Amour Up Close and Personal

I recently saw the film, Amour directed by Michael Haneke. This exquisitely crafted, unsentimental, and honest look at caregiving and the end of life made me nod my head more than it made me wipe a tear. In fact, I didn't shed one.  I found myself more often thinking, "Yes, that's right. That's the way it is." I would upon occasion grimace at a scene remembering my own experience as a caregiver. The story of Amour is direct and accurate. Hearing the character Anne's cry from the shower "hurts" made me shudder recalling standing outside of my mother's door hearing her cry out "cold"  as the nurse struggled with nozzle in hand.  Watching the nurse give the character Georges, instructions on turning and sheet pulling brought me back to my brother's bedside as he lay helpless, dependent on the kindness of strangers and the love of family.
The serious and at times empty look in the  husband's eyes - whose days had become about diapers and feedings - eyes behind which conflicted, unimaginable thoughts dwell in hopeless resignation.  "Yes," I nodded. Those were my eyes. My thoughts.

The pacing of the spoon to the mouth. The slow, labored swallow. The boredom of the fixation on how many spoonfuls went down. The fumbled aim. The tight lips refusing another bite. The impatient jamming of just one more. "Yes," I nodded. I, too, pushed the spoon just that way and felt the frustration of the turned head and the terror of the anger that bubbled up within me.   Complete control and complete lack of control collide in those tiny moments bringing life into focus in a frame so small it is no wonder it was so readily captured in the film, Amour.  At the bedside, life becomes a series of close ups.

The tenderness, the humility, the dependence, the humanity, the exhaustion, the struggle - it is all there to see - raw and true through the camera's lens and in the hands of a masterful, courageous storyteller.
The bedside is its own world.  It can be a lonely place.

 Even the cruelty of indifference and the insensitivity of a callous caregiver is captured. I recalled my own vigilance and authority as I monitored the actions of hired help.  The bed must be supervised, dignity protected, and personhood preserved no matter how diminished it may appear. Caring for the dying is not a job.  It is a calling.  And not all are called to do the job.

Upon occasion, the window opens allowing mystery and mysticism to bring a renewed sense of awe when the meaning of life and the journey to death all seem sacred  and where birds lead the way to a crematorium or bring a message of comfort. Yes, that too, I experienced. Again, I nodded.  This is a film for anyone who has been there.  This is a film that will open the eyes of anyone who hasn't.
It is not a good time.
It is a good film.

 I emerged from the theatre, dry eyed, somber, and grateful.  While the bedside has brought me to my knees in anguish it has also taught me the greatest lessons in life.  We don't talk about it over dinner or polite conversation but my experience with death has made me the person I am today.  To understand me is to understand that I have pulled the dentures out of my mother's mouth to brush them and have wiped my brother's bottom and held both of their hands as they drew their last breath.  This is not a badge of honor. This is life in close up.  I am grateful to have been able to identify with this film so personally. It reminded me of where I have been. It reminded me that we are much stronger than we ever imagine ourselves to be.  It reminded me of the hospice workers who face this story every day.
It reminded me that at the end of life, compassion, mercy, kindness, forgiveness, patience, humility, and gratitude are essential compass points.

 But the one true guide is amour.

Did You Hear the People Sing? Another Critique of Les Miserables the Movie

What choice do I have?  Everyone's a critic, right? So can you blame me for weighing in on the most anticipated movie event of the season?  Especially when the movie is a musical? The  musical I just directed last spring? Indulge me.

The movie version of Les Miserables is a cinematic masterpiece. Director Tom Hooper gives the viewer the panoramic scope of revolution and the close up brutality of its effects on Victor Hugo's iconic characters.  The movie drags you along through the dank, dreary, and desperate time through streets, sewers, and along the Seine with tight frames and sweeping cinematic shots. Les Miserables the movie does what a movie can and should do as a visual medium. Naturalism and realism are expected in film and Hooper delivers.

Which is why Les Miserables the cinematic masterpiece made me appreciate Les Miserables the theatrical masterpiece even more.

There have been other non-musical movie versions of Les Miserables, the most notable being the one with Liam Neeson as Valjean.  Hugo's story is epic and requires epic  story-telling one way or the other.  It's a great story.

What makes Les Mis the musical singular in the history of musical  theatre is its score! Boublil and Schoenberg wrote and composed a score as powerful and soaring as the story. It is in the best sense, an opera.   Schoenberg's music serves the story note by note, measure by measure from crescendo to crescendo - from recitative to soaring ballad - forte to pianissimo - the music is what makes the musical.

And the music is what was missing in the movie.  Oh sure it was there - kind of.  Boublil and Schoenberg both are credited as part of the screen writing team.  Somehow, in the mix, Boublil  forgot about his partner. In a musical that makes my insides explode with emotion with the thunderous and brilliantly woven  four- part barricade sequence, I was caught up in the realistic slaughter of idealistic students without the accompanying musical underscore.  It was there, buried beneath the rubble - barely audible most of the time.  There were selected moments when the music did what it is capable of doing - the heart breaking strings swelling  as we take in the deadly toll of the battle but the music was secondary to the visually graphic cinematography.

Don't get me wrong - I know that movies are a visual genre.  But oh how I missed Fantine's powerful belt in I Dreamed a Dream and the stillness of Valjean's Bring Him Home. Taking nothing away from Ann Hathaway's cheek bones, which we saw aplenty - or Hugh Jackman's mop of curly hair that barely grayed over the decades - both of whose performances I thought were credible with an abundance of tears in close ups that made the songs intimate at best and unmoving at worst...and so let's talk about Russell Crowe.
What were they thinking? Two of the best songs in the musical reduced to a semi-spoken, choked performance by a non-singer is perhaps the most grievous offense of all to the score.

In terms of storytelling, I thought the placement of I Dreamed a Dream was a startlingly good choice and the addition of the song Suddenly that Valjean sings about Cosette helped fill out a weak plot point in the musical.
Master of the House lost its charm although it had more than capable performances by Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter as the Thenardiers.  Directorially, the much needed comic relief descended into the dark abyss with the rest of the story.

They might have shaved thirty minutes off the movie had they simply picked up the tempos which were at times dirge-like serving the close up naturalistic approach to the songs.
This worked best as Marius (Eddie Redmayne) sang Empty Chairs at Empty Tables - though "the grief that can't be spoken"was there in abundance as the tears poured down the young man's face. His voice still soared where it needed to. Hooper left most of the Cosette (Amanda Seyfried) and Marius songs alone and that was a good choice.
But what happened to Eponine (Samantha Barks)? Somehow, her character felt diminished - albeit rain drenched for A Little Fall of Rain - she disappeared at the end - a love story lost in the shadows.

So what does this all prove?  As a theatre director and advocate, it reminded me that plays and movies are completely different genres. The theatre by its very nature is larger than life and an epic story like Les Mis can be told simply, representationally, and effectively with the creative expanse that can happen only on the stage and in the imagination of the audience.

And a great score like Les Miserables should be sung.

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.