A WRITER'S DISCOVERY: WHERE DID THAT COME FROM?

Mother wrote, in English, a Greek play in perfect meter when she was twelve years old. The play, lost in storage during the Depression, disappeared into Prometheus' fire, but the spark remained. She couldn't continue school in New York City but never lost her pride in her accomplishment or her love of writing.

I'd forgotten that as a child I'd written plays about romance: melodrama coupled with a withdrawn girl's imaginings about what love could be, despite life's obstacles. Yet, years followed and I forgot my attempts, and with those years my confidence waned. By the time I reached high school, I had lots of imagination but little grammatical form to write a simple essay. Only with the dogged persistence of my beloved English teacher did I eventually regain some coherence, clarity and structure. The child playwright, however, had disappeared.

Life experience, as the pundits often pontificate, taught me how to see the world with depth and perception. Graduate school helped me find my inner voice. And the creative juices brimming over here, on the Cape, in the land, in the sea as well as past voices and surging artistic energy which any writer can't help but embrace, all have helped me rediscover my muse. What I didn't anticipate? That I'd find my mother's words from among her ashes, a play's burnt embers floating in the sky.

Like Mom, I have always loved mythology. Since arriving on the Cape, I've experimented with playwriting using universal themes steeped in classical canon, especially social justice and feminism. For anyone who has read the Greek classics: The Iliad, The Odyssey by Homer or more powerfully, many of Euripides' works, e.g. Hecuba or The Trojan Women can find modern-day issues that speak to us. I remembered, also, that I read plays from high school and beyond, for pure pleasure.

Then, a synthesis began. My years seeing theatre in New York and elsewhere; reading Shakespeare, Chekhov, Ibsen, Hellman, O'Neill, Williams, Stoppard and so on; acting in high school; working at theaters behind-the-scenes, all led to what I've become, for the moment at least: a dramatist. I'm exploring territory my mother had delved into a generation before: that young girl who had such high hopes for a future as a playwright. I may not have my late mother's gift for meter. I do have her daring. So, when my, albeit ten minute, play is produced the first weekend in June, along with other dramatists' for the Provincetown Theater's Playwright Festival, I will hold stand proud if for no other reason than to salute my mother.

SHAKESPEARE, PRINCE & EARTH DAY: WHAT DO THEY HAVE IN COMMON?

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio. 

Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. 

--Hamlet, Act I, v

Oft quoted these last few days, "Goodnight, sweet prince: And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest." (Hamlet, Act Vi, ii) in reference to the sudden, tragic death of the multi-talented musician, Prince. I'd forgotten, after I heard the sad news, that today, April 23, 2016, marks the 400 year anniversary of Shakespeare's death. On top of these stories, we celebrated Earth Day yesterday. A lot to process, three significant events. Past, present and future tied to life, tied to death. 

Shakespeare's talent embodied the Renaissance persona: how he learned from the past, acknowledged the present and laid the ground-work for the future. He saw life in layers: "If you can mock a leek, you can eat a leek." (Fluellen, Henry V, Act V, i)  Shakespeare, the humanist, appealed to and was beloved by all strata during his day and to this day; the musician, albeit figuratively, and as a music enthusiast in many of his plays; the environmentalist, "One touch of nature makes the whole world kin." (Troilus and Cressida, Act III, iii) whose work was grounded in capricious Mother Nature.

Purists may balk at putting Prince, the performer, in the same sentence as Shakespeare (or closet racists for that matter), but the self-taught, (a la Shakespeare), articulate (did you ever hear him interviewed?) Prince has been rightly heralded as a creative genius. He played at least twelve instruments, wrote songs that can't be easily categorized, blues, funk, gospel, pop, soul, rock, which went on to become anthems. He lived a life in the limelight but his personal journey remains mysterious. The sprawling recording studio/mansion he left behind resembles a warehouse; however, I'd bet he would've described it as modernist architecture with minimalist landscaping. Prince rattled the establishment with his music and his life. But where does Earth Day come into play? 

Imagine holding Planet Earth

In the palm of your hand

With no regard for your place of birth

Or claim to any land

The only thing between us now is the truth we understand

If Planet Earth was in the palm of your hand.

These partial lyrics in Prince's song, "Planet Earth," come from the album of the same name. He won a Grammy (Best R&B vocal) for the song which clearly testifies to his concern for our environment.

Then, we have Earth Day, overshadowed by other more "headline-driven" events. Disheartening because we should be shouting to the world how our precious gift, our planet, has been squandered and needs to be mended: 

O gentlemen, the time of life is short!

To spend that shortness basely were too long,

If life did ride upon a dial's point,

Still ending at the arrival of an hour. 

(Henry IV, Part I,V, ii)

As noted by eminent scientists around the world, we are on the brink of "The Sixth Extinction," (read Elizabeth Kolbert's Pulitzer Prize-winning, non-fiction book which outlines the dire phenomenon of how the majority of species are dying off, rapidly, and what that means for future generations).  William Shakespeare understood the precariousness of all life: the optimistic cynic.

Indubitably, Prince, felt the world's love and pain; he bared his soul through his art, thus we feel his loss as he had become a messenger for humanism and environmentalism. A rebel with a cause who would, given the chance, most likely dine with the Bard and discuss the multiple talents and causes they have in common.

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Topics/themes (Environment, social justice, etc.) often alluded to in my books: Shadowwater and Dark Sea, Shadowwater II. www.shadowwater.net

Focusing on third book in Shadowwater Series. Will return next week with new blog.

Thank you loyal readers and followers for your continuing support!

ENVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIETAL CHANGE: LOSS AND RECLAMATION

Too much news about dire omens for the future? I propose that we take a step back and see that we have an opportunity to reverse these ominous predictions. I refer to social change spurring a re-thinking of what's important.

For years scientists from NOAA and the Oceanographic Institution at Woods Hole, have described Cape Cod's shores as ever-changing due to natural erosion and that, like other seaside places on the East Coast. I think of the Cape as an ameba which changes form to suit its host environment. The problem is how do we define "environment." Humans and the land are intertwined. We are our environment.

Meanwhile, lawsuits, proposals, local, state and federal intervention have tried to reverse the sea's reclamation with only varying degrees of success. Yet human nature, firmly rooted in centuries of willfulness, moves forward without using the peripheral and long-term vision necessary to work with nature, not against it.

Most scientists, environmental experts, many politicians and a majority of Americans agree that we need to stem the use and exploration of fossil fuels to lessen climate change's impact. The extremism seen in American politics; the "push-me, pull you" tug-of-war going on between parties doesn't bode well for our country's future. These politicos and their supporters present few or no practical solutions to our most pressing problems, climate change being one of them.

Sadness has loomed large lately here on the Cape, in my community and among my friends. People re-locating inland, older friends passing, and health issues curtailing normal activities have affected us. As the older generation dies or leaves, who will be left to pick up the cause, the tattered remnants of social activism, here?

We grieve, e.g. a home being destroyed by fire and weather; drug-users senseless deaths; rising car accident statistics and cancer-stricken families, as we should. However, where is the grief for the next generation and what they may be dealing with sooner than later?

A recent opinion piece in The Cape Cod Times alluded to those who seek alternative energy sources as "neo-tribal" (an objectionable term which caught my eye meaning impractical people who want to return to the days before fossil fuels and to living off the land). This negative thinking inside their comfortable box which supports fossil fuel dependence, ignores the long-term consequences, and has brought about the threatened world we live in today. More so, such recalcitrant belief about the environment and our indigenous populations only closes the door on alternative clean energy solutions and dismisses much-needed respect for our natural world.

Evidence has emerged that a large U.S. based oil company knew of the impact on our world's climate of burning fossil fuels as early as the sixties. Is it too late to stop climate change? The pandemic of the Zika virus is already at our doorsteps and Congress is still fighting funding to prevent the virus from spreading here. I try to remain hopeful but when I read public opinions written by those who should be aware of the inevitable I begin, like so many here, to worry about the future of Cape Cod.

I don't have children. I do, however, care about children and want a better life for them as they grow older. I've become involved with activism via social media along with some direct participation because I know the innocent deserve better. And, in the midst of the grief, sometimes raw and unspeakable, some feel in the present, instead of turning inward and becoming insular, we must re-channel our anger, our sadness; our fear. That is by helping our planet and encouraging others to accept what we cannot change and change what we can.

Let this sink in: we must reclaim our country, our planet and think forward to ensure environmental change for the better. Recent reports have cited by 2100 our coastal areas here and around the world will be inundated by as much as six feet of flood waters (NYTimes NY Times March 30, 2016 ) due to melting ice caps and rising seas. Millions may lose their homes, families; their ways-of-life. A worldwide depression will be on the heads of those who refuse to accept this.

Step out of your comfort zone, deniers, and learn all you can before your most precious assets are washed away. I'll leave it to you to define your "assets."

AGAINST THE WIND

Went to Nauset Beach this week for a regular respite from ever-present noise: electronic, traffic, pacing neighbor in common area, and an adult version of Inside Out a.k.a. inside my head. Got out of the car with walking cane in hand, approached the boardwalk and pushed into the gusting wind. After fighting the element, I reached the edge: one step farther and I would've landed face down in the sand. Grabbed a fence post and hung on until my legs began to wobble, feet shuffled back and leg muscles shouted at me to get out when I could. Slowly I turned around, planted my cane in the abutting sand and with an invisible hand nudging me, I scurried back to the parking lot. Phew!

Google Image

Plan busted, I returned to my apartment to work on the "Most Difficult Puzzle Ever," (see last week's blog) only to discover the donator didn't check the number of pieces, It looked like I'd have to wait on finishing that challenge. After an unavoidable, long nap, I reset my goals for the afternoon. Maybe, I'll work on my next book in the Shadowwater series. That resolution lasted for thirty minutes. Beginning, to believe that even the simplest activities would be too daunting, I watched the news which rejuvenated my cognitive abilities; the mental stimulation helped me make it past all the nonsense of the morning and focus on the world at large.

Then I recalled what my friend had advised earlier in the day. "Have some fun!" I considered the above activities fun. Yes, I'm a proud nerd at times. I'm not ashamed to admit I love The Big Bang Theory and actually get some of the techno-babble and science. So after the latest episode that night, reminding me ADHD has its benefits, I uploaded YouTube selected Funk and went with the music. It set me dancing lively steps, albeit briefly. The daunting heaviness I'd fought all day long receded.

Being older doesn't mean duller: my mother knew that; sadly, my father (the younger of the two) did not. I learned from their examples. So, thanks to "Uptown Funk" and "Sax" I forgot the negative challenges and remembered that in fact, I've never been braver or more motivated to push against the wind.

For more on Cape Cod and the Shadowwater series, go to:
www.shadowwater.net

"THE MOST DIFFICULT PUZZLE EVER"

Discovered at local swap shop: a rectangular box with the above title, referred to a puzzle based on an abstract painting by the late artist, Jackson Pollock. The work, Convergence, had been parsed into fragments of color and line with no apparent connection to surrounding pieces other than their shapes. Thus, the puzzle solver must focus on the individual pieces, their shapes only, not the picture provided, antithetical to many jigsaw puzzle enthusiasts.

"Convergence" by Jackson Pollock

This formidable challenge also elicited halcyon days with family as we tried to reassemble the same puzzle my mother purchased at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), New York City. Last week, I chose to bring home the puzzle, maybe to recollect those days, but I couldn't recall if we ever finished it. Subconsciously waxing nostalgic or acting on an uncontrollable need to complete what had been started?

Feeling the jigsaw pieces in one's hands provides tactile satisfaction which does not on the Internet. I have, from time to time, tackled The New Yorker's puzzles on their website: an iconic past cover is separated into pieces on the screen before your eyes. Then the solver has to finish the puzzle in the shortest time possible (and at different levels of difficulty). Fun, though not the same as putting the pieces together with my late parents or my brother, as we sat at a card table near the fireplace on a snowy winter's evening.

A puzzle, no matter how long it takes may not resolve personal differences or bring families together. It does, however, test one's focus (especially if have ADHD, spacial recognition issues), patience, self-will and/or teamwork. Many traits shared by successful creatives.

Strange how exploring Pollock's painting opens locked memories: nostalgic, wistful and difficult. When I look at the abstract expressionist's masterpiece today, I recollect a picture my mother's of back. An x-ray showed advanced osteoarthritis so pronounced that I couldn't resist turning away from the magnitude of what was or would be. That image had reminded me of an old-fashioned fuse box with every wire crossed in different directions. Now, I see my mother's spine in Pollock's painting.

As with any puzzle, the outline or edges are easier to complete than connecting the inner pieces. Problem-solving has its roots in seeing how disparate pieces fit together. Finding the key to any enigma helps decode the hidden secret, even one with seemingly no clear direction or relationship. And yet, how we approach the solution may vary depending on how we process the problem.

This reasoning hold true for Convergence. The colors stand out in the painting--orange, yellow and blue splatters, haphazard? To the artist, may be not, to the puzzle-solver a break from the black and white tedium. I see these eye-catching colors as bringing cohesion to the composition and providing more clues to assembling the controlled chaos.

Jackson Pollock worked from within, a method actor who kept his technique opaque. Whether Pollock worked lunging in various directions throwing sumptuous gobs of bright colors and basic black and white across the canvas with his stiff paint brushes, or if he used a turkey baster to spray the glossy enamel, Jackson Pollock had an underlying reason for his abstraction. Bi-polar, alcoholic, introspective and passionate, Picasso one step farther in my mind, the painter saw the world through a different lens.

To conclude, I have learned the following from Jackson Pollock's Convergence, the work and the puzzle: I may never understand our jumbled society with its speed-of-light changes often too many, too intense, to digest. Nevertheless if I can find peace within myself, then despite appearances, I am confident I can tackle "the most difficult puzzle ever."

I WONDER WHAT HE/SHE THINKS?

A wide swath of celebrities and pundits have been interviewed about American politics, here and abroad. My thoughts drift with authors from other countries, outsiders, whose works describe political chaos, many in their own countries, and social disillusionment through their fictional characters.

Milan Kundera (The Festival of Insignificance, his most popular work, The Unbearable Lightness of Being), Tom Stoppard (Rock 'N Roll; film fans will know him as the Academy Award winning screenwriter of Shakespeare in Love), Azar Nafisi (Reading Lolita in Tehran) and Margaret Atwood (The Handmaid's Tale) are alive and kicking. How would they analyze the current American circus performers? I'd never presume to step in these author shoes and theorize their personal beliefs; however, I'd go so far as to posit what their characters might say.

In The Festival of Insignificance Milan Kundera offers his admiration and criticism of French cultural life and politics, and the bourgeoisie in all its incarnation. Political satire that cuts but doesn't burn. Kundera's prose (written in his second language, French) elicits laughs, smirks and daggers. He sees all the foibles of his adopted homeland and never embraces blind patriotism, a lesson his protagonist learned in The Unbearable Lightness of Being. The Soviets marched in with tanks into Prague, Czechoslovakia; initially resistance was futile. Kundera, in his stories demonstrated he learned the power of the press. Nowhere, in The Festival of Insignificance, does he lampoon his characters to the level of our loud-mouthed, bombasts or apathetic dissonants who decry the horrors of American life yet refuse to participate in its democracy. In essence, Milan Kundera comes from the land of "The Velvet Revolution."

Tom Stoppard, another Czech ex-patriot, (his family left their country before the Nazi occupation) explores in his play. Rock 'N Roll, the dramatic swing between the Prague Spring (1968) and the "Velvet Revolution (1989), and how Western music served as a catalyst to the reformers. Stoppard alludes to dissident Václav Havel's future vision for his country, as seen in Havel's own plays and writings. Socialism supercedes repressive communism, allowing for freedom of expression and tolerance, The hero argues that social upheaval does not demand brutal resistance. Is this always true?

Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran, returned to Iran to teach, as professor of Western Literature, at the University of Tehran during the calculated upheaval of Iran's revolution (1978-1981) in 1979. Idealistic that the end of the Shah's regime would bring political and social freedoms, Nafisi explains in her memoir how she rebelled, endured, then rebelled against the religious intolerance espoused by the Ayatollah Khomeini, e.g. refusing to wear a head scarf  in the classroom and later forming a private book club for students where they discussed forbidden works, e.g. Lolita. (SPOILER ALERT) Once in the U.S. Azar Nafisi acknowledged that blaming the Iranian government completely would then dismiss the peoples' part, enabling a fundamentalist regime to gain power. Interesting that Nafisi emigrated to a country where, in some places, selected fiction has been banned and history re-written to serve an intolerant elite.

In Margaret Atwood's book, The Handmaid's Tale (1985), leaders, albeit fictional, have also established a religious, fundamentalist, caste-driven state, the former United States of America. The heroine (Offred) is captured and made to serve as a concubine. Her reproductive rights in tatters, Offred is forced to help a childless couple conceive, the assumption being the statesman's wife is infertile. Yes, Atwood's dystopian, "speculative" (her word) fiction, has an outsider's perspective--unlike the above authors I've mentioned. But, Atwood touches on a more than topical premise: the direction the U.S. could be headed, because of narrow-minded anger, ignorance or apathy, if our people allow it. Moreover, at the end of  The Handmaid's Tale,(SPOILER ALERT) Offred appears to escape her captors. In the movie adaptation, Offred takes her exodus one step farther: she leaves for the land of the free, Canada.