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I don't know about you, but I am so relieved it is finally fall. Now don't get me wrong, I live for summer. I count down the days till the end of school just like I did as a child. I love the feeling of utter freedom and joy that comes with the long, lazy days of summer.
Growing up in Southern California, summer equals beach. Nothing stirs my sixteen-year-old sense memory like a sunny day at the beach. And on those overcast, gray mornings - "Do you think it will burn off?" is still my favorite question.
I love sand. I love sand in my shoes. I love sand between my toes. I even love sand on my hardwood floors.
I love the feeling of salt on my skin and the bristle of my hair after swimming in the ocean and sunbathing on the beach for hours on end. Summer sun draws me outside - beckoning me to sit in my white adirondack chair, lay in my zero gravity lounger, or just recline in my Costco aluminum beach chair. When I see the sun break through, I feel my skin sizzling with Vitamin D. I feel tan, healthy, and alive!
Summer days at the beach hold nothing but happy memories for me. On a hot, sunny, day at the beach I'm Gidget all over again. Without the bikini.
Still, I'm relieved it's over. All that pressure to relax. All that expectation of doing nothing. The stress of vacation planning. Behind me. Summer days come with a price. As I get older, there seem to be fewer of them, so each one feels inordinately valuable. Deciding how to spend a summer day creates so much anxiety, that sometimes it can be paralyzing - evidenced by the many projects still left undone, unfinished, and piled up in my guest room. "Should I spend today cleaning out closets, finishing that memoir, organizing the garage, painting the cabinet? Or should I go outside and enjoy the sun?" So goes the song, "Summertime and the livin' is easy."
More times than not, the sun wins.
When fall comes and school gets into full swing, my life takes on a familiar, comforting equilibrium. Rehearsals begin again. Syllabi need reformatting. The school year brings that wonderful sense of beginning.
I'm more aware than ever that the experiences my students will have in my classes and productions are going to make up a part of their high school memories. Their roles, their dreams, their opportunities, their futures are impacted by me. As I get older, my students get younger.
And their hearts seem all the more tender. Just this week, the girl I cast as Anne Frank, threw her arms around me and said, "Thank you, Mrs. Barth." In that moment, I remembered why I love what I do.
I suppose all that time relaxing in the sun contributes to my enthusiasm for returning to the daily chores of teaching and directing. By June, I will most likely be counting down the days again. I will most likely return to that pile in my guest room and the whole cycle will begin again. Sun or sort?
But for now, it is fall and with it brings another season out of the sun, in the darkness of a theatre where my soul gets its injection of whatever the creative equivalent is to Vitamin D. Call it passion.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Worried Mother
The ultimate anticipatory anxiety - waiting for Hurricane Irene to hit New York City.
The ultimate letting go - I can't do a darned thing for my daughter except to send her annoying text messages about getting batteries, peanut butter, water, and flashlights. As if she couldn't figure that out for herself!
She is in an evacuation zone so after battling her way through the little hardware store down the street in the east village, she has headed to the upper east side to hunker down with a couple of friends from NYU.
I had a conversation with my mother. If there was ever a time for her to intervene, it is now. I do that. Whenever I have to perform, I talk to my brother, Bob. When I'm worried about Steve, I talk to my Dad. But this one is for Mom. Her practicality, sense, and preparedness all of my life is definitely what we need now. "You never know when you might be invaded," she would say - thus our cabinets were always full of canned goods and her gas tank was never lower than a quarter of a tank.
Driving home last night from school, I noticed that our tank was lower than half and I nearly pulled into the Mobile station until I remembered that I live in Long Beach, California, not Long Beach, New York and that the hurricane was hitting the east coast not here. (I do plan on sorting our our emergency supplies again, though. I'm almost scared to look at that food I put into those plastic containers a couple of years ago. It's time to rotate the stuff and reorganize. Now that I'm commuting, our trunk needs to be ready with more supplies than our home.)
Not only am I worried about Gillian. There are a lot of people I know in New York and on the east coast! Our friends Teri and Darcy with whom we just spent a few days snorkeling in Hawaii have just taken their daughter Emma to Washington DC for college. They managed to fly right into the middle of this. The week started with an earthquake! What a beginning to Emma's college experience! And then there is my cousin Erin who is in North Carolina. I have a lot of former students in the New York and New Jersey area.
What did we do before the weather channel, Facebook, CNN, and twitter? Here I am sitting in my den in California, experiencing this event moment to moment. The great thing about social media and cable TV is that when you want the information it is right there waiting for you.
News alert: The trains, busses, and subways in New York are going to shut down in an hour. I'm sitting in California, but my anxiety about this news and that the city will essentially come to a stand still until the wind and rain hit is a visceral experience for me. There is a strange sense of isolation that I feel thinking of my girl in the middle of this. I've never had to ride out a hurricane in my life.
I have to keep reminding myself that I'm not riding this one out either.
Gillian is.
Mom - I'm counting on you! Take care of our girl!
The ultimate letting go - I can't do a darned thing for my daughter except to send her annoying text messages about getting batteries, peanut butter, water, and flashlights. As if she couldn't figure that out for herself!
She is in an evacuation zone so after battling her way through the little hardware store down the street in the east village, she has headed to the upper east side to hunker down with a couple of friends from NYU.
I had a conversation with my mother. If there was ever a time for her to intervene, it is now. I do that. Whenever I have to perform, I talk to my brother, Bob. When I'm worried about Steve, I talk to my Dad. But this one is for Mom. Her practicality, sense, and preparedness all of my life is definitely what we need now. "You never know when you might be invaded," she would say - thus our cabinets were always full of canned goods and her gas tank was never lower than a quarter of a tank.
Driving home last night from school, I noticed that our tank was lower than half and I nearly pulled into the Mobile station until I remembered that I live in Long Beach, California, not Long Beach, New York and that the hurricane was hitting the east coast not here. (I do plan on sorting our our emergency supplies again, though. I'm almost scared to look at that food I put into those plastic containers a couple of years ago. It's time to rotate the stuff and reorganize. Now that I'm commuting, our trunk needs to be ready with more supplies than our home.)
Not only am I worried about Gillian. There are a lot of people I know in New York and on the east coast! Our friends Teri and Darcy with whom we just spent a few days snorkeling in Hawaii have just taken their daughter Emma to Washington DC for college. They managed to fly right into the middle of this. The week started with an earthquake! What a beginning to Emma's college experience! And then there is my cousin Erin who is in North Carolina. I have a lot of former students in the New York and New Jersey area.
What did we do before the weather channel, Facebook, CNN, and twitter? Here I am sitting in my den in California, experiencing this event moment to moment. The great thing about social media and cable TV is that when you want the information it is right there waiting for you.
News alert: The trains, busses, and subways in New York are going to shut down in an hour. I'm sitting in California, but my anxiety about this news and that the city will essentially come to a stand still until the wind and rain hit is a visceral experience for me. There is a strange sense of isolation that I feel thinking of my girl in the middle of this. I've never had to ride out a hurricane in my life.
I have to keep reminding myself that I'm not riding this one out either.
Gillian is.
Mom - I'm counting on you! Take care of our girl!
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Thank You, Mr. Sondheim
I have been slowly making my way through FINISHING THE HAT, Stephen Sondheim's instructional memoir about musical theatre. I say slowly, because each chapter is an in depth analysis of a different musical, complete with lyrics, anectdotal stories , biographical information, commentary, confession, and cautionary tales. I'm reading this book one chapter at a time.
Now this is less a review of the book (I'm only half way through - having just finished DO I HEAR A WALTZ? ready to jump into COMPANY) as it is a reflection on what I've learned thus far. I figure, as an aspiring writer, former musical theatre performer, lover of musicals, and all out musical theatre fanatic who has thus far failed to successfully create one of her own, I might as well learn from the best, right? Each chapter of FINISHING THE HAT feels like a master class taught by Mr. Sondheim.
There is much to be learned about rhyme scheme. He has strong feelings about what he calls the "sin" of the misplaced stress in lyrics. But, the one line in the book that hit me between the eyes, made me close the gigantic blue cover, sit back, desire to argue, and then force me to face my own conceit, was that writers "should not direct their own work."
He uses his experience with ANYONE CAN WHISTLE, the show that he and Arthur Laurents created, and Laurents directed as the basis for his warning. While arguably the first "absurdist" musical, it was by all rights, a commercial failure with some great songs.
Sondheim says that a writer, "creates." A director, "interprets."
"Yes," I thought. "That is exactly right. I am more of an interpreter than a creator." Now grant it, my directorial experience has primarily been in the field of educational theatre, thus it comes with the many layers of "teaching" along with interpreting. In fact, getting to the interpretation is itself an educational process. Through my directing, I teach how to analyze. Because it is my job to encourage young artists, my work with them is often their first collaboration.
There is so much for them to learn. I have never been a director who spoon feeds. At the point I'm forced to spoon feed, I have become desperate. It has happened only a couple of times in my career as a theatre educator.
No, my way is the way of digging, questioning, working with the actor to come to some understanding of the playwright's intent. It is my job as the director to make that clear - moment to moment -through physical and inner action, stage picture, pause, and delivery. As a theatre educator, each one of these aspects of an actor's performance includes teaching - the degree to which depends obviously on the innate, intuitive ability of the student. Sometimes the job requires a lot of "undoing" particularly with the "highly experienced" student whose background includes a lifetime of children's theatre.
More often than not, students come with no training, only performing experience. Moving them from "performer" to one who appreciates the "craft," is a process that requires immense patience and an understanding that the awakening of the artist may not occur until long after the rehearsal and performance experience is completed.
The young, new, actor is blindly trusting me to mid-wife their own artistry without realizing that that is what is happening. Through a uniquely individualized, nuanced process, the student, grows to understand that in acting, he is the instrument. A musician learning to play the violin must know how to read music, commit to a discipline of practice, and develop the technique of bowing. These skills ultimately move the player into the world of interpretation and artistry.
It is the same thing for an actor, only in his case, the instrument is himself.
Interpretation of a musical includes understanding the plot, characters, and story - "the book", the lyrics of songs, and the orchestration of the score. The role of music in a musical may seem the obvious distinguishing feature of the genre - but as a director, I spend as much time listening to what story the music is telling me through its style, melody, tempo, rhythm, crescendo, decrescendo, and structure as I do analyzing lyrics. The music often conveys a character's motivation, decisiveness, uncertainty, and feeling. How the lyrics fit with the music and how they interweave with the book are also part of the interpretation.
In FINISHING THE HAT, I have learned that the process of creating what, as a director, I interpret, takes enormous skill. It's not that I didn't know that. Nothing in art comes easy. But it is important to recognize in one's self, where one's expertise lies.
A writer "creates." A director "interprets."
The desire to create may be a driving force. Whatever the motivation to do so, wisdom, and Mr. Sondheim, dictate that there be someone with some aesthetic and emotional distance, to interpret what you have written.
Now this is less a review of the book (I'm only half way through - having just finished DO I HEAR A WALTZ? ready to jump into COMPANY) as it is a reflection on what I've learned thus far. I figure, as an aspiring writer, former musical theatre performer, lover of musicals, and all out musical theatre fanatic who has thus far failed to successfully create one of her own, I might as well learn from the best, right? Each chapter of FINISHING THE HAT feels like a master class taught by Mr. Sondheim.
There is much to be learned about rhyme scheme. He has strong feelings about what he calls the "sin" of the misplaced stress in lyrics. But, the one line in the book that hit me between the eyes, made me close the gigantic blue cover, sit back, desire to argue, and then force me to face my own conceit, was that writers "should not direct their own work."
He uses his experience with ANYONE CAN WHISTLE, the show that he and Arthur Laurents created, and Laurents directed as the basis for his warning. While arguably the first "absurdist" musical, it was by all rights, a commercial failure with some great songs.
Sondheim says that a writer, "creates." A director, "interprets."
"Yes," I thought. "That is exactly right. I am more of an interpreter than a creator." Now grant it, my directorial experience has primarily been in the field of educational theatre, thus it comes with the many layers of "teaching" along with interpreting. In fact, getting to the interpretation is itself an educational process. Through my directing, I teach how to analyze. Because it is my job to encourage young artists, my work with them is often their first collaboration.
There is so much for them to learn. I have never been a director who spoon feeds. At the point I'm forced to spoon feed, I have become desperate. It has happened only a couple of times in my career as a theatre educator.
No, my way is the way of digging, questioning, working with the actor to come to some understanding of the playwright's intent. It is my job as the director to make that clear - moment to moment -through physical and inner action, stage picture, pause, and delivery. As a theatre educator, each one of these aspects of an actor's performance includes teaching - the degree to which depends obviously on the innate, intuitive ability of the student. Sometimes the job requires a lot of "undoing" particularly with the "highly experienced" student whose background includes a lifetime of children's theatre.
More often than not, students come with no training, only performing experience. Moving them from "performer" to one who appreciates the "craft," is a process that requires immense patience and an understanding that the awakening of the artist may not occur until long after the rehearsal and performance experience is completed.
The young, new, actor is blindly trusting me to mid-wife their own artistry without realizing that that is what is happening. Through a uniquely individualized, nuanced process, the student, grows to understand that in acting, he is the instrument. A musician learning to play the violin must know how to read music, commit to a discipline of practice, and develop the technique of bowing. These skills ultimately move the player into the world of interpretation and artistry.
It is the same thing for an actor, only in his case, the instrument is himself.
Interpretation of a musical includes understanding the plot, characters, and story - "the book", the lyrics of songs, and the orchestration of the score. The role of music in a musical may seem the obvious distinguishing feature of the genre - but as a director, I spend as much time listening to what story the music is telling me through its style, melody, tempo, rhythm, crescendo, decrescendo, and structure as I do analyzing lyrics. The music often conveys a character's motivation, decisiveness, uncertainty, and feeling. How the lyrics fit with the music and how they interweave with the book are also part of the interpretation.
In FINISHING THE HAT, I have learned that the process of creating what, as a director, I interpret, takes enormous skill. It's not that I didn't know that. Nothing in art comes easy. But it is important to recognize in one's self, where one's expertise lies.
A writer "creates." A director "interprets."
The desire to create may be a driving force. Whatever the motivation to do so, wisdom, and Mr. Sondheim, dictate that there be someone with some aesthetic and emotional distance, to interpret what you have written.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Not Much to Say
The trouble with her is that she lacks the power of conversation but not the power of speech.
George Bernard Shaw
Recently I've found that I have had nothing to say. Have you ever felt that way?
In conversation with others, I've had virtually nothing to contribute. Oh, an idea might flash, an opinion might come to mind - but the energy required to formulate the opinion into something more than half baked has been more effort than I've wanted to invest. Thus, the thought hasn't made it passed my lips. In a word, I've been lazy.
I've felt shallow. Boring. Uninteresting. Dull. Blank. My responses have amounted to a lot of "hmm's and huh's." Unfinished sentences left dangling. Questions left unexplored. Mental shrugs of "I dunno...."
For example, last night the question of why people research their ancestry arose. Why do people need to look into their past? I listened to the conversation feeling overwhelmed by the question. The answer seemed quite obvious to me. Our need to understand who we are - to come to know ourselves - is one of the driving forces of human nature. Identity and self may be defined in any number of ways - but coming to know our story - the narrative of our lives- the evolution of our family history within a greater context of time, place, culture, society, and circumstance gives us insight and perspective. The "then" is contrasted with the "now." By looking into the family history and genealogy, pieces of ourselves become clearer - our personality, our level of determination, our addictions, the patterns - Isn't this why adopted children go in search of their birth parents?
The diagram of a family tree, each branch bearing names and dates of distant relatives - strangers really, also contains their untold stories. The stories of survival and loss. The stories of joy and heartbreak. The stories of courage and cowardice. Their dreams, their hopes for a better future, their failures. Boom and bust. Black sheep and golden. Robust and sickly. The unlikely and predictable. The stories that shape the trajectory of a family against the back drop of chance, luck, fortune, opportunity, and instinct.
The desire to know begins, I think, with curiosity. It is sustained by a love of story. It is fueled by imagination. It is deepened by a need to understand.
I guess it is no surprise that I am to the core, a dramatist.
But last night, I didn't say any of that.
Sometimes, conversation is just too much energy. Thoughts emerge. The thread of one thought connects to the thread of someone else's. A debate may ensue requiring defending one's position, the parsing of words, the recitation of statistics, the retrieval of a fact buried deep in the recesses of one's mind - the frustrating feeling of "I used to know that."
There's a lot to talk about these days. The economy. The achievement gap in education. The budget. Nutrition. Technology. The state of healthcare. There's a lot to feel bad about. How one parented. The choices one made. The passage of time. Getting old. Whether to get a colonoscopy or not. People getting sick. Terrorism.
I just don't want to talk about it.
George Bernard Shaw
Recently I've found that I have had nothing to say. Have you ever felt that way?
In conversation with others, I've had virtually nothing to contribute. Oh, an idea might flash, an opinion might come to mind - but the energy required to formulate the opinion into something more than half baked has been more effort than I've wanted to invest. Thus, the thought hasn't made it passed my lips. In a word, I've been lazy.
I've felt shallow. Boring. Uninteresting. Dull. Blank. My responses have amounted to a lot of "hmm's and huh's." Unfinished sentences left dangling. Questions left unexplored. Mental shrugs of "I dunno...."
For example, last night the question of why people research their ancestry arose. Why do people need to look into their past? I listened to the conversation feeling overwhelmed by the question. The answer seemed quite obvious to me. Our need to understand who we are - to come to know ourselves - is one of the driving forces of human nature. Identity and self may be defined in any number of ways - but coming to know our story - the narrative of our lives- the evolution of our family history within a greater context of time, place, culture, society, and circumstance gives us insight and perspective. The "then" is contrasted with the "now." By looking into the family history and genealogy, pieces of ourselves become clearer - our personality, our level of determination, our addictions, the patterns - Isn't this why adopted children go in search of their birth parents?
The diagram of a family tree, each branch bearing names and dates of distant relatives - strangers really, also contains their untold stories. The stories of survival and loss. The stories of joy and heartbreak. The stories of courage and cowardice. Their dreams, their hopes for a better future, their failures. Boom and bust. Black sheep and golden. Robust and sickly. The unlikely and predictable. The stories that shape the trajectory of a family against the back drop of chance, luck, fortune, opportunity, and instinct.
The desire to know begins, I think, with curiosity. It is sustained by a love of story. It is fueled by imagination. It is deepened by a need to understand.
I guess it is no surprise that I am to the core, a dramatist.
But last night, I didn't say any of that.
Sometimes, conversation is just too much energy. Thoughts emerge. The thread of one thought connects to the thread of someone else's. A debate may ensue requiring defending one's position, the parsing of words, the recitation of statistics, the retrieval of a fact buried deep in the recesses of one's mind - the frustrating feeling of "I used to know that."
There's a lot to talk about these days. The economy. The achievement gap in education. The budget. Nutrition. Technology. The state of healthcare. There's a lot to feel bad about. How one parented. The choices one made. The passage of time. Getting old. Whether to get a colonoscopy or not. People getting sick. Terrorism.
I just don't want to talk about it.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
In Gratitude
It has taken me seventeen years to complete this portion of my memoir. It has gone through numerous stages – beginning with the raw outpouring of emotion in my journal. Sometimes wildly scribbled on unlined and lined pages, it first began to take form during a writing workshop I took in Idyllwild, taught by Cecilia Woloch, the summer my brother died. I have Cecilia to thank for first drawing the story out of me and then, fifteen years later, editing it. I owe it all to Cecilia, for affirming me as a writer.
The journal became a collection of individually typed essays and poems. As a theatre director, I began a collaboration with a colleague and friend, Chris Winn, who set some of my poems to music. Over four years, we created two theatrical collages during the Lenten season at two different church communities, St. Matthew Church and St. Paul Lutheran Church. I have both those faith communities and the individuals who publicly gave voice to my words to thank for believing and supporting what was still an embryo of an artistic creation. As a writer, I was still not sure what form the story should take. Should it simply be a loose collection of poems and essays? I even flirted with turning it into a play, a musical, an oratorio, and an opera.
As the years passed, my spirit began to heal. With the passage of time came an aesthetic distance. I tucked the pages of my unnamed work away in a binder, in a filing cabinet, in a box. I moved four times between 2003 and 2007 and each time, the box came along – tucked up in the garage or under my desk. Most of the time it stayed unopened.
In 2005, I began teaching a personal journal writing class to older adults through the community college district continuing education program. My journey with this incredible group of writers sharing their life-long lessons of grief, loss, joy and sorrow was inspirational. Their generosity of spirit put my own story into perspective. I came to realize that while my journey was particular to me, it was not unique. Grief is a natural part of life. On the day that my mother passed, March 20, 2007, I spent the evening with this group of writers at a reading we had organized months before. There was nowhere I’d rather have been on my first night without my mother than with them. I watched the audience respond to their stories and I knew that in time, I too would need to share mine. It has taken me seventeen years to name this work as a memoir.
While I wrote this memoir out of my grief and revised it out of my artistry, it is first and foremost for my family. For my nephews, Rob and Matt, my brother’s sons who are as close to me as brothers themselves. It is for their wives, Joanne who entered our family with a platter of cookies on the night Bob passed and it is for Marisa so that she may know the story.
In my classes I often quote, “Our life is our journey, our journey is our story, our story is our legacy”… it is my hope that this story will one day provide my brother’s grandchildren, Hannah, McKenzie, Elise, Reid, Madeleine, and Jacob an understanding of their fathers’ courage and a glimpse of the beautiful complexity of our family and the legacy of love left by their grandfather, Bob, whom they never had the chance to meet. It is for their Nana, Peggy, who is and has always been the closest soul mate in my life. It is for Lenny and Linda - each whose place in our family tree is firmly rooted.
I have often lamented that at forty-eight years old, with the passing of my mother, I became the only survivor of my family of origin. This is a difficult concept for me to grasp and in time I will come to accept it. But I am also aware that my nuclear family is my family. This is for my children, Gillian and Brendan who have grown up with this story and are the most important part of my family’s story. And it is for the person who completes me - my husband, Steve, the steady and able captain of our little ship for whom no words are adequate. We all owe him a debt of gratitude for getting us through. I owe him my life.
I have many other people I wish to thank for companioning me through various parts of this journey. In particular, I would like to acknowledge my friend and spiritual advisor, Mary Loyola for being their at the hardest times, to Celine Miller who rescued me from the depths of depression and generously counseled me during some of my darkest times, to Gayle Hartell who mid-wifed me into being and to my life-long friend, Mugs for being herself and for giving me Cayucos. And to my many friends and colleagues who’ve supported me along the way over the years – Mayo Crismon who is always the first at the door in times of heartache, Susan Wuerer for her creativity, Tricia Homrighausen for being the vessel, Judy Jones for her faithfulness, Mary Barth for being a sister, Katie and Tony Bomkamp for their tenderness, Camie Booker for being at my mom’s bedside on her last day, Diane Bock for her perspective, Teri Rice for rescuing us, Ellen Wright for showing the way, Susie Smith for being my oldest friend, Deb Langhans for her honesty, Kathy Cleary for her generosity in my early days of grief, Virginia and Dan Knowles for their compassion, Darcy Rice for his support of my writing, Michael Kavanagh for being my kind “God-brother”, Giovanna Piazza, for her wisdom, Laurie Julian for her spirit, Corrine Bailey for first breathing life into these words, Peter and Mirella Hickman for their loving, prayerful support, Cindy Warden for making my dream come true, Randy Hills for our partnership and especially to Chris Winn - for the music, for the music, for the music.
This story is meant to be a loving tribute to my brother, Bob. Since it has taken me so long to finish it, I have matured and gained perspective over the years. My writing process often mirrored the stages of grief, remaining in the anger stage for a very long time. I can say with certainty, that I no longer have any anger – only compassion, forgiveness, acceptance, and appreciation for every part of this story, written, and unwritten. The title, Aria – seemed only fitting for a beautiful, tragic story that took on operatic proportion in our family. While through most of this story, Bob’s voice was muted, it will always sing out in my memory.
Finally, I wish to salute my mother, whose courage and strength in the face of tragedy and loss may be the greatest legacy for us all. When I asked my mother years later how she was able to endure watching Bob die, she told me, “I’m just glad I could be there for him.”
The journal became a collection of individually typed essays and poems. As a theatre director, I began a collaboration with a colleague and friend, Chris Winn, who set some of my poems to music. Over four years, we created two theatrical collages during the Lenten season at two different church communities, St. Matthew Church and St. Paul Lutheran Church. I have both those faith communities and the individuals who publicly gave voice to my words to thank for believing and supporting what was still an embryo of an artistic creation. As a writer, I was still not sure what form the story should take. Should it simply be a loose collection of poems and essays? I even flirted with turning it into a play, a musical, an oratorio, and an opera.
As the years passed, my spirit began to heal. With the passage of time came an aesthetic distance. I tucked the pages of my unnamed work away in a binder, in a filing cabinet, in a box. I moved four times between 2003 and 2007 and each time, the box came along – tucked up in the garage or under my desk. Most of the time it stayed unopened.
In 2005, I began teaching a personal journal writing class to older adults through the community college district continuing education program. My journey with this incredible group of writers sharing their life-long lessons of grief, loss, joy and sorrow was inspirational. Their generosity of spirit put my own story into perspective. I came to realize that while my journey was particular to me, it was not unique. Grief is a natural part of life. On the day that my mother passed, March 20, 2007, I spent the evening with this group of writers at a reading we had organized months before. There was nowhere I’d rather have been on my first night without my mother than with them. I watched the audience respond to their stories and I knew that in time, I too would need to share mine. It has taken me seventeen years to name this work as a memoir.
While I wrote this memoir out of my grief and revised it out of my artistry, it is first and foremost for my family. For my nephews, Rob and Matt, my brother’s sons who are as close to me as brothers themselves. It is for their wives, Joanne who entered our family with a platter of cookies on the night Bob passed and it is for Marisa so that she may know the story.
In my classes I often quote, “Our life is our journey, our journey is our story, our story is our legacy”… it is my hope that this story will one day provide my brother’s grandchildren, Hannah, McKenzie, Elise, Reid, Madeleine, and Jacob an understanding of their fathers’ courage and a glimpse of the beautiful complexity of our family and the legacy of love left by their grandfather, Bob, whom they never had the chance to meet. It is for their Nana, Peggy, who is and has always been the closest soul mate in my life. It is for Lenny and Linda - each whose place in our family tree is firmly rooted.
I have often lamented that at forty-eight years old, with the passing of my mother, I became the only survivor of my family of origin. This is a difficult concept for me to grasp and in time I will come to accept it. But I am also aware that my nuclear family is my family. This is for my children, Gillian and Brendan who have grown up with this story and are the most important part of my family’s story. And it is for the person who completes me - my husband, Steve, the steady and able captain of our little ship for whom no words are adequate. We all owe him a debt of gratitude for getting us through. I owe him my life.
I have many other people I wish to thank for companioning me through various parts of this journey. In particular, I would like to acknowledge my friend and spiritual advisor, Mary Loyola for being their at the hardest times, to Celine Miller who rescued me from the depths of depression and generously counseled me during some of my darkest times, to Gayle Hartell who mid-wifed me into being and to my life-long friend, Mugs for being herself and for giving me Cayucos. And to my many friends and colleagues who’ve supported me along the way over the years – Mayo Crismon who is always the first at the door in times of heartache, Susan Wuerer for her creativity, Tricia Homrighausen for being the vessel, Judy Jones for her faithfulness, Mary Barth for being a sister, Katie and Tony Bomkamp for their tenderness, Camie Booker for being at my mom’s bedside on her last day, Diane Bock for her perspective, Teri Rice for rescuing us, Ellen Wright for showing the way, Susie Smith for being my oldest friend, Deb Langhans for her honesty, Kathy Cleary for her generosity in my early days of grief, Virginia and Dan Knowles for their compassion, Darcy Rice for his support of my writing, Michael Kavanagh for being my kind “God-brother”, Giovanna Piazza, for her wisdom, Laurie Julian for her spirit, Corrine Bailey for first breathing life into these words, Peter and Mirella Hickman for their loving, prayerful support, Cindy Warden for making my dream come true, Randy Hills for our partnership and especially to Chris Winn - for the music, for the music, for the music.
This story is meant to be a loving tribute to my brother, Bob. Since it has taken me so long to finish it, I have matured and gained perspective over the years. My writing process often mirrored the stages of grief, remaining in the anger stage for a very long time. I can say with certainty, that I no longer have any anger – only compassion, forgiveness, acceptance, and appreciation for every part of this story, written, and unwritten. The title, Aria – seemed only fitting for a beautiful, tragic story that took on operatic proportion in our family. While through most of this story, Bob’s voice was muted, it will always sing out in my memory.
Finally, I wish to salute my mother, whose courage and strength in the face of tragedy and loss may be the greatest legacy for us all. When I asked my mother years later how she was able to endure watching Bob die, she told me, “I’m just glad I could be there for him.”
Friday, July 8, 2011
Aria- A Sister's Journey With AIDS
I've never been good at reading graphs. But this one was personal. There, on the page of the Los Angeles Times, was a graph beneath the headline AIDS at 30. My eyes scanned left to right and landed on the year. 1994. Deaths from AIDS in the US had exceeded 50,000. My brother was one of them. And there right next to the column read 1995: Introduction of highly active antiretroviral therapy. Missed it by that much.
To read my memoir
Aria- A Sister's Journey With AIDS
from the beginning, please go to June 5, 2011
A Message to Caregivers
I never thought I’d know my brother. I never thought it would come in the last month of his life. I never thought I could do what I did. I never thought I’d recover from it. I never thought I’d be a caregiver. Death put everything in perspective for me. I know now that it is not the great, profound experiences that give meaning to life, but the tiny moments, the slivers, the details. The paying attention. The caregiver’s life is full of details … most of them unpleasant. Where does the strength come from to do what must be done?
When everything I had named as “quality of life” and relationship had been stripped to the core as my fifty-three-year-old brother lay helpless in bed, dying of AIDS - incontinent, unable to turn himself, scratch himself, feed himself -my life became nothing but the details. It was the easiest thing I had ever done. It was the hardest thing I will ever do.
When the need is real, the job is clear. Not profound. Basic and real. When my brother’s hair needed combing I combed it. His pillow as often damp. A head against a pillow sweats. He sweated. I turned his pillow. I grew to love his body with my care. Instant intimacy. He stared while I circled the bed. And somehow, through those days of watching, of waiting, of tending, the days mattered. Moments counted. Time was finite. There was a clarity and focus. The death bed dance. Days of ache, of tears, of purging grief; teaching me to let go; teaching me to accept; teaching me to say thank you; Teaching me to live. Teaching me that we are all capable of more than what we think.
When everything I had named as “quality of life” and relationship had been stripped to the core as my fifty-three-year-old brother lay helpless in bed, dying of AIDS - incontinent, unable to turn himself, scratch himself, feed himself -my life became nothing but the details. It was the easiest thing I had ever done. It was the hardest thing I will ever do.
When the need is real, the job is clear. Not profound. Basic and real. When my brother’s hair needed combing I combed it. His pillow as often damp. A head against a pillow sweats. He sweated. I turned his pillow. I grew to love his body with my care. Instant intimacy. He stared while I circled the bed. And somehow, through those days of watching, of waiting, of tending, the days mattered. Moments counted. Time was finite. There was a clarity and focus. The death bed dance. Days of ache, of tears, of purging grief; teaching me to let go; teaching me to accept; teaching me to say thank you; Teaching me to live. Teaching me that we are all capable of more than what we think.
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