Asylum No More

My new play is becoming real. There is a lot of work that goes into a new play before the writing of the script begins. At least there is for me, now. Now that I use "Save the Cat!" as my method for scriptwriting. Although the book is a primer on screenwriting, I have found it works for me for writing stage plays. Now before I start writing scenes, dialogue, I already know the spine, the theme, every character, what the protagonist wants, what are the obstacles, what the climax will be, when it will occur, and what the first and last scene looks like. I know what the catalyst will be, and on what page it will occur. Still, when I start writing the scenes, everything comes alive, it is all exciting and brand new and anything can happen! Sometimes things happen that have to be excised. I gently cut them out and put them in another file in case I can use them some other time. So, today I finished Scene Two, and in the next scene I will write in the catalyst that will send me off for the next 15 pages or so. I will bring in two more characters tomorrow and more conflict will ensue. There will be food and drink involved. (Director's nightmare. I'll try to keep it simple. Maybe the conflict gets so intense the food never makes it to the table.) This play already has a table read scheduled. October 4th. So, in addition to writing, I'm also busy finding actors to read the roles. This is exciting too. I have three lined up already of the seven. Two will be wild cards (playwrights) at the meeting, so only two more to nail down. I'm thrilled with the ones who have already agreed to read. This is why I write plays: it's fun. Like being a kid and you say, let's play (whatever), you be the king and I'll be the knight, and you be the dragon, and you two be the fairies, and you be the witch, and you be the queen, okay you can be a princess, and now when the dragon comes in .... etc. Only with luck and a bit of skill, you get to do it for a paying audience and they laugh and cry and applaud. We have a staged reading scheduled for this play as well. Fertile Ground New Play Festival. Jan 20, 21, 2012. 11pm at the Backdoor Theatre. You can come see it for yourself. It will be a bit more finished and polished by then. I promise. :)

Going forward ten years later

This past month, Pema Teeter has written daily, bringing memory to light, showing us a way to grieve, to share our stories at www.storycharmer.com and has done so in many different ways, some painful, some beautiful, some mystical. If you haven't checked out her site, please do so. As for me, I have remembered 9/11/01 and the days after as well as the grief that was reactivated by that horrific day. I've honored my own dead, and have spent some time grieving my past loves and dying friends as well as my sorry ass sins. Not necessarily all in this blog, some only in my mind. Today, I seek peace and peaceful reflection. The opposite of terror and war. And I send peace and healing light and love into the world.

Anniversary of an Adventure in Love

28 years ago today I began my longest relationship. We were together almost 19 years, meaning we broke up in June of 2002. We stayed together about 17 years too long for our mental health. But we are still friends, still bound together in deep ways. We were friends for 3 years before we became lovers, and we would have married had marriage been allowed between two women. And now we would be divorced. Divorced friends. We share the same values, same politics, same ideals. We kept house alike, both love animals, enjoy the same movies. And we make each other laugh. We had many good times, unfortunately they were outweighed by the anger.
We never cheated on each other. There was no alcohol, or drugs. No physical abuse. Well, almost, a couple of times, but we got that in check. But there was emotional abuse and plenty of it. So we saw couple counselors for years. We learned all the communication devices. We tried living apart. For years.
And finally I called an end to trying. After a couple of years I tried with someone else for a few months -- and got my heart broken. I don't want to try again. I think I'm too old. Or maybe I tried too long and too hard for too many years. So today, I'm going to celebrate the anniversary of the day I embarked on a great adventure of love. It was a rocky road, and it didn't last as a marriage, but the friendship endured. That in itself is worth celebrating. Cheers!

Honoring our Dead

Today I honor my own personal dead. This is a list of my own. These are the people whose funerals I attended, or bodies I viewed, or graves I visited before I was 8 years old:
Margaret Sue Brown, stillborn. My sister.
Helen Rosalie Brown, stillborn. My sister.
John Patrick McCorkle, lived 1 day. My brother.
Helen "Nettie" McCorkle Bailey. My great-aunt.
Howard Allen McCorkle, lived 1 day. My brother.
Emma Bailey McCorkle, my grandmother.
Albert Charles McCorkle, my father.
Thank you. Please send your own lists. These babies listed above have never appeared on a list before. Howard Allen I remember so clearly. My dad and I were the only ones viewing him when we sat with him in his tiny white casket. He was pale with blue lips. We buried him while Mom was still in the hospital. I was 4 years old. The other babies were all born before me, I was the first child to thrive. I've visited their graves many times throughout my life, and imagined those older sisters so often. My younger sister and I were 2 of 6, only 2 lived. Imagine. I was also 4 when My Aunt Net died. It was shocking to me to see her in her casket, to attend the funeral and see all the grownups crying. And I was 5 when my beloved Grandma Emma died. She was beautiful and tiny, soft and sweet. She had so many grandchildren, and yet I felt special. I've written before about the loss of my dad when I was 7. Tell me about your losses.

On that day: 9/11/01

Today is 9/01/11, not 9/11/01, but we are nearly there, nearly ten years to the day. The day we all remember where we were when it happened. Right? You remember where you were when you heard? I was sitting at my kitchen table, up early, working on my laptop trying not to disturb my soon-to-be ex-partner who didn't want to hear my tap-tap-tapping on the computer. I saw the news alert email from the NY Times: plane hits the World Trade Center. What? I thought it must be a small plane that somehow got confused, maybe there was smog, maybe the pilot had a heart attack. I kept working, then a second alert. I jumped up and turned on the TV and saw the pictures of the bright blue sky, the boiling white smoke, the crawl at the bottom of the screen, and I ran in the bedroom and woke my partner, saying "Get up! Get up! the world's gone crazy!" She didn't doubt me for a second, but came straight to the living room where we stayed glued to the tv. As the commentators began to speculate as to who or what group could have planned such a thing, she and I turned to each other and simultaneously said "Osama bin Laden." Where did that come from? We weren't people who read political op-ed pieces, watched political talk shows, but we had watched Sixty Minutes and obviously those pieces had stuck in our minds.
The day before I had seen the last of the attendants off at the airport from a regional conference of the International Centre for Women Playwrights that a few of us had organized here in Portland. We had a wonderful time here with about 40 women from around the country and Canada in attendance, several from NYC. The New Yorkers were very much on my mind that morning, along with my other New York friends. Before long, one of the playwrights who had just been here called me to ask if I'd heard from the others who had been here. I hadn't. She had witnessed the planes flying into the towers from her own balcony, and was obviously in shock. I did my best to calm her, while breathing in her fear into my own lungs through the landline.
I don't know when I've felt more helpless. To be 3,000 miles away from some of your closest friends, seeing the destruction happen live on television is a disempowering experience of the most humbling kind. I still haven't heard all their stories. Out here in the West we were being fed fear with a shovel. We were terrified of every noise in the sky as all flights were grounded. Any large bird caused us to think we were about to be blown to bits. People didn't know whether to duck into doorways, or run outside. Were we safer in our houses or in the parks? All travel was off, of course.
Meanwhile, how could we even think of speaking or writing of our own fears or experiences when they paled so in comparison with those of our East Coast families, friends, compatriots?
Ten years later. It is time. Time for everyone to tell her story. No matter where you were when you heard. Maybe you weren't even born yet when it happened, but now you've heard about it and you want to write about it. Tell your story. It's time. Be heard.

North Carolina Beach

This morning when the alarm went off I was dreaming I was on a North Carolina beach, sitting in the way of people trying to play softball. I've never been on a NC beach, though I've been to the state many times, on business. Driven through it, stayed in a couple of the cities, enjoyed the scenery. But last night it was on my mind for a different reason, of course: Hurricane Irene. I don't know why I dreamed about NC when I went to bed thinking about all my friends in NYC. Maybe because Irene is actually still in NC? In my dream the beach was beautiful and warm and filled with happy people just trying to have fun.
Katrina hit six years ago. My son and his family have never recovered. Their home was only ever partially restored because they never received enough money to restore it. My son suffered two major heart attacks and was never able to return to work. My daughter-in-law's job took ages to return to full capacity, and she wasn't reimbursed for any of that. They had to file bankruptcy. My granddaughter's grades suffered. My son and daughter-in-law divorced. My son eventually went into rehab, and is now living in a single room. And they are only one family. Their damage was minimal compared to tens of thousands of others.
So, yeah, I'm concerned. I'm concerned about my friends on the East Coast. More than they know or could guess. I'm concerned for all the people I don't know, for the animals and wildlife, the flora as well as the fauna.
All this on the heels of an earthquake that rattled the emotions of many, though it did little physical damage, and coming up on the tenth anniversary of 9/11/01. People in NYC and DC are fragile right now. A disaster is not what they need for their anniversary.
What they need is a nice warm beach holiday, like the one in my dream. If only I could give it to them. Instead, I will send love and light and all best wishes for their safety.

Currency and Value

Question of the day (from the Story Charmer) is: what are your currencies, what do you value? I often think about what my own value is to my family. Once a person in this country retires from her day job, she begins to lose value like a new car driven off the lot. When I last worked a full-time job I made the most money I had ever made in my lifetime of work, and I began working at age 13. I worked full-time from age 17 on. When I returned to school at age 29 to go to university, I quizzed out of freshman year entirely, and worked 3-5 part-time jobs while going to school more than full-time so I could finish as quickly as possible and owe as little as possible.
All throughout my lifetime I gave presents, loans, supported as many people as I could, and managed to save money for retirement as well. I do not regret a single cent I ever gave or loaned or spent. The recession ate up more than I spent, and I regretted not having spent more so Bernie Madoff didn't get that little bit of my retirement savings. He wasn't who I loved.
So nowadays my currency, my personal value is no longer cash money. I give what I can of myself. And still sometimes, I feel a bit useless. I recognize how much perkier I am when someone asks for my help. Whether it is to show them how to sew on a button (my grandson), or to edit a script, sit with a dog, or work at one of my part-time jobs, I perk up more than when I'm working on my own writing projects. I enjoy helping others, and may find more value in being helpful than I do in my own creativity.
These are deep thoughts and not all that pleasant, to be honest. I find great conflict here. Isn't my writing as valuable as helping someone else? Do you suffer from this syndrome? Is it a syndrome? Is it even a problem?