AFTER ALL

I was having tea by a lovely fire in Starbucks this afternoon, and reading a terrific book my friend Lloyd had recommended.  Music played; people chatted.  And I was oddly not reading but silently talking to myself.  The year is almost over.  A tough year.  Dark.  Every blessing a mixed blessing.  As in: I flew out to California at the end of December to be with Alex on January 2nd - his 50th birthday.  I got terribly ill the night after arriving and so did everyone else (except Isobel) within a day later.  Awful 'bug.' Wasn't able to drive out to see Lloyd.  Or visit San Francisco.  Gratefully, we were all almost whole by Alex's birthday - we went to a deli restaurant (gifted by Jamie) where we ate chicken soup.  And thus the year began.

It was not my favorite year.  Useless murders across the world.  Poverty - homelessness - disastrous storms.  I even include too much nastiness in the major election.  And many personal disappointments.  Was laid off from my job in the fall for no credible reason.  Friends appeared and friends disappeared.  My daughter's health a terrible worry.  And things of mine - mainly jewelry - disappeared with troubling regularity.  Nothing of any real monetary value, but stuff I cared about nonetheless.

As for my work - well, I directed a show in January/February at a public school in a North Shore town.  Came off well enough.  Didn't progress much with my writing.  We did have a wonderful though private reading of my play, YELLOW ROSES, in my son's apartment in Manhattan.  Two remarkable Broadway actors; confirmed what we already know: it's a damn good play.  sigh.

Not all terrible.  My eight year old granddaughter and I went to New York City for my birthday.

So amazing to see the world I grew up in through her eyes.  Alex, Patricia and their lovely family came in summer.  And, in the fall, Jamie came to Beverly to perform at North Shore Music Theatre.  No better company than my own kids.  Well, hardly kids; first-rate, brilliant folks in any case.

So that's the litany.  Many people of my generation that I know keep as busy as possible.  Clubs, 'meet-ups,' classes, travel, card parties, etc. etc.  Good for body and mind.  I am on my own more than not.  Maybe too much time to think.  I read my Buddhist books and cool my mind with Zen-like focus:  just being.  It is easier for me to achieve than I would have thought.   At this juncture, I am glad to 'be.'  Charles Aznavour sings a wipe-me-out song: I DIDN'T SEE THE TIME GO BY.  We never do.  Because it's a blink.  A shooting star.  When I'm off balance I begin to miss people long gone and people down the street;  I begin to regret and have to play Edith Piaf recordings.  I kick myself for what I did and didn't do.  So to work it out  I connect with my Zen lessons, and center myself.  If that doesn't do the trick, I pour a glass of Cote de Rhone and bake bread.

Happy New Year my dear friends!

ISH: Almost, Not Quite, Maybe, et al.

ISH has become an entity.  I don't know how the dictionary folks keep up with the idiomatic vocabulary we keep inventing.  However, I have begun to take -ISH personally.  Lots of years directing plays with good success; lots of years writing in a variety of genre with good reviews; lots of years.  So the only way I can explain directing a show that is a winner - with the audience, with the producers, with the actors, etc. - and then not be able to get another show with the same company -- ?!  (No - I do NOT have bad breath!)  To send written work out, to get positive feedback but also - "can't use at this time."  You get the picture.  Well, if that's not an ISH result, I don't know what is.  
My once husband used to say that we were "aliens."  A bit abstract, I think, but it was his interpretation that we thought differently; our values were different; our insight was different.  I simplify it I suppose, but I believe that we were either not good enough or too good.  We could be deceiving ourselves regarding the latter, but there have been enough applause over time, enough experience, enough humility and humble pie -- for us to know who we are and what we artistically achieve.   It's sort of the same as being "over qualified."  That's bunk, you know.  Unless you  hold a PHD and apply for a job cleaning black boards.  (of course if you're starving to death and that's the only available job - well, it may not be appropriate but one is certainly qualified.)  I applied for a directing job at a public school; I got the job and the end result was a terrific little show.  But the hiring team was suspicious when I applied; they wanted to know why I would want to work there with my "background."  I made an instant decision to not be ISH (or tell them I liked the money).  I told them instead not to sell themselves short; that in the dead of winter in a community that does not have an abundance of theatre opportunity, directing kids in a public school setting is a good fit for one who's directed a children's theater company.  Hopefully a politically correct response.
I tend to be "politically incorrect."  I don't mean that my behavior is pejorative.  The definition I found: "connotes language, ideas, and behavior unconstrained by a perceived  orthodoxy or by concerns about offending various groups of people for the sake of telling the truth."  Sometimes it is politically incorrect to offer information that a person in authority would rather not learn from you.  Sometimes it is politically incorrect to express an opinion, albeit informed, that a person in authority might interpret as a put-down.  Being right and letting the other guy know that you're right is sometimes the wrong thing to do.  Usually the wrong thing to do.  Knowing you're good and insisting with one's behavior that the other guy recognize it, too, -- well, if that alerts his/her inadequacies --you get the picture.  I do stuff like that.  A lot.
So I have obviously been thinking out loud here.  Have been speaking recently with other artists of various art forms; all of us have shared this kind of experience.  Some folks rise above it (or seem to) when they become big stars in their professions.  But often they are tripped up along the way by someone whose fear of being discovered as inadequate in his/her role over-rides the star's fame and talents. Or perhaps one loses one's edge by becoming old-ish or skit-ish.  The only way around this is to move on or to create a solo act that depends only upon ones self.  Giving up or giving in is not an option.  

That would be fool-ish!

Catch up!

Went to my wee garden this morning to give my family of song birds their peanut butter suet. They love the stuff. The yellow lilies that always bloomed first are gone. No trace at all. Peculiar at best. The forsythia is happy; but there seems to be lots of planting to do this season. I can do that. It seems a long, long time since the autumn. The mild winter not withstanding. And standing outside in the cold sunshine I remembered my blog and that I've neglected it for awhile. Longer than that it seems; my last blog was in September. Last year. So I put on a pot of coffee and asked myself the question: "What happened to stop me in my tracks?"

October was a fine month: apple picking; guests for brunch; a trial membership at Studio 13 with ballet classes (really!) and Pilate's and Zumba. Ah -- but that was when my work schedule was cut from 5 days to 3 -- because, I was told, I'd been so efficient there wasn't enough work for me to do. I was in essence invited to leave; I told my boss I couldn't afford to quit so he was welcome to fire me if he was of a mind to do that. He didn't. But somehow I think I must have fallen into a funk. That's actually in the dictionary -- funk. It's defined as depression, agitation, fear, etc. etc. I prefer the music genre - funk. Anyway -- while I lost interest in reading (a pile of books wait for me) and avoided writing because I didn't want to kvetch -- I kept on keeping on. I also developed a recurrence of PMR which comes out of nowhere, makes it painful and often impossible to be mobile. It's treated with prednisone. Bad stuff for good moods. And I promised NOT to kvetch! Well, I did what I do when I have a wall to scale: I took on a second job doing something I love to do: I directed a show in a public school. From January to March. And while it was not always much fun, the result was positive and I'm coming out of the dark corner.

Spring is still fighting with winter for dominance. It's that way every year -- spring always wins! I'm still here. We take that for granted -- being here! At all ages we think that's a given. It's not; just open a newspaper. And today the birds are fighting over their version of PBJ; the sun is out; I'm reaching out to my friends through my blog. Reach back! We're still here!!

(3 granddaughters skip into Spring -by Alex)