Beyond War Revisited

In the 80's, I was involved in a peace movement called Beyond War.
I was a new mother in my mid-twenties.  The arms race was on high speed
and the threat of nuclear annihilation hung over humanity.
Idealistic and passionate, we sat in the living rooms of friends and families
preaching the gospel of unilateral disarmament.

So influenced was I by the principles of Beyond War,
 that I forbade my children to play with guns of any kind.
 We were a weapon-free house.
No Atari video games in our den either.

So committed was I to the cause that when my son went to
Knott's Berry Farm for a birthday outing, he ended up with a
fringed suede purse which I dubbed a "saddle bag" instead of
the holster and silver toy pistols he longingly gazed at in the souvenir shop.
I have a photo of him staring into the camera looking very tough with his
saddle bag strapped across his little 5 year-old torso.

This was perhaps, the only radical step I have ever taken in my life.

I believed that violence begets violence;
that words can be weapons too;
that how we think about others and the language we use to describe our differences matters;
 that our individual choices do in fact impact the world.

My choice as a young mother to withhold
 toys that fueled the imagination of warfare and violence
was an earnest effort to make a difference.

My critics  said it wouldn't matter.
Withholding weapons would only make my children
want them more.

Not true.  Both my children are well adjusted adults who have no deep- seated longing to wield a gun or to blow up the world.

And today, twenty-eight years later, I still believe I was right.
Perhaps it is time to return to the principles of Beyond War -

We are one.
I will resolve conflict.
I will not use violence
I will maintain a spirit of good will.
I will not pre-occupy myself with an enemy.
I will work with others to build  a world
beyond war.

We face new perils today.  As I languish at times, overwhelmed by technological advances, the de-sensitization brought on by school shootings and gun control debates, and the endless cycle of war and violence, the simple choices of our every day lives seem to make more sense to me.

The cause of peace can be global or it can be carried out on an individual basis - one to one.
Modeling conflict resolution and standing up against bullying and hatred are all things we can do on a daily basis.

As a Pastoral Counselor, I must re-commit to strongly advocating for the necessary support services for those among us who suffer with mental health issues and illnesses.
If the counselors could rise up with a voice as strong as the gun lobbyists perhaps we could make an impact.

As 2013 looms, the massacre of innocents is fresh in our memory and the grief is raw in our hearts - let each of us ask ourselves how we can make a difference in our day to day lives with the people in our immediate communities, workplaces, schools, churches and neighborhoods.

The just cause of peace may be a global one
but it begins at home.
It begins with each of us.

Home is Where the Pumpkin Is

  I bought a miniature pumpkin the other day at Trader Joe's. Nesting urges. It is fall and normally I would be decorating my house with various Halloween themed stuff.  My impulse to buy the mini pumpkin and to pick out a bouquet of sunflowers for my dining room table felt like home.
I have been splitting myself between two residences. Not living in either.  Staying in both.

Temporary though it may be, time is after all, all we have.  Why can't I settle in?  The question has been plaguing me.  As if settling in might mean it's not so temporary.

I haven't really cooked in a long time.  I've defrosted meat and put it on the grill to barbecue.  I've tossed salads and packed my lunch. I've opened containers of yogurt and poured granola into a bowl. I've brewed coffee and boiled eggs.

There's virtually nothing on the walls.  I have no place to set a glass when I sit on the couch.  I watch DVD's on a 12 inch TV we bought years ago for our boat.

Mostly I manage the liter boxes - one on the balcony and one in the laundry room.  I've gone through three versions and considered for about ten minutes buying an automatic one. I settled on a covered style with a filter but I'm spending more money on liter than anything else these days - I've tried pine bark and walnut shells, clumping and non-clumping. I obsess on sweeping up and spraying fabreeze.  The cats have definitely settled in even if I haven't.

Friday, I got a call from my bank telling me someone had hacked my account and was on a spending spree in Brooklyn. This, on the same day that the garbage disposal went out and the garage door wouldn't open.  Home repairs never seem to go away no matter where you live. And money seems to escape the bank account one way or the other.

As one of my favorite songs by Mary Chapin Carpenter says, "Sometimes your the windshield. Sometimes your the bug." Guess which one I've been feeling like lately.

The good news is, I am very adaptable.
 Down right unflappable.
I'm asking myself different questions.
Having a  completely new conversation.
Although, my story does seems to have a thematic thread that continues to run through every chapter.
 Letting go.
 I'm quite practiced at it and getting more skilled at it  with each passing day.
I'm just not sure what to hold on to anymore.  What is worth holding onto?

When we were young and starting out, building our home for our family was the driving force.  Putting down roots was never a question I had to ask. It was a natural outgrowth of our lives.  We lived close to my mother in the neighborhood I grew up in. I knew where home was. I'd lived there all my life.

Right now, I think I'm a little lost.
I think, I'm a little homesick.

 I think I'm going to go into the kitchen and cook some soup.
 Not out of the can.
Homemade.

Time to settle in.

Mother's Birthday

Mother would have been ninety-five yesterday. The last rose of summer,  she died on the first day of spring. The memory of  her tiny, frail, withered end looms large.  She wore out at ninety.  All that fire doused by age, pills, and dementia, Mother's passing came in time.  A full life - her story is one of survival and fierceness in the face of some of life's greatest tragedies. Her last chapter was difficult for both of us but looking back five years, I now see that it was full of grace.  Her death was relatively peaceful - a liberation for both mother and daughter.
I was lucky to have such a mother.  It is her strength that I look to now. Her ability to fight. Her optimism. Her practical nature formed out of necessity.  Mother was ready for anything and could handle everything.

My father showed up in a dream I had the other night.  He seemed so distant. A long-ago memory of a figure from my childhood, he seemed for the first time in my life, insignificant. I've lived more than thirty  years of my life without him.  Life's real challenges started after his death so it is Mother whom I look to now as the model for living.  Self reliance is something I am only now learning.

Work has always been at the center of my life.  As a child, it was my parent's work in their business that was the dinner table talk. Work and home were intertwined.  My father sitting up late at night hunched over papers, writing furiously in his large scrawl, taught me sales.  My mother, up every morning to go into the office, taught me a work ethic and never to leave my desk messy at the end of the day.

Perspective is everything.

Thank God for my work.

Right now, my work is home.  It is my salvation.  It gives me purpose and meaning.  It gives me security.

And if work is home then I know I will always have a place to live.

Mother worked all her life.  Even after there was no office to go to,  she worked at being Ga Ga.  She was in the parking lot of my children's school waiting to drive them home every single day.

To the day she died, she worked at being my Mother.  "Do  you need anything?" she would ask from her wheel chair clutching an empty purse stuffed with Kleenex. "Do you need money?" she would ask.  "There's nothing we can't handle," she would say while pointing her arthritic finger at me.

Right. That's right.

Her fierce, fighting spirit burns within me.  Yes.  There's nothing we can't handle.

Thanks, Mom.  Happy Birthday.

Pink Flamingo Summer

My lack of roots this summer has had me less balanced than the one legged stance of the pink flamingos in my flower bed. I did not put them there. Someone else did. Their presence in my yard makes me feel like a stranger in my own home.
 I left them there to help me detach.

 I am as out of control as  the croquet balls batted around by the wacky Queen in Alice in Wonderland.  She used  pink flamingo mallets as I recall.
 Everything is topsy turvy.
 We are playing by someone else's rules.
There is  no point in trying to figure it out.  

I look down the street like I've done every day for five years
but Savona Walk doesn't look the same to me.
 Maybe it's because I'm preparing to have to let it go.
Maybe it's because there is such sadness at the other end of it.

Our time on Savona has been bookended by grief.
In between there was  laughter and fun.
Life
       in paradise.

But

When it slips from your grasp -
your home
          your dream
                         your friend

you realize (again)
            nothing lasts.

And so what does it matter?
Strangers stay in your home.
You move to a one bedroom apartment and pretend it's a boat.

And  Pink Flamingos appear in your yard.

Exile

I feel like I am a character in an absurdist drama.  Most pursuits seem meaninglessness. Futile.

The juxtaposition and convergence of recent events have left me to  re-examine the narrative of my life.
We are all protagonists in our own dramas fighting against the forces that shape us. Our motivations come from different places, deeply rooted in childhood mythology, lies couched in promises, and expectations reared within the context of an American dream now defunct.

As a theatre director, the most interesting of all character conflicts to me is the inner-conflict.
Self vs. Self
 We are all struggling with our own inner selves and that struggle propels us to do the most remarkable things - both positive and negative.
The important thing is to recognize the conflict and to wrestle with it consciously.

When we refuse to look at the truth about ourselves at every level, we make choices that are not rooted in honesty but rather in denial. From benign and insignificant to profound and deadly, our denial blinds us in a way that affects not only ourselves, but our loved ones, community, and the world.

 I have come to believe that the most important thing we can do in our lives is to (as some philosopher or theologian said)  take a long, hard, look at the real and tell ourselves the truth. The ramifications may on the surface seem unthinkable and shattering.  But in the end, the emergence of the truth has the potential to  makes us whole.

In my own case, it seems as if I have been in pursuit of something unattainable since the day my father died in 1981.
The illusive, child-like notion - that someone will come to the rescue.

Someone out there surely is going to
invest
rent
offer
hire
resuscitate
rehabilitate
save
give
understand

Surely
Joanne won't be locked in
incapacitated
mute

Surely
we won't lose our home

Surely
Steve's business will take off

Surely
Norma won't die

Surely
the gods of the universe wouldn't be so cruel as to steal Ken away from Sophia and their ten- month old baby on a beautiful Saturday afternoon bike ride on PCH

Surely
the coroner  wouldn't be so heartless as to leave her card on Sophia's door saying "Call ASAP"

Surely
I will get to go home and live in my house in Naples and sleep in my own bed

Surely
There will be a happy ending

This denial has rendered me dependent and has kept me in a perpetual state of anxiety about the future.

I know there are those who would point the way to faith in God as the solution.  Life is transitory. Death is certain. Carpe Diem.

But sometimes, it feels like Beckett got it right.
Or
Camus.

I understand how drama reflects circumstance and how context forges style.
I understand that on the continuum faith is at one end and absurdism at the other.

Delusion and Denial cloud the truth and today I believe that stripping away false belief and looking at the harsh realities of it all is the only way to rescue yourself.
Whatever that means.

Wanderings

Director Anne Bogart says that "disorientation is good for art."
 Her directorial technique, called Viewpoints has become for me this summer both a metaphor and a guide.

Recently I've been a tad disoriented.  Like a gypsy, my personal belongings scattered in satchels, suitcases, and moveable crates, I wander from place to place seeking equilibrium, grounding, home. Uprooted and mobile, my adventure has spurred moments of surprise, insight, and the occasional sore back. Emotions ebb and flow by the hour sometimes. Frequently frustrated by not being able to find something, I realize that habit and comfort are twins.  When forced to change our habits, we are uncomfortable. But it is in that very discomfort that discoveries are made. The looming question about whether the risk outweighs the gain takes on greater significance with each passing day. Patience and trust still tipping the scale while fear and uncertainty hang in the balance. Risk is a choice, sacrifice a by-product, and freedom a result if one can hold on long enough to see it through.  This is the inner dialogue that runs through my head. What life and loss have taught me is that there is no one to rescue you.  You must rescue yourself.  Resilience is everything.

I spent nearly a week cast a drift in New York,  walking the neighborhoods in the East Village, SoHo, and Chelsea. I elbowed my way through Times Square a midst hundreds of sticky, hot tourists, and found relief under an umbrella in Rockefeller Center as I massaged my aching feet and nibbled on overpriced hummus, while gulping an Arnold Palmer. Alone in the world, anonymously, I sat in on a talk by a casting director at the Atlantic Theatre Company in a studio full of young, aspiring actors hoping to become directors themselves.  With no skin in the game, no delusions of discovery, I observed the speaker, wearing shorts and the casual confidence that accompanies one whose stories are laced with the names Bob De Niro and Sharon Stone.  I left the room after the 75 minute talk, feeling better about myself as a director and teacher - a quiet, personal moment of acknowledgment that my life and experience in the theatre have added up to something.  I may not be able to drop the names of famous stars, but I know I could have taught those kids a heck of a lot more about directing than what they got as they  hung  on to every word, digesting the "wisdom" of a guy who had little to give.

I crossed the street to the Chelsea Market and took in the sights of the beautifully designed space. My walk led me out the other end and up a flight of stairs to the High Line.  At 7:30 at night, the air had cooled enough to make it a perfect summer evening.  Romance was palpable. Lovers nestled and kissed against the panorama of a dramatically textured sky at sunset while jazz floated along the walkway scoring the scene like a Woody Allen movie.  I don't think I've felt as much joy in discovering a place in my life. My heart soared, my spirit lightened, and I thought that without a doubt, I had found the happiest place in New York City.

The discomfort of a life in New York sans doorman, air conditioning, and lots of money is pretty tough to handle. Blocks to walk to the subway. The blast of hot air as you move below ground, the blast of cold air as the doors of the train open, the hassle of carrying everything from groceries to laundry up five flights of stairs to a hot apartment on the fifth floor, make daily life challenging.  Not for the faint of heart to be sure.

But discomfort is good for art.

 I took myself to A Streetcar Named Desire with Blair Underwood. An all African American cast was just too enticing for me to ignore even though my money might have been better spent on a Tony- winning production. My curiosity was too great for me not to go see how this classic Williams play that I teach every year was reinterpreted with a black sensibility.  I was struck by the very startling discovery of humor found in lines that I had always read as pathetically tragic. Subtext obliterated, the text came through with astonishing clarity. Somehow, it worked.  Not in every moment - but for the most part, I was able to accept what I was seeing.  Interpretation, risk, and boldness of choice - daring to take on a play with the ghosts of giants hovering over the boards - Tennessee Williams' words came to life for a whole new audience. I got what I came for.

Flying home to not going home, I continued my journey of detachment.  Tethered only to friends and family and a belief in the potential for small business and entrepreneurship, my adventure simmers deep within me.  Punctuated by A Conversation with Stephen Sondheim at the Segerstrom Hall, my theatrical muse continued to be inspired as I listened to his sage words and basked in his quick and clever mind.  Again, the take away for me was the willingness to risk.

Sondheim, on stage,  quoted the late Oscar Hammerstein, "You must be willing to fall off the top rung of the ladder, not the bottom."

I'm not sure where we are on that ladder - so often a metaphor for "success". When the top of that ladder is still out of reach, there is no choice but to keep climbing rung by rung on the way to somewhere. One step at a time. Holding on. Risking the fall.

It's good for art.

Summer Memories

Fifty-two summers have come and gone since my birth and I have, for the most part, loved them all.  From the time I was barely able to walk, the sand between my toes felt more natural than shoes. Those early summers were full of stories, sand castles, and swimming off of San Clemente.  My father, tanned and shirtless,  in his white denim levis rolled above the ankle, content on the edge of the shore with a giant fishing pole in hand, was my companion.  My long, golden hair blowing in the wind, my hands bloodied by the worms I proudly threaded onto my hook, Daddy taught me to cast my line into the surf and to watch the tip of the pole bend with that first nibble.  The waves washed over my feet as they sank deeper into the wet sand until they eventually disappeared. Each wave retreated with a whoosh across glistening flat rocks at the water's edge, reclaimed by the ocean, leaving only a trace of itself etched in a thin,  sea foam pattern along the shore. The topography of my childhood - a map of my life.

As I grew, the seaweed flags atop  sand castle towers protected by deep motes built with my father's hands as he wove yarns about my imaginary adventures with sand crabs named Sandy, Amos,  and one named Johnny who was in love with me, washed away with my childhood.

Growing up as a teenager in Southern California brought with it bonfires in Doheny, the Sawdust Festival in Laguna Beach with a twenty-five cent admission fee, and body surfing in bikinis.  With white zinc oxide spread across our noses, puka shell necklaces around our necks, and Hawaiian halter cover ups, we were the surfer girls the Beach Boys sang about.

It is different now.  My skin, always quick to tan in summer, is blotched with sun spots that darken faster than my tan, an inevitable consequence of a life along the coast of California.  Tanned skin may be out of fashion but my yearning to worship the sun is as strong as when I was sixteen.  Only now, instead of baby oil, I lather expensive sun screen with SPF 30.  Gidget, it seems, grew up.

But the inner Gidget still thrills when the sun breaks through an overcast morning promising the spirit of a summer day.

And I remember my father's hands, powerful in the ocean as he swam through the waves and his toes,  sifting sand and hidden thoughts. Of my fifty-two years at the beach, my last memory of my father is from my twenty-second summer, staring into the fire, his thoughts unknown to me. Perhaps he knew it would be his last full day by the water's edge.

The sun never broke through that overcast August.
The waves crashed over the castle and my youth vanished into the sea.

But the ocean remains as constant as memory and tide.  As my fifty-third summer begins - I am still happiest at the beach.