My Ventriloquist Year (2015 aka the Year of the Book)

So, as anyone who has been reading this blog knows, I finished a book I've been working on actively since 2011 and conceptually since January 2010 - when I found small boxes and envelopes of my grandmothers' photos and memorabilia from her early life at the bottom of a box under some metal object in my recently deceased father's impossibly disorganized storage locker in the inaptly named Citrus Heights, California. It was raining outside, it was January. He had just died. I was miserable. Then I found those photos and a whole other life of a woman I had only known as a fairly bitter, resentful person emerged. A young happy woman on the beach, clearly in love (in love?!) with my grandfather, in dresses she had made herself, in front of a tent she had erected in her backyard, with her best friend Helen in 11 year old flapper-inspired dresses on the second floor (of a house I discovered just this August - on Washington Avenue in Seymour, CT - the thrill of seeing this house - knowing the balcony was the one I had seen in a photo from 1927 - still there in 2015)...and the seed of a book idea was born...

But this year, 2015, is the year I set aside to complete a book that I had worked on actively in fits and starts since early 2011. Last New Year's Eve and a couple weeks earlier at Kripalu (a wonderful yoga retreat near Lenox, Mass), I had promised myself I would complete a draft of the book in 2015 - one good enough to begin sending out into the world.

By March I had a rough draft. By May I had revised that draft. By mid-August, I had edited that revision. Then I started sending it out. Right away. Which was probably a mistake. Would have been better to take a breath, but I had to turn around and teach right away and was somehow spooked that I would lose momentum.

I am now waiting for responses, from readers and agents.

I wrote a very long book. So, it takes time to read. I have received some responses so far, mostly positive, with some good constructive feedback, some of which is useful and some of which isn't. I wrote the whole book before showing it to anyone. I wanted - for once - to let myself create something on my own terms. As a theater person by nature and training, this felt very weird and at times downright uncomfortable, but I was determined to find a way to be the expert at my own writing. I am too damn codependent - also by nature - to not let others' ideas have too much sway, so wanted to know I was sending something that I Knew What it Was, before getting feedback, so the feedback could go through the filter of I-know-what-the-fuck-I-was-doing...rather than a more childish, "oh, wise one, please tell me what this is!"

OK, so I did all that. Woohoo. And I should probably take time to celebrate that, which to be honest I haven't really done.

But, what I also want to write about here is the cost of doing what I did. Of spending 8 months of a year focused so intensely on one thing, especially when that one thing involved inhabiting the hearts and souls of two women to whom one is related, but is not.

Regardless of subject matter, what it cost was:

My ability to be present to anyone else fully. Ever. As I said to anyone who even tried to be close to me at the time: I am at best 75% present right now. At best. Ask John. He lived with me. Imagine what fun That was. I had friends visit from Germany with whom I could barely hold a conversation, because I'd just come back from an intensive writing retreat in Vermont and my mind was entirely taken up with the book. I could at best send up flares of attention.

This meant of course I neglected friends, some of whom were in acute distress.  Am I happy or proud about this? Absolutely not. Could I have finished the book and been present to anyone at the same time? No.

I have never done anything like this except in much shorter intensities in the theater - anyone who makes performances knows the drill - 4 to 8 maybe even 12 weeks of intense working with others. Everyone and everything else takes a distant second place. Then the show goes up for another 4 or so weeks. In that time you've probably fallen in and out of love with everyone in the cast (emotional intensity is what I mean - not infidelity - in case you're wondering)...but the fact is because there Are Other People Involved, you don't realize what a selfish bastard you're being, because Everyone Else is Doing It, Too...and most of the people you hang out with do the same thing, etc.

The thing is - when you're writing a book - and this is the first time I've done so (my PhD was similar but not the same - I was able to telescope those time slots so it didn't seem quite so crazy, plus was with someone who traveled All the Time, so there wasn't any guilt there) - there is No One Else Involved. So, you're just stuck with the fact that you are sitting around - by yourself - working on a project.

I kind of had Dick and Jani (my grandmothers) with me, but they are ghosts, and so when I talked with people about talking to them, they looked at me funny. But they were my only companions. And because I wrote a book in their voices, I had to sink into their souls, as much as humanly possible.

Did I succeed?

I don't know.

Did I try and feel like I almost died trying?

Yes.

Is that melodramatic?

Maybe, but it is how it felt, so like whatever...it's my blog. Deal with it.

I now have so much respect for other people who write books all the time. It's a crazy thing to do. I also want to give a pro tip to anyone thinking of doing this: don't. Or if you do, write fiction. Being in the realm that I have been inhabiting between fiction and non-fiction is crazy-making. It may or may not be more true, but it can drive you close to mad.

OK, so that pretty much sums up the negative side of the ledger.

So, what did that cost 'buy' as it were?

Well, I discovered the camaraderie of other writers, when I joined Paragraph - a writing studio in Manhattan. While I am still crazy shy in those circumstances, when I could get out of my own idiotic way and talk with people, I usually felt a sense of solidarity. Every once in a while, someone was in a very different space, and I felt lonelier, but generally in the kitchen-zone where folks talk while drinking too much coffee and looking at each other nervously and/or printing out something they usually hate because it's Another Goddamn Imperfect Draft but also secretly hope will be genius so Something of This Insanity Will Be Worthwhile, I would have a conversation with someone that would give me courage to go on.

In the quiet writing studio, listening to others type away or hearing sighs, seeing furrowed brows when walking in or out, sometimes all the other writers' energy acted like a proverbial wind beneath my tired and bruised wings that kept me working a bit more that day...

Then at the writing retreat in Vermont, a delicious two weeks of solidarity with other writers, was fabulous, though because I was so focused on revising the draft, I didn't get to know folks as well as I wanted...but those I did, writers and artists, are still friends now and I hope always will be. Another retreat at my friend Marietta's place in NH was great, including being able to literally jump in a lake after a rough day wrestling with the editing, and finally where I finished, Wisdom House, in Litchfield, CT, where a labyrinth and a bunch of badass nuns kept me company, and another solo artist working, Lisa, and some silent retreaters and some women geologists and other fabulous people. My gift upon finishing was a ride back to the train with cousin Patti, who gave me a photo of my long-lost great-grandmother, Rosa, who died in the influenza epidemic in 1918...and the next book subject, of course. I had never seen her face and cried when I did. She was beautiful, old world (she came from Hungary or Lithuania through Ellis Island at 18 years old alone) and she was holding a book. I think she was probably Jewish, but that's another story...the next one.

But the other thing that happened, which is the hardest to write about, is the pain and beauty of sitting inside my grandmothers' lives, contemplating the inconceivable, such as: living through World War II, learning your brother had died in the Pacific because of a Kamikaze pilot but there was no body because he was incinerated, or finding out about Concentration Camps from your husband who helped liberate Dachau and had photos, or your husband works on the Manhattan Project as a secretary so you know what happened in Hiroshima, for real. All while being home, living on rations, moving from place to place, Not Knowing Who Would Win (during the war)...and before that, living through the Depression, all the fear and poverty - in both cases, their families losing so much, but also a sense of solidarity that each would miss in their own ways as they got older...Then the 1950s, when everyone drank themselves to death to forget the former...the 1960s when everything changed and one grandmother ran to embrace that change and the other shrank from it, horrified...the 1970s when one grandmother left her last, third husband and moved in with her activist son in Milwaukee roaring as a newly-minted feminist - terrifying young children in her path, breathing alcohol and cigar smoke - a heroine to so many, so broken and yet shiny, charismatic, and in all ways: incredible. The other grandmother, as usual, picking up the pieces, taking care of me as everyone else had their 70s moments...grumbling, not happy, hating the music, the clothes, the Whole Thing of it...

Realizing, when considering their childhoods that they grew up without radio until the 1920s, so households would have had to create their own entertainment. Make their own music, read the news...etc. A time, I conjecture, of much More imagination, because there is no such thing as being a passive consumer of culture....But also before women could vote.

All of this, I got to live, in my own imperfect way - and at times being sure I was failing miserably - feeling through the 20th Century...way back further than I lived, trying my damnedest to get beneath all the family legends and ways of seeing - so as to extract something like what May have been their lived experience.

What preceded these 8 months, by the way, was many years of research and many false starts. Much of the rough draft in March was upended, or just shelved.

In the end, I have a really long book, perhaps too long, but believe it or don't, this is the Pared Down Version. Maybe it needs to be split up, I don't know. I am glad of the new Long Book Trend that seems to have emerged. My theory is that we're all getting sick of Tweet length insights and want to just luxuriate in worlds for a while. Some people say it might be because of the long TV series trend of such multi-year epics like Sopranos, et al. Maybe so. But for whatever reason, I like to think - hope - there are readers out there who would like to take the time to live in the worlds of these two very different women making their ways through the 20th Century...we'll see.

So, was it worth it?

I don't know if that's totally my call - at least not in terms of the quality of the book.

As for me, as I am writing this now, I think maybe, yes. Because for all my necessary selfishness in getting it done, I did finish the thing...and in so doing, unearthed a lot of my own delusions about my grandmothers, and therefore many family truisms/delusions, and therefore my own delusions about - well - me. So, in this way, it was - as a friend of mine who I trust implicitly keeps insisting - a spiritual exercise.

The last few months, aside from haphazard attempts at getting in touch with agents, etc., I also started writing again - will it be a book or is it just random journal-like stuff? I don't know. I called the project with no discernible form 'Touching Ground.'

I needed to find myself again. Who am I? Who am I now? Have I changed?

I'm still figuring that out.

I also taught some classes, which was probably good to get me out of myself but was also exhausting.  If had had any money left, I would have taken these months off, but such was not my fate. Some of my students are writing better now than they were when we met. When that happens, I feel my time as a teacher is not worthless. But because I am a codependent whack job (as mentioned earlier), it's hard to teach without getting way too caught up in their lives, etc.

Last year around this time I wrote a blog post about the politics of the US. I am not doing that in this post. I tend to do that kind of thing on the dreaded Facebook now (another story - see last post). But, I spent this past year immersed in the politics of this country for the past 100 years. I emerge from two strains, one grandmother of the dyed in the wool Democrat-variety. She would be a full-throated Hillary Clinton supporter now, I'm fairly certain. She would be furious with me for supporting Sanders, or maybe not. She was always surprising. The other strain is the GOP-loving side. Some of them now believe Sarah Palin gets a raw deal, etc. My grandmother, Dick, defended Nixon to the bitter end. I lived with her during Watergate. "He just got caught," she would say. "They are All criminals." We lived then in South Yarmouth, next to the Hyannisport Kennedy compound. Anyone who cut her off on the road was "one of those damn Kennedy kids, who do they think they are?" etc.

So, I feel I was born and raised into all of this whacko country. I lived in most all socio-economic backgrounds (in many places, however, all primarily within the Northeast and primarily white). Unlike many, I don't have one playbook I heard growing up, instead many contradictory ones. All of these people are now in my life again. After much shame over the GOP branch, I reached out, to find where Dick came from, and while I don't agree with it, I certainly understand it better. I also flirted with that world when I was younger (as in 11-14 years old), so I get it. I made myself into a born-again Christian, the works. That horrified Dick, just FYI. That was going Too Far...She and my grandfather had worked so hard to get out of the lower middle class, so my Baptist tendencies scared her - way too low rent. As the old joke goes: Baptists are Methodists without shoes...

I just finished reading Elena Ferrante's brilliant Neopolitan novels. Her incisive writing about both class and gender made me incredibly happy. I can't say as I managed the feat she did, but I certainly did my best. I recognize in her a soul sister. Her books reminded me of the first novel I tried to write but didn't finish in the early 1990s - about working class Connecticut - not the pretty version (similar to her version of Italy, which as one reviewer said is "more like Cleveland"). I see now, as Ferrante has written her masterpiece while in her 60s, that I was probably too young to do what I hoped to do. Maybe I will return there.

I love authors - and all types of artists - who try to write and create on giant canvasses, who risk failure and go ahead anyway. I have spent my life doing this in one way or the other. How many times have I succeeded? How many times failed? Hard to keep track. But the trying is all.

In a prose poem by David Whyte, when he writes in relation to Jacob wrestling with his angel, he quotes Rilke: "Winning does not temping that man. This is how he grows, by being defeated decisively, by greater and greater beings."

I hope, pray, that the byproduct of this 'growth', the book is worthwhile to more than just me, of course, but there is the inevitable defeat involved in reaching past one's abilities and comfort zones, which I had to risk for this book.

And that, my dear blog readers, has been my year.

A Facebook Inspired Rant

Why am I not in Hudson celebrating New Year's with all my arty, wonderful friends? Why don't I have a big, beautiful apartment? Why hasn't my book been published yet? Why do I not have a glamorous profile picture? Why have I not kept up my theater work this past year? What is Wrong with Me? What have you Done All Year???

etc.

These are the reasons that Facebook can be dangerous. Looking at FB when I am tired or recovering from illness, as I am now, can become an exercise in compare and despair squared.

I decided to write here to remind myself that I exist and am not a product or composite of social media 'profiling'...

So.

To answer to above questions, while off Facebook (which has a direct feed into the worst part of my brain):

1. I am exhausted and decided to spend New Year's Eve here at home, reprising best celebration ever last year, which was meditating with a few friends, including my beloved.

2. I don't have enough money, because I decided to use any and all funds to finish writing a book.

3. I just finished the book in August after five years of work.

4. I just don't.

5. I spent the year finishing the book.

6. Nothing.

7.:

The Amazing True Imaginary Autobiography of Dick & Jani

The end.

Thank you all those who made writing Dick and Jani possible!

So, it's Christmas Eve and a time to think of the light that follows the dark and all that fun stuff. As I have been nattering on social media recently, tonight marks a holiday that celebrates a pregnant woman who no one would let in their house, so she gave birth amongst farm animals to an spirtitual-anarchist-nomad.

How this became a religion is beyond me, but I digress...

So, what I want to say is THANK YOU to everyone who has supported the writing of The Amazing True Imaginary Autobiography of Dick and Jani! The list below mentions those who contributed money and/or time, and includes in spirit all the anonymous donors as well.

As most of you know, I did finish writing the revised draft of the book in August. Hooray! I am still waiting to hear back from the agent who expressed the most interest, and also seeking other agents. The book was long-listed for a prize in UK but was not short listed. I have read excerpts a couple times in NYC at KGB Bar and in Bruce's Garden uptown in Inwood, also read some for the first time ever at Vermont Studio Center, which was an incredibly affirming experience. So, I am in the hallway, waiting for that next door to open, but with a completed book rather than a pipe dream, and for that I am extremely grateful.

Without all the people below, I would not have had the dedicated time to complete the book, and I cannot express enough gratitude to you. Some people listed offered time (reading or helping with crowd funding campaign), and all the help has been invaluable. If your name is not listed below, that is because you marked anonymous on your contribution. If you want to change that at any time, get in touch and you will be added.

So, here's the honor roll of gorgeous, talented and generous folks, including the good people at Vermont Studio Center and Wisdom House who offered me residencies this summer (and Marietta who had me at her other cabin in New Hampshire on the lake) and Paragraph Writer's Studio for allowing me into your sanctuary in NYC. You are all fabulous!

John Barclay-Morton, Allan Bilsky, Alison Blunt, Julie Clark Boak, Christoph Bolten, Ellen Boscov, Zoe Bouras, Jenny Boylan, Melinda Buckley, Glenda Burgess, Christine Campbell, Joanna Caldas, Francelle Carapetyan, Mark Cassidy & Suzanne Hersh, Sabrina Colie, Wendy Coyle, Jay Davidson, Lisa Dierbeck, Michael DiGioia, Peter Felsenthal, Robyn Flemming, Kathy Franklin, Dana Leslie Goldstein, Kélina Gotman, Susan Greenfield, Carle Groome, Marietta Hedges, Renata Hinrichs, Julia Hough, Christian Huygen, David Irons, Bill Jose, Judy Kamilhor, Jeffrey A Lewonczyk, Jennifer Litchfield, Jana Llewellyn, Timothy Lone, Amy Loomis, Alyson Lounsbury, Sarah Lowengard, Amy Ludwig, Pam MacLean, Rachel Malbin, Jane Marcellus, Dave Maine, Carol Martin, Carmel McMahon, Susan Meeker, Sharon Miller, Glenn Mitchell, Becky Mode, Katherine & Peter Myles, Veronica Needa, Paragraph Writer's Space, Nicole Poole, Steve Potter, Susan E. Purdy Pelosi, Nina Roberts, Karen Rush Rizzo, William Roetzheim, Tamara Rogers, Jonathan Salisbury, Nic Sammond, Amy L Sanders, Peter Schmidt, Robin Schmidt, Michael Steven Schultz, Rajni Shah & Theron Schmidt, Hasan Anil Sepetçi, Luis Sotelo, Malin Stahl, Carol Lynn Tabas, E Jill & James Tobak, Mario Veenstra, Vermont Studio Center, Sallyanne Wood, Frances Wooding, Wisdom House and all the Anonymous Donors!

Also want to thank other people not on this particular list for being generally supportive in so many ways all year, including attending readings, listen to me bitch, moan and celebrate as it went along. The list is too long, but I trust you know who you are.

Apparently, it takes a village to write a book. Thank you for being part of this village.

If you would like to join this amazing group of people (or just want to know more about the book), you can always check it out here: The Amazing True Imaginary Autobiography of Dick and Jani 

Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy the holiday season even if you are a pagan like me. Don't let religions get you down, enjoy the festivals of light and the excuse to be generous and kind to those you love...and even those you don't (extra credit for that!)

My beloved Canadian and I are spending the holidays together, pretty low key, and that is nice. A tad melancholy for Christmases past with those who are no longer with us, or friends and family not living nearby, but overall grateful for our little patch...and the wonderful friends with whom we are spending time throughout this season.

Just some beauty to remember so we aren't only focused on the ugly...Inwood Hill Park Oct-Nov 2015

A gorgeous autumn in Inwood Hill Park - Oct-Nov 2015...that is all...

Somewhere in Transition between Fuck this Shit and We need a Bigger Table

OK, so I'm having some kind of on the verge of tears PTSD type response to the Paris attacks. As someone who was in NYC on 9/11 and in London on 7/7, that is to be expected. Perhaps it is unwise to write a blog post under such conditions, but as the above-titled blog posts says: Fuck this shit.

What do I mean by that? Well, this refers to killing of lots of people for some mythology of gain or vengeance. This is something both 'sides' have been doing for like a while, and no one takes any responsibility for harm inflicted on other side. So yeah, fuck this shit. If you know anything about my politics, and if you're reading this presumably you do, you know I am not Islamaphobic or any other kind of phobic and that I mean by this includes our officially sanctioned drone strikes, et al. I mean Anything and Any way in which we kill lots of people as if that will change fuck all. Which it won't. It won't. It won't. Never has. Never will. Sometimes some people declare victory and other people surrender and power shifts, but the nature of that power? Any change? I don't think so.

So fuck this shit.

And my proactive more 'balanced' idea: We need a bigger motherfucking table!

What, you may ask does that have to do with anything?

Well, in my pea-sized brain, it has a lot to do with everything...namely, who tends to erupt in violence of the type we have witnessed in Paris yesterday - my beloved Paris about which I can't even think or write without weeping - or in Beirut the day before - about which others feel the same way I do about Paris and are now weeping - well, I think the people that do this tend to feel as if they Have No Place at the Table.

And they are right.

They don't.

This is equally true, I might add - and to prove this isn't about me just being a left wing nut - about far right positions, too. In general there is a neo-liberal capitalist consensus that revolves around a few folks making a shit ton of money, some countries where some people benefit, and fuck everyone else.  And if anyone else complains, they are sanctioned, either economically or overtly violently repressed.

As Ghandi said poverty is the greatest form of violence, and he's right...and if you want the more pomo version of same read Zizek on systemic violence. I will spare you that, but it's a good analysis.

In other words, what we are seeing is not the disease, it's a symptom of a larger, much more pervasive disease...and just as in Northern Ireland, if there is no addressing of the whole problem, the 'terrorism' will continue...both the kind we agree is terrorism and the more state sanctioned terrorism that we call defense because we're on a certain 'side' of the equation.

In London during the 'troubles' the Sinn Fein leaders were not allowed to be heard speaking in the media. Even if they were shown on the television, an actor said their 'lines.' No shit. Talk about no place at the table.

Now, we (by we here I mean broadly Western-capitalist nations) hear about people saying Allu Akhbar or whatever and all hell breaks loose. Do we even know someone said this? Maybe yes, maybe no...is that plus gunning down people systematically representative of all Muslims? I think we can safely say not, unless everyone among you who calls yourself Christian is willing to be defined by fundamentalists who kill people for not being white and Christian enough, etc...then fine, but I doubt that's the case, so give a thought to your average not violent Muslim. Please.

Because if we don't do that, this shit is never gonna end. I am also not going to go on an endless Middle East politics rant going back to WWI (which is the only way to actually understand this, but you can look it up or you may very well know the whole story, too - in either case, I don't need to be the "enlightener" there). However, the fact is, there are reasons for this, it's not out of nowhere and if we keep treating this like it's a fucking Star Wars movie with Muslims as Darth Vader or whatever, we ain't gettin' nowhere fast, except More of This Shit.

And I am sick of this shit.

I am sick of seeing people killed in the middle of their day - here in NYC, in London, in Paris, in Beirut, in Gaza, in Tel Aviv, in Mosul, in Kabul, in Lahore, in Bangalore, in Mumbai, in Jakarta, in Ubud...on the streets of cities in the US by police or in churches by white supremacists...or in a fucking elementary school.

What, you say, how does that relate?

Well, to me, that goes back to the place at the table...meaning, we are all at different tables now and it's too fucking easy to dehumanize an Other that way. I won't go into the whole history of racism in U.S., because people wiser than I have done so, but it causes what we see, plus classism. See Angela Davis Women, Race & Class for excellent analysis of this...

Speaking of which don't even get me started about domestic violence, rape and the like...that's some deep dark shit that's been going on for Millennia, but that shit is So pervasive, for the most part we women harm ourselves way before we lash out at anyone else. Fun times.

Then there's the economic violence...that has led to the suicides and overdoses in people of my generation, left out of the great - non-existent for most - prosperity...etc etc..

So, this Table I'm talking about, it also has to like Serve Food, too. Because people are starving in so many ways.

Oil got us into the mess we see unfolding in NYC, London, Paris, Beirut et all...or should I say oil profits. As long as we see life and ourselves only or primarily as a sum of profits and losses, we are well and truly fucked. This stellar logic has also brought us global climate change.

All this relates.

A few profit off of very many. OK, we know this. But it matters because of the logic that perpetuates that profit and the resentment of people being left out AND - and this is where the table comes into play, too, some people want to hold onto something sacred that Isn't Fucking Money...

And sometimes, that means religion...and sometimes that religion - or idea or art or ethics or Something Else - can matter more to someone than money...and frankly in this world, we can't even hear that as a reality. We can only hear it as a campaign slogan and the most visible culture ices that point of view out...leaving people struggling in subcultures that can thrive in moments of economic and political distress and lead to violence...

Which is usually fought by bigger, badder violence with all the fun weaponry that we (in the US primarily) pony up for to create (so that people like Dick Cheney and friends reap all those profits in their privately help companies like Halliburton). Yay!

Reagan managed to marry capitalism with Calvinism to create an unholy alliance that has not let go of its grip. But there are other people who don't see it that way...and those people do not have a place at the Table.

There are also people who might not take kindly to their land being taken away by larger forces (like oh say the founding of our country for example...or the way England and France and US divided up the spoils of Middle Eastern oil protectorates after WWI, for another example relevant to the place we find ourselves now). None of these people have a place at the table.

So, either we Make a Bigger Table - preferably round - and find a way to allow the cacophony of voices to be heard...to find a way to listen and learn and somehow figure out a way to distribute resources - and the way we talk to ourselves about who is on the planet and deserves a voice - in a way that makes even a tiny semblance of sense...or we can look forward to these moments on the news, or in our city, for many years to come...followed by more surveillance, less personal freedom and a world of fear.

And you know what: fuck that shit. That is not the world I want to live in. Do you?

I'm Still Here & More Good News!

Apologies for falling off the map, but it's been a crazy transition into the school year, plus some wonderful news, which was The Amazing True Imaginary Autobiography of Dick and Jani was long listed for Mslexia, a fiction prize in the UK! This was based on the opening pages of the book, so, I had to format the manuscript, look it over for some final edits and add in some photos to send to them for the short-listing process. I just sent this book off on Monday night and it took whatever last little bit of energy I had left.

I have since taken some time off, but still am teaching, so it's not time off precisely, just not trying to teach and write at the same time, which I find very hard.

More later when my brain and body returns, but did want to share the good news.

The autumn here is lovely. Some pix will be posted soon, too!

Good news, anniversary and Maine...

Some good news!

My story The God Thing was nominated by its publisher Stockholm Review of Literature for a Sundress Best of the Net 2015 award. That was quite a pleasant surprise and will hopefully help in the agent/publisher hunt ongoing for The Book.

Am in Maine now, enjoying a few days off with John, celebrating our one year wedding ceremony anniversary, and my mother's birthday - belated. October light in Maine is spectacular. I forgot. Haven't been here in Maine in I don't know how long.

Still unreeling from writing the book. Had a lovely reading at KGB Bar - wonderful response from the audience that included friends of mine from parts of my life ranging from the 1980s to now - always a great feeling. Here's a photo of me with my fellow readers from Paragraph, Sarah Wetzel (gorgeous poet) and Kiri Milburn (at work on very moving novel):

Sarah, me, Kiri at KGB on Sept. 25, 2015 - great night -
photo by my love,  John Barclay-Morton

I'm writing this in cafe in Brunswick, Maine - Little Dog. Hence the choppiness, but it's also the only time I've had in ages to write here, so trying to steal this moment to do so.

So, post-book, I'm mostly breathing but also having lots of ideas for possible plays and books and wanting to get started on those. Because I had to do quick turn around to teach haven't had a chance to begin that work yet, so feel terribly guilty about that but also out of sorts. Without a creative project on the go, I can feel bereft. On the other hand, I know I have a 'baking period' - and that is happening now. I am not at a computer or notebook writing but my ideas are percolating. Given how much I had to push myself to get the book done, I think a month or so without active writing is probably OK.

Also beginning to dip toe in tiny ways back into theater world. I want to do that mindfully for many reasons.

What I've realized is that the few years off I've had from theater for the most part has given me a chance to survey more carefully the NYC performance scene and consider where I may fit in best. Because NYC grows in dog years, having been away for 8 years means when I returned in 2011 everything had changed. At first I found that disorienting and disturbing, but now I see the possibilities in carefully returning to places and people that may be better fits with where I am now...Have been meeting people these past couple of years who feel as if they would be good collaborators. I am surprised by how much I have changed in many ways. That doesn't mean there aren't people who I've worked with before I don't want to work with now - not at all - it's more about the whole thing - the how, where, why, when of it...and how that can manifest. This probably all sounds hopelessly vague, so the short-form version is: feeling it out slowly...

But for now, for now, enjoying the autumn light, the ocean at Pemaquid Point, the changing leaves and visiting with people I haven't seen in a while is enough - is more than enough. I have some pictures from the ocean on my phone but am on computer here so will post later.

Meanwhile, here's a photo of milkweed on Rock Schoolhouse Road from yesterday, in front of where my mother and Tom used to live. Haven't been back there since 2004. A beautiful place they kept lovingly from 1993-2005 when they had to move. For practical reasons, Brunswick is best, but it's melancholy to see such a gorgeous place they had loved so much. Life-the fucker-the whirligig-the magic show-she never sits still.

Milkweed on Rock Schoolhouse Road, Bristol, Maine, Oct 2015

I could go on about the state of politics, etc. in the US, but will spare you that. Other than one quick observation: I have hope for the Bernie Sanders movement. I do not know how deep and broad it is, but glad to know it exists at all. The garish, loud stuff is all about the GOP and the crazies, but there seems to be a much quieter, more persistent movement for real change. Am I dreaming? Could be. Am I hopeful for the first time in many years? Yes. We'll see.