Chance = Change

The luxury of these times - afforded by the sheer fact that I am not a full-time member of our Acting Company, but rather a sort of "visiting artist" doing one show a year at this point , amidst my busy Outrach schedule-(this summer it's a sequel to FIRST BAPTIST OF IVY GAP called SHOWTIME AT FIRST BAPTIST, by the lovely Ron Osborne)...anyway, back to the luxury of these times: to be able to sit with my dearest husband in this spacious and comfortable living room of our rented home here in Virginia and look out the large picture window into the lovely front yard: the amazing treasure of trees (a flowering cherry, a crabapple, a weeping cherry and a redbud - all in one rather compact yard)...and two of them are freshly budding, like two young girls on the verge...freshly and enticingly bursting forth with fluffy white and sweetly pink-white blossoms, so that their limbs do indeed look like they are covered in kernels of freshly popped corn! Wandering among those blossoming limbs are the luminescent limbs and spiny fingers of a darker pink weeping cherry, so the "popcorn" is infused with vague images of lacy strings of shiny bark fuzzed in soon-to-bloom pink flowers....and the copper birdfeeder hangs from that profusion.

The Avian Café has early-opened its doors and the seed is going at a rapid rate...Springtime is the most extravagant gift of all in my life right now...and as I walked the dogs early this morning, I was thankful for it. Because it is an eternal truth: we like to re-new our lives whenever we possibly can...wash off the dirt of yesterday and re-approach the world with a shiny expectant and hopeful face. That's what this morning felt like. That's why we drink coffee!!

The Big Read of 2009 is over and done....last evening was the final event: Teen Poetry Night at Zazzy'Z: students poetic responses to reading THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER...and we received almost 30 new poems from gifted students...and 6 pieces of book cover art as part of a Big Read Art Contest...almost 60 people stuffed into Zazzy"Z small coffee space and it was a rapt, respectful and warm audience made up of teens, parents, teachers and local poets, and I must say, it was impressive. Another eternal truth: as much as people wish to be heard? As many wish to listen. And that is a reassuring thing.

Sometimes, drowning in times when it feels like no one is listening? It's good to be reminded that there are people who hear and want to. Last night was that for me: another reminder. In fact, if I were to summarize the entire Big Read experience of the last 6 months of planning and executing those plans. I'd say it was the mindfulness of it all: the remind-fulness that people do care, that they do hear, that they do read, that they do wish to gather and experience life with others....and not just by buying tickets to see someting or watching TV over shared bowls of popcorn with family (all good things)......but by being in rooms where conversation can happen with strangers, and where lightbulbs go off above peoples' heads as real ideas are shared! Last night, those figurative lightbulbs were turned on all over that packed and crowded room. What a pleasure...and this was afforded us all by the efforts of 27 teenagers who had the courage to write abut what they felt! Bravo to them all. And thank you.

It's that thing that Nature does to me - like a powerful drug causing an instant peek behind the curtain that usually obscures everything - the thing that cracks solid granite boulders so that small green growing things, or tiny red mountain blossoms force the granite to move over to make room for them....it's that force of Nature thing...and it is called a "force" because it is...yes...well.. it is probably The most forceful energy on our planet.

Our backyard terraced garden is insisting on gently tearing through its messy, overgrown hairy shroud of Winter, showing off its tiny patches of tender pink ..green and soft risks ....because is it really time yet? Are any of us really sure if it is EVER time for growth? SNOWS MAY YET COME.

I am mesmerized by the sudden insistent appearance ...the soft but noisy bursting through...the demands that a garden silently verbalizes every day of a new Spring season:..."wake up" and ":see this?"..."here! take that you stolid human!" "When was the last time YOUR were this brave?" and of course the eternal: "Have you EVER been this gorgeous in YOUR life???"

I think I can safely say that I have NEVER BEEN AS BEAUTIFUL as that tree outside my home office window, which looks like it has just popped fresh corn all over its branch's...large fluffy puffs of curvy stuff, with the slightest possible tinge of pink infesting each branch with prettiness and femininity and froth...the tree effortlessly allows these pink puffs to enter through its dark bark and show the world it is a tree of a different color! Just when you thought it was a dead thing, it shocks into life again.

I am drunk with this day of warm, bird-singing early Spring vitality...and in a world where peoples' lives are snuffed out by casual accident, stupidity kills needlessly, and hatreds strut about with self-importance, it is good ( it is essential ) to be reminded of what is realler that all that....or if not realler, then at least righter.

In a world where tragedies are unstoppable it's good to know that beauty cannot be stopped either. For that alone, today makes me weep with relief.

THe National Endowment for the Arts found out a few years ago that the level of adult reading in this country had declined significantly, so, at the urging of our then First Lady Laura Bush - who is a professional librarian by trade - they started the national initiative called THe Big Read. Communities all around American simply had to choose a book from the Big Read list of American classic novels - for 2009 we chose The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers - apply for the grant money with proposals for community events based on the novel to celebrate it and its author and, once granted, carry out those activities as proposed , throughout the community.

For a 2nd year, our theatre teamed up with the Washington County Public Library and we were given The Big Read grant. Two years ago, while I was still in NYC, Washington County was a Big Read community for the 1st time, with the book Farenheit 451, and when I heard about this initiative, I became immediately interested...so, when it was put on my Outreach desk for 2009, I began to plan immediately for what we could possibly do to make it fun and exciting. As i look back over all my files - I began working on this Big Read at least 6 months ago - it amazes me how much of the original planning came to fruition, based on some of my earliest ideas. It also amazes me how many small steps it takes to accomplish one giant step....amazing.

THe activities - starting with the official Big Read Kick-Off on February 11th of this year - have been wonderfully attended, and obviously enjoyed, and by all standards, this Big Read has been highly successful, thanks to so many people. The Feb.11th Kick-Off took place at The Barter Café from 6:30 pm -8:30 pm, yet the over 160 people who showed up to fill the Café and Stage II , despite dire warnings of an impending tornado that evening! - seemed reluctant to leave at 8:30 because they were having so much fun! ANd I have to admit, it was a pretty fun event!

Outside Stage II, at a series of cleverly placed tables (thanks to the help of the wonderful Book CLub women of Washington County, whose floorplan for the tables worked terrifically), all sorts of fun and informational activities took place: Library and Big Read information handed out , the tattoo hearts applied free to all by the Washington County Rotary Club, (a popular and fun table), Book Clubs of Washington County had a table filled with their histories as Book Club and info on how to join or start a club, A Books-In-The -Wild table, explaining that program, an entire corner of the Café called The Deaf Awareness Corner, set up by the wonderful Jannette Gaines and Karisha Little from Jonesboro, taught peple about what it was like to be a Deaf person in the world (two of the main characters in our chosen novel are Deaf), and that was an amazing thing filled with small tables of activities and free give-aways, pins, sheets on sign language, etc. In fact, every table had things to give away to folks, and so I had this idea:

I ordered 125 brown paper shopping bags with sturdy handles, and with the help of Ann J, her daughter Rachel and new friend Mary Dudley, and my trusty stash of colored pens and pentels gathered throughout he years, we decorated all those nags with original and colorful logos: THE BIG READ OF WASHINGTON COUNTY 2009 - on both sides of the bag! So people were immediately handed a shopping bag (filled with official Big Read schedules, and McCUllers Mini-FIlm Fest Schedules and ADJOINING TRANCES discount coupons,etc) and set free to roam the tables in the festive and Carson McCullers-decorated Café!! THe Book Club Ladies baked over 20 dozen cookies to give away all over the Café and we supplied free punch and cocoa! The place was soon buzzing and crowded...I tremble to think if that weather had been good how we would have fit more people into the place!

Meanwhile - inside Stage II - students from King College and Emory & Henry read aloud portions of our chosen novel while a string quartet from Symphony of the Mountains (who contributed their services, thank you very much!) played lovely string quartets mentioned in the novel, between the readings...and those doors were open all evening for people to roam freely in and out of as they wished to. The audience was constantly full. As was the Cafe at all times, so, there was no where else to put people!!
THe Big Read Kick-Off turned out better than I ever imagined it would. And we were off and running!

More on what happened next - soon to come!

THis morning - 7:00 a.m. - shot straight up from my pillow and knew that today would be a day of writing...knew that today would be the day that I would have the need and will to catch up on the things that wanted writing down....knew that my life had become so full, that to pour it out onto a page was the thing needed, rather like doing the laundry, so there'll be clean things to wear...I knew that the soft and comfortable corner of our brown leather sofa in the living room - the corner that looks right out on The Avian Café in our front yard, where the trees are beginning to show small and barely discernible signs of a budding Spring - I knew that that is where I will be spending most of this day: writing.

Rick W. - a friend from Canada whose writing I admire - commented the other day that it's been a long while since last I posted anything new on the blog - a small reminder that someone at least , some one person is watching, reading and caring enough to do so. Why am I always so surprised when someone reminds me they are reading me?
BUT ON THE OTHER HAND: it's good to be reminded of WHY I write....why WE write.

We write because we wish to be READ.

And now, after getting to know the community I am currently residing in much better -thanks to my constant work on The Big Read in this community for the past half a year , I HAVE gotten to know this wonderful Abingdon / Washington County community better! And I'm so grateful for that.

Because not only have I met some of the most interesting and marvelous people ever , but I have been reminded of something I have probably always "intuited" : we are all in this life together, and WE WANT TO BE READ...WE WANT TO BE KNOWN! All of us...not just those of us who talk too much, or feel comfortable letting our thoughts out in public, but ALL of us want at least someone to know us...know our innermost selves...AND WE ALL WANT IT.

Sorry - for those who think that disappearing into a private cave all alone is paramount - come out, come out, wherever you area; YOU want to be seen and known as well, even if it's only by that one person residing in your brain you think is only you....SO, as a result: people write. Or people scrawl with rocks on the walls of whatever cave houses them: they draw pictures of horses or count the days of their lives....for future generations to discover....in order to prove that they existed at all.

And writing is not the only way people let themselves be know, of course.....every single one of us keeps a personal blog in one form or another: some write as naturally as breathing.....others draw or paint their lives....others choreograph their being onto others' bodies to be read by audiences of relative strangers....some drink too much and publish their innermost lives on a bar stool somewhere in the dark of night...some people attend meetings, or lectures and sit mysteriously in a corner for all to wonder about....others simply live their lives, drink their morning coffee and get to work on time, hoping someone will notice : that personal hoping is their daily blog entry because it communicates as clearly as the written word if someone is open to "reading" that quiet person and noticing the soft acts of creation going on every moment that person silently breathes in their daily cubicle.

The Big Read taught me that every one is a book.
Waiting and wanting to be read. Life is just one enormous public library. Volumes and volumes line the walls.