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Snuggling through Jekyll and Hyde

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I took one of my favorite dates, my 16-year old son, to see Jekyll & Hyde. Whenever the show got the tiniest bit ballad-y, I felt his bony head on my shoulder. Awwww, how sweet! Where else can a mother snuggle with her teenage boy except at a Broadway show?

My son’s favorite part  was the moment when Jekyll exploded with emotion at the portrait of himself.  There are projected fireballs which I think probably reminded my son of his favorite date, his Call of Duty Xbox game.

That scene is towards the end of the musical when Jekyll faces his evil incarnation, Hyde. I love stories where psychological aspects of a character or personality are played out. But this musical is not a study in the psychology of multiple personalities, it is a study in singing.

Side note: the young woman in front of us, who we eavesdropped on, was an expert on Jekyll & Hyde productions. (According to the cast whom we met before the show at a swank brunch, these Jekyll & Hyde groupies are called Jekkies (like Trekkies! Funny, no?)) This Jekkie liked the scene better when the actor talked in two voices to himself,  à la Sybil. We liked it this way though. Explosions!

Constantine Mouralis as Dr. Jekyll (See what I mean? He's Fisher Stevens!) Photo courtesy of Jekyll and Hyde.
Constantine Mouralis as Dr. Jekyll (See what I mean? He’s Fisher Stevens!) Photo courtesy of Jekyll and Hyde.

Okay, onto the actors! I noticed early on that Constantine Maroulis reminded me of Fisher Stevens and I couldn’t shake that separated-at-birth association. Hey, lots of women found Fisher Stevens sexy, right? Michelle Pfeiffer, for one. I remember seeing Constantine on American Idol, I thought, Wow! This guy can sing! And emote! And woo you with his passion.

And you will think that too, especially when he sings, “This is the moment!” A show stopper! The dude has it, even if, in his Dr. Jekyll character, he does remind you of Fisher Stevens.

So, onto the women.

If the two aspects of a male are kindly doctor and wicked psychopath, the two aspects of a female, are — yes, you guessed it — virgin and whore.

Deborah Cox, a class act, sings "Bring on the Men." (only slightly uncomfortable to watch with your teenager!)
Deborah Cox, a class act, sings “Bring on the Men.” (only slightly uncomfortable to watch with your teenager!) Photo courtesy of Jekyll & Hyde.

However, the two women playing these two archtypes never let their acting or singing stoop to cliche. They were even better than their male counterparts in the arts of  wooing, emoting, singing! Deborah Cox as the good-hearted whore, Lucy, was OMG! She made a cartoon character complex, human, sympathetic. And  Teal Wicks was not a simpleton virgin, but a smart and sophisticated Victorian.

The supporting actors were all delicious. I could eat them up. I especially loved Jason Wooten and Blair Ross. I was sorry when their wicked, wicked ways had to come to an end. My son especially could not stop talking about how the bishop met his fate.

I think there’s something in this show for you, even if you don’t have a teenager or a crush on Fisher Stevens.

Disclaimer: Thanks to Jekyll and Hyde and the Serino/Coyne group for the tickets and the brunch. The opinions on this blog are always my own.

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Laird Mackintosh, Deborah Cox, and my date at Jekyll & Hyde
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Jason Wooten and me at the pre-show brunch.

Washington Square Park

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flowers
What’s not to love about springtime in the Village? Washington Square Park is looking fine.
the arch
Washington Square Park looks better than ever, much better than when I attended NYU. Tulips bloom.
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There’s cappuccino at the cafe.
This is inside Caffe Reggio, an 80-year old cafe on MacDougal Street.
This is inside Caffe Reggio, an 80-year old cafe on MacDougal Street.
chess in the park
And it’s a perfect day to hang out, read, or play chess in the park.

Don’t let fear win

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So some cowards want me to be afraid. But I’m not going to do it. I’m not going to take up their fear. I’m going to keep loving people. I’m going to keep loving strangers even. Just because some idiots want me to be afraid, doesn’t mean that I have to. If fear is contagious, then so is kindness and hope. Sometimes hope is a harder mountain to climb, but I like a challenge.

I know it’s natural to catch the contagion of fear. It’s human. I may feel the fear but I won’t let it poison me.

I’ve been here before. After 9/11, I felt the collective fear. At that time, I’d wake in the morning and wonder if it was all a bad dream. Or I’d lay there and just wish that years would pass quickly so that the tragedy would be only a mild ache instead of a a pervasive pain.

And yesterday, I felt that poisoning pain again.

Still. I’m not buying fear. Instead, I’m buying the instinctive hope of the people who rushed to help. I’m buying the hugs and calls of loved ones checking in on each other.

I will always remember the line, blocks and blocks long, of people who wanted to donate blood to Red Cross after 9/11. Millions more people wanted to help than hurt one another.

Healing, like creating, is hard work. It takes a minute to destroy and years to rebuild. Still, I’d rather be in the business of rebuilding: lives, loves, hope.

Living with someone who’s chronically ill, I live with fear and worry. Parkinson’s Disease has challenged my husband, affected his posture, his walking and more. But I’m not going to let Parkinson’s win either. I’m not going to let a fairly inevitable trajectory of decline ruin my hope for him or for my family. Not today. I have hope today that from the ashes come some sort of new life and some inevitable spring.

I am going to hug my darlings close, write, teach, try to make my small corner of the world a little better than I found it. That’s what I’m doing today. And then tomorrow, I’m going to get up and do it all over again.

Because fear doesn’t win. Love wins.

In times of stress, I know I have to:

  • Connect with friends and family more
  • Work out more
  • Do more self care
  • Eat and sleep well

How do you cope?

at Harvard
Last month the kids and I visited Cambridge and Boston.

I Get Social Media

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Do you feel like you “get” social media, or do you just use it because that’s where all your friends and family are?

I get social media. But to get it, you have to give it.

I am Facebook, Twitter, Instagram girl, but I put myself out there. I’ve seen studies that show the more engaged a social media user is, the happier she is.

Some people complain about social media, “I don’t want to know what you had for lunch.”

I admit I occasionally report what I’m cooking. When I recently updated my FB status, “Making chili, meat and vegetarian,” several cyber friends in several states were also making chili. Coincidence? I dunno. But it was interesting and fun and I felt less alone in my solo chili-making kitchen.

Sometimes I overshare. That’s me. I overshare IRL too.

As a wife of someone with Parkinson’s Disease, I feel connected to friends and family through social media. Apathy is a side effect of my husband’s disease. On social media, I can’t tell if people are apathetic towards me. I try to notice only the thumbs up, the cheers, the interactions that lead to deeper sharing. I affirm people, just like I like being affirmed.

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve connected in person with two different high school friends who were visiting New York. I wouldn’t have stayed in touch with them without Facebook. When we got together, we talked about deep stuff — how we felt different, theater, how we parent, what’s new with our siblings, how we work.

Of course, it’s scary to put yourself out there and swim in the social media community pool. It’s easier and safer, emotionally, to lurk, dangle your feet in the water.

My social media mania has one downside.

I was reminded of this jealousy factor, when I read: More kids than suitcases’ blog post about torturing yourself on spring break. Because yes, just by the look of some other people’s spring break pics, they’re having a lot of fun out there. I saw in friends’ feeds palm trees and London tea (different people obviously.) That made me wish I was somewhere fabulous.

But I was. I was somewhere fab. Making every day fabulous is one of my life goals. (Thanks to my former colleague, Klay Williams!)

Compare and despair. I try to post awesome pictures of me and the kids having a really good time out in the world. (See below!) Because a picture of one of my kids staring at the phone, laptop, or TV is boring. I post about things, people, and events that I want to remember. I don’t want to remember boredom, bickering, apathy, and negativity.

I want to remember doing cartwheels on the beach. I want to remember bike riding. I want to remember making each other smile and laugh.

This post was inspired by the Daily Prompt – Social Network.

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A Play Celebrates Diversity in Jackson Heights

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On a dreary cold afternoon in Manhattan, I took my two 13-year old daughters to see a sparkly, “You Are Now the Owner of This Suitcase,” a magical play by a team of writers about a place in the world that is the exact opposite of the place where I grew up.

Way back when Hillary Clinton was running for president, the cover of the New York Times ran an article about Ms. Clinton’s (and my) hometown that began with a phrase, something like, “In the lily whitest of Chicago suburbs, Park Ridge, Illinois…”

We did not have diversity in Park Ridge or in our class of about 800 at Maine South High School. The one African American kid was actually African, an exchange student from Kenya. There was one Jewish family.

No wonder I love diversity. I love it beyond words can explain. And I love that this play loves diversity.

“I think I now know about 20 different ways of saying, “I’m looking for a beautiful woman new to the city,” says Joe, one of the dozen characters who wander on the stage on a quest. He is looking for the owner of the suitcase.

This play, “You Are Now the Owner …” is the middle play of the Jackson Heights trilogy, a microscope on diversity and a kaleidoscope of racial and ethnic community.

This is magical realism with a contemporary ‘tude.

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A magic cell phone and a diverse community that looks out for each other. (photo by Joel Weber, courtesy of “You Are Now the Owner of This Suitcase.”)

Characters jump from a storybook.  A cell phone turns into a girl.

With so many storylines, I lost the thread of plot at times, but I was just happy to be with my girls and to be transported, taking a trip, like that suitcase.

Here’s some poetry from the play:

ROSA: As a rose petal falls and the rain feeds the underground, my love will remain true to the one that grants me my soul through and through.

TOMÁS: That makes you guys soul mates. Ah that’s nice.

They make their way to the book. ROSA crawls in. TOMÁS looks around.

TOMÁS: Man, this place may not be a fairy tale. But love does live here.

There's action in magical realism. (photo by Joel Weber, courtesy of "You Are Now..." )
There’s action in magical realism. (photo by Joel Weber, courtesy of “You Are Now…” )

The play is a multi-culti mish mosh, just like the borough. Just like New York City.

My favorite character was Salim, the fast-talking cell phone salesman. His shop seemed to be the hub upon which the whole world spun.

One of my daughters said, about the play, “It was abstract and beautiful.”

The other said, “It was a mystery.”

I said, “The play celebrated diversity.”  Like David Dinkins always said, “New York City is a beautiful mosaic.” And so was this play.

Thanks culture mom media for the tickets! (My thoughts are always my own!)

“You Are Now the Owner of This Suitcase,” was conceived by Ari Laura Kreith and written by Mando Alvarado, Jenny Lyn Bader, Barbara Cassidy, Les Hunter, Joy Tomasko, Gary Winter, Stefanie Zadravec.

I think the show has closed now, but like a suitcase in your closet, I hope it opens again soon and transports you somewhere warm and diverse and teeming with interesting and eccentric characters to enchant you.

After all, this is spring break! You deserve such a nice break.

My MOOC

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I have been taking a MOOC, a massive open online course, offered by MIT Media Lab. Every Monday morning, along with, like, 24,000 people, I listen to a lecture and chat on a back channel about creativity.

Last week, Alan Kay, one of the founders of the personal computer, was a guest lecturer.

The subject of that class was BIG ideas.

On a Google Plus side conversation, I went off on a tangent and found this link Steven Johnson: Where good ideas come from.

“An idea is a network,” Johnson said. And this: “Chance favors the connected mind.”

I love that MOOCs spark serendipity and digressions. MOOCs are a means to an end but they are not the end. MOOCs also must ignite  real life encounters.

I dig Johnson’s TED talk for he values the coffee house vibe and the slow brewing nature of good ideas. Good ideas are not a sudden AHA! Good ideas slow cook. Good ideas need many cooks to throw in stuff for the soup.

Good ideas need to get together, face to face, to ferment. I signed up for this MIT media lab with Mitchel Resnick because a real life friend Emily Miller recommended it. Honestly, I’d probably get even more out of it if I met people face to face to discuss the big ideas.

In my own way, I am doing that, trying to make IRL face time creative ideas happen. I’m putting together a slew of writing workshops and weekend retreats.

My next afternoon workshop is The Story of Your Life in Jamaica Plain, Boston, on Sunday, March 24th, 1 to 4:30 pm. ($25 registration fee goes to the food pantry.)

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P.S. Here are a couple of pics of my afterschool creativity students. They took on a project I learned about on the MOOC —  the spaghetti challenge!

Given 20 pieces of spaghetti, a bit of tape, and a bit of string, how tall could they make their structure and top it off with the marshmallow? You can see how kids feel pride when they make stuff and are encouraged to be creative and playful.

And you can see how the girls won the challenge! Girl power!

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Give Me a Break

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I seriously was about to cry when I read The New York Times Sunday travel section today. The cover article, “Give Us a Break,” by Jennifer Conklin talked about three levels of spring break travel: budget, moderate, and in your dreams.

The budget travel option for a week-long vacay in Orlando (without airfare) for a family of four? $4,115. This is referred to as “thrifty.”

Really? Really? Is that thrifty? I consider it thrifty to spend less $400. For our spring break, I am hoping to spend less than $1,000. Maybe I’m jealous. Maybe I’m out of touch with the cost of vacations.

I still think vacations cost about what they did when I was in college. My bible was the paperback “Let’s Go Guide to Europe.” I think my budget was $20 a day.

Are we not, as a country, still clawing our way out of a recession? Are we not all looking for simple joys and saving any extra thousands of dollars for our kids’ college? Who reads The New York Times that $4,000 is considered thrifty?

I don’t care. I will rise above.

I do want to go somewhere grand for spring break and I will. I am psyched that we have spring break plans to visit cousins in Boston or Nantucket and perhaps some old friends. Vacationing with family and friends is way better and more luxurious than some stupid generic vacation a travel agent could arrange.

Maybe the Times did not publish this article to infuriate me about the cost of spring break travel and my inability to travel first class. But did they really have to rub my face in that $1.06 million Caribbean private yacht cruise as an example of the in your dream options?

So to calm my anger, I will write a few “thrifty” spring break fun ideas (and all for about $2.50 a day)

  • sit on a bench in Central Park with a friend (free)
  • visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art or the Museum of Natural History (donation is a suggestion)
  • ride on the M5 bus to SoHo ($2.50) or Chelsea and gallery hop (free wine!)
  • walk the High Line (free)
  • have coffee at a cafe and write in your journal ($2.50)
  • bike ride in Riverside Park (free)
  • Saturday morning at Wave Hill (free for the fam)
  • read The New York Times, get mad, blog about it ($2.50)
  • help friends with a creative project, working on a movie, like I did today (free)
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a still from the comedy adventure series I worked on.

 

our backyard tree

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I loved climbing the tree to my platform. You climbed up three bricks of wood nailed into the trunk to get to the spot. I think one of my brothers and my father had nailed that platform into the V-shaped gap about 12 feet up. I sat on a two-foot by two-foot piece of wood, my platform.

To be an artist or a writer, I’ve wondered if it’s necessary to be an outsider.

This is Central Park a couple of weeks ago after the beautiful snow storm. There is nothing so beautiful as Central Park after it snows.
This is Central Park a couple of weeks ago after the beautiful snow storm. There is nothing so beautiful as Central Park after it snows. (It doesn’t have to do with the post, but isn’t it pretty?)

From the platform in the tree, I could be on the margins of our big suburban house, not far from the action. But far enough away to be alone.

Having three brothers, all around my age, I was the only girl for many years, I was, at times, lonely, different, misunderstood.

There was no way a tree could misunderstand me. The tree was simply a tree, asking for nothing. I appreciated the non-judgmental nature of a tree.

I had sinus headaches regularly. The pediatrician took pinpricks on my arm weekly, until he, a George Castanza kind of guy, determined that I was allergic to mold and dust; trees and grass. I was especially allergic to Oak and Elm, the two kinds of trees in our suburban Chicago yard.

I rarely climbed the backyard tree as I got older and started high school. Instead, I hung out in the kitchen of our next-door neighbor Mrs. Zimmer. She administered my weekly allergy shots. We talked a lot. I felt understood. I remember once we talked about Zoroastrianism.

I liked our backyard tree; I liked my adult friend; I liked relief from my sinus headaches.

The Heiress

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Washington Square is a character in The Heiress.
Washington Square is a character in The Heiress.

In New York, it’s always about the real estate. The dude from Downton Abbey still coveted a spot on Washington Park North.

Even in 1880, when Henry James wrote Washington Square, the story upon which The Heiress is based, the gentleman caller loved Catherine Sloper for her Greenwich Village real estate, 16 Washington Square.

I love the story of The Heiress and oh, all right, I love all girl/women empowerment stories! I took a seminar about Henry James in college. In one of his prefaces, James wrote that it was far better for an artist to never marry so that the artist could focus on his or her art, sublimating sexual urges for creative ones.

I wrote about this in another blog post: Work pays better than marriage.

James never married and was incredibly prolific — coincidence? ….He thought marriage was deadly to artists, particularly writers.

I love the fierce independence, social awkwardness and artistic drive of Catherine Sloper, our hero.

The acting in this production of The Heiress was awesome. When I saw it Tuesday night, I kept thinking, ‘Man, that Jessica Chastain can act! She looks nothing like the CIA agent she played in Zero Dark Thirty,’ which I had just seen the day before. (Zero Dark Thirty was wonderful, too, in terms of fricken’ amazing women who can do so much with tenacity and surveillance, much more effective war-time tools than torture!)

‘Chastain’s a great actress,’ I thought. ‘Great actors can make themselves look so completely different.’ After the show, my husband informed me that the understudy, Mairin Lee, had gone on for Chastain that night. Wow! I’ve got to read the playbill before the show apparently! I did not know that.

In 1995, I saw this show with Cherry Jones and Michael Cumpsty (love them!). What I remember from that performance is how Jones sat alone at the end, completely satisfied and completely alone.

As we left the theater, I told my husband, ‘Even if Catherine had hooked up with the dude from Downtown Abbey and the marriage didn’t work out because he might’ve just loved her only for her apartment, she still might’ve gotten some awesome children out of the marriage. And that would be wonderful. That is wonderful.”

curtainI saw this show with a cool bunch of fashion, mommy and travel bloggers and before the show, we had pizza and schmoozed at John’s Pizza on 44th Street. Yummy. (Disclosure: I wasn’t paid to write this post, but was given the ticket and dinner.)

The real estate on Washington Park is not permanent. You only get to live there a little while on 48th street. (The show runs until February 10th.)

Even briefly, you can join Dan Stevens of Downton Abbey and Jessica Chastain (or her replacement) and live like Catherine Sloper.

Sure, you may be plain and witless, but you get a glorious, delicious home and hot guys itching to marry you.

Just remember James’s word to the wise: marriage may derail your creativity.

For more info, visit www.TheHeiressOnBroadway.com
The Heiress on Twitter: @TheHeiressBway and Facebook 

Thanks for the ticket, Mama Drama.

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Lost on Siesta Key

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“On the day of the miracle…”

I got up early from our condo on the south end of Siesta Key. I decided to walk the two or three miles to Crescent Market to pick up juice and breakfast for the girls. I would walk via the beach, taking photos, meditating, cogitating, generally meandering, until I could cut over to the main drag of Siesta Key, Midnight Pass Road. So far, so good.

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I set off early and happily for a beach walk from our south end of Siesta Key condo.

I walked and snapped a few pictures with my phone. So far, so good.

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pretty sights along the way

Then the beach was interrupted by a big jetty of brown rocks. Simple enough.

Time to head to the road. There was no pathway. I walked a little this way and that, but there seemed to be no simple (or public) walkway to the road from the beach

I could see the road, but I couldn’t get to it. “Well, I’ll simply have to run across this millionaire’s lawn to get to the road,” I thought.

“But run fast,” I told myself, “these Southern folk pack heat for this very occasion — a middle-aged mother trespassing.” I picked an unoccupied mansion and I bolted across the manicured lawn, ready to dodge a bullet if necessary.

Phew, I looked back. I made it. Here I was on Midnight — What the hell! I wasn’t on Midnight Pass Road, but trapped on some private millionaires’ road. Shit. I figured I’ll have to walk back towards where I came.

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This was the first lawn I trespassed on, running across the lawn, hoping to get back to the road.

I started to get sweaty. I walked out on an abandoned dock to locate the bridge back to Midnight Pass, but there was only a wide lagoon that seemed to go on for miles. No bridge in sight. I thought for a fleeting second, Could I swim that? I thought about gators. No! I couldn’t swim it.

I continued walking back south until the road ended. I walked on a trail, clearly marked private property.

Shit. I’m lost on Siesta Key, a slip of land that I thought only had one road. I called my brother Brendan. He told me to use my phone’s GPS.

The phone told me I was just off of Sanderling Road. It told me to head north for miles. I walked back through the trail to the millionaires’ road.

There were no cars, no people, only manicured bushes, fences, walls along Sanderling road. I heard a sprinkler and thought I spotted a gardener who eyed me suspiciously. I finally saw a garbage truck headed for me. I flagged him down. But the driver couldn’t hear me over his truck and told me to go back to the beach. “There’s no way out from Sanderling road, except the way I’d come,” he said, gesturing north. “Way back there,” as if the entrance to this gates community was just a memory.

I called my brother again, getting desperate. asking for rescue. “Okay, I’ll come get you. But I don’t know if they’ll let me on the private road. I have my boat in tow.” I walked back to the beach. This time, I thought, let them shoot me. I am freely trespassing. I am flaunting my trespass. At least I’ll get out of this nightmare.

My brother called me on my phone. (I noted, my battery was running low.)

“Hey, I’m almost on Sanderling Road. But I’m stuck. The guard waved me through, but there’s a tree down in the road. See if you can walk back towards me.” Again, I trespassed. This time, through a manicured Buddha garden. I even stopped for a moment to admire the sculptured tranquility separating the empty beach from the Sanderling community.

I walked. I perspired. I was hungry. Walking north, I passed a dogwalker who wore headphones and a black tee shirt. I nodded at her (or him, I couldn’t tell). He/she ignored me.

Apparently, the only human beings on Sanderling road are the hired help and they look suspiciously at anyone they encounter.

This story ends happily. After all, I have lived to tell the story. I walked a ways. My brother eventually showed up, because they cleared the downed tree. He managed to circle around with the boat and get us off of Sanderling.

We had a beautiful day out on his boat. My getting lost on Siesta Key will become a distant memory (I hope!)

But I offer this advice to any walker on the south end of Siesta Key beach: never leave the beach, thinking you can get back on Midnight Pass Road. If you do, you may never return.

I took the first line from this post from The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman, a new and brilliant novel I was reading on the beach yesterday. I add it as a prompt from today’s daily post challenge.

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