Friday, November 21, 2008
The First Snow, Yet Again
How often can a person who has lived 6 decades of life be astonished and relieved by a fresh coat of snow?
Perhaps it's because I have lived 60 years that my subtle happiness at seeing the first snows of Winter fills me with something like hope.....or makes me think of the freshly baked pie in a grandmother's kitchen...maybe it's because I've grown tired, really just tired of so much disappointment the world has to offer , that a fresh white untouched snowfall makes me believe in possibility again...that old thing about after the snows comes Spring.....after the longed-for sleep of Winter, maybe I'll feel like a fresh daffodil again one day...and like daffodils in the ground, maybe I'll have increased and naturalized onto a larger stretch of green meadow....
I am a fortunate person. I have known love from the very first day of my life, when a mother and father worshipped my very being....I have known men who love me, a career that has satisfied me, creativity that kindles me, and vision that makes me dream still...
But the world of men...the shabby world of poor, mistaken humans....the misery that sheer greed has created in the world today...thousands of jobs lost, stock markets at an historic low, people not only starving but having no means with which to go to doctors for their health, people losing their way, and our country committing to yet more years of a useless war in Iraq...it just baffles me...there is much I do not know about how the world works, and the newspapers are filled with nothing but varied points of view...no one really knows what motivates the decision makers to behave as they do...we assume they act in our best interests, but they probably do not...wouldn't it be swell if they did? Wouldn't it be really great for us all, if these dim, shadowy men (and a couple of women...God knows how they got there!) actually did care about what happens to this country instead of the welfare of the corporations that butter their bread...I have become cynical.
This past Presidential election raised my hopes of course - as it raised the hopes of so many - because for the first time in a while , it felt like our votes actually mattered! Barack Obama was elected : the first President of color in our country's history, and a man who looks like he's not stupid, a man who looks like he truly cares about others. And I re-iterate: a man who looks like he has a clue! Despite the Doomsday right -wing's belief, the Apocalypse seems postponed for a little while anyway....
However, day after day ( as this gentle white snow falls to wipe away our sins), the world picture gets bleeker.... the world seems more and more at its wits' end.
Sometimes, as I read the morning news, or listen to CNN, it seems like there are no more adults in the world anymore...no more parents who know better than we do...no more guides to our future. Because, finally, (I guess the inevitability of age) we realize we are the parents now...and, oops! We forgot to find out how to be good ones! We forgot to ask what to do when it became out turn! And so the world wags...children stumbling in the dark of a house where the light bill did not get paid on time.
The snow keeps falling. Hurry , Thanksgiving, and give us that pie-filled kitchen soon...and please, world, give us something to be astonishinged by! Thankful for... like, maybe, the ability to believe in and trust , at least for one more year? The reminder that excitement and anticipation could possibly yield wonderful things, not the grey disappointment of a failing world.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
The One Thing I Left Out
The one important thing I left out of that travelog in the last blog entry: there was an astonishingly gifted group of young actresses in that Festival I got lost on the way to, and the singular reason I'm glad i found my way: the girls from William Campbell High School did an amazing 30-minute version of Eve Ensler's THE GOOD BODY...and I am telling you , it made me weep with joy, it was so good.
(Of course, I could have been weeping because it was one of the rare moments in the day when I was not rushing to the Ladies Room to throw up...but no, I believe the goodness of the work these girls were doing made me weep with the recognition and relief that only wonderful live theater can make you feel...it was superb!)
Directed by the school Drama Teacher , Nannette Haga, who is to be commended for what she had led these young women to understand and achieve on the stage, this was a group of, oh, I'd say 12 girls , of color, strong-voiced, thoroughly focused and passionate about the language of the play....I mean these actresses ROCKED the stage and the audience went wild! THE GOOD BODY is an important play about women and how today's society treats women and their bodies....it is definitely a feminist piece , which of course, puts me right in their corner from the get-go...but the youngsters filled the play's promise with style, joy, anger, cleverness , refreshingly honest sexuality, energetic physicality...the whole ball of wax (as my mother used to say) !!! I was so moved! SO happy, even if sick to my stomach (no fault of theirs...if anything THE GOOD BODY actually brought me relief).
So: I honor the work these actresses and their brave director did on that High School stage last Saturday. Brava!
More to write....always more to write..
Monday, November 17, 2008
My Adventures in Falwell/Liberty University Land
Well...it's been a long time since writing.....odd, since writing is and has been such an important part of my life since I was 15 years old...but my life is not a free one these days...I work , it feels like , all the time and I am also constricted from writing freely of my life for many important reasons...suffice it to say: I plan to write huge amounts one day ...and when I absolutely need to write, now I will...and , as you see, I do...it's just that time gets away from me because of the concerns of our current life, but every so often, something does happen that forces me to stop (even if it is at 1:18 A.M. as it is right now) and ...well...talk about it in this form...and because I have gotten really used to typing everything out on a computer key board, my hand-written journals are suffering from a bit of neglect...but, I'll be remedying that too...in the not-too-distant future...and ,actually, I have been writing a bit in those journals as well...I love the sheer release of that...the feel of it.
I spent this last weekend as a judge at a regional High School theatre contest, several hours away in Gladys/Naruna ,Virginia...and, as ever, I was deeply moved and impressed by the sheer dedication of teachers and their wonderful students who love theater.
The need to do the work I have dedicated my entire life to doing...this need exists all over the place! In the weirdest, out-of-the-way places...and young people, filled with this need....to become actors, to get up in front of people and give of themselves in such a brave way...kids are filled with this odd and compelling urgency to do it, EVERYWHERE I go!!
So, there I was, as part of my Outreach initiative, my job, driving through the foggy dark night, 3 hours from home...three and a half...and, of course, because I am a dope with directions, no matter how clearly they are written...of course: I GOT LOST because I took the wrong turn! So before I knew it, I was totally in a bewildered state of mild despair as i looked at the road marker that said JERRY FALWELL HIGHWAY...I knew I wasn't in my particular Kansas anymore!
In fact, seeing this man's name on a road sign, as if marking the way to Heaven, made me laugh out loud...surely not....JERYY FALWELL HIGHWAY??? Yep...I was lost on it and my planned travel time to my Alta Vista,Virginia destination kept getting longer and longer...AND THEN...
A huge lighted area loomed before me, and sure of some help within, I drove toward it...heading for the light...please...the images of salvation are only natural here...since I was feeling drearily lost.
And - BOOM!!- suddenly I was firmly entrenched in the middle (I can only assume it was the middle it seemed so vast) of the campus of Fallwell's Liberty University! Acres and acres of young Christians, and not a helping hand in sight! Because they were all busily engaged in walking or jogging places, it was dark out and there were no gas stations to ask directions at!!!
Truly, every road I turned onto was more bewildering than the one I had just been on...the campus made no sense to me (do other peoples' campi ever make sense?) and the only thing I felt tentatively sure of was that I was driving around in larger and larger circles!! It was pretty sad and depressing....
FINALLY, somehow, the knot of my panic loosened and I got out of that brightly lit scary place - it seemed like a fever dream - and managed my way back onto a main highway (Jerry's again!) and eventually - and I do mean eventually (don't these people ever need gas???) found a Shell station.
I swear to God, the people there looked at me like I was some sort of idiot for not knowing where I was....they were barely helpful (I felt more and more like weeping and may have leaked a tear or two, in fact) and trekking backward whence I had come (I did NOT turn back into Liberty U!) I found the Alta Vista exit on 29 South and - rolled into the Holiday Inn parking lot an hour and a half later than planned.
More on the drama festival in a later entry...suffice it to say that a violent stomach virus attacked me mid-Festival (honestly...maybe I should have stayed at Liberty after all and let the angels take me away!), and the rest is a tale to tell....but I did make it home to Peter on Sunday and am still recuperating from the Road to Heaven mis-adventure!
I think "My Own Particular Kansas" is a good title for my biography, don't you?
