that shit. But, like, big deal. Doesn't change a damn thing.
One of my best friends Julie reminds me of this a lot, for which I am extremely grateful. Otherwise, I would think I was losing my mind or was going to always feel like the Swamp Thing. But no, just part of the process...the infernal Process...which leads to..um..feeling basically OK enough to not want to jump out of my skin in some explosion of self-destructive activity...woohoo. But yeah, even for that, I'm grateful. Sad, isn't it?
Now, soon, earlier than I've managed...a little yoga and then bed, please dear Jesus, to sleep....
Sunday, January 29, 2012
38 years ago today...1974...not the best day ever.
So like these days - Jan 27-29 mark the time 38 years ago that I was being held alone in a basement apartment, the door of which was barricaded shut with furniture, which was tied by thick rope by a babysitter who was in her 40s and had gone stark raving mad. Over a period of months she had convinced herself and some wayward teenagers she had kind of adopted by letting them drink at her place and call her Polly that I was evil. I only realized later researching that time period (1974) that the Exorcist had come out around that time and Polly while having a Jewish last name (Levine) considered herself a Catholic (rosaries and the whole bit). Over the time I was living with her, because while we were living in Connecticut, my mother was working in NYC and my step-father at the time presumably was not up to taking care of a 10 year old on his own, she - Polly - went loopier and loopier as she drank herself into an alcohol and prescription drug induced psychosis. However, as mentioned prior, until she went completely over the top she had allies.
I have attempted to write this story more times than I can count. I don't think I will be writing it all here tonight, because it involves a period of months and the weirdest/canniest series of cult-inducing psychotic moves on Polly's part as can be imagined, up to and including telling me she should adopt me because when "they" found out that my parents did drugs (as far as I know at the time they were smoking pot and maybe acid), I would become a ward of the state (for anyone outside US, this means given to social services or put into care).
The outline however is this: my response, until she kept me awake for 48 hours and barricaded the door because everyone had supposedly turned against her, while walking around "finding" knives that I was supposedly planting in places to kill her (one of which she planted days or weeks before in a coat of mine and "found" before I went to school one morning), was to go to school and get straight A's. This prompted the most absurd response of all when it all came out what happened, my teachers and parents asking me why I didn't tell them what was going on. As if. This response led me to years and years of believing it was my fault I had been in that situation and had I been 'strong' enough I would have run away or told someone. Trust me, for future reference if you're ever dealing with a severely abused child: it don't work that way. Abuse = silence. The more severe the abuse = the more deafening the silence. That's the way it works. I even managed to work my way into a relationship like that as an adult, but that's another story....
The "everyone" who had turned against Polly were the teenagers, one of whom was my step-father at the time's sister, Barb, who realized she had lost it and had escaped, leaving me alone to fend for myself - Barb at least went to find my step-father to get him to come back and get me out of there. Another one was her own son, Craig, who lived with his father. This fact alone, that in 1974, a mother had lost custody of her own son should have alerted everyone to the fact Polly was bonkers. Apparently the babysitting agency missed the fact she had been locked up in a mental hospital in the past. But Craig was not a secret, so it kind of shows how out of it everyone was at the time to have not clued into this obvious weirdness.
Everyone, including - weirdly enough Polly Levine herself at the time it was happening - has told me I should write this as a (a) book, (b) screenplay, (c) play...etc. I have tried my friends, believe me, I have tried. The material however is so fucked up it is hard to walk through it with anything resembling sanity. I have written about it over and over but never in a format I feel does it justice. The attempts include: writing down each and every memory (done), doing research on all that happened that last weekend (done), attempting to see it from Polly's point of view (done), only from my POV (done), cutting up the memories and making it into a stage text (done), from others' POV...etc. The weirdest memory of all though is Mrs. Levine (which is how I knew her and referred to her - which is why it's odd and interesting to me for the first time ever writing tonight I am writing Polly - which is in fact what she wanted me to call her but I would not - I had a few odd little rebellions like that, which may be why I didn't flip - my therapist for over 7 years in London marvelled that I did not completely split when this happened - I guess that's the 'normal' response) - when she said one day while she was frying something - one day you'll write about us you know, it'll be called Polly and I. This memory is pristine, even has a kind of yellow light, the smell of the frying - though I can't remember what she was frying but I think it may have been onions. Maybe she said Polly and Me.
She did read my attempts at journals at the time and amended them, even wrote entries for me.
She may be the reason I am a writer today. Which is just weird. But also possibly true.
I have a journal from the days after I was rescued - my stepfather at the time, David, did manage to talk his way into the house, in large part due to the fact that Polly had a crush on him. She took a huge knife out of the drawer, handed it to me and asked me to cut the rope around the furniture. I said I could not. She looked at me pityingly - in her little negligee stoned and drunk out of her mind on alcohol and pills - and said "Yes, I know you have a problem with knives" then violently cut the ropes herself and moved the furniture out of the way, while I stood there in my nightgown frozen to the spot.
When David came in, he started packing my things, not all of them - and Polly kept asking me to stay, to tell him I didn't want to go, that they were drug addicts and horrible people. David turned to her and said shut. up. I just cried and cried, feeling guilty I couldn't say anything myself.
This was dawn of Jan. 29. It is now early hours of Jan. 29, 2012 as I write this. This is also why I am a late night person. She stayed up late, used to make me stay up with her, until 2 to 3 am or so to eat her 'famous' scrambled eggs (you can't make this shit up). When I was supposed to be asleep, I stayed awake until she was asleep - we shared a room. I knew it wasn't safe. That much I knew. I never slept when she was awake.
So, on these days when, as now, I am alone, I am awake, watchful, somewhat scared. I would like this to end. I would like the trauma she inflicted on me to be over. For good. I am hoping by writing about this, however sketchily (and believe me this is the merest outline) tonight, I can go some way towards unburdening myself of the shame, horror and trauma that that time with Polly Levine inflicted on me.
I also hope that someday sooner rather than later I will feel safe enough in myself to write out this whole story in a form that can be disseminated, that is not mere ranting.
I have discovered a photo of myself, which is taken in the cottage on Peaks Island, Maine, where I spent parts of summers for many years when David was my step-father. It was my favorite place on earth. The clothes and my age as far as I can tell seem to lead me to believe this is when I was 12-13. I am lying on the bed on the sunporch that looked out over Casco Bay and the Atlantic Ocean with two kittens lying on either leg, I have a book in my hand and am smiling at whomever is taking the picture. I look oddly triumphant and deeply pleased. This is so at odds with my memory of how I felt during that time that it's striking. So I wonder: is this soon after the Mrs. Levine debacle? Or was this after I was taken back after my two years living with my grandparents after the Mrs. Levine debacle? I don't know. What I do know, and this is precious to me, at that moment in time, I am happy.
This proves that no matter how much shit you put a person through, that person can fucking survive. As you all know who have been reading along with me, these past few months have been about finding ways out of Camp Grief. This does not mean, I hasten to add once again, diminishing the feelings or returning to my good old workaholic dissociated self, but it does mean letting something grow now - to stop hoeing and hoeing, turning up more and more shit - the shit will come if it needs to, no problems there - but to let it settle, begin gently planting seeds and letting them grow.
I haven't a fucking clue, by the way, what that means in real life, what will or won't grow and some part of me as I type this is petitioning this happy clappy part of myself for a 10 point action plan to get the fuck out of process-hell. At some point she too - She Who Plans - needs to be integrated too and not banished to Not Healthy Enough world or whatever.
But for now, tonight, gentle...gentle...and as I type that 10 point plan girl is saying: WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT???? And I can't really answer, except to say...maybe something about breath. 10 point plan girl responds with ???!!!!! Etc. You get the picture. And remember 10 point plan girl is the one who got me into boarding school on scholarship to get the hell out of dodge and 10 point plan girl is the one who managed to get me through the eye of the needle of Mrs. Levine's psychosis so she didn't kill me. She deserves respect even if she can go into overdrive and almost kill me with exhaustion at times.
When we went back to Mrs. Levine's to get my stuff a few days later, the apartment had crime scene tape on it (because the authorities of some type showed up after we left to find her stabbing with the butcher knife my favorite black fuzzy pillow repeatedly yelling the names of the teenagers to get out) and the black pillow case was on the floor with a pyramid of feathers piled on top of it. Antiseptic and chilling. They took here to some mental hospital in full restraints. Why I was brought back there, I'm not sure. Why I was told that story then I'm not sure. But it led me to believe I had had a fairly close brush with violent death.
This is why whenever I hear stories of children killed violently, I shudder inside and sometimes cry. I wonder sometimes if I even have some survivor guilt, even though, thank God she never killed anyone at least as far as I know.
I remember being in the car David picked me up in - I guess it would have been the Saab. It was like a tiny capsule hurtling through space. There were icicles and snow, the taste of cold in the air when I went padding out to the car in my nightgown or PJs. A pink line of the sun rising. I was cold, had been cold for days. And I was warm there for that moment. Staring at an uncertain dawn.
I have attempted to write this story more times than I can count. I don't think I will be writing it all here tonight, because it involves a period of months and the weirdest/canniest series of cult-inducing psychotic moves on Polly's part as can be imagined, up to and including telling me she should adopt me because when "they" found out that my parents did drugs (as far as I know at the time they were smoking pot and maybe acid), I would become a ward of the state (for anyone outside US, this means given to social services or put into care).
The outline however is this: my response, until she kept me awake for 48 hours and barricaded the door because everyone had supposedly turned against her, while walking around "finding" knives that I was supposedly planting in places to kill her (one of which she planted days or weeks before in a coat of mine and "found" before I went to school one morning), was to go to school and get straight A's. This prompted the most absurd response of all when it all came out what happened, my teachers and parents asking me why I didn't tell them what was going on. As if. This response led me to years and years of believing it was my fault I had been in that situation and had I been 'strong' enough I would have run away or told someone. Trust me, for future reference if you're ever dealing with a severely abused child: it don't work that way. Abuse = silence. The more severe the abuse = the more deafening the silence. That's the way it works. I even managed to work my way into a relationship like that as an adult, but that's another story....
The "everyone" who had turned against Polly were the teenagers, one of whom was my step-father at the time's sister, Barb, who realized she had lost it and had escaped, leaving me alone to fend for myself - Barb at least went to find my step-father to get him to come back and get me out of there. Another one was her own son, Craig, who lived with his father. This fact alone, that in 1974, a mother had lost custody of her own son should have alerted everyone to the fact Polly was bonkers. Apparently the babysitting agency missed the fact she had been locked up in a mental hospital in the past. But Craig was not a secret, so it kind of shows how out of it everyone was at the time to have not clued into this obvious weirdness.
Everyone, including - weirdly enough Polly Levine herself at the time it was happening - has told me I should write this as a (a) book, (b) screenplay, (c) play...etc. I have tried my friends, believe me, I have tried. The material however is so fucked up it is hard to walk through it with anything resembling sanity. I have written about it over and over but never in a format I feel does it justice. The attempts include: writing down each and every memory (done), doing research on all that happened that last weekend (done), attempting to see it from Polly's point of view (done), only from my POV (done), cutting up the memories and making it into a stage text (done), from others' POV...etc. The weirdest memory of all though is Mrs. Levine (which is how I knew her and referred to her - which is why it's odd and interesting to me for the first time ever writing tonight I am writing Polly - which is in fact what she wanted me to call her but I would not - I had a few odd little rebellions like that, which may be why I didn't flip - my therapist for over 7 years in London marvelled that I did not completely split when this happened - I guess that's the 'normal' response) - when she said one day while she was frying something - one day you'll write about us you know, it'll be called Polly and I. This memory is pristine, even has a kind of yellow light, the smell of the frying - though I can't remember what she was frying but I think it may have been onions. Maybe she said Polly and Me.
She did read my attempts at journals at the time and amended them, even wrote entries for me.
She may be the reason I am a writer today. Which is just weird. But also possibly true.
I have a journal from the days after I was rescued - my stepfather at the time, David, did manage to talk his way into the house, in large part due to the fact that Polly had a crush on him. She took a huge knife out of the drawer, handed it to me and asked me to cut the rope around the furniture. I said I could not. She looked at me pityingly - in her little negligee stoned and drunk out of her mind on alcohol and pills - and said "Yes, I know you have a problem with knives" then violently cut the ropes herself and moved the furniture out of the way, while I stood there in my nightgown frozen to the spot.
When David came in, he started packing my things, not all of them - and Polly kept asking me to stay, to tell him I didn't want to go, that they were drug addicts and horrible people. David turned to her and said shut. up. I just cried and cried, feeling guilty I couldn't say anything myself.
This was dawn of Jan. 29. It is now early hours of Jan. 29, 2012 as I write this. This is also why I am a late night person. She stayed up late, used to make me stay up with her, until 2 to 3 am or so to eat her 'famous' scrambled eggs (you can't make this shit up). When I was supposed to be asleep, I stayed awake until she was asleep - we shared a room. I knew it wasn't safe. That much I knew. I never slept when she was awake.
So, on these days when, as now, I am alone, I am awake, watchful, somewhat scared. I would like this to end. I would like the trauma she inflicted on me to be over. For good. I am hoping by writing about this, however sketchily (and believe me this is the merest outline) tonight, I can go some way towards unburdening myself of the shame, horror and trauma that that time with Polly Levine inflicted on me.
I also hope that someday sooner rather than later I will feel safe enough in myself to write out this whole story in a form that can be disseminated, that is not mere ranting.
I have discovered a photo of myself, which is taken in the cottage on Peaks Island, Maine, where I spent parts of summers for many years when David was my step-father. It was my favorite place on earth. The clothes and my age as far as I can tell seem to lead me to believe this is when I was 12-13. I am lying on the bed on the sunporch that looked out over Casco Bay and the Atlantic Ocean with two kittens lying on either leg, I have a book in my hand and am smiling at whomever is taking the picture. I look oddly triumphant and deeply pleased. This is so at odds with my memory of how I felt during that time that it's striking. So I wonder: is this soon after the Mrs. Levine debacle? Or was this after I was taken back after my two years living with my grandparents after the Mrs. Levine debacle? I don't know. What I do know, and this is precious to me, at that moment in time, I am happy.
This proves that no matter how much shit you put a person through, that person can fucking survive. As you all know who have been reading along with me, these past few months have been about finding ways out of Camp Grief. This does not mean, I hasten to add once again, diminishing the feelings or returning to my good old workaholic dissociated self, but it does mean letting something grow now - to stop hoeing and hoeing, turning up more and more shit - the shit will come if it needs to, no problems there - but to let it settle, begin gently planting seeds and letting them grow.
I haven't a fucking clue, by the way, what that means in real life, what will or won't grow and some part of me as I type this is petitioning this happy clappy part of myself for a 10 point action plan to get the fuck out of process-hell. At some point she too - She Who Plans - needs to be integrated too and not banished to Not Healthy Enough world or whatever.
But for now, tonight, gentle...gentle...and as I type that 10 point plan girl is saying: WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT???? And I can't really answer, except to say...maybe something about breath. 10 point plan girl responds with ???!!!!! Etc. You get the picture. And remember 10 point plan girl is the one who got me into boarding school on scholarship to get the hell out of dodge and 10 point plan girl is the one who managed to get me through the eye of the needle of Mrs. Levine's psychosis so she didn't kill me. She deserves respect even if she can go into overdrive and almost kill me with exhaustion at times.
When we went back to Mrs. Levine's to get my stuff a few days later, the apartment had crime scene tape on it (because the authorities of some type showed up after we left to find her stabbing with the butcher knife my favorite black fuzzy pillow repeatedly yelling the names of the teenagers to get out) and the black pillow case was on the floor with a pyramid of feathers piled on top of it. Antiseptic and chilling. They took here to some mental hospital in full restraints. Why I was brought back there, I'm not sure. Why I was told that story then I'm not sure. But it led me to believe I had had a fairly close brush with violent death.
This is why whenever I hear stories of children killed violently, I shudder inside and sometimes cry. I wonder sometimes if I even have some survivor guilt, even though, thank God she never killed anyone at least as far as I know.
I remember being in the car David picked me up in - I guess it would have been the Saab. It was like a tiny capsule hurtling through space. There were icicles and snow, the taste of cold in the air when I went padding out to the car in my nightgown or PJs. A pink line of the sun rising. I was cold, had been cold for days. And I was warm there for that moment. Staring at an uncertain dawn.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Some notes - a brief post to mark the day
Wasn't going to write today but just saw the movie Frida, which I thought was quite beautiful. It's about the painter Frida Kahlo, her painting and her life with Diego Rivera. The way Julie Taymor directed it at first made me skeptical but I ended up liking the way she made shots into moving paintings and such. Frida's painting in particular after her miscarriage just slayed me.
Seeing this made me think I should start painting again, but right now a stiff wind in any direction can make me think I should so anything again or for the first time, etc. so we'll see.
My writer's meeting tonight was phenomenal, full of people telling their human stories especially the struggles we all have with: what next, who am I, how to work, when to commit, when to let something go and sitting through the vast arctic tundra of one's self at times when the pain of certain things is this. I now belief all people go through this, I think it's a stage - at least - of grief. I am walking through one of those times now.
The movie about Frida Kahlo shows her doing this pretty much her whole life to one degree or another. A hero for real, not a showboat. Gorgeous without vanity, ruthlessness without cruelty, another female hero because so human. Thank God/dess for that. A line in the movie, the last line I believe, painted by her not sure, was something like: 'May the leaving be joyful and may I not return.' That made me cry, too. She died about my age now. I understand her sentiment.
Unlike her I have never had a husband who has divorced me return to marry me again and don't expect to, but I was so happy for her that happened. At least at the end of her life, the love she so richly deserved.
Some notes I have found myself writing on the street I will record here:
****
From today, written on 70th street between park & lex:
I don't know what to do but...another voice comes in saying: neither does anyone else and for a moment I feel calm. It's all theory innuendo ideas some experience hunches and a few moments of brilliance. Other than that means I'm on my own. Scary but true. Luckily I have a few paths I trust but even those need interrogation. God or whoever the fuck you are I need you now more than ever.
****
Note from Jan. 12 at 2:19pm (can't remember where I was but probably on street because it's on my phone):
Maybe timing is perfect.
Maybe I haven't finished things because they weren't ready not out of fear or laziness.
Maybe all is unfolding exactly as it should and all the self-flagellation is pointless.
Maybe I can let go and trust hp. Starting by taking care of myself.
Gentle. Be gentle.
***
On that note, to bed...perchance to dream and all like that. (Oh speaking of which Tucson has banned the teaching of The Tempest in their public school system, but no I can't go off on another rant...I just need to sleep. But remember kids: Shakespeare's bad for you, that English subversive freak...he was probably Gay)
Seeing this made me think I should start painting again, but right now a stiff wind in any direction can make me think I should so anything again or for the first time, etc. so we'll see.
My writer's meeting tonight was phenomenal, full of people telling their human stories especially the struggles we all have with: what next, who am I, how to work, when to commit, when to let something go and sitting through the vast arctic tundra of one's self at times when the pain of certain things is this. I now belief all people go through this, I think it's a stage - at least - of grief. I am walking through one of those times now.
The movie about Frida Kahlo shows her doing this pretty much her whole life to one degree or another. A hero for real, not a showboat. Gorgeous without vanity, ruthlessness without cruelty, another female hero because so human. Thank God/dess for that. A line in the movie, the last line I believe, painted by her not sure, was something like: 'May the leaving be joyful and may I not return.' That made me cry, too. She died about my age now. I understand her sentiment.
Unlike her I have never had a husband who has divorced me return to marry me again and don't expect to, but I was so happy for her that happened. At least at the end of her life, the love she so richly deserved.
Some notes I have found myself writing on the street I will record here:
****
From today, written on 70th street between park & lex:
I don't know what to do but...another voice comes in saying: neither does anyone else and for a moment I feel calm. It's all theory innuendo ideas some experience hunches and a few moments of brilliance. Other than that means I'm on my own. Scary but true. Luckily I have a few paths I trust but even those need interrogation. God or whoever the fuck you are I need you now more than ever.
****
Note from Jan. 12 at 2:19pm (can't remember where I was but probably on street because it's on my phone):
Maybe timing is perfect.
Maybe I haven't finished things because they weren't ready not out of fear or laziness.
Maybe all is unfolding exactly as it should and all the self-flagellation is pointless.
Maybe I can let go and trust hp. Starting by taking care of myself.
Gentle. Be gentle.
***
On that note, to bed...perchance to dream and all like that. (Oh speaking of which Tucson has banned the teaching of The Tempest in their public school system, but no I can't go off on another rant...I just need to sleep. But remember kids: Shakespeare's bad for you, that English subversive freak...he was probably Gay)
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
America's American Americanness is So American!
Yes, you guessed it - primary debates and Obama's State of the Union address...glutton for punishment here, sick to death of hearing about How Great America Is and How We As Americans Together Can Do Anything because We Are the Greatest...etc., ad nauseam...so like I found this troubling before I ever left this Hallowed Land but after 8 years in UK, wow...it's insufferable.
I feel like I'm trapped in a land of of insufferable cheerleaders who every once in a while have stupid cat fights and call each other names but then 'rally round' to support their football players (i.e. military). It is truly grotesque.
Yes Obama looks nice and talks rationally, which alone puts him light years beyond Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-demagogue, but then he has to basically make a pitch for unity in the government by getting all misty eyed about Navy Seals taking out Osama bin Laden in a blatant assassination. Oh, yes, "they were straight and gay, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican" but by God they knew how to storm a house and kill an old, sick guy in a house, goddamnit.
It's just embarrassing.
Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. I said I knew what I was getting into when I came back here, and to some degree I did but I forgot this feeling of suffocating under a pile of steaming bullshit that comes with paying attention to US politics and how fucking nationalistic and just plain ignorant and/or megalomaniacal we are.
Meanwhile, Mitt Romney's tax returns have come out and he made something like $25million dollars last year and paid a whopping 15% in taxes. I think that basically means he makes in a minute or maybe in a second what I make in a year and he pays half the tax. Obama brings up taxing folks like him more and the Republicans after the speech cry Class Warfare!
Well, yeah, sure, but who fucking started the war???
I mean it. Romney gave more money to the Mormon Church than he had to pay in taxes. Is there any planet on which that makes sense? Anyone? Please feel free to comment if you can answer this.
Meanwhile, I still have no health insurance, because I can't afford it and am back to living in fear of getting sick. But of course any attempt to rectify that system is Socialism (gasp) and Impinges on Our Freedom.
Oh, and to Obama for saying higher education has to lower costs to keep tuition down (with no offer to subsidize that btw), please with all due respect bite me. There are thousands of us who work as adjuncts, as higher education attempts to rein in costs - which means I have a PhD and my actual hourly salary = McDonald's cashier money with no health benefits. If CUNY has to tighten its budget anymore, what else will go? Oh, I forgot, we have to bring our own chalk into the classrooms (where I teach there is No technology in the classroom) because there is usually none already there. So, what next, no chairs? If you want to reward teachers as you said, this is not the way. Meanwhile private universities have tiny class sizes, etc. and wealthy endowments because of wealthy alums, etc. I went to one of those places, they are great...but the inequity of this system is glaring.
Meanwhile and on the distinctly Other hand, I've gotten wonderful feedback from the play reading and feel completely in sync with my patch of the artistic-political community.
Herein lies the complete and utter paradox of me in the US (even in NYC - which is - sadly - in the US), on the one hand I want to scream most of the time and on the other hand, many people understand me. When I scream here I have no doubt I have the right to scream and at whom to scream. When in the UK, I felt weird, uncomfortable, disgruntled but ultimately muzzled by the mere fact of being American. That role "the American" makes it impossible to comment on politics in any other country without feeling like a total ass.
Because like on what planet do I have the right to say anything about anything anywhere else when my own country has violated every known human rights code both at home and abroad, has millions of children starving and sick in its own country (not to mention adults) and then puts on a show with millionaires wandering around saying "we're the best!"
Then I go back to earlier today walking along the tidal salt-marsh in Inwood and feeling completely at home and in love with this city, followed by the moment of walking into Penn Station on the stairs I remember ascending age 14 or 15 visiting my friend Amy for the first time, having taken the train from Providence. Walking by myself up the stairs onto the street of NYC, thrilled to be here and on my own adventure. As humble and kind of even ugly as Penn Station is, that smell, the bustle and the old-fashioned train schedule board never fail to give me a little thrill.
I remember during that same trip getting on the subway and seeing all the pale, sickly looking faces of New Yorkers (this was in 1978) and thinking: really, really? These are the beautiful people?!
Then walking everywhere with Amy who ushered me from place to place walking endless lengths of sidewalk looking up at towering building after building falling into bed exhausted after seeing apartments and friends who had families with overly precocious children in large West End apartments and understanding oh, oh, oh that's what Salinger is on about...feeling intimidated, knowing I was way poorer, the eternal scholarship child, looking at signs outside of Lincoln Center dreaming of one day being on them (knowing now because of my unfortunate experimental turn - unfortunate in terms of either fame or fortune - that that dream was wildly misguided but who knew then I was a mini-Republican at the time...seriously, I was) and wondering how I got to be part of this madness, which at the time was considered madness, but I loved it.
Then working here one year 1982-83 at an Off-Off Broadway theater, I think I wrote about this in an earlier blog post last summer, working my ass off all day then getting drunk at night, bouncing off walls of buildings at 4am - somehow nothing happening to me, this crazy city somehow protecting me - seeing Keith Haring drawings, which were mysterious then not Keith Haring drawings, just something where billboards in the subway were supposed to be but weren't because economy was in the dumps - also this other thing protecting me, a preternatural instinct I trusted without doubt - and I kind of envy this certainty of my 19 year old self - if I felt danger, I did not go into the subway, I took a cab or another street. I don't have a clue where that came from, but I had it.
I've talked to a number of other survivors of certain kinds of childhood abuse, especially sexual, and they too have this experience - that in adult life we are less likely to be attacked because we can smell danger like certain animals can smell fear and in my experience in life, in NYC or anywhere else, if a man has attempted to molest me in any way some kind of feral strength emerges and I push that person violently away, and that's the end of that.
Maybe that's why I don't feel so much danger here.
But at times, these days, all that being said, I have felt lonely at times, viscerally lonely. My cat is great company and when I get out of the house and see friends or go to meetings, that's great but there is an underlying sense of loneliness/depression that I cannot shake and fear writing about, because I find the words: lonely and depressed somehow shameful.
I am grateful for so much, the gift of the teaching work (even if insanely underpaid), my place, my friends, my work so feel churlish saying I feel lonely and depressed, but I do. Not all the time, but sometimes.
Today, after the walk I did feel better because the sense came back to me - the one that redeems me over and over again these days, which is "I'm here" - "I" in this case meaning something like a weird pastiche of my Inner Adult and some sense of a higher power (verbiage hopelessly inadequate and vague sounding - so sorry for that) and a deeper knowledge that I am OK.
Also the realization: I am tired. So, so, so, so very tired. If I had the means, I would take a month off and go somewhere to sleep. I don't, though, so instead this underlying exhaustion remains. I could perhaps get away with a month off but the fear of economic insecurity that would follow that month makes this seem impossible, plus I would feel guilty for not writing.
I feel I should have accomplished enough by now that I would have taken care of myself well enough financially so I wouldn't be this age, this tired and still living off the same amount of money I did at say 22 and with the same total lack of stability. I am not there because the paths that led to that kind of security felt/feel like death to me or for whatever reason remain inaccessible. I know there are those out there in this lovely country that would pathologize this state of affairs and tell me I don't have the courage to be rich or some shit, but please believe me when I tell you: spare me.
I did find myself - when confronted again today with all the many things I need to do to 'get somewhere' crying and saying out loud to no one in my apartment "I am so tired of capitalism." I just don't function well in this economic model. I never have. I don't 'brand' myself, etc. I don't have any interest in that shit, which makes me basically a laughing stock as a so-called artist.
OK, so bring out the violins and all that, I know, I know...in the end these are luxury problems, because I am alive, I am healthy, there is food in my refrigerator, heat in my apartment, clothes on my back, a series of jobs and work that does not kill my soul. That alone puts me somewhere high up in the wealth category in relation to the world population. Plus, I'm alive, sober and awake to my whole life - for good or ill.
Which, back to America the American Americanness, is why the politics of the day is so insufferable to me. I cannot turn it off and having lived outside Camp We're So Great seems not only inane but just, well, wrong. Seriously, people, if you are reading this and don't understand what I mean, please attempt to get out of the country for a while, even if just to like Canada...
I think I have now been writing for a long while, so need to stop so I can reread this, edit and publish. Hopefully tonight I can get a full night's sleep, and I wish the same for you. Blessings.
I feel like I'm trapped in a land of of insufferable cheerleaders who every once in a while have stupid cat fights and call each other names but then 'rally round' to support their football players (i.e. military). It is truly grotesque.
Yes Obama looks nice and talks rationally, which alone puts him light years beyond Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-demagogue, but then he has to basically make a pitch for unity in the government by getting all misty eyed about Navy Seals taking out Osama bin Laden in a blatant assassination. Oh, yes, "they were straight and gay, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican" but by God they knew how to storm a house and kill an old, sick guy in a house, goddamnit.
It's just embarrassing.
Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. I said I knew what I was getting into when I came back here, and to some degree I did but I forgot this feeling of suffocating under a pile of steaming bullshit that comes with paying attention to US politics and how fucking nationalistic and just plain ignorant and/or megalomaniacal we are.
Meanwhile, Mitt Romney's tax returns have come out and he made something like $25million dollars last year and paid a whopping 15% in taxes. I think that basically means he makes in a minute or maybe in a second what I make in a year and he pays half the tax. Obama brings up taxing folks like him more and the Republicans after the speech cry Class Warfare!
Well, yeah, sure, but who fucking started the war???
I mean it. Romney gave more money to the Mormon Church than he had to pay in taxes. Is there any planet on which that makes sense? Anyone? Please feel free to comment if you can answer this.
Meanwhile, I still have no health insurance, because I can't afford it and am back to living in fear of getting sick. But of course any attempt to rectify that system is Socialism (gasp) and Impinges on Our Freedom.
Oh, and to Obama for saying higher education has to lower costs to keep tuition down (with no offer to subsidize that btw), please with all due respect bite me. There are thousands of us who work as adjuncts, as higher education attempts to rein in costs - which means I have a PhD and my actual hourly salary = McDonald's cashier money with no health benefits. If CUNY has to tighten its budget anymore, what else will go? Oh, I forgot, we have to bring our own chalk into the classrooms (where I teach there is No technology in the classroom) because there is usually none already there. So, what next, no chairs? If you want to reward teachers as you said, this is not the way. Meanwhile private universities have tiny class sizes, etc. and wealthy endowments because of wealthy alums, etc. I went to one of those places, they are great...but the inequity of this system is glaring.
Meanwhile and on the distinctly Other hand, I've gotten wonderful feedback from the play reading and feel completely in sync with my patch of the artistic-political community.
Herein lies the complete and utter paradox of me in the US (even in NYC - which is - sadly - in the US), on the one hand I want to scream most of the time and on the other hand, many people understand me. When I scream here I have no doubt I have the right to scream and at whom to scream. When in the UK, I felt weird, uncomfortable, disgruntled but ultimately muzzled by the mere fact of being American. That role "the American" makes it impossible to comment on politics in any other country without feeling like a total ass.
Because like on what planet do I have the right to say anything about anything anywhere else when my own country has violated every known human rights code both at home and abroad, has millions of children starving and sick in its own country (not to mention adults) and then puts on a show with millionaires wandering around saying "we're the best!"
Then I go back to earlier today walking along the tidal salt-marsh in Inwood and feeling completely at home and in love with this city, followed by the moment of walking into Penn Station on the stairs I remember ascending age 14 or 15 visiting my friend Amy for the first time, having taken the train from Providence. Walking by myself up the stairs onto the street of NYC, thrilled to be here and on my own adventure. As humble and kind of even ugly as Penn Station is, that smell, the bustle and the old-fashioned train schedule board never fail to give me a little thrill.
I remember during that same trip getting on the subway and seeing all the pale, sickly looking faces of New Yorkers (this was in 1978) and thinking: really, really? These are the beautiful people?!
Then walking everywhere with Amy who ushered me from place to place walking endless lengths of sidewalk looking up at towering building after building falling into bed exhausted after seeing apartments and friends who had families with overly precocious children in large West End apartments and understanding oh, oh, oh that's what Salinger is on about...feeling intimidated, knowing I was way poorer, the eternal scholarship child, looking at signs outside of Lincoln Center dreaming of one day being on them (knowing now because of my unfortunate experimental turn - unfortunate in terms of either fame or fortune - that that dream was wildly misguided but who knew then I was a mini-Republican at the time...seriously, I was) and wondering how I got to be part of this madness, which at the time was considered madness, but I loved it.
Then working here one year 1982-83 at an Off-Off Broadway theater, I think I wrote about this in an earlier blog post last summer, working my ass off all day then getting drunk at night, bouncing off walls of buildings at 4am - somehow nothing happening to me, this crazy city somehow protecting me - seeing Keith Haring drawings, which were mysterious then not Keith Haring drawings, just something where billboards in the subway were supposed to be but weren't because economy was in the dumps - also this other thing protecting me, a preternatural instinct I trusted without doubt - and I kind of envy this certainty of my 19 year old self - if I felt danger, I did not go into the subway, I took a cab or another street. I don't have a clue where that came from, but I had it.
I've talked to a number of other survivors of certain kinds of childhood abuse, especially sexual, and they too have this experience - that in adult life we are less likely to be attacked because we can smell danger like certain animals can smell fear and in my experience in life, in NYC or anywhere else, if a man has attempted to molest me in any way some kind of feral strength emerges and I push that person violently away, and that's the end of that.
Maybe that's why I don't feel so much danger here.
But at times, these days, all that being said, I have felt lonely at times, viscerally lonely. My cat is great company and when I get out of the house and see friends or go to meetings, that's great but there is an underlying sense of loneliness/depression that I cannot shake and fear writing about, because I find the words: lonely and depressed somehow shameful.
I am grateful for so much, the gift of the teaching work (even if insanely underpaid), my place, my friends, my work so feel churlish saying I feel lonely and depressed, but I do. Not all the time, but sometimes.
Today, after the walk I did feel better because the sense came back to me - the one that redeems me over and over again these days, which is "I'm here" - "I" in this case meaning something like a weird pastiche of my Inner Adult and some sense of a higher power (verbiage hopelessly inadequate and vague sounding - so sorry for that) and a deeper knowledge that I am OK.
Also the realization: I am tired. So, so, so, so very tired. If I had the means, I would take a month off and go somewhere to sleep. I don't, though, so instead this underlying exhaustion remains. I could perhaps get away with a month off but the fear of economic insecurity that would follow that month makes this seem impossible, plus I would feel guilty for not writing.
I feel I should have accomplished enough by now that I would have taken care of myself well enough financially so I wouldn't be this age, this tired and still living off the same amount of money I did at say 22 and with the same total lack of stability. I am not there because the paths that led to that kind of security felt/feel like death to me or for whatever reason remain inaccessible. I know there are those out there in this lovely country that would pathologize this state of affairs and tell me I don't have the courage to be rich or some shit, but please believe me when I tell you: spare me.
I did find myself - when confronted again today with all the many things I need to do to 'get somewhere' crying and saying out loud to no one in my apartment "I am so tired of capitalism." I just don't function well in this economic model. I never have. I don't 'brand' myself, etc. I don't have any interest in that shit, which makes me basically a laughing stock as a so-called artist.
OK, so bring out the violins and all that, I know, I know...in the end these are luxury problems, because I am alive, I am healthy, there is food in my refrigerator, heat in my apartment, clothes on my back, a series of jobs and work that does not kill my soul. That alone puts me somewhere high up in the wealth category in relation to the world population. Plus, I'm alive, sober and awake to my whole life - for good or ill.
Which, back to America the American Americanness, is why the politics of the day is so insufferable to me. I cannot turn it off and having lived outside Camp We're So Great seems not only inane but just, well, wrong. Seriously, people, if you are reading this and don't understand what I mean, please attempt to get out of the country for a while, even if just to like Canada...
I think I have now been writing for a long while, so need to stop so I can reread this, edit and publish. Hopefully tonight I can get a full night's sleep, and I wish the same for you. Blessings.
Monday, January 23, 2012
"Imagination is more important than knowledge"
After a few days wherein I was preparing for and then watching my play get read at Brecht Forum, I had a lovely day off today, in which I did very little, except talk to some friends on the phone, then go to a meeting nearby then come back home and watch a little football, then Downton Abbey (which the New Yorker reviewer also accused of being nostalgic about old class divides but admitted was also riveting - both true - I think she basically concluded it was a guilty pleasure that's wrapped up to look like something good for you - kind of like candy that looks like seaweed wrapped around sushi, but is in fact chocolate mouse coated with sugar. I would agree)...
What followed however was as wonderful as it was unexpected. A show on NPR called "On Being" about Detroit's unlikely renaissance (which is not economically driven but instead human-driven - e.g., older African American women who emigrated from the South who call themselves the Gardening Angels urban gardening on abandoned lots, other folks rebuilding with the help of wounded vets and all manner of self-sustaining urban-green-organic type stuff...the focus of the show was a woman named Grace Lee Boggs, a 96 year old Chinese-American philosopher, daughter of immigrants, born in Providence, RI (where I was born, I'm proud to say!), who got her PhD in 1940 and went on to become a radical political figure along with her husband in Detroit. She became a big part of the African American struggle, which dovetailed into both feminism and socialism.
She spoke about Hegel and about negativity being the prerequisite for the positive, and how people have been finding ways to live in Detroit ever since the rebellion (her term) in the 1960s wherein many buildings were burnt down and led to white flight from the city. The report, Krista Tippett, said she was "surrounded by radiant people" who see her as an elder. Boggs was born in 1915, a year before both my grandmothers, one of whom was an activist feminist, so I pricked up my ears to listen closely to her.
After this radio show, I was inspired to go back to the Dick & Jani project, which may become a stage text...still not sure on that...and decided to write in a plausible but fictional account of Jani meeting this amazing Grace Lee Boggs. After having fun with that, I then went back to Dick (aka Betty) at the same time (1976) commenting on the Carol Burnett show and her ceaseless criticizing or complaining about all things great and small. This was deeply painful to write, as I lived with her for 2 years of this in the 1970s and was the focus of a lot of her deep frustration. However, I forced myself to continue writing through this pain, because this is what I hear everyone who writes memoirs or stuff about their family in semi-fictional contexts say: it's fucking painful. I don't know why/how/if I thought I got to jump over that bit, but I know from listening to Karr & Carr that that is impossible. I set myself a time to stop though, because I knew if I kept going, it would be just too much and I wouldn't get back to it. I also had to write through the ceaseless voice in my head saying "Who cares? Who the fuck cares? No one will want to read this! It's just depressing..." etc. Which when you think about the subject stands to reason, don't it?
The moral of the story is this: if I rest and do what I need to do for myself, I suddenly find myself with time and energy to burn, which translates into writing. Good to know.
The last few days, which included the two readings, also included some emotional upheavals, most of which were not directly related to the play - except inasmuch as the night after the first reading I was overcome by how lonely I felt, as I didn't have anyone to share the experience with when I got home. The first reading night was scary because, as per usual, we didn't have enough time, and I had also handed it over to a director and so had no control over what happened, like at all. Also, there was someone there from a pretty big deal theater, which added to the Fear. It went pretty well considering, but the Important Theater Person left before I could speak with her and I don't know what she thought...
We got some really good feedback that night (both positive and critical - but in a constructive way), and I was happy about all that, but was having my usual delayed-fear response on the way back home - like one of those cartoon/comedy routines where someone does something 'brave' and then is shaking after the confrontation is over...again, none of this is outside of my experience as a writer and/or director in the theater, but coming home alone, knowing the next day was B's birthday and I wouldn't be calling him because we're separated now, especially we had had shared our work with each other for 10 years, so the one person I would be talking to - either in person or on skype or whatever was not there, was quite hard. So, I watched dumb movies that made me cry...
The next day I went to a meeting and found myself crying for a long time on a friend's shoulder. She also came to the reading the second night, so I dubbed her my guardian angel for the day. It felt good to finally cry with someone after all my solo crying jags - to finally have my pain witnessed here in NYC. It was witnessed in London, but here it hasn't been as acute and I haven't known where to allow it out that felt safe. It's good to know that is gradually changing.
At that meeting someone said something very important, too, which is quite profound even though simple. She said "I discovered that it's important when you say no, to know what you're saying yes to" - in other words, when you say no, you open up a space where something else can live - whether it's time, energy, money, creativity, whatever. A no is not just a negative, it leads to a positive.
The Saturday reading, even though some audience was deterred by (gorgeous) snowstorm, was full of lovely folks, including, much to my surprise iconic 60s-activist writer Barbara Garson (most well-known play: MacBird!), who was generous in her response. I look forward to meeting with her soon as I am sure I have much to learn from her.
We had a very interesting after-show discussion on Saturday including a fellow from Occupy Wall Street's banking committee, who had worked on Wall Street. (Apparently in a few weeks they will be publishing a concept for a different kind of bank that "benefits the 99% rather than the 1%). He spoke quite eloquently of attempting to get out of the winner-loser dialectic and how to work with a more cooperative model. This shed some very interesting light on the play and the discussion.
The actors did an incredible job with only a few hours of rehearsal - making a staged reading seem like a very alive piece of theater. The actors were Marietta Hedges, Matt Higgins, Terry Runnell, Kevin Scott and Alyssa Simon. Kevin and Rik Walter (director) also managed to pull off a lot of technical stuff, which was way above and beyond the call of staged-reading duty.
As a writer, there is very little more moving than watching people work with passion and precision on words you have written. By the end of Saturday, when Matt (who was playing the role of "James" - the one who does not want to go "off script"), allowed for the full scale meltdown that is implied by the text, it was extraordinary. It made me want to cry, and I wrote the damn thing. In these moments, I know why I work in theater, because there is nothing like it. There is no moment watching a movie or reading or seeing a painting or even hearing/watching music when you can watch a human being connect with something in himself that connects with everyone in the room in a way that is that palpable and transformative. Those moments shift the air, allow spaces for some kind of rearrangement of molecules...and well a connection...There is an Allen Ginsberg quote I read on (of all things) Twitter the other day and retweeted (the 21st century version of praise) that somehow touches this - though he's talking about his desire in his writing: 'to recreate the syntax and measure of poor human prose and stand before you speechless and intelligent and shaking with shame'
something like that - except it's not prose but instead the soul of the person him or herself...
When I came back last night, therefore, I did not feel alone. Because there was that deeper connection - in the theater, in the meeting, at the diner afterwards with Marietta who made this all happen...
Can these moments change the world? Can anything? I don't know. I do love the sense of possibility though. Grace Lee Boggs raised the twin issues of necessity and possibility, saying that in the past political activists were only concerned with necessity, but now the idea of possibility is more important. She was saying "this is more subtle, more interesting...and allows for more imagination." She mentioned that Einstein felt that imagination was more important than knowledge.
So: let us get drunk on water (as Deleuze and Guattari suggest quoting Henry Miller) by beginning with a toast to possibility and imagination.
What followed however was as wonderful as it was unexpected. A show on NPR called "On Being" about Detroit's unlikely renaissance (which is not economically driven but instead human-driven - e.g., older African American women who emigrated from the South who call themselves the Gardening Angels urban gardening on abandoned lots, other folks rebuilding with the help of wounded vets and all manner of self-sustaining urban-green-organic type stuff...the focus of the show was a woman named Grace Lee Boggs, a 96 year old Chinese-American philosopher, daughter of immigrants, born in Providence, RI (where I was born, I'm proud to say!), who got her PhD in 1940 and went on to become a radical political figure along with her husband in Detroit. She became a big part of the African American struggle, which dovetailed into both feminism and socialism.
She spoke about Hegel and about negativity being the prerequisite for the positive, and how people have been finding ways to live in Detroit ever since the rebellion (her term) in the 1960s wherein many buildings were burnt down and led to white flight from the city. The report, Krista Tippett, said she was "surrounded by radiant people" who see her as an elder. Boggs was born in 1915, a year before both my grandmothers, one of whom was an activist feminist, so I pricked up my ears to listen closely to her.
After this radio show, I was inspired to go back to the Dick & Jani project, which may become a stage text...still not sure on that...and decided to write in a plausible but fictional account of Jani meeting this amazing Grace Lee Boggs. After having fun with that, I then went back to Dick (aka Betty) at the same time (1976) commenting on the Carol Burnett show and her ceaseless criticizing or complaining about all things great and small. This was deeply painful to write, as I lived with her for 2 years of this in the 1970s and was the focus of a lot of her deep frustration. However, I forced myself to continue writing through this pain, because this is what I hear everyone who writes memoirs or stuff about their family in semi-fictional contexts say: it's fucking painful. I don't know why/how/if I thought I got to jump over that bit, but I know from listening to Karr & Carr that that is impossible. I set myself a time to stop though, because I knew if I kept going, it would be just too much and I wouldn't get back to it. I also had to write through the ceaseless voice in my head saying "Who cares? Who the fuck cares? No one will want to read this! It's just depressing..." etc. Which when you think about the subject stands to reason, don't it?
The moral of the story is this: if I rest and do what I need to do for myself, I suddenly find myself with time and energy to burn, which translates into writing. Good to know.
The last few days, which included the two readings, also included some emotional upheavals, most of which were not directly related to the play - except inasmuch as the night after the first reading I was overcome by how lonely I felt, as I didn't have anyone to share the experience with when I got home. The first reading night was scary because, as per usual, we didn't have enough time, and I had also handed it over to a director and so had no control over what happened, like at all. Also, there was someone there from a pretty big deal theater, which added to the Fear. It went pretty well considering, but the Important Theater Person left before I could speak with her and I don't know what she thought...
We got some really good feedback that night (both positive and critical - but in a constructive way), and I was happy about all that, but was having my usual delayed-fear response on the way back home - like one of those cartoon/comedy routines where someone does something 'brave' and then is shaking after the confrontation is over...again, none of this is outside of my experience as a writer and/or director in the theater, but coming home alone, knowing the next day was B's birthday and I wouldn't be calling him because we're separated now, especially we had had shared our work with each other for 10 years, so the one person I would be talking to - either in person or on skype or whatever was not there, was quite hard. So, I watched dumb movies that made me cry...
The next day I went to a meeting and found myself crying for a long time on a friend's shoulder. She also came to the reading the second night, so I dubbed her my guardian angel for the day. It felt good to finally cry with someone after all my solo crying jags - to finally have my pain witnessed here in NYC. It was witnessed in London, but here it hasn't been as acute and I haven't known where to allow it out that felt safe. It's good to know that is gradually changing.
At that meeting someone said something very important, too, which is quite profound even though simple. She said "I discovered that it's important when you say no, to know what you're saying yes to" - in other words, when you say no, you open up a space where something else can live - whether it's time, energy, money, creativity, whatever. A no is not just a negative, it leads to a positive.
The Saturday reading, even though some audience was deterred by (gorgeous) snowstorm, was full of lovely folks, including, much to my surprise iconic 60s-activist writer Barbara Garson (most well-known play: MacBird!), who was generous in her response. I look forward to meeting with her soon as I am sure I have much to learn from her.
We had a very interesting after-show discussion on Saturday including a fellow from Occupy Wall Street's banking committee, who had worked on Wall Street. (Apparently in a few weeks they will be publishing a concept for a different kind of bank that "benefits the 99% rather than the 1%). He spoke quite eloquently of attempting to get out of the winner-loser dialectic and how to work with a more cooperative model. This shed some very interesting light on the play and the discussion.
The actors did an incredible job with only a few hours of rehearsal - making a staged reading seem like a very alive piece of theater. The actors were Marietta Hedges, Matt Higgins, Terry Runnell, Kevin Scott and Alyssa Simon. Kevin and Rik Walter (director) also managed to pull off a lot of technical stuff, which was way above and beyond the call of staged-reading duty.
As a writer, there is very little more moving than watching people work with passion and precision on words you have written. By the end of Saturday, when Matt (who was playing the role of "James" - the one who does not want to go "off script"), allowed for the full scale meltdown that is implied by the text, it was extraordinary. It made me want to cry, and I wrote the damn thing. In these moments, I know why I work in theater, because there is nothing like it. There is no moment watching a movie or reading or seeing a painting or even hearing/watching music when you can watch a human being connect with something in himself that connects with everyone in the room in a way that is that palpable and transformative. Those moments shift the air, allow spaces for some kind of rearrangement of molecules...and well a connection...There is an Allen Ginsberg quote I read on (of all things) Twitter the other day and retweeted (the 21st century version of praise) that somehow touches this - though he's talking about his desire in his writing: 'to recreate the syntax and measure of poor human prose and stand before you speechless and intelligent and shaking with shame'
something like that - except it's not prose but instead the soul of the person him or herself...
When I came back last night, therefore, I did not feel alone. Because there was that deeper connection - in the theater, in the meeting, at the diner afterwards with Marietta who made this all happen...
Can these moments change the world? Can anything? I don't know. I do love the sense of possibility though. Grace Lee Boggs raised the twin issues of necessity and possibility, saying that in the past political activists were only concerned with necessity, but now the idea of possibility is more important. She was saying "this is more subtle, more interesting...and allows for more imagination." She mentioned that Einstein felt that imagination was more important than knowledge.
So: let us get drunk on water (as Deleuze and Guattari suggest quoting Henry Miller) by beginning with a toast to possibility and imagination.
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