The Fat Lady Sings

Alone

Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don't believe I'm wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

There are some millionaires
With money they can't use
Their wives run round like banshees
Their children sing the blues
They've got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone.
But nobody
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Now if you listen closely
I'll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
'Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Maya Angelou wrote that.  I wonder what she was thinking – where she was in her life.  I call this poem to mind whenever I look back at certain parts of myself.  That’s me in the picture, by the way.  I had just turned 13.  God!  That girl seems such a stranger. I look into her face - that mask - hiding her emotions – placidly impenetrable.  Who was I?  I look so detached, so alone – all alone.  But as Maya Angelou said – nobody, but nobody can make it out here alone. So how did I survive?  I look at the curve of my shoulder, those long, elegant fingers.  I’m posed, Gibson-like, all sinuous curves and pillowy glances.  Inviting, yet alone – all alone.  Ms. Angelou was right about that. 

You know, I had the privilege of hearing Maya Angelou rehearse once.  I had stopped by a theatre I used to work in as an actor.  I was checking to see if they were interested in hiring me back again, but as a director.  I had just begun to direct, really.  22, fresh out of college, broke, and desperately in need of a job.  So I dropped by the theatre in hopes of scaring up one.  If not – it was McDonald’s time.  No paycheck, no rent. 

There was a woman on stage rehearsing her show.  Striking – tall, formidable, dressed in African clothing, her hair encased in a jewel-tone turban.  She was reciting when I came in, so I sat in the back of the theatre, trying not to disturb her.  Initially I wasn’t really listening – I was much too concerned about the work.  This was an Equity house.  Getting a job in an Equity house wasn’t easy back in 1978. I had just come off working as Assistant Director in a nearby Equity theatre (though I’d yet to earn enough points for my card) – so I was hopeful the Artistic Director would at least give me a tumble – but it wasn’t guaranteed.  The theatre was and is an insular society, totally self-supporting.  Breaking into the inner circle is a stone bitch.   

As you can imagine, I was much too caught up in my own little head drama to pay complete attention to that woman on the stage.  But the cadence of her words tugged at me.  They rolled through the theatre, crashing like boulders, breaking into my reverie.  I began to really listen, and soon I was rapt with attention.  She spoke of women, of herself, of life.  Through her words I saw my own life and experience (such as it was).  She commanded the stage – prowling like a lioness, filling it with her strength.  I was completely blown away.

Later, I asked a friend who she was.  “Maya Angelou”, he said.  Maya Angelou.  I’ve always remembered.

Remember.....

When I went to the film and saw all the black-and-white feelings that nobody felt,
And heard the audience sighing and sobbing with all the emotions they none of them felt,
And saw them cuddling with rising passions they none of them for a moment felt,
And caught them moaning from close-up kisses, black-and-white kisses that could not be felt,
It was like being in heaven, which I am sure has a white atmosphere
Upon which shadows of people, pure personalities
Are cast in black and white, and move
In flat ecstasy, supremely unfelt
And heavenly.

                                                D.H. Lawrence

A Child’s Christmas in Hell

I originally posted this last Christmas – a reminder to myself of what Christmas was and how much it had changed.  The holidays are a bellwether for me – a measure of how my life is going at any fixed point.  I had to create my own Christmas – establish my own traditions.  When I was younger, that meant reaching into the past – a Victorian Christmas – candles, Yule logs, 12 days of celebrations, Good King Wenceslas.  I wanted my holiday to look lived in – no one suspecting the traditions I adhered to with almost religious zeal were counterfeit.

I relaxed as I grew older and perhaps a bit wiser.  My traditions expanded to include new ideas, new ways to celebrate.  The joy remained – along with the need to make Christmas special – imbuing it with a kind of magic smoke.  As long as Christmas was pure and unsullied all was right with my world.  That sense of rightness had fallen off of late.  Christmas before last was the first really good Christmas in recent memory (as was both this years and last) - and I’m not talking presents here.  It prompted this memory.  I always contrast the good with the bad in my life.  It helps add perspective.  How can you properly appreciate the absence of pain, until you’ve experienced the alternative?

So here it is – Christmas as was.  A child’s memory of how good can go awfully, frightfully bad.  In reading it, I suggest you think on the contrasts in your own life.  Maybe it will inspire you in appreciating what you currently hold dear.

I’ve been thinking lately about my life.  About differences, really; and the chasm that still exists between then and now.  Christmas day 2005 was pretty good, considering; good food, happy critters, non-grumpy hubby – all in all truly decent – depending on your expectations and point of view.  Not every holiday has been like that.  There were better times; sure.  And it’s the good times we always cling to – those human beacons – bright points toward which we steer when all other light goes out.  But it is the desolate, the heart-numbing loneliness that clings to the insides of our head; it cannot be buried, it never goes away – the best anyone can hope for is to achieve parity.  But that only works if your soul is intact - and then not always.  I’m lucky – I not only made it out alive; my spirit survived as well.   

The Bewitchin' Pool

Oh, where have you been, Billy boy, Billy boy?
Oh, where have you been, charming Billy?

The Twilight Zone was one of my refuges as a kid.  It sparked the imagination – giving me endless worlds to go to inside my head whenever the real world became just too much to take.  I’d feel the coldness reaching for my heart and I’d shut down, shut it out.  Inside my head lay limitless realms – always fresh, always available - where no one called me names or threatened my life.  Pain washed away by clean water.  I survived within the umbra of my imagination – an imagination more Tim Burton than Willy Wonka; so Rod Serling’s penchant for existentialist morality plays was right up my alley.

One episode that affected me greatly was The Bewitchin’ Pool.  For years afterward I’d scour the bottoms of actual pools searching for that elusive way out.  I’d wander deep into cool shadows softly calling for Aunt T, praying she would hear my entreaty, opening the door to her perfect, painless, parentless world.  I even worried that as I grew older, I would be too big to fit through the narrow opening (should I ever manage to suss it out).  Silly, I know – but escape and escape plans occupied the entirely of my childhood (once I realized escape might indeed be possible).  Hell – I still visually check out all exits every time I enter a room.  Instinct; survival – I wanted to live to see 18 when I could legally leave.

The Peace Symbol is 50 Years Old

The Peace symbol is 50 years old. A simple design that carries a powerful message, and it grew out of the personal despair of artist Gerald Holtom, a professional graphic designer who had been commissioned by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in 1957 to design their logo. The source of the logo is a semaphore for the letters Nuclear and Disarmament, but also it’s a self portrait. Holtom said: "I was in despair. Deep despair. I drew myself: the representative of an individual in despair, with hands palm outstretched outwards and downwards in the manner of Goya’s peasant before the firing squad. I formalised the drawing into a line and put a circle round it.” Although specifically designed for the anti-nuclear movement it has never been copyrighted. No one has to pay or to seek permission before they use it. A symbol of freedom, it is free for anyone to use, to display proudly. I realize that this isn't the topic posted over at One Million Blogs for Peace, but this symbol, this simple symbol is universally a statement of peace. It crosses every language barrier. It crosses every religious barrier. When I see a Peace Symbol, I feel connected to a greater good. In the '60s, it was everywhere. We need to show it everywhere again. Read more about the history here and get your own. If you haven't signed up for One Million Blogs for Peace, you can do so HERE.

Sol LeWitt at Dia:Beacon

Wall Drawing #273: Lines to Points on a Grid

Sol LeWitt died earlier this month, and I somehow missed reading about it. And it saddens me as much, possibly more, than the death of Kurt Vonnegut. LeWitt was identified as a Minimalist, but that label really does an injustice to him, and his work.

I wish I could go to see this exhibit. I wish I could have participated in making the drawings. That was part of LeWitt's genius: his drawings were/are always made by other people based upon his written instructions. He teased. The instructions for Wall Drawing #273 are simple: Lines to Points on a Grid. No message as to how many lines, or how many points. No instructions as to the length of the lines, or the thickness. So if I were to make this drawing on one of the walls in my home, it would look quite different from the above image. But it would be connected to it as surely as if Mr. LeWitt were standing next to me telling me what to do.

LeWitt's wall paintings are both ephemeral and permanently linked to our past. His use of the wall harkens back to the earliest known cave paintings. Yet when the exhibit ends, the drawings will be painted over to make way for the next exhibit. They will no longer exist in the Dia:Beacon gallery. He understood humor, and resistance. To the comment "that's so easy a child could do it," he said yes, and made work available to several public schools in New York. Those drawings were made by children. He felt art was inaccessible due to high prices, so in the 70s he did a series of drawings (instructions) which he sold for about $10. Each.

Sol LeWitt died April 8, 2007. He was a mystic.

cross posted at Journeys with Jood

The Lady of Shalott

A Gift From My Mother

The last couple of days have been bad pain days for me – and that means extra pain meds which often trigger memories.  My dreams become much more vivid too.  Drawers inside my head open and I never know what’s going to pop out.  Lately – all those dreams have centered around my mother – I couldn’t tell you why; maybe because I’d like her to be proud of me.  She never, ever was, you know.  Something marvelous happens and I cast about, wishing I had family to call. Oh – there are friends, of course – the sisters and brothers of my heart; but it’s not quite the same.  Anyway - I had mentioned this incident in a previous post – this gift from my mother.  A comment I received got me thinking about it even more – and that led to a dream.  So here we come ‘round again – the child I was, still searching for something.  I’m not sure I will ever come to terms with it – but that doesn’t mean I won’t always try.   

I don’t have very many gifts from my mother – tangible or intangible.  When you peruse the eclectic collection of oddities and knick-knacks that decorate my sideboard – you will not find anything ever touched by her hand.  Its not that I disposed of such things – they simply never existed.  What hereditary jewelry I have consists of a single scrimshaw broach that once belonged to her mother – and my dead sister’s watch – taken from her wrist prior to burial.  I remember receiving that watch.   It was unceremoniously dumped on my bed along with a tarnished brass compact.  I had only recently confronted my mother regarding my sister, you see.  She had been dead years – only no one had bothered to tell me about it.  “Here” my mother said – “These were Pats”.  The glass in the compact was cracked – and there were only vestiges of any powder left.  I imagined my sisters face looking out at me.  I wondered if she lived inside the mirror.  There had been an episode of ‘Lost in Space’ where Penny was able to communicate with a boy in her mirror.  I hoped it was true – but then I’d often wish that fantasies I saw on television were true.  There was a ‘Twilight Zone’ once about children who found an adult-free paradise accessed through the deep end of their pool.  I cannot tell you how many times I nearly drowned in a cornucopia of pools desperate to find that entrance.  I still call it to mind every time I swim.  So – the watch I wore, and the compact I kept hidden in the very back of a closet drawer.  I’d stare into the slivered glass, whispering to it.  “Pat – Pat - are you there?  Please come get me.  I’m still waiting.” 

A Tale of Two Stockings

I cross-posted this over at Motherless.  I had actually meant to post it closer to Christmas - but too many things got in the way.  I was watching Meet Me in St. Louis tonight - and I got to thinking about family and tradition. 

Every child has a Christmas stocking.  It’s tied up with their identity - symbolizing family and tradition.  Every year it is lovingly unpacked, creases smoothed, the story of its making passed around like some treasured heirloom.  Up on the mantle it goes next to all the others, its owner’s tiny face shining with anticipation, reflected in the light of a cheery fire.  Soon…..soon it will be filled with tangible evidence of  the love that created it – peppermint sticks, a small stuffed bear, that card saying Merry Christmas and signed ‘With Love from Mom & Dad’.  Perhaps Santa will add something special – something unexpected. 

My Life in Dreams

This is part of an accounting I shared with someone investigating environmental sensitivity and any neuro-biological events associated with it.  I’m part of his study, it seems.  I’m going to be subject number ‘whatever’ in a book.  When I wrote it – I realized it was the very first time I had actually laid everything out; really looked at it dispassionately – as if I were the observer rather than the participant.  I am offering it up ‘as is’ – no other explanations or qualifications.  You are perfectly within your rights to think me odd as all get out.  You can even accuse me of being stuffed clean full of wild blueberry muffins – but it is what it is – and I make no other claims.   

From childhood I have been able to see light surrounding everything.  And I mean everything – both living and non; though living creatures have a much brighter and more obvious ‘halo’.  What I usually see is a kind of white or yellow light radiating out from the main body of whoever or whatever I’m looking at – people, trees, a chair.  There have been a couple of times in my life when I encountered a human being who gave off no light whatsoever.  There was an indication of energy – I could see the space around them shift, or shimmer; but it had no color.  In every case – that person turned out to be a sociopath.  I have also, on occasion, seen balls of light – usually blue in color.  These balls did not remain stationary; they seemed to follow me about.  I experienced this phenomena from age 6 or 7 up until my early 40’s.  It has been quite a while since I have seen one.  I have also seen impressions, reflections I guess you could call it, of human beings.  I will usually see them first from out the corner of my eye; only later to be treated to a full on look – though it only lasts for a second or two. 

A Tale Told By An Idiot

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

By William Shakespeare

It’s true, you know.  Days do creep by in stunning anonymity, only to snuff themselves out in a brief flash of prescience before turning into dust.  And it truly signifies not a god damned thing.  We are born alone and we die alone – in the end, life offers up little more than that.  Not much to recommend it – wouldn’t you say?  And when exactly does life become simply about breathing?  When there’s no sweetness left to serve as balm for interminable ennui?  When every day looms as dark and dank as the one before?  Life morphs into an absence of death – nothing more.  It becomes that ‘walking shadow’ Shakespeare spoke about.  How can that be preferable to blank nothingness?

So I look out into the whitewash of day and note how harsh the light is.  No euphemistic glow, this – just heat bearing down like mountains – smog reflected, surrounding like sound.  No direction, no pulse – summer’s heartbeat gone all flat and tinny.  I am, I want, I wish, I need.  I am tired.  I want to be left alone.  I wish I it would rain.  I need a reason.  People have children to gain purchase on immortality.  In a hundred years some fractured version of their face will be staring back at itself in a mirror.  Oh look – how like great-grandmama – same jaw, similar eyes – I am, I want, I wish, I need.  I heard the other day that various geneticists had traced a direct descendant of Genghis Khan.  Does this man now harbor the seeds of conquest?  How ‘like’ is he?  How ‘like’ are any of us really?  So we share bars on a helix?  Does that mean we pre-dispose ourselves toward one kind of behavior or another?   

The weight that is the world can so easily overwhelm.  Unfortunately – it is not possible to take a break.  This is an all or nothing proposition – you’re either in or you’re out – as Heidi Klum so breezily puts it.  40 odd years ago my oldest sister opted for ‘out’, I’m afraid.  I was 7 the summer she committed suicide.  It was hot then too.  I wasn’t told about it until I hit my teens.  I just thought she’d left me.  I was told that as well; that her absence was my fault – the result of my inherent ‘bad character’ – hers too.  Unstable they called her.  Maybe she was.  All I know is she was the only member of my family I loved and who loved me back.  More than 20 years my senior – she shone like a star – beautiful, warm - red hair in a leopard print coat.  I’d wait at the window every Sunday for her to come see me; until one Sunday I waited till dark and she never came.  Her name became anathema in our house.  I wasn’t allowed to speak of her – my mother pretended she had never been born.  My brother used to encourage me to commit suicide also.  He’d tell me the family discussed it – decided I was just ‘like’ her, and like her I needed to be dead.  But death isn’t a reality show.  There is no turning back.  ‘Out’ is just that - ‘out’.  And those genes she and I shared didn’t extend to that.

I’ve always wondered - what if she later decided she wanted to be ‘in’?  That sudden burst of ennui - of depression - what if it passed moments later?  What if she didn’t want to be dead?  Her choice became irrevocable, I’m afraid.  You can’t rent a timeshare on eternity.  But what if you could?  What if it were possible to shuffle off this mortal coil and suck up some of that oft touted and much desired peace?  But only on the installment plan.  Rent to buy, as it were; with a fully cancelable contract.  I hereby revoke my former agreement on account of I don’t like being dead any more.  Would there be some kind of penalty do you think?  A forfeiture?  Say – 10% of the rest of your life.  Would that make any appreciable difference?  Would Patricia come back to me?  Put her arms around me and say, ‘Sorry, kid - I didn’t really mean it – leaving you all alone like that.  It was just a mistake.’  You know - somehow I doubt it.  Dead is dead – in any dimension.  So goodbye sweet lady.  I hope wherever you are – you finally found your peace.