Saturday, April 30, 2011
#6 Momma Letter: Itching and Scratching on Lombard Street
Friday, April 29th, 2011
San Francisco
Hi Momma-
Another gorgeous, shining cool and crystal clear San Francisco day, and as I sit here at my writing table overlooking Lombard Street, my little dog Cyrano is whining because he has flea bites and wants me to help him scratch them! Yes, fleas!
We’ve not noticed any hopping around the apartment, but no doubt, on our walks though the gorgeous terrain of the Marin headlands and the vast stretches of the doggie playground that is Chrissy Field, some congenial flea decided that Cyrano looked good enough to take a bite out of, and so, here we are! Itching. We’ve taken the appropriate measures, and he should be feeling some relief soon, but meanwhile, the poor little fella is miserable.
Sally and Cyrano: our two dachshunds that Paul gave to Peter and me as gifts, and that I took to the NYC vet who I then introduced to Paul , and as a result Paul and Dr, Stephen Cole the vet have been happily in love for almost as long as Peter and I have been together! SO Sally and Cyrano are dogs of pure love! And , after you departed this earthly scene, I decided to name the girl pup after you so I could have a good reason to say your name at least several dozen times a day! Every time I say her name, I think of you, And that was the entire point. You would love these two dogs. Or your “grand-puppies, as you no doubt would be calling them! They would snuggle and snuggle with you. Just like Claudio and Isabelle used to do.
All sorts of things to report to you, but I just got back from the gym, where I did my requisite 30 minutes of interval cardio training, and ,frankly, I am tired! So, I may have to lie down and write more later, or tomorrow. But I need you to know that as I look out into the gorgeous day, you are on my mind, and once again, I wish you were here with us to experience this amazing city. Peter is at his office , Paul and Stephen invited me over for a nice lunch on their patio, but I really want to stick close to my desk today and write as the spirit moves me, and as my fatigue level permits me, so I said “no” to their kind invitation. They are such good friends to us.
We went to the opening night of THE LILY’S REVENGE two nights ago at the famed Magic Theatre. Peter has been doing some video work for them, to help promote this particular show, and Loretta Greco, who runs the theater, is a dear and valued friend of mine from the East Coast. So she has been including us in the Magic openings regularly now. Very sweet of her. Tomorrow evening, we will go see something that Barbara Damashek has done with the ACT students. Remember Barbara, Momma? She directed the QUILTERS I got the Tony nomination for? SHE lives here too! It seems everyone does! Well, not everyone, but a lot of people who have meant a deal to me in my life seem to have migrated West and here we all are together! Pretty amazing, actually.
It’s a remarkably busy social life here. I don’t think either Peter or I had expected that. Tonight a much valued night at home, and I have the chicken marinating for a nice leisurely dinner . I know Peter will enjoy it.
So, for now, fleas and all, that’s all I have the energy to report, but I promise more soon I miss you so much, and writing these letters helps me feel like you’re not really gone. But – you’re not…really…..are you? I know you hear me. I know you're watching and paying attention. I can feel it.
More soon…as ever,
Evalyn
Labels: Momma Letters SF
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Prisons and Bunny Rabbits
#5 Letter to Momma
April 23, 2011
Saturday
San Francisco
Good morning Momma –
San Francisco is shining like a diamond in the sun today.
Easter Weekend in San Francisco.
Observations from dark to light:
I drove Peter to work yesterday morning, and as we drove over the hill on Union Street, on the way to Columbus Avenue, on my left the wide view of the Bay showed the perfectly balanced Alcatraz Prison sitting serenely in the water, looking like a Queen of the Bay. If one did not know its purpose, the solid, calm design of the buildings would inspire serenity. Then I remember that not long ago, all a murderous maniac had to do was swim hard to get to the city’s shores. They say it’s not an easy swim, that span of water, but from the top of the Union Street hill, the distance looks small. Glad it’s not a working prison anymore.
Easter Weekend in San Francisco, and there is a special celebration in Delores Park tomorrow, hosted by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a kabuki-inspired troupe of satiric …well…..pseudo nuns….a sort of special San Francisco Easter Parade and Celebration, where extravagant and highly gorgeous and inventive drag queens from all over the city will gather in their Easter finery for all to admire. There is also a Hunky Jesus Beauty Contest, and for my money, that’s worth the entire ticket right there (not that they charge anything…it’s probably all free and open to the public). I’m hoping we can wend out way over to Delores Park tomorrow and experience Easter the San Francisco way.
There is a loving spirit in this city, flowing from an urban heart unlike any other I’ve ever known. So glad we live here now, Momma.
As ever,
Evalyn
Labels: Momma Letters SF
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Birthday Letter to Momma
#4 Letter to Momma
April 21, 2011
Thursday: Glorious and Sunny and Cool!
San Francisco, CA.
Momma –
More decades ago than I care to count, you gave birth to me at Crawford Hospital in Atlanta, and that was the beginning of a merry chase I took you on for most of those decades to follow! I can only imagine what it was like having me for a daughter, and no matter how much you loved me – I know how dearly you did and do – being my mother could not have been a walk in the park. My strong, willful spirit must have challenged your patience, tested your limits, and pushed your buttons more times than you could count, and there must have been times when putting your hands around my scrawny neck and choking me to death crossed your mind! It is a true sign of love that I am still living and you were not sent to an insane asylum or prison, so thanks for those years when you put up with all I threw at you. Thank you for being strong.
But most of all: thanks for creating me in the first place.Today is my birthday – my first in this wondrous city that I’ve chosen to be my home – and I want to share it all with you.
If only I could show you how San Francisco Bay sparkles in the April sunshine, and how the soft breezes that seem to caress this city uniquely make the water glint as it dances.
If only you could have been at breakfast with me this morning, after I dropped Peter off downtown for work: I decided to pretend I was a tourist and treat myself to a birthday breakfast at the Buena Vista down at Fisherman’s Wharf. It was so filled with life, and the waitress –typical of SF’s service folks – was chatty, warm, friendly and informative. I still consider myself a tourist here, and wanted to share my San Francisco joy with others who are here for the same reason: to experience it all with newness and delight. I went to Ghirardelli Square, bought myself some birthday chocolates, sat on a bench and wrote about Alcatraz, then went back to my car parked on a steep hill, and drove home to write at my desk.
My desk that, along with me, lives here now!
This city is the best gift I could ever have asked for, for my birthday or any other day. As I sit, overlooking Lombard Street, considering the people who schlep up the hill to go see the “crooked-est street in America”, I love them for their endurance and caring. Maybe, when the weather is warmer, I’ll go set up a lemonade stand and help those tourists up the hill with some liquid refreshment! They earn it climbing that stretch. Maybe I just will!
Because this city – at this time of my life – brings out my best self, and I want others to feel what I feel here: welcome, supported, cared for, stimulated, happy, interested, excited, nourished!
And I won’t even charge them a nickel!
As ever,
Evalyn
Labels: Momma Letters SF
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
#3 Letter to Momma
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
San Francisco
The Romantic Doggie Run
Hi Momma-
Peter and I live in a wonderful apartment on Lombard Street that – when we first walked into it- reminded us of our West End Avenue co-op in NYC that you visited so often. We knew, within 5 minutes of entering it, that it would be our first San Francisco home.
First, I thought someone had left all the lights on because even from the entrance hallway it looked so bright. But all we had to do was walk a few steps into the kitchen, then the dining room, then the large living room to realize it was natural light flowing in from all the many windows. This gave my weary, home-seeking heart just the lift it needed to feel encouraged that this might be the place.
We went from room to room – it’s not very large, maybe 2/3 of the NYC space, and 1/5 the size of the house in Virginia – and once we saw the gigantic walk-in closets, shining hardwood floors and yet more windows, we both knew quickly that this was the place we wanted. So, we asked to meet the Super, who turned out to be an extraordinary man, bright, verbal and nice, and whose enthusiasm about taking care of these old Lombard Place buildings (there are three of them connected by gardens!) was contagious: we went right to the management office and signed a lease! We had ourselves a place to move to in our new city of choice.
Peter has turned one of the walk-in closets into a cunning office/music studio.
And the building has its own dedicated dog run, out in back, where not only can all the many dogs in the buildings have a place to “go” but when you take them there, you see the Golden Gate Bridge! It is glorious. Glorious to take Sally and Cyrano for a pee! Imagine! Glorious! You would adore it.
This morning, the Bridge was draped in the soft white shawl of fog that gives it one of its many mysterious “looks”. At odd moments, it looked like it had been gently erased – that it had disappeared from the its familiar spot on the horizon and had drifted off to somewhere else it simply had to go, like a hair appointment or couture fitting . But then, moments later, the fog would stealthily sift away and there was the top of the Bridge’s stanchions , sharply peaking into the sweet sky. It had gone nowhere. It was playing coy behind its shawl and wanted to make its fans smile.
I see this show – this feminine , flirtations display – every time I take the doggies out to do their thing. And every time, it’s a brand new Bridge.
The view from our roof – the 360 degree panorama – would make you weep with joy. I only wish you could see it. But I bet your view is pretty good too, right?
We’ve found a good home here, Momma. And I miss you.
As ever,
Evalyn
Labels: Momma Letters SF
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Letter to Momma #2
Saturday, April 16, 2011
San Francisco
The San Francisco Strawberry
Good morning Mommie –
I know I should begin your series of letters with descriptions of what brought Peter and me here, where we’re living, what we’re doing, and all that, but I had an experience just now, in our compact but useful kitchen here on Lombard Street that moved me to write, and that will sum up, metaphorically, my joy at living in California: I bit into a large, rich red, juicy, perfect California strawberry.
I am now in my sixth decade (odd that you can’t see me as I’ve aged, but maybe you can) – and I can honestly say that in a lifetime of East Coast fruit consumption, I have never known what the big deal was about strawberries. I’ve eaten them my entire life, mainly because I love all fruit and they seemed important to include in any bowl, given their small, colorful decorative possibilities. And even the wan, pinkish-rather-than red strawberry of the Eastern United States was better than no strawberry at all. But I never rushed to buy quarts of them when they appeared in grocery stores. And when I did buy them, they often languished in the bowl, as the fruit picked for no one’s team. Strawberries were the wall flowers of the fruit prom- even the apples went first.
But then a friend brought some halved berries – two months ago early –to his Carmel dinner table, and they were so sweetly juicy I assumed he had sugared and soak them in some strawberry liqueur. But he hadn’t. They were simply being themselves – and early in the season, too. Even my California pal was surprised at how sweet they were. And that was the beginning of my affair of discovery: I was falling for the simple, yet well-grown strawberry.
As they began to appear in my local Safeway and Trader Joe’s in huge numbers, costing ridiculously little – I began to cautiously bring home the odd carton, and invariably each berry was better than the last. My mouth simply could not believe it. These berries had life! They were not the dead, cardboard, imitation and tasteless berry that had been foisted on me all my life: these were a small sweet miracle in every bite. Their juices flowed down my chin, and I felt like I was French kissing every time I took a bite. I began to trust – and want - the strawberry.
Then, this morning – half awake – I poured my first cup of freshly brewed Peet’s Coffee (another California blast of pure pleasure), and absent-mindedly picked up a large crimson berry, still ruffled in its green collar so cunning - a friend had left some after a dinner party two nights ago - and my mouth woke up with a grateful start. A small dribble of strawberry juice travelled slowly down my chin, and I felt so glad to be alive I had to write about it. So glad to be living in San Francisco, I had to tell you why: life is a waking thing here, Momma. Life is juicy.
I now live in a place where the fruits and vegetables taste like themselves. Where, like the people I am meeting every day in my neighborhood, even the produce seems to be content to be its perfect self, not some imagined idea of itself. I feel San Francisco as the authentic place for this awakening part of my life, and with the glorious local strawberry as my companion, I will never go hungry.
As ever,
Evalyn
Labels: Momma Letters SF
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Letters to Momma
Letters to Momma
Friday, April 15th, 2011
San Francisco, California
Hi Momma –
Once upon a time, years before you passed away, you and I were discussing what it would be like for you to die. I generated the conversation out of my fear of losing you, and since you and I always discussed everything of importance in our lives, I hoped that talking about your death would help me bear living my life without you. As usual, you were willing to discuss it, as long as it would help me.
“The only thing I’ll regret about dying,” you said, “will be having to miss what goes on in your life next. I always have such fun sharing your life with you, I’ll be sad to miss your next adventures.” I didn’t know how to respond. You were not scared of death. You were just sad that you’d miss me and what the years would bring my way. My adventures, you called them.
Well, I’d like to respond now that you are gone.
Peter and I have started brand new adventures here in San Francisco , a town you and I never got to experience together and now that I am writing full-time, as you always said I should , let me share my life on Lombard Street by writing you about what it’s like to live here. Remember how, when I was on the road with a show, I’d write you countless postcards from each theater we played? Well, now I want to write you letters, so you can read them, wherever you are, sharing them with the friends you’ve made there, over heavenly cups of good strong coffee, as you always loved. Maybe you’ve re-connected to some favorite relatives, and rather than dredging up the old stories you keep boring them with about me, I can send you new ones to entertain them with.
Let’s call them the San Francisco Stories for Momma Letters.
And I promise to be as faithful a correspondent, as ever I was.
So, expect a letter soon, Momma. A very special delivery.
As ever,
Evalyn
Labels: Momma Letters SF
Monday, April 11, 2011
Tempus Fugits...When Maybe It Should Slow Down to a Walk
The more time I spend with myself alone at my writing desk thinking about what I want to write, and thinking of all the myriad things there are to write about, the more sensitive I've become to crowds of others and the tempo at which they travel through life. Most everyone seems to need to go very fast through the day, or at least they seem to need to go very fast from one place to another, from one activity to another. The world seems to be doing a lot of speeding.
Along with that has come a lot of crowding : crowding of activities so that there are more of them within the same 24-hour period, necessitating more speeding in order to get them all accomplished.
Now, I have always done the same. My life tempo has been rapid for as long as I can remember: i've spoken far too fast, my eating goes quickly, everything has been on speed-dial for as long as I can remember in my life. I have crowded more into one hour of time than most, and have striven to accomplish it all within even shorter times. My datebook pages have been black with appointments, and that used to make me feel good. A hurry is what I was always in. And now....well....now it's not.
And I have to say I like it better when it's not. Much much better.
Because now I can actually hear, see, smell, feel and touch the world around me as it goes by, and the discoveries I am making are endlessly entertaining. I try not to dwell on how much I've missed as I have sped through the years. Instead, I focus on what is in front of me right now, and pretend that my very skin is soaking in what is around me. I am trying to float on wings - slowly flapping wings - of discovery.
My observations of others' speeding can get - I must tell you - very judgmental, harsh and rigorous.
And as they speed by me, in their cars, pushing their grocery carts, plugged into their blue teeth and chatting to the air with a sense of great urgency like they are at a meeting that demands all they've got rather than buying baby food and yogurt, I feel sad that they are missing being where they are....and that I spent so much of my life doing the same: missing it all. Finally, missing the very process of living itself.
Sad, really.
I sat writing in a restaurant recently, and a striking older man, dressed all in black, with a dashing red scarf at his throat, and a spiffy black fedora angled rakishly on his grey head. A snappy white shirt accented where his black jacket met his chin. He was a Toulouse L'autrec walking. Only, he was quite insane. He sat alone at a table, and was talking feverishly to......air. No person was there, even though he was talking to one or two of them as if they most definitely were not only there but were deeply involved in a very important business meeting with him. I envisioned him at the head of some corporate Board meeting table, or at a weekly staff meeting, and he was the Boss. And now - retired and needed no longer - he had to still be the Boss of this imaginary meeting. And he knew I was watching him, so he performed his role as the involved busy man - listening to each proposal of his make-belive staff and discussing it earnestly with each employee - he did it all with care and precision and flair. When he caught me looking, his performance got even more pronounced and detailed and real for himself. I was utterly transfixed by this little drama. He could not stop to be where he actually was. He had to invent a world around him that mattered more than the simple one of being in a cafe, eating lunch. He could not be alone, so he invented a table full of people who needed him. He looked like all those people talking on Blue Tooth.......but this dear man was truly by himself. He WAS the crazy that so many people today only look like.
When I am sitting in traffic - on my way to the gym or somewhere else - and a driver feels like he or she absolutely must speed by me, crush right in front of me to get into my lane without signaling, honk at others in order to get where they want to be, all for the sake of a few feet of progress on their journey, I feel so bad for them, and want to ask them: " Will this get you to where you need to go any faster, really? Don't we all have to stop at the same stoplights?" And I love pulling up right next to them at a light, after all their drama to get ahead, making them realize that I was going much slower but ended up at the same place at the same time they did anyway!
I also try to remember that they may have a baby to deliver, or a heart to keep beating, or some other necessary emergency to get to, and that's why they are behaving as rudely and stupidly as they do ....maybe they have a good reason.
But usually, I would wager, they don't have any good reason at all, and that starts me wondering: why do they feel this horrible urgency to get ahead faster than all the others around them? Why did I FEEL IT all those years? What is HURRY? WHY IS THE HURRY?
Do we feel we can outrun Death? That if we run fast enough, Death will never be able to catch us and make us slow down for a final time? Why are we all in such a damned hurry all the time? Do we fear being alone for even the brief time we are alone in our car ,driving from one place to another? Do we bore ourselves that much? Are better things waiting at the hurried-to destination?
Hurry perplexes me now. Even though I used to be in one all the time. It feels familiar, like a tune I once feverishly danced to. But now, it's more and more a strange song I no longer wish to hear. I most certainly do not wish to dance to it.
If I'm going to exhaust myself, I'd rather do it keeping my body in good shape by rigorously working it out at my gym, so that my particular vehicle - my aging yet happy body - can continue to get me further and further down the road of life, at a luxuriously useful, pleasant pace. I may sweat a bit, but no horns will be blown....no horns will blast....I promise.
Along with that has come a lot of crowding : crowding of activities so that there are more of them within the same 24-hour period, necessitating more speeding in order to get them all accomplished.
Now, I have always done the same. My life tempo has been rapid for as long as I can remember: i've spoken far too fast, my eating goes quickly, everything has been on speed-dial for as long as I can remember in my life. I have crowded more into one hour of time than most, and have striven to accomplish it all within even shorter times. My datebook pages have been black with appointments, and that used to make me feel good. A hurry is what I was always in. And now....well....now it's not.
And I have to say I like it better when it's not. Much much better.
Because now I can actually hear, see, smell, feel and touch the world around me as it goes by, and the discoveries I am making are endlessly entertaining. I try not to dwell on how much I've missed as I have sped through the years. Instead, I focus on what is in front of me right now, and pretend that my very skin is soaking in what is around me. I am trying to float on wings - slowly flapping wings - of discovery.
My observations of others' speeding can get - I must tell you - very judgmental, harsh and rigorous.
And as they speed by me, in their cars, pushing their grocery carts, plugged into their blue teeth and chatting to the air with a sense of great urgency like they are at a meeting that demands all they've got rather than buying baby food and yogurt, I feel sad that they are missing being where they are....and that I spent so much of my life doing the same: missing it all. Finally, missing the very process of living itself.
Sad, really.
I sat writing in a restaurant recently, and a striking older man, dressed all in black, with a dashing red scarf at his throat, and a spiffy black fedora angled rakishly on his grey head. A snappy white shirt accented where his black jacket met his chin. He was a Toulouse L'autrec walking. Only, he was quite insane. He sat alone at a table, and was talking feverishly to......air. No person was there, even though he was talking to one or two of them as if they most definitely were not only there but were deeply involved in a very important business meeting with him. I envisioned him at the head of some corporate Board meeting table, or at a weekly staff meeting, and he was the Boss. And now - retired and needed no longer - he had to still be the Boss of this imaginary meeting. And he knew I was watching him, so he performed his role as the involved busy man - listening to each proposal of his make-belive staff and discussing it earnestly with each employee - he did it all with care and precision and flair. When he caught me looking, his performance got even more pronounced and detailed and real for himself. I was utterly transfixed by this little drama. He could not stop to be where he actually was. He had to invent a world around him that mattered more than the simple one of being in a cafe, eating lunch. He could not be alone, so he invented a table full of people who needed him. He looked like all those people talking on Blue Tooth.......but this dear man was truly by himself. He WAS the crazy that so many people today only look like.
When I am sitting in traffic - on my way to the gym or somewhere else - and a driver feels like he or she absolutely must speed by me, crush right in front of me to get into my lane without signaling, honk at others in order to get where they want to be, all for the sake of a few feet of progress on their journey, I feel so bad for them, and want to ask them: " Will this get you to where you need to go any faster, really? Don't we all have to stop at the same stoplights?" And I love pulling up right next to them at a light, after all their drama to get ahead, making them realize that I was going much slower but ended up at the same place at the same time they did anyway!
I also try to remember that they may have a baby to deliver, or a heart to keep beating, or some other necessary emergency to get to, and that's why they are behaving as rudely and stupidly as they do ....maybe they have a good reason.
But usually, I would wager, they don't have any good reason at all, and that starts me wondering: why do they feel this horrible urgency to get ahead faster than all the others around them? Why did I FEEL IT all those years? What is HURRY? WHY IS THE HURRY?
Do we feel we can outrun Death? That if we run fast enough, Death will never be able to catch us and make us slow down for a final time? Why are we all in such a damned hurry all the time? Do we fear being alone for even the brief time we are alone in our car ,driving from one place to another? Do we bore ourselves that much? Are better things waiting at the hurried-to destination?
Hurry perplexes me now. Even though I used to be in one all the time. It feels familiar, like a tune I once feverishly danced to. But now, it's more and more a strange song I no longer wish to hear. I most certainly do not wish to dance to it.
If I'm going to exhaust myself, I'd rather do it keeping my body in good shape by rigorously working it out at my gym, so that my particular vehicle - my aging yet happy body - can continue to get me further and further down the road of life, at a luxuriously useful, pleasant pace. I may sweat a bit, but no horns will be blown....no horns will blast....I promise.
Labels: SF life
Monday, April 04, 2011
Once Again Wordsworth
The great British poet - my favorite - Wordsworth wrote in, in 1806
The World Is Too Much With Us; Late and Soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. -- Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea.
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
And. living in San Francisco, close to so much natural beauty at all times, this poem reverberates within me more than it ever has. The world is so sordid, messy, imperfect, sad and violent - all because of man's greedy striving and need to dominate, that to look out on the simple grandeur of the Pacific Ocean and see how Nature does what it does ......it makes all of man's mistakes all the more evident. Nature is violent as well, I know. And , one could argue, man's nature is man's nature: he is the way he is, just as the oceans' winds are the way they are. But, there is this thing about man: he has a conscience and mind.
And the ability to make decisions. So.....
I saw a play at Berkeley Rep on Saturday night by an important playwright - Lynn Notage - the play is called RUINED, and it won her the Pulitzer Prize last year. She deserved it , for the play - a difficult one to write, I imagine - eloquently captures a small slice of the evil that men do to retain power and dominate others. It's about a small group of women, and one man, in the Congo who are violently affected by the civil wars that rage around them, and the unspeakable violence done to women on a daily basis is the play's main theme. It is horrific beyond my understanding, yet the play creates such specifically drawn, human characters, it is impossible for the audience not to watch, love and enjoy each and every one we meet on the stage (except the soldiers, who are terrifying animals with guns and bayonets.) This, of course, makes the violence raging all around the characters we love even more painful to witness, as it barely whispers to them from the darkness. Like the good playwright she is, Nottage brings little of the actual violence onto the stage , but the little that she does bring us to actually see shook my soul. I am not yet recovered from the waking up the play provided me...the reminder that man is indeed evil at his heart, or at least capable of great evil when he feels his is the "right way".
And , of course, the reminder that women are the victims of man's fears all around the world made me feel a powerlessness that rendered me sleepless the entire night. There is nothing to be done about the evil men do to women. Women - and their power to give birth from their bodies, a thing men will never be able to do -women represent everything that makes man feel impotent. He can do anything else, but he never will be capable of giving birth. That , of course, makes women valuable in a way that nothing else is valuable. She is the true gold of the earth.
So what better way to denigrate, demean and defeat your enemy than to destroy their women? Salt their fertile fields , gouge out their productive wombs, knife, kill, rape and thoroughly destroy the women of your enemy. That is what African men, fighting each other, do. They fight their battles over and through the bodies of the women in their way. And that is what RUINED is about.
Africa is one of the most beautiful places in the world, I've read. Natural beauty, the riches of the planet, animals, plant life, mountains, waters, minerals, gems: it has it all in great abundance. But do the African rebel factions, the armies that form overnight to create new victories over sheer air, land rights, national boundaries, do these men ever stop to look at what is around them? No. All they see is their supposed right to own it, and if someone gets in their way, the old tribal instincts rise up and they destroy each other....but first the women. They rape and injure the women beyond repair.
The world is far too much with these animalistic men. They behave the only way their animal natures allow them to. Young boys are trained to be men by following in the violent footsteps of their fathers who rape and destroy. It is a tribal rite of passage, it would seem. And it has to be stopped. It is not my way. It is theirs. But it s the wrong way for life to be. It must stop.
What kept me awake on Saturday night was the question of how? How do you stop a tsunami of violence and hate? Seems impossible.
Then, I went to Glide Memorial Church yesterday morning. And because Paul had to park far away from the Church, we walked through the Tenderloin section of San Francisco to reach it, and bodies of the hungry homeless lay in their own bodily filth, all around us in the sunshine.
And there seems no way to stop all that either. No matter all the fine talk from the pulpit, and no matter the 3000 meals a day that Glide serves the hungry, we've still found no effective way to stop man from destroying himself. Our affluent society creates its own human detritus, and we flush it away like the waste from our own bodies. We hold our noses, light some perfumed candles and pretend it never happened. And with all our millions and billions of dollars, people who have good hearts and want to help are still at a loss: HOW can we help? WHAT can we do? THERE MUST be a way!
But there seems to be no way at all.
We are all lost in the jungle.
And the jungle is not just in Africa. It is in the United States of America too. The jungle and the animals who live in it? We are they, they are us. It is here.
So, Wordsworth's poem consoles me: Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.....we have given our hearts away, a sordid boon.
What are we to do? How much can we mourn? How much can we wring our hands and use up all our tissues crying? How can we go on with all the misery there is on this planet? How DARE we go on?
I've no answers yet...only my humble abilities to express the horror I feel, and stay open to more of the pain that this weekend brought me.
Sometimes I think that staying open is what we are being asked - by some power or other - to do. Stay open to and aware of those things that hurt us most. After all, that woman in the Congo raped and cut by violence? She is me. The woman starving on our streets? Yep. Me too.
Absolutely. She is all of us.
So we'd better solve this. Solve it soon.
The World Is Too Much With Us; Late and Soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. -- Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea.
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
And. living in San Francisco, close to so much natural beauty at all times, this poem reverberates within me more than it ever has. The world is so sordid, messy, imperfect, sad and violent - all because of man's greedy striving and need to dominate, that to look out on the simple grandeur of the Pacific Ocean and see how Nature does what it does ......it makes all of man's mistakes all the more evident. Nature is violent as well, I know. And , one could argue, man's nature is man's nature: he is the way he is, just as the oceans' winds are the way they are. But, there is this thing about man: he has a conscience and mind.
And the ability to make decisions. So.....
I saw a play at Berkeley Rep on Saturday night by an important playwright - Lynn Notage - the play is called RUINED, and it won her the Pulitzer Prize last year. She deserved it , for the play - a difficult one to write, I imagine - eloquently captures a small slice of the evil that men do to retain power and dominate others. It's about a small group of women, and one man, in the Congo who are violently affected by the civil wars that rage around them, and the unspeakable violence done to women on a daily basis is the play's main theme. It is horrific beyond my understanding, yet the play creates such specifically drawn, human characters, it is impossible for the audience not to watch, love and enjoy each and every one we meet on the stage (except the soldiers, who are terrifying animals with guns and bayonets.) This, of course, makes the violence raging all around the characters we love even more painful to witness, as it barely whispers to them from the darkness. Like the good playwright she is, Nottage brings little of the actual violence onto the stage , but the little that she does bring us to actually see shook my soul. I am not yet recovered from the waking up the play provided me...the reminder that man is indeed evil at his heart, or at least capable of great evil when he feels his is the "right way".
And , of course, the reminder that women are the victims of man's fears all around the world made me feel a powerlessness that rendered me sleepless the entire night. There is nothing to be done about the evil men do to women. Women - and their power to give birth from their bodies, a thing men will never be able to do -women represent everything that makes man feel impotent. He can do anything else, but he never will be capable of giving birth. That , of course, makes women valuable in a way that nothing else is valuable. She is the true gold of the earth.
So what better way to denigrate, demean and defeat your enemy than to destroy their women? Salt their fertile fields , gouge out their productive wombs, knife, kill, rape and thoroughly destroy the women of your enemy. That is what African men, fighting each other, do. They fight their battles over and through the bodies of the women in their way. And that is what RUINED is about.
Africa is one of the most beautiful places in the world, I've read. Natural beauty, the riches of the planet, animals, plant life, mountains, waters, minerals, gems: it has it all in great abundance. But do the African rebel factions, the armies that form overnight to create new victories over sheer air, land rights, national boundaries, do these men ever stop to look at what is around them? No. All they see is their supposed right to own it, and if someone gets in their way, the old tribal instincts rise up and they destroy each other....but first the women. They rape and injure the women beyond repair.
The world is far too much with these animalistic men. They behave the only way their animal natures allow them to. Young boys are trained to be men by following in the violent footsteps of their fathers who rape and destroy. It is a tribal rite of passage, it would seem. And it has to be stopped. It is not my way. It is theirs. But it s the wrong way for life to be. It must stop.
What kept me awake on Saturday night was the question of how? How do you stop a tsunami of violence and hate? Seems impossible.
Then, I went to Glide Memorial Church yesterday morning. And because Paul had to park far away from the Church, we walked through the Tenderloin section of San Francisco to reach it, and bodies of the hungry homeless lay in their own bodily filth, all around us in the sunshine.
And there seems no way to stop all that either. No matter all the fine talk from the pulpit, and no matter the 3000 meals a day that Glide serves the hungry, we've still found no effective way to stop man from destroying himself. Our affluent society creates its own human detritus, and we flush it away like the waste from our own bodies. We hold our noses, light some perfumed candles and pretend it never happened. And with all our millions and billions of dollars, people who have good hearts and want to help are still at a loss: HOW can we help? WHAT can we do? THERE MUST be a way!
But there seems to be no way at all.
We are all lost in the jungle.
And the jungle is not just in Africa. It is in the United States of America too. The jungle and the animals who live in it? We are they, they are us. It is here.
So, Wordsworth's poem consoles me: Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.....we have given our hearts away, a sordid boon.
What are we to do? How much can we mourn? How much can we wring our hands and use up all our tissues crying? How can we go on with all the misery there is on this planet? How DARE we go on?
I've no answers yet...only my humble abilities to express the horror I feel, and stay open to more of the pain that this weekend brought me.
Sometimes I think that staying open is what we are being asked - by some power or other - to do. Stay open to and aware of those things that hurt us most. After all, that woman in the Congo raped and cut by violence? She is me. The woman starving on our streets? Yep. Me too.
Absolutely. She is all of us.
So we'd better solve this. Solve it soon.
Labels: World views
